Category: Baseball

The Mets should be big players at the very top of the free agent market this offseason, with ace left-hander Tarik Skubal a logical -- and incredibly expensive -- target. 

Beyond Skubal, there are other intriguing, high-upside starting pitchers such as Michael King.

If the Mets want a starter who profiles more as a No. 2 or No. 3, they could reunite with Clay Holmes, who was a strong clubhouse presence during his two seasons in Queens.

The relief market isn't flush with upper echelon arms, but Adrian Morejon stands out as a potential game-changer.

Looking beyond the major league free agents, Japanese slugger Teruaki Sato is expected to be posted and sign with a big league team this winter. Like Skubal, Sato would be a logical target given New York's glaring need at first base.

But not every player the Mets sign will be a big name.

To that end, here are five under-the-radar free agents David Stearnsand the front office should target this offseason...

RHP Michael Soroka

The Mets should be targeting a franchise-altering ace or at the very least someone (like King) who profiles at the top of the rotation. But after leaving their starting staff short each of the last two seasons -- and that shortage helping to derail each campaign -- New York also needs to bring in a second legitimate rotation option who can pitch in the middle or back end of the rotation.

Soroka, coming off a strong season for the Diamondbacks, could fit the bill.

Once an emerging ace, Soroka's career was derailed after his breakout 2019 season with the Braves due to a torn Achilles suffered during the 2020 shortened season. He didn't return to big league action until 2023, and struggled with inconsistency (4.91 ERA) and injuries (forearm, shoulder, biceps) as he spent time with the Braves, White Sox, Nationals, and Cubs between 2023 and 2025.

This season for the Diamondbacks, Soroka bounced back, posting a 3.41 ERA (3.19 FIP) and 1.08 WHIP in 116.0 innings (21 starts, one relief appearance) while walking 2.3 batters per nine and striking out 8.8 per nine.

In 2026, Soroka's fastball and breaking stuff graded out as elite, via Baseball Savant. His two most utilized pitches were the four-seam fastball and slurve, which he threw 32 percent of the time each. The slurve (which recently became a weapon for Soroka) was especially effective, with hitters slugging just .226 against it (.267 xSLG). Soroka's advanced metrics were a bit of a mixed bag, but he was above average to elite when it came to average exit velocity allowed, chase percentage, strikeout percentage, walk percentage, and hard-hit percentage.

Soroka's injury history and lack of recent innings are concerns, but his upside and age (he'll be entering his age-29 season) are pluses. And if he's a backend option in a rotation with a new ace at the top, the risk is mitigated.

LHP Alex Vesia

The Mets traded their two left-handed relief cogs (Brooks Raley and A.J. Minter) at the deadline because they were both pending free agents, which created an opportunity for Nate Lavender.

Lavender, whose elite extension results in the ball jumping on hitters, ran with his chance while putting up a 1.66 ERA (1.85 FIP) and 0.73 WHIP in 21.2 innings while striking out 10.8 per nine. Hard-throwing Cionel Perez, who is arbitration-eligible, is another left-handed relief option if the Mets tender him a contract.

Either way, it would make sense for New York to pursue another left-handed reliever, with Vesia a potentially strong fit.

Vesia has been a weapon for the Dodgers since 2021, with a 2.66 ERA and 1.08 WHIP in 328.0 innings. He misses bats at a prodigious rate (12.0 strikeouts per nine in his six seasons in Los Angeles), but can also be prone to bases on balls (his career walk rate is 4.3 per nine and it was 5.0 per nine in 2026).

Ahead of his age-31 season and coming off another stellar year, Vesia should be in demand.

RHP Jonathan Loaisiga

The Mets had interest in Loaisiga during the 2024-25 offseason before he ultimately returned to the Yankees. So it would make sense for them to have interest again.

After becoming one of the key cogs in the Yankees' bullpen, Loaisiga's seasons in 2023 and 2024 were seriously impacted because of Tommy John surgery. He returned for the Yanks in 2025, but didn't round back into form until this past season.

In 67.0 innings for the Diamondbacks in 2026, Loaisiga had a 2.42 ERA (2.88 FIP) and 1.03 WHIP while allowing just three homers all year and walking a minuscule 1.7 batters per nine.

Loaisiga relies mainly on a sinker that averages a tick under 98 mph and a changeup that averages 91 mph. He doesn't strike out a lot of batters, but is phenomenal when it comes to limiting hard contact and generating ground balls.

In 2026, Loaisiga was in the 93rd percentile or better in average exit velocity allowed, chase percentage, barrel percentage, hard-hit percentage, and ground ball percentage.

RHP Tyler Mahle

Mahle, who would fit near the back end of the rotation, is coming off a season where he compiled a 3.99 ERA and matching 3.99 FIP for the Giants and Braves over 149.0 regular season innings. He was also terrific in the playoffs for Atlanta, with a 1.35 ERA in 13.1 innings over two starts (one each in the Wild Card Series and NLDS).

