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There is a lot to like about the Red Sox this season. A full year of Roman Anthony. What could be the best starting rotation in baseball. And swag as you scan your ticket.

Boston hasn’t always had the strongest lineup of giveaways, and “first 7500 fans” is rather stingy for an organization that nearly sells out most games, but there are still some highlights.

Some of the “giveaways” are just days that kids can run the bases which is something and very cool if you are a kid (I don’t think they even did this when I was a kid?) But that’s not really a giveaway in the same sense. Those games are Sunday May 3rd against the Astros (this is also Star Wars Night which is a special ticket event, so if your kids are Star Wars fans this may be the game for you), May 24 against the Twins, July 1 against the Nationals, July 26th against the Blue Jays, and August 23rd against the Giants.

Outside of those dates, here are the highlights.

Roman Anthony Rookie Card Bobblehead

April 6 vs the Brewers: The Roman Empire himself leads off the giveaways. Coming off a tremendous rookie year he’s looking to to take it to the next level. And you can join in that effort with this bobblehead. It looks like a diorama with the “bobblehead”figure integrated into the “card” in three dimensions. If you’re thinking “April is too cold for me” well the average high has been 53.5 and the low 38.1. But it’s also hit both 82 (1928) and 21 (1943). So weigh the odds but get there early (this advice applies for all the giveaways).

Patriots Day Windbreaker

April 20 vs the Tigers: It’s Patriots’ Day and if you like morning baseball you can be part of the 1/4 in attendance to receive this jacket. You’ll get to see the Red Sox in their home Boston jerseys. And the normal crossover with the Marathon.

Garret Crochet Jersey Variant Bobblehead

May 7 vs the Rays: There are five jerseys and five bobbleheads so it’s probably luck of the draw and maybe you need to find someone to trade with if you don’t get the color of your dreams. Red, City Connect yellow, home white, City Connect Fenway green, and the road grays will all be available.

Don’t those first two just pop? Also, imagine a five-man rotation of all Garrett Crochets? Fire up the duck boats!

Roger Clemens 20-strikeout double bobblehead

May 22 vs the Twins: Clemens struck out 20 batters two times so there are two poses of #21 on the bobble base. We all remember when the Rocket pitched from his little seat on the mound.

Red Sox soccer scarf

June 12 vs Rangers: Get ready for the World Cup with this giveaway. A Fenway green City Connect scarf with all the details of the Green Monster is waiting for you to wear in Foxboro against, well, whatever team you want to cheer for.

I almost wonder why Fenway Sports Group didn’t try to fit a World Cup game at Fenway Park? Probably limited capacity, timing, etc. But still…would anyone have been surprised if they tried?

Red Sox USA soccer jersey

July 1 vs Nationals: The soccer crossover continues with a team USA soccer jersey emblazoned with the Red Sox B. It’s covered in stars and is a pullover reminiscent of the 1975 jersey style.

On-field photo day

July 19 vs Rays: Ok, son this isn’t a giveaway as much as an experience, like kids running the bases. But it’s available to everyone and there is only one. I went a couple years ago and you really can’t appreciate how tall Chris Martin is until he bends way down for a picture and still looks really tall.

Red Sox football jersey

September 7 vs Angels: this is the American football jersey. At least I think it is. The design feels like it could have used a bit more something. A number? Maybe a number.

Do any of these giveaways move the needle for going to a game or getting there early?

Despite the recent lull, the Orioles have had a busy offseason. The Birds made national headlines by inking Pete Alonso to a five-year, $155 million dollar deal. They acquired Taylor Ward fresh off of a 36-homer season and brought in Ryan Helsley to occupy the closer spot with Félix Bautista sidelined. Baltimore traded for Shane Baz, resigned Zach Eflin, and brought in Blaze Alexander to provide some infield depth.

There are plenty of things to like about these moves, but there’s cause for concern too. The front office threw in the towel on the talented but oft-injured Grayson Rodriguez. What if Rodriguez remains healthy, and the Orioles miss out on several years of ace-level performance?

Speaking of aces, the Orioles failed to bring in a guy like Framber Valdez or Dylan Cease. The bullpen appears to be lacking on well-established relievers, and Leody Taveras looks like the only backup option for an injury-prone Colton Cowser.

It’s tempting to focus on the rotation after Valdez recently signed with Detroit. Rodriguez shining in LA would definitely sting too. Which Orioles offseason decision makes YOU nervous? Let us know in the comments below.

