Category: MLB

The Angels are stuck. Stuck with an aging Mike Trout, signed through 2030 with nearly $200 million left on his 12-year contract he signed in 2019. Stuck with paying out nearly $40 million on Anthony Rendon’s disaster of a free agent contract signed in 2020. Stuck with an owner who doesn’t even recognize that winning should be a priority for the franchise. Stuck with the consequences of short-sighted, win-now decisions over the last decade when the need for a complete tear down and rebuild was so obvious from the outside.

Los Angeles is essentially running things back this year, though at least the moves they made have the potential for some higher rewards if things break their way. Gambling on guys like Grayson Rodriguez and Alek Manoah could have some solid payoffs if they’re healthy, though bringing in four high-leverage relievers with an average age of 36 is a lot less defensible. There are a handful of bright spots to cling to: Zach Neto is one of the best young shortstops in baseball and Jo Adell finally broke out in his sixth big league season. Still, just look at the table below and you’ll get a sense for how bleak things are for the Angels.

Position	Angels Projected WAR	Mariners Projected WAR	Edge
Catcher	1.5	6.1	Mariners
First Base	1.7	2.9	Mariners
Second Base	1.5	2.7	Mariners
Shortstop	4.4	2.8	Angels
Third Base	1.9	3.0	Mariners
Left Field	1.0	2.2	Mariners
Center Field	1.9	6.0	Mariners
Right Field	1.4	2.0	Mariners
Designated Hitter	1.3	1.6	Mariners
Starting Pitching	11.0	14.2	Mariners
Relief Pitching	1.9	3.4	Mariners
Total	29.7	46.8	Mariners

The only position the Angels have an advantage over the Mariners is at shortstop, where Neto projects to be third best in the American League at that position. Everywhere else is below league average and not in a “the sum is greater than it’s parts” kind of way. Nearly every part of this roster needs an overhaul, and if you read John’s summary of Los Angeles’ farm system, it’s pretty clear that future improvement isn’t present in the organization yet. It feels like you can boil down the Angels approach to roster building to “make it 2019 by science or magic,” which wouldn’t be so sad if you didn’t know that the last time they made a playoff appearance was 2015.

So here they are, caught in no man’s land, neither competing for even a Wild Card spot nor tearing things down to build for the future. Just existing in the cellar of the AL West. Stuck.

2026 FanGraphs Depth Charts projections: 72.5-89.5, 5th in AL West, 5.4% playoff odds

2026 PECOTA projections: 66.4-95.6, 5th in AL West, 0.5% playoff odds

If it all goes right

As he stepped into the Rate Field batter’s box on March 27, 2025, Mike Trout took a deep breath and said to himself, “Fuck it. This one’s for me.” Knowing that his (still mystifyingly) beloved Angels were going nowhere, he spent the year chasing his lost ceiling, but it cost him something. To stay healthy, he spent 106 games at DH and the mere 22 games he played in the field came in right. To chase his old batting line, he sold out for power, whiffing and striking out at unprecedented rates.

So when he picked up a baseball for the first time over the offseason, he looked at it, tossed it in the air, caught it, and said to himself, “This time, for the real me.”

And that’s what we saw from wire to wire over 2026. Gone was the 2016-2023 version of himself that was trying to drag his team to the promised land. And gone was the 2024-2025 version of himself that was trying to etch his name more firmly into the record books. Returned again was the 2014-2015 version of Mike Trout who played simply for the love of the game. No longer playing like he was trying to prevent an injury, he just let himself go, leaving his status up to the baseball gods that once shined on him so brightly. And that turned out to be exactly the sacrifice they’d asked for.

Trout once again played with a preternatural ease and a too-simple-to-have-other-interests joie de vivre. At the plate, he hadn’t lost a step with his skills last year—the bat speed, the eye, the swing path, they were all still clearly there in the peripherals. He’d just made a bad change in approach. No longer selling out for power, he was able, ironically, to access more of it. And a vintage Mike Trout in the 2026 Angels lineup resulted in opponents intentionally walking him at a rate not seen in MLB since Barry Bonds. So he ended up hitting .288/.430/.575, the best hitter in baseball for the first time since 2019.

His speed was never coming back, but he’d clearly learned a thing or two about baserunning and pitcher tells across his 2,900 times on base, so he still stole 29 bases, just shy of a second 30-30 season.

