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What a heartbreaking way to lose a game. The San Diego Padres had what appeared to be the go-ahead run over the Milwaukee Brewers when Ty France slugged a moonshot out to left field in the top of the ninth inning. Instead, the ball hit the roof and fell straight down into Jackson Chourio’s glove for an out. It almost certainly would have been a homer, but the official ruling is out.

However, San Diego had plenty of positives. The offense got to ace Jacob Misiorowski, tagging him for two runs before he was lifted in the fourth inning. After that, it got hazy. The Padres kept taking worse and worse at-bats as the game went on. Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado both struck out on three pitches in key situations. They’ll need to do better to even the series this afternoon.

Taking the mound

Logan Henderson (MIL) v. Michael King (SD)

What Henderson doesn’t have in tenure, he makes up for in immense recent success. The right-hander posted a 2.47 ERA in 18 starts (98.1 IP) this season with a 1.93 ERA in his final seven starts of the year. Henderson would have been the best pitcher in Milwaukee’s starting rotation if not for a young flamethrower named Jacob Misiorowski.

The 24-year old has never faced the Padres, which should be an advantage for him. His four-seamer, changeup combo is devastating, but if San Diego can have some plate discipline they should be able to beat Henderson. If their offense keeps trying to play the hero, it’ll be another story.

King will be making his second start of this postseason, after pitching a gem against the Chicago Cubs in Game 1 of the Wild Card series. King took a no-hitter into the seventh that night and was incredibly dominant against a potent offense. He’ll need to do the same this afternoon to give the Padres a shot at winning the series at home.

The Padres’ ace faced the Brewers only once this season (May 13), when he faced off against Misiorowski. King twirled 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball. There’s an immense amount of pressure on King to perform similar to his Wild Card start. If he can get through six quality innings, it’ll be a huge sigh of relief for San Diego.

Batter up!

It was a rough game for the offense. The Padres could have won the game if they hadn’t regressed so much from how they looked in the Wild Card. San Diego’s lineup left 12 runners on and went a dismal 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position. The Friars will need to wake up if they have any hope of evening the Division Series in Milwaukee.

1. Fernando Tatis Jr., RF
2. Dustin Harris, LF
3. Manny Machado, 3B
4. Ty France, 1B
5. Jackson Merrill, CF
6. Xander Bogaerts, SS
7. Gavin Sheets, DH
8. Jake Cronenworth, 2B
9. Luis Campusano, C

It’s possible that Sheets continues to only be used in pinch-hit situations. He is still dealing with a foot injury that sidelined him for much of the stretch run. However, with his potent bat left on the bench in Game 1, it’s likely that San Diego turns to the slugger in such an important moment.

Relief corps

The Padres expended a lot of high-leverage relievers in the series opener last night. After starter Robbie Ray went just 2 2/3 innings, San Diego turned to Bradgley Rodriguez, Yuki Matsui, Jason Adam and Adrian Morejon to pitch the final frames. Mason Miller is the only traditional reliever left for the Friars.

That being said, with the off day on Monday, it’s highly likely that everyone except Morejon will be on the table. The southpaw threw two innings and probably won’t pitch unless it’s absolutely necessary. Matsui and Adam each threw just 15 and 16 pitches, respectively, so they’ll factor as the first out of the ‘pen. Should King stumble early, Randy Vásquez could enter the game in bulk relief.

After a drama-filled win in Game 1, complete with homers from Jackson Chourio and William Contreras plus a roof strike in the 9th inning, the Milwaukee Brewers are looking to take a 2-0 advantage in the series this afternoon.

The Brewers will have right-hander Logan Henderson on the mound, making his first career postseason start. Henderson had a 2.47 ERA in the regular season, and is yet to allow more than three earned runs in a start in his career.

“He’s an old fashioned executer.” Pat Murphy said.

The Padres will have their ace on the mound, Michael King. King was phenomenal in his start against the Cubs in the Wild Card series, going seven innings, allowing just one hit and no runs while striking out eight. He has a 3.21 ERA on the season and has won all three of his postseason starts in his career.

“I think the biggest thing with Mike is he sets the ton, and obviously we saw it in San Diego in the Wild Card series. He pounds the zone and keeps those guys off balance.”

The Brewers offense will do their best to throw King off his game. Jackson Chourio, the best big game hitter the Brewers have, will hit leadoff once again. Brice Turang and Jake Bauers will follow him. William Contreras will back cleanup while centerfielder Garrett Mitchell moves up to the 5th spot in the order. Christian Yelich will DH once again and bat 6th. Sal Frelick gets the start in right field today and will bat 7th. Cooper Pratt is back down in the 8th spot and David Hamilton rounds out the bottom of the lineup and is playing third base.

