IBC

Good news!

ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports that Charlie Morton plans to pitch in 2025.

Morton is now 41 — Tuesday was his birthday — and he’s coming off a season with Atlanta where he forged a 4.19 ERA while showing some decent durability with 165 2/3 innings. He’ll assuredly be looking at another one-year deal, but Morton has been effective enough to earn that right to be in the back of someone’s rotation in 2025. Atlanta should be considered the favorites just based on their history.

https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/charlie-morton/48665

Veteran right-hander Charlie Morton has seemingly been mulling retirement for more than a half decade, but he’s continued his career on a series of one-year deals, leaving open the possibility that each successive year will be his last. That won’t be the case with 2024, however. ESPN’s Jeff Passan writes that Morton intends to suit up for an 18th MLB season next year.

Morton, who turns 41 today (happy birthday, Charlie!), has spent the past four seasons in Atlanta, anchoring the rotation as a durable innings eater amid frequent injury troubles throughout the rest of the starting staff. Despite those years representing his age-37 through age-40 campaigns, Morton has made at least 30 starts and pitched at least 163 1/3 innings each of the past four seasons. He’s provided more than just bulk work, as well; in 686 1/3 innings for the Braves, the grizzled righty has pitched to a sharp 3.87 ERA while striking out 26.6% of his opponents against a 9.3% walk rate.

The 2024 season wasn’t Morton’s best in Atlanta but was still a solid year all around. He logged 165 1/3 frames and turned in a 4.19 earned run average. Last year’s 23.8% strikeout rate was Morton’s lowest since his late-career breakout with the Astros, which began in his age-33 season, but it was still enough to check in about a percentage point north of league-average. Morton’s 9.3% walk rate was worse than average but marked an improvement over the career-worst 11.6% mark he turned in during the 2023 season. His 46.3% grounder rate was strong, and he generally did a fine job avoiding hard contact. It wasn’t the Cy Young-caliber performance Morton flashed in his 2018-19 peak, but it was a fine showing for a veteran third or fourth starter.

Logically speaking, a reunion with the Braves seems possible. Atlanta is looking for innings behind staff leaders Chris Sale, Reynaldo Lopez and Spencer Schwellenbach. Young ace Spencer Strider will miss the beginning of the season as he continues mending from last year’s UCL surgery. Longtime Atlanta star Max Fried is a free agent and seems likely to sign elsewhere on a contract beyond the Braves’ comfort zone. Morton has also been happy to pitch in the southeast region of the country, close to his young family in Florida.

On the other hand, the Braves are all but certain to pay the luxury tax for a third straight season this year. That’ll mean at least a 50% tax on any dollars over the luxury barrier, and perhaps more — depending on the extent by which they surpass this year’s $241MM mark. Morton earned $15MM from 2019-21 and has been paid $20MM in each of the past three seasons in Atlanta. Even if he’s likely looking at a pay cut from that level, he should still be able to land a salary north of $10MM, barring an unexpected discount to pitch in a locale of his preference. For an Atlanta club also looking to upgrade at shortstop and add to the bullpen in the wake of Joe Jimenez’s injury, a hefty one-year price tag on what’d be a fourth or fifth starter for them when or if everyone is healthy might be a bridge too far. Per RosterResource, the Braves’ current luxury projection is already at $228MM — just $13MM shy of this year’s threshold.

If Morton does end up leaving the Braves, it’s likely he’ll land with a contending club. At age 41, he’s unlikely to sign on for any rebuilding efforts or to mentor a group of young arms. He’ll look for an opportunity to pitch in the middle of what already looks like a postseason staff, adding some stability and significantly raising the floor of a new club’s rotation.

Morton would also have the chance to reach some more personal milestones; Morton is 12 wins shy of 150 in his career and would have a realistic chance at moving into the top-70 all time in strikeouts (he’s currently 82nd). With a strong performance in 2025, he could also nudge his career ERA under 4.00. He entered the 2024 season at 4.00 flat and raised it to 4.01 with this season’s 4.19 performance.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/11/ ... raves.html

Nice to see his 110 ERA+ ZiPS projection but ...

Josh Sborz underwent right shoulder surgery last week and is expected to miss the first 2-3 months of next season.

With veteran closer Kirby Yates hitting free agency, Sborz would’ve been among the candidates vying for closing duties in Texas, but he’s going to wind up missing most of, if not all, of the first half of next season after undergoing a debridement procedure earlier this month to address a lingering right shoulder issue.

https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/josh-sborz/48430

Brewers general manager Matt Arnold told reporters at the Winter Meetings that Christian Yelich (back) is expected to be fully healthy for spring training.

