Category: MLB

The Dodgers won the trade deadline with the acquisition of Tarik Skubal — but that doesn’t mean they ultimately prevailed.

The Brewers were reportedly in the mix to land Skubal in a blockbuster trade, but Milwaukee managed to sweep the Dodgers despite losing out on the two-time American League Cy Young Award winner.

Brewers owner Mark Attanasio discussed the pursuit of Skubal and slipped in a slight jab directed at the Dodgers during an appearance on The Post’s “The Show” podcast hosted by Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman.

“This team was built, not bought. It’s critical to look at how we got here, and because I want to have sustained success, we had to do that by being careful about how many prospects we gave up,” Attanasio said.

“I thought a lot about it. If we had not won that Game 4, we would’ve seen Skubal and [Yoshinobu Yamamoto] again, and we could’ve been looking at Game 7.”

The 2026 World Series brings an interesting conversation to light as the Brewers and Rays managed to reach baseball’s biggest stage as small-market teams.

The Dodgers had the highest payroll of MLB’s final four teams, but were eliminated in four games by Milwaukee.

Attanasio’s comments ring true, the Brewers have taken years to build a winning team and it appears the squad has a strong chance of hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy. But many of the Dodgers’ biggest critics tend to overlook the team’s top farm system.

While money is no object for the Dodgers, the team wouldn’t have won back-to-back World Series if the organization didn’t have the ability to make blockbuster trades because of its top prospects.

Skubal didn’t guarantee the Dodgers another ring, but it certainly improved their chances.

Where the Dodgers go this winter will likely determine how long the dynasty lasts for LA.

Todd Benzinger, a key member of the Reds’ 1990 World Series championship team, died on Wednesday, the team announced.

He was 63.

“Todd will forever be remembered by Reds fans for catching the final out of the 1990 World Series, but those of us who had the privilege of knowing him will remember so much more,” Rick Walls, executive director of the Reds Hall of Fame Museum, said in a statement.

“Todd remained close to the Cincinnati community and was a tremendous friend to the Reds Hall of Fame and Museum, generously participating in our events and sharing his time with fans. We will miss his friendship, his kindness and his presence in our community.”

The first baseman’s cause of death has yet to be announced, but Hall of Fame shortstop Barry Larkin, a Reds teammate of Benzinger, said that his death came as a “shock.”

“I saw him at an event this past summer in Cincinnati and he looked good. It’s kind of a shock out of nowhere,” Larkin told MLB.com. “I know he’s got some young kids, so I feel really bad for his family.”

A Cincinnati-area native, Benzinger was drafted by the Red Sox out of high school in 1981 and spent two MLB seasons in Boston before being traded to his hometown Reds during the 1988 offseason.

Benzinger spent parts of three seasons with the Reds before they dealt him to the Royals midway through the 1991 season.

His most famous moment in Cincinnati was catching the final out in Game 4 of the 1990 World Series to seal the Reds’ most recent championship.

Across his nine-year MLB career, Benzinger put up a slash line of .257/.301/.386 with 733 hits and 376 RBIs in 924 games.

After retiring in 1995, Benzinger maintained a close relationship with the Reds and was a regular at select events and team camps.

He also managed the Dayton Dragons, Cincinnati’s High-A affiliate, from 2009-10.

“He was a super nice guy,” Larkin said. “He was always a hard worker, not real loud. Just about doing his business. He was just a steady, consistent contributor. There was no craziness about him. He fit in well with the team.

“Just a really good, solid guy.”

Welcome to our series grading every member of the San Diego Padres’ 40-man roster. The roster being evaluated is current as of Oct. 18, prior to the end of the World Series. Because of that, it will include players who will be free agents once the postseason concludes. Each player will be graded on their performance in the 2026 season, including the playoffs. That performance will be weighted based on how much time the player spent with the team (availability is the best ability). 

The Veteran Shortstop

When Xander Bogaerts was signed to an 11-year, $280 million contract prior to the 2023 season (wow, that’s still insane to think about), he was expected to man shortstop for the next several years for San Diego. He’s done so faithfully and has been available for the majority of his tenure thus far. Bogaerts has played in 130-plus games in three of four seasons with the Padres. However, he has yet to perform better than his first year in San Diego (4.2 Wins Above Replacement).

