MLB Player News

The Cardinals just keep on winning extra-inning games. They’ve won in extras on back-to-back nights and three times in their last three tries. Coincidentally, all three have come against the Brewers. Baker played the hero in this one with his 10th inning single off Hoby Milner to set up the victory. Baker has shown impressive power with two homers, a double, and nine RBI in just 19 at-bats since being called up, but isn’t much more than a short-side platoon partner with Alec Burleson at DH right now.

Santana submitted a $2.1 million figure. He was terrific for the Pirates last season, posting a 2.44 ERA in 44 1/3 innings, but he’s otherwise been a fringe guy over the course of his career. He has a 4.76 ERA in 221 1/3 lifetime innings.

Leiter had files at $2.5 million. The 33-year-old struggled for the Mets after arriving in a trade with the Cubs last summer, posting a 4.98 ERA in 21 2/3 innings. He has a 3.98 ERA and a 236/71 K/BB in 190 innings over the last three seasons.

It sounds like the Dodgers and Ohtani will put together a plan once pitchers and catchers report. Ohtani probably won’t pitch for at least the first month of the season, but he is expected to be able to serve as a DH right away.

It doesn’t seem like the Padres made much of an attempt to keep free agent Ha-Seong Kim, who started out playing shortstop for the club last year. Bogaerts will definitely be happy to be back at his natural spot. The Padres are also slated to use Luis Arraez at first and Jake Cronenworth at second, assuming that neither is traded.

This is the safe way for the Padres to play it, though it would be fascinating to see if Morejón could stay healthy as a starter. The 25-year-old had a 2.83 ERA and a 71/21 K/BB in 63 2/3 innings out of the pen last season.

Machado got off to a slow start last year, perhaps in part because he couldn’t do his normal offseason workouts, but he did return to his typical level of production as the season went along (he hit .298/.344/.560 over his final 83 games).

There’s also talk of Michael Massey and Maikel Garcia seeing outfield time as the Royals try to figure out what their best alignment might be. India has quite a bit more footspeed than Massey, so he’s probably the better candidate of those two to make the move to left. MJ Melendez still projects as the starter in that spot, though. Ideally, the Royals would add one more regular prior to Opening Day. A right fielder to bump Hunter Renfroe from the projected lineup would probably be best.

Quatraro had no shortage of opportunities to mix and match last season, yet he always preferred having a closer, even when there was no one on the roster deserving of the title. Now that he has an $11 million-per-year reliever on the squad, we doubt he’s really going to change his stripes. Maybe this is somewhat good news for Lucas Erceg, but we’d still be surprised if Estévez doesn’t get all of the save chances he can handle in the early going.

The deal would have included an opt-out after the second season and deferred money. The interesting takeaway is that the Royals were in the market for a big bat to upgrade the middle of their lineup and improve their outfield. It’s possible that they are still looking to upgrade and could make a big move before the season begins.

De Los Santos, 26, had been claimed off the waivers from the Blue Jays in early November. He becomes a 40-man roster casualty though as the Mets needed to free up a spot for Nick Madrigal. De Los Santos is more of a glove-first middle infielder, which makes it possible that he’ll slide through waivers without being claimed this time around.