Category: MLB

In part 1 of this series, I looked at the past 30 years or so of teams and what we might generally expect based on little more than knowing how good a team’s best two players.  Today, in part 2, we’ll pick up with a question that wonders if it should matter that De La Cruz and Burns were paid so little, relative to the overall team payroll.

Question #5: What does the percentage of payroll represented by a team’s top two players tell us about their win expectancy?

To answer this question, I first narrowed the set of teams to include.  In short, I pulled only those teams from the past 30 years for which both their top position player and top pitcher ended the year somewhere between 4.5 and 6.5 WAR.  This is meant to give an approximate range that we can suitably compare against the performance of Elly De La Cruz and Chase Burns.  There are 129 such teams in this data set and while the range of wins from these teams spanned from 62 to 107, we can still see a general trend line within this specific subset:

Incidentally, there were five teams with such a profile in 2026 (Reds, Braves, Guardians, Dodgers, and Rays).  Four of them won their respective division.

The relationship is not terribly strong, however, and I posited that the variance within this group could be better explained by how much of a team’s payroll is assigned to those two players.

A quick data note here to say that historical team payroll data is probably not the most reliable information in the baseball universe.  Sites that do track payroll, most notably Spotrac, don’t include data that goes back as far as 1996.  I was able to find payroll data that stretches back that far from The Baseball Cube, and I was reasonably satisfied that the payroll data is directionally accurate, if not perfectly so. 

Nonetheless, data does exist and I used it to create a new point of comparison: For the 129 teams graphed above, how do team wins compare against the proportion of payroll paid to just the top position player and top pitcher?

The answer: nothing.

Within this data range, the amount paid to the top hitter and top pitcher explains none of the variance in wins.

In 2017, the Arizona Diamondbacks operated with a payroll of a little over $90M.  They paid Paul Goldschmidt $8.75M and received 6.1 WAR in return.  They paid Zack Greinke $31M and received 5.8 WAR in return.  Basically 12 WAR for 44% of the team’s payroll.  The team won 93 games.

In 2001, the Houston Astros operated with a payroll of a little over $60M (coincidentally, both teams’ payrolls were right around half of the highest team payroll from those respective seasons).  Their best players were Lance Berkman (6.5 WAR) and Wade Miller (5.3 WAR), who the team paid $305K and $241K, respectively.  Basically 12 WAR for less than 1% of the team’s payroll.  The team won 93 games.

These two examples are emblematic of the overall data.  Moreover, when I look at different ways to measure payroll, I see only marginal improvements to the predictability of win totals.  Here, for example, are those 129 teams graphed so as to compare team wins to how close each team’s payroll was to the highest in the league:

Yeah, it’s better to be a high payroll team than not…but you won’t make a ton of money betting strictly on that info.

So, then: if the payroll attributed to the best two players is not a predictor of success, what categories might make sense to view the 2026 Reds through?  And what historical teams had similar situations to what the Reds had with Elly and Chase and what might we learn from their examples?

Here are seven categories that we should examine these teams through, starting with the 2026 Reds:

Injuries:

• Hunter Greene pitched just five games in 2026 due to assorted arm troubles.  While he has yet to appear in more than 26 games in a season, Greene contributed 4.2 WAR in 2025 and 6 WAR in 2024.
• Nick Lodolo had blister issues at the beginning of the season, limiting him to 20 starts and 103 innings for the year.  He was coming off a 4.7 WAR, 131 ERA+ season, but managed just 1.1 WAR and 83 ERA+ in 2026.  Obviously, it’s tough to know how much of the sharp decline is injury related.
• Closer Emilio Pagan missed most of May and all of June.  His 2026 has been serviceable, (1.2 WAR, 119 ERA+), but is a downgrade from 2025 (1.9 WAR, 152 ERA+).
• Third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes missed more than 40 games from May to July.  He was barely above replacement level in his Reds tenure in 2025 and has been below replacement in 2026.  It would be a stretch to suggest that Hayes’s injury has hurt the team.
• Utility player Spencer Steer missed the final two-plus months of the season.  He ended the year with 0.2 WAR.
• Summary: Greene was a huge loss, clearly.  The timing of his March elbow surgery precluded any robust contingency moves by the team, to the extent that they would have pursued one.  That injury, plus Lodolo, put a strain on the pitching staff throughout the year.  In general, the team was not especially cursed with bad injury luck, although the pitching was certainly impacted.

Dead Weight:

• Jeimer Candelario, released midway through the 2025 season, still made up 10% of the Reds payroll in 2026.

Surprising Breakthrough:

• The point of this section is to examine if the two best players on the team were projectable.  In other words, was there reasonable expectation during the offseason last year that these two would be as good as they were?
• Elly De La Cruz was entering his 3rd full time season in 2026 and posted WAR totals of 5.2 in 2024 and 3.6 in 2025.  He definitely exceeded expectations in 2026 but his season was not outside a reasonable projection range.
• Chase Burns was a prospect with a high pedigree and he pitched 43 innings at the big league level in 2025 after dominating at the AA and AAA levels.  It’s not like no one saw him coming, but a 5 WAR season would have been deemed unlikely by all but the most supportive of relatives.

Position Player Depth:

• The Reds were disastrous at 2B, 3B, and all three OF positions.  Matt McLain has been a tantalizing but ultimately disappointing second baseman since a shoulder injury in 2024.  Ke’Bryan Hayes is widely seen as the worst every day player in baseball.  An assortment of flotsam and jetsam in the outfield combined to be 29^th out of 30^th in terms of Wins Above Average.
• First baseman Sal Stewart has had an excellent counting stat season, but doesn’t register well in the WAR category.  He’s young and has a good hitting profile though.
• The Reds were not above average at any position but shortstop.

Starting Pitcher Depth:

• Other than Burns, no starter had an ERA+ above 90.  Andrew Abbott and Brady Singer both fell short of expectations, with Singer bordering on unpitchable.
• Hunter Greene’s injury-plagued year forced Rhett Lowder and Brandon Williamson into more innings than would have been normally expected.  Both were sub-replacement level.

Relief Pitcher Depth:

• A below average outfit overall, the Reds had some OK-to-decent pieces to rely on (Pagan, Brock Burke, Tejay Antone, Julian Garcia), but nearly all other arms in the pen were flat out bad.
• The bullpen inefficacy was compounded by the lack of quality arms in the rotation.  The bullpen threw more innings than average relative to the rest of MLB.

Did the 2026 Reds fail to prepare appropriately for the combination of Elly De La Cruz and Chase Burns?

We’ll come back to this one.  In part 3, we’ll look at some five historical teams which had similar top hitter/pitcher combinations and payroll impacts as the 2026 Reds and will wrap up with some final thoughts and conclusions.

Good morning, baseball fans!

The 2026 MLB Playoffs continue today with ALCS Game 3 and NLCS Game 4! As ever, I’m writing this before Wednesday’s NLCS game has been played, but if there is any justice in the world, we’ll be looking to see a sweep from the Milwaukee Brewers! (I can try to manifest it, anyway.)

First up today will be the visiting Tampa Bay Rays taking on the Cleveland Guardians in Game 3 of their series. The series is currently tied at one game a piece. Griffin Jax (RHP) is expected to start for the Rays, facing off against Guardians right-hander Gavin Williams. The game will be at 10:00 a.m. PT, airing on TBS/HBO Max with national radio coverage available on ESPN Radio.

