Category: Baseball

Hello, friends.

There are now 153 days remaining until the next scheduled Orioles game. You know the drill by now.

On the other hand, the World Series starts tomorrow. It will be over by, at the latest, Halloween. Between the Rays and the Brewers, there will be a first-time winner crowned. I think that’s fun. If all else is equal, I like to root for long droughts being broken. I think it’s good to put that kind of energy out there. Some day, maybe, it will be the Orioles turn to try to break a long drought, and it would be nice to be a sympathetic favorite at that time.

I know not every Orioles fan agrees, with some people preferring that teams ahead of the Orioles on the list not get scratched off to push the O’s closer to the top of the list of failure. It is not fun to be on those lists. Only five teams have gone longer than the Orioles without winning a title. If the Brewers win this World Series, that will be four.

The Padres and Mariners have also never won it, the Guardians last title was in 1948, and the Pirates haven’t won since (sigh) 1979. I wasn’t alive for that one, but I’ve heard enough about it, and I don’t think my “root for the longest drought to end” philosophy would ever apply to Pittsburgh. Wasn’t a whole lot of danger of having to think about that this year. Any of the other teams ahead of the O’s would probably be about as sympathetic as the Brewers, especially if they were facing another AL East team in the postseason.

The Orioles have not won the World Series as long as I have been alive, and I’m turning 43 next month. It’s a long time. Unless fortunes rapidly turn around, the O’s title drought is going to hit “get a colonoscopy” age pretty soon. It is not great that after two years in the postseason and zero postseason wins, that things stink again with no certainty of whether the people in charge can figure out how to stop that from happening. But there is quite a while yet before we will start to have any idea of whether their offseason turnaround plan is going to get results.

Orioles stuff you might have missed

All the ways new Orioles GM Jared Banner can make an early impact (The Baltimore Banner)
How GM Jared Banner’s ‘relentless’ approach can shake up the Orioles (The Baltimore Sun)
The local papers are digging in on the new guy. At The Banner – yeah, it’s funny – Jon Meoli suggests that one thing Banner could help the Orioles do is be the first in speculative technology rather than just playing catch-up copying everyone else. Yeah, that would be a nice way to get an edge.

A look at a few Orioles that might not be back next year (Steve on Baseball)
Trevor Rogers is the only name on the list that is going to make large numbers of Birdland fans sad in the strong likelihood that he does not return.

Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries

Nothing of particular interest has ever happened on this day in Orioles history. This is not likely to change until the team makes it back to a World Series, or at least deep in an ALCS series.

There are several former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2024 pitcher Corbin Burnes, 2012-18 pitcher Darren O’Day, 2005 catcher Eli Whiteside, 2003 pitcher Héctor Carrasco, 2004 catcher Keith Osik, and 1989 catcher Jamie Quirk.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: composer Franz Liszt (1811), baseball Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx (1907), author Doris Lessing (1919), actor Christopher Lloyd (1938), gold medal figure skater Brian Boitano (1963), and baseball Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki (1973).

On this day in history…

In 2137 BC, a solar eclipse was recorded by Chinese astronomers. There were also reports that two astronomers who failed to predict the eclipse were executed. It wasn’t until 585 BC that an eclipse is known to have occurred as predicted.

In 1721 AD, following the Russian defeat of Sweden in the decades-long Great Northern War, Russia’s ruler Peter I proclaimed a Russian Empire, with himself as the tsar.

In 1883, New York’s Metropolitan Opera House opened. The first performance was an opera called Faust, by Charles Gounod, which had debuted in Paris in 1859.

In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy announced a naval blockade of the island of Cuba.

**

And that’s the way it is in Birdland on October 22. Have a safe Thursday.

The World Series is just a day away, though with the Yankees having been out of the running for a while now it feels like a distant finish line unreached. Instead, hope resides in rooting for the spoiler — or in this case, the team playing against their rivals in the Milwaukee Brewers. They’ll take on the Rays tomorrow night in what might be the final bit of MLB play we’ll get for a while with the threat of a lockout looming large on the horizon, so enjoy it while it’s around. I’m sure we’ll all be missing it come March if games aren’t anywhere close to returning.