It’s a positive update overall from Arnold as he added that Yelich hasn’t resumed swinging a bat yet, but has begun other baseball activities, and should be a full-go by the time spring training rolls around. The 33-year-old outfielder was excellent last year, registering a robust .909 OPS with 11 homers and 21 steals across 73 games, before undergoing season-ending back surgery in mid-August. He’s a high-end OF3 option for fantasy managers in redraft formats heading into 2025.

https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/christian-yelich/48159

Tigers signed RHP Alex Cobb to a one-year, $15 million contract.

The deal, which was agreed to earlier this week, is now official after Cobb passed his physical. The 37-year-old veteran hurler’s ongoing injury issues curtail his realistic upside for fantasy purposes, but he’s remained a viable streaming option for fantasy managers in recent years, especially in deeper mixed leagues. He was limited to just three starts last year with the division-rival Guardians due to hip, shoulder and blister issues. He’s unlikely to reverse a three-year decline in strikeout rate, but his above-average control remains intact. He’s probably best left on the waiver wire to open the year, but if he’s healthy there aren’t a ton of more pitcher-friendly ballparks than Detroit, especially in the early portion of the year when the temperatures are near the freezing mark.

The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported that the Tigers have signed RHP Alex Cobb to a one-year contract.

The deal is pending a physical, which is important since Cobb struggled with injuries (again) in 2024, pitching just 16 1/3 innings for the Guardians after they acquired him from the Giants at the trade deadline. The 37-year-old does have a 3.84 career ERA in 233 MLB starts, so he will provide a reliable veteran presence for this young Tigers’ rotation and will likely be a useful fantasy starter when he’s healthy. However, it would be irresponsible for fantasy managers to expect a fully healthy season from Cobb in 2025.

https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/alex-cobb/49238

Brewers general manager Matt Arnold told reporters that Nestor Cortes (elbow) has had a “fully healthy offseason.”

Cortes was traded Friday to the Yankees in the three-player deal with New York for All-Star closer Devin Williams. Arnold said the Brewers did extensive work on his medicals, and expect the left-hander to be fully healthy for the Brew Crew heading into 2025. Cortes unfortunately will be “best” remembered in 2024 for giving up the grand slam to Freddie Freeman in Game 1, but the 30-year-old threw a career-high 174.1 innings with a 3.77 ERA and 162/39 K/BB prior to dealing with his flexor tendon injury at the end of the year.

https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/nestor-cortes/49224

Cortes, like Williams, is going to be a free agent after the 2025 season. Like Williams, he doesn’t operate like most other pitchers. But where Williams has an incomparable breaking pitch as his one weird trick, Cortes is all funk. He changes speeds and throws five or six different pitches, depending on what classification system you like. He varies his delivery endlessly, sometimes within an at-bat. He disrupts timing and uses elite command to avoid walks.

It doesn’t look like it should work, but it does. In his four-year stint with the Yankees from 2021-24, he’s compiled a 3.33 ERA, 3.68 FIP, and racked up 9.4 WAR despite intermittent injury problems. No one feels comfortable during a Cortes start, from opposing batters to his own team’s fans. He’s perpetually walking a tightrope to get hitters out with so-so raw stuff – and he manages that balancing act at a remarkable frequency.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/yankees-bre ... yone-wins/

Currently at pick 333 in draft champions leagues ADP, Hunter Goodman is currently my favorite deal at his price. A lot can go wrong with the free-swinging profile, but there is a ton of power in the bat and he is in Colorado which always helps with the BABIP. His ability to play in the outfield gives him the potential to rack up plate appearances in a way that normally only the top tiers of the position can. I only projected him for 400 plate appearances, but if he found his way to more, watch out!

https://fantasy.fangraphs.com/catcher-2 ... -rankings/

Much like Oakland did with the likes of Lawrence Butler and Darell Hernaiz, the Rockies have time to let their risky young players develop at the big league level. This paid dividends with Brenton Doyle in 2024 and could benefit any of the 2025 ETA prospects above, as well as Jordan Beck (I’m a skeptic) and Hunter Goodman (I’m an enthusiast), who aren’t rookies anymore.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/colorado-ro ... prospects/

Haven't seen his 2025 ZiPS yet but good news!

ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports the Giants and Justin Verlander are in agreement on a one-year, $15 million contract.

The Giants definitely needed at least one rotation addition, and Verlander remains a reasonable bet at age 42, even though last season with the Astros was pretty disastrous. The three-time Cy Young Award winner wound up with a 5.48 ERA in 17 starts before being left out of Houston’s postseason plans, but he was excellent in 2023 (3.22 ERA in 162 1/3 IP) and he just won a Cy Young in 2022 at age 39. He’ll join Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, Jordan Hicks and probably Kyle Harrison in the San Francisco rotation. It’s an ideal landing spot for fantasy purposes as Oracle Park remains one of the most pitcher-friendly venues in baseball. He’ll be a late-round pick in fantasy drafts this spring based on his track record alone.

https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/justin-verlander/48244

Obviously I was hopeful his 2025 ZiPS would be a bit better but I am holding onto him as I still a believer ...

When Jonathan Cannon was called up for his major league debut early last season, this site ran a story full of quotes from the start of spring training with the 24-year-old right-hander talking up the new power curveball he had spent the offseason developing.

The only wrinkle was that Cannon spent his debut spamming the Royals with newly learned sweepers instead.

The sweeper was just part of a new, decidedly east-west oriented arsenal built out for Cannon under Brian Bannister in the spring bullpen sessions together at Camelback Ranch, predicated on harnessing seam-shift effects with his sinker and changeup. For a player whose energy for adding and tweaking pitches was part of the appeal to the White Sox on draft night, has seen his arsenal bloat to six pitches or more at times, but is also such that coaches have to keep an eye out for his tinkering, it was very on-brand.

But a day before Cannon throws off a mound for the first time since last season, he has no new pitches to share. He wants his wandering days to be over.

“It’s a little bit of a relief. I feel like my whole career it’s been, ‘Hey you might want to think about adding this,’ or ‘This pitch might not be good enough.'” Cannon said. “I know exactly what I’m going to do; I’m not adding any pitching or subtracting any pitches, I’m really focusing on the pitches that I have and making them more consistent and making them a little better. Because I think my arsenal is really good as it is.”

That Cannon went from scuffling in Triple-A last April to 124⅓ major league innings of nearly league average work (92 ERA+) would be commendable enough on its own. And until the signing of Martín Pérez last week, the White Sox might not have had a better candidate to be their Opening Day starter besides Cannon, who considered departed ace Garrett Crochet “one of my best friends” and worked to mirror the way he studied opposing lineups.

But Bannister regularly evokes Logan Webb when discussing Cannon’s development, which doubles as an explanation for his bold projection that the 6-foot-6-inch righty will soon become one of the more reliable arms in the league, despite consistently below-average strikeout rates that call upon him to rigidly avoid walks and control the type of contact he induces. The faith is mutual; Cannon wouldn’t have gone through the tumult of trying to learn how to command new pitches in-season if he didn’t see big gains in his stuff. He’s just spent the winter trying to parse why they regularly felt nastier and more reliably located in innings 1-3 than frame 4-6.

“Sometimes my hand got a little bit late getting up, and that kind of caused my sweeper to back up, or spike it in the left-handed batter’s box,” Cannon said. “A lot of it was the arm the path. If you look at the video of when I first came up, I was really low with my arm slot, and I think that was one of the reasons why I got sent down. I had really dropped my arm slot and it was causing everything to flatten out a little bit and making everything a little bit easier to hit. When I came back up my arm slot was a little bit higher, it was a little bit easier to have consistency in those pitches. It made all my pitches a little bit better, which I think is a little bit counterintuitive as a sinker baller.”

But in this era of pitching, counterintuitive is often the goal. Seven years ago, a common story would be discussing a pitching prospect raising their arm slot to try to generate the most possible riding action on their four-seamer. Now, it’s about generating pitch movement that hitters aren’t used to seeing from certain angles. So Crochet throwing his four-seamers from a lower three-quarters sees some extra benefit from his flatter approach angle, and Cannon — while naturally a short-strider with a lower slot — sees his sinker play up when it comes from a higher, steeper release.

“It’s just a little bit tougher to track,” Cannon said. “For [hitters], that sinker is really barreling down on their hands and moving a lot more, it feels like, from that higher slot. From a lower slot, it almost goes up and then falls back down into the zone, and for whatever reason they tend to see that a little bit better. It’s different for everyone, but it’s finding that slot that’s a little bit more challenging on the hitters. Because I’m a big believer in the hitters tell you everything you need to know. The pitch might be really good on Trackman or analytically be really good, but if it’s getting hit a lot, it might not be very good.”

