DRaysBay works best as a place for community and conversation. Accordingly, in the lead up to the new season, we are posting “Daily Questions” in the month of February. I look forward to seeing you in the comment section!
The Rays have penciled in many starters that aren’t going anywhere — Junior Caminero, Yandy Diaz, Jonathan Aranda, these are all locks.
Which role player or guy on the fringe of the 26-man roster could come out of nowhere and surprise us this year?
Can you smell that? Yeah, that’s baseball approaching.
Phillies News:
MLB News:
Who’s on third? I don’t know. An Abbott & Costello sketch has turned into reality for the Milwaukee Brewers after Monday’s trade with the Boston Red Sox.
The Brewers had seven different players spend time at third base last season. The leading returner at the position is Sal Frelick, who played one inning in one game at the hot corner. Caleb Durbin, Anthony Siegler, Oliver Dunn, Vinny Capra, Andruw Monasterio, and Isaac Collins have all departed the organization. It’s a complete turnover at that position.
With the Crew’s top three options at the hot corner all being sent out in this trade, it leads to a major question for Brewers fans: Who in the world is going to play third base? Let’s take a look at the options
Brewers PBO Matt Arnold told reporters on Monday that Williams will get reps at third base during spring training. That’s among his other reps he’ll get at shortstop, second base, and the outfield. He’s sure to be busy during camp. But third base might be the best path to playing time for Williams, who was acquired in the Freddy Peralta trade not long ago.
A shortstop by trade, Williams is not as highly regarded defensively as Joey Ortiz and defense is a priority for the Brewers. If the best defensive shortstop stays at that position, Williams won’t win it, but a move over to third base could be most logical. Williams has more power than you’d expect by his size and slugged 17 home runs last season in the minors.
Williams does have a good enough throwing arm to make it work at third base and he does profile as a regular in a starting lineup and not just a platoon/bench option masquerading as a starter. Given that he was acquired for a high profile player in Freddy Peralta, the Brewers likely want to give him every opportunity to make an impact right away and third base looks like that avenue.
The lone infielder coming back to the Brewers in this trade, David Hamilton is also due to get reps at third base during spring training, according to Arnold. Hamilton is more of a utility type infielder, playing in 91 games last year with just 177 ABs. He got a little bit more run in 2024 with 294 ABs and had a lot more success at the plate that year.
Hamilton has spent most of his career up the middle at shortstop and second base. He got a tiny taste of the hot corner in Boston last year and I mean tiny. Just 1.1 IP of third base experience last year in one game. That’s it.
But there’s a potential path to regular playing time for Hamilton at third base so he’ll do his best to learn the position and try to get his offense back on track. Hamilton brings speed but not a ton of pop, so he’s not a prototypical corner infielder, but he’s the only non-1B infielder on the 40 man roster not named Turang or Ortiz.
3. Joey Ortiz
In speaking with reporters, Matt Arnold did say that they are open to a variety of infield permutations. In my mind, that opens up the possibility of Joey Ortiz being moved back to third base. Ortiz was very good at the hot corner in 2024 and his offense was stronger that year as well. But a move there will put a lot more pressure on Ortiz’s bat to perform, not to mention opens up what the Brewers do at shortstop. Could Jett Williams overtake him? Does Turang slide to short and Williams or someone else goes to second base? There could be a lot of moving parts.
Ortiz prefers the middle infield, but given his previous experience there, he is a far likelier candidate to move to third base than Turang. Ortiz seems destined to be a regular in the starting lineup once again. What position he ends up at may change, but if you move him, it only switches the question from third base to shortstop.
Eddys Leonard
The Brewers signed Leonard to a minor league deal with an invite to big league camp back in November. He has yet to make his MLB debut. He’s 25 years old and hit 20 home runs last season for Triple-A Gwinnett in the Braves system. Leonard has 700+ innings of experience at third base in the minor leagues, so that could benefit him. If his power shows up in spring training, he could launch a serious campaign for big league time at the spot.
Brock Wilken
Wilken is a non-roster invitee and a former first round pick. He was well on his way to a bounce-back season in 2025 until a freak knee injury derailed the second half of his season. He still has yet to see Triple-A ball so that makes it very difficult to imagine Wilken making the jump to the big leagues right away out of camp here.
Wilken likely starts the season in Triple-A and if that goes well, he could see a promotion mid-season. He could very well be the long-term answer at the hot corner and the Durbin trade may be about clearing room ultimately for Wilken, but it just seems too early for him to get there for Opening Day.
Isaac Paredes
This one almost makes too much sense for the Brewers not to be involved. The Houston Astros are desperately looking to trade from their infield glut and the Brewers suddenly have an opening at Paredes’ primary position. The Astros are seeking young, controllable pitching, which the Brewers suddenly have an even bigger abundance of. Paredes has one guaranteed year left on his contract at just over $9.3MM, which the Brewers could afford.
Paredes doesn’t grade well defensively, which could present a major issue for Milwaukee in terms of overall fit. But if the Brewers seek more power in their lineup, as many have begged them to do, then Paredes would present an obvious upgrade.
The free agent market is barren, most of the trade market is picked over by this point in the calendar, but Paredes is still out there and could present an ideal bridge to the arrival of the top infield prospects.
The St. Louis Cardinals claimed 3B Bryan Ramos off of waivers from the Baltimore Orioles, and his particular fit on the roster is one that feels like a strained one at best. Ramos primarily plays 3B but has played a little bit of 2nd base and left field as well. That situation feels like bringing in a low-risk-high-reward opportunity in spring to see if they can capture lightning in a bottle. Ramos is out of options, so if he doesn’t make the roster out of camp, he would likely find himself back on waivers, where the Cardinals would be more than happy to have him at AAA and remain Cardinal property. If he is claimed, however, it costs them nothing to bring him in and give him a chance, and they lose out on nothing if he isn’t able to show anything of substance in camp and another MLB team claims him afterwards.
