With Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette both off the board, Cody Bellinger is still potentially in the cards for both the Mets and Yankees, with the Mets still needing an outfielder and the Yankees needing protection for Aaron Judge in the lineup.
Max Goodman of NJ.com runs down a list of five possible targets for the Mets after the Bo Bichette signing—a list which includes Bellinger.
Travis Sawchik of MLB.com explores the best fit for Framber Valdez between the Mets, Orioles, Giants, and Cubs—all of the teams that have been connected to the top remaining free agent starter—when considering rotation depth, ballpark, and the fact that he is an extreme ground ball pitcher.
Reds star Elly De La Cruz turned down an extension offer from the Reds last spring that would have been the largest contract offer in franchise history, eclipsing Joey Votto’s ten-year, $225 million deal from 2012.
Speaking of the Reds, they are reportedly receiving trade interest in their starting pitchers.
For The Athletic, Chad Jennings and Stephen J. Nesbitt take a look back through sports history to try to find precedent for the dynasty the Dodgers are currently building.
This Date in Mets History
On this date in 2018, the Mets formally announced the signing of first baseman Adrian Gonzalez. It ended up being his last major league season.
The Dodgers have been fairly quiet this offseason compared to the last two, but when they have struck, the bounty has been plentiful.
After bringing back Miguel Rojas for the final season of his big league career, the Dodgers shored up their bullpen by bringing in Edwin Díaz to a three-year deal worth $69 million. After a month of wondering where star free agents like Kyle Tucker, Cody Bellinger or Bo Bichette would sign, the Dodgers stunned the baseball world by agreeing to a four-year, $240 million deal with Tucker, making him the highest paid outfielder per annual average value in baseball history.
Tucker is now slated to be the team’s primary right fielder, sliding Teoscar Hernández back to left field where he primarily played during the 2024 season. Hernández was previously involved in trade rumors during the winter meetings, as the Kansas City Royals expressed interest in him, but the Dodgers are reportedly unlikely to deal him away, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The Dodgers are more likely to consider deals for either outfielder Ryan Ward or pitcher Bobby Miller.
Fresh off their stunning signing of free-agent right fielder Kyle Tucker, the Dodgers are expected to keep Teoscar Hernández and move him to left field. As reported previously, Hernández’s name has surfaced in trade conversations. The Dodgers, however, are more likely to explore deals for outfielder Ryan Ward, a career minor leaguer who last season was MVP of the Pacific Coast League at 27, or right-hander Bobby Miller, who has been a disappointment.
Links
Alongside the Dodgers in the sweepstakes for Kyle Tucker were the New York Mets and the Toronto Blue Jays. The Mets reportedly offered a similar short-term deal for Tucker reported at four years for $220 million that included a $75 million signing bonus with no deferrals, while the Blue Jays were the only team of the three to go for a long-term deal, with Jon Heyman of the New York Post tweeting that the deal was for 10 years for $350 million.
On the surface, Kyle Tucker didn’t have quite the success at home with the Chicago Cubs than he did away from Wrigley Field. In reality, his home and road split divergence was mostly due to a fractured hand that tanked his second half numbers at the plate, but it doesn’t help that Wrigley Field isn’t so friendly to hitters, ranking 26th in park factor. Mike Petriello of MLB.com examines how the move to a more hitter-friendly environment in Dodger Stadium (along with the hopes of him staying healthy) could help Tucker put up similar offensive numbers he had with the Houston Astros.
Chad Jennings and Stephen J. Nesbitt of The Athletic compare the Kyle Tucker signing to other notable moves across sports where a star player joined a defending champion, such as Kevin Durant’s heavily maligned move to join the Golden State Warriors.
Matt Shaw says he has spent a good deal of time in the outfield in college and he’s up for the challenge of being a supersub. I’m not going to discourage him. Nico Hoerner opined that it was a good thing to have a quality player as a sub, and that time off isn’t a Bad Thing. Nico is a ballplayer — right now he’s the face of the Cubs, and that’s the attitude fans want to see.
I think, in the end, that it really was Kyle Tucker’s approach that doomed him in Chicago. He wasn’t seen to be giving it his all. Whether that perception is accurate, I don’t know. But it is real. Ian Happ has suffered some from a similar perception despite his propensity for flinging his body about with abandon.
Anyway. ‘King Kyle’ is planning on winning a ring. The Dodgers have already meatloafed — they’re eyeing a threepeat. That would even them up with the Oakland Athletics (1972-74), and the Yankees (1998-2000), who also have skeins of four (1936-39) and five (1949-53) consecutive wins. The Cubs are among the handful of teams that have repeated.
The Phillies, Mets, the Cubs, and possibly the Brewers will have something to say about that. Others could surprise, but then they would have to. The Blue Jays, Mariners, and possibly the Red Sox will have words.
But it would surprise exactly nobody if the Dodgers won.
Saturday, the Cubs convention was in full swing. We’ll have another stacked playlist. Congratulations to Jon Lester, Jody Davis, and the late Vince Lloyd, who talked to me from the radio and TV quite a bit when I was small. And good luck to Da Bears, who play tonight at Soldier Field.
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I spoke to a #Rockies official this morning who emphatically says that that a report that the club blocked Kris Bryant from attending a #Cubs 2016 World Series reunion "isn't true."
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One hallmark of the AJ Hinch-era Detroit Tigers, especially with Scott Harris in charge, has been flexibility. On a roster without many stars, Hinch’s job has been to maximize the value of each player. This takes different forms for each facet of the game. On the position player side, it usually means defensive versatility – eight Tigers played at least two positions at some point last season – pinch hitting for any potential edge, and a general trend favoring the platoon advantage.