Overall Grade: C+

Bogaerts’ production has continued to decline year by year. This season was no different, with the shortstop posting a .231/.332/.344 slash line and 13 home runs. The homer total was an increase from the last two seasons, but his batting average took a sharp downturn. Bogaerts’ bat was downright anemic apart from certain portions of the year.

That being said, Bogaerts ended the season batting .315 in September and slashed .286/.348/.476 with a home run in the playoffs. His defense took a step back from his stellar performance in 2025 (+6 Fielding Run Value, +7 Outs Above Average), but he was still solid at the position with +4 FRV and +3 OAA. Bogaerts manned shortstop faithfully for the Friars, playing in 151 games for San Diego.

The biggest question for Bogaerts is whether his offense can return to form. Since joining San Diego, he has yet to prove he can make a difference with his bat apart from a solid 2023 campaign. That being said, Bogaerts was somewhat unlucky in 2026. The veteran shortstop batted .231 with an expected batting average of .248. That’s not a great deal better, but it’s certainly an improvement.

Miguel Rojas isn’t done with baseball.

The veteran infielder announced his retirement from Major League Baseball after the Dodgers were swept in the National League Championship Series by the Brewers. But Rojas will represent his home country one last time to play in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League for the Tiburones de La Guaira club.

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The Dodgers World Series hero will participate in special games for the team on Nov. 14 and 15 at LoanDepot Park in Miami.

Turns out Game 4 of the NLCS won’t be Rojas’ final game of his career.

“One last time on the field. One last time representing Venezuela,” Rojas said in an Instagram caption.

Rojas previously expressed disappointment with the World Baseball Classic after he was not able to participate in the spring tournament due to issues obtaining insurance on his MLB contract. The 37-year-old has never participated in a WBC and the 2026 tournament was his last chance before he retired.

“I didn’t know that my chance to go represent my country for the first and only time, probably as a player, was gonna get blocked because of an insurance problem,” Rojas said. “Even though we know we have to be ready for the season and we have to play and be healthy for our contract, at the end of the day, we didn’t know all those restrictions were gonna be in place the way they are right now.”

Rojas wasn’t able to represent Venezuela in the WBC, but he will play one last time for his home country next month.

On the newest Rays Your Voice, I break down the Rays’ pennant-clinching game 6 win over the Guardians, and what the atmosphere was like inside Tropicana Field.

About halfway through the episode, I am joined by Danny Russell to preview the World Series matchup against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Stay tuned for instant reaction podcasts after World Series games, which will be streamed live from our YouTube channel. All episodes are also available wherever you get your podcasts!

The Stephen Vogt as next Mariners manager rumors can officially be put to bed. Vogt told Cleveland media at today’s Guardians end-of-season media availability that he is coming back to Cleveland.

Here’s Vogt speaking directly on it:

Vogt’s name has been connected by some to the Mariners managerial search since the position became vacant, despite him being under contract with the Guardians, meaning the two teams would have to pull off a trade in order to get Vogt to Seattle – an extremely rare occurrence, and one that would require the Guardians to willingly part with a manager who has overseen three straight playoff appearances in the three years he’s been with the club. The flames of this fantasy were stoked by geography – Vogt’s family is based in the Olympia area, and the former catcher got his pro coaching start with the Mariners in 2023.

Those flames blew into their biggest fire yet when Anthony Castrovince, a long-tenured MLB.com reporter and generally one of the Voices We Trust around here, went on Cleveland sports radio and said that in his “personal observation” it “kills” Vogt to be away from his family:

Now, Castrovince wasn’t exactly speaking as a journalist here, but more as an opinion-giver on what he’s perceived over Vogt’s tenure, but there’s a reason there’s no “personal observation” class taught in J-school. This soundbite obviously got picked up and bandied about as proof that Vogt might be on the move back to Seattle, logic and facts be darned. It’s a good reminder that smoke doesn’t necessarily mean fire in this process, and the best voices to listen to are the local, deeply informed ones – such as Ryan Divish in The Seattle Times, who called the Vogt idea a “nonstarter” weeks ago.

It’s also a reminder that the Mariners front office – and specifically Jerry Dipoto – despise internal leaks: recall the brouhaha around who broke the news about Scott Servais’s firing in 2024. There’s a very good chance the list of managerial candidates that circulates publicly vs. the internal list has one or two or zero overlapping names. A more constructive path is to think of what qualities the Mariners might prize most highly in a managerial candidate, and then seek to identify people who fit those qualifications. Teaser: tomorrow we’ll be publishing a wishlist of what the LL staff considers non-negotiables for a future manager that you can refer to in building your own list.

The 2026 World Series creeps ever closer.

Both teams participated in World Series Media Day on Thursday before the action finally gets underway Friday night in Milwaukee.

Which team are you pulling for to win its first World Series? Personally, a good friend of mine is a diehard Rays fan so I’m throwing my weight behind Tampa Bay to beat Milwaukee.

For those who will be watching even with the Braves not involved for the fifth straight year, here’s an appetizer MLB posted on its YouTube account Thursday.

And for those who are only particularly interested in watching when the Braves are involved, the timestamp you’re looking for is 47:30.

The Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays now know the umpires that will take them through the 2026 World Series.

James Hoye has been named the crew chief of the nine-umpire crew that will work this year's Fall Classic, Major League Baseball announced on Thursday, Oct. 22. There are seven MLB umpires assigned to the field with a rotation each game that will ensure a different person is behind home plate. There are also two MLB umpires assigned to manage the league's replay system throughout the series.

The Brewers and Rays are set to open the 2026 World Series with Game 1 in Milwaukee on Friday. Here's a look at the umpires selected to work the series and their assignments for each game:

After the Brewers clinched the pennant, the first person I reached out to was my dad.

My father was born and raised in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. He’s been a Brewers fan his entire life, no doubt a consequence of coming of age during the franchise’s glory years in the late ’70s and early ’80s. When I was a kid, he’d tell me about (and show me highlights of) players like Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Sal Bando, and Rollie Fingers.

In 1982, he was 15, and the Brewers were the best team he’d ever seen. Yount was at short, Molitor at third, Gantner at second, and his cousin Tom was Bernie Brewer. If he had friends he wanted to impress, he’d have Tom wave at him from the top of the slide.

My dad had been going to games at Milwaukee County Stadium for years thanks to his uncle, who would take him whenever he didn’t have school. But that fall, his sister took him to see the Brewers play the Angels in the ALCS. The Brewers beat the Angels, but they went on to lose the World Series to the Cardinals in seven games. I asked him whether that loss took the air out of him.

“If anything, it made me more of a fan,” he said. The Brewers were still a great team, one of the best in baseball, and to him, it looked like they had what it took to win a World Series. They’d make it back soon enough.

But slowly, those late ’70s and early ’80s Brewers teams fell apart. While Yount and Molitor remained, Gorman Thomas and Don Money were gone by the end of the ’83 season, Don Sutton by the end of ’84, Fingers by ’86, and Ben Oglivie by ’87.

From 1988 to 2007, the Brewers won 90 games just once and finished under .500 more often than not. As my dad got older, his fandom faded a little, too. He went to college, moved away, and spent much of those 20 years working, preoccupied with more immediate concerns than the Brewers’ record. Baseball is magical, but it’s easier to see the magic when you’re a kid. He never stopped being a fan, but the love he’d had for those late ’70s and early ’80s teams didn’t quite return. Not until I came along.

He showed me the Brewers, and somewhere along the way, I fell in love with them on my own.

We visited family in Milwaukee in 2007, and my dad took me to a game at Miller Park, the first baseball game I ever saw in person. Rickie Weeks hit a walk-off single, and that was it: I was officially a Brewers fan, too. What my dad felt as a kid watching Yount and Molitor, I felt watching Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Yovani Gallardo, and Rickie Weeks.

And because I cared about the Brewers, he started caring about them again, too. When he’d pick me up from school or take me to practice, he’d already have the Brewers game on the radio. He’d given me the team. Without meaning to, I gave it back.

I was six years old in 2008, the year my dad really got back into the Brewers. He remembers the CC Sabathia trade fondly, as many fans do. CC only pitched half a season in Milwaukee, but that run was unforgettable. More than that, as my dad put it, it was the “first time in (his) memory that he ever saw the Brewers go after a big name midseason.” That team felt different from the teams that came before it.

As I fell in love with Fielder, Braun, Nyjer Morgan, and the 2011 squad, he did too. That team didn’t make it to the World Series, and neither did the 2018 team or the 2025 team, but our love for the Brewers never wavered. Whether or not the Brewers were doing well, we made a point of watching every game we could together.

Sometimes that meant complaining about the roster and praying for a .500 season, and sometimes it meant hoping the Brewers would finally make it back to the World Series. As every season ended in heartbreak, some more than others, the hope my dad had had for the 1982 team stayed with him, and with me. Someday, maybe next season, they’d be back in the World Series.

Now, for the first time since my dad was 15, the Brewers are back in the World Series. This year’s team is also different. My dad, who watched the ’82 team in person, says it’s the most fun Brewers team he’s ever seen. He loves Pat Murphy and thinks Murphy has them playing “as a team” more than any other version of the Brewers he’s seen. No one player is bigger than the team, and no one lets his ego change the dynamic. No matter who’s in the starting lineup, it’s all the Brewers. He loves the small ball, too: “four hits in an inning instead of waiting around for someone to hit a homer.”

I asked him what it would mean if they finally won it.

“Like many people have said: just one before I die.”

I’m in my hometown for the playoffs for the first time since 2019, so I’ve been watching almost every game with him at my parents’ house. As is often the case with parents, my dad and I don’t always know what to say to each other. When the Brewers are on, we never have to figure it out.

It turns out that works with strangers, too. During last year’s playoffs, I met a guy wearing a Brewers hat in an airport in Portugal, of all places. We were both jet-lagged and tired, but we immediately flashed each other a smile and struck up a conversation about the team. We didn’t have to explain anything. We both knew about 1982, 2011, 2018, the Cardinals, the Cubs, and the Dodgers, and we all know how rare this is.

I wasn’t home for the clincher. I was at the game in Los Angeles. After the final out, I was outside Dodger Stadium high-fiving people I’d never met and will never see again. I saw Yount jerseys, Braun jerseys, Morgan jerseys, Ben Sheets jerseys. Even a Norichika Aoki jersey. In Los Angeles. For a franchise that’s never won a World Series, fans find each other.

It was the first postseason game I’d ever been to; I was both elated to be there and sad I couldn’t watch it with him. So I texted him from the Dodger Stadium bleachers. He wrote back:

“So glad you got to see it. So sad I am not with you.”

“Here in spirit,” I responded.

I’m grateful to the Brewers for always giving me a reason to reach out to him. I’ll be watching every World Series game with him, hoping he gets to see one before he dies. This time, I’ll be there with him.

Because for us, and for so many Brewers fans, the Brewers are more than just a baseball team.

The 2026 White Sox broke through the national recognition barrier that has haunted them as a team with a small-market reputation and the figurative youngest child in Chicago baseball. Sporting News named Will Venable AL Manager of the Year and tapped Chase Meidroth for the AL All-Star team, in voting by fellow managers and players, respectively.

Venable became the first manager in MLB history to lead a team to the postseason after the Sox posted back-to-back 100-plus-loss seasons. Although South Siders may scoff at their underwhelming September, no other team has won 84 games after losing 100-plus games in three consecutive years. Venable kept the Sox atop the AL Central for 96 days and became the third manager since 1901 to oversee a 19-plus-win improvement in consecutive seasons, excluding 2020 and strike seasons. Applause is especially warranted considering the Sox started 11-17 in the first month of the 2026 season.

Sporting News’ award makes Venable the sixth Sox manager to earn the title, alongside Ozzie Guillén (2005), Jerry Manuel (2000), Jeff Torborg (1990), Tony La Russa (1983) and Chuck Tanner (1972).

Though Meidroth made less history, everyone felt his impact on the field. The 25-year-old slashed .276/.350/.415 in 154 games and led AL second basemen in hits, walks, runs scored, doubles, total bases (235) and slugging percentage while ranking second in average, on-base percentage and OPS (.765). His 4.5 WAR this year was the highest among all Sox second basemen in the 21st century and the best performance at the keystone since Nellie Fox in 1959 (6.1 WAR).