Jeff Jones, writer for the Belleville News Democrat, who will be our guest on the podcast this coming week, tweeted after Ramos was claimed that Randal Grichuk was still a name that was on the table for the Cardinals. However, if Grichuk can find a last-minute opportunity with a contender, he would likely select that option over the Cardinals. Which would mean if St. Louis were to add their proposed right-handed bat, they might have to add it through the trade market.
So, I did some research and looked across the league to see if I could identify some targets that are potentially blocked at the big league level that would benefit from the opportunity that exists in the Cardinals outfield currently. So, here are 5 right-handed bats who would have a clear path to playing time in St. Louis:
5. TOR Davis Schneider INF/OF
Davis Schneider famously hit a lead-off home run off of Blake Snell in this past year’s World Series and is known for being a positive clubhouse presence and a capable option against LHP. The added flexibility of playing 2B/3B and LF/RF could also be useful as the Cardinals will likely want to rotate players to different positons to see who might stick long term.
Much to my surprise, Schneider is a menace against RHP and is still above league average against LHP. The Blue Jays have a glut of postion players at the big league level and ESPN wrote an article recently that the Blue Jays and Cardinals should come together on a trade that would send LHP JoJo Romero to Toronto in exchange for Davis Schneider. This exact framework is a deal I have been talking about for over a month since Bloom started publicly talking about the desire to add a RHB and the Jays, after missing out on several key free agent bullpen pieces could still benefit from a leverage reliever like Romero and could use their excess piece in Schneider to acomplish a need-for-need style trade.
4. CIN Rece Hinds OF
At 6’3 215 lbs Rece Hinds is built like a tank and in his limited opportunities has displayed some impressive raw power for the Cincinnati Reds. However, with Noelvi Marte, TJ Freidle, and JJ Bleday/Dane Meyers roaming the outfield and bringing in Eugenio Suarez to DH it appears Cincy doesnt have much room on their roster for Hinds.
Posting a .302/.359/.563 slash for a .922 OPS and 139 wRC+ last season not to mention the 24 HR and 83 RBI its hard to say that Hinds has anything left to prove at AAA and in a season centered around development it would be easy to justify a player like Hinds striking out 30% of the time if it meant 25+ HR production for a Cardinals offense that is starved for power production.
3. ATH Colby Thomas OF
Slightly undersized at 5’10 190 lbs Colby Thomas is a prototypical power/speed outfielder and is super athletic (no pun intended) who will likely find playing time hard to come by with an everyday outfield of Soderstrom, Clarke, and Butler for the “Sacramento” A’s. Thomas was one of their top prospects mid season last year before earning his big league call up. Thomas has the ability to play CF, which I know some of our readers who are more pessimistic on the future of Victor Scott II, would be something that would be of value to them, especially.
Big raw right handed power with some swing decision elements to clean up but for a young hitter this is something that is very common in todays game and with the advancements the Cardinals are making in their player development process at both the big league and minor league level then adding a talent like Thomas would make all the sense in the world who might have fringe All-Star 20/20 upside when its all said and done.
2. HOU Zach Dezenzo 1B/OF
At 6’5 220 lbs Dezenzo looks the part when he steps off the bus at the stadium. Featuring big time raw power from the right side highlighted by a max EV of 112.2 MPH in 2024. The Astros have a long list of veteran options at corner postions between Christian Walker at 1B, Carlos Correa and Isaac Parades at 3B, Jose Altuve and Cam Smith in the corner outfield spots and the return of Yordan Alvarez takes away the DH. Dezenzo would benefit from a change of scenery where his path to play time is much better in St. Louis.
Take the rate stats with a grain of salt as the sample size is very small but the ability to impact the baseball and produce loud contact is there along with the above average arm and not shown, but measured, is also above average sprint speed. Dezenzo could capable handle LF and would be a nice balance option to all the LHH on the roster.
1. SFG Luis Matos OF
At just 5’11 and 207 lbs Luis Matos has a very average size build but his ability to make consistent hard contact and avoid striking out are two things that seem to be growing in demand in MLB. Matos displays average sprint speed and isnt the greatest defender but has one of the strongest measured throwing arms from the outfield in baseball at 92.6 MPH putting him in the 95th percentile of players in baseball. Matos also doesn’t walk, much like Yohel Pozo but more athletic, with 593 MLB PA to his name Matos continues to struggle cracking everyday consistent AB’s for San Francisco and with Heliot Ramos, Harrison Bader, and Jung-Ho Lee blocking his path it might be best for the Giants to try and get something for him before he runs out of value.
Perhaps strattling that AAAA line a full season of “runway” (everyone drink) could give a more clear indication of whether or not Matos will every amount to anything more than such a role. The Cardinals could both benefit from and afford to give that opportunity to any of these players listed above, though with Matos, he more than most has had the most extensive opportunity to show what he can do at the big league level.
This list would indicate there is plenty of upside to be had from teams who have players stuck behind another wave of talent currently entrenched for their respective teams. Can Chaim Bloom and the Front Office pry one of these high upside right handed bats away and give the Cardinals a little more balance as they march in 2026 with a lot of opportunity available all over the diamond? Time will tell and Chaim has accomplished everything he said he was going to this offseason. Perhaps he has one last impact move up his sleeve.
-Thanks for reading
We’re back with another daily question, and today’s is a look at yesterday’s deal between the Brewers and the Red Sox.
In a deal just about nobody saw coming, the Crew sent three infielders (Caleb Durbin, Andruw Monasterio, and Anthony Seigler) and a draft pick (No. 67 overall) to the Red Sox for a pair of pitchers (Kyle Harrison and Shane Drohan) and another utility infielder (David Hamilton).
On the surface, it seems like a bizarre trade.
Milwaukee now has no clear third basemen, as the trio of Durbin, Monasterio, and Seigler were ranked 1-2-3 on the team’s depth chart. At this point, it seems like Tyler Black, Jett Williams, Hamilton, and/or Sal Frelick are the frontrunners. However, Frelick is a star defensive outfielder, and Black and Williams are both below-average defensively, something the Brewers typically prioritize when aligning the squad. That makes it seem likely it’s Hamilton at this point, but most expect the Brewers to make another move to add to the infield.
