Now that we have some significant movement happening this offseason, it is time we start dissecting the moves made by teams throughout the offseason and the impact it could have on fantasy baseball in 2025. Each time a new transaction hits, be sure to check back here as we will update this article within 24 hours of the move happening.

Let’s get right to it (the moves will be ordered from the most recent, to the oldest).

White Sox sign Martin Perez to one-year, $3.5 million contract

Perez returns to the American League, where he spent the first twelve years of his career, before splitting 2024 in Pittsburgh and San Diego.

Perez was pretty terrible for the Pirates last season, throwing 83 innings over 16 starts, striking out only 63 batters, walking 32 and allowing 13 home runs, to the tune of a 5.20 ERA and a 1.65 WHIP. While on the injured list due to a groin injury, he was sent out West, to the Padres.

And they got a heck of a return, as he started 10 games for the team, tossed 52 innings, struck out 44, walked just 17, allowed nine home runs and had a 3.46 ERA with a 1.21 WHIP. The Padres won eight of his ten starts (including his first six) and Perez allowed one or less earned runs in six of his ten starts.

I’m sure the White Sox would love to get the Padres version of Perez, but will have to settle for the 2024 aggregate instead. Fantasy managers can rightfully ignore him in all but the deepest of drafts and aim to stream him against poor opponents throughout the 2025 season.

Amed Rosario and the Nationals agree on one-year, $2 million contract

Rosario finds himself on his fifth team in three years, joining an NL East team for the first time in his career. He will most likely spend his time backing up CJ Abrams and Luis Garcia in the middle infield, though he did spend some time in right field and at third base last year.

He is essentially off the fantasy radar except for in the deepest of fantasy leagues.

Luis Garcia avoids arbitration, signs one-year, $1.875 million contract with the Astros

Garcia missed the entirety of the 2024 season recovering from Tommy John surgery and suffering through a few setbacks that delayed his rehab assignments. He has been facing hitters and throwing live batting practice since September, so he should be available for Spring Training and ready for the beginning of the regular season.

For an Astros team that has yet to add in starting pitching in free agency (though they did add Hayden Wesneski in the Kyle Tucker trade), but lost both Justin Verlander and Yusei Kikuchi, a healthy Garcia is just what the doctor ordered. Though Framber Valdez, Hunter Brown, Ronel Blanco and Spencer Arrighetti may have four of the five rotation spots locked down, there should be open competition for the fifth and final spot.

If Garcia looks great in spring training and is striking out a batter per inning, limiting hard contact and creating plenty of swinging strikes, the spot may be his to lose. He’s essentially free in drafts right now, with his minimum pick over the last three weeks of high stakes drafts is just 326 (round 22 in 15 team leagues) and his max pick is 486, which means he is probably going un-drafted in many 15 team leagues. Garcia can be a difference maker as one of the final picks of your draft, the ability to affect your pitching numbers like Tanner Houck did in 2024 (he was being drafted in the 26th round and finished as the 34th best SP on the season).

Drew Rasmussen, Rays agree to two-year, $8.5 million extension

The extension ones come with a club option for $8 million in 2027 and enough incentives that he could earn $20 million over the course of the contract. Rasmussen suffered an elbow injury in 2023 that recovered an internal brace procedure, but was able to return in August of last year, throwing 28.2 innings to end the season.

Rasmussen was used strictly in a relief role in 2024, with a handful of openers, but mainly as middle relief. He struck out 35 batters, walked just six and allowed no home runs over his 28.2 innings, which led to a 2.83 ERA (1.35 FIP, 2.57 xFIP) and a 1.08 WHIP. Prior to his injury, in 2023, he had made eight starts, throwing 44.2 innings, striking out 47, walking 11 and allowing only two home runs, with a 2.62 ERA (2.54 FIP, 3.10 xFIP) and a 1.05 WHIP.

Rasmussen should be returning to the Rays rotation for the 2025 season, which is good news for the Rays and fantasy managers. He limits walks and home runs, strikes out at least a batter per inning, limits barrels and hard contact and induces an incredible amount of ground balls. He has tremendous upside and is being drafted near pick 250 in high stakes drafts as we speak, which is tremendous value.

Justin Verlander agrees to one-year, $15 million contract with the Giants

Verlander will spend his 20th big league season with the fourth team of his big league career. He pitched for the Astros in 2024, limited by injuries and overall poor performance, to the tune of a 5.48 ERA over 90.1 innings, striking out 74, walking 27 and allowing 15 home runs.

The Giants must hope that he will bring some stabilization to the back-end of the rotation and winning, veteran leadership to the locker room. Though he threw 162.1 innings and 175 innings over 2023 and 2022, respectively, fantasy managers probably should not expect much more than 100 to 110 innings out of Verlander. Though he may be expecting a bounce back year, coming into spring training healthy and pitching in a far pitcher-friendly ballpark, the odds will be stacked against him. He can probably be ignored in shallower leagues and treated as a streamer, at best, in 15 team leagues.

Brent Rooker signs five-year, $60 million extension with the Athletics

This could turn into a six-year, $90 million deal based on vesting incentives.

The A’s continue to thumb their nose at the city of Oakland by finally spending money on their roster after leaving their city.

Last year was his second season to hit at least 30 homers as he smacked 39 of them. The A’s offense was actually pretty good in ’24 as he was able to drive in 112 runs and score 82.

Rooker proved to be a five-category asset last year with a .293 average and 11 steals.

While he may strikeout a bit too much with a 28.8% K-rate in ’24, it is improved from the 32.7% from ’23 and he walks a good amount, with two straight years of a 9%+ walk-rate.

Rooker makes elite contact with a 91.9 avgEV, 16.6% barrel rate and a 49.6% hard-hit rate. He also has the launch-angle (18.9 degrees) to aid his power potential.

Rooker is going to be an Athletic and will be batting in a minor league ballpark that figures to play in favor of the hitters for the next two years before his team moves to Vegas.

The only thing that is dampens his draft price is he is only eligible at UTIL to begin 2025, so keep that in mind when drafting him.

Chris Martin heads to Rangers on a one-year deal

So far, it is looking like an open competition for the closer’s spot in Texas, assuming they don’t bring in anyone else or resign incumbent closer Kirby Yates.

While he does not have much experience closing (just 14 career saves), Martin does have 106 holds so he does pitch in high-leverage, late-inning situations.

Last year his 3.45 ERA was supported by a 3.29 xERA, 2.78 FIP (2.61 xFIP) and a 2.43 SIERA.

In fact, most of his ERA estimators over the last few seasons have generally been between 3.20 and 2.50.

He does not have incredible strikeout upside, with a 25.3% K-rate for his career, which lines up with his most recent production. But Martin has excellent control with just a 3.2% walk rate for his career (1.7% in 2024). He also allows soft contact and a ton of ground balls throughout his career as last year was no exception.

As of now, he only has fantasy value in leagues that count holds, but if we hear that he has the closer’s role, he can have late-round intrigue in traditional 5×5 leagues.

Michael Lorenzen signs one-year deal with Royals

He was dealt to KC in midseason last year from the Rangers and returned an elite 1.57 ERA. But time on the injured list limited him to just 28.2 innings.

Overall the ERA of 3.31 was not supported by any of the ERA estimators. The xERA was 4.58, the FIP was 4.89 (xFIP 4.95) and the SIERA was 5.07.

He now has had two straight years of a SwStr% below 10% (9.1%) as he has had a K-rate of 18.1% or less in three of his last four seasons.

The contact he allows is not soft enough to make up for the lack of swing-and-miss ability as standard sized league managers should not draft him, and even deeper league managers should try and look elsewhere for pitching depth.

Consider Lorenzen as a stream against the weakest offenses in 2025.

Dodgers send Gavin Lux to the Reds in exchange for Mike Sirota and a draft pick

This creates a log jam in Cincy with Elly De La Cruz at short, Matt McLain at second and Noelvi Marte at third. However, McLain did play the outfield in the AFL this winter and has some experience there in college. But as of now, it remains to be seen what the outlook is for Lux in CIncy.

However, it is safe to say the Reds have plans to deploy Lux in a sizable role as he can platoon in the infield with the right-handed Santiago Espinal.

Overall, Lux’s numbers coming off injury were not super impressive with a .251/.320/.383 slash line with 10 homers, .310 wOBA and 100 wRC+.

Those numbers skyrocketed in the second half with a .304/.390/.508 slashline with a .387 wOBA and 152 wRC+.

This production was backed up with a 90.1 avgEV, 10.0% barrel rate and 47.7% hard-hit rate. All of these numbers a marked improvement from his first half, helping out the narrative that he was still feeling the effects of his injury that cost him all of 2023 to begin 2024.

At the end of the day, it is hard to put a enough weight on those second half numbers as they are all outliers when you put them in the context of his career. He has yet to turn in a barrel rate above 6.1% in a season with a significant number of at-bats, so it might be best for managers in standard sized leagues leave him on wires to start 2025 and target him when he faces righties at home.

But if we see these same quality of contact numbers to begin the year, he might be a very good waiver wire add.

Sirota was a big time prospect going into 2024 before he struggled in his final college season, causing his draft price to drop to the 87th overall pick in 2024. But he did maintain an excellent walk rate of 23%, per Baseball America, as he at least made excellent swing decisions. He has decent power and excellent speed as he can be a good power-speed combo for fantasy purposes. But he is not on fantasy radars, except in the deepest of dynasty setups.

Charlie Morton agrees to a one-year deal with the Orioles

The O’s are in dire need of reliable rotation depth and that is what Morton provides.

But in terms of fantasy, he is just a streamer in standard-sized leagues and is not draftable.

15-team leagues and deeper may see him as a late-round flyer.

In seven of his last eight seasons (thank you 2020), he has thrown at least 160 innings and has made at least 30 starts. So, for Baltimore, that kind of steady reliability is nice.

His ERA has been up and down the last five or six years, but the ERA estimators have steadily been near or above 4.00 since 2023. The K-rate has gone from 28.2% in 2022, down to 25.6% in ’23 and 23.8% in ’24. The walks have been up last two seasons with an 11.6% rate in ’23

The hard contact data is not quite good enough, though not terrible, to really give us confidence that his ratios will be good enough to offset the decreasing strikeout rates, though he has really done a good job keeping the ball in the dirt and that continued in ’24 with a 46.3% rate and 32.5% fly ball rate.

Last year was the first time his SwStr% dipped below 12% (11.4%) since 2017and the CSW% was below 30% (27.9%) for the first time since 2020.

Outside of the curveball that maintained a 122 stuff+ grade, his arsenal is filled with pitches that grade out below an 80 with the change up at 86 as the spin on his fastball dropped to the 41st percentile last season.

Morton will most likely only be a stream in standard 12-team leagues but could be a halfway decent end of bench option in deeper leagues.

Hyeseong Kim signs three-year deal with Dodgers

Kim comes over from Korea as an elite defender up the middle and the ability to hit for average and steal bases. For now, the Dodgers public plan is still to start Gavin Lux at second and Mookie Betts at short. Betts won’t lose his spot, but Lux is the one whose spot is in real danger.

Kim has won multiple Korean gold gloves and has an excellent hit tool, with limited power as last year’s 11 homers seems like an outlier. But don’t sleep on his fantasy upside if he gets an everyday spot.

The K-rate in Korea has steadily dropped from 22% in his age-20 season down to 10.9% this year with a year-over-year decrease in each season. The walk rate has remained steady in the 8-9% range for his whole career.

Kim has hit .300+ in four straight campaigns, peaking at .335 in 2023, with a .326 average last season. He does have higher than we’d like 58.1% ground ball rate in 2024, as he has consistently had a ground ball rate around 60% or more. But he makes a ton of contact and that gives him a great foundation to return a solid batting average. And with the walks, he should get on base enough to steal bags and score runs.

But, in order for him to be viable in anything other than deeper leagues, he will need to play enough, and as of now, that does not seem likely. But he has the ability to play all over the infield so injuries and under performance from Lux (who has not exactly torn the cover off the ball), could propel him to a an everyday role.

Josh Rojas signs a one-year deal with the White Sox

One of their top prospects, Colson Montgomery, is the man the ChiSox would love to eventually take over at third base before the season is over, but after 2024’s .214 average in Triple-A, Montgomery may not quite be ready.

Rojas represents the short-term solution for the White Sox, but for fantasy purposes, he is valuable for his ability to steal some bases and (hopefully) have a decent average. He has stolen at least 10 bases in three straight years. He had a good year in 2022 when he hit .269 and stole 23 bases. Since then, the average has dropped year-over-year down to .225 last year. ’24’s 18.4% line-drive rate is a considerable drop off form the 23%+ it has been the last two years and the SwStr% has increased to 10.1%.

But he did improve the walk rate to 9.7% as he got his O-Sw% back down to 21.0%. And he had some his hardest contact this last year with a 37.6% hard-hit rate.

At the end of the day, he is not on the standard sized league radar. But deeper leagues, especially those that count OBP, may see some value in Rojas. But do note he is a strong-side platoon bat, so he is just a stream for those leagues, at best.

Trevor Williams returns to Nationals on two-year deal

Managers may want to see the 2.02 ERA and say he can be a fun late-round flyer.

But I’d save him for deeper leagues for draft season and stream him against weak offenses in standard formats.

The low ERA is easily blamed on a very lucky 4.2% HR/FB ratio.

His career mark is 12.8%.

It is not like he allowed softer than usual contact as the hard-hit rate of 39.3% and avgEV of 89.4% are both a career high.

The SIERA was 3.96 and the xFIP was 3.82.

The SwStr% of just 9.4% is near his career mark as his strikeout upside is somewhat limited.

While he did throw more sliders as that is his best pitch with a 120 stuff+ grade, he lacks a second offering to really help his case.

Don’t draft Williams in standard leagues but do stream him against bad offenses.

Josh Bell heads to Nationals on one-year deal

He goes to a better ball park for homer production as Arizona’s Chase Field ranks 24th in homers per Statcast park factors with Nationals Park ranking 14th. But it’s not some huge bump in value.

Bell is a solid bat, but is not a bat to really rely on for viable fantasy production in standard leagues.

He does have some history of peaking at 25+ homers but it is not a consistent occurrence. Bell consistently has solid-to-elite hard-hit rates and avgEVs, but the barrel rate fluctuates too much year-to-year to really trust he can hit for enough power to make him fantasy viable at first base.

Until we see the barrel rates get back to the 9-10% range, it will be hard to trust him outside as a stream for homer starved managers.

One thing to note is the year-over-year increase in launch angle (now 10.5 degrees). A continued increase in this area may also be another path to more power.

He is someone worth keeping an eye on as he will bat in a very intriguing lineup that will include CJ Abrams, James Wood and Dylan Crews.

He could end up being a good wire pickup if we see the launch angle and barrel rate go up.

Corbin Burnes signs six-year deal, with an opt out after the second season, to head to the Diamondbacks for $210 million

First, the change in home ballpark is noteworthy.

Baltimore is a pitcher’s haven ranking 19th in park factor per Statcast and Arizona’s Chase Field ranks sixth overall.

But Burnes should be good at limiting the negative impact of the move. Last season’s soft contact rates with a 6.7% barrel rate, 87.5 MPH avgEV and 31.6% hard-hit rates line up very closely with his career marks, as does his 48.2% ground ball rate.

But for fantasy, the strikeout production is a bit concerning.

After obtaining a 30%+ K rate in 2020-22, Burns saw that rate drop to 25.5% in 2023 and 23.1% in 2024.

A year-over-year decline will raise eyebrows and should fade his draft price.

This strikeout decline corresponds with a drop in horizontal movement on the cutter, going from 4.4 inches in ’22, to 3.1 in ’23 and 2.4 in ’24. The curve is also a tick slower with more vertical break to it over these last two seasons.

What’s interesting is that the cutter stuff+ grade was still 125 but that is still lower than his career 141 and the curve, after returning a 160 grade in ’23 when to 109 in ’24. The difference in break was around 1.5 inches.

The whiff rate on the cutter had dropped from 27.8% in ’22 to 22.7 in ’23 and 19.7% in ’24.

This year the curveball whiff rate dropped 12 points to 37.8%.

The shape and effectiveness of his two most-used pitches (they make up 66% of his mix) has continued to change and return worse swing-and-miss potential.

This does not mean he isn’t a valuable fantasy asset. He just is on the fringe of the top-12 of fantasy arms now, instead of solidly a fantasy ace.

Teoscar Hernandez returns to the Dodgers on a three-year, $66 million deal

Hernandez is a consistent offensive player that you can comfortably pencil in for a good batting average (.272 in ’24, .263 for his career) 25-35 homers and a handful of steals (he stole 12 last year after stealing 13 over the last two seasons).

He backs up this production with elite quality of contact numbers. Last year’s 90.6 MPH avgEV, 14.9% barrel rate and 46.7% hard-hit rate line up closely with his career numbers as the expected stats continue be high enough to support the surface stats, something that is a constant for his career.

He also had a career best walk rate of 8.1% as he returned a chase rate of 28.7%, the lowest it has been since 2019. He did while swinging a bit more than his career mark (51.2% swing% in ’24, 50.1% for his career). This corresponds with the improved 74.7% z-sw%, that is at its highest since 2021.

He made better swing decisions and continued to make elite contact. He will also bat in a line up filled with studs so there should be ample run production opportunity.

Hernandez is a player that should not require much thinking. He should easily be viewed as a top-25 outfielder, if not better.

Gleyber Torres signs a one-year deal with the Detroit Tigers

After hitting 49 homers over the span of 2022-23 with a SLG% above .450, Torres’ homer production dropped to just 15 in 2024 with a .378 SLG. His .121 ISO was the lowest since 2021.

Ditto for the wRC+ of 104 and wOBA of .313.

His walk and K rates were right along his career marks as he also maintained solid 79.5% contact rate, continuing the improvement he made in 2023 where he was just 0.9% better. The SwStr% of 9.4% and last season’s 9.0% are both lower than his career 11.3%.

This is great news for his fantasy value as he is still putting the bat on the ball, he just needs to get back to making quality contact.

The barrel rate of 6.3%, avgEV of 88.6 MPH and 35.4% hard-hit rates are all amongst his career worst.

However, there is some good news on the kind of contact he made. His launch-angle of 15.0 degrees is just slightly off of his career 16.2 degrees and his launch angle/sweet spot% of 38.2% is slightly better than his career rate of 37.4%.

One other thing to factor in is Comerica is not the homer run haven Yankee Stadium is. Overall, Yankee Stadium ranks 17th in park factors for righties per Statcast with Comerica coming in at 22nd. But for homers, Yankee Stadium is second with the park in Detroit ranking 24th.

This will limit him in the power department as a return to the 25 homers from 2023 seems far fetched. However, he should still be able to provide a good average and he has the ability to swipe bags, but the Tigers were 26th in team steals last year so managers will want to keep an eye on how aggressive the Tigers will be with their new player.

Overall, managers should view him outside of the top-12 of second baseman but still a solid option late in drafts for their MI spot or a depth piece on the bench.

Eloy Jimenez heads to Rays on a minor league deal

This is a good lottery ticket signing for the Rays as Jimenez has really fallen back to earth after a scorching start to his career in 2019.

He failed to reach double-digit homers in 2024 for the first time in his career with just six in 348 plate appearances and his ISO plummeted to a very poor .099.

A 92.0 MPH avgEV, 49.0% hard-hit rate and expected stats that do  exceed his surface stats are all reasons to keep your eye on him to see if he can start to produce again.

But as of now, he is not someone worth targeting, especially in standard sized leagues.

Andrew McCutchen returns to Pirates on a one-year deal

He had a minor renaissance in 2024 with 20 homers but overall his value was quite limited to just that category in traditional 5×5 setups. However, his walk rate of 11.3% gave him more upside in OBP leagues.

He also turned in another season of 100+ wRC+ at 105 so he was still an above average offensive player at age 37.

While his avgEV of 88.4 MPH was par for his career, we had an interesting dichotomy of a career-worst hard-hit rate of 36.3% (40.8% for his career) but a barrel rate of 11.7%, a career high by 2.7% higher than his previous career high.

He also under performed his expected stats with an xSLG of .435 (.411 surface) and xwOBA .333 (.325 surface).

He only got five appearances in right field so he will only have UTIL eligibility for 2025 which will hinder his value.

Standard sized league managers may only stream him for his home run potential in standard 5×5 leagues as he won’t provide much else.

In leagues that count OBP and SLG may see more value in him but he is probably still a deep league option there due to his lack of roster flexibility.

 

Joc Pederson signs with Rangers on two-year deal

He has been a strong side platoon as he absolutely destroys RHP.

Last year he hit 23 homers with a .275/.393/.515 slash line.

He continued to walk at an exceptional rate at 12.2% with a respectable 23.4% strikeout rate as both of those numbers lineup with his career marks.

The 92.2 MPH avgEV, 12.5% barrel rate and 45.5% hard-hit rate are all right along his career marks as well.

Ditto for the xBA of .268, xSLG of .491 and xwOBA of .381.

There is no doubt he is an elite offensive power house and it will only be better in 2025 as he leaves the worst ballpark for left handed hitters to hit homers in Chase Field per Statcat’s park factors 3-year average and he heads to the seventh ranked ballpark in Globe Life Field.

The big caveat here is he did not play any outfield in 2024 as he was exclusively a designated hitter in Arizona. He should still be drafted late in standard sized leagues as he could be in line for close to 30 homers hitting in Texas but he should be a late-round pick due to his lack of flexibility as a platoon hitter with just UTIL eligibility.

But man his power and production will be hard to keep on waivers, that’s for sure.

Walker Buehler heads on up to Boston on a one-year $21.05 million deal

The postseason tested Buehler heads to the Red Sox after turning in 10 straight scoreless innings after one bad start in the 2024 postseason. This includes five shutout innings in a Game 3 start that helped lead the Dodgers to a 3-0 World Series lead. He also recorded the save with a scoreless ninth inning to clinch the Series in Game 5.

However, for fantasy purposes, it is hard to look too far into these numbers as a sign of things to come after he is coming off his second Tommy John surgery of his career.

After an incredibly successful 2021 that saw him throw 207 innings and return a 2.47 ERA, 0.97 WHIP with 212 strikeouts, 2022 saw him throw a poor 65.0 innings before being sidelined and put up for the second TJS. The ERA went up to 4.02, the strikeouts went down to just 21.2% rate (26.0% in 2021) and the WHIP was 1.29.

In his return, we continued to see regression from that ’22 season with a very poor 18.6% strikeout rate, 1.55 WHIP and 5.38 ERA.

Let’s talk about the good stuff first.

The FIP was 5.54 but the xFIP was 4.49 with a HR/FB ratio of 18.8%. With a good 6.6% barrel rate and 36.0% hard-hit rate, it is fair to see Buehler suffering from some bad luck as that is some soft contact to be allowing such a high HR/FB ratio. Especially considering he continued his career trend of being a ground ball pitcher with a 45.5% ground ball rate and a 35.1% fly ball rate.

His fastball velocity of 95.0 MPH on average is only a tick lower than his career 96.0 MPH and his slider continues to be an elite offering with a 122 Stuff+ grade.

Now the bad news.

The SwStr% plummeted to 8.2% in ’24 to support the decline in strikeout upside.

The pitch mix continued to be not what it was in ’21.

The Stuff+ grade on the fastball was 115 but dropped to 80 in ’23 and was 85 in ’24.

The cutter, his second most used offering went from 121 down to 103 in both ’23 and ’24.

The slider, his best secondary, was a 142 in ’21 before going to 127 in ’23 and 121 in ’24. We also saw him throw this pitch less than 10% of the time and maybe he should consider getting that usage back up to the 13.7% it was at in ’21.

He also threw more sinkers but that grade dropped from 90 in ’21 to 82 the last two years and his knuckle curve declined to 100 in ’24 after a 118 grade in ’21.

The spin on that curve dropped to just above league average as the spin on the fastball dropped to below league average in 2024, pushing the induced vertical break to just 16.6 inches, vs. the 18-19 inches from his usual self.

