POCATELLO and MOSCOW, Idaho — In remote stretches of I-84 between Boise and Pocatello in southern Idaho, the speed limit is 80 mph. It wouldn’t be unusual to set the cruise control to 90 and not worry about a speeding ticket. But in 2023, when Maclane Westbrook was a student at Idaho State, he blew past a state trooper sitting in the median and his speedometer read triple digits.

“I didn’t even try to slow down,” Westbrook said.

Westbrook was driving an ISU-issued car — with university insignia on the side — and was on his way back to campus from a board of educators meeting in the state capital and was quickly pulled over.

As Westbrook searched for an explanation that might possibly get him out of the ticket, a puzzled look overtook the trooper’s face. Sitting on the lap of Westbrook’s friend riding shotgun was a bald, silver-colored potato wearing a dry human smirk.

“You got a pottery project there?” the trooper asked.

This is how Westbrook found himself telling the story of the King Spud trophy — a long-lost relic in the Idaho–Idaho State rivalry — on the side of the highway, with hope its lore would inspire the trooper to issue just a warning. The tale did not have the desired outcome, and when the trooper retreated to his car to write the ticket, Westbrook’s friend noticed King Spud’s crown had been sitting on the floor mat. While they waited, he fixed it back on the trophy’s head.

When the trooper returned, he was perplexed yet again.

“Hey, he wasn’t wearing a crown when I was here the first time,” he said.

For Westbrook, it was an awkward traffic stop. For King Spud, it was just another chapter in an already bizarre existence. Because sometime around 1979, long before a replica of the original trophy found itself in the front seat of an Idaho State fleet car, baffling a state trooper, the original King Spud quietly and mysteriously vanished entirely. And for decades, no one seemed to care.

Born as a quirky art project at the University of Idaho in the early 1960s, the trophy’s vanishing act is one of the stranger mysteries in college sports. Over the past four decades, others have tried to track it down. This year, ESPN set out on its own adventure through Idaho’s small towns and college campuses, following decades of faint clues to determine what really happened to the lost King Spud — and whether it might still be out there.

THE QUEST BEGAN in early August at Buddy’s Italian Restaurant in Pocatello, where former Idaho State sports information director Glenn Alford suggested we meet. Buddy’s opened its doors in 1961, and its weathered exterior suggests the building hasn’t changed much in the decades since.

Alford, 83, has been dining here since he was hired in 1967, and he was quick to recommend the spaghetti and meatballs. He seemed excited to meet with an out-of-towner embarking upon an unusual treasure hunt. A Stanford-educated historian, Alford spent 31 years as Idaho State’s sports information director. No one was better to deliver a first-hand account of the trophy’s place in history.

In the first half of the 20th century, Idaho-Idaho State wasn’t much of a rivalry. The schools are located on opposite sides of the state, and they are separated by about a nine-hour drive that covers nearly 600 miles. Additionally, from 1922 to 1959, Idaho played in the Pacific Coast Conference with USC, UCLA, Stanford and other large West Coast universities. The two schools played only twice in football prior to 1962, but when the Big Sky Conference formed in 1963, they started playing annually, and as many as four times a year in basketball.

“Idaho got its butt kicked regularly, because what in the hell were they doing playing USC and UCLA?” Alford said. “But they took great pride in being a [Division I] school and eventually sanity reigned there and they decided that was unsustainable. So, they joined the Big Sky, and nobody in the conference liked their attitude about, ‘We’re more important than everybody else.'”

The Vandals remained in the Big Sky until 1996, when they left for the Big West and for two decades tried to make football work at what is now the FBS level. But the geography — among other reasons — didn’t allow it to work. Idaho returned most of its sports to the Big Sky in 2014, and football returned to the conference in 2018, where the school again competes with more natural peers.

In 1968, Alford was preparing to hit the road for a neutral-site basketball game against Idaho in Twin Falls when he was approached by his boss.

“He says, ‘You’ve got to take the King Spud trophy with you.’ And I said, ‘What is the King Spud trophy?'” Alford recalls. “I’d never seen it. Never heard of it.”

The King Spud trophy was commissioned by the Moscow Chamber of Commerce in 1962 with the idea it would be awarded annually to the winner of the Idaho-Idaho State men’s basketball game or series.

For at least 17 years, that’s what happened, with the trophy bouncing back and forth between Moscow and Pocatello.