On the return side, Harrison figures to fit into the rotation (or as a long-relief arm, a la Aaron Ashby and DL Hall), while Drohan could make it to the majors at some point this season. Hamilton doesn’t offer much offensively (he was an even worse hitter than Joey Ortiz last season, which says a lot), but he is a solid defensive player.
How would you grade the deal, and who do you think won the trade?
Weigh in in the comments, and join us throughout the month as we keep these conversations rolling into spring training. Have a question you’d like to ask in a future BCB Daily Question? Drop one in the comments, and we may use it later this month.
It’s no longer a whisper; the NBA has a brazen and embarrassing tanking problem.
The Utah Jazz closed the third quarter Monday, Feb. 9 against the Miami Heat up by three. They had been dominating Miami in the paint on both ends. Their size was the big reason why.
Forward Jaren Jackson Jr., the prized acquisition Utah made just one week prior, was at 22 points through 25 minutes. Star forward Lauri Markkanen added 17 in 24:38. Veteran center Jusuf Nurkić was a problem all night to the tune of 10 points and 16 rebounds.
Yet, with a victory in sight, Jazz coach Will Hardy took self-sabotage and shameless tanking to a new level, sitting the trio for the entire fourth quarter.
In a twist of karmic justice, Miami was so poor down the stretch that the Jazz somehow overcame a late five-point deficit to win, 115-111.
This was the second consecutive game that Hardy had pulled the stunt. Even worse: it appears this will be Utah’s standard operating procedure moving forward.
After the game, a reporter asked Hardy how close he was to subbing Jackson or Markkanen back in.
“I wasn’t,” Hardy responded, plainly and without elaboration.
This is an existential problem, one NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the Board of Governors must fix. Yes, the draft is expected to feature at least three elite-level players, but if the NBA doesn’t take prompt action, anti-competitive behavior will spread to other teams also looking to manipulate outcomes.
It’s out in the open now, and this will come to stain the last quarter of the season. The product will suffer. And fans, as they should, will flee. As such, the NBA is compromised.
And with the explosive growth of online sports gambling and prediction markets, these actions only invite further cracks in the integrity and competitive balance of the sport.
The NBA’s player participation policy is designed to foil tanks by mandating that teams play their stars with regularity. But the Jazz have found a workaround to the rule. Their impact players start games, they just don’t finish them. And thus, they make a mockery of the policy.
“We’ve got to find a way to win against teams that are, I guess you can say, trying to lose,” Heat center Bam Adebayo told reporters after the game.
Frankly, though Hardy will never admit this publicly, the directive to tank is almost certainly coming from his bosses.
Utah’s 2026 first-round pick is top-eight protected, which means that if the lottery places its selection anywhere from Nos. 1 through 8, the pick stays with the team. If it drops to No. 9 or below, that pick is conveyed to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
And while it makes total economic sense — the good fortune of drafting a franchise-altering player instantly pumps millions in value — the flagrant tanking debases the sport and insults the fan who invests time and capital.
Utah (17-37) isn’t alone. The Washington Wizards (14-38) traded for a pair of veterans, Anthony Davis and Trae Young, who have 14 combined All-Star appearances. They were curious win-now moves for a team that’s currently second-to-last in the East.
Davis and Young were both hurt when they were acquired, and it’s unclear when they’ll make their return — if they do at all.
A recent NBA TV report indicated that Davis was not expected to return the rest of the season with left hand and groin injuries.
Young has been dealing with a sprained knee. The timeline for both is nebulous, at best.
Wizards general manager Will Dawkins recently responded to the report and said Davis would return to Dallas to finish his rehab and that he would be reevaluated over the NBA All-Star break.
Davis’ original timeline for a return was four-to-six weeks; Dawkins, though, put it closer to 10.
The Wizards, similar to Utah, have also cycled through young lineups, particularly when facing some of the NBA’s weaker teams.
And also like Utah, Washington’s 2026 first-round pick is top-eight protected.
The Indiana Pacers (13-40) traded for Ivica Zubac, who was away from the Clippers, his former team, for the birth of his first child. Zubac had played in the previous nine games before the trade. Yet, Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said Zubac’s debut with Indiana would be delayed because of a sprained ankle that hadn’t been listed on prior injury reports.
Indiana’s 2026 first-round pick? If you guessed that it was protected, you would be correct, for Nos. 1-4 and 10-30.
The young Brooklyn Nets (15-37) waived Cam Thomas after they couldn’t find a trade partner. They, too, appear to be in tank mode.
The Milwaukee Bucks (21-30) might convince Giannis Antetokounmpo to take his time from his calf strain to preserve their draft positioning.
Same for the Dallas Mavericks (19-33) with Kyrie Irving and his torn anterior cruciate ligament.
The Sacramento Kings (12-43) are simply without direction.
The tanking feels like it will get worse. And while the temptation might be to say it’s harmless jockeying, the flip side is that it impacts seeding for the teams actually competing and vying for spots in the playoffs.
In some ways, the timing of the All-Star break is convenient; it provides a respite for Silver and league executives to brainstorm ways to eradicate this from the league.
If they don’t come out strong with precise and targeted measures, then why even play the games? And, if you’re a fan, why even watch?
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The NBA's tanking crisis is Adam Silver’s biggest test yet
1920
Major League Baseball outlawed the spitball but grandfathered in the 17 pitchers currently using the pitch. Among those allowed to continue throwing a “wet ball” was White Sox hurler Red Faber.
Faber was coming off of a poor, illness-riddled 1919 season, registering the only negative-WAR effort of his career. His fortunes turned with a career-best 5.7 WAR in 1920, then two straight (11.4 and 9.6) seasons where Faber led all of baseball in WAR and cemented his legend.