The Padres make just some minor changes from their Game 1 lineup. It’s Fernando Tatis Jr, Dustin Harris, and Manny Machado atop their order. Ty France, Jackson Merrill, and then Ethan Salas form the middle of the order. Salas swaps spots with Xander Bogaerts, who drops to 7th for this game. Then Luis Campusano is batting 8th with Jake Cronenworth batting 9th. Campusano is catching today after DHing yesterday and Salas is the DH after catching yesterday.

Pat Murphy did name his Game 3 starter as well. It will be Dustin May getting the ball in San Diego on Tuesday. May is a veteran that has pitched against the Padres more than anyone else in his career. He has a 3.14 ERA against San Diego over his career.

The Brewers will need Henderson to give them a little more length in this game after Jacob Misiorowski lasted just four innings in Game 1. Milwaukee used five relievers to cover the final five innings and King is going to present quite the challenge for this lineup.

It’s looking like it could be another pitcher’s duel. There was a lot of traffic on the bases in Game 1, but not a ton of scoring. Eventually, that dam is going to burst if that trend continues.

Also, the roof will be open for gametime! It’s not often to see October weather nice enough for the roof to be kept open, but on a clear, sunny day, it’ll be roof open and back panels closed. Ty France is sure to be one player who’s excited to see the roof open.

Logan Henderson. Michael King. Brewers. Padres. It’s Game 2 of the NLDS with the Brewers looking to go up 2-0 in the series before it turns to San Diego.

The second phase of this year’s Major League Playoffs are underway after yesterday’s full slate of electric games. From the Chicago White Sox blanking their division rival Cleveland Guardians to Tampa Bay Rays righty Drew Rasmussen nearly no-hitting the New York Yankees at a packed Tropicana Field, the American League matchups provided plenty of excitement.

Today, the spotlight is on the National League teams, who also provided plenty of memorable playoff baseball. The Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers slugged it out at a scorching hot Chavez Ravine. The temperature at first pitch on the field felt like 120 degrees and all eight combined runs in a 5-3 Dodgers victory were scored via the home run.

Meanwhile in Milwaukee, Jacob Misiorowski dialed up a 105 MPH fastball for the first pitch of the Brewers’ contest against the San Diego Padres. It was the fastest first pitch in post-season history. The Brewers and Padres played a tight contest until Milwaukee pulled ahead late on a solo home run. The Padres had a chance to take the lead in the top of the ninth, but a towering moonshot off the bat of Ty France bounced off the roof and landed in the glove of Jackson Chourio.

San Diego Padres (0-0) at Milwaukee Brewers (0-0) — 2:00 PM MDT

Pitching Matchup: RHP Michael King (12-10, 3.21 ERA) vs RHP Logan Henderson (11-3, 2.47 ERA)

SB Nation Sites:Gaslamp Ball, Brew Crew Ball

Lineups:

Atlanta Braves (0-1) at Los Angeles Dodgers (1-0) — 6:00 PM MDT

Pitching Matchup: LHP Ray Kerr (0-0, 1.47 ERA) vs LHP Blake Snell (4-1, 1.90 ERA)

SB Nation Sites:Battery Power, True Blue LA

Lineups:

Please keep in mind our Purple Row Community Guidelines when you’re commenting. Thanks!

The Braves had a major starting pitching disadvantage in Game 1 of their NL Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday.

While the Dodgers trotted out one of the best pitchers in baseball, Tarik Skubal, on extra rest, Atlanta was forced to begin with a bullpen game due to its rash of late-season pitching injuries and the fact that its wild-card series against the Phillies earlier in the week went three games.

While there was the thought that Chris Sale would bounce back from his relief appearance in Thursday’s Game 3 of the wild-card series on one day of rest to start Sunday’s Game 2 of the NLDS, that won’t be the case.

The Braves will instead have left-hander Ray Kerr (0-0, 0.00 ERA in postseason), who delivered as an opener in Thursday’s winner-take-all game against the Phillies, start Sunday night’s Game 2 (8 p.m. on FS1).

Sale, who would have been in line to start Game 2 on normal rest, threw 21 pitches to record the final four outs Thursday on his normal bullpen day.

The 32-year-old Kerr, who made his postseason debut Thursday and wrote another chapter in his long and winding journey to the majors, allowed just one hit and one walk over 3 1/3 scoreless innings, doing his job against the challenging top of the Phillies order.

He’ll have an even tougher task against a Dodgers lineup which will have Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman as challenging left-handed bats in the top few spots of the order. But Los Angeles’ lineup is far more balanced and lethal than Philadelphia’s, making for a more difficult all-around challenge in Kerr’s second career postseason start.

