Category: MLB

I have been a diehard baseball fan for more than 60 years, and this year’s Dodger team is the toughest, gutsiest and most resilient team I have ever seen. Toronto is an absolutely fabulous baseball team, and would’ve beaten anybody else in all of baseball without much stress.

And as for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, that young man ought to be on Mt. Rushmore.

Let’s go for a three-peat in ‘26!

Drew Pomerance
Tarzana

No doubt about it. The best team won the World Series. The Dodgers found ways to win without great hitting. Their pitching and defensive skills exceeded our expectations. Thank you everyone for another amazing baseball season.

Cheryl Creek
Anaheim

How wonderful to see grown men acting like little boys during their victory celebration. While I am not a fan of the gyrations on the bases after a hit (even when way behind), the pure joy emanating from the players at the end was to be cherished. How sports enables us to forget our problems is what has made me a lifelong sports fan.

Mark Kaiserman
Santa Monica

Who would imagine that Games 6 and 7 would both end on double plays while the losing team had men in scoring position? One different swing of the bat would have reversed the outcome of the games and series. How suddenly agonizing and euphoric. How uniquely baseball!

Mel Spitz
Beverly Hills

The Toronto Blue Jay fans taunted Shohei Othani early in the series, "We don't need you!" I guess they did!

Edward Jimenez
Whittier

Consideration should be given to incorporating the Japanese flag into the design of the 2025 World Series ring.

Greg Thompson
Chatsworth

It took until Games 6 and 7, but the 2025 World Series lineup needed to include Miguel Rojas.

Ken Feldman
Tarzana

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts' haters and naysayers can take a seat. Whether it was confidence in the starting rotation, masterful management of the bullpen, being unafraid to tinker with the lineup or making brilliant defensive replacements, every lever Roberts pulled in Games 6 and 7 ultimately resulted in another championship.

Ron Yukelson
San Luis Obispo

As my fellow Monday morning baseball critics always say, "Dave Roberts is a genius. Mookie is great at short. Last year no starting pitchers. This year no bullpen."

So many contributed big plays. Constant tension, excitement, tenacity and, ultimately, exhilaration. Thank you Dodgers for a playoffs and World Series for the ages. Encore!

Rafael Serna
Hacienda Heights

While we bask in the euphoria of the Dodgers' World Series win, let's not overlook but sing the praises to the last man standing! Without the heroics of Will Klein, there might not have been a Game 6 or a Game 7.

Stan Shirai
Torrance

The World Series finished on Dia de los Muertos, but our Dodgers lived to win again. Against all odds in Game 7, the Dodgers solidified a dynasty. What a game. What a series. What a team. So many clutch moments and players. This one will be enjoyed and cherished FOREVER.

Michael Lee Manous
San Dimas

A phrase that will never be used in the same sentence with Yoshinobu Yamamoto: “load management.”

Dave Ring
Manhattan Beach

Orel, meet Yoshi!

Brian Lipson
Beverly Hills

Fanfest next time?

More than four million Dodger fans attended games this season. As a thank you, couldn’t the Dodgers have shown appreciation for the support by providing tickets to the celebration free of charge and offer parking at $10 per car?

Seems like a nice thank you for supporting the team!

Rob Parra
Rowland Heights

On the flip side

I hope the amazing Blue Jays performance doesn't get lost in all the cheers for the Dodgers. I wish there was a place they could have received a silver trophy and basked in the well-earned cheers of the crowd. And I hope our fellow Angelenos and the media will show humility and recognize we just got the lucky flip of the coin toss.

Don McKinney
San Fernando

Hats off to the Toronto Blue Jays for an incredible World Series. They gave the Dodgers a fierce run for the money. It took everything we had to come out on top and it could have gone the other way 100 times. I hope Toronto gave them a fabulous parade. They deserve it.

Sarah Tamor
Santa Monica

Improve the product

UCLA should not relocate to SoFi Stadium. The Rose Bowl is the shrine of college football and a great place to tailgate and celebrate the Bruins.

The venue is not the problem, it’s the product on the field. It’s obviously the results, but also includes the opponents over the last several years — South Alabama, Coastal Carolina, North Carolina Central, Bowling Green and Alabama State.

William Morris
Pasadena

High expectations

The Times' reporter wrote that the Lakers "stars slogged through" much of their win over the Miami Heat at Crypto this week. Slogged? Luka Doncic recorded a triple-double, Austin Reaves scored 26 and the team finished with 130 points. And I thought expectations for the baseball team in this town are high!

Hank Rosenfeld
Santa Monica

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Email: sports@latimes.com

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

For Natalia Molina, a lifelong fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers and a third-generation Mexican American, the crowning moment of baseball’s World Series didn’t come in last Saturday’s nail-biting finale, when her team performed one death-defying escape act after another before prevailing in extra innings over the Toronto Blue Jays.

It came a game earlier, when two of the team’s second-tier players, Kike Hernández, who is from Puerto Rico, and Miguel Rojas, from Venezuela, pulled off a thrilling, game-winning sequence that simultaneously upended the many negative stereotypes Donald Trump has been touting about Latinos since he first ran for president a decade ago.

The play itself was breathtaking: Hernández charged in from left field to snag a ball he initially lost in the stadium lights, then fired it to second base to chalk up another, game-winning out on the same play. Rojas, at second base, received the ball just a split second before a Blue Jays runner barreled into him, knocking him backwards.

This wasn’t just a great sporting moment, perhaps the decisive shift in momentum in the Dodgers’ favor after looking for much of the series like the weaker team. For Molina it was exhilarating, politically and culturally, a badly needed morale boost for Latinos, and for Los Angeles, after months of immigration raids, troops patrolling the streets, and a steady drumbeat of negativity from the White House.