The state was not exactly a basketball mecca during this period, but the Bengals delivered one of the great moments in Big Sky history in 1977 when they beat UCLA in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The upset ended the Bruins’ run of 10 consecutive trips to the Final Four and sits alongside Idaho State’s 1981 Division I-AA football national title as the greatest achievement in school history.

Alford admits he didn’t have an affinity for the King Spud trophy, nor did anyone else the way he remembers it. He never wrote about it in news releases, and it was something of a nuisance because of how heavy it was — Alford estimates it weighed about 25 pounds — making it difficult to lug around.

When Lynn Archibald arrived as the head coach after the NCAA tournament run in 1977, he also didn’t care for the trophy. After losing to Idaho in 1979, he told reporters: “The trophy should go to the losing team, not the winning one. It’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. The only good thing that happened last weekend was losing it.”

After that, the trophy simply drifted out of public consciousness. There was no announcement of a retirement, no news reports that it had gone missing, no campus legend about a theft. One year it existed — lumpy, metallic, ugly enough that a coach wanted to give it to the loser — and then it was gone.

The simplest explanation is probably the most likely, he thinks. It was left behind due to forgetfulness or even discarded.

The conversation inside Buddy’s didn’t lead to any strong King Spud leads, only a feeling of nostalgia for the Idaho State that lived in Alford’s stories.

THE OBVIOUS PLACE to begin the physical search is Idaho State’s ICCU Dome.

On a Tuesday morning, Idaho State sports information director Jon Match was waiting just a few steps from where the football team was practicing. Match was friendly and helpful, but realistic: King Spud has been missing for more than four decades, and nothing about the Dome suggests it holds many secrets. Still, he said, there are storage rooms and dusty closets in the building to sift through. If the trophy somehow survived, that would be the place to focus on searching.

We walk through the concourse — where most of the Bengals’ most treasured keepsakes are displayed in glass trophy cases — into a room that rarely has visitors. Cardboard boxes are filled with old stuff: jerseys, pictures, 80-year-old trophies, folders and a binder labeled “bbq sauce/road trip.” At the back of the room there is a hatch that leads into a dark crawl space under the bleachers — Alford had thrown out the possibility King Spud could be in there — but the risk/reward analysis determines it isn’t worth venturing more than a few feet past the opening.

After working through a few more storage areas, it becomes clear that whatever secrets the Dome holds, none of them resemble our elusive potato.

Idaho State athletic director Pauline Thiros also seems politely amused by the search for King Spud. Thiros is from Poky, played volleyball for the Bengals and has worked in the ISU athletic department since 1995, beginning as a volleyball coach and becoming AD in 2019.

“I actually was not aware of King Spud until a couple of years before I became athletic director,” she said in her office. “I heard about it with a scavenger hunt and King Spud — if you find King Spud, you’re like the grand champion. And it was really just a joke.”

Thiros was disappointed when King Spud didn’t turn up during a renovation project a few years ago, but a track trophy from 1917 was discovered under the bleachers.

She didn’t rule out the possibility the royal russet was somewhere still on campus, but she wasn’t optimistic.

“I think somebody thought it was so ugly that they tossed it,” she said.

The general feeling about King Spud changed dramatically in the years after it faded into obscurity, however, and after a King Spud account was created on Twitter in 2022, a new generation of Idaho State students was introduced to the trophy in a more positive manner.

“The students became weirdly obsessed with King Spud,” she said, affectionately. “They’re the ones that ultimately worked with Idaho students to bring it back.”

One of those students was Maclane Westbrook. He grew up in Oregon and didn’t arrive in Pocatello with any sense of local tradition. He remembers King Spud as a vague image at first — a photo he might have seen somewhere online — until a 2021 Idaho State Journal story pulled it into focus.

During a detour from ISU as a student at College of Eastern Idaho, he noticed how little campus identity a community college can have. So when he returned to Idaho State, King Spud looked less like a joke and more like an opportunity. He got involved in student government and started pitching the idea of bringing the trophy back.

“Whenever I brought it up, I felt like I had to be careful about it,” he said. “I was afraid I would just start talking about King Spud and someone [would think] I was insane. So I was trying to be careful whenever I started talking about it or telling people about it. But whenever I did, everyone was pretty enthusiastic about it. ‘That’s really cool.’ ‘That should be brought back.'”

Westbrook put together a presentation, walked into a Wednesday night student senate meeting and made his case. Everyone was all for it. When the student government in Moscow was looped in, it was equally enthusiastic.

Details about funding were relatively easy to sort through, but there was a question about how it should be awarded. Should the trophy be tied only to men’s basketball, as it once was, or shared with the women’s teams?

“There was also a discussion for doing a Queen Spud trophy, which I thought would’ve been the coolest thing to do,” Westbrook said. “Have a King Spud and a Queen Spud. And then the goal is to try to win them both, so you can unite the monarchy of the spud.”

In the end, simplicity won out. King Spud would be a combined competition involving all four annual men’s and women’s basketball games. If either school won at least three of the four games, it kept the trophy for the year. If the series ended 2-2, the tiebreaker would be total point differential.

In the first season of the reboot in 2023, the tiebreaker was in play as the Idaho State women’s team needed to win or lose by seven points or fewer. The Bengals trailed by 21 at halftime but had cut the deficit to 8 with 1:17 left. At this point, Thiros’ rooting interest shifted from the game to what equated to a point spread.

She was watching on television as the final seconds ticked down.

“I am no longer thinking we need to win this game,” Thiros said. “I’m thinking we have to score a basket.”

A late jumper cut the deficit to six, ensuring King Spud would spend the next year in Pocatello.

“After the game, I’m congratulating Coach [Seton Sobolewski],” Thiros said. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know we wanted the W, but hey, you got it, you’re bringing home King Spud.’ And he was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ He was still pissed about the loss.

“He didn’t care about King Spud the first time. He cares now. It was hilarious.”

Idaho State also won the most recent series for the 2024-25 school year, so a visit to the student union — where the new King Spud is displayed — was also in order. School wasn’t in session, so the building was empty. On the second floor, in a vertical glass case, sat the modern King Spud.

It was … underwhelming. For all the enthusiasm students had poured into resurrecting the tradition, the display didn’t fully capture that energy. There was no plaque, no sign explaining its history or its odd place in the Idaho-Idaho State rivalry. Just a strange, side-eyed silver potato wearing a gold crown, looking vaguely annoyed to be sitting alone in an empty student union.

The last stop in Pocatello was a pawn shop about 7 miles away on the edge of town. “Pawn Stars” has tricked me into believing this is exactly the sort of place where miraculous discoveries happen. The cinderblock building with barred windows sat alone behind a patch of gravel. Inside, I approached a man with a dolly and asked if he was the proprietor.

“Depends on what you’re selling,” he said.

I gave him the quick King Spud spiel and he also had never heard of it. That was that, and I left Pocatello no closer to finding the original King Spud than when the journey started.

WITHOUT ANY LUCK in Pocatello, the quest moved north to Moscow. If there is one building in the country that might be hiding a 60-year-old potato in some forgotten corner, maybe it would be the state’s other dome. The Kibbie Dome.

For decades, the building has been a personal curiosity — part football stadium, part indoor track, part architectural experiment, part fever dream. Assistant athletic director Jerek Wolcott weaved us through halls that felt more like the underbelly of a ship than the guts of a stadium. He unlocked a cement-walled room tucked behind one of the end zones. Dust coated everything. Cardboard boxes were filled with trophies dating back to the 1930s. No spud.

We climb a hidden set of stairs and a ladder into the rafters, where we can peer through the slats in the roof onto the field below. There is, of course, no logical reason King Spud would be here, but common sense has long been lost. And the view of the Palouse from the roof ends up being worth the climb.

With no luck inside the Kibbie Dome, the next logical step was to meet with the person who helped resurrect King Spud in the first place.

Casey Doyle is a professor of art and design at the University of Idaho, and during a quiet summer a few years ago someone from the library approached him with an unusual request: Could he re-create a long-lost potato-shaped rivalry trophy so the school could display it in the library?

The project was outside his normal artistic lane. He’s not a sports fan, and Doyle’s background blends traditional sculpture with performance-based work and nontraditional materials, but the idea of re-creating a decades-old trophy born from student folklore was interesting enough for him to take it on.

Doyle began with the few photographs that exist of the original King Spud. Working in clay made the most sense given the budget and his expertise. He blocked out a solid clay potato first, shaping its rounded form, then gradually carved in the signature elements: the smirking face, the rounded head, the base beneath it and the simple crown that once sat atop the original.

Once the exterior form looked right, he cut the sculpture cleanly down the middle and hollowed it out so it wouldn’t explode during firing. The base was thrown separately on a pottery wheel. After firing, it became the new physical reference point for the trophy’s rebirth.

The library then had Doyle’s sculpture 3D-scanned so it could produce small replica keychains. Doyle assumed that was the extent of its use. Until we met in the library a few feet from where his clay version is on display. Doyle had no idea it had also been 3D printed to be put back in circulation as a rivalry trophy.

By this point, the mission had shifted. Finding the original King Spud felt unlikely; understanding its lore was essential. And in Moscow, there was only one place to go for that — the Corner Club, the town’s legendary sports bar.

In the middle of a weekday afternoon, the place was empty. Marc Trivelpiece, the owner since 2007, stood behind the bar wiping down glasses. One of the King Spud keychains is on display and another depiction of the trophy is on the wall.

Trivelpiece didn’t need much prompting to dive into the mystery. His theory about the missing trophy mirrored the most common one: Someone tossed it decades ago.

“Where else would it have gone?” he asked. “We’ve been looking for it for years — at least we have. I don’t know how much effort Idaho State put into looking for it.

“It could have been somebody took it home and then it got put in the back of a closet and they passed away and their kids didn’t know what it was. They got rid of it. Who knows.”

At Corner Club, the lore of King Spud lived on. And maybe that would have to be enough.

A HANDFUL OF follow-up calls after the Idaho quest didn’t uncover anything new. At some point, the odyssey stopped being about finding a missing object and became a question about why anyone would care this much about a decades-old potato trophy in the first place.

Maybe the answer is simple: Rivalry trophies are fun. Even the clothing company Homefield Apparel has embraced the lore, selling a King Spud T-shirt. Trophies can be quirky, tangible excuses for schools to argue about bragging rights, to tell old stories, to let a football game or basketball series feel like it carries just a little more weight than the standings say it does.

That became clearer when Idaho State revived not just King Spud, but a trophy it didn’t even know it had lost. In the wake of King Spud’s resurrection, Thiros asked Westbrook if he had any other ideas in the spirit of King Spud.

“Well, there’s the Train Bell Trophy. It’s down at Weber State collecting dust,” he said.

The bell wasn’t missing so much as forgotten, tucked away somewhere at Weber State since it was last awarded in 1973.

“So for two years we kind of had discussions with Weber State about, let’s bring back the Train Bell,” Thiros said.

Finally, Idaho State stopped waiting. The school announced unilaterally that the Train Bell Trophy was returning, and when the Bengals won in Ogden, Utah, for the first time in 40 years, the offensive line lugged the heavy bell to a roaring ISU student section.

The same pattern repeated itself in the Idaho-Idaho State football rivalry. Since 2018, the schools had played for the Battle of the Domes Trophy, but a corporate sponsorship change led to its quiet retirement after the 2022 season. Suddenly, football had no symbol at all.

For the 2023 meeting, then-Idaho head coach Jason Eck refused to let the game go trophy-less. He cobbled together a temporary Potato State Trophy by attaching a Mr. Potato Head to the Battle of the Domes base. It was goofy and earnest.

Last year, Wolcott created a permanent fix. He carved the official Potato State Trophy out of north Idaho Douglas fir, a straightforward, sturdy replacement for a rivalry that has never taken itself too seriously. Idaho won last year, but on Saturday the Bengals beat the Vandals 37-16 to claim the trophy, uniting it with King Spud for the first time.

The original King Spud remains missing — maybe in a landfill, maybe truly gone. If anything, the hunt for something lost ended up bringing more traditions back into the light. Rivalry trophies survive not because they endure, but because people keep deciding they still matter.

It’s hot stove season! The 2025-26 MLB offseason is officially here, and we have you covered with grades and analysis for every major signing and trade this winter.

Whether it’s a big-money free agent signing that changes the course of your team’s future or a blockbuster trade, we’ll weigh in with what it all means for next season and beyond.

ESPN MLB experts Bradford Doolittle and David Schoenfield will evaluate each move as it happens, so follow along here — this story will continue to be updated. Check back in for the freshest analysis through the start of spring training.

Related links: Tracker | Top 50 free agents | Fantasy spin

The deal: Seven years, $210 million
Grade: B

One of the interesting aspects of MLB free agency is that the number of suitors for a player isn’t always directly correlated to his value. There are, after all, only so many teams willing and able to spend in the nine-figure arena. In recent years, we’ve seen excellent players like Pete Alonso, Matt Chapman and Blake Snell settle for shorter-term deals late in the offseason as they waited for that big long-term offer that never came — or was pulled off the table.

In the case of Dylan Cease, it makes a lot of sense for him to sign early while the money is there. He’s a pitcher with clear skills and ability but also frustratingly inconsistent results, which was going to lead to a wide variance in how teams evaluated him — and thus what offers he received. The $210 million deal the Toronto Blue Jays gave Cease is closer to the high end for him, given Kiley McDaniel’s projection of five years, $145 million.

The positive:

• Pure stuff: The “Stuff+” metric — which various sites now calculate based on a whole host of things like spin, movement and velocity — rate Cease’s pitches as some of the best in the majors, including a fastball that averages 97 mph. Among pitchers with at least 100 innings in 2025, he ranked tied for 12th in Stuff+ per FanGraphs.

• Durability: Cease is riding a streak of five consecutive seasons with at least 32 starts. Since 2021, he’s first in the majors in games started and seventh in innings. Considering the best predictor for future injuries is past injuries, that health history and projected durability gives him a high floor for future value.

• Age: He’s entering his age-30 season, clearly still in his prime years.

The negative:

• His ERA has jumped from 2.20 to 4.58 to 3.47 to 4.55 over the past four seasons with corresponding changes in his value, from 6.4 WAR in 2022 with the Chicago White Sox to just 1.1 with the San Diego Padres in 2025, when he had a high ERA despite pitching in a good pitcher’s park. His road ERA in 2025 was 5.58, which is certainly a concern as he now goes to a better-hitting division and better hitter’s park.

• His lack of efficiency not only leads to too many walks — he leads the majors over the past four seasons — but short outings due to high pitch counts. Cease failed to last five innings in 10 of his 32 starts, which is too often for a pitcher who just got $210 million.

In Cease’s best season in 2022, his slider was unhittable while his four-seamer and knuckle-curve were also effective, making him a three-pitch pitcher. The curveball hasn’t been nearly as effective since then, with batters slugging .576 against it in 2025, .444 in 2024 and .538 in 2023, making him more of a two-pitch guy now. He started throwing a sweeper and sinker a little more often last season, and maybe the continued development of those pitches will help him get back to being one of the better starters in the majors.

That’s what the Blue Jays are banking on. They’ll likely note that his FIP — Fielding Independent Pitching, which factors in only strikeouts, walks and home runs allowed — has been fairly consistent the past four years: 3.10, 3.72, 3.10 and 3.56, respectively. That averages out to 3.36, with his actual ERA rising and falling depending on the variations of his batting average on balls in play (.261 and .266 in ’22 and ’24, .331 and .323 in ’23 and ’25).

At the minimum, the Blue Jays get a solid middle-of-the rotation starter to go with Kevin Gausman, Trey Yesavage, Shane Bieber and Jose Berrios. The good version of Cease is a No. 2 starter who sometimes looks like an ace. If Bieber is healthy for the entire season and Berrios’ late-season elbow inflammation was just a temporary, that’s a rotation that could be as good as any in the game. We knew the Jays were going to strike big this offseason. This might not be their only move of consequence. — Schoenfield

Red Sox get:
RHP Sonny Gray
$20 million in cash

Cardinals get:
LHP Brandon Clarke
RHP Richard Fitts

Red Sox grade: B+

The Red Sox had three-fifths of an outstanding rotation in 2025, with Garrett Crochet leading the way and Brayan Bello and Lucas Giolito producing solid campaigns as the second and third starters. That was enough to get the Red Sox back into the postseason for the first time since 2021, but after Giolito declined his part of a $19 million mutual option, the Red Sox were looking for a veteran starter to replace him.

They landed on Gray, who is 36 years old but coming off a second straight 200-strikeout season while also leading National League starters in strikeout-to-walk ratio. The Red Sox have reportedly restructured Gray’s deal to pay him $31 million in 2026 with a $10 million buyout on a mutual option for 2027, essentially turning this into a one-year rental at $41 million (with the Cardinals picking up half that tab). It’s certainly a great deal for Gray, who no doubt happily waived his no-trade clause to get out of St. Louis.

As for Gray the pitcher, he’s an interesting mix. When he can get to two strikes, he’s one of the best in the game, ranking fourth in the majors among starters with a nearly 52% strikeout rate (Crochet was first at 54.3%) while holding batters to a .135 average. His sweeper is his go-to strikeout pitch, registering 111 of his 201 strikeouts. His curveball generated a 34% whiff rate.

His problems came against his fastballs, as batters hit .370 and slugged .585 against his four-seamer (which he uses more against left-handed batters) and hit .281 and slugged .484 against his sinker (which he uses more against righties). He also throws a cutter, which he takes a little off on the velocity, but that was also similarly ineffective, with batters hitting .387 off it. The damage against his fastballs led to 25 home runs allowed and a 4.28 ERA, despite the excellent walk and strikeout numbers.

Can that be fixed? With a fastball that averages 92 mph, maybe not. Gray did throw his three fastball variants 53% of the time, so maybe the Red Sox suggest a different pitch mix — the four-seamer, while it gives him the one pitch Gray throws up in the zone, has been hammered two years in a row now, but was still the pitch he threw most often in 2025.

Overall, Gray plugs a big hole without the Red Sox paying out a long-term contract — and the Red Sox didn’t give up anybody who projected to be an impact player for them in 2026 (such as starters Payton Tolle and Connelly Early, who debuted this past season and could be in the 2026 rotation).

Cardinals grade: C

It’s not exactly a salary dump, but it has the feel of one, although the Cardinals at least chipped in $20 million to get a little better return on the player side. Fitts could be a bottom-of-the-rotation guy, and given the holes in the St. Louis rotation, is almost certain to get that opportunity. His four-seam fastball, sitting 95-96, was an effective pitch in the 10 starts he made for the Red Sox in 2025, but he hasn’t really developed a trustworthy secondary offering. His slider got hit hard and didn’t generate enough swing-and-miss. Maybe his sweeper/curveball combo will eventually elevate his game, but he threw both less than 11% of the time.

Clarke, a hard-throwing lefty who has hit 100 mph, was drafted out of a Florida junior college in 2024. He had Tommy John surgery in high school and redshirted one year at Alabama with another injury. The Red Sox limited him to 14 starts and 38 innings in 2025 in Class A, where he registered both high strikeout numbers (60) and high walk totals (27). ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel rated him the No. 9 prospect in the Boston system in August and while there’s obvious upside if everything comes together, he’s not close to the majors and the profile screams reliever risk.

For the Cardinals, they’ve at least made their intentions clear: If 2025 was “re-set,” 2026 is going to be a rebuild. Nolan Arenado, Brendan Donovan and Willson Contreras could also all be traded before the winter is over. — Schoenfield

Mets get:
2B Marcus Semien

Rangers get:
OF Brandon Nimmo

Mets grade: C+

One-for-one swaps of quality veterans are rare enough these days that when one lands, and people are familiar with both players, the label “blockbuster” starts to get thrown around in a way that would make Frantic Frank Lane roll his eyes. This deal, which brings Semien to New York for career Met Nimmo, is interesting. It is also a trade involving two post-30 players carrying multiple seasons of pricey contracts. Lackluster would be a better description than blockbuster. The valuations on this deal at Baseball Trade Values illustrate nicely the underwater contracts involved.

For the Mets, it’s important to underscore the fact that Semien is 35 years old. Though he challenged for AL MVP during Texas’ championship season in 2023, his offensive numbers have since headed south, as tends to happen to middle infielders with his expanding chronology. Over the past two seasons, his bat has been just below league average — and while there is plenty of value in being roughly average, it’s still a precarious baseline for a player on the downside of his career. His offensive forecast isn’t as good as that of New York’s heretofore presumed regular at second base, Jeff McNeil, who might still get plenty of run at other positions.

That said, Semien is a much better defender than McNeil. Semien is coming off his second career Gold Glove, an honor backed up by consistently strong fielding metrics that have marked his play at the keystone ever since he moved over from shortstop. Though Semien’s contract features a higher average annual value than Nimmo ($25 million in terms of the luxury tax calculation versus $20.5 million), it’s of shorter duration and the move will cut into New York’s considerable longer-term obligations.

One thing that is head-scratching here: The Mets are pretty deep in high-quality infield prospects, from Luisangel Acuna to Ronny Mauricio to Jett Williams, all of whom carry considerably more upside than Semien at this point.

Rangers grade: C+

If you ignore positional adjustments, Nimmo is a better hitter than Semien and should be a considerable upgrade for Texas in the outfield compared with what the Rangers had been getting from the recently non-tendered Adolis Garcia. He’s not as good a defender as Garcia, especially in arm strength and, in fact, is likelier to play in left in Texas rather than Garcia’s old spot in right. As mentioned, Semien was a Gold Glover at his position and so now, in their effort to remake an offense that needed an overhaul, you worry that the Rangers are putting a dent in their defense.

We’ll see how that shakes out as the offseason unfolds, but for now, we can focus on Nimmo’s bat and the possibility that his numbers could get a bump from the switch in venues. He’s typically hit better on the road than at pitcher-friendly Citi Field, and Globe Life Field, while strangely stingy overall last season, has typically been a solid place to hit for left-handed batters.

The project in Texas is clear. It’s about not just improving the offensive production but also pursuing that goal by shifting the focus of the attack. Nimmo’s power bat is a slim upgrade on Semien and a downgrade from Garcia. But Nimmo is a much better hitter for average than both, and he has the best plate discipline of the trio. These are both traits the Rangers’ offense very much needed.

Nimmo’s contract is a problem, but it’s more of a longer-term issue than it will be in 2026, when he’ll make $5.5 million less than Semien. Texas is looking to reshuffle while reigning in the spending, and this is the kind of deal that aids that agenda. The Rangers can worry about the real downside of Nimmo’s deal later. For now, they can hope that moving to a new vista for the first time will boost Nimmo’s numbers, which have settled a tier below where they were during his Mets prime. — Doolittle

Orioles get:
LF Taylor Ward

Angels get:
RHP Grayson Rodriguez

Orioles grade: D

The first major trade of last offseason came on Nov. 22, when Cincinnati dealt Jonathan India to Kansas City for Brady Singer. This one leaked on Nov. 18, so we’re getting an earlier start. Given the relatively tepid nature of this year’s free agent class, the hope is that this deal is the vanguard of a coming baseball swap meet. Trades are fun.

Alas, although it was easy to understand the reasoning for both sides in the aforementioned Reds-Royals deal, I’m not sure I get this one so much from the Orioles side. The caveat is that maybe Baltimore’s brass, which obviously knows a lot more about Rodriguez than I do, has good reason to think that Gray-Rod (just made that one up) is not likely to live up to his considerable pre-MLB hype.

I don’t like to get too actuarial about these things, but you kind of have to be in this case because Ward will be a free agent after the 2026 season whereas Rodriguez has four seasons of team control left on his service time clock. Thus, even if Rodriguez is likely to need an adjustment period this season as he attempts to come back from the injuries that cost him all of 2025, Baltimore would have had plenty of time to let that play out.

Ward turns 32 next month, likely putting him at the outer rim of his career prime. He has been a decent player — an average of 3.0 bWAR over the past four years — but his skill set is narrow. Ward has been a fixture in left field the past couple of seasons and has shown diminishment both on defense and on the bases. He’s someone you acquire for his bat.

On that front, Ward hit a career-high 36 homers in 2025, but his underlying Statcast-generated expected numbers suggest he overachieved in that area a bit. The righty-swinging Ward does generate power to the opposite field, but his power game is still likely to see a negative impact from the move to Camden Yards. He’s patient at the plate to the point of occasional passivity, as he’s almost always hunting a pitch to drive, even if that means taking a couple of strikes.

That’s not a bad thing, but that approach, combined with a fly ball-heavy distribution, has led to a consistently plummeting average: .281 to .253 to .246 to .228. He’s a take-and-rake guy who doesn’t generate enough fear from pitchers to keep them out of the zone, which might supercharge his walk rate enough to bring his OBP up to an acceptable level, which it won’t be given the batting average trend.

And all of this would be fine for one year of a productive hitter likely to earn $12-14 million through the arbitration process. But at the cost of four years of a pitcher with Rodriguez’s ceiling? I’m not seeing it.

Angels grade: A-

This is about upside for an Angels staff desperate for a true No. 1 starter. To expect Rodriguez to fill that need in 2026 is a lot, and perhaps, given his durability issues, he will never get there. His big league results (97 ERA+, 3.80 FIP over 43 starts in 2023 and 2024) are solid but nothing special. The allure of Rodriguez remains the combination of high ceiling and controllable seasons.

And the ceiling is very high. ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel ranked Rodriguez as the game’s top pitching prospect in 2022 and rated him nearly as high in 2023. The mere possibility of Gray-Rod (did it again) fulfilling that potential in an Angels uniform is an exciting notion for fans in Anaheim.

Whether or not there is much of a possibility of Rodriguez getting there is almost beside the point. I’d feel better about this if he were headed to an organization with a better track record of turning around underachieving/injury-prone hurlers, but maybe the Angels can make some strides in this area.