He asked to get put back in centerfield, where he always belonged. He’d lost his range to the ravages of time, but no longer caring about whether he was going to be sore tomorrow, he made a few high-effort web-gem plays that made his youth, and our youth, flash before our eyes. When he robbed Julio of a home run at T-Mobile Park on September 25th, even the Mariners fans—in a forgiving mood after clinching a playoff spot the night before—gave him a standing ovation in tribute.

All told, his 9.1 fWAR took him past Wade Boggs, Al Kaline, Albert Pujols, Cap Anson, Cal Ripken Jr., Carl Yastrzemski, and Eddie Matthews to get to 22nd all-time.

The Angels finished 80-82. —ZAM

If it all goes wrong

The real battle over the past six years hasn’t been him vs. Verlander, or Price, or Iwakuma, even. Not even the WBC matchup with Ohtani that’s been analyzed from every angle, replayed in YouTube videos and TikToks through tiny, tinny speakers. No, the battle he fights every day is older, Biblical: spirit vs. flesh. The sense memory of gliding across outfield grass, thick and springy beneath his feet as he chases after a ball, easily picking out the small white orb from the California sky. The reality of how his knee protests every sharp turn and slide, the fifteen minutes he puts in every morning rolling his back out, the lingering ache in his thumb that worsens in the rain. He always knows when it’s going to rain.

For so long, he’s kept watch in the garden. He’s been the steady heartbeat at the center of this lineup, attempted to keep his teammates alert, drag them kicking and screaming over the precipice of the playoffs. He’s been a faithful servant to this team, this fanbase, this city. It’s all he knows: faith and family, showing up for people, doing the right thing.

And in exchange, management brought in…some players who should have worked, actually. Talented guys who maybe just needed some new scenery, a little sunshine. Grayson Rodriguez, Alek Manoah, Vaughn Grissom, Matthew Lugo, Oswald Peraza – all promising players who went by the wayside somehow. Diamonds in the rough, some rougher than others. As a plan, it left a lot to be desired. But he’s learned how to live with not getting what he wants.

Initially, it’s great. Manoah, a burly bear of a man he likes quite a bit, declares the squad Misfit Island, a reference that he’s not sure most of the clubhouse understands but makes a good t-shirt anyway. He’s not sure when Mike Trout, the Mike Trout, became a misfit, an underdog, an afterthought, but he puts those thoughts out of his mind. Maybe, just this once, someone else can take over the watch.

It starts small — a delayed start to the season for Grayson, which stretches into a missed month, then two. Then the injuries come for the pitchers in the bullpen whose birthdates have an 8 as the third digit. Offensively, the health is better, but the strikeouts gradually stack up, alongside the losses. You don’t get the reward without the risk, but sometimes buying low just means you paid less, got less.

It happens at the end of April, towards the end of a Midwest road swing. Chicago is cold and miserable that spring, the streets still pockmarked by mounds of fossilized snow, the field soggy after weeks of heavy rain-snow mix. They’re on a good run early in the season, even not at full strength due to some injuries, and he’s getting to play right field – a compromise between himself and his new skipper, who still remembers him in his golden era, a not-misfit. 

The ball jumps off Mongtomery’s bat with a crack but hangs up in the wind, suspended, before plummeting downwards like someone shot it out of the air. There’s no way he’ll get there in time. In his prime, he probably couldn’t have gotten there in time. But he has to try. He’s wired for loyalty, the flesh mortal but the spirit indomitable, ever-vigilant. 

He feels it in his plant leg immediately, his foot sinking too deep in the spongy grass, the knee joint catching like an old lock; can picture the cartilage shearing back, but it’s too late, he’s already in motion, chasing, one last time, a quickly disappearing dream, an angel falling out of the sky. —KP

The Houston Astros (1-2-1) host the New York Mets (2-2-1) in a split squad game today in Palm Beach, FL.

Tatsuya Imai makes his first appearance of the spring in this game. Imai was the Astros top free agent signing of the offseason and currently projects as their third starter while offering number 2 starter upside.

3B Carlos Correa and 1B Christian Walker will also make their spring debuts in this game.

