2024 April - MLB Trade Rumors (2024)

Astros right-hander Justin Verlander began this year on the injured list but is nearing a return. Manager Joe Espada told members of the beat, including Chandler Rome of The Athletic, that Verlander will throw a bullpen tomorrow and is scheduled to make a rehab start for Triple-A Sugar Land on Sunday if the bullpen goes as planned. The club believes only two rehab starts will be necessary, lining the righty up to join the major league club in about two weeks.

Rotation health has been a key focus for the Astros for quite a while now. Both Luis Garcia Jr. and Lance McCullers Jr. underwent surgery last year and are still working towards getting healthy. In the spring, each of Verlander, José Urquidy and Shawn Dubin suffered injuries that prevented them from making the Opening Day roster. In Verlander’s case, some shoulder soreness slowed his ramp-up early in spring and put him a bit behind schedule.

That left the Astros with a rotation consisting of Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, Hunter Brown, JP France and Ronel Blanco. That group has been throwing well, with Blanco throwing a no-hitter on Monday, but the club is 1-5 regardless with the bullpen responsible for all five of those losses. France is currently on the paternity list but expected back with the team shortly.

The 41-year-old Verlander wasn’t quite able to replicated his 2022 Cy Young-winning form but had a strong season in 2023 nonetheless. After posting a 1.75 earned run average in 2022, that number jumped to 3.22 last year. Perhaps more concerning, his 27.8% strikeout rate fell to 21.5% while his walk rate dropped from 4.4% to 6.7%. Maintaining that excellent form was going to be a tough task, especially as Verlander pushes beyond his 40th birthday, but he managed to still post strong results.

When Verlander is back, the Astros may have to make a tricky call of who to bump out. Each of the five starters currently in the rotation has options, but Valdez and Javier are well established in the big leagues at this point. Brown has 180 innings on his major league track record now with a 4.50 ERA but better peripherals. He has struck out 26.9% of batters faced, walked 8.4% and kept 54.5% of balls in play on the ground. His 4.06 FIP and 3.65 SIERA suggest better results may be possible going forward. France has a 3.87 ERA in 142 major league innings while Blanco has a 4.14 ERA in just 67 1/3 frames but, as mentioned, he just threw a no-hitter a couple of days ago.

Verlander is in the final guaranteed year of the contract he signed with the Mets but he’ll have a $35MM player option for 2025 if he can throw 140 innings this year. As part of last year’s deadline trade, the Mets agreed to cover $35MM of Verlander’s 2023 and 2024 salaries as well as half of the player option if it vests.

The Dodgers announced that outfielder Jason Heyward has been placed on the 10-day injured list due to lower back tightness. His roster spot goes to outfielder Taylor Trammell, who was claimed off waivers from the Mariners yesterday.

Heyward, 34, hasn’t played in any of the club’s past three games due to a stiff back. He was sent for some imaging and manager Dave Roberts relayed yesterday that the scans came back negative, but it seems the Dodgers will give him some time to rest up. IL placements can be backdated as much as three days if the player hasn’t been playing. Assuming the Dodgers backdated Heyward’s transaction, he could be back in a week if he heals up quickly.

After years of struggles with the Cubs, Heyward had a bounceback year with the Dodgers in 2023. He hit .269/.340/.473 for a wRC+ of 121, though largely in a platoon capacity. The left-handed hitter stepped to the plate 349 times against righties but just 28 times against southpaws. The Dodgers were impressed enough to re-sign him on a one-year, $9MM deal over the winter.

The Dodgers started out this year using Heyward in right field against righties, with Teoscar Hernández in left field. With a left-handed starter on the mound, Hernández would take right with Chris Taylor in left.

Trammell hits from the left side and could perhaps take over the role Heyward was in previously. He has struggled in the big leagues but has actually been decent with the platoon advantage, hitting 14 home runs in 261 plate appearances while walking at an 11.1% rate. He has struck out at a 36.4% clip and his batting average isn’t pretty but his .193/.292/.434 line against righties does translate to a 106 wRC+. At Triple-A last year, Trammell slashed .256/.396/.540 against righties compared to .239/.331/.425 against lefties.

