The official Hot Stove League Thread 2025-26 Offseason

[D-train]

Morosi says it will take 3 x $15M to sign Polanco. F that. That will make the Garver signing seem like a great deal.

https://sports.mynorthwest.com/wyman-an ... co/1828178

Spotrac assigns Jorge Polanco a market value of three years and $43,762,380:

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/player/mark ... ge-polanco

FanGraphs has Polanco at about two years and $30 million:

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2026-top-50 ... ee-agents/

Scroll down to No. 28.

NFW Jerry does that. He gave him $6M early this year. I am sure he still remembers his 2024 season.

[D-train]

Dipoto seems to be indicating Naylor will not be back.

Murakami at 1B would be the dream I guess.

Guy has 22 homers in 56 games. Averaging about a K per game.

You are going to post that with no source???????????

SOB fell for a fake post on X with Jerry saying that he wishes Naylor good luck in the future. That's why you post links or sources when dropping significant news.

[D-train]

My estimate on Polanco is that his bag will be in the neighborhood of 40m. That could be 3 years with a fourth option year that comes with a big buyout number, like 4m. But he might do even better than that. It isn't unreasonable, but with the injury history and his age I'm not sure I would go there.

GMs around the league just might take the time to look all the way back to his horrible 2024 when he was 4 years younger than he will be and the end of a 3 year deal and just might pass on an injury prone player that was too gimpy to play 3rd base this season.

[D-train]

Dipoto seems to be indicating Naylor will not be back.

Murakami at 1B would be the dream I guess.

Guy has 22 homers in 56 games. Averaging about a K per game.

You are going to post that with no source???????????

This is dated three hours ago

Asked about Naylor

“It was a great fit and it’s definitely a priority for us this offseason -- if not one, I don’t know what else would be, he’s No. 1 right now,” Hollander said as transcribed by Kramer.

ESPN's Kiley McDaniel recently had a bit of a different idea for Naylor. Instead of projecting him to sign a massive deal worth over $100 million, McDaniel projected the slugger would sign a three-year deal worth $52.5 million, which would put him firmly in the range of the Mariners

Yeah that is a ridiculous lowball offer for a 28 yo coming off a 3 win season. My guess is 5 years $90M

[Big_Maple]

You are going to post that with no source???????????

This is dated three hours ago

Asked about Naylor

“It was a great fit and it’s definitely a priority for us this offseason -- if not one, I don’t know what else would be, he’s No. 1 right now,” Hollander said as transcribed by Kramer.

ESPN's Kiley McDaniel recently had a bit of a different idea for Naylor. Instead of projecting him to sign a massive deal worth over $100 million, McDaniel projected the slugger would sign a three-year deal worth $52.5 million, which would put him firmly in the range of the Mariners

Yeah that is a ridiculous lowball offer for a 28 yo coming off a 3 win season. My guess is 5 years $90M

I think we will have a solid offseason if all we did was lock in Naylor and Polanco. Polanco is a clutch hitter and a solid 2B. Naylor brings a ton to the table - leadership, home runs, loved by the fanbase, an ability to steal bases - I'd love to get him back.

FWIW, the pundits over at MLB.com made predictions about where some of the FA would wind up (based on surveying 46 members of MLB.com,. I guess). They have the M's as landing Murakami (nearly 50% of the voters) and Geno. If both predictions were true, we'd have 1B and 3B covered and would just need to lock in Polanco at 2B.

I wouldn't hate that outcome either, but for all the dingers they hit, both Geno and Murakami strike out a lot.

https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-free-agent ... or-2025-26

[harmony]

You are going to post that with no source???????????

This is dated three hours ago

Asked about Naylor

“It was a great fit and it’s definitely a priority for us this offseason -- if not one, I don’t know what else would be, he’s No. 1 right now,” Hollander said as transcribed by Kramer.

ESPN's Kiley McDaniel recently had a bit of a different idea for Naylor. Instead of projecting him to sign a massive deal worth over $100 million, McDaniel projected the slugger would sign a three-year deal worth $52.5 million, which would put him firmly in the range of the Mariners

Yeah that is a ridiculous lowball offer for a 28 yo coming off a 3 win season. My guess is 5 years $90M

And Josh Naylor had posted only 6.9 fWAR (5.3 bWAR) in 598 games over his previous six MLB seasons.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/play ... jo01.shtml

The Mariners (and other clubs) will need to decide whether Naylor and Jorge Polanco deserve premiums after exceeding expectations in 2025.

[Donn Beach]

A lot of it has to do with scarcity. What clubs out there are in need of a first baseman or DH and what would they will be willing to pay for one? How close do they feel to contending, is the GM feeling heat to win?. I don't put much weight in the click bait predictions. There's no way really to predict this sort of market

[GL_Storm]

My estimate on Polanco is that his bag will be in the neighborhood of 40m. That could be 3 years with a fourth option year that comes with a big buyout number, like 4m. But he might do even better than that. It isn't unreasonable, but with the injury history and his age I'm not sure I would go there.

GMs around the league just might take the time to look all the way back to his horrible 2024 when he was 4 years younger than he will be and the end of a 3 year deal and just might pass on an injury prone player that was too gimpy to play 3rd base this season.

Yes, that could happen. We're all just guessing what the market is at this point.

[Big_Maple]

Murakami gets posted on Saturday. Teams have till December 22 to sign him. He’d be a risky 3B option, but his big bat might offset his strikeout tendencies.

https://sports.mynorthwest.com/mlb/seat ... em/1828253

Other folks are speculating a reunion with Geno, but he also hits home runs while striking out a lot. He’s a few years older…so, yeah. Six of one, half dozen the other.

[D-train]

This is dated three hours ago

Asked about Naylor

Yeah that is a ridiculous lowball offer for a 28 yo coming off a 3 win season. My guess is 5 years $90M

I think we will have a solid offseason if all we did was lock in Naylor and Polanco. Polanco is a clutch hitter and a solid 2B. Naylor brings a ton to the table - leadership, home runs, loved by the fanbase, an ability to steal bases - I'd love to get him back.

FWIW, the pundits over at MLB.com made predictions about where some of the FA would wind up (based on surveying 46 members of MLB.com,. I guess). They have the M's as landing Murakami (nearly 50% of the voters) and Geno. If both predictions were true, we'd have 1B and 3B covered and would just need to lock in Polanco at 2B.

I wouldn't hate that outcome either, but for all the dingers they hit, both Geno and Murakami strike out a lot.

https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-free-agent ... or-2025-26

Just Naylor and Polo would be just getting the team back to status quo. I thought the point of the off season was too improve the team???

No way in hell we sign either Geno or Murakami. Jerry would first need to lift the ban on Japanese players and ever if he did he is way out of our price range.