The biggest free agent domino has fallen. Juan Soto is of the market with a record-setting 15-year, $765 million deal with the Mets. This comes on the heels of the Giants’ seven-year, $182 million deal with shortstop Willy Adames during what was an eventful weekend heading into the Winter Meetings.
That’s right, the Hot Stove is heating up, and Chris Towers and I are here to guide you through the transactions of actual consequence for Fantasy Baseball. This is the place where we’ll react to them as they happen, breaking down what they mean for 2025 drafts.
So bookmark this page and keep checking back. As the news comes in, you’ll be glad you have one stop for keeping track of it all.
The battle for the ninth inning in Philadelphia feels a bit less wide open after this signing, but Romano is obviously no sure bet coming off a season ruined by elbow injuries. There’s a reason the Blue Jays, who intend to compete in 2025, non-tendered him with club control left. When Romano is right, he’s a fringe-elite closer, with a three-year stretch from 2021 through 2023 where he posted a 2.37 ERA and 30.3% strikeout rate – a stretch that included consecutive 36-save seasons. The big question here is whether Romano can truly be “right” coming off a season where he dealt with elbow pain from Spring Training right up until he had surgery on the elbow in August.
He should open spring as the favorite for saves in Philadelphia, and that can be a very good spot to be in if you are looking to rack up saves. But if Romano isn’t himself, Orion Kerkering, Jose Alvarado, and possibly Matt Strahm are there to step up as possible alternatives. I think the likeliest outcomes are, either Romano is healthy and is the closer for as long as he is right, or he struggles pretty early and this whole bullpen is the same kind of muddled mess it was for much of last season. That makes Romano a viable option for saves in the middle rounds of drafts, but I’d be wary of investing much more than that into him given how poorly 2024 went for the soon-to-be 32-year-old. –Chris Towers
The comp doesn’t work perfectly. Cobb was never as good as Jack Flaherty at their respective peaks, and he is nearly a decade older than Flaherty was when he signed with the Tigers last offseason. But you can see the appeal for a veteran like Cobb, who is trying to rebuild his value after a mostly lost 2024 season that saw him deal with hip, shoulder, and finger injuries. Tigers pitching coach Chris Fetter has received a lot of praise in recent seasons for the work he has done with the likes of Flaherty and, obviously, Tarik Skubal, and they’ll hope to help Cobb find success on a one-year deal.
Now, the thing here is, Cobb has actually been quite good when he’s been able to stay on the mound in recent years, posting a 3.75 ERA over his past four seasons. The Tigers have been very good at coaxing more velocity out of their arms in recent years, and that wouldn’t be a bad thing for Cobb, whose velocity was down a tick when he was able to get on the mound in 2024. It’s also a great ballpark for any pitcher to call home, which should help Cobb continue to limit damage on balls in play. He isn’t a star, or anything, but if the early-season schedule looks favorable, Cobb could be an interesting late-round flier for 2025. –Chris Towers
Treinen had just one save for the Dodgers during the regular season, but he was their most trusted reliever during the postseason, taking on a high-leverage role that netted him three saves. Presumably, they’re bringing him back to fill that role, which would make him the early favorite for saves in Los Angeles. We should know by now, though, that manager Dave Roberts doesn’t adhere to bullpen conventions and will mix in a fair amount of Michael Kopech and Evan Phillips as well, but notably, Treinen has the most closing experience of the three. He had 38 saves to go along with a 0.78 ERA, 0.83 WHIP and 11.2 K/9 for the Athletics in 2018, and over his final 30 appearances this past season, he had 1.24 ERA, 0.85 WHIP and 9.9 K/9. I’ll be ranking him just outside of my top 15 relievers for 2025 since there’s some uncertainty surrounding his role, but clearly, he has the upside for more. –Scott White
Juan Soto signs with Mets
The Mets finally landed the big fish they’ve been angling for in free agency, as Juan Soto has agreed to sign a record-breaking contract that will keep him in Queens until 2039. Soto’s deal will pay him $765 million over the next 15 seasons, besting the total value of Shohei Ohtani’s contract from a year ago by $65 million. But does it really matter where Soto is playing when considering his Fantasy value? To find out, check out my full-length article on the signing, which also addresses the impact on the rest of the Mets lineup and the free agent market as a whole. –Chris Towers
Conforto’s 2024 stat line may not look particularly impressive, but it was his best since the 2019-20 stretch that made him one of the most highly regarded outfielders in Fantasy. Even more notable is what happened under the hood. His .479 xSLG was just as good as those peak seasons as his average (90.2 mph) and max (113.6 mph) exit velocities jumped to 68th and 90th percentile, respectively. A quick look at the splits will tell you Oracle Park wasn’t doing him any favors. Away from there, he hit .253 with and .852 OPS and 17 of his 20 home runs overall. The Dodgers certainly took notice, and judging by the data, there’s a chance he goes the Teoscar Hernandez and J.D. Martinez route of blowing away expectations on a one-year deal. The Dodgers’ recent with such signings is all the more incentive for me to mark Conforto as a sleeper, ranking him just outside of my top 50 outfielders. –Scott White
Willy Adames signs with Giants
I had already positioned myself as an Adames skeptic for next year, ranking him 10th at shortstop after he just placed fifth there, and this signing only fortifies my position. Oracle Park isn’t quite the neutralizer it once was, but it still rates as the third-worst home run venue for right-handed hitters over the past three years while American Family Field rates as the sixth-best. On the other hand, Adames has batted .321 (18 for 56) with an .827 OPS in 16 career games in San Francisco, and Statcast estimates that he would have hit 31 home runs playing every game there last year vs. the 32 he actually hit. So maybe it won’t be so bad?
