Category: Baseball

Introduction

If you haven’t read any of the previous articles in my D-backs Prospect All-Star series, I’ve been breaking down the best 2026 seasons at each position in the D-backs Farm system since the MiLB regular season ended. Just to recap, in part one, we looked at our starting pitcher, catcher, and the infield corner positions. TLDR: That gave us Carlos Virahonda as the starting catcher, David Hagaman as starting pitcher; At the hot corner, we have Danny Serretti as our third baseman, and across the diamond we have at first base, Manuel Pena.

In part two, we looked at the middle infield along with the outfield. TLDR: Our all star infield is anchored by the D-backs’ top two overall prospects, second baseman Demetrio Crisantes and shortstop Kayson Cunningham. The outfield was much more an unknown factor, but we’ll say it’s Jeremy Surriel, Trent Youngblood, and Yohendi Hernandez

Last week, we looked at my reliever of the year Joe Ariola. That just leaves us with one position unaccounted for, and if you hadn’t figured it out from the title, it’s designated hitter.

It is truly sad that we have to have this conversation but..

DH Prospects aren’t really a thing

I should really address the massive elephant in the room: a “Designated Hitter prospect” is a borderline oxymoronic term. If you’re an actual ranked prospect and you are a primary DH, this can only be for a few reasons, some of which are borderline or outright hypothetical.

1. You are so bad defensively that everyone else decided that you don’t need that baseball glove anymore, but your bat is that good.
2. There are better players at your competent positions, and nowhere else to play you where you aren’t a liability, but your bat is legitimately good enough that the team will fit your bat into the lineup.
3. You are an injury risk and/or coming off a serious injury.
4. You are a successful amateur two-way player, but the team doesn’t think you’re good enough at pitching to continue doing both.
5. All of the above
6. You are the proverbial unicorn, an actual two way player, who would completely dominate the league’s batters/pitchers if you’d just wasting your talent trying to do both.*****

“No the team isn’t going to have you playing the field, in-between your starts, making diving catches in left. I don’t care that you’d be a better right fielder“^

*****_{No one in Arizona or any other MLB team’s farm systems is this, or even looks like they might be this right now, thanks to the current two-way player rule}

_{^Ohtani actually suggested this to all the professional teams he has played for ^{(citation Needed)}.}

Signing an amateur prospect who’s exclusively a DH is basically unheard of, at least in my experience. Even when converting a two-way DH/Pitcher to DH, that player is going to be given every chance to learn how to play the field. The Diamondbacks have generally used the DH position in the minors as a way to give the regulars a rest, and have mostly avoided having DH-exclusive hitters.

Finding our D-backs MiLB All-Star DH

There are a few ways we can go about finding a DH for our MILB All-Star team. We could just go with highest wRC+/OPS in the D-backs farm. That would be Weber Neels, a 19th round pick in this year draft who hit .365/.411/.750 with a 179 wRC+. That guy smashed eleven doubles and three homeruns in the span of twelve games in his professional debut with Low A Visalia. Pack it up and go because we find our guy.

What’s that? He only played 12 games total and played the field in every game so you think he doesn’t count? Well then, I’m sure if I go with Tim Tawa and his .320/.409/.733 triple slash with a 161 wRC+ for Triple A Reno, you’re going to complain that twenty games isn’t much better and then I’ll point out he wouldn’t count anyway since he’s not a prospect anymore and I excluded any player with MLB service time in this discussion.

Okay, fine, we’ll go back to taking this seriously. The Diamondbacks have just three qualified hitters at DH in their entire MILB farm system. Two of those hitters, 17 year old catcher/DH Jhosep Villarroel and 1B/OF/DH Manny Almonte played in the Dominican Summer League, which has a very short season and a bunch of other issues that compound the difficulty of evaluating prospects. That leaves with only one qualified hitter in the in upper levels of the minor leagues in the Dbacks organization that had enough plate appearences to qualify at DH, and that’s Catcher Ivan Luciano.

Jhosep Villarroel had a extremely impressive debut season, putting up triple slash of .303/.500/.485 with a 148 wRC+, it was in only 47 games AND in the DSL. Manny Almonte’s batting line of .255/.372/.465 with a 92 wRC+ was squarely below average, so he’s out as an option at DH, on top of the same reasons as Villarroel.

That leaves us with just the one option to plug in at DH, the aforementioned Ivan Luciano. Luciano is a legit catching prospect, but he had to share time with a plethora of other (arguably better) catching prospects like Carlos Virahonda. If there weren’t better options on Visalia or Hillsboro’s rosters, I dont think he’d have spent as much time DHing as he did in 2026.

In 85 games with the Low A level Visalia Rawhide, the 19 year old Luciano hit .264/.375/.441 with a 109 wRC+. Luciano spent the remaining 12 games of his 2026 season playing for the High-A level Hillsboro Hops, where he hit .279/.380/.465 with a 122 wRC+. In 97 games combined across the two levels in 2026, Luciano hit .266/.376/.444 with a 111 wRC+.

Luciano isn’t a bad pick to DH, just like he wasn’t a bad pick for an honorable mention/runner up for all-star to Virahonda at catcher. Villarroel’s season was as worthy of a mention here just like it was when going over the catching position, but Luciano gets the nod, from playing twice as many games at a higher level on the minor league ladder.

