Category: Baseball

The 2026 season will end this week, possibly tonight, if World Series Game 3 was any indication.

The Dodgers got thoroughly skunked, which is fitting considering the fact that the Brewers are from the Midwest, and when one lives in locales that frequently get snowed in, or one is in a committed relationship with someone who grew up, one learns about card games like cribbage.

Cribbage is easy enough to learn, but one of the first terms you learn about is “skunked,” a blowout loss where you lose by more than 31 points. What we just saw over four games was the Dodgers getting roundly skunked by the Milwaukee Brewers. Still, given how badly the Tampa Bay Rays are floundering this Fall Classic, one might expect the front office to be asking itself, “What if?” Oh well.

Still, at least one current Dodger is at these proceedings: Teoscar Hernandez.

Given my five-year history writing columns here, one might expect another jeremiad on these Dodgers. Those folks expecting another long-winded rant will be sorely disappointed.

Unlike 2022, when the Dodgers romped to 111 victories only to save their worst ball for the most important games of the year. Further, they were supposed to be motivated by the death of Vin Scully. They won one game and then shuffled off the stage.

If you paid any attention in August, you saw this underperforming version of the Dodgers in action, with just about every wart on display, including previous warts thought to be in remission (i.e., some of Dave Roberts’ managerial decisions). When you have a series where you lead every single game, just to lose every single time, there’s not a lot to say, apart from tipping your cap to the victors and muttering words that are unprintable in this venue.

Would a healthy Shohei Ohtani have helped? We’ll never know; it couldn’t have hurt.

The 2025 Dodgers answered a question that only the most deranged madmen would have asked last year: “Could a team hit like the 1966 Baltimore Orioles and still win a championship in today’s game?” The answer was “Yes, by the skin of their collective teeth when the opposition is on a heater, unlike the 1966 Los Angeles Dodgers.”

Last year, as a unit for the entire playoffs in 17 games, they collectively hit .233/.320/.402. There were seven players having an average OPS of .750 or higher:

• Ohtani – 1.096
• Ben Rortvedt – 1.071 (in four games before Will Smith came back)
• Alex Call – .897 (in seven games)
• Teoscar Hernandez – .788
• Will Smith – .777 (in 15 games)
• Max Muncy – .764
• Miguel Rojas – .760 (in 8 games)

This year’s team, as a unit for the entire playoffs in eight games, collectively hit .195/.267/.323. There were three players having an average OPS of .750 or higher:

• Kyle Tucker – .938
• Rojas – .929 (in five games)
• Muncy – .792

In one of life’s little ironies, Kyle Tucker started hitting in October; most of his teammates did not. Rojas has already announced his retirement. Even if the pitching staff repeated its stellar performance in 2026, rather than taking a step back as we all saw, this run was probably doomed.

A better team exposed the Dodgers. Where the Dodgers looked crisp and hungry in 2024 and got away with their fair share of miscues in 2025 (see Game 3 and Game 7 of the 2025 World Series), they looked slow and weary in 2026 when it mattered most during this playoff run.

It happens. Extra playoffs mean extra wear and tear, and the margin for error shrinks exponentially.

With the accelerated pace of the offseason that is about to start, let us take a moment to acknowledge something I hope happens once baseball resumes in 2027.

The 2027 Dodgers will hopefully look quite different

I make the following statement upfront: I do not think there is much appetite or wisdom behind trying to run it back in 2027. In that madness, Philadelphia lies; ask a Phillie fan how that strategy is going lately.

Unlike rogue AI agents that learned how to lie to their human masters, which is a terrifying recent development we do not have time to adequately cover here, this baseball machine is run by and carried out by people. Andrew Friedman seemed to tip his hand toward a more conservative approach to integrating the wave of prospects into the existing core, warning about a fear of winning only 86 games and missing the playoffs.

I think caution would be a mistake, and I think there’s an opportunity both Friedman and I recognize.

Yes, there is a risk that the prospects and new additions in free agency (whoever they are) will result in missing the playoffs for the first time in fifteen years. Variance happens. If anything, we’ve seen the opposite end of the spectrum here in the conservatism that Friedman seems to be alluding to in Philadelphia and over the past decade in San Francisco: you hold on too long, eventually you get thrown off the ride anyway with diminishing returns.

I am not going to argue something borderline moronic like trading Shohei Ohtani or casting off Max Muncy or Freddie Freeman. That’s silly. I am saying some of the core is reaching their autumnal years and maybe some more aggressive finessing of the roster is in order.

I think all the ink asking whether the Dodgers dynasty is over misses the point. For 715 days, from October 30, 2024 to October 15, 2026, the Dodgers were baseball’s champions. Nothing can take that away. However, in the next seven days, maybe as soon as tonight, a new champion will be crowned.

The goal now is to retool and reload now that the team is a challenger again. I don’t see this organization sitting on its laurels. Yes, they faltered. Now, maybe things can tighten up as the team remembers how bitter defeat tastes.

Unlike recent years, there is a delightful glut of promising talent in the minor leagues that will need protection from the Rule 5 draft. This year, along with phenom Josue De Paula, the team will likely need 40-man roster spots for Christian Zazueta, Jackson Ferris, Noah Miller, Jake Gelof, and Adam Serwinoski, or some combination thereof.

Things get really interesting next year, as James Tibbs III, Zack Ehrhard, Mike Sirota, and Eduardo Quintero are also knocking at the door and, coincidentally, will need Rule 5 protection at the end of 2027. Roster slots will be at a premium.

Will everyone I just listed pan out?

The law of averages says no, but my mind keeps going back to that one scene in Moneyball where not-Paul dePodesta tells Billy Beane about the opportunity present now that Johnny Damon is off the roster. If I have a criticism of the 2026 trade deadline, it’s that the Dodgers seemed conservative in trying to upgrade the roster on the fringes.

One does not have to go back very far in history to find an example of when the Dodgers were banking on a prospect to stick who didn’t, unless everyone forgot the Gavin Lux Starting Shortstop Experience?

On that note, could the Dodgers have traded players like Alex Call or Ryan Ward at the deadline? Sure. But clearly, they calculated that what was offered wasn’t good enough. Ward is in Japan now. It’s not as if another MLB roster claimed him to the team’s detriment. As for Call…read on.

The Coming Roster Crunch

At season’s end, the injured list goes away. The Dodgers currently have six players on the soon-to-expire 60-day injured list:

• Ben Casparius
• Jake Cousins
• Will Klein
• Brusdar Graterol
• Eric Lauer
• Gavin Stone

Some of these names will resolve themselves as you will read below. Ben Casparius and Will Klein are coming back next season; Seth Halvorsen likely so. And that calculus hasn’t even touched who gets added to the 40-man roster from the minors.

You have to make room somehow, and yes, the Dodgers are currently carrying four catchers on the 40-man roster. Put another way: you can’t DFA Eliezer Alfonzo more than once to avoid the coming roster crunch. Maybe the goal should be to wring as much baseball as possible out of the aging core while supplementing with some new blood.

The Dodgers 2026 Free Agent Forecast

It’s worth noting that since Tarik Skubal was acquired midseason in a trade, he’s ineligible for a Qualifying Offer that would give the Dodgers a marginal draft pick, due to the team’s record and being well over the draft penalty threshold.

The 2027 Qualifying Offer is a one-year/$23.15 million contract. Below are the Dodgers’ current crop of potentially departing free agents, with annotations of my best guess of what’s about to happen.

Spoiler Alert: No one is getting a qualifying offer in Los Angeles this go-around.

• Tarik Skubal (gone)
• Miguel Rojas (retired)
• Kiké Hernández (likely gone)
• Kris Bubic (gone)
• Eric Lauer (gone)
• Alex Vesia (likely gone)
• Evan Phillips (probably gone)
• Blake Treinen (gone, likely retired)
• Brusdar Graterol (gone)

As a lawyer in my day job, I give myself room to hedge.

If I say “gone,” I will be shocked into silence if I am wrong. If I say someone is “likely gone,” I would say it’s a 51/49 prospect that someone is gone, more often than not, but maybe wiggle room can be had. I would be surprised, but not shocked. If I say someone is “probably gone,” I would say that it is a 25/75 prospect that someone is gone, less likely than not. I would hope that something could be worked out, but I am mentally preparing myself to see them in a different uniform.

These forecasts are based entirely on observation and experience over the past five campaigns; I have no insider information. I’m trying something new, because I have the bandwidth.

Gone

Tarik Skubal: Sure, the Dodgers would like him back. How could you not? He did what the Dodgers acquired him for. Per Andy McCullough of The Athletic:

Across the past three seasons, [Skubal] led all pitchers in FanGraphs’ version of wins above replacement (18.0), while ranking second in ERA (2.42), fourth in strikeouts per nine innings (10.8) and fifth in innings (182 per season). In 2026, he returned from midseason elbow surgery to post a 2.72 ERA with 186 strikeouts in 158.2 innings. 

He beat Atlanta, but he got beat by the Brewers and Jacob Misiorowski; there was a lot of that going around.