After that, the visiting Brewers will take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 4 of their series. As I mentioned, this is being written before Wednesday night’s game, so you’ll know what the series score is by the time this comes out. Milwaukee has not yet announced a starting pitcher for this game, but whoever it ends up being will likely be facing off against Dodgers right-hander Tyler Glasnow. This game will begin at 5:00 p.m. PT, airing on Fox Sports 1/Fox One, with national radio coverage available on ESPN Radio.

Regardless of who you’re rooting for in the ALCS, I think we can all agree that it’s another excellent day to Beat L.A.!

Doubted from the very start, Garrett Mitchell fell from a projected top-10 draft pick to the Milwaukee Brewers at No. 20 during the 2020 Major League Baseball draft.

Battling injuries and diabetes, Mitchell has not had the easiest path to the Brewers. Entering his fifth season in a Brewers uniform, the most Mitchell has played in a season was 69 games, and that came in 2024. During that season, he missed the start of the season due to a fractured left hand, specifically a left index finger, that he suffered during spring training.

Mitchell rejoined the team on July 1, when he was an every-day starter for the rest of the season. Brewers fans finally saw what Mitchell’s potential was on a larger slate. Mitchell had a line of .255/.342/.469 and had a memorable moment when he hit a go-ahead home run in the bottom of the eighth inning against the New York Mets to keep their season alive.

After it looked like things were turning around for Mitchell, he suffered a shoulder injury. He muscled out 25 games before undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery. Entering 2026, fans, media, and the front office didn’t know what to expect.

“When you’re looking at our team, maybe the reason we didn’t get picked early on to be as successful in the regular season was because of the unknown about Mitchell,” Manager Pat Murphy said. “He had been injured for four years basically.”

Was Mitchell going to be able to pick back up where he left off a year ago? Would we finally see the fully homegrown outfield roster of Jackson Chourio, Mitchell, and Sal Frelick? Would Mitchell be dealt at the deadline if he gets injured again?

These were all real, genuine questions. When Mitchell hasn’t been healthy enough to take the field, the Brewers have had a revolving door at that position, especially since Lorenzo Cain retired following the 2022 season. Chourio spent the majority of the time in center field last year, with Isaac Collins, Brandon Lockridge, and Blake Perkins making appearances as well. Before that, Joey Wiemer, Tyrone Taylor, and Jonathan Davis. None of those pieces were quite the right fit in center field like Mitchell has been.

During the regular season, Mitchell played in 145 games, which surpassed the amount that he had between the 2022-2025 seasons, which was 141. Never in his playing career, going all the way back to the first collegiate pitching he saw with the Walla Walla Sweets, Mitchell hadn’t played in more than 69 games collectively. To take it a step further, the most games he played in one season with the same team was in 2019 with the UCLA Bruins, as he played in 62.

There’s no doubt that playing center field is one of the harder positions to play on the field, especially when 82 games out of the year you’ve got to navigate the unique dimensions of American Family Field. A day ago, the 2026 Gold Glove finalists were announced, and Mitchell did not find himself on that list. Mitchell had committed three errors all season, which is three fewer than Pete Crow-Armstrong, who was nominated. After a full and healthy 2026, the Brewers finally got what they’ve been waiting for in Mitchell. A no-doubt lockdown defender in center field, right in the middle of two other Gold Glove finalists.

His presence in the postseason has been up-and-down, but he established himself in game four of the National League Division Series against the Padres. With the Brewers leading by two, Manny Machado launched a ball into the San Diego night sky, but on the other end of that ball was Mitchell, stealing away the potential tying blast. Two years prior, Mitchell used his bat to extend the Brewers’ life by one more game; after a flood of injuries, he was right back on the field making an impact in the postseason again.

Despite spending more time on the injured list than on the field, Mitchell hasn’t allowed that to impact his first full healthy season as a Brewer. Making you wonder how much different the last four postseason results could’ve been with a healthy Mitchell.

Although he’s had his struggles at the plate this season, he has came in clutch when the Brewers needed it most, specifically last night’s solo home run to follow Jake Bauers go-ahead shot. That brings his postseason totals to five hits, two RBIs, four walks, and 12 strikeouts. The strikeouts have been concerning, yes, but it’s nothing that we haven’t seen from him throughout the season. Mitchell has become the missing piece that the Brewers have needed since the moment he was drafted.

Braxton Bragg, Levi Wells, and Patrick Reilly all lost significant time to injuries in 2025, leaving questions about their development and big league potential. With all three eligible for the Rule 5 Draft this winter, Baltimore could have some decisions to make about protecting them on the 40-man roster, assuming the draft even takes place amid the ongoing labor uncertainty.

Bragg, an eighth-round selection out of Dallas Baptist University back in 2023, was turning quite a few heads back in 2025. He opened the year with 16.1 scoreless innings at High-A Aberdeen, which earned him a swift promotion to Double-A Chesapeake. While he faced stiffer competition there, it did little to slow him down. Over 42.2 innings there he struck out 59 and had a 2.32 ERA. He was named the Orioles pitcher of the month for May and seemed like a budding star.

Then, the injuries came. In early June, Bragg felt forearm discomfort. He took a 10-day IL stint and then returned before suffering further discomfort. It was announced in July that Bragg had undergone Tommy John surgery, which would cost him the rest of 2025 and all of the 2026 regular season. The latest is that he has returned to the field, playing for the Peoria Javelinas in the ongoing Arizona Fall League. So far he has thrown three scoreless innings this fall.

Wells also dealt with a significant injury this year. Selected in the fourth round of that 2023 draft by the O’s, Wells had been relatively fit until this past May, when he hit the IL with what was reported as “hip discomfort” and then became “core muscle surgery.” Clearly, it was serious as it kept him shelved for the remainder of the season and, unlike the other two mentioned here, he is not on an Arizona Fall League squad.

It’s a shame because Wells may have been on his way to a big league debut this year prior to the injury. He had pitched in five games for Triple-A Norfolk in 2025, and then began 2026 right back there. Over eight games he had a ho-hum 4.50 ERA and 36 strikeouts over 36 innings, but has an arsenal that seems like a fit in any big league bullpen. Instead, he spent most of the summer on the IL and may have to settle for a Baltimore debut sometime in 2027.

Reilly rounds out this injured crew. He was a fifth-round pick of the Pirates in the 2023 draft, but came to Baltimore via a relatively rare prospect-for-prospect swap at the 2024 deadline that sent utility-man Billy Cook the other way. The Vanderbilt product was promoted to Double-A following the trade, and put together a solid two months, compiling a 3.73 ERA, 38 strikeouts, and a .194 batting average against over the final 31.1 innings of the season. He returned to the level to begin 2025, where had a 1.86 ERA over three starts before he suffered the same injury as Bragg.

Reilly needed Tommy John surgery too, went on the IL at the end of April 2025, and finally got back on the field this past June. After rehabbing in the FCL and then High-A, he returned to Double-A on July 21. Across eight starts he tossed 39.2 innings, struck out 55, and had a 3.63 ERA. You can also find him on the Peoria roster this fall. He has allowed one run over three innings in the AZFL this year.