Not Every Team Treats MILB DHs like the D-backs

While finishing up the research for this article, I found a rather surprising piece of information: There’s actually 96 total qualified DHs in MiLB. Out of the thirty MLB franchises there were two teams who didn’t have a qualified hitter at DH, along with four teams that have just one. Seventeen other teams match the D-backs with at least three hitters qualified at DH. The Cincinnati Reds lead the way with seven.

Out of the 96 qualified designated hitters in Minor League Baseball, 67 of them have a 100 wRC+ or better. Jhosep Villarroel’s 148 wRC+ looks even better when compared to his peers; his 2026 season was the fourth best out of all the qualified DHs, and the three hitters who had better seasons were old for the levels they were assigned. Meanwhile, Luciano’s 111 wRC+ is tied for 43rd, which doesn’t sound particularly impressive, but like Villarroel, there are quite a few hitters ahead of him who were old for their assigned level, or are just outright not a prospect.

So what does this all mean? I don’t think the presence or lack of DH “prospects’ really means anything other than what I wrote in the first half the article. They are clearly an afterthought in minor league player development. There is basically no correlation with being members of the the formerly DH-less National League.

I guess the real question here is should the D-backs put more into developing some full-time hitters at the DH position, or should they continue the approach of having no approach? Who would you put as THE DH on the 2026 D-backs Prospect All-Star team? Let me me know in the comments!

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

Adrian Morejon

When the Padres signed Adrian Morejon out of Cuba in 2016, it was a big deal. At the time, the left-hander was ranked second overall among international prospects. The 17-year-old came over and began to pitch quite well as a starting pitcher, posting a sub-4.00 ERA in his first two minor-league seasons. Morejon made his debut in 2019 and struggled to find his footing. His stuff never quite played out as a starter, so San Diego transitioned him into the bullpen. Injuries held him back, with Morejon throwing just 47 2/3 big-league innings from 2021-23.

Overall Grade: A-

Then, everything changed. In 2024, Morejon became one of the most dominant relief pitchers in baseball. He took it to another level in 2025 and was nearly as good in ‘26. Morejon twirled a career-high 86 innings, posting a 2.83 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and .205 opponent batting average. He accumulated 107 strikeouts and 1.9 bWAR in that time. His only problem were blips in April (6.43 ERA) and September (4.50 ERA).

His underlying metrics are even better. Morejon’s expected stats (xERA and xBA) are both roughly 50 points lower than his actual marks. His sinker was one of the best in baseball (+11 Pitching Run Value), ranking him fifth among all relievers in PRV. Among all pitchers (starters and relievers) who threw more than 500 sinkers, Morejon ranks sixth overall in PRV.

Morejon was issued a $23.15 million qualifying offer last week. He has until Nov. 17 to decide whether he will remain with the Padres another season or decline and test free agency. Morejon is high on San Diego’s wish list out of their departing free agents. Many of the Friar Faithful hope that he’ll remain a Padre for his whole career. Only time will tell if ownership is willing to spend what is required to retain the lefty’s services.

Anthony Santander’s anti-Muslim social media posts in the wake of Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s U.S. Senate victory in Michigan did not sit well with his boss.

Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins spoke with reporters Tuesday at the GM Meetings in Las Vegas to say he had spoken with Santander about how displeased he was with the posts on his Instagram Story.

“There really aren’t words to express my level of disappointment with him making those comments. I’ve expressed that to him,” Atkins said, according to Sportsnet.

El-Sayed, in last week’s midterm elections, defeated Republican challenger Mike Rogers in the battleground state. Santander took to his Instagram Story and shared posts that slammed the Muslim faith. El-Sayed is the first Muslim-American ever to be elected to the Senate.

On his Instagram Story, the Blue Jays slugger shared at least two videos, one that included the caption, “America voted for Sharia last night!” Another said that “Muslims are not peaceful.”

The Blue Jays, on Thursday, shared a statement with multiple outlets that said Santander’s posts did not reflect the stance of the organization.

“Baseball is for everyone, and the Blue Jays have created an inclusive experience where all fans feel welcome at our ballpark,” the team said. “Individual comments do not represent our organization’s values and beliefs.”

Atkins said he spoke with Santander and that his social media posts did not have “awareness.”

“Anything exacerbating some level of anti-Islamic hate is just extremely concerning, extremely disappointing,” Atkins added. “I also talked to Anthony about his lack of awareness.”

Santander, an All-Star in 2024 with the Orioles, signed a five-year, $92.5 million contract with Toronto before the 2025 season. He played just 50 games that year before missing the entirety of the 2026 campaign after undergoing shoulder surgery and later dealing with a back issue during rehab.

The Mets will meet with 29-year-old left-handed starting pitcher Tarik Skubal next week, per a report from Anthony DiComo that confirmed earlier reporting by Jon Heyman. Skubal is undoubtedly the best pitcher and player on the free agent market this offseason.

