Tempe, Arizona February 20, 2025-Angel's Mike Trout fields a ball in right field during spring training in Tempe, Arizona. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times) (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)
Only two years ago, the American League Central was crowned the worst division in MLB history. Last season, the Central was the only division in either league to boast four teams with winning records.
So maybe there is hope for the AL West, which supplanted the Central as the worst division in baseball. Then again, maybe that hope is merely a rite of spring, to be dashed during the long summer grind.
Sure, the Texas Rangers won the World Series in 2023, but cratered to a 78-84 record in 2024. With key players returning from injuries, they are the trendy favorite to win the West.
Why? Because the perennial division champion Houston Astros shed payroll by dumping Kyle Tucker, Alex Bregman, Justin Verlander and Ryan Pressly.
Because the Seattle Mariners were comatose all winter, failing to complement their outstanding starting rotation with bats.
Because while the (West Sacramento?) Athletics are improved, they are miles — from here to the state capitol — from contender status.
And because the Angels show zero indication they will improve enough from their 99-loss 2024 campaign to make the playoffs for the first time since 2014.
1 | Texas Rangers
2024 | 78-84, Tied 3rd in West
Last year in playoffs | 2023
The Rangers have most of the players who shined during the 2023 run to the World Series title, and they have the same manager, four-time World Series champion Bruce Bochy. With Corey Seager at shortstop, Marcus Semien at second base, Josh Jung at third and offseason steal Jake Burger at first, the infield is set. Former Dodger Joc Pederson will add pop as the designated hitter. Young outfielders Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford should improve. Adolis Garcia slipped a notch from his 2023 postseason heroics but remains a power threat.
A healthy Jacob deGrom at the top of the rotation is a fingers-crossed plus, Nathan Eovaldi is reliable and former Vanderbilt teammates and first-round picks Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter will be thrust into the rotation because of injuries to Jon Gray and Cody Bradford. Texas let Kirby Yates and his 33 saves sign with the Dodgers and 2023 postseason hero José Leclerc sign with the Athletics, leaving Bochy to admit he's entering the season without a defined closer.
2 | Houston Astros
2024 | 88-74, 1st in West
Last year in playoffs | 2024
Familiar names have departed but the Astros still have energizer bunny Jose Altuve — who has moved from second base to left field — and hitting savant Yordan Alvarez to build around. Power-hitting first baseman Christian Walker was signed as a free agent, Jeremy Peña begins his fourth year as a productive shortstop, and Yainer Diaz is one of baseball's best catchers.
Framber Valdez and Hunter Brown head a rotation that might lack depth, and Josh Hader still has electric stuff closing games. Houston has won the West four years in a row and seven of the last eight years, so they can't be counted out even after shedding fixtures Tucker and Bregman.
3 | Seattle Mariners
2024 | 85-77, 3rd in West
Last year in playoffs | 2022
Center fielder Julio Rodríguez has seen his wins above replacement decline two years in a row after his rookie of the year splash in 2022, but at 24, he easily could rebound. The problem is that catcher Cal Raleigh is about the only other proven bat.
Seattle's starting pitching is among the best in baseball even with George Kirby starting the season on the injured list. Bryce Miller, Logan Gilbert and Luis Castillo are durable and formidable. Bryan Woo and Emerson Hancock are promising. Closer Andrés Muñoz has a big arm.
4 | Athletics
2024 | 69-93, 4th in West
Last year in playoffs | 2020
The A's are finally out of Oakland, having secured a deal for a Las Vegas stadium and a temporary home in Sacramento. Oh, and they started spending, signing starter Luis Severino to a three-year, $67-million deal, the largest guaranteed contract in franchise history. They also locked up big bat Brent Rooker to a five-year, $60-million extension and signed Leclerc to a one-year, $10-million deal.
The A's improved from 50 to 69 victories last season, although another leap to .500 would require continued improvement from several young players, chiefly catcher Shea Langeliers, outfielders Lawrence Butler and JJ Bleday, and first baseman Tyler Soderstrom.
5 | Angels
2024 | 63-99, 5th in West
Last year in playoffs | 2014
Mike Trout has moved to right field and everyone in Orange County is rooting for an injury-free season from the future Hall of Famer. It's jarring to realize this will be his 15th season and that he'll turn 34 in August. Still, though, not a single playoff win. And expecting the first one this year is beyond wishful thinking.
On the bright side, oft-injured, highly paid and poorly motivated third baseman Anthony Rendon won't be around as a distraction after reporting that he'll miss the entire season with a hip injury.
(Illustration Stephanie Jones / Los Angeles Times; Photos Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times.)
The Angels last put up a winning record 10 years ago. I was looking for a reason to believe in the Angels, any reason.
There is a magazine called Reason. The editor-at-large, Matt Welch, is an Angels diehard. In 1982, he slept in a Ford Pinto in the Big A parking lot, waiting for his chance to buy tickets for what would have been the first World Series in Angels history. He got the tickets, but the Angels blew a two-game lead in the American League Championship Series.
So, Mr. Reason, do you see a reason to believe in the Angels?
“Generally speaking, of course not,” Welch said. “And also, because I’m an Angels fan, sure.”
Baseball Prospectus and Fangraphs each project another losing season in Anaheim. Attendance has fallen 32% from its peak.
On Thursday — on Opening Day! — the state auditor’s office is scheduled to release a report that could say whether the team has shirked its maintenance responsibilities at Angel Stadium.
On Friday, former Anaheim mayor Harry Sidhu is expected to learn whether he will be sent to prison for four felony charges triggered by the public corruption investigation that derailed the city’s sale of the stadium to Angels owner Arte Moreno. Neither an FBI affidavit nor Sidhu’s plea agreement alleges any wrongdoing by the Angels.
On the field, the Angels appeared to spend another winter in their decade of self-imposed purgatory: no full rebuild and no all-in free-agent signings, with rosters patched with mid-tier veterans and lacking in depth, all with the upside of winning 80-something games and sneaking into the playoffs.
On one hand, it is admirable that Moreno chooses not to subject fans to years of rebuilding, and the possible run of 100-loss seasons that comes with it, even as so many other owners run that playbook and enjoy the profits that come with slashing the payroll. On the other hand, what Moreno has done has not worked, and the Angels still lost 99 games last season.
“As long as you have some young players that haven’t fully developed but have shown some flashes of talent, they can vault ahead in a hurry,” said Welch, the guy from Reason.
He was not alone in that opinion. I asked General Manager Perry Minasian why fans should believe in the Angels.
“Great question,” Minasian said. “For me, with winning teams, it starts with a core. Now, we have a young core of players that we believe in, that we think are championship-caliber players.”
Right-hander Caden Dana, who is part of the Angels' core of young players, practices at spring training last month. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
The core is led by the two players with their faces on giant posters outside the front gate of Angel Stadium: shortstop Zach Neto and catcher Logan O’Hoppe.
Among other young position players: first baseman Nolan Schanuel, second baseman Christian Moore, outfielders Jo Adell and Nelson Rada.
On the pitching side: Reid Detmers, Jack Kochanowicz, José Soriano, Ben Joyce, Caden Dana, George Klassen and Sam Aldegheri.
On one side or the other: the No. 2 pick in the June draft.
If the Angels can hit on, say, half of those players — all 26 or younger — they can proceed with Plan A: In 2026, when oft-injured third baseman Anthony Rendon’s $245-million contract expires, Minasian can reasonably suggest to Moreno the team is one or two players away from contention. Perhaps those two players might resemble the stars Moreno signed in his first winter as the Angels’ owner: Vladimir Guerrero and Bartolo Colón.
If the Angels cannot hit on the majority of those prospects — and it would not be typical for a team to hit on so many — then back to purgatory they go.
The Angels' Mike Trout practices at spring training at Tempe Diablo Stadium in Tempe, Ariz., last month. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)
In the meantime, we are 19 paragraphs into this column and finally getting to Mike Trout, the greatest player in franchise history. Trout can still play at a high level — he led the major leagues in home runs when he suffered a season-ending knee injury last year — but he has not played even 120 games in a season since 2019.
“As long as his presence is there, his performance will be there,” Angels manager Ron Washington said.
Trout did not shy away from the premise that his playing 140 games could make the difference between an unexpected run at contention and another long and dreary summer.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Obviously, if I’m out there, it’s definitely going to help the team for sure.”
No Angel besides Trout and Ohtani has hit 30 home runs this decade. Trout has done it seven times in his 14-year career. Newcomer Jorge Soler has done it twice in his 11-year career; he hit 36 for the Miami Marlins in 2023.
Jered Weaver averaged 14 wins and 184 innings in 11 years with the Angels, the last in 2016. Since then, no pitcher has thrown 184 innings even once, and only Ohtani won as many as 14 games. He did it once. The Angels’ starters last season posted a 4.97 earned-run average, the highest in the AL.