Game Info

Game Date/Time: Thursday, February 26, 12:10 p.m. CST

Location: CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches, Palm Beach, FL

TV: No Local Broadcast

Streaming: MLB.tv (audio only)

Radio: KBME 790 AM / 94.5 FM HD-2

(image courtesy of Brian McTaggart on X)

Today’s starters! 🌴 #LGMpic.twitter.com/bH4Nq76VC6

— New York Mets (@Mets) February 26, 2026

1914
In the final game of their World Tour, the White Sox beat the New York Giants, 5-4, in 11 innings. The win came in front of the biggest crowd of the entire tour, between 20,000 and 35,000 spectators, at Stamford Bridge in London. Contrary to the headline above, Tommy Daly secured the win with a walk-off solo shot leading off the bottom of the 11th, ending the 46-game series at White Sox 24, Giants 20, with two ties.

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1950
Short-time second-sacker for the White Sox Jack Brohamer was born, in Maywood, Calif.

Brohamer came to the White Sox during a flurry of Roland Hemond–Bill Veeck trades during the 1975 Winter Meetings. He had a relatively outstanding 1976 debut with the club, leading all position players and finishing third on the team with 2.6 WAR. He also became the only player in MLB history to homer in shorts, going deep against the Orioles on August 21.

Brohamer played a lesser role with the 1977 South Side Hit Men, but managed an amazing wind-down to his White Sox career, hitting for the cycle on September 24 — the third-to-last game he played in Chicago.

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1991
Five years after his death, Bill Veeck was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee.

The two-time owner of the White Sox (also with ownership of St. Louis Browns, Cleveland and the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers) was the last of the “small-time” or “common-touch” owners now made obsolete by free agency.

He found quick success in both of his stints as White Sox owner. In 1959, he was finally handed the keys — the first non-Comiskey owner ever — just before Spring Training, and the White Sox went on to win the pennant. In 1977, just his second full season of his 1970s ownership of the club, Veeck’s novel “Rent-a-Player” scheme of picking up players on free agency salary drives paid off to the tune of 90 wins — considerably more than anyone anticipated for his rag-tag band.

Veeck was also, hands-down, the most novel, innovative and fun owner in baseball history. His promotions remain legend (fan managing, Martians landing, exploding scoreboards, a dozen or more ethnic nights, Eddie Gaedel activated for a game), likely never to be repeated in the game.

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2018
In an early spring training game vs. Oakland at Camelback Ranch, promising third baseman Jake Burger ruptured his left Achilles tendon running out a ground ball in the third inning. The 2017 first round pick, only in camp early playing in Cactus League A-games as a courtesy often extended to top picks soon after their drafting, would miss the season.

Subsequent injuries to his Achilles (another tear) and foot (plantar fascitis), plus the 2020 pandemic that cancelled the minor league season, saw Burger sit on the sidelines for three years. He returned in 2021 and jump right to Triple-A after never having played higher than Low-A professionally — and Burger mashed.

Before a trade deadline deal to Miami in 2023, Burger was shaping up as an average MLB starter, with 1.7 WAR over 154 career White Sox games, buffeted by a .230/.291/.500 slash, 34 homers, and 81 RBIs.

Today we look at the Cubs’ left-handed flamethrower.

Luke Little, all 6’8”, 220 pounds of him, just needs to throw strikes. In three seasons as a part-time Chicago Cub, he’s thrown 35.1 innings. In those innings, he has struck out 44 batters. That’s really good. But he has walked 28. That’s really bad.

He’s 3-1 with a 2.80 ERA in 39 games. Most of those games were in his pretty good 2024 season. He was hurt some of 2025 and spent almost the entire remainder of the season in Iowa. In his 43 games there, he was 2-1 in 59.2 innings, earned two saves, was the opener twice, had a 2.87 ERA, struck out 75 and walked 34.

Lifetime, he has amassed 0.6 bWAR (0.2 fWAR). The 25-year-old still has a little time before he’s considered a suspect but he’s on that track unless he makes a great showing in the spring. Projections do have him making the roster and throwing 30-ish innings, with his BB/p shrinking to 3.9 in Baseball Reference’s book. Zips has him garnering positive WAR and throwing 57 innings.

That would be okay. He could join the short/setup group with those kind of walk numbers. Little throws HARD — he’s reached triple digits more than once and sits 96+. He doesn’t give up many long balls. The free passes will determine his financial future.