We’ve got a fairly busy day laid out for you, starting with Matt handing out our latest report card to Paul Goldschmidt in what might have been his final season in pinstripes. Jonathan follows up with a look back at Robbie Cano and his complex legacy on his 44th birthday, Peter previews the offenses we’re going to see tomorrow in the Fall Classic, and Jeremy hits cleanup with his thoughts on Brian Cashman getting to lead the way again on another winter revision with more of the same results trailing him.

Today’s Playoff Matchup:

Off-day

Questions/Prompts:

1. What are your thoughts on Brian Cashman’s expected extension that got announced yesterday?

2. Before the matchup gets underway tomorrow, get your picks in: will the Brewers or Rays win it all?

So much can change over 44 years. And in the case of the Milwaukee Brewers, an equal and perhaps excessive amount can stay almost exactly as it was.

The biggest city in Wisconsin will host a World Series for the first time in 1982, when the Brew Crew tips off Game 1 of the World Series against the Tampa Bay Rays Friday, Oct. 23 at American Family Field.

The ballpark is just across the lot but a generation removed from County Stadium, the city's multi-purpose ballyard that hosted the occasional Packers game and once witnessed the soon-to-be-crowned American League MVP pilot his motorcycle into the stadium to the delight of fans still mourning a loss in the 1982 World Series.

Since Robin Yount's ride in the wake of a crushing seven-game defeat to the St. Louis Cardinals, the Brewers have switched leagues, left behind the ownership of the Selig family and established themselves as the most consistent postseason presence this side of Chavez Ravine.

And they've also brought an awful lot of lore with them to the new place.

From songs to slides, sausages to statues, Brewers culture is about to get a close-up thanks to its Fall Classic appearance. Here's a guide for what lore to look for:

In just his first season of professional baseball, Murf Gray put together a campaign that made him the undoubtable choice to be named the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Willie Stargell Slugger of the Year award winner.

2026 was an incredible coming out party for Gray who led all Pirates’ minor leaguers in home runs with 32. Overall Gray put together a complete season and was not limited to slugging. Through Bradenton, Greensboro and Altoona Gray slashed .305/.402/.567 and had a .969 OPS. He had 143 total hits, 97 RBIs and earned 66 walks.

Gray was selected out of Fresno State in the Competitive Balance-B round in 2025 and more than exceeded expectations in 2026. During his time with the Grasshoppers he led the South Atlantic League in total bases and also had a hold on having the most homers in the league before his promotion to Double-A.

At 6’3” and 230 pounds, Gray is a lot of hitter when he’s at the plate. He showed in his last season at Fresno State that he swings a lot and tends to chase too much. Although he still has some refining to apply to his swing, his approach at the plate in 2026 was mostly solid. He still found himself chasing, but it was certainly down from his last year in college. The nice thing to this point is that Gray chases, but does not miss often. His approach will need some more fine tuning as well to adjust to major league pitchers, but Gray has proved at the very least that he’s been able to adapt over the course of a full major league season.

Despite being just 22-years-old, Gray is looking like a top prospect in Pittsburgh’s Minor League system. In his debut year Baseball America named him the Pirates’ top prospect for 2026, and MLB.com ranks Gray as the organization’s fourth highest rated prospect. He’s much more than a slugger too because Gray definitely has the arm to play third base for the Pirates. Third base of course was a position in transition in 2026 for the Buccos, and with a projected debut date of 2027, Gray could have a real shot at competing for that spot in Spring Training. With that being said he might lack the desired speed and first step agility to play the hot corner in the major leagues, but he’s got solid tools all around and could make an impact at the next level very soon.

All eyes will be on Gray in 2027 to see how quickly the Pirates decide to call him up and him to Pittsburgh’s lineup.