What should Angels fans expect from their team this season?
“I don’t make any predictions,” Minasian said. “I think they’re going to see a team that plays extremely hard. I think they’re going to see a lot of talented players. We’ll see what happens.”
On the day the Dodgers attracted more than 10,000 paying fans to a workout in Japan, the Angels drew a couple hundred for free pregame workouts ahead of a Cactus League game. It is not a fair comparison, of course. The Dodgers had Ohtani in his home country, the game’s biggest star amid the team’s constellation of superstars.
The Angels have Trout. Jaxson Keltner, 12, came from Ohio and held up a large poster board, upon which he had written: “I TRAVELED 1,914 MILES TO MEET MIKE TROUT.”
Trout is the Angels’ brand name. In baseball, a brand name is not enough. It would be improbable for the Angels to go from last to first in 2025. It would be enough to give their fans a reason to believe.
There are several parallels between the World Series walk-off home runs hit by Kirk Gibson, left, and Freddie Freeman, including both being hit at 8:37 p.m. (Rusty Kennedy / Associated Press; Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Freddie Freeman contemplated the question, stared quietly into the distance, then struggled to articulate an answer.
Five months after the fact, his swing for the ages was still sinking in.
On Oct. 25, in a night forever etched into Dodgers and Major League Baseball lore, Freeman delivered his walk-off grand slam in Game 1 of the World Series. With just one swing, he’d altered the outcome of a season, the fortunes of a franchise and the emotions of a fan base starved for more than three decades for a full-season championship.
But on this day, during the final week of Dodgers spring training earlier this month, Freeman said he was “still trying to process” his personal perspective on his moment of history.
The totality of that one swing — out of the countless thousands he has taken during a 15-year career in the majors that, with his eight All-Star selections, 2020 MVP award and nearly 2,300 total hits, was already on a potential Hall of Fame track — had yet to fully resonate within him.
“It’s hard to wrap [your mind] around, when you’re so fresh out of it,” Freeman said while standing outside the Dodgers’ Camelback Ranch facility, where nearby fans began chanting his name in the background. “But yeah, I can’t go anywhere anymore without someone coming up. Everyone knows who I am.”
For Freeman, moments like these have provided the most meaningful clarity, best illustrating to him the significance of the walk-off slam.
The 35-year-old slugger, of course, has long operated beneath the spotlight of celebrity. He was the face of a franchise for one World Series winner before, leading the Atlanta Braves to the title in 2021. He became a beloved figure in the Southland the following spring, when the Orange County native returned home to sign with the Dodgers in one of the many blockbuster acquisitions that preceded last year’s championship.
This offseason, however, was different. Not only because of the “10-fold, maybe even 20-, 30-, 40-, 50-fold” increase in attention he said he garnered in public, from grocery stores and charity appearances, to well-attended fan events or simply quiet days out of the house. But more so, he noted, because of what the people who stopped him repeatedly said.
Freddie Freeman holds his bat in the air as he watches his walk-off grand slam in Game 1 of the World Series against the Yankees at Dodger Stadium. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
“There’s not a day that goes by where someone doesn’t say, ‘Thank you,’” Freeman relayed. “And I’m appreciative of it. Because obviously, it means something really good happened.”
But as Freeman has internalized the impact of his World Series moment this offseason, it’s been through those ceaseless interactions with fans that he realized the impact the moment made on him.
“I like to just kinda do my job and go home,” he said earlier this spring, when he only half-jokingly acknowledged being “very uncomfortable” with all of his newfound attention. “But that’s OK. I appreciate it. I really do … You appreciate what you were able to create for people. I don’t take that for granted.”
There might be only one person in the world who can relate to what Freeman has, and will, experience in the wake of his World Series heroics.
And in the moment, he could feel Freeman’s grand slam was about to happen.
Back in 1988, Kirk Gibson hit the most famous home run in Dodgers history. While playing through a muscle tear in his left hamstring and ligament tear in his right knee, he hit a walk-off home run in Game 1 of that year’s World Series, fist-pumping his way around the bases while catapulting the Dodgers to an eventual championship.
So, when Freeman — who was playing through his own injuries last October, including a badly sprained right ankle and torn left rib cartilage — came to the plate in the bottom of the 10th inning in Game 1 of last year’s Fall Classic, Gibson couldn’t help but have a flashback.
He had a premonition that history would repeat itself.
Kirk Gibson raises his arms as he rounds the bases after hitting a game–winning two-run homer in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. (Los Angeles Times)
“I just felt it happening before it happened,” said Gibson, who was listening to a radio broadcast of the game on his phone while huddled with some friends at a cabin in Michigan. “The thought entered my mind — much the same way it entered my mind when I was gonna have the opportunity. It’s just like, the perfect storm just keeps developing.”
Indeed, Freeman delivered in almost exactly the same way Gibson did. He launched his home run to the right field pavilion, not far from where Gibson’s ball landed 36 years earlier. He celebrated with his own iconic reaction, holding his bat in the air Statue of Liberty-style. Even the timing was eerily similar — both home runs were hit at 8:37 p.m.
“When you hit a ball that square, that solid, you don’t even really feel it,” Gibson said, remarking on yet another parallel of the two blasts in a recent phone interview. “You know from experience it’s going to go a long way. So then you get your bat on the ground, and your hand in the air.”
“Or fist in the air, in my case,” Gibson added with a laugh.
“To get the opportunity, and follow through on the opportunity, it’s ecstatic. It’s very decadent. Feels real good. Tastes real good.”
Still, like Freeman, Gibson also struggled to initially appreciate the magnitude of his moment.
Like Freeman, it was interactions in public with fans that opened his eyes to its long-lasting resonance.
“It’s very humbling to this day for people to say, ‘Oh, he’s the guy who hit the home run,’” Gibson said. “They start pumping their arm. It’s a little bit embarrassing; and that’s probably not a good word … But when they do that, they mean well.”
For Freeman, some interactions stood out more than most this winter. Like the two separate instances fans showed him tattoos they got to commemorate his World Series walk-off. Or the man he met at a preseason luncheon who told him the home run had prompted him to give up drinking.
“He wanted to be with his kids, present, [because] they were in the right field stands,” Freeman recalled at the Dodgers’ fan fest event before the start of spring. “He didn't drink that whole game, and he hasn't drank since, because of how present he was with his kids.”
“Those are the stories,” Freeman added, “that give me chills.”
Still, nothing compares to the simple “thank you” many who have approached him have felt obliged to offer. And the more it started happening, the more Freeman understood what the moment meant to him.
When Freeman first arrived in Los Angeles in 2022, he was still grappling with the emotions of his unexpected departure from Atlanta that offseason (yet another similarity with Gibson, a longtime Detroit Tiger who described feeling “melancholy” when he first arrived in Los Angeles in 1988). As Freeman struggled with his transition, it was Dodger Stadium chants of “Fred-die! Fred-die!” that helped him feel welcome in his new home.
Last August, when Freeman returned from a weeklong absence while his 3-year-old son, Max, battled a frightening neurological disorder that left the toddler temporarily paralyzed, a rousing ovation at Dodger Stadium accompanied his first at-bat back.
“These three years I’ve been here, it’s hard to put into words what the Dodgers fans have meant to us and our family,” Freeman said that night. “In the toughest times, it shows the true character of this organization’s fans, and it’s absolutely incredible.”
It’s why he believes, when he rounded the bases in Game 1 of the World Series a couple months later, he was so animated amid the walk-off Chavez Ravine scene.
Freddie Freeman was very animated as he rounded the bases after his walk-off grand slam to win Game 1 of the World Series last fall. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
There was his iconic bat raise, of course, which marked a stark break from character for someone who proudly claims to have “never pimped a home run.” (Freeman said it wasn’t a premeditated celebration, but noted with a laugh that “my dad said I used to do that on my brothers in the backyard.”) His arm-flexing scream between second and third base was also a spur-of-the-moment reaction, with Freeman only remembering that he wanted to eschew the team’s normal two-handed-wave home run celebration.
“It just wasn’t a waving moment,” he said. “So that’s what came out.”
When Freeman rewatched videos of the sequence with his oldest son, Charlie, this offseason, he said the clips of his reaction were what struck him the most. Looking back, he knew it was a release of emotions after the difficulties of his season. More than that, though, it was his way, he explained, of trying to say thank you to the fans.
“You can never repay that, how people make you feel,” he said. “But it was like a ‘thank you’ for how they’ve treated the Freemans and me. That’s how I’ve actually gone and looked at it the last couple months, as my ‘thank you’ to Los Angeles for how they’ve treated my family.