Faber in fact pitched until 1933, and was the very last pitcher (along with Jack Quinn) in the American League to legally throw a spitball.
1955
The White Sox purchased center fielder Lloyd Merriman from the Reds. Merriman had spent four seasons in Cincinnati, with subpar production.
Merriman had a pinch-hit fly out vs. Cleveland’s Bob Lemon on Opening Day — and that would be it for his White Sox career. Four days later, he was sold across town to the Cubs, in just the seventh transaction ever between the two Chicago clubs.
2002
The day after playing in a charity baseball game that benefited the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, Fla., former White Sox first baseman Jim Spencer died of a heart attack at age 51.
Spencer came to the White Sox in the deal that sent Bill Melton west to the California Angels before the 1976 season. His .682 OPS as a full-time regular in 1976 looks bad, but was nearly average, at 99 OPS+. However, he was intentionally walked 19 times that season, leading the majors. (Brian Downing, Jorge Orta, Bucky Dent and Kevin Bell most often batted behind Spencer — all pretty much the same hitter besides the much weaker Dent … so let’s presume, without going game-by-game through the misery of 1976, that most of these IBBs for Spencer occurred in front of Dent.)
In 1977, Spencer’s fortunes took a more distinctive turn. While he was just about as productive overall as 1976 (i.e, a replacement-player WAR, middling OPS), he won the second Gold Glove of his career, becoming the first-ever White Sox first baseman winner and first White Sox position player to win the fielding award in seven seasons.
And not once but twice in 1977, Spencer drove in a White Sox-record eight runs in a game.
That’s right, something that had only happened twice in the first 76 years of the franchise was equaled by Spencer in the span of six weeks!
2012
The White Sox signed former USC quarterback Mitch Mustain to a minor league contract. Mustain had gone undrafted by the NFL and failed to catch on in the Canadian Football League, leading him to pursue baseball — a sport he did not play in college and had been away from for eight years.
The righthander, said to throw as fast as 90 mph, pitched for the Bristol White Sox and Kannapolis Intimidators in 2012, relieving in 21 games with a 2-2 record and one save, 4.63 ERA, 12 strikeouts and 14 walks in 23 1⁄3 innings.
The White Sox released him after the season and Mustain then played for two seasons in the Arena Football League.
In less than 300 days, baseball’s collective bargaining agreement expires. As major league owners meet this week to plot strategy, the powers that be will consider the probable push for a salary cap. The argument in favor: If teams are limited in how much they can pay players — that is, if the Dodgers cannot spend whatever they want — fans in small markets can believe their team can win.
Tell that to the great fans of Sacramento.
The Kings have the worst record in the NBA. In a league with a salary cap, and in which the majority of teams make the playoffs, the Kings have made the playoffs once in 20 years.
Whatever this is, it is not parity.
Read more:Terrance Gore, former Dodgers player and three-time World Series champ, dies at 34
I wanted to ask the Kings how much a salary cap really helps a small-market team, given their struggles. The Kings politely declined interviews on anything related to a salary cap, since they own the minor league ballpark in Sacramento that temporarily houses the Athletics. The Kings’ owner, Vivek Ranadivé, would like MLB to consider Sacramento for an expansion team.
So, before a game last week, I asked Kings fans about the juxtaposition: Why can’t the Kings win in a league with a salary cap intended to help them win?
“I don’t think it’s a salary cap issue,” Cheyenne Merced of Sacramento said. “I think it’s an owner issue.”
Said another fan, Devin Pasua of Sacramento: “The Kings don’t know how to spend.”
In Sacramento, the downtown arena and surrounding entertainment district are enjoyable and energetic without overwhelming fans with an assault of sound and light, and the purple beam that ascends skyward when the Kings win is a nice hometown touch.
That beats the alternative: The Kings nearly left town, first for Anaheim and then for Seattle, before Ranadivé bought the team in 2013.
“I’m glad for what he’s done to keep the team in Sacramento,” Kings fan Colin Hutchison of Woodland said. “The arena is beautiful. I love going to games for the chance to see the beam. Great food options. It’s a fun time.
“I think sports fans just want a fun time and want to see competitive sports. The Kings do one thing right. They don’t do the other right.”
In the 20-year run with that one playoff appearance, the Kings have had 10 head coaches, plus three interim head coaches. None of those head coaches lasted more than three seasons.
Eric Musselman, the first Sacramento coach in that run, lasted one season. He is now the head coach at USC.
“In the NBA, there is a salary cap and, for the most part, the same teams are winning every year,” he said.
Does that mean Oklahoma City, the champion last season and the team with the best record this season, is the small-market team that validates the NBA salary cap?
“Oklahoma City is not winning because they have a salary cap,” Musselman said. “Salary cap or no salary cap, Oklahoma City is going to win as long as Sam Presti is there.”
Presti, the Oklahoma City general manager, is basically the Andrew Friedman of NBA executives. Dodgers owner Mark Walter lured Friedman to Los Angeles and, now that Walter owns the Lakers, might well pursue Presti to run them.
Oklahoma City is not the only small-market success story in the NBA. With Gregg Popovich as head coach and R.C. Buford in the front office, the San Antonio Spurs won five NBA championships and made 22 consecutive playoff appearances.
Read more:Yasiel Puig found guilty in gambling case, faces up to 20 years in prison
“It’s not the cap,” Musselman said. “It’s having Tim Duncan and David Robinson, and having an owner and a coach and a GM that are aligned.
“You’ve got to find the right coach and have consistency with the coach and roll with him.”
In 13 seasons under Ranadivé, the Kings have had six head coaches and five general managers.
“They have no one to blame but themselves for their futility,” said Grant Napear, the television voice of the Kings for 32 years and now a sports talk host in Sacramento.
Napear cited the same statistic the commissioner’s office now likes to cite: the last small-market team to win the World Series was the Kansas City Royals, 11 years ago. For baseball, he believes, a salary cap would be a good thing, given the gaping revenue disparities among teams.