Blake Snell really wants him back, as he apparently is figuratively cosplaying the main characters from Step Brothers with Skubal. However, unless Skubal is willing to do a short-term, Kyle Tucker-esque deal, he’s likely to eclipse Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s contract in total or, at the very least, annual value. My best guess is in New York (doesn’t matter which team), but maybe the Dodgers’ brain trust can pull another rabbit out of its figurative hat as to the soon-to-be 30-year-old left-hander.

Miguel Rojas: Has already retired and is already eating meat with Payton Tolle of the Boston Red Sox.

Kris Bubic and Eric Lauer: Bubic was a bullpen gamble that didn’t pay off. Moreover, Bubic has been a starter for his career; is he just a bullpen guy now? Maybe. Seems doubtful, but as far as I know, he’s not on the Bobby Miller Express of forced bullpen service. Lauer was a depth piece to absorb innings. The Eric Lauer Experience is likely a one-off, barring a non-roster invite or him turning his nose up at offers from West Sacramento.

Blake Treinen: Treinen injured his shoulder warming up in the penultimate game of the regular season in San Francisco. He’s entering his age-39 season. There were five relievers over the age of 38 in MLB in 2026: Luis Garcia (39), Caleb Theilbar (39), Carlos Carrasco (39), Kirby Yates (39), and Chris Martin (40).

I’m sure the doctors told Treinen that they can fix you, but at some point, time just marches on.

None of these pitchers appeared in more than 60 games in 2026; Theilbar was closest at 58. Yates has already announced his retirement, and if I were pressed, I would be flabbergasted if Treinen came back to MLB at all, much less with the Dodgers. We’ll always have 2024.

Brusdar Graterol: If Graterol is willing to come back on a minor league, prove-it deal, that’s my carve-out. But if Graterol is expecting a major league roster spot, the mark against him is that he hasn’t been able to stay healthy or get healthy. He has pitched in seven regular-season games since the start of the 2024 season, and all of them were in the 2024 campaign. As much as I personally enjoy watching Graterol, those are attendance records that would make Danny Duffy go, “Man, he’s never here.”

Likely Gone / Probably Gone

Kiké Hernández: Kiké is entering his age-35 season, and while he states that he can still play ball, there are two facts that likely spell an end to his time in Los Angeles, unless he is willing to take a lesser role (think minor league invite):

The Dodgers are facing a roster crunch discussed above, and Kiké’s main claim to fame the past few years has been his effectiveness in the postseason. This past October, he went 1 for 14, granted that one hit was his 17th postseason homer off of Chris Sale.

Otherwise, it was his worst postseason since going hitless in 2016.

I can see the Dodgers moving on if they buy in on Alex Freeland and Hyeseong Kim. The problem with those two players is that, even with extended runways in 2026, neither player could lock down playing time.

A reunion with Kiké makes more sense than the Dodgers trying to acquire a player like Luis Arraez. The goal with this thought exercise isn’t to chase names; it’s to get younger.

Honestly, the worst-case scenario is the Dodgers trading for Kiké at another trade deadline if they can’t work something out now.

Alex Vesia and Evan Phillips: Alex Vesia is arguably one of the most underrated bullpen arms in baseball. Even when the eye test falters, his peripheral statistics have stayed consistent over the past three campaigns. Vesia has a 2.66 ERA over 367 games and 328 total innings with the Dodgers. He posted 6.3 bWAR in his tenure with the Dodgers. In the postseason, he has a 1.59 ERA over 31 appearances.

His two-year, $5.8 million contract just expired. He’s probably worth at least $5 to 7 million per year, even as he enters his age-30 season. Is he worth Tanner Scott/Edwin Diaz money? No, but no one is, apart from prime-Mariano Rivera if he were pitching today.

Vesia will likely test the free-agent market, and it seems more likely than not that someone will finally wise up and pay (or overpay) for his services. For comparison, 32-year-old Luke Weaver is currently on a two-year, $22 million contract. Vesia is probably worth at least that, if not more, due to his age and effectiveness.

When healthy, and since becoming a bullpen mainstay in 2022, Phillips has a 2.31 ERA over 225 games and 210 2/3 innings with the Dodgers. He posted 4.6 bWAR since joining the Dodgers. In the postseason, he has a 0.00 ERA over 17 appearances.

Phillips had a bit of an issue with the home run ball in his 2026 campaign, nearly giving up as many as he did in 2025 in less than half the work. Otherwise, entering his age-33 season, he is coming off his one-year/$6.5 million contract. He could have left last offseason; maybe he does this offseason, but if he and the Dodgers were willing to work something out last year, even on a truncated basis, nothing indicates it couldn’t happen again.

If the stars align, Skubal is priority one, but otherwise, you try to bring back both Vesia and Phillips back into the fold. If pressed, I would say Vesia is the top reasonable re-sign target, then Phillips.

The 2026 Arbitration Class

The Dodgers have six players eligible for arbitration.

• Brock Stewart
• Jake Cousins (probably non-tendered)
• Alex Call (likely non-tendered)
• Emmet Sheehan
• Gavin Stone
• Andy Pages

Same definitions as above, but with a slightly different format.

Andy Pages: He deserves his own essay as to why he should get a contract extension.

Emmet Sheehan and Gavin Stone: Sheehan is coming back and is probably on the cusp of getting an extension at some point, especially if Skubal does not return. Stone hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2024; I can’t see the Dodgers cutting ties with cost-controlled pitching that still has options remaining.

Brock Stewart: While Brock Stewart actually logged some innings in 2026, he was fine. If you factor in Treinen’s likely retirement and the fact that MLB Trade Rumors projects Stewart to make $1.8 million in 2027, under regular circumstances, I cannot fathom the Dodgers failing to offer him a contract.

Jake Cousins: Unless you have a hyperfixation on the 2024 World Series, you would be forgiven for drawing a blank as to who this reliever is. Technically, he was the losing pitcher in Game 1, as everyone remembers Nestor Cortes being nuked off the field after throwing two pitches: one to Ohtani and the other — let’s check the tape:

I’m a tad biased, as it’s no Miggy Ro blast, but it’ll do in a pinch. Cousins signed just before opening day, and spent most of the year rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. He was reinjured in Oklahoma City while rehabbing, after generally being ineffective in a handful of appearances. If there is a universe where Graterol comes back outside of a non-roster invite, it’s probably dependent on the Dodgers cutting ties with Cousins.

Most likely, the Dodgers can get comparable production with a non-roster invite to Cousins if he wants it, and protecting Adam

Alex Call: At the 2025 Trade Deadline, rumors swirled that the Dodgers were on the cusp of acquiring both Emmanuel Clase and Steven Kwan. Naturally, that move didn’t happen. In part because Clase was placed on non-disciplinary paid leave due to an ongoing pitch-rigging and sports-betting investigation. Clase was ultimately indicted for wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, and conspiracy to influence sporting events by bribery. His trial is scheduled to start on November 2, 2026.

If I had a nickel for each time in recent years the Dodgers dodged acquiring a closer that would end up under federal investigation, I would have two nickels (Felipe Vasquez, Pittsburgh, 2019).

The acquisition of Call as an alternative to Kwan was one of necessity in 2025. In two seasons with the Dodgers, Call has played in 126 games with a slash line of .237/.344/.331, 3 HRs, 25 RBIs, posting a combined .5 bWAR. Under regular circumstances, Call is a serviceable fourth outfielder.

With numerous outfield options waiting in the wings, Call’s greatest value is the 40-man roster spot he currently holds, which could likely be better used to protect a Rule 5 candidate like Adam Serwinoski, as described above.

Call was left off the postseason roster, and his only contribution in October was rightfully calling out the salacious advertising running during MLB playoff games. Still, media criticism aside, it is hard to see Call returning to Los Angeles under these circumstances.

Special Consideration

• Teoscar Hernandez
• Landon Knack

While working on this feature, two other names came to mind.

Teoscar Hernandez: This essay’s genesis was formed around a single thought while watching the 2026 Dodgers: “How many singles is Teoscar going to play into triples? Because it’s literally happened in two postseasons in a row.”

It’s not that Teoscar hasn’t produced over the past few years, because he has. Teoscar is set to earn $14.5 million in the final year of his contract, with a club option for 2028 that is unlikely to be exercised. Mark Polishuk of MLB Trade Rumors summarizes the question nicely:

Since Opening Day 2025, Hernandez has hit .256/.308/.441 with 41 homers over 1037 PA, translating to a 105 wRC+. The 2026 campaign saw Hernandez increase his batting average and walk rate from 2025 (though his 8.6BB% was still below league average), but his power diminished.

Digging further into Hernandez’s 2026 production, he was hitting pretty well before a hamstring strain sidelined him from the end of May to the end of June.  Upon returning from the injured list, Hernandez went into a protracted slump for the next two months before re-adopting his old batting stance, which seemed to get him back on track.  Hernandez posted a 1.015 OPS over his final 104 PA of the regular season before cooling off in the playoffs.

While the Dodgers would surely prefer more than a 110 wRC+ from a player making Hernandez’s salary, that’s still a decent level of production for a player entering his age-34 season.  So, why exactly is Hernandez a trade candidate, and perhaps the L.A. regular most likely to be playing elsewhere in 2027?