The Dodgers could also opt for the more experienced Taylor to take over Heyward’s playing time, despite him hitting right-handed, as he has fairly even platoon splits in his career. He’s hit .256/.331/.424 against righties for a 106 wRC+ and .247/.332/.444 versus lefties for a 110 wRC+. But having Trammell will give them another option and perhaps allow the club to move Taylor around to other positions. Trammell is out of options and may end up designated for assignment again when Heyward gets back. If Trammell manages to stick around, he has under two years of service time and can be controlled for another four seasons beyond the current campaign.

The Cardinals are still waiting for right-hander Sonny Gray to make his regular season debut with the club, after he suffered a right hamstring strain during the spring. His path back to the big leagues got muddied, literally, when this week’s weather prevented his ramp-up from going as planned.

Per John Denton of MLB.com, Gray was going to make a rehab start for Triple-A Memphis at Indianapolis today but the club changed plans due to the heavy rain in the forecast. Instead, the new plan is for a 50-pitch simulated game today in Springfield, Missouri, followed by a Triple-A start on April 9, which was around when he was hoping to be back with the big league club. But he’ll now be looking at a return on April 14, assuming a normal four-day rest period after his outing for the Redbirds.

When Gray is ready to return, he should slot into the rotation next to Miles Mikolas, Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson and Steven Matz in the rotation. That will likely mean that left-hander Zack Thompson gets nudged out. Thompson started today’s game for the Cards and Denton noted that his velocity is way down, more than three ticks below his previous start. Whether that’s indicative of some kind of undiscovered injury remains to be seen.

If he’s healthy, Thompson has an option and can be sent to the minors when Gray gets back. He could also be moved to the bullpen to take over the long relief role currently held by Matthew Liberatore, as Liberatore also has an option and could be sent down for work in the Triple-A rotation.

Gray was signed to a three-year, $75MM deal in the offseason after posting a 2.79 earned run average with the Twins last year. He combined a 24.3% strikeout rate with a 7.3% walk rate and 47.3% ground ball rate, finishing second to Gerrit Cole in American League Cy Young voting.

Elsewhere in Cardinal news, right-hander Riley O’Brien was placed on the 15-day injured list on the weekend due to a flexor strain. But earlier this week, Denton relayed that an MRI showed no structural damage.

O’Brien will still require a shutdown period before ramping back up, but that’s clearly a better alternative to requiring surgery and missing extended time. Acquired from the Mariners in November, O’Brien has just 3 1/3 innings of major league experience but had a 2.29 ERA in 55 Triple-A innings last year. His 13.6% walk rate was scary but he also struck out 37.7% of batters faced and got grounders on 57.1% of balls in play.

April 3: It’s right knee inflammation for Delay, per Stumpf.

April 2, 9:41PM: Delay is going to be placed on the 10-day injured list, according to MLB.com’s Alex Stumpf (via X). This will open up room for Bart on the active roster, and while the nature of Delay’s injury isn’t yet known, it now explains the Pirates’ interest in acquiring Bart.

8:32PM: The Pirates have acquired catcher Joey Bart from the Giants for minor league righty Austin Strickland. FanSided’s Robert Murray (X link) was the first to report Bart’s move to Pittsburgh, while NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic (via X) reported Strickland as the return piece of the deal. The Pirates announced that right-hander Colin Selby was designated for assignment to open a 40-man roster spot for Bart.

The second overall pick of the 2018 draft, Bart has hit .219/.288/.335 over 503 plate appearances since making his Major League debut in 2020. Buster Posey’s decision to opt out of the 2020 pandemic-shortened season gave Bart an early look in the bigs, and after playing in only two MLB games in 2021, it seemed like Bart would get a clear shot at becoming the Giants’ next catching stalwart after Posey’s retirement.