Prospect outlook

Bragg is probably still considered the highest upside prospect in this group. MLB Pipeline ranks him 22nd in the organization, while FanGraphs places him quite a bit higher at 10th. The excitement from FanGraphs seems to be based on their belief that he projects as a backend starter, while they think that Wells and Reilly end up in the bullpen. But they also say that if Bragg had stayed healthy and pitched well throughout 2025, then he “stood a good chance of moving on to [the FanGraphs’] Top 100.” Maybe that can still happen if he returns and once again shows off his sinker, slider, and splitter combo that hitters were flailing against to begin last year.

Wells is probably second of this group due to what should be a relatively straightforward path to a big league role if/when he is healthy. He already has some Triple-A experience under his belt, can hit 100 with his fastball, and also features useful breaking ball options in his curveball and slider. He lacks a changeup, and there are concerns against left-handed hitters. That could limit his ceiling to that of a reliever, but possibly a really good one. Pipeline ranks him 23rd in the Orioles organization, while FanGraphs has him 18th.

Reilly is more of a gamble. Pipeline does not have him listed among their “Top 30” Orioles prospects, and FanGraphs has him the lowest of these three at 20th. He’s described as a “high-octane arm” that features a fastball that sits 93-95 as a starter but can touch 98, which he pairs with a hard cutter and slider along with the occasional splitter. The ceiling for him is thought to be a “five-and-dive starter…More likely, he’ll work as a mid-to-high leverage reliever.”

Moving forward

Considering how much time they have all missed with injury recently, it’s tough to say where they sit in their development at this point. All three of these pitchers have been brought up as starters, but that could change sometime soon. They need to prove they are healthy, that their repertoire is intact, and that they can get hitters out at the upper levels.

Normally, the Orioles would have tough decisions coming with these pitchers. All three of them are Rule 5-eligible this winter, which means the team will need to decide sometime in mid-November whether they will add them to the 40-man roster and protect them, or leave them susceptible to being selected away. But there is a very real chance that the Rule 5 draft does not take place this year due to the ongoing CBA dispute between MLB and the MLBPA. The event was cancelled in 2021, during the last lockout. In that case, the Orioles would be at no risk of losing any of them, regardless of whether they end up on the 40-man roster or not.

Bragg and Reilly are yet to pitch above Double-A. Bragg has 42.2 innings at the level, which all came back in 2025. Reilly worked 9.2 innings before his injury in ‘25, and then came back to toss 39.2 innings there in the second half of this year. The duo is playing in the Fall League to catch up on some development time they may have missed out on. Depending on how things go, they have a chance to begin 2027 in Triple-A.

Wells has already worked 36 innings at Triple-A, and there is the chance that the team converts him to a relief role at some point. So his path to the bigs should be shorter from here. It will all be about when he gets healthy and gets back up to speed. Regardless, if he stays with the organization this winter, he is probably ticketed for a return to Norfolk, where he can build himself up to being a bullpen option in Baltimore sometime in 2027.

At the moment, with a Rule 5 draft unlikely to happen, it seems like all three players will return to the Orioles organization in 2027. And all three have the potential to contribute in Baltimore someday, but their health and progress next season will go a long way toward determining just how realistic that possibility is.

Is this finally the year the Brewers exorcise their playoff demons and advance past the Dodgers on the Senior Circuit side of the bracket? Alongside LA, Milwaukee has been the class of the NL regular season for the last decade. However, they have never beaten their postseason final boss during this era, getting eliminated by the Dodgers in seven games in the instant classic 2018 NLCS before getting swept in the 2020 NL Wild Card Series and 2025 NLCS.

That finally looks set to change, the Brewers taking a commanding 3-0 lead in the series on a brilliant start from Robert Gasser and home runs from Jackson Chourio, Jake Bauers, and Garrett Mitchell. With one more win, they’ll not only avenge those losses, but also win their first pennant in 44 years, when Harvey’s Wallbangers led the 1982 Brewers to the AL flag. Only the Pirates and Mariners have waited longer for a World Series berth. Could this be the year at last for dreams of a first Brewers championship to truly ignite?

They have one more win to go. Here’s how they got to the doorstep.

NLCS Game 3

Milwaukee Brewers 5, Los Angeles Dodgers 2

(Milwaukee leads, 3-0)

There is no better start to the game as a visiting team than a leadoff home run to put the home starter and crowd immediately on the back foot. Chourio said “hold my beer” as he homered on the first pitch of Game 3, ambushing a center-cut four-seamer from Blake Snell and lining it oppo just over the wall in right-center to instantly deflate a raucous crowd at Chavez Ravine who had been desperate to energize their wounded Dodgers. It is already the third postseason leadoff home run in the young career of the Brewers’ star left fielder, Chourio the hero of the NLDS against the Padres with six RBIs in four games.

Gasser typifies a Milwaukee Brewers player — a gamer with plenty of talent but not a name a baseball fan outside of Wisconsin is likely to recognize. He was part of the 2022 deadline trade that sent Josh Hader to San Diego. He debuted in 2024 but missed most of that and the next season to Tommy John surgery. He spent the first month-and-a-half of 2026 at Triple-A but didn’t look back after a mid-May call-up, starting 20 games and posting a 5-5 record, 3.87 ERA, 4.23 FIP, 103 strikeouts and 1.5 fWAR in 109.1 innings.

With the Brewers unsettled on their postseason rotation plans, Gasser allowed one or fewer runs in his final four starts of the regular season to cement his starting role in the playoffs. The 27-year-old lefty held the Padres to a run on three hits in four innings of Game 4 of the NLDS as the Brewers punched their ticket to the next round. Against this backdrop of hitting his stride once the games really started to matter, Gasser pitched possibly the best start of his life last night.

He’s not going to blow you away with velocity, but the unique way he hides the ball until the last moment of his delivery let his mid-90s sinker play up in LA. The Dodgers had no answer for the pitch as Gasser was able to paint both sides of the plate, getting the ball by the dangerous hitters in their lineup as if they collectively were not ready to hit the fastball.

Gasser waltzed through five scoreless innings allowing just three hits and a walk, but cameras curiously spotted handshakes in the dugout between the fifth and sixth innings. Gasser hadn’t had to make a stressful pitch all game and seemed to have plenty in the tank at just 72 pitches, but trainers did appear to be tending to a blister on the ring finger of his pitching hand. Practically every button that Brewers manager Pat Murphy has pushed this season and postseason has worked, seeing the team pace MLB with 103 wins and easily brush aside the Padres in the NLDS before taking a 2-0 lead over the two-time reigning champions, but this one blew up in his face.

Whatever the case, Murphy called on Abner Uribe for the sixth inning and it backfired spectacularly. He walked Teoscar Hernández, Kyle Tucker, and Shohei Ohtani (batting a rare sixth amid his awful slump) to load the bases with one out. Despite a pair of relievers hot in the Milwaukee bullpen, Murphy allowed Uribe to face the struggling Will Smith — 1-for-23 in six games this postseason. Smith ambushed a first pitch sinker right down the pipe, the deep fly ball clanging halfway up the wall in left-center to plate a pair and give the Dodgers their first lead of the series, 2-1.

Murphy belatedly called on flame throwing lefty DL Hall to clean up Uribe’s mess, and he struck out Kiké Hernández and Tommy Edman to strand runners on second and third and limit the damage to the two runs.

Murphy was perhaps vindicated in lifting his starter earlier than it seemed necessary, because we witnessed the flip side of that debate two innings later. It is perhaps fitting that Snell was the starter opposite Gasser in this game —the Rays’ Kevin Cash memorably removed Snell in the sixth inning of Game 6 of the 2020 World Series against the Dodgers despite Snell having struck out nine and not allowed a run on just 73 pitches — Gasser removed with his pitch count at 72.