He could be a star in the league. The odds are against it at this late date, but we will await developments.

The Dodgers take a trip east across the desert to face the San Francisco Giants on Friday in Scottsdale, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto making his final start before heading to play for Japan in the World Baseball Classic.

Yamamoto threw 30 pitches in his 1 2/3 innings last Saturday against the Angels in the Dodgers’ Cactus League opener. After a scoreless first inning, Yamamoto allowed three hits and two runs, one of them earned in the second inning.

This is the first of two meetings between the longtime rivals this spring. The Dodgers and Giants meet again on Wednesday, March 18 at Camelback Ranch.

Friday game info

• Teams: Dodgers at Giants
• Ballpark: Scottsdale Stadium
• Time: 12:05 p.m. PT
• TV: SportsNet LA, MLB Network (out of market)
• Radio: AM 570

The Dodgers are back at Camelback Ranch on Wednesday, playing the White Sox in a battle of co-tenants. The Dodgers are the home team in this one, where Max Muncy and Alex Call will see their first game action of 2026.

Lineup

Miguel Rojas SS
Kyle Tucker DH
Will Smith C
Freddie Freeman 1B
Teoscar Hernández LF
Max Muncy 3B
Andy Pages CF
Alex Call RF
Hyeseong Kim 2B

Tyler Glasnow starts on the mound, his first game this spring.

Other pitchers

Blake Treinen is set to make his 2026 Cactus League debut, pitching along with Alex Vesia, Jack Dreyer, Ben Casparius, and Kyle Hurt, plus non-roster invitees Carson Hobbs and Jordan Weems.

Pitchers active from minor league camp are Cam Day (wearing number 90), Myles Caba (91), Kelvin Ramirez (93), and Nick Robertson (97).

Other position players

Michael Siani and Ryan Ward are active on Thursday, as are non-roster invitees Ryan Fitzgerald, Keston Hiura, Zach Ehrhard, Josue De Paula, Kendall George, Zyhir Hope, Chris Newell, Noah Miller, and catchers Eliézer Alfonzo and Griffin Lockwood-Powell.

Also active from the minor league side are Elijah Hainline (05) and Yeiner Fernandez (89).

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Spring training baseball isn't always a recipe for high-scoring games, but when the floodgates open, they are thoroughly blasted.

So, with my MLB picks, I'm eyeing a trio of game total Overs where there should be more offense, including a showdown between the Colorado Rockies and San Francisco Giants on Thursday, February 26.

Spring Training predictions for February 26

Pick #1: Rockies vs. Giants Over 11

The Colorado Rockies are showcasing their young bats (Charlie Condon and Kyle Karros, in particular) while the San Francisco Giants are trotting out what may be their Opening Day lineup.

With the starting pitching matchup between Valente Bellozo and Blade Tidwell, we could see half this total on the board by the time we go to the bullpen.

Pick #2: Marlins vs. Blue Jays Over 8

I assume we're getting a relatively low total because Kevin Gausman is on the bump for the Toronto Blue Jays. But it's still pretty early in spring training, so even if he pitches well, it will be brief.

Toronto hit lefties better than almost everyone last season, and it could ambush Miami Marlins starter Braxton Garrett this afternoon.

Pick #3: White Sox vs. Dodgers Over 11

The Los Angeles Dodgers are unbeaten this spring, and scored 10 runs yesterday against the D-Backs and 11 the day before against the Guardians.

The Dodgers were also one of the few teams that did more damage vs. lefties than the Jays, and the Chicago White Sox will send Sean Newcomb to kick things off here. 

The same principle applies here with Tyler Glasnow starting as it does with Gausman. Even if he is sharp — which he may not be, as he is coming off a side injury — he won't pitch deep enough to impact the final total too much.

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At last year’s Trade Deadline, the Twins faced a reckoning. After taking the AL Central title in 2023 and experiencing their first playoff success in over two decades, they stumbled down the stretch in ’24 to a disappointing 82-80 record. Now, the bottom had fallen out. A 13-1 drubbing on July 30th at the hands of the Red Sox dropped their record to 51-57, good for fourth place and 12 games back of the pace in the wide-open Central. President of baseball operations Derek Falvey pulled the trigger on a deadline fire sale for the ages, trading 10 players off their big-league roster. Those moved included three-time All-Star Carlos Correa — in what amounted to a salary dump — and five relievers, headlined by closer Jhoan Duran.

