We made it to another Friday. I had my birthday yesterday and didn’t really do all that much differently than a normal Thursday, which made it a nice day. I had a cardio tennis class, which is just a run-yourself-into-the-ground-for-an-hour thing, and squash last night, which, again, is run-yourself-into-the-ground. And there were calls from our kids and friends mixed in. Tonight it is drinks with friends.
There isn’t much for news, yet again, today.
The Jays are going to wear a patch celebrating their 50 years in the MLB this seasson:
As always, my first reaction is that it can’t be 50 years because I remember the first season. My second is I’d like to get a pin of that.
Bo Bichette sent Jays’ fans a message through Hazel Mae:
Whit Merrifield has decided to tell us that Bo “loves Toronto, loves the Jays, loves the city, loves the fans.” And “that there was some stuff along the way that happened with Bo and the coaching staff.” I’m sure that Bo did love Toronto and all. I don’t believe that the reason he signed with the Mets had anything to do with a problem with the coaching staff. I think it had more to do with the $42 million a season the Mets offered. The Jays weren’t going to match that.
Whit also told us that Kyle Tucker wanted to sign with the Jays, they just wouldn’t offer enough money. I’ll believe that. I believe that Tucker wanted to sign with whatever team offered the most money. The Dodgers decided to offer what I think is an insane amount of money, so he signed there.
There are three Blue Jays on Baseball America’s top 100 prospect list:
10: Trey Yesavage
62: Arjun Nimmala
68: JoJo Parker
About Parker they said:
Scouting Report: Parker is a physical shortstop who stands 6-foot-2 with a strong, muscular build and room to add more strength. He was one of the older players in the 2025 high school class but shows arguably the best balance of hitting and power among his prep peers. Parker sets up with an open stance and a narrow base. He rests the bat on his shoulder, then engages his load with a leg kick that feeds into an aggressive stride. Parker shows plus bat-to-ball skills and a patient approach. He can get overly passive at times, taking too many hittable pitches in the zone. He does a good job of pulling pitches located on the inner half of the plate and shows plus raw power. His swing is more geared toward hard line drives than lofted fly balls, but he should grow into above-average power at peak. Parker is an average runner who gets out of the box well, but he’s unlikely to impact the game much with his speed. Parker is a shortstop at present but is likely to move to third base. He lacks the quick-twitch mechanisms and range needed to play shortstop. He does have a strong internal clock and an above-average arm.
The Future: Parker projects as an above-average regular at third base who could one day grow into an all-star.
They also had LHP Johnny King on their ‘just missed out’ list. He was a third-round pick in 2024 and struck out 105 in 61.2 innings spilt between Dunedin and the FCL.
The Jays announced their non-roster spring training invites.
The Atlanta Braves had what can only be described as a woefully year. They were wracked with injuries to their rotation and lineup which led to a 76-86 record. good for 4th in the NLE. It was the first time Atlanta has missed the playoffs since 2017 and spelled the end for long time manager Brian Snitker. It’s clear the Braves are at a crossroads, especially with a farm system considered weak, yet the roster does include some formidable talents and some excellent young players along with established stars? Was this just an injury generated blip that will see the Braves return to power in the NLE or has the organization between eclipsed by the Mets and the Phillies?
I reached out to Ivan the Great, one of the editors at Battery Power, and he was kind enough to answer some questions about his take on the Braves offseason and the issues they face going into 2026.
So far, the Braves have added Ha-Seong Kim, Robert Suarez, Mike Yastrzemski, Mauricio Dubón and Jorge Mateo this offseason. Is this likely it and if not, what are the key areas that still need addressing?
It’s probably it. The Braves could probably use a lower-risk starter given that pretty much their entire rotation is high variance due to missing time with injury last year, but prices for durable starters have gone off the rails over the last few years, so I don’t think it’s necessarily something to expect. The flip side is that the Braves tend to operate by drawing a line in the sand about acquisition prices, but then being very opportunistic if they see something that comes in below that price – so you can’t rule out a late-breaking roster shuffle if an opportunity presents itself. That said, as prices for quality players of all stripes continue to rise, don’t bank on that, either.
The 2025 season was the least successful for the Braves since 2017. Is that largely attributed to injuries to key players or are there any underlying issues the team is facing to be competitive in 2026?
There was a point last season where I asked our community this question – framed as a binary choice between either the roster needing to change, or everything but the roster needing to change. To a person, every single respondent said the latter. Injuries are injuries, but the team was also horrendously injured in 2024 and weathered it okay, all things considered.
To avoid beating around the bush, I think the most succinct-if-a-little-too-glib correct answer is that the Braves have a very well-built roster, but do (or did, or have done) a lot of stupid stuff with it, and that level of “stupid stuff” hit a new high in 2025. The team consistently snubbed its nose at stuff like the times-through-the-order penalty and leverage, but was usually fine because the bats were outslugging everyone. The coup de grace, then, came in the offseason, when the powers that be, apparently spooked by a catastrophically large input-output gap on offense for much of the 2024 season, wheeled around to an offensive approach that was directly at odds with what the team had implemented from both a roster construction and coaching perspective from 2019-2024. A team of sluggers was asked to draw more walks and fight the ball off the other way, and it basically destroyed the season.
None of us have any idea whether “doing stupid stuff” is an underlying issue, or if things will magically be fixed with some turnover in the coaching staff in the offseason. We’ll have to wait and see. In general, you don’t expect a team’s talent to play down because who would bother with such a huge unforced error, right? But that’s what we’ve seen on the pitching end from this team here and there over the last few seasons, and then we saw it on the hitting side last year.
Which players really took the biggest steps forward this year for the club?
I think it has to be Drake Baldwin to start. He wasn’t really even in the conversation for the Opening Day roster, but Sean Murphy’s injury led to a Rookie of the Year campaign. Baldwin’s approach to hitting sort of goes against the grain of his teammates but also happened to dovetail really well with what the team was hoping the bats would do offensively. Given Sean Murphy’s bizarre status (playing through worse than a run-of-the-mill hip injury for multiple years), Baldwin has leapfrogged his way to being a key cog in this machine.
Hurston Waldrep had a nice run down the stretch last year, but he looks like he has a bunch of stuff to work through. That’s true of most young pitchers, but I think Baldwin took a definitive, huge step forward, and everyone else, Waldrep included, isn’t really in the same tier.
The Braves’ farm system is generally considered to be weak at the upper levels compared to most other clubs. Is there a likely world where one of their top prospects like Richie or Caminiti has a legitimate shot at the bigs this year, or is it most likely they’ll stay put until 2027 at the earliest?
One thing we know about the Braves is that they’ll promote you when they think you’re ready. They don’t care at all about outside evaluations, and they don’t seem to care about anything that you could likely garner from a stat sheet either. They have internal benchmarks and once you hit them, you’re going to be thrown into the fire, irrespective of innings at level or whatever. To that end, I don’t know how to speculate about a legitimate shot at promotion, since it depends on Caminiti and company hitting benchmarks that are totally opaque to me. Didier Fuentes got a promotion last year and didn’t stick – one of the few times a prospect call-up who appeared rushed to the majors by this regime didn’t.
The one thing possibly working against another out-of-nowhere promotion is that the Braves have a bunch of rotation options, at least until injuries strike. Grant Holmes and Reynaldo Lopez could start or relieve depending on health and needs, Bryce Elder is kind of like the proverbial bad penny, and AJ Smith-Shawver should return eventually. That means that if prospect promotion were a combination of “readiness” and opportunity previously, the opportunity may be more constrained this time around.
Of the remaining FAs, which would fit best for the Braves, even if it’s a bit of a stretch they’d land there?
