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The 2025-26 Major League Baseball offseason is ongoing, and with the Winter Meetings drifting farther behind us we’re working our way deeper into the sport’s offseason calendar. Among other things, the winter in baseball means a steady supply of rumors regarding free agent signings, trades, and the like. Speaking of which, you can find Friday’s roundup just below.
The Pirates, Astros, and Rays are making a three-team trade that sends infielder Brandon Lowe to Pittsburgh and right-hander Mike Burrows to Houston, the Athletic reports. For the Rays, various prospects are involved.
Lowe, 31 and going into his walk year, is a primary second baseman with good power. He’s coming off a 31-homer season in 2025, and in 2021 he hit a career-high 39 home runs for the Rays. For his career, Lowe has an OPS+ of 123 and a WAR of 17.8 across parts of eight MLB seasons. Burrows, 26 and a rookie last season, pitched to a 109 ERA+ and a 4.00 FIP in 96 innings last season. Of his 23 games pitched in 2025, 19 were starts. Burrows averaged 95.5 mph with his fastball last season and earned a 43.1% whiff rate on his changeup.
Here’s how the full trade looks, according to Ken Rosenthal:
CBS Sports’ R.J. Anderson graded the trade, with the Astros coming out worse than the Pirates and Rays. And Dayn Perry has details on another Tampa Bay deal from Friday which sends pitcher Shane Baz to the Orioles.
Padres land KBO star Sung-Mun Song
The Padres have agreed to terms with infielder Sung-Mun Song out of Korea, Robert Murray of Fansided reports. The deal will pay Song roughly $13 million over three years, according to Francys Romero. Song, age 29, was posted for MLB teams in November.
Across parts of nine seasons in KBO, Korea’s top professional circuit, Song batted .283/.347/.431. Over the last two seasons, however, Song reached new heights at the plate, and in 2025 for the Kiwoom Heroes he batted .315/.387/.530 with 26 home runs and 25 stolen bases in 144 games. He’s been a primary third baseman for his pro career, but he also has time spent at second base and first base.
The Royals have acquired veteran lefty reliever Matt Strahm from the Phillies in exchange for right-hander Jonathan Bowlan. The Royals announced the deal on Friday.
Strahm is 34 and under contract for 2026 on a $4.5 million club option. For his career, he’s pitched to a 126 ERA+ and an FIP of 3.56 in 395 appearances spread over 10 MLB seasons. He’s reached new heights over the last two years, as Strahm in 2024 and 2025 combined had a 2.30 ERA with 149 strikeouts in 125 innings. He earned an All-Star appearance in 2024.
As for Bowlan, the 29-year-old right-hander has an ERA+ of 97 and an FIP of 4.86 across 37 MLB games. The vast majority of those appearances came in 2025, when he had an ERA of 3.86 and a K/BB ratio of 2.71 in 44 ⅓ innings for the Royals.
Later on Friday, the Phillies added another reliever to their bullpen mix, getting lefty Kyle Backhus in a deal with the Diamondbacks. Backhus, 27, had a 4.62 ERA in 32 appearances for Arizona in 2025. He held left-handed hitters to a .139/.225/.278 slash line. Right-handed hitters, though, hit .365/.417/.571 against him. The D-backs acquired minor-league outfielder Avery Owusu-Asiedu in the deal.