The issue is in using Adames’ 2024 as a basis for comparison when it was almost certainly his best-case outcome. His exit velocities, strikeout rate and batted-ball angles were all in line with career norms, and yet his batting average (.251) was his highest in three years, his home runs (32) were his most ever, and he also stole 21 bases when he had never reached even double digits before. It also probably goes without saying that he won’t have a combined 205 runs and RBI as the most feared hitter in a mediocre Giants lineup. So if this signing makes you skeptical of a repeat performance, that’s probably for the best. You already should have been. –Scott White
Seems like the Orioles are moving in their left field fence just in time. O’Neill just had a resurgent season with the Red Sox in part because he made a concerted effort to pull the ball in the air more — a fine strategy for a right-handed hitter at Fenway Park but one that would have brought such a player to ruin at Camden Yards the past couple years. Fortunately, the reported changes to the left field fence there should make it a more neutral environment for right-handed hitters, and notably, O’Neill’s career season (2021) came in St. Louis, which is also a challenging place for right-handers to hit it out.
Perhaps, then, the more significant variable for O’Neill than venue is his own health. Cutting a muscular figure, the 29-year-old has been particularly susceptible to strains, playing just 65 percent of his team’s games the past four years, and even when healthy, his limited bat control (he struck out a career worst 33.6 percent last year) has made for unpredictable outcomes. He has the upside of top-20 outfielder, but the concerns piled on top of concerns drop him to 36th in my outfield rankings. –Scott White
After three years as the Yankees on-again, off-again closer, Holmes is switching not just leagues but also roles, getting a shot as a starter on a three-year, $38 million deal. The role isn’t totally foreign to him, seeing as he spent much of his minor-league career as a starter, and in the years since, he’s developed a more trustworthy arsenal and stable enough command to attempt this move back. While his sinkerball approach may have been ill-suited for closing, leaving him too vulnerable to hits in high-leverage moments, it’s likely to minimize damage over extended stretches. For all the tense moments as a closer, the ERA was always good, after all. This signing raises Holmes’ Fantasy appeal in the hopes he can follow in the footsteps of successful relievers-turned-starters like Michael King, Reynaldo Lopez and Bowden Francis, and interest should be especially high in Head-to-Head points leagues, where he figures to be one of the top 15 relievers drafted. –Scott White
It’s a one-year pact with a player option for a second just in base Bieber’s recovery from Tommy John surgery goes poorly. His entire future in Fantasy of course hinges on that recovery. You’ll remember the former Cy Young winner seemed to be on the verge of regaining ace standing after an offseason spent working with Driveline Baseball, regaining the bite on his slider and dominating through two starts. But then his elbow began barking, and well, you know the rest. The earliest we can hope to see Bieber is June 2025, which means he’ll only be worth stashing in leagues with ample IL stash. Which version of Bieber shows up then is anybody’s guess, but it’s encouraging that the organization that knows him best opted to re-up with him. –Scott White
After playing with two AL East teams in the same game last season, Jansen continues his tour around the division by joining the Rays, where he will likely be the starting catcher. That didn’t go quite so well for either Toronto or Boston in 2024, as Jansen struggled through one of his worst seasons ever, hitting just .205/.309/.349, so the Rays are surely hoping for a bounce-back on this one-year deal. Jansen makes a lot of contact and has a decent eye at the plate, but his quality of contact has been in a freefall in his late 20s, with his expected wOBA on contact dropping from .408 in 2022 to .291 last season. If he can rediscover some of the pop he has last in recent years, he could be a decent No. 2 catcher, especially with the Rays making a move to what we think will be a hitter-friendly home at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa this season. Jansen is a viable, low-end No. 2 catcher for deeper formats, but shouldn’t be viewed as a priority, even in 15-team leagues. –Chris Towers
Luis Severino signs with the Athletics
The A’s made a surprising splash in free agency with their three-year contract with Severino for $67 million, the largest guaranteed contract in franchise history. It’s a less-than-ideal landing spot for Severino’s Fantasy value in 2025, unfortunately, as the A’s still figure to be a pretty middling team (at best) in 2025 and are moving from a pitcher friendly park to one that may play at least a bit closer to average. That would be a downgrade for Severino, after he spent a year rebuilding his value in a very pitcher-friendly park with the Mets.