However, Bart’s struggles in 2022 resulted in Curt Casali and Austin Wynns getting a good chunk of the playing time behind the plate. With some injuries also setting Bart back last season, Patrick Bailey (himself a first-round pick in 2020) stepped in and seized the starting catching job, which made it seem like only a matter of time before the Giants moved on from Bart entirely. That reality came to pass last weekend when Bart was designated for assignment, as San Francisco hadn’t been able to find a trade partner during the offseason.

There is some irony that Bart is now heading to Pittsburgh, as the Bucs seemingly had an overload of “catchers of the future” just a few months ago. With Henry Davis as the first overall pick of the 2021 draft and Endy Rodriguez emerging as a top-100 prospect, it seemed like the Pirates were considering using Davis in the outfield in order to use Rodriguez behind the plate and get both players into their lineup. Those plans changed when Rodriguez tore his UCL in winter ball action, and he’ll miss the entire 2024 season recovering from surgery. Davis has now started most of the Bucs’ games at catcher this season, with Jason Delay working as a backup.

This arrangement comes in the wake of Yasmani Grandal’s season-opening IL stint due to plantar fasciitis, as Grandal was signed to a one-year, $2.5MM deal to assume at least a part-time role behind the plate. Since Bart is out of minor league options, he’ll have to stay on the Pirates’ active roster or else face the DFA wire again if Pittsburgh wants to send him down to Triple-A via an outright assignment.

Given how Grandal’s return will shake this catching situation up once more, it would seem like there’s plenty of fluidity within what the Pirates might do behind the plate. Delay could be sent to Triple-A, essentially replacing Ali Sanchez (who elected free agency last weekend) as the top depth option in the minors. Or, Davis might conceivably go to Triple-A if the Pirates want to let him work on his catching defense in a less-pressurized environment than the big leagues. There’s even some chance Pittsburgh could also perhaps use Davis, Delay, and Bart on the 26-man roster, with Davis getting work at DH or in the outfield in order to create playing time for the other two catchers.

Selby posted a 9.00 ERA over 24 innings for the Pirates last season, in his first taste of MLB action. The righty was a 16th-round pick for the Bucs in the 2018 draft, and he has worked almost exclusively as a reliever since the start of the 2021 season. Scouts regard the hard-throwing Selby as having plenty of stuff but with shaky control, as evidenced with his 30.8% strikeout rate and 16.5% walk rate over 30 1/3 innings with Triple-A Indianapolis last season, en route to a 3.86 ERA.

Over Selby’s 24 Major League frames, he had a 26.3% strikeout rate, but again struggled to limit free passes in posting a 13.2BB%. It seems like there’s a decent chance Selby might be claimed off waivers by an interested team, as the 26-year-old seems to have some upside if he can limit his walks.

For San Francisco, there’s some obvious disappointment in the official end of the Bart era, as the team ended up getting very little return on a second overall pick. Hindsight is always 20-20, though it’s easy to wonder what president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi might’ve been able to obtain for Bart had the catcher been traded earlier in his career, though rival executives might’ve also wondered if something was up if Zaidi had been too eager to offer a seeming top prospect. It is also fair to wonder if Bart’s career path might’ve been different if he hadn’t suffered hand and thumb injuries after being hit by pitches in 2019, or if he’d had the benefit of a smoother minor league development path in a world where either the pandemic doesn’t happen, or if the Giants didn’t move him so quickly to the majors.

The return for Bart is a lottery ticket in Strickland, who was an eighth-round pick for the Pirates in last summer’s draft. The University of Kentucky product has yet to begin his pro career, and Baseball America’s scouting report cites his three-pitch mix, headlined by a fastball that usually sits in the 93-94mph range. Strickland generates a lot of grounders and he has mostly worked as a multi-inning reliever, so this might hold appeal to a Giants team that has traditionally been creative with its usage of pitchers.

