Good day, readers. We're updating contract news where we find it, and today we'll scan for other news blurbs around the league. I feel good today. It's a big week. We're fully on the new site, and it's coming together nicely. There will be updates and new ideas being developed all offseason. The Prospect Previews series is going on. We're dropping 2-3 teams a week, hoping to get all of that finalized by Christmas.

Shout-out to the team for helping out.

Meet the MLB DW Team

• Jon Anderson (@JonPGH): Owner and operator of MLB DW.
• Tim Kanak (@fantasyaceball): Head of Dynasty & Prospects content. Developer of fScores and a key part of the MLB DW business.
• Hunter Marvel (@huntermarvel15): News writer, in-season writer (famous for his bi-weekly Starts & Sits article).
• Doc Eisenhauer (@DocEisenhauer): Prospect podcast contributor.
• Owen Hurd (@Owen_FBB): Prospect podcast contributor.
• John Allen (@AllenReports): In-season MLB & Dynasty writer, podcast contributor, jack of all trades.
• Trevor T (@FFCULater): DFS & Betting Expert

Reach out if you want to contribute! We offer limited pay, no benefits, but a lot of good times and a very laid-back environment.

Options

The Padres brass did not honor the Sabbath. Or maybe they did, and their Sabbath just isn't on Sunday. We heard a lot from them yesterday.

• Yuki Matsui: Opts IN to a $6.5 million option for 2027. He's spent three seasons with the Padres now after signing in the international free agent market. He got it all together in 2026 with a 1.83 ERA and 1.14 WHIP in 64 innings (54 appearances) out of that strong Padres bullpen.
• Wandy Peralta: Opts IN to a $4.45 million option. He's been more of a middle reliever. A role guy. He was nothing special with his 3.61 ERA and 1.32 WHIP with a very low 16% K% in 2026, but he's given them 148 innings the last two years, which is valuable.
• Kyle Hart: The Padres exercised their team option to give him $2.5 million to come back. He's a left-handed versatile reliever. He made some starts as an opener, but the results haven't been great. A 4.92 ERA in 2026 with a 12.3% K-BB%, but a better 3.94 ERA. You need the lefties in your pen, and the Padres see enough to like with Hart to keep him around.
• Lucas Giolito: He's hitting the market again as the Padres declined their side of the $3 million option. Injuries have ruined his career. His 2025 season ended early and he came back in 2026 for just 29.2 MLB innings before getting hurt again (elbow inflammation in late June). I wouldn't count on seeing Giolito in the bigs again, but we'll see what happens.
• Griffin Canning: I'm kinda surprised he's made it this far. After a somewhat promising start to his career with the Angels, he's been bad. A 5.68 ERA in 88.2 innings with the Padres made the choice pretty easy as the Padres declined their side of the $2.5 million mututal option.
• Miguel Andujar: Andujar got ahead of it and declined his side of the $4 million mutual option. These mutual options never get accepted, it's been a really long time since we've seen both sides agree to that. If he lands on another team through free agency, it will be his fifth different team in five years. He was at least a high batting average guy in the past, but a .259 AVG in 74 games in 2026 made his .423 SLG hard to pay for.

That's after Michael King declined his option to go to free agency. The Padres have some work to do on this rotation. Right now, per FanGraphs:

• SP1 Joe Musgrove
• SP2 Randy Vasquez
• SP3 JP Sears
• SP4 Jhony Brito
• SP5 Kyle Hart

That's gotta be the worst-looking rotation in the league as things currently stand. They'll certainly go to work and acquire 2-3 guys to help out. They certainly can't count on Musgrove's health, and nobody else in there are true big league starts. Rough times in San Diego.

They keep making the playoffs, but it's been awhile since they've felt like a true contender due to their lack of starting pitching and the lack of depth in the lineup. Manny Machado is old and had a horrible 2026 season. The Padres farm system is still ranked dead last in our ranks, so it's a thin path to Padres greatness again. They'll have to get creative. I think they just need to offload some salary (easier said than done) and start a true rebuild. But they haven't been known to do that through developing prospects. It's a tough way to play the game when your organization has some financial limitations as they do right now with the big contracts they've been paying to Machado, Tatis, and others.

