Outfielder Jurickson Profar has signed a three-year, $42 million contract with the Atlanta Braves, the team announced Thursday.
According to the Braves, Profar, who was ranked 15th on Yahoo Sports’ Top 50 MLB free agent list, will make $12 million in 2025 and $15 million in 2026 and 2027.
Profar has agreed to donate 1% of his salary to the Atlanta Braves Foundation, whose mission is to “build community through baseball by engaging Braves Country, reaching vulnerable populations, and improving equity and access to sport, health, education, and well-being outcomes for children, families, and communities.”
Profar had a great year last season with the San Diego Padres, batting.280, hitting 24 home runs, driving in 85 runs, and stealing 10 bases. His 4.3 fWAR led all National League left fielders, and he was above the 90th percentile in predicted wOBA (.364) and expected batting average (.283). In addition, he had the sixth-best wRC+ in the National League.
Profar’s defensive play earned him a starting spot in left field for the NL All-Star team, and his offensive performance earned him a Silver Slugger Award. Atlanta’s outfield will include Michael Harris II and Ronald Acuña Jr., who is coming from a ruptured ACL.
Profar began his MLB career with the Texas Rangers, where he spent four seasons until joining the Oakland Athletics in 2019. His first spell with the Padres lasted from 2020 until 2022, before he signed with the Colorado Rockies. He was later released by Colorado and returned to the Padres.
What to make of Profar’s deal with Atlanta?
Traditionally one of the more active teams each winter, Atlanta had been eerily quiet this offseason coming off its seventh consecutive trip to October. The Braves were one of just a handful of teams that had yet to sign a free agent to a guaranteed big-league deal this winter, but they finally got on the board with the addition of Profar on a three-year deal worth $42 million.
The Padres — with whom Profar starred in his breakout 2024 season — have also yet to sign a major-league free agent this winter, and they surely would’ve loved a reunion with Profar. But San Diego’s ongoing ownership dispute and bloated payroll apparently made retaining Profar difficult. Instead, he joins a Braves team that had an unsettled left-field depth chart that projected to feature the largely unproven Jarred Kelenic and recent signee Bryan De La Cruz in a platoon of sorts. Now that duo can cover right field until Ronald Acuña Jr. returns from ACL injury, at which point Acuña should join Profar and center fielder Michael Harris II to form one of the more dangerous outfield trios in the National League.
The switch-hitting Profar and his excellent on-base skills will provide some much-needed balance to a Braves lineup that severely underwhelmed in 2024. While Profar’s plate discipline has always been stellar, it was a notable uptick in power production supported by huge strides in his batted-ball quality that fueled his 2024 breakout that he has now parlayed into an eight-figure deal. Although he’ll no longer be a main character in the Dodgers-Padres rivalry, Profar could continue to play a key role for a team hoping to dethrone the champs in 2025.
The Yankees made two moves to potentially bolster their pitching on Thursday, claiming right-handers Roansy Contreras from the Baltimore Orioles and Allan Winans from the Atlanta Braves.
Both players add flexibility to New York’s pitching staff and have a chance to be interesting options in the rotation and/or bullpen.
Contreras, 25, split time between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Los Angeles Angels last season and owned a 4.35 ERA (1.38 WHIP) over 49 games (three starts) across 68.1 innings pitched. He also added two saves in four opportunities, all for Los Angeles, and finished 14 games for the Halos.
Since then, the Dominican-born pitcher has been claimed by the Texas Rangers, Cincinnati Reds and Baltimore Orioles before the Yankees scooped him up following his latest DFA.
Before getting sent to the Angels, Contreras had spent three and a half seasons in Pittsburgh where he was used mostly as a starter. During that time he went 9-12 in 53 games (30 starts) and pitched to a 4.83 ERA (1.42 WHIP). Despite walking 80 batters in 182.2 innings with the Pirates the righty proved capable of getting hitters out, striking out 161.
Winans, on the other hand, is more of an unknown.
Drafted by the Mets in the 17th round of the 2018 MLB Draft, Winans made his debut in 2023 with the Braves at 27 years old and in six starts went 1-2 with a 5.29 ERA (1.39 WHIP), striking out 34 batters in 32.1 innings. The following season, Winans made just two starts for Atlanta and was hit hard, owning a 15.26 ERA.
Still, the 29-year-old has a track record in the minors. Across three seasons pitching for the Gwinnett Stripers, the Braves’ Triple-A affiliate, Winans went 16-10 with a 3.23 ERA (1.14 WHIP) primarily as a starter.
The Yankees enter the 2025 season with a starting rotation consisting of Gerrit Cole, Max Fried, Carlos Rodon and Luis Gil penciled in with Clarke Schmidt and Marcus Stroman also in the mix, although New York has reportedly been shopping Stroman this offseason.
The MLB Hot Stove is in full swing, and you can track all of the activity from the 2024-25 MLB offseason in our handy free agent tracker.
The list, which is based on Matthew Pouliot’s Top 111 MLB free agents list, highlights each of the big names and the information you need to know.
Once a player signs with a team, or a decision is made about an option, the relevant contract information is added along with a link to a blurb write-up from Rotoworld’s MLB player news page.
Bookmark this page and check back throughout the MLB offseason! We’ll keep track of it all.