1:23pm: It’s a one-year, $2.5MM deal for Teheran that comes with an additional $450K available in incentives, Anthony DiComo of MLB.com reports. With six days of the season already elapsed, that’d come out to $2.419MM in prorated, guaranteed money for Teheran (assuming the deal becomes official today). The Mets are in the fourth and final tier of luxury penalization and are in their third straight year of penalization, meaning they’re paying a 110% tax on any dollars spent. That’s about $2.661MM in taxes, bringing the total tab on Teheran to about $5.08MM for the Mets.

12:50pm: The Mets have agreed to a deal with free agent righty Julio Teheran, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post. The Mato Sports Management client opted out of a minor league deal with the Orioles late in camp and has been exploring the market for new opportunities. It’s a big league deal for Teheran, per SNY’s Andy Martino, who reported earlier in the week that the Mets were in talks with the veteran right-hander.

After barely seeing the big leagues in 2021-22, the 33-year-old had a somewhat resurgent year with the 2023 Brewers — where current Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns previously ran baseball operations (and served in an advisory capacity last year). The former Braves top prospect tossed 71 2/3 innings with a 4.40 ERA in Milwaukee, striking out just 17.4% of his opponents but offsetting that lackluster mark with a sterling 4.5% walk rate.

Formerly one of the game’s top-ranked prospects, Teheran broke into the majors and hit the ground running in Atlanta. From 2013-14, he posted a 3.03 ERA in 63 starts. Over a seven-year period in Atlanta, spanning 2013-19, Teheran worked to an overall 3.64 ERA in 1334 innings. He’s never missed bats at an especially premium level, but Teheran has long had strong command and, at least earlier in his career, excelled at avoiding hard contact.

That said, last year’s showing in Milwaukee was the first time Teheran has had any consistent success since making 33 starts with a 3.81 ERA for the 2019 Braves. He signed a one-year deal in Anaheim prior to the 2020 season but was shelled for an ERA north of 10.00 in his 31 1/3 frames.

The Mets’ rotation has been hit hard by injuries early on. Kodai Senga suffered a shoulder strain early in spring training, leading to a nearly month-long shutdown. (He’s since resumed throwing.) That injury pushed Tylor Megill into the starting rotation, but he suffered a shoulder strain on his own in his first start of the season and is now on the injured list and in the midst of a weeklong shutdown period himself.

Presumably, given that this is a big league deal and that Teheran got some work in with Baltimore during spring training, he’ll be an option to step into the fifth rotation spot in Queens. Teheran pitched 13 1/3 official innings with the Orioles in camp, holding opponents to five runs (3.38 ERA) on nine hits — albeit with a lackluster 10-to-7 K/BB ratio in that time (17.5% strikeout rate, 12.3% walk rate). If he indeed steps onto the starting staff, Teheran will be joined by Jose Quintana, Adrian Houser, Sean Manaea and Luis Severino.

The Rangers announced earlier in the week that third baseman Josh Jung had suffered a fractured wrist after being hit by a pitch, but a timetable for his return hadn’t been firmly established prior to today. General manager Chris Young tells the Rangers beat that while initial x-rays created some optimism for a six-week timeline, the surgery to repair Jung’s wrist was more involved than anticipated (X link via Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News). The team is now forecasting a timeline of eight to ten weeks for his recovery.

Losing Jung for two-plus months is a severe hurdle for the reigning World Series champions to overcome. An All-Star and the fourth-place finisher in 2023’s AL Rookie of the Year voting, Jung carries a strong .271/.320/.483 slash in 534 plate appearances dating back to last season. He went 7-for-17 with a pair of homers in his first 19 plate appearances of the 2024 campaign despite missing most of spring training with a calf strain that kept him out of the lineup. On top of all that, Jung is considered a strong defender at the hot corner, making him a well-rounded, critical member of the Rangers’ everyday lineup.