So if Cannon throwing off a mound for the first time around a month before he’s due to report to Camelback scans as later than other offseason preparation stories, it’s because he’s intentionally spent more time trying to build himself up physically for what’s hopefully another new professional career high in innings, with an emphasis on shoulder care. He doesn’t want to set more ambitious goals in January than staying healthy enough to make all his starts, but training to maintain his arm path for six innings per night, for six months out of the year, is a good example of health and effectiveness intertwining.

Pitching changes too much and too quickly, and Cannon is too curious to guarantee that this will keep him from adding something to his sinker/changeup/sweeper/four-seam/cutter mix in 2025, since Bannister has already stated that finding solutions to reduce left-handed slugging against him is a project he’s considering. But with all the permutations that lie ahead for a very unsettled White Sox roster, Cannon wants to be part of establishing a port in the storm.

“Spring training is going to be very competitive,” Cannon said. “Last year was obviously tough for everyone, including us. It definitely provides a lot of motivation. It comes down to putting in the work, putting ourselves in position every night to win a baseball game, and I think it comes down to everyone doing their job. For me specifically, I can only control what I do and that’s going out there every fifth day putting my team in position to win a game.”

https://soxmachine.com/2025/01/white-so ... t-in-2025/

Alex Cobb is dealing with hip inflammation.

Cobb has been shut down from throwing after receiving a PRP injection last week to address the issue. Tigers manager A.J. Hinch told reporters Tuesday it’s pushed him back about a month, which suggests he’ll open up the regular season on the injured list. While it’s not ideal that Cobb is already on the shelf, the Tigers weren’t in any way expecting to get 30 starts out of him and they have plenty of rotation options. This definitely increases the chances of Jackson Jobe starting off in the majors, but it’s still far from a lock, with two rotation spots available for Jackson Jobe, Casey Mize, Kenta Maeda, Brant Hurter, Keider Montero, Matt Manning and others.

https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/alex-cobb/49238/news

Rangers placed RHP Josh Sborz (shoulder) on the 60-day injured list.

Sborz underwent shoulder surgery at the end of November and was already expected to be out for the first three months of the season. The Rangers needed a spot on the 40-man roster after signing Luke Jackson, so Sborz was moved to the injured list to create that space.

https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/josh-sborz/48430

Geraldo Perdomo is not leaving Arizona any time soon. On Monday night, Mike Rodriguez reported that the Diamondbacks and their switch-hitting shortstop had agreed to a contract extension, which is for four years and $45 million, includes a club option for a fifth season, and starts in 2026, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan. The 25-year-old Perdomo has just over three years of big league service time, so the deal will buy out his final two arbitration seasons and at least the first two years after he would’ve reached free agency. Perdomo was an All-Star in 2023, and he put up 2.0 WAR in 2024 despite an April knee injury that limited him to 98 games. He’s now set to spend the entirety of his 20s providing the Diamondbacks with a throwback blend of solid shortstop defense and an absolute refusal to swing the bat.

Perdomo got a cup of coffee in 2021 and played his first full season in 2022, running a 59 wRC+ that limited him to just 0.3 WAR. In 2023, he earned an All-Star nod on the back of a torrid, BABIP-fueled start that saw him with a 200 wRC+ on May 3. He quickly came back to earth, but ended up running a 117 wRC+ in the first half and a 74 wRC+ in the second half, for an overall mark of 98 and 2.3 WAR. Perdomo missed just over two months due to a torn meniscus in 2024, but he put up a 101 wRC+ and his second straight two-win season. Essentially, he’s been a bit better than league average for two seasons now, and that was enough to convince Arizona to lock him down for the entirety of his prime. Perdomo and the Diamondbacks had already avoided arbitration by agreeing on a $2.55 million salary for 2025, and the new deal will add a $5 million signing bonus to that. He’ll receive a $5 million salary in 2026, then $8 million in 2027, $11 million in 2028, and $13 million in 2029. The Diamondbacks also have a $15 million club option for 2030, with a $3 million buyout should they choose not to exercise it. There are also incentives for a top-10 finish in the MVP voting.

