Bo Bichette signs with Mets; J.T. Realmuto staying with Phillies

Catching up on some free agent news after the long weekend:

Infielder Bo Bichette is leaving the Toronto Blue Jays. He's signing a three-year deal worth $126 million with the New York Mets, who pivoted after losing out to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Kyle Tucker sweepstakes. 

The Mets are going to be an interesting experiment this year. They lost slugging first baseman Pete Alonso to the Baltimore Orioles in free agency, but they've signed Bichette and Jorge Polanco. And they traded outfielder Brandon Nimmo to Texas for infielder Marcus Semien.

New York's projected infield is Polanco at first base, Semien at second, Francisco Lindor at shortstop and Bichette at third.

Notably, Polanco has never played first base, and Bichette has never played third. All four of those guys have been middle infielders their whole careers. The Mets are apparently going to test the theory that players with experience at shortstop can stand anywhere else on the field.

The Philadelphia Phillies reportedly made an offer to Bichette, but after he signed with an NL East rival, the Phillies pivoted and retained their longtime starting catcher, J.T. Realmuto, on a three-year, $45 million deal. 

I keep waiting for Philadelphia to do something to shake it up, after it has fallen short repeatedly in the playoffs in recent years. But for the most part, it seems like the Phillies are running it back. They've kept two of their top three free agents this offseason, Realmuto and slugger Kyle Schwarber, who signed for five years and $150 million in December. Philadelphia lost starting pitcher Ranger Suarez to the Red Sox.

The Phillies definitely still look like a playoff team, but it feels like they need to change the mix to get to the World Series and win it. 

Kyle Tucker will join the Los Angeles Dodgers -- of course!

Cue the tweets about how the Los Angeles Dodgers are ruining baseball.

In free agent news that broke late Thursday night, Kyle Tucker is joining the two-time defending champs on a four-year, $240 million contract. The deal reportedly contains opt-outs after the second and third seasons.

Tucker is, of course, a good player. He's probably the top free agent on the market this season -- a 143 OPS+ and a 4.6 WAR with the Cubs in 2025. He batted .266/.377/.464 with 22 homers, 25 doubles and 73 RBIs in 136 games. A lot of that damage came in the first half of the season, as Tucker struggled with injuries the second half of the year.

But is that really worth a $60 million AAV? Ehh, probably not, but it's the Dodgers. They have so much money that they don't know what to do with it. Nobody seems able to outbid them, and even if a signing backfires, they have so much depth that it's almost irrelevant.

They're going to be a hard team to beat.

I'd probably be more pissed off about this if my team were actually competing. Alas, as a White Sox fan, I know there's no chance in hell of a World Series on the South Side of Chicago in 2026. So, what do I really care if the Dodgers win again? 

Sometimes sports are better when there are villains, and I imagine this signing will further galvanize the rest of baseball in hating Los Angeles.

Cubs acquire Edward Cabrera, send top prospect to Marlins

The Cubs moved to strengthen their starting rotation on Wednesday, acquiring 27-year-old right-hander Edward Cabrera from the Miami Marlins.

The acquisition cost was not insignificant. The North Siders sent outfielder Owen Caissie, their top overall prospect, to Miami, along with infielders Cristian Hernandez and Edgardo De Leon.

The Cubs most definitely needed to add starting pitching this offseason, as their rotation was depleted by injury and ineffectiveness in 2025, and that contributed to their NLDS loss to Milwaukee Brewers.

In Cabrera, they are getting a pitcher coming off his best season. He started 26 games with Miami last year, going 8-7 with a 3.53 ERA. He struck out 150 batters (against 48 walks) over 137.2 innings pitched. His fastball averages 96.8 mph, and he also has a curve, slider and changeup.

The main concern for Cabrera: injuries. The 26 starts last season were a career high. Until 2025, he had never thrown more than 100 innings in a season. Even in a relatively healthy year, Cabrera experienced posterior elbow discomfort last July, and he also missed time in September with a right elbow sprain.

The bottom line: Cabrera is a talented pitcher, and he's effective when healthy. He joins a Cubs rotation that includes Cade Horton, Matthew Boyd, Shota Imanaga and Jameson Taillon. The Cubs are hoping to get left-hander Justin Steele (elbow surgery) back sometime during the first half of 2026.

Earlier in the offseason, the Cubs were connected to free agent pitchers Dylan Cease (Blue Jays), Michael King (Padres) and Tatsuya Imai (Astros). They obviously did not convert on any of those targets, necessitating this move.

This ends speculation that Caissie will be the Cubs' replacement for Kyle Tucker in the outfielder. Tucker, who played well for the Cubs in the first half of 2025 before being a combination of injured and bad in the second half, remains a free agent.

The Cubs obviously are in win-now mode, and this Cabrera deal is a win-now move. Last year, I was critical of the Cubs because I didn't think they were aggressive enough in addressing their starting pitching at the trade deadline. They acquired Tucker as a one-year rental last offseason, and they should have pushed their chips to the center of the table to win in 2025.

Instead, they tinkered around the edges of their roster at the deadline, adding guys like Michael Soroka and Willi Castro. They ended up getting their lunch money taken -- again -- by the small-market Brewers, who have been the best team in the NL Central in recent years despite their limited resources. 