“It was so hard for me to come to the field after Max got sick. And every time I came, they lifted me up. They lifted my family up. So that’s what I’ve been thinking about the most … They helped me get through that. And I was able to help them have a championship.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was once the author of his own legendary October moment, when his stolen base in Game 4 of the 2004 American League Championship Series helped lead the Boston Red Sox to a historic comeback from a three-games-to-none deficit.
The lesson he learned then?
“In sports, people really look towards moments in time,” he said.
And once they happen, he noted, people also never seem to forget.
"In sports, people really look towards moments in time," said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, above hugging Freddie Freeman after L.A. had won the World Series. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“A lot of it depends on how everybody treats it afterward,” echoed Gibson, who said he can sometimes still feel awkward about how his 1988 home run overshadowed contributions from others on that year’s Dodger team, as well as other highlights in his 17-year career. “You have really no way, in my case, of preparing for ultimately how it plays out.”
Freeman could find himself in a similar position. The attention he's received won't soon dissipate. If anything, almost regardless of his future contributions, a central piece of his Dodger legacy has already been solidified.
“He's going to hear it every day, certainly during the baseball season,” Roberts said, “about how someone was grateful or thankful for that moment.”
At the same time, Freeman is trying to reset for the 2025 season, get back to full health while continuing to battle the lingering effects of his October injuries, and help put the Dodgers in position again to create more legendary World Series memories.
“That’s all we’re trying to do, is put ourselves in the best spot to succeed,” Freeman said. “It’s hard for me to think about the bigger picture of a home run when, like now, I’m getting for the next season. So that’s the hard thing. I haven’t really been able to let it sink in.”
Roberts, however, has no concerns about how his veteran first baseman will handle such a dynamic entering the 2025 season.
“He just does a great job of focusing on the job at hand,” Roberts said, “and certainly having the gratitude — that appreciation — for what that moment did for many, many Dodger fans across the world.”
That’s why, while Freeman remains somewhat wary of the public spotlight, he has happily embraced all of his personal interactions with fans. Through them, he has felt the tangible impacts his grand slam created. Through them, he has started to realize his own emotional response to it as well.
“Obviously, the rings and the championships, that's what we're going for,” Freeman said. “But to be able to impact the lives that we've been able to do in 2024, that’s why you play sports. To be able to give someone that was special.”
CLEARWATER, Fla. — Opening Day 2024 featured a sellout crowd at Citizens Bank Park, the usual pomp and ceremony and a Phillies lineup in which the entire starting outfield — Nick Castellanos in right, Brandon Marsh in left and Johan Rojas in center — occupied the bottom three spots in the batting order.
Manager Rob Thomson didn’t intend that to be a harbinger of things to come.
Sorta turned out that way, though.
Phillies outfielders as a group — and there were 11 of them before all was said and done — combined for a minus 1.1 WAR, ranking 18th in baseball. They hit a total of 50 homers. Or, to put it another way, less than Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani each slugged by themselves.
Now, it’s true that the team also won 95 games before being rudely dismissed by the Mets in the NLDS. Clearly, a lot of things went right. Which just made the relative lack of outfield production stand out like a blinking red light.
As a result, Opening Day 2025 at Washington on March 27, will showcase a new look.
After a predictable spate of rumors that the Phils would be hot and heavy in pursuit of free-agent outfielder Juan Soto, it soon became apparent that the opposite was true. They opted instead to add Max Kepler on a 1-year, $10 million deal. For the mathematically challenged, that’s 14 years and $755 million less than the archrival Mets ended up paying for Soto.
Here’s how it’s supposed to work: Kepler takes over left field, where Marsh got most of the starts last year. Marsh moves to center, his primary position with the Angels before being traded to the Phillies in August 2022.
“We get a little bit more offensive with Kepler,” manager Rob Thomson explained, sitting in his BayCare Ballpark office after an early exhibition game. “Last year was kind of a down year for him, but he was hurt a lot. And he’s a really good athlete. He can really play left field.
“Rojas is one of the best centerfielders defensively in baseball. But you’re not losing much with Marsh. So I think we stay about the same defensively but we’re better offensively.”
Sounds good. But the crux of this plan succeeding requires Kepler and Marsh, both left-handed hitters, to at least hold their own against left-handed pitching. Especially since Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber and Bryson Stott are also lefty hitters.
Kepler, 32, started 124 games for the Twins as recently as 2013. Last year, his season was cut short by a knee injury in September and he underwent surgery to repair a core injury in October. He’s now said to be fully recovered. And while he’s had notably better success against right-handers for his career (.778 OPS vs. .655), he actually posted reverse splits in limited plate appearances (.721 against LHPs vs. .672) in 2024.
He’s also worked with hitting coach Kevin Long on having better balance, moving closer to the plate to improve his ability to handle pitches on the outside part of the plate and tilting his bat to have a more direct approach to the ball.
Marsh was technically the “regular” in left last year but started just 73 games there while Whit Merrifield, Austin Hays, Wes Wilson, David Dahl, Cristian Pache, Schwarber and Kody Clemens also got playing time there. Marsh started 35 games in center and three in right.
Thomson said repeatedly last year that Marsh would get an extended opportunity to show what he could do against LHPs, but the reality is that it never happened.
When the final stats were tallied and certified, he had put up a respectable .262/.792 with 15 home runs against RHPs in 386 plate appearances. Against lefties, in just 78 tries, he batted .192/.552 with one homer. Despite that, Thomson said he saw reasons for optimism late last season.
“In his words, he was ‘taking the Kyle Schwarber approach.’ Using the other field. Staying on the ball. Thinking low to left field,” Thomson said. “It helps him with all off-speed pitches, really, whether it’s a right-hander or left-hander but especially with left-handed pitching. If he stays with that, he has a chance to have some success.”
That’s why the news that Wilson will open the season on the injured list landed so loudly. It was widely believed he would be the right-handed alternative if either Kepler or Marsh struggled against lefties.
That role could be temporarily filled by Edmundo Sosa, who played outfield throughout camp. Buddy Kennedy has made it down to the final day in Clearwater as another right-handed bench option, but his outfield experience is limited.
“If I have to, I’d platoon,” Thomson said. “But I’d obviously prefer not to because that means they can hit both sides and it keeps it a little more consistent.”
SAN FRANCISCO — A little over a week after they all gathered at Scottsdale Stadium for the start of spring training, more than 20 Giants made the short drive to a laser tag facility in Phoenix for what ended up being an intense competition. During an early round, many of them learned a lesson.
Sean Hjelle’s height seemingly made him an easy target — and Hjelle knew it. He was happy to draw all the attention from an opposing laser tag team as Mike Yastrzemski, his teammate, picked them off one by one. The rounds kept going, with laughter filling the air as All-Stars, future Hall of Famers and prospects took turns facing off in a game that many had not played since they were teenagers.
If anyone else had been at the facility, it would have been a stunning sight. For the Giants, it fit right in with a camp that had a running theme.
Just about to a man, the Giants say this as close a group as they have seen in February and March. It wasn’t just the laser tag or the wheelchair that was brought out for Justin Verlander on his 42nd birthday or the funny photos that were posted on the clubhouse TVs every morning of the player who had thrown the most strikes the day before.
It was seen during the first live BP session, when so many players filled the dugout at Scottsdale Stadium — all wearing their full jerseys — that the media and some team employees had to be moved to the visiting dugout. The camaraderie could be seen on the field during those early days, too. Logan Webb, Verlander and Robbie Ray stood behind the mound, essentially serving as extra pitching coaches for their young teammates. It was there at team dinners, including one smaller gathering between members of ownership and some of the team’s veterans.
As the Giants look for ways to surprise the rest of the league, this is where they start. Chemistry alone will not lead you to the postseason, but they have seen the past couple of seasons what can happen when there’s sometimes a lack of accountability or internal drive. The team’s leaders feel there’s a different vibe this season, and they feel strongly that it will matter.
“Everybody is together, we’re a team. It doesn’t matter who is in that room, we’re counting on each other and believe in each other,” Matt Chapman said on Monday’s “Giants Talk” podcast. “I think that’s going to go a long way. We’re a good team and we’re going to be able to get the best out of each other and be the most consistent team possible when we’re doing those things right.
“That’s the way you play the game of baseball. As stupid as it sounds, the little things are the things that add up, and if we’re taking care of all the little things, the big things are going to happen.”
The Giants gave Chapman a massive extension last year because they believe he can do both. He’s a Gold Glove Award winner who hit 27 homers in his first full season in orange and black, but he also quickly took on a leadership role in the clubhouse. When Buster Posey stepped in to help get negotiations across the finish line, he saw a player who easily would have fit on his three championship teams.