Meidroth is a Gold Glove Award finalist and the second Sox second baseman named a Sporting News All-Star, and the first Chicago infielder since José Abreu in 2020 to earn the honor.

The Sox will keep basking in the glow of their pleasantly unexpected season while the World Series plays out. Even as chatter shifts to next year, Venable and Meidroth will remain cornerstones of Chicago’s near-term future.

When it comes to top free agents, the Dodgers rarely tip their hand.

At the outset of Tarik Skubal’s free agency this offseason, that remained the case once again.

During an end-of-season press conference on Wednesday, less than a week removed from the team’s sweep at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman carefully sidestepped a question about Skubal, saying a lot of words that offered no substantive indication of the club’s urgency level to potentially re-sign him.

Friedman started by praising the two-time Cy Young Award-winning left-hander, whom the Dodgers acquired in a blockbuster trade deadline deal with the Detroit Tigers in August.

“It’s not easy for a guy to get traded in the middle of a season to come to a new city, new clubhouse,” Friedman said. “You have set routines, and you have to make those adjustments.”

The longtime top executive then complimented the way Skubal acclimated to his new surroundings, and the impact he made even in a year the Dodgers fell short of a World Series three-peat.

“The way he was able to seamlessly transition, not just in terms of on the field, but in the clubhouse, I can’t say enough good things about the impact that he made in such a short period of time,” Friedman said. “We have a tremendous amount of respect for him on and off the field.”

What Friedman didn’t do, however, was say that the Dodgers would be all-in on Skubal this winter, or that they would do whatever it takes to lock him up in a free agency process that is expected to end with the soon-to-be 30-year-old breaking Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s record guarantee of $325 million for a pitcher.

That wasn’t unexpected, of course.

Even in the run-up to this year’s deadline, the Dodgers publicly downplayed how aggressive they would be for the superstar ace.

Still, by playing it coy Wednesday, Friedman allowed a vacuum of speculation to develop about exactly where the Dodgers will stand in the Skubal sweepstakes.

“He’s put himself in this position to go out and be a free agent,” Friedman said, acknowledging only that the club will have conversations with Skubal’s agent, Scott Boras, going into the winter. “He and his family have to make a choice over where they want to spend the next X number of years, and obviously we wish him nothing but the best.”

Granted, it’s still extremely early in the offseason. And as the Dodgers have shown the last couple winters, they can never be counted out for a top free-agent target (remember when they were supposedly not going to break the bank for Kyle Tucker?).

At this point, however, there have been questions from some corners of the industry about the Dodgers’ willingness to give Skubal the lengthy, lucrative contract he will be seeking.

The team already has ample future financial commitments tied up to Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and others. Even without Skubal, they will have one of the majors’ best rotations next year, assuming Justin Wrobleski and Roki Sasaki continue to develop, and Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow can avoid the injury problems that have plagued them the past few years.

Much could depend on the league’s looming CBA negotiations, which might result in a salary cap –– or some other drastic changes to the sport’s economic structure –– following a lockout all but certain to commence on Dec. 1.

It’s unclear if Skubal will try to sign a new contract before then; with the Mets, Cubs, Angels and Yankees all seen as potential suitors, among others.

It’s also unclear how the Dodgers’ approach to long-term payroll might change depending on what the new CBA entails.

That’s why, for now, the club will remain the ultimate wild card in his free-agency process.

They have the resources to swing a record-breaking deal if they want. They have a track record of getting aggressive for players they feel swing their World Series chances. But if they are planning an all-out press to re-sign Skubal, they aren’t tipping their hand yet.

“We’re still wrapping our arms around our off-season plan and strategy and timing of things,” Friedman said.

His cards, once again, were staying glued to his chest.

MILWAUKEE — The Tampa Bay Rays had ace Drew Rasmussen available on regular rest to start Game 1 of the World Series.

But Rasmussen on extra rest is even more dominant. And that made it a relatively easy decision for Rays manager Kevin Cash to skip Rasmussen and name right-hander Nick Martinez his World Series Game 1 starter.

Martinez, 36, will oppose Milwaukee Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski in the Friday, Oct. 23 opener at American Family Field. Martinez is coming off a strong 5 ⅓-inning, two-hit, one-run start against the Cleveland Guardians in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series, tying it 2-2.

Rasmussen followed with a dominant seven-inning, four-hit effort to win Game 5 and send Tampa Bay home with just one win necessary to reach the World Series. No. 2 starter Freddy Peralta followed suit with a Game 6 gem to send them to Milwaukee.

Rasmussen pitched Sunday, putting him on regular rest Friday. But Cash is not going to burn that bullet just yet.

“We prioritized Drew getting an extra day. We’re trying to get the full pitch allotment out of him,” says Cash before the Rays worked out in Milwaukee on Thursday. "He's had a pretty thick workload here. We've relied on him heavily.

"When Nick pitches, we win."

Last offseason, Nick Martinez was seeking an opportunity with a team that would allow him be a starting pitcher. Now, he is starting the first game of the World Series for the Tampa Bay Rays as they take on the Milwaukee Brewers.

Tampa Bay signed Martinez just prior to Spring Training, Martinez was excited by the prospect of getting the chance to showcase himself as a full-time starting pitcher, “I’ve always believed that I can be a starter from beginning to end.”

Over the course of the regular season, the now 36-year old Martinez more than proved himself as he delivered an All-Star season for Tampa Bay. Over the course of 31 starts, Martinez compiled a 3.10 ERA | 3.96 FIP with a 15.1 K% and league leading 3.6 BB% over a career high 180 innings pitched. Thus far in the postseason, Martinez has only appeared in two games, allowing three runs on seven hits over 9 IP.

First pitch is slated a little after 8:00pm Friday night

After a year of being bombarded with information about the lack of competitive balance in baseball, the 2026 World Series will feature the Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers. It’s quite the twist from a sport that has made a relentless case that only big market teams can win in the Postseason, but baseball will always baseball and this year’s curveball is the first World Series since 1980 where a team who has never won before is guaranteed to hoist the Commissioner’s Trophy at the end of the day.

It does seem worth clarifying the terms of what we mean by a “small market.” After all, according to the Sports Business Journal the Tampa-St. Petersburg media market is the 11th largest media market in the country despite the Rays fielding a team with the 28th largest payroll in baseball according to Spotrac. Meanwhile, Milwaukee boasts the 19th ranked payroll in MLB in the smallest media market in MLB. It’s all rather complicated as you can see here:

Or maybe it isn’t all that complicated. There has been Postseason success at the top of this table (the Dodgers) in the middle of this table (the Astros, Red Sox, Rangers and, begrudgingly, the Brewers) and towards the bottom of this table (the Nationals, Rays, Guardians and, as much as it pains me, the Cardinals). There are small market teams spending a lot of money relative to their actual, literal, media market size and teams spending a fraction of what you’d expect relative to their market. Some of those teams are winning. Some of those teams are losing.

Perhaps it’s more about how effectively teams use the resources they have than a total amount of spending by any individual team. To that end, a number of front office watchers have been compiling data about the size of R&D departments and/or scouting departments across the league that have led to a number of interesting conversations on social media:

As Lance Brozdowski notes in the above thread, it’s a little complicated to just pull these results. Some teams have better visibility into the size and roles in their departments than others, including the Cubs, who were one of the big movers as people honed in on this particular metric.

But again, this doesn’t overlay with MLB Postseason success or failure either. Yes, the perennially successful (although still zero rings to show for it) Rays are at or near the top of both lists, but the Braves and Astros are near the bottom.

It’s enough to make you wonder if success in the October is just a crapshoot in baseball. Admittedly, a crapshoot you have a much better chance of being a part of if you’re deploying resources wisely, but a crapshoot nonetheless.

One thing that hasn’t changed this Postseason: ticket prices to the Fall Classic are outrageous, especially in Milwaukee where they’ve been waiting 44 years for a chance to play in the World Series. Getting into a World Series game in Tampa Bay or Milwaukee is going to set you back some cash, regardless of the spending habits of the team you’re cheering for: