Category: Sports News

One of Tennessee’s biggest pick-ups in the transfer portal over the offseason was Blaine Brown, a 6-5 lefty two-way player. Brown is coming off of a freshman All-American season at Rice — a season that opened the door for him to transfer to a school like Tennessee, but also a season that put him on the MLB’s radar.

Brown currently ranks as a top five overall prospect for the 2027 MLB Draft, according to Over-Slot Baseball. The 19-year-old hit .292 last season at Rice, hitting ten home runs and driving in 38 runs. Oh, and he can touch upper-90s on the mound on top of all that.

“He’s just such a dynamic talent,” Josh Elander said this week of Brown. “I mean, you could argue he had the best weekend swinging the bat. I mean, the guy hits the ball regularly over 110 miles per hour. And then, you know, one thing we talked to him about is — that was a big part of his recruitment process — what does the schedule look like? And how am I in a position to have success on both sides of the ball?”

Brown’s bat figures to be an everyday presence in Tennessee’s 2026 lineup, but figuring out his plan on the mound is something Elander is going to have to work through, perhaps a bit on the fly.

“We spent a ton of time kind of outlining different options,” Elander said. “Because, again, do you start? Do you come out of the pen? Does he go from left field and then come in? So what we went with yesterday was a pretty good little trial, we went with the pitcher-DH. So he opened up the game and he was 93-95 (mph) with over seven foot of extension, really kind of cutting it loose.

“Then that gives him the freedom to then kind of just go to DH, so take focus, go get us some outs. So there’s some opener capabilities there. Full confidence in him being able to start. But then also, I like the idea of, hey, maybe he comes in out of left field at one point.”

Brown appeared in seven games for Rice last season, making four starts. Those outings didn’t go well though, with Brown giving up ten earned runs in just 4.1 innings pitched. He walked 12 batters in that span, highlighting some potential control issues. Scouts think his bat will eventually win out as he looks ahead to his professional career, but he will give Tennessee another option on the mound this spring.

“There’s a lot of options we can do there, but a lot of that with Blaine will just be communicating with him on how he’s feeling,” Elander said. “It’s just dynamic talent on both sides of the ball.”

Brown’s athletic pedigree is certainly there. His father, Chris Brown, was a third-round pick of the Tennessee Titans, where he went on to spend several seasons. Brown did get some action last year against the Volunteers, smacking a double in an early-season game in Houston.

He now joins a loaded Tennessee lineup ready to usher in a new era in Knoxville. Based on the early buzz Brown has generated so far? You’ll be hearing a lot more about him in the coming weeks.

The Guardians have brought back some familiar faces for 2026 – which brings the most joy to you as a fan to imagine seeing in a Guardians’ uniform this season?

Austin Hedges – the heart of the Guardians’ clubhouse and an elite defender (let’s not talk about his bat)?

Pedro Avila – the lovable Teddy Bear and ravenous innings eater?

Ben Lively – fierce mound competitor and innings-eating fifth starter?

Shawn Armstrong – former useful organization arm turned effective high leverage reliever in the meantime?

Still time to add Yandy Diaz to this list, Guards!

It’s time for the annual tradition of fan favorite and postseason stalwart Kiké Hernández returning to the Dodgers. The veteran utility player says he’s back in Los Angeles for a fifth time, posting on Instagram on Thursday that he’s returning to the Dodgers for 2026.

From Hernández on Instagram: “What else did you expect?!!! 3 in a row has a nice ring to it! #WeBack”

Hernández’s deal with the Dodgers is for $4.5 million, per Fabian Ardaya at The Athletic and Jack Harris of The California Post.

The Dodgers, who have a full 40-man roster, haven’t yet announced a new deal for Hernández. They can start using the 60-day injured list on the date pitchers and catchers officially report to camp to open up a roster spot. That’s no later than Friday, when the Dodgers will hold their first official workout at Camelback Ranch.

Hernández had an injury-plagued 2025 regular season, sidelined for seven weeks with left elbow inflammation in July and August. He hit .203/.255/.366 with 10 home run in 92 games, and per usual started at five different positions.

He got healthy by October and started all 17 postseason games, but even that period was affected by the injury. Through the first eight games of the postseason, Hernández was hitting .379/.455/.517 with four doubles. But after an ill-advised dive in left field in Game 3 of the NLCS, in which he landed on his left elbow, Hernández had just five hits in 35 at-bats (.143/.139/.229).

In November, Hernández had surgery on his left elbow that will prevent him from playing for Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic in March, and could affect his readiness at the beginning of the regular season.

During Dodgers Fest on January 31 at Dodger Stadium, Miguel Rojas said he expected Hernández to return to Los Angeles.

“I’m in constant communication with Kiké. I feel like, all my mind, I have no doubt that he’s gonna be back,” Rojas said. “It has something to do with his injury and the stuff that he’s going through right now, he’s not going to be ready until maybe a couple of months into the season. I’m crossing my fingers and keeping the hope that we’re going to have Kiké, because we all know how important he is for the clubhouse, the organization, for the fans, for the city of LA. He deserves to be with us, too.”

During the World Series, Hernández broke Justin Turner’s record for most postseason games played in Dodgers history, now at 92 games for Hernández.

“This is not just any franchise, man. This is the LA Dodgers. They’ve been around for a long time, and they have a lot of history,” Hernández said in October. “And for a guy like me from Puerto Rico, kind of swam against the current my entire life, to be sitting in this position is pretty special.”

The Dodgers acquired Hernández from the Marlins at the 2014 winter meetings in the Dee Strange-Gordon trade, then acquired him from the Red Sox at the 2023 trade deadline. This is now the third straight offseason Hernández has returned to the Dodgers in free agency.

Including 2026, Hernández will have played for the Dodgers in 10 of his 13 major league seasons.

Spring training is the time to hear about who is in the best shape of their life, which teams might be cursed with injuries (not a great start for the Braves), and potential adjustments players make.

While the narrative is that the Phillies are “running it back” and that everything will remain static year to year, it is important to point out that players and teams make adjustments. In 2025, Trea Turner became a much better defensive shortstop, Brandon Marsh cut his strikeout rate by more than six percent, and Jesús Luzardo started throwing a sweeper.

Here is an attempt to predict what adjustments we see from Phillies players in 2026 and why they’re making them.

Bryce Harper’s First Pitch Swing% drops to 40%

Since his second MVP season in 2021, Bryce Harper has become more and more aggressive early in counts because of how pitchers were pitching him. Harper’s best chance at getting a fastball came early in counts and he was seeing less and less of them as time went on.

In 2021, Harper saw four-seam fastballs 36.2% of the time, that number dropped to 32.6 the following season as pitchers made adjustments.

So he made his counter adjustments by being more aggressive early in counts. After swinging at the first pitch 40.2% of the time in 2021, here are his first pitch swing rates the next four seasons:

2022: 50.4%

2023: 47.5%

2024: 47.4%

2025: 54.1%

This all led to more chase outside of the strike zone and fewer fastballs over time. Harper only saw four-seam fastballs 28.4% of the time in 2025, the lowest since Baseballsavant has tracked back in 2017. It was probably the first time in Harper’s professional career he saw four-seam fastballs less than 30% of the time.

The goal for 2026 is to get pitchers to throw more of them. Maybe moving Harper to the two-hole or Schwarber down to the cleanup position might help but if Harper is keeping a similar approach, it might not make much of a difference.

Instead, Harper will course-correct all the way back and become way more patient at the plate early in counts as pitchers have adjusted. With a first-pitch swing rate of roughly 40%, he will also have his lowest chase rate since 2021, and get into more favorable counts. Eventually, pitchers will have to come in the zone, throw him slightly more fastballs, and Bryce Harper will magically put him elite numbers again because there is nothing to show he’s physically declining as a player.

Brad Keller’s go-to secondary pitch will not be his slider

Since Brad Keller entered the majors in 2018, his primary non-fastball pitch was his hard-slider but that will change in 2026 under the Phillies major league pitching department. Keller has already talked about some of the new ideas the Phillies might be bringing to the table with his arsenal.

“He kinda brought up some ideas of things that we feel like would be fun things to try,” Keller said. “Like, throwing sweepers to lefties, changeups to righties, things like that that’s kind of a little unorthodox.

Keller’s 2025 changed the entire trajectory of his career. He went from a starter that sat roughly 93-95 and mostly three pitches to a hard throwing reliever with 4 or 5 pitches he can use to anyone.

I wrote about some of the tweaks the Phillies could make but there was nothing definitive about how he will attack hitters in 2026.

What I am predicting is that he will throw more sweepers to right handed hitters and more changeups to lefties and what pitch will he throw less of in 2026? His traditional slider.

For the first time in Brad Keller’s major league career, and probably his entire life, his go-to secondary pitch won’t be the hard-slider.

Adolis García’s opposite-field flyball rate will be at least 25%

The Phillies signed Adolis García and hope to get his swing to stay in the strike zone more consistently in 2026. He had a chase rate of 35.8% and 31.1% of the fastballs he saw were outside of the strike zone.

The best place to start with making slight approach changes is to stay back on fastballs and use the opposite field. With Garcia’s plus raw power, going the other way could help his overall numbers if he is making more contact.

Another reason he could be using the entire field is because of physical decline he is facing as an aging player. García turns 33 in March and has carried league average bat speed the past two seasons, a decline over what it was back in 2023. It could get even worse as he ages.

Part of using the entire field could be by design to stay within the strike zone slightly more often but also could be aging-related if he is not able to catch up to velocity and spin like he used to.

García is a strange bet for the Phillies to make in general. He’s 33, has shown some signs as an aging athlete already but could be inclined for bigger issues in 2026. He is considered a power hitter but has a sub .400 slugging over the past two seasons. He is a good defensive right fielder, a massive upgrade over Nick Castellanos, but his range could slip with natural physical decline.

After stepping aside on the first day of spring training so that teammate Framber Valdez could have the stage, it was Justin Verlander’s turn on Thursday. Scott Harris and Jeff Greenberg introduced him to the media on Thursday morning, and we go the first image in almost nine years of Verlander in the classic Detroit Tigers home white jersey. He then took questions from the press and there were some interesting notes, starting with the fact that the whole projected starting rotation came to the presser, as they did for Valdez on Wednesday. We love a show of rotational unity.

Verlander mentioned that as early as September of 2025, with the San Francisco Giants missing out on the postseason, his thoughts returned to Detroit. He reached out to the Tigers front office at the end of the season, but noted that he and Harris had some candid conversations where it didn’t really seem like a reunion was going to fit into the Tigers plans. The season ending injury to Reese Olson, and the fact that Verlander was still considering his options in early February, finally opened up a role and a need on the Tigers roster that their former ace could return to fill.

Nine full years since his last spring training camp in Lakeland, the facilities looked completely different as the numerous renovations and upgrades to the Tigers campus all took place after he was traded to Houston in August of 2017. Verlander noted Tarik Skubal showing him around and the oddity of finding picture of himself in his younger days around the facility and locker room. He described the last two days as “very surreal” at one point.

He talked about growing up in Detroit in front of this fanbase, and his reputation as a fairly solitary and self-obsessed player in those days, saying that he didn’t really have any regrets as he needed that intensity to become the pitcher he wanted to be and ultimately became. Verlander discussed actively working on his communication and becoming a more relaxed, open teammate available for questions and advice, saying it was something he had to work on as his career evolved. He also reminded reporters that he’d been saying he wanted to pitch until he’s 45 since he was 22 years old, and chuckled at how naive that sounds now, while discussing how he’s been able to keep it going and continue evolving.

The way he finished the 2025 season found him the healthiest he’s been in a few seasons, and sparked his continued conviction that he could still get it done. Adjustments he made during the 2025 season, and that he’d been working on since 2024, finally came together and he could feel it immediately in his stuff and in hitters reactions to certain pitches.

There was plenty more as reporters probed for his recollections of his younger eras in Detroit, and Verlander generally tried to keep the emphasis on the present and what he can do now to help the Tigers win. One question about whether his daughter is old enough to appreciate the return drew laughs when Verlander chuckled and emphasized that no, this means nothing at her age yet. He also emphasized that short of a major injury that requires surgery, he’s going to keep pitching for as long as he can, and he also recounted a point in which Brad Ausmus started teaching him to use data to improve his pitch selection and how that led him to using analytics much more in his preparation. A final note was that the famous or infamous Taco Bell superstition ended in 2017.

More than anything, just the visuals of Justin Verlander speaking to reporters while wearing the Olde English D really brought home how unexpected and yet totally familiar this all feels.

Joining our 2026 prospect rankings at #19 overall, Beilenson is our first of a few pure relief prospects we’ll see on the back half of our rankings this year. Something that’s been atypical in recent seasons, with the large exodus of prospect talent over the past year and change, some of these higher floor relief types are creeping their way into the top twenty due to a lack of impact towards the end of this system. They’re probably not going to be the sexiest names that most people know, but there’s value in predictability, and that’s precisely what these kinds of arms provide.

Taken in the fifth round of the 2024 draft as a senior sign out of Duke, Beilenson was one of many college relievers the Mariners took in order to afford signing stud right-hander Ryan Sloan away from his college commitment in the second round. He was, however, arguably the top collegiate reliever that season and would have been a popular target for any team in a similar situation financially. Not a top prospect, but far from an afterthought.

On the bump, Beilenson features a legitimate three pitch mix that’s consistently performed well during his time in the Seattle organization. His fastball lives in the mid 90’s and is a capable offering, however he truly makes his money with a parachuting changeup and tight slider. None of his offerings are truly a “wipeout” offering per se, but the combination of the three allows him to get enough whiff to survive in the modern baseball climate. Plus, he’s got premium command of his entire arsenal, frequently working ahead in counts and rarely giving in if he falls behind. Perhaps not a dynamic strikeout artist, but a really solid arm to have in your system.

Over the span of his 2025 season, Beilenson pitched in two disparate offensive environments for two halves of the season: Everett’s Funko Field and Arkansas’ DSP. Interestingly, those aforementioned homer problems crept up at a roughly equivalent rate regardless of level, perhaps indicating his homer luck was a bit wacky over the course of last season. The underlying stats would agree with that sentiment, as despite his 4.02 ERA, Beilenson had a 2.78 xFIP (FIP that has essentially been “homerun luck” adjusted) on the year, an excellent mark that paints a brighter picture of his true ability on the mound.

Beilenson is pushing to carve out a big league future by inducing a ton of ground balls (48.8 GB%) and commanding the zone. It’s probably a middle-innings type of ceiling that doesn’t have any true outlier trait, but the numbers are interesting enough to warrant his inclusion towards the end of our rankings. Having turned 26 a few months ago, Beilenson is old for a prospect yet to debut in AAA, but with little pressure to rush him to the majors, he’ll have plenty of time to acclimate to AAA and prove he can be a viable big league depth arm for the 2026 season.

The Rays starters had three pitchers throw 150 or more innings in 2025 (Pepiot at 167, Baz at 166, and Rasmussen just made it with 150), which should be viewed as an acoomplishment. The last time that happened was in 2016 when Chris Archer eclipsed 200, Jake Odorizzi threw 187, and Drew Smyly added 175.

The volume of innings and health of the rotation in 2025 was impressive, but their production was roughly average – even accounting for Steinbrenner Field being one of the more HR-friendly parks in the league. The Rays starters ranked 15th in ERA, 21st in FIP, and 13th in xFIP. The accomplished this average production by filling up the zone and being above average in managing quality of contact; ranking 3rd in zone rate and 6th in ground ball rate.

2025 in Review

When choosing which key performance indicators to analyze, I initially wanted to look at the inverse of what I have been doing for batters. However, there wasn’t much to decipher from zone minus out-of-zone swing rates and 90th percentile EVs for pitchers because those are more batter-centric data points. There isn’t much difference in those measurements for pitchers, and they all kind of cluster around league average.

The pitcher-centric metrics that provided the most useful insight were:

• strike rate to measure command (and somewhat by proxy, chases)
• zone rate to measure control
• contact rate to measure the ability to generate whiffs
• hardhit rate to measure EV suppression, and
• ground ball rate plus infield fly ball rate to measure quality of contact.

Here’s how the Rays starters with at least 10 IP last season performed in each key performance indicator (I know Seymour and Boyle had some relief appearances, but they were predominantly in bulk/starter roles):

Right away we can see they were very much a league average rotation, and the key performance indicators mirror their middling production in ERA, FIP, and xFIP.