Josh H. Smith got the start at third base in the Rangers’ most recent game, and it’ll be Ezequiel Duran drawing the nod there today, the team revealed in announcing its lineup. That pairing could form a platoon to cover third base in Jung’s absence — although the right-handed-hitting Duran is starting against a righty today. Texas also called up prospect Justin Foscue for his MLB debut, and while he’s a bat-first option with more experience at second base, he could factor into the mix at third base in Jung’s absence as well (though for the time being, a straightforward platoon with first baseman Jared Walsh makes good sense for the righty-hitting Foscue).

Texas has been hammered by injuries in the early stages of the season. It was already known that Jacob deGrom and offseason signee Tyler Mahle would be out for the first few months of the season owing to 2023 Tommy John surgeries, but offseason back surgery for Max Scherzer, a spring oblique strain for Nathaniel Lowe and now Jung’s fractured wrist have subtracted key contributors from the club’s roster.

The extended nature of Jung’s absence will make him a 60-day IL candidate at any point the Rangers find themselves in need of a 40-man roster spot in the days and weeks ahead. The eight-week end of the projected timetable would see Jung return just prior to Memorial Day weekend, whereas he’d be out into mid-June if he ends up needing a full ten weeks.

Brewers right-hander Trevor Megill was placed on the 7-day concussion list this morning, the team announced. Right-hander JB Bukauskas is up from Triple-A Nashville to take his spot on the roster. The injury occurred in bizarre and frightening fashion, per Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (X link) Megill contracted food poisoning last weekend and in the aftermath felt light-headed, fainted and wound up suffering a concussion when his 6’8″ frame dropped to the ground.

It’s another tough loss for a Milwaukee bullpen that’s without closer Devin Williams for at least the next couple months. Megill, 30, was an unheralded acquisition by the Brewers last offseason who’s tossed 36 2/3 innings with a 3.44 ERA with a massive 35% strikeout rate against a solid 8.3% walk rate. With Williams sidelined, Megill, Joel Payamps and young flamethrower Abner Uribe were slated for significant late-inning work in first-year skipper Pat Murphy’s bullpen.

The Brewers didn’t provide a timetable for Megill’s return, which is plenty understandable given the nature of his injury. Concussions are difficult to predict, and the severity can vary greatly. Even ostensibly minor concussions can have lingering effects that impact a player for extended periods of time.

In Bukauskas, the Brewers will turn a bullpen spot over to a 27-year-old former top prospect whom they acquired off waivers early in the 2023 season. He pitched six shutout innings for Milwaukee last year but carries a 5.92 ERA in a tiny sample of 24 1/3 big league innings. Rough as that may look, Bukauskas also logged a 2.92 ERA, 26.8% strikeout rate and 6.4% walk rate in 37 Triple-A frames for the Brewers last year, and he fanned 16 of his 41 spring opponents (39%) en route to a 3.72 ERA. There’s plenty of uncertainty in the final few spots of the Brewer bullpen, so it stands to reason that with a strong first impression, Bukauskas could potentially carve out a role for himself. He’s controllable for another five seasons if he’s able to do so.

Megill’s injury will only further open the door for the 23-year-old Uribe to establish himself as a viable high-leverage option. He’s 3-for-3 in save opportunities on the young season and, dating back to last year’s MLB debut, carries a 1.87 ERA and 29.9% strikeout rate in 33 2/3 innings. Command is an issue for Uribe, who’s walked 15.3% of his opponents, plunked a hitter and unleashed six wild pitches in his young career. However, he’s also averaged 99.4 mph on his blazing sinker and induced grounders at a hearty 53.4% clip, showing clear late-inning promise.

The Journal-Sentinel’s Todd Rosiak spoke to Uribe and his teammates about the impressive young righty’s rise to meaningful late-inning work. “I live for it,” Uribe said of pitching in adrenaline-charged scenarios like the save situations he’s encountered thus far. Murphy tells Rosiak he’s been impressed with the right-hander’s demeanor despite his youth, noting that Uribe “has learned so far and really kept his emotions under control and focused on his task.”