The same can be said of Willy Adames, the only free agent added on a multi-year deal. Adames has as strong an off-field and clubhouse reputation as anyone in baseball, and this spring, the Giants saw it firsthand. They actually saw it first in January, when he made a long drive to their facility in the Dominican Republic to hang out with 16-year-olds who were signing as international free agents, something he wished a veteran had done on his own signing day. And later that month, when he moved into a house in Arizona so he could get to know teammates before camp started.
“When you watch him play baseball, that’s how he is all the time. He’s smiling all the time,” Webb said. “He kind of brings people together.”
Webb is about to begin his seventh big league season, and he was one of the many who said this spring that the clubhouse was closer than he had seen in previous seasons. The important thing, Webb said, is that it happened organically.
“We’re not forcing it to happen,” he said. “Which is great to see.”
If there was a sense at times this spring that a cloud had been lifted, it’s not hard to see why. Two years ago, the Giants became so discombobulated that they fired their manager. Last season’s struggles led to the firing of president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi, who paid not just for mediocrity on the field, but also the sense that the organization lacked cohesiveness and identity.
Zaidi was replaced by Buster Posey, who gave a speech to the entire team early in camp that Webb said had him “ready to run through a brick wall.” Over and over again in Scottsdale, players mentioned the word “trust” when asked about Posey. As both Verlander and Adames said after signing, it mattered to them that the new boss is a former player, and they’re not alone in that.
“It’s just nice to have a guy like Buster who is so in tune with the game,” closer Ryan Walker said. “He hasn’t been out of the game for very long, so he’s still got that player mentality, as well. I feel like everyone is a bit more comfortable and at ease a little bit, I would say.”
There were subtle changes all spring, many of which seemed to have Posey’s fingerprints on them. Former Giants standouts were brought back to camp, including Spanish-speaking players like Yusmeiro Petit and Marco Scutaro who could connect with the team’s young contributors from Latin America. The hallways at Scottsdale Stadium were adorned with photos showing off the history of the franchise, and when the Giants return to Oracle Park tonight, they’ll see changes to the clubhouse, which was stripped of any mentions of the championship era by the prior regime.
Ultimately, Posey will be judged on wins and losses, but he saw during his playing days that positive vibes can go a long way in a sport that grinds you down for six months. Posey’s second championship came after Hunter Pence’s famous speech in Cincinnati. His final season included a shocking division title after players looked around in the spring and essentially asked, “Why not us?”
That 2021 team was a close-knit group that came together quickly and exceeded all expectations. Webb was a huge part of it, but four years later, the challenge might be even tougher.
It’s hard to envision a scenario in which the Giants, who open their season on Thursday in Cincinnati, can even keep within shouting distance of the historically loaded Los Angeles Dodgers all summer, but they believe they will be right in the thick of the playoff race. Chapman and Webb were both in touch with Posey over the offseason as he contemplated moves, and while it was a small group of additions, they believe it will be an impactful one.
“I think we’ve done a great job of just bringing the right guys in, the right players in, the right coaching staff,” Webb said. “There are a lot of winners, I would say. I think it starts with that.”
Webb came up with Bruce Bochy, who often would talk about how it was easier to look like you’re having fun when you’re winning. Nobody did more of it this spring than the Giants, who won 19 games in Cactus League action and had the best winning percentage in baseball.
Now comes the difficult part.
Can the Giants stay on the same page when they hit their first losing streak? Will they find a way to connect when injuries hit the roster? If they’re once again hanging around .500 in August, will the finger pointing start again, or will they fight their way into October?
Webb has faith that the vibes, at least, will last. He has seen highs and lows since breaking through as one of the faces of the franchise in 2021, but he’s confident in this roster, one that gelled early in camp.
“I think that’s led to us playing better, right?” he said. “I think you’re playing for the guy next to you, the guy behind you. I think that’s how you build chemistry.”
We’re gonna do things a little differently this year.
Our first edition of the list will be what you’ve seen from me for the better part of eight years; a look at the top 10 fantasy prospects who have a chance to help fantasy rosters during the upcoming season.
Going forward, we’ll take a look at the five prospects who need to be rostered right now, and then a look at some interesting prospects -- some who can help in 2025, some who have a later ETA -- to keep an eye on in a variety of leagues.
A reminder for this version: This is ONLY players who have Rookie of the Year MLB eligibility, and ONLY a look at potential help for 2025. Also, Roki Sasaki is not on this list because he shouldn’t be viewed as a prospect in my eyes based on his success in one of the best baseball leagues in the world.
All that away, here’s a look at the top prospects who can help your fantasy roster this season.
1. Dylan Crews, OF, Washington Nationals
2024 stats: 100 G, .270/.342/.451, 13 HR, 25 SB, 36 BB, 92 SO at Double-A Harrisburg and Triple-A Rochester; 31 G, .218/.288/.353, 3 HR, 12 SB, 11 BB, 26 SO at Washington.
The top three on this list are pretty obvious, in part because they’re the three best players that are undoubtedly going to open the season in the majors as of Sunday night; barring something unforeseeable. Crews gets the nod over the second player on this list -- not sure why I’m treating it like a spoiler, you can just scroll down a couple inches -- but it’s close. He gets the nod because of a more well-rounded game, and I do like the fact that he’s going to be hitting near the top of a decent Washington order. Crews has the tools to be a fantasy star, and while he may not reach that level in 2025, he certainly should be good enough to be rostered in the majority of formats.
2. Jasson Dominguez, OF, New York Yankees
2024 stats: 58 G, .314/.376/.504, 11 HR, 16 SB, 22 BB, 50 SO for High-A Tampa, Double-A Somerset and Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre; 18 G, .179/.313/.304, 2 HR, 5 SB, 11 BB, 19 SO at New York.
If you are going just pure ceiling, you could argue that Dominguez belongs ahead of Crews. When healthy, he’s shown the ability to be a five-category helper, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he was a perennial 30/30 player. There’s just a little more risk in his profile than Crews. Still, he’s one of the few prospects right now that I’d want in my lineup to open 2025.
3. Kristian Campbell, INF, Boston Red Sox
2024 stats: 115 G, .330/.439/.558, 20 HR, 24 SB, 74 BB, 103 SO at High-A Greenville, Double-A.
I had Campbell at three even before it was announced that he was going to make the Red Sox out of camp, but it certainly didn’t hurt. He was as good as any minor-league player in baseball last year, and while he hasn’t exactly torn the cover off the baseball in the Grapefruit League (.586 OPS over his first 19 games), there have been flashes of five-tool talent. Campbell might have a little shorter leash than the names above, but he has the ability to be as good -- if not better -- than any rookie in baseball.
4. Roman Anthony, OF, Boston Red Sox
2024 stats: 119 G, .291/.396/.498, 18 HR, 21 SB, 79 BB, 127 SO at Double-A Portland and Triple-A Worcester
As of publication, it appears Anthony will not make the Red Sox out of Florida. He did reach base at a .386 clip in the Grapefruit League, but a .212 average and 11 strikeouts in 44 plate appearances -- plus a glut of outfielders in Boston -- likely didn’t help. That being said, Anthony is the top prospect in baseball according to many (number two on my list behind Crews), and everything you’re looking for in an upper-echelon outfielder is within Anthony’s grasp. He should be up relatively early, and he’s one of two players not on an MLB roster to begin the year I’d be stashing.
5. Cam Smith, 3B, Houston Astros
2024 stats: 32 G,, .313/.396/.609, 7 HR, 2 SB, 8 BB, 12 SO at Low-A Myrtle Beach, High-A South Bend and Double-A Knoxville.
Again, as of publication, we don’t know if Smith is going to make the roster. It sounds like there’s a good shot that he’s going to be, however, after a spring training that saw him homer four times in his 14 games with a ridiculous 1.221 OPS. Smith has excellent power, but he has a chance to hit for a decent average as well; although I’d be a little concerned about strikeouts, particularly early on. He won’t help in the steals category, but it won’t shock me at all if Smith is one of the 15 best third baseman by the end of 2025. He’s that second player I’d be rostering if he doesn’t make Houston out of Florida, by the way.
6. Jacob Wilson, SS, Oakland Athletics
2024 stats: 53 G, .443/.473/.668, 7 HR, 2 SB, 14 BB, 15 SO at Double-A Midland and Triple-A Las Vegas; 28 G, .250/.314/.315, 0 HR 0 SB, 3 BB, 10 S) at Athletics.
This is where I probably differentiate with the “industry” the most. I get the concerns with Wilson. He hasn’t shown much power, and his average speed doesn’t make him a great bet to steal bases. There’s a real chance he’s just a one-category player. I just believe in the talent way too much to rank him any lower than this, and I considered moving him up a couple spots. His bat-to-ball skills are elite and then some, and while you can’t take Cactus League stats very seriously, the fact that he homered four times in Arizona is encouraging. I’d prefer Wilson to open the year on my bench, but a chance to hit .300, homer a dozen times and score some runs in an underrated Athletics’ lineup makes him vastly underrated. Thank me later.