“Kike and Miggy put forth this counter-narrative,” said Molina, a professor of American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. “The world saw Latinos showing an infectious pride and joy in what they do, being leaders on the team, having a different kind of masculinity. They’re bombastic, they’re yelling, they’re taking off their shirts.

“It was such a juxtaposition with what we see on the news – ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids, Latinos thrown to the ground and chased down. It’s so easy to be demoralized right now.”

Not that it’s exactly simple to be a Dodgers fan these days – for Molina or for the legions of other Latinos who show up faithfully to home games and fill up as many as half of the stadium’s 50,000 seats each time.

When the Trump administration began conducting aggressive immigration raids in Los Angeles in early June and sent national guard troops and marines into the city to respond to the ensuing protests, two of the city’s soccer teams quickly put out statements of solidarity with immigrant families – but not the Dodgers.

The team president, Stan Kasten, has said the Dodgers want to steer clear of politics – a view colored, perhaps, by the fact that a sizable minority of the fans, including Latinos, are Trump supporters. (Under considerable public pressure, the team later pledged $1m in support for families directly affected by the raids but made no public criticism of Trump’s administration.)

Related: If the Dodgers are bad for baseball, why was the World Series so much fun?

Three months earlier, the team did not hesitate in accepting Trump’s invitation to celebrate their 2024 World Series victory at the White House – a move that the Los Angeles Times sports columnist Dylan Hernandez described as “pathetic … spineless … and hypocritical”, given the Dodgers’ pride in having been the first major league team to break the color barrier in the 1940s and the frequentinvocations of that legacy and the values it embodies by executives and present and former players. Several team members including the manager, Dave Roberts, had expressed unwillingness to go to the White House during Trump’s first term but either changed their minds or succumbed to pressure from team management.

A further complication for fans is that the Dodgers are owned by a corporate behemoth, Guggenheim Partners, whose equity holdings, according to media reports and its own published balance sheets, include a stake in the GEO Group, a private prison corporation that operates ICE detention centers. Guggenheim’s leadership has said many times that it wants to stay out of politics, but its critics say the silence – and the GEO investment – are their own form of acquiescence to Trump’s agenda.

All of that adds up to considerable mixed feelings among Latino fans in particular – feelings that surfaced even in the euphoria of this year’s hard-won World Series victory and the ensuing explosion of Dodgers pride across Los Angeles.

“Is it okay to root for the Dodgers?” local columnist Erick Galindo agonized at the start of the playoffs in an elegant essay ruminating on “Dodger blue in our veins, but doubt in our hearts”. Galindo couldn’t ultimately bring himself to watch the World Series, but he still cared deeply, to the point that he decided his one-man boycott must have brought the team the luck it needed to win.

Many fans who share Galindo’s misgivings appear to have decided that they can continue to support the team and its roster of international players, including the Japanese megastar Shohei Ohtani, while pouring scorn on the team’s corporate overlords. Nowhere was this more evident than at the victory celebration at Dodger Stadium on Monday, when the capacity crowd roared in approval of Roberts and his players but booed Kasten and Mark Walter, the chief executive of Guggenheim Partners.

“These men in suits don’t get to take our boys in blue from us,” Molina said. “We’ve been with the Dodgers longer than they have.”

The problem, though, runs deeper than just the team’s current owners. The deal that brought the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in the late 1950s involved the city razing three working-class Latino neighborhoods on a hill above downtown and then selling the land to the team for a fraction of its market value. A song on Ry Cooder’s 2005 album Chavez Ravine, which chronicles the story, has an impoverished parking attendant at the stadium revealing that the home he lost to eviction is now third base.

Gustavo Arellano, perhaps southern California’s most widely followed Mexican American columnist and broadcaster, sees a darker side to the long, dysfunctional relationship between the team and its fanbase. He calls the Dodgers the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos of baseball, “a corporate entity with an undue, even unhealthy following by too many Latinos” that has been shortchanging its fans for decades.

“They’ve put one arm around Latino fans while picking their pockets with the other for so long because they have been able to get away with it,” Arellano wrote over the summer, when calls to boycott the team over its lack of response to the ICE raids were upended by the uncomfortable fact that attendance at home games did not dip, even at the height of the protests when downtown LA was subject to a nightly curfew.

Separating the team from its corporate owners is not a simple matter, not least because it was Guggenheim that committed more than a billion dollars last year to bring Ohtani and the dominant pitcher of the World Series, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, to Los Angeles. Guggenheim has been in the forefront of internationalizing the sport more generally, finding so many business opportunities through rights and merchandising that, according to some reports, it has already recouped the eye-popping $700m investment it made in Ohtani alone.

Indeed, there was talk across baseball, even before Los Angeles snagged its second World Series in a row, that the Dodgers were ruining the sport with their financial muscle, snapping up so many star players that it was unfair to everyone else. Perhaps the greatest gift of the brilliant, compulsively watchable series with the Blue Jays, though, was how vulnerable the Dodgers looked and how hard they had to scratch and claw to save themselves through both concluding, must-win games.

Karen Bass, LA’s mayor, is not alone in seeing parallels with a singularly rough year in the city’s history, starting with January’s devastating wildfires that destroyed entire neighborhoods and displaced tens of thousands of people. “The city has been on pins and needles,” she told the New York Times. “Given the year we’ve had, we can use this burst of adrenaline, this burst of good will.”