New York Post | Grace McCarron: Hal Steinbrenner held court yesterday with members of the Yankee beat, albeit by Zoom which in and of itself is an interesting decision. The managing partner of the Yankees publicly backed GM Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone, proclaiming that both men did their jobs in the 2026 season and publicly announcing that Cashman’s new contract is all but signed. Hal placed the blame for a disappointing season at the feet of the players on the roster, especially a “detrimental” offense.

New York Daily News | Gary Phillips: Continuing with the Steinbrenner Address, Hal was asked directly about comments made by current and former Yankees regarding the now-17 year World Series drought. In particular, he seemed to be a little chesty about Aaron Judge’s remarks that the team hasn’t gone “all in” and should, with George’s son pointing to the richest payroll in franchise history as evidence of his commitment. If Judge was more of an extrovert he might point across boroughs to another team that spends like mad and doesn’t have the results expected as an example that money misallocated is as bad as money unspent.

SNY | Danny Abriano: Finally, Mr. Steinbrenner set the table as one of the more powerful owners in baseball, admitting that he’d like to see a salary cap implemented in this round of CBA negotiations. It’s the most important thing for the group of thirty monopolists, and it needs to be the most important thing for the union to remember too.

NBC Sports | Eric Samulski: We also got news that Aaron Judge’s rib is still a bit of a question mark. The Yankee captain will have followup tests and surgery seems unnecessary, Brian Cashman telling us that he expects Judge to be ready in time for Spring Training, whenever that is.

FanGraphs | Ben Clemens: We get a final piece that’s a little more pan-baseball, with the Fielding Bible Awards being announced today at 3 p.m. Eastern. Clemens gives us the breakdown of his ballot, with Cody Bellinger being his winner in left field, as a more-statistically-driven recognition of the best defender at each position.

The World Series begins on Friday, but for now teams around the league are taking care of housekeeping. Lingering injuries are being addressed, managerial and front office roles are being filled, and strategies are being formulated ahead of this highly uncertain offseason.

Braves News

We looked back at the 10 hardest-hit balls by the Braves in 2026.

Take a look at Sandy Leon’s 2026 stint in Atlanta, highlighted by ABS mastery.

MLB News

The Angels are not bringing Kurt Suzuki back as manager, but offered him another role.

Brian Cashman agreed to an extension as the Yankees’ top decision-maker.

The Dodgers are expecting to operate as usual financially this offseason, pending CBA-related uncertainty.

Some Yankees bosses may have been irked by Aaron Judge questioning whether they have gone all in enough, but Hal Steinbrenner insists he was not one of them.

On the night the Yankees were swept out of the ALDS by the Rays, the captain indicated the Yankees should go “all in” to win a championship and said it was “tough to say” when asked if he felt that had happened enough.

Those comments made their way to Steinbrenner — who said he had a “great conversation” with Judge on Tuesday — and claimed Wednesday he was not upset about them, with the understanding that those high expectations are a “two-way street.”

“If I was a player, I would have expectations that my ownership group would do everything in their power every offseason to field a team that can win a championship,” Steinbrenner said on a video conference call. “We did that this year. We had the highest payroll in the history of the organization [roughly $340 million for luxury tax purposes, per Cot’s Contracts]. … I definitely think we went all in this season.

“And by the way, I have expectations of my players. I expect them to obey the rules, to work hard, listen to their coaches and the trainers and the strength guys.”

Judge missed three-plus months of the season with a broken rib and then, after not going on a rehab assignment, came back to play in seven games before straining his right calf.

That injury sidelined him for the rest of the year, including both playoff rounds, despite him fighting to be included on the roster, to no avail.

General manager Brian Cashman said Wednesday that there was “no willy-nilliness” over Judge’s availability to play because “he just wasn’t physically able to post for us.”

As for the rib, Judge is set to have a follow-up appointment with Dr. Gregory Pearl, the specialist the Yankees consulted during the season, to make sure he is in a good spot entering the winter.