Today, I’m going to take a look at how Hinch attempted to control the game with his offensive strategies. To do so, I’ll be comparing how often he puts his players in the best position to succeed and how well they do once they get into these advantageous situations. Spoiler alert: he’s very good at it.
Let’s start with pinch-hitting. This is the part of a game the manager can most obviously exert his control. The eye test says Hinch loves to pinch hit, often to our collective outrage. Let Kerry Carpenter hit! What do you mean Trey Sweeney is hitting for Javy Baez against a right-handed reliever? Taking a step back, though, shows Hinch frequently used his weapons at the best time and situations. Here’s a table showing both how often teams used pinch-hitters, and also how well they did, sorted by wRC+.
Team Name
PH PAs
PH wRC+
WSN
85
131
MIN
104
129
BAL
92
119
SFG
97
117
ATH
117
109
TOR
156
107
DET
209
106
MIA
162
102
COL
117
102
LAA
101
101
NYY
107
98
STL
77
91
ATL
107
88
LAD
121
84
CHC
111
83
LEAGUE AVERAGE
124
81
NYM
108
80
PIT
105
78
TEX
168
77
SEA
166
74
ARI
128
73
PHI
95
71
KCR
131
68
SDP
148
60
CIN
110
60
MIL
136
56
HOU
123
54
CLE
168
53
BOS
116
49
TBR
101
41
CHW
150
16
Here’s what stands out from that table. Firstly, the Tigers lapped the field in pinch hitting plate appearances. I sorted by success because that’s important too, but Detroit was first in plate appearances for pinch hitters. Their 41-PA lead on Cleveland and Texas is roughly the same as the gap between Cleveland/Texas and Arizona in 12th. Put differently, the Tigers pinch-hit about 80% more than a league average team.
Fortunately, those weren’t wasted plate appearances. Detroit’s collective wRC+ of 106 ranked 7th overall, but that’s not the whole story. Only one of the six teams ahead of them, Toronto, used an above-average amount of pinch hitters. Essentially, the Tigers pinch hit more than any team and got better results than all but one team who came close to matching their frequency. Teams like Washington might have done a bit better, but by using less than half the plate appearances as Detroit, it impacted far fewer games.
Interestingly, there’s pretty limited connection between overall team quality and pinch-hitting frequency. The Phillies and Yankees are the only top 10 offenses with a far below average number of pinch hitters, while Seattle and Toronto are in the top 10 for both team wRC+ and pinch hitting PAs. There isn’t a painstakingly obvious trend that says good teams should or shouldn’t pinch hit; it’s a personnel decision that Detroit has decided to go against the grain to lean into.
Conventional wisdom says pinch-hitting is generally a poor idea. The “pinch-hit penalty” is pretty widely accepted. Last year, the league-average pinch hitter posted an 81 wRC+ last year, about the same as Matt Vierling or Andy Ibanez. Managers know this, and yet Hinch intentionally embraced pinch-hitting in 2025.
Clearly, Detroit thinks they’ve found an advantage here. With both intentional roster building decisions and Hinch’s generally hands-on managing tendencies, Detroit has created an outlier. It seems likely that Hinch is driving this shift for Detroit, since he’s ultimately responsible for deciding who plays when and where and for preparing his players to impact the game. By making this a fundamental part of his team strategy, players know their role and players on the bench anticipate getting into the game rather than just sitting on the bench until their name is called. It’s a small area to have a large advantage in, but consistently timely results from pinch hitting can skew more games than a typical 200-PA sample would suggest.
Another element of offensive optimization is the platoon advantage. There’s a lot of overlap here with pinch hitting, because most pinch hitters will enter to obtain the platoon advantage, but consistently getting the platoon edge goes far beyond pinch hitting. Here again we see Hinch’s Tigers prioritizing this strategy. Let’s check a similar table as before, but with the platoon advantage replacing pinch hitting.
Team Name
Total Platoon PAs
Platoon wRC+
CHC
3316
122
ATH
2773
120
NYY
3644
119
LAD
3376
118
NYM
3605
117
MIL
3309
116
SEA
3926
116
ARI
4115
115
DET
3630
114
PHI
3227
112
BOS
3365
112
TOR
3256
109
LEAGUE AVERAGE
3327
108
STL
2877
106
ATL
3527
104
SDP
3039
103
WSN
3857
102
BAL
3533
101
MIA
3503
100
TBR
3680
100
SFG
3113
98
MIN
3325
97
CIN
3128
97
CLE
4667
96
CHW
3456
96
HOU
2145
95
TEX
3350
94
LAA
2295
93
PIT
3112
91
KCR
3023
91
COL
2636
81
As with pinch hitting, the Tigers are one of few teams to be in the top-10 for both platoon-advantage PAs and performance. Using the platoon advantage, though, seems like a better understood strategy than pinch hitting, though. Team performance is clustered pretty tightly around average, unlike for pinch hitting. There also seems to be a much stronger relationship between team success and how well they do with the platoon advantage, which makes sense. An ambitious manager can get the platoon advantage in something like 4000 plate appearances, rather than 200 for pinch hitters. This means Hinch stands out less, but still compare favorably to the rest of the league when it comes to leveraging the platoon advantage for his hitters.
Neither of these stats is the end-all, be-all, of course. Both have some flaws or overall codependency with other, more important, variables. It’s difficult to distinguish which managers get the most plate appearances to batters with the platoon advantage from managers who have lots of switch hitters, for starters, and the best offenses get more plate appearances in basically any situation by way of making outs less frequently. Still, it’s better to be good at these than not, and the way Hinch has separated the Tigers from the rest of the pack is particularly notable. It’s particularly crucial for a team with a deep roster of average or better hitters, but little in the way of true star power on the offensive side.
When considering his success with both pinch-hitting and platoons and with the frequently-covered, highly-aggressive baserunning the Tigers have exhibited lately, it’s clear Hinch is doing his best to maximize every player on his roster. For the Tigers to bounce back from a disappointing second half with a similar roster, he’ll need to continue getting more out of his players than anyone expects. Look for continued aggression with the flexible parts of his roster, and hope for continued success, as Detroit tries to win its first division title of the decade.
On Thursday, news broke that Kyle Tucker, the top free agent in this year’s market, signed a four-year, $240 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Tucker’s massive contract — the second-largest by average annual value in MLB history — gets added to a cadre of other gigantic free-agent deals the team is currently paying for:
Shohei Ohtani: 10 years, $700m (through 2034)
Blake Snell: five years, $182m (2031)
Mookie Betts: 12 years, $365m (2032)
Tyler Glasnow: five years, $136.5m (2029)
Yoshinobu Yamaoto: 12 years, $325m (2035)
Freddie Freeman: six years, $162m (2027)
Edwin Díaz: three years, $69m (2028)
Teoscar Hernández: three years, $66m (2028)
Tanner Scott: four years, $72m (2028)
Tommy Edman: five years, $74m (2030)
Will Smith: 10 years, $140m (2033)
In 2026, the Dodgers will also pay Max Muncy $10 million and the nearly unusable Blake Treinen $13.5 million. Spotrac has the Dodgers’ 2026 payroll at $413,597,413, which will add a luxury tax penalty of just over $160 million, which means that the Dodgers will be paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $575 million for their roster in 2026, at least as far as the bookkeeping goes (Ohtani, for example, will get paid $2 million in 2026 to play for the Dodgers and $68 million sometime after he is retired; for luxury tax purposes, his contract counts as about $46 million in 2026). The total amount of money they have committed is over $2 billion.
Frankly, this is absurd.
The second-most expensive roster in baseball is the New York Mets, who come in with a pre-tax payroll of about $360 million. The Phillies and Blue Jays are at $325 million and $312 million, respectively, and five other teams (the Yankees, Red Sox, Padres, Braves, and Cubs) fall between $250 and $300 milliion. As of this moment, half the league has a payroll under $200 million, or less than 47% of the Dodgers’ pre-tax payroll. When you factor in the luxury tax, only the Mets are within even 80% of what the Dodgers are spending. And 22 of the league’s 30 teams would be spending less than half of what the Dodgers are.
The Milwaukee Brewers, with a current estimated total payroll via Spotrac of $155.5 million, will barely spend a quarter of what the Dodgers will, and will spend less on their entire team than the Dodgers will pay in luxury tax. These two teams met in the National League Championship Series last season.
I’m not really here to talk about how unfair it is that the Brewers could realistically only afford to pay one or two contracts like the 12 that the Dodgers currently have on their roster — and simply could not afford several of them, no matter the circumstances. I’m not really here to bemoan the fact that the Brewers aren’t stretching their budget a little further; while I might have one or two complaints, what, realistically, should they do? The Tuckers, Alex Bregmans, and Bo Bichettes of the world simply are not going to play in Milwaukee. There are enough teams in “more desirable” cities that would merely need to match the Brewers’ offer — which they could, easily, without stressing their overall payroll in the same way that Milwaukee would have to — that those players would simply go somewhere else, no matter how good the Brewers are. Needless to say, Milwaukee is not going to be a destination for a player like Ohtani, no matter how good they are and how much money they could offer.
I don’t blame the players for this. I don’t really even blame the Dodgers for this: they have the money for Tucker even though they don’t really need him. Why not spend it?
No, I’m writing this because, while there are arguments to be made that certain small-market clubs should be spending more money and some mega-wealthy owners should invest more of their own cash into their teams, the simple fact is that baseball has reached an untenable place.
For what it’s worth, I do not believe the Brewers are cheap. They’ve done an excellent job investing in infrastructure and player development, and while they’re in the league’s smallest market, they have a bigger payroll than 11 other teams at the moment. The numbers are a little tricky to track down, but by net worth, Mark Attanasio — while mega wealthy — ranks near the bottom of the league (27th among 30 by most estimates). Frankly, he’s done an excellent job getting results on the field, given the market he’s working in and the resources available to him.
The problem here is that the wealthiest owners in the sport keep getting wealthier. The Dodgers and Blue Jays, for example, are effectively governed not by “owners” but by conglomerates that are worth tens of billions of dollars. How is a team like the Brewers supposed to compete with that?
This will all come to a head after next season, when baseball’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) expires. It is almost a guarantee that there will be a lockout; whether that extends into the beginning of the 2027 season will be the biggest storyline of next offseason.
But the first battle that will happen in 2027 is not going to be between the owners and the players, but between the owners like Attanasio and the ownership groups like Guggenheim Baseball Management and Rogers Communications. Essentially, what’s going to happen is that most of the teams in the league are going to argue that baseball needs far more revenue sharing and limits on how much money the wealthiest teams can spend. The wealthiest — and most powerful — owners are going to fight tooth and nail to avoid this outcome. (Interestingly, the teams arguing for more revenue sharing, or at least on salary limitations, will likely include the New York Yankees, the traditional “evil empire.”)
We keep hearing about a salary cap and how ownership is going to push for that as a solution to limiting salaries. If they’re smart, the owners will come up with a slyer way of presenting this option; the term ‘salary cap’ is politically charged in baseball labor history and is thus something that the players will probably absolutely refuse under all circumstances.
Ownership should look to the NBA for inspiration, in more than one way. In 2023, the league snuck what was essentially a hard salary cap by the players in the latest CBA, but instead of calling it a “hard cap,” they called it “tax aprons.” The penalties levied on teams for exceeding these aprons, which include severe restrictions on roster flexibility in addition to financial penalties, function essentially as a hard cap. But they didn’t call it that, so players were more open to it, and it seems like the effectiveness of these tax aprons was perhaps underestimated (probably by both sides).
Personally, I’d like to see baseball go to a flexible cap system more like the NBA used prior to the last labor negotiation — I think this type of system can benefit both the best players, who can still make massive amounts of money, and younger players, who reach a version of free agency more quickly (they become restricted free agents after four years) than their counterparts in baseball (unrestricted after six years). The “max contract” system also naturally limits how many huge contracts a single team can have at a time, and the accompanying salary floor required in this system means that every team in the NBA can — and often does — have max contracts. The Cleveland Cavaliers currently have three players on max contracts, more than the Los Angeles Lakers do.
Beyond that, the league can push for more revenue sharing, but I think the roster restrictions will be the key to creating real change. What if, for example, teams who exceed a certain luxury-tax threshold aren’t allowed to trade more than one prospect at a time, making it harder for them to get in on bidding for players available in trades without giving up their most precious assets?
What’s the downside of sticking with the current system? People can complain all they want about how poorer owners should spend more or sell, but the gap is widening. Many fans already believe that the league is unfair. The Dodgers have won three of the last six World Series and keep adding the best players in the league. The worst case is that fan sentiment turns to the point that fans of smaller teams just lose interest. If fans of the Cleveland Guardians or Miami Marlins figure they have absolutely no shot, what’s to keep them interested?
I’ve felt this way at times this offseason. The Brewers, for example, could really have used Bichette, who is, what, like the 85th best player in the league? But at no point did I think it was remotely plausible that the Brewers would sign him, nor did I think it would’ve been the right move, given how it might’ve caused tough financial decisions down the line. He ended up with a contract worth $42 million a year, 75% more than the Brewers have ever paid a player in a single season.
The other thing that I feel has already started to happen is that MLB will evolve into what we already see in European soccer. Take, for example, the Premier League: there are extremely unpopular and convoluted rules in place about who can spend what — in the most basic sense, it’s ostensibly to prevent teams from spending more than they can afford, but it’s an inequitable system that heavily favors the teams who were already rich when the rules went into place. As a result, the same teams consistently dominate the top European leagues. In some cases, like in England, it’s a group of teams — the “Big Six,” as they’re called there. It’s even worse in the other, slightly less popular leagues — Bayern Munich has won the German Bundesliga in 13 of the last 14 years, and just this week set the league record for points at the halfway mark of the season. The last time a team other than Real Madrid, Barcelona, or Atlético Madrid won the Spanish league championship was in 2004.
While the playoff system will ensure that surprises happen in baseball, this isn’t where MLB is headed — it’s where they already are. The Dodgers might not win the league every year, but they will be right there every year, and the smaller-market teams that are left adrift — the Rockies, the Pirates, the Reds, etc. — will just fall further and further behind, only occasionally making leaps into relevancy, crossing their fingers that the chips fall their way just once. It’s where we are right now as Brewers fans.
Milwaukee has done an excellent job keeping pace thus far, but they cannot pull this off forever. The playing field needs to be leveled, at least a little bit, or the league risks losing huge portions of its fanbase. People like to feel like they have a fair shot.
Baseball has never exactly been a league that thrived on competitive balance; between 1936 and 1962, for example, the Yankees won 16 of 27 World Series, including separate stretches of four and five in a row. And one could argue that there’s nothing more quintessentially American than baseball, jazz music, and a rapidly widening wealth gap in which hyper-capitalists dominate those with fewer resources.
But the league and its players need to understand that the Dodgers being this far ahead of the field is not good for the game. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a top dog — that can be good for the game in its own way — but in the last three years, the gap between the top of the league and the bottom of the league has grown from what was already a chasm into the Mariana Trench.
I certainly hope that we don’t miss any games in 2027, spring training or otherwise. I’m not optimistic. People at this level of wealth think that they should never have to settle for anything other than exactly what they want, and we live in an adversarial time. Missing games would be another huge mistake. The best thing is for everyone to admit that something needs to change and come up with reasonable, intelligent solutions that make fans of the poorer teams feel like they have a chance.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, throwing during a spring training game last year, became an anomaly in 2025 with two complete games in the postseason. With so much emphasis on velocity, can starters pitch deep into games anymore? One independent league is trying to find out. (Ashley Landis / Associated Press)
The independent minor leagues are baseball’s laboratories.
Baseball’s obsession with velocity has dampened the soul of the sport. The marquee pitching matchup is an endangered species. The oohs and aahs over a 100-mph pitch have been replaced by yawns.
The potential solution, or at least a piece of one, is evident in this job description:
The United Shore Professional Baseball League (USPBL), an independent league based in Michigan, is recruiting for the position of “primary starting pitcher.”
The game isn’t building traditional starters anymore. At the @uspbl, were changing that.
We are actively recruiting Primary Starting Pitchers who want to take the ball every week, pitch deep into games, and become the durable, innings-capable arms MLB organizations need.
The language is intentional. In today’s major leagues, a starting pitcher generally is selected, trained and deployed to throw as hard as he can for as long as he can. Five innings is perfectly acceptable, with a parade of harder-throwing reinforcements in the bullpen.
What the USPBL plans for a primary starting pitcher: “Build the ability to pitch deep into games.”
That used to be self-evident for a starting pitcher, but no longer. Yoshinobu Yamamoto turned into Sandy Koufax last October, with back-to-back complete games during the Dodgers’ championship run.