Over the course of his major league career, Skubal has a 3.02 ERA and a 3.03 FIP in 925.1 innings of work. He’s been significantly better than his career numbers in recent seasons, though, as he has a 2.42 ERA and a 2.48 FIP since the beginning of the 2024 season. He spent the entirety of his major league career in Detroit before the Tigers traded him to the Dodgers at the trade deadline this summer.

Having traded for Freddy Peralta to join the top of their rotation ahead of the 2026 season only to see him struggle mightily in his time in Queens, the Mets are known to be seeking starting pitching in free agency. At the moment, Roster Resource projects that the team’s rotation would include Nolan McLean, Christian Scott, Zac Thornton, Kodai Senga, and Sean Manaea if the season were to start tomorrow.

Will Venable inherited a Chicago White Sox team that had just lost 121 games, the most in the modern era, when he became manager in 2025. Two seasons later, he's the American League Manager of the Year.

"It's just an honor to receive the award," Venable said on the MLB Network. "On behalf of our organization, (which) has worked so hard to make progress. And it really starts with our group of players. ... They're just a really special group that created belief early on in the year and went out and executed the things that they needed to do."

Venable won the Baseball Writers' Association of America award on Tuesday, Nov. 10, collecting 15 of the 30 first-place votes and 111 points. Kevin Cash of the Tampa Bay Rays finished second with 98, while Boston's Chad Tracy was third with 47 points.

The White Sox went 84-78 this season and made the playoffs for the first time since 2021. They swept Houston in the Wild Card Series for the franchise's first postseason series win since the 2005 World Series, then lost to Cleveland in five games in the Division Series. The voting for the BBWAA awards is finalized before the playoffs, so that didn't count toward the award, but it's a highlight on Venable's resume.

In Venable's first year, they went 60-102.

That 19-win jump, and then a 24-win jump, puts Venable in rare company. He's only the third manager since 1901 to oversee improvements of 19 or more wins in back-to-back seasons, not counting years shortened by strike or the pandemic.

The other two did it in New York and both are in the Hall of Fame. John McGraw's Giants went from 48 wins in 1902 to 84 in 1903 and 106 in 1904. Miller Huggins' Yankees went from 69 wins in 1925 to 91 in 1926 and 110 in 1927, the season of the Murders' Row lineup.

Venable, 44, already had one trophy from this season. His fellow managers voted him the Sporting News AL Manager of the Year in October. This one, voted on by the writers that cover the sport, is the official award that will be presented in January at the BBWAA dinner in New York.

He's the sixth White Sox manager to win it, joining Tony La Russa (1983), Jeff Torberg (1990), Gene Lamont (1993), Jerry Manuel (2000) and Ozzie Guillen (2005).

How did Will Venable turn the White Sox around?

The White Sox lost 13 of their first 19 games in 2026. Nobody was picturing them in October at that point.

Then they went 78-65 the rest of the way. They spent 96 days in control of first place in the American League Central before slipping at the end.

Some of it was just new talent. Munetaka Murakami came over from Japan on a two-year, $34 million deal and hit 35 home runs. Miguel Vargas, part of a 2024 deadline trade with the Dodgers, broke out with 33 homers.

And the prospects the South Side had been waiting for finally arrived. Colson Montgomery, 24, hit 31 home runs as the starting shortstop. Sam Antonacci, a fifth-round pick in 2024, posted a .766 OPS in his debut season, batted leadoff and split time between second base and left field. Tristan Peters, who the White Sox picked up from Tampa Bay for cash, made the All-Star team in his first full big league season.

The Garrett Crochet trade paid off as well. Chase Meidroth, one of the young players Boston sent back, was worth 4.5 WAR. Braden Montgomery, another piece of that deal, took over right field as a rookie.

And there was the pitching and how Venable handled a staff that never had enough arms. Sean Burke, a 2021 third-round pick, became an ace with a 3.34 ERA. Behind him, Venable used openers creatively and leaned on bulk relievers. Grant Taylor was the White Sox's pitching Swiss Army Knife. He went 7-3 with 10 saves and a 2.25 ERA over 84 innings.

No bullpen in the majors threw more innings, but it held up. One of the worst bullpens in 2025, they were a middle-of the pack unit that kept the White Sox close in 2026.

Who is Will Venable?

Basketball brought Venable to Princeton. He didn't even join the baseball team until his sophomore year, and only because his parents kept telling him not to give it up.

He made first-team All-Ivy in both sports. The only athlete to do it before him was Chris Young, who later became his teammate in San Diego.

Sports run in his family. His father, Max, played 12 seasons in the majors for the Giants, Expos, Reds and Angels between 1979 and 1991. His brother, Winston, played for the Chicago Bears in 2011.

Will Venable spent nine seasons in the big leagues, eight with the Padres. He was a seventh-round pick of San Diego in 2005. In 2013, the lefty-hitting outfielder had his best season. He hit 22 homers and stole 20 bases.

No Princeton graduate has more major league hits or home runs. After he retired, he worked in the Cubs' front office and coached on their staff, then served as Boston's bench coach and Bruce Bochy's associate manager in Texas. He won a World Series ring there in 2023.

The White Sox made him the first Princeton graduate to manage in the majors.

Who else was a finalist for the AL Manager of the Year?