The players themselves, meanwhile, clearly see a connection between their performance on the field and the community at large, and the feeling is mutual. Hernández, the Puerto Rican left fielder who plays multiple other positions, endeared himself to many fans by making his own statement condemning the ICE raids over the summer. “I may not be [an Angeleno] born and raised,” he wrote, “but … I cannot stand to see our community being violated, profiled, abused and ripped apart.”

Roki Sasaki, the youngest of the team’s Japanese superstars, won the hearts of Latino fans from the moment he chose a catchy Spanish-language dance number, Báilalo Rocky, as his walk-up music before he pitches. (The song, he explained, was suggested to him by Rojas.)

All this is grist to the conversations that Latino fans have with each other before, during and after games. Many say they would no sooner stop loving the team known in Spanish as “los Doyers” as they would stop loving the mothers and fathers who first brought them to games and gave them their taste for baseball.

“What do you do when you feel something, and it’s complicated?” Molina asked. “For many Latinos, the Dodgers are how they connect to an American identity. It’s the most American institution most immigrants in LA feel connected to.”

The Mets had several minor leaguers elect to hit free agency on Friday, and the most notable are right-handers Matt Allan and Bryce Montes de Oca. 

Allan was once viewed as one of the next big things in the organization. 

The youngster battled numerous injuries over the years, though, and he wasn’t able to return until this past season. 

He threw 20.0 innings between Brooklyn and St. Lucie before being shut back down. 

Montes de Oca was an up-and-coming bullpen arm who shone during his time in big-league camp and then made his debut during the 2022 season. 

He throws extremely hard and possesses big-time swing-and-miss stuff, but struggles at times with his command. 

The 28-year-old underwent Tommy John surgery in 2023, and after making just 13 rehab appearances, he had an additional procedure in August of 2024.

Others to elect free agency include José Azocar, Joey Meneses, Ty Adcock, Joe La Sorsa, Luke Ritter, Omar de los Santos, Jace Beck, and Luis Moreno. 

The Yankees are well-represented in the hitting department in MLB's offseason awards, as Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr. were announced as American League Silver Slugger Award winners on Friday.

Judge was a relative lock to win his fifth Silver Slugger Award. The 2024 -- and perhaps 2025 -- AL MVP had a league-best .331 batting average to go along with an OBP of .457, slugging percentage of .688 and an OPS of 1.144. He also hit 53 home runs and drove in 114 RBI. 

The last two times Judge won the Silver Slugger, he also won the MVP (2022,24), which bodes well for his chances this season. The closest competitor to Judge's back-to-back MVP campaign is the Mariners' Cal Raleigh, who was named a Silver Slugger at catcher this season.

Judge joined Byron Buxton of the Twins and Riley Green of the Tigers as outfield Silver Slugger winners this season.

The Yankees outfielder beat a field that included Riley Greene of the Tigers, Julio Rodríguez of the Mariners, George Springer of the Blue Jays and teammate Cody Bellinger.

Bellinger made a great first impression in pinstripes. In his first -- and so far only -- season in the Bronx, Bellinger slashed .272/.334/.480 with an OPS of .813 to go along with 29 homers and 98 runs batted in. He was the perfect second outfielder behind Judge in 2025, giving the Yankees a versatile and dangerous left-handed bat.

Chisholm Jr. had his best season in pinstripes in 2025, securing his second-career All-Star selection in the process and now, his first Silver Slugger. The infielder slashed .242/.332/.481 with an OPS of .813, but hit a career-high 31 homers and drove in 80 runs. He also stole 31 bases this season, becoming just the third player (fourth overall) in franchise history to achieve the 30-30 mark in a season.

He beat out fellow second base finalists Brandon Lowe of the Rays and Jorge Polanco of the Mariners.

Ben Rice was also a finalist for the 2025 Silver Slugger as a utility player. The part-time first baseman/catcher enjoyed his best offensive season as a pro, slashing .255/.337/.499 with an OPS of .836 to go along with his 26 home runs and driving in 65 runs in 138 games. He fell to the Tigers' Zach McKinstry. 

Maikel Garcia of the Royals was also a part of the field.

The Yankees, as a team, were also a finalist for the team Silver Slugger Award and beat out the Mariners and Blue Jays.

Dodgers pitcher Alex Vesia and his wife, Kayla, announced on Instagram on Friday that their baby daughter, Sterling, died on Oct. 26 — a tragic loss that caused Vesia to miss the Dodgers’ appearance in the World Series last week.

“Our little angel, we love you forever & you’re with us always,” the Vesias wrote. “There are no words to describe the pain we’re going through but we hold her in our hearts and cherish every second we had with her.”

The Vesias had been expecting the birth of Sterling, their first child, during the Dodgers’ postseason run. Her death came during the World Series, forcing Vesia to step away from the club.

The day before Game 1 of the World Series, the Dodgers publicly announced Vesia was not with the team because of a “deeply personal family matter.” The Dodgers left him off their World Series roster, as well as the family medical emergency list, so as not to pressure him into feeling he needed to return.

“This is so much bigger than baseball,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said at the time. “And for us, it was doing whatever small part we could to just 100% be supportive.”

The Dodgers’ bullpen honored Vesia in Game 3 of the World Series, with each reliever writing his No. 51 on the sides of their caps for the rest of the series. The Toronto Blue Jays’ relievers did the same in Games 6 and 7, a gesture several Dodgers publicly recognized and deeply appreciated.

“I think it really speaks to the brotherhood of athletes, major league baseball players,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts ahead of Game 7. “Baseball is what we do, but it's not who we are. And for these guys to recognize Alex and what he and Kayla have gone through — 'heartbreaking' is not even a good enough descriptor.”