7. Jackson Jobe, RHP, Detroit Tigers
2024 stats: 21 G, 91 1/3 IP, .178 BAA, 1.12 WHIP, 45 BB, 98 SO at High-A Wet Michigan, Double-A Erie and Triple-A Toledo; 2 G, 4 IP, .071 BAA, 0.50 WHIP, 1 BB, 2 SO at Detroit.
Jobe is going to open the year in the Detroit rotation to the surprise of no one, and it appears he’ll make his first MLB start against the Mariners either Monday or Tuesday. The right-hander has the best stuff of any pitching prospect in baseball, and while he’s not the next Paul Skenes, he’s a 22-year-old (until July) with two plus-plus pitches and two more than grade above-average. The one thing to be concerned about with Jobe outside of baseball being really hard is that it still seems likely the Tigers will manage his innings, but the upside is well worth that risk.
8. Matt Shaw, 3B, Chicago Cubs
2024 stats: 124 G, .284/.379/.488, 21 HR, 31 SB, 62 BB, 95 SO at Double-A Knoxville and Triple-A Iowa.
Shaw made his MLB debut in the series against the Dodgers in Japan, and to be honest, it didn’t go great with a 1-for-9 showing and four strikeouts. We’re not going to make a judgement based on two games against the best team in baseball, however, and Shaw has looked the part this spring; enough so that he should open the year as the Cubs’ starting third baseman. His hit, power and run tools all project at least above-average, making him a third baseman who can hit 20-plus homers and steal a similar amount of bases. If he struggles Chicago may send him back to Triple-A, but he should be on benches until he shows he can’t do it.
9. Jordan Lawlar, INF, Arizona Diamondbacks
2024 stats: 23 G, .278/.378/.496, 2 HR, 6 SB, 14 BB, 23 SO at Double-A Amarillo and Triple-A Reno.
Lawlar would rank considerably higher on this list if we weren’t just ranking for 2025, as he has the upside to someday be one of the best shortstops in baseball. He’s dealt with injuries, but when healthy he shows the swing path and speed to suggest he can be a five-category contributor. He’s going to have to rake in Reno in order to get a chance at the highest level, but he’s just too talented to not make the top 10. It won’t surprise me even a smidgen if he ends up being a strong contributor for the D-Backs and fantasy managers this summer.
10. Kumar Rocker, RHP, Texas Rangers
2024 stats: 10 G, 36 2/3 IP, 1.96 ERA, .180 BAA, 0.79 WHIP, 5 BB, 55 SO at Double-A Frisco and Triple-A Round Rock; 3 G, 11 2/3 IP, 3.86 ERA, .267 BAA, 1.54 WHIP, 6 BB, 14 SO a Texas.
It’s been a mixed spring training for Rocker, but because of injuries, it does look like he’s going to open the year in the Texas rotation. The swing-and-miss stuff is undeniable; there’s a handful of pitchers at most who have a better slider, and he also shows a high 90 mph fastball and quality curve. He generally throws strikes, but there are command concerns. You could argue a few different players deserve this spot -- and if Rhett Lowder was healthy he’d be in the top 10 pretty easily, but I’d take my chances with Rocker on my roster. Worst thing is you jump ship if he struggles.
Also considered: Rhett Lowder, RHP, Cincinnati Reds; Coby Mayo, INF, Baltimore Orioles; Bubba Chandler, RHP; Pittsburgh Pirates; Bryce Eldridge, 1B, San Francisco Giants; Jack Leiter, RHP, Texas Rangers; Max Muncy, 2B, Athletics
ANAHEIM, CA - AUGUST 31: Brett Gardner waits at the cage during batting practice before the Los Angeles Angels at Angel Stadium of Anaheim on August 31, 2021 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images)
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NEW YORK (AP) — The youngest son of former New York Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner and his wife, Jessica, has died after falling ill during a family vacation. Miller Gardner was 14.
Miller Gardner died in his sleep Friday morning, according to a statement from the couple that was released by the Yankees on Sunday. The Gardners said they “have so many questions and so few answers at this point.”
“Miller was a beloved son and brother and we cannot yet comprehend our life without his infectious smile,” Jessica and Brett Gardner said in the release. “He loved football, baseball, golf, hunting, fishing, his family and his friends. He lived life to the fullest every single day.”
The Yankees said the organization was “filled with grief.”
“Words feel insignificant and insufficient in trying to describe such an unimaginable loss,” the team said in its statement. “It wasn’t just Brett who literally grew up in this organization for more than 17 years — so did his wife, Jessica, and their two boys, Hunter and Miller.”
Brett Gardner, 41, was drafted by the Yankees in 2005 and spent his entire big league career with the organization. The speedy outfielder batted .256 with 139 homers, 578 RBIs, 274 steals and 73 triples in 14 seasons from 2008-2021.
PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. (AP) — Tampa Bay Rays ace Shane McClanahan will begin the season on the injured list because of an inflamed nerve in his left triceps.
Manager Kevin Cash provided an update on McClanahan a day after the left-hander departed a Grapefruit League start against Boston in the third inning. He had been slated to start for Tampa Bay on opening day against Colorado on Thursday.
Cash told reporters in Florida, including one from MLB.com, that the prognosis on McClanahan is “probably the best news we could have heard.”
McClanahan was selected by Tampa Bay in the first round of the 2018 amateur draft. He went 10-6 with a 3.43 ERA in 25 starts in his first big league season in 2021, finishing seventh in voting for AL Rookie of the Year.
The two-time All-Star went 11-2 with a 3.29 ERA in 21 starts before he got hurt in 2023.
With McClanahan out, Ryan Pepiot is going to start against the Rockies in the opener.
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) — Minnesota Twins infielder Brooks Lee and right-handed pitcher Brock Stewart will begin the season on the injured list.
The moves were announced Sunday by the club.
Lee, the No. 8 overall pick by Minnesota in the 2022 draft out of Cal Poly, had been dealing with lower back tightness during spring training and was sidelined for the first two months of the 2024 season with a herniated disk in his back.
Once promoted from Triple-A last summer, the rookie batted .221 with three home runs and 27 RBIs in 50 games for the Twins.
Stewart sustained a left hamstring injury but also underwent season-ending arthroscopic surgery on his pitching shoulder last August.
The Twins already were without third baseman Royce Lewis for opening day because of a strained left hamstring.
Minnesota won the AL Central in 2023 then finished in fourth last season.
Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts walks through the dugout before Sunday's Freeway Series exhibition opener against the Angels at Dodger Stadium. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
What’s ailing Mookie Betts remains a mystery — his inexplicable stomach illness has left him at a loss for words.
Down from 175 to 157 pounds, the usually joyful and cheerful Betts had a sullen look on his sunken face as he talked about his illness, which led to the Dodgers scratching him from the lineup ahead of Sunday's 7-1 Freeway Series exhibition win over the Angels.
"I just want to play," Betts said softly by his locker. "I'm tired of sitting, tired of just throwing up, tired of doing all this. I just really want to play."
Betts was penciled in to start at shortstop, arriving at the ballpark with his symptoms subsiding. But just a few hours before first pitch, he was scratched after unexpectedly throwing up again.
"My body's just kind of eating itself," he said. "It's hard to not fuel it. And so every time — literally, every time — I fuel my body, I throw up. ... I don't know what to do."
He says his body feels great — he can work out and do almost everything as usual except eat. Betts has struggled to keep down solid food, the ordeal leaving him "scared to eat."
"This is so touchy, man," Betts said. "You think you feel good, and then you don’t really know. ... Every time I eat something, it just comes right out."
Betts said he never had a previous history of stomach issues. His vitals and blood tests have come back clean, but his stomach remains aggravated. Team doctors have put him on a new medication to calm his stomach, though he didn’t disclose what he's taking.
His symptoms began two days before the Tokyo Series. He thought he would feel better after he arrived in Japan, but his symptoms worsened.
Betts will not be in the lineup Monday, manager Dave Roberts said. Whether Betts will be in the lineup for Thursday’s home opener against the Detroit Tigers is uncertain. Over the next few days, he will undergo more tests.
Although he’s eager to overcome his stomach troubles and take the field, Betts doesn’t want to put the Dodgers at a disadvantage. He believes that returning too soon could hinder the team’s performance and potentially put his health at greater risk.
"You're already playing uphill," Betts said. "I weigh 157 pounds, and that’s way underweight. ... I'm not saying I don't want to do it. Sure, if that's what it takes, but does it logically make sense? And that's the question we really need to answer."
