11/6/25 was a big moving day in baseball: its 5 days after the World Series ended, and on the same day all 60-day DL guys (in the majors and minors) have to be returned to active roster status, and all free agents are declared. In the majors, that means the “exclusive” bargaining period ends (which is almost never used anymore), but more importantly to this site and this audience, it means that dozens of prospects that we’ve sometimes tracked for 6-7 years are now cut loose.
Here’s a look at the churn at both the 40-man level and in the minors. All these moves are now updated on the Big Board, as well as the Draft Tracker and the IFA tracker and my internal Nats Prospect Rankings page, which saw a slew of guys I had ranked just a few weeks ago get cut loose. I’ll talk about them below in a bit.
Major League Free Agents
- Josh Bell 1b/DH 11/2/25: FA
- Paul deJong 2b/3b 11/2/25: FA
- Derek Law rhp 11/2/25: FA
In other words, the three guys the team couldn’t even trade for a bag of balls at the trade deadline.
40-man DFA’s
- CJ Stubbs c 10/30/25: DFA’d, cleared waivers, outrighted to AAA
- Ogasawara, Shinnosuki rhp 10/30/25: DFA’d, cleared waivers, outrighted to AAA
- Mason Thompson rhp 10/30/25: DFA’d, cleared waivers, outrighted to AAA, refused assignment, FA
- Eduardo Salazar rhp 10/30/25: DFA’d, cleared waivers, outrighted to AAA, refused assignment, FA
- Jorge Alfaro c 10/31/25: DFA’d, cleared waivers, outrighted to AAA, refused assignment, FA
- Zach Brzycky rhp 11/6/25: DFA’d, claimed by Miami, gone
- Ryan Loutos rhp 11/6/25: DFA’d, claimed by Seattle, gone
- Trey Lipscomb 3b 11/6/25: DFA’d, cleared waivers, outrighted to AAA
So, that’s 11 total guys removed from the 40-man with FAs and DFAs. We added back our four 60-day DL guys (Grey, Herz, Williams, Millas), which puts us at exactly 34/40 as of this writing. That’s a ton of room for the next phase of the off-season (Rule5 and Free Agency).
Most surprising out of this list? Probably Brzycky, who was a NDFA and kind of “found gold” for the player dev staff. He didn’t get a ton of MLB time and I’m surprised they cut him and kept other relievers for the time being. It’s no surprise to me he got claimed.
There’s not a ton of “fat” left on the roster now; most of the guys I had listed early on my “next guys to cut” are now gone. I could still see the team part ways with a couple of waiver claim/MLFA relievers that made their way onto the active roster (Fernandez, Pilkington), but the next cuts after that will be deep.
MLFAs declared
Here’s the meat of this post. As of 11/6/25, all 6-year MLFAs were declared. Generally speaking, this means the following are now declared MLFAs:
- anyone drafted in 2019
- Most IFAs signed in 2018 under a certain age.
- Some older IFAs signed in 2019: if you were already 18 you’re like a draftee.
- Furthermore, anyone we’ve signed as a MLFA along the way one a one-year deal, or who hasn’t already resigned on some other deal we’re unaware of, is also newly declared.
So, from the massive list of 11/6/25 minor league transactions, here’s what that looks like. We’ll go level by level:
From AAA: no fewer than 16 guys hitting MLFA.
| 2B | Arruda, JT# |
| CA | Stubbs, C.J. |
| DH | Yepez ,Juan |
| SP | Solesky, Chase |
| LF | De La Cruz, Carlos |
| SU | Cuevas, Michael |
| LR | Conley, Bryce |
| MID | Adon, Joan |
| SP | Sampson, Adrian |
| MID | Dunshee, Parker |
| MID | Acosta, Daison |
| SS | Cluff, Jackson* |
| MID | Davila, Garrrett* |
| MID | Mejia, Erick# |
| CF | Schnell, Nick |
| CA | Mejia, Francisco |
Some of these guys I absolutely had ranked in my end of year ranking. The highest was Schnell, who I had just outside my top 30. I had Acosta and Davila in the 50-60 range, Erick Mejia in the 70s, and then a few more in the 80-90 range. Only four of these MLFAs from AAA were home grown (Arruda, Cuevas, Adon, and Cluff). Nonetheless, 16 guys off a 31 player roster is a huge number gone.
