Worldwide Sports News

The MLB offseason is off to its typical slow start but things should start ramping up as soon as this weekend with the conclusion of the General Manager meetings.

Tuesday, November 17th, is the deadline for teams to add players from within their organizations to their 40-man roster and thus protecting them from the Rule 5 draft. Just a few days after that on Friday, November 20th, the non-tender deadline will pass; this is when teams must make a decision to offer contracts to all of their arbitration eligible players.

Of course there is also the looming threat of the MLB offseason being halted by the expiration of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) and thus a lockout. When the previous CBA expired on December 2nd, 2021, the free agency market moved with rampancy that was unprecedented and many expect for the same thing to happen again.

Comings and Goings

Once the World Series concluded, the following players left via becoming free agents: Freddy Peralta, Gavin Lux, and Jorge Mateo. The Rays declined their mutual options on Nick Martinez and Cedric Mullins, making them both free agents. Nick Madrigal and Jonathan Heasley were outrighted from the 40-man roster while Alexander Alberto and Jack Suwinski were both added.

Tampa Bay also had to activate all of their players from the 60-Day Injured List, placing Jacob Melton, Edwin Uceta, and Ryan Pepiot back on the 40-man roster. That gives the Rays a total of 39 players on their 40-man roster.

So with all that being said, let’s take a look at the current state of the roster and who may be on the move and who is likely to stay, at least for now.

Who is on the bubble

There is a lot to be said for where the Rays could make marginal improvements throughout the roster despite this being a team that made it to the World Series. The team could use more impact players on the offense. With the departure of Nick Martinez and Freddy Peralta and the uncertainty regarding the health of Ryan Pepiot and Shane McClanahan leaves the starting rotation in disarray. Top prospects like Carson Williams, Brody Hopkins, and Jacob Melton who were expected to become key cogs of the 2026 Rays roster didn’t pan out. That doesn’t mean any of those five players are at risk to leave the organization yet.

Pitchers on the bubble: Alexander Alberto, Joe Boyle, Garrett Cleavinger, Alex Cook, Jesse Scholtens, and Edwin Uceta

Alberto and Boyle both have Major League arsenals but Alberto only just reached Triple-A this past season, his 6th year in professional baseball while Boyle has some of the worst command in the game.

Cleavinger went from being one of the top relievers in the Rays bullpen in 2025 to being among their least dependable in 2026. He is projected to make $3.7M in his final year of arbitration eligibility.

Cook was a 40-man roster addition last November and made a handful of appearaces for Tampa Bay this season.

Scholtens served as depth for the Rays this season, with the team calling upon him whenever they needed innings whether they were competitive or not. He had a 5.45 ERA over his final 10 appearances (38 IP) of the season.

Uceta was the de facto Rays closer in 2024 in a breakout campaign but lost some of that polish in 2025. There was hope he could refind that success this past season but he was never able to get started as he dealt with a shoulder issue early on. Uceta did begin a rehab assignment but was not able to recover from his injury. Following the season, the Rays announced that Uceta had undergone surgery and would be out for at least the first couple of months of the 2027 season.

Position Players on the bubble: Jadher Areinamo, Carson Williams, and Nick Fortes

Fortes was the Rays primary catcher for the majority of the 2026 regular season and performed well for the team. However, the Rays made a major upgrade at the trade deadline, acquiring Liam Hicks from the Miami Marlins and Fortes was relegated to backup duties. The backup catcher role fits Fortes perfectly, but the soon to be 30-year old backstop is projected to make $3.4M in arbitration this offseason while Kenny Piper is seemingly ready to take over that role.

Areinamo was a 40-man roster addition last November, despite having just reached Double-A that season. The infield prospect was talented enough that the Rays believed a team would take him in the Rule 5 draft. However, his offensive production took a step back in 2026 while his K% soared. There is still reason to believe in him going forward as will only turn 23 a few weeks from now.

Carson Williams was supposed to be the shortstop of the future for the Rays, but he has squanded the limited opportunities thus far presented to him. He was called up to the Rays active roster three different times in 2026 but only started in 11 games and hit .108/.154/.216 over 40 PA. Late in the season, when the Rays were pushing for the playoffs, the team signed Jorge Mateo and relied on him over Carson Williams.

There is no worse time to hit free agency than while major league owners are colluding to hold down player salaries. And that’s awful luck. Because normally, there is no better time to hit free agency than after the best season of your life. For Jack Clark, who enjoyed a Hall of Very Good career, that confluence of circumstances is how he ended up in the Bronx.