The QO and personality issues probably pose a challenge with regard to Framber Valdez, so I guess Chris Bassitt is the next man up in that regard. Whether Bassitt is truly a “fit” is hard to say, because it depends on whether the Braves consider him good enough to start a playoff game – that seems to be their (self-professed) bar for shelling out for a starter acquisition. If he is, then I think it’s not even a stretch that they add Bassitt eventually, as he helps smooth out the innings burden across the rotation. If not, then I have no idea – Zac Gallen also requires the loss of a draft pick. Maybe Zack Littell? Bassitt seems like the easy answer, though.
Assuming you could put on the ‘accept all trades’ button, what would an ideal but still realistic target be for you before ST starts?
Once upon a time this offseason, I would’ve said Otto Lopez, as he fits pretty much everything the Braves like, want, and need: undervalued relative to inputs and production, an approach that fits with 2025-Braves but could also benefit from the instruction of 2019-2024 Braves, and at a clear position of need. That ship has not only sailed with the Braves re-adding Ha-Seong Kim, but was probably never really tied up at the pier anyway.
The alternative is for some starters that aren’t really on the trading block but would’ve been nice if they were: Joe Ryan, Pablo Lopez, the largely unheralded Jose Soriano, that sort of thing. Other names that I could throw out in this tier would be MacKenzie Gore, Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen, Yusei Kikuchi, and Sandy Alcantara – none are perfect but that’s the sort of thing I expect from the Braves if “force trade” were a reality and they couldn’t go too off the rails. (In other words, they didn’t abuse their power to get Cole Ragans or something.)
I want to do a post about the Gore MacKenzie trade that talks about the prospects the Rangers give up. And as part of that, I was going to go through and look at who else the Rangers have traded, in terms of prospects, to get a major league return since the start of the 2023 season.
But such a list would be unwieldy in the middle of a post, and really, has value outside of the discussion of the Gore trade. So instead, I’m doing a separate post about it.
I’m not listing guys lost on waivers or sold for cash considerations to clear up a 40 man roster spot, since my focus is just on guys traded in actual baseball deals designed to make the present team better, not guys who are lost for procedural reasons. I’m also including guys who had technically lost their prospect eligibility because I’m not being pedantic about it.
Here you go:
Cole Ragans — 6/30/23 to Kansas City for Aroldis Chapman
Roni Cabrera — 6/30/23 to Kansas City for Aroldis Chapman
Luisangel Acuna — 7/30/23 to NY Mets for Max Scherzer and cash
Tekoah Roby — 7/30/23 to St. Louis for Jordan Montgomery and Chris Stratton
Thomas Saggese — 7/30/23 to St. Louis for Jordan Montgomery and Chris Stratton
Anthony Hoopii-Tuionetoa — 5/8/24 to ChiSox for Robbie Grossman
Liam Hicks — 7/28/24 to Detroit for Carson Kelly
Tyler Owens — 7/28/24 to Detroit for Carson Kelly
Joseph Montalvo — 7/30/24 to Detroit for Andrew Chafin
Chase Lee — 7/30/24 to Detroit for Andrew Chafin
Brayan Mendoza — 12/11/24 to Miami for Jake Burger
Echedry Vargas — 12/11/24 to Miami for Jake Burger
Maximo Acosta — 12/11/24 to Miami for Jake Burger
Garrett Horn — 7/31/25 to Minnesota for Danny Coulombe
Mitch Bratt — 7/31/25 to Arizona for Merrill Kelly
Kohl Drake — 7/31/25 to Arizona for Merrill Kelly
David Hagaman — 7/31/25 to Arizona for Merrill Kelly
Skylar Hales — 7/31/25 to St. Louis for Phil Maton
Mason Molina — 7/31/25 to St. Louis for Phil Maton
Jaiker Garcia — 12/10/25 to Pittsburgh for Carter Baumler
Gavin Fien — 1/22/26 to Washington for MacKenzie Gore
Abi Ortiz — 1/22/26 to Washington for MacKenzie Gore
Devin Fitz-Gerald — 1/22/26 to Washington for MacKenzie Gore
Alejandro Rosario — 1/22/26 to Washington for MacKenzie Gore
Yeremy Cabrera — 1/22/26 to Washington for MacKenzie Gore
Thelo Aasgaard has scored in three of his past four starts in the Scottish Premiership (three goals), including both of his latest two at Ibrox, with three of his four league goals for Rangers this season coming at home (75%).
Just 27% of Dundee's points in the Scottish Premiership this season have come away from home (six out of 22), the lowest ratio of any side, although they did pick up their first away league win of the season most recently at Dundee United (1-0).
Rangers have won their past five league matches, last winning more on the spin in February 2024 under Philippe Clement (nine).
Dundee are winless in 20 away games at Rangers in all competitions, although their 1-1 draw most recently (August 2025) ended a 19-game losing streak.
Rangers are unbeaten in 19 meetings with Dundee in all competitions (W15 D4) since a 2-1 defeat in November 2017.
Williams not ready and will miss next week’s first test
Lewis Hamilton has emphasised the scale of the challenge facing drivers and teams as Formula One enters a new season with a regulation reset which the British driver described as the biggest of his career, as his Ferrari team look to a new start after a disappointing 2025.
The Scuderia launched their new car, the SF-26, with Hamilton driving it at the team’s test track at Fiorano for the first time on Friday. He was optimistic, having been involved in the development of a Ferrari for the first time but acknowledged that a huge task lay ahead.
To the extent that Craig Breslow was hired to turn around Red Sox pitching, you can’t say he that hasn’t done his job. In just two offseasons, Breslow has completely revamped the top of the Sox rotation by aggressively acquiring one of the game’s best pitchers in Garrett Crochet and two other recent all-stars in Sonny Gray and Ranger Suárez. Meanwhile, a number of depth moves combined with internal prospect development has given the Sox something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before in my lifetime as a Sox fan: a genuinely ridiculous amount of starting pitching depth.
Here’s how the FanGraphs projections look right now:
Projections are a useful tool. But they’re are also a blunt tool that, by design, ignores a lot of important nuance and context. Looking at the projections for both Johan Oviedo and Patrick Sandoval demonstrates this. The computer only pegs them to throw 80 and 54 innings, respectively, because they’ve both recently missed entire seasons recovering from Tommy John surgery. But we human beings know that they are both likely to be healthy at the start of spring training. Likewise, the idea that neither Connelly Early nor Patyon Tolle throws at least 30 innings beggars belief.
So, rather than look forward via projections, I decided to look backward at things that actually happened. I took a look at the five teams who led baseball in starting pitching fWAR over the last five seasons in order to determine how teams actually put together the best starting pitching in baseball. Do the 2026 Red Sox have what it takes to join this list?
2025: Philadelphia Phillies, 21.5 WAR
Starters who made 30 starts: 2
Starters who made 20 starts: 5
Starters who made 10 starts: 6
Total starters: 10
How did they do it?
When I first started this exercise, I figured the answer to this question would almost always be “depth.” After all, this is The Age of Tommy John, and baseball as an institution seemingly has absolutely no idea how to prevent or limit pitching injuries. It would be smart to assume, then, that whichever team has the best starting pitching in any given year is the team that has the deepest starting pitching.
The 2025 Phillies, though, belied that assumption. With the exception of Aaron Nola, who struggled at the start of the season before missing significant time with a rib cage injury, the 2025 Phillies rotation was remarkably healthy. In fact, the team essentially used only six starting pitchers all season. And, importantly, those starters were really, really good. Four Phillies starters finished in the top-12 for fWAR in all of baseball, led by Christopher Sanchez, whose 6.3 fWAR was third in all of baseball. And, yes, the guy who was 12th in baseball in starting pitching fWAR (but only fourth on the Phillies, lol) is now on the Red Sox.
So how did they do it? Health and a rotation filled with aces.