Tracy started the season in Triple-A and got the call-up when the Red Sox shockingly fired Alex Cora on April 25 with the team at 10-17. Boston went 77-58 the rest of the way, with a 15-game winning streak that tied a franchise record from 1946 and a 27-3 run that was the best 30-game stretch in team history. His runner-up prize was security, as the Red Sox signed him to a three-year deal at the end of the season.

Cash, who won the award in 2022 and 2021, led the Rays to the AL East title and the AL pennant, falling to the Brewers in Tampa Bay's second World Series appearance in seven years.

How are votes handled for the AL Manager of the Year?

Two BBWAA members from each American League team's chapter cast ballots, ranking three managers. A first-place vote is worth five points, second three and third one. Ballots are due before the first postseason games are played.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will Venable wins AL Manager of the Year for White Sox turnaround

Per John Shea and others, Buster Posey has told reporters at the GM Meetings in Las Vegas that Harrison Bader will remain in the Giants organization. After suspending him without pay for the final two months of 2026, there was some thought that the team would go through the administrative procedure needed to void his $13 million salary for 2027. Alas!

As Alex Pavlovic notes, “there will be an official update from MLB and Giants on the Harrison Bader situation soon,” which could mean that a suspension of some sort is in the offing. The incident that caused the team to suspend him — getting drunk the night before the team had booked him a flight to see a specialist to examine his injured foot and then driving into the back of a fire truck which rolled over that injured foot — doesn’t run afoul of the major categories of league suspension (PEDs, domestic/sexual/child abuse violence, gambling on baseball, or Drugs of Abuse, on-field incident), so I wonder if this will be a novel form of suspension, a joint statement that features a fine disguised as a donation, or simply a “dude has gone through the administrative process and it has now been completed without further incident.”

We’re left to speculate on that part, but from the team perspective, the President of Baseball Operations has said that the player will be involved in the team’s plans for 2027, which at the very least signals that some or all of his salary will be on their books. That doesn’t preclude them from trading him, but it’s hard to see how much value he’ll have on the trade market, even if the owners are somehow able to pressure the MLBPA into accepting a floor & cap system. Harrison Bader is not a $13 million a player to anyone but the Giants and even those teams that will simply meet the floor by taking on any ol’ contract might not consider Bader even worthy of that effort, given his off-field behavior.

So, a dream of a Drew Gilbert-Jonah Cox platoon will have to wait at least a little longer, until Bader plays his way out of consideration, anyway (also, Jonah Cox will need to stop striking out 40% of the time). A Bader-Gilbert platoon has a lot more promise in the near-term, anyway; at least on paper. Bader has 8 years of MLB service time and has a career wRC+ of 94 to go with elite defense in centerfield. In 857 plate appearances versus LHP, he’s slashing .245/.312/.451 (.762 OPS — 106 wRC+). Gilbert slashed .264/.357/.444 (.801 OPS) against righties (343 PA) in 2026 with solid defense in center.

From a payroll standpoint it’s not ideal, but given Buster Posey’s comments on Day One of the aforementioned GM Meetings, maybe it doesn’t matter at all? There’s no reasonable pathway to winning much more than 67 games in 2027, the team had to solicit new investors just to cover their 2026 commitments… maybe this will be an offseason for the Giants to hibernate. GM Zack Minasian is quoted by John Shea in a post to the SF Standard this morning:

Asked about taking big swings in free agency, Minasian said, “We’ll see. I think in the spirit of being here and where we’re at, you try to be open-minded. I think at this point, it’s still a lot of information gathering. And once we get that, yeah, there’s probably potential for things that are a little faster than years past because of potentially what we’re going to be facing.”

[…]

Could the Giants move young middle infielders to improve their big-league pitching staff?

[…]

“[…] You don’t trade just because you have depth. But I think it’s in our best interest to stay open-minded, and we feel like we have talent to work with that would be interesting to other teams […]”

For the past few years, I’ve put together a “Just how much money do the Giants have to spend on payroll?”-type post, but after a 95-loss season, I feel that the air has gone out of that type of thing. Like, who cares? The Giants aren’t 2-3 free agent moves away or big salary-absorbing trades away from being a good team. Any success they have in the next two years will be entirely by luck and in large part because of players already in the organization.

BUT!

Under the terms of the current CBA, the Giants are currently $73.9 million under the first luxury tax threshold ($247 million). Under the most recent cap proposal by MLB, they’d be $71 million under. In actual dollars — since the Competitive Balance Tax threshold & the cap proposal would involve Average Annual Value of contracts plus player healthcare costs plus mandatory team contribution to the pre-arbitration bonus pool — the Giants have committed $171.23 million already for 2027, a rare season in which there’s not much separation between their real money & CBT payrolls. Bader’s $13 million real money salary is only $10.25 million on the CBT/Tax side because of how his deal was structured (he was owed $7.5 million in 2026 before the suspension). Andrew Baggarly does point out (helpfully):

For the past several years, the Giants have hovered around $250 million in expenses for their total baseball operation budget (that includes coaches, staff, scouts, technology, mortgages/construction costs) with last year being a notable exception on account of needing to pay $7.5 million extra for Bob Melvin’s contract and Tony Vitello’s Tennessee contract buyout. They ended 2026 with $189.7 million in actual payroll ($224.1 million CBT figure). They did spend $210 million in real money in 2024, but if you recall, Farhan Zaidi talked about how many other cuts he had to make around the operation to get that MLB payroll in under the total budget. I doubt the vast ownership group has the appetite to spend $200 million on a 75-win team, and the past decade has proved time and again that more money doesn’t translate to wins.