“For those guys to do that, it's incredible,” outfielder Kiké Hernández added. “They're trying to win a World Series, but they understand that this is — life is bigger than baseball, and baseball's just a game. For them to do that with the stakes where we’re at, hats off to them, and I want them to know that we appreciate 'em.”

The Vesias also thanked the Dodgers, Blue Jays and baseball fans for their support.

“Our baseball family showed up for us and we wouldn’t be able to do this without them,” they wrote. “We have seen ALL your messages, comments and posts. It’s brought us so much comfort.”

Vesia was a key part of the Dodgers’ bullpen in both the regular season (when he had a 3.02 ERA in a career-high 68 appearances) and the first three rounds of the playoffs (when he allowed just two runs in seven outings).

On Thursday, the Dodgers picked up Vesia’s $3.65-million option for next season, avoiding arbitration before what will be his final year before reaching free agency.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Dodgers pitcher Alex Vesia and his wife announce death of their baby daughter originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Alex Vesia and his wife Kayla shared a heartbreaking message Friday about the death of their baby daughter.

In a joint Instagram post, the couple said their daughter, Sterling Sol Vesia, died Oct. 26. The 29-year-old relief pitcher was not on the Dodgers’ World Series roster for what the team described as a leave of absence for a personal matter.

“Our little angel we love you forever & you’re with us always,” the post caption read. “Our beautiful daughter went to heaven Sunday October 26th. There are no words to describe the pain we’re going through but we hold her in our hearts and cherish every second we had with her.

“Thank you to the Dodgers for their understanding and support during this time. Our baseball family showed up for us and we wouldn’t be able to do this without them. Thank you Dodger Nation, Blue Jays organization and all baseball fans for your love and support. We have seen ALL your messages, comments and posts. It’s brought us so much comfort.

“Lastly, we’d like to thank Cedars Sinai and all the medical staff who helped Kayla and Sterling. Every person we came across was truly so incredible.”

The post did not mention a cause of death.

The couple announced in April that they were expecting a baby.

In an Instagram post Oct. 23, the Dodgers said, “It’s with a heavy heart that we share that Alex Vesia is away from the team as he and his wife Kayla navigate a deeply personal family matter. The entire Dodgers organization is sending our thoughts to the Vesia family, and we will provide an update at a later date.”

During Game 3 of the World Series, players from both the Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays wore Vesia’s No. 51 on the sides of their caps.

“I think it really speaks tot he brotherhood of athletes, of MLB players,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said about the Game 3 tribute. “For these guys to recognize Alex and what he and Kayla have gone through, heartbreaking is not even a good enough descriptor.”

Born in Alpine, California, Vesia was drafted by the Miami Marlins in 2018 and made his big league debut in July 2020. He joined the Dodgers in 2021 and posted a 4-2 record this past season with a 3.02 ERA in 68 appearances.

The Dodgers recently exercised the 2026 contract option of Vesia, who will receive a $3.55 million salary rather than a $50,000 buyout. If the Dodgers had declined, he would have been eligible for arbitration.

Dodgers pitcher Alex Vesia and his wife announce death of their baby daughter originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Alex Vesia and his wife Kayla shared a heartbreaking message Friday about the death of their baby daughter.

In a joint Instagram post, the couple said their daughter, Sterling Sol Vesia, died Oct. 26. The 29-year-old relief pitcher was not on the Dodgers’ World Series roster for what the team described as a leave of absence for a personal matter.

“Our little angel we love you forever & you’re with us always,” the post caption read. “Our beautiful daughter went to heaven Sunday October 26th. There are no words to describe the pain we’re going through but we hold her in our hearts and cherish every second we had with her.

“Thank you to the Dodgers for their understanding and support during this time. Our baseball family showed up for us and we wouldn’t be able to do this without them. Thank you Dodger Nation, Blue Jays organization and all baseball fans for your love and support. We have seen ALL your messages, comments and posts. It’s brought us so much comfort.

“Lastly, we’d like to thank Cedars Sinai and all the medical staff who helped Kayla and Sterling. Every person we came across was truly so incredible.”

The post did not mention a cause of death.

The couple announced in April that they were expecting a baby.

In an Instagram post Oct. 23, the Dodgers said, “It’s with a heavy heart that we share that Alex Vesia is away from the team as he and his wife Kayla navigate a deeply personal family matter. The entire Dodgers organization is sending our thoughts to the Vesia family, and we will provide an update at a later date.”

During Game 3 of the World Series, players from both the Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays wore Vesia’s No. 51 on the sides of their caps.

“I think it really speaks tot he brotherhood of athletes, of MLB players,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said about the Game 3 tribute. “For these guys to recognize Alex and what he and Kayla have gone through, heartbreaking is not even a good enough descriptor.”

Born in Alpine, California, Vesia was drafted by the Miami Marlins in 2018 and made his big league debut in July 2020. He joined the Dodgers in 2021 and posted a 4-2 record this past season with a 3.02 ERA in 68 appearances.

The Dodgers recently exercised the 2026 contract option of Vesia, who will receive a $3.55 million salary rather than a $50,000 buyout. If the Dodgers had declined, he would have been eligible for arbitration.

Dodgers pitcher Alex Vesia and his wife announce death of their baby daughter originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Alex Vesia and his wife Kayla shared a heartbreaking message Friday about the death of their baby daughter.

In a joint Instagram post, the couple said their daughter, Sterling Sol Vesia, died Oct. 26. The 29-year-old relief pitcher was not on the Dodgers’ World Series roster for what the team described as a leave of absence for a personal matter.

“Our little angel we love you forever & you’re with us always,” the post caption read. “Our beautiful daughter went to heaven Sunday October 26th. There are no words to describe the pain we’re going through but we hold her in our hearts and cherish every second we had with her.