2024: Atlanta Braves, 17.4 WAR
Starters who made 30 starts: 1
Starters who made 20 starts: 5
Starters who made 10 starts: 6
Total starters: 13
How did they do it?
Once again, look to the Injury List. The 2024 Braves had 5 pitchers who made at least 21 starts. Unlike the 2025 Phillies, though, the Braves only had one ace in the rotation. Chris Sale won the NL Cy Young after posting 6.4 fWAR, while the Braves other four primary starters all finished between 1.1 and 3.5 fWAR.
Of course, there’s something else to note about the 2024 Braves rotation: it didn’t include Spencer Strider, who made just two starts before going down for the year. So how did the 2024 Braves put together the best starting staff in the game? By beginning the season with two aces (three if you want to throw Max Fried in there, though 2024 was only his fourth-best season by fWAR) and then getting good health from their solid but unspectacular group of mid-rotation arms when one of those aces went down.
2023: Philadelphia Phillies, 17.4 WAR
Starters who made more than 30 starts: 3
Starters who made more than 20 starts: 4
Starters who made more than 10 starts: 6
Total starters: 11
How did they do it?
The 2023 Phillies looked more like the 2024 Braves than the 2025 Phillies: one ace at the top (Zack Wheeler, 5.9 fWAR), followed by a solid group that stayed healthy: Aaron Nola, 3.8 WAR; Taijuan Walker, 2.4 WAR, Ranger Suarez, 2.4 WAR, Christopher Sanchez, 1.8 WAR. Note, also, that having three pitchers who made 30 starts makes this rotation a big time outlier.
2022: Houston Astros, 19.2 WAR
Starters who made 30 starts: 1
Starters who made 20 starts: 5
Starters who made 10 starts: 6
Total starters: 8
How did they do it?
Guys, I’m starting to think health has a lot to do with starting pitching success. Once again, we see a team that essentially used only six starters for the whole season. And, once again, we have a rotation that was led by an ace at the top. In this case it was Justin Verlander, who put up 6.1 WAR after missing the entire season the year prior. Unlike the 2024 Braves and 2023 Phillies, though, Verlander had a 1b in Framber Valdez, whose 4.4 WAR was good for 11th in all of baseball. The rest of the 2022 Astros rotation was filled out by solid but unspectacular performances by Christian Javier, Luis Garcia, Jose Urquidy, and Jake Odorizzi.
2021: Los Angeles Dodgers, 20.8 WAR
Starters who made 30 starts: 2
Starters who made 20 starts: 3
Starters who made 10 starts: 7
Total starters: 19
How did they do it?
Holy freaking depth! Three-fifths of the planned 2021 Dodgers rotation — Clayton Kershaw, Dustin May, and Trevor Bauer — all missed significant chunks of the season. Kershaw was sidelined for two months in the middle of the summer. May went down for the year after making just five starts. And Trevor Bauer missed the final three months of the season after he was suspended for being a piece of shit. And the man who started the year as the team’s sixth starter, Tony Gonsolin, also had two lengthy stints on the IL.
The Dodgers dealt with these absences by moving David Price from the bullpen to the rotation in the middle of the season (he would go on to start 11 games, providing 0.8 WAR in those starts), trading for Max Scherzer (who was outstanding in his 11 starts for the team, putting up 2.9 WAR), and using a lot of openers.
When fans and analysts talk about the importance of starting pitching depth in contemporary baseball, the 2021 Dodgers are the type of team they’re thinking of. But it’s important to note that this rotation was anchored by two aces at the top, as Walker Buehler and Julio Urias each started over 30 games and finished fourth and seventh, respectively, in starting pitching WAR.
So what needs to happen for the 2026 Red Sox to have the best rotation in baseball? The health of Garrett Crochet is the most important factor here, obviously. Each of these five teams had at least one pitcher who compiled at least 5 fWAR for the year. For as deep as the Red Sox pitching is, Crochet is probably the only player on the Red Sox currently capable of doing that. If he goes down, the Sox have no chance of having the best rotation in baseball, no matter how much depth they have.
Second, this list shows us that, despite all the emphasis on depth, the best rotations tend to use essentially only six pitchers over the course of the season. This isn’t to say that depth is overrated — the 2024 Braves performing as well as they did despite losing Spencer Strider shows us that it’s not. But it does mean that it’s really hard to have an elite rotation if you’re forced to rely on your depth too much. The 2021 Dodgers are very much the outliers here.
So, to have the best rotation in baseball, the Sox will likely need (1) at least one ace at the top of the rotation, and (2) 3-4 other starters who stay healthy and post around 2-3.5 WAR. It’s in this second factor that the Sox’ depth comes into play. If Sonny Gray has a disappointing season (not an unreasonable thing to worry about as he’s 36-years-old), can Patrick Sandoval replace his innings with the near-all-star level pitching he provided from 2022 through 2024? If Ranger Suarez or Brayan Bello goes down for the year (and you know someone will!) can Connelly Early or Payton Tolle step in and step up?
We’ll find out the answer to the question posed in this headline soon enough. But in light of that fact that we are just a few years removed from watching Corey Kluber take the ball on opening day, the mere fact that we can genuinely ask it is a wonderful thing.
31-year-old Carson Franklin Kelly had a real nice year in 2025, registering 3.6 bWAR and a slash line of .249/.333/.428 with 17 home runs and 50 RBI in 421 plate appearances. Not too shabby. Yeah, he wasn’t Cal Raleigh, but then, neither is anybody else.
That was easily his best year in MLB, surpassing the 2.1 bWAR he turned in for the 2021 season and in fact nearly doubling his lifetime total. He also hit for the cycle in March.
So we probably can’t count on that kind of production, even in a contract year. Miguel Amaya is capable of turning in better numbers, as said in his profile, Amaya will likely be the nominal starting catcher by year’s end. If Kelly turns in a decent campaign, though, it’s entirely possible that the Cubs keep him around to be Amaya’s backup in 2027, assuming that Moises Ballesteros doesn’t suddenly attain competence behind the plate.
Northside Baseball’s Randy Holt had a few choice words about that in a recent article, zeroing in on what Kelly changed to attain the better numbers, and by his logic, it should be a repeatable process. “… it doesn’t seem at all unrealistic for him to do it again in 2026.”
His 777 putouts (fifth in the NL), .998 Fielding Percentage, and 34.3 CS percentage (second in the NL) don’t hurt, either.
And that’s important, given Amaya’s propensity for the freak injury. Kelly does have a $7.5 million mutual option for 2027, and odds are that the Cubs won’t be paying the $1.5 million buyout.
BBRef puts forth Barry Foote and George Mitterwald as comparative bats. Different times, though. Both were substandard in their day, though both had a good year or two, as Kelly has. It could be worse.
Something like 10 home runs, 35 RBI, and a .240 BA seem reasonable, with good defensive numbers and a slightly diminished workload. He should have around 40 percent of the playing time in 2026, with Amaya getting the lion’s share, especially later in the season.
If both play to their 2025 paces, and Amaya stays on the field, the Cubs are in good shape, catching-wise.
When it comes to all-time baseball records, there are some that were set in a different era and will never be approached—such as the 59 wins Old Hoss Radbourn compiled in 1884. The Colorado Rockies won only 43 games last summer. Ouch.
Cy Young’s 511 career wins and 749 complete games also fall into this untouchable category.
As for complete games, there were only 29 thrown in all of Major League Baseball during the 2025 season. At that pace, it would take 26 more seasons just for every team in baseball combined to reach 749, so that record is never getting broken. The game has changed. Even before the game changed, both of those numbers were unapproachable.
I’d like to propose that baseball break the record book into pre- and post-integration periods. Radbourn’s 59 wins would remain the pre-integration record. The post-integration (1947 to present) record would belong to Denny McLain and his remarkable 31 wins in 1968. Maybe you don’t like the idea of two separate record books, but remember: Major League Baseball once put a footnote next to Roger Maris’ single-season home run record and kept it there for nearly thirty years.