Kerr is on two days’ rest from throwing 47 pitches, so it’s a little unclear how many pitches he’ll be available for in this game. The better news for the Braves is that they’ll have a mostly full allotment of their top bullpen arms available for this game after Didier Fuentes, Dylan Lee and Raisel Iglesias were relied on heavily in the wild-card round.

While Sale could in theory be available for a limited pitch count Sunday, it seems far more likely they’re holding him back for Game 3 in Atlanta on Tuesday with the hope that the Braves aren’t in a 2-0 hole.

The Dodgers, in pretty much the exact opposite situation to the Braves, announced their full-series pitching plan before it began. That plan sees left-hander Blake Snell (4-1, 1.90 ERA) get the ball for Game 2 with a chance to grab a 2-0 lead before the series flips to Atlanta.

Snell made just nine starts this regular season, missing the start of the year due to left shoulder fatigue and then loose bodies in his throwing elbow which sidelined him an additional three months after he made his first start.

Since returning and being able to stay healthy since August, though, he’s been effective. He’s thrown five-plus innings in six of his eight starts over the last two months, allowing no more than one run in any outing. He had a 1.17 ERA in four August starts and a 1.08 ERA in four September starts. Over that span, he has 50 strikeouts to 14 walks over 39 2/3 innings.

Snell’s metrics, albeit in a small sample size, look great with his xERA (2.17) not far above his actual ERA.

Snell also has a strong track record in the postseason, with a 7-5 record and 3.27 ERA over 18 games (15 starts) spanning four postseasons with the Rays (2019-20), Padres (2022) and Dodgers (2025). Last season for Los Angeles, he pitched in six postseason games (five starts) with a 3-2 record and 3.18 ERA over 34 innings. He took the loss in Game 5 of the World Series, giving up five runs on six hits over 6 2/3 innings, but then tossed 1 1/3 scoreless innings of relief on two days’ rest in Game 7.

Snell’s lone start of this season before August came against the Braves on May 9 in Los Angeles. Atlanta tagged him for five runs (four earned) on six hits over three innings, handing him his only regular-season loss. In six career appearances against the Braves, Snell is 0-3 with a 3.49 ERA but has never faced them in the postseason.

Once again, it would seem the odds are stacked against the Braves Sunday night. They’ll likely need to beat those odds this time to have a realistic chance at keeping their season alive and advancing to the NLCS.

With one on and one out in the ninth inning of Saturday’s NLDS Game 1, the Padres trailing 3–2, Ty France lofted a deep fly ball to left that hit the roof at American Family Field — and dropped right into the glove of Brewers left fielder Jackson Chourio.

Was it a home run? An out? Even the broadcast booth couldn’t agree on the ground rules, and things only got weirder from there.

The immediate reaction from FOX analysts and former big-leaguers AJ Pierzynski and Adam Wainwright, citing the pregame ground-rules meeting, was that a ball hitting the roof meant a home run. Meanwhile, play-by-play man Adam Amin was adamant that the umpires had it right in calling it an out.

Despite three-ish minutes of absolute chaos and a massive spike in Google searches for “what happens when a ball hits the roof in baseball,” Amin did have it right. Per American Family Field’s ground rules, a ball that hits the roof over fair territory stays in play, so France’s fly ball was ruled a catch by Chourio for the second out. Now down to their last out, San Diego challenged whether the ball hit the roof over fair territory and lost.

If Pierzynski and Wainwright didn’t know the ground rules, the average baseball fan probably didn’t either. Here are (brief) answers to all of the questions you may have had while watching last night’s game.

This doesn’t happen often, right?

Correct, although France’s fly ball was at least the third time in history that a ball has hit the roof in fair territory at American Family Field. It’s actually not the first time that it’s happened in the NLDS; in Game 4 of the 2008 NLDS, Phillies outfielder Jayson Werth hit a fly ball that struck a roof truss and was snagged on a diving catch by none other than Craig Counsell. The second time was in a regular season game in 2018; Reds infielder Scooter Gennett hit a fly ball that, again, came down in fair territory and was caught for an out by Eric Sogard. The third time was last night.

Is this quirk unique to Milwaukee?

Definitely not — almost a quarter of big-league stadiums (7 out of 30) have retractable roofs, and the Rays’ Tropicana Field has a fixed roof. There have been some way crazier examples than what happened in last night’s game.

One of the most famous examples of balls hitting roofs occurred over fifty years ago, on June 10, 1974; Mike Schmidt crushed a towering fly ball that hit a public-address speaker hanging from the roof at the Astrodome — about 117 feet up and 329 feet from home plate. The ball dropped into shallow center field, and under the ground rules it was in play, so Schmidt only got a single despite estimates suggesting it would have traveled over 500 feet. In the words of Schmidt himself, “That damn speaker cost me a homer.”