He's not someone whose stuff will wow you, but his four-seam fastball has graded out well each of the last two seasons despite not being overpowering. Mahle's other main pitch is a splitter that opposing batters slugged just .354 against in 2026.

Mahle's career ERA in 10 big league seasons with the Reds, Rangers, Twins, Giants, and Braves is 4.01.

Tommy John surgery in May of 2023 wiped out the better part of two seasons for Mahle, but he's exceeded 120 innings in four of his six full big league seasons, and 112 innings in five of six.

1B Ty France

The Mets should be seeking a first baseman, and France will be one of the most intriguing names on the market.

What will be interesting to watch is whether the price to sign him stays relatively low because of the offensive player he was during the first seven seasons of his career (108 OPS+), or if it spikes after how France performed for the Padres in 2026.

In 133 games for San Diego, France slashed .295/.363/.502 (.865 OPS, 139 OPS+) with 21 homers and 24 doubles. Was it an aberration or a late breakout from a player in his age-31 season?

A look at France's advanced metrics shows serious improvement in his average exit velocity and hard-hit percentage, so what he did this season wasn't a fluke. At the same time, it's fair to expect some regression going forward given the player he was before 2026.

What's not in question is how good France's first base defense has been the last two seasons. He won the NL Gold Glove in 2025 after being in the 96th percentile in OAA, and followed that up by being in the 93rd percentile in OAA in 2026.

Weather in Cleveland means daytime baseball (LCS Edition).

The Cleveland Guardians will host the Tampa Bay Rays for Game 3 of the ALCS. The Guards took Game 1 before the Rays evened things up by taking Game 2.

To accommodate some rain, they will play at 1 pm ET. As a result, NLCS Game 4 between the Milwaukee Brewers and Los Angeles Dodgers will move up an hour to be played at 8 pm ET.

The Brewers have a chance to eliminate the Dodgers today after a Dave Roberts masterclass last night / an epic at-bat by Jake Bauers. C’mon, Brew Crew – job’s not finished.

The ALCS comes back to life today as the Tampa Bay Rays travel to Cleveland to take on the Guardians for the third game of the series. With the series tied 1-1, the Guardians look for a little bit of home-field advantage because historically, the winner of Game 3 when a seven-game set is tied has gone on to win 71 of 102 times.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Dodgers are on the brink after the Milwaukee Brewers secured a 6-2 victory Tuesday night to now lead the NLCS 3-0. If they can win tonight, it would be a bit of revenge for the Brewers after they were swept by the Dodgers in the NLCS last year. Milwaukee is also on the brink of reaching their first World Series in 44 years.

Tampa Bay Rays (1-1) at Cleveland Guardians (1-1) — 11 AM MDT

Pitching Matchup: RHP Griffin Jax (8-10, 3.53 ERA) vs. RHP Gavin Williams (14-8, 3.76 ERA)

SB Nation Sites:DRaysBay, Covering the Corner

Radio: ESPN Radio

TV: TBS/HBO Max

Lineups

Milwaukee Brewers (3-0) at Los Angeles Dodgers (0-3) — 6 PM MDT

Pitching Matchup: TBD vs. RHP Tyler Glasnow (5-2, 3.53 ERA)

SB Nation Sites:Brew Crew Ball, True Blue LA

Radio: ESPN Radio

TV: FS1/Fox One

Lineups:

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

Hello, and welcome back to Thursday playoff baseball. Today, there are two games, one that starts at noon and the other that starts around 7 p.m. Theoretically, you can watch both! I mean, if you’re not working.

First Game: Tampa Bay Rays at Cleveland Guardians

• Series tied, 1-1
• 12 PM CST

The first game up is Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, which is tied 1-1 between the Cleveland Guardians (who won Game 1) and the Tampa Bay Rays (who won Game 2). The series now shifts to Cleveland. Originally, it was scheduled for yesterday but postponed until today because of the weather.

For the home team, Gavin Williams takes the mound. Williams, who has the size to play tight end for the Browns, has appeared in three games so far this postseason, including two starts. In those two starts, both against the White Sox, he struck out 11 in 5 innings and then 12 in 5-and-2/3 innings. Overall, he’s pitched 11-and-2/3 innings while allowing two earned runs on six hits and walks while striking out 24. Those numbers are good for a 1.54 ERA, 0.53 FIP, and 0.943 WHIP.

Opposing him is 31-year-old right-hander Griffin Jax. Today will be Jax’s first career playoff start. During this year’s playoffs, he tossed two innings against the Yankees in which one run on one walk and one hit while striking out 4 in a 4-3 Rays victory in New York. He picked up a hold. During the season, Jax pitched in 34 games with 23 starts while pitching just over 112 innings. Somewhat oddly, he never faced Cleveland.

Here are the lineups, first for the Guardians:

For the Rays:

Lest we forget: Cleveland traded Junior Caminero to Tampa Bay for a pitcher who never appeared in a game for them. Whoops.

