MLB Player News

Papierski spent last year at Triple-A Toledo in the Tigers’ system after getting into 26 games the previous season between the Reds and Giants. He’s merely emergency catching depth for the Mariners at this juncture of his career.

We wouldn’t want to count on him remaining relevant in the second half, but as the Rockies’ probable leadoff man against righties — and maybe still a starter against lefties — there’s a decent chance of McCarthy offering mixed-league value early on. The best-case scenario for Colorado is that he puts up solid for four months and then gets flipped for a prospect at the deadline.

Ezequiel Tovar and Hunter Goodman homered off him. Pivetta had some arm fatigue earlier this month, but his average fastball tonight was 1.3 mph better than last year. He has little chance of duplicating last year’s 2.87 ERA, but he’s a good bet to help in strikeouts and win a reasonable number of games for a contending Padres squad.

Severino’s velocity was up a bit in his lone spring start for the A’s and climbed further in the World Baseball Classic starts for the Dominican Republic, with his average fastball against Team USA on Sunday coming in at 98.6 mph. Tonight, though, he was back down to 96.0 mph, which is essentially what he averaged last year (96.1 mph). Unless tonight’s the fluke, he’s probably not going to be useful in mixed leagues in a really tough situation for pitchers in Sacramento.

Kelly has given up three runs and amassed a 9/3 K/BB in 7 2/3 innings this spring, and he has to be viewed as a candidate for saves in a wide-open A’s pen. After all, he has a career 3.04 ERA in 91 2/3 innings, even if his below average strikeout and groundball rates do nothing to back it up.

It was actually Taillon’s best performance among his five spring starts, as he lowered his ERA from 22.18 to 17.55. He also struck out six, doubling his spring total. Taillon’s velocity is down only about 0.5-1 mph from last year, and in a really good situation on the Cubs, he remains a candidate to offer some mixed-league value this year. It’s just going to be difficult to trust him initially.

With a .318/.400/.591 line, Amaya has had a nice spring, but he still hasn’t made up any ground on Carson Kelly, who has come in at .364/.417/.727 to date. Kelly figures to get the majority of the playing time behind the plate for Cubs, though both probably rank among MLB’s top 30 catchers at this point.

Along with the three baseballs that flew over the wall, gone tonight was Gallen’s spring velocity boost. He averaged 94.7 mph in his first three outings this spring, but he was right back at his 2025 average of 93.5 mph tonight. One of the surest signs of a truly poor outing is finishing with more hard-hit balls against than called strikes+whiffs, which is something Gallen did tonight (11 hard-hit balls, 10 CSW in 66 pitches). Hopefully, it’s just a blip. Gallen will face the Dodgers on Opening Day, making him a subpar play in mixed leagues.

Taking the mound just a few hours after being named the Brewers’ Opening Day starter, Misiorowski pitched a scoreless first and then was pulled after retiring only two of six batters in the second. It turned out to be a six-run inning for Arizona. Misiorowski returned for the third and was fine afterwards, retiring seven of the final nine batters he faced. Although his average fastball velocity was down 1.2 mph from last year, Misiorowski still touched 100.1 mph tonight. He’ll face the White Sox in next week’s opener.

Henderson, who missed the past couple of weeks with an elbow issue, fanned three tonight and showed slightly better velocity than his 2025 norms. He needs to get stretched out again, but once he does, he could rejoin the Brewers and perform well enough to be helpful in mixed leagues.

Frelick raised his spring average from .163 to .217 tonight and collected his first extra-base hit since Feb. 28. He took enough of a step forward last year that there’s no question about his status as a regular entering 2026. Still, the power isn’t going to be there to make him of much use in shallow leagues.