On May 4, 1984, Dave Kingman of the Oakland Athletics hit a fly ball that rose towards the roof, then disappeared and never came down. The ball had gone through a seven-inch-wide drainage hole in the roof. Umpires Jim Evans and Ted Hendry conferred and realized there was no ground rule for this situation. Evans made a judgment call and awarded Kingman a ground-rule double, partly based on precedent: he had made a similar call in Seattle’s Kingdome when a fly ball got stuck in a speaker. A’s manager Steve Boros backed the call, saying that Evans used common sense.

The Tropicana Incidents

Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays, has perhaps the most famous roof in baseball. The “Trop,” as it’s known to Rays fans, has four catwalk rings, lettered A (highest, innermost) through D (lowest, outermost). Because the dome tilts toward the outfield, the catwalks hang lower out there.

Under the current rules, the A Ring and the fair portion of the B Ring are in play, so a ball can drop for a hit or be caught for an out. The C and D Rings are out of play, and hitting either between the foul poles is a home run. Those rules are only in place because of a number of weird roof-related incidents that led to rule changes; for the sake of brevity, I won’t cover all of them, but here are the ones most similar to the France fly ball.

On May 26, 2008, Rays slugger Carlos Peña hit a pop fly to center that Josh Hamilton probably would have caught, but it hit the B Ring and stayed there. Peña was mistakenly given a home run before the umpires conferred and changed it to a ground-rule double.

On August 5, 2010, with the game tied 6–6 and two outs in the top of the ninth, Jason Kubel of the Twins hit a sky-high infield pop-up that would have ended the inning. Instead, it hit the A Ring and fell safely on the infield, letting the Twins score the go-ahead run in an 8–6 win. MLB then made A and B Ring hits automatic dead balls, but that change lasted only for the 2010 postseason.

In June 2018, the Yankees’ Clint Frazier hit a ninth-inning fly ball in a 6–6 game that bounced off a speaker on the B Ring and was caught by Adeiny Hechavarría. Some argued it would have been a go-ahead homer; the Rays went on to win in extras on a walk-off.

This season, on May 2, the Giants’ Heliot Ramos hit what looked like a two-run homer, but it came down in Cedric Mullins’ glove. The Giants challenged, believing it had hit a catwalk, but crew chief Vic Carapazza said no camera angle could prove it, so the call stood. Two members of the Giants (pitching director Frank Anderson and Brewers legend Adrian Houser) were ejected for continuing to argue.

Would France’s fly ball have been a homer?

No, probably not. You can’t say definitively one way or another (because, well, the ball did in fact hit the roof), but Statcast data strongly supports the conclusion that France’s ball would have fallen short of the left field fence.

France hit that ball 105.3 mph at a 49-degree launch angle, which — per Statcast — would have been a homer in only one park: Daikin Park in Houston. There were 27 fly balls this season at 105 mph and 49 degrees, and none were home runs. Batters hit .038 this season on balls with a 49-degree launch angle.

The most convincing point: only 10 over-the-fence homers in the Statcast era have had a launch angle that high, and there has never, ever been a home run recorded at American Family Field with a launch angle above 46 degrees. Ironically, the ball clearing the fence would have been rarer than the ball hitting the roof. The most likely scenario would have been a deep fly-out, which is exactly what ended up happening.

So, should we ban roofs in baseball?

Every baseball stadium has its quirks. Fenway Park’s “Green Monster” wall in left field is extremely close and extremely tall, meaning that line drives that would go out at, say, American Family Field turn into doubles (and sometimes singles). Wrigley Field’s outfield walls are made of ivy-covered brick. Daikin Park used to have a “fun and quirky” hill in center field.

A roof is just another quirk, except unlike a hill in center field, it actually serves a purpose. Cold-weather cities like Milwaukee, Seattle, and Toronto deal with freezing temperatures and weather concerns in April and sometimes late September. Hot-weather cities like Houston, Phoenix, Miami, and Tampa face the opposite: brutal summer heat, humidity, and frequent afternoon thunderstorms. 

Eevery park has its own ground rules, and both teams go over them with the umpires before every game. A ball hitting the roof once every ten years doesn’t offset the positives of being able to play baseball when Mother Nature would deem it impossible.

In short, baseball is weird.

Nearing 34 years of age, Blake Snell has spoken about his belief in solidifying a Hall of Fame case by building up his legacy in postseason action—evidently, that desire played a role in him signing with the Dodgers, a team that doesn’t necessarily need him to get to this position but might benefit greatly from his impact in the most crucial games in October baseball.