After the Chourio leadoff blast, Snell was untouchable for six innings, allowing one hit and one walk while striking out nine as his four-seamer had some extra juice en route to racking up a gaudy 46-percent whiff rate. Dave Roberts allowed his dominating starter to come back out for the seventh, and it is amazing how the tide turned in an instant. He issued a leadoff walk to Andrew Vaughn, but with two lefties due up in Bauers and Mitchell, Roberts stuck with his southpaw starter.

The fatigue was apparent against Bauers, Snell’s misses occurring over the heart of the plate instead of outside of the zone, and the Brewers’ regular season home run leader won the monumental 11-pitch battle by blasting a middle-middle full count four-seamer 412 feet to right to put the Brewers back on top, 3-2. Mitchell then jumped on a 1-0 mistake changeup right down the middle, going back-to-back with Bauers to almost the exact same spot of the ballpark.

It was the first time in Snell’s entire career that he had allowed back-to-back homers to lefties and just the second time that he’d ever allowed two lefty-hitter homers in the same game (let alone inning). He’d allowed one lefty-hitter homer since Juan Soto took him deep for the Yankees in June 2024 in San Francisco.

That fully sucked all of the air out of Dodger Stadium, and the team nor their fans could will the comeback. Milwaukee added a pair of valuable insurance runs in the eighth and ninth. Brice Turang and William Contreras reached in the eighth on consecutive one-out singles to put runners on the corners where a Justin Wrobleski wild pitch allowed Turang to score the Brewers’ fifth run. Rookie Cooper Pratt lined a one-out single in the ninth, stole second, and scored on a Joey Ortiz single to make it 6-2. Hall and closer Trevor Megill combined to pitch a scoreless final 3.2 innings to seal the win and put the Brewers on the brink of sweeping the champions of the last two seasons.

Game 4 is tomorrow with first pitch scheduled for 8:00 pm ET. Tyler Glasnow will look to keep the Dodgers’ season alive while Milwaukee has yet to name a starter. The Brewers now have four chances to clinch the series and advance to the Fall Classic, where they will look to win their first ever title as one of five teams to have never won a ring. No expansion team has waited longer. It may finally be the Brew Crew’s year.

Good morning!

While the Championship Series in both leagues continue, awards season has gotten underway in earnest. With the announcement of this year’s Gold Glove award finalists, the yearly debates about who should win what can start anew.

Meanwhile, although free agency for players will not officially begin until five days after the conclusion of the World Series, the rules are less strict for managers. This week has already seen a manager hired and another let go.

The Rockies, for their part, are not expected to see much movement among their coaching staff, but should any drastic shakeups happen elsewhere around the league, it’s possible the front office would look to swoop in to provide a landing spot for coaches that found themselves without a job.

That all being said, let’s get to the news!

Rockies News & Links

• TJ Rumfield named a Gold Glove award finalist | Purple Row —  Rawlings announced this seasons finalists for Gold Glove awards yesterday. TJ Rumfield was the Rockies lone player to make the cut as he was named a finalist for the National League first base award alongside Matt Olson and Ty France.
• Rockies glove-first shortstop prospect standing out in Fall League | MLB.com —  Rockies prospect Andy Perez (No. 25 PuRP) has been performing well in the Arizona Fall League. Thomas Harding sits down with the young shortstop in this wide-ranging interview that serves to give a sense of what kind of player he views himself as.
• What a Successful Colorado Rockies Offseason Actually Looks Like | SI.com —  Maddy Dickens comes to a familiar conclusion that the key to the Rockies offseason is addressing the teams lack of starting pitching. She offers up a couple of realistic free agent options for the front office to consider in Jordan Montgomery and Walker Buehler. Both should be within the team’s budget. The question is whether they’d like to come to Denver and how much help they would be if they did.
• Early 2026-27 MLB Offseason Predictions on Free Agency, Trades and More | Bleacher Report —  Hunter Goodman’s name came up continuously through the 2026 trade deadline. When the Rockies ultimately held onto him, it served only as a reprieve from those rumors not as an end to them as he remains under team control through 2029. Most recently, Zachary D. Rymer speculates that an offseason trade to the Tampa Bay Rays could make sense for both clubs.

Around Baseball

• MLB makes an offer players might not refuse | Baseball Prospectus ($) —  If you were still trying to parse out the motivations behind MLB’s latest proposal to the Player’s Association Marc Normandin is here for you. In the end, it all comes down to money and the expanded Division Series along with a shortened regular season, highlighted by exclusive singular Monday night games, which would mean more premium broadcast rights for the league to sell. While the proposal is presented as an offering to the players, make no mistake that it is a change the league itself actively wants to adopt as well.
• Phillies name Don Mattingly as full-time manager, sign him to 2-year contract | The Athletic ($) —  Just a week ago rumors surfaced that the Phillies had approached, and been rebuffed by, former Red Sox manager Alex Cora about their 2027 managerial opening. It would seem that after their first choice for the job off the board, the Phillies have pivoted to removing the interim tag from Don Mattingly. If Mattingly has any ill will about seeming to be the backup option again, it does not come across in this piece from Matt Gelb and Charlotte Varnes.
• Joe Espada will not return as Astros manager | MLB Trade Rumors —  In other managerial news, the Houston Astros have announced that they will not be renewing the contract of their manager Joe Espada. The Seattle Mariners have already interviewed Espada for their own managerial opening so it’s possible he will not need to wait long for his next opportunity. For the Astros, this completes what has felt like an inevitable sequence of events after general manager Dana Brown was let go in August.
• So just how pissed off is Pat Murphy? | Fangraphs —  Davvy Andrews uses an incredible amout of time, words, and pictures to follow the emotional rollercoaster that is managing a Major League playoff game. The piece correlates Milwaukee Brewer’s manager Pat Murphy’s expressions and mannerisms following essentially every key play of game two of the NLCS and assesses his anger level at each moment. Is this silly? Yes. Is it an incredible read? Absolutely.

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Coming sooner than you’d think, we’ll be voting on the top 20 prospects in the Cardinals’ system. That will be a welcome respite from the lockout that will surely be happening. In the spirit of that, I wanted to look at our very first top 20 to see how we did. I began this feature in 2023 and enough seasons have passed that we have a good idea of how well the voting stands the test of time. But it is also recent enough that a few players are still in the minor leagues. And just for good measure, I wanted to compare my rankings with the readers at large.

1. Jordan Walker (Both)
There are going to be some picks that are truly out there and then there are going to be some picks that just about everyone who follows prospects agreed upon. This is the latter. The Cardinals rather dumbly had Walker make the Opening Day roster in 2023 and all things considered, he played better than reasonably expected. Not defensively of course. After two seasons in the wilderness, Walker picked up where he left off in 2026. He hasn’t quite justified his #1 ranking yet, but again everyone thought he was the #1 prospect. Hard to blame either of us.

2. Masyn Winn (Both)

If you were to re-rank the prospects according to performance, Winn would be the best prospect in the system this particular year. Winn hadn’t yet played in Memphis yet when we voted on these rankings (neither had Walker though). We didn’t know how his glove would translate even though the reports were very good. Gold Glove caliber and good is a mighty big difference. So far, so good on the rankings.