Meet the Mets

The Super Bowl is over, the chips and wings have been consumed, the Seahawks have been crowned champions, and, more important than anything else, baseball is up next! Pitchers and Catchers report to spring training this Wednesday.

The Mets signed outfielder MJ Melendez to a major league deal worth $1.5 million.

Will Sammon discussed the Melendez signing, which gives the Mets versatility beyond just the outfield.

Here’s what the signing means for the team’s outfield outlook.

Mike Lupica wrote about Bo Bichette’s move to third base, the same move made by Alex Rodriguez with equally high stakes.

Christian Scott feels great and is excited to be back.

Griffin Canning, who pitched admirably for the Mets in 2025 but saw his season end prematurely due to a ruptured left Achilles, threw for teams at UCLA last Friday.

Around the National League East

Ronald Acuña Jr. was among the VIPs present at Bad Bunny’s stellar Super Bowl halftime show, joining the likes of Pedro Pascal, Ricky Martin, Lady Gaga, Cardi B, and Karol G.

The Good Phight attempted to temper expectations on Aidan Miller.

Around Major League Baseball

With the Super Bowl in the rear view, spring training is up next, and here are some of the biggest storylines to watch.

Will Leitch offered seven hopeful predictions to beat out the winter blues and celebrate the return of spring.

Brian Murphy compiled a list of the best projected rookies for 2026.

Clayton Kershaw, Anthony Rizzo and Joey Votto are joining NBC’s pregame coverage for the 2026 season.

In a thrilling Carribean Series final, Mexico Red topped Mexico Green.

Andrew Simon discussed four ways the Red Sox can beat their predictions and make a play for the American League East crown.

Aaron Boone is confident in the Yankees’ rotation, especially with Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón working their way back from injuries.

A lot of big players changed teams this winter, and the MLB.com staff compiled a list of the biggest players to switch uniforms during the offseason.

Yesterday at Amazin’ Avenue

Lukas Vlahos previewed Jared Young’s 2026 season, which finds the veteran once again blocked.

This Date in Mets History

Mookie Wilson turns the big 7-0 today. Happy Birthday!

I do love a specialized role, as it can highlight the many ways to impact a baseball game. The Dodgers have had a few examples over the years.

Andre Jackson pitched in 14 games over three seasons with Los Angeles, and in four of them recorded a save of three innings or longer. “I didn’t even know a three-inning save was a thing until I got the first one,” he said in 2023, after the third of his saves. “I didn’t know the rules behind that.”

Justin Dean never batted in the 2025 postseason, but played 13 of the Dodgers’ 17 games as the security blanket on defense in center field late in games.

“The game is still the game. So I go through my defense work. That’s always gonna be a part of my game, part of my routine, my defense. I look at pitches and try to see what I can pick up on, as far as base stealing, if I’m going to be running or whatnot,” Dean said last October. “So that might be a little bit more hyper focused, yeah, as far as my routine, but I’m still getting my hitting in and my working in the cage and stuff like that. So it’s still going through a normal day.”

No baseball player in recent memory had a more specialized role than Terrance Gore, the speedy outfielder who died at age 34 this weekend.

Gore between the regular season and postseason played 123 total games over eight major league seasons for five teams — the Royals, Cubs, Dodgers, Braves, and Mets. He reached the playoffs with all five teams, and won championship rings with the Royals, Dodgers, and Braves. In those 123 career games, Gore batted a total of 87 times, but stole 48 bases in 58 tries, a stellar 82.8-percent success rate.

With the Dodgers in the shortened 2020 season, Gore played in two games and totaled on defensive inning in center field in the regular season, but after getting designated for assignment spent two months at the club’s alternate training site getting ready for the postseason. Gore was active for the wild card round and National League Division Series, but did not play in any of those five games. He did not steal a base for Los Angeles.

That’s the thing with players with specific skills. You don’t always know if or when you might need them, but it feels nice to have the luxury of having them around, just in case.

Andy McCullough covered the Royals when Gore played for Kansas City, and wrote a fitting tribute for the outfielder on Saturday at The Athletic:

From the day he arrived in professional baseball, Gore understood his utility as a player might be limited. He decided to make the most of it. He embraced his role as a part-time performer, a player called into action for postseason teams solely so he could pinch run. He crackled with life, first as the kid brother of those Royals teams, and later as a journeyman bouncing from contender to contender in search of a base to steal.