Clark had a monstrous 1987 season with St. Louis, leading the majors in walks, on-base percentage and OPS+. Despite the larger environment working against him, he parlayed that outstanding season into a two-year free agent deal that brought him to New York. He had a productive, though controversial 1988 campaign in New York before the Yankees dealt him to San Diego.

Name: Jack Clark
Born: November 10, 1955 (New Brighton, PA)
Yankees Tenure: 1988

Clark debuted with the San Francisco Giants in 1975 as a 19-year-old and spent nearly a decade on the West Coast. During that time, he made a pair of All-Star games and earned MVP votes in three seasons.

Prior to the 1985 season though, the Giants dealt him to St. Louis. Great timing for Clark. One thing he’d never done was play in the playoffs. Thanks in no small part to Clark, who earned his third All-Star game nod and won his first Silver Slugger while manning first base, the Cards won 101 games and the NL East.

Clark hit .381 for the Cards in the NLCS, which they won in six games over the Los Angeles Dodgers. And it was Clark who propelled St. Louis to the World Series. He came to the plate in the top of the ninth in Game 6 with two runners on, the Cards trailing 5-4.

Clark’s three-run home run won the game and the pennant for St. Louis, sending them to the World Series against Kansas City. Unfortunately for Clark, his Cardinals came up on the losing end of a seven-game series. Worse, he was on the wrong end of a couple of controversial plays in the ninth inning of Game 6, with St. Louis needing three outs to win it all. Jorge Orta, leading off the inning, hit a grounder to Clark, who shoveled the ball to pitcher Todd Worrell, covering first base. In a time before instant replay, if an umpire missed a call, there was no recourse.

Shortly after, Clark and Cards catcher Darrell Porter let a ball fall between them in foul territory (Porter later said he’d called Clark off). Eventually, two runs scored and the Royals evened the series, before blowing the Cards’ doors off in an 11-0 Game 7 rout to win the World Series.

Injury cost Clark the bulk of the ’86 season but he bounced back in a big way in 1987. Amid a baseball-wide offensive explosion, Clark put together the best season of his career. He set career marks in walks, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS+, won his second Silver Slugger and finished third in NL MVP voting. It was his 10^th consecutive season (he went on to have 14 such) with an OPS+ of at least 116, a testament to his consistent offensive excellence.

That offseason, unable to get a deal done with St. Louis, Clark inked a two-year pact with the Yankees for $3 million, with another $1 million in incentives. Clark’s deal broke a spending freeze amid what we now know was a collusion-riddled era. Gene Orza, associate counsel for the MLBPA, threw cold water on the idea that Clark’s signing meant there was no collusion happening.

“Collusion is price-fixing, not location-fixing,” he said. ”Collusion takes different shapes. Why aren’t a lot of clubs interested in Jack Clark? Why aren’t they fighting to get him? Sure, Jack Clark moved. But he moved at a price that was fixed. Clubs are making offers, but they’re all the same offer. The Basic Agreement between the clubs and the players is based on the premise that there will be competition for a player’s services. The numbers aren’t competitive; they’re orchestrated.”

With the move to the American League, Clark found himself a designated hitter for the first time. But that summer, the Yankees dealt for Ken Phelps from Seattle. When Clark walked into the Yankee dugout in late July and saw his name penciled in to left field for the first time in over a decade, he lost his temper, yelling “What kind of —- is this?!” in front of a crowd that included sports writers.

Eventually, Clark made it clear he wanted to be traded, preferably back to the National League. Yankee owner George Steinbrenner publicly agreed in September to move Clark after the season ended, which is exactly what happened. The Yanks dealt Clark to San Diego a little over a month later.

In his lone season in the Bronx, Clark hit 27 bombs, drove in 93, and walked 113 times. The dingers and free passes led the Yankees, while only Dave Winfield drove in more runs. Clark was good for a 113 OPS+ and 2.8 rWAR, but the decline in numbers across all he board from his career year in ‘87 combined with his somewhat-surly nature to cast him as a bit of a disappointment in the minds of fans of that era.

Clark continued to rake in San Diego, where he played through the 1990 season. He then signed with Boston, where he played for two seasons. His 1992 campaign was awful, possibly influenced by ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. He signed with Montreal before the ’93 season but ultimately retired.

Shortly after retirement, Clark’s financial problems were solved. Years earlier, in November 1990, arbitrators ruled that the owners had colluded to suppress free agent salaries in 1985, 1986, and 1987. Among those affected was Jack Clark. After settlement negotiations, Clark received $4.4 million. The settlement, along with liquidating assets, allowed Clark to pay all of his debts.