To his credit, Severino did a great job rebuilding that value with the Mets, and he did so by showing a lot more flexibility as a pitcher than ever before. At his best, Severino didn’t really need much of a gameplan, as he just pumped four-seamers and sliders past hitters, throwing those two pitches 85-90% of the time. In 2024, he introduced a sweeper and greatly increased his sinker usage, giving him six pitches he threw at least 7% of the time. The Mets have become a very good pitching development organization, and Severino benefited from his time with them. The likeliest outcome here is that Severino isn’t much more than a rotation filler for Fantasy, but if he can stay healthy, he’ll have moments of usefulness. And, if the strikeout rate jump he tapped into in the second half of the season (26.2%) sticks, maybe he can even be a bit more than that. But he probably doesn’t need to be much more than a late-rounder in drafts, and even that might be overstating it if he has a poor early schedule. –Chris Towers
About four months away from the start of the season, it’s nearly impossible to say what the Red Sox plans for the back end of the bullpen are, but Chapman surely figures to be part of them now. Their returning saves leader is a tie between Justin Slaten and Josh Winckowski, who all had two each last season, while their most experienced in-house closer option is Liam Hendriks, who has pitched just five innings since 2022 after recovering from leukemia and then Tommy John surgery. Chapman is no longer the lights-out closer he was at his best, but the soon-to-be 37-year-old still strikes out nearly 40% of opposing batters (despite losing a tick or two off fastball last season) and can get the job done on a one-year deal. At this point, it makes sense to treat him like the favorite for the ninth inning in Boston in 2025, at least until we see what Hendriks looks like in the spring – for what it’s worth, Hendricks’ fastball velocity was down 2-3 mph in his brief minor-league rehab assignment toward the end of last season, which doesn’t bode well. –Chris Towers
Another retread-gone-right, Boyd is earned a two-year deal with the Cubs after a successful eight-start run with the Guardians in 2024. Boyd posted a 2.72 ERA in his return from Tommy John surgery last season, with underlying peripherals that mostly backed it up – thanks, in large part, to a strong 27.7% strikeout rate. Boyd’s velocity was mostly back up to pre-injury levels, though that still makes him a soft-tosser at this point, so his success will be based on his effective his slider/changeup combo can be. Both pitches were excellent in 2024, but the underlying pitch characteristics don’t necessarily back up what he accomplished, with most pitch modeling metrics suggesting Boyd was a below-average pitcher in 2024. A year further removed from surgery, maybe Boyd can take another step forward and find success with a pretty clear path to a rotation spot for the Cubs, but he doesn’t have to be much more than a late-round, bench-spot flier even in deeper leagues. –Chris Towers
The Mets have a rotation to rebuild, and the first step was adding a pitcher coming off a down year split between the Reds and Brewers. Or maybe calling it a “down year” is soft-pedaling given that it was Montas’ first back from surgery to the labrum in his right shoulder. His velocity was basically up to snuff, though, and he did see his K/9 rate jump from 7.5 in his 19 starts with the Reds to 11.0 in his 11 starts with the Brewers. Even prior to the 2023 shoulder surgery, his career was defined by inconsistency due to the on-again, off-again nature of his splitter. The Mets fared well with reclamation projects like Sean Manaea and Luis Severino last season and have agreed to pay Montas $34 million over the next two, so they clearly see something they like. We shouldn’t rule out a bounce-back season, particularly since the cost in Fantasy will be so low. –Scott White
To the surprise of no one, the Dodgers have landed the first marquee free agent of the offseason, agreeing to a five-year $182 million deal with Blake Snell Tuesday. It’s a big commitment for what’s been the model organization the past few years and may go a long way toward allaying fears about Snell’s irregularities. While he’s put together a 2.82 ERA, 1.16 WHIP and 12.0 K/9 over the past three seasons, much has been made about the way he came about those numbers. For more, check out my full-length article breaking down the signing. –Scott White
The three-year, $63 million deal is a modest one for a pitcher who seemed to have real momentum heading into the offseason, having just put together a 2.70 ERA, 0.93 WHIP and 11.4 K/9 in his 10 starts for the Astros. The improved performance coincided with Kikuchi roughly doubling his slider usage, and his 2025 destination matters less for his Fantasy value than whether or not he sticks to that approach.