3. Tink Hence (Both)

Hence’s ranking was not based on much to be honest. He utterly annihilated Low A, striking out 41.5% of batters while walking just 7.7%. Things really didn’t start veering off the plan until the 2025 season. He ended up throwing 96 innings in 2023, making it to AA. He made 20 starts in AA in 2024 and was pretty dominant. That’s less innings than I think the Cardinals wanted, but it’s not a huge roadblock. But well he’s barely pitched the past two seasons. He turned 24 this past August, so this could still look like a good placement. It might not be for the Cardinals though.

4. Gordon Graceffo (Both)

Similar to Hence, Graceffo was going according to plan, although unlike Hence, it started veering off course in 2023 for Graceffo. Graceffo made it to Springfield in 2022, but was mediocre, but he was mediocre after 8 dominant starts in High A following his draft year. He ended up having some injury problems, and a very big fastball problem that ultimately forced his move to the bullpen. If he can craft a good reliever career out of his arsenal, this isn’t a bad outcome for the #4 prospect in the system.

5-6. Alec Burleson, Ivan Herrera (Community)

5-6. Ivan Herrera, Alec Burleson (Me)

I don’t think anybody loses in this comparison. Herrera has been better so far, but Burleson is coming off a much better season. The defensive part of both of their games have changed rather wildly since this ranking, because that was a large reason for Herrera being higher for me. I probably still choose Herrera because he is younger, but I said in my post that Herrera had more potential because he was a catcher and Burleson was a corner outfielder. But I called them pretty similar prospects. Burleson seems a bit more stable because he has a known defensive home and appears to have the better bat going forward, so I’ll give it to you guys.

7. Cooper Hjerpe (Community)

7. Matthew Liberatore (Me)

Man I would have looked a lot smarter if I did this a year ago. This is a very big to be determined still though. Liberatore seems headed to the bullpen sooner rather than later and my pessimism on Hjerpe is mostly connected to my belief that he’s headed to the pen. But Hjerpe as a reliever has a much higher upside than Liberatore. Liberatore did have an effective year out of the pen, so I think the odds lean in the community’s favor, but the race is not over.

8. Matthew Liberatore (Community)

8. Leonardo Bernal (Me)

I am however feeling VERY good about Bernal’s placement on my list. My words at the time: “I can’t stop harping on the fact that Bernal was 18-years-old in Low A and hit for a 117 wRC+. Both Yadier Molina and Ivan Herrera were 19-years-old in Low A. Nothing about his performance has any alarm bells either.” He did end up repeating Low A, and I’m not totally convinced I rank him 8th if I had known that he would spend all of 2023 in Low A, but that does not matter! I was ahead of the game on this one.

9. Michael McGreevy (Community)

9. Connor Thomas (Me)

The prospect game will humble you fast, good lord. I really bought into Thomas thanks to the reported cutter he had developed. I can’t believe it, but I cited spring training stats to support my ranking. Oh Gabe. Less egregiously, he had a very good ZiPS projection, which I’m choosing to believe was a large reason for this ranking. So Dan Szymborski, it’s really your fault that he is ranking 9th.

10. Moises Gomez (Community)

10. Michael McGreevy(Me)

Oh thank god, I had McGreevy right after Thomas at least. And…. you guys wanted to upstage my bad pick with a bad pick of your own? Very appreciated. Spoiler alert: Moises Gomez didn’t make my top 20. Connor Thomas makes your top 20. I think I win in the battle of bad picks, cause I didn’t buy into Gomez for even a second.

11. Joshua Baez (Community)

11. Cooper Hjerpe (Me)

Ignore that Baez falls off both of our lists until this most recent top 20 ranking, you guys do get some brownie points for having Baez slightly higher. Considering I think Hjerpe is a probable reliever and not only that we are three years removed from this top 20 ranking, I think 11th is a perfectly defensible placement to be honest. I stand by that one.

12. Leonardo Bernal (Community)

12. Jonathan Mejia (Me)

In my defense, I did bunch together Baez and Mejia. I really wish I would have just listed Baez first, but unfortunately that pesky position was the difference maker. Mejia (at the time) played SS, Baez was likely headed to a corner outfield spot. Also Baez is two years older than Mejia. Things really didn’t go Mejia’s way moving forward, but I feel like two years younger at SS and at the same level – I would rank them in this order again today! At least Bernal is here to make me look smarter.

13. Jonathan Mejia (Community)

13. Joshua Beaz (Me)

See, you guys had the order right, but we basically thought the same thing about Baez and Mejia!

14. Jimmy Crooks III

14. Connor Thomas

After a couple of picks that make me look dumb, the #14 pick is perfectly calibrated to make me look smart. Look, I was not alone on Thomas! Yes, I had him ranked much too high, but the community bought into the cutter too a little bit! And I’m early on Jimmy Crooks! Yes! There are a few players that I am “early” on who then break out, the community ends up ranking them higher than me, and then I have a reputation for hating on that player. There’s another one coming soon. Let the record show though that I had Crooks ranked higher than you all at first.

15. Won-Bin Cho (Community)

15. Brycen Mautz (Me)

I do not rank Cho on my list. He had only played in the complex league at this point. Had I known that he would taken an additional four seasons to make it to Springfield, I still wouldn’t have put him on my list. But retroactively, he looks like he may be a good pick. Here’s hoping. I’m pretty satisfied with Mautz here. Especially with the state of the system at the time, this is pretty clearly in reliever territory.

16. Jimmy Crooks (Community)

16. Ian Bedell (Me)

I have a very good defense of my pick. I went to Mizzou. This was an extremely biased pick. He is also a very good example of how much worse the system was in 2023, because he would never have made my list within a couple years. The top 15 players in this system are top 20 quality and in future seasons, there’d be like 30 players who I wanted to squeeze into a top 20. I simply ran out of players and went to a player from my alma mater.

17. Brycen Mautz (Community)

17. Victor Scott II (Me)

This is the player I was referring to in the Crooks section. I was early on Victor Scott. And then I was completely confused when he popped up on top 100 lists and #3 on the VEB list. Which to defend VEB, I think he was #3 here first. But yeah I made no secret that I thought he was too high. And then I sort of got known as a Scott hater. But I was early on the Victor Scott train! He was not ranked on the community list. Unfortunately 17th is about right in a weak system for Victor Scott’s career to date. So I guess I nailed it.

18. Guillermo Zuñiga (Community)

18. Kyle Leahy (Me)

I won’t give you guys any grief for Zuniga, mostly because he’s 19th for me. BUT HOW ABOUT THAT KYLE LEAHY PICK?! Boy, the system was…. real bad in 2023, because I am looking at his 2023 stats and I do not know how I talked myself into him. He had a 6.26 ERA in Memphis. He also walked 5 guys to 2 strikeouts in 1.2 IP in the majors. So special shoutout to BurlyBird (once known as LawBird), because he might be 90% of why I selected him as the #18 prospect.

19. Inohan Panigua (Community)

19. Guillermo Zuñiga (Me)

Both pitchers are still in baseball. Panigua was released by the Cardinals in the middle of 2025. He pitched in 16 games for the Detroit Tigers’ High A team and considering he was 26 the past season, he appeared to be signed entirely for depth and no other reason. Zuñiga actually made the major leagues in 2026. He’s bounced around since Cardinals let him go after the 2023 season. First it was the Angels in 2024, where he split his time between AAA and the majors. He spent time in both the Mariners and Phillies systems in 2025, but never made the majors. And this past season, he was with the Mets, but only threw 1 major league inning.

