Category: MLB

Had we written about Sean Manaea’s upcoming season earlier in spring training, the premise would’ve been a bit more straightforward. Coming off a season that saw him spend more time on the injured list than on the mound, Manaea would be looking to be healthy and bounce back from a 2025 season that saw him finish with a 5.64 ERA.

That’s still true, of course, but with the Mets having set their rotation for the beginning of the 2026 season, Manaea isn’t in it. Instead, the 34-year-old lefty will begin the year as the second part of a piggyback plan that will see him pitch multiple innings in relief of one or more of the Mets’ five starting pitchers. Assuming everyone stays healthy, he’ll presumably slot into the Mets’ rotation if and when the team deploys a six-man rotation.

Velocity is of concern, at least from our perspective as fans. Both Manaea and Mets manager Carlos Mendoza insist that they aren’t concerned about a fastball that’s averaged 88 miles per hour in spring training games. Having averaged just shy of 93 miles per hour with the fastball in his first season with the Mets in 2024 per Brooks Baseball, Manaea saw the pitch dip a bit to 91.5 miles per hour last year as he pitched through a loose body issue in his pitching elbow.

When the offseason began, surgery was one of the options on the table for Manaea, but he opted not to have surgery and came into camp feeling good. And in the innings Grapefruit League innings he threw, he managed a 3.72 ERA, albeit with a 5.11 FIP thanks to the pair of home runs he gave up in just 9.2 innings of work.

Of the projections published at FanGraphs, a couple have Manaea with a sub-4.00 ERA this season, but the general consensus projects a low-4s ERA in about 125 innings of work. That certainly wouldn’t be what the Mets were hoping to see when they inked Manaea to a three-year, $75 million deal coming off his incredible second half of the 2024 season, but it would still be helpful to the team.

If his velocity doesn’t come back and he struggles like he did last year, well, that’d be a bummer for Mets fans. We’ll have to wait and see what happens in relatively sparse outings early in the season. And if those appearances go reasonably well, Manaea might get his first start of the season during the Mets’ first full home stand of the year as the team hosts the Diamondbacks and A’s from April 7 to 12 before flying to Los Angeles for three games against the Dodgers without an off day in between.

I always enjoy writing about Dellin Betances — not the least because he’s one of my personal favorite Yankees. In terms of post-dynasty players, he’s easily on my Mount Rushmore of favorites. But his is also a great story. The hometown kid burst on the scene with a ton of prospect hype, only to look like he was going to flame out.

Then, in a wonderful plot twist, Dellin turned into perhaps the most dominant and unhittable relief pitcher in the big leagues for a few years, confounding opposing hitters with his upper-90s fastball and a 12-6 knuckle-curve that instantly turned batsmen’s knees al dente. Betances made our Top 100 Yankees of All-Time, so it certainly makes sense we are going to wish him a happy birthday.

Name: Dellin Betances
Born: March 23, 1988 (New York, NY)
Yankees Tenure: 2011-19

A hometown kid, Betances was born in Manhattan and later moved to the Lower East Side when he was 10. That same year, Betances happened to be at Yankee Stadium on May 17, 1998.  Nothing like getting to see David “Boomer” Wells hurl a perfect game in person.

By 2006, Betances stood 6-foot-9 and his fastball was touching 95 mph. Considered a first-round talent, he’d committed to Vanderbilt and there was concern it would take a king’s ransom to get him to break that agreement. Accordingly, the Yankees and every other team passed on him in the first round.

The Yankees stayed patient and eventually selected him in the eighth round, 254^th overall. A $1 million signing bonus was enough to get Betances to forgo college ball. Dellin was a Yankee.

Betances’ prospect star waxed and waned as he struggled with command. But by 2011, he was Baseball America’s 43^rd-ranked prospect. That season, he made his MLB debut in September, along with his first and only MLB start. Unfortunately, 2012 was a disaster, with Betances completely unable to locate his fastball.

With Betances still struggling in 2013, the Yankees made the fateful decision to move him to the bullpen, where he shined at Triple-A. He struggled in another brief cameo in the majors that year but there was hope.

The stage was set for one of the most surprising individual seasons in recent Yankee history. 2014 Dellin Betances was the kind of thing you tell your grandkids about someday. His stat line was breathtaking: 70 G, 90 IP, 1.40 ERA, 274 ERA+, 135 K, .442 opponent OPS, 3.7 bWAR.

As I noted when writing about his 2014 campaign, the effect was that he basically turned all major league hitters into a pitcher when they came to bat.

Betances was absolutely on another level. He basically turned MLB hitters—the best in the world at what they do—into John Smoltz at the plate for an entire season. The Hall of Fame hurler retired with a career .159 BA and a .433 OPS. Opponents hit .149 against Dellin in his breakout campaign, with a .442 OPS.

If you are a visual learner, here’s 2014 Dellin eviscerating Miguel Cabrera, one of the great hitters of his generation.

2015 was more of the same. Betances was so dominant that when Game 162 had come and gone, he led the Yankees in rWAR. As a relief pitcher. He did not allow an earned run until his 27^th appearance of the season, in the Yankees’ 55^th game. That is insane. 2014-15 Dellin Betances was historically great. After crunching numbers, I identified in Dellin’s Top 100 article:

Since 1990, the list of relievers who topped Betances by rWAR over two years is short: Boston’s Jonathan Papelbon, who compiled 8.1 rWAR from 2006-07, and Mariano Rivera, who bested Dellin in five different two-year stretches (lol). That’s it. No Billy Wagner. No Craig Kimbrel. No Eric Gagne. No Francisco Rodriguez. Not even a Trevor Hoffman. It’s just Mo, Papelbon, and Dellin.

2016 found Betances pitching out of the same bullpen as Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman. For the first time as a major league reliever, he was a one inning-and-done guy. And he was really good at it, to the tune of 126 strikeouts in 73 innings. The mid-2010s were a weird time for the Yankees, with only one playoff game to their name between 2013-16. But Dellin at least did his part to make his innings a thrill.

That offseason saw an ugly arbitration session, wherein Randy Levine and the Yankees seemed to go out of their way to disrespect Betances. This wasn’t Tarik Skubal and the Tigers either, with a $14 million gap between the camps. Betances wanted a $3 million salary. The Yankees offered $5 million. All that for $2 million. Anyway, you can read the infuriating details of that elsewhere.

Betances pitched two more full seasons in pinstripes as New York returned to regular postseason form. 2018 saw him make baseball history as he became the first reliever to record 100 or more strikeouts in five consecutive seasons.

Little did anyone know his magical run as an elite reliever was over. A should injury in March 2019 sent him to the injured list where he remained until mid-September, when he made his return against Toronto, striking out both hitters he faced. Two days later, the club announced Betances had partially torn his left Achilles during his return outing.

Injuries and COVID conspired to confound Betances, who never returned to form after signing with the Mets in December 2019. He officially retired from baseball in August 2022, but is still involved with the game and began doing work with YES Network in 2025. Look to see him more in the studio in 2026.

Happy birthday, Dellin! I’ll always remember the 2017 Home Run Derby when we were all Dellin Betances, awestruck watching Aaron Judge.

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See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.

Hope springs eternal, and never is that phrase more applicable in baseball than February and March. Players start showing up to Spring Training in great shape, and the excuses–legitimate or not–of the previous year are washed away. Injuries healed. Disappointments left behind. During Spring Training, you can easily convince yourself that just about everyone can be better when the season starts.

The unfortunate truth is that everyone can’t improve. Even when lots of players improve, some don’t. Some do worse. Others get hurt. Take any two consecutive years and you’ll see that pattern. Like, look to the 2015 Royals championship season, a big step forward over 2014. Some players got better, but not all: Alcides Escobar was worse, Alex Gordon got hurt, Salvador Perez was worse, Jason Vargas got hurt, Omar Infante was worse, Greg Holland got hurt, Danny Duffy was worse. 

So when looking ahead to this upcoming season, we have to take into account that it’s just not gonna go the way that we hope it will for certain players. Now, which ones? That’s the real question. 

A month ago, my answer would have been clear that Maikel Garcia was the likeliest Royal hitter to regress. Garcia had a breakout 2025, turning in one of the most impressive Royals seasons in recent memory; he hit for average, he had great plate discipline, he hit for power, he fielded like a madman. He turned into an All-Star and arguably the best defensive third baseman in baseball, nabbing his first career Gold Glove.

But development is not linear, and Garcia has a lot of baseball history that suggests 2025 may be a sort of outlier. Prior to last year, he turned in 1,164 plate appearances where he hit .251/.301/.344–about 20% worse than league average overall. During that time, defensive stats suggested that he was a good-but-not-great third baseman. Garcia’s improvements in 2025 were real, but when you add almost 200 points of OPS in one season there is plenty of room to slide back a bit. Projection systems thought so, too, and they think he’ll be worth three and a half Wins Above Replacement or so as opposed to the five and a half he put up last year.

Now, I’m not so sure.

Maikel Garcia ripped through the World Baseball Classic like he was on a mission of baseball domination. In 28 plate appearances, Garcia hit .385, had three extra base hits, and stole a trio of bases without getting caught. He was big in big moments, as his above home run to bring Venezuela within a run of the imposing Japanese squad shows. And his single to left field against Italy gave his country a 3-2 lead.

At the end Venezuela stood alone, hoisting the World Baseball Classic trophy. And at the end, Garcia stood alone as MVP of the whole tournament. 

Being a good baseball analyst means trusting the numbers and knowing the red flags, and the red flag of the nation of Small Sample Size waves clearly here. That’s because 28 plate appearances is basically nothing in the context of baseball. To trust those plate appearances more than years of recent history would simply be bad analysis.

At the same time, we don’t pit spreadsheets against each other to see who wins. Athletes are humans first, and humans are messy. We’re anxious. We doubt. We have confidence, we lack confidence, we seek confidence. We’re often equal parts brilliant and broken. And because athletes are complicated human beings, raw athleticism only goes so far. There’s a certain X-factor, a je ne sais quoi, a secret ingredient, that often drives athletic success. 

And you know what? I think Maikel Garcia has it, whatever it is. He’s certainly got the tools while having plenty of room to grow–specifically in regard to barrel rate and bat speed. But that’s not just it. His performance in the World Baseball Classic is one intriguing point. His passion for the game is another, that his teammates rave about him as a player and person one more. And Garcia’s dedication to learning and mastering English is one of those things that reflects underlying and enduring positive traits, too. 