Blake Snell will start home opener
Dodgers starting pitcher Blake Snell, left, speaks with catcher Will Smith during an exhibition game against the Hanshin Tigers in Tokyo on March 16. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Blake Snell, who signed a five-year, $182-million deal with the Dodgers in the offseason, will make his Dodgers regular-season debut against the Detroit Tigers on Thursday.
“He was certainly honored, excited,” Roberts said. “Blake chose to be a Dodger for various reasons. And for him to start the home opener here at Dodger Stadium, I think it’s just something else he can add to his already great career.”
It will be a matchup of Cy Young winners, as Snell — who won the award in 2018 and 2023 — starts opposite of last year’s American League Cy Young winner, Tarik Skubal. Roberts said they are “two of the top-five pitchers in all of baseball."
The next turn in the rotation will feature Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who started the Dodgers' season opener in Japan. Roki Sasaki, who also pitched in the opening series, will take the mound Saturday.
Tyler Glasnow's first start will be next week against Atlanta since he's slated to start Tuesday against the Angels.
Dodgers 'A-Okey' in Freeway Series opener
Dodgers pitcher Jackson Ferris delivers against the Angels on Sunday. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Reserve catcher Chris Okey broke a 1-1 game with a pinch-hit, two-run double in the seventh inning of the Dodgers' 7-1 win at Dodger Stadium.
The Dodgers trailed until Max Muncy hit a solo home run to right field in the fifth. The Dodgers tacked on four more runs in the eighth.
First baseman Freddie Freeman returned after being sidelined in the second game of the Tokyo Series because of rib discomfort. In his two at-bats, he grounded into a double play in the first and grounded out in the fourth.
Roberts thought Freeman played without much trouble, and the plan is for him to take three at-bats and play five or six innings Monday.
Angel Stadium will host the next two games of the series.
PEORIA, Ariz. — The Seattle Mariners have released Mitch Haniger after the veteran outfielder was hampered by left shoulder soreness during spring training.
Haniger, 34, was in his second stint with Seattle. He has a $15.5 million salary for this season after agreeing to a three-year, $43.5 million contract with San Francisco in December 2022.
The Mariners announced the move on Sunday.
“Putting on a Mariners uniform and playing at T-Mobile Park is something I’ll cherish forever,” Haniger said in a release. “To our fans, my teammates, and everyone a part of this organization, thank you for embracing my family and me. We have so many great memories to look back on.”
Haniger went 3 for 18 with a solo homer in seven spring training games. He hasn’t appeared in a Cactus League game since March 8.
“Mitch has been a significant part of Mariners history and will be missed,” president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said in a release. “The day he arrived for his first spring training back in 2017, he established himself as one of the most focused, prepared, and hardest working players I’ve ever been around. We all appreciate the many ways he’s made us all better, on the field and off.”
Haniger made his big league debut with Arizona in 2016 and was traded to Seattle after the season. He batted .263 with 107 homers and 306 RBIs in his first stint with the Mariners.
He had a breakout performance in 2021, hitting .253 with a career-high 39 homers and 100 RBIs in 157 games. But he hasn’t been able to reach that production since that season.
Haniger was reacquired by Seattle in a January 2024 trade with San Francisco. He played in 121 games last year and batted a career-low .208 with 12 homers and 44 RBIs.
There wasn't any expectation of Will Warren securing a major-league rotation spot when the Yankees opened camp just over a month ago, but opportunity unexpectedly knocked, and the young right-hander answered.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone revealed on Sunday that Warren, the club's fifth-overall prospect, made the Opening Day roster and is scheduled to start on April 1 when the Arizona Diamondbacks arrive in the Bronx for a three-game set.
While the 25-year-old largely earned his new role during Grapefruit League action, the Yankees weren't exactly in a position to look elsewhere for internal options. They're entering the 2025 season with long-term injuries to Gerrit Cole (Tommy John surgery) and Luis Gil (lat strain), plus Clarke Schmidt (shoulder fatigue) is beginning the campaign on the injured list.
Warren spent the offseason reincorporating a curveball to his arsenal and adjusting his changeup grip, and the hard work clearly paid off. In his first five spring appearances (four starts), he posted a laudable 2.87 ERA across 15.2 innings, limiting opponents to five earned runs and nine hits. He also struck out 16 batters.
There wasn't much to praise in his sixth spring performance, however. He was roughed up against the Baltimore Orioles on March 23, as he allowed four runs on seven hits and two walks across 3.2 innings (74 pitches). In spite of heavy winds in Sarasota that night, he fell behind some hitters and gave up plenty of hard contact.
Despite the Yankees' slew of injuries, Warren still needs to prove his worth as a long-term rotation fixture. After making 23 starts in Triple-A last season, he made his MLB debut on July 30 and logged a bloated 10.32 ERA with 29 strikeouts across 22.2 major-league innings (six games). Suffice to say there's a chip on his shoulder.
SARASOTA, Fla. — Baltimore Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson will begin the season on the injured list because of a mild right intercostal strain.
General manager Mike Elias told reporters on Sunday that he hopes Henderson’s IL stint “will be measured in days instead of weeks.”
The Orioles visit Toronto on Thursday for opening day.
The 23-year-old Henderson departed a Feb. 27 spring training game after one inning because of discomfort on his lower right side. An intercostal strain involves the muscles around the ribs.
Henderson hit .281 with 37 homers and 92 RBIs last season. The All-Star slugger was the 2023 American League Rookie of the Year.
Elias also told reporters in Florida that Cade Povich has been selected for the team’s No. 5 starter job. The left-hander will take the mound for the home opener on March 31 against Boston.
Povich, who turns 25 on April 12, was selected by Minnesota in the third round of the 2021 amateur draft. He was traded to Baltimore in August 2022.
He made his big league debut last year, going 3-9 with a 5.20 ERA in 16 starts.
The Orioles also optioned outfielder Dylan Carlson to minor league camp on Sunday. The 26-year-old Carlson agreed to a one-year contract with the team in January.
Carlson had played well this spring, batting .321 with two homers and nine RBIs in 18 Grapefruit League games.
Jeff Banister, then a bench coach with the Pittsburgh Pirates, walks in the dugout before Game 2 the 2013 NLDS between the Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals. Banister, who has managed and coached in the big leagues, is one of the 1,519 players whose MLB career lasted one game. (Charlie Riedel / Associated Press)
The first time Jeff Banister stepped into a big-league clubhouse, it was 9 o’clock.
In the morning.
That night’s game wouldn’t start for another 10 hours, but when you’ve waited your whole life for that moment, there’s no point in putting it off even a second longer.
The first thing Banister saw when he entered the darkened room was a No. 28 Pittsburgh Pirates’ jersey hanging in a locker with his name, in black letters and gold trim, running from shoulder to shoulder. In the lockers on either side hung the jerseys of Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla.
“There was a security light. It was like a beacon on my jersey,” Banister said last month, his voice catching at a memory that is now 34 years old. “It kind of got real at that moment. Like, ‘Hey, I’m in the big leagues.’”
In the seventh inning of that night’s game, an otherwise uneventful 12-3 win over the Atlanta Braves at Three Rivers Stadium, Banister came to the plate as a pinch-hitter and grounded a 1-1 pitch into the hole at short, beating the throw to first for an infield single. Four days later he was gone, optioned back to the minor leagues. Banister would never appear in a major league game again.
But he’s never forgotten the one he did play in.
“It was a surreal moment to walk out on that field,” he said. “I’d seen it so many times on TV, but just the feeling of all the first moments — the first time in the stadium, the clubhouse — they become a little overwhelming.”
Since the first big-league game in 1876, 20,790 men have played in the majors, according to the Baseball Almanac. More will join that list as spring training gives way to the regular season. Yet it remains a small number; more than twice as many people finished the Chicago Marathon last fall.
And Banister’s name will always be among them.
His name is also among the 1,519 players whose big-league career lasted just one game, according to the Baseball Reference website, a list that runs from Frank Norton, who struck out in his only plate appearance for the Washington Olympians on May 5, 1871, to Giants pitcher Trevor McDonald, who threw three hitless innings on the final day of the 2024 season.
San Francisco Giants pitcher Trevor McDonald threw three hitless innings against the St. Louis Cardinals on the last day of the 2024 season. (Tony Avelar / Associated Press)
In between, Hall of Fame manager Walter Alston, made an error in two chances at first base and struck out in one at-bat in his only big-league game in 1936. Eighteen years earlier, Brooklyn Robins’ pitcher Harry Heitman faced four batters, giving up four hits and four runs, then fled the stadium before the final pitch to join the Navy.