The deal opens up a hole in the outfield for the Angels with no obvious plug-in solution from the organization. But finding a free agent replacement who approximates or exceeds Ward’s production shouldn’t break the bank. Here’s a vote for going after Cody Bellinger.

The possibility of that kind of upgrade and maybe someday a fully realized Gray-Rod, all for the low-low price of one season of Taylor Ward? Sign me up. — Doolittle

The deal: 5 years, $92.5 million
Grade: A-

If there was an award for free agent prediction most to likely come true, Josh Naylor returning to the Seattle Mariners would have been the front-runner, so it’s hardly a surprise that this is the first significant signing of the offseason (pending a physical). As soon as the Mariners’ season ended with that heartbreaking loss in Game 7 of the ALCS, the front office made it clear that re-signing Naylor was its top priority. Such public vocalizations at that level are rare — and the Mariners backed them up with a five-year contract.

It’s easy to understand why they wanted Naylor back. The Mariners have been searching for a long-term solution at first base for, oh, going on 20 years — really, since they traded John Olerud in 2004. Ty France gave them a couple solid seasons in 2021 and 2022, but since 2005 only the Pirates’ first basemen have produced a lower OPS than Seattle’s.

Naylor, meanwhile, came over at the trade deadline from Arizona and provided a huge spark down the stretch, hitting .299/.341/.490 with nine home runs and 33 RBIs in 54 games, good for 2.2 WAR. Including his time with the Diamondbacks, he finished at .295/.353/.462 with 20 home runs in 2025. Given the pitcher-friendly nature of T-Mobile Park, it’s not easy to attract free agent hitters to Seattle, but Naylor spoke about how he loves hitting there. The numbers back that up: In 43 career games at T-Mobile, he has hit .304 and slugged .534.

Importantly for a Seattle lineup that is heavy on strikeouts, Naylor is a high-contact hitter in the middle of the order; he finished with the 17th-best strikeout rate among qualified hitters in 2025. Naylor’s entire game is a bit of an oxymoron. He ranks in just the seventh percentile in chase rate but still had a nearly league-average walk rate (46th percentile) with an excellent contact rate. He can’t run (third percentile!) but stole 30 bases in 32 attempts, including 19-for-19 after joining the Mariners. He doesn’t look like he’d be quick in the field, but his Statcast defensive metrics have been above average in each of the past four seasons.

He’s not a star — 3.1 WAR in 2025 was a career high — but he’s a safe, predictable player to bank on for the next few years. This deal runs through his age-33 season, so maybe there’s some risk at the end of the contract, but for a team with World Series aspirations in 2026, the Mariners needed to bring Naylor back. The front office will be happy with this signing and so will Mariners fans. — Schoenfield

LAS VEGAS — Golden Knights captain Mark Stone, who was off to a hot start before injuring his wrist last month, participated in the morning skate Wednesday and will play for Vegas against the Ottawa Senators.

Stone was placed on injured reserve Oct. 20. He had 13 points in his first six games before getting hurt.

“It’s good to have his energy back,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “He’s good on the bench. He’s a leader. It’s just nice to have him back. He makes our team better.”

Stone has been skating with the Golden Knights’ American Hockey League affiliate in Henderson.

“If I didn’t have that, I’d probably be looking more at Friday,” Stone said of his return. “Everything’s healed. I got the practices I needed. I’m ready to go.”

Stone was on the top line when he was injured, but will be on the third-line center against the Senators, with Mitch Marner moving to wing.

Braeden Bowman, a 22-year-old rookie, will remain on the top line with Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev. Bowman has four goals and two assists in seven games.

Cassidy, however, didn’t rule out returning Stone to the first line.

“We’re going to try it this way to start,” Cassidy said. “You might see both tonight.”

Stone will replace Bowman on the top power play unit, which was 9 of 24 when him in the lineup. The Golden Knights then converted just three of their next 34 opportunities.

But they’ve experienced a resurgence with Bowman on the power play, going 6 of 19 in the past six games.

This is not the first time the 33-year-old Stone has been injured in recent seasons. He played 66 games last season, his most since the 2018-19 season.

“Every injury is frustrating,” Stone said. “I don’t enjoy rehabbing. I’ve unfortunately gotten good at it. I understand the best way to go about it, but no rehab’s fun. I don’t wish it on anyone. I’m excited to be back.”