Minnesota Twins

2025 record: 70-92 (4th, AL Central)
2026 FanGraphs projection: 79-83 (3rd, AL Central)

Despite spurious reports that he had been traded to the Red Sox, the Twins did hold onto ace Joe Ryan, as well as fellow starter Pablo López and longtime center fielder Byron Buxton, who has repeatedly affirmed that he will exercise his no-trade clause if the Twins attempt to move him. For his part, Buxton had something of a career year at 31, smashing 35 homers while playing in 120 games for the first time since 2017. Ryan, too, took the next step, striking out 194 in 171 innings while earning his first All-Star berth. Rookie second baseman Luke Keaschall and sophomore starter Simeon Woods Richardson looked the part as MLB regulars.

That’s pretty much where the bright spots ended. At least the Twins were consistent, finishing 23rd in both runs scored and runs allowed. Everyday players Matt Wallner, Trevor Larnach, and Brooks Lee were relied upon to shoulder their share of the load and floundered, combining to end the season below replacement level despite playing in a combined 385 games. On the other side of the ball, manager Rocco Baldelli’s cupboard was left threadbare by the deadline moves as he finished the season with a patchwork group of journeyman and underperforming prospects.

Baldelli was relieved of his duties after the season and Falvey departed “mutually” in a shock January shake-up that occurred about a month after Joe Pohlad took over from his brother Tom as the Twins’ controlling owner. The front office, now headed by Falvey’s former deputy Jeremy Zoll, has been largely inactive this offseason, signing veterans Josh Bell, Victor Caratini, and Taylor Rogers to short-term, low-risk deals. López, one of the few proven contributors on the roster, is undergoing Tommy John surgery that will cost him the entire season. Ryan, the team’s unquestioned ace, was scratched from a scheduled spring start last Saturday with lower back tightness (though he reportedly got encouraging news from the MRI that followed). And Buxton, the team’s de facto captain, cannot reasonably be relied upon to stay on the field over the course of a full season.

And yet FanGraphs’ projection has them finishing ahead of not only the White Sox but the Guardians in the Central under new manager Derek Shelton (late of the Pirates). They anticipate Buxton taking 473 plate appearances — something, again, he did for the first time since 2017 last year. They’re also bullish on Wallner not only taking a step forward with the bat but no longer being a defensive liability in his age-28 season while expecting 23-year-old Kaelen Culpepper to be a key contributor as a rookie.

To be candid, I don’t see what the algorithm is seeing. Losing a half-season of Correa, Duran, and company with only marginal replacements and expecting to win nine more games seems like a pipe dream. Given how placid their front office has been this offseason, I don’t think even the Twins expect to fare that well. To be fair, FanGraphs was also counting on a healthy season from López in their calculations, though his 2.6 WAR can’t account for the large swing they project.

Given the busy offseason of the White Sox — headlined by the signing of Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami — and the Guardians’ ability to exceed projections each year, Minnesota has a very real chance to enter the race to the bottom of the division (no matter how irrationally optimistic Pohlad seems to be despite refusing to invest). Expect them to use this season to assess whether young talent like Lee, Culpepper, and Walker Jenkins can be part of the next competitive Twins team while once again lying in wait as one of the league’s few true sellers at the deadline.

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

Morning, all!

ESPN wasn’t terribly impressed with the Rangers’ offseason, giving them a C+ and noting that they saved some money but didn’t make the team any better.

Sebastian Walcott had a good feeling going into his elbow surgery and wasn’t surprised he ended up only needing internal brace surgery.

Nathan Eovaldi was working mostly on his curveball and cutter in Wednesday’s win over Cleveland.

A year ago Jake Burger’s 4 year old daughter had open heart surgery, and yesterday Burger marked the anniversary by hitting a homer.

Shawn McFarland continues his top 30 Ranger countdown with a look at number 27, left handed pitcher Josh Trentadue.

I saw the movie ‘Redux Redux’ last night, an action movie about a woman who travels to parallel universes to punish someone who did her wrong, over and over and over again.

