TAMPA, Fla. — Catcher Ben Rortvedt has a sense for what it could feel like if the Rays spend the 2025 season playing in one of the state’s spring training/minor-league stadiums:

About 15-20 pounds lighter.

Rortvedt was a 20-year-old, second-year pro in early June 2018 when he was promoted within the Minnesota organization. He went from the...Read more

PITTSBURGH — Dave Parker got his hopes up and then had them smashed like one of the homers he and his boys used to bop way out of Three Rivers Stadium. Now, he keeps stuff like this at an emotional distance, careful to not get fooled again.

The longtime Pirates outfielder has seen the numbers ... wait, no. He created the damn numbers, the ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — At the team’s World Series celebration on Friday, future Hall of Fame pitcher Clayton Kershaw declared himself a “Dodger for life.”

To be a Dodger in 2025, however, he and the team will have to work out a new contract.

Though Kershaw had a player option for at least $10 million next season, he evidently declined it Monday...Read more

SAN ANTONIO – The Braves extended the one-year, $21.05 million qualifying offer to Max Fried, they announced on Monday — the deadline to do so.

Fried has until 4 p.m. on Nov. 19 to accept or decline it. He’ll almost certainly turn it down and become a free agent.

By extending the qualifying offer, the Braves can receive a compensatory ...Read more

NEW YORK — The housecleaning has started and the Mets, as well as other teams, are clearing space off the 40-man roster and clearing money from the payroll gearing up to pursue free agent outfielder Juan Soto.

After all, he said he’s available to all 30 teams right?

Obviously, a superstar like Soto isn’t going to go to a place like ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers extended a qualifying offer to outfielder Teoscar Hernández on Monday, according to multiple reports.

The real news, however, was their decision not to extend the $21 million offer for next year to Walker Buehler, officially making the pitcher a free agent.

Had the Dodgers extended a QO to Buehler, he would have ...Read more

NEW YORK — Gerrit Cole is staying put.

It took some time for that to become official, but the ace will stick with the Yankees for the four years and $144 million he has remaining on the nine-year, $324 million contract he signed before the 2020 season. Cole initially opted out of that deal over the weekend.

The Yankees could have nullified ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Steve Garvey is on the ballot Tuesday — and again next month.

On the Election Day ballot: Garvey, the longtime Dodgers star, against Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) for a U.S. Senate seat representing California.

Garvey is expected to lose handily. He spent one of the final days of the campaign attending the Dodgers' World ...Read more

NEW YORK — In an unsurprising move, the Yankees declined their $5 million, 2025 club option on Lou Trivino on Sunday.

The decision, which was not attached to a buyout, sends the reliever to the open market.

Trivino, 33, has not pitched in a major league game since the 2022 ALCS thanks to Tommy John surgery, which he underwent in May of 2023....Read more

Los Angeles Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said it on the Yankee Stadium field late Wednesday night, after the team had sewn up the World Series with its improbable Game 5 comeback from a 5-0 deficit: This is a “golden era of Los Angeles Dodgers baseball.”

It’s hard to argue with that. In fact, anyone who ...Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas City Royals announced a new contract for right-handed starter Michael Wacha on Sunday afternoon.

Wacha, 33, was set to decide on a $16 million player option this offseason. The Royals had expressed optimism in retaining Wacha for 2025, and on Sunday, both sides agreed to a new three-year contract with a club ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — So that was (expletive) fun. See you back here next year? And the year after? And the year after that …

Mookie Betts is banking on it.

“When I became a Dodger, it was for 12 years, and we got two (World Series rings) so far,” the Dodgers outfielder told fans on Friday afternoon at Dodger Stadium, where the team’s ...Read more

NEW YORK — To the Yankee legions licking their wounds from their heroes’ ignominious pratfall in the just completed “Checkbook World Series” with the Los Angeles Dodgers, when putting it in perspective their season must still be considered a success. After all, who among them wouldn’t have signed up for a season that ended up with ...Read more

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Even in its potential demise, Tropicana Field has proven to be problematic.

One of the most ridiculed stadiums in the history of Major League Baseball, the Trop’s shredded roof has served as the symbol of Hurricane Milton’s destructive path through the west coast of Florida. And now a baseball team, a city, a county...Read more

NEW YORK — Anthony Rizzo is officially a free agent.

The first baseman may have played his last game in pinstripes as the Yankees declined his $17 million option sending him to the open market and triggering a $6 million buyout, the team announced on Saturday.

The 35-year-old knew the World Series could be the last time he called Yankee ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — For the first time in four years, the Dodgers are once again World Series champions.

That doesn’t mean they enter the offseason without any questions.

Just as soon as the team had descended its rally stage at Dodger Stadium on Friday, following the first Dodgers parade in Los Angeles in 36 years, manager Dave Roberts remarked...Read more

NEW YORK — Gerrit Cole reportedly triggered the opt-out clause in his contract Saturday, putting his future in the Yankees’ hands.

The ace opted out of the final four years and $144 million on his deal, according to ESPN, but the Yankees can void the opt-out by adding another year at $36 million to Cole’s contract.

Doing so would inflate...Read more

CHICAGO — Cody Bellinger is staying with the Chicago Cubs.

The 29-year-old outfielder has picked up his $27.5 million player option for 2025, a source confirmed to the Chicago Tribune on Saturday, and won’t become a free agent. The Cubs resolved their only other pending decision by declining left-hander Drew Smyly’s $10 million mutual ...Read more