“Can you really have a sport where two-thirds of your teams have no chance of winning?” he said. “Is that the model of a good professional sports league?”
So, in the NBA model, why do the Kings seemingly have no chance of winning?
“The salary cap gives a team such as Oklahoma City and Indiana the opportunity to do the same thing as a franchise like the Lakers and Knicks,” Napear said, “if you have smart management, if you draft well, and if you make good trades.
“The Kings are playing by the same rules, for all intents and purposes, as the big-market teams. They have been mismanaged. They have made many, many horrible draft picks and horrible trades. That’s the reason why they are where they are: constantly firing coaches, constantly replacing their general managers.
“They have an owner who has been here over a lengthy period of time who really doesn’t do anything right.”
As an owner, it isn’t hard to do the right thing: hire the best people you can, support them however they need, and then stay out of their way.
Read more:Plaschke: Just say no! Dodgers players should decline White House visit
MLB owners can consider ways to narrow revenue disparities without a salary cap. However, if MLB gets a salary cap — and there is no indication the players’ union is interested in discussing one, let alone agreeing to one — then the commissioner’s office would say it had leveled the playing field.
No team would be guaranteed a winner, but no team could point its finger at the Dodgers. If the player payroll is just about the same for every team, then success would depend in large part on the smarts of ownership and management.
Yet such smarts are not evident among all the teams in the NBA, and certainly not among all the teams in MLB. Would Branch Rickey come back to life to run the Pittsburgh Pirates, with autonomy and resources from ownership?
If you are a fan of a small-market baseball team, and you hear your owner say your team would win if only MLB had a salary cap, our friends in Sacramento would offer you three letters in response: LOL.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
The Cleveland Cavaliers fought back from an 11-point deficit in the fourth quarter to beat a good Denver Nuggets team 119-117. The spectacular play from Donovan Mitchell, James Harden, and Jarrett Allen down the stretch is to thank for that.
Harden completely changes this offense.
The gravity he provides is incredible. Every step he takes towards the basket with the ball causes each of the off-ball defenders to react. And when he sucks you into a spot to provide a good contest on the shot, the ball is whipped out to the open man.
Head coach Kenny Atkinson said after the win against the Sacramento Kings that he wasn’t going to try to force Harden into his system.
“I don’t think systems win championships. Players do.”
The Cavs are playing Harden’s system right now. They’ve gone from an attack that relies heavily on getting out in transition to one that picks teams apart in the half-court. And the results have been great.
Over the last two games, the Cavs have registered a 120 half-court offensive rating (95th percentile) and a 109.9 (82nd percentile).
One of the goals in attacking in transition is to take advantage of cross-matchups and to catch the defense off balance. You don’t need to play that chaotically when you have a walking mismatch creator in Harden.
It’s obvious how Harden’s presence would help Mitchell’s scoring.There’s more driving lanes for Mitchell to attack and get downhill. Maybe not as obviously, Harden opens up more room for Mitchell as a passer.
Mitchell, as a facilitator, has been a mixed bag. He has the veloicity and ball placement to make cross-court passes and great drive-and-kick dishes to the corner. However, he hasn’t always had the touch or vision to get bigs involved as much as you’d like.
This combination has made Mitchell an effective playmaker in a fully five-out offense, but has left you wanting more as a passer in most of the contexts the Cavs have put him in.
Harden’s gravity changes that, as seen in the three examples below.
This first play is the result of miscommunication. The Nuggets wanted to keep Nikola Jokic out of the action. Harden threw it to Mitchell, two stayed with Harden, which left Allen wide open.
Players who create as much attention as Harden can cause defenders to do stupid things.
Next, here’s an example of Mitchell finding the open man in a scrambling defense that led to a layup for Jaylon Tyson. The defense will be caught in more rotations if there’s a perimeter player as skilled as Harden that they’re worried about.
Lastly, Mitchell is at his best when he’s reading and reacting quickly. This set pin-down with Allen allows him to do that easily.
Generally speaking, the passing ability hasn’t been the issue for Mitchell. Recognizing the openings has. The increased attention Harden provides should make those reads much easier.
Harden gives you a different dynamic defensively as well. Even though he isn’t a good point-of-attack defender on guards, he can hold his own in the post. This is incredibly useful when you’re going against someone like Jokic.
The help defense Harden was able to provide on Jokic in the post saved the game. He has the size and strength to be bothersome there in a way that other Cavalier guards aren’t. This showed through most when his help defense forced a Jokic turnover on Denver’s third-to-last possession.
Plays like that are just as important as the off-balance three he hit a few seconds after. That shot doesn’t tie the game if it wasn’t for his defense moments earlier.
Allen continues to show how skilled he is offensively. He’s benefited greatly from Harden’s playmaking, but he was also playing well before the trade.
Overall, Allen is showing a level of aggression that makes someone with his skills incredibly difficult to guard. That led to 22 points on 10-16 shooting against Denver.
Allen is a tough matchup for Jokic.
Offensively, Allen’s screening tests Jokic. The Nuggets like to keep Jokic around the rim on screens. That means, if you’re a good screener like Allen, you’re going to create room for your dynamic guards to get uncontested looks.
Anything bought from the links helps support Fear the Sword. You can also shop all of Homage’s Cavs gear HERE. The link to the Donovan Mitchell NBA Jam shirt is HERE.
Defensively, Allen is one of the few centers who can make things relatively difficult for Jokic. Allen did a good job of keeping Jokic in front of him, which allowed the other four defenders to stay more with their assignments.
Allen wasn’t directly responsible for Jokic’s seven turnovers, but it isn’t a coincidence that he was forcing passes into windows that weren’t really there more than he typically does. It also speaks to Jokic’s greatness that the Cavs did a good job containing him on a night he picked up a triple-double.
The Mitchell and Harden pairing couldn’t have gotten off to a better start.
It’s been just two games and they haven’t had any practice time together, but the duo has already done a great job of working off each other’s strengths.
