Category: Baseball

Brewers manager Pat Murphy didn’t take the Shohei Ohtani-speculation bait.

But, when asked about Ohtani’s uncertain status coming out of Game 2 of the National League Championship Series this week, outfielder Garrett Mitchell did.

“I’d be shocked,” Mitchell said on Tuesday, when asked about the possibility of Ohtani not being in the Dodgers’ lineup for a critical Game 3 on Wednesday. “He’s the greatest player in the game, arguably going down as the best player ever. This game is very hard. One day you can be on top of the world, and on the next you are hitting the lowest of lows … But I know that whether he’s feeling good or he’s not feeling good, he’s always going to be someone that you have to game-plan for.

“You never know,” Mitchell added. “It takes one swing to come back.”

As it turned out, Ohtani was granted the chance for a big swing on Wednesday.

Despite his woeful performance so far this postseason, and his ongoing struggles with right arm and left knee injuries, Ohtani was kept in the Dodgers’ lineup for Game 3 of the NLCS.

He was, as manager Dave Roberts relayed while announcing the decision on Tuesday, “convicted” and “adamant” in his ability to find something at the plate, and look more like the four-time MVP that has spearheaded the Dodgers’ offense during their run to back-to-back World Series titles the last two years.

“‘I want to be in there. I know I can help the team. I’m close,’” Ohtani told Roberts and top front-office executives Andrew Friedman and Brandon Gomes during a meeting on Tuesday, as Roberts later recounted.

“That,” Roberts added, “is all I need to hear.”

Ohtani’s chances of following through on such optimism, of course, still seemed dubious.

He entered Wednesday batting just 3-for-20 with no extra-base hits or RBIs this postseason. He hadn’t launched a home run since Aug. 18, mired in the longest single-season long-ball drought of his MLB career. He was coming off a particularly poor performance in Game 2, going 0-for-4 with two strikeouts and several awkward swings in a 7-4 loss that put the Dodgers in a 2-0 series hole.

Still, the Brewers remained wary of the 32-year-old’s capabilities.

They couldn’t help but remember last year’s NLCS, when Ohtani entered Game 4 in a 3-for-29 slump — then delivered perhaps the greatest individual performance in baseball history, hitting three home runs and striking out 10 batters to complete a pennant-clinching sweep.

“There’s proof of that even last year,” Mitchell noted. “Probably didn’t have the greatest series to start, but that Game 4, it just takes one day.”

“You can’t forget that,” Murphy added. “Do you know how tough it is to execute what he did?”

This version of Ohtani, of course, looks nothing like last year’s.

He isn’t pitching. He isn’t slugging. Outside of a few slap singles and a couple walks, he has hardly even posed a threat to reach base.

Has that changed the way the Brewers have attacked him in this NLCS rematch, Murphy was asked: 

“You still have to go at him,” he said, coyly. “You have to go at everybody.”

As for whether Murphy would have been surprised to see Ohtani benched for Game 3?

“That’s out of my hands,” he said. “But surprise? Nothing in this game surprises me, to tell you the truth. Right when you think you know something, be careful; you might not.”

With their season hanging in the balance, the Dodgers are hoping that will prove true with their slumping superstar slugger.

It’s been 12 years since a Met won a Gold Glove Award, marking the second-longest active drought in the majors. But 2026 may finally bring an end to that streak, as Luis Torrens, Nolan McLean, and Carson Benge were all named finalists for a Gold Glove Award at their respective positions on Wednesday afternoon.

Torrens was also a finalist at catcher in 2025, losing to the Giants’ back-to-back winner Patrick Bailey. This year, Bailey was left off the finalist list after being traded midseason from the Giants to the Guardians. Torrens put up a Fielding Run Value of 10 despite playing in just 91 games, ranking second second in the National League behind the Marlins’ Joe Mack (13), and ahead of the fellow finalists: the Padres’ Freddy Fermin (9) and the Diamondbacks’ Gabriel Moreno (7). His 12 Defensive Runs Saved ranked third in the majors, trailing only the Tigers’ Dillon Dingler and Moreno. Torrens would become the first Mets catcher to win a Gold Glove Award.

McLean, meanwhile, has a chance to become the first Mets pitcher to win a Gold Glove Award since Ron Darling in 1989. McLean’s 4 defensive runs saved were tied for third-most in the NL. The Cardinals’ Michael McGreevy led the pack with 5, while Chris Sale, the third finalist, came in behind McLean with 3.

Benge has his sights set on winning the NL Rookie of the Year Award after a late-season tear, but why not grab a Gold Glove Award, too? Nominated alongside the Cubs’ Seiya Suzuki and the Diamondbacks’ Corbin Carroll, Benge’s case may be the strongest — and also the strangest — among the Mets’ trio of finalists. His Fielding Run Value of 6 ranks second among NL right fielders behind Suzuki (8), but his arm value (7) was the best among all MLB outfielders thanks to a plethora of pulchritudinous throws. Despite the eye test, Benge’s range is actually what’s hurting him. Statcast has him grading out at -1 Outs Above Average in right field. His 7 defensive runs saved in right field are half that of Suzuki’s 14. If voters value Benge’s cannon of an arm and his highlight-reel-worthy dives, he can expect to take home the hardware. But Suzuki may earn the nod thanks to his more balanced defensive grades.