After retirement, Clark ended up back in the majors, as the hitting coach for the Dodgers from 2001-03. He also dabbled in broadcasting, working for the Cardinals in 2009 and 2010.

Jack Clark was not a Yankee for long. And in a world without the 1980s collusion scandal, maybe he never ends up a Yankee. But in this world, he had a heck of a career, coming oh so close to becoming a World Champion whilst a Cardinal. Happy 71^st birthday, Jack Clark.

---

See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.

Well, yesterday’s free agent poll certainly generated a bunch of activity. Let’s see what y’all have to say about this one.

The Rangers currently have two catchers on their 40 man roster — Danny Jansen and Logan O’Hoppe. Jansen is a free agent after the 2026 season, and O’Hoppe is a work-in-progress as far as his defense goes, so the expectation is that the Rangers will need to add a catcher this offseason.

So how about Carson Kelly? He’s 32, so not ancient, though he is older than Jansen. Briefly a Ranger, when he slashed .235/.291/.343 in 31 games over the final two months of the 2024 season. Coming off two of the best seasons of his career with the Chicago Cubs, for whom he slashed .254/.335/.402 in 2025-26 over 846 plate appearances. A pretty solid offensive option behind the plate, as long as you don’t play him in September.

As far as the projections go, Baseball America has Kelly at 3 years, $32 million. Over at Fangraphs, both Ben Clemens and the median crowdsource have Kelly at $10 million per year, but Clemens says one year, $10 million, while the crowdsource says two years, $20 million. Kiley McDaniel has Kelly at 2 years, $17 million. MLB Trade Rumors has Kelly at two years, $20 million.

Let’s go with the two years, $20 million figure.

Would you want the Rangers to sign Carson Kelly to a 2 year, $20 million deal?

Cast your vote below…

Sometimes in baseball, you get a rare trade that’s a win-win for both clubs. Anthony Molina’s 2026 consisted, in large part, of appearing to be part of one of those trades, as the Atlanta Braves only got a few innings out of him before eventually shipping him off to San Francisco so that they could get Tyler Mahle at the Trade Deadline.

Now it’s time to figure out what the Giants saw in Molina during his time in Atlanta that convinced them to send Mahle down South.

How Acquired

The Braves claimed Molina off of waivers back in December of 2025. They then outrighted him to Triple-A Gwinnett, which is where he started the season before eventually getting added to the big league roster to begin the month of May.

What were the expectations?

Simply stated: to provide a right-handed, low-leverage option out of the bullpen for a short period of time. Things didn’t go particularly well for Molina during his two-season stint with the Rockies (a combined -0.4 fWAR in a long relief role), so it wasn’t as if he was expected to come in and be lights out coming out of the ‘pen for Atlanta. As long as he could come in and eat an inning or two, everything would be A-OK for Molina and the Braves.

More broadly, Molina had two different-yet-similar seasons in Colorado before getting the boot. In 2024, he had a low strikeout rate, a not-so-good walk rate, but managed to avoid getting bricked by homers despite the whole Coors Field thing, leading to a bad-but-not-abominable 146 ERA-, 97 FIP-, and 110 xFIP-. In 2025, it looked like he made huge strides in avoiding walks… but it was really just because guy were blasting moonshots off him before he could walk them. His strikeout rate didn’t budge, and his pitching line was a 153 ERA-, 160 FIP-, and the same 110 xFIP-.

While there was the hope that the Braves could somehow fix him, there was little reason to expect him to serve as more than organizational depth.

2026 Results

Molina made a grand total of four (4) appearances for the Braves. He only made two appearances at Truist Park and one of those two appearances was actually a start — for the San Francisco Giants, after the Braves ended up trading him out West in order to acquire Tyler Mahle in what wound up being a very good trade for the Braves.

Anyways, the Giants figured out something with Molina (and the Braves did not) when it came to him being a starter as he actually finished the season having made a few really good starts for them, so this wound up being a bit of a win-win deal. Our old friend from McCovey Chronicles, Grant Brisbee, wrote a piece on how well Molina was doing for the Giants, in case you’re interested. It’s a gift link, so enjoy.

Anyways, as far as his stint in Atlanta went, it wasn’t exactly spectacular. He did pitch two scoreless innings against his old mates, the Rockies, on May 1, but he got dinged for two runs on three hits against both the Mets on June 14 and those very same Giants on June 16. Perhaps San Francisco saw something during that appearance that they liked because two weeks later, he was on the mound in Cobb County against the Braves.