20. Reiner Lopez (Community)

20. Austin Love (Me)

Well four years later, and Lopez has barely pitched. He spent 2023 injured, and then was very bad in the DSL in 2024. In 2025, he was better, although entirely in relief and 19-years-old. He didn’t pitch in the 2026 season. Love was derailed two starts into his 2023 season with Tommy John. When he returned in 2025, he was 26 and in relief. He wasn’t very good in Memphis after finally getting a promotion, so I’m not sure he’s a Cardinal in 2027.

Well that was an interesting exercise! At the very least, it’s proof that players can rise from the dead. If you have a pet prospect who is coming off a down season or multiple down seasons, I refer you to Joshua Baez or maybe Won-Bin Cho, and while he immediately lost his prospect status after 2023, I think Jordan Walker works as a symbol of hope too. I’m mostly startled by how bad this system was, because it is a lot of teenagers far away or surefire relievers (even at the time). I feel like we won’t be ranking any pitchers we know are relievers on the top 20 in a few months.

Thursday brings us two games on the postseason schedule, both of which had their start times altered due to bad weather in Cleveland.

Game 3 of the American League Championship Series between the Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Guardians was originally slated for a 6 p.m. local start at Progressive Field in Cleveland (3 p.m. PT), but on Wednesday was moved to a 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) start in an effort to get ahead of a storm coming through.

The ALCS is tied at one game apiece, and Gavin Williams starts for Cleveland, after two starts with double-digit strikeouts during the Division Series, plus a scoreless inning of relief mixed in between. The right-hander has a 1.54 ERA with 24 strikeouts in his 11 2/3 innings this October.

Right-hander Griffin Jax will be first on the mound for Tampa Bay.

The ALCS moving to much earlier in the day also caused a switch in the NLCS, with Game 4 between the Dodgers and Brewers shifting from a 6:08 p.m. start time to 5:08 p.m. at Dodger Stadium. Tyler Glasnow starts Game 4 on Thursday, as the Dodgers try to keep their season alive.

Fox Sports has the NL playoffs this year, with TBS televising the AL side.

Thursday Championship Series schedule

10 a.m. PT: Rays at Guardians
Series tied 1-1
ALCS Game 3: Griffin Jax vs. Gavin Williams
TBS (Brian Anderson, Ron Darling, Jeff Francoeur & Lauren Shehadi)

5:08 p.m.: Dodgers vs. Brewers
Milwaukee leads, 3-0
NLCS Game 3: Tyler Glasnow vs. TBA
Fox (Joe Davis, John Smoltz, Ken Rosenthal, Tom Verducci)

Hello, friends.

There are now 160 days until the next scheduled Orioles game. Will there be a game on March 25, 2027 between the O’s and Rays? Only labor negotiations in December, January, and February can answer that question.

For now, there are the playoffs. The Rays and Guardians will play their third game today, while the Dodgers and Brewers play their Game 4 in Los Angeles. The ALCS game begins at 1pm, with the start time moved up due to the forecast for rain in Cleveland. Tough luck for anyone who paid excessive costs for those tickets and has to change their plans on short notice. They’ll probably feel better about it if they get to watch their team win. I would like to see the Guardians win in that series.

The Brewers mounted a comeback on the road against the Dodgers last night to put the two-time defending champions on the brink of being swept out of the NLCS. I can only guess that the other 29 teams fans are pulling for the Brewers to finish off the Dodgers today. It’s time for somebody else to get a turn.

In Orioles news, or rather non-news, the top three finishers for this year’s Gold Glove awards were announced on Wednesday afternoon. There were no Orioles on the list. At most positions on the diamond, this isn’t surprising, as O’s defense was chaotic, bad, or both just about everywhere. One notable exception was at first base, where Pete Alonso played some pretty darn good defense. I don’t know what more he would have had to do to end up in the top 3.

The actual top 3 at the position are Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Kansas City’s Vinnie Pasquantino, and Houston’s Christian Walker. The winners will be announced on November 1.

Anybody who spent time watching the Orioles this year knows that the defense needs to be better next year. Will the only person whose opinion matters – that is, Mike Elias, in his capacity as the president of baseball operations – take the actions that need to be taken to shore it up? We cannot know at this juncture, only hope.

If the post-mortems of the 2026 Orioles that have trickled into Orioles media are to be believed, manager Craig Albernaz wants to clean things up next year. I am skeptical that there is anything he didn’t try this year that is left to be tried next year. Somebody can probably clean it up even if most of the same roster comes back. I just have no confidence Albernaz is the guy, or that Elias is the guy who is going to prioritize it in his roster construction.

It’s not just how frequently it was bad – although, frequently, it was – but that it was so often unbelievably stupid, like how can a major league player do something that dumb. I will be thinking about “lose a fly ball in the sun while the sunglasses are on their hat instead of their face” for a long time. And that happened more than one time, and it wasn’t the same player each time it happened!

Orioles stuff you might have missed

Pete Alonso passed the eye test. Should he be a Gold Glove finalist? (The Baltimore Banner)
The Banner’s Andy Kostka looked at the common public defensive metrics and concluded that Alonso would probably not have been a deserving finalist. We can, of course, still be happy that the Orioles signed him, and don’t need any validation from Rawlings to have that feeling.

Looking at Orioles through the eyes of opposing scouts (School of Roch)
This one appeared in yesterday’s Bird Droppings too, so if you’ve already seen it, sorry! Slim pickings this time of year, and they’re going to get slimmer in December. I wonder what the real level of interest is for Heston Kjerstad and Jeremiah Jackson to have been mentioned as having gotten basic inquiries on trade availability.

Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries

Today in 1970, the Orioles beat the Reds in Game 5 of the World Series, taking down the team’s second championship in its history. It was a 9-3 victory in what ended up being the final game. Brooks Robinson was the MVP for the series. Maybe some day we’ll see the Orioles win it again.

In 1997, the Orioles lost an ALCS game to the then-Indians by a 1-0 score in 11 innings, with the lone run scoring as a solo home run hit off Armando Benitez in extras. Bummer. The lack of offense wasted eight brilliant innings from Mike Mussina.

There are a few former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2023 pitcher Jack Flaherty, 2018-20 pitcher Cody Carroll, 2004 outfielder Chat Mottola, 1982-83 infielder Glenn Gulliver, and Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer. Today is Palmer’s 81st birthday. Happy birthday to him! Hopefully Albernaz sends him a birthday text.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you as well! In addition to the franchise legend, your birthday buddies for today include: Russian author Mikhail Lermontov (1814), philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844), author P.G. Wodehouse (1881), actress Penny Marshall (1943), and musician Tito Jackson (1953).

On this day in history…

In 1529, forces of the Holy Roman Empire broke an Ottoman siege of the city of Vienna after two weeks, blunting a period of European expansion for the Ottomans.

In 1888, a letter supposedly sent by mass killer Jack the Ripper, dubbed the “From Hell” letter, was received by those investigating the killings.

In 1956, the first computer programming language, FORTRAN, was shared with the public, or at least the very small part of the public that was interested at this time.

**

And that’s the way it is in Birdland on October 15. Have a safe Thursday.