Game Deux: Milwaukee Brewers at Los Angeles Dodgers

• Milwaukee leads, 3-0
• 7 PM CST

Could tonight be the death knell for the Los Angeles Dodgers? Say it isn’t, Joe!

Actually, fine. As I imagine most people outside of Los Angeles are, I’m rooting against the Dodgers in this series. And if they somehow pull an ‘04 Red Sox, I’ll be rooting against them in the World Series. I like Dave Roberts enough, but I’m tired of the Dodgers constantly winning.

Neither the Brewers nor Rays have ever won a World Series, and Cleveland hasn’t won it since 1948.

Plus, the Dodgers are the only remaining big market team, and with a lockout—NOT A STRIKE—I’d rather see a little guy win it all. It hasn’t happened since the Royals captured the crown.

Alright, enough of that. As of this writing, there isn’t a whole lot available about the lineups. I’m not even sure who’s starting for the Brewers.

L.A., meanwhile, will send out righty Tyler Glasnow. This will be Glasnow’s second start of the postseason after he pitched 4-and-2/3 against the Braves just over a week ago, a game the Dodgers won, 4-1. He only allowed one hit but walked five while striking out the same number.

If the Dodgers want a shot at forcing a Game 5, he’ll need to be sharper. Much sharper.

Go Rays!

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ 3-0 NLDS deficit to the Milwaukee Brewers has caused some frustrated fans to turn on each other.

Instagram user @dodgerdru posted a video of several Dodgers fans swinging on each other after a 6-2 loss to the Brewers on Wednesday night.

The video began at the end of what had been a verbal confrontation between two fans. Then one fan, who was being held back by a woman, took a huge swing at another fan wearing a blue Dodgers jersey that looked to have missed its target.

Chaos ensued after that. Another Dodgers fan wearing a purple hat threw a huge punch at that same person, which seemingly missed, while the fan who threw the first punch was being apprehended by security.

Cooler heads seemed to prevail after that, as the person recording the video turned the camera on them and said, “This is what happens when we lose. We go against each other.”

In the back drop, an entirely empty stadium could be seen in the video. The incident likely occurred well after the game ended.

The fan in the purple hat who threw the biggest punch of all escaped apprehension, and was complaining to the security that the fan who didn’t throw any punches had started the entire altercation. The video ended shortly after.

As the fan who recorded the video alluded to, it’s hard to imagine these fans would have been so upset with each other if the Dodgers had found a way to win against the Brewers.

Perhaps Game 4 on Thursday will be more peaceful. Perhaps not.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are on the couch watching the LCS once again this season.

It’s been 34 years since the Pirates were in the NLCS themselves, where they lost to the Atlanta Braves in seven games. This season, however, they managed to play pretty well against the top teams in the league. Here’s a look at how they did against the final four teams in the playoff bracket.

Cleveland Guardians: 2-1

The Pirates visited Cleveland for a three-game set shortly after the All-Star break. After getting rained out on Friday afternoon, the teams played a doubleheader on Saturday and came out with a split: the Pirates won 7-1 in the afternoon but lost 5-3 in the evening. The Pirates followed that up with another 7-1 victory on Sunday, giving them a series victory.

Tampa Bay Rays: 2-1

The Pirates got a crack at the Rays early in the season, in mid-April, for a weekend series at PNC Park. They pulled out a 5-1 victory against the Rays to start the series but fell 8-7 in 13 innings on Saturday. They finished off the series with a 6-3 victory on Sunday, which gave them a series win and a 13-9 record going into a six-game road trip.

Los Angeles Dodgers: 1-5

The Pirates struggled the most this season against the four top teams in the league when they faced the Dodgers during their three-game set in Pittsburgh in early June. They dropped two out of three and managed to win the middle game of the series 9-8. The Dodgers led 6-1 in the bottom of the seventh, but the Pirates managed to score eight runs in the seventh and eighth innings combined to pull out a 9-8 victory.

When they went to Dodger Stadium in August, they were swept in a three-game weekend set.

Milwaukee Brewers: 7-6

The Pirates got to know the Brewers very well over the course of the season, facing off against their division rival 13 times. In the first half of the season, the Pirates visited Milwaukee in late April, winning 2 out of 3 games and even pulling off a sweep just before the All-Star break, capped off by a 14-5 victory on July 12.

They didn’t find that same success in the second half, losing 3 out of 4 in the first week of August at American Family Field. They played a weekday series in the middle of September, dropping the first two contests at home, but a 7-4 victory on September 17 gave them the season series victory, 7-6.

Overall: 12-13

The record against the Dodgers definitely brings this record down, but overall, the Pirates have proven that they can compete against the top teams in the league. That is a strong sign for what’s to come in 2027.

End of an error? Dave Dombrowski puts shortstop Trea Turner on notice originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Earlier this week, Dave Dombrowski summoned Trea Turner to Citizens Bank Park for a face-to-face meeting.

Just five years earlier, Dombrowski had convinced Turner to come play shortstop for the Phillies on a mammoth $300 million deal.

