Bradford DoolittleCloseBradford DoolittleESPN Staff WriterMLB writer and analyst for ESPN.com Former NBA writer and analyst for ESPN.com Been with ESPN since 2013David SchoenfieldCloseDavid SchoenfieldESPN Senior WriterCovers MLB for ESPN.com Former deputy editor of Page 2 Been with ESPN.com since 1995Jan 21, 2026, 01:02 AM ET
Mets pivot after missing out on Tucker, sign Bichette
Dodgers — again! — nab winter’s biggest free agent, agree to deal with Tucker
After missing out on Bregman, Red Sox pay for Suarez
Jays make another splash by signing Japanese 3B Okamoto
Red Sox solve first base, acquire Contreras from Cardinals
Mets sign Weaver, adding another ex-Yankees reliever
Phillies sign two-time All-Star Garcia for outfield
D-backs, Kelly reunite after midseason trade to Texas
Tigers sign Kenley Jansen for reliever’s 17th season
Red Sox make another rotation add in trade with Pirates
Blue Jays sign Korean League MVP Ponce for rotation
Blue Jays make first big pitching splash with Cease signing
Orioles deal former top prospect for Halos power bat
It’s hot stove season! The 2025-26 MLB offseason is officially here, and we have you covered with grades and analysis for every major signing and trade this winter.
Whether it’s a big-money free agent signing that changes the course of your team’s future or a blockbuster trade, we’ll weigh in with what it all means for next season and beyond.
ESPN MLB experts Bradford Doolittle and David Schoenfield will evaluate each move as it happens, so check back in for the freshest analysis through the start of spring training.
Jump to biggest deals: Tucker to LAD | Bregman to CHC | Murakami to CHW Alonso to BAL | Schwarber to PHI | Diaz to LAD | Cease to TOR
The projections and valuations say that’s all a long shot, hence the middling grade. Steamer has Robert at 1.7 fWAR for next season, far below what you’d need to justify the $20 million on the last year of his contract. There is also a club option for 2027 with a $2 million buyout. For the Mets, who are living in a penthouse far above the highest luxury tax threshold, the real cost of this addition is way more than the minimum of $22 million they’ll be paying Robert.
But it’s not just money. Acuna is a talented infielder, just 23, who was acquired straight up by the Mets in 2023 for Max Scherzer. Though he struggled at the plate in the majors last season, he retains enough of a prospect shine that the Mets — who with this deal were working with an organizational depth of quality young infielders — could have perhaps found someone in the marketplace with a less-volatile track record.
Because of all that, the valuation on the trade tilts toward Chicago. But I like it for the Mets anyway, and besides, David Stearns’ staff probably has a very different valuation on the deal than I do. Sure, maybe they could have acquired a little more certainty for a player of Acuna’s value, but they would have been hard-pressed to find an in-his-prime veteran with more residual upside than Robert.
Acuna made his big league debut in center field for the Mets last season, getting into two games out on the grass. (He made a putout!) But he has mostly stuck to the middle infield since arriving in the majors. This is worth noting because while the White Sox are still very much in the mode of adding talent, regardless of position, their bright long-term infield picture is dominated by the trio of Colson Montgomery, Chase Meidroth and, at some point, Billy Carlson.
Thus, trying Acuna in the outfield would be a worthy experiment. (He can ask his brother, the Braves’ Ronald Acuna Jr., for advice.) He also started 57 games in center field in the minors. Any positional versatility he can muster will help, a project aided by solid defensive skills and top-of-the-scale speed.
Truman Pauley went to Harvard and is a flier, a 12th-round pick whose draft profile paints him as a classic good arm/shaky command pitcher. — Doolittle
The replacements, following Friday’s signing, are Jorge Polanco, Marcus Semien and Bichette. Those additions justify the following cherry-picked ranking of fWAR, during the 2020s, from players who have played at least 75 games at shortstop:
For the Mets, from left to right, that now looks like Bichette at third, Lindor at short, Semien at second and Polanco at first. Others will factor in of course, especially Brett Baty and Mark Vientos, but if the Mets were prioritizing infield defense this winter, consider it mission accomplished.
The addition of Tucker might or might not have improved the Mets’ offensive outlook from what it would be if Alonso had stayed. They are very different hitters of course, but from a percentage standpoint, Tucker is a better all-around producer. That is, when he plays — and here’s where the beauty of the Polar Bear will be missed: You can count on him being in the lineup.
With Bichette, you’re getting some of Tucker’s recent track record of injury issues and a similar offensive style, albeit from the right side of the plate. But the level of that style is a tier below both Tucker and Alonso in bottom-line production. Over the last five years, the OPS+ figures for the trio are ranked Tucker (145), Alonso (134) and Bichette (119). Bichette hasn’t had a single season with an OPS+ as high as Tucker’s five-year average.