The curve’s velo continued to drop as it was  much more effective when it was above 80 MPH with the elite spin.

it is obvious what we want to see from Buehler in Spring Training. We have to see reports of his spin and velo coming back to his offerings. If they do not then it would be fair to question if he can become a fantasy viable starter.

Sean Manaea returns to Mets on three-year, $75 million deal

Manaea has been a decent strikeout arm in fantasy over the last four seasons with a strikeout rate between 23.2% and 25.7%. The walks stayed above 8% for a second straight season at 8.5%. Not a horrible number but a bit higher than his career 6.8% walk rate.

The big change this year was his ratios were good enough to make him better than his typical streaming status for fantasy purposes. The ERA of 3.47 was the first time since 2021’s 3.91 that he got that number under the 4.00 mark and the 1.08 WHIP is the first time its been before 1.20 since 2019.

However, the xERA of 3.75, FIP of 3.83 and SIERA of 3.96 denotes some level of luck for Manaea.

He also saw his ground ball rate drop to a career low of 37.5% and the fly ball rate at a career high of 43.1%.

But his league average barrel rates, hard-hit rates and avgEV helped prevent the damage from those fly balls.

After two seasons of limited sinker usage and heavy fastball usage, he went back to the sinker in 2024 with a 44.7% usage rate, compared to just 0.8% in ’23. He also threw the change up less and threw more cutters. He also saw a drop in arm angle down to 22 degrees.

The sinker was a tad better than usual with a 95 Stuff+ grade (89 career) but his slider (25% usage) earned a career best 101 grade.

The rest of the arsenal returned sub-90 grades.

The slider was thrown two ways, as a slower-sweeper type pitch with above average vertical drop and at 77 MPH. He also threw a harder and tighter version at 85.2 MPH with limited movement.

He had excellent results against the sweeper pitch with an xwOBA of .219 against it with an avgEV of 83.2 MPH and a 38.8% whiff rate.

Unfortunately the rest of the arsenal was not able to get the job done enough to for us to say he is a dramatically better pitcher than he usually is, even with the new arm angle.

He should be seen as a back end fantasy starter in 2025 on the fringes of the top-50 to begin 2025 as there is a chance this was an outlier year for him and he regresses back to streamer status.

Texas Rangers trade 1B Nathaniel Lowe to the Nationals for RP Robert Garcia

It’s rare you see the one-for-one trade executed in real life, but that’s exactly what the Rangers and Nats did here.

The Rangers moved on from Lowe, four years after acquiring him from the Tampa Bay Rays, bolstering a bullpen that is currently without a setup man and a closer. Lowe became expendable after the Rangers traded for power hitting 1B/3B Jake Burger from the Marlins. Garcia will be stepping into a bullpen that has no one with any closing or set up experience, which is an opportunity for a talented reliever like Garcia. Though he is a lefty and has less than 100 innings at the big league level, he becomes one of the two or three best arms in the bullpen as of this moment, someone who had an 11.31 K/9 in his first full big league season, with only a 2.41 BB/9 and a 0.60 HR/9, who induces more ground balls than fly balls (46.8% ground ball rate) but had bad batted ball and strand luck (0.329 BABIP, 57.2% strand rate) that led to a 4.22 ERA (he had a 2.52 xERA, 2.38 FIP and 2.77 xFIP, which tells me he as very unlucky). He limits hard contact and barrels, with rates of 29.9% and 3.3%, respectively, over his 91.2 big league innings. He should be in the conversation to close in Texas, if they don’t add anyone else with experience, or, if they do, he should be in the mix in holds leagues as someone at the back of a thin Rangers bullpen.

Lowe leaves one starting job for another, as he should start at 1B and hit in the middle of an intriguing and young Nationals lineup. It was already a lefty heavy lineup before he joined it, with CJ Abrams, James Wood, Luis Garcia, Jr. and Jose Tena all swinging the bat from the left side, but he has hit well enough against lefties that he won’t sit when facing even the toughest opponents. Lowe gets on base (0.358 OBP the last four years), hits 16 to 20 home runs (his 27 home run 2022 season looks like a major offensive outlier), will bat around 0.260 to 0.265 and play very good defense, while playing in, normally, 157 or more games. He may not lose much fantasy value, if any at all, depending on how well the young Nats lineup performs, with full seasons from Dylan Crews, Wood, Tena plus CJ Abrams, Luis Garcia Jr. and Jacob Young.

Jesus Luzardo sent from Marlins to Phillies along with Paul McIntosh in exchange for Starlyn Caba and Emaarion Boyd

With the addition of Luzardo, the Phils now have Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Ranger Suarez, Cristopher Sanchez to go with him to go with top prospect Andrew Painter as injury-replacement depth.

Not freggin’ bad.

After an incredibly successful 2022 season (3.32 ERA, 30% K rate, 1.04 WHIP), he all but nixed his sinker in favor of more fastballs and results have not been the same.

Now in ’24, he did deal with an elbow injury early in the year and then back issues ended it after 12 starts and 66.2 IP.

It is not a great sample size, but it is enough to warrant examination. Especially when you look at the ’23 numbers to go with it, we see a couple of troubling signs.

The barrel rate went from 6.6% up to 9.3% in ’23 and 9.9% in ’24 as the avgEV climbed to 90.4 MPH to go with a 41.4% hard-hit rate, which is only a couple ticks above his career mark. The SIERA has seen a steady regression from 3.28 down to 3.69 and 4.33. The xERA had a similar decline.

The strikeouts didn’t really fall off until 2024 with a 21.2% strikeout rate (28.1% in ’23, 30% in ’22).

Step back from the ledge Phillie fans, I’ve got some good news.

The SwStr% was a 13.7%, right along the 13.8% in ’22 and only a slight dip from the 14.1% in ’23. Now the called strike rate of 17.2% is a bit higher than the 15.0% this year (CSW of 28.8% is off from the 31.0% in ’22).

Stuff+ is not a fan of the sinker so with a career grade of 89 so ditching the sinker may not be the problem.

The fastball has a career grade of 105 but it fell off to 98 this year, probably due to the drop in velo from 96.7 MPH to 95.2 MPH.

Who knows how much his injury was bothering him, or maybe he never got ramped up or in a groove.

But he did average 5.5 innings per start when he was healthy, so it is not like the Marlins were taking it too easy on him when he was healthy.

We also saw the slider Stuff+ grade bottom out to under 100 as it lost velocity and did not gain enough movement to make it a more appealing offering.

Luzardo may make for an interesting late-round flyer but until we get word in Spring Training he has the velo back on his offerings, he won’t’ be someone easy to trust headed into 2025.

Caba has been tagged as one of, if not the best defensive infielder in minor league baseball. But that doesn’t help in fantasy, except maybe to help him get time on the field. But he has shown a good ability to hit line drives and make consistent contact in the minor leagues. He also has the speed and athleticism to be a legit threat on the basebaths. If he can prove to be a decent on base dude, with his speed and on top of a future MLB lineup gives him some pretty decent fantasy upside in the future.

Boyd is another speedster but has a higher offensive ceiling than Caba, even if he is a bit more raw in terms of talent. Despite having a power grade of just 30, he showed a 101.8 90th percentile avgEV and a 110.2 MPH max EV, but he had a 52% ground ball to limit his power production, per Baseball America. If he can get some lift on the ball and start to produce, don’t be surprised if Boyd flies up prospect ranks toward the end of 2025.

Carlos Santana heads back to the Guardians on a one-year deal

Santana returns to Cleveland on a one-year deal as he may retire as a Guardian with him turning 39 to start the season.

The Guardians’ park has turned into a bit of a home run haven as Progressive Field ranked 11th for homers in 2024 (26th over three-year span) per Statcast’s park factors.

However, the Twins ballpark was 10th so this is not a major upgrade from 2025.

Santana’s Statcast data does not jump off the page with just average barrel rates, hard-hit rates and avgEV. However, he generates above average power thanks to his launch angle of 16.1 degrees last year.

The whiff and chase rates remain good enough to see him continuing to have excellent strikeout (16.7% rate in ’24) and walk rates (10.9%) so OBP and points leagues will like that.

He won’t be a negative in batting average for traditional 5×5 leagues with a surface BA of .238 and an xBA of .247 should give hope he will be good enough there.

But overall, his average quality of contact numbers will limit his value, and he has way better numbers against lefties with a .934 OPS vs. them in ’24 so he may just be a stream in standard sized leagues against south paws and for managers who are starved for homers.

Josh Naylor traded to Diamondbacks from Guardians in exchange for Slade Cecconi and a draft pick

The Guardians were unlikely to throw significant money at Naylor next offseason so they got what they could for the expiring contract.

The big take away for fantasy managers is the D’backs park is the worst park for homers for lefties per statcast. To expect Naylor to smack another 30+ homers playing half of his games in this park, is close to a pipe dream.

However, the Diamondbacks had a strong overall offense last season, leading the league in runs scored, second in OPS, second in wOBA and fourth in wRC+. Managers should expect Naylor to be in better position to score runs and drive in runs, which should help make up for the decline in home run production.

He had a higher xBA than his surface at .257 (.243 BA) to with an xSLG and xwOBA that were both within eight points of the surface stats. He continues to have better than average quality of contact numbers that allows him to produce solid power and be a good run producer.

Don’t over think this, he is a solid top-10 first baseman in fantasy baseball, despite the downgrade in home ballparks.

Cecconi flashes three plus secondaries, per Stuff+, with a 117 grade on the slider, 103 on the curve and 103 for the changer. The fastball has solid armside run but overall is not a great offering with a 95 grade. He currently throws the fastball over 50% of the time so maybe the D’backs work on his pitch mix and see him rely a bit more on his secondaries to find success. As of now, his career numbers in the majors are horrible (6.06 ERA and a 1.35 WHIP). But he did allow a 5.0% walk rate and his xERA was 4.49. So maybe there is hope for him. Fantasy managers should avoid Cecconi in standard sized leagues until he starts to produce and justify his viability.

Paul Goldschmidt signs with Yankees for one-year

Goldschmidt leaves Busch Stadium which is the 25th ranked ballpark for home run production for lefties, per Statcast, to the short right field porch of Yankee Stadium which allows it to be ranked the third-friendliest park for homers for left-handed hitters. This kind of improvement in ballpark factor can be something that pushes him back closer to 30 homers, a number he eclipsed in every season between 2017 and 2022 (excluding 2020).

He had putrid start to the season as his second half was a great sign for Goldy and fantasy managers. He slashed .271/.319/.480 in the second half with a .340 wOBA and 120 wRC+. For the season, he slashed .245/.302/.414 with a .310 wOBA and 100 wRC+. The fact that the strong play was in the second half helps push back against the ‘washed’ narrative that surrounds the veteran slugger.

He also maintained quality of contact numbers that line up very closely with his career marks with a 91.2 MPH avgEV, 10.6% barrel rate and 48.1% hard-hit rate.

All of the expected stats exceeded his surface stats with an xBA of .258, an xSLG of .464 and an xwOBA of .333 as his second half surge is supported by his season long expected stats and his first half seems to be unlucky.

While the decreasing contact rate (74.8% in ’24 vs. 76.6% for his career) is a bit of a concern, the quality of contact continues to be where it needs to be as this should only fade him in OBP and points leagues. In traditional 5×5 leagues he should continue to be a decent enough hitter for average with plus power and run production (especially considering he is batting in a better Yankee lineup) to make him a top-15 first baseman in draft season.

Oh, he has 11 steals in two straight years so that’s a decent bump in value as well.

Yankees trade C Jose Trevino to the Reds for RP Fernando Cruz and C Alex Jackson

Trevino was the Yankees backup catcher to end the year, losing the starting job to rookie Austin Wells, who finished third in American League Rookie of the Year voting. He is an offensively challenged but exceptional defensive catcher who failed to reach 400 plate appearances in any season. He will step into the backup catcher’s role for the Reds, giving Tyler Stephenson a breather from time to time.

Cruz is the second bullpen addition of the off-season for the Yankees (Devin Williams being the first). He has an elite splitter (fourth best in baseball in 2024), below average cutter and a league average four-seam, strikes out a ton of batters (career high 14.72 K/9 last season), walks a ton of hitters (4.73 BB/9) and limits contact (63.3% contact rate). He is prone to a blow up from time to time and had his worst home run rate of his short career last year (1.22 HR/9), but the Yankees strengthen their bullpen with another high strikeout player.