I still wouldn’t be surprised if Garcia isn’t quite as good as his career year in 2025. But my intuition tells me that Garcia still has it in him to take another big step next year. If that happens, the Royals’ opponents need to watch out.

Team news

[Dbacks.com] Ross, Loáisiga make club as D-backs announce 3 more cuts – Left-hander Philip Abner was optioned to Triple-A Reno while catcher Aramis Garcia and infielder Jacob Amaya were reassigned to Minor League camp. In addition, the Diamondbacks have informed right-handed relievers Joe Ross and Jonathan Loáisiga that they have made the team and will have their contracts purchased. That seemingly sets the 13-man position-player roster with Corbin Carroll, Alek Thomas, Jordan Lawlar, Nolan Arenado, Geraldo Perdomo, Ketel Marte, Carlos Santana, Pavin Smith, Gabriel Moreno, James McCann, Ildamaro Vargas, Jorge Barrosa and Tim Tawa.

[Yahoo] Two veteran relievers clinch jobs on Diamondbacks’ Opening Day roster – Loaisiga’s inclusion was long anticipated. Signed to a minor-league deal in January, he showcased impressive stuff, including a fastball in the upper-90s, and posted solid results during spring training, logging a 3.86 ERA in seven appearances. “I thought he had some of the better stuff in our pen,” Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen said. “We’re trying to improve the aggregate stuff that we have going out there, from a (swing and) miss standpoint, and he looked good. He had a good spring.” Ross had been trending toward making the club in recent weeks as it became apparent that his ability to go multiple innings in relief appealed to the Diamondbacks.

[Arizona Sports] Abner optioned to Triple-A, Diamondbacks down to 1 lefty reliever – Philip Abner has been optioned to the Triple-A Reno Aces, leaving Brandyn Garcia as the lone lefty arm in bullpen barring a late addition. There was recent precedent for the club adding a lefty to its bullpen room so close to Opening Day, Arizona signing Jalen Beeks one day before the first game of the 2025 season. The Diamondbacks also reassigned catcher Aramis Garcia and infielder Jacob Amaya to minor league camp, which brought its camp to 33 players. Each MLB team has until Opening Day to trim its roster down to 26.

[SI] Gabriel Moreno Silences Injury Concerns in Unbelievable 2-Homer Game – [Moreno] played his first game behind home plate since he was forced to shut down throwing due to right forearm tightness. With no structural damage revealed, the hope was always that Moreno would be healthy for opening day. The first of Moreno’s homers traveled 445 feet, coming off the bat at 108 MPH. That, apparently, was not enough, as he followed that blast with a 110 MPH, 459-foot homer just one inning later. The second home run fell just shy of his 460-footer from earlier this spring. That is still the longest ball Moreno has hit.

And, elsewhere…

[Chicago Tribune] ‘Just feels like you’re on fire’: How Cubs and White Sox players adjust to record-breaking heat in Arizona – Sox third baseman Miguel Vargas kept it all in perspective. “We need to enjoy these couple of weeks when we’re here in the heat because it’s going to be cold (in Chicago),” Vargas told the Tribune last week. Vargas is feeling at home with the conditions. “I’m from Cuba, it’s hot out there every time,” he said. “Hydration” was the key word for [manager Will] Venable.“We have all of our trainers and strength coaches with all the resources they need to support these guys with hydration,” Venable said last week. “In between every half inning, you hear five different people yelling, ‘Hydrate.’

[ESPN] Phillies ace Cristopher Sanchez agrees to new 6-year contract – The team announced Sunday that the deal will start in 2027 and includes a team option for 2033. Financial terms were not disclosed, but sources told ESPN that the deal is worth approximately $103 million in new money. Sanchez will make $3.5 million in salary for 2026 before the new deal starts next year. The contract supersedes the deal Sanchez signed before the beginning of last year — one that paid him $47 million over four years, including two team option years. Sanchez went 13-5 with a 2.50 ERA in 32 starts last season and struck out a career-high 212 batters. He’s 30-21 over his five-year career.

[MLB] Experts predict all of this season’s stats leaders – With Spring Training winding down and Opening Day just days away, intriguing questions abound, from which teams will bounce back after subpar seasons last year to whether anyone will be able to dethrone the reigning MVP and Cy Young Award winners. One of the big ones to consider at the dawn of a new regular season is: Which players will lead their league in each major statistical category? We asked 57 MLB.com staff members to weigh in, and here are the results [Jim: No D-backs are mentioned. #SavedYouAClick]

Finally, here’s one from yesterday’s This Day in Baseball which I feel deserves more explicit coverage. It is still March 22 when I’m writing this so it is technically still This Day in Baseball. 🙂

As the Red Sox approach Opening Day, it’s time to start taking a look at the other American League playoff contenders. Next up, a team that’s led by the best pitcher on the planet.

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What’s this team’s deal?

For the past few seasons, The Tigers have been Tarik Skubal and the Skubettes. Fans, who are for some reason obsessed with “value”, have been wishing a Skubal trade into existence for multiple seasons in a row now. The Tigers instead have opted to keep Skubal and try to win with him, which has resulted in ALDS defeats in two straight seasons. Last season, in his two ALDS starts, he threw seven innings of two-run baseball and six innings of one-run baseball. They lost each game by a final score of 3-2. What’s the point of having incredible baseball players if you’re not going to try to make a run with them? Sure, they might not be able to retain Skubal in free agency (although they could if they wanted to. Tigers ownership group, Illitch Holdings, generated over five billion in revenue in 2025, according to Forbes), but having Skubal right now is more fun than talking about prospects, so I applaud them for keeping him and giving it a go.

I did gloss over the fact that one year after a miraculous post-trade deadline run to make the postseason, the Tigers choked away a 15.5-game lead in the American League Central to the Cleveland Guardians. In a twist of cruel fate for Guardians’ fans, however, they played the Tigers in the Wild Card round, and Skubal struck out 14 over 7.2 innings in game one. The Tigers went on to win the series, 2-1, and the whole world kind of forgot about the meltdown.

How good are they?

They’re pretty much exactly as good as they need to be. The Tigers have the luxury of playing in the American League Central, where nobody is really that good. Detroit ranked 11th in runs per game, 14th in runs allowed per game, and 15th in fielding run value last season. They were basically middle of the pack across the board, which led them to 30 wins in the division, 87 wins overall, and the final Wild Card spot.

Offensively, they’re a young team that used home runs to power their offense. Detroit struck out at the fourth-highest rate in baseball, but hit the tenth-most home runs. There isn’t one player in the lineup that scares you to death, but they’re fairly solid top to bottom. Dillon Dingler was the only player to accumulate more than four fWAR, largely due to his defense behind the plate. Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson, and Kerry Carpenter hit 36, 31, and 26 home runs, respectively. In total, they had nine players hit double-digit home runs. Infielder Zach McKinstry made a leap and put together his best career season, while Gleyber Torres quietly continued to produce offensively.

The rotation is headlined by Skubal, who is the favorite to three-peat as American League Cy Young. If I were ranking pitchers, I’d put Skubal at the top of the list, but if you want to pick Paul Skenes or Garrett Crochet, I won’t stop you. Behind Skubal is the new big addition in Framber Valdez. Valdez is super reliable, having thrown at least 175 innings in each of the last four seasons with an ERA between 2.82 and 3.66. He has a sinker-heavy approach that’s tried and true for him, and should continue to work so long as his velocity holds up. They also brought Justin Verlander back, which might not work, but at least it’s a fun story. Casey Mize is a strike-thrower who can dominate on a given day when everything is working. Jack Flaherty is similar, although it’s fair to wonder if his health and velocity will hold up. It’s a really solid five-man group, but injuries to Jackson Jobe, Troy Melton, and Reese Olson are seriously detrimental to the depth. Drew Anderson was brought over from the KBO and is intriguing. Sawyer Gibson-Long has some skills, but has never shown them consistently at the major league level. Keider Montero has a good sinker to throw to righties, but nothing to get lefties out with. There are some options, but each comes with questions.

The bullpen for Detroit should help them win games. They have three closers on the roster in Kenley Jansen (old friend), Kyle Finnegan, and Will Vest. Jansen figures to handle the ninth because he’s Kenley Jansen, with the other two working in the seventh and eighth. Troy Melton has “relief ace” potential when healthy, but he’s out for at least a couple of months. Tyler Holton is a solid left-handed option.

Overall, it’s more of the same for the Tigers. The offense has questions, but they bring back most of the same lineup and are looking for their young players to continue to improve. The rotation is solid, and the bullpen should be able to protect leads. While I don’t expect them to win 95 games, another 87-win season feels in the cards.

Who’s their most likable player?

The correct answer is Tarik Skubal, but he took some heat after leaving Team USA during the World Baseball Classic, so I’ll look at someone else. Jack Flaherty is very involved in the community and social activism causes. He’s also very animated on the mound, talking to himself almost all of the time. The real answer is Tarik Skubal, though. He keeps 100 mph fastballs in his back pocket for fun.

Who’s their least likable player?

It’s gotta be Framber Valdez after that stunt he pulled last season, where he threw at his own catcher. He can pretend it wasn’t on purpose, but it sure looked like it was.

Schedule against the Red Sox

The Red Sox and Tigers play seven games over the first two months of the season. The first four are at Fenway from April 17 to April 20. If you like knick-knacks and thingamabobs, you’ll want to be there. Each of the four games has a promo attached. We start with Brava Night, followed by Diary of a Wimpy Kid day, Margaritaville Day, and a nice windbreaker giveaway on Marathon Monday.

A couple of weeks later, the Red Sox go to Detroit for a three-game set, including a Bark at the Park night and a Tigers-branded euchre deck giveaway. After that, we’re done with the Tigers save for a potential postseason matchup.

Season Prediction

I think the Tigers win the American League Central this year. I have questions about the rotation depth, because getting 30 starts a piece out of Verlander and Flaherty seems like wishful thinking, but the lineup should be just as strong as last year, if not better, and the bullpen is talented at the back. I’ll put them at 88 wins, one game ahead of the Kansas City Royals in the American League Central. As for the postseason, I’ll say they lose in the ALDS for a third year in a row.