Although the journey was different, the outcome is similar in a second season with the Dodgers marked by missed time during the regular year and full availability in the playoffs. In fact, heading into today’s game against the Braves, roughly one out of every four innings covered by Snell in a Dodger uniform has come in the playoffs, 24,64 percent to be exact.

Struggles in last season’s World Series aside, Snell was outstanding for the better part of the 2025 playoffs. And he is one win away with the Dodgers from tying the number of postseason victories (4) in his career prior to joining Los Angeles. Standing in his way is an Atlanta team that was just bullied by another left-handed star pitcher, with their backs against the wall, trying to avoid an 0-2 deficit.

With just one day off after three straight games and trailing for the better part of Game 1, the Braves logically opted to save their top relievers in this series opener. Regardless of the specifics of Atlanta’s plans for Game 2, the Dodgers will be facing a superior level of pitching, which inevitably increases the pressure on Snell’s performance.

NLDS Game 2 info

• Teams: No. 2 seed Dodgers vs. No. 3 seed Braves
• Series: Los Angeles leads, 1-0
• Ballpark: Dodger Stadium
• Start time: 5:03 p.m.
• TV: FS1 (Joe Davis, John Smoltz, Ken Rosenthal)
• National radio: ESPN Radio (Dave O’Brien, Jessica Mendoza)
• Local English radio: AM 570 (Charley Steiner, Rick Monday)
• Local Spanish radio: KTNQ 1020 AM (José Mota, Luis Cruz)

I’ll confess that I don’t know what the plan is for the San Francisco Giants. It was a lot easier when the nerdy front office telegraphed its statistical interests and preferred player profiles, but these 97-game losers are sort of inscrutable. High contact hitters? Sure. Sinker-slider pitchers with strikeouts and velocity secondary? Okay. Winning? Optional. It leaves me feeling a little uncertain about which way the team will go with most of its roster decisions and even how they might decide with their arbitration eligible players.

On Friday night, MLB Trade Rumors posted their annual salary arbitration projection article, which uses Matt Swartz’s formula and has come pretty close to nailing the final figure year in and year out. Last year was a little bit different for we spectators and the formula’s relevance concerning our favorite team. The San Francisco Giants had three arbitration-eligible players, with two (Patrick Bailey & Ryan Walker) just missing the eligibility cutoff.

• JT Brubaker (5.162) — $2.1MM | ACTUAL: $1.82MM
• Andrew Knizner (5.090) — $2MM | ACTUAL: designated for assignment
• Joey Lucchesi (5.047) — $2MM | ACTUAL: designated for assignment

Of course, both non-tendered players wound up back with the organization at some point in 2026 — Luccehsi in a Spring Training deal he opted out of when the Giants picked up Ryan Borucki and Knizner in a major league deal back in August to give depth to a depleted catcher corps. Supremely low stakes and low performance all around (these three players combined for +0.7 fWAR in 2025 and -0.4 in 2026), but it’s worth pointing out that being a Major League Baseball player isn’t easy. Fewer than 1,000 dudes a year are good enough to play it.

These arbitration eligible players amount to cases for the team to contemplate as they approach the offseason. They can always sign these players to a contract before anything becomes fraught. That’s where the MLB Trade Rumors formula provides insight. This is the general range if not exact dollar amount teams an player alike are starting with; arbitration-based salaries are based on recent MLB history, but also need. Sure, the team might need player X, but not at cost Y. Sometimes, cost Y is a virtual given, but player X might not be quite worth it — and that’s when you see non-tenders. A non-tender is a team giving up their exclusive “rights” to or “control” of a player, but it doesn’t mean team and player can’t negotiate anymore. And, of course, in addition to non-tendering or winding up in an adversarial arbitration hearing, a team and player can simply agree to a contract.

I mention that because the commentariat seems to think that will happen with one of the Giants’ potential arbitration cases. So, let’s get into these cases, ending each one with my own judgment about what the Giants should do. I used to describe these as “predictions” because I felt a little more confident about what the team’s goals were or what sort of player profiles interest them, but as I mentioned above, I have no idea what’s going on with the team day to day. They do need to improve, though.

Camilo Doval

MLB Trade Rumors Projection: $6.6 million

Yeah, let’s just get the big fish out of the way. The Giants put in a waiver claim at season’s end after the Pirates tried to save a few bucks once it was clear their Wild Card aspirations were toast — okay, and “the Pirates decided that 19 innings with 14 walks allowed was enough to cut bait” — and he wound up being the Orange and Black’s best healthy reliever on the final day of the season.

