Is it spring training yet? Not yet — 145 days until Opening Night of the 2027 season — the first pitch of the new campaign, the clubs yet to be named.

THE MORNING HORSEHIDE HERALD

"Every Score Set Down, No Deed Unsung"

~ Being a Faithful Daily Chronicle of the National Pastime ~

Volume I · No. 114 · Friday, the Thirtieth of October, Two Thousand and Twenty-Six

No contests this day; the hot stove burns bright.

145 days until Opening Night of the 2027 season — the first pitch of the new campaign, the clubs yet to be named (Wednesday, the 24th of March, 2027).

News Around the League

THE MARKET DESK: THE LAST OUT BARELY RECORDED AND THE WINTER BAZAAR THROWS OPEN ITS DOORS — KING DECLINES HIS OPTION AND WALKS OUT OF SAN DIEGO AS THE PRIZE ARM OF THE CLASS, AT TWO-AND-THIRTY

The World's Series ended Wednesday night; by Thursday the game had changed its business from pennants to purses. Michael King has declined the player option on his contract with the Padres, by the word of sources given to MLB.com, and steps onto the market as one of the foremost arms available entering his age-32 season. The right-hander earned the billing honestly in 2026 — a 3.21 earned-run average across 32 starts, worth a career-best 4.3 wins by the ledger's accounting — and salted his October with two starts of one run across 12 innings and 14 strikeouts, plus a two-inning save besides in the third game of the Division Series against the eventual champions.2 He leaves two years of a three-year, $75 million engagement on the table and collects a $5 million buyout for his trouble; San Diego holds the exclusive right to treat with him until Monday, and the two parties are reported still interested in a reunion. "San Diego has been incredible for me," the pitcher said upon the Friars' autumn exit. "I feel like I have a second home on the West Coast. It's been awesome. And I hope to continue it."2

Every club now does its winter sums, and none more gravely than the North Siders of Chicago, who watched the division rival they could not catch parade off with the whole pot. The Cubs could lose every one of the five men who finished the season in their rotation: Shota Imanaga, Kevin Gausman and David Peterson became free agents Thursday, Matthew Boyd and Clay Holmes are expected to join them by way of their option clauses, and Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki head the list of departing bats.3 The president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer, asked at his season's-end accounting why the gap to Milwaukee keeps widening, pointed at the champions' mound: "Their pitching has been exceptionally good. I think that's the area that we have to double down and really focus on."3

THE FIDELITY DESK: TWO MEN WEIGH THE OPEN ROAD AGAINST THE WARM HEARTH AND CHOOSE THE HEARTH — BICHETTE TAKES HIS TWO-AND-FORTY MILLIONS IN FLUSHING, HELSLEY HIS FOURTEEN IN BALTIMORE

Not every man with a door to the market walked through it. Bo Bichette has opted into the second season of his three-year, $126 million engagement, a source advises, and will reprise his role as the Metropolitans' third baseman at $42 million for 2027 — with the same escape clause waiting for him again next autumn. The first year in Queens was an uneven one: booed while going 1-for-14 across his first three home games, carrying an OPS below .600 as late as the 10th of June, then batting .285/.337/.442 the rest of the way — recovery enough for comfort, if not for the kind of winter that beats $84 million guaranteed. At 28 he has also grown into the role of tutor to the young men A.J. Ewing and Carson Benge, and by season's end professed himself considerably happier in the uniform than he began.4

In Baltimore, Ryan Helsley reached the same conclusion by a harder road. The right-hander is opting into his $14 million player option for 2027, a source confirms, after an injury-plagued season — a 4.11 earned-run average and eight saves in only 17 games, two stays in the infirmary for his elbow, and not a single appearance after the 27th of June, though the club expects him whole for the spring. The Birds' bullpen thus enters the winter holding both Helsley and the lately mended Félix Bautista, and the question of which man closes is now Baltimore's pleasant arithmetic to perform.5

THE OPTIONS LEDGER: ATLANTA SPENDS FOUR-AND-TWENTY MILLIONS TO KEEP ACUÑA AND ALBIES IN HARNESS, SEATTLE RETAINS ITS CLOSER, AND KANSAS CITY TURNS ITS OWN LOOSE

The day's heaviest traffic ran through the option clauses, where clubs across both leagues settled accounts. Atlanta exercised Ronald Acuña Jr.'s $17 million option and Ozzie Albies' $7 million one, keeping the old cornerstones side by side at least one season more. Acuña's year was the now-familiar mixture of brilliance and the trainer's table — .255 with 20 home runs, 21 stolen bases and a .796 OPS in 107 games, a third of the schedule lost to two separate hamstring strains, with a .997 OPS over his final 26 games to argue the talent remains. A further $17 million option for 2028 waits in his contract; Albies may test the market after 2027.6

In Seattle the Mariners exercised Andrés Muñoz's $9 million option despite the most trying season of his career — a 4.24 earned-run average and 10 blown saves, tying the most in the majors — while declining Bryce Miller's $6.075 million figure, though the right-hander remains under the club's control through arbitration to 2029. Victor Robles was let go to free agency, joining Randy Arozarena, J.P. Crawford, Hoby Milner and Taylor Ward among the Puget Sound men now free to sign anywhere beginning Monday afternoon.7 And in Kansas City the Royals declined their $13 million option on the closer Carlos Estévez — who led all baseball with 42 saves in 2025 and now takes a $2 million buyout to the open market — while exercising a $2.5 million option on the mending right-hander Tony Gonsolin, a 16-game winner for the 2022 Dodgers whom they will try in rotation or relief come spring.8

THE COMMERCE DESK: THE WINTER'S FIRST SWAP IS STRUCK BEFORE THE CHAMPAGNE IS MOPPED — THE WHITE ELEPHANTS FETCH THE UTILITY MAN EATON FROM THE HUB NINE FOR AN ARM OF EIGHTEEN SUMMERS

It wanted less than 24 hours after the final out for the first trade of the offseason to be struck. The Athletics on Thursday acquired the outfielder Nate Eaton from the Red Sox in exchange for the minor-league right-hander Jareth Rayo. Eaton, 29, caught in the crush of Boston's 40-man roster, batted a thin .160 in 24 games this season but carries a defender's résumé — all three outfield posts and third base besides — and gives the Athletics seasoned depth for the upper rungs of their system. Rayo, 18, signed out of Nicaragua in the 2024-25 international period, posted a 5.50 earned-run average with 36 strikeouts against 20 walks across 36 innings of the Dominican Summer League.9

The footnote is the front office. The swap is the first official act of Taylor Smith, the Athletics' newly installed president of baseball operations — and it was struck with the very Boston office he served under Craig Breslow from 2024 through this past season. The winter's dealings have begun with a man trading against his own former desk.9

THE PROCESSION DESK: MILWAUKEE SHUTS ITS SCHOOLHOUSES AND LINES WISCONSIN AVENUE THIS MORNING — THE CHAMPIONS SPENT THEIR EVE AT LAMBEAU FIELD, AND THE RELICS ARE ALREADY BOUND FOR COOPERSTOWN

The Parade of Champions, whose particulars this paper set down yesterday, steps off this very morning: 10 o'clock Central time, from North 4th Street and West Wisconsin Avenue, with the rally and fan festival to follow at Henry Maier Festival Park, all of it free to whoever arrives first. The city has cleared the way in the most literal sense — Milwaukee Public Schools closed every school and district office for the day, "due to operations and safety impacts from the Brewers parade and celebration," the official notice crowned with the words "Congrats World Champs."10

The champions rehearsed their celebrating Thursday night in Green Bay, where a cadre of Brewers — the veteran pitcher Brandon Woodruff striding at the front with the Commissioner's Trophy held high — crashed the Packers' game against the Panthers at Lambeau Field to a roar from the house. Sal Frelick, whose game-squaring home run turned the second game of the Series, could not resist the local sacrament: a picture-perfect Lambeau Leap into the first row beyond the end zone.11 And the museum men have already claimed their share of the October just closed. Bound for the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown: the chest protector and shin guards of the Series' most valuable player William Contreras, the manager Pat Murphy's postseason hooded sweatshirt, the unmistakable spectacles of the scoreless-innings man Aaron Ashby, and Frelick's batting gloves from that second game.12

A strange quiet this morning: for the first time since March, no contest stands behind this paper and none ahead of it. The schedule ledger has been consulted all the same, as it is every morning, and the page is white — 145 mornings of it, until Opening Night restores the game on Wednesday, the 24th of March, 2027, with the full slate following a day later.1 The Herald does not fold its tent for the cold months. The market opened within hours of the last out, as the columns above attest; the awards season and the winter's dealings lie ahead; and this paper will keep its daily watch over all of it, from the first opt-out to the last truck bound for the training camps. Today, though, belongs to Milwaukee, where the schoolhouses stand empty and Wisconsin Avenue fills. Until the morrow's dispatch, keep your scorecards near and your enthusiasms nearer.

~ THE HERALD ~

The Herald Acknowledges Its Debts

  1. Baseball-Reference.com — Upcoming Schedule and Upcoming Dates — Baseball-Reference
  2. Max Ralph and AJ Cassavell, King opts out of deal with Padres to become free agent (source) — MLB.com
  3. Jordan Bastian, Cubs eager to target pitching market as free agency kicks off — MLB.com
  4. Anthony DiComo, Bichette bypassing opt-out, returning to Mets for 2027 season (source) — MLB.com
  5. Jake Rill, Helsley to remain with O's, opting into '27 player option (source) — MLB.com
  6. Mark Bowman, Braves exercise club options on Acuña and Albies — MLB.com
  7. Daniel Kramer, Mariners pick up Muñoz's option; Robles becomes free agent — MLB.com
  8. Perla Paredes, Royals decline Estévez's club option, exercise Gonsolin's option — MLB.com
  9. Martín Gallegos, A's trade RHP prospect to Red Sox for outfielder Eaton — MLB.com
  10. Max Ralph, Milwaukee Public Schools to close for Brewers' championship parade — MLB.com
  11. Theo DeRosa, Crew celebrates title at Packers game -- complete with a Lambeau Leap — MLB.com
  12. Max Ralph, These Brewers World Series artifacts are heading to the Hall of Fame — MLB.com