While the Yankees recently landed $2.6 billion in financing from private equity firm Apollo Global Management — giving them a 16 percent stake in the franchise — Steinbrenner said the deal was not a precursor to selling the team.

“The whole goal of the Apollo deal was to bring in capital into the company that would be there for us to give us more financial stability for years and years to come, including the years I’m out of here and the third generation is running the team,” Steinbrenner said.

The managing general partner said Apollo will have “zero” role in the day-to-day operations of the franchise.

“They have rights no different than our other limited partners,” Steinbrenner said.

In a long expected move, Cashman said Wednesday he has agreed to a new contract, with 2027 marking his 30th season as the club’s general manager.

“We just have to bang out some minor stuff at the back end of it, but yeah, we’re locked and loaded,” said Cashman, who was working in the final year of a four-year deal.

With a lockout looming and a potentially lengthy battle over the institution of a salary cap in the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, Steinbrenner was not interested in speaking much on labor, though he reiterated his support for a salary cap.

“Let me put it this way as a member of the Labor Policy Committee: I helped craft one of the many proposals that we have given at the bargaining table and I support those proposals in their entirety,” he said.

While Steinbrenner blamed the offense for most of the Yankees’ failures this season and said they would be looking into everything, including the coaching staff, Aaron Boone threw his support behind the work of third-year hitting coach James Rowson.

“I think James leads a great hitting group,” Boone said. “I’ve been really impressed with the culture he’s created year in and year out over the last few seasons. There’s a lot of reasons that go into why there’s underperformance in certain areas of the club and you try to address those as best you can and saddle back up and take your shot at it next year.”

As of Wednesday, Boone said that no procedures or surgeries were scheduled for any Yankees.

One player that the Yankees will be keeping an eye on, though, is Max Fried, who had two stints on the injured list with a left elbow bone bruise.

“We think he’s in a good spot,” Boone said. “We reimaged him and the ligament’s in a good place. There’ll obviously be some downtime and then ramp up. I think there’s a lot of things possible, but we feel like overall and big picture, he’s in a good spot.”

The Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays set to begin the 2026 World Series on Friday. As Rockies fans, we may not have any specific rooting interests in the series, but as fans of baseball, there is no greater spectacle than this series.

We should all take a moment to look back at what makes a World Series memorable (outside of a team we care about being in it).

What World Series, other than 2007, has stuck with you in the years since it concluded? What was so special about it?

Was there some big moment that has made it live with you all these years? Were there particular players you happened to be invested in on those teams? Was there a big underdog narrative that gripped you? Did it just happen to occur at the right time in your specific life?

If you need a refresher, Baseball Reference has an easy to parse list of every World Series dating back to the inaugural one in 1903 when the Boston American’s bested the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Whatever the reason, let us know which World Series set the standard for you!

Do feel free to gush about 2007 as well if you’d like… just also mention the non-Rockies World Series that meant the most to you as well.

Please keep in mind our Purple Row Community Guidelines when you’re commenting. Thanks!

Those searching for “red meat” from the Yankees will keep having to look elsewhere. 

That was largely the message from Aaron Boone, Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner on Wednesday when asked about the public perception — including from some of their former players and managers — that the Yankees have not held their players accountable enough if the same mistakes keep happening. 

“There’s the occasions where there’s a spot that requires you to call somebody out,” Boone said during a Zoom call. “I know I get accused sometimes of being too positive in the media and I would say if you watched my post[game] press conferences this year, there were a lot of days where I was talking about our struggles. But does that mean I’m calling individuals out in a public way? 

“There is probably a time and place for that, but generally speaking, to me that’s not leadership. That’s me giving red meat to people that want to be upset with somebody. To me, when we have issues as a club or with an individual player or something that popped up within a game, I address those things, we address those things man-to-man. Sometimes if we have to address something within the group, we do that. I just don’t think it’s leadership coming up here and giving red meat to [people who] want to hear us beat down a player. 

“The accountability factor playing here [for the Yankees], I feel like, is very high.” 