Since I can remember, the answer to the question, What is the Orioles’ weakest link? was always the same: the starting rotation. This winter brought high hopes for a top-of-the-market splashy signing of the kind that would put the conversation fully to rest: such a signing failed to materialize. Nonetheless, the mood around the rotation is unusually confident. “This might be the most underrated rotation in all of baseball,” said Opening Day starter Trevor Rogers. Free-agent addition Chris Bassitt added, “I would rather be a stealth bomber, so to speak, and not have anybody talk about us. Just surprise people.”

It’s not the flashiest group out there, but a starting rotation of Trevor Rogers, Kyle Bradish, Shane Baz, Chris Bassitt, and Zach Eflin looks better, perhaps, than anything Baltimore has put out there in recent memory. This group has an extremely high floor.

The picture came into focus on Saturday when the team made the shocking announcement that Dean Kremer was being optioned to Triple-A Norfolk to start the season. With the longtime Oriole starter required to stay there until April 9, the move confirmed what some had suspected: Baltimore is going with five men, not six, to start the season. Here’s who those five are and what to expect from them.

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Trevor Rogers, LHP

Rogers is your Opening Day starter… which is a sentence that would have seemed impossible a year ago. Dealt from Miami to Baltimore at the 2024 trade deadline, Rogers posted a homely 7.11 ERA in four starts before getting sent down to Norfolk. Then in 2025, something clicked—in an astonishing way. Though he started the season late, his 1.81 ERA and 0.90 WHIP across 18 starts broke a 71-year-old franchise record and proved good enough for ninth-place in the AL Cy Young vote. He’s continued to look good this spring, and will get the ball on Opening Day, on March 26 against the Twins at Camden Yards.

The concern is the innings total—he threw just 109 2/3 last season—and whether the electric results hold over a full season. But why would you hand the ball to anyone else right now?

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Kyle Bradish, RHP

It’s strange—but nice—to turn to the No. 2 slot in the rotation and find Kyle Bradish, the brilliant strikeout artist who’s posted a 2.78 ERA and 268 strikeouts across 44 starts since the beginning of 2023. Yes, that stretch was interrupted by Tommy John surgery, but Bradish returned last year and looked very much like himself: a 2.53 ERA and 47 strikeouts in six starts.

The surgery risk is real, but Bradish is brilliant enough that a lesser Bradish would still be brilliant. And so far this spring, the evidence (a 2.35 ERA, 12 K’s and a .207 opposing average in 15.1 innings) says Bradish is back. A healthy Bradish gives this staff a genuine two-headed monster at the top.

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Shane Baz, RHP

The Baz acquisition was the most aggressive, and interesting, move of the offseason, costing four prospects and a competitive balance pick. It’s a pretty price to pay for a 26-year-old who posted a 4.87 ERA in 31 starts for Tampa Bay in 2025, and hadn’t thrown a fully healthy season in four years at the major league level.

This is an extremely high-risk, high-reward acquisition (kind of good, come to think of it, to say that about a move made by this front office). The 2017 first-rounder was the Rays’ No. 1 prospect in 2022, having struck out a whopping 113 strikeouts in 78 2/3 innings between Triple-A and Double-A the prior season. At one point, Baz was measured as one of 12 Major Leaguers with a fastball averaging at least 97 mph and 11.4 inches or less of vertical movement, putting him on a list that at one time included Aroldis Chapman, Gerrit Cole and Jacob deGrom. Whether the 26-year-old still has that kind of stuff remains to be seen; at least it can be said that, for a Orioles’ front office that doesn’t like to spend on pitching, the king’s ransom they shipped out for Shane Baz suggests they are pretty darn excited.

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Chris Bassitt, RHP

Bassitt is this rotation’s version of a utility infielder: not flashy, deeply reliable, almost always there. His five-year average of 176 innings and 30-plus starts tells us pretty much what we’re getting: a professional who takes the ball, throws strikes, and keeps his team in games. His 3.66 ERA over that stretch is comfortably above average. Baltimore could have done much worse than slotting Bassitt into the back end of a rotation that has genuine upside at the top.

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Zach Eflin, RHP

Outside of Baz, Eflin may be the rotation’s wild card, and not in a bad way. After back surgery last August cut short his 2024 season, he finished those final two months with a 2.60 ERA in nine starts before going under the knife. He’s been cleared and, by Mike Elias’s own account, looks excellent (this is the reason he leapfrogged Dean Kremer in the rotation). Forty plate appearances of elite production followed by offseason surgery is not a large sample to bet on, but Eflin at his best is a genuine asset.

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And Kremer?

The Kremer demotion was striking—he’s logged over 600 innings for Baltimore and had earned himself a rotation spot. But with Eflin healthy and the April schedule full of off-days, Mike Elias framed it as a calendar decision rather than a capability verdict. The six-man rotation talk that dominated fan discussion this winter isn’t dead; Elias explicitly left the door open for revisiting it as the season develops. Kremer may be stung by this, but he’s hopefully the answer to the next injury or busy stretch, not a casualty of numbers.

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FanGraphs projects 11.8 WAR from this group, tied for 16th in baseball and 10th in the American League. That’s a middle-of-the-pack projection, which is probably the honest baseline. The optimistic scenario looks much more exciting: Rogers sustains last year’s brilliance, Bradish returns to his 2024 form, Baz develops into the pitcher Tampa Bay always hoped he’d be. If all that goes right, it pushes this staff into a genuinely competitive tier. A few things would have to go right. It would be surprising, but hardly impossible.

Opening Day is just days away, which means it’s almost time to officially turn the page on the 2025 season and move on to 2026. But until those games begin, the specter of 2025 will hang over everything and define the narratives for the start of the season. These are some of the numbers that will frame those narratives as the 2026 season gets underway.

96

This one may seem obvious, but 96 is the number of games the Phillies won in 2025. They once again improved on the previous season’s win total but also once again stalled in the NLDS. The team has returned many of the same players, but they have widely been projected to win fewer games in 2026. Still, they are expected to once again be in the postseason, the question will be whether it be as a third straight NL East champion or as a Wild Card.

3

The last time the Phillies had a rookie hitter accumulate at least 3 WAR was Odúbel Herrera in 2015. You have to go even further back to find a rookie pitcher who accomplished the feat, with the last being Vance Worley in 2011. Justin Crawford and Andrew Painter will perhaps be the two players facing the most scrutiny as the 2026 season begins. The Phillies opted not to make any major, sweeping changes to their roster after another early postseason exit, rather they decided to look internally for a spark.

For the team to become the perennial, sustainable contender that ownership wants, you have to receive meaningful contributions from your farm, something the Phillies haven’t really seen much of over the last decade. The 2026 season doesn’t rest solely on the likes of Crawford, Painter, and potentially Aidan Miller, but the Phillies long-term competitive window will only remain open if some of these players become real big-league contributors.

43

That’s the percentage of pitches in the strike zone seen by Bryce Harper in 2025, the lowest of any qualified hitter. You have no doubt heard that exact phrase before, as it’s been a hot button topic in an offseason that also featured a rather public dispute/spat/kerfuffle between Harper and Dave Dombrowski. That disagreement stemmed from the latter’s comments about Harper not having an elite season in 2025. Harper and his agent Scott Boras pointed directly and indirectly towards lineup protection as one of the causes of his down season.

That percentage of pitches in the zone is unlikely to change in 2026, as Harper’s career average of pitches in the zone is 44.2%. The key to Harper recapturing that “elite” status and possibly the key to the entire Phillies season is if Harper can do more damage on those hittable pitches while not chasing outside of the zone, something he did at a higher rate than the previous two years.

149.2

That’s the number of innings Zack Wheeler threw for the Phillies last year, his fewest in a non-pandemic season since joining the Phillies. Wheeler’s season was of course cut short by a blood clot in August that later resulted in the Phillies ace needing thoracic outlet surgery. The Phillies weathered the storm in Wheeler’s absence thanks in no small part to the emergence of Cristopher Sánchez as an ace in his own right. But the Phillies rotation depth is much thinner this year, as Ranger Suárez is now in Boston and the back of the rotation is expected to be helmed by rookie Painter. Behind him and swingman Taijuan Walker, there is not much depth to speak of. The Phillies can’t afford to suffer another major injury beyond Wheeler, and they will need him to be a workhorse once he is able to rejoin the rotation.

The San Diego Padres suffered an 11-1 drubbing at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks in their Cactus League meeting at the Peoria Sports Complex on Sunday. Walker Buehler took the mound for his finals start of spring and looked good through two innings despite allowing a run. He ran into trouble in the third and fourth innings, allowing three runs in each inning as Arizona jumped out to a 7-0 lead after four innings. San Diego added its lone run of the game in the bottom of the fourth inning when Gavin Sheets blasted his fourth home run of the spring to make the score, 7-1. Buehler completed 3.1 innings and allowed seven runs on 11 hits with one walk and three strikeouts. The real concerning part of the outing for Buehler was he allowed four home runs during his time on the mound. Matt Waldron was also touched up by the Diamondbacks. He allowed four runs on three hits with three walks and four strikeouts over three innings pitched. San Diego plays its final game of spring against the Seattle Mariners at the Peoria Sports Complex at 12:10 p.m.

Padres News:

• Cheri Bell of Gaslamp Balllooks at the team and the individual results from the third annual Spring Breakout between the San Diego prospects and the Chicago Cubs prospects.

• Sung-Mun Song was signed as a free agent out of Korea and was expected to fill the utility infielder role for San Diego. Song has been working through an oblique injury for much of the offseason and will start the year on the IL, which means the Padres will have a different look to their roster than what was expected at the outset of Spring Training.

• The Padres have seen the benefit of scoring runs early; it takes pressure off the offense and gives the pitching staff room for error and the ability to pitch with a lead. San Diego has to figure out how to do so more consistently as the Padres prepare for the start of the 2026 season.

Baseball News:

• Pitcher Christopher Sanchez and the Philadelphia Phillies agreed to a six-year contract extension that will keep him in Philadelphia through 2032. Not all news was good for the Phillies on Sunday, pitcher Daniel Robert had a “cardiac event” at the Spring Training complex, but he has been released from the hospital and said he is feeling okay.