Jackson was signed a month ago by the Reds and will probably slide into the backup catcher spot now vacated by Trevino. He’s not a fantasy relevant name to worry about.

Michael Soroka signs with the Nationals for one-year, $9 million

2024 was a tale of two pitchers for Soroka, who was dreadful as a starter but a stud as a reliever. Though one would think he would want to continue down the path of success, it seems the Nats are going to give him the opportunity to start the year in their rotation.

As a starter last year, Soroka struck out 24, walked 24 and allowed a 6.39 ERA over 43.2 innings (6.76 FIP, 5.59xFIP). He allowed 10 home runs, with a 46.9% ground ball rate and a very good 0.239 BABIP, but struggles with his command and control ultimately ruined his performance.

As a reliever, though, Soroka pitched 36 innings, striking out 60 (15 K/9 btw), walking 20 (5 BB/9 isn’t great), allowed only three home runs (0.75 HR/9, c’mon now) and had a 2.75 ERA (2.75 FIP, 3.26 xFIP). He had a more pedestrian BABIP of 0.304 with a slightly above average strand rate of 71.8%, but displayed better command and control. He had nearly the exact same chase rate as a reliever and a starter, but his contact rate was 12 percentage points higher as a starter and his swinging strike rate was five percentage points lower. He also found the strike zone more and attacked hitters with the first pitch less.

Who knows if he will maintain his relief gains when he re-joins the rotation, but he will not be a fantasy relevant name when it comes draft time, unless your league is drafting more than 700 big leaguers, then he should be someone to grab.

The Houston Astros sign 1B Christian Walker to a three-year, $60 million deal

After dealing Kyle Tucker away for Isaac Paredes, Hayden Wesneski and Cam Smith, most expected the Astros to re-sign Alex Bregman and move Paredes to first base. But it seems that the Astros had other plans. Paredes can now stay at 3B until Smith is ready to make his big-league debut and they get to have a power-hitting, elite defender at 1B instead.

Walker missed more than a month in 2024 with a strained left oblique muscle but still managed to hit 26 or more home runs for the third straight season and has had 550 or more plate appearances in four of the five, full, non-covid seasons he has spent in the majors. He also scored 72 runs, drove in 84 and had a 0.251/0.335/0.468 triple-slash line.

Walker has posted above average offensive numbers every season but one, since 2019 (and he missed 47 games in the one season he posted a below average wRC+), and has been a source of power for the Diamondbacks every year.

Though his strikeout rate rose in 2024 (24.1%), so did his walk rate (10%), average exit velocity (91.3 MPH), barrel-rate (13.3%) and hard hit rate (48%). He has a career fly ball rate of 42.2%, which is higher than his ground ball rate (39.3%) and makes smart swing decisions (24.2% chase rate, 11.5% swinging strike rate), while making decent contact (76.2%; 84.7% in-zone) for a power hitters with a below average batting average.

He should age well over the course of the contract, though he will be 34 when the season starts, he is showing no signs of slowing down. Walker should find himself smack dab in the middle of a good Astros lineup, with plenty of guys on base ahead of him and some power behind him, that he should continue to put up top 5 to 6 fantasy first baseman seasons.

SP Patrick Sandoval, Boston Red Sox agree to a two-year, $18.25 million contract

Not content to add just one top of the line left-handed starter, the Red Sox went out and got a second lefty to add to the rotation.

The only problem is, this one won’t be available to pitch until sometime in the second half of the season, because Sandoval is recovering from Tommy John surgery.

The hope is that he could join the pitching staff in the second half and bring a second left-handed look to opposing hitters. As it stands now, the Red Sox rotation will be Garrett Crochet followed by Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford and Lucas Giolito in some order.

OF Max Kepler signs 1-year, $10 million with the Phillies

Kepler leaves the only team he has known over his first decade in the league, taking over left field for a more potent offense. The Phillies hope he will help improve upon an outfield that ranked in the bottom 10 teams in terms of offensive production.

Kepler has struggled with health issues over the past four seasons, failing to reach 500 plate appearances in a single one. Last year he only reached the plate 399 times, hitting eight home runs, scoring 43 runs, driving in 42 and posting a 0.782 OPS. Though he did hit 24 home runs just two seasons ago, it was the first time since 2019 he had surpassed that number and more than he hit in 2022 and 2024 combined.

His walk rate fell for a second straight season, after five straight seasons above 10% and he posted his second strikeout rate of 20.1% or higher in a row, after five years under 20%. All of his statcast numbers were down, but he has had an every other year pattern for five seasons now, where he has great statcast numbers in odd years and bad one in even years. So who knows, maybe 2025 is going to be a great one?

1B/OF Cody Bellinger traded from Cubs to Yankees for P Cody Poteet

The Cubs were able to shed some salary here and the Yankees get a left handed hitter with tons of lift and pull to aim for their right field porch.

Statcast says Bellinger would have hit 24 homers in Yankee Stadium last year, as opposed to 18.

The problem for Bellinger is his contact data has been dwindling over the last couple of seasons.

2023’s .307/.356/.525 with 26 homers and 20 steals seems like a far off fantasy for fantasy managers. His expected stats and below average contact numbers were a clear sign for 2024’s regression.

While going to Yankee Stadium will mean more than the 18 homers from this season, 25 bombs seems to be his ceiling as two straight years with less than average barrel rates (6.1% and 6.3%) and hard-hit rates (31.4% and 32.4%) will limit him. Bellinger is going to struggle for power outside of New York, limiting his upside to fringe 12-team value

Poteet has not done much of anything in the big leagues to warrant fantasy attention and a move to the Cubs does not do anything to move that needle.

NPB SP Tomoyuki Sugano signs one year, $13 million deal with the Orioles

Sugano is one of the best pitchers in Japanese baseball history, posting a 2.43 ERA over 1800 innings in the Nippon Professional Baseball Organization (NPB). He is making the transition to the MLB in his age 35 season. He is coming off of a season where he threw 156.2 innings over 24 starts, striking out 111 and walking only 16, en route to a 1.67 ERA and a 0.95 WHIP.

He brings a five-pitch mix stateside, with an above-average slider and splitter, but a fastball that now sits at only 92-93 miles per hour, instead of the 94-96 earlier in his career. He projects as a fourth or fifth starter in MLB, someone who will thrive off of his command and control more than his ability to strikeout batters. His 2.6% walk rate was lower than any MLB starter in 2024, but his 6.4 K/9 was much lower than the MLB league average. His largest fantasy impact will probably be as a matchup-based streamer, though he will probably be drafted late in drafts for deeper leagues.

Tampa Bay Rays send SP Jeffrey Springs and P Jacob Lopez to the Athletics for Joe Boyle, Jacob Watters, Will Simpson and a draft pick.

I guess the Athletics needed to leave Oakland before they decided to make some moves.

Sorry, Oakland.

Springs joins a rotation that already features plenty of sliders and high chase rates, but he is most definitely a step above what they already have on the roster.

After a breakout 2022 in which he returned a 2.46 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 26.2% strikeout rate and 5.6% walk rate, he has made just 10 starts over the last two seasons as he missed a significant amount of time due to Tommy John surgery. The good news is the time he was healthy he continued his success from 2022 with a stupid 0.56 ERA in ’23 and 3.27 ERA this year.

A red flag are his ERA estimators. Even in his breakout 2022 season the xERA was 3.27, FIP was 3.04 and the SIERA was 3.32. Not bad by any means but viewing him as someone to get an ERA in the 2.50 range is probably wrong.

In his seven starts this year the ERA estimators were worse being close to 4.00 than his real 3.27 ERA. But this was a small sample, making it hard to really make many predictions based soley on these numbers.

So lets look at what his pitches were like in the time we saw him in ’24.

We saw a worse fastball in 2024 but this might could be blamed on his injury as he battled elbow fatigue to end 2024. But the fastball was just under 90 MPH on average this year and Stuff+ dropped to a 77 grade. It also lost a full inch of induced vertical break from the 2022 season, 1.6 inches if you look at 2023’s three starts.

The slider dropped a couple of ticks in velocity with more vertical drop and less horizontal movement. But Stuff+ like it with a 105 grade and the changeup was good with a 107 grade.

For drafts, he carries risk for managers. He battled fatigue to end last year, and he is a converted bullpen arm to starter that required major surgery after just one year as a starter. It will be hard for me to really trust Springs as a top-25 draft pick based on one good season in 2022.

Maybe if we get into Spring Training and he is flashing better velocity with the shape we saw in ’22 (’23 would be great), then maybe I can see his draft price go up. But we got to remember he is pitching in Sacramento in a minor league park, which probably means a hitter’s haven.

Joe Boyle is the prize coming back to the Rays. He has electric stuff; he just can’t control it.

He had a 17.7% walk rate this year but a 24.8% strikeout rate. He also allowed soft contact with a 4.0% barrel rate and had an xBA against him of just .215.

His Stuff+ grades highlight the effectiveness of his pitches that he can’t control.

The fastball grades out to a 108, the slider was a 149 and the curveball was a 110 (he only threw this pitch 3.75 of the time).

This allowed him to return a great 30.2% whiff rate, but he couldn’t get anyone to chase outside the zone as hitters only swung at 39.4% of his offerings (league average this year was 47.2%).

The stuff is there for Boyle to have all kinds of fantasy upside, but he cannot be trusted in standard sized drafts until he proves he can control his pitches.

Deeper leagues can (and should) target him for his upside late in their drafts.

Both Watters and Simpson are a way away from the bigs. Watters has a good fastball and a better curveball but needs to throw more strikes. Simpson has good power potential but, like most young potential sluggers, he needs to work on his swing and miss potential.

Lopez is a quirky lefty with good pitch-ability. He doesn’t throw any real plus pitches but rather relies on a deceptive delivery and excellent extension to get hitters to chase. He does not project to have much fantasy value.

The Houston Astros trade star OF Kyle Tucker to the Chicago Cubs for IF Isaac Paredes, P Hayden Wesneski and prospect 3B Cam Smith

Tucker is entering his final year of arbitration in 2025 and the Astros have struggled to convince him to sign an extension (See: Boras, Scott), so they opted to move him now, to maximize the return, instead of losing him to free agency after the 2025 season. He will shift Seiya Suzuki out of the outfield and into the designated hitter spot, upgrading their outfield defense in the process. Tucker hit 23 or more home runs for the fourth consecutive season last year and was on pace for a career best season until he fractured his right shin and missed 78 games. Even still, he amassed more bWAR than any Cubs player over his 84 played games. He brings a massive upgrade to the Cubs offense, with a power-speed combo that has the upside to reach 40 home runs and 30 stolen bases. The Cubs took a step towards playoff contention by adding Tucker and should still have a few moves up their sleeves.

Paredes finally makes the move to the Astros, after he was rumored heavily at the 2024 trade deadline to be sent to Houston. He will play third base for the ‘Stros if they do not re-sign Alex Bregman or first base if they do. He doesn’t bring the tremendous power upside that Tucker had, but he has hit 70 home runs over the past three years, including a down-swing in power production in Chicago last year. He doesn’t strike out a ton, walks a lot, gets on base at a decent rate and is in a position, in a great lineup, to potentially have a career year. He finished the 2024 season as the 16th best fantasy third baseman, but methinks he will finish closer to, if not in, the top 10 this year. The Astros park is more friendly to his swing and the offense is better overall than the Cubs (and Rays) were last year.

Wesneski is a backend of the rotation starter or a volume reliever, both of which the Cubs have tried him out as over the last few seasons. He’s never thrown more than 89 innings in a big league season and has been just above average in the 190 innings he has thrown in the major leagues. The Astros will most likely use him as a long reliever and as rotational depth if injuries begin to stack up. He can be ignored for the most part in fantasy leagues.