Payamps has picked up one save in the Brewers’ first four wins of the year as well, but it seems Uribe will be the preferred option for ninth-inning work while Williams and Megill mend. Presumably, when Williams is able to return, Uribe will slide back down into a setup role. It’s always possible the command struggles will flare up and lead to a particularly rough patch, but at least this far in his young career, Uribe looks the part of a legitimate late-inning arm who can stick at the MLB level. If that’s indeed the case, Milwaukee can control him all the way through the 2029 season and he won’t be arb-eligible until after the 2026 campaign.

Elsewhere in the organization, the Brew Crew is still in the early stages of navigating a shoulder injury for touted catching prospect Jeferson Quero. The 21-year-old suffered the injury in Nashville’s season opener, and GM Matt Arnold this week announced that Quero has been diagnosed with a subluxation in his right shoulder (link via Adam McCalvy of MLB.com). He’s had one MRI and is receiving a second opinion to determine the severity of the issue and get a clear sense of his rehab plan. The Brewers haven’t announced a timetable for his return or whether surgery might be required.

Quero is widely regarded not only as one of the Brewers’ best prospects but the best prospects in all of baseball, landing on top-100 lists at The Athletic (No. 12), ESPN (No. 32), Baseball America (No. 33), MLB.com (No. 35), Baseball Prospectus (No. 38) and FanGraphs (No. 40). The Athletic’s Keith Law calls Quero a likely plus defender behind the plate with the potential for 20-homer power during his prime years.

Quero spent the 2023 season as one of the youngest players in Double-A but more than held his own against older, more advanced competition. In 381 plate appearances, he slashed .262/.339/.440 (107 wRC+) with an impressive 10% walk rate against a lower-than-average 17.8% strikeout rate.

In better injury news, McCalvy tweets that outfielder Garrett Mitchell is on a timeline of four to six weeks to return from the fractured finger in his left hand, which is thus far healing as expected. The 25-year-old has gotten brief looks in the outfield in each of the past two seasons, posting a combined .278/.343/.452 slash (119 wRC+) with five homers and nine steals. It’s very strong production, but those numbers are also propped up by a wildly unsustainable .441 average on balls in play and mask a more ominous 38.3% strikeout rate. It’s only 141 plate appearances, but Mitchell will eventually need to significantly cut back on the strikeouts if he’s to carve out a long-term role in Milwaukee’s outfield.

The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live onSpotify,Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player atthis linkto listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…

• The Dodgers and Will Smith signing an extension (3:30)
• The White Sox re-sign Mike Clevinger (9:30)
• Live reaction to the breaking news of Joey Bart being traded from the Giants to the Pirates (16:25)
• The Yankees acquiring Jon Berti in a three-team trade with the Rays and Marlins (22:05)

Plus, we answer your questions, including…

• Let’s say it’s trade deadline time and the Diamondbacks are basically a longshot to make the playoffs and want to dump payroll. Do you think there could be a reunion for Jordan Montgomery to be traded to the Rangers? The contract is right with the option or does he have a no-trade clause? (31:40)
• Are international free agents eligible for extensions right away or is there a certain waiting period? I ask this because of the impending Roki Sasaki situation. Could he sign with an MLB team next year and play that first year for peanuts knowing that he has a handshake mega deal agreement in place that kicks in the following year? (34:10)
• Is there a particular reason that you can’t trade a draft pick in the MLB the same way you can in leagues like the NFL? I know you there is a system in place for trading competitive balance picks, but I mean for just normal picks. I ask because I am a Mets fan and a Gators fan and it hurts that Jac Caglianone probably isn’t going to fall to 18. (41:55)

Check out our past episodes!

• A Live Reaction To The Jordan Montgomery Signing, Shohei Ohtani’s Interpreter, And J.D. Martinez Joins The Mets – listen here
• Mutiny In The MLBPA,Blake SnellSigns With The Giants And TheDylan CeaseTrade –listen here
• Injured Pitchers,Brayan Bello’s Extension,Mookie BettsAt Shortstop AndJ.D. Davis–listen here

The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook pagehere!