My poor eyes did wind up popping out of my skull a little as I took a look at his end of the season Statcast. First, I’ll backup your skepticism with his Statcast charting from 2023-2026. Clear decline:

On the other hand, take a look at how his pitch arsenal compares to the rest of the sport:

For velocity:

#13 in sinker (98.2 mph)
#1 in cutter (98.8 mph)
#33 in slider (89.0 mph)
#2 in changeup (94.5 mph) — only threw this pitch 25 times

For spin:

#7 in sinker (2,530 rpm)
#29 in cutter (2,561 rpm)
#30 in slider (2,691 rpm)
#103 in changeup (1,807 rpm) — only threw this pitch 25 times

For xwOBA:

#40 in sinker (.330), +2 RV
#68 in cutter (.358), -4 RV
#28 in slider (.232), -1 RV
XX in changeup (.055) +1 RV — only threw this pitch 25 times

When you look at where he lands on these lists, he’s basically a perfectly average or slightly above average pitcher. The pitch characteristics in the broadest possible sense (velocity and spin) still put him among the elite relievers in the sport, but we know from experience and even from this data that he’s not that. But the temptation ought to be there to see if it’s still possible to coach up control to go with the stuff.

And then there’s another stat to throw in here. Run Value is a stat that is a straightforward scoring of a pitch (ball, strike, home run) without the outcome weighing on it (a ball that’s ball four, a strike that’s strike three, a home run that drives in 3 runs). But Statcast has now added Leveraged Run Value:

Leveraged run value weights the impact of a play based on the base/out situation — in a higher-leverage situation, the positive or negative run value resulting from a pitch will be greater. Hitters and pitchers who have better “clutch” performances might have higher total run values using the leveraged version. This leaderboard also includes how much extra run value a player gains or loses from his performance in different leveraged situations.

That’s very valuable for a reliever. Context-neutral, Doval is below average, with his pitching amounting to a -2 in Run Value (2o1st out of 300); and, unsurprisingly, Doval is far from elite even by the Leveraged Run Value measure, but at +2, he’s 89 out of 300 — above average, suddenly. Not tremendously so, but about as effective as Seranthony Dominguez was this year, and he signed a 2-year $20 million before the start of the season and wound up exactly replacement level (0.0 fWAR). Doval was about the same this year: 0.1 fWAR across 3 teams, his same value in 2024 over a full season for the Giants (he was +0.6 last year for the Giants & Yankees).

Tender or non-tender? TENDER.

At the time of the acquisition, and because of MLB Trade Rumors’ tremendous track record in projecting arbitration salaries, most people (myself included) following the transaction closely — not just the storyline of his return, but that he was in good health and still throwing 98+ and had another year of team control — took this part of the MLBTR article as fact when formulating their opinion about what the Giants might do with him now that he was back in the fold:

Doval is making $6.1MM this season and can be retained for next season via arbitration. He won’t be able to get a huge raise based on this year’s 4.30 earned run average, but should be able to get into the $7-8MM range.

Now they’re projecting something distinctly different and in the much more reasonable in terms of the Giants tendering him a contract. Now, the team could still tender him, fail to come to an agreement, file a number with the arbitration panel and lose that case in which they could pay more, but then they could pull a J.D. Davis on him. On the other hand, why not keep him, or come to some sort of deal that’s in the $6.5 million range with some incentives for games finished, provided he can win back the closer job he had in his previous stint? This is about the going rate for a reliever of his type.

Rowan Wick

MLB Trade Rumors Projection: $800,000

Tender or non-tender? TENDER, but… the Giants already hold an option for 2027. He was signed before 2026 with full knowledge that he would spend the entire 2026 rehabbing. He hasn’t pitched in MLB since 2022, spent all of 2023 in the minors, but in 2024 & 2025 pitched in Japan where he had ERAs of 3.09 and 1.32 ERA.

According to the big injury update we received last Tuesday, is in Arizona throwing two side sessions per week and is expected to transition to live BPs in October. He turns 34 in November.

I’m sure his inclusion on this list is only a technicality. The Giants haven’t officially announced that they’ve exercised his option and, therefore, his MLB service clock (4.114) would trigger a sort for arbitration eligible players without a contract already for 2027. But, it’s more correct to say that the team has 8 arbitration-eligible players… or fewer, if these next couple of cases don’t actually land on the right side of the cutoff.

José Buttó

MLB Trade Rumors Projection: $800,000

My reservations about José Buttó stem entirely from his lack of an option. His 3.83 FIP from (2023-2025) is slightly more encouraging, but the 4.43 xFIP isn’t. A blood clot is a scary injury to come back from and there could simply be a numbers game the Giants can’t make work.

From a human being perspective, tendering him a contract allows him to continue his rehab with the team until the lockout hits. On the other hand, it’s hard to know just who the Giants have. He was truly dominant in 2024 and the 2025 results are approaching the polar opposite. 2026 was an injury year. Does the cycle reset and he returns to a sub-.200 batting average against guy?