Mitchell plays with the pedal to the floor at all times. Every drive and cut to the basket is made with force. His athleticism and power allow him to get where he wants to on the court, and he has the touch and skill to be one of the best three-level scorers in the league.
If Mitchell is the offense’s fastball, Harden is their 12-6 curve.
Harden’s deliberate, methodical way of picking apart his opponent and creating openings for himself and teammates is the perfect change of pace to Mitchell’s speed.
When they’re working in unison — like they have in their first two fourth quarters together — the offense can be a thing of beauty.
The most tantalizing aspect is that you’d think this is the worst it’s going to look. Is there another gear they can get to? What does this look like with Evan Mobley in the mix?
We’ll have to wait for those answers. In the meantime, we can say that the floor for this pairing is incredibly high. Presumably, the ceiling is as well.
In roughly 24 hours, the Men’s Ice Hockey Tournament at the 2028 Winter Olympics will begin, and for the first time since 2014, NHL players are taking part. Participating nations have been practicing in earnest since arriving late last week, and after months of worry regarding the status of the hockey arena in Milan, the games are about to be begin.
There has been months, if not years of anticipation surrounding this tournament since it was announced NHL players were heading back to the Olympics, and the wait is almost over with the first puck drop scheduled for Wednesday morning between Slovakia and Finland.
Four Penguins players are in Milan preparing for the men’s ice hockey tournament at the Winter Olympics with play beginning for all four later this week. Sidney Crosby will captain Canada, Erik Karlsson and Rickard Rakell will suit up for Sweden, and Arturs Silovs will backstop the Latvian side. [Pensburgh]
With four players in Milan, the Penguins will be well represented and give Penguins fans something to keep an eye on outside of cheering for their host nations. Crosby is the name who most will pay attention to for obvious reasons but Sweden and Latvia are attractions themselves. [The Hockey Writers]
Once the NHL resumes following the Olympic break must of the focus will be on the trade deadline which will be less than two weeks away. Right now, the Penguins are in position to buy as a playoff contender, but Kyle Dubas will be specific in what he’s looking for in any additions. [Pensburgh]
When he signed with the Penguins as a free agent over the summer, no one knew who Parker Wotherspoon was or what type of game he played. Now well into his first season with the team, Wotherspoon is well known among the Penguins faithful for his consistent play on the blue line. [Trib Live]
After his break out NHL debut against the Buffalo Sabres, Avery Hayes returned to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins for the Olympic break and continued right where he left off, scoring a hat trick, including the overtime winner, on Saturday against the Hershey Bears. [WBS Penguins]
One of the first players to embrace Sidney Crosby after he scored the Golden Goal to defeat the United States at the 2010 Olympics was defenseman Scott Niedermayer. Sixteen years on from that historic moment, Niedermayer still remembers the moment with great clarity from his view on the ice. [Penguins]
Group A at the Olympics is headlined by Canada who enter group play as clear favorites to come out on top, but opponents Czechia and Switzerland will be looking to play spoiler while France is hoping to make the most of its first Olympics appearance in over two decades. [NHL]
France may only have qualified for Milan because Russia and Belarus have been banned from participating, but the 2030 host nation is not apologizing. They will be lead by captain Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, who has announced that he will retire from hockey following The Games. [NHL]
Year after year, the Yankees contend with the AL East, the division that consistently outstrips its peers across the sport. This offseason was no different; while there were a number of teams across the league that put the “off” in offseason, none of them were in the AL East, as all five clubs have been active. The Red Sox swung a number of major trades, the Blue Jays flashed the cash in signing Dylan Cease, Kazuma Okamoto, and Cody Ponce, and even the Orioles spent some money, signing Pete Alonso while also trading for Taylor Ward and Shane Baz.
It all adds up to a division that appears to be the most competitive in baseball once again. The Yankees, for their part, look strong on paper, currently ranking third in MLB in total projected WAR per FanGraphs. But the Blue Jays slide in just ahead of them in second, while the Orioles and Red Sox are both not far behind, comfortably in the top ten of these projections.
So, leaving the Yankees themselves aside, which of their division rivals do you view as most dangerous? Toronto has a pretty straightforward case, with perhaps the most complete roster in the American League at this moment. They’re the reigning AL East champs, the reigning AL champs, and came within inches of winning the World Series. It’s not hard to envision
But can a case be made for one of the Yankees’ other direct foes? The Red Sox in particular feel as though they could be a sleeping giant. They already surprised last year, winning 89 games before bowing out in the playoffs against the Yankees. Boston has gone on to add Sonny Gray, Willson Contreras, Ranger Suarez, and now former Baby Bomber Caleb Durbin, all while holding what’s still considered a strong farm system. Though they probably trail the Yankees and Blue Jays in terms of pure talent right now, it wouldn’t be surprising to see some of their young talent coalesce, or for them to cash in some of their prospects to make another trade that puts them over the top.
What do you think? Are the Blue Jays still the Yankees’ most dangerous rival? Or will Boston, Baltimore, or even Tampa Bay rise up and pose the biggest threat in 2026?
Today on the site, Nolan will continue on with his State of the System series, this time with a look at the organizational depth at starting pitcher. Also, Nick remembers the signing of Andrew Miller, one of the great Yankee signings of the 2010’s, and Jeff moves our preview series along with a look at the newly acquired Angel Chivilli.
The Twins’ surprise pivot into an aggressive selloff was the headline of a surprisingly active 2025 trade deadline. They sent out a shocking 10 players, nine of whom were on the active roster at the time of their transactions. Some of those were expected (Chris Paddack, Willi Castro, Harrison Bader, Danny Coulombe), while others came seemingly out of nowhere (why the hell did the Blue Jays want Ty France?)
Let’s look at the actual potentially frustrating trades.
Carlos Correa salary dump: Correa was traded back to the Houston Astros for a Low A pitcher who is no longer in affiliated ball. The Twins are also paying $30M of Correa’s remaining salary over the next three years, split out at $10M on Jan 1 of each year. This was a pure salary dump, nothing more nothing less.