Players like Gore are why I enjoy writing season reviews for every single player who spent at least part of the year on the 40-man roster, no matter the scope of their performance. It’s fun to remember that they were around, and in some small way keeps their memory alive.

Good morning, baseball fans!

As we approach Spring Training and the beginning of the season, we’re going to be doing some questions for y’all about your thoughts about the San Francisco Giants and baseball in general!

Today’s question: Which offseason decision makes you nervous?

For me, it has to be the hiring of Tony Vitello. And I don’t say that with any negative connotations about his past experience, or the likelihood of his success with the team. I’m actually quite excited to see how well he does. He’s just….new. Both to the organization and to MLB. And that’s enough to make ya’ nervous.

I will say the organization has done a tremendous job of pre-emptively creating a support system for him. He’s going to have a lot of legends around to provide advice and counsel and that’s invaluable. So I think he’s in good hands on that front.

But any time there’s a new manager, it’s always going to leave me feeling at least a little nervous. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That kind of nervousness can also tie with anticipation, curiosity, excitement. All of which are similar feelings that I have going into this season because of Vitello’s signing.

Which offseason decision makes you nervous?

Good morning. With the Super Bowl finished, you all know what that means. It’s baseball season!

• And the first games that will matter this year will be the World Baseball Classic which starts on March 4. Gabe Lacques ranks the top ten teams in the tournament.
• Mike Axisa has some takeaways from the rosters.
• Jake Mintz and Jordan Schusterman have their thoughts on the WBC rosters.
• Johnny Flores offers his thoughts on the Team USA roster. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Ben Lindberg writes that Team USA finally has a superteam.
• Jen Vestuto previews Team Brazil, who is returning to the WBC for the first time since 2013.
• Moving on to Spring Training, MLB dot com has the top storyline for each team heading into the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues.
• The MLB Pipeline crew list one top prospect for each team who is fighting for an Opening Day roster spot.
• David Schoenfield proposes some possible trades that would shake up Spring Training.
• MLB dot com lists the projected top players who switched teams this past winter.
• Brian Murphy has the top projected rookies for this upcoming season.
• Will Leitch has seven “hopeful” predictions for 2026.
• Three potential World Series matchups that may not be as crazy as they sound.
• Jake Mintz hands out Hot Stove grades to every NL East team.
• Andrew Simon explains what needs to go right for the Red Sox to win the AL East.
• Ken Rosenthal argues that the Tigers and MLB picked an unnecessary (and losing) fight with two-time Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal in arbitration. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• First baseman Paul Goldschmidt is returning to the Yankees on a one-year deal.
• The Mets have signed outfielder MJ Melendez to a one-year, major-league deal.
• Andrew Simon asks when will Phillies shortstop Trea Turner become the active career stolen-base leader?
• Longtime Blue Jays broadcaster Buck Martinez has announced his retirement.
• NBC made it official. Joey Votto, Anthony Rizzo and Clayton Kershaw will serve as their pregame analysts for their broadcasts this year.
• Former MLB outfielder Yasiel Puig has been found guilty of obstruction of justice and lying to federal officials in connection to a gambling probe.
• Andy McCullough pays tribute to Terrance Gore, (The Athletic free reg. req.) who died way too young at 34 on Saturday.
• And finally, Brian Murphy checks in with Bill Greason, who, with the death of Ron “Schoolboy” Teasley last week, became the last living member of the Negro Leagues during their major league era. Greason is also the oldest living MLB player, as he pitched three games for the Cardinals in 1954.

The Super Bowl is over, and you know what this means. It is now officially baseball season! Alright, maybe it’s unofficial until pitchers and catchers report on Wednesday, but we’re close. The weather in ol’ Michigan may even take a turn for the better this week. We could use a break, winter.

Let’s talk about A.J. Hinch for a bit before camp gets underway, with the full squad set to follow pitchers and catchers on February 15.

Over the last five seasons, Detroit Tigers manager A.J. Hinch has been a transformative figure within the organization. His influence runs deep from revamping player development and developing a coherent organizational philosophy, to actually becoming the Tiger de facto spokesman once Al Avila was fired, to operating as one of Chris Ilitch’s main advisors in selecting Scott Harris to take over running the ballclub. His impact in the dugout along with his well regarded coaching staff has only been one element of his impact on the Tigers.

It’s hard to believe, but Hinch has now managed the Tigers for as many years as he managed the Astros. After signing an extension of unknown length back in October, he’s sure to exceed his Astros’ tenure by quite a bit. He was there through the second half of the club’s rebuilding effort, and now he and his coaching staff have taken a team that didn’t look too much better than average on paper to the final game of the ALDS in back-to-back seasons.