The only other notables from yesterday:

• The Red Sox exercise their $8.25 million option on Garrett Whitlock, who has become one of the best relievers in the sport between injuries. Only 52.1 innings in 2026, but an elite 1.72 ERA and 0.90 WHIP. He's fantastic. His fantasy value has been limited by Aroldis Chapman taking the saves, but Whitlock is one of the best setup men in the league and someone who should be universally rostered in holds leagues. And he's a great closer handcuff to draft if you don't think Chapman can do his thing again at age 39 next year.
• Ryne Stanek will hit free agency as the Cardinals declined their $6 million option and bought him out for $1 million. Stanek's pitched for the AStros, Mariners, Mets, and Cardinals the last four years. He's 35 and hasn't posted an ERA below four since 2022. He'll land somewhere as a middle-relief guy, but certainly for less money than $6 million a year.

Not much other news going on besides some Arizona Fall League stories. Two more weeks of action in Arizona for the game's prospects who needed some more work this fall.

Aidan Miller (Phillies top prospect) is there and crushing it with a 1.153 OPS. He missed most of the 2026 season as his injury woes continue. But he's a huge piece of the Phillies' future. The kid is awesome, and I suspect he'll be #1 for the Phillies when we get to their prospect preview. He's still just 22 years old, so plenty of time. If he can stay healthy, we'll see him manning third base or shortstop for the Phillies in 2027.

Tai Peete, a power-hitting Cardinals prospect, is having a nice time in the AFL as well. Hitting .355/.431/.661 for a 1.092 OPS. Two homers, four triples, five doubles, and 13 steals in 15 games. So he's going absolutely nuts there and is a prospect to watch for the Cardinals. Certainly a 2026 riser.

There are lots of other big-name prospects playing. You can follow along with the stats on this tool I put together:

Arizona Fall League 2026 Prospect Stat Center

Live 2026 AFL hitting and pitching stats with MLB orgs and prospect ranks. Sortable, searchable, updated every 3 hours.

You'll see everybody's MLB DW top 150 rank, if they have one, as well. You can search by your favorite team and see how those prospects are performing.

Injury Updates

Some Giants injury news came out here.

• Blade Tidwell will miss all of 2027 after October elbow surgery
• Randy Rodriguez is pitching the AFL, good news for him as the potential closer for the Giants in 2027
• Rafael Devers should be 100% for spring
• Carson Whisenhunt had Tommy John in September, will be delayed in 2027, so the Giants don't have many options (much less good ones) in their rotation

Playing Time Updates

The Dodgers have some rotation decisions to make ahead of 2027. They'll be in on Skubal, we'd think. There's a prediction market about it, and they have the Mets as the favorite at 25% with the Dodgers at 21%, and then other team above 5%.

But there will at least be a competition for the fifth spot. The report didn't say anything surprising - it's Emmet Sheehan, Justin Wrobleski, and Gavin Stone as the names highlighted there. This post said that Roki Sasaki is a lock if healthy. That might be overstating it, but I think he did enough in 2026 before the injury to get another shot. He will turn 25 TOMORROW (11/3), so happy birthday to Roki! He came to the Majors very young, so yeah, it's way too early to make him a reliever, even though he would be a very good one.

The post also didn't mention Shohei Ohtani as a lock for the rotation. They have a decision to make. I really don't suspect that they'll shut him down as a pitcher. But it's possible.

So this could be a moot point with the fifth spot. They could easily be opening the season with Skubal + Yamamoto + Snell + Glasnow + Ohtani. If Ohtani's in there, it's a six-man rotation again. So either way, somebody else fills in, but the innings will be limited by the six-man thing, and whoever takes the job will have to keep earning it with the depth they have.

We're rooting for SHEEHAN. He will once again be an NFBC target of mine, and I suspect he'll be very cheap again. But he will certainly have to earn the spot. He looked really sharp after he returned from the minors, and he had a lot of poor luck when in the rotation in the first part of the year. So I'm in there, but Wrobleski and Stone could be a problem. It's also possible they sign Skubal AND another SP in free agency. I kinda doubt they'd do that, but you never, ever know.

Gold Gloves

It's Awards Season, and we got the Gold Glove announcements last night.

National League:
P - Nolan McLean
C - Gabriel Moreno
1B - Matt Olson
2B - Brice Turang
3B - Alex Bregman
SS - Geraldo Perdomo
LF - Jackson Chourio
CF - Pete Crow-Armstrong
RF - Corbin Carroll
UTIL - Mauricio Dubón

I think we've gotten a little better at giving out these awards in the information age. For a long time, it seemed like they started by filtering to only players that can hit super well and then choosing from there. Not a sound system. With more and better defensive metrics, that happens less. But you still won't find too many bad hitters here, which makes you wonder. I'm not into defensive metrics; I don't have an opinion. I don't know who has the best "snub" cases.