“Thank you to the Dodgers for their understanding and support during this time. Our baseball family showed up for us and we wouldn’t be able to do this without them. Thank you Dodger Nation, Blue Jays organization and all baseball fans for your love and support. We have seen ALL your messages, comments and posts. It’s brought us so much comfort.

“Lastly, we’d like to thank Cedars Sinai and all the medical staff who helped Kayla and Sterling. Every person we came across was truly so incredible.”

The post did not mention a cause of death.

The couple announced in April that they were expecting a baby.

In an Instagram post Oct. 23, the Dodgers said, “It’s with a heavy heart that we share that Alex Vesia is away from the team as he and his wife Kayla navigate a deeply personal family matter. The entire Dodgers organization is sending our thoughts to the Vesia family, and we will provide an update at a later date.”

During Game 3 of the World Series, players from both the Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays wore Vesia’s No. 51 on the sides of their caps.

“I think it really speaks tot he brotherhood of athletes, of MLB players,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said about the Game 3 tribute. “For these guys to recognize Alex and what he and Kayla have gone through, heartbreaking is not even a good enough descriptor.”

Born in Alpine, California, Vesia was drafted by the Miami Marlins in 2018 and made his big league debut in July 2020. He joined the Dodgers in 2021 and posted a 4-2 record this past season with a 3.02 ERA in 68 appearances.

The Dodgers recently exercised the 2026 contract option of Vesia, who will receive a $3.55 million salary rather than a $50,000 buyout. If the Dodgers had declined, he would have been eligible for arbitration.

Slugging Japanese first baseman/third baseman Munetaka Murakami will be posted by the Yakult Swallows on Friday, per multiple reports.

Murakami's negotiating window for MLB clubs will open on Saturday, meaning he has until Dec. 22 to sign. 

Murakami has been a star for the Swallows over the past eight seasons, taking home a pair of MVP awards while popping 246 home runs, 165 doubles, and 681 RBI.

Twenty-two of those long balls came in an injury-riddled campaign this past season.

His biggest power display came in 2022, when he hit 56 homers and drove in 134 runs. 

The 25-year-old mainly plays the hot corner, but he’s also spent time at first base and DH.

For the Mets, Murakami presents an intriguing option for David Stearns to consider if slugger Pete Alonso were to leave in free agency after opting out of his deal with the club.

Stearns went to Japan to watch one of Murakami’s games earlier this year, and he launched a grand slam.  

The Yankees, on the other hand, aren’t exactly a smooth fit at the moment, but Murakami's powerful swing from the left side certainly would be well suited for the short porch in the Bronx. 

The Mets have the longest history of any team in MLB when it comes to adding players from Japan. Whether that is most recently with Kodai Senga or dating back when they made a splash, at the time, in signing Kaz Matsui. In between, they have been stops for names like Hideo Nomo and Daisuke Matsuzaka, among others.

They have been unable, however, to land someone who is considered the "generational" type of player, as they leave Nippon Professional Baseball for MLB. I am talking about the Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui, Shohei Ohtani,and Yoshinobu Yamamoto types. 

The next potential Japanese star is going to be posted this winter by his NPB team, the Yakult Swallows. That player is 25-year-old third baseman/first baseman Munetaka Murakami.

While not projecting that Murakami is by any means a lock to end up with the types of careers some of the above players had, Murakami will be considered the biggest offensive player to come over from Japan since Ohtani in 2018.

He had an all-time season in 2022. At just 22 years old, Murakami slashed .318/.458/.710 and set the NPB single-season home run record when he hit 56 home runs, passing the legendary Sadaharu Oh.

Projections on a potential contract for Murakami are wide-ranging for various reasons. It would be surprising if the contract wasn’t in the range of six-to-seven years and $100 million or more. 

Here are the pros and cons of signing Murakami…

PROS

One thing the Mets were lacking in 2025 was an additional thumper in the lineup. Once opposing teams got past Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto and Pete Alonso, there wasn’t that same level of threat. Mark Vientos did not repeat his 2024 season, and Brandon Nimmo had a perfectly good 2025 campaign, but he isn’t the best fit as a cleanup hitter on a team looking to win a championship.

A slugger like Murakami could have fit perfectly in that spot. Alonso's Mets future is up in the air, but whether he is here or not, the Mets could use another power hitter in the lineup. 

In 2025, Murakami missed a lot of time due to an oblique injury. When he returned, he hit .286/.392/.659 with 24 home runs in 69 games. One of those 24 home runs was a walk-off shot that happened to have Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns in attendance. 

Murakami has a power grade of at least 70 with elite bat speed that should easily project 30-plus home runs, if not closer to 40. His bat speed and exit velocity numbers all project to be in the class with some of the best in those metrics in MLB. He accompanies his power with the ability to get on base, with a career .394 on-base percentage in Japan.

From a defensive profile, he projects more as a first base/designated hitter type despite playing a lot of third base in Japan. If the Mets were looking for a power-hitting first baseman type to potentially replace Alonso, Murakami might be the closest one-for-one replacement that they could do.

When it comes to signing long-term contracts, Stearns has so far preferred to reserve that for younger players. The Mets, of course, signed Juan Soto last offseason at 25, and in his first year here, they made a substantial push for the then-25-year-old Yamamoto. The 25-year-old Murakami would fit his mold.

CONS

Murakami does possess some elite traits offensively, but there are some concerning red flags in his profile, specifically in the swing-and-miss category.

His in-zone contact rate, which is a baseline barometer of bat-to-ball skills of 73 percent, ranked near the bottom among qualified players in NPB over the last three years. For comparison’s sake, the MLB average for in-zone contact rate in 2025 was nearly 83 percent. 