It’s the first Wednesday of the 2024 regular season, and here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around baseball today:

1. Jason Heyward to the injured list?

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic) that outfielder Jason Heyward’s recent scans came back negative, but the team has not yet decided if he’ll require a stint on the injured list. That decision will come at some point today, presumably ahead of this evening’s series finale with the Giants. Heyward has been dealing with back stiffnessand has not played since Saturday.

The Dodgers re-signed Heyward on a one-year, $9MM deal this winter following his bounce-back season in 2023. It was his first healthy campaign since 2020. While Heyward and the Dodgers are surely hoping he can skip the IL, his quick return could be bad news for Taylor Trammell, whom the Dodgers claimed off of waivers from the Mariners on Monday. Ardaya notes that Trammell was acquired specifically as a backup option in case Heyward misses time.

2. Tigers, Pirates, and Brewers looking to maintain perfect records

With nearly a week of regular-season play in the books, three clubs have yet to lose a game: the Tigers (4-0), Pirates (5-0), and Brewers (4-0). After sweeping the White Sox in their opening series, the Tigers took game one against the Mets on Monday night before rain canceled their matchup on Tuesday. Casey Mize will take the hill for Detroit this evening, looking to keep the win streak alive. Meanwhile, the Pirates and Brewers sit atop the NL Central. Pittsburgh will send its ace, Mitch Keller, to the mound tonight in Washington to take on Trevor Williams of the Nationals. Milwaukee will start Joe Ross against Chris Paddack of the Twins in what will be Ross’ first MLB appearance since August 2021. The Brewers are hoping to sweep their second consecutive series.

3. Mets, Marlins still seeking first wins

While things are rolling for the Tigers, Pirates, and Brewers, the same cannot be said of the Mets (0-4) and Marlins (0-6), both of whom are still seeking their first wins of the season. New York is hoping to rain on Detroit’s parade tonight, sending Adrian Houser to face off against Mize in his Mets debut. The actual rain, however, might have other ideas; the Mets and Tigers are at risk of getting rained out for the second day in a row. Meanwhile, in Miami, A.J. Puk will hope his second career MLB start goes better than his first as the Marlins try to avoid getting swept for the second series in a row.

TODAY: After today’s meetings, the Athletics released a statement to media saying “We appreciate Oakland’s engagement and also we are far apart on the terms needed to agree on an extension.” Oakland mayor Sheng Thao also issued a statement, saying “Oakland made a fair and reasonable offer to the A’s. We await their response and look forward to continuing discussions as necessary.” John Shea and Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle note that the city and Alameda County “are not unified in their negotiations for the lease extension with the team,” though Alameda County supervisor David Haubert described today’s talks as “a productive meeting.”

The A’s will turn from this meeting to another set of meetings Wednesday with Ranadive and Sacramento officials, as per another report from John Shea.

MARCH 31: Officials from the Athletics and from the city of Oakland are set to meet Tuesday to further explore the possibility that the A’s could remain at the Coliseum through the 2027 season, as the team is looking for somewhere to play until their planned new ballpark in Las Vegas is ready for Opening Day 2028. Some major details of the city’s latest proposal are already known, as ESPN’s Tim Keown and KGO-TV San Francisco report that Oakland is offering a five-year lease at the Coliseum covering the 2025-29 seasons, with an opt-out clause after 2027 so the team can depart if its new Vegas stadium is indeed ready on time.

The price tag for the new lease is $97MM, which the city demands that the A’s pay in full whether they stay for a three-year or five-year team. This stands out as the largest hurdle to an agreement between the two sides, as Keown notes that two other provisions “are not expected to be contentious” — the A’s would have to sell their 50% share in the Coliseum and surrounding land, and the team would also have to pay to convert the Coliseum’s surface into a soccer-ready state for the United Soccer League’s Oakland Roots SC franchise.

“The city is putting forward a very reasonable deal,” Oakland chief of staff Leigh Hanson said. “We don’t think there’s a poison pill in this deal. We feel this is an accomplishable goal, and we are going forward understanding we have a short window to execute.”

Oakland’s offer also removes two previous demands from the city, covering the idea of Oakland retaining the Athletics name and team colors, or that Major League Baseball would guarantee Oakland a new team in the next round of expansion. The new offer instead asks that the league commit to one of three options — either a vote on Oakland’s retention of the A’s name and colors, or helping work out a sale of the Athletics to an Oakland-based ownership group, or “a one-year exclusive right to solicit ownership of a future expansion team,” as Keown puts it.

The $97MM figure is “the shortfall the city says [A’s owner John] Fisher walked away from on the multibillion-dollar Howard Terminal project” Keown writes, referring to the long-discussed plan to build a new ballpark for the A’s in Oakland’s Howard Terminal area. Those plans fell through, of course, when Fisher instead pivoted for a new city entirely with the move to Las Vegas.

Needless to say, there is a large gap between the city’s ask of $97MM and what the A’s are offering, which is $17MM over the course of a two-year lease covering the 2025 and 2026 seasons. The 2027 season isn’t included since the team is “contending they have options,” which likely implies a one-year move to another city or perhaps to the Athletics’ Triple-A affiliate’s current ballpark in Las Vegas. Staying in Oakland through 2026 would give the club more time to fully plan out their temporary pre-Vegas landing spot, whereas there’s a ticking clock now given that the Athletics’ current lease at the Coliseum expires after the current season.

This urgency might give the city some leverage in negotiations, though the A’s have reportedly explored other locations like Salt Lake City and Sacramento as possible homes for the 2025-27 span. Sacramento was considered the favorite alternate spot besides a lease extension in Oakland, and John Shea and Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote on Friday that multiple league sources feel the Athletics will ultimately end up in Sacramento for a variety of reasons.

The Athletics’ TV contract with NBC Sports California has loomed as a major factor in the situation, as the deal (which pays the A’s upwards of $67MM per season) requires the team to actually be located in the Bay Area. Shea and Ostler write that the A’s are also in talks with NBC Sports California about a revised contract, and speculate that “if the A’s could cut a new deal for, say, half that amount, they might grab it. They’d be losing tens of millions per year, but they’d still be making tens of millions, and could make up any shortfall in other ways.”

Ultimately it might come down to how the math works out between the $97MM figure proposed by the city, and what the A’s could get from a renegotiated contract with NBC Sports California. Just staying in Oakland would naturally make the TV situation a moot point, and the A’s organization would also avoid the logistical complications of playing in a minor league ballpark and temporarily moving its entire infrastructure to Sacramento, while also prepping for another move to Las Vegas in the near future.

However, Shea and Ostler feel Fisher might not be bothered by these complications, and could prefer to leave Oakland behind entirely while also keeping his 50% share of the Coliseum. The city and Alameda County’s desire for full control over the Coliseum gives Fisher some leverage, since “the danger to Oakland here is that [Fisher] has no plan” for his share of the ballpark, Shea and Ostler write, and Fisher “is simply intending to squat on that site and wait for a big-profit sale sometime down the road.” That said, Fisher could also view selling his share of the Coliseum as a method of cutting ties with Oakland, generating some short-term money, and avoiding some ongoing and pending legal challenges facing Alameda County’s half-sale of the Coliseum’s ownership.

Sacramento is currently the home of the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate, and how that team would co-exist with the A’s over three seasons has yet to be determined, should the Athletics indeed wind up in California’s capital city. Vivek Ranadive (owner of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings) owns the minor league franchise, and is both a friend of Fisher and has ambitions of eventually owning a Major League Baseball team himself. Though Fisher has stated that he has no plans to sell the Athletics, there is still seemingly enough uncertainty surrounding the franchise that it doesn’t seem out of the question that Fisher could ultimately sell the A’s to Ranadive, Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob, or perhaps Ranadive and Lacob working in the same ownership group, as Shea/Ostler opine.