I think it makes sense to have two record books. Pre-integration players never had to compete against Black, Asian, or Latin American players, let alone play night games or endure the travel demands modern players face. Things were different in the old days, and that’s fine—but you’d have a hard time convincing me that Old Hoss Radbourn was a better pitcher than Satchel Paige, Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, Greg Maddux, or even a modern slinger like Clayton Kershaw. Baseball nerds know about Radbourn’s 59 wins. Reddit fans know him as one of the first people to flip the bird to a photographer.
Nolan Ryan is the career strikeout leader with an astounding 5,715 strikeouts. The Big Unit sits second with 4,875. Think about that for a moment. As great as Randy Johnson was, he still finished 840 strikeouts behind the Ryan Express. The current active leader is Justin Verlander with 3,553, and his career is winding down. That record is safe for our lifetimes.
I doubt we’ll ever see anyone break Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. Defenses and scouting are too sophisticated today, to say nothing of hitters having to face a parade of flame-throwing bullpen arms. By modern standards, a 25- or 30-game hitting streak is notable. DiMaggio’s 56-game run came in 1941, making it the pre-integration record. The post-integration mark belongs to Pete Rose and his phenomenal 44-game heater in 1978.
Some of the other records surprised me. Take Sam Crawford’s record of 309 career triples. Sounds reasonable, right? Ty Cobb sits in second place with 295. Former Royals greats Willie Wilson (#56, 147) and George Brett (#70, 137) appear on the leaderboard. Who’s the active player with the most career triples? That would be Starling Marte with 55. Bobby Witt Jr. will eventually start showing up on this list—he already has 34. The post-integration record holder for career triples is Roberto Clemente with 166. Seeing Roberto’s name in the record book warms my heart. He was a phenomenal player.
Earl Webb holds the single-season doubles record with 67, set in 1931. This is a record that could be broken. The modern record holders are Freddie Freeman and Todd Helton, both of whom hit 59 doubles—Freeman in 2023 and Helton in 2000. More on Freeman as the story unfolds.
How about career doubles? That record belongs to Tris Speaker with 792. Pete Rose is second with 746. George Brett sits at an impressive #7 with 665. The current active leader, at #34, is Freddie Freeman with 547. With a couple of decent seasons, he should comfortably move into the top 20 all time.
Speaking of Freeman, he’s also the current active hits leader with 2,431. Pete Rose, of course, sits at number one with 4,256.
Freeman’s name keeps popping up on other lists as well.
Total bases? Hammerin’ Henry Aaron may have an all-time unbreakable record with 6,856. Albert Pujols is second with 6,211. George Brett sits at #21 with 5,044, while our newest Hall of Famer, Carlos Beltrán, checks in at #34 with 4,751. Freeman is the active leader with 4,145.
Hack Wilson holds the all-time single-season RBI record with 191, set in 1930. The modern record belongs to Manny Ramírez, who drove in 165 runs in 1999.
Career RBIs follow a similar pattern. Hank Aaron is #1 with 2,297, followed by Pujols with 2,218. George Brett sits at #38 with 1,596, while Beltrán is #41 with 1,587. The active leader, once again, is Freeman with 1,322.
How about extra-base hits? The Hammer has #1 locked down with 1,477, while Barry Bonds sits in the #2 spot with 1,440. George Brett ranks an impressive #19 with 1,119, and Beltrán comes in at #25 with 1,078. Freeman is once again the active leader with 947.
Two more, then I’ll stop.
Runs scored: Rickey Henderson leads all-time with 2,295. Ty Cobb is second with 2,245. In a surprise, former Royal Johnny Damon ranks #32 with 1,668, while George Brett (#51, 1,583) and Beltrán (#53, 1,582) occupy the same neighborhood. Freeman is the active leader at #102 with 1,379.
My point in all of this is that Freddie Freeman has had a hell of a career. If you had any doubt about his Hall of Fame credentials, this should end it. He’s going to Cooperstown without question. And looking back to see George Brett’s name on so many of these lists brings back great memories of just how tremendous a hitter he was.
Another Rickey Henderson record that looks safe for a long, long time is his stolen base mark of 1,406. Lou Brock—one of the nicest baseball players I’ve ever met—sits second with 938. Several former Royals dot the list. Willie Wilson ranks #12 with 668, so his club record looks safe for a long time. Damon appears again at #68 with 408. He had a heck of a career, too—too bad the Royals couldn’t keep him in Kansas City longer. Freddie Patek, somewhat overlooked, checks in at #83 with 385 steals. The active career leader, at #102, is Starling Marte with 361.
What’s the point of all this? I’m not entirely sure, other than a fascination with numbers. Despite the game featuring several all-time greats currently playing (Mike Trout, anyone?), these career records show just how astounding some of the past careers really were. The more I toyed with the idea of pre- and post-integration record books, the more I liked it. It would give fans something new to get excited about. Could someone break the modern RBI or doubles record? Absolutely. And right now, baseball needs all the excitement it can get.
Also, with Freeman turning 36 later this fall, enjoy watching him while you can. It may be a long time before we see another one like him.
The Colorado Avalanche are known as a high-flying offensive side — understandably so — but they are also the league’s best at keeping the puck out.
Playing at home against a low-event team, my Flyers vs. Avalanche predictions expect a relatively low-scoring affair.
Let’s dive into my NHL picks for Friday, January 23.
Flyers vs Avalanche prediction
Flyers vs Avalanche best bet: Under 6.5 (-115)
The Colorado Avalanche are 20-1-4 on home soil this season and have conceded a league-low of 2.08 goals per game in Colorado.
As good as they are offensively, they’re equally as effective at controlling the puck and giving opposing teams very few chances to generate opportunities.
That should be the case in this matchup. The Philadelphia Flyers rank Bottom-12 in goals per game, and they’ve played at the league’s slowest 5-on-5 pace this season.
Philadelphia will be looking to turn this contest into a snoozefest, happy to punt on offense if it gives them a better chance of holding up defensively.
They are expected to get Dan Vladar back between the pipes for this game as well. He owns a solid .905 SV% on the season and has drastically out-performed backup Sam Ersson.
Slowing down a lethal Avalanche offense is a difficult task, but Vladar is capable of holding them to a manageable number.
These two sides have already played this season, and that game finished 3-2 with 53 total shots. Don’t be surprised if we see something similar this time around.
Flyers vs Avalanche same-game parlay
The Avalanche have won 20 of 25 home games this season. Coming off a disappointing loss to a banged up Ducks team, we should expect a good response in this spot.
Brent Burns has teed off without Devon Toews in the lineup. He is averaging 3.5 shots on 6.3 attempts and has cleared this line in seven of eight, including seven in a row.
Burns also had three shots on seven attempts against Philadelphia back in December.
The Avalanche have hit the Moneyline in 20 of their last 25 games at home (+8.75 Units / 14% ROI). Find more NHL betting trends for Flyers vs. Avalanche.
How to watch Flyers vs Avalanche
Location
Ball Arena, Denver, CO
Date
Friday, January 23, 2026
Puck drop
9:00 p.m. ET
TV
NBCS-Philadelphia, ATL2
Flyers vs Avalanche latest injuries
Odds are correct at the time of publishing and are subject to change. Not intended for use in MA. Affiliate Disclosure: Our team of experts has thoroughly researched and handpicked each product that appears on our website. We may receive compensation if you sign up through our links.
This article originally appeared on Covers.com, read the full article here
Will Smith is enjoying a strong sophomore campaign. He has 31 points through 36 games, trailing only superstar Macklin Celebrini in points per contest among Sharks.
