Dodgers agree to 5-year, $74M deal with Edman
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Jeff Passan, ESPN
Super-utility man Tommy Edman and the Los Angeles Dodgers are in agreement on a five-year, $74 million contract extension that will keep the National League Championship Series MVP with the World Series champions through at least 2029.
The team announced the deal on Friday.
Edman, 29, was acquired by the Dodgers at the trade deadline this year and distinguished himself with his versatility. Playing center field and shortstop, the switch-hitting Edman thrived during the NLCS, driving in 11 runs, and followed with a .988 OPS and six runs in five World Series games.
The deal tears up the final season of a two-year contract Edman previously signed and replaces it with one that runs from 2025 through the 2029 season. The contract includes a sixth-year club option for $13 million with a $3 million buyout and will give Edman a $17 million signing bonus, sources said. About one-third of the overall value of the deal is deferred, according to sources.
Edman’s extension comes on the heels of Los Angeles’ five-year, $182 million agreement with left-hander Blake Snell. Following their championship, the Dodgers had targeted a front-of-the-rotation starter and hoped to extend Edman.
Doing so took new money that exceeded the deal the Dodgers had previously given to super-utility man Chris Taylor, also a center fielder and shortstop. In addition to the positional value, Edman’s power-speed combination appealed to the Dodgers, who received him from St. Louis in a three-way trade in which they gave up infielders Miguel Vargas, Alexander Albertus and Jeral Perez.
Edman, who had been sidelined while recovering from right wrist surgery and an ankle issue before debuting for the Dodgers in August, hit .237/.294/.417 with 6 home runs, 20 RBIs and 6 stolen bases in 37 games.
While he spent most of his postseason games hitting in the Nos. 8 and 9 holes, Edman batted cleanup twice — in Games 4 and 6 of the NLCS, against left-handed starters — and drove in seven runs. During the regular season, Edman hit .412/.418/.882 in 36 plate appearances as a right-handed hitter and .181/.256/.267 in 117 left-handed plate appearances. Over his career, Edman’s OPS as a right-handed hitter is nearly 140 points higher than his OPS batting left-handed.
With Mookie Betts set to move from the outfield to the infield in 2025, the Dodgers could opt to start Edman regularly in center field. If they choose to put Betts at second base, Edman also could play shortstop.
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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — The Yankees are acquiring third baseman Ryan McMahon from the Rockies in exchange for minor league pitchers Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz, sources confirmed to ESPN on Friday.
The Yankees will assume the remainder of 30-year-old McMahon’s contract, which includes approximately $4.5 million for the remainder of 2025 and $32 million over the next two seasons.
An All-Star last season, McMahon was batting .217 with 16 home runs and a .717 OPS in 100 games for Colorado in 2025. He hit home runs in the first two games after the All-Star break and another on Tuesday and is on pace to keep his four-year 20-homer streak alive.
While the production has resulted in a 92 OPS+, which suggests McMahon has been 8% worse than the average major league hitter this season, he still represents a significant offensive upgrade at third base for New York.
The Yankees have had Oswald Peraza, one of the worst hitters in the majors, manning third base nearly every day since the club decided to release DJ LeMahieu, another former Rockies player, earlier this month and move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base. Peraza, while a strong defender, is slashing .147/.208/.237 in 69 games this season. His 24 wRC+ ranks last among the 310 hitters with at least 160 plate appearances this season.
Defensively, McMahon is a Gold Glove-caliber third baseman whose four Outs Above Average is third in the majors this season. He joins a Yankees club that has been marred by sloppy defense, most recently on Wednesday when it committed four errors in a defensive meltdown against the first-place Toronto Blue Jays.
Herring, 22, has recorded a 1.71 ERA in 89⅓ innings across 16 starts between Low- and High-A this season. He was a sixth-round pick out of LSU in the 2024 draft.
Grosz, an 11th-round pick in 2023, had a 4.14 ERA in 87 innings over 16 games (15 starts) for High-A Hudson Valley this season.
With third base addressed, the Yankees will continue to seek to acquire pitchers to bolster both their rotation and bullpen.
MLB.com first reported on the Yankees trading for McMahon.
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Jorge Castillo
The Mets acquired left-handed reliever Gregory Soto from the Orioles on Friday in exchange for two minor leaguers in what could be the first of multiple moves by New York to bolster its bullpen before the trade deadline Thursday.
The trade, which sent Class A right-hander Wellington Aracena and Double-A right-hander Cameron Foster to Baltimore, gives the Mets a hard-throwing left-hander to complement the club’s only lefty on the roster, Brooks Raley, who returned from Tommy John surgery last week.
Soto, who is 30 and was an All-Star with the Detroit Tigers in 2021 and 2022, has posted a 3.96 ERA with a 27.5% strikeout rate in 45 appearances this season. The Mets will be his fourth team since the 2022 season.
On Monday, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns plainly signaled that upgrading the bullpen for the stretch run is his top priority.
The need is clear. Injuries and overuse have depleted a relief corps that led the majors in bullpen ERA through May 31. Since June 1, the group has posted 4.52 ERA, good for 23rd in the majors.
Aracena, 20, is 1-1 with a 2.38 ERA in 17 games for St. Lucie. The Orioles said he is one of two pitchers in the minors this season to have thrown at least 60 innings without surrendering a home run.
Foster, 26, is 5-2 with two saves and a 2.97 ERA while pitching at the Double-A and Triple-A levels.
BOSTON — Hundreds of Aramark workers at Fenway Park are on strike and planning to stay out for all of a homestand between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers starting Friday night.
Concession workers had set a deadline of noon Friday for Aramark and Fenway Park to reach an agreement with the Local 26 chapter of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island hotel, casino, airport and food services workers union.
The union went on strike at noon asking for “living wages, guardrails on technology and R-E-S-P-E-C-T!”
With the Red Sox and Dodgers scheduled to start at 7:10 p.m. EDT, union officials had a request for fans attending this homestand with food and beer workers on strike.
“We’re asking you to NOT buy concessions inside the ballpark,” Local 26 wrote on social media. “Tailgate before the games!”
Union workers walked the picket line wearing green T-shirts declaring “FENWAY WORKERS ON STRIKE.” They carried signs in the shape of a baseball proclaiming Local 26.
The Red Sox go out of town Monday with a game that night at Minnesota.
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