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2025-26 Top 50 Free Agents Live Chat
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Matt
10:19
Do you see the Twins signing any real free agents? After mostly sitting out of the market the last few years, I feel like they now have some wiggle room to add a little salary with Correa gone. Am I too optimistic that the Pohlads will spend money?
Steve Adams
10:19
Murakami is so young, it's easy to see a team thinking it's getting Schwarber-lite, with a smidge of defensive value, and shelling out for that.
Tim Dierkes
10:19
Classic Steve question.  Once I decided they didn't need a top 50 FA, I focused on other teams
Steve Adams
10:22
I'm 40 years old and have spent all but 4.5 years of my life (2014-18) living in Minnesota. Nothing in the Pohlad history gives me an iota of confidence they'll spend money this winter.

They absolutely have the capacity to. They have like $93MM projected as a payroll, and that's before they non-tender Trevor Larnach and (likely) trade Ryan Jeffers. They could get wild -- gut payroll at the deadline, add a bunch of MLB-ready guys like Abel, Bradley, Roden, etc. then turn around and spend the savings/deal from one of the best farms in MLB (that'll get better with a likely top-5 pick next year) to try to get right back in contention!

They also, almost certainly, will do none of that.
Tim Dierkes
10:22
haha I enjoyed that answer
Steve Adams
10:22
I would love any team to engineer that kind of chaos. I love offseason chaos. I badly want it, not as a childhood Twins fan or current Minnesota resident.
10:23
I just want insanity. The Twins could do it. I have no faith they will.
Tim Dierkes
10:23
agreed.  at MLBTR we always, always want offseason chaos.  Unexpected stuff rules, that's all we're really rooting for
Cards guy
10:23
the cards sign any free agents at all ?
Tim Dierkes
10:24
seems like they'll add some SP innings and a veteran reliever.  I had them on Adrian Houser before we cut him from the list, although he doesn't really feel like a Bloom type signing.  I think they'll do low-level value stuff in FA this winter.
Steve Adams
10:25
I almost gave them Giolito but that feels like too heavy an expenditure. I do think they'll sign some cheap innings and maybe make an upside play or two in the bullpen.

But I also expect them to trade Donovan, Gray and Romero at the very least. Probably Nolan Gorman. I don't think this is a team that's going to make any exciting win-now moves.
Carl
10:25
I saw where you guys had the Braves active on quite a few of the mid tier guys on your list. Do you think they make a push for one of the top starting pitchers similar to the Nola pursuit a couple of years ago? If so who would that be?
Tim Dierkes
10:26
I think they already have high ceiling starters and just need some semi-reliable innings, hence my Bassitt pick there.  If I'm wrong, Cease is the on-the-nose pick since he's from GA.  That'd surprise me, but like you said, there's a bit of precedent for AA trying for a top FA SP
Steve Adams
10:27
Nola is the only time the Braves have ever even flirted with the idea of spending long-term on a free agent. I can't view him as anything other than a special case where Anthopoulos and others in the group loved that specific player.

I expect them to be strongly in the mix to re-sign Kim and Iglesias, and I gave them Brad Keller as their reliever-to-starter conversion du jour.
(Also a Georgia native!)
Tim Dierkes
10:28
It's kinda funny to me that Nola was AA's one exception guy, and two years later that contract looks really rough.  Five years left
Guest
10:28
How do you think about Zack Littell becoming an A?
Tim Dierkes
10:28
I feel just fine about it, especially if the A's pony up for a third year as Anthony Franco tried pushing for.  Pffff Anthony, so silly
10:29
If I'm Zack, I don't care if I need to pitch at a Little League field, if I can get 3/30 or so
Steve Adams
10:29
Anthony loves Zack Littell
Well, no
Anthony just thinks a team will pay Zack Littell and is more ambivalent toward him than the rest of us, who think he's like a fifth starter.
Peter Man
10:29
Is Cody Bellinger and option for a return to the dodgers? I believe Dodgers need to trade Teo, maybe to the Phillies?
Steve Adams
10:30
Agree with Tim on that last point -- max out, dude.
The Phillies have been trying desperately to undo the Castellanos mistake for years. Trading for Teo would be the funniest thing ever.
Tim Dierkes
10:30
I just can't see the Dodgers re-engaging with Belli in the $140-160 mil range.  If somehow the bottom drops out on his market again, then maaaaaybe they can kind of view him as a different, healthy guy and throw him a short-term deal
10:31
For most of October, we had Belli at 5/125.  I was looking at it yesterday and just couldn't stomach it, so we pushed to 140.  The FA market spat on this guy once, then the trade market kind of did.  The question is whether Boras would "settle" for 125 or we'd get yet another round of Belli opt-outs
Steve Adams
10:32
And yeah, I'm out on Bellinger/Dodgers as a viable reunion. The breakup there was so bad, both in terms of on-field performance and then the weird comments after the fact where there was finger-pointing about his injuries and how they were handled and all parties kind of had to publicly say "Oh we didn't mean that we're all good here"

I don't remember the specifics, but it just doesn't feel like something that'll be revisited.
Tim Dierkes
10:33
I wonder about the psychological effect of three years with two opt-outs.  To keep trying to prove yourself and having the will he/won't he each winter.  It'd mess with me man
JW
10:33
Every year the Cubs seem to wait to choose from the fell-between-the-cracks guys. Who do you think they're hoping to see in that group this year?
Steve Adams
10:33
Think we already kind of saw that with Flaherty
I was surprised he took 1/20, but eventually you probably just get sick of being a free agent and hearing why teams don't want you haha
Tim Dierkes
10:34
On the Cubs, I suppose Bregman again, maybe King, Gallen, D Williams?
Steve Adams
10:34
Feels like a Tim/Chicago question here. Hah
I can see any of those pitchers. They're not paying Bregman
Helsley maybe
Tim Dierkes
10:35
If the Cubs simply don't want to do the long-term SP deals, then lying in wait to see if King/Gallen will take two years seems like something they'd do
Steve Adams
10:35
Fairbanks
Agree on that
Tim Dierkes
10:35
That said, the Cubs could've had Bregman by putting an opt-out after Year 1 and they did not, perhaps feeling burned by the Belli thing.  So I'm not positive they want to keep doing that
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