Now, the team’s president of baseball operations was looking the 33-year-old player in the eye and putting him on notice.

“We were very clear,” Dombrowski said. “He knows he has to be better at shortstop. I told him that’s really mandatory.

“If he plays shortstop like he did in ‘25, he can play shortstop. But if he plays it like he did in ‘26, he can’t.”

Dombrowski’s directness when commenting on the Turner situation was the big takeaway from his annual end-of-season news conference Thursday. Dombrowski acknowledged that the news conference came later than usual – a full two weeks after the Phillies were eliminated by Atlanta in the first round of the playoffs. He said he needed the time to address the team’s managerial situation – Don Mattingly, who posted a 79-55 record as interim skipper was retained on a two-year deal – and speak with players about what would be expected from them in 2027.

His message to Turner was so serious that he asked the player to fly from his Florida home to Philadelphia for a frank conversation that lasted two hours.

“Trea did not have a good year,” Dombrowski said. “He does not think he had a good season, offensively or defensively. He takes complete accountability.”

Offensively, Turner went from winning the National League batting title (.304) in 2025 to hitting .242 in 2026. Hitting first and second in the batting order, his on-base percentage plummeted from .378 to .297. His strikeout rate climbed from 16.7 percent to 21 percent. He led the majors with 507 outs made.

Turner’s struggles were equally notable in the field, where he tied for the major-league lead with 21 errors. By almost every metric, he was one of baseball’s worst shortstops. According to Fangraphs, he ranked a minus-17 in defensive runs saved, the worst mark among big-league shortstops.

Turner made a total of 40 errors at shortstop in 2023 and 2024, his first two seasons in Philadelphia. He tightened things up in 2025, recording plus-17 outs above average, according to Statcast measurements. But that number dipped to minus-10 (the bottom three percent of all defenders) in 2026.

In a game where strength up the middle is vital, the Phillies cannot live with that.

Dombrowski made that clear to Turner.

“He totally understands that,” Dombrowski said.

For now, Turner remains the Phillies’ starting shortstop. It is the position he wants to play. But, according to Dombrowski, Turner will have a short leash. He will have to show improvement as early as spring training to avoid being moved to second base or the outfield. The team would be willing to make a move on the fly while giving looks to Aidan Miller and Bryan Rincon, two minor-league prospects.

“We went through the scenarios,” Dombrowski said of his honest chat with Turner. “If you’re not playing well at shortstop in spring training and things don’t work in that regard … We do have a couple of young players. Will they be ready? I don’t know. And I don’t know what other additions we may make this winter. We needed to leave it, if he doesn’t play shortstop, he’s willing to do what’s best for the Philadelphia Phillies organization. So that’s how we left it. He’s determined to show us that he can play it, and I said, ‘You have to show it. You cannot play shortstop like you did defensively in ‘26 going into ’27.’ “

Essentially, as soon as spring training or whenever the team assembles to prepare for the 2027 season, Turner will be on an almost daily tryout for his shortstop job. That could create some pressure on the player.

“He’ll work hard and be open-minded and we’ll just have to make a wise decision on what position he plays,” Dombrowski said. “I can’t control the daily banter about what takes place. He’s not the first player I’ve been around (in a similar situation). Trea’s a smart guy. He knows he needs to get better, and I think he’ll deal with it. He’s got a long time to be here, but I think he still has it. The reason we signed him in the beginning compared to some others was not only was he a good player, we thought he had the ability to continue to be a good player for a long time because of his quick-twitch muscles, the type of athlete he is. He led the lead in hitting (in 2025). I was as surprised as he was by the offensive year he had this year. So, it’s up to us to try to fix all those things.”

The Phillies have 190 million reasons to want to see improvement from Turner, on both sides of the ball. He is signed for seven more years at $190 million. He negotiated a full no-trade clause when he signed with the Phillies, so there’s no moving on from him.

Turner will have two new voices trying to help him improve. The Phils fired Kevin Long on Wednesday and will have a new hitting coach in 2027. Infield coach Bobby Dickerson was also let go. He was quickly replaced by former New York Mets manager Carlos Mendoza. In addition to overseeing infield defense, Mendoza will coach third base.

“Carlos will be responsible for working with Trea,” Dombrowski said.

Improvement must come quickly. If it doesn’t, Turner could find himself under the tutelage of Pablo Figueroa. He’s the team’s outfield instructor.

Well, we’re officially eight days away from the beginning of the 2026 World Series. Next Friday’s series opener looks like it’ll be a battle between a pair of low-payroll teams that aren’t Los Angeles or New York. You gotta know that makes commissioner Rob Manfred and the other owners mad. If you ask any actual baseball fan though, it’s going to be glorious seeing a team that hasn’t won the World Series in decades finally be able to lift that trophy. We got a few more games before we find out the matchup, but if the right team wins today we could know at least have of the teams in this year’s Fall Classic by tonight.