My biggest fear for the offseason, apart from an idiotic lockout I have seen coming since 2022, is that the Dodgers are just going to keep trotting guys out, because they are their guys. It used to be a more ruthless calculation; just ask Justin Turner, Cody Bellinger, Austin Barnes, and Chris Taylor, to name a few.

A platoon of Teoscar and Josue De Paula in left field makes no logical sense, especially if you are also somehow taking away at-bats from Ohtani at the DH spot.

Once again, Mr. Polishuk:

…[T]he Dodgers don’t have a ready-made third base replacement for Muncy in the way that [Josue] De Paula or several other top outfield prospects are knocking on the door for big league playing time.  This wealth of prospect depth makes it fairly unlikely that Hernandez’s 2028 option will be exercised, so Los Angeles could look to address other needs by trading Hernandez this winter.  It’s worth noting that there was some buzz around a Hernandez trade last offseason, though at the time, GM Brandon Gomes and manager Dave Roberts downplayed the seriousness of that speculation.

Now a veteran of 11 MLB seasons, Hernandez’s game is pretty well established.  He brings a lot of strikeouts and doesn’t walk much, and he’s a subpar defender in both corner outfield slots despite a good throwing arm.  On the plus side, Hernandez is still making plenty of hard contact with solid barrel rates, and it could be that his decreased power this season was an offshoot from his stance change and maybe the lingering impact of his hamstring strain.  Playing for a team without a set DH could benefit Hernandez, as he could get some more partial rest days as the designated hitter.

[Emphasis added.]

The article also cites several potential trade partners, including the Mariners, Reds, Royals, and Orioles, just to name a few.

Honestly, it might be time for all parties involved to make a clean break. While there was some scuttlebutt that Teoscar would be traded at the deadline, Dave Roberts and the front office publicly downplayed it.

Would I be surprised if the Dodgers stand pat regarding Teoscar? No, and maybe that observation is the problem.

Landon Knack: Yes, he’s under team control for 2027. However, he is out of options and would need to be designated for assignment to move him to the minors.

Knack has played three seasons in Los Angeles, posting a 7-7 record and a 4.10 ERA over 123 innings in 29 games. Some of his peripheral stats are either terrible, namely his FIP (5.27), or are trending downward (more hits allowed per inning, more home runs allowed per inning, fewer strikeouts per inning).

Knack might need a change of scenery or a trade for a non-40-man prospect before the lockout starts. Even if players like Kyle Hurt and Bobby Miller have been disappointments in recent years, even while being serviceable in different roles, they have an option year remaining. Knack doesn’t,

What happened in 2021 is instructive

The last time baseball was in this situation was 2021, heading into the still-dumb 2022 lockout, that effectively kicked the labor can down the road, and cost Clayton Kershaw his opportunity to throw a perfect game in Minneapolis. It did not affect his failed perfect game attempt in Anaheim a few weeks later that year.

To conclude this exhaustive trip into the roster, I thought it might be instructive to see what the Dodgers did last time in this situation with a slightly less impressive crop of prospects on the horizon.

Per Eric Stephen:

The Dodgers added outfielder James Outman, shortstop Jacob Amaya, infielders Eddys Leobard and Jorbit Vivas, and pitcher Michael Grove to the 40-man roster ahead of Friday afternoon’s deadline to set rosters in preparation for the Rule 5 Draft.

To make room for them on the now full 40-man roster, outfielders Zack Reks and Billy McKinney were designated for assignment.

With all due respect to those listed, this list is infinitely less impressive than the current candidates under consideration. James Outman did have a far too brief moment of success while wearing Dodger blue. And, more importantly, Jacob Amaya led directly to the reunion with Miguel Rojas. No MiggyRo? No title in 2025. Okay, one last time while technically the defending champion…vitamins for everybody!

Sometimes fringe moves matter in ways that only blossom with time. On that note, let the youth movement begin!

The World Series is here between a pair of clubs in search of the respective franchises’ first championships in the Tampa Bays Rays and the Milwaukee Brewers. 

While the Red Sox work through the winter to build a team capable of a deeper playoff run in 2027 (provided there’s a season), Boston still holds the most rings since 2000 in a generational run of October success. 

Each team had standout moments that defined the championship run. Among those players who helped bring a title to Boston, which players stand among the best? Or even better, who would you pick to run it back with selections from the four teams? 

Let’s give it a try with a starting lineup and a four-man starting rotation composed from four Red Sox championship teams. To ease the arguments, let’s start with the best lineup based on production in the World Series. And obviously there’s crossover between 2004 and 2007. 

1. Jacoby Ellsbury, CF (2007) – (.438, 4 2B, 4 R, 3 RBI)

2. Dustin Pedroia, 2B (2007) – (Leadoff HR in Game 1, .850 OPS)

3. David Ortiz, DH (2013) (**WS MVP – .688, 2 HR, 6 RBI, 8 BB, 1.948 OPS)

4. Manny Ramirez, LF (2004) (**WS MVP – . 412, HR, 4 RBI, 1.088 OPS)

5. Mike Lowell, 3B (2007) (**WS MVP – .400, HR, 4 RBI, 6 R, 1.300 OPS)

6. Steve Pearce, 1B (2018) (**WS MVP – .333, 3 HR, 8 RBI, 1.667 OPS)

7. Jason Varitek, C (2004) (3B, 2 RBI, break curse)

8. Trot Nixon (2004) (.357, 3 RBI – Game-sealing double in Game 4)

9. Julio Lugo, SS (2007) (.385, 2 R)

LHP Jon Lester (2013) (2-0. 0.59 ERA, 15 K in 15.1 IP)

RHP Josh Beckett (2007) (7 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 9 K)

RHP Pedro Martinez (2004) (7 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 6 K)

LHP David Price (2018) (2-0, 1.98 ERA, 10 K in 13.2 IP)

Locking in a few spots here helped given the fact that the Red Sox had four different players win World Series MVP at four different positions. This list all came down to production in the Fall Classic, and honestly, there weren’t many debates at each spot in that realm (but comment and claw back if you feel differently!). Each player in the lineup delivered a standout moment within their sustained production — with the exception of Lugo with a key leaping grab in Colorado.

The rotation is also pretty easy to assemble as well given that each arm’s starts defined the momentum of the series. In sweeps like 2004 and 2007, you could make an argument to sub in Derek Lowe and flip-flop him and Pedro given their starts were nearly identical. Nonetheless, all of them rose to the occasion to strengthen their legacies in October.

NOW… we’ll do it based on pure talent, which honestly may not have a ton of change. 

1. Mookie Betts, RF (2018) (2018 AL MVP, .346 AVG to win batting title and several other awards)

2. Dustin Pedroia, 2B (2007) (2007 AL Rookie of the Year)

3. David Ortiz, DH (2004) (41 homers, .983 OPS during regular season)

4. Manny Ramirez, LF (2004) (43 homers in regular season, WS MVP)

5. Xander Bogaerts, SS (2018) (103 RBIs, .883 OPS during regular season)

6. Mike Lowell, 3B (2007) (124 RBIs in regular season, WS MVP)

7. Kevin Youkilis, 1B (2007) (.843 OPS during regular season)

8. Jason Varitek, C (2004) (.292, .876 OPS during regular season)

9. Jacoby Ellsbury, CF (2007) (.353 in regular season introduction)

LHP Jon Lester (2013) (2-0. 0.59 ERA, 15 K in 15.1 IP)

RHP Josh Beckett (2007) (7 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 9 K)

RHP Pedro Martinez (2004) (7 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 6 K)

LHP David Price (2018) (2-0, 1.98 ERA, 10 K in 13.2 IP)

The star power within the pitching staff keeps this group the same. Curt Schilling and Nathan Eovaldi likely had the best cases to join this portion of the list, but each of the four arms in the rotation spent at least one season has the established ace of the Red Sox rotation.

Do you have changes? Who’s in? Who’s out?

Make your lineups and rotations heard in the comments. Four championships has plenty to present for debate!

MLB owners have, as you know, been pushing the idea that the sport needs a salary cap for teams to have better competitive balance.

You would think, then, that the Brewers/Rays World Series matchup, between two teams with modest payrolls (I’m not calling them “small market” because that term is filled with conditions), would change that mindset.

At The Athletic, Evan Drellich writes that it hasn’t. Commissioner Rob Manfred spoke:

“People can be entrenched wherever they want to be entrenched. We’re prepared to commit ourselves to the process,” Manfred said. “It’s easy to say, ‘I’m here, and I’m never moving.’ That’s not a particularly skilled approach to the process.

“The small markets operate at a disadvantage economically. They just don’t have the resources that our bigger markets do.”

Mark Attanasio, owner of the Brewers and a member of Manfred’s labor committee, said the league’s cap proposal “not only will help us compete, but more importantly, all of the teams with lower payrolls too, which is something also I think the fans want.”

Let’s be clear here. Owners don’t want a salary cap because they want more teams to compete. They want it to increase profits and to increase franchise values. Period, full stop.

You can imagine how that’s gone over with the MLBPA:

Bruce Meyer, the interim head of the union, called a salary cap “a nuclear bomb” and said “there’s no reason whatsoever” that the Pittsburgh Pirates can’t compete the same way the Brewers and Rays have.

“These teams have been successful doing it one way,” Meyer said. “They would be even more successful if they went out and spent more money. Tampa would probably have a few World Series under their belt if they had at any point gone out and signed some free agents.”

Meyer is right, in this sense. The reason the Brewers and Rays are where they are is because both teams have smart baseball management teams. Look at the Brewers: They let top executive David Stearns go to the Mets, where owner Steve Cohen has dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into players. For that, the Mets had 74 wins this year and weren’t close to the postseason. They let manager Craig Counsell go to the Cubs, and well, you know that story. Counsell’s done well in Chicago. But the Cubs organization, despite theoretically having more resources, hasn’t put together the infrastructure to win. They could! But they have let scouts go and their pitching development system is, in a word, terrible.

The Rays are a similar story. Executive Andrew Friedman left Tampa Bay after 2014, which started the chain reaction that brought Joe Maddon to Chicago. Erik Neander, Friedman’s top deputy, took over and, as he had worked for the Rays since 2007, the transfer was seamless. The organization kept doing what it had been doing, and Kevin Cash, signed as manager to succeed Maddon, is now the longest-tenured manager in MLB.

Smart baseball management wins. Teams prove that over and over and over. When the Cubs won in 2016, they had it. Now? Not so much.

So Bruce Meyer says a salary cap is “a nuclear bomb,” which is pretty strong imagery, basically saying there’s no way players will go for it. This sentiment appears common among players:

Reliever Aaron Ashby, the Brewers’ player rep, was asked how long players are willing to sit out to avoid a cap.

“I guess as long as it takes,” Ashby said. “We’re gonna have a long season here, and I guess if that means having a longer offseason, so be it.”

In this article posted here earlier this month, I noted some discussion of what a “drop dead date” could be for owners before they blink. The TL;dr version is that about 60 games into the season is when owners could start to lose out on big TV money, because at that point the current TV deals could roll into another year and not expire until the end of 2029. That would delay the big money that owners hope to get from new national TV deals.

So we’re in a holding pattern. Neither side has changed its position, but we might get some more clarity from this, per the Drellich article:

The union holds an annual meeting with players near the end of November, which this year coincides with the final days of bargaining before the lockout. In 2021, the owners met the players where they were holding that meeting, in Texas.

These days, the union holds that same meeting in Arizona, where it opened an office in 2023. Which means this time, Arizona could be the site where Manfred announces that the sport is frozen.

“We’ve told them where we’re going to be,” Meyer said. “They haven’t confirmed, but I expect there’s a high likelihood we’ll be talking and bargaining, and you never know what’s going to happen.”

I am 99.9 percent sure that owners will lock out players when the CBA expires at 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 1. After that, it’s anyone’s guess when it will end.

Try to enjoy the rest of the World Series. We might not see MLB players back on the field for quite some time after that.

Welcome to the 2026 edition of Ranking the Rockies, where we take a look back at every player to log playing time for the Rockies in 2026. The purpose of this list is to provide a snapshot of the player in context. The “Ranking” is an organizing principle that’s drawn from Baseball Reference’s WAR (rWAR). It’s not something the staff debated. We’ll begin with the player with the lowest rWAR and end up with the player with the highest.

No. 34, Vimael Machín (0.0 rWAR)

On one hand, Vimael Machín had the best MLB season of his career — one that’s spanned five big league seasons and 10 minor league seasons.

Playing in his first season for the Rockies, he hit .500 with a .500 on-base percentage and 1.000 OPS as well.

The only problem was that Machín only had six at-bats in three games.

The Rockies signed the 33-year-old infielder to a minor league contract on Dec. 21, 2025 and extended an invite to spring training. After being assigned to Triple-A Albuquerque, Machín had a successful year with the Isotopes. In 438 at-bats in 113 games, the Puerto Rican hit .288/.367/.438 with an OPS of .805. He hit 12 homers, 22 doubles and four triples, scored 61 runs, drove in 73 more runs, drew 53 walks and struck out 71 times.

He seemed like a great candidate for a September call-up, but the honor went to Adael Amador and Blas Castaño. Then, infielder Willi Castro got hurt and was placed on the IL on Sept. 5. The Rockies turned to Machín for some late-season infield depth, while optioning Tyler Freeman to the Isotopes.

From Sept. 6 to Sept.13, Machín started two games — against the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals — at third base, going 2-for-5 with two strikeouts. He also went 1-for-1 as a pinch hitter against the Yankees.

When starting pitcher José Quintana was ready to rejoin the rotation on Sept. 19, Machín hadn’t proven enough to stay on the roster for the final eight games of the season.

This season proved to be much like the majority of Machín’s career has played out: success in the minor leagues that doesn’t always translate to the big leagues.

Machín was originally drafted by the Chicago Cubs in 2015 out of Virginia Commonwealth University. He then went on a roller coaster ride of climbing the Cubs farm system before being put on the waiver wire in 2019. He was then picked up by the Philadelphia Phillies and traded to the Oakland A’s on the same day in the 2019 offseason.

He made his MLB debut in 2020 and moved back and forth between the A’s and the Triple-A Las Vegas Aviators throughout 2021 and 2022. He played in 73 games in 2022, but never found his way at the plate, hitting .220/.300/.287 with a .587 OPS. In 2023, Machín played his entire season with the Aviators and chose free agency afterward.

In 2024, he played for the Charros de Jalisco in Mexico, then signed a minor league deal with the Baltimore Orioles before the 2025 season. He only played in four games, going 1-for-11 at the plate. Meanwhile, in the for the Triple-A Norfolk Tides, he hit .286/.347/.476 with an .823 OPS.

The same scene played out for the Rockies in 2026. On Sept. 19, the Rockies designated Machín for assignment. After clearing the waiver wires, he was outrighted to the ACL Rockies on Sept. 22. Considering Colorado signed Machín to a 1-year, $780,000 deal for 2026, and the Rockies have lots of infield depth ahead of him, Machín faces an uncertain future this offseason.

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Overview.

The book is awesome for readers who have a broad interest in baseball history.  The book includes information from more than 300 interviews and many books (60 books are listed in the bibliography).

My interest and focus are on the Diamondbacks.  Although my attention sometimes wandered to other teams and their players, my focus quickly bounced back to the Diamondbacks.  From that perspective, reading the book sometimes overwhelmed me with stuff outside my focus.

From my perspective, I wondered about the following questions. Are any Diamondbacks in the book?  For each type of pitch, “What is its characteristic,” and “Which recent Diamondback starters have a characteristic pitch type that defined them?

Are any Diamondbacks in the book?

Randy Johnson (pages 21-24).   The following quote caught my attention:

“It took me forever just to get to the Major Leagues and feel like I could compete.  So, when I could, I relished the moment.” — Randy Johnson

To be more accurate, he had many moments to relish.  In his 22 consecutive seasons, he won many awards, including 5 Cy Young awards, a triple crown, World Series MVP, and he threw one perfect game.  And he was voted into the Hall of Fame.

Curt Schilling (paragraph on page 145).   An excerpt follows: “I think it’s [the splitter] one of the easiest pitches in the world on your arm because you don’t change anything.  You don’t manipulate the ball with a split, you just split your fingers.”  — Curt Schilling

I wonder that if it is so easy on the arm, why aren’t splitters more common? 

Luis Gonzalez (paragraph on page 261).  One sentence caught my attention:

“In Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, Luis Gonzalez floated a Rivera cutter into shallow left field for a single, winning the title for the Diamondbacks.” — Tyler Kepner

To add some detail to the importance of cutters in the winning sequence for the Diamondbacks:

• The cutter was Mariano Rivera’s best pitch, with late and sharp movement.
• Tony Womack hit a cutter for a down-the-line double, tying the game ahead of Gonzalez.
• Craig Counsell was hit by an inside cutter, which loaded the bases ahead of Gonzalez.
• Contributing to the success of Gonzalez’s shallow single was that Derek Jeter was playing in, hopeful of throwing out a baserunner at home. 

What is a characteristic for each type of pitch?

The following charactistics are short, with two caveats. First, although two pitchers can pitch the same type of pitch, it’s unlikely their pitches are exactly alike. Second, pitches evolve over time.

Slider: “The slider is faster than the curveball and easier to control, with a tighter break, shaped not like a look but like a slash, moving down and away toward the pitcher’s glove side.”  Page 2 of K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches

4-Seam Fastball: “As the backspinning ball hurtles through the air, four seams cycle through each revolution.  It is the easiest pitch to steer, and gives the hitter the least time to react.”  Page 35 of K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches

Curveball:  The curveball is thrown with topspin, the seams whooshing downward as the pitch tumbles to Earth. Only certain pitches have the loose, easy wrist action to make a ball act that way.”  Page 68 of K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches

Knuckleballs:  “The best knuckleballs often zig and zag away from the mitt, sending their catchers scrambling.”  Page 97 of K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches

Splitter: “With the splitter, Sutter found a pitch that was meant to be thrown like a fastball, but required a dominant index finger to generate its straight-down – or down-and-away-from-a-lefty – movement.”  Page 126 of K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches

Screwball: “It is a slow curve, pitched with the motion of a fastball.  But most curves break away from a right-handed batter a little.  The fade-away breaks toward him.” — Christy Mathewson,  page 150 of K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches

Sinker: “Just take it off the plane that much, in the last 10 feet, and it’s a soft ground ball.” — Steve Rogers,  page 171 of K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches

Changeup: “The hitter sees fastball from the motion of the arm and the spin of the ball which sputters as it crosses the plate, fading away…”  Page 198 of K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches

Spitball: “When the ball leaves your hand, it slips off your wet fingers and clings, just a tiny bit, to the dry part of your thumb.  The ball jumps on account of it.” — Preacher Roe, page 226 of K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches

Cutter: “A good inside cutter veers off course so late that the only way to hit it on the barrel is to pull it foul.  The batter must guess where the ball will end up, he does not have time to actually see its movement.”   Page 260 of K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches

What is a characteristic pitch type for recent Diamondbacks starters?

Each pitcher’s charactistic pitch type is from my perspective as a fan, which depends on more than just the frequency of each pitch type.

Characteristic pitch types corresponding to chapters in the book: 

• Slider: Ryne Nelson (increased usage last season)
• 4-Seam Fastball:  Ryne Nelson and Eduardo Rodriguez
• Changeup:  Merrill Kelly and Eduardo Rodriguez
• Cutter:  Corbin Burnes

Additional characteristic pitch types:

• Knuckle Curve:  Zac Gallen
• Sweeper:  Brandon Pfaadt (as part of a six-pitch mix)
• Slurve:  Michael Soroka

There are a few candidates for the greatest moment in Texas Rangers history. You could potentially including, I guess, Nolan Ryan’s no hitters or Kenny Rogers’ perfect game, but otherwise, pretty much all of them, I think, come in the 21st century, which says something about the first 30-something years of the team’s history.

There’s Neftali Feliz fanning ARod to send the Rangers to their first every World Series in 2010.

There’s Cliff Lee striking out 13 Yankees in a two hit complete game shutout in Game 3 of the ALCS.

In 2011, Nelson Cruz’s 11th inning walk off grand slam against the Tigers in the ALCS was magical.

As an Ian Kinsler stan, his 9th inning homer in Game 5 of the 2011 ALDS against the Rays, with him skipping out of the box on the way to first base, is still a favorite.

The five home runs Adolis Garcia hit in the 2023 ALCS against the Houston Astros — especially the Game 6 grand slam, after striking out his first four at bats, to blow the game open — tremendous.

But to me, the greatest moment in Texas Rangers history took place three years ago today. Game 1 of the 2023 World Series, in Arlington. The Rangers, down 5-3 going to the bottom of the ninth against D-Backs closer Paul Sewald. Leody Taveras leads off with a walk, bringing the tying run to the plate. Marcus Semien strikes out.

And then, up steps Corey Seager, and first pitch…

I don’t know how many times I’ve watched that clip — dozens, at least. And it still gives me goosebumps.

“He could tie it with one swing…HIGH DRIVE…ITS TIED!!!”

I defy you to watch that clip and not have big feelings.

That was a $325 million dollar swing. That was the greatest moment in Texas Rangers history.

That home run just tied up the score, but at that moment I knew — much like I knew, when Mitch Garver homered in the second inning of Game 6 of the ALCS in Houston to tie up the game, that the Rangers would win the ALCS — that the Rangers were going to win, not just the game, but the whole damn thing.

Two innings later, Adolis Garcia won the game for the Rangers in dramatic fashion:

You know, we know, intellectually, that Adolis Garcia was a beast in the 2023 playoffs. We remember that he came up huge. But watching that clip, and the one of the ALCS homers, brings the feeling back.

Five days later, in Arizona, in a game where the Rangers didn’t have a baserunner until the fifth inning, and didn’t get a hit until the seventh, a gritty performance by Nathan Eovaldi kept the D-Backs off the scoreboard for six innings. Aroldis Chapman retired a pair of batters and issued a walk in the seventh before turning the ball over to Josh Sborz, who recorded the final seven outs.

And in an echo of 2010 and Neftali Feliz, Sborz ended the game with a backwards K:

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Rangers fan. As a kid, I was desperate to see the Rangers win the World Series, to be crowned champions. As an adult — especially after 2011 and 2012 — I started to think it would never happen, that the Rangers were cursed, and that I’d never see them lift the trophy.

Sometimes I find myself wondering, why do I do this to myself? Why am I a fan of this team? Why do I subject myself to the heartache and heartbreak and disappointment that is such a regular part of our fandom?

And then I watch those clips above, and my question is answered. 2023 makes it all worthwhile.

The Tampa Bay Rays played 162 games in the regular season and easily proved they were the best team in the American League. They did this with effective pitching, amazing defense, excellent scouting, well worked at-bats, and fantastic fundamentals.

These are the things that allowed the Rays sweep the New York Yankees in the ALDS and then overcome the Cleveland Guardians in the ALCS.

And then these are the things that have eluded the Rays thus far in the World Series against the best team in the National League, the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Brewers have shown exactly why they are so great.

The hitters will absolutely wear down a pitcher with each at-bat seemingly taking a toll on the unfortunate soul on the mound; when a strikeout does occur, it’s only after an exorbitant amount of fouled off offerings. The Milwaukee pitchers have made quick work of the Rays, either striking them out with ease by expanding the zone or inducing weak contact to perfectly placed fielders. The only thing the Brewers haven’t done is crush the ball out of the ballpark, but there just hasn’t been a need; there have only been two home runs hit this World Series (Frelick and Hicks).

Now the Rays are on the brink of losing their 3rd attempt at a World Series in humiliating fashion, losing all four games, and forced to watch as the Brewers celebrate at Tropicana Field.

It will likely be all hands on deck for the Rays regarding the pitching strategy but Griffin Jax is the probable starter. Over the regular season, Jax had a 3.53 ERA | 3.76 FIP with a 25.3 K% & 7.6 BB% over 112.1 IP. Thus far in the postseason, Jax has a 6.00 ERA | 4.77 FIP with a 23.1 K% & 11.5 BB% over 6 IP. It has been 12 days since Jax last took the mound, taking the loss in game three of the ALCS against Cleveland, allowing three runs on five hits over four innings of work.

The Brewers will have the majority of their pitchers available including the trio of fearsome arms in the backend of their bullpen: Trevor Megill, Abner Uribe, and Aaron Ashby.

Their official starter hasn’t been announced but there are several options. Possibly southpaw Ktlye Harrison, who hasn’t pitched yet this postseason. Milwaukee could also go with Shane Drohan or Dustin May. It will be anyone’s guess as to who Pat Murphy will call upon to try and get the 27 outs needed to secure a World Series title.

First pitch is tonight at 8:08.

Hopefully there will be a first pitch tomorrow.

Game 2 of the 2026 World Series ended, to some, in controversy. Yandy Díaz may, or may not, have checked his swing in a full count facing Aaron Ashby, getting himself punched out as the Brewers went up 2-0 in the Fall Classic. The called strike three set off a round of assurances that the check swing challenge system being tested in the minor leagues will fix this, that we will have a perfect game soon.

I’m not sure I want a perfect game. I’m not sure I want a perfect anything.

I wrote almost two years ago as the ABS system loomed on the horizon about preserving a tinge of doubt. That challenge system has turned out great. The most egregious calls, especially earlier in the season, were corrected, but limits on how many reviews you get and internal controls on who and when you can challenge introduced a new layer of in-game tactical decisions, adding friction to the newly-optimized strikezone.

That balance is the one that I’m increasingly interested in finding. Everything is very easy for us now. I can write this from my toilet while on a lunch break from my email job with a burrito in a heat bag on the back of a bicycle about to be dropped off outside my door. The perpetual optimization of the consumer life has made it easier to do nothing but stay home and consume, but has removed bumping into a friend walking down the street or seeing a cool bird because you had to walk through the park to get food yourself.

The increase in LLM usage underscores this as well. Once again I give a pledge to you all that you will never read a word of mine that came from Claude or Chat or any of the New C Words, but I work with people and text (a limited amount) with people and read essays from people that involve a prompt, and maybe a follow-up, and no sweat or creativity afterward. These things cause me great pain to read.

Baseball’s path to optimization hasn’t really made people more stagnant in the same way that DoorDash and streaming services have. Instead, the path to optimization has resulted in the thing that I believe is hurting the watchability of the sport: pitching is too good. We have learned how to add three miles per hour to everyone’s pitch, with an extra three inches of horizontal break to every sweeper, three inches of induced vertical break to everyone’s fastball, we’ve figured out tunneling so the three pitches a reliever features all look the same until past the swing decision point, and we’ve worked out that using five pitchers in a nine-inning game is more effective on a per-inning basis than three.

Indeed, one major reason why the Brewers and Rays are in the World Series in the first place is because they have so managed to optimize pitching. Between Jacob Misiorowski and Freddy Peralta and Aaron Ashby and Drew Rassmussen, this is what you get when you’ve hit the absolute prime in development. The only way to claw any of that back is institutional — I’m in favor of both limiting the number of pitchers you have on your roster, and tying the DH to pitcher usage in some way, but this post isn’t about that.