Tender or non-tender? NON-TENDER.

Sinkers are still the coin of the realm (+331 Run Value, league-wide, compared to -31 for four-seamers), but Butto’s 94-96 version is easily duplicated with players the Giants already have on hand and the roster spot might be more important going to a more experienced or talented veteran or simply paying a little bit less to get more upside. If this year hadn’t been such a catastrophe in the bullpen, then I might’ve said he was an easy tender. Now, I think the team needs to cool it on their practice of holding spots for guys returning from injuries.

Now, last year, I ran into a problem where I didn’t factor in the Super Two cutoff (how early players could be eligible for arbitration), but as I’ll note below, it would seem that this case and the next one do meet the criteria for arbitration in 2027.

Randy Rodríguez

MLB Trade Rumors Projection: $800,000

As with José Buttó, Rodríguez appears to be just past the cutoff point for arbitration eligibility. From this August post on MLB Trade Rumors:

[…] players automatically qualify for arbitration when they have at least three years of service time and don’t already have a guaranteed contract. For players who finish a season between two and three years, the top 22% of players in terms of service time also qualify, as long as they spent at least 86 days of the most recent season on the active roster or injured list. The cutoff will vary slightly from year to year, depending on the details of the players in the 2-3 window. Looking at previous years, the recent cutoffs have been as low as 2.115 and as high as 2.146:

2025: 2.140
2024: 2.132
2023: 2.118
2022: 2.128
2021: 2.116
2020: 2.125
2019: 2.115
2018: 2.134
2017: 2.123
2016: 2.131
2015: 2.130
2014: 2.133
2013: 2.122
2012: 2.140
2011: 2.146

Rodriguez is at 2.148, which would seem to just surpass the cutoff, based on history (Butto is 2.168). It’s immaterial to his case, of course, as the Giants will tender him a contract and sign him to a deal.

Tender or non-tender? TENDER. The only thing that might be interesting to see is if they sign him to a multi-year deal or include some incentives in this next one. On the other hand, he is the closer in waiting who’ll be 27 in 2027. His agent could simply ask for something more in line with those figures. The arbitration panels aren’t a total free-for-all — he could only be compared to players who’d previously been in his situation: a 27-year old right-handed relievers in his first year of arbitration. They also tend to emphasize counting stats, and with only 4 major league saves under his belt, it’s probably not a compelling case. Still, his talent is sort of undeniable and so the Giants might not actually have as much leverage in this situation. But they have to make sure they don’t accidentally set a new precedent for future arbitration hearings or agents. Maybe they don’t throw $1-$1.5 million his way, but don’t be surprised if they wind up signing him for a number greater than $800,000… unless MLB Trade Rumors projected the cutoff incorrectly again and this is another Patrick Bailey/Ryan Walker situation where he (and Butto) aren’t actually arbitration eligible.

Okay… have I sufficiently C’d my A? Moving on…

Casey Schmitt

MLB Trade Rumors Projection: $2.5 million

Tender or non-tender? TENDER. I didn’t want to waste any time on this one. Obviously, the Giants will hold on to Schmitt. Will they sign him for greater than the projected $2.5 million is the only question. He certainly has a case with being a potential multi-positional player; but, at the same time, this is probably a fair deal for a guy who might struggle to replicate the great season he just had. A .780+ OPS with a ~.300 OBP is tough to sustain over a full season.

Andrew Knizner

MLB Trade Rumors Projection: $1 million

He has put up some traditional backup catcher numbers in the parts of two seasons he’s played for the Giants. A .620 OPS in 168 PA across 62 games is definitionally “backup” but also “fungible.”

Tender or non-tender? NON-TENDER. There’s not too much separation between a million bucks and the league minimum, but every $10,000 counts and non-tendering doesn’t foreclose the possibility of his return (again), but the Giants have a lot of catching options at this point and if they’re really wanting to spend a little money, there are likely to be better options on the open market.

Jason Foley

MLB Trade Rumors Projection:$2.3 million

The Giants signed him in the offseason to a 1-year $2 million contract. According to MLB Trade Rumors’ previous projection, that was under the $3.15 million he would’ve made in arbitration, and so you can see why teams make these strategic non-tenders. Foley missed 2025 recovering from surgery and the Tigers decided to reallocate that money for other purposes (losing the AL Central and trading away Tarik Skubal, I guess). The Giants came in and offered him a number below that projection and now he’s projected for a number that’s still less. The Giants could easily re-sign him for another $2.5 million, but let’s consider Foley’s case in full:

A 4.15 ERA in 26 IP with a 4.22 FIP and 1.50 WHIP. Prior to joining the Giants, he had a career 2.3 BB/9 and 6.8 K/9. Those were 3.8 and 5.2 with the Giants. Now, it was his first year back from injury, and as Zack Minasian has pointed out, it’s the second year when the real pitcher reasserts himself. Is Foley’s peak that of a late inning reliever who can help out in high leverage?