He has always missed bats at a good rate but has gotten inconsistent results due to questionable pitch selection and a penchant for hard contact. Going to the Angels gives him a lower margin for error than if he had gone to a true contender and also does nothing to soften his vulnerability to the long ball, but again, his success is tied more to continuing his slider-heavy approach. And for that, we’ll just have to wait and see. I cautiously rank him just inside my top 50 starting pitchers for 2025, but he has the upside for more. –Scott White
Unfortunately, this trade is close to a worse-case scenario for the two major players involved. India goes from the most favorable park for home runs — i.e., one of the few where his fringy power plays — to one of the least favorable. According to Statcast, his 63 career home runs would be 42 if he played every game at Kauffman Stadium. Obviously, the reverse move is bad for Singer, a pitcher who’s on the more pitch-to-contact side of the ledger, but since he generally puts the ball on the ground, maybe it’s not as bad. Then again, he has a career 3.92 ERA at home in Kauffman Stadium compared to a 4.74 ERA everywhere else.
Neither India nor Singer figured to be a hot commodity prior to this trade, and both might go undrafted now in shallower leagues. India is a little more useful in points leagues because of his on-base skills, and both he and Singer at least stand to be high-volume plays. India’s removal does free up some of the Reds’ infield logjam with Matt McLain expected back, penciling in Noelvi Marte at third base again. –Scott White
Rather than test the free agent market, Martinez accepted the Reds’ qualifying offer of $21.05 million, which isn’t altogether surprising given that it now represents roughly 40 percent of his career MLB earnings. That the Reds extended the offer is telling. They had a front-row seat to the 34-year-old’s career season and bought in hard at an amount that virtually guarantees he’ll be a full-time starter rather than reverting to a swingman role.
Perhaps, then, we should take Martinez just as seriously. He’s always had a killer changeup, and he became a strike-thrower of the highest order in 2024, boasting the third-best walk rate among pitchers with at least 100 innings. His home run prevention was probably too good to be true, particularly for pitching half his games in Cincinnati, but he won’t be priced for another 3.10 ERA. More likely, he’ll be sort of a poor man’s Jose Berrios or Zach Eflin, good for piling up innings with a low WHIP, and he takes on added value in Head-to-Head points leagues due to his relief pitcher eligibility. –Scott White
Finally freed of his catching tandem with Sean Murphy, d’Arnaud was quick to put himself in another one, this time with up-and-comer Logan O’Hoppe. It’s frustrating for a couple reasons, one being that O’Hoppe loses some of the volume that made him so attractive for Fantasy, likely going from a 75 percent workload share to 60 percent or less, and the other being that d’Arnaud himself could have pursued a full-time role. Instead, d’Arnaud figures to remain a fringe second catcher for two-catcher leagues, and while O’Hoppe doesn’t necessarily slide down the rankings — he was already regarded as a low-end No. 1 — his upside takes a hit. Maybe his .196 batting average in the second half is evidence he was overworked, but even if it improves, his counting stats will be capped.
Meanwhile, Murphy has a golden opportunity to reestablish himself in Atlanta after bombing for the past season-and-a-half there. Injuries have likely contributed to his struggles, as has irregular playing time due to the presence of d’Arnaud, but he’ll need to prove himself quickly to hold off prospect Drake Baldwin. –Scott White
Only three months after acquiring him from the Giants, the Braves flipped Soler to the Angels in what was essentially a salary dump. They ended up non-tendering the player they got back in the deal, Griffin Canning. You might think Soler’s departure reflects well on Ronald Acuna’s recovery from a torn ACL, but GM Alex Anthopoulos later confessed that the star outfielder likely won’t be ready for the start of 2025. As for Soler, he has an easy claim to the Angels’ DH spot and will play in a pretty nice venue, particularly for home runs, but his success has never depended on such factors. He’s a mercurial performer coming off a down season but still has the 35-homer upside to pay off handsomely as a fourth or fifth outfielder. –Scott White