Murakami’s general strikeout rate over the past three seasons in NPB was all in the 28-29 percent range. The concern is that, in general, expectations are for strikeout rates to rise in the transition from NPB to MLB.

He has also struggled against high-end velocity (considered greater than 93 mph for this metric) over the last couple of years. The average MLB fastball in 2025 was 94.4 mph.

Murakami projects best defensively at first base, but even at that spot, he is not projected to be any better than average, if that.

VERDICT

Murakami fits the mold of a high-risk, high-reward player with a wide range of potential outcomes. The question that teams like the Mets will have to ask is if the power and on-base skills simply outweigh the swing-and-miss issues. 

The reality is that most high-end home run hitters do strike out a lot. Seven of the top 11 leaders in home runs in MLB in 2025 had strikeout rates north of 25 percent. If Murakami is going to crack that range for home runs, then his strikeout rate would be high, but likely not unreasonably so.

At 25 years old, he is still young enough to get into an MLB hitting program and improve his mechanics and plan at the plate to help mitigate some of the flaws.

I personally do not look at Murakami as a potential Alonso replacement. If the Mets were to seriously pursue Murakami, it should be in addition to trying to retain Alonso. That would create a top four of a lineup that could be as impactful as any in baseball. 

The best path might be Murakami spending a lot of time at designated hitter and playing first base and third base when necessary.

If the cost on a contract can stay in the range that is typical for Japanese hitters coming over to MLB in recent years, usually in the range of $18-20 million per season, the Mets should be in on a pursuit of a hitter that you can just see hitting balls to the back of the Coca Cola corner.

State of the Phillies' outfield and how it could shake out in 2026 originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

The Phillies’ outfield enters the winter with more uncertainty than any other position group.

In 2025, the results simply weren’t there. Phillies outfielders combined for a .712 OPS (18th in MLB), a 7.8% walk rate (22nd), and 219 RBIs (24th). They stole 29 bases, tied for the fourth-fewest in baseball. The group struggled to generate impact at the plate and rarely changed games with speed.

The front office is expected to explore ways to add power, inject more athleticism and balance a lineup that leaned too heavily on its top-three hitters.

As of right now, who will return in 2026?

LF/CF Brandon Marsh

Marsh was the most stable everyday outfielder the Phillies had.

He hit .280/.342/.443 with a .785 OPS, bouncing between left and center while offering better-than-average defense at both spots. He was at his best against right-handed pitching, where he hit .300 with a .838 OPS, nine home runs and 33 RBIs.

Marsh isn’t going anywhere. His role may shift depending on what else changes around him, but his roster spot is secure.

RF Nick Castellanos

Castellanos struggled in 2025.

He drove in 72 runs, but his .694 OPS and .294 on-base percentage led to an 88 OPS+, which is 12 percent lower than the average hitter. The defensive limitations became more pronounced, finishing in the 1st percentile in Outs Above Average, reflecting limited range at 33 years old.

With one year left on his five-year, $100 million contract, Castellanos is expected to remain in trade conversations throughout the offseason and there’s a chance he gets designated for assignment.

UTIL/LF Otto Kemp

Kemp’s season played out in two chapters.

Called up in early June, the rookie hit .228 over his first 46 games before returning to Triple-A Lehigh Valley. When he came back in September, the adjustments showed. Over his final 16 games, he posted an .856 OPS with eight extra-base hits.

Phillies skipper Thomson sees real upside, saying, “I like him being an everyday player.”

An infielder by trade, Kemp got some run in left field — including a start in the NLDS — and showed his effectiveness against left-handed pitching, producing a .786 OPS in 74 at-bats. That platoon potential could pair with Marsh, though Alec Bohm’s future at third base could ultimately influence Kemp’s role.

CF Johan Rojas

Rojas remains one of the easiest players on the roster to summarize.

His defense changes games and the speed is elite — 99th percentile sprint speed. The offense is still lacking. He hit .224/.280/.289 in 2025 and never established consistent timing at the plate.

His glove and range keep him in the picture as a likely candidate to make the roster, but his path to everyday at-bats will depend on how he fares offensively.

A pair of prospects on the horizon?

Justin Crawford

Crawford keeps hitting, everywhere.

He’s not a power hitter, but he controls at-bats, reaches base and pressures defenses with his legs. Few hitters in the organization offer that combination. If anyone can force an Opening Day outfield job internally, it’s Crawford.

At Triple-A in 2025, he hit .334 with a .411 OBP and stole 46 bases. Since entering pro ball, he owns a .322 average across 325 minor league games.

He can also hit to all fields. Per Prospect Savant, Crawford pulled the ball 29.2 percent of the time and went the other way 36.5 percent. That approach plays in the big leagues.

Gabriel Rincones Jr.

Rincones provides the power counterpoint to Crawford.

At Triple-A, he hit a career-high 18 home runs, logged 41 extra-base hits, and drew 80 walks, finishing with a .370 OBP in his most complete pro season.

President Dave Dombrowski pointed out the 24-year-old as a prospect to keep an eye on, “I really like Gabriel Rincones, who’s got a lot of pop in his bat and really hits right-handed pitching even better.”

A left-handed bat with power and patience will draw trade interest by default. Whether he fits the 2026 Phillies or becomes part of a larger transaction will depend on how aggressively the club looks to reshape the outfield.

An idea

Last summer, when the Phillies were exploring third-base help and checked in on Eugenio Suárez, one scenario gained traction: Bryce Harper moving back to right field.