Taken as a trio, the Mets’ old heart out-projects the offensive production of the new heart. According to Steamer’s context-neutral forecast, the Alonso-Nimmo-McNeil threesome lands at a 115 wRC+. The Bichette-Semien-Polanco group is at 112, while the same calculation with Tucker replacing Bichette is 117. Without Tucker OR Bichette, it’s 109, a number arrived at by subbing Vientos into Bichette’s role.
There hasn’t been much turnover in the Phillies’ pitching staff, especially the rotation. Yes, Ranger Suarez has departed for Fenway Park, but his likely replacement, Andrew Painter, has been around for a few years. For a team still trying to squeeze a title out of a closing window of contention, it’s good those pitchers will be throwing to a familiar face.
Realmuto’s return brings the Phillies back into the same territory in which they ended last season. They’ve shuffled the bullpen a little, but Philadelphia’s offseason is mostly defined by retaining Realmuto and Kyle Schwarber. Other moves have been on the margins, even adding outfielder Adolis Garcia, who isn’t even a sure bet to hold off Nick Castellanos for a starting job. It’s the same team, an old team to begin with, and one that is now a year older.
The Dodgers are the perfect landing spot for Tucker, and they are the perfect team to shrug off any possible red flags. The end result is that baseball’s hegemonic monster looks even more dynastic than it did when the Dodgers won a second straight World Series, just 2½ months ago. (Let’s not forget that the Dodgers also already signed free agency’s top closer, Edwin Diaz, back in December.)
This is the latest, gut-punching example of the Dodgers putting their financial muscle to work, leveraging a capacity that right now no one else can match. Don’t blame the Dodgers — despise them if you must, but don’t blame them. This is the system that baseball has chosen to live by. (For now.) And the Dodgers are squeezing it for all its worth. Face it: If your team could do what the Dodgers have done and continue to do, you would be all aboard the Dynasty Express.
From a pure actuarial perspective, I don’t think Tucker will be worth $60 million per season. If we go with $10 million as the cost of a win in free agency these days, the simple math says Tucker would have to average six WAR per season for L.A. to break even on the deal. It’s way more complicated than that, but let’s go with that framework. Tucker, as good as he has been, has never had a six-WAR season.
Is Tucker a risk? Sure, but let’s be real: It’s the Dodgers. If it doesn’t work out, it will affect their future flexibility not one bit.
Besides, if the red flags I saw didn’t keep the team in blue from throwing Tucker so much green, who was I to worry? Not only are the Dodgers even better, but those in pursuit of Tucker’s services (the Mets, the Blue Jays, at the very least) are gnashing their teeth anew. And the teams pursuing the Dodgers — there are 29 of them — just watched L.A. pull even further away, rolling in a self-replicating money machine toward what looks like an unlimited horizon. — Doolittle
Ahh, lost in the dust of the Kyle Tucker deal was a good old-fashioned three-team trade. Of course, the Rays were involved. If you had to predict a team would engage in a three-way trade, it would be the Rays, since this is now their second three-team deal this offseason — so let’s start with them.
This is a bit of roster reshuffling for the Rays. After trading second baseman Brandon Lowe to the Pirates and acquiring outfielder Jacob Melton from the Astros (plus signing free agent center fielder Cedric Mullins), the Rays had a hole at second base and a surplus of outfielders, so they flipped Lowe for Lux. It’s a downgrade from Brandon Lowe to Lux, but Lux is arguably an upgrade over Josh Lowe, who struggled at the plate in 2025.
With Sal Stewart ready to play somewhere and Noelvi Marte now a full-time outfielder, Lux didn’t project to start for the Reds, so they swap his one year of team control of Lux for one year of the lefty reliever Burke, coming off a 3.36 ERA in 69 appearances with the Angels. He’s the third significant addition to the bullpen, after the Reds signed Pierce Johnson and Caleb Ferguson as free agents.
Roster construction can often be a confounding thing to analyze. After not re-signing Alex Bregman, who went to the Cubs for five years and $175 million last weekend, the Boston Red Sox apparently took that money and gave it to left-handed starter Ranger Suarez. He’s a good pitcher. That’s also a lot of money for Ranger Suarez.
He has never made 30 starts in a season. He has never qualified for an ERA title by pitching 162 innings. But he also has a 3.25 ERA since 2021, which ranks 10th among pitchers with at least 600 innings. At $26 million per season, his contract is in line with pitchers with a similar ERA over that span who have signed free agent deals: