Category: MLB

Over the last three seasons (and four of the last five), one team has sat atop the National League Central, so it’s become almost customary for those who are paying attention to pick this club to be somewhere in and around the leaders. The postseason has not been as kind to them as their fanbase may have liked it to be, but they’ve been contending every season through a mix of strong offseason upgrades and development from within.

This upcoming season however, despite moving forward with some familiar faces, the Milwaukee Brewers are projected to take a step back from a remarkable 2025 that saw them of all teams finish with the best record in baseball.

2025 record: 97-65 (1st, NL Central)
2026 FanGraphs projection: 81-81 (3rd, NL Central)

By pure wins, the 2025 campaign was the best in Brewers history, as their 97 wins even beat out their 1982 pennant winners and the 2018 squad that took the mighty Dodgers to the brink and lost in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series. In terms of how close these Brewers came to that elusive title though? Well, it’s a different story.

Since that memorable 2018, Milwaukee has struggled to find playoff success though, and it was a breakthrough for now-two-time NL Manager of the Year Pat Murphy that his team won its first playoff series since then last October, topping the division rival Cubs in a five-game NLDS. But they then got thoroughly throttled by the Dodgers in the Championship Series, falling in a sweep. Since then, there have been some changes, and as a result, their projection is far below the results they achieved last year.

The starting rotation has been Milwaukee’s bread and butter for a while now, and over the offseason, they lost arguably the biggest piece of it after trading Freddy Peralta, as he was entering the final year of his contract. He was moved to the Mets along with another pitcher, Tobias Myers. In return, the Brewers received two prospects: right-hander Brandon Sproat infielder Jett Williams. Last season, Peralta finished with a 2.70 ERA, 3.85 xFIP, 204 strikeouts, and 3.6 fWAR in 176.2 innings pitched. He was the rock for a Milwaukee team that had the 10th-best starting pitcher fWAR through 2025. Williams will begin 2026 on the doorstep at Triple-A, but the talented Sproat has made Milwaukee’s rotation, so eyes will be on him from the jump in Peralta’s absence.

The Brewers also traded away infielder Caleb Durbin—yes, the same former Baby Bomber who was sent to Milwaukee for Devin Williams in December 2024—to the Boston Red Sox in a six-player deal. He finished third in National League Rookie of the Year voting, and it was a somewhat confusing move, as Durbin is set to make the Opening Day roster for Boston. Of course, that’s not a huge factor in why the projections look so low for the Brewers, but it’s certainly an important piece of the offseason puzzle for the team — as was their decision to move on from another player who received Rookie of the Year votes, Isaac Collins, though they at least received a strong reliever for him from Kansas City in Angel Zerpa.

Anyway, why are the projections so low on Milwaukee? Well, it’s more that the projections are nuanced, as some of the value that could be made up in the projected win column will have to be made up by those who haven’t proven themselves fully yet, or those who could be on track to improve in 2026.

The first and most essential player for the Brewers, of course, is in the rotation, and that’s the kid known as The Miz: Jacob Misiorowski.

The 23-year-old throws hard. He throws a lot, and his arm talent alone is supremely impressive. Last season, the 6-foot-7, 201-pound right-hander was up-and-down with his numbers and performances, though. In 15 games and 66 innings pitched, Misiorowski finished with a 4.36 ERA and 3.66 xFIP with 87 strikeouts and a 1.5 fWAR, signaling that he might need to figure out a few tweaks to hone his craft fully and dominate like his 99.10mph average velocity fastball might indicate.

Another player to watch in the rotation is 33-year-old Brandon Woodruff. In his last two seasons, he has pitched fewer than 70 innings, and since he will again begin the year on the IL, there are questions about what could be next for him. That being said, Milwaukee felt comfortable enough in him to extend a qualifying offer, and since they knew there was a very real chance that he would accept it (which he did), they understood that this was a rare $22M+ commitment for them. If nothing else, it’s a signal of their optimism in him.

Looking at the roster, a few names stand out for Milwaukee as key to reclaiming their NL Central title. Catcher William Contreras is about as solid a backstop as you can find in today’s MLB. In three seasons with the Brewers, he has a 122 OPS+, and his 111 OPS+ last season was easily the lowest of his three years in Milwaukee. However, over the offseason, Contreras had surgery to repair a fractured left middle finger, which he played through almost all of the season with. So, expecting a bounce back from him is certainly not an unreasonable opinion. We’d also be remiss to mention that old friend Gary Sánchez is Contreras’ backup, and it’s always nice to see Gary in the bigs.

Of course, there’s second baseman Brice Turang, who made his name known last season and played well enough to crack the starting roster for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, where he showed off his bat and excellent defensive skills. And there are other names like 22-year-old Jackson Chourio, who seems to be better at something every time he takes the field, and 25-year-old Sal Frelick, who took another big step in 2025 and tied Contreras for second-highest on the Brewers in fWAR, in the outfield.

And who can forget about Christian Yelich? A player who has not been as lethal as he once was, entering his mid-30s, but someone who can undoubtedly provide juice, presence, and poise to a mostly-young Brewers roster, while still being an above-average player at the plate.

The NL Central will be a fun division to watch, just as it is every year, and even though the projections are down on them, it would hardly be a surprise to see the Brewers back in the mix of things at the top by season’s end. Murphy and Craig Counsell before him made a tradition of helping Milwaukee exceed expectations, and they can certainly do so again.

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More Pinstripe Alley MLB team season previews can be found here.

Per MLB.com’s own glossary, xwOBA is described as a metric “formulated using exit velocity, launch angle and, on certain types of batted balls, Sprint Speed.”

“xwOBA is more indicative of a player’s skill than regular wOBA, as xwOBA removes defense from the equation.”

It’s an expected stat, meaning that it’s based more on process than actual outcome, but it’s a measure of the quality of offense generated by batters these days. It’s tracking how hard you hit it, whether it’s a liner or grounder, and how fast the player who hit the ball takes off – all things that are pretty vital to just how effective a team’s overall offense should be over a large enough sample to drown out any noise.

During the 2025 MLB season, the Cincinnati Reds posted a collective team xwOBA of .300. And while that may be a round number that makes you think “huh, that’s average,” in this case it decidedly is not. That .300 xwOBA ranked 28th among the 30 MLB clubs last year, 3rd worst ahead of only the punchless Cleveland Guardians and, yes, the woeful Colorado Rockies.

The 2025 Reds offense was mediocre in a number of metrics beyond that one, even though it’s a pretty straightforward indicator of how lacking their lineup truly was. They ranked just 24th overall in wRC+, 24th in ISO, 28th in Statcast’s Hard Hit %, and dead last in EV90, per FanGraphs, though still managed to rank 7th in BABIP (.298) somehow.

In other words, they didn’t hit the ball very hard, very well, or even end up getting lucky. It was an offense that lacked real thump for the season and was ultimately their downfall next to their pretty spectacular set of starting pitchers.

The question today, though, is whether they’ve done enough to make that significantly better in 2026.

They’ll have a fully healthy Elly De La Cruz again, which will help tremendously. They brought in Eugenio Suárez in free agency to add some legitimate thump to the lineup, and that, too, should boost things. Sal Stewart has all the hallmarks of an offensive powerhouse in the makings, and adding his bat to this group for a full season will hopefully skew it in a positive direction.

They’ll also be getting a full season out of Ke’Bryan Hayes, though. The former Pittsburgh Pirates 3B came over at the trade deadline, and out of the 145 MLB hitters who qualified with enough PA last season, he ranked 145th in xwOBA at just .282. Staring at the bottom of that leaderboard will also, sadly, let you see Matt Mclain (.291, 5th worst), Spencer Steer (.293, 7th worst), and old friend Gavin Lux (.299, tied for 9th worst), a pretty clear indication that either Cincinnati’s overriding philosophy was outright trash or a number of players who are poised to play key parts in 2026 simply weren’t up to par at all last season.