They were a typical Rays rotation in their above average strike and zone rates, and their contact management is evident in their elevated GB+IFFB% to hedge their slightly below average whiff generation and EV suppression.

Previewing the 2026 Group

Looking ahead to 2026, the rotation will be looking to replace over half of the innings they got from their starters last season with the departures of Baz, Littell, Bradley, and Houser. It will be tough to replace Baz’s combination of plus whiff generation and plus contact management with above average control and command. But the combination of Matz and Martinez gives the team a safe floor as these are two guys who have above average control and command while also featuring plus contact management skills.

I’ve got some conservative innings estimates for the current group of starters and bulk pitchers on the 40-man, and I’ll use their data from 2024-2025 in the key performance indicators mentioned above to see how this group could perform in the majors.

Note: I used McClanahan’s data from 2022-2023 because he hasn’t pitched since then, and Scholtens only had a handful of innings in the majors last year (he didn’t pitch in 2024) so I used his 2025 AAA data.

Not included: Griffin Jax, who is an interesting candidate to start, but it seems like he’ll be in the bullpen for now.

The group should show nearly the same command and control as they did last year, and there’s a higher potential for more whiff generation.

One reason there should be more swing-and-miss is because pitches are sharper at the Trop thanks to the indoor environment. Tropicana Field consistently ranks as one of the best – if not the best – parks for strikeouts. Another reason the whiff generation should be better in 2026 is with guys like McClanahan, Boyle, and Seymour could contribute more innings.

McClanahan will be on a limit for sure, but I think something in the 75-100 IP range should be reasonable for him. The same could be said for Boyle and Seymour if they’re deemed ready to step into a larger role and there’s an opportunity to do so.

The guys who could be workhorses in the rotation in Pepiot, Martinez, and (to a lesser extent but still possible) Matz are all above average in their ability to suppress EVs and manage contact to some degree. These three help raise the floor of the unit while guys like Rasmussen and McClanahan can take over a game and flat-out dominate when they’re on and healthy. Gomez and Scholtens seem to be serviceable backend starter types, but I don’t anticipate big roles for either of them. They can both throw strikes and cover innings and that has value.

The biggest question mark here is that there isn’t a clear front-of-the-rotation guy who is capable of taking over a big game in October.

McClanahan can easily be that guy if he’s healthy, but the workload management he’ll face might limit his impact in the postseason. The only other guy on the current 40-man who can match his level of plus raw stuff across the board is Boyle. However, even with his improvements since joining the Rays, he needs his command to take at least another step or two forward before he could be considered for that kind of role.

I mean no disrespect to Rasmussen; he has above average command, control, and stuff, but he can’t match McClanahan or Boyle in their ability to flat out bully hitters with multiple pitches. Rasmussen is heavily fastball-focused which can be great for throwing strikes, but he’s more of a quality of contact connoisseur than whiff warrior. What makes McClanahan special is that he can be both. Boyle has really only been a whiff guy in the majors, but he has shown he can be both when his command is there.

Take-Aways

I expect this group to be better than last season with the blend of different skill sets and moving back to the pitcher-friendly Trop. This group does have fairly significant upside if at least one of Boyle or McClanahan could take a step forward in 2026, and they frankly need at least one of them to emerge as a viable postseason weapon. Nobody else in the rotation can match the raw stuff that those two feature. Boyle’s trends in both his command and control since joining the Rays have been exciting and better than expected, and McClanahan appears to be fully healthy for the first time in a while.

This was an interesting exercise to do for all of the position groups. It was definitely more challenging for the rotation because of the fluidity of roles for certain guys, so I won’t be doing this for the bullpen like I initially planned.

My very lazy analysis of the bullpen is that they will be good because they’re always pretty good. The were first in xFIP (to account for GMS) and 3rd in whiff rate last season while maintaining above average control and command data. The roles are very fluid, but I do think Baker and Bigge could see more higher leverage opportunities than one might expect. If the bullpen struggles, there are plenty of internal candidates (including some interesting NRIs) who can help. The front office also has plenty of resources to address any needs they might have there as the year goes on. Manuel Rodriguez should also provide some nice reinforcements later in the summer.