Weirdly enough, that got me to thinking about a Dodgers question for today. This doesn’t even need to be in the realm of the film’s tagline — “revenge on repeat” — but can be anything. For instance, I might try to prevent the St. Louis Cardinals from trading Willie McGee to an American League team in August 1990, which might or might notlead to Eddie Murray winning a batting title. You know, the real important stuff.

Today’s question what is one Dodgers-related action you would try to change in another universe? A game, a transaction, a specific action? Let us now in the comments below.

Here are the lineups for today’s game.

Phillies:

More Spring Training action coming right up pic.twitter.com/WlGpM0cTWP

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) February 26, 2026

Nationals:

Garrett Stubbs hits a homer today.

MJ Melendez, once upon a time, was a top prospect in the game of baseball.

The now 27 year old was a 2017 second round pick (52nd overall) by the Kansas City Royals out of high school, and ascended through the minor leagues rather quickly. Originally a catcher, Melendez reached High-A ball in 2019 before losing a year of his minor league career due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. He did not miss a beat in 2021 despite the lost year, hitting .288/.386/.625 (1.011 OPS), which validated his top prospect rankings by Baseball Prospectus (35th), Baseball America (42nd) and MLB Pipeline (51st) prior to the 2022 season.

That 2022 season saw him make his Major League debut, though involved a position change as well. With Salvador Perez ensconced behind the plate for the Royals, they opted to move Melendez to the corner outfield to put his bat in the lineup, which is how it went from 2022 to 2024. The results were, well, just alright. He hit okay enough; .217/.313/.393 (97 wRC+) in 2022, .235/.316/.398 (93 wRC+) in 2023, and .206/.273/.400 (86 wRC+) in 2024, but a whopping -16 Outs Above Average over those three seasons made him a below average starter overall.

2025 was nothing short of a disaster for Melendez. He played in just 23 Major League games, hit .083/.154/.167, and was demoted to Triple-A for the rest of the season before getting non-tendered in the early offseason, which brings us to his 2026.

Melendez signed a one year, $1.5m deal with the Mets in mid-February, which gave both him and the Mets a few options — literally and figuratively. The Mets have one bench spot rather open, and the right field position theoretically open (though, in my personal opinion, I would’ve thought Carson Benge had the fast track to the spot). Melendez will be in camp with the Mets to compete for that bench spot. However, with the signing and subsequent comments by Mike Tauchman, it sounds like the Mets signed Tauchman with the idea that he will have the first crack at the bench spot. So, where does that leave Melendez?

Melendez, despite never really taking off at the Major League level, still has a minor league option to his name. In all likelihood, the Mets signed Melendez with the idea of trying to fix some things about his game to get him back to the play that made him a top prospect five years ago, and doing so in Triple-A, with no impact on the Major League team and with as little eyeballs as humanly possible on you, would likely be the best path for both sides.

Melendez, even if he can revert back to his 2022 and 2023 play, can be a useful bench player. He can stand in both outfield spots, first base, be an emergency catcher in a more functional way than nearly every other ball club, and also contribute some power, as he hit 18, 16 and 17 home runs in his three years as a starter. Now, of course, there is work to be done there, but a revamped Mets hitting apparatus could be the key to getting Melendez back on track after a derailing 2025.

When you speak of the World Baseball Classic to Royals fans, their most vivid memories will be how two of their most important players heading into the 2023 season – Bobby Witt Jr. and Brady Singer – were participants on Team USA. Bobby and Brady were going to be vital to whatever success the Royals could have in 2023, but things didn’t go well.

Bobby managed only three plate appearances, but he did take a walk and smacked an RBI double. Brady Singer pitched two innings in a single game and allowed four runs. Considering the time they were away from Royals’ camp, it felt like they weren’t getting nearly enough work, and when the season began, they both got off to incredibly slow starts that helped bury the team in its 7-22 start, which snuffed the dim playoff hopes some fans might have had prior to the beginning of the year.

Over that span, Bobby slashed .253/.297/.453, good for a 100 wRC+, but not at all what Royals fans had hoped for his sophomore season. Singer made six starts, posting an 8.49 ERA. Both players improved significantly as the season went on, but by that point, it didn’t matter for 2023. It wasn’t disastrous because the 2023 Royals were, generally, not a good team, and even if they’d been better, things might not have turned out any happier. But the slow starts of those two players in particular were laid at the feet of their lack of playing time in the WBC.

