MLB Player News

Pirates manager Derek Shelton has also received a one-game ban. Perdomo will begin serving his suspension during Wednesday afternoon’s series finale.

"[Shaw] has to earn that job,” Hoyer Said. “I’m not going to gift him that on a conference call in the middle of December.” Shaw is one of the top prospects in the Chicago system, and while the 23-year-old hasn’t played above Double-A, we’ve seen plenty of players skip the Triple-A level and have success. Shaw could be a contributor in several categories, and would have fantasy relevance if he does get the starting nod.

Nightengale notes the engagement with the first base market is in part due to the Yankees being in a stalemate with the Cubs in their bid to acquire Cody Bellinger. The first baseman that Nightengale mentions as targets for New York are Pete Alonso, Paul Goldschmidt, Carlos Santana and Christian Walker. It seems likely that the Yankees are going to be hard on the market for a first baseman even with a trade for Bellinger, with Walker being the name mentioned the most often. Alonso would be the most interesting, however, if only because he’s spent his entire career across town with the Mets.

A mere week after being reported as done, the Fried signing is now official. He’ll join Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, Luis Gil and probably Clarke Schmidt in the Yankees rotation, though a deal involving Gil or Schmidt and opening up a spot for Marcus Stroman remains possible. Fried made 29 starts with a 3.25 ERA last season, but he did miss some time in July with forearm neuritis. In 2023, he was limited to 14 starts, mostly by a forearm strain. It’s a good sign that he passed his physical, but we do still worry some about his durability going forward.

MLB.com’s Alex Stumpf reports Cabbage has been cut loose to pursue an opportunity overseas. The 27-year-old was claimed off waivers last month from the Astros. He’s posted sublime power/speed combo numbers at the Triple-A level, but has never been able to parlay that brilliance into sustained success at the highest level. He’s exactly the type of foreign hitter that tends to excel overseas in either Japan or Korea.

Waddell is back stateside after spending the previous three seasons split between the Korea Baseball Organization and Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League. The 30-year-old righty made 11 relief appearances between four different organizations from 2020-2021. He’ll provide the Mets with some extra organizational relief depth heading into next spring.

The deal is official. Sugano has been one of Japan’s top starting pitchers for over a decade at this juncture and will finally make the leap to the major leagues after finishing last year with a sparkling 1.67 ERA and 111/16 K/BB ratio across 156 2/3 innings. The 35-year-old righty doesn’t offer premium velocity, but boasts a five-pitch mix that is headlined by a deadly splitter. The lack of strikeout upside limits his fantasy appeal to deeper mixed leagues, but he should provide a serious lift in the ratio departments as a back-end rotation stabilizer for fantasy purposes. He’s a decent late-round target in deep mixers heading into next season.

Serven provides the Tigers with some extra organizational catching depth behind Jake Rogers and Dillon Dingler until top prospects Thayron Liranzo and Josue Briceño are ready to reach the big leagues. The 29-year-old backstop got into 28 contests last year for the Blue Jays.

Sánchez fortifies Toronto’s catching situation heading into next season after getting into a career-high 31 contests last year for the Marlins, batting .167 (14-for-84) with two stolen bases. The 27-year-old backstop is merely emergency organizational depth behind Alejandro Kirk entering the 2025 campaign.

Young, 29, spent the first half of last year hitting .285/.411/.506 for the Cardinals’ Triple-A team before taking off for a brief stint in Korea and batting .326/.420/.660 in 38 games for Doosan. He’s come in at .210/.290/.435 in 69 major league plate appearances, all with the Cubs between 2022 and ’23. Young is limited defensively and works best at first base, though he has experience at third and in the outfield corners. He’s a nice fallback option as a first baseman or DH against righties, but the Mets should be able to do better on the Opening Day roster.

Nuñez augments Cleveland’s organizational catching depth with another veteran presence behind Bo Naylor, Austin Hedges and David Fry heading into next season. He could factor into their plans at some point as an emergency stopgap due to injury with Fry coming off elbow surgery that is expected to prevent him from catching next year. The 29-year-old backstop has gotten into 111 games at the highest level dating back to 2019. He posted a .669 OPS with two homers in 263 plate appearances last year at Triple-A Columbus.