Maybe if he misses a lot of the season with an injury, such that he might be looking for a pillow contract anyway, but the Mets still see him as having good performance markers.

But yes, generally if you give a player an opt-out, then the player not taking it means things have gone bad.

Benge might be their opening day center fielder whether or not they sign Tucker. He’s not going to be surplus to needs.

Is Arizona paying the remaining $11M, or $6M? Because it says "$5M paid by Colorado Rockies" under 2026 on his bbref page.

Probably, but there’s enough smoke there to make me think the bidding is still in Stearns’ range.

The ability to play 1B as well as OF is part of the appeal with Bellinger though, right? Gives you more different ways to make up a good lineup depending on injuries, prospect readiness, etc.

I keep seeing people say WAR overvalues shortstops and undervalues first basemen, but if that’s true, why does the top 200 in career WAR on Fangraphs include 42 first basemen and only 21 shortstops?

I see here that the 2025 Nats got 10.0 bWAR from players they received in the Soto trade, and 1.9 bWAR from the entire rest of their roster.

I’m not sure what to take away from that, except, *oof*.

This week has been a real clinic in loss aversion