The Giants aren’t Harrison Bader’s contract away from getting Tarik Skubal or Seiya Suzuki and they’re not a Tarik Skubal and Seiya Suzuki away from being a good baseball team, so, all we’re left with is the news that a Bad Giant (.170/.198/.358 in 111 PA, off-field shenanigans that cost him the season) shall return for another season.

For now.

The South Side already knew what Will Venable meant to this team. Now the rest of the league has caught on.

The Baseball Writers’ Association of America named Venable the 2026 American League Manager of the Year on Tuesday, recognizing the skipper who helped make meaningful baseball a reality again on the South Side.

Venable finished with 111 points, edging Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash (98) and Boston’s Chad Tracy (47) to take the honor.

After three consecutive seasons with at least 100 losses, the White Sox finished 84-78 and returned to the postseason for the first time since 2021. For a fan base that had spent far too much time finding creative ways to describe bad baseball, watching the standings in September was a welcome change.

The road there wasn’t always pretty. Chicago spent 96 days atop the AL Central before letting the division slip away, and the September bullpen adventures probably took a few years off all our lives. Those frustrations deserve their place in the season’s story, but so does the fact that there was something worth getting frustrated about. Expectations had changed.

Venable deserves credit for helping get them there. A young roster found its footing, players grew into their roles and the South Siders gave fans reasons to keep coming back.

The honor follows his Sporting News AL Manager of the Year recognition on Oct. 22, voted on by his fellow managers. This time, the writers joined the party.

There’s still work to do, and an award won’t make the next bullpen decision any easier to watch. But after everything this fan base has sat through, seeing the man at the helm recognized for a winning season feels pretty darn good.

LAS VEGAS — Among the few teams expected to have genuine interest in signing Tarik Skubal, the New York Mets will meet with the free agent ace next week, a person familiar with the situation told USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday, Nov. 10.

The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss publicly.

Skubal, a reigning back-to-back Cy Young winner, is expected to break the record for biggest contract ever awarded to a pitcher – currently held by Yoshinobu Yamamoto's $325 million pact with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

More: Ranking MLB's top 112 free agents

Drafted by the Detroit Tigers, Skubal was traded to the Dodgers at the 2026 deadline with his original team wanting to get a return before this winter's free agency. Skubal had a 2.61 ERA in 10 starts for Los Angeles in the regular season before making two starts in the playoffs.

Skubal, who turns 30 later in November, is widely expected to sign before Major League Baseball's lockout likely begins on Dec. 1.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: New York Mets to meet with Tarik Skubal, MLB's biggest free agent

The Dodgers on Tuesday announced the hiring of hitting coach Pedro Guerrero, filling the vacancy left by Aaron Bates’ somewhat surprising departure last week.

Guerrero notably is not the former Dodgers All-Star from the 1980s, though both are from San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic. This Guerrero was born on December 3, 1988, nearly four months after the hitting machine of the same name was traded by the Dodgers to the St. Louis Cardinals for pitcher John Tudor.

This Guerrero was originally an infielder signed by the Dodgers in 2006, and played eight years in the minors. He played two games in Triple-A Albuquerque in 2010 and once for Double-A Chattanooga but otherwise his minor league playing days was High-A and below before retiring as a player after 2013.

In 2016, Guerrero began his coaching career at rookie-level Ogden, a team that included first-round draft picks Will Smith and Gavin Lux playing their first professional games, plus other future major leaguers Keibert Ruiz, Luke Raley, Cody Thomas, and DJ Peters.

Baseball, like many industries, is built on relationships. Guerrero after two years in Ogden was hired as an assistant hitting coach in 2018 by the Philadelphia Phillies under new manager Gape Kapler, who was the Dodgers director of player development from 2015-17. Guerrero was the youngest coach in the majors at age 29 in 2018, and coached four years in Philadelphia before getting hired by Kapler as assistant hitting coach of the San Francisco Giants in 2022. Guerrero moved on as hitting coach of the Miami Marlins, where he coached the last two years under manager Clayton McCullough, the former Dodgers minor league field coordinator during Guerrero’s playing and coaching days in the system.

Another first-time 27-year-old coach on that 2016 Ogden staff was former minor league catcher Austin Chubb, who is now the Dodgers minor league field coordinator.

Guerrero, who turns 38 in December, now comes to the Dodgers with nine seasons of major league coaching experience under his belt, and joins a coaching staff that is expected to otherwise be the same as last season, including fellow hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc, who turns 40 next Monday and has eight years of major league coaching experience of his own in Los Angeles plus prior consulting work.

Amid all the anger, frustration and pitchforks around the swept-out-of-the-playoffs Yankees and their fanbase, there is the bright, shining and flame-throwing light that is Cam Schlittler. 

