Source: Conforto to join Dodgers for 1 year, $17M
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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
DALLAS — The Los Angeles Dodgers, in need of help in their outfield and having missed on signing Juan Soto, reached agreement with Michael Conforto on a one-year, $17 million contract, a source told ESPN on Sunday night.
Conforto, 31, spent the past two years with the San Francisco Giants, slashing .238/.322/.418 with 35 homers and 124 RBIs in 255 games while playing both left and right field. Conforto was especially productive against opposing right-handed pitchers last season, slashing .284/.349/.537 in 106 plate appearances.
Entering Major League Baseball’s winter meetings, which will begin Monday, the Dodgers were among five finalists for Soto, alongside the New York Yankees, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays. And though the Dodgers made what sources described as a competitive offer, it was the Mets who landed Soto on a 15-year, $765 million deal.
The question is how the Conforto signing might impact the Dodgers’ pursuit of Teoscar Hernández, another free agent corner outfielder who was a clubhouse favorite amid L.A.’s championship run this year.
The Dodgers and Hernández have been in negotiations for the past few weeks but have been unable to bridge the gap, sources familiar with the process have said.
Despite adding Conforto, the right-handed batter Hernández might still fit within the Dodgers’ plans. At the moment, Conforto, Tommy Edman and Andy Pages project as the Dodgers’ outfielders in 2025, with Mookie Betts transitioning once again to the middle infield. But Edman also could see a lot of time at shortstop depending on which other moves are made this offseason.
If the Dodgers don’t agree with Hernández, the Yankees and Red Sox are both expected to pursue him aggressively. Others might also pivot in his direction.
Conforto looked like a rising star with the Mets early in his career, producing an .864 OPS and 12.2 Baseball-Reference wins above replacement from 2017 to 2020. But he had a down year in 2021, declined the Mets’ qualifying offer, received scant interest as a free agent during the lockout-shortened offseason then injured his shoulder while training, prompting surgery that kept him out for the entirety of 2022.
After two solid-yet-unspectacular years in San Francisco, he’ll fill the Dodgers’ need for a left-handed-hitting outfielder.
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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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