My Rangers vs. Sharks predictions expect Smith to further build on those totals at home against a struggling New York team.
Let’s dive into my NHL picks for Friday, January 23.
Rangers vs Sharks prediction
Rangers vs Sharks best bet:Will Smith Over 0.5 points (-140)
Will Smith has hit the scoresheet at least once in 56% of his appearances this season. He’s done his best work with the San Jose Sharks, picking up a point in 65% of his games and 10 of the past 13.
There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic Smith’s home success will continue vs. the New York Rangers.
They are without star goaltender Igor Shesterkin as well as top defenseman Adam Fox. Predictably, they have bled goals as a result.
New York has conceded 49 goals over the past 10 games, slotting them dead last in the NHL with plenty of room to spare.
Isolating the seven games since Shesterkin joined Fox on the sidelines, the Rangers have conceded 39 goals. That’s an average of 5.57 per.
The Sharks possess a solid offense more than capable of exploiting teams that can’t keep the puck out, especially when goaltending is a big reason why.
They rank 4th in the NHL in shooting percentage and have averaged 3.62 goals per game against Bottom-10 teams in goals against.
Playing on the top line and No. 1 power play alongside a Hart Trophy candidate in Macklin Celebrini, Smith is primed to produce.
Rangers vs Sharks same-game parlay
Celebrini hasn’t scored in six consecutive games, his longest drought of the season. Four of those came against playoff teams, though, and two exceptions were the back-to-back Stanley Cup winners and the Washington Capitals, who finished second in points last year.
This is a much more advantageous matchup for Celebrini. It’s also worth noting he has scored 10 goals through 13 games working on two days of rest this season.
Going the other way, Alexis Lafreniere has multiple shots in 12 of 17 games vs. Bottom-10 shot suppression teams. He also cleared 1.5 shots in seven of the past eight when playing on a line with Artemi Panarin.
Rangers vs Sharks SGP
Will Smith Over 0.5 points
Macklin Celebrini anytime goal
Alexis Lafreniere Over 1.5 shots
Rangers vs Sharks odds
Moneyline: New York -105 | San Jose -115
Puck Line: New York +1.5 (-250) | San Jose -1.5 (+205)
Over/Under: Over 6.5 (-110) | Under 6.5 (-110)
Rangers vs Sharks trend
Will Smith has 12 points through 10 meetings with Bottom-10 teams in points allowed to forwards. Find more NHL betting trends for Rangers vs. Sharks.
How to watch Rangers vs Sharks
Location
SAP Center at San Jose, San Jose, CA
Date
Friday, January 23, 2026
Puck drop
10:00 p.m. ET
TV
MSG, NBCS-California
Rangers vs Sharks latest injuries
Odds are correct at the time of publishing and are subject to change. Not intended for use in MA. Affiliate Disclosure: Our team of experts has thoroughly researched and handpicked each product that appears on our website. We may receive compensation if you sign up through our links.
This article originally appeared on Covers.com, read the full article here
It may not have been their best overall performance of the season so far, but the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-2 win over the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday night is certainly high on the rankings. They had every reason to lose that game just simply based on the schedule and the matchup.
The Oilers have dunked on the Penguins pretty much every time they have played them over the past four or five years, the Oilers were rested, the Penguins were playing the second half of a back-to-back and their fourth game in six days, they are three games into an extended road trip and they did not have one of their top defenseman in the lineup (Kris Letang). They were also playing their backup goalie.
When the week began I had that game penciled in as a loss just based on all of that. Not only did the Penguins win, they did to the Oilers what the Oilers have recently done to the Penguins and just dunked all over them. They gave up some chances, but Arturs Silovs was great and the Penguins feasted on their former goalie (Tristan Jarry). Anthony Mantha scored two goals, Evgeni Malkin showed he still has the juice, and Egor Chinakhov scored another goal on a shot so ridiculous nobody even saw it actually go into the net.
It has the Penguins in the second spot of the Metropolitan Division after 50 games and starting to very much look like a playoff team. Not just in the results, but also in the process behind the results.
They have a top-10 points percentage in the NHL, tied for the fifth-best in the Eastern Conference and are only two points back (with a game in hand) of the fourth-best team in the Eastern Conference.
They are also a top-10 team league-wide in pretty much every underlying 5-on-5 metric when it comes expected goals and scoring chances, while also consistently improving their overall defensive metrics.
If it looks like a duck, and if it quacks like a duck….
This is all important to keep in mind because the Penguins have just 11 games before the 2025-26 NHL Trade Deadline, and general manager Kyle Dubas and his staff have to be having a lot of discussions right now. Not only about potential trades, but also simply what their overall plan is going to be.
Buy? Sell? Stick to the plan? All of the above? It is going to be fascinating to watch.
Just for laughs, here is where the Penguins have been (and ranked) after 50 games over the past eight seasons in terms of their place in the league standings, and their overall ranks in 5-on-5 goal differential, expected goal share, scoring chance share, high-danger scoring chance share and expected goals against per 60 minutes.
Season
Games Played
Record
Points
Points Percentage
5-on-5 GF%
5-on-5 xGF%
5-on-5 SC%
5-on-5 HDSC%
xGA/60
2025-26
50
25-14-11
61
.610 (9th)
51.2% (10th)
51.4% (9th)
51.2% (9th)
52.7% (10th)
2.65 (14th)
2024-25
50
20-22-8
48
.480 (26th)
43.7% (29th)
50.2% (17th)
48.7% (23rd)
50.1% (18th)
2.63 (26th)
2023-24
50
23-20-7
53
.530 (19th)
53.1% (8th)
52.4% (8th)
52.2% (10th)
52.7% (7th)
2.62 (19th)
2022-23
50
25-16-9
59
.590 (14th)
49.5% (19th)
52.3% (9th)
50.9% (15th)
52.0 (13th)
2.65 (19th)
2021-22
50
31-11-8
70
.700 (7th)
55.3% (8th)
53.4% (8th)
52.8% (7th)
53.5% (8th)
2.25 (6th)
2020-21
50
32-15-3
67
.670 (9th)
55.1% (8th)
49.4% (18th)
51.3% (11th)
48.3% (19th)
2.19 (13th)
2019-20
50
31-14-5
67
.670 (4th)
54.8% (5th)
53.8% (3rd)
53.1% (5th)
54.0% (3rd)
2.06 (2nd)
2018-19
50
27-17-6
60
.600 (11th)
54.4% (5th)
51.4% (10th)
51.5% (11th)
52.1% (11th)
2.49 (23rd)
This is the Penguins best record and best placement in the standings since the 2021-22 season, which was also their most recent Stanley Cup Playoff appearance. It is also one of the few times over the past eight years where they have consistently been in the top-10 across all of the scoring chance and expected goal metrics. They are 13 points ahead of where they were at this point a year ago and significantly better in terms of where they rank in their underlying metrics. The 2023-24 team had similar rankings in those metrics, but were not getting the same results and were eight points back of the current pace. That team missed the playoffs by just three points. They are two points ahead of the 2022-23 pace, but that team was much worse with its process. That team missed the playoffs by one point.
This team does not just simply have a better record than their most recent teams. It is also playing better. Significantly so.
This is not a Stanley Cup contending team right now. Not this season. It might be a pretty good team. It is starting to look like it is a pretty good team. Even during that losing streak back in December they were still carrying and controlling games for the most part. They have certainly left some points on the table, and that might end up looming large, but they have also picked up a lot of points. There is a lot to be said for that response. There is a lot to be said for how they have played, how they are playing and perhaps more importantly, how (and where) they are improving.
The forward group has no real weaknesses. There is not a single line you do not want to see on the ice at any point in any game. They can roll four lines and keep controlling the game with any of them. The goaltending has been inconsistent at times, but winnable. Erik Karlsson is playing the way they expected Erik Karlsson to play when they originally traded for him a few years ago.