There are no rings, but there probably will be hardware for the Yankees ace, whose dominance, from the start of the season through the end, likely will culminate with the American League Cy Young Award on Wednesday. 

Schlittler, the favorite, is a finalist alongside Toronto’s Dylan Cease and Cleveland’s Parker Messick in a competition that Schlittler’s manager essentially declared over in September. 

“He’s the best pitcher in the league,” Aaron Boone said then of Schlittler, who had emerged from obscurity to assert himself as one of the premier arms in the game. 

Toward the end of the season — about when Cease began to slow down in September and then was placed on the injured list with shoulder inflammation — Schlittler’s competition transitioned from his peers to his baseball ancestors. Cease (2.40 ERA with 239 strikeouts in 169 innings) was excellent in his first season with the Blue Jays, and Messick (2.56 ERA in 32 starts and 186 ¹/₃ innings) was extraordinary while finishing as the runner-up for AL Rookie of the Year. 

But neither hung with the best pitcher on a Yankees staff that included Gerrit Cole, Max Fried and Carlos Rodón. 

This season, Schlittler’s 1.95 ERA was the best in the American League — only trailing Jacob Misiorowski’s 1.80 mark in the majors — and the third lowest in franchise history, behind Spud Chandler’s 1.64 in 1943 and Ron Guidry’s 1.74 in 1978. He allowed one run or fewer in 21 starts, which led the majors and was a franchise record. His 239 strikeouts were tied with Jack Chesbro (1904) for fourth most by a Yankees pitcher ever, trailing Cole (257 in 2022 and 243 in 2021) and Guidry (248 in 1978). His 1.16 ERA in 17 road starts was the fifth lowest such mark in a season since 1913, behind Bob Gibson’s 0.81 ERA in 1968, Walter Johnson’s 1.06 ERA in 1913 and 1.13 ERA in 1918 and Greg Maddux’s 1.12 ERA in 1995. 

The bigger the stakes, the better Schlittler has been. In Game 1 of the wild-card series against a team from his hometown and one he owns, the righty struck out 10 across 6 ¹/₃ scoreless innings in a win over the Red Sox. In his follow-up, he was let down by the defense behind him and allowed four runs — just two of which were earned — in 4 ¹/₃ innings in a loss to the Rays. 

In four career postseason starts, he has pitched to a 1.44 ERA in 25 innings. For a Yankees team that has not figured out the cause of its consistent October disappointments, Schlittler has not been the problem. 

“The personal stuff, whatever happens, that’s great,’’ Schlittler said after the Yankees were knocked out. “But at the end of the day, I’d rather win a championship.” 

Nearly as remarkable as Schlittler’s first full season in the majors was his journey to the majors. A Walpole, Mass., kid who stayed home and played at Northeastern, where he did not strike out a batter per inning as a lanky, 6-foot-6 redshirt sophomore, and became overall pick No. 200 in the 2022 draft. 

In his first minor league season, he threw a low-90s fastball, pitched to a 4.11 ERA in 14 games and later would look back at that pitcher and say he “sucked.” 

Schlittler began to put on pounds and saw his velocity begin to spike. He became an interesting prospect in 2024, when he topped out at Double-A. He took off in 2025, when he forced his way to a debut in July, unveiled an assortment of triple-digit heat that did not need an offspeed pitch mixed in (although he since has developed a curveball) and simply has been the best pitcher in baseball since. 

Beginning with his July 9, 2025, debut, the 25-year-old leads the majors in ERA (2.23), is tied for first in starts (47), ranks fourth in opponents’ batting average (.194) and sixth in WHIP (1.00). For a pitcher whose first 47 appearances were all starts, his ERA is the second best ever since 1913, trailing just Paul Skenes’ 1.95. 

“You have a plan for every player that they do this, this and that, they can get better — Cam’s shown the ability to do that,” Boone said of Schlittler in October. “Whether it’s taking information, whether it’s coming out of the draft and getting physically stronger. All the things that have been put on his plate, he’s handled with relative ease and not been overwhelmed by any of it. 

“You saw kind of a rapid, steady improvement through the minor leagues to what he is now, and he’s turned into an ace in the sport. That’s a credit to a lot of people, most of all Cam, though, for having that aptitude.”

The Dodgers hired former Miami Marlins hitting coach Pedro Guerrero, filling the one opening on their coaching staff.

The team announced the move Tuesday, during the first day of MLB’s general managers meetings.

Guerrero has ties to the Dodgers organization, as a minor-league player from 2006-13. He also served as the bench coach for rookie-level Ogden in 2016-17.

“Petey, we obviously have some familiarity with having been here before,” general manager Brandon Gomes said. “We know he’s an amazing person, going to fit in great culturally. Has a lot of strengths that we think will complement our group.”

Read more:Four Dodgers-related story lines to follow at the GM Meetings in Las Vegas

The Dodgers had wanted to bring Guerrero back in some capacity, “independent” of their unexpected opening on the coaching staff, Gomes said.

Guerrero spent two seasons as the Marlins’ hitting coach before the team decided not to retain him, opting for a “new voice,” as president of baseball operations Peter Bendix put it in late September, while praising Guerrero as a person and a coach.