In case you somehow missed the news yesterday, the Phillies have a “new” manager. The team announced yesterday that they removed the interim tag from Don Mattingly and named him their permanent manager with a new two-year contract. Later last night, it was reported that they will have a new hitting coach and infield coach, as Kevin Long and Bobby Dickerson will not be back under Mattingly. With that news the team also finally scheduled their end of season press conference for today at 10:30 am. There we will be able to hear from Dave Dombrowski himself for the first time since the Phillies season ended two weeks ago.

On to the links.

Phillies news:

• Despite retaining Mattingly, there will be changes in the dugout, as Kevin Long and Bobby Dickerson will reportedly not be returning to the Phillies coaching staff.
• More on the process that led the Phillies back to Mattingly. ($)
• Before they came to settle on Mattingly, the Phillies reportedly had serious interest in former outfielder Raúl Ibañez before the latter decided to remain in his current role in the Dodgers front office.
• The Phillies best chance to improve their roster will likely involve Trea Turner moving off of shortstop. ($)

MLB news:

• If you’ve watched any of this postseason so far, one of the biggest stories is that Shohei Ohtani looks like a shell of himself. Can the injured superstar right the ship in time?
• The Astros will not be retaining manager Joe Espada when his contract expires at the end of this month.
• For all of you defense afficionados, here are the finalists for the 2026 Gold Glove awards.

Today is Teoscar Hernandez’s 34th birthday.

When Teoscar arrived from the Astros, few could have predicted he’d develop into such a powerful slugger.

During his six seasons with the Jays, he posted a .263/.320/.503 slash line with 129 home runs. He ranks 13th in franchise history for home runs and 24th in RBIs.

The trade that sent him to the Mariners was unexpected. Erik Swanson excelled in the bullpen for us in 2023, though he struggled in 2024. Adam Macko made 16 starts for New Hampshire and one for the Bisons this year, tallying 105 strikeouts and 35 walks over 93.1 innings, with a 3.63 ERA.

Teoscar joined the Dodgers ahead of the 2024 season. Over his three seasons in Los Angeles, he has hit .262/.320/.462 with 74 home runs and collected two World Series rings. However, unless the Dodgers stage an impressive comeback against the Brewers, a third ring seems unlikely this year.

Happy Birthday, Teoscar. I wish you the best, but I hope your team loses. Sorry.

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Today is Carlos Garcia’s 59th birthday.

You might recall that Carlos had a particularly rough season with the Jays. In November 1996, Toronto traded for Garcia, Orlando Merced, and Dan Plasac from the Pirates. Initially, we sent Brandon Cromer, Jose Pett, and Jose Silva to Pittsburgh, followed by Mike Halperin, Abraham Nunez, and Craig Wilson in December to complete the deal. For the record, I was never a fan of then-GM Gord Ash.

In 1997, Garcia batted .220/.253/.309 over 103 games, primarily at second base. He managed 3 home runs, 29 runs, 23 RBIs, and 11 stolen bases. Unfortunately, his defense was also underwhelming, and the Jays paid $2.55 million for that performance. By WAR, it was one of the worst seasons by a non-pitcher in team history.

Following that season, Garcia signed with the Angels as a free agent but hit only .143 in 40 at-bats. He then moved to San Diego, where his struggles continued, and soon after, he was out of baseball.

Garcia’s lone solid year in the majors came as a rookie with the Pirates, when he hit .269/.316/.399. He did have 12 home runs and 47 RBIs in 1993, making it difficult to understand what the Jays expected from the trade.

As for the players the Jays sent to Pittsburgh:

Craig Wilson went on to have a respectable MLB career, playing seven seasons—six with the Pirates—and hitting .262/.353/.474 with 99 home runs. His best year was 2004, when he played 155 games and posted a .264/.354/.499 line with 29 homers.

Abraham Nunez enjoyed a 12-year career, spending eight seasons with the Pirates. Over 1,030 games, he hit .242/.313/.314, primarily as a utility infielder.

Jose Silva pitched seven MLB seasons, finishing with a 25-28 record and a 5.41 ERA over 154 games, including 53 starts.

Happy Birthday, Carlos.

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Today marks Chad Mottola’s 55th birthday.

Chad was an outfielder who appeared in just 59 MLB games over five seasons, 13 of them with the Blue Jays.

He spent much of his playing career in the minors. In 2007, his final minor league season, he played Triple-A for the Jays and hit .267/.324/.467. At 35, he began transitioning into coaching.

In 2008, he became the hitting coach for the Gulf Coast League Jays. By 2009, he was the roving minor league hitting coach, and from 2010 to 2012, he coached hitters for the Triple-A Las Vegas 51s. In 2011, he earned the Bobby Mattick Award for excellence in player development.

In 2013, he was promoted to the Blue Jays’ major league staff, but was let go at the end of the season. One year he was praised as a miracle worker, the next he was out—the unpredictable life of a coach.

The Rays hired him as a roving instructor, and in 2017, he became their major league hitting coach—a role he still holds today.

Happy Birthday, Chad.

Holy moly, that was some kind of playoff game last night in LA. A first-pitch homer by Jackson Chourio was the only scoring until an Abner Uribe meltdown allowed the Dodgers to jump back in front, 2-1. But Jake Bauers—yes, the same 2023 Yankees legend—put in his second epic at-bat of the offseason to win an 11-pitch battle with Blake Snell on a two-run blast that turned the game upside down. Garrett Mitchell immediately followed with a lefty/lefty homer of his own.

Now suddenly the Brewers are on the verge of avenging last year’s NLCS sweep at the hands of the Dodgers by giving LA a taste of its own medicine. It would be the first World Series appearance since 1982, when they were still in the American League. They have never won it all. They’ll get multiple shots at it, but best to just step on the Dodger blue-shaded cockroach now and not give it a chance at survival, right? Here we go Brew Crew, here we go. (Oh, and don’t forget to root for Cleveland to take a series lead on Tampa Bay now that they’re back in Ohio, too.)

Our eyes are mostly focused on the day/night playoff action today, but we still have material for you! Peter will recap NLCS Game 3 in greater detail, Dani will discuss Joe Girardi’s recent appraisal of his successor as Yankees skipper, and Jonathan well celebrate the birthday of the man known as “Babe Ruth’s Legs” (no, really).

Today’s Playoff Matchups:

American League Championship Series Game 3
(Series tied 1-1)

Cleveland Guardians vs. Tampa Bay Rays
(RHP Gavin Williams vs. RHP Grifin Jax)

Time: 1:00 p.m. EST [they pushed the start time back due to bad weather in the forecast]

TV: TBS/HBO Max/truTV

Venue: Progressive Field, Cleveland, OH

National League Championship Series Game 4
(Milwaukee leads 3-0)

Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Milwaukee Brewers
(RHP Tyler Glasnow vs. TBD)

Time: 8:00 p.m. EST

TV: FOX/FS1/FOX ONE

Venue: Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, CA

Questions/Prompts:

1. Does the Brew Crew finish off the sweep tonight or do the Dodgers survive?

2. What do you think of the Phillies’ decision to bring back Don Mattingly for another two years as skipper?

You probably don’t believe the slumping Dodgers can come back from this gaping 3-0 deficit to beat the surging Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series.

And you probably didn’t believe that manager Dave Roberts should continue penciling in Shohei Ohtani — flailing and failing and having gone three for 20 this postseason entering the Dodgers’ 6-2 loss in Game 3 — as his designated hitter.