The discussion of whether the Yankees are holding players accountable enough came after they were swept by the Rays in the ALDS.

The series featured a crucial baserunning blunder by Austin Wells in Game 1 and a horrific defensive performance in Game 2, including a bad decision by Jazz Chisholm Jr. (whose focus was in question at times throughout the year) to make a throw with his back turned to first base, which he insisted postgame he would still do if given a chance to do it over. 

But Cashman referenced a “built-in accountability to the extreme” surrounding the Yankees every day, given the spotlight under which they play and the championship expectations that come with being part of the organization. 

“To then contribute to that by publicly putting even further pressure, chasing a large media corps and fanbase and social media into somebody’s locker as they’re trying to navigate and get out of a slump or play better or stop making errors or stop poor baserunning circumstances … it’s just inviting the more likely outcome of not getting what you want,” Cashman said. “It’s always questioned, ‘Is anybody trying to address this? Are these players being spoken to? Are we confronting those problems?’ I think in a more private setting and a more direct setting is the more appropriate way versus a public letting.” 

Steinbrenner’s father, George, was known for openly criticizing players during his ownership, but Hal said Wednesday he was not convinced that doing so today would be effective. 

“I’m not convinced that, with this team in this day and age, that that’s a big of a motivator as you think it is,” said Steinbrenner, who did go as far as pinning the season on the team’s offensive failures. “Twenty to 25 years ago, different generation, just a different scenario. … The public forum, my dad and I are different in that respect. I’m not convinced it would be effective anyway. It’s just not the way I’m going to operate. I’m going to talk to them face to face.”

Mitch Garver, the catcher/DH who spent a decade in the majors and who was a key part of the 2023 Texas Rangers World Series Championship team, has announced his retirement.

Garver was a 9th round draft pick of the Minnesota Twins in 2013 out of the University of New Mexico. He first broke into the big leagues in 2017 with Minnesota. After the 2021 season, the Texas Rangers acquired him in exchange for Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Ronny Henriquez.

Garver had a track record of hitting well when healthy, and of not being able to stay healthy. He played in only 54 games in 2022 for Texas before his season was cut short due to a torn flexor tendon in his right forearm. In 2023, he missed two months early in the season, but was a force upon his return, ultimately slashing .270/.370/.500 in 87 games as the team’s primary DH.

Mitch Garver had what is, to me, one of the most memorable plays of the 2023 postseason. With the Rangers in Houston for Game 6, down 3 games to 2, the Astros scored a run off of Nathan Eovaldi in the bottom of the first to make it a 1-0 game. After losing three straight to Houston in Arlington, with the last one being especially soul-crushing, things felt very, very bad at that point.

Garver led off the second inning, and on the first pitch he saw from Framber Valdez, crushed an opposite-field home run. Tie game. The Minute Maid crowd was silence.

At that moment, I felt as if a weight was lifted. Watching Mitch Garver round the bases, I knew — I knew — that the Rangers were going to the World Series. I had no doubt that they would win the two games in Houston and advance.

The Rangers, controversially at the time, did not make a serious effort to re-sign Garver after the season, and he joined the Seattle Mariners on a 2 year, $24 million deal. Things went poorly for him in Seattle, though, both for that two year stretch, and in 2026, after he re-signed with the club.

Garver ends his major league career with a .229/.325/.432 slash line in 701 games, good for a 110 OPS+, and a career 10.0 bWAR.

Best of luck to Garver in his post-playing days.

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

A Starter in Waiting

Jhony Brito dominated in the minors this season. Between three different levels of the Padres’ minor-league system, Brito had his best season since being traded to the Friars. He came over as a kicker in the deal that sent Juan Soto to the New York Yankees. Brito was somewhat of an afterthought and hasn’t done much in San Diego since. He’s thrown a total of 52 2/3 innings for the big-league club.

