Category: Baseball

Arguably the most consistent debate in Kansas City sports over the last two years is about who should be the Kansas City Royals’ leadoff hitter. After shuffling around multiple guys in the spot in 2024, the Royals went out and acquired Jonathan India last season to explicitly fill the job. That didn’t quite work, and so now Matt Quatraro is mulling over five different players to be the team’s main leadoff guy.

Unfortunately, in addition to being the most consistent debate in Kansas City sports, this particular conversation is also, I think, the stupidest. There is one and only one answer to who the Royals’ leadoff hitter should be, and that person is Bobby Witt Jr.

I’m not going to go into extreme detail here, but let’s cover why this is the case. Most importantly, the first hitter in the lineup sees the most plate appearances; over the course of a full year, a team’s leadoff spot in the lineup sees about 760 plate appearances with each subsequent spot seeing about 18 fewer PAs. Secondarily, the first hitter in the lineup is the only hitter you can guarantee a clean base with no one in front of them.

As a result, there are three schools of thought with leadoff hitters. One is that your leadoff hitter should be the guy with the best on base percentage on your team because he gets a chance to get on base before anybody else; let’s call this the Alex Gordon School. Two is that your leadoff hitter should be fast to take advantage of open bases; let’s call this the Rickey Henderson School. Three is that your leadoff hitter should simply be your best hitter; let’s call this the Shohei Ohtani School.

The reason why Witt should lead off for the Royals is because it literally doesn’t matter what school of thought you ascribe to. Who’s got the best OBP ability on the team? Bob, no question. Who is the fastest player on the team? Bob, again. Who’s the most talented overall hitter on the team? Bob, by a rather huge margin.

Historically, Witt has hit second, which is the second-best place for him. Hitting second makes it so that he always has a chance of coming to the plate with someone on base. But Kansas City’s problem is that Witt is so much better than anyone else on the team that it just doesn’t make sense for him to lose out on those 18 plate appearances along with the other elite table-setting benefits that Witt provides. Remember: Witt does hit home runs, but he’s a doubles machine who leads all of Major League Baseball over the last two seasons.

All of this has sort of made it frustrating to see JJ Picollo and Matt Quatraro waffle on who should be the leadoff hitter between Witt and literally any other inferior option. So far, I’ve chalked it up to Bob simply not wanting to hit leadoff. Baseball players are a superstitious bunch, and Lord knows that Witt has earned enough leeway to say that he prefers hitting second and stick to it.

But something rumbles, y’all. During the World Baseball Classic, Witt has been leading off.

Witt as Team USA’s leadoff hitter is significantly more up for debate considering the hilarious offensive firepower he’s paired with. If he didn’t want to hit leadoff, he wouldn’t have to. I mean, what are we gonna do, complain about Aaron freaking Judge hitting at the top spot of the lineup otherwise?

But Witt is indeed hitting leadoff. And it’s going well; he’s contributed on offense and on defense for Team USA.

So my hope, my prayer, is that Witt realizes his love of hitting leadoff for Team USA and brings that love of leadoff to Kansas City. Then, we might close this debate for good as long as Witt may reign with the Royals. Amen.

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Cubs fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.

The Cubs have clearly built this year’s team to be a strong contender, adding Alex Bregman and Edward Cabrera to the cast that won 92 games and took the Brewers to the limit in a division series.

Yes, Kyle Tucker’s gone, but the team will also have a full year of Cade Horton and hopefully improvements from Pete Crow-Armstrong and Matt Shaw, among others. The team is seen by many as a favorite to win the NL Central.

So with two weeks to go before Opening Day, how do you think this Cubs team is set for 2026? How many games will they win?

Fill out the survey below and I’ll have the responses later this week.

The San Diego Padres had a rare Spring Training off day before they host the Kansas City Royals at the Peoria Sports Complex on Thursday at 6:10 p.m. For many Padres fans that just meant their attention shifted to the World Baseball Classic where the Dominican Republic and Venezuela met in a game between two undefeated teams.

Fernando Tatis Jr. and his Dominican Republic teammates surely gave the Friar Faithful something to talk about with the Platinum Glove right-fielder delivering another multi-run homerun with an epic batflip.

The Dominican Republic used the power of four home runs including the three-run shot from Tatis to win the contest 7-5 after Venezuela failed to complete a late comeback. Juan Soto, Ketel Marte and Vladamir Guerrero Jr. all joined Tatis with home runs as part of 11 hits banged out by the D.R. who finished 4-0 in pool play.

Padres News:

• Joe Musgrove has had a tough road back to the big-league mound and it appears that road is not quite completed. Musgrove’s next start is to be determined after he was unable to bounce back from a start and a bullpen session. Cheri Bell of Gaslamp Ball believes the best course of action for the Padres is to take it slow with Musgrove as his ability to pitch in-season and in the playoffs is much more valuable.

• Spring Training is all about position battles and the elite San Diego bullpen is no different. Mason Miller, Adrian Morejon, Jeremiah Estrada, Wandy Peralta, David Morgan, and Jason Adam and Yuki Matsui (if healthy) are penciled into seven of eight potential bullpen positions. That means one spot remains and multiple players are looking to fill the role according to Lincoln Zdunich of Gaslamp Ball.

• The Padres bats have been heating up in Spring Training and Cheri Bell of Gaslamp Ball provides numbers to show that new hitting coach Steven Souza Jr. may have unlocked the power that was missing from the San Diego roster last season.

• The Padres have known they need to address a hole at the back of the rotation and that hole could become larger if any of the four prospective starters already in place, Michael King, Nick Pivetta, Joe Musgrove or Randy Vasquez, miss time with an injury. But assuming they are all healthy, Walker Buehler, German Marquez, Marco Gonzales, Triston McKenzie, JP Sears and Matt Waldron are all fighting for the final spot. The Padres Reacts Survey question to Gaslamp Ball readers for this week, is who takes the fifth and final rotation spot.

