Though we’re only a few weeks from spring training, the Major League Baseball offseason still has plenty of heavy lifting to be completed. Five of the top 14 free agents remain on the board and if we extended that to our top 50, 16 of those remain on the market.
Sunday is a quiet day, and we’ve had our fair share of those, but we’ll still round up the news and rumors for the day.
At least two teams in on Stanek
The Braves and Cubs are among the suitors for the services of free agent reliever Ryne Stanek, per MLB.com. The 6-foot-4 right-hander heads to his age-33 season having been well-traveled in recent years. Since the beginning of 2019, he’s been with five teams. Last year for the Mariners and Mets, Stanek pitched to a 4.88 ERA and 1.32 WHIP with 67 strikeouts in 55 ⅓ innings.
Cardinals avoiding long-term deals
The Cardinals have been known to be shopping third baseman Nolan Arenado throughout the winter and already let Paul Goldschmidt walk in free agency. Chaim Bloom is set to take over as the president of baseball operations after this coming season and current president John Mozeliak has said he wants to leave a “clean slate” for Bloom, via St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In other words, they’re seemingly avoiding long-term deals this offseason.
Excluding players still in arbitration or before, the only salaried players on the Cardinals past 2025 are Arenado, Willson Contreras (team option for 2028) and Sonny Gray (team option for 2027).
As such, it’s reasonable to expect the Cardinals to avoid adding anyone this offseason for 2026 or beyond. Past that, if they aren’t contending this July, it’s also reasonable to expect they’ll attempt to trade both Contreras and Gray (and Arenado, obviously).
Padres still expect high payroll
The Padres have been pretty quiet this offseason. They recently saw All-Star left fielder Jurickson Profar sign a free-agent deal with the Braves while All-Star reliever Tanner Scott landed with the Dodgers. Word is they’ve been shopping ace Dylan Cease, too.
Still, the ballclub expects to have a top-10 payroll or be right in the neighborhood of the top 10, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The first thought there might be good news for Padres fans, but it’s not as encouraging as it might sound.
Per Cot’s Contracts, the Padres’ projected payroll for 2025 right now ranks ninth in baseball and they’ve got a more than $30 million lead on the D-backs for 11th, so even shedding Cease — who is projected to make around $13.7 million in arbitration — would mean staying in the ballpark of 10th.
Sure, it’s possible that a team like the D-backs, Giants (12th in payroll), Cubs (13th) or Red Sox (14th) spend enough money the rest of the offseason to pass the Padres, but it’s unlikely all of those teams do.
The bottom line is while that report might sound like the Padres aren’t actively looking to shed a bunch of money, they could actually do that and still be close to the top 10 in payroll.