Larry Yount, brother of Hall of Famer Robin Yount, came out of the bullpen to pitch for the Astros in 1971, but hurt his arm warming up; his career ended before he threw a pitch. Then there’s Archibald Wright “Moonlight” Graham, who twice hit better than .325 in eight minor league seasons but didn’t get an at-bat in the majors, playing two innings in right field for the New York Giants in 1905 without touching the ball. Three years later he gave up for baseball to practice medicine in the small mining town of Chisholm, Minn.
Larry Yount, above pitching for the Denver Bears in 1973, hurt his arm warming up after entering a game for the Houston Astros in 1971. (Barry Staver / Denver Post via Getty Images)
The pathos of Graham’s brief big-league career is romanticized in W.P. Kinsella’s novel “Shoeless Joe” and later in the Kevin Costner movie “Field of Dreams.” Graham made it to the majors, but never got to bat. Others, like Banister, got one at-bat, but never played in the field.
Yet there’s a story behind every one of these brief big-league appearances.
For some of those 1,519 one-game wonders, the journey was more frustration than fruition. After expending so much blood, sweat and tears to reach the majors, their reward was a single yellowed newspaper box score with their name in it.
“I’m proud of what I accomplished. And I think that I accomplished something unique,” said catcher Jack Kruger, who played one inning for the Angels in 2021. “But I think I was capable of more.”
For others like Banister, one of 53 players to retire with a 1.000 batting average, there are no regrets.
“Absolutely zero,” he said. “I loved every minute of it.”
“A cup of coffee” is the idiom baseball has created to describe a short stay in the majors. Here are the stories of four men who got to realize the dream of playing in the big leagues, but only stayed long enough to have a cup of Joe.
It’s been 12 years since Brandon Bantz played in his only big-league game. But he hasn’t forgotten how exciting it felt the first time he stepped onto a major league field in a uniform.
“I just remember looking at the third deck being like ‘it’s a lot bigger than I had remembered,’” he said. “That was that first kind of ‘a-ha’ moment. That was the first time I was thinking ‘that’s pretty cool.’”
The New York Yankees' Mark Teixeira, right, scores ahead of the throw to Seattle Mariners catcher Brandon Bantz during a game on June 8, 2013 — the only one of Bantz's MLB career. (Ted S. Warren / Associated Press)
Bantz was called up from Triple A Tacoma by the Seattle Mariners on June 5, 2013; three days later he would catch eight innings against Andy Pettitte and the New York Yankees, grounding to short and striking out in two at-bats in a 3-1 loss.
Less than a week later he was outrighted back to Tacoma. He would never play in the majors again.
“A lot of times, you get only one chance,” Bantz, 38, says now. “There’s disappointment there, right? Any athlete that goes in has a dream, since you’re a little kid, of playing in the major leagues. Being able to achieve that goal, obviously that’s a big achievement.
“But I think the competitor in me definitely feels like I wasn’t able to really show the ability that I had.”
Yet Bantz overcame long odds just to get those two at-bats. More than four of every five players selected in the Major League Baseball draft never make it to the big leagues.
Bantz, a catcher, wasn’t selected until the 30th round of the 2009 draft; 892 others were taken ahead of him. But he caught a break on the first step of the minor league ladder when John Boles, a special assistant with the Mariners, saw Bantz play for Seattle’s rookie-level team in Pulaski, Va.
“He actually came up to me after the game and said, ‘You’ve got a chance,’” Bantz remembered. “That kind of set the trajectory of changing how people viewed me in the organization."
When an injury opened a spot in Single-A Everett, Wash., a week later, Bantz was promoted. Although Bantz struggled at the plate — he hit just .234 and never had more than four homers in seven minor league seasons — he threw out nearly half the runners who tried to steal on him, so he continued to climb a level each year, reaching Double A in his first full minor league summer and Triple A a season later.
From there it was a short trip — just 33 miles up Interstate 5 — from Triple A Tacoma to Seattle’s Safeco Field and its intimidating third deck.
Brandon Bantz grounded out to short and struck out in his two at-bats for the Seattle Mariners on June 8, 2013. (Otto Greule Jr / Getty Images)
Bantz’s only big-league game got off to inauspicious start when he went out to center field to warm up pitcher Joe Saunders and threw the ball over his head, plunking a fan in the leg. But when the game started, the butterflies went away.
“Once the game gets going, it’s just a regular game. It’s the same thing you’ve been doing your whole life,” Bantz said. “If you’re just kind of like, ‘Oh, man this is crazy! That’s Andy Pettitte,’ you’re not in a position to compete.”
Five days later, Bantz was sent back down the freeway to Tacoma and over the next 2 ½ seasons he would be signed and released by the Washington Nationals and Miami Marlins, with a 49-game stint in the independent Atlantic League sandwiched in between.
His baseball career was over before his 29th birthday.
“A lot of people around the game are two things,” said Bantz, the founder and CEO of Catchers Central, which develops baseball and softball players. “They’re either bitter or they can’t close the yearbook. My career was what it was. Sure, every one of us wants to reach the big leagues, play for 20 years, go to the Hall of Fame, win the World Series. However, that’s not going to be the case for everybody.
“The reality is, it’s a game and the journey across that game is what should be celebrated. How my playing journey concluded, that’s what it was supposed to be.”
Jeff Banister’s baseball career nearly ended before it had really started. When he was 15, an examination of a painfully swollen ankle ended in a diagnoses of bone cancer. A bacterial infection in the same leg was eating away at the bone marrow. If the leg wasn’t amputated, a doctor told him, he could die.
The night before the operation, Banister hugged his father and said he’d rather die than lose his leg so his doctor tried another approach and after seven surgeries, Banister walked out of the hospital a year later, cancer free.
A couple of years later he was back in the hospital after a baserunner, trying to hurdle Banister on a play at the plate, instead kneed the catcher in the head, breaking three vertebrae.
“I thought I was dead,” he said.
And he would have been had any sudden movement interfered with his breathing. He was temporarily paralyzed, a condition that required three operations and another year of rehab to cure. By the time he left the hospital with the help of a walker, he had lost nearly 100 pounds. So when the Pirates selected him in the 25th round of the 1986 June draft — a round so deep it no longer exists — it was as much a reward for his tenacity as it was for his talent.
That, at least, was the point Pirates scout Buzzy Keller made when he signed Banister for a $1,000 bonus over lunch at a Wendy’s in Baytown, Texas.
“He told me, ‘I’m not going to make you rich. But you’ve earned an opportunity,’” said Banister, who at 61 has the tan, chiseled good looks and plain-spoken manner of a Western movie sheriff. “And so I got to thinking about that and he was right. What I did with the opportunity was make the most out of that.”
He struggled to hit at his first three minor league stops but put together a solid fourth season, hitting .272 in a year split between Double A and Triple A. So four months into the 1991 season, he was called up by the Pirates after backup catcher Don Slaught pulled a muscle in his rib cage.
Banister, then 27, still remembers the date.
“July 23, 1991,” he says without prompting.
The call came so fast, no one in his family could make it to Pittsburgh for his big-league debut. “I didn’t leave a ticket for anybody,” he said.
Manager Jim Leyland, aware the Banister’s family lived in Houston, mapped out a plan to have him start that weekend in the Astrodome, only to see pitcher Bob Walk scramble those plans when he strained a hamstring running the bases. The Pirates sent Banister back down and called up Tom Prince, who went on to spend 17 seasons in the majors. Banister never played a big-league game again.
That winter he blew out his elbow playing winter ball, necessitating more surgery. He would appear in just eight more games in pro ball before becoming a minor league manager, eventually working his way back to the majors as a coach and manager with the Pirates, Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks.
Arizona Diamondbacks bench coach Jeff Banister was part of the team that reached the World Series in 2023. (Brynn Anderson / Associated Press)
But he’s never forgotten what it means to walk into a big-league clubhouse for the first — and maybe only — time.
“We’re not guaranteed 3,000 at-bats," Banister, beginning his fourth season as the Diamondbacks bench coach, says. "We’re not guaranteed one.”
Jack Kruger’s big-league career was so short if you blinked, you might have missed it. Yet the climb to get there was so challenging, it’s a wonder Kruger made it at all.
On May 6, 2021, Angels manager Joe Maddon sent Kruger on to catch the ninth inning of an otherwise forgettable 8-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays, a game that ended with Kruger standing in the on-deck circle. Yet Kruger’s father Tim said he still gets chills thinking about that night.
“It was surreal,” he said. “It was like being in a dream. I’m sitting there with my wife, holding hands and just thinking, ‘My gosh, our son is playing in a major-league game.’”
No players’ path to the majors is easy, but few have had to overcome as many obstacles as Kruger. When he was 5, Kruger was diagnosed with Perthes disease, a rare condition in which the blood supply to the thigh is temporarily disrupted, leading to bone damage and stunting growth.