• Kruz Schoolcraft took over as the top prospect in the San Diego system this season and is making a name for himself in Padres camp.

• Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune breaks down the competitions for roster spots on the San Diego roster.

• Miguel Andujar is the focus of the Padres roster review by Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Baseball News:

• Pittsburgh Pirates top prospect Konnor Griffin has had a solid Spring Training, but at just 19 years old, he may not make the Pittsburgh roster to start the season.

• Corbin Carroll, who is returning from Hamate surgery, is using an axe-handle bat to help protect his hand now that he is returning to Spring Training action.

• The Houston Astros announced closer Josh Hader will start the season on the injured list.

WBC News:

• Team USA advances to the next round of the WBC after Italy beat Mexico to remain undefeated. Vinny Pasquantino made WBC history with three home runs in the game.

• Canada beat Cuba to win the pool, allowing them to advance in the tournament for the first time.

• Keeping up with the standings and matchups of the WBC can be difficult, but MLB.com provides all the information needed to follow the competition in the coming stages.

All my homies hate Craig Breslow, but I don’t. I think he’s done a good job under constraints that seem to be slowly lifting as the years go by, as witnessed by the big-money signing of Ranger Suarez this winter, which woulda been unthinkable a few years ago. The team made the playoffs last year and seems pretty damn solid heading into this one, even if it could use a bit more power hitting in the absence of Triston Casas and Rafael Devers (and Kyle Schwarber, if we want to go even further back). But yanno, it’s cool enough.

To be sure, I don’t want to pooh-pooh the lack of oomph, but this is the best Red Sox team heading into a season since probably 2019 and I really, really don’t want to miss the forest for the trees. The team is fun again, even if the guy in charge isn’t very fun and has paid the price for it in the public’s opinion. “Aloof” has rarely been more correctly applied as an adjective. You probably wouldn’t want to hang out with Breslow, nor would I, but you probably would want to chill with Chaim Bloom (as would I), just to show you how much that particular metric is worth. And while I was always likely predisposed to be positive toward Craiggers simply because he’s not his nihilist, Baseball Prospectus-writing alum predecessor, I think he’s earned it.

There’s just one problem: He looks too much like prosperity gospel preacher Joel Osteen for me to take him fully seriously. Through no fault of his own, I can’t help but see him as a con man even though I know he’s not. I’d say I hate it, but it’s kind of funny. It’s also kind of scary. I mean, look at this shit:

Jesus Christ! 

Here’s the wild part: Osteen is 18 years older than Breslow (who’s younger than me, for fuck’s sake), though a good portion of Joel’s face is considerably younger. (In fairness, that photo is from 2015.) Growing up, I was obsessed with informercials of all kinds, as growing up on the Vineyard it presented me with a type of weirdo I wasn’t likely to encounter in our little Russillovian society. I didn’t take the bait – I own zero Shams-Wow, nor did I accept whom Osteen implored me to accept as my savior – but televised hucksters have always fascinated me, or did before they moved to YouTube, where now I swat them like flies as my son scrolls thru Shorts. 

Back on topic, I really think the resemblance is uncanny enough that Breslow knows about it. Though as a Jew and seemingly not of feeble brain, I don’t think he’s taken Osteen’s bait. I just find it hard to disbelieve my lyin’ eyes on this one. Something is amiss. I just can’t quite figure out what. I’ll get to the bottom of it and report back. Stay tuned.

Welcome to the 2026 Pre-Season Contest! This is the 15th year that the current version of the contest has been in place. Back in 2011, the contest had 27 questions, including 15 “Which will be higher?” that featured gems like, “Which will be higher – Brian Matusz’s ERA or a gallon of gas at Royal Farm?” and “Which will be higher – Yankees wins or Orioles losses?”

This year, the contest has 30 questions in the following categories: Which will be higher, Over/Under, Yes/No, Multiple Choice, and Who will be the first. Whenever the Orioles’ season ends, whether it be at the end of the regular season, during the playoffs, or after they win the World Series, we’ll post the results.

For the first time ever, we are adding a bonus round! This round focuses on the MLB awards, which aren’t resolved until after the World Series. We’ll revisit those results when the votes are in.

If you’re new to Camden Chat since last year, the contest is easy. Just answer the questions, click submit, and wait to hear if you’re a winner.

Will Shane Baz outpitch Grayson Rodriguez? Will Jackson Holliday get that OPS up to a respectable number? What is Ryan Mountcastle’s future with the team? These topics and more are covered in this year’s set of questions.

Here are some groundrules:

• Player stats only count when that player is an Oriole. If a player is traded mid-season, his new team’s stats don’t matter.
• A series sweep must be at least two games. There is no such thing as a one-game sweep.
• The contest will close at 10 p.m. on Wednesday, March 25th

Now, it’s time to answer some questions! The SBN story editor does not allow me to embed the form, so you can answer the questions at this link. Click through and do your best.

Good luck!

It was all going a little too well, wasn’t it? The sun was shining at Camelback Ranch, the beer was cold enough to forget the 2025 win-loss column, and Munetaka Murakami launched a grand slam in the World Baseball Classic. We were allowed to have nice things for exactly three weeks.

Then came the medical report on Kyle Teel. Our prized backstop is down for 4-6 weeks with that WBC-strained hamstring, and just like that, the “Sox Luck” tax has been collected. It’s a gut punch for a kid who looked poised to be the centerpiece of the 2026 youth movement from Day 1. But in true South Side fashion, we don’t have time to mourn. We just look at the next guy on the depth chart with a mix of desperate hope and guarded cynicism.

If there’s a silver lining here, and I don’t have to dig too deep into the gritty dirt of the Glendale infield to find it, it’s that Edgar Quero hasn’t just been “good” this spring; he’s been a revelation. We knew the bat was a weapon, and he’s more than ready for the “Starting Catcher” tag, even if the circumstances suck.

With Quero moving behind the plate full-time, the Opening Day roster will have a different texture. Here’s how the 26-man puzzle might fit together when the team flies north to Milwaukee.

The Starting Nine: The “Kid-Heavy” Edition

1. Chase Meidroth (2B): The leadoff pest we’ve lacked for years.
2. Colson Montgomery (SS): The Captain-in-waiting.
3. Munetaka Murakami (1B): $34 million says he hits 40 bombs. Let’s see it.
4. Edgar Quero (C): No more DH reps. It’s his house now.
5. Miguel Vargas (3B): Needs to prove that mid-2025 swing change wasn’t a fluke.
6. Andrew Benintendi (LF): The high-priced veteran mentor.
7. Lenyn Sosa (DH): The beneficiary of the Teel injury. He’ll probably get the bulk of the ABs here.
8. Austin Hays (RF): Professional outfielder. Professional ABs.
9. Luisangel Acuña (CF): Speed that actually scares people.

The Bench: No More Room for Error

• Korey Lee (C): From the bubble to the primary backup. Hope you like 1:10 p.m. Sunday starts, Korey.
• Curtis Mead (INF): The ultimate “just in case” utility man.
• LaMonte Wade Jr. (1B/OF): A much-needed lefty bench bat who will likely see DH time.
• Derek Hill (OF): Because someone has to run for Murakami in the ninth.

The Rotation: The “Informed Guess” Five

1. Shane Smith (RHP): The Opening Day honors. A meteoric rise.
2. Anthony Kay (LHP): The veteran southpaw anchor.
3. Davis Martin (RHP): Our longest tenured South Sider.
4. Sean Burke (RHP): The breakout candidate.
5. Erick Fedde (RHP): The retread.

The Bullpen: The Bridge to Seranthony

The back end looks, dare I say, competent? Seranthony Domínguez has the ninth, with Jordan Leasure and Grant Taylor acting as the high-velocity bridge. Sean Newcomb and Mike Vasil can provide some length, while Jordan Hicks, Tyler Gilbert, and Brandon Eisert round out a group that probably — in theory — will be mostly serviceable.

Losing Teel for April is peak White Sox. It’s poetic grit in its purest form. We finally get the Ferrari out of the garage, and the tire goes flat before we hit the expressway. But Quero has the chance to turn a tragedy into a transition. If he holds down the fort and keeps this young staff on track, the return of Teel in May won’t be a rescue mission, but a reinforcement. Until then, keep your expectations cautious and your humor gallows-adjacent.

There are also still a dozen Cactus League contests left on the schedule, plenty of time for the Arizona sun to bake a few more surprises into this roster. Whether it’s another late-spring breakout forcing a tough decision or the inevitable “tweak” that sends the training staff into a sprint, nothing is etched in stone until the team packs its bags for Chicago.

So, buckle up, South Side fans; the final two weeks of camp are rarely quiet. If there’s a difficult path to take, trust the White Sox to find it.

Common convention states that the modern MLB needs as many as seven, eighth, and maybe even nine starting pitchers to make it through the grind of a season. Ryan Yarbrough exemplified teams’ approach to this problem, signed initially on a one-year deal to fill the vacant longman and lefty reliever roles in the bullpen. He went on to play an outsized role for the team as the rotation was hit by a wave of injuries, making it a no-brainer that the Yankees bring him back to fill a similar role in 2026.

2025 Stats: 19 appearances (eight starts), 64 IP, 3-1, 4.36 ERA (94 ERA+), 5.04 FIP, 4.30 xFIP, 20.8% K%, 7.2% BB%, 1.83 HR/9, 1.20 WHIP, 0.1 fWAR

2026 FanGraphs Depth Charts projections: 54 appearances, 62 IP, 4.41 ERA, 4.61 FIP, 19.0% K%, 6.9% BB%, 1.38 HR/9, 1.27 WHIP, 0.1 fWAR

Yarbrough began the 2025 season as a swingman and lefty specialist in a Yankees bullpen short on other southpaws. However, as injuries struck the rotation, he stepped up to make eight starts from the first week of May through the middle of June. He performed far better than even the most optimistic fan could have imagined, going 3-1 in those starts with a 3.83 ERA across 40 innings. He allowed two or fewer runs in all but one of those starts — an eight-run meltdown against the Red Sox dragging his overall numbers down — the most impressive being six innings of one-run ball against his former employers the Dodgers.

You’d be tempted to say that Yarbrough faces a reduced role this season than he did in 2025. Then again, I don’t think anyone envisioned that the southpaw would make eight straight starts, last season a reminder that it takes more than five starting pitchers to weather the attrition of a 162-game campaign. With Cole and Carlos Rodón returning from elbow surgeries and Rodón, Max Fried, Will Warren, and Cam Schlittler all coming off career-highs in innings pitched, Viewed in this context, it makes sense why the Yankees made Yarbrough their first piece of business over the winter, keeping him in the Bronx for a year and $2.5 million. The 34-year-old is a known quantity in pinstripes and veteran of the AL East — a steady presence to have waiting in the wings int he event of in-season injuries to any of the starters ahead of him on the depth chart.

Despite possessing one of the slowest fastballs in MLB at 88 mph, the wily veteran still has plenty of ways to get batters out. He keeps things unpredictable with a five-pitch arsenal of cutter, changeup, sinker, sweeper, and four-seamer, all thrown at least 14-percent of the time. Because of this unpredictability, Yarbrough remained one of the best in the league in limiting loud contact, finishing in the 97th percentile in average exit velocity and 92nd percentile in hard-hit rate.

The Yankees pitching lab exerted its influence on Yarbrough, making tweaks to pitch usage, shape, and mechanics. Just like with fellow lefty Fried, Matt Blake and the other pitching coaches convinced Yarbrough to use the cutter as his primary fastball instead of the four-seamer or sinker. They also helped him add over two inches of movement to the changeup, the pitch going from his fourth-most used pitch in 2024 to second-most in 2025, echoing a trend of the Yankees encouraging their lefties to use the changeup more as they did with Fried and Rodón. Finally, they had him lower his arm angle and move slightly more to the first base side of the rubber, increasing the deception of all of his pitches.

Because of the uncertainty surrounding the effectiveness of Cole and Rodón when they return from injury rehab, and the moderate-to-significant injury histories of their other starters including Fried, Ryan Weathers, and Luis Gil, Yarbrough remains a valuable presence in the Yankees’ pitching room. The question is over the hierarchy of the next-men-up should any of their starters misses time with injury. The higher ceilings for guys like Weathers, Warren, and Gil give them the leg-up in the competition for fifth starter and to be the first name called if anyone goes down. What’s more, the emergence of top pitching prospects Elmer Rodríguez and Carlos Lagrange last season and this spring could lead to the pair leapfrogging Yarbrough as candidates to deputize in the rotation. At the very least, Yarbrough gives them an experienced lefty arm who can handle multiple innings in relief, while his success as a stand-in starter in 2025 gives confidence he can do the same in an emergency in 2026.

See more of the Yankees Previews series here.

The pool stage is complete, the matchups are set, and we’re in line for what should be five days of box office baseball starting Friday night when U.S. takes on Canada in Houston and Korea takes on the Dominican Republic in Miami.

(Hard to believe the D.R. crowds could get any wilder than they were in the pool stage, but I’m sure they’ll find a way.)

The following afternoon, Puerto Rico will play Italy, and Japan will take on Venezuela Saturday night. From there, the semifinal matchups will be on Sunday and Monday night with the championship game slated for Tuesday. This should be awesome!

So the big question now is, who is going to win? Japan, the U.S., and Dominican Republic seem like favorites on paper, but it’s small sample size baseball and anything can happen. Also, Japan draws Venezuela right out of the gate in the knockout stage, which is a really tricky spot. But then again, they can’t complain about the U.S. and D.R. likely lined up against each other in the semis if they both advance beyond Friday. There are really no shortcuts here.

As far as interesting pitching notes go, if the U.S. beats Canada, Paul Skenes probably pitches in that Sunday game, which again COULD be against the D.R. For Red Sox purposes, Brayan Bello see significant significant time on the mound in one of these games. And who knows, that might even include a matchup against Roman Anthony in a high leverage at bat.

One thing for certain though is the atmosphere in south Florida is sure to be electric! I’m so confident in that aspect of this thing that I’m flying down there for the weekend to experience a piece of the Latin and Japanese baseball cultures in person. Can’t wait!

Anyway, talk about the WBC at its midway point and whatever else you’d like, and as always, be good to one another!

Meet the Mets

Bo Bichette seems to have a knack for clutch hitting, which he credits to his father Dante.

Opening Day is now just two weeks away, and a potential roster is starting to take shape after a month of Grapefruit League games.

Carson Benge and Nolan McLean’s college coach weighed in on what makes them elite althletes.

Around the National League East

Spencer Strider looked much better in his latest start for the Braves against the Rays.

Marlins righty Adam Mazur will miss the entire 2026 season after undergoing elbow surgery.

Bryce Harper has not looked great in the WBC and is struggling to catch up to fastballs, which is a concerning trend for the Phillies star.

The Nationals named Cade Cavalli their Opening Day starter, which will make him their fourth Opening Day starter in four years.

Around Major League Baseball

Vinnie Pasquantino hit three home runs in Team Italy’s win over Team Mexico which keeps them undefeated in the tournament.

Juan Soto hit another home run in the Domincian Republic’s win over Venezuela.

Team USA advanced to the quarterfinals with Italy’s victory, which grants Mark DeRosa a reprieve after his embarrassing managerial blunder.

Eight teams have advanced to the WBC quarterfinals, which are a single-elimination format and will begin this weekend.

Diamondbacks star Corbin Carroll made his spring debut after undergoing hand surgery in February.

White Sox catcher Kyle Teel was diagnosed with a hamstring strain and will miss 4-6 weeks after suffering the injury in the WBC.

Yesterday at Amazin’ Avenue

Michael Drago previewed Freddy Peralta’s first season with the Mets.

Chris McShane wrote about Huascar Brazobán’s upcoming season.

This Date in Mets History

On this date in 2003, Mike Piazza went after Guillermo Mota and caused a benches clearing incident after Mota hit him with a pitch.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are back-to-back World Series champions, but they may not have back-to-back White House visits.

Bill Plunkett of the OC Register has all of the details of how a trip to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave may or may not happen.

The main roadblock is that the Dodgers are playing the Washington Nationals in D.C. the first weekend in April, which also coincides with Passover and Easter. Furthermore, the games are all day games making the visit that much more difficult.

As Bill covers in the article, they have an off day the Thursday before they start the series with the Nationals, and they have an off day between a New York and Philly road trip in July. None of those dates are without issues, however.

It remains to be seen if they go to Washington at a later date.

Japan to Dodgers pipeline?

During the last World Baseball Classic in 2023, Team Japan had three future Dodgers playing for them – Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Roki Sasaki. Dylan Hernandez of the California Post wonders if there are any other current Team Japan players that may become Dodgers in the future.

One player is Hiroto Takahashi, a 23-year-old righty who pitched in the WBC three years ago and got some people talking. He also in pitching this year but doesn’t seem to have improved nor declined on the last three years. The Dodgers are known for their pitching coaching staff, and they could help Takahashi take the next step. He is not expected to leave Japan for the States for at least two more years, and scouts currently have him as a number 3 or 4 starter.

So many questions

Katie Woo published the annual Dodgers Spring Training mailbag in The Athletic. Main topics of discussion include what will Roki Sasaki’s role actually look like this season, and what will Tommy Edman’s role be when he returns.

Most interesting to me was the discussion of who Edman’s replacement will be to start the season, and who of the three of Alex Freeland, Santiago Espinal, and Hyeseong Kim will make the 26-man roster to start the season. Spoiler alert – Freeland is the odd man out. Espinal, Kim and Miguel Rojas could be on rotation to cover the second base position, just as we all thought at the beginning of Spring Training.

If you didn’t watch the WBC game last night, Royals 1st baseman Vinnie Pasquantino saved Team USA’s bacon with his historic 3 home run game over Mexico.

It was quite the evening for Kansas City Royals first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino, who put on a show for Team Italy in the World Baseball Classic.

Pasquantino hit three home runs vs. Mexico on Wednesday evening, becoming the first ever player to accomplish the feat in the WBC.

Not only did Pasquantino make history, but his performance also helped Team Italy and the United States advance to the quarterfinals of the classic, thanks to a dominant win over Mexico.

In related Team USA news, Michael Wacha has left the team… as planned.

Michael Wacha returned to the Royals’ Spring Training facility after his stint with Team USA, ready to get back to work with his Kansas City teammates in anticipation of Opening Day just over two weeks away. Wacha threw off the mound Wednesday and is scheduled for three innings in his next Cactus League start on Friday night against the D-backs.

“It was all around just a great experience,” Wacha said. “From being in the clubhouse with those guys to the atmosphere out there playing in those games, getting those juices flowing again. It really did just create a lot of excitement for myself getting this season started up. It’s a couple of weeks away now, and just fired up to be back here and get this season rolling.”

The Royals got swept in split squad action yesterday against the Cubs and Giants, but Gavin Cross, Brett Squires, Elias Díaz, Luca Tresh, Peyton Wilson and Blake Mitchell all homered.

Royals Keep asked if Michael Massey’s injury opens up a roster spot for Josh Rojas.

In other WBC news, the Dominican Republic beat Venezuela, Maikel Garcia went 4-4 with a walk as well. Former Royal Angel Zerpa threw a scoreless inning.

Kendry Chourio is selected in 30 prospect predictions for 2026.

Chourio exploded onto the scene in 2025 with 63 strikeouts and only five walks across 51 1/3 innings while climbing from the DSL to Single-A Columbia. His mid-90s fastball and upper-70s curveball both receive strong reviews, but it’s the ability to command the ball that has Kansas City officials so excited about his future. It’ll also help him rank among the Minors’ top five in K-BB% (min. 70 IP) in just his age-18 season.

Netflix to have first MLB broadcast on Opening Day?

Here is your song of the day: Home Sweet Home by Motely Crue. My favorite rock band of all time!

I would not exactly be breaking news to inform you that Joey Ortiz had a rough year in 2025. The infielder who was part of the return for superstar pitcher Corbin Burnes had an extremely promising rookie season in 2024, but to call the step back he took at the plate in 2025 “significant” would probably be understating it. He was a disaster.

We’ll get more into the details below, but for the purposes of this preview, we will simply point out that by having a brutal sophomore slump, Ortiz opened a door that seemed pretty tightly shut when the 2025 season started: a door to the possibility that if he doesn’t improve at the plate, the Brewers might look for alternative options.

Do the Brewers have any viable alternatives in 2026? That’s arguable, and depends a little bit on how ready you think the 18-year-old with superstar potential (who’s looked pretty darn good this spring) in the Brewer minor league system is. But that point is likely moot; even if merely for service time reasons, we are not going to see Jesús Made in the major leagues this season.

But does that mean the Brewers won’t explore other options if Ortiz looks as rough at the plate through the first two months as he did for most of last season? No, it certainly does not. Let’s dig into it.

Joey Ortiz

As we sit here on March 11, I am comfortable saying that Ortiz (who is off playing for Mexico in the World Baseball Classic at the moment) will be the starting shortstop on Opening Day, and likely almost every day after that.

It’s not difficult to see why. For roughly the first 120 years of organized baseball, shortstops were expected to do one thing: play defense. For every Ernie Banks or Vern Stephens who helped his team out offensively, there were 10 Juan Uribes or Rey Ordoñezes. Some of the players in that mold — all defense, little-to-no offense — turned into superstars and even got into or near the Hall of Fame. Say hello to Ozzie Smith, Pee Wee Reese, Bert Campaneris, and Omar Vizquel.

That model has changed somewhat since the 1990s, though. Teams finally realized that having a complete black hole in the lineup is not great, and that model of player is increasingly disappearing; it’s difficult for anyone, at any position, to get reps in the lineup if they’re a total zero on offense, no matter how good they are defensively. Look at the case of Andrelton Simmons, who for 11 years played some of the best defense that major league baseball has ever seen, but who was out of the league before he turned 33 because he could no longer hit at all. Simmons’ career OPS+ of 87 is exactly the same as Ozzie Smith’s.

Simmons’ career 87 OPS+ is also 21 points higher than Joey Ortiz’s in 2025. It was a brutal offensive season. There were warning signs in the second half of 2024; Ortiz finished that season as essentially an exactly league-average hitter, but he hit just .211/.283/.362 after the All-Star break (bringing his OPS down from .817 in early July to .726 at the end of the season). That slide coincided nearly perfectly with a neck injury that landed him on the 10-day IL just before the break in early July, and while he seems to have recovered, there are some questions as to whether he adjusted his approach at the plate to relieve pain in his neck and somehow screwed himself up.

Or maybe he just hasn’t been able to adjust to the fact that the rest of the league has the book on him, now. Either way: 2025 was a horror show. Ortiz seemed to be not swinging at the good pitches to hit and swinging at the bad ones, a bizarre display of bad plate discipline — we usually just think of bad plate discipline as “not being able to not swing at pitches off the plate,” but we don’t always think of the flipside, the “I need to be swinging at the pitches in the zone I can do damage on.”

The result was that Ortiz was one of the very worst full-time hitters in baseball last year. On Statcast, he ranked in the bottom 3% of the league in all of xwOBA, xSLG, average exit velocity, and launch angle/sweet-spot percentage. He was in the bottom 13% in barrel percentage and hard-hit percentage. His walk percentage dropped from 11% (good!) in 2024 to 5.3% (bad!) in 2025, likely because pitchers just were not afraid of the contact he’d make. That plays out in another way: Ortiz remained very good at not swinging and missing in 2025, when he was in the top 15% of the league in whiff percentage and strikeout rate. But it does not matter if you hit the ball if you never hit the ball hard.

We’ll see if Ortiz can right the ship. His defense is good enough that if he gets anywhere close to league average offensively, he will be a clear net positive. Split the difference between 2024’s 102 OPS+ and 2025’s 66 OPS+, and you’ve probably got a player with close to 3.0 WAR. His spring stats are encouraging, I suppose: he’s only got one extra-base hit in six games (plus one more double in three games with Mexico), but he’s hitting .412. The samples are too small and against pitchers who are barely trying to get him out, but he is hitting the ball a little harder this spring.

While an Ortiz “renaissance” seems unlikely, I’m optimistic that he can get at least part of the way back. I don’t have a lot of data to back that up, except that his track record prior to last season has never suggested that he should be as bad as he was, and at least part of his struggles last year looked, to me at least, mental. Hopefully, the offseason has “cleared the cookies,” so to speak.

If not? We might have to start seriously thinking about one of the names below.

Who are the other options?

In terms of major league options, the most likely guy to take the most reps at shortstop if Ortiz were to either get hurt or play himself out of a job would be someone I talked in depth about in the third base preview, David Hamilton. Hamilton figures to be the team’s utility guy, the backup at all of second base, third base, and shortstop, but finding his way into the starting lineup three or four times a week at various positions. He can certainly handle shortstop defensively. His offense would bring many of the same questions that Ortiz’s does.

Were the Brewers looking for a long-term solution during the season, we can’t dismiss the idea that Brice Turang would move over — though I think it’s unlikely they would move Turang in the season, so I don’t really think this would happen. But I would have to think the first big minor league option would be Jett Williams (covered in the second base preview), who has played a bunch of shortstop but would probably be a worse defensive option there than Turang (or Hamilton). Might the Brewers opt to put Turang at shortstop and Williams at second base if they knew they were making that decision for the rest of the season? It’s possible.

Another minor league option might be Cooper Pratt, who is viewed as the best current defensive option at the position, and with the possible exception of Ortiz himself, maybe the best defensive option at shortstop in the entire system. But Pratt has a lot to prove with the bat after he was mildly disappointing at the plate in 2025, and he’s never played above Double-A. If he has a couple of solid months at Triple-A Nashville, though? I’d say it’s in play. He’d be young, but Pratt will be 22 by the end of the summer. (Or thought of a different way, he’s just a few months younger than Jackson Chourio, who will be close to completing his third full major league season at that point.)

Earlier in the offseason, I daydreamed a bit about whether there was a star middle infielder in the majors who the Brewers could acquire — someone like Ketel Marte or Zach Neto — who could jump into the lineup (either at shortstop or second, with Turang doing the other) and turn the significant weakness of Ortiz’s offense into a real strength. But here we are, Ortiz is in the lineup, and after watching Made for a couple of weeks, he suddenly feels remarkably close to the major leagues. If he’s on the Chourio path, which he has followed pretty closely thus far, that would put the 19-year-old Made in play for the Opening Day roster in 2027. And honestly, seeing him hit this spring has made me think that he might be the system’s best option as a starting major league shortstop today.

That’s not going to happen, but the future is bright, and it feels closer than ever.

In March the sun rises in Arizona just before 7:00 a.m. It varies slightly from team to team but, for decades spring training work has generally been expected to start around that time. Just last month the Arizona Diamondbacks social team showed off their players arriving to camp in darkness:

This schedule is widely disliked among those affiliated with teams, from players and on field staff to front office members. It’s not hard to understand why:

• With work starting as the sun is coming up, everyone needs to be waking up significantly before dawn to get ready and travel to the complex.
• As soon as the regular seasons starts, most games are played in the evening. This leads to a yearly sleep schedule whiplash right as game results start counting.
• Teams are in full control over the start time of their home games. It’s easy to envision being frustrated at being asked to go through this yearly shift change when your boss could just decide not to require it.

This year, the Rockies are attempting to be ahead of the curve… by showing up later.

Schaeffer’s Camp

This year, Warren Schaeffer is giving later start times a try in his first spring training as a big league manager.

“We’re pushing the guys’ morning schedule back and giving them time to get ready for the day, and not having to wake up at 5 a.m.”

There isn’t an obvious conclusion to be made as to immediate performance effects, however, Brenton Doyle made it clear that he believed the schedule change is a net positive:

“I’m glad things have changed, and the schedule is much better than in the past. ‘Schaeff’ has given us time to get warmed up and get ready, so that when we do go on that field, it doesn’t feel rushed.“

Sleep & athletes

While the exact impact on baseball performance specifically hasn’t publicly been quantified with a meaningfully large dataset (though some smaller studies have been done), the overall benefits of sleep on generic athletic performance are non-controversial.

When you get more sleep, your mind has better reaction times and increased memory retention while your body is better able to recover from the strain of physical exertion.

The point isn’t that every baseball player should adopt Yusei Kikuchi’s 12-14 hour pre-game day sleep schedule, just that a consistent good nights rest is obviously a good thing.

Why the Rockies, why now?

This has always seemed like a fixable problem but year after year teams have continued to stick to the same existing schedule. The 2026 Rockies just happen to have had all the correct ingredients in place to both motivate the change.

• Warren Schaeffer is a young manager in his first spring training. He isn’t beholden to the way things have been done and is looking at the process of getting his team ready for the season with a fresh set of eyes.
• This is a relatively young team filled with many players that may not have had a chance to develop personal routines to prepare for the schedule shift that comes with the regular season.
• This is a new front office that has openly talked all offseason about wanting to experiment and try new things. They are looking to find every unique edge they can.

This change won’t make the Rockies good this year. Most folks outside the organization will likely have forgotten the Rockies ran camp this way by May. That, however, is an important contributing factor as to why the Rockies are perfect to give this a try.

If a team with actual expectations of winning tried this first they’d risk a slow start being blamed on having not “put in the work” in spring training. Sports talk radio would be up in arms and jobs could become less secure than if they’d lost without first rocking the boat.

This is just one specific example of how the extreme lack of expectations for the 2026 Rockies will allow the new leadership team to take small experimental risks. They do not need to worry about hardly anyone outside the team even noticing while they search for unique advantages.

Like a shot of espresso, Italy jolts Team USA | MLB.com

A rundown about how team Italy, after a great start from Michael Lorenzen, bested team USA last night. The thrilling win briefly put team USA in danger of failing to advance to the quarterfinals of the WBC.

Strike 2: Who’s on First for the Rockies? | Mile High Sports

Mark Knudson chronicles the Rockies history of opening day starters at first base. He posits that the battle this spring is one that the franchise has previously been able to avoid for a long time.

Feltner experiments in-game as he battles for rotation spot | MLB.com

Thomas Harding catches up with Ryan Feltner about his outlook and plans this spring. Feltner goes into the various changes he is experimenting with even while his spot in the rotation remains up in the air.

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

I am genuinely kind of surprised Ortiz is this low and it’s not necessarily because I disagree with his ranking so much as he certainly felt like a prospect that would be ranked a lot higher based upon the last three top 20s I’ve run. Speaking for myself, I think what hurts him is that he seems like a bat-only prospect. From what I can tell, his bat is going to be need to be great because he’s probably a 1B – and yeah also the lack of belief from scouts and his strikeout issues, but mainly just that it seems like he’s set up to “need” a 120 wRC+ unless his defense is better than I’ve been reading about.

1. JJ Wetherholt
2. Liam Doyle
3. Rainiel Rodriguez
4. Quinn Mathews
5. Jurrangelo Cjintje
6. Joshua Baez
7. Leonardo Bernal
8. Jimmy Crooks
9. Brandon Clarke
10. Tink Hence
11. Tekoah Roby
12. Tanner Franklin
13. Brycen Mautz
14. Nathan Church
15. Cooper Hjerpe
16. Ixan Henderson
17. Yairo Padilla
18. Deniel Ortiz

New Add

I strongly suspect I could stop adding guys and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference. There are more players than spots left in the top 20 of players who one could argue rather easily belong in the top 15 – someone is getting left out who will elicit “wow he didn’t make the top 20?” With all that said, congratulations, your voting singlehandedly vaulted Andrew Dutkanych IV into the voting – I thought I was high on the dude, I was proven wrong – he was honestly not even on my radar to be added to the voting. But he kept winning his comparable player polls. So onto the list he goes.

And honestly, I want more names in the mix just to see how they perform, so I’m going to be removing Colton Ledbetter, dead last in the voting, for another outfielder, Chase Davis. Is this a shuffling of deck chairs? Yes. But despite Davis losing a couple votes to people on this list, he never did get blown out. And with 0.9% of the vote, I just can’t see Ledbetter being a serious contender to being voted onto the top 20 honestly.

Jesus Baez, IF – 21

Stats (High A): 416 PAs, .244/.327/.397, 10.3 BB%, 18.5 K%, .153 ISO, .270 BABIP, 116 wRC+, 121 DRC+

Scouting (FG): 30/45 Hit, 35/50 Game Power, 50/55 Raw Power, 40/40 Speed, 40/45 Fielding

Ironically, the last time I remember being so incredibly tired of writing a profile about a prospect in this feature is…. Joshua Baez. Yeah he was the #11 prospect three years ago, I added him pretty quickly and then nobody voted for him the entire time. With Joshua, I was being careful but probably agreed with you guys at the time. With Jesus, I was also being careful, but I added him too early, I did not think he would he would not make the top 20, which is a very distinct possibility.

Chase Davis, OF – 24

Stats (AA): 494 PAs, .242/.358/.353, 13.6 BB%, 29.6 K%, .111 ISO, .345 BABIP, 105 wRC+

Scouting: 30/35 Hit, 30/45 Game Power, 60/60 Raw Power, 50/50 Speed, 45/55 Field

Davis started as a power-hitting outfielder when the Cardinals drafted him in the 1st round back in 2023 draft. That advertised power has never really come and really disappeared last year, although as we saw in spring training, it might be in there somewhere. Not necessarily advertised for his defense, it seems like it’s going to be better than originally expected, which is certainly considered his bat has been worse than expected.

Andrew Dutkanych, RHP – 22

Stats (CPX): 3 G, 3.1 IP, 22.2 K%, 5.6 BB%, 38.5 GB%, .462 BABIP, 10.80 ERA/2.07 FIP/3.04 xFIP

Low A: 6 G, 14.1 IP, 35.6 K% 16.9 BB%, 46.4 GB%, .269 BABIP, 2.51 ERA/4.52 FIP/3.22 xFIP

Drafted in the 7th round of the 2024 draft, Dutkanych was drafted injured. He had undergone Tommy John surgery earlier that year and most of his appearances in 2025 were effectively rehab appearances. He did max out at 3.2 innings pitched in his last appearance, and allowed no runs for his troubles. He will presumably be on some sort of pitch innings limited, but I’m not real sure what that limit will be.

Yhoiker Fajardo, RHP – 19

Stats (CPX): 6 G, 20.2 IP, 31.6 K%, 9.2 BB%, 51.2 GB%, .205 BABIP, 0.44 ERA/2.41 FIP/3.29 xFIP

Low A: 13 GS, 51.1 IP, 27.8 K%, 9.4 BB%, 50 GB%, .326 BABIP, 2.98 ERA/2.50 FIP/3.14 xFIP

Scouting: 40/45 Fastball, 55/60 Slider, 30/50 Change, 35/50 Command

Fajardo is getting more scouting love, but he kind of reminds me of Deniel Ortiz to an extent, where stats are certainly there and the age is certainly there, but the scouting is a little behind where I would expect given how much they dominated their two levels and the age when they did it. I suspect if he at all duplicates his performance at a higher level – same with Ortiz – the scouting will probably follow.

Luis Gastelum, 24 – RHP

Stats (AA): 46 G, 62.2 IP, 35.4 K%, 6.5 BB%, 48.3 GB%, .343 BABIP, 4.02 ERA/2.19 FIP/2.31 xFIP

Scouting: 45/45 Fastball, 40/40 Slider, 65/65 Change, 50/55 Command

I was hesitant to add Luis Gastelum to the voting, but I think the voting results say I made the right decision. Now, he might not end up making the list, but that was unlikely for anybody I added. It’s always hard to know how to value a prospect like this, who has zero shot at starting, and in his specific case, arguably just one really great pitch. Now that Mexico has been eliminated, I wonder if we’ll see any more of him in spring training games.

Pete Hansen, LHP – 25

Stats (AA): 26 GS, 137.1 IP, 21.1 K%, 6.3 BB%, 46.2 GB%, .306 BABIP, 3.93 ERA/3.65 FIP/3.71 xFIP

Scouting: 35/35 Fastball, 45/50 Slider, 40/40 Curve, 50/55 Change, 55/60 Command

What I find particularly fascinating about Hansen’s scouting report is that one would think Fangraphs was low on him, but they aren’t. They definitely aren’t. They ranked him 10th in the system last season. But that 35 fastball grade kind of pops out at you. It’s the kind of grade you give to a prospect that you aren’t typically high on, so I suppose it provides an insight into what FG thinks of the importance of command. You don’t usually see 60 command prospects.

Blaze Jordan, 23 – 1B/3B

Stats (AA): 176 PAs, .320/.415/.513, 12.5 BB%, 10.8 K%, .193 ISO, .333 BABIP, 167 wRC+, 145 DRC+

AAA: 368 PAs, .248/.291/.423, 5.7 BB%, 11.1 K%, .175 ISO, .247 BABIP, 83 wRC+, 101 DRC+

Scouting: 40/50 Hit, 40/50 Game Power, 60/60 Raw Power, 30/30 Speed, 40/45 Fielding

I’m very interested in seeing what Jordan can do in AAA this year. Obviously, his spring has not gone very well, but it’s important to remember that spring training does not matter and also that nobody expected him to be MLB ready right now anyway. If they did, he would have been protected from the Rule 5 draft or drafted in the Rule 5 draft.

Chen-Wei Lin, 24 – RHP

Stats (Low A): 12 GS, 38.2 IP, 27.2 K%, 17.2 BB%, 50 GB%, .283 BABIP, 4.89 ERA/3.69 FIP/4.17 xFIP

High A: 4 GS, 9.2 IP, 41.7 K%, 18.8 BB%, 50 GB%, .412 BABIP, 9.31 ERA/4.80 FIP/2.76 xFIP

Scouting: 60/70 Fastball, 40/45 Slider, 40/60 Change, 30/40 Command

I am curious where Lin is assigned in the minor leagues. I am pretty sure he’ll still be tried as a starting pitcher, but he could plausibly be put in High A or AA. He was aggressively promoted to Springfield last season for a reason. But had some control problems to say the least, not to mention injury problems, and I could also see him beginning the year in High A with the hope and idea for a quick promotion.

Ryan Mitchell, 19 – OF

No stats

Scouting: 25/55 Hit, 25/50 Game Power, 40/55 Raw Power, 60/60 Speed, 25/50 Fielding

Speaking of curious where they assign a player, I wonder where Ryan Mitchell will be assigned. He was sent down but assigned to “St. Louis Cardinals Prospects.” He could be sent to rookie league, which would be the “conservative” option, the play it safe option. Or they could send him to Low A, which would be the #1 sign for me that we are underrating him. Especially if he doesn’t fall flat on his face. Until games are played though, we’re relying entirely on scouting.

Tai Peete, OF – 20

Stats (High A): 529 PAs, .217/.288/.404, 8.7 BB%, 30.6 K%, .187 ISO, .282 BABIP, 79 wRC+, 79 DRC+

Scouting: 20/30 Hit, 30/50 Game Power, 50/60 Raw Power, 60/60 Speed, 45/55 Fielding

I remember my consternation about not being able to add Tai Peete into the voting because I kept finding other players who to me made more sense to add, and I was 100 percent correct, but it is funny in hindsight that I put any worry at all in adding him too late given how the voting for him has gone. For understandable reasons, if a guy ain’t performing, you guys aren’t voting for him. Peete is missing that all-important hit tool, but he has shown power, has speed, and should have defense on his side. Just needs to make contact.

VOTE HERE

Good morning, baseball fans!

The San Francisco Giants will take on the visiting Chicago White Sox tonight at 6:05 p.m. PDT, with broadcasts on both NBC Sports Bay Area and KNBR.

In the meantime, we are just under two weeks out from Opening Day, which is the best news I’ve heard in a long time. The Giants are having a strong spring, once again. And while their Cactus League record isn’t necessarily an indication of how the season will go (just look at last year), having a strong start is still preferable to the alternative.

As we enter the last couple of weeks of Spring Training games, the Giants (and more accurately the front office) will be watching very carefully because they’re going to have some tough decisions to make in terms of who will be on the Opening Day roster.

So I wanted to find out what you all think are the positions/players to watch over the next two weeks.

Personally, I can’t argue with Alex Pavlovic’s assessment over on NBC Sports Bay Area. He notes that Bryce Eldridge is easily the biggest question remaining this spring, and I agree.

I think I would be fine with either direction the team goes on this. Eldridge is young, which isn’t a bad thing, but he could benefit defensively from more time with Triple-A Sacramento. That said, I would be perfectly happy to see him start the season with the team. So that’s what I will be watching closely over the next two weeks.

Who are you keeping an eye on over the last two weeks of spring?