Smith was picked 14th overall in the 2024 First-Year Player’s Draft and instantly becomes the best prospect in the Astros system. He has near plus-plus power, average speed, a decent hit tool and a good eye at the plate. He should play good enough defense to stay at third base and hit well enough to be an everyday big leaguer. He will need to focus on getting more loft under the ball when he hits, but in 134 pro plate appearances after he was draft he displayed a knack for beaming line-drives all over the park, while limiting his strike outs and walking a decent amount. He’s probably two years away from the big leagues, but could be Bregman’s future replacement or the reason they move Paredes across the diamond to first base.

The Yankees trade SP Nestor Cortes and IF Caleb Durbin to the Brewers for closer Devin Williams

The Yankees traded away some of their starting pitching depth to acquire a legitimate closer, after Clay Holmes left the team in free agency. Cortes bounced back from an injury shortened 2023 season and nearly replicated his 2022 year. Though his strikeouts did drop to below one per inning, he also posted his lowest walk rate (2.01 BB/9) of his career. He did allow a career high 24 home runs over 174.1 innings (also a career high), with his statcast numbers following a troubling trend of his barrel and hard-hit rates both rising in consecutive season ( from 5.3% in 2022 to 7.9% for the barrel rate and 34.5% to 43.4% in the hard-hit rate). Though Yankee stadium can be a problematic place for left-handed pitchers (2nd highest home run factor for right-handed hitters), he had kept it in check fairly well in his first few seasons in the big leagues. The good news is that American Family Field in Milwaukee is much more forgiving for LHP and is one of the more pitching-favorable stadiums in all of baseball. He will slot in near the back of the Brewers rotation and should fare much better in the National League Central compared to the American League East.

Durbin was speculated as the Yankees second baseman coming into the 2025 season, so it was interesting to see him included in this deal. He has a very solid hit tool and a great eye at the plate, sporting better walk rates than strikeout rates at almost every minor league level. He makes a ton of contact, has a little bit of pop and lots of speed, is pull heavy and elevates the ball. He broke his wrist last season, so he was just limited 90 games across three-levels, but was very, very good in those games. He will probably platoon with Brice Turang at 2B or outright start if Joey Ortiz continues to struggle with big league pitching and Turang moves to SS.

Williams is the crown jewel and was only available because he has one year left on his contract. Williams missed four months of the 2024 season due to a stress fracture in his back, but when he was healthy and pitching it seemed like he didn’t miss any time at all. He was able to pitch 21.2 innings, struck out 38, walked 11 and allowed on one earned run. He shared closing duties with Trevor Megill for awhile but did end up getting 14 saves of his own. He did post a career low strikeout rate and the second high walk rate of his career, but his barrel rate dropped (to 5.4%), his average exit velocity dropped (84.2 MPH, second lowest of his career) and his swing data was nearly in line with his career averages across the board. He will step directly into the Yankees closer role and should be treated as the elite closer that he is.

Jonathan Loaisiga will go back to the Yankees on a one-year deal that includes a club option for 2026

He tore his UCL after only four scoreless innings pitched in 2024. He had surgery already but as of now, he is not likely to be ready for Opening Day. After losing Clay Holmes to the Mets, the Yankees, currently, don’t have a bona fide closer on their roster. This is subject to change as the Yanks could still easily make another move to bring on a true closer. But if they don’t, when Loaisiga comes back, he has a chance to be the closer. But he will have some work to do to prove he can perform. We are a few years removed from his 2021 season where he had 2.17 ERA with 17 holds and five saves. He struck out 69 in 70 innings pitched. In 2022, the ERA jumped to 4.13 and the strikeouts dropped to 37 in 48.0 innings. If he gets announced as the closer, he will carry 5×5 value just by being the closer for the Yankees. But as of now, that seems like a far-off reality. More than likely, he is going to be a late-inning option with value in holds leagues, at best as that is not a guarantee.

Garrett Crochet is dealt to Boston Red Sox in exchange for Kyle Teel, Braden Montgomery, Chase Meidroth and Wikelman Gonzalez

Crochet finally gets dealt to a contending team and this move puts him solidly in the discusstion as one of the top fantasy arms in the game. He was the 31st ranked starter per Fangraphs last year and he was on a severe workload restriction in the second half of the season, as he only logged 146.0 innings while starting 32 games. He had a 6-12 record and the potential for way more wins pitching for the Red Sox than the lowly White Sox.

He also had a 3.58 ERA, which is respectable, but was also unlucky, per the ERA estimators. The xERA was 2.83, FIP was 2.69 (2.38 xFIP), and the SIERA was 2.53. He allowed more ground balls than flyballs which helped ease the sting of a slightly higher barrel rate (9.2%) and hard-hit rate (38.8%) than we’d like. But those numbers are not alarmingly high.

He also showed incredible strikeout upside with a 35.0% strikeout rate and he had a great 5.5% walk rate to pair with it.

The only thing that stood in Crochet’s way of being considered an SP1 in fantasy was his team context and the workload restrictions in the second half. But now that is solved. He will go into 2025 on a winning ball club and one full season as a starter under his belt so workload restrictions should be lifted in the second half. And being on a contender, he won’t be a shutdown risk so head-to-head managers can draft him with confidence.

Teel is the highest upside player in this deal that is close to making his MLB debut. His hits to all areas of the field and while he does not have elite power, he does make solid contact and shouldn’t be void of power in the bigs. He has a great approach to the plate as evidenced by his 16.3% walk rate and decent 23.6% strikeout rate in Triple-A this year. With Edgar Quero getting close to being MLB-ready as well, the White Sox will probably move either Teel or Quero to first base if they want to bring them both up. Montgomery has a ton of raw power that made him a 14th overall pick in this year’s draft but is years away from being relevant in redraft leagues. Meidroth is the opposite of Montgomery, as he is a very patient hitter with a great hit tool and not much power. He has a chance to make the 2025 Opening Day roster but will need to prove something before he should be on fantasy rosters. Gonzalez had a down 2024 in Double-A but has a good fastball that needs an off speed friend before he can be considered a true big-league starter.

Miami Marlins trade 1B/3B Jake Burger to the Texas Rangers for minor leaguers SS Echedry Vargas, SS Max Acosta and SP Brayan Mendoza

This seems like a confusing trade on the surface, as the Rangers have Josh Jung and Nathan Lowe already penciled in to the two positions Burger can play defensively and enough depth that trading for a designated hitter probably wasn’t warranted, but they gave up three prospects in the back end of their top 20 prospects for a power hitting corner-infielder with four years of team control, so I would say it was worth it.

After hitting in the middle of two terrible lineups to begin his career (White Sox, Marlins), Burger will now slide in to the bottom half of an offense that has the potential to be one of the two or three best in the entire league. Though he regressed ever so slightly from 2023 to 2024, there were some not-so-insignificant improvements for Burger. He lowered his swing rate, but improved his contact rate, while also dropping his swinging strike rate. Though both his barrel and hard-hit rates dropped, his barrel rate was still 12.3% and his hard-hit rate was still 46.8%. He raised his fly-ball rate to 40.6% after a dip to 38.6%, dropped his chase rate by 1.5% and made more contact both in (83.9%) and out (49%) of the zone than he had before. His counting stats should get a boost with so many top-level professional hitters around him and there’s a real possibility that hitting at Globe Life helps him hit near 40 home runs.

He ended the 2024 season as the 11th best fantasy 1B and the 9th best fantasy 3B, and has been drafted near there as well (13th 1B, 10th 3B, 22nd CI), as he has been drafted on average at pick 127. I think that could shift a little bit as we get closer to Spring Training and we start to see some live hacks and what the Rangers will want to do with him, so that ADP could shift up to 10 or 15 picks up, nearer to Spencer Steer and Christian Walker.

As for the prospects, they are three promising young players that were ranked from 17 to 28 in the Rangers top 30 prospects on MLB.com. Vargas might be the best of the bunch, though he profiles as more of a 2B than a SS, with decent speed and pop and an okay hit tool. None profile as impact players in the future, as both Vargas and Acosta are predicted to be utilitymen and Mendoza has a chance to be a back of the rotation starter. No fantasy impact warranted by any of the three.

RHP Nathan Eovaldi returns to the Texas Rangers on a three-year, $75 million contract

Eovaldi was 12-8 for Texas in 2024, making 29 starts, throwing 170.2 innings, striking out 166, walking just 42 and allowing 23 home runs. He’s had two very productive seasons in Texas, pitching more innings over this two year span than any other two-year span of his career except for 2014/15 (he threw 354 innings over those two seasons; he’s thrown 314.2 innings over these two). Though these will be his age 35-37 years over the contract, the Rangers expect him to continue with his decent volume pitching, as the last four years have been his relatively healthiest stretch of years in the minors.

He is a career 46.8% ground ball rate pitcher that has induced ground ball at a 49.7% rate while in a Rangers uniform, with two of the lowest contact rates of his career as well (75.7% and 75.1%). His swinging strike rate has been in the double digits ever since he ditched a sinker for a cutter and began to use his splitter more (this all happened way back in 2016 and 2018, wrapped around his second Tommy John surgery). His splitter (127) and his slider (114) both grade out very well under Stuff+, with two pitches in the 90′;s (cutter – 91, curve – 99) and his fastball well below average (75). His splitter graded out as the best among qualified starters in 2024 while his slider was tied for 20th.

He finished the season as the 35th best fantasy starter and is being drafted as the 60th starter off the board in high-stakes leagues currently, as he is being drafted on-average around pick 206. His min pick is 172 and I am willing to take him as early as pick 160 or so, depending on how you have drafted your pitching up to that point. I believe he will have a positive return on the draft investment and can still be a top 40-45 fantasy starter for the 2025 season.

Cleveland Guardians trade 2B/SS Andres Gimenez to the Blue Jays for IF Spencer Horwitz and RP Nick Sandlin; Guardians trade Horwitz to the Pirates for SP Luis L. Ortiz and minor leaguers SP Michael Kennedy & SP Josh Hartle

Gimenez moves from one decent offense, to another, slotting directly into the Blue Jays second base role and their lineup, where he will provide some pop and lots of speed, plus very, very good defense. He hit nine home runs and stole 30 bases in 2024, with a 0.252/0.298/0.340 triple slash, but career low barrel and fly-ball rates. He swung at more pitches than he had in all but one season of his career, while making contact at the best rate of his career, which resulted in a career best strikeout rate (15.3%), but also a career worst walk rate (4.1%). He’s currently being drafted as the 13th second base eligible player off the board, which sounds about right for re-draft leagues. 10-12 home runs, 25-30 stolen bases, 135 combined runs-RBI and a 0.250 to 0.260 batting average is what should be expected for his 2025 season.

Nick Sandlin has been a slightly below average reliever over his four years in the big leagues, striking out more than a batter per inning, but walking too many. Both his hard-hit rate and barrel rates have risen every year he’s been in the majors and he set career worsts of 91.3 MPH for his average exit velocity allowed and 113.5 MPH for his maximum exit velocity allowed in 2024. He is a poor middle reliever who can be ignored for fantasy purposes.

Luis L. Ortiz should step into the back end of the rotation for the Guardians in 2025. He has a four pitch mix: four-seam fastball, sinker, cutter and slider. His fastball and sinker are very good pitches, his cutter is a nice third pitch but his slider gets beat up on. 2024 was his third season in the big leagues, wherein he massively improved his walk rate (from 5.63 in 2022 to 2.79 in 2024), dropped his home run rate (from 14.1% in 2023 to 9.5% in 2024) and posted a 3.32 ERA (though both his FIP (4.25) and xFIP (4.59) were nearly or a full run worse) with a 1.11 WHIP. He moves from one bad division to another, but will pitch for a much better team with, dare I say, better pitching development. I think there is room to grow for Ortiz, but we need to see him get his fastball back up to near 97 miles per hour and develop a really solid off-speed or breaking pitch to truly shine. The Guardians have some pitching depth, so if Ortiz struggles, they will not hesitate to demote him to the minor leagues (he still has two options left) and have him work on his product against inferior opponents. He will probably be nothing more than a streamable type pitcher for 2025, but will be someone to keep an eye on if the Guardians work their pitching magic on him.

Hartle and Kennedy are minor league pitchers who were ranked 17th and 15th, respectively, in the Pirates farm system. Both are long shots to make any impact at the big league level and are years away from making their debut.