So how do the Penguins play this over the next month-and-a-half? There is obviously going to be a wait-and-see element to this and how those 11 games go. The most sensible approach is stay the course and let these guys show what they have. Whatever happens, you have a full season sampling here and can make your adjustments and changes as needed in the offseason.
Mantha is going to be the curious case because I always imagined he was signed with the intention of being this year’s Anthony Beauvillier. Cheap contract, hope for some production in the top-six of the lineup, then flip him at the trade deadline in March for some additional future assets. He has been better and way more productive than Beauvillier, and should not only bring a comparable return (a second-round pick), but perhaps even more given how much more he has produced. He is also the big-body presence that NHL general managers love at this time of year. Trading him could also open up a roster spot for one of the young kids in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton right now like Rutger McGroarty or Ville Koivunen.
If this group keeps playing the way they are, however, it would be difficult to disrupt that. They deserve a chance to take a kick at the can and see what happens.
The Penguins still have more draft capital, and especially in the first three rounds, than any other team in the NHL over the next three-or-four years. They could certainly use more of those assets, but it is also not a huge necessity.
Strategic buying is certainly within reason. The Penguins should not trade anything significant for a short-term rental, but if you can find a player that has long-term value beyond this season, that should be in play.
Dallas Stars forward Jason Robertson has been the big name kicked around given his contract status, and the Penguins certainly have the salary cap space to pay him what he wants in the future, but that does not seem like a trade deadline move. That is an offseason move. The option for that discussion will almost certainly still be there then when Dallas might be more inclined (or likely) to make a move involving him.
The ideal trade option would be trying to find a young defenseman (or some sort of young high-level talent) that has upside and term/team control remaining. Depending on the player, the contract and the upside, I would not be opposed to being aggressive if it is a true hockey trade. The Penguins have salary cap space and assets to move, and given how active Dubas and the Penguins have been over the past year-and-a-half I can not imagine they are going to just sit and do nothing.
Even if it requires a young forward or one of those draft picks, if you can find somebody that fills that need you should not ignore it. Even if the cost is high. As long as it is a hockey trade and fits in to the long-term plan, it can work.
With that in mind, I am going to say something controversial here: I do not think the first-round pick should be off the table *in the right move.*
There should be lottery conditions attached to it. It should only be for a player that fits for multiple seasons. Do not trade that pick for a rental. That would be outrageously stupid. But keep something in mind here: If the Penguins do end up as a playoff team, that first-round pick is going to be in the back half of the round. The Penguins still have that Winnipeg Jets second-round draft pick that is very likely to be very high in the second-round. At that point the difference between, let’s say, pick No. 22-25, and perhaps pick No. 34, is not overly significant. You also still have plenty of assets to potentially move up from that spot high in the second-round if you needed or wanted.
Even thinking about moving that pick is obviously only something you do for somebody in their early-mid-20s, and somebody that is a high level player. That is a difficult trade to find, and chances are you will not find it, but it is definitely something to keep an eye out for given where the team is, where the pick could end up being. and what you still have to work with in terms of assets. This is why stockpiling assets the way Dubas has is so important. It gives you flexibility. It gives you options. The Penguins certainly have a lot of them. This will be fascinating to watch.
The Texas Rangers addressed the hole in their 2026 rotation in dramatic fashion on Thursday, trading five minor leaguers to the Washington Nationals to acquire lefthanded starting pitcher MacKenzie Gore. So let’s talk about this deal, and what the Rangers are getting in Gore.
Start with the basics. Gore is a lefty who turns 27 in February, listed at 6’2”, 193 lbs. He is under contract for the 2026 season at $5.6 million, and has four years of service time, so (assuming the next CBA doesn’t change initial team control rules) Gore will be arbitration eligible for the 2027 season as well, and will be eligible for free agency after that.
The San Diego Padres took Gore #3 overall in the 2017 MLB Draft, after Royce Lewis and Hunter Greene, and right before Brendan McKay and Kyle Wright. Of the players drafted and signed in the first round in 2017, Gore’s career 6.0 bWAR is the sixth highest, behind Greene, Trevor Rogers, Brent Rooker, Tanner Houck, and David Peterson. Jake Burger, incidentally, is 8th on that list. It wasn’t a great first round.
Gore was highly rated on the prospect lists until an awful 2021 season, which saw him generally drop to the bottom of, or out of, top 100 lists. However, he was good enough in the spring of 2022 to earn a spot on the San Diego Padres Opening Day roster, and other than the occasional rehab assignment, he’s been in the majors ever since, mostly with the Washington Nationals, who the Padres traded him to as part of the Juan Soto deal. Gore was on the injured list when he was traded, and wasn’t activated from it the remainder of 2022, so he didn’t pitch for the Nationals until the following year.
For the Nats, he made 27 starts in 2023, totaling 136 innings, with a 4.42 ERA, 4.89 FIP, and 5.20 xERA (coincidentally, the same xERA he had in his 16 appearances for San Diego in 2022). Not great. He showed improvement in 2024, putting up a 3.90 ERA, a 4.19 xERA and a 3.53 FIP, and more or less stayed steady in 2025, with a 4.17 ERA, 4.33 xERA and 3.74 FIP.
Over the past two seasons, Gore has put up 3.8 bWAR and 6.1 fWAR, with his FIP being better than his ERA causing the fair sized spread between the two metrics. He’s been a 2-3 win per season pitcher. His bWAR in that stretch is tied for 53rd among major league starting pitchers, an ordinal slot he shares with Zac Gallen, Jose Quintana and Tanner Bibee, as well as (in many fewer innings) Tyler Glasnow and Noah Cameron. Within a couple of bWAR either direction, and with similar games started, are are Bailey Ober, Jose Berrios, Jack Flaherty, and Luis Castillo.
Prior to yesterday, the 2026 Texas Rangers had had a rather aching need for a capable major league starting pitcher to ink, rather than pencil, into its rotation. Nathan Eovaldi and Jacob deGrom are a very solid top of the rotation, though injury issues are a concern. Jack Leiter had a solid first full season in the majors in 2025, and could well take the next step in 2026 and establish himself as a quality #3 starter, but expecting him to be the #3 on a team with playoff aspirations right now would seem to be aggressively optimistic.
But even if you are comfortable with Leiter as your #3, your final two spots are still an issue. Absent any other moves, Kumar Rocker and Jacob Latz would be filling those roles. Rocker, in what was really his first full season as a professional, having signed in 2022 and missed the bulk of 2023 and 2024 due to Tommy John surgery, showed flashes of what he was capable of, but overall was not good in the bigs in 2025. And Latz hasn’t been a regular starter since 2021, working largely out of the pen since then, and functioning as a swingman for the major league club in 2025.
Behind them, well, the options are underwhelming. Jose Corniell looked good in 13 appearances in the minors after returning from Tommy John surgery (though not so good in 5 AFL appearances), but after missing all of 2024 and most of 2025, he’s probably not ready to handle a major league workload, and with only 34 innings above A ball, he’s probably not ready to handle major league hitters. David Davalillo and Leandro Lopez were added to the 40 man roster, but each has just a half season at AA and no time at AAA, and they are probably a year away from being asked to do anything but temporarily patch over a spot on the major league staff in an emergency. Patrick Murphy is back on a minor league deal, after impressing in camp last spring, pitching well in Round Rock, getting hurt, and then de-camping for the KBO for the second half of the 2026 season, but you aren’t really going to want to count on him to meaningfully contribute to the major league rotation.
Cody Bradford is due back, per reports, sometime in May, after undergoing internal brace surgery last year. He was very good in the rotation in 2024 when he was healthy, but only pitched in 14 games because, well, he wasn’t healthy enough. I imagine the plan is to have Bradford — who turns 28 next month, and thus isn’t really a youngster — join the rotation once he’s built up his pitch count on a rehab assignment, and so you can say that the situation is less dire once he’s ready.
