LOS ANGELES (AP) — The World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers exercised the contract options of third baseman Max Muncy and reliever Alex Vesia on Thursday.
Muncy had a $10 million team option as part of a contract that paid $24 million for 2024-25. The 35-year-old third baseman hit .243 with 19 homers and 67 RBIs in 100 games, spending time on the injured list with a bone bruise in his left knee and a right oblique strain.
His eighth-inning homer off Toronto rookie Trey Yesavage cut the Dodgers’ deficit to one run in Los Angeles' 5-4, 11-inning victory in Game 7 of the World Series for its second straight title. It was Muncy’s team-record 16th postseason homer.
If his option had been declined, Muncy would have been a free agent.
Los Angeles could have declined the option of Vesia, who gets a $3.55 million salary rather than a $50,000 buyout, If the Dodgers had declined, he would have eligible for arbitration. The 29-year-old left-hander was 4-2 with a 3.02 ERA and five saves this year, when he had a $2.25 million salary. He missed the World Series because of a personal matter.
Also Thursday, former All-Star pitcher Tony Gonsolin was designated for assignment after his last two years were wracked by injuries.
The 31-year-old right-hander made just seven starts before having elbow surgery that ended his season this year. He previously missed all of 2024 while recovering from Tommy John surgery.
Gonsolin had a career year in 2022, when he opened 11-0 with a 2.02 ERA. He was the losing pitcher in the All-Star Game after allowing three runs on four hits, including two home runs. By August, he went on the injured list with a forearm strain and did not return until the penultimate game of the regular season. He finished 16-1 with a 2.14 ERA and 119 strikeouts.
The Dodgers added outfielder Ryan Ward and left-hander Robinson Ortiz to the 40-man roster.
Ward was the Pacific Coast League MVP this season, hitting .290 with 36 homers and 122 RBI for Triple-A Oklahoma City. Ortiz was 5-2 with a 2.73 ERA in 48 games between High-A and Triple-A.
Outfielder Justin Dean and right-hander Michael Grove were outrighted. Dean was claimed off waivers by the San Francisco Giants. Grove missed this season after having surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder. He had pitched in parts of the previous three seasons for the Dodgers.
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Los Angeles Dodgers' Max Muncy hits a solo home run against the Toronto Blue Jays during the eighth inning in Game 7 of baseball's World Series in Toronto on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press via AP)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian missile, drone and shelling attacks overnight and Sunday killed at least three people in Ukraine, after U.S. and Ukrainian officials wrapped up a third day of talks aimed at ending the war.
A man was killed in a drone attack on Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region Saturday night, local officials said, while a combined missile and drone attack on infrastructure in the central city of Kremenchuk caused power and water outages. Kremenchuk is home to one of Ukraine’s biggest oil refineries and is an industrial hub.
Kyiv and its Western allies say Russia is trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water for a fourth consecutive winter, in what Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing” the cold.
Two people were killed and seven others wounded Sunday in shelling by Russian troops in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, according to the regional police.
The latest round of attacks came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday evening he had a “substantive phone call” with American officials engaged in talks with a Ukrainian delegation in Florida. He said he had been given an update over the phone by U.S. and Ukrainian officials at the talks.
“Ukraine is determined to keep working in good faith with the American side to genuinely achieve peace,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media.
Speaking Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum, U.S. President Donald Trump’s outgoing Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said efforts to end the war were in “the last 10 meters.”
He said a deal depended on the two outstanding issues of “terrain, primarily the Donbas,” and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
Russia controls most of Donbas, its name for Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk, which, along with two southern regions, it illegally annexed three years ago. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is in an area that has been under Russian control since early in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and is not in service, but it needs reliable power to cool its six shutdown reactors and spent fuel, to avoid any catastrophic nuclear incidents.
Kellogg is due to leave his post in January and was not present at the talks in Florida.
Separately, officials said the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany would participate in a meeting with Zelenskyy in London on Monday.
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov welcomed the Trump administration’s new national security strategy. In comments published Sunday by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, he said the strategy was “encouraging.”
“There are statements there against confrontation and in favor of dialogue and building good relations,” he said.
The document released Friday by the White House makes clear that the U.S. wants to improve its relationship with Russia after years of Moscow being treated as a global pariah and that ending the war is a core U.S. interest to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
In this photo provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, a soldier tests land drones in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
In this photo, provided by Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade press service, a soldier tests land drones in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, (Andriy Andriyenko/Ukraine's 65th Mechanized Brigade via AP)