Spencer Horwitz being the centerpiece of two different trades was not on my bingo card, but here we are. He was the key piece in the Guardians salary dump of Gimenez and now the lone piece to acquire three young pitchers. He will step right into the available first baseman’s job in Pittsburgh and should provide solid production. He has a decent hit tool, some power and a solid eye at the plate, with mostly poor defense and a little bit of speed. He hit 12 home runs in just 381 plate appearances in 2024 and has shown the ability to hit for power in the minor leagues, so it would not be shocking at all if he were to hit 20 home runs if given a full complement of 600 plus plate appearances. He should get on-base at a fairly decent clip, since he has had a walk rate in double-figures at every level but rookie ball and his first 44 plate appearances in the big leagues. He doesn’t strikeout much (18.4% rate in 2024), hit more ground balls than fly balls and makes really smart swing decisions, as demonstrated by his 25.1% chase rate, 83% contact rate and 87.6% in zone contact rate. He was being drafted very late  in drafts so far, taken as early as pick 233 and as late as pick 390, but I could see him sneaking into the back-end of the top 200 if managers begin to believe he will get the 1B position to himself and that he will get to play in 150 or more games, so long as he stays healthy. I’ll grab him as a corner infielder (CI) or middle infielder (MI) late in drafts where I can, but probably will not be one of the people who drafts him in the first 15 or 16 rounds of 15 team leagues or in the first 18 to 20 rounds of 12 team leagues.

 

LHP Max Fried and the New York Yankees agree to eight-year, $218 million contract

Fried received the largest guarantee for a left-handed pitcher in the history of the league, as the Yankees strengthened and spent some of the money they had dog-eared for Juan Soto, before he signed with the Mets.

This comes two years after the Yankees signed Carlos Rodon to a six-year, $162 million contract, and represents the fourth largest contract in Yankees history, behind only Alex Rodriguez, Gerrit Cole and Aaron Judge.

If he continues to pitch how he has over the last six years, this contract should turn out pretty decent, though he will turn 38 in the final year of the contract, so things could get a bit rough.

Now, what are the Yankees getting for $218 million? In 101 starts from the beginning of the 2021 season through the end of the 2024 season, Fried had an 8.57 K/9 and a 2.21 BB/9, and allowed only 47 home runs over 603 innings. He has logged at least 165.2 in four of the last five non-covid seasons, has a career barrel-rate of just 4.6% and has not logged a hard-hit rate above 34.5% since 2020. He is a ground-ball pitcher, with a ground-ball rate of 54.4% over his career and has allowed a line drive less than 20% of the time over the last three seasons. He had the second lowest ground-ball rate in baseball last season and the third best rate over the past four seasons, out of all pitchers who pitched 600 or more innings in that time frame. He has five very good pitches, plus an average or worse cutter he rarely uses.

He is an impact maker and slots in right behind Cole in the Yankees rotation. He is a proven post-season starter, with experience in deep playoff runs and has performed well when the game is on the line in the past. Adding Fried deepens the Yankees rotation and allows them to move more volatile arms to the bullpen, like Clarke Schmidt and Nestor Cortes, while also relieving Cole of some of the burden of being the only elite arm in the rotation. In early season, high stakes leagues, he was already being drafted right around pick 100 and the trade to the Yankees shouldn’t change that much. The upside is still there with the Yankees to be a top 20 to 30 SP for the foreseeable future.

Yimi Garcia agrees to two-year, $15 million deal with the Blue Jays

Garcia will return to the Blue Jays, after they traded him to the Mariners at last year’s deadline. He finished the season with right elbow inflammation but is expected to be healthy for spring training. Garcia should compete for saves right away in an unsettle Blue Jays bullpen, where only Chad Green has any real experience closing out games.

He pitched 30 innings for the Blue Jays, toting a 2.70 ERA (3.08 xFIP, 2.67 FIP) and a 0.90 WHIP, with a 12.6 K/9 and a 2.40 BB/9. He had a fly ball rate of 55.7% and a HR/FB rate of just 8.8%. He actually closed out five games before he was traded, as multiple arms in the bullpen were given the opportunity to close because of the injuries to incumbent closer Jordan Romano. After he was traded to the Mariners, he made only 10 appearances, tossing 9 innings, striking out seven, walking four and allowing three home runs. Compared to his time in Toronto and the rest of his career, I am chalking up his experience in Seattle to poor performance due to injury.

He has been a decent reliever for the past three seasons and will be in a position to be an end game reliever – either as a closer or as the setup man. He should be drafted in all leagues that count holds and should be a late round pick as a speculative closer. Obviously his ADP will rise if the Blue Jays at any point anoint him their closer, so that will be something to keep an eye out for.

Alex Cobb agrees to one-year deal with the Tigers

Cobb returned late in 2024 and made three starts plus two in the postseason. The postseason did not go very well but the 16.1 innings in the regular season went well with a 2.76 ERA.

It was a very small sample size so we won’t dive too much into the results. We did see him totally ditch the slider after it made a one season cameo in 2023 and the 5.1% usage rate shifted primarily to his primary two-pitch punch of a splitter and sinker with the knuckle curve still thrown occasionally to draw whiffs.

The sinker continued to be a below average offering with an 83 Stuff+ grade as the splitter came back to prominence with a 123 grade (105 career, 78 in ’23). Both pitches continue to get more vertical break to it as his arm slot continues to drop from 46 degrees in 2021, down to 36 degrees this year.

In 2021, he had a 46 degree arm slot with less velocity and movement on his sinker and splitter with a higher whiff rate on the splitter and softer contact against both offerings.

But starting in 2023 he dropped the slot to 41 degrees then we saw it at 36 degrees last year in the small sample. And that’s when the whiffs fall off with the strikeout rate dropping from the 24% range down to 20% or less.

Now he did see see his ground ball rate sky rocket to the 60% range, it was still 53.3% in 2021 and the barrel and hard-hit rates were higher in 2023 and ’24. .

Long story short, if he can (maybe the arm slot drop was due to injury…), managers will want to see him get those strikeouts and whiffs back through the higher arm slot.

If not, he will just be a streamer level kind of arm for fantasy purposes for ratio help.

Jordan Romano heads to the Phillies

Injuries limited Romano to just 15 games this year and did struggle in those limited appearances, posting a 6.59 ERA and a 1.46 WHIP. However, he was an excellent bullpen arm between 2021 and 2023. His 2.90 ERA was the highest in this time as he maintained an ERA below 3.00 in each season, including 2.11 and 2.14 in 2022 and 2021 respectively. The strikeouts were solidly around or above 30% during this time as well. One troubling trend for Romano is the ground ball rate that is decreasing year over year starting in 2021. It has gone from 46.8% that year, down to 27.9% this year (36.5% in 2023).

The good news is that his offerings maintain excellent stuff+ grades and excellent shape. The fastball still features plus velo (96.4 MPH), elite extension (7.5 inches, 100th percentile) and solid induced vertical break of 17.8 inches. That resulted in a 125 Stuff+ grade (137 for career). The slider has started to be more of a slower/sweepier type of pitch with the velo dropping to the mid-80s over the last two seasons but that has resulted in more vertical and horizontal break. Stuff+ graded it out to 142 (115 last year, 127 for his career).

The big thing that kind of sucks is that the Phils did not have a true full-time closer last year with Jose Alvarado and Jeff Hoffman splitting the role before Carlos Estevez was dealt for and he got the most chances but Matt Strahm snagged three saves in Estevez’ time in Philly. Manager Rob Thomson is not afraid to use his ‘closer’ prior to the ninth inning in major moments of a ballgame. While this strategy makes a ton of sense in real baseball, it can be a real bummer in fantasy.

Holds leagues will see more value in Romano and he will have solid value in traditional 5×5 leagues if he gets announced as the closer. But pitching for Thomson will probably limit him to under 30 saves, if he sticks as the closer full season, again, assuming he gets the gig.

Blake Treinen returns to dodgers on two-year deal

The Game 5 hero of the World Series will return to LA and potentially be the closer after they spent most of last year rotation through closers, often going with the hottest bullpen arm. But the way he performed in the postseason (2.19 ERA, 1.46 FIP, 13.14 K/9) and in the regular season (1.93 ERA, 3.00 FIP, 10.80 K/9) puts him in a strong position to be a very solid closing option for the Dodgers. Even if the Dodgers bring in someone else and he does not close, holds league managers should already view him as an option for their rosters.

Before Treinen went down for almost two full seasons between 2022-23, he had returned to being a dominant arm out of the ‘pen, posting his best numbers since his career season in 2018 when he converted 38 saves as an (Oakland) Athletic. The next two saw him struggle but this year, he righted the ship.

He now throws his filthy sweeper slider that graded out to 134 (148 for his career) per Stuff+ most of the time as he now throws his sinker just 34.3% of the time and the sweeper 38.5% of the time. In fact his sinker Stuff+ grade has dropped to 78 (95 career grade). The sweeper returned a 49.2% whiff rate and a 82.9 MPH avgEV. In other words, no one could get their bat on the sweeper and when they did, it was very soft, 2-ply contact.

There is a foundation for Treinen to be a very valuable arm closing out games for the Dodgers, if he gets the role.

Juan Soto agrees to historic 15-year, $765 million deal with Mets

The deal does not include any deferred money but does contain an opt-out after five years, if the Mets do not up the deal to an $805 million deal to void the opt out.

While Soto does go to a less than friendly park for hitters, 27th worst in the league per statcast, it is a neutral park for homers, also per statcast, so that’s good. But this is freakin’ Juan Soto. The park does not matter. He is a 26 year old stud that will rake wherever he plays ball. The following are his career lows, mostly from 2022 (we will exclude 2020).

• Homers: 22
• BB%: 16.0%
• ISO: .210
• BA: .242
• OBP: .401
• SLG: .452
• wOBA: .376
• wRC+: 143

He walks more than he strikes out with a career walk rate of 18.8% and career strikeout rate of 17.0%. He demolishes the ball with a career 13.7% barrel rate (19.7% this year… sheesh), 50.8% hard-hit rate (56.8% this year… whoa) and expected stats that more than support his production. Just, there is no reason to doubt Soto’s bat and fantasy value.

Soto likely slides into the two-hole behind Francisco Lindor with Mark Vientos and Brandon Nimmo coming up right behind him. And the Mets may not even be done spending money and acquiring upgrades. But the immediate hitters surrounding him will solidify his value as a top-five fantasy pick in 2025 drafts.

Michael Conforto signs one year, $17 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers

After two years in San Francisco, Conforto has moved on to another National League West team, the Dodgers. With Teoscar Hernandez still a free agent, the Dodgers current starting outfield looks like Andy Pages, Tommy Edman and James Outman, none of whom had a wRC+ north of 100 (Pages’ was exactly 100, Edman 98 and Outman a dreadful 54), compared to Conforto, who had a 112 wRC+, though an 83 wRC+ at home and 133 wRC+ on the road. He’s struggled with injuries in the past and has appeared in no more than 130 games over the last three seasons, but is a productive offensive player when healthy.

He posted the lowest walk rate of his career in 2024, the first time it was been lower than 10% since 2015, even though his swing decisions showed little change (contact and swing rates nearly equal the past two years, swinging strike rate nearly the same, chase rate lower in 2024 than 2023), which makes me think he was just unlucky with a called strike rate almost two percentage points higher in 2024 than 2023. When he was making contact, he was hitting career high barrel (11.8%) and hard-hit rate rates (45.8%) and had his best power output since 2019 (in terms of home runs and total extra base hits)

Hitting in a deep, elite lineup like the Dodgers can only bode well for Conforto, who has scored more than 78 runs only once in his career and drive in 80 or more RBI only twice (and never more than 100). He’ll be 32 when the season starts, not exactly old, but also not right in his prime either, but 2024 proved there is still plenty of juice in the bat. On a one year prove it deal with the defending World Series champs, we could see Conforto have one of the best year’s of his career.

Tyler O’Neill signs three-year deal with Baltimore Orioles

O’Neill’s arrival does three things. First, it probably means Anthony Santander is not coming back to Baltimore. It also means Ryan Mountcastle will probably be a weak side platoon player at first base with Ryan O’Hearn and Adley Rutschman’s DH at bats are sure to dry up. With Rutshman’s sophomore slump, him losing the DH at bats to O’Neill makes sense. So, the main point of those three to really examine for fantasy is the Mountcastle vs. O’Neill DH at-bats.