Then, former co-hitting coach Aaron Bates and the Dodgers reached an impasse in contract negotiations and parted ways last week.

Guerrero will work alongside longtime hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc.

“It’s really important for us, how we see things, to have a flat structure and know that it’s collaborative across the board,” Gomes said. “The main thing is trying to put people in a position to succeed. And how that looks, we’re going to continue to hammer out over the next week to month.”

Guerrero also worked as an assistant hitting coach for the Philadelphia Phillies (2018-21) and San Francisco Giants (2022-24) before joining the Marlins.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

This afternoon, Brian Cashman spoke with reporters at the GM meetings in Las Vegas, revealing among other tidbits that that Max Fried recently underwent surgery to remove a bone spur from his throwing elbow. The left-hander will be able to resume throwing at some point in December and is expected to make a full recovery in time for spring training.

Fried experienced issues with his throwing arm throughout the 2026 season. He first hit the injured list in mid-May after suffering a bone bruise in his elbow in a start against the Orioles. He returned in July but only lasted about a few weeks back in the rotation before another bone bruise landed him on the IL again in mid-August. That trip to the IL was described as more precautionary than anything at the time, and indeed Fried was activated in September and was fully stretched out by the time the playoffs rolled around. 

Even as Fried’s throwing arm proved troublesome, he managed to produce when on the field. Fried posted a 2.80 ERA and 2.65 FIP in 2026, both slight improvements on his stellar 2025 debut campaign with the Yankees, albeit in just 112 innings this year. 

You never want to hear that your ace needs surgery, but the fact that Fried has avoided major injury, all while pitching at a high level when active, suggests he could be even better when he returns in 2027. Of course, his expectation of being back for spring training is complicated by the fact that we have no idea when spring will even start next season. In any event, whenever the season starts, the Yankees will expect a healthy and elite version of Fried.

LAS VEGAS — The Dodgers didn’t leave their hitting coach vacancy open for long.

The team announced on Tuesday that it had hired 37-year-old Pedro Guerrero as its new co-hitting coach alongside Robert Van Scoyoc, filling the void that was left by Aaron Bates’ departure from the organization last week.

“We know he’s an amazing person, going to fit in great culturally,” general manager Brandon Gomes said during MLB’s annual General Managers’ Meetings at the Aria Resort and Casino. “He has a lot of strengths that we think will complement our group.”

Guerrero comes to the Dodgers after spending the past two seasons as the Marlins’ hitting coach. Before that, he was an assistant hitting coach with the Giants and Phillies, as well as a minor-league bench coach in the Dodgers’ organization from 2016-17 with their rookie-level affiliate in Ogden, Utah.

“We obviously have some familiarity with having been here before,” Gomes said.

That familiarity led the Dodgers to begin exploring a role for Guerrero –– who was not retained by the Marlins at the start of this offseason –– even before they encountered a contract impasse with Bates.

Once Bates’ exodus became official last week, the team quickly pivoted to Guerrero to fill the open post.

“This is kind of something we’ve been talking about for a bit,” Gomes said. “[At first], it was independent of Aaron, to be honest. Thinking about how could we bring him on in some role. And then as things shaked out, we figured we would make it official and bring him on board, and then kind of see where we’re at from there.”

While the share of exact duties between Guerrero, Van Scoyoc (who has been in his role since 2019) and game-planning and communication coach JT Watkins (the team’s de facto assistant hitting coach) still have to be ironed out, Gomes said “it’s really important for us, how we see things, to have a flat structure” between their hitting staff and “know that it’s collaborative across the board.”

“[We have a roster full of] a lot of really talented guys that have been incredibly successful and understand what it takes to succeed at the highest level,” Gomes said. “And with that comes making sure [your coaches] continue to build trust and have that relationship to, if you see something that maybe looks a little bit off, having the ability to bring it up in a way that’ll land properly. So we’re fortunate enough that we have a group that is not ego-based, and all they want to do is win.”

As a player, Guerrero also spent most of his eight-year minor-league career (from 2006 to 2013) in the Dodgers’ farm system, where he hit .236 with 23 home runs in 411 games. The Dominican-born infielder reached the club’s Triple-A affiliate in 2010 but never got a call-up to the majors.

Instead, Guerrero has forged his big-league path as a coach. He spent four seasons in his assistant hitting coach role with the Phillies and three with the Giants (working both times with former Dodgers farm director Gabe Kapler). He was then tabbed as the Marlins’ primary hitting coach ahead of the 2025 season (under then newly hired Miami manager Clayton McCullough, who was previously the Dodgers’ first-base coach).

This past year, the Marlins ranked just 18th in the majors in scoring but made other improvements compared to 2025 in batting average (from ranking 11th to seventh among MLB offenses), on-base percentage (from 17th to sixth) and OPS (from 18th to ninth).

At the start of this offseason, Marlins president of baseball operations Peter Bendix announced that Guerrero would not return to the club but praised the work he did with the team’s young roster.

“He did a tremendous job for us,” Bendix said, according to MLB.com. “He’s a wonderful human being. We’re going to miss having him around and really appreciate everything that Pedro gave to us. Just time for a new voice in the hitting space.”