But Ohtani rejected Roberts’ invitation to remove himself — after a season of fighting biceps and knee issues — from the lineup.

Read more:Plaschke: The Dodgers are done. After putting up a fight, the champs are out of gas

Because Ohtani is an athlete whose belief in himself knows no bounds.

Exactly the kind of guy a team on the brink of elimination needs.

Remember back in 2018, most of baseball’s foremost brainiacs thought there was no way the 23-year-old hot-shot prospect from Japan would actually be able to do what no one in nearly a century had: both pitch and bat in the big leagues.

The majority of major league scouts believed Ohtani’s swing was flawed in balance and mechanics, that his bat-to-ball skills weren’t going to be good enough.

You know what happened: Ohtani only went on to become the first MLB player to record 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in the same season.

He became the first two-way All-Star starter.

And last year he gave us the greatest game ever, striking out 10 and hitting three home runs in Game 4 of the NLCS, sending Milwaukee home and the Dodgers back to the World Series, on the way to a second consecutive championship.

This is someone for whom the impossible is probable. Someone who’s made us all believe in unicorns. An audacious, delusional, radical optimist.

And with Wednesday’s defeat having backed them into the corner, the Dodgers should be glad to have Ohtani, for whom all things are possible, still working and tinkering and trying his best.

Read more:'How do we bounce back?' Dodgers collapse and fall into 3-0 NLCS hole vs. surging Brewers

Ohtani drove the Struggle Bus into Game 3, having struck out seven times in 22 playoff at-bats, with only three singles and no extra-base hits and no RBIs.

But he wasn’t dissuaded: “It’s a constant, ongoing process that’s headed in the right direction,” he said Tuesday, through interpreter Will Ireton, adding several times in an impromptu interview: “I take full responsibility.”

Ohtani stayed late Tuesday night working on his swing, Roberts said: “Out with the guys, talking about things on how we’re going to beat these guys … and I will say this, this was a different look from Shohei. Determined, and that’s an understatement.”

And then, while the debate around him raged — should he or shouldn’t he play — Ohtani clocked in and got to work.

The superstar who deferred most of his record 10-year, $700 million salary so as to enable — to obligate — the Dodgers to build a championship roster around him reached base in three of his four plate appearances Wednesday.

As a team, the Dodgers went one for six with runners in scoring position and left eight runners on base — including Ohtani those three times.

He took one for the team, getting hit by a pitch on the backside in the fourth inning. He drew a Josue De Paula-esque five-pitch walk in the sixth. And then in the eighth, Ohtani knocked a single up the middle that came off his bat with an exit velocity of 113.5 mph, one of his four hardest balls of the whole season.

Ohtani didn’t, however, pop one out of the park; he hasn’t homered since Aug. 18.

The live-by-the-slug, die-by-the-slug Dodgers have hit zero home runs in the NLCS. But the small-market Brewers known for their small-ball approach have hit five — including three off Blake Snell on Wednesday.

As a team, the Dodgers have much of their massive $415 million payroll going to hitters who are collectively batting .188 this postseason. They’re three for 32 with runners in scoring position.

Call it quiet-quittin’ hittin’, because the Dodgers’ bats and their stadium got so quiet you could hear “Let’s Go Brewers!” chants in the Ravine — and probably from as far away as Racine, Wisc.

And if it appears that L.A.’s hit baseball show is about to go on hiatus, its main actors are telling us they still believe in miracles.

“At the beginning of this year, we set out to do something historic,” Max Muncy said. “It looks like we’re going to have to make a little more history along the way if we want to accomplish that.”

“It’s certainly possible,” said Roberts, MLB’s only manager to have experienced a 3-0 postseason series comeback as a player when his Boston Red Sox did it against the New York Yankees in the ALCS.

Read more:Shaikin: Here's how Dave Roberts explained all the Dodgers' moves that backfired

“I’ve lived it, and I think the thing is that our guys have been battle-tested, as was that team I was a part of … it’s just you’ve got to win tomorrow. It’s an elimination game. We’ve played in a lot of elimination games. We’ve just got to get a win.”

Four wins, actually. In a row.

Does that seem impossible? Seems like Ohtani’s type of challenge.

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

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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The Pittsburgh Pirates finished with a top-15 farm system in baseball after opening up the year as the preseason third-best farm system in Major League Baseball. Throughout their minor league ranks there were several standout players and names to be looking for as their careers progress.

Triple-A Indianapolis

Ronny Simon was named the Indianapolis Indians official team MVP for the 2026 season as he was one of the best hitters in the International League. He ranked first in batting average (.334), hits (141), second in doubles (33), on-base percentage (.426), sixth in OPS (.898), stolen bases (35) and tenth in total bases (199). Simon was an all-around star for the Indians as he appeared in 115 games for the club before a brief stint with the Pirates to end his 2026 season at the Major League level.

Pitcher Beau Burrows was also recognized as the team’s pitcher of the year. The team’s closer led the league in saves with 14. He also had a dominant 16-game stretch where he had a 0.83 ERA and 23 strikeouts. He also converted all nine of his save opportunities in that span.

Double-A Altoona

The Altoona Curve named Lonnie White Jr. their team MVP this season. White Jr. hit 26 homers in 2026, 19 of them being with Altoona. It’s the most home runs he’s hit in a single season in his career and it ranked third among Pirates’ prospects in 2026. He also had a career high 67 RBIs and had a team leading 23-game on base streak.

Lonnie White Jr. had a BREAKOUT season in 2026 🔥 pic.twitter.com/vkqkZMxIsE

— Bucco Bantr (@BuccoBantr) October 13, 2026

Connor Wietgrefe took home pitcher of the year honors for the Curve as he was one of their best arms all season long. He had a 3.51 ERA with Altoona this year and had a 4-1 record with the club before being promoted to Indianapolis. Wietgrefe won four straight starts with the Curve and finished his year with 127 strikeouts. He finished his time in Altoona with 18 straight scoreless innings.

High-A Greensboro

Very few players at the lower minor league levels within the Pirates’ organization were as exciting in 2026 as Wyatt Sanford. The 20-year old shortstop played 72 games with the Greensboro Grasshoppers and proved to be a dynamic blend of speed, athleticism and power. He hit 17 home runs with the club (19 overall) and had 33 stolen bases. He finished the year with a .292/.423/.551 slash line and had a .974 OPS. Sanford was invited to play for the Glendale Desert Dogs in the Arizona Fall league.

Low-A Bradenton

In just his first season since being drafted sixth overall by the Pirates a year ago, Seth Hernandez has come on the scene firing on all cylinders. Hernandez was named the Florida State League player of the year after just six games with Bradenton before being promoted to Greensboro in May. He recorded 50 strikeouts in 28 innings, then finished the year with 118 strikeouts and a 2.43 ERA over 74 innings across both levels. With the Marauders he had an incredibly low 0.96 ERA, a 3-0 record and only allowed three earned runs during his time in the FSL.

Seth Hernandez turned in a stellar pro debut season:

6-1 W-L, 74 IP, 2.43 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 118 SO

Hernandez, BA's No. 8 overall prospect, was moved to the 60-day IL Monday. More on the Pirates' top prospect:https://t.co/RmtRW81AdEpic.twitter.com/gGNoGGl8PV

— Baseball America (@BaseballAmerica) August 20, 2026

Hernandez has an incredibly high ceiling. He’s the ninth overall prospect in baseball and is the top prospect in the Pirates’ system.