David Stearns

It is possible this will result in a hamate surgery.

If it does, that's a six-week recovery, which puts us right at opening day.

So at this point, even if it does require surgery, we would remain optimistic that Francesco would be back for opening day.

Second piece of news, Juan Soto is going to play left field for us this year.

Over the last month or so, as Mendy and Juan were talking about the season, Juan was working out in left field because he's going to play left field for the DRWBC as they had their conversations.

He felt really comfortable there.

It made sense for us from a roster perspective.

So we're gonna go forward with it and everyone's on board with it.

Not something we had really contemplated coming into the off season, but as we've had conversations over the last month, it made sense for all involved to do this.

So making news right out of the chute and happy to answer any questions.

Yeah, you know, I think it's just where he is comfortable.

He's done it in the past.

He feels good over there.

We've talked about it a lot.

We've got a lot of athletic outfielders, both at the major league level, nearing the major league level.

And so having right field available to them isn't a bad outcome.

We were also comfortable with Juan in right field and having left field available to them.

It's just as we were talking with Juan, frankly, didn't make a lot of sense to bounce him back and forth from corner to corner during spring training.

He's comfortable in left, fits with our roster, so we'll go forward with it.

So coming into the offseason, we talked a lot about improving our pitching and defense.