• New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone announced Sunday that the Yankees will employ a four-man rotation to start the season, which means Luis Gil does not have spot in the rotation after Max Fried, Cam Schlittler, Will Warren and Ryan Weathers. He could potentially start the season in the minors.

• The Los Angeles Dodgers sent infielder Hyeseong Kim to the minors to start the season.

• Craig Kimbrel had a difficult spring with the New York Mets and will not make their Opening Day roster. In other Mets news, free agent signee Mike Tauchman had surgery to repair a meniscus tear, which means prospect Carson Benge should be on the Opening Day roster.

• Reese McGuire and the Chicago White Sox agreed to a one-year deal which will likely bump Korey Lee off the Chicago roster.

• Miami Marlins outfielder Kyle Stowers, who is recovering from a hamstring injury, is set to open the season on the IL.

• Michael Conforto, who signed with the Chicago Cubs as a non-roster invitee in the offseason, has done enough to earn himself a spot on the Opening Day roster.

• Mitch Garver beat out Andrew Knizner for the backup catcher position with the Seattle Mariners.

After a relatively slow start to the 2025- 26 off season, the Detroit Tigers finished off the winter with a flurry by signing starting pitchers Framber Valdez and bringing back future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander, bumping their payroll to its’ highest level in franchise history, with an opening day payroll projected at $$203,747,859, and a competitive balance tax (CBT) payroll on target for $$242,091,505, according to Cot’s Contracts.

In 2025, the Tigers had a projected opening day payroll of $145,318,033, and wound up with a CBT payroll of $186,627,318. (The difference between the two is explained below.) So the club was about $55 million below the CBT threshold of $241 million for the season.

The lowest tier of the tax brackets is at $244,000,000 for 2026, meaning that the Tigers are within $2 million of paying a tax on any player salaries that go above that threshold. The tax itself won’t be a big deal to Chris Ilitch and the front office, since any tax is paid on the incremental amount that the club exceeds the threshold. So let’s say the Tigers pick up a player at the trade deadline that- with a pro rated salary pushes the payroll to $250 million. They would pay a tax on the $6 million that they are above the lowest tax threshold. As a first time “offender” that would be 20 percent, or $1.2 million. Not such a big deal in the big picture.

What IS a big deal is how luxury tax payors are treated when it comes to how the system treats clubs who dare to cross the tax threshold. A CBT payor could lose a share of revenue sharing rebates the following season, and would suffer greater penalties should they sign a free agent who has declined a Qualifying offer. For example, the Tigers will forfeit their third highest draft choice for signing Framber Valdez, who declined a qualifying offer from the Houston Astros. If they made a similar signing as a CBT payor, they would lose their second highest draft choice AND lose $1 million in international signing bonus dollars.

We hasten to add that the collective bargaining agreement expires on December 1, 2026. We don’t exactly know how next winter’s free agents will be treated under a new agreement, but there is a good chance that players who receive qualifying offers in November will be treated under the terms of the current CBA.

Cot’s calculations include estimates for injury replacements, team share of player benefits and bonus pool contributions, minor league salaries, option buyouts, and everything else that can be quantified. What they don’t include is any mid season trades that either add or subtract from the payroll.

When we looked at the payroll back in November, before any qualifying offers were made and before any player or club options were picked up or declined, BYB took a gander at the clubs’ payroll heading into the off season. But then, Jack Flaherty exercised his player option for one season at $20 million, and Gleyber Torres accepted a qualifying offer of $22.5 million, rather than hit the free agent market, and the team’s payroll was suddenly right back up to about where they started without making any additions.

The club also picked up Drew Anderson as a free agent, at a $7 million salary on a one year deal. And then, there’s “the decision”. As it turned out, Tarik Skubal won his arbitration case and will be paid $32 million for the 2026 season.

PAYROLL SUBTRACTIONS:

The Tigers, for the most part, didn’t lose any players that would be disruptive to their plans going forward. Coming off the books are Alex Cobb and his $15 million deal, Kenta Maeda’s $10 million contract, Tommy Kahnle, John Brebbia, Jose Urquidy and Charlie Morton are gone, saving the club $37 million after taking out Torres’ $15 million salary for 2025. Gleyber and Flaherty will consume that much and a bit more.

The Tigers then doubled down by resigning part time closer Kyle Finnegan for two seasons with an average annual value (AAV) of $9.5 million, plus an option for a third season with a buyout of $2.5 million. The club then signed closer Kenley Jansen for one year at $9 million, plus an option for $12 million or a $2 million buyout, for an AAV of $11 million.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE between major league (opening day) payroll and CBT payroll? There are three major differences between the two numbers.

-One is that, for tax purposes, player salaries are calculated using the average annual value (AAV), rather than just what they will be paid for the current season. So for example, Framber Valdez has a salary of $36.523 million for CBT purposes, although he will earn $22.826 million this season.

-The second difference is that all the players on the 40 man roster are included in CBT payroll, including those on injured reserve. The 14 minor league players add just under $4 million to the total.

-The third major difference is that each team pays about $18 million per season toward player benefits, plus $1.67 million toward the pre arbitration bonus pool, which are included in the CBT payroll number.

Most of the 14 players who are on the 40 man roster but not the major league roster will receive minor league pay, and accounts for less than $2.7 million in salaries, barring any players with guaranteed big league contracts who have been optioned. Cot’s does account for an average number of major league players being injured and replaced by others earning near major league minimum salary of $790,000. It does not account for in season moves, such as acquiring or trading away players during the season. That’s where the Tigers could put themselves into tax territory.

Following is a chart that shows the Tigers’ 2026 major league roster, salaries, and option status for the players on the 40 man roster.

Player	Position	Age	Service time	Options	2026 Salary	Contract
Skubal, Tarik	lhp-s	29	5.114	N/A	$32,000,000	1 y/$32M (26)
Báez, Javier	ss-cf	33	10.089	N/A	$24,000,000	6 y/$140M (22-27)
Torres, Gleyber	2b	29	7.162	N/A	$22,025,000	1 y/$22.025M (26)
Valdez, Framber*	lhp-s	32	6.163	N/A	$22,826,679	3 y/$115M (26-28)*
Flaherty, Jack	rhp-s	30	8.006	N/A	$20,000,000	2 y/$35M (25-26)
Jansen, Kenley	rhp-c	38	15.073	N/A	$9,000,000	1 y/$11M (26)+27 cl opt
Finnegan, Kyle	rhp	34	6.000	N/A	$8,750,000	2 y/$19M (26-27)+28 m opt
Verlander, Justin*	rhp-s	43	20.002	N/A	$7,859,347	1 y/$13M (26)*
Anderson, Drew	rhp	32	0.114	0 / 3	$7,000,000	1 y/$7M (26)+27 cl opt
Mize, Casey	rhp-s	29	5.111	N/A	$6,150,000	1 y/$6.15M (26)
Greene, Riley	lf	25	3.110	3 / 3	$5,000,000	1 y/$5M (26)
Keith, Colt	1b	24	2.000	3 / 3	$4,333,333	6 y/$28,642,500 (24-29)+opts
McKinstry, Zach	2b	31	4.099	0 / 3	$4,200,000	1 y/$4.2M (26)
Torkelson, Spencer	1b	26	3.076	1 / 3	$4,075,000	1 y/$4.075M (26)
Vest, Will	rhp	31	4.100	2 / 3	$3,950,000	1 y/$3.95M (26)
Carpenter, Kerry	rf	28	3.057	3 / 3	$3,275,000	1 y/$3.275M (26)
Vierling, Matt	rf	29	4.026	1 / 3	$3,225,000	1 y/$3.225M (26)
Rogers, Jake	c	31	5.040	2 / 3	$3,050,000	1 y/$3.05M (26)
Holton, Tyler	lhp	29	3.047	2 / 3	$1,575,000	1 y/$1.575M (26)
Brieske, Beau	rhp	28	3.056	1 / 3	$1,157,500	1 y/$1,157,500 (26)
Olson, Reese	rhp-s	26	2.123	2 / 3	$800,001	1 y (26)
Dingler, Dillon	c	27	1.063	2 / 3	$790,001	1 y (26)
Hanifee, Brenan	rhp	28	1.069	2 / 3	$790,001	1 y (26)
Hurter, Brant	lhp	27	1.042	2 / 3	$790,001	1 y (26)
Jobe, Jackson	rhp-s	23	1.006	3 / 3	$790,001	1 y (26)
Jones, Jahmai	2b	28	1.148	0 / 3	$790,001	1 y (26)
Meadows, Parker	cf	26	1.169	1 / 3	$790,001	1 y (26)
Horn, Bailey	lhp	28	0.102	1 / 3	$780,001	1 y (26)
McGonigle, Kevin	ss	21	0.000	3 / 3	$780,001	1 y (26)
Melton, Troy	rhp	25	0.068	3 / 3	$780,001	1 y (26)
Cruz, Trei	cf	27	0.000	3 / 3	$63,600	1 y (26)
De Jesus, Enmanuel	lhp	29	0.024	3 / 3	$1,300,000	1 y/$1.3M (26)
Gipson-Long, Sawyer	rhp	28	2.017	3 / 3	$361,789	1 y (26)
Jung, Jace	2b	25	0.079	2 / 3	$127,100	1 y (26)
Lee, Hao-Yu	2b	23	0.000	3 / 3	$63,600	1 y (26)
Liranzo, Thayron	c	22	0.000	3 / 3	$63,600	1 y (26)
Madden, Ty	rhp	26	1.035	3 / 3	$380,700	1 y (26)
Miller, Jake	lhp	25	0.000	3 / 3	$63,600	1 y (26)
Montero, Keider	rhp	25	1.011	1 / 3	$298,054	1 y (26)
Pérez, Wenceel	cf	26	2.000	2 / 3	$385,350	1 y (26)
Smith, Dylan	rhp	26	0.020	2 / 3	$127,100	1 y (26)
Sommers, Drew	lhp	25	0.032	3 / 3	$127,100	1 y (26)
Sweeney, Trey	ss	26	1.042	3 / 3	$351,028	1 y (26)
Valencia, Eduardo	c-1b	26	0.000	3 / 3	$63,600	1 y (26)

Source: Cot’s contracts;

Salaries

-The major league minimum salary is $780,000 for the 2026 season, in the last year of the current collective bargaining agreement. That is an increase of $20,000 from 2025.

