January 3: A couple of former Rays sluggers found new homes as 38-year-old Luis Castro, who spent late 2027 with us, signed a 3/30 deal with the Mets while Jose Aguilar, traded to Atlanta for Cristian Hernandez a few years back, parlayed a 39-HR, 93-RBI season into a 5/91 contract with the Phillies.
January 4: The Hall of Fame voting is in, and one guy was enshrined:
SP Clayton Kershaw 98.7 (1st year) Inducted HOF
1B Joey Votto 73.4 (6th year)
LF Ryan Braun 72.0 (9th year)
RF Ichiro Suzuki 57.6 (10th year) Dropped
2B Jose Altuve 57.2 (2nd year)
SP Jacob deGrom 47.4 (1st year)
Congrats to Clayton Kershaw, a first-ballot no-doubter, and close but no cigar for Votto and Braun. And sadly (and undeservedly) Ichiro fell off the ballot.
January 7: Reid Detmers, who toiled for Durham the last couple of seasons and pitched for us in September, signed a 1-year deal with Washington for $980K.
January 20: The international signing period has begun and we nabbed this guy:
"The light of his star could be blinding" says my head scout Rob Metzler. Let's go!
And we also signed this guy, who doesn't look too shabby:
Could be "an elite starting rightfielder" says Metzler.
Meanwhile Pedro Avila, who turned in a nice season for us after being claimed early in the year on waivers from the Angels, signed a 1/5.3 contract with the Dodgers.
February 3: Another of our free agents is gone as Tommy Burpee signed a 1/1.3 deal with the Cubs, who plan to use him as a starter.
February 25: Signed OF Elijah Green to a minor league contract with a major league option.
Green has been the Cardinals' starting CF the last several years but they waived and released him earlier in the month to make room for some free agents they signed. He's still an elite defensive CF, having won Gold Gloves in 2030 and 2032 and he put up a 13.8 ZR in CF. He's still good for 15 HR/20 SB a year as well. The drawback? a 40 contact tool which has resulted in BAs in the .210-.230 range during this span. Still he earned about 2 WAR last year and although he may start the year at Durham he'd make a great 4th OF and defensive replacement should we need one.