Hello and welcome to the Mailbag! Martell is taking some well deserved
It was a holiday, so I ran the experiment in his stead. This week, the hot stove started flickering. The Mariners re-signed Josh Naylor to a five-year, $92.5 million contract, inspiring Davy Andrews to relaunch the “We Tried” tracker. The Orioles made a surprising challenge trade with the Angels, swapping Grayson Rodriguez and Tyler Ward, while the Braves brought back Lesaire Iglesias on a one-year, $16 million contract, then traded the utility infielder with the Astros, trading Nick Allen for Mauricio Dupont.
It’s also been a week where various roster-related deadlines have come and gone. Teams have until Tuesday to add eligible rookies to their 40-man rosters to protect them from the Rule 5 draft, with Friday being the non-tender deadline. Four more players accepted qualifying offers on Tuesday. Brandon Woodruff, Trent Grisham, Gleyber Torres and Shota Imonaga will return to their previous teams on one-year deals worth $22.025 million, removing them from the free agent pool. As Michael Baumann noted in his article on the subject, this breaks the record set by three players in 2015; in the first 14 years of the system, 144 qualifying offers were made to pending free agents, but only 14 were accepted.
We’ll be covering every major signing and trade in the coming weeks, but this week’s mailbag isn’t focused on trades. Instead, we’ll consider a player who underperforms in 2025, the relative volatility of relievers and starters, and a controversial Hall of Fame case. Before I do that, though, I’d like to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs members. If you are not yet a member and want to continue reading, you can sign up to become a member here. It’s the best way to experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with many other benefits. Also, if you would like to ask questions about an upcoming mailbag, please email mailbag@fangraphs.com.
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