Overall Grade: C-

Despite his incredible success in the minor leagues (2.97 ERA, 69.2 IP), Brito didn’t do much in the majors this year. In nine innings out of the bullpen, the right-hander posted a 3.00 ERA despite a minuscule 0.89 WHIP. Brito couldn’t limit hard contact, allowing two homers in that short stint with the big-league club. He likely would have been called up to the majors sooner, but the San Diego ‘pen is too deep.

Brito could figure into the Padres’ starting rotation plans for the 2026 season if he can prove himself in Spring Training. Brito had below-average marks in both WHIP (1.21) and strikeouts (46, 69.2 IP). The righty didn’t pitch very deep into games (3.2 IP on average), however some of that could be due to the nature of pitching in the minor leagues.

The right-hander missed the majority of the 2025 season after a UCL internal brace procedure in his throwing elbow. Brito posted resurgent numbers after returning from that surgery. If he can keep that up in 2027, he could legitimately work his way onto the Padres’ pitching staff. Regardless, he pitched quite well in 2026 but will need to produce more consistent results in order to make an impact with the big-league club.

LOS ANGELES – The same night the Los Angeles Dodgers were swept out of the NLCS by the Milwaukee Brewers, owner Mark Walter asked president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and general manager Brandon Gomes about their thoughts for the offseason.

Despite the ongoing federal investigations into Guggeinheim's majority partner that has led to the sale of several of Walter's pro sports franchises such as the Los Angeles Lakers and Chelsea FC, Friedman said the directive he's gotten has been "business as usual." If there are plans for a sale, he hasn't heard anything about it. He's also gotten no indication that the Dodgers will have any less financial resources than normal.

"So much of his focus was, 'How do we put ourselves in the best position to win in '27?'" Friedman said during his exit interview at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday, Oct. 21.

Dodger Stadium was eerily quiet on Wednesday, as a light rain fell over the already yellowing grass. A crow perched on an empty seat. Scattered lights flickered in mostly dark hallways.

Before the World Series begins, the stadium was closed for the season, hosting just one last event before officially wrapping up the 2026 slate.

In the interview room, tucked away at the entrance to the clubhouse, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and general manager Brandon Gomes took their seats at the podium for their end-of-season press conference.

There was the usual end-of-season question checklist: Are you expecting any changes to the coaching staff or front office? “I expect status quo,” Friedman said. Is Shohei Ohtani going to undergo offseason surgery? “That’s not on the table,” Friedman said.

Read more:Plaschke: Enough is enough. The Dodgers must stop letting Shohei Ohtani pitch

But from that emerged a persistent through line.

The Dodgers had fallen short of their goal of a three-peat. But considering the age of the position-player core, the scrutiny owner Mark Walter is under, and MLB owners’ insistence on a salary cap in their early collective bargaining agreement proposals, was the Dodgers’ dynasty over?

“I welcome it,” Friedman said of such claims. “For us, and we’ve talked about this a lot, even after successes and we winning a World Series and then winning back to back, everything we do is for our fans. And there’s a lot of noise around us in general. We don’t really pay much attention to it. It’s a partnership we feel with our fans, and so people saying that we’re done and we’re on the downside of this run — it’s just more noise to us because everything for us is about the motivation we have to have a parade in the streets of Los Angeles next November.”

Friedman also didn’t seem to anticipate any trickle down from Walter’s outside ventures — Walter’s insurance companies are under federal investigation and face several lawsuits — affecting the Dodgers’ offseason budget.

“It’s been business as usual for us,” Friedman said. “We talked to Mark after we lost, and he was obviously really disappointed. But so much of his focus was on, ‘OK, what can we do? What are our plans? What are our thoughts for the offseason?’ And our brains weren’t quite there yet, but so much of his focus was, how do we put ourselves in the best position to win in ‘27?”

How will the Dodgers go about picking themselves up from their NLCS exit?

The Dodgers’ 2026 season wasn’t exactly a failure. They won 100 games in the regular season and lost in the playoffs to the only team that won more than that — the Brewers. But the Dodgers, with their star power and payroll, aren’t in the business of accepting moral victories.

Though plenty went wrong in the postseason, from Ohtani’s struggles following his injured list stint, to stalwart Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s surprisingly short start in Game 2 of the NLCS, the overarching theme in the Dodgers’ four straight losses to the Brewers was a lack of offensive execution, especially with runners in scoring position.

“Obviously throughout the latter part of the year, it was stuff we were talking about and trying to put our finger on,” Friedman said of the offense. “And in a lot of ways, it’s a little bit of a game of whack-a-mole, where it can be one thing for some period of time, and then it’s something else, and then it’s something else. Sometimes it’s noise, and sometimes it’s real. And what’s important for us is to be able to sift out the noise and isolate what’s real and what things we can improve upon. We’ll spend a lot of time really focusing on that in the off season.”

Read more:Why impending free agent Tarik Skubal doesn't believe it's the end of an era for the Dodgers

Asked if the age of the lineup could be a contributing factor, Friedman pointed to the strong finishes of some of the more veteran players on the roster.

“I don’t think it’s as easy as to paint it with that broad of a stroke,” he said.

Friedman, in an effort to continue to extend the Dodgers’ run of success, has kept in mind the cliff that successful veteran teams can fall off of, if the roster isn’t properly backfilled.

“This isn’t something that we just woke up and were like, ‘Oh wow, the age of our position player group,’” Friedman said. “We knew what things were going to look like in ‘26, ‘27, but also how talented these guys are, the way they prepare. And so much of our long-term contract bats are betting on the human — betting on the person, betting on the work ethic, betting on them doing everything they can to keep themselves in the best position to have success. But when you couple the core talent that we have at the major league level with the position-player strengths that we have in our farm system, that’s what makes us excited, is the art of how to onboard some of these young, talented minor league players.”

The Dodgers had the No. 1 ranked farm system as of mid-August, according to MLB Pipeline. But many of those prospects, including the three outfielders who were the Dodgers’ top three (Josue De Paula, Eduardo Quintero and Mike Sirota), are blocked by veteran players.

“For us, it’s just about having as many talented players as we can, and things tend to sort themselves out,” Friedman said.

This offseason, the Dodgers will also have to figure out what to do about their soon-to-be free agents, a group headlined by left-hander Tarik Skubal. The two-time Cy Young winner was not only the best pitcher available on the trade market when the Dodgers acquired him from the Tigers at the trade deadline, but he’s in line to be the best pitcher available this offseason as well.

“It’s not easy for a guy to get traded in the middle of a season to come to a new city, new clubhouse,” Friedman said. “You have set routines, and you have to make those adjustments. It’s not easy. The way he was able to seamlessly transition, not just in terms of on the field, but in the clubhouse, I can’t say enough good things about the impact that he made in such a short period of time.

Read more:Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing to undergo elbow surgery for partial UCL tear

“We have a tremendous amount of respect for him on and off the field. … He’s put himself in this position to go out and be a free agent. And for us, it’s, continue to talk to [Scott Boras, Skubal’s agent]. But he and his family have to make a choice over where they want to spend the next X number of years, and obviously we wish him nothing but the best.”

When asked about negotiations, however, Friedman spoke generally, saying the Dodgers were still “wrapping [their] arms around” their offseason strategy.

The impending lockout, which is expected to go into effect on Dec. 1 as soon as the current CBA expires, and uncertainty over changes in the next CBA, will certainly affect the free-agent and trade markets this offseason. And though MLB navigated a lockout just five years ago, the owners’ push for a salary cap has many around the industry bracing for a longer work stoppage and murkier landscape on the other side.

“I never have any feel for how a market’s going to play out,” Friedman said. “We’ve kidded ourselves in the past that, like, ‘Hey, we think this is going to happen,’ and it just takes on its own life form. So for us, it’s just about being as prepared as we possibly can be, and pouncing on opportunities.”

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

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

There’s a new name being bandied about for the Mariners manager position; The Athletic reports that, in addition to known quantities Joe Espada and Rocco Baldelli, the Mariners are also interviewing 36-year-old Jason Kanzler, currently director of player development for the Cubs.