Rays at Guardians (10:00 AM PST)

Based off the first two games this series looks like it could go the distance. What else would you expect from two scrappy young teams like these two? Both organizations are absolutely desperate for the chance to hoist the Commissioner’s Trophy. The Guardians are on a 78-year drought, which is longer than the Rays have even been in existence. Still, they’ve never tasted that final win of the season and won’t let Cleveland get an easy trip to the Fall Classic. This’ll be a critical Game 3 as the team that wins this morning is in the driver’s seat.

The visiting Rays will have right-hander Griffin Jax (8-10, 3.53 ERA) taking the ball for this critical contest. A mid-season acquisition last year, Jax converted to a starter this year to solid results. He was remarkably consistent throughout the year for someone converting to the rotation for the first time in five years. Jax will now be pitching in the biggest game of his life to date as he seeks to get the Rays to within two games of the World Series. Tampa might have a short leash with him though; he only went two innings in his lone postseason start this year, when he allowed just one run on a hit and a walk against the Yankees.

Here’s the Tampa Bay lineup this morning:

As for the Guardians, they have their own righty in Gavin Williams (14-8, 3.76 ERA) taking to the hill this morning. Williams has already made two starts (plus one relief appearance) this postseason, all against the White Sox in the previous round. The 27-year-old has stepped his game up at the perfect time for the Guardians. He’s gotten double-digit punchouts in his two starts but he’ll now be facing a much harder lineup with the Rays. And like Jax, it’s not hyperbole to say this is the biggest game of his life… so far.

And Cleveland’s starting nine, courtesy of skipper Stephen Vogt:

Brewers at Dodgers (5:00 PM PST)

While the Rays-Guardians series looks like it’ll be a battle through the weekend, the Brewers are in complete control over the reigning champion Dodgers, up 3-0 in the series and just one more win away from their first World Series appearance since 1982. Like the Rays, they’ve never tasted the glory of a World Series win so they’re coming into tonight’s game as motivated as you can imagine. The Dodgers just don’t look like they have it this year as injuries and age are finally catching up to them. You never to say it’s a done series prematurely but there’s only ever been one team to come back from an 0-3 deficit and this Dodgers team doesn’t seem like they have the same energy of the ‘04 Red Sox.

The Dodgers will hope that veteran Tyler Glasnow (5-2, 3.53) can prolong their season a couple more days with a strong start. The right-hander has, once again, battled injuries all year but is healthy for when it matters most. He looked like he was ready for the moment in his lone postseason start to date. Glasnow pitched into the fifth inning against the Braves in the previous round, allowing just one run on one hit. His outing wasn’t without its warts as he also issued five free passes to Braves batters. If he does that again then this series might not make it back to Milwaukee.

Milwaukee meanwhile has yet to announce their plans for tonight’s game so stay tuned!

We could find out one team in the World Series by the end of the day. Stakes are getting higher and higher for everyone still alive! Should be another great day for playoff baseball!

It has been a roller coaster career for Michael Massey so far. He flashed good power for a middle infielder in 2023, but not much offensively. He came into his own in 2024, flashing great defense and finishing fifth on the team in home runs with 15, frequently hitting leadoff in the playoffs. But injuries piled up last year – a left ankle sprain, a right wrist fracture, and back issues that caused him to miss over two months of action, and limited him to just 77 games. He came into his first arbitration-eligible season at a crossroads.

And in 2026, Massey had his best season as a big leaguer. One factor was health. While he did begin the season on the injured list with a calf strain, and missed a week with a concussion in September, he generally stayed on the field, appearing in a career-high 131 games. When he played, he contributed, posting a line of .272/.303/.428 with 13 home runs. He was sixth among American League second basemen with a career-high 2.3 fWAR. He was also a finalist for his first Gold Glove Award, after finishing second among all AL second basemen in Outs Above Average and Defensive Runs Saved.

Massey has never been shown significant platoon splits, and this year he actually hit lefties much better than righties. He has shown good plate coverage and a high contact rate of 82.3 percent. His 16.6 percent strikeout rate was third-lowest on the team among semi-regulars, behind only Maikel Garcia and Vinnie Pasquantino.

While he is good at making contact when he swings, he does swing a LOT. Out of all hitters with at least 450 plate appearances, he was 25th in swing rate at 52.9 percent (joining two other Royals in the top 25, Salvador Perez and Jac Caglianone). His walk rate went up this year, but was still just 4.6 percent, tied for seventh-lowest in the league. He did post a career-high in on-base percentage, but making outs almost 70 percent of the time still puts him near the bottom of the league in that category.

So through four and a half seasons and 489 MLB games, we have a good idea of what Michael Massey is. He will be 29 by next Opening Day, and the Royals can likely count on him as a good glove at second base, with good pop for a middle infielder, a good lefty bat with no platoon split, but very low walk rates and a propensity to get injured. He is eligible for arbitration for the second time this winter, and will likely earn over $3 million next season.