But there was a silver lining to that black cloud because after spending 18 months on crutches, Kruger was cleared by doctors for just one physical activity: hitting a baseball.
Catcher Jack Kruger played one inning of one game for the Angels on May 6, 2021. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
So Tim began pitching to his son and as Jack’s bones healed and he began to grow, that practice began to pay off. As a senior year at Oaks Christian, Kruger hit .343 with seven homers and 37 RBIs. His dream, however, had never been to play in the majors, it was to serve his country. So he enrolled at West Point.
Then came the next setback. On the day he was to put on his cadet uniform for the first time, the school declared him medically ineligible because of his childhood disease. His dream was gone.
“It was devastating,” Tim Kruger said. “He had his life planned.”
So Kruger made new plans, playing one season at Oregon, one at Orange Coast College and one at Mississippi State, where he made the all-conference team and drew the attention of the Angels, who took him in the 20th round of 2016 MLB draft.
Kruger methodically climbed the minor league ladder and was in Salt Lake City for his first season in Triple A when manager Lou Marson called him at the hotel. Angels catcher Max Stassi was going on the injured list with a concussion; Kruger was to get on the next plane to Anaheim.
He was going to The Show — and Albert Pujols, a future Hall of Famer, was one of the players designated for assignment to make room for him on the roster.
The next 30 hours are still a blur, he said. He got to Angel Stadium just an hour before the first pitch, too late for batting practice and with just enough time to pull on a jersey with his name in red block letters and black trim above a dark red number No. 59. For the first eight innings he sat on the bench alongside Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout before Maddon sent him on in the ninth to catch 20 pitches from right-hander Steve Cishek.
When he returned to the ballpark the next day a front-office staffer met him at his locker and told him he had been designated for assignment.
“It came out of nowhere,” Kruger said. “And he didn’t know my name.”
Asked about Kruger four years later Maddon, a catcher who spent four years in the low minors, remembered the ninth inning of that one-sided game. And he remembered why he sent Kruger in for the final inning, making him a major leaguer forever.
“I wanted to get him in that game,” he said. “One more hitter gets on base and he gets to hit. Never happened [but] we did our best to make it a complete experience for him. I know it’s something he’ll never forget and he absolutely deserved it.”
Kruger, 30, went on to play two more seasons with the Texas Rangers’ Triple A affiliate in Round Rock, Texas, hitting .243 in 66 games. But he never entered a big-league clubhouse again. After baseball, Kruger co-founded a company called D1 Scholarship to help athletes in multiple sports negotiate the college recruiting process.
“I did everything I could with the opportunities I was given. So I don’t necessarily have any regrets or think or wish I would have done something differently,” he said. “It was great for what it was. And then I moved on to the next thing.”
For one brief, shining September afternoon, 18-year-old John Paciorek was the best player in major league baseball.
On the final day of the 1963 season, Paciorek, went three for three with two walks, three RBIs, four runs scored and two splendid running catches in right field for Houston’s Colt .45s in a 13-4 win over the New York Mets. In his last at-bat, he got a standing ovation — if the applause from a crowd of 3,899 can be called an ovation.
“It was like a dream,” he said.
It was the only time Paciorek appeared on a big-league field.
The eldest of five brothers who grew up just outside Detroit, playing every sport that involved a ball — and some that didn’t — Paciorek accepted a $45,000 bonus to sign with the Colt .45s, the forerunners of the Astros, in 1962, while he was still in high school.
He was invited to big-league spring training the following year but hit just .219 at Modesto in the Single A California League in his first pro season. He played with verve, hustling to first after walks and sprinting on and off the field every half-inning, but he also injured his back and shoulder and developed a chronically sore throwing arm late in the year.
He was summoned to Houston that September anyway, partly to have his back checked. With the Colt .45s languishing near the bottom of the 10-team National League standings, Houston manager Harry Craft decided to start a lineup of rookies, among them Joe Morgan, Jimmy Wynn and Rusty Staub, on that final Sunday. Paciorek was soon added to that lineup.
“One of the guys asked if I would like to play,” he said. “I jumped at the opportunity. I wasn’t even thinking of my back. So I went to church and communion and everything else and got to the ballpark early.
“I knew I had to be stretched out and ready to go.”
Batting seventh, he drew a walk in the second and scored on John Bateman’s triple; drove in two runs with a single to left in the fourth; drove in another run with a single to left in the sixth; walked and scored in the sixth; then singled again in the seventh.
“The hits I got were kind of like hits on the handle,” he said. “I was physically strong enough to force the ball over the shortstop’s head.”
But it was that strength and what Paciorek did to built it that contributed to the injuries that ended his career.
“I was such a fanatic about exercise and building myself up,” he said. “I was always doing exercises and doing drills. I had no idea about what I was doing."
Whether that contributed to a chronic back condition is hard to say; one doctor called it an abnormality from birth. What’s certain is the pain was to blame for his poor performance in Modesto, especially after he tore muscles in his upper back.
Still, his perfect game on the final day of the 1963 season got him invited back to spring training the following year to compete for the starting job in center field.
Instead, he struggled to do the most basic things.
“I’d be charging a ground ball and bend over, oh my God it’s like a knife going through my back,” he said. A couple of months later, after batting .135 over 49 games at Single A, he underwent surgery to fuse two lumbar vertebrae, then spent 10 months in a back brace.
“If I would have been more intelligently inclined and I would have known something about chiropractic application or practice, I probably would never had had the operation,” he said. “I developed all kinds of injuries because the fusion limited my movement.”
While recovering from the operation, Paciorek enrolled in the University of Houston, eventually earning a degree in physical education he would soon put to good use. After two more seasons in Houston’s minor league system, hitting .172 and striking out in more than a quarter of his at-bats, he was released and signed with Cleveland. He hit a career-best .268 with 20 homers and 73 RBIs in Single A in 1968, but a year later he was released again and retired to become a teacher at the private Clairbourn School in San Gabriel, where he worked for 41 years before he retired again in 2017, months after the school built a batting cage and named it in his honor.
A year after Paciorek quit playing, younger brother Tom made his big-league debut for the Dodgers, beginning an 18-year career that would see him play in an All-Star Game and a World Series. Another brother would play 48 games for the Milwaukee Brewers and two of John’s four sons played minor league baseball. But none of them matched the perfection of Paciorek, who remains the only major league player to retire with a 1.000 batting average in more than two at-bats.
“My record will probably never be broken,” Paciorek said. “I was just so fortunate. I must have been predestined to demonstrate perfection to a certain extent.
“Maybe that’s why I’m carrying this on for 60 years, this whole idea of perfection.”
What, after all, could be more perfect than playing in the big leagues, where the memories of one game can last a lifetime?
The Mets defeated the Miami Marlins, 10-2, on Sunday in their penultimate Grapefruit League game of 2025.
Here are the key takeaways...
-Griffin Canning will start regular season game No. 3 for the Mets if all goes to plan, and the right-hander had another solid outing on Sunday, going 4.1 innings while allowing two earned runs. Canning allowed five hits while striking out six and walking three. His spring comes to a close with a 1.88 ERA.
-Hitting second in the order and serving as the designated hitter, Starling Marte destroyed a solo home run in the top of the first, jumping on a 3-2 fastball from Connor Gillispie. The home run was the fist of the spring for Marte, who will likely be a right-handed DH option for the Mets this season.
-Brett Baty has all but locked up the starting second base job with Jeff McNeil starting the season on the IL, and the former third baseman continues to look comfortable at second. In the second inning, Baty beautifully charged a Starlyn Caba high-chopper, fielding the ball and flipping it with his glove to first base for the out.
Baty also had a great at-bat in the fourth. With the bases loaded and nobody out in a tie game, Baty battled and saw 10 pitches before finally working a walk to force in the go-ahead run.
-Alexander Canario, acquired in a trade with the Chicago Cubs earlier in camp, continues to look like he could be a major league player for the Mets this season. Following Baty's walk, Canario put his power on full display, crushing a grand slam to left to put the Mets up 6-1. In the bottom of the sixth, Canario was at it again, slamming a solo homer for his second round-tripper of the afternoon.
Canario has three homers this spring and could factor into the bench picture.
-Brandon Nimmo is getting hot at exactly the right time. After a slow start to camp as he ramped up, he followed up a two-hit day on Saturday with three hits -- a single, double, and triple -- on Sunday against the Marlins.
-In all, the Mets hit four home runs on Sunday: Marte, Canario (two), and Tyrone Taylor. The Mets had 15 hits in total, with nine different players registering at least one base knock.
Who was the game MVP?
Nimmo, who was peppering the wall in right field with rockets as he racked up three hits.