AAA now has 15 players remaining; and basically the entire 2025 pitching staff is gone. Interestingly, there are a couple names who seem like they should have been declared MLFAs but who remain; Pena (an 17IFA, Orelvis Martinez (just signed as a 26 MLFA), and Seth Shuman (a 19Draftee who should have been declared). I don’t entirely trust these rosters or milb.com transactions, so its possible these guys were also declared MLFAs and missed the announcement, or its possible they’ve already re-signed for 2026. Especially with Shuman, I hope he’s back in the fold.
Also worth mentioning here, a shoutout to Darren Baker, who was released a bit earlier in the off-season to pursue other opportunities.
From AA: 8 guys
| SP | Atencio, Jose |
| CF | Williams, Donta’ * |
| CL | Santos, Junior |
| CF | DeShields, Delino |
| MID | Vasquez, Samuel |
| LR | Knowles, Lucas* |
| 1B | Naranjo, Joe |
| LR | Choi, Hyun-Il |
Just two of these 8 were home grown (Knowles and Atencio). I had Atencio ranked relatively high on my end of season ranks (#47) and I had high hopes that the team might retain his services. I had a couple of these guys in the 100+ range (Vasquez, Knowles, Naranjo). Lastly I thought the team could hold onto Choi a bit longer, but perhaps not.
I don’t see any players remaining on the AA roster who seem like they should have been declared. The oldest draftee/signee is Kevin Made, a 19IFA who was young and retains one more year of control.
From High-A: Six guys.
| SU | Otanez, Johan |
| CA | Colmenares, Jose |
| LR | Caceres, Bryan |
| LR | Arias, Wander |
| SU | Montero, Euri |
| DH/CF | De La Rosa, Jeremy* |
I think it goes without saying that, if you’re not out of A-ball by the time you’ve had 6 seasons in the minors, you’re not really a prospect. And, true to form, the only one of these six guys who I even mentioned in my rankings was De la Rosa, and that’s only because at one point a couple years ago he was in the top 30 range.
Wilmington still has a couple of rostered guys who seem like they should have been declared MLFAs: setup man Yeuris Jimenez and maybe Adam Bloebaum, who was signed as a “MLFA” in 2025 but may really be an “NDFA” for eligibility purposes. Pablo Aldonis (currently in the AFL) was a 19IFA but was young and gets one more year.
Low-A: just 3 guys
| 2B | Rivero, Yoander |
| MID | Dowdell, Kevin* |
| SU | Kane, Tommy* |
Rivero was home grown, the other two were 2025MLFAs. Rivero, coincidentally, was the last remaining 2018IFA player we had, closing the books on what turned out to be a really awful IFA class. The most accomplished player out of the 2018 IFA class was either Rodney Theophile (MLFA last year after getting to AA) or oft-injured Jose Atencio, who made it to AA but missed all of 2025.
Nobody was cut loose from the FCL team, and just one name from DSL who, frankly, I didn’t even realize was rostered. Sometimes the team sneaks these signings without much in the way of announcement.
All in all, 34 MLFAs declared on 11/6/25. With all the outrights and MLFAs, the domestic system is now down to 139 players.
Of the 125 players that I ranked at year’s end, 16 of them are now MLFAs.
I think the biggest “shock” to the system is just how much of this year’s AAA squad is now gone. There’s not nearly enough players set to rise up from AA, and there’s not enough guys who would be dropping down from MLB right now (34 on the 40-man, meaning just 8 would move down not including known DL guys). This spells a ton of new MLFAs set to come into the fold this coming spring.