January 2: Orioles signed 3B Eugenio Suarez to a 2/33 contract.
January 3: SP Chris Paddack, who helped pitch the Twins to World Series titles in 2023 and 2025 is now a Yankee on a 3/45 deal.
January 4: Another Twin collected his rings and left for greener($) pastures as 2B Jorge Polanco is San Diego-bound for 5/64.
January 6: The top catcher on the free agent market Reese McGuire signed a big 7/97 deal with Kansas City.
January 14: The Hall of Fame voting is in:
3B Adrian Beltre 75.0 (3rd year) Inducted HOF
CF Carlos Beltran 73.8 (4th year)
RF Ichiro Suzuki 67.5 (2nd year)
SP CC Sabathia 62.8 (2nd year)
SS Alex Rodriguez 61.6 (5th year)
C Joe Mauer 53.4 (3rd year)
CL Francisco Rodriguez 45.0 (4th year)
CF Andruw Jones 34.1 (9th year)
LF Ryan Braun 33.4 (1st year)
LF Manny Ramirez 31.9 (10th year) Dropped
Congrats to Beltre, who made it in by one vote. Oh so close for Beltran and Ichiro and CC are closing in behind.
January 20: Signed an interesting international amateur free agent as the signing period opened:
January 27: Zach Eflin, who won 31 games for us in 2023 and 2024 before turning into a pumpkin last year and being traded to Cincinnati (where he wasn't any better at 2-6, 6.12), still managed a 3/27 deal with the Mets and reliever Devin "The Airbender" Williams joined the Red Sox for a year at $7.4M.
February 13: With two years left on his big contract he never lived up to outside of a 4.8 WAR year in 2023, Detroit offloaded Javier Baez (and retained all his salary) to St. Louis for a couple of prospects. The last two years he's averaged about a .650 OPS but is still a fine defensive SS (5.5 ZR in 25).
February 16: Old friend Ryan Thompson surfaced in San Diego on a minor league deal with a major league option.
March 1: Three former Rays had to settle for minor league deals: Randy Arozarena hwith Boston, Nathaniel Lowe with St. Louis and Francisco Mejia with San Diego, who originally traded him to the Rays about five years ago.
March 8: Brandon Lowe, who merely hit .325-25-85 in 330 AB for the Yankees last year after we traded him there, parlayed that into a 5/126 extension so we'll be seeing a lot of him in the years to come.
Also
Jose Siri suffered a significant hamstring strain and will be out 5-6 weeks.
March 11: Signed OF Adam Duvall to a minor league contract with a $1.7M MLB option.
Wanted some OF depth, especially a RH bat with power, and Duvall fit the bill.
March 13: Some more vets found new homes on one-year deals before the season started, including former Rays stalwart Yandy Diaz, who joins Minnesota for $4M. Joey Gallo (Baltimore, $3.8M) and Brandon Drury (Yankees, $5M) also signed.
March 20: Who says you can't go home again? Christian Vazquez signed a 1/6 deal with the Boston Red Sox.
March 30: Traded P Colby White to St. Louis for minor league C Mac Guscette.
We had a roster crunch and White was out of options. Rather than waive him and perhaps lose him, we acquire Guscette, a promising young catcher drafted in 2024 out of UF who has 55/60 power and eye and is an average defensive C. He had a 1.101 OPS in 40 games at AA last year, and while those are numbers he'll never likely approach again they at least show he has a bat.