It never happened — Harper stayed at first — but with Pete Alonso on the free-agent market and Houston’s Christian Walker potentially available via trade, the idea could surface again if the Phillies want more lineup balance during this championship window.

Targets via trade or free agency

Harrison Bader remains a logical reunion candidate. Max Kepler, also a free agent, is unlikely to return. And the thought of external options comes to mind. 

Steven Kwan — a four-time Gold Glove award winner and a two-time All-Star — would give the Phillies an established leadoff hitter and elite left field defense. But after hitting .272 with a .705 OPS in 2025 — down from .292 and .793 in 2024 — and with club control through 2028, the cost would be significant. If Philadelphia believes Crawford can supply similar contact skills, the fit may be less necessary than it once looked.

The White Sox exercised Luis Robert Jr.’s $20 million option, but given where that organization is right now, he could still be a trade candidate. Injuries limited him in 2025, but in the final six weeks he hit .298/.352/.456 in 31 games — closer to the version that finished second in AL MVP voting in 2023.

A winter trade feels unlikely, but if Chicago leans into a reset, he fits better as a mid-season or deadline move than a November one.

Philadelphia has also been linked to Jo Adell and Taylor Ward, two right-handed power bats. Randy Arozarena could fit that same mold if Seattle is open to moving him.

At the top of the free agent market, talented outfielders Kyle Tucker, Cody Bellinger and Trent Grisham all hit from the left side. If the Phillies bring back Kyle Schwarber, committing premium dollars to another left-handed hitter may limit the lineup’s flexibility.

The outlook

The Phillies don’t have a set outfield for 2026.

Some answers could come from within. Others will likely require a trade or a meaningful free agent addition. However it unfolds, the 2026 outfield is unlikely to look — or perform — like the 2025 version.

Explaining the shake-up at the top of the Phillies' prospect list originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

As we enter MLB free agency and what should be a busy offseason, there are guaranteed to be some surprises. Baseball America threw out the first eyebrow-raising moment for Phillies fans today. The publication released its latest ranking of the top ten prospects for all 30 MLB teams, and there is a new player at the top of the list.

It is not starting pitcher Andrew Painter, as it was last year, and the year before that.

It is shortstop Aidan Miller, the team’s 2023 1^st-round draft pick, riding the wave of a strong 2025 season at the plate, and on the basepaths.

Baseball America writer Josh Norris was a guest on The Phillies Show podcast. He drew up the rankings, and this isn’t a hot take. He does exhaustive research on the players and teams he covers, and interviews many people throughout front offices and developmental departments within MLB franchises.

The reason for the shake-up is largely because Painter was shelved following Tommy John surgery, and between his injury in 2022 and the start of 2025, he really only pitched 15 innings in the 2024 Arizona Fall League.

“[2025] certainly wasn’t a bad year, it was a great year for a guy just coming off Tommy John surgery,” Norris said of Painter, who pitched to a 5-6 record and a 5.40 ERA in 22 starts for the AAA Iron Pigs.

Despite dropping Painter to No. 2, Norris remains high on the righty flame-thrower.

“I’m Andrew Painter’s number-1 fan, outside of the Painter household,” Norris joked. “I put it all out there and said the young man is gonna be a Hall of Famer based on what I’ve seen.”

“I’ve seen a ton of pitching prospects in my life. I mean, I’ve seen just about all of them. He was up there. I remember leaving the park [after watching Painter pitch] saying I’ve only felt this way three times.”

The other two pitchers? Former Nationals All-Star Stephen Strasburg, who was among the best in the game before injuries curtailed his career, and the late Jose Fernandez, who won Rookie of the Year for the Marlins in 2013 and made two All-Star teams before tragically losing his life at 24.

As for Miller’s rise to the top? “There were a lot of questions on whether he could stick at shortstop,” Norris said. “Right now, the only question on whether he could stick at shortstop [with the Phillies] is Trea Turner.”

“He’s a shortstop. He’s become more athletic, more explosive, his arm has gotten better, [baseball insiders] in and out of the organization, people say ‘this is probably a really good, above-average major league shortstop right now.’”

Miller played nearly all of 2025 at double-A Reading. He struggled through the first half of the season, and on July 31^st was hitting .222 with a .696 OPS.

But he finished strong. Over his final 36 games – which included eight at triple-A Lehigh Valley – Miller hit .356 with an OPS of 1.099, more walks (31) than strikeouts (29), and 39 runs scored.

He also led the entire organization with 52 stolen bases, a number that belies his “run tool grade” from scouts. MLB scouts grade players on a 20-to-80 scale, and gave Miller a 50 for his speed, slightly above average. These grades aren’t etched in stone, but this can show a bit of the difference subjectivity plays in scouting, and perhaps, that Miller has base-running instincts that you can’t get from a 60-yard dash time.

Here is Norris’ full Top 10 list of Phillies prospects:

1. Aidan Miller, SS
2. Andrew Painter, SP
3. Justin Crawford, OF
4. Aroon Escobar, 2B
5. Gage Wood, P
6. Dante Nori, OF
7. Gabriel Rincones, OF
8. Matthew Fisher, P
9. Moises Chace, SP
10.  Cade Obermuller, P

A block away from the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Wednesday morning, a once-overlooked Dodgers star embraced his own newfound notoriety.

Four days after slugging the game-winning home run in Game 7 of the World Series, Will Smith was serenaded by hundreds of fans at a Raising Cane’s promotional event at the intersection of Sunset and Highland, taking a makeshift stage to chants of “We want Will!” from a crowd of Dodgers faithful forever indebted to his championship-clinching swing.

“To feel the love from all the fans, it’s just cool,” Smith said. “It’s fun celebrating with these people, to see what the Dodgers mean to them.”

