A little wistful seeing this, but baseball is a business:
Seems weird seeing that face with a different cap. Anyway, we get a supplemental 1st-round pick out of it, and I wish him the best of luck except for the 1 or 2 times a year we'll be facing him.
In other free agent news, the excellent SS Ronny Mauricio signed a 4-year, $52.3M deal with San Francisco, and the Blue Jays continue to tool up by signing another top-notch OF, this time Riley Greene, formerly of the Tigers, to a 7/74.3 deal.
December 21: Added C Will Quintana, 1B Rodolfo Rivas, 1B Caleb Picciotti, OF DeAndre Hodges and P Jeff Baker to the 40-man roster.
Rule 5 Draft coming tomorrow, the toughest to leave off were OF Stan Collier, our #1 pick in 2024, who has 75 HR power and could hit 40 in the majors right now but is a lousy (40) defensive OF, hard-throwing reliever Eric Carter with 75 stuff, and OF Pat Brown who was our 2nd round pick in 2024 and probably would be a decent 3rd/4th OF right now. If I had to predict, I'd think Carter is the mostly likely of those 3 to be taken, with an outside shot of a relative vet like Shane Sasaki or slick-fielding SS Melvin Gutierrez going.
December 22: Nobody taken in the Rule 5 draft which as usual I get more concerned about than I should. The best player we've lost over the years in Rule 5 was C Zach Britton, whom the White Sox took in the 2025 draft and traded to the Phillies, where he's become one of the top catchers in baseball with three seasons of 3.3 WAR or better over the last four years and just signed a 5/52 extension this offseason.
December 23: Austin Riley, who's been one of the more consistent power hitters over the last 4-5 years, signed a 4/68 deal with the Dodgers to play 3B after Rio Ruiz left, and the Blue Jays continue to bolster their team with Corey Seager on a 3/54 deal. Although he's now 35, Seager continues to be productive. And an old friend, Asa Lacy, signed a 1/4 deal with the Dodgers after finding his niche as a lefty reliever.
December 24: The Angels signed Josh Bell to a 1-year, $9.2M deal to play 1B for them. The 37-year-old is still productive, coming off his 4th straight 100-RBI season.
December 25. First, Merry Christmas. A couple of teams found new relievers under their trees as Mitchell Verburg, once a Ray and the key player sent to then-Miami for Judson Fabian four years ago, signed a 1-year, $3M deal with the Giants and longtime Yankee Luis Severino joined up with the Dodgers on a 2/7.5 contract.
December 28: And the other Rays free agency shoe drops:
Oof, that's a lot of money and a lot of years for a 31-year-old C with a lot of mileage on him. He seemed to play much better this year for us when I rested him every third game or so, we'll see how much the Giants use him. Meanwhile, I'll gladly take the extra first-round pick.
January 9: Max Scherzer was voted into the Hall of Fame in his first year at 91.8%. He was the only inductee as Joe Mauer inches closer at 65.8% in his 7th year on the ballot, and Joey Votto at 52.6% in his second year were the only players to clear 50%.
January 24: Another Rays free agent finds a new home:
Interesting rules change (guess the MLBPA is weaker come 2030):
This of course has real significance for us, as we're more about team control than signing free agents, meaning we'll get an extra year from just about everyone in the roster.
February 10: Apparently it was "Sign Former Rays Pitchers Day" for the St. Louis Cardinals as they inked Shane Baz and Aaron Ashby for 1-year deals.