We can look back at the Tigers collapse in September with some angst, particularly in Hinch’s inability to turn the ship around where a few key players—looking at you, Riley—were concerned. On the other hand, having essentially three functioning starting pitchers and a mess of a bullpen didn’t help. We have to remember too that he’d led that same team to the second best regular season record in the game from August 1, 2024 through July 31, 2025. That he got them to clear their heads, defeat the Guardians in the Wild Card round, and then go toe-to-toe with a red-hot Mariners club that had a deeper, more dangerou lineup and a significant bullpen advantage, all speaks to his ability to get it done when given the tools, and sometimes even without the tools.

His Astros tenure, and the stain of their sign stealing scandal, will never go away, but Hinch is well on his way to rebuilding his legacy in the game. He combines a scouting and player development background to his major league catching experience, and now has a lot of years running a team to draw from as well. Combined with the drive to win in Detroit and put his managerial career in a new light, and the organization is very lucky to have him running the show, my opinion.

How about you? Maybe you don’t love him. Let’s hear about it. Like any manager there must be a few things about him that drive you nuts. I love Jim Leyland, but I’ve got a long list of Leyland moves that made me crazy as well. Overall though, what is your confidence level in A.J. Hinch as he prepares for his sixth season running the Tigers?

Anne Rogers writes about the tragic death of former Royals outfielder Terrance Gore at the age of 34.

“The fans were almost waiting for him and [Jarrod Dyson] whenever someone got on,” Royals president of baseball operations and general manager J.J. Picollo said. “You could just feel the energy in the stadium go up a level because of that. They came into the game, and everybody in the ballpark knew exactly what was about to happen, and nobody could stop them. It was like if the Royals got on base, we were really on second base because of them. It was such a weapon for us. It would energize the team, it would energize the fans. It was pretty cool.”

“There’s stealing a base,” Hosmer added, “and then there’s stealing a base when everyone knows you’re trying to steal the base.”

Vahe Gregorian reflects on the life of Gore

If he ever got thrown out, he said that day, it wasn’t because somebody bested him.

“I got myself out. You didn’t get me out,” he said, smiling and adding that the only way he could get erased was if he got a bad jump, fell or “might drop my glove, might want to pick it up.”

He’ll always be treasured here for all that helped lead to, of course.

Craig Brown remembers his game-changing speed.

I wrote earlier that he was the ultimate disruptor. I just don’t know if I can adequately describe what that meant. When Gore came into the game as a pinch runner, it was usually in a key situation where his run meant something. His speed and the threat he created meant the opposing pitcher and catcher were immediately knocked off their game. Balks. Wild pitches. Errors. Any mistake was in play just by his presence. It was just kind of hopeless for the opposition because, as Gore would say, if they got him out it was because he made a mistake. Not because they were good enough to catch him. They weren’t. Nobody was.

Darin Watson at UL’s Toothpick remembers the impact Gore made.

Pete Grathoff collects reactions from teammates on Gore’s death.

Jaylon Thompson writes about the outfield situation going into camp.

The Royals haven’t shut the door on adding more players this spring. They are content with their roster at the current moment but will continue to monitor both the free-agent and trade markets.

“You know, just because we are going into spring training doesn’t mean we don’t have the ability to make our team better up until the trade deadline,” Picollo said. “Once the trade deadline comes, that’s when you’re locked in. That’s what you got for the rest of the year. But, between now and then, you know, we might be in a sit-and-read situation. What do we need to do and how can we capitalize?”

MLB Pipeline comes up with one prospect from each team that could make the Opening Day roster.

Royals: Luinder Avila, RHP
The 24-year-old right-hander came up to the Majors for 13 relief appearances last year and thrived in that role with a 1.29 ERA, a 0.93 WHIP and 16 strikeouts in 14 innings. His primary weapon was an 82-85 mph curveball that generated whiffs on 50 percent of his swings, but his mid-90s fastballs (a four-seamer and a sinker) and the occasional 86-88 mph changeup gave hitters more to consider. The Royals see Avila as a potential starter, but with the rotation a bit too crowded right now, it’ll be interesting to see if they try putting him back in the bullpen to begin the year back in the bigs.

MLB.com writers come up with some possible World Series matchups that aren’t as unlikely as they seem, like Royals vs. Giants.

The Mets sign former Royals outfielder MJ Melendez to a one-year, $1.5 million deal.

Paul Goldschmidt is close to a one-year contract with the Yankees.

The A’s hire Mark McGwire as a special assistant.

The Rangers could use a fifth starter.

How will the Yankees’ rotation fare in 2026?

What’s next for Tarik Skubal after his landmark arbitration win?

Six takeaways following the reveal of World Baseball Classic rosters.

Four starting pitchers who could be a bargain in free agency.

If you want MLB.tv this year, you may need to jump through ESPN’s hoops.

NBC hires Clayton Kershaw, Joey Votto, and Anthony Rizzo as analysts.

The Jalisco Charros win their first Caribbean Series title by beating the Culiacan Tomateros

Ranking all 50 quarterback performances of the 21st century.

Skier Lindsay Vonn has surgery on a broken leg after crashing at the Olympics.

How did the luge become a thing?

Super Bowl hangovers and absences could cost the economy $5 billion.

The best Super Bowl ads of 2026.

Your song of the day is Paul Simon with Loves Me Like a Rock.

THIS IS A GUEST ROCKPILE BY HC WERNER

While a great many things need to go wrong for a starting pitching staff to rock a historically bad 6.65 ERA for the season, an outsized reason for the 2025 Rockies’ starting pitching woes was their over-reliance on bad four-seam fastballs. 

How bad was bad?

Fangraphs has a stat, wFB, which is used to measure how effective fastballs are against hitters. A positive number indicates how many runs above average were prevented, while a negative number demonstrates how many more runs than average were allowed by fastballs. The League average is zero. 

Here are the starting staffs with the worst four-seam fastballs in baseball last year:

These numbers mean that, over the course of a full 162-game season, Rockies starters gave up almost a full run more than average every game from just their four-seam fastballs alone.

This is especially wild when you consider the rotation pitched the second fewest innings in baseball, averaging a just over 4.2 innings per start.

Fastballs from Rockies’ starters gave up more than three times more runs above average than the next worse teams.

Too much of a bad thing

The league-wide numbers from 2025 show that the average MLB starter threw a four-seam fastball 47.5% of the time. Colorado starters snuck into the top 10 for usage, hurling four-seamers just over half the time (50.1%). 

Not only did Rockies starters have truly gag-inducing results with their four-seam fastballs, they threw them more than league average!

Opposing batters could simply hunt for a heater, and they’d get it more than half of the time. Given the continued reliance on traditional fastball usage in the face of such poor results, it makes sense that league executives described the Rockies’ analytical approach as “in the Stone Ages” and “literally 20 years behind the rest of the league in terms of analytics, infrastructure, everything.” 

While much can be said for the difficulties of pitching at elevation and how pitchers can adjust their fastballs at altitude to find better success, there’s a relatively easy and quick fix for the 2026 starting staff to embrace: Stop throwing the damn four-seamers (as much).

A new direction

Luckily, new pitching coach Alon Leichman, coming over from the Miami Marlins, has some experience with diversifying pitch mixes. Marlins starters, with their relatively scant 40.1% four-seam usage, threw the second fewest four-seamers in the league. Additionally in 2025 the Marlins organization began tinkering with using analytics to call pitches from the dugout in both the minor leagues and the majors. If Leichman were willing to embrace analytics to such an extent that he’d break with over a century of tradition and call pitches from the dugout, surely he’d use data to better optimize the Rockies’ pitch mix in 2026. 

Additionally, neither wFB or wFB/C are predictive stats: They describe what happened, but they don’t project how effective a fastball might be in the coming season. The Rockies are not necessarily fated to have the worst fastball in the league for the second year in a row, especially if they throw more offspeed pitches to keep opposing batters honest.

Conclusion

With the hiring of Alon Leichman specifically (and the new, Paul DePodesta-led front office hires more generally), the Rockies finally seem to be joining the analytics revolution. We don’t know if Leichman will bring the dugout pitch-calling to the Rockies (he hinted it was possible at Rockies Fest last month), nor if they’ll embrace the so-called “Year of the Pitch Mix” (although the signing of Michael Lorenzen seems promising in this regard), nor if they can help Chase Dollander limit the longball (72% of his homers were off of his flaming four-seamer). 

What we do know is that Leichman and the Rockies new front office will use and embrace pitching analytics in ways we’ve never seen with the club. We can only hope that means fewer four-seamers.  

What do you think? Will the new direction for the staff allow Rockies starters to right the ship, or will the pain of a 6.00+ ERA continue for another season?

Let us know in the comments below!

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Colorado Rockies News

Rockies Sign Conner Capel To Minor League Contract | MLB Trade Rumors

The Rockies’ outfield depth just got deeper with the signing of Conner Capel. Given his .234/.314/.360 line last year with the Atlanta Braves’ AAA affiliate and the apparent lack of a Spring Training invite, Capel seems to be minor league depth for the organization, which already has a glut of outfielders vying for playing time at the big league level.

Rockies’ ‘funky, wacky’ starting pitching experiment begins at spring training | The Denver Post ($)

Patrick Saunders talked with Rockies’ pitchers and pitching coaches about the new ideas floating around this year’s Spring Training. While there’s a big emphasis on expanding pitch arsenals and pounding the strike zone, the general philosophy seems to be experimenting and seeing what sticks. The titular quote comes from team veteran and Denver native Kyle Freeland, who says it’s “extremely refreshing” to see these sorts of “funky, wacky ideas… thrown around in these conversations from the pitching side.”

Rockies Free Agent Options Dwindling as Spring Training Approaches | Sports Illustrated

With the departures of both Michael Toglia and Warming Bernabel earlier in the offseason, it seemed like the team might be in the market for a veteran first baseman. Scott Roche over at Sports Illustrated makes a case for signing Nathaniel Lowe, who split time with Boston and Washington last year. I myself think the club would be better served letting Blaine Crim, Troy Johnston, T.J. Rumfield, and Edouard Julien battle it out in camp. 

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Difficult decisions are the cost of doing business for a high-level contender, and once in a while, you may be forced to move on from a player you don’t necessarily wish to; such is the case with Anthony Banda and the Dodgers. After agreeing to a deal to avoid arbitration with the left-hander, the reigning back-to-back champs found themselves in need of a roster space, to which the solution was designating Banda for assignment, allowing for any of the other 29 MLB clubs to pick him up — the Yankees should contemplate doing so.

2025 Statistics: 71 games, 65 IP, 3.18 ERA (131 ERA+), 4.52 FIP, 4.77 xFIP, 22.8% K%, 12.7% BB%, 1.22 WHIP, 0.1 fWAR

2026 FanGraphs Depths Charts Projections: 26 games, 26 IP, 4.39 ERA, 4.38 FIP, 22.2% K%, 10.1% BB%, 1.38 WHIP, 0.0 fWAR

Before assessing the merits of Banda’s addition, his availability is, if unexpected, somewhat natural given the other lefty options the Dodgers bullpen has available: particularly Jack Dreyer, who represents a higher-upside alternative and still carries minor league options. Amidst the flurry of injuries, shortcomings, and unique circumstances surrounding the Dodgers’ bullpen last postseason, Banda found himself being one of the more utilized relievers by Los Angeles, acquiring a type of experience in key spots that’s difficult to find. Before imploding in the World Series, Banda secured some important outs for the Dodgers on their path to win the NL pennant.

The concerns for Banda ahead of 2026 are rather obvious, for as much as the Dodgers were able to extract the best out of him after bouncing around in the bigs, it didn’t come without its warning signs. Although the zone rate remained the same, Banda saw batters drastically decrease their chase rate against him, ultimately leading to an unsustainably poor 12.7 percent walk rate.

What allowed Banda to be reasonably effective was the combination of an uncanny ability to strand runners and limit batting average on balls in play, two skills that under regular circumstances are likely to regress in 2026. The flip side of it is that we’re looking at a left-hander who has pitched over 100 innings with a 3.14 ERA since joining the Dodgers, clearly able to produce consistently at a solid enough level.

The Yankees currently have two lefties in the bullpen in Tim Hill and Ryan Yarbrough, and while Banda’s acquisition wouldn’t fix the lack of a strikeout specialist, his splits make him an outstanding left-on-left option: left-handed hitters had a .255 SLG against Banda in 2025 and a .496 OPS. Noting Ryan Yarbrough is going to serve a long-relief role, to which his handedness isn’t a primary factor, it’d hardly be considered overkill to add one more established southpaw, particularly to a bullpen that has a nice core but could always use a bit more depth.

Arbitration eligible for the second time, this offseason, Banda, a journeyman reliever, will receive a little over one and a half million, far from a prohibitive figure to the Yankees. His availability on waivers is strictly due to a roster crunch, and if not the Yankees, someone most definitely will pick him up.