It’s about baseball losing friction. Once everything is optimized yes we should have a game where everything is decided solely by the players and … OK, yeah, sure, but that also means we never get a Jeffrey Maier, or a Jackie-and-Yogi at home plate, indelible moments of baseball’s history. Sports are meant to have a little mess, just a little, because that’s what we end up talking about.

Last Friday I saw the newly-restored remaster of Ken Russell’s The Devils, one of the more controversial and explicit pieces of film ever made. It was a little inconvenient to get there, as the bus we had to take is the least reliable bus line in the city, the mall the cinema is attached to is very much a liminal space with an elevator that has over the summer induced vertigo more than once. I could have stayed home, pulled up a torrent, watched it on TV not five feet from the desk where I work a full-time job.

But I didn’t, and the experience was better for it. Rolling my eyes at an unreliable bus leads to widening them at Sister Jean cloaked entirely in shadow. Forgoing the free torrent for a paid showing meant whoa I’ve never heard the score like that.

We want optimization, and we should get a good amount of it. This Series is the showcase of the uber-optimized ballclub though, and forgive me for preferring to argue whether Jackie was really out at home plate — and he was.

The greatest player in franchise history, Evan Longoria, will be on hand throw out the ceremonial first pitch before game four of the 2026 World Series between the Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers.

Originally drafted by the Rays as the 3rd overall selection of the 2006 draft, Longoria rapidly reached the big leagues by April 2008 and cemented himself as the team’s third baseman for the next decade, completely shattering franchise records along the way. During his 2008 campaign, Longoria became the first player in team history to be awarded the Rookie of the Year.

During his 10-year long tenure with the Tampa Bay Rays, Longoria hit .270/.341/.483 with 261 homeruns, registering a 123 wRC+ over 1,435 games played. The first four years of his career, Longoria was on a Hall of Fame trajectory as he averaged 6.7 fWAR per year, but then injuries began to take a toll on his performance. Still, Longoria provided the Rays with solid defense and offensive production throughout the second half of his time with the Rays.

In 2011, Evan Longoria provided fans with a lifetime memory when he punched the team’s ticket to the postseason with a walk-off homerun during Game 162 to finalize an incredible month long comeback.

To go along with 2008 Rookie of the Year award, Longoria won three Gold Gloves for Tampa Bay and took him a Silver Slugger award in 2009; Longoria also received MVP consideration in six of his 10 seasons with Tampa Bay, placing as high as 6th twice (2010 & 2013). Longoria twice hit three homeruns in a single game and hit for the cycle in 2017, just the second player in franchise history to do so.

Following the 2017 season, Longoria was traded to the San Francisco Giants and played decently for five years, averaging 1.4 fWAR per season. Longoria’s last hurrah came in 2023 with the Arizona Diamondbacks, with whom he reached the World Series.

Evan Longoria officially retired as a member of the Rays in 2025. Then earlier this year, the Rays retired the #3 and inducted Longoria into the Tampa Bay Rays Hall of Fame.

LOS ANGELES — With the Dodgers season now concluded, we have some distance to look back at the television and radio broadcasts for the team in the 2026 regular season.

The Dodgers had 17 games exclusively on national television or streaming, including games on NBC, Fox, ESPN, and Apple TV, and were 9-8 in those games. That left 145 games for SportsNet LA, in their 13th season televising Dodgers games locally, and the seventh year available more widely in and around Los Angeles after years of carriage disputes.

Joe Davis called 88 games on SportsNet LA, right in line with his 87 games in each of 2023, 2024, and 2025. The extra game locally this year came on July 19 at Yankee Stadium. The day before, Fox was set to televise Dodgers-Yankees with Davis on the call, but the game was rained out. The makeup game, during the day on Sunday, was televised by SportsNet LA with Davis and Orel Hershiser on the call, followed by a nightcap that was on NBC.

Davis, who also helms the No. 1 MLB team and the No.2 NFL broadcast team for Fox, called five regular season Dodgers games for Fox as well as six of their eight postseason games, missing only Games 3-4 of the National League Division Series in Atlanta after losing his voice.

He said one of his favorite parts of SportsNet LA broadcasts this year was doing profiles of former Dodgers players, giving a glimpse into sometimes obscure players and telling the stories of folks the audience might not have known.

Here’s one example of one of those in-game profiles by Davis, on August 28 when the Dodgers played the Tigers in Detroit. Davis came back from break to start the top of the sixth inning talking about Goody Rosen (who folks here might remember from a Dodgers Rewind in September 2022).

“Happy Dodger birthday to Goodwin ‘Goody’ Rosen, who was from Canada, played center field for the Dodgers in the late 1930s, from 1937 through 1939, and then didn’t appear in another major league game for five years,” Davis said on the broadcast. “He was in the minors for four seasons before World War II opened up a bunch of roster spots across every team. So he comes back up, in 1945 Goody hits .345 for the Dodgers, but he was in his mid-30s by now so he only played one more season, retired from the big leagues. Kept on playing though, he played some semi-pro baseball and some fast-pitch softball for the Canadian national team. Goody lived to be 81 years old.”

Rosen’s story was interwoven by Davis into the first three pitches of the sixth inning, while Tommy Edman was batting, and harkened back to an older era when baseball broadcasts included more storytelling.

Stephen Nelson was on play-by-play for the other 57 SportsNet LA games in 2026, and also called 59 games on AM 570 radio, plus four more radio games in the postseason when the Dodgers were on the road. He also called all three exhibition Freeway Series games against the Angels on March 22-24.

2026 SportsNet LA broadcaster pairings

Hershiser was the analyst for SportsNet LA for 85 games, similar to his 83 games in 2025, 83 games in 2024, and 84 games in 2023. He also called all four Dodgers games on NBC as an analyst, as well as the April 15 game against the Mets.

The most prolific TV pairing for the Dodgers on SportsNet LA this year was Davis and Hershiser at 58 games with Nelson and Hershiser next with 27 games.

Eric Karros called 34 games, 19 with Nelson and 15 with Davis. Karros was also in the SportsNet LA booth alongside Nelson for three Freeway Series games in March.

Jessica Mendoza called 17 games for SportsNet LA, 11 alongside Davis and six with Nelson.

Dontrelle Willis also made his return to local Dodgers broadcasts this season for the first time since 2023, calling all seven games of a road trip through Miami and Cincinnati from September 12-18, two games with Davis and five alongside Nelson. Willis was the analyst for all four Dodgers games exclusively on Apple TV, with Wayne Randazzo on play-by-play.

Willis during the series in Miami on September 13 was inducted into the Marlins Hall of Fame. In that same game, Josue De Paula hit his first major league home run, a towering 416-foot blast to right field.

“First of all, what a bomb for your first hit in the big leagues. But being with Dontrelle that road trip was so fun. He hadn’t called a game for SNLA since 2023, which was my first year. And we’ve been trying to get him back. Because it’s just pure energy and joy,” Nelson recalled. “So, D-Train’s energy, combined with the energy Josue brought with that swing an in general down the stretch, was just a fun thing to be part of. And I’m so pumped for his future. It couldn’t be brighter.”

The other two games on SportsNet LA featured Nomar Garciappara as analyst alongside Joe Davis on April 26 against the Chicago Cubs, and Clayton Kershaw making his broadcast booth debut on August 25 against the Braves in Atlanta, also alongside Davis. Kershaw was also a part of some NBC Sports telecasts this season as an analyst sitting near the dugout.

Here are the television broadcaster pairings for all Dodgers regular season games in 2026.

Six times this season Colorado Rockies third baseman Kyle Karros played against the Dodgers when Eric Karros, Kyle’s father, was calling games. Karros would go out of his way to avoid acknowledging the relationship, almost to comical effect, at times simply referring to “the third baseman.”

After a Karros single at Dodger Stadium on May 26, first baseman Freddie Freeman was laughing with him and continuously pointing up to the Dodgers broadcast booth, where Eric Karros was calling the game, trying to get a reaction.

“I’m obviously a few years behind EK in terms of being a father to two boys. So I look up to him in many respects there; how he and Trish have raised Kyle and Jared,” Nelson recalled. “But calling a game with him hitting as Kyle homered off [Miguel] Rojas at Dodger Stadium was just awesome. And hilarious. He was so so proud but he was trying to be impossibly professional those Rockies series.

“Then later in the year, at Colorado. Kyle was hurt. And we were talking about him. Our director cut to a shot of Kyle in the Rockies dugout and he was looking up. I’m looking at him, and I’m like ‘I think he’s looking at you,’ and we start waving and Kyle smiles and waves back. That’s the good stuff, man.”

Charley Steiner missed nearly all of the 2024 and 2025 seasons while battling multiple myeloma and a broken back. But he gradually worked his way back in 2026, calling 35 Dodgers games on radio. In the beginning of the year he called one home game per series, and started the year calling the first three innings, then four, five, six, seven, and eventually on August 15 he called his first complete game of the season, a game Steiner felt was among the most important calls of his career.

“I turned to him after it was over and gave him a fist bump. Neither one of us said a word,” radio analyst Rick Monday said of that August 15 broadcast, on a feature by Tom Rinaldi on Fox Sports that aired before Game 3 of the NLCS. “I knew my buddy was back.”

Steiner called 10 complete games over the final six weeks of the season, then called all four Dodgers home games on radio during the postseason.

Monday at age 80 was the most prolific of all Dodgers announcers in 2026, calling 155 regular season games and all eight postseason games on radio, after calling 27 spring training games with Tim Neverett on SportNet LA.

“I’m so fortunate to have Mo. I’m his partner, he’s my partner,” Steiner said. “We’re friends, and Duane [McDonald, producer and engineer] in the booth, it’s a nice — it’s family.”

“What a rare and special and unique character, and yet for twenty-something years we’ve been together, whether it’s in the booth, on the bus, in the airplane, at dinner. To be part of that, it’s a wonderful group,” Steiner added, on his long relationship with Monday. “When you do it for so long, and are so close, yeah, we just go out and play.”

The only games Monday missed this year were for trips to Cooperstown, both related to the 50th anniversary of his stopping a United States flag from being burned on the field at Dodger Stadium in 1976. James Loney filled in as radio analyst for the May 22-24 series against the Brewers in Milwaukee — his second year filling in, after calling two radio games in 2025 — and José Mota moved over from the Spanish radio booth to serve as the English analyst for May 25 at home against the Rockies. Mota then was the analyst alongside Nelson when the Dodgers played the Mets in New York from July 24-26.

Radio pairings here are fudged a little bit, as the 25 games that Steiner called but did not finish were also counted for Neverett (16 games) and Nelson (nine), so there’s some double counting here.

One of the easier decisions Scott Harris will have to make about his roster for 2027 will also be one of the first of the offseason. The Detroit Tigers hold a $10 million club option on right-handed pitcher Drew Anderson, and they seem certain to exercise it. With a long lockout looming, and minimal free agent movement expected until a new CBA in place, the Tigers can’t really afford to let major league caliber pitchers walk at such a reasonable price.

After four years almost exclusively as a starting pitcher in Japan and South Korea, Anderson’s return to the major leagues went pretty well overall, despite him having to flex back and forth between the bullpen and a starting role. He made 11 starts for the Tigers, posting a 2.61 ERA with a 4.45 FIP as a starting pitcher. Out of the bullpen, he had a 4.63 ERA with a 4.11 FIP across 56.1 innings of work. That’s not far from a full season’s work out of the bullpen, and yet he managed 51.2 innings as a starter as well. That versatility is something the Tigers sorely need with a reasonably deep group of rotation options and a bullpen that is still weak on the right-handed side of the equation.

Anderson was a little too prone to free passes and home runs, but he also posted one of the team’s best strikeout rates in a relief role. His FIP numbers say he had things go his way in his time as a starter, but Anderson does keep the ball on the ground as well, posting a 48.4 percent ground ball rate on balls in play. Combined with a 12.4 percent swinging strike rate compared to the league average of 10 percent and a high chase rate, Anderson has plenty to operate with.

Over the course of the season, the Tigers helped him dial in his pitch mix, relying mainly on his fourseamer, nasty kick change, and his curveball. They experimented with his slider more in late April and May, but it did not go well and they rightly ditched that pitch more and more as the season progressed and turned to the curveball instead. He only threw the slider 4.8 percent of the time, yet it accounted for three of the 16 total home runs Anderson allowed on the year. More work is required before it’s more than a show-me pitch.

The issue with keeping Anderson is that while he was pretty useful as a starting pitcher, he’s going to have a hard time cracking the rotation next year without some injuries. Framber Valdez, Jackson Jobe, Troy Melton, River Ryan, Keider Montero, and, if finally healthy, Reese Olson, are probably all ahead of him on the starting depth chart. At least to start the year, Anderson is going to be in the bullpen, and he’s just not a great fit for high leverage relief either. He functions best as a fifth starter or as a bulk and middle relief arm, and he’ll have to be more consistent next year for that to change.

The Tigers have at least three lefties to hold down that side of the bullpen in Drew Sommers, who should be a high leverage option next year, Brant Hurter, and Tyler Holton. That leaves five spots for right-handers. Will Vest’s status is a big question mark, and the Tigers have Kyle Finnegan under contract already for 2027 after a tough 2026. The situation is really uncertain on that side of the bullpen. There’s clearly room for Anderson, and with free agency bound to be delayed this offseason, the Tigers will almost certainly keep him, but the only problem he helps solve for them is depth.

The issue with high leverage relief work is that Anderson’s curveball and kick change are his big swing and miss pitches. The changeup is clearly the nastiest pitch he’s got, but the big movement and the feel required to spot it down make him vulnerable to leaving too many hangers up in the zone under pressure. At least, that was how it looked this year. His fastball doesn’t get hit very hard, but it’s certainly not the type of whiff generating heater that most good high leverage relievers possess. The x-factor is his 80 mph curveball, which he used more and more as the year went on and he was moved into the rotation and really needed a strong third pitch. He racked up a 33.3 percent whiff rate on it, and while it has a similar tendency to get crushed when left up in the zone, it’s a lot simpler pitch to grip and rip under pressure.

One of the changes Anderson made in his years playing overseas was lowering his arm angle. He averaged 42 degrees this year, whereas in his major league seasons prior to going to Japan and South Korea, his arm angle was averaging 49 degrees. The lower arm slot, without other adjustments, can produce less induced vertical break, which usually leads to fewer whiffs. On the plus side, Anderson now averages over 95 mph with a few extra inches of extension than he did earlier in his career when he was averaging 92-93 mph. The tradeoff for more velo and extension is probably worth it, but with modest ride and not much run, it’s almost more like a cut fastball. It worked out, as hitters hit .215 with a meager .356 slugging percentage, and those numbers are backed up well by Statcast’s expected metrics, but it’s not that easy to see where more whiff inducing movement is going to come from.

Anderson gets 82 percent spin efficiency on the fourseamer, so they could possibly work on that to get more ride, but with his arm angle that may just add more run rather than ride, and sometimes that hurts a pitcher more than it helps them. Anderson’s fourseamer has pretty similar traits to Jack Flaherty’s fastball, and that bodes well for it as Flaherty’s fourseamer is rarely hit hard in the air either. They just aren’t going to miss a ton of bats with it either. Those slightly gyrospin fourseamers are more about getting a little late, seam-shifted movement to miss barrels rather than to generate big whiffs.

An argument in Anderson’s favor is that pitching late innings relief is not what he’s used to doing. He also had to deal with a different baseball than they use in South Korea. It’s possible that those factors just required more acclimation time than the Tigers could give him once the injuries started piling up left and right in April and May. Perhaps with his experience gained he’ll do a better job in setup situations with a lead next year and just feel more comfortable all around, no matter how the Tigers deploy him.

Anderson is worth the $10 million on the open market. There’s no buyout cost if the Tigers choose otherwise, but really it’s a pretty easy decision to pick up the club option. He may not fit perfectly into the Tigers needs in terms of specific relief roles, but he does in terms of their need for more right-handed depth, and he offers some bat missing ability and a solid ground ball profile. Figuring out exactly what to do with him in the bullpen is a little more complicated. Still, having him in house makes it a little easier to wait out the CBA negotiations and then try to target pitching in free agency once everyone knows where they stand with the new ruleset. And possibly Anderson’s improved second half says he was settling in and bound for a stronger second season back in the big leagues next year.

Despite finishing with the second best overall record in the Northwest League this year, the Frogs were unable to clinch a playoff spot this season, falling just short with steady and consistent play that was unable to ever ascend high enough on the standings for a half-season crown. Playing in the compact confines of Everett’s home ballpark, the AquaSox offense posted absolutely massive numbers on the season, leading the league in multiple major categories at the plate including homers, runs, OPS, and stolen bases. The pitching, though fighting an uphill battle with the aforementioned home ballpark, held their own, and gave them a chance to win on a nightly basis. It’s obviously disappointing to miss the postseason with as good as they played all season, but the individual successes up and down this roster are impossible to ignore and deserve to be celebrated.

Team Performance

First Half Record: 33-33 (+22 Run Differential)

Second Half Record: 34-32 (+37 Run Differential)

Final Record: 67-65

Team ERA: 4.96 (fourth in Northwest League)

Team OPS: .834 (first in Northwest League)

Stat to Know: Led Northwest League with 193 home runs (29 more than second place)

Season Stars

Felnin Celesten

Where else to start than with the newly crowned Northwest League MVP? Celesten had the bounceback of all bounceback seasons and managed to take home some serious hardware this 2026 season after an outstanding year at the plate. Slashing .314/.409/.534 at the level with 18 stolen bases, Celesten’s ranginess at shortstop and switch hitting ability made him a massive threat for the AquaSox for much of the year and ultimately led to his well deserved promotion to Double-A. Despite struggling a bit after his promotion and ending the season on the IL, his 2026 was undoubtedly one for the ages and has positioned him as one of the best prospects in this system.

Luke Stevenson

After a successful stint with the Nuts after his drafting in 2025, Stevenson hit the ground running with the Frogs and got off to a torrid start to his 2026, and despite some struggles in the middle of the year, a strong stretch run to close out the season kept his season numbers in a great spot. Stevenson’s season was largely what most would have expected from the power-hitting backstop: lots of walks, lots of strikeouts, lots of homers, and great defense. The whiff is going to concern some evaluators and could in theory leave him off some Top 100 lists this offseason, but the floor is still rather high considering the quality at which he does everything else on the diamond, and his defense behind the plate alone might just be enough to get him to the big leagues one day. Stevenson is set to slate somewhere in the the top ten organizationally and will look to prove his approach can work against Double-A pitching next season.

Jonny Farmelo

With his first full season in his young professional career, Farmelo mashed his way through the Northwest League and earned his way up to Double-A by season’s end. The speedy centerfielder was aggressive in all facets of the game; his 41 stolen bases were second best in the entire system (five behind Nick Becker), and though his whiff was elevated, he managed to slug just enough to make it work and produce effectively. In an ideal world, Farmelo is able to maintain the level of thump he’s been able to reach while cutting back on the raw whiff rates, but that’s obviously much easier said than done and may prove to be an unsuccessful venture. Should that be the case, Farmelo will need to continue to show he can be an elite defensive centerfielder with major game power and game-changing speed on the basepaths in order to reach his fullest potential, and if his strong end to the year is any indication, he’s well on his way to doing just that.

Sleepers

Brandon Eike

Eike probably deserves to be in the “stars” section for the monstrous year he had for the Frogs, but given he isn’t considered a Top 30 prospect by most all outlets, we’ll highlight him here and show him the love he deserves. Launching 29 homers on the year and slugging his way to an OPS of .892, Eike was a consistent force in the middle of the Everett lineup and proved to be invaluable for this Frogs roster. There’s a ton of swing-and-miss in his profile and the overall abilities outside of the slug are somewhat limited, but if Eike can continue to hit the ball with authority as he ascends through the upper-minors, the raw production may prove to be too good to overlook.

Carlos Jimenez

Yet another deserved “star”, Jimenez’s 2026 was just as good, if not better, than the aforementioned Eike. After a few years of toiling in the low minors, Jimenez put together a truly outstanding year this season, revitalizing his prospect pedigree a bit after some general fatigue. The 23 year old posted a .926 OPS on the year with 20 stolen bases and a K-rate of just 21%. His 14.6% walk rate made him a constant threat on the basepaths, and his simple lefty swing managed to do a ton of damage for him at the plate. He’ll assuredly get a shot to shine at the Double-A level next season, and should he continue to find sustained success, he’ll undoubtedly play himself up prospect boards.

Colton Shaw

The best pitcher on this staff all season, Shaw’s sinker-sweeper combination was just what the doctor ordered for his homer-friendly home ballpark, and he used that tandem to lead the staff in just about every major pitching category. Shaw’s lower launch gives his sinker some wicked action and allows it to tunnel well with his secondaries, making him an incredibly interesting arm to watch for in 2027. The M’s have strongly gravitated toward high-command sinkerballers in recent classes, and though it may just be a blip, it seems to be an organizational preference that they’ve identified as a market inefficiency they can capitalize on. Colton Shaw’s certainly done his part in proving that notion right, and his outstanding 2026 makes him one of a handful in this organization with a very strong “up arrow” next to his name.

In the end-of-season press conference, Chris Antonetti indicated the Guardians would be looking to make upgrades to their starting rotation and their bullpen this offseason. What could those upgrades look like?

As the month of November unfolds, we will do deeper dives into the names that become more obviously available, but this article is a chance to bring up some pitchers who may be a good fit for Cleveland for fans looking to do some searching and analyzing. In future articles, we will break down statistics, ages, and contract projections, but this post is “food for thought.” We know we will only have about one month before the lockout begins so it is possible that the Guardians make a move before baseball settles in for a long winter’s (and spring’s?) nap. Without further ado, here are some ideas to ponder:

Free Agent Options:
S-Tier: Tarik Skubal, LHP. Analysis: Not happening.

A-Tier: Trevor Rogers, LHP, Kevin Gausman, RHP, Freddy Peralta, RHP, Brandon Woodruff, RHP
Analysis: Very, very unlikely… but the Guardians can feel free to surprise me and sign one of these guys if they want (even Guasman who is old and I hate for hitting Jose intentionally). Rogers is my favorite of the bunch and has the best extension (a trait the Guardians’ love), but he’s getting a huge deal that is, obviously, highly unlikely to come from Cleveland.

B-Tier: Robbie Ray, LHP, Casey Mize, RHP, Patrick Sandoval, RHP, Jack Flaherty, RHP, Foster Griffin, LHP, Tyler Mahle, RHP
Analysis: It’s this part of the market where I can imagine the Guardians potentially deciding to put their hat in the ring IF those ALCS checks cleared and IF David Blitzer liked that taste of getting close to a World Series. Mize is my clear choice among this bunch (also has the best extension), but there is something to like about each option in here. Ultimately, I expect these players to get contracts longer than what the Guardians are comfortable offering, but they are definitely worth monitoring as the offseason progresses.

C-Tier: Shane Bieber, RHP, Matthew Boyd, LHP, Zac Gallen, RHP, Shota Imanga, LHP, Kris Bubic, LHP, Walker Buehler, LHP, Brady Singer, RHP
Analysis: I am very interested in Cleveland as a place where Bieber or Gallen could try to rebuild their values as starting pitchers for a year to try for one more free agent contract. We know what Bieber can offer and Gallen has good extension numbers and a strong track record…. up until 2025. Can he rediscover the ability to be a front of the rotation arm? That’s the question. A reunion with Boyd would be fun, and Buehler and Imanga both are decent pillow-contract/Guardians’ fix-a-pitcher options. Bubic and Singer both fit as “Guys the Royals Couldn’t Figure Out But Maybe We Could,” but, notably, the Dodgers couldn’t fix Bubic and the Reds couldn’t fix Singer, so Singer is probably the pitcher with more meat on the bone. Singer had HORRIBLE numbers last season but he does have an elite extension profile. I would keep an eye on him as someone the Guardians may be in on for a very inexpensive one-year deal or a minor-league contract. Of this bunch, count me as most excited about Imanga because it would be a chance to open a path into the market for Asian players… but, aside from that, give me a Bieber reunion counting on him and Carl to rediscover the magic.

Some potential trade candidates to monitor:
Reid Detmers, LHP, Angels
Sandy Alcantara, RHP, Marlins
Eury Perez, RHP, Marlins
Joe Ryan, RHP, Twins
Taj Bradley, RHP, Twins
Logan Gilbert, RHP, Mariners
Bryan Woo, RHP, Mariners
George Kirby, RHP, Mariners
Bryce Miller, RHP, Mariners
Jose Soriano, RHP, Orioles

Analysis: Aside from Alcantara, Detmers and Ryan, I don’t think anyone on this list is LIKELY to be traded, but all are in the realm of possibility. Understand that to get any of these arms, the Guardians would be parting with multiple top prospects. The one exception would probably be Alcantara who probably could be had for a package of lesser prospects if the team is willing to take on his contract… but the package would still need to be guys with some solid, major league potential. Every one of these pitchers has potential to pitch at the front of a playoff rotation, so I am on-board with the Guardians pursuing them and sacrificing serious prospect capital to get a deal done. Just know… it would hurt if they pulled it off. Detmers is my favorite of the bunch.

In the 2024 offseason, the Guardians needed starting pitching and managed to snag Luis Ortiz and Slade Cecconi, though neither pitcher seemed especially available. Some names to consider along these lines are Andrew Alvarez of the Washington Nationals, Gabriel Hughes of the Rockies, and Carmen Mlodzinski of the Pirates. Each pitcher has some interesting underlying metrics that indicate a better pitching group could get more out of them. Alvarez and Mlodzinski are both 27, so in the age range where a trade is something teams consider, while Hughes is only 25 and would cost more because of that. However, I’d like to, again, highlight Hughes who gets ELITE extension release as a pitcher the Guardians would be poised to maximize if they could pry him free from Colorado.

Which pitcher catches your eye as a Guardians’ fan? Let us know in the comments below

Good morning, baseball fans!

The 2026 MLB Playoffs continue today with Game 4 of the World Series between the visiting Milwaukee Brewers, who hold a 3-0 series lead over the Tampa Bay Rays, who are just trying to stay alive for another game.

Tonight’s game begins at 5:00 p.m. PT, airing on Fox/Fox One, with national radio coverage available on ESPN Radio.

As of the time this is being written, the Brewers have not yet announced a starting pitcher. Whoever it ends up being will face off against Rays right-hander Griffin Jax, who ended the regular season with a 3.53 ERA, 3.76 FIP, with 116 strikeouts to 35 walks in 112.1 innings pitched. His last start in this postseason was in the Rays’ 3-2 loss to the Cleveland Guardians on October 15th, in which he allowed three runs on five hits with two strikeouts and two walks in four innings.

Personally, I’ve got to root for the Rays tonight. As much as I am hoping the Brewers take the series, a sweep is only fun if it’s your team doing it (as in 2012). I’d love to see the Rays come back and at least make the series a little more interesting. But I wouldn’t be unhappy to see the Brewers win it all tonight, either.

Who are you rooting for?