However, it probably also means a fourth thing, the O’s are not done making moves as a trade is possible given the plethora of bats they have that can play the outfield and be a DH. But assuming the O’s do stay pat, this is how fantasy managers should view the value of O’Neill…

On top of playing against all lefties as O’Neill terrorizes lefties, he is probably going to see most of his time at DH against righties as Cedric Mullins, Colton Cowser and Heston Kjerstad each had a wRC+ of 113 or better against righties last season and O’Neill’s was just 91. This means, that is the O’s starting outfield vs. righties. For the DH spot, Mountcastle had a 98 wRC+ against righties. However, he trails O’Neill in the power department with a .153 ISO against righties to O’Neill’s 194. But Mountcastle’s average is .257 with O’Neill’s sitting at .208. However, in 2023, Mountcastle’s numbers vs. RHP was worse than O’Neill’s. Then in ’22 Mountcastle was way better against righties than O’Neill. All this to say that don’t just assume O’Neill is going to take over all the DH at-bats. Mountcastle has a real shot to cut into his at bats at DH vs. RHP, which means a sub-500 plate appearance season for O’Neill is a real possibility.

For draft season, this means O’Neill is probably a fourth outfielder/Util option as his poor batting average against righties, plus his limited playing time makes him hard to trust as an everyday starter in fantasy lineups in traditional 5×5, standard sized leagues.

But this is subject to change based on the very possible future deals that are on the horizon.

Willy Adames signs with San Francisco Giants for seven-years, $182 million

Adames moves from the sixth-friedliest park for homers to the dead last park for homers, per Statcast. While last year it would have meant just one less homer, there was a 10-homer difference in 2023. There is no doubt that Adames will have a hard time getting to 30+ homers but his elite barrel rate of 12.0% (11.0% for the career), hard-hit rate of 40.7% (39.3% for career) and his improved launch angle/sweet spot rate of 38.2% (35.9% career) should give managers solid hope that he should still be in store for around 23-26 homers. The Giants were 19th in wRC+ as a team, compared to the tenth ranked Brewers, so the team context is slightly worse.

He finished as the fifth ranked shortstop last year but with a reduction in homers and a slight dip in RBI and runs, he will be pushed toward backend of the top-10 in 2025. Not bad, but this signing does look to worsen his fantasy value.

Shane Bieber returns to the Cleveland Guardians on one-year deal with a player option for 2026

Managers the Guardians will be looking for the pre-2023 Bieber to return. He had a career worst strikeout rate of just over 20%. His worse ERA since his rookie year at 3.80, same with the WHIP (1.23). Before that he flashed strikeout upside with a career strikeout rate of 28.1%. He did show good control with his typically low walk rate 6.4%.

Bieber also continued to be an excellent ground ball pitcher with a 47.2% GB% (46.3% for his career) to go with a solid 7.7% barrel rate (which takes the sting out of the high 42.6% hard-hit rate since the ball isn’t being barreled and is driven into the ground when it is hit hard). We saw him throw a cutter more in 2023 and less of his slider, which stuff+ hated. The cutter was graded out to just 75 and the slider was at 120. The good news, in the two starts he had in 2024, he threw the cutter just under 10% of the time. Hopefully that is an indication that he will throw less of the cutter and more sliders and fastballs (FB has a solid induced vertical break) and the slider has had a whiff rate well above 30% (40% in some seasons) for his career. Now if he comes back mid year from TJS and shows more sliders and fastballs and less cutters like we saw in his very limited 2024, then he should be able to return to the value he gave prior to ’23.

Managers won’t be drafting him in standard drafts but should roster him as he nears a return as his upside is clear.

Clay Holmes signs three-year, $38 million deal with Mets

He will make the move to the starting rotation with the Mets. The big thing working in his favor is he is a sinker ball pitcher that has always induced a ton of ground balls and soft contact. Unlike some closers and high-leverage relievers, he does not need a ton of power and velo in order to be effective. Now what should be watched is to see if he brings back his changeup (or some other secondary) that he utilized when he was a starter (granted, sparingly) and ditched it when he became a reliver. He showed decent depth to it and can be good at helping keep hitters off his slider as he turns over the lineup.

Speaking of the slider, it’ll be interesting to see what that slider looks like as he hit 2800 RPMs on it as a reliver but that may not be a consistent number to hit as he will try to manage the strain on his arm. Garret Crochet, Ronel Blanco and Reynaldo Lopez each lost RPM and velo on their pitches but they had multiple plus pitches in their arsenals to help overcome some drop off in effectiveness in one (or two) pitches. His sinker will be his bread and butter as a starter and if he keeps his slider in the 2600 range on the slider (the aforementioned arms lost around 100-200 RPM so a drop to 2600 is reasonable) then it should still be an effective pitch especially if he is able to bring back a solid changeup.

Managers should view him as an interesting late-round pick in roto leagues and be wary of him in head-to-head leagues as he may not be around for the playoffs.

Luis Severino signs with the Athletics on a three-year, $67 million deal

Raise your hand if you had “Luis Severino receives the largest contract guarantee in Athletics franchise history” on your MLB off-season bingo card. Oh, wait, no one raised your hand? Of course not. The A’s sacrifice their third highest pick in the 2025 draft to sign Severino and also gave Severino an opt out after the second year of the contract.

Severino took a $13 million prove it offer from the Mets in 2024 and turned it into the largest contract of his career. He was one of the anchors of the Mets rotation, striking out 161 batters over 182 innings (his highest innings total since 2018, which was also the last season he threw more than 109 innings), while walking 60 and allowing 23 home runs. He posted his highest ground ball rate since 2017 and had a sub-20% line drive rate for the third time in four seasons.

Severino steps into the A’s rotation and becomes the best starter in their rotation immediately, though I do expect 2025 to be worse than 2024, due to the A’s playing in a minor league ballpark for the next two seasons and pitching for a much worse team than the Mets. Steamer projections have him regressing only ever so slightly, as they project him to pitch only five less innings, with slight regression in strikeout rate and home run rate, with a higher ERA and WHIP. He should still be one of the best 70 or 80 fantasy starters and is worth drafting in deeper leagues, but can be ignored in 12-team and shallower leagues.

Aroldis Chapman signs with the Red Sox on one-year deal

Chapman had an OK season (pretty good for saves+holds leagues) for fantasy in Pittsburgh with a 3.79 ERA and 14 saves and 22 holds. He continues to be a flame thrower with high strikeout upside with a fastball averaging 98 MPH and his strikeout rate of 37.0% is actually his lowest (not including his injury shortened 2022) since the 36.3% he turned in in 2019. The overall point here is, he is going to strikeout a ton of batters. But what has prevented him from being a true top-tier closer is the walk rates. For his career it is 12.6% and it has been 14.5%+ since 2021. He also allowed a career high in hard-hit rate of 41.3% and avgEV of 90.5 mph. But as long as he keeps the barrel rate low at the 7.1%, like it was at this year, that will help take the sting out of those numbers. Also, his FIP of 3.04, xERA of 2.96 and SIERA of 3.15 suggests he was a bit unlucky. His value in 2025 drafts will be dependent on who the Red Sox add. If they don’t add any other premier arm, he is a leading candidate to be the closer and that’ll make him a late-round draft target in tradition 5×5 formats. But he figures to be in a ton of late-inning, high-leverage situations in Boston if he is not the closer, giving him late-round value in leagues that count holds, at the very least.

Kyle Higashioka signs with the Texas Rangers on two-year deal

Since the signing the Rangers announced he will be competing for playing time with incumbent starter Jonah Heim, who had a down year himself this year. Higashioka posted a career high in homers in ’24 with 17 homers in 263 plate appearances. With a career batting average of .218 and low walk rates, managers are here for the homers and SLG%. He consistently has barrel rates above 10% (11.3% for his career) as he is around 89-90 on his avgEV but his 37.4% hard hit rate this year was his lowest since 2020. A plus is the xSLG of .440 that is right along his career marks and is high enough to give managers confidence he has solid power potential. But he will need to beat out Jonah Heim for playing time and if he doesn’t do that and they truck along in a time share, he is just an option in two-catcher leagues or deep single catcher leagues. Even if he were to get regular at bats, fantasy managers in traditional 5×5 formats will roster him for the power only and in deeper than standard 12-team formats. But if SLG% is what counts and not average then he has more value for you.

Matthew Boyd signs two-year, $29 million with the Chicago Cubs

He has yet to throw more than 78.2 innings in a season since 2019, and that is the big issue with him. While $14.5 million per year for an arm that has a good chance of not hitting 50 innings is a risk, in a world of no salary cap, it is not a major risk that would completely hamper the Cubs in future years. He showed he still has solid ability with a 27.7% strikeout rate that pairs nicely with his 7.8% walk rate. While 2019’s 30.2% rate is probably unattainable, he was at 24% over the last two years so a rate between 24% and 27% is more than acceptable and well within reach for him. Boyd also consistently has limited walks throughout his career. While he is a fly ball pitcher headed to Wrigley field, he has allowed soft contact throughout his career. But a red flag are his declining Stuff+ numbers. Ultimately, if he falls late enough in drafts (and you did not take on much injury risk early in the draft), he could be worth a flyer and see what it looks like.

Frankie Montas signs two-year, $34 million deal with the New York Mets

Frankie Montas was dealt to the Brewers midseason in 2024 and was meh for the Brew crew. He had a 28.7% strikeout rate but a 10.2% walk rate. The ERA was 4.55 in Milwaukee but the SIERA was 3.72 and the xFIP was 3.56 with a 17.9% HR/FB ratio. The high ratio can be attributed to a 10.1% barrel rate as I’d be hesitant to put too much weight into the xFIP. Most of these numbers are right along what he did for the full season, with the big exception being the strikeout rate. The big thing he did well was really place the fastball (sitting around 96) up in the zone and kept the off speed low. But he was too hittable, allowing some of the hardest contact of his career and walked too many to really capitalize on the strikeout rate. The Mets figure to be contenders and his strikeout potential is solid, making him a viable arm in drafts next year in the later rounds. If he can maintain the solid strikeout rates and get the contact back down to his career levels, then he should be a fine fantasy arm.

Tommy Edman signs five-year, $74 million contract extension with the Los Angeles Dodgers, including sixth-year club option 

In shocking news, there is deferred money in this deal with around one-third of the deal being deferred and it included a $17 million signing bonus. Edman’s versatility is a luxury as he can, very capably, play all over the diamond. The Dodgers could opt to put him in center field, with Mookie Betts at short or Betts could do second and Edman at short. Edman allows them to be have flexibility with how they construct the rest of the roster. The switch hitting utility man is a much stronger hitter vs. lefties (.831 career OPS) than righties (.689 career OPS). This continued this year with a .181/.256/.267 slash against right handed arms. The big difference is in the power as the slugging percentage has a 131 point difference and the OBP difference is just 10 and the BA difference is 28 points. In terms of fantasy, his speed will keep him good enough against righties to not just call him a weak-side platoon option. However, it should temper his draft price.

Blake Snell signs five-year, $182 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers

After waiting forever to sign last offseason, Snell gets his pay day and joins a stacked Dodger rotation. There is no way the Dodgers don’t at least consider a six-man rotation as they will have Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, (eventually) Shohei Ohtani and (presumably) Clayton Kershaw. Then there is Yoshinobu Yamamoto. That’s five. The potential number six could be Walker Buehler, Bobby Miller, Dustin May, Tony Gonsolin, River Ryan or Landan Knack. The six-man setup will allow them to naturally manage the workload of their oft injured arms. In terms of fantasy, yes that would cap their upside, but it should still allow for a 25-27 start season (assuming it is a full year thing) and that is more than enough to give managers excellent value, especially in roto leagues. Blake Snell is an elite arm with a career 30.2% strikeout rate thanks to an elite arsenal of offerings that is headlined by a fastball with 18+ inches of induced vertical break and a 116 stuff+ grade. After lagging behind all his career, even his changeup earned a 110 stuff+ grade, as his slider maintained its typically above average grade (106).