Those two weren’t the only ones to play in that WBC from the Royals, however.

Vinnie Pasquantino was the starting first baseman for Team Italy. As such, he got 22 plate appearances. Pasquantino has developed a reputation for slow starts, but in 2023, he started out the year .279/.375/.500. He was one of the best hitters in baseball for that first month. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long after that when he reinjured his shoulder and had to have season-ending surgery.

So while some fans worry about Jac Caglianone playing in the 2026 WBC, I’m excited about the opportunity in front of him. With Vinnie still on Team Italy, Caglianone will likely be their starting right fielder. That means he’s going to get competitive-speed action for a handful of games weeks before many of his peers. If that can’t help jump-start his 2026, I don’t know what will.

And don’t worry about Bobby, Salvy, or Maikel Garcia, either. They’re all almost certainly starters on their teams, too.

What about the pitchers?

Seth Lugo will be pitching for Puerto Rico, while Michael Wacha will pitch for Team USA. But there are far fewer reasons to be concerned about them than there ever were about Brady Singer. First of all, they’re veteran pitchers who have had long careers and a lot of success. They know how to take care of business, and a couple of extra weeks of pitching in the WBC isn’t going to cause them to delay their preparation for the season as it appeared to with Brady Singer, who was entering his fourth season.

But the next reason is perhaps just as important. Brian Sweeney and his staff appear to be infinitely better at preparing their pitchers for success than Cal Eldred and his staff were in 2022. It is easy to forget now, but the Royals’ coaching staff was the butt of many MLB jokes in 2022. Sure, Brian Sweeney was technically the pitching coach for Kansas City by the time the WBC came around in 2022, but Singer likely spent much of that offseason operating under instructions from Eldred or another coach who ultimately wasn’t retained to lead the staff. Lugo and Wacha have had the ability to know who their pitching coach is all offseason and have an exceptionally solid plan in place for how to handle their WBC duties in addition to getting ready for the season.

Regardless, the WBC is important

Honestly, even as a Royals fan, I’d support all of these guys going to participate in the WBC, even if I had real concerns about how they’d perform once they got back. Life is, at its core, a series of experiences. And if you get a chance to experience something like the WBC, you have to do it – even if, as a professional baseball player, you already get to experience things most of us only dream about. We only get one life, and it would be cruel to ask them to throw away a chance like this just because it might make it infinitesimally less likely that we’ll get to watch our team hoist a World Series trophy at the end of the year.

That’s more true than ever this year, as the 2023 WBC was such a classic that this iteration has generated more buzz than any I can remember. With all the nonsense about player insurance and teams telling their players they aren’t allowed to participate for one reason or another, there’s no telling how much longer this event could continue to go on. They’ve got to take advantage of it while they can.

And, to be clear, the WBC should go on. It might be awful to lose a key player to injury before the season even begins because he was participating in the tournament, but if baseball is going to continue to thrive as we push into the second quarter of the 21st century, it’s going to need to gain global appeal. It has a head start over a league like the NFL because baseball is already incredibly popular in many Latin American and Asian countries, but that’s all the more reason to not let that advantage lapse while the NFL continues to expand its own global footprint. MLB needs the WBC almost as badly as the WBC needs it, and I’m excited so many Royals will be participating this time.

The list of position players to make the majors in the Yankees’ organization since Aaron Judge’s 2017 rookie campaign that have made such a great impact right out the gate is small.

Miguel Andujar was fantastic in 2018, but that fizzled out when he tried to play through a labrum tear in 2019. Gleyber Torres wasn’t yet 23 years old by the time he became a two-time All-Star in 2019. Despite not overwhelmingly great offensive numbers, Austin Wells was a Rookie of the Year finalist in 2024, and Jasson Domínguez had a memorable first 10 days in pinstripes before undergoing Tommy John surgery in September 2023.

Ben Rice is older than all of these guys, turning 27 earlier in February. The former 12th-round pick was a very late bloomer who fell under the radar due to COVID-19 wiping out two entire seasons when he was at Dartmouth, and made his way to the majors in June 2024 after forcing the action with tremendous hitting in the minor leagues. After a rough cup of coffee that barely exhausted his rookie eligibility, Rice put on some muscle and clobbered the ball in 2025, forcing his way into the heart of the order as one of the team’s key bats. And despite the tremendous season he had, this might’ve been just the beginning.

