MLB Player News

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Friday that Smith is "a little behind" due to an ankle issue, Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic reports.

Smith has been running on an anti-gravity treadmill, but it's not clear when he might be ready to play in Cactus League contests. He has a tighter window to get ready than most other players this spring since the Dodgers have a March 18-19 series versus the Cubs in Tokyo, but there doesn't seem to be any worry at this point that Smith might be unavailable for those games.

Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said Friday that the team plans to use a five-man rotation until Shohei Ohtani (shoulder/elbow) is ready to pitch, which would seemingly leave Gonsolin in a competition for one remaining spot, Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic reports.

Manager Dave Roberts recently suggested that Ohtani could be ready to make his season debut on the mound sometime in May, though there's no concrete timeline yet. The Dodgers will shift to a six-man rotation at that point, but until then they will use a traditional five-man setup. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki are locked into four of the spots, which leaves Gonsolin, Dustin May, Bobby Miller, Landon Knack, Justin Wrobleski, Ben Casparius and perhaps others competing for the final slot. Roberts said Friday that Gonsolin and May will be considered for the bullpen if they don't make the rotation.

McGreevy added 15 pounds of muscle this offseason, John Denton of MLB.com reports.

McGreevy has a shot at winning one of the last spots in the Cardinals rotation in camp and he's taking the opportunity very seriously, saying he tried to trim as much body fat as he could while putting on the 15 pounds of muscle. "He looks good [this spring training]," said manager Oliver Marmol. "He put on some weight and had a really good offseason, and I'm excited to see what's coming out of that arm." The 24-year-old righty logged 150 innings at Triple-A and 23 innings in the majors last season. He registered an elite 62.5 percent groundball rate and 2.3 percent walk rate in the majors, leading to a 0.78 WHIP. McGreevy sits in the low-90s with his fastball, but he has a plus slider and his command might be double-plus. Andre Pallante and Steven Matz may have a leg up on him for the final two spots in the rotation, but McGreevy is arguably the most appealing of the three from a fantasy perspective.

Giants manager Bob Melvin said Friday that Luciano will be used as a corner outfielder this spring, Justice delos Santos of The San Jose Mercury News reports.

It's not clear whether Luciano has been permanently moved from middle infield, but the Giants have been mulling a shift to the outfield for him for a while. Luciano admitted to being "totally lost" at the plate last season, when he managed just a .562 OPS and 34.6 percent strikeout rate in 27 games with the big club. The hope is that a move to a less taxing defensive position will help unlock his offensive potential. Luciano is likely to begin the 2025 season at Triple-A Sacramento.

Meyer (shoulder) threw live batting practice Friday, Christina De Nicola of MLB.com reports.

Meyer's 2024 season ended in early September due to right shoulder bursitis, but it appears he is entering camp this spring without any restrictions. The young right-hander, who was the third overall pick in the 2020 Draft, could have a leg up for one of the spots in the Marlins' rotation given the significant upside he offers. Meyer posted a 5.68 ERA, 1.42 WHIP and 46:19 K:BB through 57 big-league innings in 2024, but he has a career 151:45 K:BB over 126 Triple-A innings.

Alvarez retooled his swing mechanics at Maven Baseball Lab this offseason on the recommendation of J.D. Martinez, Will Sammon of The Athletic reports. "I think I can put the ball in the air more, hit the ball to the opposite way more," Alvarez said this week. "I'm very powerful; I don't have to pull every pitch."

The 23-year-old catcher is coming off a disappointing 2024 campaign at the plate, managing just 11 homers and a .710 OPS in 100 big-league games after slugging 25 long balls over 123 games for the Mets in 2023. Alvarez's decline was fueled by an increase in his groundball rate (career-high 52.2 percent) and decrease in his hard-hit rate (30.8 percent, nearly a five percent drop from the year before). While at the lab, Alvarez focused on tweaking his stance and lower-body movement to eliminate a tendency to pull off the ball rather than staying square and driving pitches back up the middle. "He wants to be a complete hitter, not just a power hitter," Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. "In order for anyone to be a complete hitter, you need to use the whole field." Alvarez's career .221 batting average in the majors doesn't suggest he'll suddenly be challenging for batting titles, but there is plenty of room for improvement in his 2024 performance.

The Diamondbacks signed Graveman (shoulder) to a one-year, $1.35 million contract Friday, Jesse Rogers of ESPN.com reports.

The deal could reach $3.3 million if he hits all of his incentives. Graveman underwent right shoulder surgery in January of 2024 to repair a torn labrum and clean up his rotator cuff. He is now considered fully healthy, although the Diamondbacks figure to ease him into things in spring training. If he's healthy and able to regain his pre-surgery form, Graveman could be part of the late-inning bullpen mix in Arizona. The 34-year-old has a 2.74 ERA and 193:82 K:BB over 187.1 innings since 2021, when he became a full-time reliever.

White will spend most of spring training working as an infielder in an attempt to win a roster spot as a super-utility player, Justin Toscano of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

The 30-year-old is out of minor-league options, and adding some positional versatility should help his bid for a roster spot with Atlanta in need of a utility infielder. White has four appearances at second base as a big leaguer but has otherwise exclusively played the outfield, though he did see infield action earlier in his baseball career.

Giants manager Bob Melvin said the team will "take a hard look" at Encarnacion in the designated hitter spot, Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area reports.

Melvin added that Encarnacion "impressed us last year" during a 35-game cameo, slashing .248/.277/.425 with five home runs. While Encarnacion had a 28.6 percent strikeout rate and just a 4.2 percent walk rate, he also boasted an absurd 95 mph average exit velocity and 15 percent barrel rate. The 27-year-old can also be used at first base and the corner outfield spots, but his clearest path to playing time is at DH, where his chief competition will be Wilmer Flores (knee).

Acuna (knee) said Friday that he's planning to "take it easy" on the basepaths as he returns from left ACL surgery, David O'Brien of The Athletic reports.

Acuna estimated that he's running at "90 to 95 percent" and said his surgically repaired left knee feels much more stable than his right knee did following a prior ACL surgery. However, it sounds as though he does not intend to be as aggressive on the bases as he was before this most recent operation. While it's an understandable stance to take as Acuna tries to stay healthy, it does put a damper on his stolen base outlook for fantasy purposes. Acuna will not play in Grapefruit League games and is expected to miss roughly the first month of the season, although there's been no concrete timeline provided by Atlanta.