However, in the regular season, the Dodgers did not throw a complete game, and neither did 12 other teams. The Dodgers’ starters averaged 4.85 innings per game; no team averaged even six innings.
In 2025, three major league pitchers threw 200 innings. In 2010, 45 did.
Buehrle, a five-time All-Star, and Lee, a four-time All-Star, each featured precision rather than power.
Lee, twice a Game 1 World Series starter, did not average 92 mph on his fastball but pitched 200 innings eight times. Buerhle, whose average fastball did not top 90 mph, pitched 200 innings for 14 consecutive years.
Neither might be drafted today. Major league teams crave velocity, and young pitchers train to boost it. The number of players throwing at least 95 mph at the Perfect Game national showcase increased sevenfold from 2014 to 2024, according to a report from Major League Baseball.
The average MLB fastball rose from 91 mph in 2008 to 94 mph in 2024, the report said.
Velocity also is associated with an increased risk of injury. Teams have implemented well-intentioned measures — pitch counts, innings limits, more rest between appearances — that have not mitigated the risks and might well have led to more injuries.
Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Shota Imanaga prepares to pitch in the bullpen (Ashley Landis / Associated Press)
Kyle Boddy, the founder of Driveline, the seminal program for velocity training, said a hard-throwing pitcher is not going to manage his velocity on an inflexible pitch count.
“If he goes 60 or 70 pitches, he’s going to sit 100,” Boddy told Baseball America. “He’s not stupid. And if we tell him, ‘There’s no limits on you,’ but we keep taking him out after 70 pitches every time, he’s going to realize what’s going on.
“If he can’t control the volume, the one lever he can control is the intensity. I personally think that’s worse for his arm, going max effort for shorter stints.”
That ultimately works against developing starting pitchers capable of delivering six innings, the MLB report said.
“Modern workload management strategies — ostensibly intended to prevent overuse, protect pitcher health, and maximize pitcher effectiveness — may actually increase injury risk by allowing and even incentivizing pitchers to throw with maximum effort on every pitch,” the report said, “rather than requiring pitchers to conserve energy and pace themselves in an effort to pitch through longer outings.”
Not only does throwing harder increase the risk of injury, the MLB report said, but the resulting parade of strikeouts runs “counter to contact-oriented approaches that create more balls in play and result in the type of on-field action that fans want to see.”
In the independent Atlantic League, the league has run several years of testing on a “double hook” rule: when a team removes its starting pitcher, it loses its designated hitter. That would incentivize a major league team to use its starter for six or seven innings instead of four or five, but it would not solve the underlying problem: What if the starting pitcher cannot work six or seven innings?
That is where Orenduff and the USPBL come in.
Every general manager says he would love a rotation of five 200-inning starters, if only he could find them. They cannot offer on-the-job training in the majors, lest their team find itself at a competitive disadvantage.
In an independent league, Orenduff need not worry about that. Tough matchup with the bases loaded in the fourth inning? Third time through the order in the sixth inning? Pitch through it.
“It’s not going to be that quick pull,” he said.
This is not about leaving a starting pitcher out there to get crushed just to pitch through it. This is about shaking off the shackles of those one-size-fits-all limitations.
“You basically want to start by showing fans and the industry, for example, that 100 pitches is just a number,” he said. “It’s completely arbitrary.
“Some guys may be able to go 110, 120. We want to be able to show that the game can still produce players that are successful on the mound, most importantly, but are capable of going beyond the fifth inning and beyond 100 pitches if the expectation and the leadership and the structure are there to support it.”
The USPBL will have pretty much the same technology as major league teams do, to measure spin rates and recovery rates and every other rate. If you can maintain command and velocity, if you can get outs without max effort on every pitch, and if you can bounce back between innings and between starts, you may be able to be that primary starting pitcher.
Frankly, Orenduff says, all the velocity in the world cannot help your team if you cannot pitch.
“That has to be a metric too: sustainability and availability,” he said.
He conducted a study evaluating each team’s top three pitching draft picks since 2013. With the caveats that some pitchers were traded and some prospects still are developing, Orenduff found that three in four of those top drafted pitchers never have pitched for the major league team that drafted them, at a combined cost to the 30 MLB teams of $800 million in signing bonuses.
“We just have to have some sort of proof we can help more players have longer careers by being a little more flexible in how we frame things for them,” Orenduff said.
Here’s hoping the USPBL can discover some training methods that major league teams can use. Better that than listening to a major league manager with a 13-man pitching staff say after a game that he ran out of pitchers, as we too often hear. Can you imagine what Tommy Lasorda would have to say about that?
There are now 67 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day. 6 7 is a big meme with the kids, have you heard? If you have, that’s probably because the kids have moved on to something else now that the old people found out about it.
Things have popped off a lot over the last week or so of baseball free agency. The Orioles, as we are aware, have not had anything to do with any of that. A bit of it has shut down their options: Now they’re pretty much down to Framber Valdez or nothing else when it comes to the starting rotation.
That’s not literally true as several other starters remain unsigned, including Zac Gallen and Lucas Giolito. Or even the venerable Justin Verlander, linked vaguely to the Orioles in a recent report that I can’t bring myself to take seriously. The thing is that Valdez is the only guy with some kind of high-end potential and also a track record of durability.
I have thought all offseason that if the Orioles want to get serious about improving their rotation, they’re going to have to give out a big contract. What they’ve done instead is trade for Shane Baz and sign Zach Eflin. It might work. It has a better chance of working if they nail an addition for a playoff-caliber starting pitcher. This could still happen. There just aren’t as many options now as there were a few weeks ago.
Orioles stuff you might have missed
2026 ZiPS projections: Baltimore Orioles (FanGraphs) If you missed it on Friday, one of the big projection systems is out with its take on the Orioles. Some things are positive. Others less so.
Today in 2009, the Orioles acquired Félix Pie from the Cubs. He was popular around here even if he was never good, and that time he hit for the cycle was pretty fun.
There are a number of former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2022-23 catcher Anthony Bemboom, 2006-08 infielder Brandon Fahey, 1993 pitcher Kevin McGehee, 1988-2001 outfielder Brady Anderson, 1976-88 pitcher Scott McGregor, 1962/67 infielder Mickey McGuire, and 1956-57 pitcher Mike Fornieles.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: philosopher Montesquieu (1689), antebellum figure Daniel Webster (1782), Winnie-the-Pooh creator A.A. Milne (1882), and actor Cary Grant (1904).
On this day in history…
In 1486, the warring York and Lancaster factions in England were united when the reigning King Henry VII married Elizabeth of York. Their united house became known as Tudor.
In 1778, British explorer James Cook’s expedition reached the Hawaiian islands, which he dubbed the Sandwich Islands at the time. Cook was the first European explorer known to have visited the islands.
In 1919, the peace conference meant to end the conflict we now know as World War I began in Versailles, France.
In 1993, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was observed in all 50 states for the first time.
A random Orioles trivia question
I received a book of Orioles trivia for Christmas. Each time I have this space, I’ll ask a question until I either run out of questions or forget. The book is multiple choice, but that would make it too easy for us. Today’s question:
Who was the starting pitcher in the one game of the 1983 World Series that the Orioles lost?
Imagine the Orioles winning a World Series! Nope, I can’t do it.
**
And that’s the way it is in Birdland on January 18. Have a safe Sunday.
New York Post | Greg Joyce: Considering the Yankees never really got past even the “checked in on” stage with Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette, as far as free agents, it seems their priority has always been Cody Bellinger. However with the first two now off the board, the Yankees’ margin for error in regards to his pursuit is now small, with other teams, the Blue Jays and Mets possibly among them, now potentially more likely to focus on him as well. The Yankees have held firm on their five-year offer to Bellinger throughout the negotiation process, and it’ll be interesting to see if they stick to their guns should one of the other suitors cross that line.
USA Today | Gabe Lacques: Besides Bellinger, there still is a number of notable name free agents still out there on the market. Those range from the theoretical “aces” in the likes of Framber Valdez and Zac Gallen, some older guys looking to squeeze out one more season like Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, and some relievers and role players. Here’s a look at what the market currently looks like.
NJ.com | Randy Miller: Ever since being the Yankees’ first round draft selection in 2024, George Lombard Jr. has been among the team’s highest ranked prospects. While he still has plenty of improving to do in order to get on the major league radar, he has all the raw tools, as he talked about in this interview. Lombard ended his season on a hot streak after struggling with the jump to Double-A last year, putting up promising numbers for a player just getting into his age-20 season, and now he’ll have the opportunity to show how well his adjustments have stuck in the upper half of the minors.
The Pittsburgh Pirates landed two of the top international prospects in all of baseball this week.
On Thursday, the Pirates announced that they signed 25 players to begin the 2026 International Signing Period.
Included in the class were two athletes from the Dominican Republic who ranked in MLB Pipeline’s Top 50 Prospects list.
Pittsburgh acquired No. 7 prospect Jeancer Custodio and No. 7 Wilton Guerrero Jr. on the first day of international deals.
Today marks the beginning of the 2026 International Signing Period and we have announced signing of 25 international players. pic.twitter.com/Ad5oQnXbtV
A 17-year-old outfielder, Custodio is a 5-foot-10 right-handed hitter who prospects with a 65 overall hit tool.
He is from Baní, the same city as Jose Ramirez and former MLB stars Miguel Tejada and Jose Bautista. Custodio has a 55-grade power tool and hit .333 with a .429 on-base percentage on the 18U World Cup qualifying team.
Guerrero Jr. has a familiar last name for baseball fans around the world. Wilton Guerrero Jr. is the nephew of Vladimir Guerrero Sr. and cousin of Blue Jays star Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
His dad, Wilton Guerrero Sr., played eight years in Major League Baseball and retired to become a member of MLB’s Trainer Partnership Program in Nizao, Dominican Republic, per MLB Pipeline.
Only 16 years old, Wilton Guerrero Jr. is a 5-foot-10 shortstop with a 50-grade hit tool and a 70-rated speed.
The deals signal two impactful additions for Vice President of International Scouting Max Kwan, who was hired prior to the 2025 season.
The Pirates signed 12 additional players from the Dominican Republic, seven from Venezuela, and one from Brazil, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Panama. Pittsburgh can still sign international players to deals, but the start of the International Signing Period is a key indicator of the top players who will sign with the 30 different organizations.
The music has not yet stopped, but it is certainly getting close to the final chorus in the game of musical chairs that is MLB free agency.
And while the Yankees and Cody Bellinger continue their dance around the length of a contract, what would have been their two best free agent pivots if they weren’t able to find common ground with Bellinger are no longer on the board.
With Kyle Tucker landing a four-year, $240 million contract with the Dodgers and Bo Bichette heading to Queens on a three-year, $126 million deal, the Yankees options for an impact bat beyond Bellinger are dwindling — and they are not overflowing on the trade market, either — turning up the pressure to finally secure a reunion with their top priority all offseason.
The Yankees are believed to have an offer out to Bellinger for five years and $155 million, though the 30-year-old’s camp is still seeking seven years. Now that Tucker and Bichette have agreed to deals elsewhere, the market for Bellinger should become more defined, with the lefty-hitting outfielder becoming the clear-cut top hitter available in free agency — and by a decent margin, with third baseman Eugenio Suárez the next best hitter remaining.