I like to think this offense will be improved from last year, but it’s hardly an overwhelming sentiment the deeper into it I look.

What do you think? Will the 2026 Cincinnati Reds swing the bats with more force and effect than they did just last year?

Today marks the end of our AL Central preview series. The Chicago White Sox may have drawn first pick in the draft lottery, but their 60 wins were only good for the final entrant here. Unlike previous years, though, the White Sox are full of young, interesting hitters. While they aren’t likely to set the world on fire, a few breaking out could have the team pushing .500 like last year’s something or other Athletics.

Projected Record and Team Summary

Yet again, the project systems agree here: the Chicago White Sox are likely to be pretty poor again this year. PECOTA projects a 68-94 record, while the Depth Charts have them at 69-93. Both are sizable improvements from the 2025 squad that went 60-102,, their third straight season with at least 100 losses. Much of that improvement comes from a new, exciting lineup of youngsters with the potential to be pretty solid instead of a group of veteran placeholders plus Luis Robert.

That’s right, after three years of talking about it, the White Sox finally bit the bullet and traded Robert; in return, they got Luisangel Acuna and a low-minors pitching prospect for their mercurial superstar. They also made a shocking strike for NPB star free agent Munetaka Murakami when the rest of MLB decided they actually didn’t want the 26 year old who averaged about 35 HRs per season the last 6 years in Japan. Instead of the huge payday he was expected for, Murakami settled for 2 years with the White Sox to hopefully prove he can hit major league pitching, too. That’s a boon for Chicago.

The Sox also made a few other trades, most notably bringing in Jordan Hicks and David Sandlin in a salary dump from Boston. Otherwise, they spent the winter making marginal improvements in free agency and on the waiver wire. Seranthony Dominguez, Austin Hays, Sean Newcomb, and Erick Fedde are fine veterans to add to a young team and Anthony Kay is an interesting import from overseas. None are likely to impact the team like Murakami should, but they add some much-needed stability to an otherwise unproven team.

Greatest Strength: Young Offense

Don’t look now, but the White Sox had a downright respectable offense in the second half last year. An emphasis on young bats in the draft and in trade returns has mostly panned out. Chase Meidroth, Colson Montgomery, Kyle Teel, Luisangel Acuna, and Edgar Quero are all players with club control that have a role on a winning team. Montgomery and Teel in particular look like full time starters, as the rookie shortstop hit 21 HRs over 71 games and the rookie catcher posted a .786 OPS after his June 6 debut. They then went and added the best power hitter in the NPB, 26 year old Munetaka Murakami, on a two year deal after his market failed to develop. We’ll see how prescient concerns about his whiff rates really are this season. Plus, Braden Montgomery, a power hitting college outfielder from the 2024 draft class, is poised for a quick ascent through the upper minors if Chicago so chooses.

The rest of the lineup isn’t particularly special. Chicago has done a nice job of acquiring former top prospects who have struggled for cheap, like Curtis Mead or Miguel Vargas, so their bench has a surprising amount of upside. At the same time, Lenyn Sosa, Austin Hays, and Andrew Benintendi are veteran roster filler. The best case scenario for these guys is a minor trade at the deadline, hopefully clearing a roster spot for a prospect at the same time. Otherwise, their job is to not be horrible and try to show the rookies the ropes as they matriculate up from the minors. This is almost certainly a few pieces short of a good lineup, but there’s enough here to be very, very interesting.

Greatest Weakness: Starting Pitching

If you had to squint to see an offensive core, you’ll be looking even harder for the pitching staff. The major league roster is about 8 arms short of competent. The starting rotation has little ceiling or depth, as Rule 5-breakout Shane Smith was the only starter under a 4.00 ERA last year. Chicago did backfill with some veteran SPs, Erick Fedde and Anthony Kay, but that’s about it. Davis Martin is a fourth year MLB starter who doesn’t get enough strikeouts to offset his walks and his hard contact and Sean Burke had a 4.59 ERA as a starting pitcher. As a team, the White Sox struggled with walks and home runs, an unenviable combo, and did very little to remedy that.

The bullpen isn’t in much better shape. Seranthony Dominguez, Jordan Hicks, and Jordan Leasure are solid bullpen arms, but at this point in their careers profile a few pegs lower in the totem pole than closer and main setup arms for a contender would. Otherwise, the bullpen should have a lot of moving parts aside from Jedixson Paez, a depth starter Chicago nabbed from Boston in the Rule 5 draft. When prospects like Noah Schultz, Hagan Smith, and Nick Sandlin are ready, expect them to push some of the current starters into the bullpen. Until that happens, this is a pretty uninspiring group.

X-Factor: Munetaka Murakami and Noah Schultz

Sometimes the X-Factor decision is easier than others. Picking Murakami here is one of those: I’m not sure there’s another player in the division, or maybe all of the majors, with a wider range of outcomes and expectations. Murakami started the winter as an international superstar and a top free agent but found shockingly little interest from American teams after a strikeout-heavy performance in the NPB. Of course, he also hit 22 home runs in 56 games, 5thmost in the league despite playing less than half the season.

After almost every team declined to pursue him in earnest, the White Sox swooped in with a 2 year, $34M contract. Murakami reportedly has struggled with velocity, but he didn’t see much of it overseas and has hit for plenty of power in Spring Training so far. The ceiling here is something like Kyle Schwarber or Giancarlo Stanton, where huge power and a good batting eye cover for some serious contact issues. If the strikeouts become untenable, the whole profile could collapse to something like 2021 Keston Hiura. We won’t know until we know, but adding this much upside for only $17M a year is very smart for a team with no pressure to win this year.

There were a lot of candidates for the second name here, but I chose Noah Schultz because the White Sox desperately need some pitching. In 2025, their best pitcher was Rule 5 pick Shane Smith, and while breakouts from the Rule 5 are always a boon, it isn’t a good sign if your best pitcher has a 3.81 ERA. Schutlz is a candidate to debut this year and add immediate upside to Chicago’s staff. As a 6’10 lefty, the Randy Johnson comparisons are inevitable and unfair, but Schultz is no slouch. His 70-grade slider leads the way of a strikeout-heavy profile and he can get up to 98 MPH on his heater. He can get out of sync and rack up a lot of walks, but the stuff is irrefutable. He still needs some refining in the minors before they unleash him on the league. Once he proves himself against AAA hitters and shows some command development, he’ll be an exciting arm for Chicago to build around.

For the first time in a while, the Chicago White Sox are an interesting baseball team. The makings of an offensive core are in place; an unsuspecting pitcher is liable to get burned if they try to sleepwalk their way through Chase Meidroth, Colson Montgomery, and Munetaka Murakmi gauntlet in the first inning. The pitching is still in tough shape outside of All-Star Shane Smith, but help is on the way from Hagan Smith and Noah Schultz. It’s a shallow roster, to be sure, but there’s enough good players that Chicago posting a solid season and becoming more irritant than pushover should no longer feel like a surprise.

It's been an eventful decade of Mets baseball, with the 2016 through 2025 seasons running the gamut. 

Below, we rank every season in terms of not just performance, but enjoyment...

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10. 2017: 70-92, 4th in NL East

This was not only the worst Mets team of the decade, but one of the most disappointing. After the club went to the World Series in 2015 and made the playoffs again in 2016, this version faltered badly. 

It was brought down by a subpar offense, a post-thoracic outlet surgery Matt Harvey not being the same, and an especially poor season from Zack Wheeler -- who had a career-worst 5.21 ERA and also dealt with injuries, including a stress fracture that ended his year in August.

9. 2020: 26-34, 4th in NL East

The COVID season was shortened, strange, and distant, with fans not allowed in any ballpark for most of it.

On the field, the Mets won their first game and then spent the rest of the season at or below .500. They were within 3.0 games of first place as late as Aug. 29, and had some fun moments (including Amed Rosario's walk-off homer at Yankee Stadium), but this was a team and season to forget.

8. 2023: 75-87, 4th in NL East

Coming off a 101-win campaign the year prior, the Mets let Jacob deGrom go to the Rangers via free agency and added Justin Verlander to pair with Max Scherzer at the top of the rotation. But following a 14-7 start, things fell apart.

After falling to 36-46 on June 30, New York went on a bit of a run to push their record to 50-55 on the eve of the trade deadline. But that wasn't enough to stave off a sell-off that sent Verlander to the Astros and Scherzer to the Rangers. 

7. 2021: 77-85, 3rd in NL East

This squad had the pieces to be competitive, and they had a solid first half of the season, going 48-40.

But they struggled after the All-Star break in Francisco Lindor's first year in Queens, due in part to an injury that ended Jacob deGrom's season after his start on July 7, when he had a 1.08 ERA and was steamrolling toward a truly historic season.

6. 2018: 77-85, 4th in NL East

The 2018 Mets had the most nondescript offense of the last decade, which was devoid of stars and had just one batter with more than 18 home runs (Michael Conforto's 28). Still, the team started the year 13-4 before faltering and falling out of contention.

They had a very good rotation fronted by an otherworldly deGrom, who led the majors with a 1.70 ERA over 217 innings as he won his first Cy Young award. The deGrom factor alone made the team interesting.

5. 2025: 83-79, 2nd in NL East

The 2025 Mets, with Juan Sotoin tow and fresh off an NLCS run, had the best record in baseball in the middle of June and appeared like a sure bet to reach the postseason.

Instead, New York suffered a slow collapse (with the starting rotation being the main culprit) and wound up missing the playoffs. A few months later, the core was broken up, with Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz leaving via free agency, and Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil traded.

4. 2016: 87-75, 2nd in NL East, lost in Wild Card Game

A year after reaching the World Series for the first time since 2000, the Mets had high hopes and a vaunted rotation. But the starting staff was shaken when Harvey needed surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome.

Still, the club persevered, led by Yoenis Cespedes, Curtis Granderson, and Asdrubal Cabrera on offense, and a still-emerging Noah Syndergaard, who had a 2.60 ERA and struck out 218 in 183.2 innings.

But Syndergaard and the Mets were taken down by Madison Bumgarner and the Giants in the Wild Card Game at Citi Field.

3. 2019: 86-76, 3rd in NL East

The 2019 Mets provided a breath of fresh air sandwiched between four losing seasons.

With an offense led by Alonso, who hit a rookie record 53 home runs, Conforto (.856 OPS), and J.D. Davis (.895 OPS), and a rotation was again headed by deGrom -- who won his second Cy Young in as many seasons -- this club was fun and meshed well.

They went on a tremendous run over the summer, ripping off a 27-9 stretch to push their record to 67-60 and put themselves in playoff contention on Aug. 22. Ultimately, they couldn't get over the hump.

2. 2022: 101-61, 2nd in NL East, lost in Wild Card Series

The 2022 Mets were dominant until they weren't, as they squandered the NL East late in the season when they were swept on the road in Atlanta -- when just one win would've given them a stranglehold on the division title. With the air out of the balloon, New York fell in three games to the Padres in the Wild Card Series at Citi Field.

Still, a team that wins 101 games is a rarity. And this club got huge seasons from Alonso, Lindor, McNeil (in his batting title year), Nimmo, Starling Marte, Scherzer (2.29 ERA), and Edwin Diaz (who had one of the most dominant relief seasons ever).

If Marte was fully healthy in the postseason, and if Scherzer didn't throw a clunker in Game 1 against the Padres, perhaps things turn out differently.

1. 2024: 89-73, 3rd in NL East, lost in NLCS

After hovering around .500 for most of the season, the OMG Mets caught fire at the end of August and rode a 20-9 stretch to a Wild Card spot that was only clinched when they vanquished the Braves in Game 1 of a doubleheader in Atlanta on the day after the regular season ended -- with Lindor's monster home run being the difference.

The Mets then outlasted the Brewers in the Wild Card Series, with Alonso's three-run homer in the ninth inning erasing a 2-0 deficit in Game 3.

In the NLDS, the Mets took the Phillies down in four games -- punctuated by Lindor's grand slam -- clinching a playoff series at Citi Field for the first time ever.

The magical run came to an end against the Dodgers in the NLCS, with the Mets falling in six games.

Tyler Glasnow was at his best on Sunday, striking out 11 Angels in five strong innings. His curveball was especially electric, finishing off all 11 of those strikeouts. He induced 13 swinging strikes among the 36 curves he threw, the former matching the most whiffs on that pitch he’s ever gotten in a game, way back on August 25, 2020.

Tyler Glasnow notched ELEVEN strikeouts in 5 innings …

ALL 11 came on the curveball 😮‍💨 pic.twitter.com/y3V10B6hBi

— MLB (@MLB) March 23, 2026

Most importantly, it’s been a relatively normal spring training for Glasnow, who had a standard gradual build up during Cactus League play, pitching into the fifth inning twice before completing five innings on Sunday in Anaheim.

He’s in line to start next Saturday at Dodger Stadium, the finale of a season-opening three-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. But how many starts will he make this season?

Glasnow pitched 90 1/3 innings and made 18 starts last regular season, but most importantly he was healthy down the stretch and for all of the postseason, after missing the playoffs in his first year with the Dodgers in 2024. Glasnow over the last three seasons averaged 114 2/3 innings and just over 20 starts, and his 21, 22, and 18 starts over the previous three years are his top-three such seasons of his career.

If there’s a caveat heading into this season, outside of the usual injury concern, it’s that Glasnow’s 11.7-percent walk rate last season was his worst in eight years, and much higher than the 7.1-percent walk rate over 2023-24.

Here are his projections entering his age-32 season.

Tyler Glasnow 2026 projections

• Marcel: 118 IP, 3.66 ERA, 28-percent K rate
• Steamer: 24 starts, 139 IP, 3.61 ERA, 28.1 K%
• ZiPS: 20 starts, 105 1/3 IP, 3.76 ERA, 28.6 K%
• THE BAT: 22 starts, 129 IP, 3.97 ERA, 27.2 K%
• OOPSY: 24 starts, 135 IP, 3.39 ERA, 28.2 K%
• PECOTA: 26 starts, 139 2/3 IP, 3.69 ERA, 26.6 K%

Today’s question is how many starts and innings do you expect from Tyler Glasnow in the 2025 regular season?

Hey. Hey! I thought today was when we were gonna talk about the Braves Are Doomed, Reynaldo Lopez Edition. Then this happens.

Strider will start the season on the IL with an oblique strain

— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) March 23, 2026

Not too much more to say, really. Injured List, meet Spencer Strider. Spencer Strider, meet the Injured List. Oh, what’s that? You’re already acquainted? In fact, you were already acquainted in these exact circumstances late in the 2022 season, when Strider was shut down with an oblique issue for the last few weeks of the season (but returned to make a playoff start). Well, in that case…

In any case, this probably won’t help the feeling of gross stuff in the gorge for those of you fully subscribed to the Braves Are Doomed feed. This does maybe make the guys-who-are-out-of-options roster math a little easier for the Braves coming out of Spring Training, but it’s also not clear how long Strider will be out. Again, this could be a very minor setback, but Strider’s had enough issues in his brief career so far that nothing seems “very minor” as far as his availability and effectiveness are concerned. Obliques are often talked about as lingering, but that tends to be in the context of hitters — the Braves did feel comfortable giving Strider about two weeks off in 2022 with a similarly-described issue and then throwing him right into a playoff start afterwards. (He was not very good in that start, but there’s no useful way to pin that on the injury or missed time.)

The runway just keeps widening for Didier Fuentes to make some noise. Or, the Braves may pick up some roster cut for additional depth. Maybe this forces Martin Perez into early season plans. Stay tuned.

At this time, the Opening Day rotation is now six Bryce Elders. (Okay, fine, it’s technically Chris Sale, Grant Holmes, Reynaldo Lopez, Elder, and… Fuentes? Perez? What’s Rich Hill doing?)

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.