But Bradford has an injury history, dating back to college — he dropped to the 6th round in 2019 because he missed most of his junior year due to Thoracic Outlet Surgery — so one has to be concerned about his ability to stay on the mound. And that’s before taking into account the workload issues, given he threw just 82 innings in 2024 and 0 in 2025. Again, he’s in his late 20s, so the workload concerns are less than with someone like Corniell, but it is still an issue.
So throughout the offseason, adding an established, competent major league starter to the rotation seemed like a no-brainer, given that the organization has playoff aspirations. While the trade market was always a possibility, it seemed more likely the team would be poking around in the free agent market, particularly the lower end, given the team’s reported budgetary constraints. And with Chris Young publicly stating in recent weeks that the team wanted to improve its “starting pitching depth,” versus just saying its “starting pitching,” my expectations, at least, were dampened. I was fearful Young was talking adding “starting pitching depth” in the sense of bringing back someone like Patrick Corbin, or even worse, adding NRIs to potentially compete for a rotation spot, rather than getting someone that you would have a degree of confidence in.
So getting Gore was a pleasant surprise. He’s under contract for $5.6 million for 2026, a dollar amount that, as I pointed out yesterday in the comments (though one should never read the comments, of course), is pretty much what Shawn Armstrong got on a one year deal a month or so ago. In a free agent market where Adrian Houser got 2 years, $22 million, $5.6 million for a 2-3 win pitcher is a coup, especially when one considers that Gore isn’t eligible for free agency until after 2027.
All that being said, what is more intriguing about this deal is the potential upside that MacKenzie Gore offers.
I mentioned yesterday that I could see Chris Young viewing this as potentially his version of the trade the Houston Astros made almost a decade ago for Gerrit Cole. Cole, like Gore, was a former top draft pick and top 10 prospect — he was taken #1 out of UCLA in 2011, having famously spurned the Yankees in 2008 after they took him with their first round pick that year. Cole, like Gore, had been a (pro-rated) 2-3 win pitcher the previous two seasons, though unlike Gore, he did have a really good season earlier in his career, one that saw him get Cy Young and MVP votes. Cole, like Gore, was seen as someone whose results were not as good as his stuff would suggest that they should be. Cole, like Gore, was shipped out with two years of team control remaining, for a quantity-over-quality package (the Pirates received Michael Feliz, Jason Martin, Colin Moran and Joe Musgrove*).
* The big difference between what the Astros gave up and what the Rangers gave up is that Texas traded guys who are mostly years away, while the Pirates got young major leaguers or guys who were, theoretically, major league ready.
We know what happened after that. The Astros worked with Cole on some changes, and he blew up, putting up 12 bWAR in his two seasons with the Astros, finishing 5th and 2nd in the Cy Young balloting, and signing a gigantic deal with the New York Yankees, for whom he has won a Cy Young Award as well as collecting a second and fourth place finish.
I don’t think the Rangers make this trade if they don’t think they have the potential to unlock…I hesitate similar improvements from Gore, because that would mean turning him immediately into one of the best pitchers in baseball. So I will say, the potential unlock significant improvements that could make him a front of the rotation starter.
Gore was a five pitch pitcher in 2025 who threw four of his pitches 95% of the time. He was a fastball/curveball/slider/changeup guy his first two years in the majors, and threw the changeup rarely. In 2024, he largely junked the slider (he threw it 38 times that year, along with 16 sweepers) and added a cutter. In 2025, he brought the slider back and reduced his use of the cutter.
In terms of his utilization of his pitches, lefties saw mostly sliders (44.3%) and fastballs (42.3%), with the occasional curveball (12.4%) mixed in, along with 7 cutters. His slider was extremely effective against lefties (.219 wOBA and .225 xwOBA), while his fastball was…not (.451 wOBA and .387 xwOBA). Against righthanded hitters, he throws a little over half fastballs, a little over a quarter curveballs, with the remaining 20% roughly two-thirds changeups and one-thirds cutters. The results on his fastball are okay, and the xwOBA on the other three pitches against righties are all below .300, though his changeup has had a negative run value each of the last two seasons, per Statcast, due largely to his inability to consistently throw it close enough to the strike zone for batters to swing at.
Gore throws hard but none of his pitches have a ton of movement, particularly horizontally — other than his cutter, all his pitches had below-average horizontal movement last year, and only his fastball and curveball (fortunately, his most used pitches) have above-average vertical movement. If you look at Statcast’s list of similar pitchers based on velocity and movement, #2 is 2025 Jacob Latz, which, well…that’s not terribly encouraging. Yusei Kikuchi’s 2024 and 2025 seasons, along with 2022 seasons from Daniel Lynch IV and Kyle Muller, round out the five in the list.
What Gore does have, though, is great extension — 86th percentile in 2025, and that was the lowest percentile placement he’s had in his four years in the majors — which allows his pitches to play up. That helps explain why he’s able to successfully miss bats — his 27.2% K rate was in the 80th percentile in 2025, as was his 29.7% whiff rate, while his 29.9% chase rate is in the 70th percentile.
While Gore’s bat-missing ability is very strong, what has held him back is a lack of command. That is reflected in both his walk rate — 9.1% the past two seasons, 9.6% for his career, both below average — and in the quality of contact he gives up when batters do make contact off of him. One can look at his BABIP and see a career BABIP allowed of .324, with a BABIP of .325 and .340 the last two years, and chalk up the spread between his FIP and ERA to bad defense. Just getting him to Texas — a team that won the Gold Glove for team defense in 2025 — and that should fix the problem, one would assume.
Alas, it is not that simple. Gore’s command issues manifest, not just in having trouble throwing strikes, but also in not throwing quality strikes. While batters swing and miss off of him a lot, when they do make contact, they make loud contact. His barrel% and hard hit% has been in the bottom 15th percent every year except 2024, and his xwOBA on contact for his career is .404, including a .403 mark in 2025, compared the to MLB average of .369. The result is a career HR/9 rate of 1.17 (1.13 in 2025), and the 10th highest BABIP in 2025 out of 117 MLB pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched.
For the first three months of 2025, he appeared to have figured things out. There were 103 pitchers who throw at least 2000 pitches in the bigs in 2025, and through the end of June, Gore’s wOBA and xwOBA were both .294 — that xwOBA was the 20th best in the first three months of the season out of those 103 pitchers. He had a 3.09 ERA and a 2.97 FIP, which are outstanding numbers, and rightly earned him a spot on the National League All Star team.
That performance was largely driven by a 31.7% K rate and a 33.0% whiff rate — the only pitchers with a higher whiff rate in the first three months were Logan Gilbert, Dylan Cease and Tarik Skubal. The problem with loud contact, however, hadn’t gone away — his wOBA and xwOBA on contact were both .398, and that xwOBA on contact placed him 91st out of those 103 pitchers in the first three months of the season. Its just that he generated enough Ks, and avoided enough walks, to be able to be great despite that.
As you can probably already guess, Gore was not able to sustain that over the final three months of the season. He allowed a .363 xwOBA in the second half, worse than all but 12 of the 103 pitchers with at least 2000 pitches in 2025. His whiff rate dropped to 24.7%, 47th best, and his K rate dropped to 20.4%, while his walk rate jumped from 7.3% to 12.4%. If we ignore his first two starts in July (which were both good), and look at just his results in the second half of the season, he put up a 6.75 ERA and a 5.49 FIP. That is…bad.
I will note that Gore did have two brief injured list stints in the second half, one in late August due to shoulder inflammation, one late in the year an ankle impingement that ended his season. If one is an optimistic, one can certainly choose to believe that the second half dip was due to physical issues, and that if he’s fully healthy he’ll pitch like he did in the first half of the season.