There had been a sense that Bellinger may wait for Tucker to sign so that the teams that missed out on the former Astro and Cub could boost the market for the former Yankee, Cub and Dodger. Besides the Dodgers, the Mets and Blue Jays were the teams going hardest for Tucker, and while the Mets rebounded by signing Bichette — who the Phillies had been trying to reel in — to another short-term deal, they still have a need in the outfield.
Cody Bellinger #35 of the New York Yankees reacts after hitting a single during the first inning. Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post
So the Yankees’ competition for Bellinger now figures to include the Mets, Blue Jays and Giants, perhaps with the Phillies also in play, though they responded to losing out on Bichette by re-signing catcher J.T. Realmuto to a three-year, $45 million deal.
The Blue Jays had offered Tucker a 10-year, $350 million deal, The Post’s Jon Heyman reported. Tucker is a year and a half younger and a more consistent hitter, but might they be willing to offer some of that money and years for Bellinger? Besides, it would be two for the price of one by keeping him away from their AL East rivals, who have said all along how much they want to bring him back.
The Mets had offered Tucker four years and $220 million, per Heyman. They have been loathe to offer long-term deals with older players, but would a short-term deal with a higher average annual value than the Yankees are offering be something Bellinger would consider? The Mets could certainly use him, with their current projected outfield made up of Juan Soto in right, Tyrone Taylor in center, and rookie Carson Benge in left. And Scott Boras, Bellinger’s agent, is only just over a year removed from his client (then Soto) being in a bidding war between the two New York teams.
For now, the Yankees have been holding fast to their five-year offer for Bellinger, wary all winter of not bidding against themselves. But their margin for error is slim.
Brian Cashman has said all along that they could head into spring with a left field competition between Jasson Domínguez and Spencer Jones. And if they do end up missing on Bellinger, it would not be surprising to see them add a right-handed hitting outfielder — someone like Austin Hays — to form a potential platoon with Domínguez, a switch-hitter who is much better from the left side.
But such a scenario would still leave them with a big hole in their lineup, given the threat that Bellinger was hitting behind Aaron Judge for most of the season last year, and remove a valuable, versatile and trustworthy defender from their roster. All of which, of course, is why he has been the Yankees’ top target from the start, as long as it comes at a price and term with which they are comfortable.
There are rumors that are growing strong regarding trade talks between the Houston Astros and the Boston Red Sox.
Many of the rumors involve Astros 3B Isaac Paredes and Red Sox LF Jarren Duran.
There have been several iterations of this rumor, as far as packages going back and forth, and other players that have been mentioned in these rumors include Red Sox SP Brayan Bello as well as Astros CF Jake Meyers and SP Spencer Arrighetti.
Both the Red Sox and the Astros line up well as trade partners, and these rumors have indicated a deal could be coming in the next week.
Keep in mind, it’s the offseason and rumors fly. Rumors can also be very true until the last second when one team pivots out. However, the Red Sox and Astros have been linked as trade partners that make sense all offseason, and they are able to meet each other’s needs through their own surpluses.
The Red Sox are clearly looking for a 3B, and the Astros for a left-handed hitting outfielder.
A trade of Jake Meyers would make Zach Cole the favorite to be the everyday starting centerfielder for the Astros, with Jarren Duran in left field, and Cam Smith/Jesus Sanchez in right field. Trading Paredes would solidify Christian Walker as the Astros starting 1B and Jose Altuve as the starting 2B, clearing the infield log jam.
If acquired, Bello would slot in as the Astros fourth starter behind Hunter Brown, Cristian Javier and Tatsuya Imai. Mike Burrows is likely the fifth starter, and a competition for the sixth starter would emerge between Jason Alexander, A.J. Blubaugh, Nate Pearson, Lance McCullers Jr. and Ryan Weiss. Others could emerge in that competition as well.
Astros Fans, It’s Time to Be Realistic About Kyle Tucker
Astros fans, it’s time to step back, relax and stop all the hate for Kyle Tucker because he decided to sign with the Dodgers. You need to be realistic and get past your hurt feelings surrounding Kyle Tucker’s decision to sign with a team you despise. Appreciating Tucker as one of the standout players from Houston’s Golden Era of baseball without holding a grudge over a business decision that was driven by money and financial security, not loyalty to a team he no longer played for, is where your focus should be. If you were in his shoes, you’d do the exact same thing.
Let’s not forget how quickly circumstances changed. Tucker was traded away from a franchise he loved just one year before he reached free agency. Once that happened, all bets were off. Where he would land, how much money he would make, and how long his next contract would be were no longer Houston’s concerns. The Astros’ front office, led by Dana Brown, did what they believed was best for the organization, fully aware that Tucker was likely headed elsewhere when free agency arrived.
The Astros have long operated within specific financial parameters when it comes to long-term, big-money contracts. Fans should have come to terms with Tucker’s eventual departure the moment he was traded. It wasn’t personal. It was business, and that’s okay.
If fans are looking for a place to direct their frustration, Major League Baseball and its Commissioner, Rob Manfred, would be a more appropriate target. After the Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani to a massive, heavily deferred contract, MLB had an opportunity to step in and tighten the rules surrounding such deals. Instead, the league allowed the structure to stand, opening the door for similar arrangements in the future.
That decision signaled a growing divide between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in baseball. Big-market teams like the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox can leverage financial advantages that small-market clubs simply can’t match. The result is a league increasingly tilted toward the richest franchises.
