2026 make-or-break players: Adley Rutschman, Jasson Domínguez have futures on the line as spring training begins

Spring training, at least officially, has arrived. Games don’t start for another few weeks, but pitchers and catchers are descending in droves on the sunny environs of Arizona and Florida, if they haven’t done so already.

The six-week baseball preseason is typically an elongated slog of injury news and grainy bullpen videos. But amid the humdrum monotony are a handful of players clouded by an air of desperation. These characters, entering so-called “put up or shut up” seasons, cannot simply go through the motions. For them, the stakes are too high, their futures too uncertain.

Advertisement

Here are five names faced with make-or-break years that I’m monitoring as spring training begins.

Adley Rutschman, Orioles catcher

Since being taken first overall in the 2019 MLB Draft, Rutschman has carried the aspirations of a franchise on his cartoonishly broad shoulders. In 2023 and ‘24, the switch-hitting catcher made good on those expectations, guiding the O’s to consecutive postseason appearances for the first time since the late-1990s. But last year, things went sideways. Really sideways.

Hampered by injuries to both of his obliques, Rutschman smashed just nine home runs, hit just .220 and finished the season with a subpar .673 OPS. Since the 2024 All-Star break, his .693 OPS ranks 22nd among catchers with at least 500 plate appearances.

Advertisement

How much of those struggles were injury related? That’s the multi-million dollar question. Rutschman, 28, is a free agent after next season, and Baltimore just gave an eight-year extension to 21-year-old backstop Samuel Basallo. The two will split time in 2026, with president of baseball operations Mike Elias dubbing Rutschman the “frontline guy.” But another lackluster season from the former can’t-miss prospect will only amplify questions about his future in Charm City.

Jasson Domínguez, Yankees outfielder

Even though he’s younger than all the “Stranger Things” kids, Domínguez, 23, has already played parts of three seasons in the bigs. Unfortunately, the character nicknamed “The Martian” for his freakish array of supernatural talents has been downright terrestrial across 529 MLB plate appearances. Last year, Domínguez failed to capitalize on regular playing time early in the season and was supplanted by a fast-rising Trent Grisham; Domínguez started just four games in September.

Advertisement

So when the Yanks decided to run things back with their outfield for 2026, re-signing Grisham and Cody Bellinger, it left Domínguez as the odd man out. How the Yankees handle their former top prospect moving forward will be fascinating to watch. Unless an injury opens up an outfield spot, Domínguez will be relegated to pinch-hitting opportunities and the occasional fill-in start. It’s tough to envision him capitalizing on all that talent without regular playing time.

So do the Yankees trade him? Does it make sense to do so with his value at an all-time low? Another wasted year for Domínguez, and the man formerly destined to be the next Yankees superstar might be continuing his career in a different uniform.

Sandy Alcantara, Marlins starting pitcher

An entire World Cup cycle has flown by since Alcantara’s magnificent 2022 Cy Young campaign. In the interim, the 30-year-old Dominican struggled through an injury-marred 2023, lost all of 2024 while recovering from Tommy John surgery and returned to deliver a statistically abysmal 2025. Somehow, Alcantara has survived the rebuilding Marlins’ never-ending roster churn, and he looks to be in line for the 2026 Opening Day start.

Advertisement

But is this guy still any good? Despite having the fourth-highest average fastball velocity among qualified starters, Alcantara finished 2025 with the third-worst starter ERA in baseball. Lefties filled Alcantara’s nightmares, as his once-magical changeup turned into batting-practice fodder. The elements of a frontline starter remain, and the Marlins sure know how to develop pitching, but this franchise cornerstone needs to turn the clock back sooner rather than later.

Miami holds a $21 million option on Alcantara’s contract for 2027, an option that once looked like a no-brainer. That’s no longer the case. If the righty is to be on the next great Marlins team, he needs to prove his worth. Otherwise he might become yet another tragic case of an ace derailed.

Tanner Scott, Dodgers relief pitcher

Just over a year ago, Scott lit the baseball world ablaze by signing a massive, four-year deal with the Dodgers. His addition to an already stacked roster was, for many fans and prognosticators, the moment Los Angeles’ spending reached a problematic level, one that threatened the competitive balance of the sport.

Advertisement

While that debate rages on, Scott is no longer at the center of it. That’s because his first year in Chavez Ravine was an unmitigated disaster. Scott led the league in blown saves and posted a 4.74 ERA, his worst single-season tally since 2021. His four-seam fastball, lethal in 2024, was peppered to the tune of a .520 slugging percentage. Things got so ugly that the Dodgers, desperate for competent relief pitching, didn’t call on Scott a single time in the postseason. L.A. followed that by signing Edwin Díaz, this winter’s top free-agent closer, to a lucrative, three-year deal, even though Scott remains under contract for three more seasons.

The Dodgers, with their mountains of cash, could release Scott tomorrow and not feel a thing. That, perhaps, would be an even grander indication of their financial might than his signing. A bounce-back for Scott is certainly in the cards, but relievers, famously, can be volatile from year to year. There’s a chance his story ends uncomfortably for everyone if he can’t right the ship.

Jordan Walker, Cardinals outfielder

Entering the 2023 season, Walker was a consensus top-five prospect in the sport, trailing only Gunnar Henderson, Corbin Carroll and Francisco Alvarez in aggregate rankings across the major prospect sites. In the time since, across 1,039 big-league plate appearances, the hulking slugger has compiled an unthinkably putrid -2.7 bWAR. Much of that negative value has to do with his abysmal outfield defense, but it’s not like Walker has set the batter’s box on fire, either. His .584 OPS last season was the fifth-lowest mark in baseball among hitters with at least 300 plate appearances.

Advertisement

But with the Cardinals embracing a full-scale reset, Walker will get yet another opportunity to figure things out this season. Turning his lighttower raw power and 99th-percentile bat speed into actual production remains a task taller than Walker himself (6-foot-6). But the new Cardinals leadership group under president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom and assistant general manager of player development Rob Cerfolio might have a better shot at unlocking Walker’s immense potential. If they don’t, it’s tough to envision him surviving the rebuild.