• This does NOT include pre- arbitration bonuses that were earned, for example by six Tigers’ players for the 2025 season:
  • Dillon Dingler — $549,351
  • Riley Greene — $378,111
  • Spencer Torkelson — $318,620
  • Colt Keith — $224,454
  • Reese Olson — $224,416
  • Wenceel Pérez — ~$219,000

These bonuses are paid out of a pool which is funded by all 30 MLB clubs.

• The Tigers had 25 players on the 40 man roster in 2025 who earned near league minimum while in the majors, and minor league salary while optioned to the minors. That number is down to just six players on the major league roster plus another 14 players on the 40 man roster, projected for the 2026 season.
• The Tigers will have at least three players- Jackson Jobe, Troy Melton and Reese Olson, who will start the season on the 60 day injured list, which will open two spots on the 40 man roster. Jobe may return later in the season, but Olson isn’t expected back until 2027. Melton could return by the end of May.

Options

A player may be optioned in three seasons in his career without clearing waivers. Only one option is used per season, so once a player on the 40-man roster is sent down, they can be freely moved between the majors and minors (after the requisite 10-day waiting period) up to five times in a given season. A player must be on optional assignment for at least 20 days to be charged with an option year.

Three Tigers are “out of options”, meaning that they can not be sent to the minor leagues without first being designated for assignment and clearing waivers. Those players are Zack McKinstry, Jahmai Jones, and Drew Anderson. Expect those players to have an edge on making the team versus a player who has options left.

In addition, any player with five years of service time may not be sent to the minor leagues without his consent. The ten Tigers in that category are Javier Baez, Justin Verlander, Gleyber Torres, Tarik Skubal, Jake Rogers, Framber Valdez, Casey Mize, Jack Flaherty, Kenley Jansen, and Kyle Finnegan.

Players with at least five years of major league service time can’t be optioned without their consent. They are noted with “NA” in the options column above. Detroit has eight players who have reached the five year milestone.

Players optioned this spring will not have their option counted until they remain in the minor leagues for 20 days. Those numbers will change shortly for those players unless they are called up to Detroit.

Outright Assignment

When a player is out of options, he must be taken off the 40-man roster, designated for assignment, and clear waivers before he can be sent outright to the minor leagues. A player who has been previously outrighted at any time in his career may decline the assignment and become a free agent immediately, or after the season if he is not returned to the 40 man roster.

For example, Jahmai Jones has not only used up his quota of options in his career, but he was also outrighted in 2024 by the New York Yankees, so he has the right to decline an outright assignment for the remainder of his career, either immediately or at the end of the season- the latter provided that he is not returned to the club’s 40 man roster.

A player who declines an outright assignment may lose any non guaranteed salary remaining on his contract.

Payroll

This would not be the first time that the Tigers paid a luxury tax. In 2008, which was Miguel Cabrera’s first season in Detroit, the club had a payroll of $ 161.8 million with a tax threshold of $155 million, so they paid a 22 percent tax on the overage for a penalty of $1.3 million. For the duration of Dave Dombrowski’s tenure in Detroit, the club avoided paying a luxury tax. In the first two seasons under Al Avila, as general manager, in 2016t and 2017,the club paid a taxes of $4 million and $3.66 million. For the record, the payroll was under the tax threshold prior to Avila’s signings in his first two seasons as GM.

While the Tigers’ payroll ranks 10th among the 30 MLB teams in 2026- both for opening day salaries and CBT payroll, the remainder of teams in their division rank in the bottom half of MLB. The Royals rank 18th and $143million. The Twins are 23rd, the White Sox 28th and Cleveland 29th with a payroll of just $77 million for opening day, or $94 M for CBT calculations. The median team payroll in major league baseball is around $200 million.

The 2027 class of Tigers free agents is a significant group, with Tarik Skubal, Casey Mize, Gleyber Torrez, Jack Flaherty, Jake Rogers, and Justin Verlander all eligible for free agency barring a contract extension. The 2027 arbitration class potentially includes 13 players.

Javy Baez, Framber Valdez, Kyle Finnegan and Colt Keith are the only Tigers with guaranteed contracts after the 2026 season, so the team will have a ton of payroll flexibility into the future. Obviously they’ll also have a lot of work to do to build a new starting rotation for 2027.

The Tigers are the presumptive favorite to win the American League Central in 2026. After an offseason that saw the rest of the division make relatively little noise in free agency, the Tigers landed one of the biggest fish on the market, catapulting themselves atop every predictor’s division favorite, but is there trouble in paradise?

ADDITIONS

Offensively, the Tigers were mostly quiet. Detroit retained Gleyber Torres who accepted his qualifying offer to remain a Tiger, and then they nabbed short side platoon outfielder Austin Slater on a minor league deal.

On the pitching side of things, they were much louder. The Tigers went out and made upgrades to their rotation and bullpen, bringing back 43 year-old Justin Verlander for what seems to be a swan song in a Hall of Fame career. A late Spring injury to Troy Melton has made Verlander more of a necessity than depth. However, their big spending came by way of Framber Valdez, an infamous ghoul in the nightmares of Guardians fans, who inked a three year, 115 million-dollar contract with the Tigers earlier this year.

Detroit re-signed Kyle Finnegan to a two-year deal and also went out and nabbed another potential future Hall of Famer in the twilight of his career in Kenley Jansen to shore up the back of their bullpen. Jansen, 38, is coming off a solid season for the Angels, racking up 29 saves, putting him just 24 away from the all elusive 500 Save Club. Jansen saw diminished stuff in 2025 while posting career worst hard hit rates, strikeout rates, and home run rates.

SUBTRACTIONS

Detroit didn’t lose much at all in the grand scheme of things. Chris Paddack signed with the Marlins after a brutal second half of 2025 with Detroit, Tommy Kahnle signed with Boston, and Paul Sewald went back to Arizona. Suffice to say, Detroit upgraded significantly across the board with their pitching.

STORYLINES

THE SKUBAL SAGA

There are three main questions for the Detroit Tigers in 2026, and they all revolve around one man. Are they willing to pay Tarik Skubal what he wants? If they’re doing what they’re projected to and leading the division by the trade deadline, how aggressive are they in pursuing offensive upgrades? Lastly, what if they underwhelm?

That first question…we seem to have an answer already. The aforementioned upgrades to the pitching staff have a top tier frontline duo with aces Skubal and Valdez leading the charge, but with Detroit willing to pay big money in the short-term for Valdez with the way the contract is laid out, the writing seems to be on the wall for Skubal despite his best intentions of wanting to stay. Valdez will sit at roughly 36.5 million dollar AAV with a 2028 player option and 2029 mutual option, and, per Spotrac, Valdez will be lighter on the books in 2026 at just $22.8M before vaulting up to a price tag north of $40M in 2027, coinciding with the likely departure of Tarik Skubal.

The second question becomes paramount as Detroit’s pitching should lead them through the AL Central with inadequate pushback, so for this answer, we’re operating under the assumption that they do just that. With one of the deeper farm systems in baseball rich with bats, Detroit has a chance to make a big splash for a big bat this coming deadline to vault themselves into serious World Series discussions. That being said, even if they played their hand ultra aggressively, Kevin McGonigle is likely off the table. McGonigle has become a consensus top three prospect in all of baseball with the best bat across the entire minor leagues. He will not only not play a part in any trade talks, but he likely factors into Detroit’s success in 2026 in a big way, most likely at shortstop.

From there, the big trade pieces immediately become centerfielder Max Clark and shortstop Bryce Rainer. Among the very best prospects under 21 in all of baseball, no team in the sport outside of the Dodgers wield chips with that kind of power. Detroit will likely be looking for outfield upgrades, and they boast plenty of other pieces worthy of luring in such as catching prospects Josue Briceño and Thayron Liranzo as well as infielders Jordan Yost, Max Anderson, and Hao-Yu Lee. On top of that, a necessity to be aggressive stems from the extreme likelihood that Skubal doesn’t re-sign, and they’ll want to push all these chips into the middle of the table for one big run.

Lastly, what does this look like if they falter? Skubal’s clock to clock out is only winding down. Should Detroit sit around .500, struggling to grasp a stronghold of the AL Central or worse come the end of July, that ticking clock begins to sound more and more like a time bomb as the trade deadline approaches, and whichever direction they go will define their front office’s tenure.

A Skubal trade, after signing Framber Valdez and bringing Verlander back for One Last Ride™, would signify a waiving of the white flag for 2026 and mark a colossal failure after already failing to capitalize on their success both last offseason and last deadline before their embarrassing collapse cost them the AL Central. Yes, they were a game away from the ALCS, but coming from a Guardians fan, that rebuttal isn’t good enough and never has been.

Every team has needs it has to be willing to address, and while GM Jeff Greenberg and President of Baseball Operations sat on their hands and made small, cost-friendly moves to add depth to their pitching staff (Finnegan, Morton, Paddack, Sewald, Montero) last deadline, it was their offense that fell off a cliff after signs of a nose dive were met with blind eyes from their front office. That can’t happen anymore if Detroit has its eyes on bigger prizes with such little time to reach them with their best player. While they have built a strong farm system, nothing is ever a guarantee, so I would expect Detroit to be aggressive at the deadline regardless of their positioning in the standings.