Yusei Kikuchi signs three-year, $69 million deal with the Los Angeles Angels

After pitching for both the Toronto Blue Jays and the Houston Astros in 2024, Kikuchi will find a new home in Los Angeles, where should step into the ace role of the Angels rotation in 2025. Kikuchi’s 2024 season could be split into two different seasons: pre-trade and post-trade. Pre-trade, he started 22 games for the Blue Jays, had a K/9 of 10.12, a BB/9 2.33, an ERA of 4.75 and a WHIP of 1.34. Post-trade: 10 games started, 11.40 K/9, 2.10 BB/9, 2.70 ERA and 0.93 WHIP. What changed? For starters, he was much luckier in Houston than in Toronto, with a BABIP of 0.340 while playing for the Canadian team and 0.241 when playing for the Southern Texas team. For another thing, he changed up his pitch mix, using his fastball and curveball less, more than doubling his slider usage and had a slight uptick in change usage. He also located less pitches in the zone when he was pitching for Houston, while getting a higher rate of swings outside the zone. Fantasy managers and the Angels, alike, will be betting on Kikuchi maintaining the changes that led to his success with the Astros. His swinging strike rate for the Astros would have been the highest of his career (13.7%), while the contact rate would have been the lowest of his career (71.3%). If he can replicate that numbers over the course of a full year, you’d get a top 10 pitcher. I don’t expect him to pitch that well, but I do lie closer to his Steamer projections, which have him winning 11 games, striking out 10.01 batters per nine innings, walking 2.80 per nine innings and amassing a 3.76 ERA, ending the year as one of the 30 or so best starters in baseball.

The Kansas City Royals trade RHP Brady Singer to the Cincinnati Reds for 2B Jonathan India, OF Joey Wiemer

The Royals and Reds essentially swapped from a position of strength for a position of weakness. The Royals needed to upgrade at the 2B position and the Reds needed more starting pitching depth. Though Singer is not an amazing pitcher, he is a ground-ball pitcher who induces soft contact. Leaving Kaufman Stadium for Great American Ballpark, his stuff should play up just as well, though his home run rate may rise, going from a pitching heaven to a hitter’s haven. He’s averaged nearly 8.5 K/9 for his career, with a 2.81 BB/9 and 1.08 HR/9. More importantly, he has thrown 150 or more innings for three consecutive seasons, adding durability and reliability to a Reds rotation that has struggled to stay healthy. He, Hunter Greene and Nick Martinez will headline the Reds rotation and be joined by some combination of Nick Lodolo, Andrew Abbott, Rhett Lowder, Carson Spers and Graham Ashcroft. He is a deep league draft target but someone who should be streamed in shallower formats. For the Royals, India has been a target since they discussed his name during the 2024 season, but they jumped at the trade once Wiemer was added as well. India produced the second best season of his young career in 2024, scoring 84 runs, hitting 15 home runs, driving in 58 baserunners and stealing 13 bases, with a 0.248/0.357/0.392 triple slash line an a 12.6% walk rate and 19.6% strikeout rate. The walk rate and strikeout rate were both career bests and were contributing factors to 2024 being the second best season of India’s career, behind just his 2021 National League Rookie of the Year season. He also posted career best chase rates (16.7%), swinging strike rates (6.6%) and contact rates (82.6%), all of which have been trending in a positive direction for three consecutive seasons. Though he no lone has the bandbox that is Great American Ballpark to call home, he may be in a better overall lineup, with Bobby Witt, Salvador Perez, Maikel Garcia and Vinnie Pasquantino all hitting in the upper half of the lineup with him. The trade doesn’t move the needle much on his overall value, which is that of a roster-able and start-able 2B in all 12 team and deeper leagues.

Mike Yastrzemski and the San Francisco Giants agree to a one-year, $9.25 million deal

Yastrzemski avoids arbitration and the Giants secure their outfield in one fell swoop. He was a gold glove finalist and that makes him valuable in real baseball but for fantasy purposes, he is very middling, at best. He does have solid power, hitting 18 homers with a .206 ISO in 474 plate appearances. He consistently has hit between 15-18 homers since hitting 25 in 2021 and 21 in the juicy 2019 season. But he has had a .200+ ISO and a 100+ wRC+ in every season but one. He consistently has an avgEV of 89 MPH+, 10%+ barrel rate and 40% hard-hit rate and this year was no exception. While the expected stats are lower than his surface stats, its not a dramatic difference and he ALWAYS has out performed his expected stats so we can probably not read too much into that. If this were one year then I’d have more concern. But he consistently outperforms the xStats, so we move along. The walk rate is typically around 10%+ as he did chase a bit more outside the zone than usual at a 23.7% rate. However, there is no reason to think he is just a total bomb for walks. 8% seems like his floor considering his career numbers so we can consider him more valuable in leagues that count OBP and SLG rather than BA, which is a historically a negative for him. In traditional 5×5 leauges, he is just a fifth outfielder option as he really only provides modest power and run production and not much else.

Tampa Bay Rays send Jose Siri to the New York Mets for Eric Orze

Siri will probably take Harrison Bader’s spot. Bader played in 143 games, accumulating 437 plate appearances and then there is another void if Jesse Winker doesn’t come back. Siri is a high strikeout dude (career 35.8% strikeout rate) with power (18 and 25 homers last two years) and speed (12-14 steals last three years) as he has been  a fourth outfielder his whole career. Unfortunately he does not walk much either so his value lies in the homers, steals and slugging (if your league counts that). He is a pretty big drain on your batting average and OBP. Unless he gets an everyday role, Siri is just a streaming option in standard sized leagues for managers needing homers and steals.

Orze is a career minor leaguer who has consistently had excellent strikeout rates but poor walk rates throughout his minor league career. However, this past season in Triple-A saw him allow a very nice 46.3% ground ball rate, the best number we have seen since a limited stint in Double-A in 2022. The Rays have had a good history of getting the most out of arms, especially out of the ‘pen (see Edwin Uceta, Manuel Rodriguez, Jason Adam, etc.) so maybe we see Orze get some value in holds leagues. But that is far from a certainty.

Nick Martinez accepts $21.05 million qualifying offer from the Cincinatti Reds

Martinez finally caught on in a rotation this year and found success. He turned in a 3.10 ERA and 1.03 WHIP with 116 strikeouts to just 18 walks. The first half saw him have a 3.88 ERA with a 3.15 FIP an 18.9% strikeout rate. But the second half he really came into his own with an ERA that positively regressed to his low FIP as he turned in a 2.30 ERA and 3.27 FIP. Overall he finished the year with a 3.10 ERA with a 3.21 FIP and 3.15 xERA. However, the SIERA was 3.80 and the xFIP was 3.89 thanks to a low 7.4% HR:FB ratio. However, he allowed soft contact with a 5.1% barrel rate, 86.4 avgEV and 30.4% hard-hit rate. Despite allowing more flyballs than ground balls for the first time in his career this season, the weak contact against him lessen the blow from it. What stops him from being a standard league draft target is his home ballpark in Cincy is a hitters part and he lacks the strikeout upside. So you are hoping he returns solid ratios and gets some wins. Wins won’t be coming that much pitching for the Reds and the ball flies in Cincy. Consider Martinez a streamer in standard leagues next year when he’s on the road and should only be on rosters in deeper leagues.

Kevin Newman signs one-year deal with the Angels

The backup infielder is on the move again after spending one season with the D’backs. With starting shortstop Zach Neto potentially missing the start of the 2025 season, the Angels got themselves a serviceable option to replace him for the beginning of the year. For fantasy purposes, managers will be interested in Newman’s .278 average and his eight steals in 288 at bats last year. He does not walk much but he also has an excellent strikeout rate of just 15.4%. He does not hit for much power with ISO’s consistently below .100. But the batting average has been .274, .253, and .278 the last three seasons. The hard-hit, barrel and avgEV are all bad but he has decent line drive rates and an xBA that has consistently been high enough to give managers confidence he should be a decent average asset. If you leave your draft feeling light on your average and steals categories, Newman can be a nice beginning of season stream to open ’25 if he does get the nod to man short while Neto recovers.

Travis d’Arnaud signs two-year, $12 million deal with the Los Angeles Angels

With Logan O’Hoppe on the roster, d’Arnaud is unlikely to get an everyday role, but is a good enough bat that the Angels will look to get him in the lineup more than a traditional backup catcher. Also, O’Hoppe’s second half was horrible. He slashed .196/.266/.312 with a 38.2% strikeout rate. d’Arnaud gives them insurance at the position if O’Hoppe continues to be bad to start ’25 or if he falls off again in the second half. d’Anaud hit 15 homers last year in 341 plate appearances with a solid .199 ISO and 103 wRC+. The barrel rate has steadily increased over the last few seasons going from 8.5% in ’22, 9.0% in ’23 and 10.4% last year. He also had solid hard-hit and avgEV as his xSLG of .438 is right along his surface SLG of .436. Managers in deeper leagues or two-catcher leagues should still see some solid value in d’Arnaud, even if he isn’t an everyday dude.

Long time Chicago Cub Kyle Hendricks signs with the Los Angeles Angels on a one-year deal

He has been a Cub since 2014 so it’ll be weird seeing him in a different uniform. However, he had his worst season as a major leaguer last year with a 5.92 ERA and 1.45 WHIP. The soft-tossing Hendricks’ fantasy value will always come from positive ratios… if he can get back on track. After seven seasons of ERAs below 4.00, he fell off in ’21 and ’22, bounced back with a 3.74 ERA in ’23 before the floor dropped off in ’24. The ERA estimators were all lower than his 5.92 ERA with a 4.80 xERA, 4.98 FIP and 4.83 SIERA. However, even a regression to those numbers for the ERA won’t be good. Hendricks’ success is generally tied to allowing low barrel and fly ball rates. The fly ball rate was solid as he allowed more ground balls (44.5%) than fly balls (34.1%).  Going into next year, Hendricks shouldn’t be trusted in any drafts except in the deepest of leagues. If we see the barrel rate drops, then we can view him as a streamer.

Michael Wacha resigns with the Kansas City Royals for three-years, $51 million

He has been pretty consistent with ERAs of 3.32, .3.22 and 3.35 over the last three seasons, with WHIPs of 1.12, 1.16 and 1.19 and with him making 23, 24 and 29 starts in each of those respective years. He has been delivering these results with ERA estimators at or above 4.00, with the exception being his FIPs of 3.65 this year and 3.89 last year. He does not have much strikeout upside with a strikeout rate between 20-22% over the last three seasons. But his walk rate is quite respectable, being between 6% and 8% over the last three years. The low 32.2% hard hit rate and 86.9 avgEV helps ease the impact of the 8.0% barrel rate (that’s not a bad number, however). HIs changeup is his calling card with a 111 stuff+ grade. Wacha lacks the strikeout upside to make him a top fantasy option, but with three straight seasons of a solid ERA and WHIP and enough strikeouts to make a difference, Wacha is a solid fantasy SP3 or SP4 in 2025.

Atlanta Braves send Jorge Soler to the Los Angeles Angels for Griffin Canning.

Canning was let go by the Braves soon after the trade as they were just looking to dump Soler’s contract onto the Angels, who are picking up every penny of the remaining $32 million remaining on his deal.

Soler is probably going to get most of his at bats at designated hitter, but that may be dependent on what they do with Mike Trout, who may also get time there to ease his workload to try and prevent another injury to him. he his 36 homers in 2023 but that number dropped to 21 in ’24. He has had an ISO of .200 and higher over the last seven seasons (.241 last year, .250 the year before). He has also had a wOBA of.320+ and a wRC+ of 100+ in six of his last seven years. Soler has seen his bating average be better over the last two seasons with a .250 clip last year and a .241 clip this year. This paired with a drop in his strikeout rate (29.4 in ’22, down to 24% last two seasons) while his walk rate has consistently been 10%+ for his entire career. While he will bat in a less talented lineup as an Angel, his power is legit (90.5 MPH avgEV, 12.3% barrel rate, 43.7% hard-hit rate) and the xBA back up his high averages over the last two years as Soler is a solid third or fourth outfielder in 12-team, 5×5 leagues.