There is an argument the Royals should look to trade Massey while his value is high, although the team shouldn’t expect a big return. The Royals could “replace him in the aggregate” through some combination of Nick Loftin, Tyler Tolbert, and Isaac Collins, or even look to make a big move to upgrade at the position.

More likely, Massey will begin next year as the team’s starting second baseman, hitting sixth or seventh in the lineup. You can win with a guy like that in your lineup – the 2024 Royals are evidence of that. He is a productive offensive player in his prime, who is a plus on defense, and is still cost-controlled.

But his low on-base skills may cap the impact he can have offensively, and in a lineup full of fellow free-swingers, the Royals need someone who can work a count and get on base consistently. Massey is a useful piece, but if the Royals want to take the next step offensively, they may need more production from second base. Michael Massey took a step forward, but if he wants to be more than a stop gap measure, he will need to take his game to the next level.

Carlos Mendoza has a new job — and it’s in the National League East.

The former Mets manager, who was fired during the team’s miserable first half the 2026 season, was hired as the Phillies third base and infield coach. 

The move was announced Thursday by Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski as the team made a string of coaching changes upon signing Don Mattingly to a new two-year deal to remain as manager without the interim tag. 

Mendoza, 46, spent two-plus years in the Mets dugout after being hired by president of baseball operations David Stearns. He led them on a surprise run to the NL Championship Series in 2024 before losing to the eventual champion Dodgers, but the Mets then had an ugly collapse following a strong opening two months in 2025. 

With high expectations heading into this past season, the Mets were a mess early and suffered through a 12-game losing streak in April. Injuries to Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto didn’t help. 

Despite playing better for part of May, a six-game losing streak in June sealed Mendoza’s fate, and he was fired after a June 25 loss to the Cubs. 

Mendoza was replaced by Andy Green on an interim basis before Green accepted the full-time job and a three-year contract near the end of the season. 

Prior to joining the Mets, Mendoza coached in the Yankees minor league system from 2011-17 before moving to their major league coaching staff in 2018. He was Aaron Boone’s bench coach from 2020-23. 

Mendoza finished his tenure with the Mets with a 206-199 record and now moves to Mattingly’s staff, which saw former Mets and Yankees hitting coach Kevin Long, as well as infield coach Bobby Dickerson, let go this week. 

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A Dodger left-hander, who put video game-like numbers in the regular season, had a colossal dud in arguably the most important game of the year, in no small part by being left to hang out to dry in the seventh inning, before a back-breaking, likely season-breaking, home run. And then, the bullpen let whatever hope still in the building out with great alacrity.

The fact that this paragraph could apply to either Clayton Kershaw or Blake Snell is one of life’s little ironies. Snell became the second pitcher in history to start a playoff game by giving up a home run and have his last pitch in that same game go for a home run. The other pitcher was John Smoltz in Game 3 of the 1991 NLCS.

Considering Snell hadn’t previously allowed a home run all year, the timing is terrible.

If this current era of Dodger baseball started because Rays’ manager pulled Snell too early in 2020, the bookend image of Dave Roberts leaving Snell in too long in 2026 is striking.

Unless you have been mercifully under a rock, the Dodgers have failed, so far, with aplomb in this NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers. Not to take any flowers away from the Brewers: they have played hungrier, angrier, and more effectively than the Dodgers. And now Tyler Glasnow and an offense that has mostly been absent stand between the Dodgers and Cancun.

If you told me that the poor play in this series was from this past July, I wouldn’t disagree. The Dodgers look like they would probably drop a series to the Colorado Rockies right now if given the opportunity. Again, it’s not an unknown problem. Over the past two seasons, you’ve seen this movie; you’ve heard this song.

It’s just unusual to see it in the most important games of the year, this year.

Time is a flat circle

Like the bad, old days, the Dodgers have reacted to adversity in this round by being “confused and stunned like a duck hit on the head.” President Lincoln used that turn of phrase to describe one of his generals after the Union defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is that the situation is likely going to resolve itself, one way or another, in less than eight hours after you read this essay.

Five of the last six times there has been a rematch in the LCS in consecutive years, the loser in the first year wins the rematch. The Brewers are one win away from making that bit of recent history, six out of seven times. Moreover, with a win today, the Brewers would be the first team ever to repay a sweep one year by sweeping in the rematch the following year.

The last time the Dodgers were down 0-3 in the playoffs was the 1966 World Series: Koufax’s last ride. The Dodgers ended up being swept and shut out over Games 2 through 4. In a bit of historic irony, last year’s championship team had the lowest batting average for a winning team since the 1966 Orioles.

Sarah Langs reported via EliasSports that there have now been six times when a team has gotten a 3-0 advantage on the reigning champion. Four of these instances have involved the Dodgers: 1963, 1966, 2017, and now. Four of the last five times, the series ended in a sweep. Only the 2017 Dodgers allowed a game five.

Getting ready to look for loose change

The Dodgers have been bad in this LCS; you don’t have to take my word for it. Once again, Max Muncy is singing a slightly more urgent tune than he did after the dud to end Game 2.

I applaud Muncy’s candor, but I must politely disagree on one point: excrement, in a pinch, can be useful.

Based on what we knew then, you can even use it to grow a potato. There’s nothing useful here from the Dodgers over these past three games, no silver lining, no green shoots to build upon, no fun moment with young phenom Josue De Paula to obsess over or expand upon for the pending long winter. Sure, let’s use the most exciting prospect since Cody Bellinger as a decoy.

The figurative harvest has come back with blight, and everything looks dead. But technically, it’s not dead; it’s only mostly dead, and unless you’ve forgotten — shame on you — there’s a big difference between “mostly dead” and “all dead.”

Only one single solitary team has ever climbed the Everest that is a 0-3 best-of-seven hole in baseball: the 2004 Boston Red Sox.

Yes, Dave Roberts sparked the comeback; that’s not the point here. He’s not running. He’s not playing. Heck, last year in Toronto, he badly lost a footrace to Hyeseong Kim, which kept the team loose.

The fact to remember from that ALCS is that Boston took the figurative belt to its bottom in Game 3, losing 19-8 in Boston. The Red Sox looked beyond dead, and it took two extra-inning games to force Game 6 back in the Bronx and returned the belt with aplomb in Game 7.

Yes, the 2004 Red Sox turned it around. There is nothing in the past three games of play to indicate the 2026 Dodgers are about to go on a similar run. But again, the Red Sox looked mostly dead until they weren’t.

The only thing left to lose is pride

In all likelihood, the series and the season are hours away from being over. The Dodgers can either roll over or get mad and finally start punching back. The Brewers have played well, but they haven’t played perfect baseball. There have been opportunities.

A good team finds a way to win. A bad team finds a way to lose. A mediocre team attempts to convince itself and you that they are a good team, only to underachieve until their season ends.

Yes, the 2026 Dodgers won 100 regular season games. That fact and a cookie leaves you with a cookie and a likely forgotten notation in Baseball Reference, unless things drastically turn around.

Talk of a threepeat and talk of history have become a yoke around this team’s neck. So throw it out. It’s like eating a whale: you do it one bite at a time. If the series extends past today, the teams will be playing for free. Why not give everyone something to talk about?

If I had to work for free, I would make a spectacle of it.

Truthfully, I’ve been on house money mode since I was fortunate enough to be at last year’s Game 7. My only fear that game wasn’t a defeat; it was that the team laid an egg and made me feel dumb for making the effort to get to Toronto and back in 48 hours.

Losing is one thing; getting embarrassed is another. The play and the results over the last three games have been the latter. The moments where I haven’t thought that this team was underachieving or skimming by on pedigree and reputation have been far fewer than I would have preferred.

I harbor no illusion that this essay will change anything. Nor am I trying to annoy or aggravate or any other cardinal sin of this profession. I operate under the delusion that the right words can move mountains, or at the very least, make one smile when everyone is frowning.

The 2026 Dodgers could do better and should do better. They have at least one last chance to do so. Again, the Brewers have been better on the field simply by being watchable. If there was a time for this team, our team, to live up to its pedigree, its design, it would be to acknowledge the cold, hard truth that there is no tomorrow unless they outright take it.

Keep clawing and fighting until they tell you to stop. Maybe you become a legend. Maybe you get one last road trip to Milwaukee? Maybe you get to see Tarik Skubal one last guaranteed time in a Dodger uniform? Maybe you get to prevent the indignity of seeing your home fans, some of whom paid $75 for parking, watch another team celebrate at Dodger Stadium?

And if not? Well, then it doesn’t matter what this team did. It simply underachieved when it mattered most, and the rest from them would be silence.

Contracts will expire. Players will move on. Time will move on, and ripping the bandage off with critical analysis can start. Calling out an offense built like a supercar and performing like a busted Honda Civic, calling out a rotation that has underperformed when it has mattered most, and calling out a manager who literally panicked and resuscitated jokes and memes from 2018, 2019, and 2021 that he successfully put to bed over the past two seasons?

Now is not the time for postmortems and requiems. We likely have a lengthy, miserable lockout-aided offseason for those essays. But first, I am a slave to the bit, and we are going to press on, much like I hope that the Dodgers do today.

Because if not now, when?

The Los Angeles Dodgers have dug themselves into quite a deep hole.

The Dodgers are now down 3-0 in their NLCS series against the Milwaukee Brewers after Wednesday night’s 6-2 loss.

The last time the Dodgers were down 3-0 in a postseason series was 60 years ago, when they lost the first three games of the 1966 World Series against the Baltimore Orioles.

The Orioles won Game 4 of that World Series by a score of 1-0, cementing the sweep against Los Angeles. The legendary Don Drysdale was the losing pitcher for the Dodgers in that fateful Game 4.

In fact, history has been historically bad for MLB teams who were down three games in a best-of-seven series. Only one team has ever crawled out of that deficit to win a series: the Boston Red Sox, who famously did so against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS.