One could also say that his second half numbers are skewed by a horrendous four start stretch right after the All Star Game, when he allowed 23 runs in 15.2 innings, walked 11 guys, allowed six home runs, and struck out just 10 batters, and if we take his six starts from there until his penultimate start of the year, and ignore his final start, when he allowed four runs in two innings but * hand waves * that was probably because of the ankle injury that resulted in him going on the injured list the next day, he put up a 2.84 ERA and 3.23 FIP. Of course, you can make a whole lot of pitchers look really good if you just ignore their worst starts.
Also, interestingly, we saw the same sort of split in performance in 2024 as in 2025, albeit in a less extreme fashion. Gore was 40th out of 103 pitchers in xwOBA through the end of June in 2024, and 73rd from July 1 on.
So what is our takeaway from all this?
Gore has the ability to be a front line starter. He has pitched like a front line starter in the first three months of each of the past two seasons, and pitched like a legitimate #1 starter in the first half of the 2025 season. Given that he was touted as a potential front line starter leading into the 2017 draft, and then through most of his minor league career, that isn’t really surprising.
The question is whether Gore can be a front line starter consistently — put up a full season performance worthy of a #1 or #2 starter. The question is whether going from the Nationals — who have been terrible the entire time Gore has been there — to the Rangers will make a difference, whether the Rangers can work with Gore to make improvements to allow him to tighten his command, make adjustments with his pitches and/or pitch selection, that will allow him to take a step forward.
If that happens — if Gore can consistently perform at the level he has in the first half of the past two seasons — then this trade is a home run for the Rangers. They will have gotten two cost-controlled seasons of a legitimate TORP for a package that is much less than what a cost-controlled TORP commands.
And if that doesn’t happen, and Gore ends up being a 2-3 win pitcher the next couple of seasons…well, the Rangers would still have a guy who is worthy of being in the rotation of a playoff team, something that they really needed to add this offseason anyway.
The Mets' offseason started to unfold in shocking fashion with a trio of rapid succession moves that shook the core of the team.
Brandon Nimmo was traded to the Rangers for Marcus Semien.
Edwin Diaz left for the Dodgers.
Pete Alonso left for the Orioles.
In the case of Nimmo, the Mets smartly decided to get out from under the five years remaining on his deal ahead of his age-33 season.
When it came to Alonso, the Mets decided it was best to move on, allowing him to bolt to Baltimore on a five-year deal worth $155 million.
The Diaz situation was complicated, with him wanting to return but leaving for the Dodgers after something seemingly went haywire toward the end of his contract negotiations.
As recently as 10 days ago, the Mets were still very much an unfinished product. They had added Semien's Gold Glove to second base, Devin Williams to close, Luke Weaver to set up, and Jorge Polanco to help fill the void left by Alonso. But David Stearns' full plan hadn't yet come into focus.
With the heavy lifting now done and the team transformed, here is our way-too-early prediction for what the 26-man roster will look like on Opening Day...
REGULAR LINEUP
Francisco Alvarez: C Jorge Polanco: 1B Marcus Semien: 2B Francisco Lindor: SS Bo Bichette: 3B Carson Benge: LF Luis Robert Jr.: CF Juan Soto: RF Brett Baty: DH
There are three big questions here: Will Polanco see most of his time at first base, who will the regular left fielder be, and who will get the bulk of the at-bats at designated hitter?
Polanco, a natural middle infielder who began working out at first base while with the Mariners last season and has continued learning the intricacies of the position this winter, figures to adapt well. In a world where he doesn't, or if the Mets simply want to get him off his feet, they could theoretically try Baty at first base and use Polanco to DH.
Oct 13, 2025; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Seattle Mariners infielder Jorge Polanco (7) throws to first base for the first out in the third inning against the Toronto Blue Jays during game two of the ALCS round for the 2025 MLB playoffs at Rogers Centre. / Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images
As far as left field, Stearns reiterated after the addition of Robert that Benge will be given a chance to win the job. The club is very high on Benge, as evidenced by the chance he'll get this spring and their refusal to discuss him in trades this winter.
In his first full season in professional ball in 2025, Benge slashed .281/.385/.472 with 15 home runs, 25 doubles, seven triples, and 22 stolen bases across three levels -- finishing up with 24 games for Triple-A Syracuse.
While Benge hit a bit of a speed bump in Triple-A, it was a very small sample size, and he was also dealing with an injury after getting hit by a pitch in the wrist in August.
Shortly after the 2025 season ended, Stearns cited a need to be more proactive going forward. Having Benge on the roster from the jump is one way to do that.
When it comes to DH, that feels like a spot that should be split between Baty and Mark Vientos. Yes, Baty can fill in at third base, second base, left field, and perhaps first base. But his best chance for consistent at-bats could be at DH.
STARTING ROTATION
Freddy Peralta: RHP Nolan McLean: RHP Sean Manaea: LHP Clay Holmes: RHP David Peterson: LHP Kodai Senga: RHP
With the Mets having six legitimate big league starting pitching options, using a six-man rotation feels like a no-brainer.
It makes even more sense when you consider that McLean will be in his first full big league season, Holmes is coming off a year where he had the most innings he's ever pitched (by far), Peterson is also coming off a career-high in innings, and Senga is best-suited on an every-sixth-day schedule.
Beyond the main six expected starters is intriguing depth.
Sep 18, 2025; New York City, New York, USA; New York Mets starting pitcher Jonah Tong (21) pitches against the San Diego Padres during the first inning at Citi Field. / Brad Penner - Imagn Images
Jonah Tong, who showed serious flashes during his debut late last season, figures to open the season with Triple-A Syracuse.
The 22-year-old made only two starts in Triple-A last season before being promoted to the majors, so it's fair to believe he can benefit from the ability to refine his arsenal there for a bit before coming back up.
Then there's Christian Scott, who missed the entire 2025 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery but who should be fully healthy and ready to go.
Meanwhile, prospects Jonathan Santucci and Jack Wenninger could possibly reach the majors in 2026.
Williams, Weaver, Raley, and Garcia are locks. And A.J. Minter will be in the 'pen once he's fully healthy. But it's likely that Minter will need a few extra weeks to get ready after recovering from lat surgery. That would leave three open spots for Opening Day.
While Myers can be optioned to the minors, there's really no reason for the Mets to go that route unless they're facing a serious numbers crunch.
May 5, 2025; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA; Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Tobias Myers (36) throws a pitch during the first inning against the Houston Astros at American Family Field. / Jeff Hanisch - Imagn Images
Myers was used mainly as a starter in 2024 before transitioning to mostly a relief role in 2025 -- and Stearns suggested after acquiring him that Myers will be used in relief, with the Mets having the ability to stretch him out if needed.
In 28.1 innings over 16 appearances as a reliever in 2025, Myers had a 1.91 ERA and 0.91 WHIP while posting a strikeout to walk rate of 6.67.
Brazoban pitched relatively well last season and figures to get a crack from the outset.
Then there's Alzolay, who can be a serious weapon if healthy.
Other options include hard-throwing prospects Dylan Ross and Ryan Lambert, as well as Jonathan Pintaro, Alex Carrillo, and Joey Gerber.
BENCH
Tyrone Taylor: OF Luis Torrens: C Mark Vientos: INF Vidal Brujan: UTIL
Barring a trade, Taylor, Torrens, and Vientos are locks.
And if the Mets go with a six-man rotation, that leaves just one more bench spot.
It could theoretically go to Ronny Mauricio, but it can be argued that he's better off getting regular at-bats in the minors.
Jared Young is another option.
But no one can match the positional versatility of Brujan, who is able to play literally every spot except catcher.