If they keep Doval, then it’s Doval, Rodriguez, Dylan Smith (?), and Jason Foley as quasi-late inning reliever guys. All of them (Rodriguez included) seem best-suited for the 7th inning at best. As four arms in an 8-arm bullpen, though? That could work. Leaves two spots for a pair of left-handed relievers and two spots for late inning guys (an 8th inning guy and a closer). But does that configuration make sense? No space for a long reliever (unless it’s one of the lefties) or, say, Trent Harris, whose velocity gets more strikeouts and will cost substantially less.

At the same time, didn’t the Giants sign him in order to re-sign him? He suppressed home runs and got a lot of groundballs — exactly what they were looking for from him.

Tender or non-tender? NON-TENDER. The Giants aren’t going to blow up their payroll to win 10 more games in another meaningless season and so I think trying to save money where they can could simply mean non-tendering one of the relievers in a relief corps that didn’t bring much joy this season. It gives them some flexibility, too. Doval and Rodriguez are power arm additions to the 2027 bullpen and so Foley is at least a different look that could be effective, but the Giants had the fewest strikeouts in MLB in High Leverage situations (6.13 K/9), the second-most walks (5.12 BB/9), and the fifth-worst ERA in those situations (11.04).

Sam Hentges

MLB Trade Rumors Projection: $2 million

Hentges had a very interesting year in that his relative success (0.5 fWAR, 10.1 K/9, 0 HR allowed, 3.19 ERA / 3.24 FIP in 45 G) came from some very limited leverage (1.02 average leverage at start of appearance; 36.2 IP). But he walked 25 batters in those 36.2 innings and he had a severe reverse platoon split:

vs. LHH — .328/.434/.358
vs. RHH — .173/.311/.240

He was also a tremendous jerk. But that might be a feature rather than a bug. We don’t know yet what the Justice Department’s pursuit of justice against the Giants will be, but it’s entirely possible that Hentges could file a Civil Rights claim against the team for non-tendering him.

Tender or non-tender? TENDER. It would be surprising if the Giants non-tendered a bible thumper who had a superficially good year and figures to get better in his second year removed from injury. I personally don’t believe the team should hold space for acknowledged bigots, but I have to accept that they do. And so, if bigots are on the menu, then this is one to keep in the fold.

Ryan Walker

MLB Trade Rumors Projection: $1.6 million

This would be a strategic non-tender under most circumstances:

2023: 61.1 IP, 3.23 ERA / 3.68 FIP, +0.7 fWAR
2024: 80.0 IP, 1.91 ERA / 2.52 FIP, +1.7 fWAR
2025: 61.1 IP, 4.11 ERA / 3.30 FIP, +0.6 fWAR
2026: 32.2 IP, 7.16 ERA / 5.52 FIP, -0.5 fWAR

He’ll be 31 in 2027 with a pair of options. He still throws 95 with his sinker, but that slider spin rate dipped to 2,499 rpm this season. In 2025, those averaged 96 and 2,696, respectively, so that’s a meaningful slip. Another team could probably work to fix his mechanics, or maybe the Giants have a plan to do that. His time in the minors didn’t seem to help with that this year, and with a planned lockout, the Giants aren’t going to have much time to work with him in the offseason.

But, yeah, the Feds.

The Giants are under a microscope in one particular instance. Ryan Walker might be simply uncuttable.

Tender or non-tender? NON-TENDER. Still, he was tremendously bad. Can’t he just get a job in the administration or in right wing media as a victim of Woke? Or… with the Rays on a minor league deal and return to his 2024 form?

So, this is around $13 million in commitments, which would put them around $157 million in salary ($160 million for the current CBT). But who do you think the Giants will keep — or should keep?

In the top of the ninth inning of the Milwaukee Brewers' NL division series opener, fate intervened during a fly ball off the bat of San Diego Padres first baseman Ty France.

His high drive to left field shockingly struck part of the roof at American Family Field and dropped straight down into the glove of the Brewers' Jackson Chourio.

A possible go-ahead two-run homer went down as a routine fly out in the scorebook.

For many Brewers fans, it wasn't a wire or a part of the infrastructure that saved the game – it was the spirit of beloved late broadcaster Bob Uecker.

"I'm telling you, Ueck reached up there and knocked that ball down like a basketball center rejecting a ball, you know what I mean?" Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. "I think Ueck was involved."

More: Brewers pay tribute to franchise icon Bob Uecker in touching ceremony