LINEUP

*fWAR projections per FanGraphs

24.8 projected fWAR — 15th in MLB

C: Dillon Dingler (3.0 in 429 PA) // Jake Rogers (1.1 in 192 PA)
— Dingler’s emergence for Detroit was a game changer for them in ‘25. Posting a 109 wRC+ with strong defense, Dingler’s 4.1 fWAR was the best from a Tigers’ backstop in over a decade.
1B: Spencer Torkelson (1.9 fWAR in 637 PA)
— Torkelson put together a mostly complete season in ‘25, but as his power production waned towards the end of the season’s Detroit’s as a team did as well. He’s become good for 30 home runs a season when healthy, and he will continue to project towards that in 2026.
2B: Gleyber Torres (3.1 fWAR in 658 PA)
— Retaining Gleyber Torres was vital to Detroit’s offense. It kept them from having to throw everything at Kevin McGonigle right away while simultaneously allowing them to throw everything at Kevin McGonigle while protecting him. Torres had a rough second half, but the bat is strong enough to hover above 110 wRC+.
SS: Kevin McGonigle (3.3 fWAR in 532 PA) // Javier Báez (0.5 fWAR in 420 PA)
— McGonigle is not guaranteed an Opening Day roster spot, but he will assume the lion’s share of reps at shortstop when he is eventually called up possibly in May (expect some service time shenanigans here). FanGraphs believes his bat will play right out of the chute, and I do as well. He’s as polished of an all-around hitting prospect as there’s been in a little bit and will help lead Detroit to a likely spot in the Postseason.
3B: Colt Keith (2.1 fWAR in 497 PA) // Zach McKinstry (1.1 fWAR in 406 PA)
— Keith likely assumes third base and will need to turn his bat back around after being one of the key cogs to Detroit’s collapse in the second half of ‘25 before finding himself on the IL. McKinstry will likely bounce around the field where needed. Similar to Keith, McKinstry struggled mightily in the second half, watching his OPS drop 180 points. Despite that, he’s made himself a valuable utility piece for the Tigers.
LF: Riley Greene (3.5 fWAR in 651 PA)
— Greene’s All-Star 2025 campaign saw him receive MVP votes for the first time as well as his first Silver Slugger award. He also led the AL in strikeouts while watching his slugging percentage fall from .544 in the first half to .415 in the second half. Greene has to find consistency in the middle of Detroit’s lineup in order for them to be a real AL threat.
CF: Parker Meadows (1.5 fWAR in 420 PA) // Javier Báez
— Center field is a major question mark for the Tigers right now. Meadows put together a good 2024 (110 wRC+) after being called up, and expectations were high rolling into ‘25. Injuries and poor performance saw him go from 2.2 fWAR in 298 PA in ‘24 to 0.2 fWAR in 213 PA in ‘25. Meadows grades out as a good defender in center field, and if his bat can creep back up towards league average, Detroit has a quality center fielder here. Baez will likely see more time here in platoon matchups.
RF: Wenceel Pérez (0.8 fWAR in 371 PA) // Matt Vierling (0.4 fWAR in 280 PA)
— Detroit will continue to roll with their platoon-dependent outfield, and it will continue to be an area of needed improvement.
DH: Kerry Carpenter (1.7 fWAR in 490 PA) // Colt Keith // Jahmai Jones(0.4 fWAR in 133 PA)
— Detroit got a lot out of their Carpenter platoons in 2025 and were a big reason for their success through October. Carpenter will of course see time in the outfield, primarily right field, but his continued struggles in the field lean to more of a DH role. His continued problems against lefties led to a Jahmai Jones resurgence in 2025, and he will look to follow up his fantastic 159 wRC+ as a short-side platoon option in ‘26.

ROTATION

*fWAR projections per FanGraphs

ROTATION: 17.4 projected fWAR — 2nd in MLB
SP1: Tarik Skubal (2.67 ERA, 6.3 fWAR across 200 IP)
SP2: Framber Valdez (3.41 ERA, 3.6 fWAR across 195 IP)
SP3: Jack Flaherty (4.01 ERA, 2.5 fWAR across 160 IP)
SP4: Casey Mize (4.05 ERA, 2.0 fWAR across 145 IP)
SP5: Justin Verlander (4.31 ERA, 1.7 fWAR across 141 IP)
Depth: Drew Anderson (3.95 ERA, 0.7 fWAR across 82 IP)
Injured: Troy Melton (4.03 ERA, 0.3 fWAR across 52 IP)
BULLPEN: 2.7 projected fWAR — 18th in MLB
CP: Kenley Jansen (4.10 ERA, 0.3 fWAR across 60 IP)
Will Vest (3.29 ERA, 1.2 fWAR across 68 IP)
Tyler Holton (3.65 ERA, 0.4 fWAR across 72 IP)
Kyle Finnegan (3.92 ERA, 0.3 fWAR across 64 IP)
Keider Montero (4.40 ERA, 0.2 fWAR across 55 IP)
Brenan Hanifee (3.91 ERA, 0.2 fWAR across 58 IP)
Brant Hurter (3.75 ERA, 0.1 fWAR across 52 IP)
Beau Brieske (4.55 ERA, 0.0 fWAR across 50 IP)
Enmanuel De Jesus (4.33 ERA, 0.0 fWAR across 42 IP)
Bailey Horn (4.40 ERA, 0.0 fWAR across 32 IP)

Good morning.

Shawn McFarland checks out what we learned from the Texas Rangers over the last week as they left Arizona following a pretty smooth spring training.

Zach Crizer writes about some notable things the projection systems believe about the Rangers ahead of the 2026 season.

Evan Grant writes that the Rangers are entering their pitching era and that fledgling venture has been spearheaded by Nathan Eovaldi and Jacob deGrom.

McFarland writes that the Rangers and Skip Schumaker still have a few roster choices to make with Surprise in the rearview mirror.

MLB dot com notes the lessons learned from each team’s spring camp with the Rangers seeing an uptick at the plate after moving away from many of the World Series-winning parts in the lineup.

Ahead of Opening Day, the ESPN baseball writers crew takes a look back at notable offseason moves, which included a couple of big trades from the Rangers.

Dayn Perry ranks the top 100 players ahead of the 2026 season with Texas landing four in the top 100, including three in the top 50.

And, after a breakout season in 2025, McFarland lists big right-hander Caden Scarborough as the No. 2 Rangers prospect on the DMN’s top 30 list.

Have a nice day!

If you paid attention to Sunday’s Spring Training game (and to be honest, why would you?), you knew this was coming.

Despite the fact that the Braves are relying on him to be useful, Reynaldo Lopez is very much a wild card heading into the 2026 season, which begins in earnest this week. Lopez was a revelation as a starter in 2024. He missed over a month collectively with injury, but when he was on the hill, he threw up a 48/74/85 line that was: A) good; B) not as good as his outputs but still plenty good anyway; and, C) potentially complicated by a deliberate approach of taking it easy in situations like the bases empty, therefore attempting to directly influence stuff like strand rate and things like gaps between inputs, contact quality, and results.

Unfortunately for everyone, Lopez was basically toast for all of 2025, making just one start and otherwise sitting out the campaign with shoulder woes. Come 2026, as noted, the Braves are relying on Lopez being all systems nominal, but, well…

In 2024, Lopez sat around 95 mph with his four-seamer in Spring Training, where he ultimately convinced the Braves to give him a rotation spot. He eventually ramped up to about 96 mph over the course of the season, adding about a tick relative to him getting loose in the Grapefruit League. Whether because he was taking it easy due to the recurring shoulder issues, or because the shoulder was just not in great shape, Lopez sat only 93 mph for 2025 Spring Training; he actually aired it back out to the same fastball velocity in his one regular season start that year, but we know how things went.

Come 2026, Lopez’ Spring Training efforts were at 92, 92, 93, and 92 before Sunday’s game. Then, his velocity plummeted to around 89 mph, but there was no ostensible sign of injury, nor did the Braves cut the outing short. Lopez also looked and pitched out of sorts — it was his first truly horrid start of 2026 Spring Training, and he had pitched pretty well despite an elevated walk rate in his other four outings, even with the lower velocity.

So, the question is — is this just a blip, or an ominous sign of things to come?

On the blip side, you could argue some combination of him just getting his work in and definitely conserving energy ahead of the season actually starting soon, as well as a normal and/or post-injury-recovery dead arm period that often comes up as a valid/get-the-microphone-away-from-me excuse during Spring Training.

On the portentous side, you have the fact that Lopez did in fact miss nearly all of 2025 after missing a chunk of 2024, was already not throwing as hard this Spring Training compared to prior years, and the anecdotal-ish idea that sometimes shoulder issues in pitchers can sometimes present as loss of oomph without a blatant twinge or source of discomfort that would generally lead to an exam and a shutdown of pitching (a la what happens with elbows).

You can read the fact that the Braves didn’t remove Lopez and let him struggle with diminished stuff for inning after inning as support for the former, though we’ve seen enough weird pitcher injury (non-)management stuff from the team in recent years, too, to make this less of a slam dunk reading.

Anyway, put all that together, and the question is: how far into the season do you think Lopez makes it before hitting the shelf? It was one start last year, it was much of the season in 2024, though it ultimately happened anyway. To be clear, I’m not asking for an innings total or a start total, or whether he gets moved to the bullpen. I’m just asking: when do you expect him to hit the Injured List for the first time in 2026?

No sooner was he back from the WBC, Denzel Clarke was greeting me in the dugout with a secret handshake only he knew about, grinning at my confusion and then plopping down onto the bench for an interview. Clarke was fresh off of playing for team Canada with cousins Josh and Bo Naylor and was about to turn his attention to being the captain of the A’s outfield…

Nico: I’m kind of doing this chronologically, so I want to go back to your youth, where I understand that you started baseball relatively late. And I’m curious why and how you got into it, and then how you feel that affected your development arc coming to the present day.

Denzel: Yeah so my cousins, Bo and Josh, introduced me to baseball. I was a soccer player at first, I just needed a different sport and they recommended it so I gave it a shot and things kind of kept rolling from there. And coming from Canada we have a closed window amount of time to get some work done with all the cold snow and everything. So yeah, regardless, I’m happy with my development, and I’m just going to keep chipping away.

Nico: So how do you feel like it affected your development as you played with guys who were maybe your age but more experienced coming up? Did you pay a cost for that?

Denzel: Yeah, I think just a little bit behind starting later, not as much rest. But I mean, everything evens out at the end. And yeah, I’m just excited to keep on working and keep getting better.

Nico: So obviously your defense is your calling card and you play with that reckless abandon. I don’t know if you know the expression, ”The best ability is availability.“ {Clarke nods yes} And now if there’s anything standing between you and success, sometimes it’s just staying on the field. So I’m just wondering how you manage that — you know, a fly ball to the wall, you’re going to want to get to it. And at the same time to help the team, you want to be on the field. So how do you do that?

Denzel: Yeah, for sure. It’s just picking my spots. I think we were playing the Orioles in SAC. I mean, like, that was a big play. Can change the flow of the game. It was a close game, there was runners on, baseball in the gap that would have put them up by, I think, a couple of runs. So it’s just trying to pick my spots when to make plays. And I trust my teammates to get the jobs done the following inning. So, yeah, just being smart, again, picking my spots.