Jhoan Duran for Eduardo Tait and Mick Abel: Duran could have been the most decorated closer in Twins history if they held onto him. Instead, the electric reliever will get a chance to earn that same acclaim in Philadelphia. Abel has flaws but can be an effective starter if he can get his walks under control. If he can’t he should be a closing option himself, at minimum. Tait, meanwhile, is one of the top catching prospects in all of baseball. He has a top-end throwing arm and a ton of power, but at 18-years-old still has a long way to go before he’s ready to handle an MLB pitching staff.
Griffin Jax for Taj Bradley: A rare one-for-one swap, which is always a fun move. Bradley came with twice the amount of team control as Jax and is a starter which is inherently more valuable than a reliever. However, Bradley may find himself in the bullpen soon enough if he can’t develop a secondary pitch to get lefties out. He’s shown flashes, next comes the consistency.
Louie Varland (and France) for Alan Roden and Kendry Rojas: Here’s the thing. In a vacuum, this trade makes sense from the Twins’ side. They traded a reliever for starting outfielder with a high floor and a borderline Top 100 pitching prospect that they excel at developing. However, Varland came with five more years of team control and the Twins suddenly found their elite bullpen completely depleted after moving Jax, Duran, and Coulombe. Questionable, to say the least.
Like with the Varland trade, each of these moves in a vacuum is defensible. But in totality, they’re pretty underwhelming. Relievers are fickle and even the best can be inconsistent from year to year (see: Jax). But if they truly expected to contend in 2026, who can they conceivably hand the ball to after their vaunted starting staff leaves the game?
Additionally, the Twins’ weakness the past few years has been on the offensive side of the ball. They main MLB-ready players they got back were Roden and three pitchers! Maybe these moves were made with an eye toward additional trades this offseason, but they’ve largely sat on their hands while adding a few veteran hitters. Then Tom Pohlad (probably) forced out the man who was putting together the plan. It’s bad process likely preceding bad results.
That being said, the trade that irks me is still Correa. With Correa’s regression and chronic injury history, getting out of the majority of the $110M still owed to him absolutely makes sense. However, the Pohlads didn’t allow the front office to put the $20M/year saved back into the team. Instead, they have a contending core without the surrounding cast to back them up and their lowest adjusted payroll since Kirby Puckett was alive.
Which trade do you regret the most? Correa’s is the most obvious, but this roster sure could use one of Jax or Duran right about now…
As pressure builds before Calcutta Cup, Scotland’s coach may well have reached the point of diminishing returns
The witty Anglo-American author Ashleigh Brilliant passed away last September at the age of 91, but his best lines are timeless. Beleaguered sports coaches worldwide will all recognise one of his characteristically pithy observations: “I try to take one day at a time – but sometimes several days attack me at once.” To be responsible for an under-pressure national side must induce a similar feeling.
So what do you do when coaching life starts serving you lemons? After a while there are only two options: try to ride it out, or accept it might be wiser for someone else to have a go. It can be a delicate judgment, often shaped by non-sporting considerations. Unless it becomes apparent, as seemingly happened with the recently ousted All Blacks coach Scott Robertson, that your dressing room has already made the call for you.
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Grief is frightening territory to navigate. There’s no set roadmap for it, and it affects every person differently. It is as if a chaotic roommate moves into your body and assumes the controls part of the time: you make choices you don’t recognize; say things and wonder whose mouth made those words; sleep entirely too much or entirely too little or a fun soft-serve swirl of both. The more you try to pack down the grief into a solvable snowball, something solid and sensible, the more it evaporates around your hands.
After my dad passed away in February of 2024, I thought I had a master plan mapped out for grieving him. I knew, because I had read about it, that grief is the tidal wave of loss that hits you first, and I braced for impact. I also knew, thanks to my studies, that after grief comes grieving: if grief is the big wave, grieving is the lap of waves on the shore in the world where you live now. He died; I fought the wave of grief crashing over me long enough to do all the insulting busywork that death requires. Two weeks later, I finally brought myself to enter his room and clean up the blood on the bathroom floor from where he’d fallen the last time, when we didn’t know yet about the cancer that was swiftly eating into his pancreas, so my mom wouldn’t have to. That felt significant: a tidy metaphor for moving on from grief to grieving. Two weeks after that I packed my stuff and left for spring training, and then the season started, and I fell back into the same comfortable patterns, the sharp edges of the pain worn away by the daily routine of baseball. I was proud of myself; like a player whose rehab is ahead of schedule, I was beating all the projected timelines. I knew about the ball-in-the-box grief analogy and thought with satisfaction about my ball of grief, steadily shrinking down from a beach ball to a baseball.
But grief came to collect the next off-season. It turned out I wasn’t paying out my grief on an installment plan like I’d thought; I was allowing the debt to collect, and the force of it knocked me over anew. I didn’t want to write about this team and their lousy, uninspiring off-season; I didn’t want to write, period, and had to be cajoled by the staff into doing the 40 in 40 series, almost letting it go too late. I didn’t want to read, especially not the collection of self-help books I had carefully amassed as a ladder to lead me out of the hole of grief and back into civilization.
All I wanted to do was sleep. And I did, losing wintery days like a character from a fairytale under a spell, waking in dark rooms from strange dreams. On the odd times I did leave the house, I swiped at people who got too close to my enclosure, mistaking their concern as threats. I think back on that time now and I don’t recognize that person who was wearing my clothes, my name.
What I did recognize: Victor Robles throwing his bat in frustration after getting hit by a pitch in a rehab game. While clips of the incident went viral on social media with people wondering what Robles could have possibly been thinking, I was instantly reminded of every dumb, reckless, cruel decision I made during the winter of my discontent, which is a cute name I’d given to what I now recognize as a depressive episode.
Grief activates the same neural pathways as physical pain. Therefore, “grief brain” can cause a host of processing issues, including difficulty focusing, memory loss, heightened anxiety, and impaired decision-making. It’s not an excuse, but it is an explanation. I watched that bat travel across the infield towards the pitcher and felt like I had thrown it myself.