The harsh reality is that Major League Baseball is heading toward a potentially contentious labor negotiation and inevitably a work stoppage. Smaller-market teams and the lower half of the league are not in a position to compete financially, and that imbalance is only getting worse. Manfred must step in and do what’s right for the sport as a whole, rather than continuing to protect and promote big-market interests.
There has never been a stronger case for both a salary cap and a salary floor. These measures could help prevent financial disparities from dominating roster construction and protect competitive balance across the league. Owners must recognize that another work stoppage could seriously damage the momentum and popularity baseball has built in recent years.
As for the Dodgers, if you don’t like them, that’s fine. Rivalries are part of sports. Their fan base, their World Series history, and their swagger make them easy targets. But don’t be angry simply because their front office outmaneuvered the rest of the league. If the Astros had pulled off the same kind of deal, Houston fans would be celebrating.
The Dodgers are only doing what Major League Baseball allows them to do. It’s up to the rest of the owners and the league office to prevent these financial loopholes from creating long-term competitive advantages. Deals like this require a perfect storm: a superstar player with massive endorsement income who doesn’t need his money up front, and a franchise willing to push the boundaries of contract structure.
That responsibility doesn’t fall on the players or the teams taking advantage of the system. It falls on the league to make sure the system is fair for everyone.
So appreciate what Kyle Tucker gave Houston, accept the reality of modern baseball business, and aim your frustration where it truly belongs, at MLB and the rules that allow the rich to keep getting richer.
Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Padres fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.
First things first… most, if not all, San Diego Padres fans were happy the team was able to re-sign pitcher Michael King. The problem has been the Padres have not done much since that reunion became official.
San Diego added free agent infielder Sung-Mun Song not long after King, but we learned Saturday he will miss at least four weeks with a strained oblique. The other major league additions for the Padres have been re-signing left-hander Kyle Hart and new additions relievers Ty Adcock and Daison Acosta. All other signings by San Diego this offseason have been minor league deals with some of those invited to Spring Training. Hardly the kind of moves that whip a fanbase into a frenzy.
Recent reports have stated San Diego president of baseball operations and general manager A.J. Preller wants to make moves but is waiting to do so. Speculation is that he is waiting for prices to come down on some free agent targets and/or he is waiting on a trade to come through that will allow the Padres to clear some payroll to create financial flexibility.
As with anything, there is a process to building the roster, but to this point in the offseason the Friar Faithful have been less than thrilled with the moves the team has made. Most fans who took part in the latest Padres Reacts Survey said the offseason has been worse than they expected. Some of that may be due to the sudden resignation of manager Mike Shildt or the news the Seidler family was exploring a potential sale of the club, but the lack of moves and additions to the roster has to be the biggest factor in the way fans feel about the team.
Over the past week, Padres fans have watched as the Arizona Diamondbacks traded for Nolan Arenado and saw the Los Angeles Dodgers sign free agent Kyle Tucker. The San Francisco Giants, and Dodgers, are rumored to be in trade talks for Milwaukee Brewers ace pitcher Freddy Peralta and the Giants have also been linked to free agent pitcher Framber Valdez. All the movement in the National League West only highlights the lack of movement from San Diego.
Perhaps that changes over the coming weeks, but the start to Spring Training in early February is fast approaching and the Friar Faithful could use a couple of moves to salvage an offseason that has had more bad news than good.
If your jaw hit the floor when you learned that the Los Angeles Dodgers had signed free agent Kyle Tucker to a borderline offensive contract this week, you were not alone. Now that we know that the Dodgers payroll will top $400 million dollars for the upcoming season, it’s more important than ever that Chaim Bloom and his team get this rebuild of the St. Louis Cardinals done right for us to contend again soon.
Just for reference, here is the payroll for the Los Angeles Dodgers dating back a decade:
The projected payroll for the Dodgers for the 2026 season is a remarkable $413.6 million dollars. Now, let’s all exhale and try to find our happy place because this outrageous Dodgers spending shouldn’t be intimidating. It should be inspiring because I believe we have the management team now that is capable of taking down giants (and I’m not talking about the San Francisco kind). I can’t remember which one of my favorite Cardinals writers said this, but I think it’s Bernie Miklasz. It’s not the amount of your payroll, but it’s what you do with it that matters. Yes, the Los Angeles Dodgers have used their money to grab nearly every all-star within reach, but the choices they made have been smart and roster management by Dave Roberts has been masterful.
My point to this is the St. Louis Cardinals used to be great at developing great young players and then adding the appropriate pieces during the offseason and at the trade deadline to fill needs and improve strengths. Our beloved team lost that vision over the past half decade. It doesn’t matter if you want to blame ownership or the previous president of baseball operations, the bottom line is our farm system did not progress the way it needed to for us to be real contenders against big market teams like Los Angeles. After seeing the moves made by Chaim Bloom this offseason, I’m a believer again. He has accomplished nearly everything he said he wanted to do and that should be applauded.
There is history to prove that if the St. Louis Cardinals get this rebuild done right, a big payroll will not stop us from ascending back into a place where we’re consistently contending for pennants again. Remember the lowly 2003 Florida Marlins who won the championship with the league’s smallest payroll? The 2007 Tampa Bay Rays (then Devil Rays) ended up in the World Series with a team that may have included some buy one, get one free coupons. The Kansas City Royals 2015 World Series title was accomplished with a payroll of just over $112 million. Even the recent 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks made a deep playoff run with only a $116 to $119 million dollars roster. Having a world championship caliber team with a non-stratospheric payroll has been done in the past and it will be done in the future. Let’s hope that there are birds on the bat uniforms that make that happen. We’re coming for you, Dodgers. It’s only a matter of time before you have to explain to your Hollywood fans how a small market team took you down. Ask Clayton Kershaw how that feels. He remembers it well.