Going after Cabrera is not without risk because of the injury history, but I think it's a worthwhile risk -- as long as the Cubs do not stop there.

If they aren't going to bring back Tucker, that's fine, but then they need to sign one of the other major free agents hitters still available -- Alex Bregman, Bo Bichette or Cody Bellinger.

If I'm the Cubs, and I most certainly am not, I'm going after Bichette. 

Baseball's offseason: A year of slow free agency

Can we all agree now that baseball has the slowest-moving and most boring offseason of all the major sports?

The World Series ended more than two months ago, and free agency has been open for weeks. Still, some of the biggest names on the market are still without a team as the calendar turns to 2026.

It's odd. Wouldn't you think all 30 teams would have interest in these players?

• Outfielder Kyle Tucker, who is a four-time All-Star, two-time Silver Slugger winner and 2022 World Series champion.
• Third baseman Alex Bregman, who is a three-time All-Star and two-time World Series champion. 
• Infielder Bo Bichette, who is a two-time All-Star and led the American League in hits in both 2021 and 2022.
• Outfielder Cody Bellinger, who was National League MVP in 2019, a two-time All-Star, a two-time Silver Slugger winner and 2020 World Series champion. 

None of these players are old and washed. Bregman is the oldest of the four at age 31; Bichette is the youngest at 27. These are players in their prime, but none have a contract as yet.

How about these starting pitchers:

• Framber Valdez, who has finished in the top five of the AL Cy Young voting in three of the past four years and is a 2022 World Series champion.
• Ranger Suarez, who is 16 games over .500 and has a 3.38 ERA for his career.
• Zac Gallen, who had a down season last year but still won 13 games, and has finished in the top 10 of NL Cy Young voting three times in his career. 

They could be yours, if the price is right.

Need a catcher? How about J.T. Realmuto? Third baseman Eugenio Suarez hit 49 home runs last season. He's still available. Three-time batting champ Luis Arraez is also on the market.

From a Chicago perspective, we know the White Sox won't be bidding on any of these higher-end free agents. But we also know they want to add pitching -- both in the rotation and in the bullpen. There are middle-tier options out there.

Free agent starting pitchers include old friends Chris Bassitt, Lucas Giolito and Jose Quintana. Others available are Zack Littell, Walker Buehler and Nick Martinez. How about a future Hall of Famer? Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer are free agents.

There are old friends on the relief market too: Michael Kopech, Liam Hendriks and David Robertson. Also without a team are Seranthony Dominguez and Rock Falls High School product Jakob Junis.

See anything you like on that list? For Jan. 6, that's a lot of accomplished players looking for work. 

3 straight good outings for Jonathan Cannon

Jonathan Cannon received his first opportunity to pitch in the big leagues in April. It did not go well.

The 23-year-old right-hander made three starts for the White Sox during his initial recall, going 0-1 with a 7.24 ERA. He allowed 11 runs on 20 hits over 13.2 innings pitched.

He was sent back to Triple-A Charlotte, where he made a couple of changes to his grip on his sinker and changeup. The result has been more velocity on his sinker, and more downward action on his change.

Since being recalled to Chicago earlier this month, Cannon has had three straight good outings.

He earned his first career save June 7 against Boston, when he tossed three shutout innings with four strikeouts in a 7-2 win over the Red Sox.

Cannon returned to the starting rotation June 12 at Seattle. He threw seven innings of one-run ball, allowing only four hits -- including a solo home run in the seventh -- with seven strikeouts and one walk. That resulted in a no-decision as the Sox lost, 2-1, in 10 innings.

Then came Tuesday, when the former third-round draft pick fired 8.2 shutout innings against the Houston Astros. He allowed seven hits, but only one walk, with four strikeouts. Seventy of his 106 pitches were for strikes, and he picked up his first career win as the Sox prevailed, 2-0.

This game very easily could have been a complete-game shutout. Cannon retired the first two batters he faced in the top of the ninth inning, and he was one out away from finishing it off. Alas, a check-swing single by Jon Singleton and a ground ball with eyes off the bat of Mauricio Dubon put the tying runs on base for Houston with two outs.

At that point, Sox manager Pedro Grifol made a pitching change, with a chorus of boos cascading down upon him. Grifol has been rightfully criticized for many things, but this was the correct move. You don't let Cannon lose the game after how well he pitched, and John Brebbia is paid $5 million per season to get outs in relief.

Indeed, Brebbia retired Victor Caratini on a routine grounder to first base to earn his second save of the season.

Now, it's worth noting that Cannon faced a compromised Houston lineup that was missing its two biggest left-handed bats: Yordan Alvarez (personal reasons) and Kyle Tucker (leg contusion). It's also worth noting that it's only three outings, and all the usual caveats about small sample sizes apply.

But, Cannon is the first Sox pitching prospect to do much of anything with an opportunity so far in this lackluster season. Since his recall, he has an 0.52 ERA, and his season ERA is down to a respectable 3.34.

Is it possible that the changes he's made to his sinker and changeup will make him a viable big-league starter? Or is this just a hot streak from a fringe player?

At least it's something to monitor and talk about with the Sox (20-54) hopelessly buried in the standings.