***
Victor Robles joined the Mariners in June of 2024; by August, he was signing a two-year extension. The high-energy Robles put a charge in a club that was struggling to hang on to a lead they’d built in the AL West, lighting up whatever part of the field he touched. It was a perfect confluence: the Mariners needed Victor Robles, his spark and humor and electricity; and Robles, the former top prospect with a long and tortured history with the only other club he’d known, needed the Mariners. In interviews, he talked about how coming to Seattle allowed him to “leave that load behind me” – the baggage of unfulfilled expectations, left on the other side of the continent. In Seattle, Robles played fast and free, amassing the fourth-most WAR for a position player on the team in his few short months. However, even he couldn’t drag the team out of the offensive tailspin they entered down the stretch, blowing a ten-game lead and losing control of the AL West.
2025 was supposed to be Robles’s shot at a re-do, to show his new better self was here to stay. Instead, grief came calling in the third series of the season, when he dislocated his shoulder in early April trying to make a heroic catch in the netting in San Francisco. Grief, we should remember, isn’t just for mourning those we’ve lost; it’s also for mourning lost relationships, opportunities, versions of ourselves, those visions somehow always bigger and brighter than the one that’s currently in front of us.
But that wasn’t all this annus horribilis had in store for Robles. In June, the 28-year-old lost his mother, quietly announcing it on Instagram with a photo of a pink dawn taken from a plane window on his way back to the Dominican Republic. It was captioned with a simple message to his mother, telling her he missed and loved her.
There’s a saying that none of us are our worst days. But those worst days, the ugliest things we’ve said and done, are still part of us. If you type in “Victor Robles” and the letter “t” to Google it autocompletes with “throws bat.”
After missing most of the season, Robles was finally ready for a rehab assignment in Tacoma in August, playing against the Athletics affiliate in Las Vegas. In Robles’s first competitive game in months, he was hit by Athletics pitchers twice: first by Joey Estes in the third inning, requiring an injury delay, and later by reliever Gustavo Rodriguez in the eighth. The very next day, Robles was again hit by a pitch, this time in the first inning by Mitch Spence. Four games later, with Estes on the mound once more in the series finale, Estes again tried to pitch Robles inside and again, sent a fastball directly towards Robles’s chest (it was ruled Robles swung on the pitch, so not technically counted as a hit by pitch, but that swing was wholly defensive). For context, this minor-league meeting wasn’t the first time Estes and Robles had faced off; in a game in September in 2024, Estes opened the game by hitting Robles, who then stole second and scored on a Cal Raleigh home run. That home run would prove to be the difference-maker in a game the Mariners won, 6-4.
But there was no Cal Raleigh in Tacoma that day. Just anger, and frustration, and so much grief. The kind of grief that makes people make impulsive, reckless, thoughtless decisions. Robles picked up the tool he had closest at hand, and threw.
In his apology statement, Robles wrote about the physical and mental challenges of his lengthy rehab, along with the added context about dealing with the loss of his mother. “I’ve been doing my best to hold it together,” he wrote. This is the unseen work of grief, the days navigating a new normal that are a constant psychic load, like a background application draining a device’s battery. No one notices the days when you’re holding it together, only the days where it all falls apart.
But a caring community can notice, and is the best guide rope out of deep grief. A single text from a friend offering a coffee is worth a stack of self-help books. Having served his suspension, Robles was able to return to his community, his team, and be welcomed back just in time for a playoff run. Robles was there as the Mariners reversed course from 2024, this time seizing control of the AL West, ripping off a stretch of 10 consecutive wins in September. And he was there, crucially, during three thrilling nights in Houston: not just spiritually or mentally, but physically, literally right there when the team needed him:
This time, his instinct led him in the right direction, making a heads-up play to double off the runner at second, ending the game and securing the victory in a season-making moment.
From annus horribilis to annus mirabilis.
I don’t know what 2026 has in store for Victor Robles. If his body will sustain another year of his fearless, full-out style of play. If he’ll carve out a regular place in a crowded right field. If the delicate alchemy that spurred his incandescent 2024 with the Mariners can be repeated. He remains, as always, a mercurial presence, a Puck-like character spiriting around the field, capable of creating both electricity and electroshock. I do know that I’ll always feel a connection to him for watching him walk through his grief journey and still maintain his buoyant presence in the clubhouse, his love for the sport and for his teammates; and for the gift of that catch, the way he flew in like an angel, like something that didn’t need saving.
There’s a shakeup among the No. 1 seeds in USA TODAY Sports’ updated bracketology, with Houston rising to the top line to replace Connecticut after the Huskies saw their 18-game win streak end.
Connecticut's 81-72 loss to St. John's at Madison Square Garden was the Huskies’ first since losing to Arizona on Nov. 19. That dropped UConn to eighth in the NET rankings and to 5-2 against Quad 1 competition.
Houston has now taken four in a row, most recently topping Brigham Young 77-66 in Provo, after losing to Texas Tech on Jan. 24. That moved the Cougars within one game of Arizona in the Big 12 standings.
The new No. 1 line is Houston, which joins Arizona, Michigan and Duke.
The Blue Devils retain a No. 1 seed despite a last-second loss at North Carolina. While Duke’s second Quad 1 loss, it still leads Division I with 10 Quad 1 victories.
The rivalry win moves UNC to a No. 4 seed. The Tar Heels are now 19-4 overall and 7-3 in the ACC, 2.5 games behind co-leaders Duke and Clemson, and up to 5-4 in Quad 1 games.
San Diego State, UCLA, Ohio State, Miami (Fla.).
New Mexico, Missouri, California, Virginia Tech.
Multi-bid leagues: Big Ten (11), SEC (10), ACC (8) Big 12 (7), Big East (3), West Coast (3), Mountain West (2).
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: March Madness bracketology projection: NCAA tournament bracket update