Nico: I just know that in the heat of the moment, it’s so hard for a player to ease up. Maybe it’s 11 to 1, but there’s a ball that you’re used to going all out for. How capable are athletes of actually holding back when they need to?

Denzel: Yeah, I mean I think, again, going back to playing Baltimore, I think I had the awareness of just, like, I can let it (go) if I want to. But again, I was thinking about the situation, thinking about the game, and just, like, this could be a game-changing play. So I ended up going for it. But, I mean, mid-route, I’m going for the ball. I’m just, like, I can do this or I can’t. So I made the decision to do it, and we ended up winning that game, which was huge.

Nico: Right. Going to your hitting and coming up to the big leagues for the first time. So, you know, there’s the way it started, and there’s the way that it was going when you got hurt. I always like to do the more personal angle, so I’m really asking you more as a human being, not so much as an athlete. Those first 20 plate appearances, you struck out 16 times, and we know what it was like as fans, pulling for you, watching and so on. Can you give us an idea of what it was like for the person going through those first 20 PAs and what was going through your mind?

Denzel: Yeah, for sure. Just learned to make adjustments, I think. You know, you always hear, “OK, the big leap (to MLB) is a huge step,” and then those first 20 events proved it for me. At least proved the adjustments I had to make and how much better I needed to get. So yeah, there’s nothing like experience, and failure is the best teacher. So I was really happy with, obviously not happy to fail, but happy with what I learned from that process and how I was able to start pick it up towards the end before I got hurt.

Nico: What were you telling yourself? You know, you walk back from the dugout, okay, now you know maybe I’ve struck out 13 of 16 or 15 of 18, it doesn’t feel good, and yet you know, “Failure’s the best teacher”. But what are you telling yourself at that point?

Denzel: I just, you gotta, I mean, no one is going to go up there and take your bats for you, you gotta go out there and just keep going, keep doing your best, and you’re gonna learn along the way. So it’s good.

Nico: So what changed? What was that adjustment?

Denzel: Experience. Experience and keeping things simple. That’s all it was and all it’s going to be.

Nico: Statistically, when you get in trouble, you’re hitting a lot of balls on the ground. When the ball starts getting in the air, suddenly all the numbers are rising. Do you know what the root cause is? Like what’s going on there mechanically or in terms of approach?

Denzel: Yeah, the biggest thing, I mean, when things get crazy, my body’s got long arms, long legs, and again I just gotta keep things simple. And it’s gonna be something that I’ll work on my whole career. Just keeping things tight, keeping things simple, and looking to get as much success as I can.

Nico: You mentioned the Naylors and fans know both Bo and Josh, as well as Myles a little bit. How young were you when you first saw them play and got to know them as players?

Denzel: I think the first time we played together with Bo was maybe like 15, 14, 15 years old, which is really cool. And then from there, we played against each other, junior national and everything. WBC was my first time playing with Josh. And then I played with Myles last year. I think it was last year of the year before our spring breakout. So I got to play with all of them. It’s been a real treat, real blessing.

Nico: Yeah, can you give a little bit of a snapshot of the WBC experience?

Denzel: Yeah, it was awesome. You know, I hear about Josh play, or see Josh play, but being able to be in the same clubhouse with him was really, really awesome. Me and Bo go way back, so that was really cool, but just to be able to get dinner a couple times and all, you know, just connect, sit down. It was really awesome just being in a clubhouse with him and with all the other guys. Team Canada is a really tight circle, so it’s fun being around a big squad of family.

Nico: Well, and I think you guys did better than expected. You got off to a great start.

Denzel: Yeah, we expected a lot of ourselves. We wish we could have gone farther. But yeah, we can chalk it up as the best we’ve ever done as a country and I look forward to the next times.

Nico: Can you give an idea of how you see yourself just as a person, as a personality, maybe how it affects you as a baseball player, but also just maybe giving people an idea of who you are?

Denzel: Yeah, I think just for myself, I think for the most part I’m an introvert. I think just being a baseball player comes with a lot of stuff. You’re forced to be around people, which is kind of against my nature. But you’ve got to learn to love, you got to learn to enjoy. And, you know, cameras in my face all the time, getting interviews and stuff. You learn to love, you learn to connect and really, yeah, just be around people in a different sense. So I love just making sure I’m just feeling joyful. You don’t get to be a pro baseball player often, so I’m trying to enjoy it while I can and be joyful for myself and be joyful for others, too.

Nico: As a fellow introvert, I feel your pain. How does that impact you? I know introverts tend to like small groups of people they know and yet on a baseball team, it is kind of that way, and yet guys are coming and going all the time. So I’m just wondering what that is like for you.

Denzel: Yeah, it’s an interesting vibe, but it’s just like, again, my job is just to go out there and play baseball, but just show everyone around me, I’m around to show everyone that’s around me love. I think people are gonna be cool if people remember some baseball stuff, but all I hear is people only remember how you treated them and the person you are, so that’s the biggest thing. That’s the biggest thing is for me, I just try to show people love.

Nico: I think that maybe the most common thread for you throughout your professional career has probably been Lawrence Butler, right? I mean, you guys have been together a fair amount. And I don’t know if that makes a difference that you guys are side by side in the outfield and how that affects the outfield play.

Denzel: Yeah, for sure. Law’s a great personality. Law’s one of my good friends, so it’s just great just being in the big leagues, having someone you know. But even with a lot of the guys I’ve played with, a lot of them throughout the minors at some point or another. So it’s like we have a young team, and it’s really exciting just to be up here connecting with the guys. So it’s pretty special.

Nico: So I try not to ask the questions that everybody asks, but I’m going to ask one because I am curious. What are your more specific goals for the 2026 season? And where you think you can get to or where you want to try to get to?

Denzel: Yeah, no, for sure. I think for me, I made a splash defensively last year, I want to keep improving on that, keep providing consistency. The goal is to be on the field and make sure I can support the team throughout the entire season, including the playoffs. And then the other goal is just improve with base running. Just improve with everything. I want to take steps with hitting, take steps with base running. That’s how I decided to get at this level, just keep taking the steps to get better each and every year. So I’m pretty excited for that.

Hopefully the majestic Denzelope can stay healthy throughout 2026, and hopefully you can stay healthy long enough to enjoy my final interview with A’s OF prospect Henry Bolte on Wednesday…

Spring training only lasts about six weeks, but it can often feel much longer. The excitement over pitchers and catchers finally reporting in mid-Februrary has already worn off by the time March arrives. The World Baseball Classic gave us all something a little more interesting to watch this year, but nothing compares to seeing your local team on the field in games that actually matter. In just a few of days, we will get that back in our lives.

But before that can happen, let’s take a look back at the spring training that was, and churn up a few takeaways from the work the team did down in Florida.

Injuries are already a problem, of course

The Orioles entered camp with Jordan Westburg and Jackson Holliday already dinged up. They have since lost Andrew Kittredge to shoulder inflammation. None of them are expected to miss too much time, but who knows.

The Westburg elbow injury will need to be monitored all season long, and it could just be a ticking bomb. He has missed a lot of time due to injury recently, so the Orioles probably shouldn’t have been counting on him anyway, but it’s never fun to miss a former all-star. The alternatives, like Coby Mayo, could end up perfectly fine, but none of them are as sure of a thing as Westburg, who is a decidedly above-average third baseman when healthy.

Holliday is making progress. He is already taking live at-bats and is expected to start a rehab assignment at Triple-A relatively soon after the season begins. What seems to be the bigger concern is how long it takes Holliday to actually bounce back fully. Hamate bones can linger and sap players on their power. Holliday’s modest 17 home runs a season ago tied for the team lead. His replacement, likely Blaze Alexander, is unlikely to provide that kind of thump.

Kittredge may be the most costly injury out of the gate. The Orioles bullpen doesn’t have too many proven arms. The veteran was one of the few, and in the current configuration was probably going to be used in a set-up role for Ryan Helsley. That won’t be possible anymore. But there is good news here. Kittredge believes he will be on the IL for the minimum number of days, so the bullpen shouldn’t be without him for too long.

The front office believes in the pitching staff, at least to begin the season

This applies to both the starters and relievers.

Each of the six main starters are healthy, which is something of a shock. All signs seemed to be pointing to Zach Eflin opening the year on the IL just to give him more time to ramp up from his back surgery. Instead, he tossed 5.1 shutout frames in his last spring outing and is set to be in the rotation. Dean Kremer is the odd man out, for now anyway. The Orioles optioned him to Triple-A over the weekend. Mike Elias indicated that it will be a brief stint, simply taking advantage of off days early in the year to make the roster math work.

Trevor Rogers is getting the Opening Day nod ahead of Kyle Bradish, but those two should form an impressive 1-2 punch throughout the year. Rogers had a 2.51 ERA this spring while Bradish was down at 2.35.

In the bullpen, the Orioles will be relying on quite a few unproven names. Rico Garcia and Dietrich Enns are out of options. Garcia tossed 5.2 scoreless frames in the Grapefruit League, Enns served up eight runs in 6.2 innings. Both are expected to make the team. Grant Wolfram may have been the most impressive reliever in camp. The hard-throwing lefty was on the bubble, but his pristine ERA and 10 strikeouts over six innings likely clinch his spot. Jackson Kowar might make it as well. The 29-year-old was OK this spring (1.50 WRA, 1.50 WHIP), but he is also out of options and could be worth giving an extended tryout.

Helsley looked incredible in his final tune-up against the Nationals on Sunday. Although a bit wild, he was into the triple digits with his fastball, and struck out the side. As long as the Orioles can get him late-game leads with some regularity, they should be in a good spot.

So far, the club has not looked to supplement the arms with any late-spring additions. But they could be waiting to learn more about Keegan Akin. He was stopped from entering a late spring game due to some adductor discomfort. A short IL stint could be coming.

Coby Mayo has earned a long look at third base

The injury to Westburg hurts. We know he is going to miss some regular season time, and even when he returns it is unclear what his level of availability is going to be. That makes Coby Mayo the logical next man up, and boy was he good this spring.

The 24-year-old hit .389 with two home runs and a 1.039 OPS. And while he only worked two walks, he also only struck out four times. That’s a 10% K-rate. He struck out 28.6% of the time last season. It’s only the spring, but that feels like a player that is seeing the ball better than ever before. If he really is rounding into form, that could push the Orioles offense to another level.