For years, Smith has largely felt that love from the shadows of the Dodgers’ star-studded roster — a three-time All-Star, a generational talent at his position, but also an outshined member of the team’s big-name core.

Read more:The Dodgers-Blue Jays World Series had record-setting ratings. Here's what it means

That officially changed this week, after he hit the first game-winning, extra-inning home run in the seventh game of a Fall Classic.

His name has now joined the realm of October legends. His place in Dodger history, elevated to virtually immortal status.

“That’s crazy,” Smith said, when informed Wednesday of the history his 11th-inning swing made. “I never would have thought that [would happen]. But yeah, just glad I was able to get it done for the guys, and for the city … The passion that these fans have, that’s what motivates me most.”

That kind of answer, of course, exemplifies Smith’s default mode. Quiet and reserved by nature. Averse to the public spotlight. Happy to simply show up at the ballpark, handle his taxing job as the starting catcher on baseball’s best team, and sidestep the attention a player of his talent would typically command.

Such had been the reality of Smith’s existence with these Dodgers. Sharing a clubhouse with Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Clayton Kershaw, it’s been easy for him to blend into the background for much of his seven-year career.

But then, last Saturday night, Shane Bieber hung him a slider in a tied game with a World Series on the line. Smith put a thunderous swing on it, pleading for the ball to clear the fence. And once it did, his standing in the sport had instantly been altered. The Dodgers cemented a dynasty. He was the face of one of its most defining moments.

“Yes and no,” Smith said when asked if it felt like his life had changed this week. “That’s a moment that will always be special. A very positive memory. In the first couple [World Series], had some big hits and stuff. But the game-winner is cool. So hopefully next year, going for a three-peat, we do something similar.”

Nothing, of course, will be as transformational as this past week was for the 30-year-old backstop.

Read more:'Work to do': Four questions the World Series champion Dodgers face this offseason

Had it not been for the heroic efforts of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Smith very easily could have won World Series MVP, having led the Dodgers with six RBIs, trailed only Ohtani with a .267 average, and caught all 74 innings of the marathon series in another Fall Classic record.

He wasn’t coaxed into speaking at the team’s championship parade, but still received some of the day’s loudest ovations, the fan base recognizing the herculean contributions he provided both at and behind the plate.

“He was the silent assassin,” Freeman said.

“He’s an absolute animal,” third baseman Max Muncy echoed.

Smith did show some of his dry humor during a Tuesday night appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, reeling off a few laugh lines alongside manager Dave Roberts and a few other teammates.

Then, on Wednesday morning, he got his hero’s welcome at the Raising Cane’s event, with fans lining up along Sunset two hours before his appearance with signs and posters ready in hand.

“It’s felt like a dream,” Smith said.

One he won’t be waking up from anytime soon.

Moving forward, Smith figures to be at the center of the team’s future success, having signed a 10-year, $140 million contract extension with the Dodgers in March 2024.

“This is pretty much home now for us,” the Louisville native and father of two said. “We love it here.”

As one of the younger members of the club’s All-Star core, his importance to the lineup will also continue to grow, with Smith trying to build off a 2025 campaign in which he set full-season career-highs in batting average (.296) and OPS (.901) despite missing most of September, and the first week of the playoffs, with a broken hand.

“To me, he kind of epitomizes a lot of the success that we've had looking back, in terms of our scouting process, our player development process, how well they work together, and then him coming through and having the impact he's had at the Major League level,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said of Smith, who was originally a first-round draft pick of the team in 2016.

“Make no mistake, there's going to be a lot of those moments for him,” Muncy added. “He’s going to be here for a long time. I’m exciting to see what he’s going to do for this organization.”

And to think, how disastrously different this week could have been if not for the other key play Smith made in Game 7, getting his toe back on home plate after it had popped off as he went to catch a throw from Miguel Rojas with the bases loaded in bottom of the ninth inning.

“I still don’t like seeing it,” Smith joked as the video of that moment replayed on Kimmel. “They were replaying it [in the stadium], and I was like, ‘Oh crap, this is not good. We’re gonna lose right here because I can’t hold home plate with my foot.’”

Read more:Money helped Dodgers win the World Series. But they say culture got them through Game 7

“That,” Smith added as Kimmel pondered the alternative reality, “would’ve stung.”

Instead, two innings later, Smith delivered a swing that will change his legacy forever — thrusting him onto a pedestal both overdue and long-warranted.

“For me, I’ve always tried not to do too much,” he said. “Just happened to get it in the air, get it over the wall.”

Another modest answer, from a player unlikely to go overlooked again.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Former Rangers player and manager Ally McCoist on TNT Sports

Forget one transfer window for Rangers, it might be three. It's a big job. A big, big job.

Former Rangers player Alan Hutton on TNT Sports

We're too used to seeing this now. For me, I look at Rangers at this moment in time and they are crying out for help. January is massive.

Former Scotland defender Robbie Neilson on the BBC's Scottish Football podcast

Rangers were kind of outclassed by Roma, which top end of the Serie A is to be expected, but I just felt they had a couple of gears to go.

This little period is difficult. I think getting through the game at the weekend, it gives them that international break.

I think the recruitment has been done. Danny Rohl has to make the best he can out of what they've got at the moment. And it's about getting to January in the best condition he can.

Former Rangers forward Rory Loy on the BBC's Scottish Football podcast

If Dundee can turn up [on Sunday], play their stuff on the big occasion like they have done when it's been on the telly before, then Rangers will be in for a game.

And it's not ideal for Rangers coming off the back of Thursday. I think Rangers will probably just have enough, but I would definitely have thought Celtic would have had enough.