American League:
P - Tanner Bibee
C - Dillon Dingler
1B - Christian Walker
2B - Cole Young
3B - Caleb Durbin
SS - Taylor Walls
LF - Cody Bellinger
CF - Ceddanne Rafaela
RF - Wilyer Abreu
UTIL - Ezequiel Duran

Taylor Walls cannot hit. Cole Young and Christian Walker didn't do anything special with their bats, either. So this is a strong list in that regard. Three Red Sox. Boston played some defense, although they did rank just #10 in team OAA.

Again, I don't have much interest or any opinions on this stuff. But it's news, and always fun to see the list.

If nothing else, these guys sure up their playing time next year. They extend their leash if they aren't producing at the plate.

The interesting question to me is, how much does this matter? It matters a lot more at some positions (C, SS, CF) than others (1B, 2B). But how many runs does Taylor Walls have to save with his glove to make up for the 74 wRC+ he put up with the bat? He hit .222/.309/.298 for a .607 OPS.

I thought we'd have Carson Williams taking that job by now, but that guy just can't figure it out with the bat. A career-worst .680 OPS in the minors this year. The story with his prior to 2026 was that he's a 20-20 machine with a super high K% and low batting average. But I was betting on the power + speed + defense making him a regular (albeit #9 hitter) for the Rays. But then he hit just 13 homers with a .218 AVG in 2026 in the minors.

So he's not taking the job, and yeah, it would seem that Taylor Walls is the better overall option for real life.

I'm sure there will be plenty of Gold Glove discussion on X today. Here's some good reactions.

Benge ROBBED of an award he wasn't eligible for. Sad.

What does it even mean exactly to suck defensively? I really don't know. I don't really know what stats to look at. We could just default to the OAA and arm strength listed on the Savant page:

That doesn't make a good case for Young. But there's way more to playing second base than just range and arm strength, right? We could go old school and cite his .990 fielding percentage. But that's a dumb stat, too. What even is an error? Oftentimes it's a judgment call. You could play left field in the Majors, have a fly ball hit 20 feet from you, refuse to budge, let the ball fall in, and not get charged with an error because you didn't make a play on the ball. Or you could sprint like 87mph into the gap on a perfect route with perfect anticipation, have it hit the heel of your glove and pop out, and get charged with an error.

One time in Little League I was playing right field. You might think that means I SUCKED, but I didn't. I swear, I didn't. Ask my MOM. I wasn't THE BEST, but I wasn't THE WORST. And that's how you get ahead in life. Just be like 60th percentile in everything. Anyways, a line drive was hit to me, I started running in on it like a nincompoop. After a few steps, I realized that ball was hit right at where I was standing. So I stopped and jumped up and made a leaping catch. The coaches went crazy, giving me props for a fantastic play. In my head, even at like 11 years old, I knew it wasn't a good play. I was happy that I still caught it, but I had the self-awareness to know that it was a bad play. But yeah, I returned the high fives, and I still text my Little League teammates every day, reminding them about that sick-ass catch I made in 2002, bro.

For years, defensive analysis was done with the eye test, which is a dumb way to do it unless you're like some baseball-watching guru with 50 years of experience. You might see a guy lay out and make a great play, but that doesn't mean it was a great play. Maybe he just completely jacked everything up prior to make him have to dive! But I don't know; Young must pass the eye test.

At the end of the day, he's a second baseman, and who really cares about second basemen? They're just the guys who aren't good enough to play shortstop or third base.

More reactions:

Different guy! Benge was robbed, one way or the other.

Maybe I'm just ignorant, but Seiya Suzuki isn't a good defender, right? It seemed to me like they always preferred him to be their DH. He DH'd 32 times last year and played 111 in right field. Shouldn't you need to play at least like 130 games in the field to qualify?

He did have some nice Statcast numbers on this side:

So okay, Suzuki is a ball player. And he's a free agent. He was a finalist for the award with Benge and Carroll in right field. I imagine that nabbing that award would've gotten him some extra money in free agency. But yeah, I learned something today. Suzuki's a good right fielder, and he should get a pretty nice contract this winter, whenever that happens.

I'm not helping anybody with anything in this post. But it's November 2nd, and now we're up to date on the news. The content spigot will not shut off. We're full steam ahead, at least until the news pipeline shuts down when the lockout hits. Subscribe today and get locked in!