Kanzler has a background as a player: he was drafted by the Twins in 2013 out of SUNY Buffalo and spent three years as an outfielder in Minnesota’s system, topping out at the High-A level. After being released in 2015, he taught public school for a few years while building his own performance training business, coaching Cape Cod League baseball in the summers, before transitioning to coaching full-time. Eventually he landed in the Astros system, where he worked his way up from a minor-league hitting coordinator in 2019 to the World Series champion big-league club in 2022 (putting him solidly past the most scandal-soaked years of the Astros, although it was a near miss with the Brandon Taubman debacle). The Cubs hired Kanzler as director of player development prior to the 2024 season, a role that is currently overseen by Justin Toole in the Mariners organization but most Mariners fans might associate with Andy McKay, who held the position for seven years before the Mariners promoted him to assistant GM in 2022; McKay moved to the Guardians prior to the 2026 season to take an on-field role.

It’s more relevant to talk about Toole and McKay as analogues for Kanzler than it is to talk about Baldelli or Espada, both of whom have years of experience managing at the big-league level. Kanzler’s background is more on the minor-league and independent side, with some of the hallmarks you find in people who are more invested on the player development side. Kanzler has a Twitter account (@KanzlerThinks) that hasn’t been updated since 2020, shortly after he began his big-league coaching career in earnest, which hits many of the same beats you’ll find in skimming Twitter feeds from other young coaches – he rails about the youth sports industrial complex (yes!), says the best training equipment is A Hill (eyeroll), and rewrites the lyrics to “The Sound of Silence” to be about hitting development (?) on a post dated on Christmas Day 2019 (???). A peek at Kanzler’s LinkedIn touts his “proficiency” in Spanish, which is certainly preferable to not proficient, and a “broad coding background” (his Twitter bio identifies him as a “hobbyist programmer”), suggesting he’s at least not adverse to integrating technology.

Kanzler was hired to oversee Cubs player development at a time when the Cubs had the most MLB Pipeline Top 100 prospects in baseball (7) – interestingly, he told MLB.com shortly after his hiring that he actually felt the strength of the farm was a challenge, noting that the big-league club – which had just added Pete Crow-Armstrong – was set up to be competitive for several years, meaning the farm would be depleted by trades, and emphasizing the importance of making sure the farm was deep and robust in order to weather those trades. That’s a similar situation to what Kanzler, should he become the Mariners manager, would be walking into in Seattle. The Mariners started the season with seven top-100 prospects, but have already promoted four of them – Colt Emerson, Kade Anderson, Lazaro Montes, and Michael Arroyo – to the big leagues, triggering a new contention cycle but also resetting the next wave of prospects on the farm. Kanzler, over his time with the Cubs, would be familiar with both managing the farm and seeing how that wave of young players integrate with the existing big-league clubhouse, making him uniquely positioned to understand where the Mariners are headed into 2027.

The question, of course, is if Kanzler has enough experience on the big-league side of things to translate those learnings into success for the Mariners. Kanzler was 34 when he joined the Cubs, two years younger than Justin Toole was when he took up the same position with the Mariners; at 36, he’s almost ten years younger than Baldelli, 15 years younger than Espada, and over 20 years younger than the Mariners’ last skipper, Dan Wilson.

But age doesn’t determine personality; yesterday I wrote about how the new Mariners manager must be able to empower a clubhouse culture of leadership and accountability. Espada, for all his years of experience, inherited a clubhouse that Astros beat writer Chandler Rome, on 710 Seattle Sports’s Bump and Stacy show, described as “self-policing.” Whoever is given the Mariners managerial position will have significantly more work to do in building clubhouse culture, and Kanzler’s youthful energy – even if some of it comes off as sparkle-motion-level cringe-y – could be a spark in invigorating a clubhouse that often felt stagnant and directionless. Plus, we already know his potential clubhouse leader Cal Raleigh is no stranger to a parody song himself.