2025 statistics: 143 games, 581 plate appearances, .255/.337/.499, 26 HR, 65 RBI, 133 wRC+, 9.4 BB%, 18.9 K%, -6 Defensive Runs Saved, 1 Outs Above Average, 3.0 fWAR

2026 ZiPS DC projections: 130 games, 560 plate appearances, .241/.330/.462, 26 HR, 79 RBI, 121 wRC+, 10.3 BB%, 20.7 K%, 2.5 fWAR

There are 13 batting categories on Baseball Savant’s percentile rankings. Rice was the only qualified player in MLB who was better than the 60th percentile in all 13 categories:

To achieve this, you need to master several different aspects of hitting. You need to be patient, hit for power, display tremendous bat control, make good contact, and make good swing decisions. Rice does all of that, and even if you take off some of the less-important percentiles, he’s still part of a very, very elite class. The fascinating part is that a Savant page that looks this red almost always belongs to an MVP-caliber hitter, not a guy who lost out on a Silver Slugger to Zach McKinstry. That’s why it’s hard to contain excitement over what Rice can become as he enters his athletic prime: he was one of the unluckiest hitters in baseball last season.

Rice’s expected and actual stats slowly moved closer together as the season wound down, but he still underperformed his xwOBA by 36 points, making him the eighth-unluckiest hitter out of 251 qualified bats. For some of these hitters, the gap is between mediocre and average, or average to good. For Rice, the gap is between being great and being an All-MLB caliber hitter.

Why is he so unlucky? Well, he had a 25.2 pulled fly ball percentage, one of the highest in baseball. That, combined with his overall high rate of pulling the ball, does make it slightly easier to defend him due to defensive positioning. Defenses shade to the right side over 72 percent of the time against Rice, one of the league’s highest rates.

But using that as a reason for why Rice is “predictable” and will never be able to close that gap is lazy. Opposing defenses are also extremely sharp when he happens to be in the batter’s box.

Compare that with two Yankees on the opposite level of the spectrum, Aaron Judge (-7 OAA) and Trent Grisham (-9 OAA). Both hit the ball scorching hard, which limits a defender’s margin for error, and thus, yield higher BABIPs, especially in the case of Judge, whose BABIP in 2025 was historically high. Grisham pulls the ball just like Rice and also underperformed his peripherals, but didn’t get this level of defense.

The sky is the limit for Rice at the plate if he replicates that batted ball data. Can we really expect that a player who had a .439 xwOBA, 70.3 HardHit%, and 11.5 Whiff% against four-seam fastballs to only generate a +1 run value again?

The bigger question for Rice is his role and his playing time. The Yankees’ plan is for Rice to be the team’s primary first baseman, who’s also capable of filling in behind the plate. Rice isn’t the strongest framer or blocker (especially compared to Austin Wells and JC Escarra), and has an arm that will be exploited, but he’s far from the worst option to occasionally catch with his offensive tools. There’s a chance Escarra starts the season in Triple-A, and if he does, that’ll mean more reps behind the plate for Rice.

Initially, it seemed that Rice would get significantly more reps against left-handed pitching this year, but the Yankees decided to re-unite with the lefty-killing Paul Goldschmidt, who will certainly eat into Rice’s playing time against tough lefties. This could ultimately be a good idea, but Rice was passable against lefties last season and doesn’t have the level of drastic platoons that Ryan McMahon and Jazz Chisholm Jr. have.

Another potential benefit to bringing back the 38-year-old Goldschmidt is that Rice is still relatively new to first base, and there are worse things in the world than a four-time Gold Glover being a defensive mentor for Rice, who was mediocre defensively at the position last season. He’ll probably be sitting in the dugout late in close games for Goldy, but that shouldn’t cost him too many at-bats.

If he played two weeks less when filling in for an injured Anthony Rizzo in 2024 and Nick Kurtz didn’t exist, there’s a real chance that Rice would’ve been Rookie of the Year in 2025. There are a lot of similarities in the profiles of the Big Amish and Rice, who could both be among the AL’s best first basemen for the next decade. There’s a lot to be excited about with Ben Arroz, and 2026 could be just another step towards superstardom.

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See more of the Yankees Previews series here.