All in all, Molina put together a 129 ERA-, 133 FIP-, and 97 xFIP- for the Braves in those three outings. Replacement level? Sure. But it was also better than the very low bar he’d set for himself in 2024-2025. The Braves had him substantially increase his curveball and changeup usage, and perhaps it helped a little.

The big thing, though, was that Molina went to the Giants and looked like a legitimate major leaguer. His fastball got tweaked, and he threw it a bunch more. He made five starts and one long relief appearance for the Giants, and four of those outings were fantastic. His line with his new team was a sparkling 91 ERA-, 64 FIP-, and 87 xFIP-, and he collected 0.9 fWAR in 29 innings. Wow.

Despite it being just 29 innings, Molina kind of had it all. He was throwing 96 mph as a starter, not walking guys, getting whiffs on his curveball, and even managing contact. It’s all certainly fascinating, and the Giants get to enjoy whatever Molina may turn into going forward, instead of Atlanta.

What went right?

Well, those two innings that Molina pitched in his Braves debut against his old friends from Colorado ended up being sneakily crucial, as Molina’s appearance bought the Braves some time and kept the deficit at 6-1 in the sixth inning and 6-2 in the seventh before the Braves turned it around late and ended up winning 8-6 in dramatic fashion. It’s the little things, sometimes.

Also, again, the Braves got Tyler Mahle for him in a trade, so that was cool for the Braves. And, Molina’s turnaround was very cool for him and the Giants.

What went wrong?

Molina ended up getting plenty of strikeouts for the Giants but that certainly wasn’t the case for Atlanta. Molina struck out two Mets batters during his appearance on June 14 and those wound up being the only two strikeouts that he would rack up during his time as a Braves pitcher. He was charged with more runs than he tallied strikeouts while a Brave, which isn’t exactly something that warms the heart.

His last outing with the Braves, which came against the Giants, was somewhat bizarre in that he somehow faced nine batters in two innings and avoided walking any of them while also not striking out any of them. He did get tagged for a homer by eventual teammate Willy Adames, so that probably wasn’t fun.

It’s possible to view the change of scenery as a sour grapes thing — why couldn’t the Braves have sent over someone but Molina, or figured out how to unlock Molina the way the Giants did — but we probably need to see him keep it up over longer than 29 frames before we can really get salty about it.

2027 outlook

While Molina pitched well down the stretch for San Francisco, he’s still going to be fighting for a rotation spot when (maybe if) Spring Training rolls around. It’ll be highly unlikely that the Braves get him back for a reunion, so that’s about it!

29 innings isn’t much, but he was so good that his early Steamer projection has bumped him into the generic “everyone’s a fourth-starter quality swingman until proven otherwise” tier. That’s quite a jump from organizational depth / replacement level arm, so hats off to him and the Giants. We’ll see if he can keep it up.

Let’s switch gears for a moment from the pitchers I’ve been looking at and instead check out one of the top outfield free agents, former Mariners outfielder Randy Arozarena.

No question, Arozarena has talent. He’s a solid 3 or 4 WAR outfielder, generally good for 20+ home runs and 20+ stolen bases every year.

The red flag here is that 2026 was his best season. He batted .281/.381/.484 and led the American League in runs scored with 113, which was by far a career best (95 was his previous best). The .381 OBP was also a career high (except for .382 in only 76 PA in 2020).

Why a red flag? Because Arozarena’s going to turn 32 in February. Would you give a guy like this a four-year deal coming off his best overall season? MLB Trade Rumors has him projected for four years and $100 million and The Athletic has Arozarena at essentially the same, four years and $108 million. Interestingly, the article in The Athletic has Seiya Suzuki projected at the same figures. Suzuki is a few months older than Arozarena, as is Ian Happ.

Both Happ and Suzuki are better defenders than Arozarena, and at those figures I’d certainly rather have either of the two departing Cubs back than Arozarena, despite Arozarena’s base-stealing ability. Regarding that, here’s an interesting note from the MLBTR article:

Arozarena runs quite a bit more than Suzuki but is actually a good bit slower in terms of average sprint speed; Statcast measures Suzuki with a sprint speed of 28 feet per second, in the 63rd percentile of big leaguers. Arozarena is at 27.1 ft/sec, down in the 40th percentile. He’s an aggressive baserunner, however, and that’s manifested in the form of six consecutive 20-steal seasons.

I imagine Jed Hoyer and his baseball ops staff will have a look at Arozarena, who’s been a fan favorite everywhere he’s been. Ultimately I think they’ll probably pass on him, and that’s what I would do as well.

After a couple of years of sharing backup catcher duties with Garrett Stubbs, the Phillies hoped that in 2026 Rafael Marchan would be able to handle the job full time. Perhaps he could even help ease the burden on overworked, aging starter J.T. Realmuto.

That did not happen. Marchan was completely inept at the plate, got injured, and eventually supplanted once again by Stubbs.

The stats: .099/.137/.165 AVG/OBP/SLG, 2 HRs, 6 RBI, -0.7 WAR

What went right

Marchan graded out well defensively. He was above average in blocking, framing, and pop time.

What went wrong

He hit a home run in his first game of the season.

PHI – Rafael Marchán 2-run HR (1)

📏 378 ft | 💨 97.8 mph | 📐 26°
⚾️ 91.7 mph four-seam fastball (WSH – LHP Foster Griffin)
🏟️ Out in 16/30 MLB parks

WSH (7) @ PHI (2)
🔻 5th#RingTheBellpic.twitter.com/pa20aChpn2

— MLB Home Runs (@MLBHRs_) March 31, 2026

That turned out to be in no way predictive of the season he would have. He was incapable of reaching base the rest of the year, recording just nine hits (with zero doubles or triples) and two walks.

He did hit one more home run, which oddly landed right next to someone who was wearing a replica of his jersey. (Why?)

Phillies catcher Rafael Marchán reacts to finding out that his two-run home run in their 9-5 win over the White Sox landed near a fan wearing a No. 12 Marchán jersey. @SportsRadioWIP@KYWNewsradiohttps://t.co/KokfsZe1YOpic.twitter.com/r04GLdDOFX

— Dave Uram (@MrUram) June 7, 2026

As he often does, Marchan spent time on the Injured List, suffering from tendinitis in his knee. By the time he returned in September, Stubbs had established a role as Aaron Nola’s personal catcher. Despite Marchan providing little value at that point, the Phillies kept him on the major league roster for the rest of the season which serves as a damning statement at the quality of reserves the Phillies had to choose from.

The future

The team will wisely look at alternatives for the backup catcher spot in the offseason. Marchan is still under team control, so he’ll likely be back with the Phillies in camp, though it is possible he gets dropped from the 40-man roster and winds up elsewhere. His defense is good enough to stick at the major league level, but even the best defender needs to have an OPS higher than .302.

Final grade: F

When the bar to clear is Garrett Stubbs, and you can’t clear it, you have failed.

The Tigers’ Kevin McGonigle and the Reds’ Sal Stewart won the AL and NL Rookie of the Year awards yesterday, respectively.

Chase DeLauter finished sixth and Travis Bazzana finished 11th. A good year for Guardians’ rookies, to be sure! You can view the vote totals here.

The Guardians will receive a compensatory pick at the end of the first round because Messick was on the Opening Day Roster and ranked in top 100 lists prior to the season.

Tonight is the Manager of the Year Awards, then Cy Young Awards Wednesday night (as well as Reliever of the Year), then MVP awards Thursday night.

One way that a team like the Orioles that’s in need of starting rotation help could address their problem is to just sign a pretty good starting pitcher who is, as much as can be believed about any pitcher, a decent bet to continue being pretty good. Mike Elias has steadfastly refused to do this even when it seemed absolutely necessary to the Orioles fortunes, attempting a variety of other schemes. There’s one that he hasn’t pulled off yet: Signing a reliever and turning that guy into a starting pitcher. This winter affords the opportunity to do that in the form of recent Padres pitcher Adrián Morejón.

If old rumors were to be believed, the Orioles had some interest in trying to pull off this caper after the 2024 season. That winter, then-Yankees closer Clay Holmes became a free agent and ended up signing a two-year, $26 million contract with the Mets, who turned him into a starting pitcher. The results went well for the Mets, with Holmes going on to a 3.44 ERA in 51 games; they traded him for a prospect when they were out of the race at the deadline this year.

Morejón enters this winter as one of the game’s potentially elite relief free agents. He’s on a three-year heater in terms of his results with the Padres, dropping a 2.58 ERA and 1.088 WHIP over the past three seasons combined. In 2026, this included a number of multi-inning relief stints – he threw 86 innings, which isn’t exactly a starting pitcher’s workload but is closer to the way there than a lot of relievers. He had been a starting pitcher in the past, before early 2021 Tommy John surgery.

In contrast to most of the high-end pitchers on the free agent market this offseason, Morejón is still fairly young. He’ll only be heading into his age 28 season next year, so the fear of decline in the back years of a contract will be less than it might be for some others. He should be able to keep up what he’s got for a few more years.

The Statcast page for this player is a thing of beauty. Look at all that red! He throws the ball hard. He’s got a great changeup. He gets batters to chase, he gets them to whiff, he gets a lot of ground balls, he doesn’t give up hard contact. Atypically for a reliever, he has a four-pitch mix – which is another part of why there are those who imagine him as a starting pitcher. Morejón has done it before. He might have the ability to do it again.

A willingness to convert Morejón into a starter could be something that will give a bidding team an edge over others, assuming that’s something that he wants to do. (I don’t know if it is.) It’s unlikely the Orioles will really outbid the field – but they do have opportunity in their rotation that other bidding teams may not. They don’t have an ace, they didn’t have a #2 caliber starting pitcher in 2026, and they don’t have a major league-caliber lefty ready to step into the rotation in any capacity.

There are varying opinions about just how much Morejón will cost. At MLB Trade Rumors, the projection is a five-year contract worth $80 million. That’s between Kyle Bradish and Shane Baz money. Those are big bucks for a reliever, especially one who isn’t even racking up saves. Not bad at all to get a good starting pitcher. FanGraphs projected three years and $72 million – a shorter deal with a much higher AAV. That makes him either a cheaper AAV than guys like Trevor Rogers, Michael King, and Freddy Peralta, or a much shorter contract term, lessening the back end risk.

On top of the money, there will be a draft pick penalty tied to signing Morejón. The Padres extended him a qualifying offer, one of two relievers to receive one heading into this offseason. That means that if the Orioles sign Morejón, they’d also give up their third-highest pick in next year’s draft, which would most likely be a mid-second round selection. The likely departure of Rogers will give the Orioles a compensation pick at the end of the first round.

I’d rather see the Orioles just get Rogers. The thing about that is, as we are all well aware in Birdland, that Elias hasn’t spent at the high end of the free agency market for pitching before. Even after making the big splash for Pete Alonso last offseason and making a couple of modest splashes with those Baz and Bradish extensions, it’s tough to imagine him ponying up for the Rogers level.

It’s not as hard to imagine Elias trying one of his galaxy brain ideas – signing Morejón because he’ll be cheaper or take fewer years than Rogers or Peralta or King – and turning him into a starting pitcher. If he doesn’t want to pay up for a proven starter, if he doesn’t want to bundle a bunch of prospects for a speculative upside play that doesn’t hit the upside while one of the prospects dashes from Low-A to Triple-A in one year, Morejón is there.

This wouldn’t be some completely out-of-nowhere idea on Elias’s; Morejón is bandied about as a possible starter conversion in basically any article about this year’s free agent class. There are also analysts out there, such as FG’s Michael Baumann, who think Morejón retains more value as a multi-inning reliever. Whether the Orioles need one of those is debatable, but I don’t think they’ll be spending $16-20 million per year for one in any case. Getting a discount off the market rate for a roll of the dice where if it doesn’t work out, any idiot could have told him ahead of time that this would be a bad idea? Now that’s speaking Elias’s language.

Hello everyone!

It’s a Tuesday and the GM Meetings have kicked off in Las Vegas, so hopefully we begin to see some real offseason traction this week.

Let’s get to all of the latest news as you get your day started.

In Mariners news…

• In a pre-GM Meetings interview, Jerry Dipoto says the Mariners are looking for some bullpen help and at least one bat this winter.
• On that note, Adam Jude at The Seattle times provided some insights into the Mariners’ thinking this winter, including payroll projections and more.
• Kate Preusser applauded the Mariners for trying a different approach with their new coaching staff.
• In some tragic news, former Mariner and Yakima mayor Dave Edler was critically injured in a car collision that also killed his wife.

Around the league…

• Kevin McGonigle of the Tigers was named the American League Rookie of the Year while Sal Stewart of the Reds took home the National League honors. Both players earned their organizations a PPI pick for 2027.
• Red Sox legend Pedro Martinez made his plea to the players and the owners to resolve their issues before we lose games in 2027 — remembering how the 1994 strike caused severe damage to the sport.
• Anthony Franco at MLB Trade Rumors tried to find the best fits for a Ketel Marte trade.