It’s not as if Mayo was without competition this spring. Jeremiah Jackson, Bryan Ramos, and Luis Vázquez have all been in camp and having success. None of them have Mayo’s upside, but they could be viewed as safer picks to take Westburg’s innings at third base. Mayo fended them all off for an extended look at the hot corner.

The outfield roles may constantly change

This Orioles roster is full of outfielders. Colton Cowser, Taylor Ward, Dylan Beavers, Tyler O’Neill, and Leody Taveras are all expected to make the Opening Day squad. Alexander and Jackson have also played outfield. And Heston Kjerstad had himself a big spring before a hamstring injury put him on the shelf early, so he is likely set for Norfolk.

But nothing is set in stone. The Orioles outfield was a weakness last year, largely due to injuries to Cowser and O’Neill. The front office clearly wanted to fortify that group in 2026, and they have done just that. But it has left the unit feeling a bit…ambiguous.

Cowser should be the everyday center fielder, but he struggled badly in 2025 and has had issues with left-handed pitching. That’s where the right-handed hitting Taveras comes in. He’s not exactly a world-beater against southpaws, but he can play center, run a little bit, and be serviceable at the plate.

The corner spots could be constantly shifting around. Ward is likely to play everyday in left field, but weird things can happen for a player joining a new team. O’Neill and Beavers are likely to share right field and get into the DH mix a bit. But it’s unlikely to be a straight up platoon. O’Neill makes too much money to sit against every right-handed pitcher.

What seems likely to happen most games is that Taveras enters as a defensively replacement in left for Ward and Beavers finishes games in right, whether he started or not. Along with Cowser in center that gives the Orioles a solid defense to wrap up wins.

---

The value of spring training is not something that can be quantified, mostly because we don’t have the full picture. We see the games and we get reports of what happens on the backfields, but there are a bunch of unknowns. Is a pitcher working on a specific offering? Is a batter tweaking their stance? Is the coaching staff experimenting with a new defensive alignment? We can’t know. And that is why all of the results from the O’s action down in Florida has to be taken with a boulder of salt.

What we can objectively say is that the Orioles are entering the 2026 season on a better foot than they began 2025. That doesn’t guarantee success in a tough AL East, but it’s better than the inverse.

The Yankees followed up their first World Series appearance in 15 years with a season that fell far short of expectations.

Sure, injuries marred what would have been an incredible starting rotation featuring Gerrit Cole, Max Fried and Carlos Rodon, but that same rotation crumbled in the postseason, and the Yanks could not even make it back to the ALCS, falling to the eventual American League winners, the Toronto Blue Jays. 

It's a tough pill to swallow for GM Brian Cashman and the rest of the organization, especially after Aaron Judge put together his second consecutive MVP season -- and his 2025 was arguably the best season he's ever had. 

But many saw the flaws in the 2025 Yanks before the ousting, disregarding key injuries to Cole and the departure of Juan Soto in free agency. To Cashman's credit, he addressed those issues at the trade deadline, and the Yankees were healthy and near-complete headed into the postseason. But they could not get it done.

Entering 2026, Cashman and the brass saw that the team that lost to Toronto in four games and essentially decided to run it back.

Whether you agree or not, this is what the Yankees are starting the season with. Don't forget, this is the team that finished tied with the Blue Jays for the most wins in the AL (94) and were 18-8 in September -- the second-best record in baseball. 

Will the "run-it-back" Yanks get over the hump this time?

With the Yankees starting the season on the road in San Francisco to take on the Giants, here are five big storylines to watch...

Returns of Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon

The Yankees made it through 2025 without their ace throwing a pitch in the regular season. A big part of that was Fried's dominance and Rodon having his best season in pinstripes -- along with the emergence of some young hurlers. 

While Cole is still weeks away from returning, his recovery from Tommy John surgery is, by all accounts, going swimmingly. Cole pitched in a Grapefruit League game and was effective, showing he still has a high-90s fastball, which is very encouraging. But baseball fans know returning from TJS is always tricky.

How much can the Yanks depend on Cole, and how do they plan to limit his workload? 

Luckily for the Yankees, they have more than enough starters to perhaps even use a six-man rotation. With days off, it will be a four-man rotation to start, with Fried, Cam Schlittler, Will Warren, and Ryan Weathers. The Yankees also have Luis Gil, Ryan Yarbrough and even Paul Blackburn. 

On a similar note, Rodon will also start the season on the IL.

The southpaw has an expected return date sometime in April.

Rodon had a bone spur shaved down and loose bodies removed from his throwing arm, so it's not as intensive as Cole's recovery, but getting Rodon back and seeing if he can return to his 2025 form will be something to look out for. Don't forget, Rodon had a 3.09 ERA across a career-high 33 starts. 

Anthony Volpe's future

Volpe is another starter who will begin the season on the IL, but this is a different situation from Cole and Rodon. Those two have their spots in the rotation ready for them when they return. The same can't be said for Volpe.

Sure, the Yanks will likely give Volpe back the starting shortstop job -- barring insane production from Jose Caballero -- but that leash won't be as long as it was last season.

Volpe regressed both offensively and defensively in 2025, and although the youngster played through a shoulder injury that likely affected his play on both sides of the ball, he'll need to show something when he returns. With his shoulder fixed, Volpe will need to hit the ground running, or at least show that his Gold Glove-level defense has returned. 

A season ago, Volpe committed a career-high 19 errors, and the play of Paul Goldschmidt at first base certainly kept that number from eclipsing 20. 

In addition to Caballero, the Yankees have George Lombard Jr. lurking in the minors. The Yankees' top prospect has shown this spring that his defense is major league ready, and if he can do some damage offensively in Triple-A, his timeline could be pushed up. There's also the trade market to solve the team's shortstop problem if Volpe proves he can't be reliable as an everyday starter.

A CJ Abrams deal with the Nationals could be possible. Abrams batted .257 with an OPS of .748 to go along with 19 home runs, 60 RBI and 31 stolen bases last season. While not a perfect player, Abrams would give the Yanks lineup a lift, especially at their left-hander-friendly stadium.

Perhaps a deal for an established shortstop like Abrams or someone else at the deadline could spell the end of Volpe's tenure.

Aaron Judge MV3?

There have only been two players in MLB history to win three consecutive MVP awards, the most recent being Shohei Ohtani (2023-25). Barry Bonds (2001-04) was the first, but Judge could add his name to that illustrious list this season. 

Why not? 

Judge followed up a crazy 2024 campaign, where he launched 58 homers and drove in 144 runs, with a 2025 season that was arguably better. A year ago, Judge batted .331, winning the AL batting title, smashing 53 homers and driving in 114 runs. The captain has not shown any sign of slowing down, and with his closest peers (Ohtani, Soto, etc.) being in the National League, who could pry the MVP away from him?

Bobby Witt Jr. of the Royals is an intriguing option. He was runner-up to Judge in 2024 and the young infielder could see his production increase with Kansas City bringing in its outfield walls. The Royals could also return to the postseason after missing out in 2025, and Witt would be a big reason why. And then we had Cal Raleigh in 2025. The Mariners catcher gave Judge his best shot, breaking all sorts of MLB records while hitting 60 homers as a catcher and helping Seattle capture the AL West title. 

Barring any injuries to Judge, if a record-setting performance from Raleigh couldn't knock Judge off his perch, it might take something truly special -- or voter fatigue -- to unseat him. 

Follow-ups to justify the run-back

One key factor to the "run-it-back" mantra is that a lot of young and surprise players stepped up in 2025. However, if they want to get back to the World Series, they'll need a follow-up that matches or exceeds what they did prior.

First and foremost, the rotation to start will have youngsters the club will need to keep the ship afloat until Cole and Rodon return. A lot is expected of Warren, Schlittler, and Gil, and those expectations are warranted.

Gil won the 2024 AL Rookie of the Year before injuries nearly wiped out his entire 2025. The right-hander will need to find his groove again, as spring training was not kind. Taking his last spring start out, Gil pitched to a 6.28 ERA.

Warren was the opposite of Gil, pitching the entire 2025 season without injury -- to varying degrees of success -- and the second-year starter has had a magnificent spring. Heading into his final spring start, Warren has allowed just four earned runs while striking out 16 batters across 20.1 innings.

And then we have Schlittler, the hero of the Wild Card round last year.

The electric right-hander had a setback early in spring, but since his return, he's just as advertised. He's allowed just one run and struck out 11 batters across 9.2 IP (three starts).

On the offensive side, Ben Rice will be given the reins at first base. The left-handed slugger had a great second half last year, and continues to show his plate discipline and power this spring, all while showing more comfortability playing the position. 

Austin Wells is entering his third year and took a step back in his sophomore season. While his defense behind the plate is still very good, the Yankees hope to get more out of him -- he has 20-homer power -- to lengthen the lineup. Wells showed that potential playing for Team DR in this year's WBC, hitting .267 and smashing two home runs, including a walk-off. 

And while Trent Grisham isn't a youngster, the Yanks will see if they'll get similar production out of the 29-year-old. Now, it's unreasonable to expect the 34 home runs and 74 RBI out of the leadoff spot they got from Grisham a year ago, but the Yankees hope their $22 million man can produce. If not, it'll be interesting to see how patient the team will be before Jasson Dominguez or even Spencer Jones gets a shot. 

Reclaiming the AL East

The Blue Jays were a bad matchup for the 2025 Yankees, it was as simple as that. However, if the Yanks won the division and had home-field advantage, then perhaps the series could have been different.

While we can talk hypotheticals all day, the road back to the World Series is easier as a division winner and preferably as the top seed. New York used that advantage in 2024 and they should do whatever it takes for that again.

Now, the AL East is going to be more difficult than a year ago -- at least on paper. 

The Red Sox will have another year of experience for their youngsters, while they acquired Sonny Gray and Ranger Suarez to build a rotation on par with the Yankees. The Blue Jays have a similar team to a year ago, but did add Dylan Cease and Kazuma Okamoto, who could be in the Rookie of the Year conversation.

The Orioles signed Pete Alonso, are healthier and still have some of the most talented youngsters (Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holliday) in the league. And the Rays will also be a pest and somehow always find a way to be in the mix. 

It'll be tough, but it's imperative that the Yankees win the division. Scoreboard watching will be a daily routine this season.