That’s a pretty big commitment, even bigger when you consider the fact that the Diamondbacks have shortstop Jordan Lawlar, whom Eric Longenhagen just ranked our 14th overall prospect. Let’s talk about why the Diamondbacks feel Perdomo is worth extending, even if it means blocking the best prospect in their system.

Personally, I think Perdomo is one of the most fascinating players in the game. He came up as a glove-first shortstop prospect, and he certainly looks the part, but the advanced defensive metrics have been split on his performance for his entire career.

Geraldo Perdomo Advanced Defensive Metrics

Year DRS FRV DRP
2022 -3 0 6.4
2023 -3 1 -3.4
2024 10 -1 4.2

For his first two seasons, DRS thought he was costing the Diamondbacks runs. Then in 2024, the season when he missed time due to a major leg injury, it thought he was one of the best shortstops in baseball. Statcast has pretty much seen him as neutral throughout his three-year career, while DRP thinks he’s been great with the exception of 2023. Clearly, though, the Diamondbacks believe in his defense.

On offense, Perdomo is just plain weird. I know I summarized his overall offensive performance earlier, and those numbers are pretty standard – he’s been right around league average for two straight seasons – but it’s important to understand how he got to those numbers. For starters, Perdomo cannot stop bunting. Over the past three seasons, Perdomo has laid down 66 bunts, the most in baseball. His 33 sac bunts are also the most in the game; only three other players have even reached 20. His 15 bunt hits rank eighth, but among the 61 players with at least six bunt hits over that period, his 23.8% bunt hit rate ranks dead last. Even more damning, he leads baseball with 52 foul bunts. According to Baseball Savant, those fouls have cost the Diamondbacks four runs. That’s the worst number in baseball.

The bunting is genuinely a problem, but it fits perfectly with Perdomo’s overall approach at the plate, because that approach could be best summed up as “Try with all your might to avoid swinging.” Perdomo is one of the most passive players in all of baseball. Our database goes back to 2002, and since then, Perdomo’s 39.2% swing rate ranks 48th out of the 1,129 batters with at least 1,000 plate appearances. That puts him in the fifth percentile. Over the past three seasons, it’s the sixth-lowest mark in the game. Perdomo is the exact kind of player whom Robert Orr’s SEAGER metric was built to expose. In 2024, SEAGER had him in the 77th percentile in terms of selectivity, but it put him in the second percentile in terms of taking hittable pitches. In other words, Perdomo’s unwillingness to swing at strikes is way more extreme than his ability to lay off balls.

Keep in mind that SEAGER was meant to assess a player’s ability to do damage, and, well, that’s just not Perdomo’s game. He runs some of the lowest contact quality numbers in baseball. However, he makes tons of contact. Not only that, but over the past two seasons, he’s run a foul rate of nearly 43%, one of the higher marks in the game. It’s nearly impossible to get him to swing and miss, even when he swings and doesn’t put the ball in play. So even though pitchers attack the zone like crazy, he runs excellent walk and strikeout rates. If I’m making it sound like every single part of Perdomo’s game is at one extreme or another, well, yeah, that’s pretty much how it is. His Baseball Savant sliders are either bright red or bright blue. He’s all patience, no power. He’s the rare player who runs an incredible squared-up rate but an unimpressive line drive rate. Because Perdomo puts tons of balls in play, he’ll always have the chance at posting a great BABIP and putting up a three- or four-win season, but unless he decides to try attacking the ball, there’s not much ceiling here.

I am so, so curious to see what it would look like if Perdomo were to start attacking the ball. He’s still young, and I really do think it’s possible that he has the capacity to be more than an average hitter. I’m sure the Diamondbacks remember clearly how well it worked out when he was pulling everything in sight at the beginning of the 2023 season, and maybe they’ll try to help him become that player again. Still, I don’t think we should expect that going forward. I think the Diamondbacks are paying for floor rather than ceiling. However he gets there, if Perdomo keeps performing like a two-win player, the contract will work out well for both sides. If he can remain a solid defender and a league-average bat, he’s a really useful player, even if he pushes Lawlar to third base. In the meantime, we all get to enjoy watching Perdomo live at the extremes in order to perform right at the mean.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/geraldo-per ... mondbacks/

Twins: OF Harrison Bader

Bader has done it on both sides of the ball, showing some surprising power and driving in runs while also playing an outstanding outfield. For a player who appeared to be signed as a fourth outfielder and insurance against a Byron Buxton injury, he’s been just about an everyday player in the early going. -- Matthew Leach

https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-newcomer-i ... -team-2025