If either Benge or McLean win, they would become just the second Mets rookie to win a Gold Glove Award after Juan Lagares (who also won the NL Rookie of the Year Award) in 2014. If McLean wins, he would become the first rookie to win a Gold Glove Award at pitcher in MLB history.

The Seattle Mariners put out a historically bad defense in 2026, but one member of the roster is being recognized for floating above the rest of the sinking ship. 2B Cole Young has been named as a finalist for the Gold Glove Award at second base, presented by Rawlings. Young demonstrated a sizable improvement in his footwork and arm accuracy, getting a good deal out of his athleticism and average foot speed. He’s joined on the ballot by a pair of American League Central keystoners: 2B Michael Massey of the Kansas City Royals and 2B Chase Meidroth of the Chicago White Sox.

The Gold Glove Award is allotted based on a combination of votes from managers and coaches (75% weight) and a proprietary Defensive Index formula cultivated by the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and Rawlings (25% weight). Young has a curious case for the award, rating clearly as the best defensive two-bagger by Defensive Runs Saved at +16. That not only has him as the best second baseman, but the eighth-best defender in the sport. Meanwhile, via Statcast and Baseball Savant, the Outs Above Average range-gauging metric has a much lower estimation of Young’s play, placing him at -6 OAA and a cumulative -5 Fielding Run Value (FRV) when attempting to gauge more of the player’s skill overall.

The Defensive Index from SABR seems to lean more DRS-ward, and while the data are not perpetually public, the organization reveals monthly snapshots of their leaderboards. Through August 9th, Young was the only 2B listed in the Top-25 American League defenders, giving him a chance at leading in that portion of the award. Given Young was the only defender it felt comfortable to hope a groundball was hit at during the 2026 season, it seems more than appropriate to see him heralded.

Young’s knock has typically been what drove him to second base in the first place: arm strength that rated as 380th out of 388 qualified players across all positions by Baseball Savant. The metric averages the top 5% of velocity throws from each player in an attempt to sample only the throws wherein the player is “trying their hardest,” and Young’s tendency for slow hands that transitioned into floating throws contributed to a M’s infield that struggled to turn double plays. And yet, Young’s accuracy with his arm, even with underwhelming pace, earned positive value from FRV for throwing. Combining these metrics with the less-useful metric of Fielding Percentage, which captures merely what MLB determines an error or not in an increasingly rare ruling, Young’s .990 fielding percentage in his AL-leading 1350.1 innings at the keystone was also best in the American League.

Congratulations to Young on being a finalist, and fingers are of course crossed for his victory, yes. That’s all well and good, but the most important thing is that the dream lives: Lookout Landing Managing Editor Kate Preusser vowed early this year to get a thematic tattoo should Cole Young win a Gold Glove this season. As the season progressed, this went from flippant and funny to plausibly possible. When asked about potential tattoos, Preusser noted she may homage departed infield coach Perry Hill with a bone-themed design, should she see Young’s name called for the award.

Winners will be announced on ESPN on Sunday, November 1st.

Game 4 of the National League Championship Series will start an hour earlier Thursday, Oct. 14, Major League Baseball announced, a result of the significant time change involving the American League Championship Series.

The Milwaukee Brewers and Los Angeles Dodgers will start NLCS Game 4 at 5 p.m. PT/8 ET since the time of ALCS Game 3 was moved to 1 p.m. ET due to anticipated inclement weather in Cleveland, where the Guardians will host the Tampa Bay Rays.

Originally, the Brewers and Dodgers were to tip off an hour later to space out the game times for television purposes. Instead, both games will avoid any overlap, though Guardians and Rays fans will have to adjust their schedules for the matinee start.

Wednesday, the ALCS has a travel day while NLCS Game 3 begins at 8 ET. Friday, ALCS Game 4 is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. ET and NLCS Game 5, if necessary, at 9 ET. Fox Sports is broadcasting the NLCS while TBS has coverage of the ALCS.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dodgers-Brewers NLCS Game 4 time changed by MLB

LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers were much better hitting in road games this regular season, but now have up to three games at home this week to try to keep their championship quest alive. They’ll need to find their offense to do so.

At Dodger Stadium this season, the Dodgers hit .250/.329/.419 with a 107 wRC+ that ranked ninth in the majors, averaging 4.63 runs per game. But on the road they averaged 5.26 runs while hitting .263/.347/.429 with a 114 wRC+, with all of those numbers tops in the majors. Their road batting average was nine points clear of second place (Rays), and their on-base percentage was 16 points better than the next-best (Cubs, Brewers).

But on their four-game road trip — work with me here, since the Dodgers returned home to Los Angeles after the two games in Atlanta before heading to Milwaukee — the club scored only 11 total runs while hitting a paltry .181/.254/.260. The Dodgers on the road did get their only two hits with runners in scoring position this October, both Andy Pages singles (Game 4 in Atlanta, Game 1 in Milwaukee).

The Dodgers needed a lot of help from Logan Henderson’s three bad throws in Game 2 of the NLCS to plate the four runs they scored. The point is, it’s been like pulling teeth for the Dodgers to have folks touch home plate, and they need something, anything to get things going on offense, whether or not their faith in a diminished Shohei Ohtani is justified.

“I’m not too concerned about the urgency. I just want to keep that intensity,” manager Dave Roberts said of the offense on Wednesday. “It’s going to be good to be at home, play in front of the home crowd, again, win a game and then go from there.”

One way to get the offense going might be the long ball, as the Brewers have hit the only two home runs so far in the NLCS. The Dodgers at home in the regular season hit 101 homers, compared to 103 on the road. But per plate appearance, Dodger Stadium was the plate to be, hitting a home home run once every 29.4 plate appearances compared to one every 31.5 PA away from home.

The Dodgers hit five home runs in the first two games of the Division Series against the Braves.

Left-hander Robert Gasser allowed a perfectly normal 15 home runs in his 21 games and 109 1/3 innings this season, and a home run accounted for the only run against him in his four innings in Game 4 of the NLDS in San Diego.

In two starts against the Dodgers this season, the Dodgers hit three home runs against him — Teoscar Hernández in Milwaukee, Andy Pages and Tommy Edman in Los Angeles — while allowing seven total runs in 10 2/3 innings.

“They know me, and I know them. I enjoy having some familiarity with a lineup,” Gasser told reporters Monday in Milwaukee. “Looking back to the game in August and kind of watching those swings, obviously hitters adjust, but being a good guy in the dugout, watching them right now and seeing how they’ve changed to now and trying to build a plan for them.”

Whatever offense the Dodgers get on Wednesday, it will be backing Blake Snell, who walked five in his last time out, in Game 2 against the Braves 10 days ago, while lasting only 3 2/3 innings.

“A big thing is momentum. Once you shift it, especially at home, anything can happen,” Snell said Tuesday. “We saw what happened when we played Toronto. I’m not worried. We’ve just got to get it going. I think, once we do that, we’ll be fine.”

NLCS Game 3 info

• Teams: No. 2 seed Dodgers vs. No. 1 seed Brewers
• Series: Milwaukee leads, 2-0
• Ballpark: Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles
• Start time: 5:08 p.m.
• TV: FS1 (Joe Davis, John Smoltz, Ken Rosenthal, Tom Verducci)
• National radio: ESPN Radio (Jon Sciambi, Doug Glanville)
• Local English radio: AM 570 (Charley Steiner, Rick Monday)
• Local Spanish radio: KTNQ 1020 AM (José Mota, Luis Cruz)

The 2026 Rawlings Gold Glove awards won’t be announced until November 1, but the list of finalists at each position was released on Wednesday. The Detroit Tigers have two representatives in the group of American League finalists, one with a legitimate shot to win an award, the other a longshot.

Dillon Dingler is the first finalist for the Tigers, and should be favored to take home the Gold Glove award as the game’s best defensive catcher. He’s up against Austin Wells of the New York Yankees and Brandon Valenzuela of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Dingler was worth +15 defensive runs saved (DRS) this season per Sports Info Solutions, and a +16 fielding run value (FRV), which is Statcast’s combined catching metric. eading all qualified catchers by a wide margin. Dingler did this while appearing in 145 games total with 116 games behind the plate. Wells was worth +8 DRS and +7 FRV by comparison. Valenzuela played less, but he was also excellent defensively, posting a +9 DRS and +13 FRV.

This should be Dingler’s award. Obviously this is supposed to be about defense only, but it often hasn’t quite played out that way. On defense alone, Dingler wins. If you take whole impact on their team, Dingler wins and no one is even within sight.

Your 2026 Rawlings Gold Glove Award Finalists!

Winners will be announced on 11/1! #RawlingsGoldGloveAwardspic.twitter.com/vwQ97Ru3iv

— Rawlings Baseball (@RawlingsSports) October 14, 2026

Your 2026 Rawlings Gold Glove Award National League Finalists!

We will announce the winners on 11/1! #RawlingsGoldGloveAwardspic.twitter.com/qiFPk472wr

— Rawlings Baseball (@RawlingsSports) October 14, 2026

Zach McKinstry is their other Tigers finalist. He’s in the utility category along with the Yankees’ José Caballero and the Rangers’ Ezequiel Duran.

Caballero played just about everywhere this season, other than first base and catcher. Overall he was worth +2 Outs Above Average (OAA). Duran was worth +13 OAA, with most of that value coming at shortstop although he too played all over the infield and outfield for the Rangers this year. McKinstry was at +8 OAA, generating plus values at shortstop, second base, and in right field where he was a bit of a revelation defensively.

Probably Duran takes this one, but McKinstry does match up pretty well against him. Caballero has the advantage of being on the best team of the three, but his numbers don’t stack up well in comparison to either Duran or McKinstry.

On the other hand, this isn’t an award based on DRS or OAA. It’s voted on by managers and coaches from each team around the league. That voting compromises 75 percent of the final points per player. The other 25 percent comes from the SABR defensive index to try and get a more objective measure into the results. You can find a little more on the voting process here.

We’ll have to wait a few weeks to find out the winners. Dingler should have a cakewalk to the award. The utility award is probably more of a wide open race.

Phillies to move on from Kevin Long, Bobby Dickerson as staff changes begin originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

On the same day they brought Don Mattingly back on a two-year contract covering the 2027 and 2028 seasons, the Phillies began reshaping the coaching staff around him.

Hitting coach Kevin Long and infield coach Bobby Dickerson will not return, sources told NBC Sports Philadelphia on Wednesday night.

The team has a Thursday morning press conference scheduled and has not confirmed the moves. 

Long and Dickerson had been on the staff together since 2022 and remained through managerial changes from Joe Girardi to Rob Thomson and from Thomson to Mattingly in late April.

Long’s departure follows a steep one-year decline by the Phillies’ offense. Philadelphia finished fourth in the majors with a .759 OPS and second with a .258 batting average in 2025. Those marks dropped to a .707 OPS, which ranked 22nd, and a .240 average, which ranked 21st, this season. The Phillies still reached the postseason for a fifth consecutive year but scored eight runs during their three-game Wild Card Series loss to Atlanta.

Long joined the Phillies in October 2021 after four seasons in the same position with the Nationals. His five seasons in Philadelphia included a World Series appearance in 2022 and an offense that remained among baseball’s most productive through 2025. He previously served as hitting coach for the Yankees and Mets and won World Series rings with New York in 2009 and Washington in 2019.

Two years after that, as Nationals hitting coach, Long began working with Kyle Schwarber, whom the Cubs had non-tendered following a .188 season in 2020. He helped Schwarber rebuild his swing in Washington and later pushed the Phillies to sign him. Schwarber has since signed two contracts with Philadelphia worth a combined $229 million. Before agreeing to a five-year, $150 million deal last winter, Schwarber pushed for the Phillies to retain Long, according to sources. The club signed Long through 2028.

Dickerson returned to the Phillies ahead of the 2022 season, beginning his second stint as their infield coach. He previously held the position in 2019 before spending two seasons with the Padres.

Dickerson helped turn Alec Bohm into a serviceable major-league third baseman after his early defensive struggles. He also worked closely with Trea Turner during one of the most dramatic defensive improvements in baseball. After totaling minus-8 Outs Above Average during his first two seasons with the Phillies, Turner recorded 17 OAA in 2025 and finished in the 99th percentile of major-league fielders. Bryson Stott also developed into the most dependable defender in the Phillies’ infield.

The group took a sharp step backward in 2026. The Phillies’ infield went from plus-20 OAA in 2025 to minus-11 this season, a 31-out swing, according to Statcast. The range-based metric measures how many outs a player saves or costs his team compared with an average fielder.

Philadelphia chose continuity with Mattingly, but Long and Dickerson will not be part of his first full season in charge.

A-list actor Sydney Sweeney’s risqué ad campaigns with prediction market Novig have been one of the most polarizing topics in media over the past several weeks.

Dodgers outfielder Alex Call decided to weigh in with his opinion on social media before his team’s must-win NLCS Game 3 against the Brewers on Wednesday.

Call commented on a viral X post that criticized the commercials that are being played during MLB playoff games and wrote, “Can we please get the soft porn ads off playoff broadcasts, TBS, Fox, NBC, @MLB? My son wants to watch baseball with Dada, but how do I justify that when a half-naked women [sic] could come on screen anytime?? This is America’s Pastime. Parents shouldn’t have to worry about this.”

Call makes a fair point about how this isn’t something parents should have to worry about, as it can take away from what should be a wholesome (and PG-friendly) sports-viewing experience.

Yet, given that the post was made past midnight on Wednesday morning, Dodgers fans would probably prefer that the outfielder was sleeping instead of worrying about Sweeney’s Novig commercials.

Then again, the 32-year-old Call hasn’t appeared in a postseason game to this point, despite being on the Dodgers’ active roster.

Austin Wells, Cody Bellinger, and José Caballero are the three Yankees who were named Rawlings Gold Glove finalists on Wednesday.

Among the American League finalists, Wells was named alongside Tigers catcher Dillon Dingler and the Blue Jays’ Brandon Valenzuela. The Yankees catcher had his ups and downs offensively this season, but he made up for it behind the plate by winning some clutch challenges and continuing to improve behind the plate. His days of being debated as a realistic catching prospect are long since forgotten. Wells had the fourth-highest win percentage of all MLB players in ABS challenge calls from the field during the regular season. His predecessor, Jose Trevino, was the last Yankees backstop to win a Gold Glove, when he took home both that and the elusive Platinum Glove in 2022.

Bellinger, who carried the offense during some slumps and while the team was plagued with injuries, will look to earn his second Gold Glove since his 2019 NL MVP season with the Dodgers. Bellinger was named alongside Rangers left fielder Wyatt Langford and the Rays’ Chandler Simpson. Per Baseball Savant, he was a 91st-percentile defender with +6 Outs Above Average (OAA) and a strong arm to boot. He was their most consistent outfielder and more than capably covered the vast swath of Yankee Stadium left field. Indeed, the last Yankees outfielder to win the honor also patrolled left: 2016 Brett Gardner.

Caballero is up for the Gold Glove as a utility player, which I wasn’t exactly anticipating. However, having played six positions this season, including shortstop, second base, third base, and all three outfield spots, his impact defensively was impossible to go unnoticed. He finished the regular season with a +2 OAA, a .972 fielding percentage, and a career-high 55 double plays. Despite his numbers trending in the right direction, he only started in one postseason game and went 1-for-2 in the devastating 4-3 loss to the Rays that ended the Yankees’ season.

Caballero was named a finalist alongside the Rangers’ Ezequiel Duran and the Tigers’ Zach McKinstry. As a reminder, the utilityman Gold Glove is still relatively new, as it was introduced by Rawlings in 2022, with the Yanks’ DJ LeMahieu named the first AL winner.

Your 2026 Rawlings Gold Glove Award Finalists!

Winners will be announced on 11/1! #RawlingsGoldGloveAwardspic.twitter.com/vwQ97Ru3iv

— Rawlings Baseball (@RawlingsSports) October 14, 2026

The Gold Glove winners will be unveiled during ESPN’s Baseball Tonight segment, which is slated for Sunday, November 1 at 8:30 p.m. EST.

LOS ANGELES — Expected weather in Cleveland has affected the start time of Thursday’s National League Championship Series Game 4 in Los Angeles. Dodgers vs. Brewers will now start one hour earlier, from 6:08 p.m. to 5:08 p.m. PT, as a result of the American League Championship Series Game 3 moving to earlier in the day.

Earlier on Wednesday, Major League Baseball announced that the forecast of inclement weather in Cleveland on Thursday night moved Game 3 of Guardians vs. Rays from 6 p.m. to 1 p.m. ET, a 10 a.m. PT start time. The original schedule had a three-hour window for TBS before the FS1 broadcast of Dodgers-Brewers. But with the ALCS on Thursday moving to earlier in the day, MLB decided to move Dodgers-Brewers into the preferred 5 p.m. PT / 8 p.m. ET time slot reserved for most nights.

Games 1, 3, (now) 4, 6, and 7 of the NLCS are slated for that 5 p.m. PT / 8 p.m. ET time slot, as are ALCS Games 1, 2, 5, and 7.

With the time change, Dodger Stadium parking lot gates on Thursday will open at 2 p.m., with stadium gates set to open at 2:30 p.m. for the 5:08 p.m. game.

Orel Hershiser and Mike Scioscia will throw the ceremonial first pitch prior to Game 4, with Kaleena Zanders performing the national anthem.

The Yankees defense has been, over the past few years, inconsistent at best. The 2024 squad, on paper, wasn’t too bad, ending the year in the middle of the pack in Defensive Runs Saved (31, good for 12th in baseball) and Outs Above Average (10, good for 10th), but defensive miscues rather infamously proved their downfall in the World Series that year. The 2025 team brought in a trio of Gold Glovers in Cody Bellinger, Max Fried, and Paul Goldschmidt and shifted Jazz Chisholm back to second base, but the team still finished 13th in DRS with 30 and 18th in OAA with -7. Considering the fact that, in many ways, the 2026 team ran back the 2025 version, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the team once again finished 13th in DRS with 26 and 17th in OAA with -5.

As befits a team whose sum total defensively trends towards mediocrity, the Yankees had more than their fair share of highlights and lowlights this year. Today, we take a look at the team’s best webgems (we’ll review the misplays later this week). We’re not ranking them, because defensive excellence need not be ranked, but feel free to do so in the comments section below!

The Belli Tip

Before Knicks star OG Anunoby tipped the ball into the hoop to give the Knicks the lead with 1.2 seconds left in Game 4 of the NBA Finals, you had Cody Bellinger. Okay, okay, nothing quite compares to that play, but nonetheless, the Yankees left fielder made quite a grab during the Yankees’ home opener back on April 3rd. In the top of the ninth, Marlins second baseman Xavier Edwards drove a fly ball to deep left field. Ranging backwards, Bellinger leapt as the ball sailed over his head, and had he come down with it, that play would have ended up on the Honorable Mentions in this list. But he did not come down with it: he mistimed the jump, the ball hit his wrist. As the ball fell to the ground, he made a desperate stab at it…and somehow, he caught it.

I mean, just look at that face. That is a guy thinking, “Wow, I can’t believe that actually worked.”

Belli’s Cannon

We could honestly just fill this entire post with Bellinger highlights, but for the sake of, well, remembering players not named Cody Bellinger, we’ll limit it to just two — or rather, to two categories, because here, I just can’t pick between these two plays, both of which involve Bellinger using his arm to throw out a runner.

During the critical series between the Yankees and Red Sox at the end of August, the Yankees held a 1-0 lead late in the game. With a pair of runners in scoring position and only one away against fireman Paul Blackburn, Boston was threatening, when Willson Contreras hit a fly ball to left field for the second out of the inning. Looking to make something happen, the speedy Ceddanne Rafaela tagged up and challenged Belli, strength against strength, to make a play. He answered the call, delivering a strike to Austin Wells, as the Yankees wound up winning 1-0.

In a much less-intense version of the famous play in which Bellinger retired Juan Soto and doubled up Francisco Lindor last year, No. 35 recognized that he had a shot to double up Victor Mesa Jr., who was running on the play, and end the inning. It wasn’t his best throw to first, but Luis García Jr. made a neat scoop-and-tag while falling to the ground, finishing off a beautiful 7-3 double play with style.

Pitchers Are Athletes Too

While only Max Fried is truly known for his defense, the Yankees pitching staff put together quite the highlight reel, so once again, I am cheating a little bit, because I can’t pick just one (hey, I make the rules).

To begin, back on April 28th, Fernando Cruz slid to field a bunt off the bat of Joc Pederson, then threw to Ryan McMahon from his rear end to nab the lead runner for the first out of the inning (the play would be challenged, unsuccessfully, by the Rangers).

Just two weeks later, just one inning after being hit in the foot by a line drive, Cam Schlittler fielded a slow chopper off the bat of Mark Vientos and made an off-balance throw to fellow Massachusetts native Ben Rice for the third out of the inning against the Mets.

On June 22nd, Ryan Yarbrough took matters into his own hands and made a diving tag on a bunt.

And on September 11th, Brent Headrick escaped a bases loaded jam by catching a line drive right back up the middle off the bat of Francisco Lindor.

The Rook Barehands It

After he made his Major League debut at the beginning of August, George Lombard Jr. made fans throughout the Yankees fandom with his slick play at shortstop. My personal favorite? This barehanded grab on August 11th, where he fielded a ricochet off the second base bag cleanly before throwing to first for the third out of the inning.

He’s Here! He’s There! He’s Every-Bleepin-Where!

José Caballero was the Yankees’ Swiss Army knife this season. He began the year as the starting shortstop (where he played 70 games), before bouncing around the field, making 23 appearances at the keystone, 37 at the hot corner, and 22 games across all three outfield positions. And while he wasn’t exactly equally proficient with the glove everywhere he played — he had 13 DRS at shortstop, 1 apiece at second and third, and -3 in the outfield — he wasn’t unplayable anywhere, and made more than his fair share of highlights there.

Let’s go around the diamond. Playing second base on July 24th, he made a diving stop ranging to his right to rob a base hit from Alec Bohm.

At shortstop, here’s a nifty play he made on September 2nd — while not the flashiest, those in-between, not quite a line drive, not quite a ground ball ones are some of the hardest to field.

At the hot corner, he teamed up with Lombard for rather unusual 6-5-3 double play. It’s the type of play that could only happen because of the shift — and because Cabby’s positional versatility allows him to adapt to unusual situations.

And lastly, on June 17th, he made this diving catch against the Tigers while in left field — a play that had me worried for a second when I saw it live, as Cabby took a second to get up.

Honorable Mentions

Other Cody Bellinger Plays Considered

The Martian Makes the Grab, But Exits with a Concussion

A Slide from Wells

First Basemen are Athletes Too!

A Preview of the Future?

And All That Jazz

With the MLB postseason no longer delivering frenetic news days given that we’re in League Championship Series season, where there’s not even two games on most days, it’s time for the faux-anticipation of dropping finalists (not winners, finalists) for certain end-of-season awards.

We’ve got two on the docket today. First, Gold Gloves.

I have a bone to pick with Gold Gloves, as you’ve probably read by now. There’s a way to do the whole Gold Glove thing objectively. Would it be perfect? Nah. But it would at least be steady. Instead, we have the current Rawlings award process, which is an abomination/agglomeration of multiple criteria, some of which just make no sense. For example, one criterion does involve defensive metrics, but it’s an index of multiple metrics, some of which are outdated and strictly worse than others, which just dilutes the whole endeavor. It’s whack. Anyway, here we go, courtesy of MLB.com:

As far as the Braves are concerned, their Gold Glove finalists are Chris Sale, Matt Olson, Michael Harris II, and Mauricio Dubon. Let’s look at these in turn.

Sale is a tough one, because no one really tries to evaluate pitcher defense in a way commensurate with other positions. The only measure we have that I’m aware of is DRS, and DRS has a load of problems. By DRS, though, Sale finished fourth in defensive value in the National League. (Foster Griffin was also ahead of him but was traded to the other league midseason.) I don’t know what to do with this one. The other finalists are Michael McGreevy and Nolan McLean, who finished first and third ahead of Sale, respectively, so… I dunno, give this to McGreevy? What a weird award.

Matt Olson should probably win his fourth Gold Glove. He led all first basemen in OAA/FRV (the Statcast-based measures), blowing away basically every first baseman in terms of converting range into outs.

Michael Harris II makes sense as a finalist, but Pete Crow-Armstrong more than doubled his FRV and has a giant lead, so…

That brings us to Mauricio Dubon. The “utility” position is a tough one to evaluate, since you have to really think about what qualifies someone to even be eligible for this position, and think about positional adjustments. Inclusive of those adjustments, the three finalists here are:

• Dubon, with about half a win above average, with above-average marks at short, average marks in left, and an above-average cameo in center;
• Jared Triolo, who only played about half a season and had less aggregate defensive value, playing mostly third and short in nondescript fashion; and
• Ildemaro Vargas, who mostly played first and second, and didn’t really impress at second.

Basically, this is a weird thing, and if these are your three finalists, it feels like Dubon should win by default. That said, since apparently Nico Hoerner (played mostly second but some short) and Bryson Stott (mostly second, some third) didn’t qualify for whatever reason, Dubon really does make sense as the next-best option. (For those of you saying that Hoerner and Stott shouldn’t be in the running because two positions does not a utility guy make, look at Triolo and Vargas, who pretty much played… two positions.)

In terms of snubs, there’s not really anything to complain about, as the other Braves didn’t really warrant any real consideration here, not even as top-three finalists in the NL.

Switching gears a bit, the MLBPA announced finalists for their peer-voted Players’ Choice awards here. Of relevance to the Braves are Chris Sale (but he’ll probably lose to Jacob Misiorowski) as Outstanding Pitcher in the NL, and Martin Perez as Comeback Player. The other two finalists vying with Perez are Sandy Alcantara and… honestly, this award has kind of lost all meaning. Wheeler has thrown 149-plus frames every non-shortened season going back to his partial-season absence in 2017, while Alcantara is at 170-plus the last two years. What are they coming back from? Like, yeah, Alcantara wasn’t that good in 2025, but don’t call it a comeback. Perez wasn’t particularly good in 2026, but at least his 2025 was legitimately a partial season. I don’t know, this is a weird award. How about someone like Jordan Walker, who legitimately “came back” from being awful and minors-bound the past two seasons, or Michael King, who actually missed a bunch of 2025?

Don’t mind me. Get that hardware, Matt Olson.

LOS ANGELES — Two Dodgers received recognition for their defensive prowess on Wednesday, with Rawlings announcing the top three finishers at every position in each league for 2026 Gold Glove Awards. Andy Pages and Max Muncy will finish in the top three in center field and third base, respectively in the National League for the honor this season.

Gold Glove Award voting is 75 percent managers and up to six coaches from each team, with the caveat that these folks cannot vote for players on their own team. The other quarter of the voting is determined from the SABR Defensive Index, which is an amalgamation of defensive statistics comprised by a committee of experts.

This is the first time in Pages’ three major league seasons that he’ll finish in the top three at his position for a Gold Glove Award. The other two National League center fielders in the top three are Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Chicago Cubs and Michael Harris II of the Braves.

Through August 9, Crow-Armstrong led NL center fielders with an SDI score of 13.4, with Pages close by at 12.0, then Harris at 6.3.

Pages led all National League outfielders with 14 assists, and also led all NL outfielders with 20 Defensive Runs Saved (Crow-Armstrong was second with 16 DRS). Crow-Armstrong was tops among major league center fielders with a +26 Fielding Run Value, with Pages third in the majors and second in the NL at +13, with Harris at +12.

Muncy’s fellow top-three finishers among NL third baseman are Alex Bregman of the Cubs and Javier Sanoja of the Miami Marlins.

Through August 9, Muncy had the highest SDI score among this trio at +4.8, with Bregman at 4.5 and Sanoja at +2.6. Bregman tied for the NL lead with 15 Defensive Runs Saved, and Sanoja tied for the league lead with a +5 Fielding Run Value. Muncy had 2 Defensive Runs Saved and a dead-average zero Fielding Run Value.

Matt Chapman of the San Francisco Giants led all NL third baseman with an SDI score of +11.9, and also on the season tied for the lead at the position in Defensive Runs Saved (15) and Fielding Run Value (+5). But he didn’t have enough innings to qualify for the award, given that he last played on June 30.

Chapman totaled 718 2/3 defensive innings on the season, and Gold Glove eligibility requires infielders to amass at least 750 innings by the team’s 138th game of the season.

This is the second time finishing in the top three for a Gold Glove Award for Muncy, who was considered at first base in 2021. The Gold Glove Award at first base that year went to Paul Goldschmidt, then of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Gold Glove Award winners will be announced on Sunday, November 1 on ‘Baseball Tonight’ on ESPN, beginning at 5:30 p.m. PT.

With the offseason underway (for our Atlanta Braves, at least), it’s time to start looking forward to the future — well, as much as you can when you consider what awaits the baseball world once the start of December rolls around. Either way, teams are going to be keeping it business as usual until that date and as such, it’s time to start keeping an eye on what type of moves the Braves could make going forward.

MLB Trade Rumors has completed their annual Projected Arbitration Salaries for the upcoming offseason and it’s always a useful resource to keep handy once this time of year comes around. This season, the Braves will have six arbitration-eligible players to deal with, with the two most notable names being Bryce Elder and Dylan Lee. For Elder in particular, this’ll be his first arbitration-eligible season so he could be in line for a big jump in pay if this projection proves to be correct. Dylan Lee would also be in line to see the price of his services go up as well.

Here’s the full list and projected salaries (current salaries according to FanGraphs in parentheses), as provided by MLBTR:

• Bryce Elder: $4 million ($810,000)
• Michael Grove: $1 million ($546,524)
• James Karinchak: $1.1 million ($215,249 ($840,000 split contract))
• Dylan Lee: $4.2 million ($2.2 million)
• Joey Wentz: $900,000 ($900,000)

Luke Williams would’ve made this six Braves players, but he was recently designated for assignment as the Braves selected LHP Danny Young’s contract in a corresponding move.

Obviously, Elder will be the big one to keep an eye on here, as we’ll get an idea of where the Braves are at on him based on these negotiations, which can sometimes get a bit contentious if/when it goes to trial. We’ll see what happens, though.

Welcome to the 2026 edition of Ranking the Rockies, where we take a look back at every player to log playing time for the Rockies in 2026. The purpose of this list is to provide a snapshot of the player in context. The “Ranking” is an organizing principle that’s drawn from Baseball Reference’s WAR (rWAR). It’s not something the staff debated. We’ll begin with the player with the lowest rWAR and end up with the player with the highest.

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No. 43, Ezequiel Tovar (-0.3 rWAR)

Ezequiel Tovar’s story is a Tale of Two Players.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of Gold Gloves, it was the age of batting slumps. It was the 2024 season of light, it was the 2026 season of darkness. We had a cornerstone shortstop before us, we had nothing before us.

Not to get all Dickensian, but it really is fascinating to compare Tovar’s ups to his downs, whether that’s two seasons ago compared to this one or the first half of the year compared to the second half. His future on the team depends on where he falls between his ceiling and his floor, of which we’ve seen plenty of both.

The Big Picture: 2024 vs. 2026

Looking at his numbers over the year begs the question: who is the real Ezequiel Tovar?

We’re two years removed from Tovar’s stellar 2024 campaign, which feels like a distant memory based on how 2025 and 2026 went down.

In 2024, he put together a well-rounded year on both sides of the ball, not just by Rockies standards, but by league standards. He snagged a Gold Glove award, led the National League in doubles offensively and in outs made defensively, and was fourth in the NL in hits and total bases. With that campaign, he seemingly laid claim to the shortstop position in Colorado for years to come.

The fall off from there couldn’t have been predicted. After his 2025 was cut short with injuries, his stats in every key offensive category fell significantly in 2026.

Category	2024	2026
Games Played	157	146
At Bats	655	465
Batting Average	.269	.219
Hits	176	102
Doubles	45	23
Home Runs	26	13
Strikeouts	200	129
Runs	83	57
RBI	78	44
rWAR	3.6	-0.3

In fairness, some of his raw numbers dipped due in part to fewer total at bats, but many dropped disproportionately. Overall, his contributions to the team struggled, not only evidenced by his rWAR sinking nearly four points and into the negatives, but also by the lack of big plays that he flashed in 2024.

The doubles that he led the NL with dropped by half, as did his home runs. His batting average fell by 50 percentage points. He struggled to bring teammates home, with 34 fewer RBI.

By the numbers, he also lost his defensive edge. His Statcast Outs Above Average, “a range-based metric of skill that shows how many outs a player has saved over his peers”, was +15 in 2024. It was 0 in 2026.

This isn’t to say that he became a bad fielder, by any means. His fielding percentage stayed relatively stable from his Gold Glove year (.988 in 2024, .980 in 2026) and was above the league average at the position in both. But, at least by one measure, he fell to an average defensive level, making it harder to compensate for his offensive struggles.

Heading into this season, the primary question surrounding Tovar was whether he could rise again to the level of his fantastic 2024 season or whether his dependability in the field is worth the question marks at the plate. That question remains after a very split 2026.

2026 in Two Halves

As different as Tovar’s 2024 and 2026 were, so were portions of his 2026 compared to others. Promisingly, he worked through his mid-season droughts and finished the year strong offensively.

As mentioned above, he had a .219 batting average on the year. Over the last 14 days of the season, that jumped way up to .294. The pre- and post-All Star break splits were wildly different, too. In the first half of the year, he had a .200 batting average and .574 OPS. In the second half, those jumped to a .260 batting average and a .707 OPS.

In the early chunk of the year, his plate discipline was way off. He had the highest swing-rate in MLB aside a very low contact rate, paired with a high swing rate on pitches outside of the zone. He also struggled to find a batting rhythm in the friendly confines of Coors Field, batting .206 at home and .231 on the road for the year. In July, he ranked last among shortstops in fWAR and wRC+, raising mid-season questions about how to fix Tovar to make him a valuable everyday player.

His weakest stretches at the plate came during the dog days of summer. During a brutal June and July, he was batting .173 and .145, respectively. He slowly turned things around and finished his two strongest batting months of the season in August (.269) and September (.304). In those months, he broke out for a few home runs that felt like a breath of fresh air, including one on a four-hit day in early August that ended a rough month-long stretch at the plate.

What’s Next?

Tovar looked to anchor Colorado’s shortstop position for the long-term, signing a seven-year contract for $63.5 million in 2024, with a club option in 2031. He’s certainly shown evidence that he can be trusted to take on that role, but there’s also been reason for doubt.

Even at his floor, Tovar combined dependable playing time with reliable defense. The biggest variable has been his offensive output, ensuring it doesn’t harm the team. In 2027, the Rockies will hope to see continued patience and discipline at the plate from Tovar. If he can improve his hitting consistency and get on base regularly, that alone would be a big win. Even more so, if he can bring back some of his power and account for more extra-base hits, he’d position himself again as one of the team’s top contributors. If his defense can get back to an above-average level, too, that would be a bonus.

Manager Warren Schaeffer sees the offensive and defensive issues as connected. In an offseason interview with Purple Row, Schaeffer said, “I think each guy goes through something different in the year. I think Tovar’s defense was down – I think in large part because his offense was so down. He did a good job of not taking it out in the field, but it’s a really difficult thing to go through the offensive season he had and it to not affect his defense.” The hope is that a consistent approach at the plate will translate to higher numbers across the board.

The Rockies drafted Ethan Holliday (No. 1 PuRP) as a shortstop with the fourth overall pick in the 2025 draft, although it’s likely that he will move to third base with some versatility to play elsewhere in the infield, including shortstop. Between Holliday’s draft capital and Kyle Karros’ emergence as a strong contributor at third base, more ups and downs from Tovar could force some hard decisions about who plays where.

Having just turned 25 in August, Tovar still sits among the younger side of the roster and has flashed enough potential to show that he can play the position at an award-winning level.

Will Tovar keep the late-season momentum going to prove that he can rebound? Or will it turn out that 2024 is actually the outlier? We’ll find out in 2027.

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