Aside from that, 41 of the other 42 MLB postseason series where a team went up 3-0 has ended with that team advancing. 32 of those have ended in a sweep.

At least Dodgers fans won’t have to wait long to see whether this NLCS series becomes No. 33 that ended with a sweep, as Game 4 is arriving on Thursday night.

Three days after the Orioles agreed to a five-year deal with Pete Alonso last December, the Mets signed Jorge Polanco to a two-year, $40 million contract. At the time, the Mets’ front office clearly thought that the switch-hitting veteran would give them good production at the plate, and in the team’s press release about the signing included a comment from David Stearns that the expectation was that he’d spend time at first base and designated hitter while “bouncing around to other positions as needed.”

None of that happened. After a slow ramp-up in spring training that was designed to ease him into the long season because of past injury issues with his legs, Polanco played first base just two times: in the first and second games of the Mets’ season. He started having issues with his lower legs, as his Achilles tendon and heel were mentioned in injury reports in early April, and he spent the rest of the season as a DH.

A variety of injuries kept Polanco sidelined for several long stretches of the season, too, and when he did play, he was historically bad. In just 145 plate appearances over the course of 37 games, Polanco hit .148/.201/.230 with a 20 wRC+. He was worth -1.4 fWAR, which was tied with Noelvi Marte of the Reds for the worst mark in all of baseball. And while that wasn’t the worst single season in Mets history, it’s the only one of the ten worst seasons by fWAR to have happened this century. The last time a Met was that far below replacement level was in fifteen years ago, back when Ronny Paulino put up a -1.2 fWAR season for a very bad Mets team, thought it’s worth noting that Mark Vientos nearly tied Paulino with a -1.1 fWAR of his own this year.

So what went wrong? Having struggled in his first season with the Mariners in 2024, Polanco thrived at the plate as he got the team shifted the vast majority of his playing time to the DH role in 2025. Yes, he had played shortstop, second base, and third base in the past, but the Twins began moving him off short in 2021 and had fully moved him off the position in 2022 with the exception of 30.0 innings that he played there that season. Primarily a second baseman from that season through 2024, he occasionally played third base, too.

That track record, combined with what the Mariners got out of Polanco when they reduced his playing time in the field even further, seemed to suggest that Polanco was moving toward a full-time DH role sooner rather than later. Sure, the Mets might’ve been able to have him cover other infield positions in a pinch, but it would’ve been surprising to see him get significant playing time around the infield. If his legs hadn’t been such a mess on the injury front, maybe he’d have been able to play about as often at first base this year as he played second base for the Mariners last year, but even that would’ve given the Mets a whole lot of innings and games to cover at first.

Even for those of us who were concerned about the Mets’ apparent plan to play Polanco in the field regularly, though, what wound up happening was far worse than what had seemed like the worst-case scenario back on Opening Day. Leg injuries forcing him to move to DH even more than he had last year in Seattle, well, that seemed fairly predictable. You wouldn’t have expected him to fall off a cliff at the plate, though, and you wouldn’t have expected him to last just two games in the infield before he was too hurt to play defense again.

Entering his age-33 season, Polanco presents a massive question mark for the Mets, assuming the team doesn’t decide to part ways with him as it manages its 40-man roster this winter. If he sticks around, a best case scenario would be an injury-free spring training spent exclusively as a DH and something resembling a return to form in that role once the regular season gets underway. The underlying metrics as measured by Statcast don’t paint any more of an optimistic picture than his 2026 stats do, though, and it would a major shock if he were to rebound significantly enough to avoid joining Jed Lowrie and Frankie Montas as one of the Mets’ most infamous signings of all time.

Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor’s wife, Katia, gave him a hilarious basket of treats for undergoing a vasectomy, she revealed in an Instagram post Wednesday.

“Three beautiful children later, we decided our family is complete. ” Katia wrote, including a behind the scenes video of her assembling a snack basket with jokes referencing the procedure. “I’ve carried the babies, now it was his turn to take one for the team. Love you, babe! ”

The couple are parents to daughters Kalina Zoé, 5, and Amapola Chloé, 3, and 18-month-old son Koa Amani.

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This surgery comes after Lindor and the Mets finished last place in the National League East with a 74-88 record and missed the postseason for the second consecutive year.

Katia showed a handmade card that said, “Snip snip hooray it’s vasectomy day!” with the date of Oct. 14, 2026.

Another card said, “It’s a whole new ballgame Happy Vasectomy Day!”

Inside, it read, “Paquito, Thank you for taking one for the team! Blessed with the best teammate,” including the message, “No more babies.”

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Katia’s post was set to the song, “Bye Bye Bye” by NSYNC.

Katia included some snacks with a few jokes such as, Chips Ahoy, which she switched to “Snips Ahoy” — and a box of Sour Patch Kids that had a “No more” sign on it.

She also packed cooling boxer briefs for the five-time MLB All-Star.

Lindor flashed a big smile as he read the cards.

“Yeah, done,” he said.

“He’s home and we’re giggling together,” Katia wrote.