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The New York Mets' largely moribund off-season took a dramatic turn for the better Jan. 16, as the club agreed to terms with All-Star shortstop Bo Bichette on a three-year, $126 million deal, according to a baseball official with direct knowledge of the deal.

The person spoke to USA TODAY Sports on condition of anonymity because the deal has not been finalized.

Bichette's stay in New York could be a brief one: He has opt-out clauses after each of the first two seasons, and can reenter the free agent market at 28 next winter, unencumbered by draft-pick compensation.

Bichette was the last premier free agent available and his agreement with the Mets comes just hours after slugger Kyle Tucker, the consensus No. 1 player on the market, spurned them for a four-year, $160 million deal. Now, the Mets have an admirable infield alignment and, once again, a daunting lineup, with Bichette likely to play third base, All-Star Francisco Lindor at shortstop, trade acquisition Marcus Semien at second and a combination of Jorge Polanco and Mark Vientos at first.

Bichette, the former Toronto Blue Jays' shortstop, played a pivotal role in the team's trip to the 2025 World Series, posting a .311/.357/.483 slash line in 139 regular season games before sitting out the first two rounds of the playoffs due to a knee injury. He returned and had eight hits and a key home run in the Blue Jays' seven-game World Series loss to the Dodgers.

Here's everything to know regarding Bichette's new contract.

In an emphatic pivot, the Mets are signing infielder Bo Bichette to a three-year deal, per multiple reports.

The contract is worth $126 million, contains two opt-outs, and does not have any deferrals.

New York's agreement with Bichette comes less than 24 hours after Kyle Tucker chose to sign with the Dodgers for four years and $240 million after turning down the Mets' offer of four years and $220 million.

Before signing with the Mets, Bichette had been heavily linked to the Phillies and a possible reunion with the Blue Jays. The Yankees had also reportedly checked in.

With the Mets adding Bichette to play third base, there are plenty of ways they can go with the rest of the infield.

One possibility has Brett Baty sliding to first base and Jorge Polanco serving as the primary DH.

It's also possible the Mets explore the trade market for Baty, possibly in an effort to fill a need in the outfield.

Bichette, who turns 28 in March, had let interested teams know he was willing to move off shortstop, which opened the door for the Mets (and other teams who had the middle infield filled) to pounce.

In 139 games last season for the Jays, Bichette slashed .311/.357/.483 with a 129 OPS+. He had 18 home runs, 44 doubles, and 94 RBI.

As far as his advanced numbers via Baseball Savant, Bichette was near the top of the league in xBA, xwOBA, xSLG, average exit velocity, hard hit percentage, sweet spot percentage, whiff percentage, and strikeout percentage.

During his seven-year career -- all with Toronto -- Bichette has hit .294/.337/.469 over 748 games.

A two-time All-Star, Bichette has finished in the top 20 in AL MVP voting four times.

Regarding what comes next for the Mets after inking Bichette, it's likely they'll continue to look for an outfielder and a pitcher who can slot in near the top of their rotation.

Possible outfield targets via trade include Jarren Duran of the Red Sox, Brendan Donovan and Lars Nootbaar of the Cardinals, and Ramon Laureano of the Padres.

Potential starting options include free agent Framber Valdez and trade option Freddy Peralta, who is being dangled by the Brewers.

Prior entries:

• Matt Olson
• Michael Harris II
• Ozzie Albies
• Bryce Elder

The Braves haven’t had too fun of a time lately. Neither has Austin Riley. This isn’t a pure coincidence — a thermonuclear Austin Riley can carry a team for a month, and the Braves haven’t gotten that, for one reason or another, for a while. While the team has maneuvered to be different in terms of coaching and roster construction in 2026, Riley’s production is going to be a big part of whatever the team’s fortune will be going forward.

Career-to-date, status

2026 will be Riley’s eighth MLB season; he’ll turn 29 right around Opening Day. For his career, he has a 122 wRC+ and below-average defense. He’s solidly in well-above-average territory with a career 3.5 fWAR per 600 PAs to date, but that’s very much an average, as he had three straight 5+ fWAR seasons from 2021-2023 but has managed just 4.1 fWAR in his last two seasons combined.

A substantial xwOBA underperformance, like most of his teammates, made Riley’s 2024 look worse than it was. Consistently maligned by defensive metrics, Riley had a bit of a defensive breakout in 2023, but didn’t really sustain it in 2024. Still, it was better than getting worse as he aged.

Riley holds the most lucrative contract in Braves history, signing a $212 million, ten-year deal that includes a club option for an eleventh season in August 2022. He’s due to make $22 million annually in 2026 and every year onward through 2032; his club option has a $20 million salary with no buyout.

Recent performance

As noted, Riley’s production took a dip in 2024 and then again in 2025. The former was not “really” his fault, as his .361 xwOBA in 2024 was in line with his .365 xwOBA in 2023. After a slow start to 2024 outputs-wise, he was hitting really well (not thermonuclear on outputs, but definitely beautiful inputs) in the summer before a hit-by-pitch ended his season.

2025 was more of a struggle for various reasons. His xwOBA dipped to .328, and it was right around that range in both June and July before he succumbed to a series of abdominal strains that necessitated season-ending core surgery. His struggles were very generic: more swing and miss in the zone, but ostensibly without any conscious attempt to do so in order to increase power output — in other words, more swing and miss, worse contact quality. Not what you want to see.

There’s not too much to say beyond that — Riley was just worse, but not really in a way that his teammates were worse in terms of trading power for walks or anything. Whether that bodes well or poorly for him going forward is an open question. Defensively, he rebounded a bit relative to 2024 and looked similar to 2023. At this point, Riley probably won’t be a good defender at third base, but his hard work seems to have moved him from outright bad to okay.

Forecasting

Same brief disclaimer: once upon a time I built a projection system to try to mirror/get at the workings of Steamer and ZiPS. I called it IWAG. You can figure out what that means, maybe. I’m bringing it back for this series of posts. Here’s Riley, for 2026.

You can see the injuries being priced in a bit here, and IWAG forecasts Riley’s wRC+ considerably below his career mark of 122. That latter phenomenon occurs because, well, there’s no good or simple explanation for his 2025 offensively — he just looked kind of broken, even leaving the xwOBA underperformance aside.

This aligns almost exactly with Steamer (3 WAR in 601 PAs, 116 wRC+); ZiPS is the “outlier” as it seems to push his career line forward moreso than any debit for 2025.

The probability distribution from IWAG here is a bit silly due to Riley’s recent injuries — you can see that the distribution of talent is a reasonably normal-looking curve that probably aligns with what you expect, but IWAG figures “injured and ineffective” is more likely than “injured and effective” or “fully healthy and effective,” based on our lived experience of Braves trying to play through injury to no good outcome recently, hence the dip in the middle.

Your turn

Alright, I’ve given you the info. Well, some info. You may have your own info. With that, I ask you:

• Rounded to the nearest fWAR, how much will Austin produce in 2026? (I am once again seriously inveighing that if you ignore this and provide a partial fWAR, I will round it for you, and your scoring will not be based on 1 WAR around your point estimate, but 1 WAR around the rounded number. Just a pick whole number and don’t make me round.)
• How confident are you in your choice? Go with a scale from 1-5, where 3 is “I dunno, reasonably confident,” 5 is certain, and 1 is “I am participating but have no confidence in my choice and don’t want the fact that it will likely be incorrect to affect my place in any theoretical standings all that much.”

The Colorado Rockies officially signed 34-year-old RHP Michael Lorenzen to a one-year, $8 million deal on Thursday morning after the signing was first reported last Wednesday. Lorenzen met with the media over Zoom on Thursday afternoon to discuss his ties to the Rockies and his excitement about working with this team.

“One of the things [that drew me to Colorado] is just that I feel like it’s untapped, and I don’t think you could say that about anywhere else in Major League Baseball,” Lorenzen said. 

“It feels like there’s a lot of new information to be learned, and that’s kind of right up my alley. I enjoy problem solving. Failure is going to happen; trials are going to happen; you’re going to get your teeth kicked in. But it’s the problem solving and how to make the adjustments that I really enjoy. And Colorado, I feel like, presents that opportunity.”

“We didn’t have to convince him of anything,” PBO Paul DePodesta added in a separate Zoom meeting earlier in the day. 

“He ran toward this challenge. Michael actively wanted to pitch here. He’s done a lot of different things in his career – he was an outfielder, he’s been a reliever, he’s been a starting pitcher. I don’t think he’s afraid of anything. He’s also got some history with some of our staff members, so I think there was some appeal there as well.”

Lorenzen’s ties to the new Rockies pitching staff were definitely an extra enticer to sign with the team, and he’s known a lot of them for a long time.

“I’ve known Alon [Leichman] since 2017, I want to say, before he was in pro ball. I’ve known him for a really long time, and he and I have kept in touch throughout the years,” Lorenzen said. “So when he told me he was interviewing for the job, I was stoked for him, and he mentioned that he was going to try and bring me in if he ended up getting the job, which is pretty cool that we’re able to work together.

And as far as the other coaches go, Lorenzen mentioned that he knew pitching coordinator Matt Daniels from his time at Driveline in 2017; he knew assistant pitching coach Gabe Ribas from their time together with the Detroit Tigers in 2023; he knew Jeff Pickler from their time together with the Cincinnati Reds, where Pickler was the bench coach; and he knew Brett Pill from their time at Cal State Fullerton.

Lorenzen brings a six-pitch arsenal to Coors Field (though according to Baseball Savant, he has seven, and Lorenzen says he’s planning to bring out another one next year). 

And it was actually the pitching coach of the Philadelphia Phillies, Caleb Cotham, who helped Lorenzen understand pitch shapes to expand his repertoire.

“[He] helped me understand in detail what causes a pitch to do certain things, and I kind of made it my own,” Lorenzen said. 

“I was able to create a consistent sweeper; I was able to create a consistent gyro (sweeper); and I know what I’m trying to do with the cutter. So all of a sudden, I feel like I own my shapes and when I’m trying to manipulate the ball, I can. I just know what I’m trying to do. I know what I’m looking for. I know the feel I’m trying to create. But obviously being in Colorado is going to have its challenges, so I’ll be making my way up there soon to throw some bullpens and see exactly how these shapes are going to move. 

“And that’ll give me an idea of how I can use each one,” he continued. “Do I pick three of them? Do I lean on certain three more than others when I’m pitching in the altitude? So we’ll see. But I would say I’ve got three fastballs and two different changeups. Now I’ve got the sweeper, the slider, and the curveball.”

Lorenzen’s intensity intrigues DePodesta.

“I’d say part of the appeal for him is that he’s a very good strike thrower and pitches with an aggressive mentality,” DePodesta added. “He’s going to go after the hitter, he’s going to make the hitter beat him, he’s going to attack the strike zone, and he has a deep arsenal of pitches. Here at Coors in particular, we need to find different ways to keep hitters off balance, and I think having a deep arsenal is at least one of those ways.”

That all being said, Lorenzen is excited to be in Colorado for this next chapter of his career and to help this team get back in the thick of things.

“I don’t care how many games were lost last year,” he continued. “Every guy is one adjustment away from being one of the best in the game, and there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit that can be changed. We’ll see performance increase, and so I think there’s a lot of easy ways to get better and I’m really excited.”

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The mid-2000s were a strange time for the Yankees. The dynasty of the ‘90s engineered a hangover that lasted almost ten years, where the team regularly returned strong lineups but lacked the pitching depth or that elusive “clutch” gene. In some ways, Gary Sheffield might be the poster boy for this period — he never had a bad regular season for the Yankees, but his first campaign with the team ended in the disaster that was 2004, and the club never got closer than that while he was in pinstripes.

Sheffield’s one of the great mercenaries in the history of baseball, an uber-talented hitter who walked around with a king-sized chip on his shoulder. He made the All-Star team nine times and won five Silver Sluggers during stints with eight teams, winning a ring with the 1997 Florida Marlins. That was already his third team in MLB, and he would be dealt away in ‘98 to the Dodgers, although I’ll attribute that decision more to the infamous post-World Series fire sale than anything to do with his personality. Shef did publicly state how embarrassed he was by the team’s teardown, but that’s not an attitude problem — that’s a statement of fact.

LA and Atlanta followed, and by the time December 2003 rolled around, Sheffield had logged 13 consecutive seasons of excellent hitting, with his worst year being a 123 wRC+ in 1993, split between the Padres and Marlins. The less said about his defense the better, but if you were looking to add a bat and some headlines, you could do a lot worse than Gary Sheffield.

Gary Sheffield
Signing Date: December 19, 2003
Contract: Three years, $39 million

Signed one year to the day after Hideki Matsui, the Yankees were clearly leaning into the bat-first approach — they had Derek Jeter at shortstop Opening Day instead of the shiny new toy Alex Rodriguez. GM Brian Cashman wanted the team to add erstwhile Montreal Expos standout Vladimir Guerrero and reportedly had an agreed-upon contract. But owner George Steinbrenner picked Sheffield, won over by his buggy-whip power swing and close ties to Steinbrenner’s adopted home of Tampa (not to mention a relation to uncle/former New York star Dwight Gooden).

That first season was a tear for Sheff, as he finished runner-up for AL MVP, walloping 36 homers and leading the Yankees in RBI, runs scored, and OPS+. That ugly defense meant he posted just 3.8 fWAR, and the man who actually won MVP was none other than Guerrero. Nonetheless, Sheffield was the offensive force the club was hoping for. He was shuffled between third, fourth, and fifth in the Yankee lineup, producing wherever Joe Torre set him.

His first taste of October in the Bronx went well enough too, on the personal production side anyway. A 134 wRC+, .904 OPS line should be more than enough to placate even the toughest Yankee fans, but of course the end result of that postseason push left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. Sheffield managed just a single base hit in 17 plate appearances in those doomed four games against Boston, just one of many Bombers who became duds on arguably the biggest stage in baseball history.

The kicker to all this was the season was played while Sheffield worked through a shoulder tear, one that would require surgery in the offseason. Herein lies maybe the most interesting thing about Gary — his attitude questions were real, and he had an ejection history a mile long:

The man was expelled from his Little League team for chasing a coach around at practice with a bat!

Despite that, he would unquestionably chew through concrete to perform at the highest level. He was the best fulltime hitter for the Yankees in his first season while playing with one-and-a-half arms. How much of that was sheer willpower and how much was pharmaceutically driven we’ll never know, but having a bat like Sheffield’s in your lineup would make any team better.

That first season would be Gary’s best, but 2005 was no off-year. A 137 wRC+ came in a year where he once again walked more than he struck out, but an ill-timed magazine story quoted him as possibly shading Jeter and A-Rod as “two players [covered] in a positive light, and everyone else is garbage” hung over yet another run toward October. Against the Angels that fall, Sheffield’s rather interesting defensive instincts were on full display in a fifth concsecutive disappointing postseason for the Yankees.

Poor Bubba Crosby.

That and a 65 wRC+ in an abbreviated October meant the funk was truly setting in for the Yankees, who were roundly becoming the uber-regular season team that fell on its face come playoff time. It wouldn’t get better the next year for Sheffield or the team either, as the slugger was laid low with a wrist injury and appeared in just 39 games. Sidelined for months, the win-now Yankees had to pivot and traded for a new right fielder in the more well-rounded Bobby Abreu. So when Sheffield returned, the Yankees got creative and stuck him at the open first base position with Jason Giambi at DH (primarily because of a wrist injury, but also because the Giambino was far from Don Mattingly on defense). He had never appeared at first before but was a good team sport about it adapting over the final nine games of the regular season. But Sheffield went 1-for-12 in yet another dreadful postseason run and that sealed the end of Gary’s time in New York.

The club did pick up his 2007 team option but sent the disgruntled star to the same team that had just eliminated them in the 2006 ALDS, the Detroit Tigers. Sheffield spent three more years in the bigs, coming to Queens sitting on 499 career home runs:

Gary Sheffield’s Yankee tenure was the epitome of George Steinbrenner’s leadership style. The Yankees outbid anyone they wanted for the biggest star available, even if the fit wasn’t exactly right, the player wasn’t as complete as he could be, or the team wasn’t as well-rounded as it should be. Excellent lineups, bad defense, and shaky pitching was the calling card of those mid-2000s teams, and Sheffield supplied two of those three.

Sheffield probably has a Hall of Fame resume, but his connections to BALCO, listing in the Mitchell Report, and productivity in his later years are all in concert with challenges other PED-linked players have found on their incomplete trips to Cooperstown. He’ll likely never have a plaque there, and his time in New York never got past the finish line, but he remains one of the most unique and feared hitters in baseball history. If I were to compile a list of players I’d most want modern Statcast data on, most want to dig into those underlying hitting tools like exit velocity, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Barry Bonds would be at the very top, but Gary Sheffield wouldn’t be far behind.

See more of the “50 Most Notable Yankees Free Agent Signings in 50 Years” series here.

The Dodgers signed Kyle Tucker, landing the top free agent on the market with an eye-popping four-year, $240 million contract. After setting competitive balance tax records in each of thelast two seasons, this move ensured they will stay in that area for at least two more years, if not longer.

But along with the pure financial cost of signing Tucker — $60 million per year on average, or $57.1 million AAV for competitive balance tax purposes accounting for deferrals — comes another penalty.

Tucker was one of nine free agents to reject a qualifying offer in November. Any new team that signs such a player faces a draft-pick loss. As a competitive balance tax payer, the Dodgers’ penalty for signing a qualifying-offer free agent is forfreiting their second- and fifth-highest draft picks. If this sounds familiar, it’s because the Dodgers already signed a qualifying-offer free agent by adding Edwin Díaz in December.

Signing free agents with a qualifying offer isn’t new for the Dodgers, having brought in A.J. Pollock (2019), Trevor Bauer (2021), Freddie Freeman (2022), and Shohei Ohtani (2024) previously. But this is the first time they’ve signed two in the same offseason.

Because the Dodgers gave up their second and fifth-highest picks for signing Díaz, their penalty for adding Tucker will be losing their third and sixth-round selections this July. That leaves a relatively bare cupboard at the top of their draft board for 2026.

The Dodgers’ first-round pick would normally be 30th overall, at the end of the first round after winning the World Series. But because they surpassed the third competitive balance tax threshold last season — they also blew past the fourth (highest) threshold, too — the Dodgers will see their first pick drop 10 slots to 40th overall. We saw this in both 2022and 2024 as well.

The 2026 draft order isn’t yet finalized, as there are still three qualifying-offer free agents remaining on the market — Framber Valdez, Bo Bichette, and Zac Gallen. But we have at least a general idea of when the Dodgers will pick in July.

A team’s draft bonus pool is comprised of the recommended slot values of every pick that team has in the first 10 rounds. Every signing bonus from the first 10 rounds is counted against the pool, as is any amount over $150,000 for picks after the 10th round. Teams are allowed to exceed the bonus pool, with a 75-percent tax on any overage up to five percent over the pool. Any overage above five percent would result in the loss of draft picks. In the 15 years of this system, no MLB team has spent enough to incur this draft-pick penalty.

But the bottom line is the Dodgers will have less to spend than probably any other year of the draft slotting system. If we use the 2025 slot values for each estimated Dodgers pick in 2026, that comes to $3,819,900. The slots and bonus pools increased by 8.7 percent from 2023 to 2024, but only went up by 4.8 percent from 2024 to 2025. If those total Dodgers slot values increase by 4.8 percent this year, they’ll have $4,003,255 to spend. If it goes up by 8.7 percent, they’ll have $4,152,231 to spend.

Either way, it’ll be their lowest bonus pool in the 16 years of the draft slotting system. Their previous low was in 2022 with $4,223,800 to spend, a little below 2021 when their bonus pool was $4,646,700. The Dodgers had a higher bonus pool even in 2020 ($5,928,500) when the draft was truncated to only five rounds.