The Dodgers are hoping Guerrero (who has the added benefit of being able to speak Spanish) can now provide the same dynamic in Los Angeles –– coming off a season in which the team ranked top five in scoring, batting average and OPS but also slumped through much of the second half of the campaign and struggled to consistently manufacture offense in the playoffs.

“We certainly didn’t come in expecting [to make a coaching change this offseason],” Gomes said, reiterating that the Dodgers had been planning on things to remain status quo with their staff before their contract negotiations with Bates stalled. 

But “no matter what,” he added, “we were going to kind of take a step back to reevaluate and understand what are some of the things that we can do better? How can we message? Can we take a fresh look at some of our reports and how they’re being digested? So we were going to take a fresh look no matter what. The goal is to be better than we were the year before and continuing to find ways to improve and get back to being a world champion.”

No Japanese pro team scouted Teruaki Sato out of high school.

Now, he's Japan's Triple Crown winner and he has three weeks to land an MLB contract.

Sato, 27, won the Central League Triple Crown for the Hanshin Tigers this season, hitting .306 with 39 homers and 106 RBIs, a year after he was named league MVP. No Japanese-born Tiger had ever done it. Hanshin posted him for MLB teams Nov. 1, and USA TODAY Sports' Bob Nightengale said Sato might be the top position player in a weak free agent class. The New York Yankees, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres and Detroit Tigers have all been lined to him.

The catch is the calendar.

MLB's collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1 and a lockout is expected.

Front offices are in Las Vegas this week for the general manager meetings, the first big stop of the offseason.

Here's who Sato is, how good he is and which teams are really interested in him.

Who is Teruaki Sato?

Sato grew up in Nishinomiya, the city that's home to Koshien Stadium, rooting for the Tigers. He hit 15 homers as a senior at Nigawa High School, and the pros still passed on him. Kindai University did not. He moved from left field to third base in college and set the Kansai Big Six league record with 14 homers as a senior and won two league MVP awards.

Japan's draft doesn't work like MLB. In the first round, teams don't pick in order. Every team names the player it wants at the same time, and when more than one names the same player, they draw lots for him.

In 2020, four teams named Sato. He went to his hometown Hanshin Tigers.

As a rookie in 2021, he hit 24 homers and struck out 38% of the time. He became the first left-handed hitter in Japanese pro history to open a career with three straight 20-homer seasons. Then he slumped badly enough in 2024 to get sent down for 17 games.

Sato grew into the game. In 2025 he hit 40 homers with 102 RBI, and the home run and RBI titles, the MVP award and a Golden Glove at third base.

This year, he added the batting title. He hit .306/.383/.609 in 143 games, led the league with 165 hits and finished four homers ahead of teammate Shota Morishita. He's the ninth player in Japanese pro history to win a Triple Crown and the first since Munetaka Murakami in 2022. The only other Tiger to do it is Randy Bass (1985 and 1986).

Sato is the first reigning MVP position player to join MLB since Hideki Matsui in 2003.

Sato bats left, he throws right and is listed at 6-1, 207 pounds. He turns 28 in March.

How good is Teruaki Sato?

His raw numbers undersell him. Central League hitters batted .236/.301/.350 this season, and teams averaged 3.40 runs a game. Sato hit .306/.383/.609 in 143 games. Sato also plays his home game at Koshien, one of Japan's best parks for pitchers.

According to MLB.com, Sato's swing averages close to 75 miles per hour, which would rank him among MLB's top 50 hitters. His exit velocity matched Shohei Ohtani's mark in 2026.

"When he hits them, he hits them really hard," said an MLB scout who has evaluated Sato and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he isn't authorized to discuss players publicly.

The scout called Sato's raw power "definitely above average," though not Murakami's.

The concern is that he misses a lot.

Japanese baseball analyst Yuri Karasawa found that Sato swings more than nearly any notable hitter in Japan over the past five years. He made contact on 66% of his swings this season. The MLB average is 77%.

"In-zone fastball misses are an issue," the scout said.

His glove is the other question. He won a Golden Glove at third base in 2025, but some have speculated that Sato will have to move to a corner outfield or first base in the future. The scout who spoke to USA TODAY Sports thinks Sato can stay at third with work, and noted that he has played corner outfield before and runs well enough to handle it.

"I do like Sato," the scout said, "but he comes with the Murakami risk."

The Chicago White Sox took that risk last winter with Murakami and gave him a two-year, $34 million deal. Then he went out and hit 35 homers as a rookie while batting .207 and striking out 35.4% of the time. Kazuma Okamoto signed for four years and $60 million with the Toronto Blue Jays and hit 33 homers with 92 RBI.

There are plenty of teams that were kicking themselves this season for passing on Murakami.

Which MLB teams want Teruaki Sato?

The Yankees have the clearest need. Ryan McMahon hit .213 with 11 homers and a .635 OPS at third base this season. They have expressed concern about whether Sato can remain at third base internally.

The Mets looked like the favorite for months. President of baseball operations David Stearns flew to Japan to scout Sato in person after the Mets' season ended. Then Bo Bichette opted into his $42 million salary for 2027.

The Phillies need a third baseman with Alec Bohm a free agent. The Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported that the Tigers have scouted Sato. The Dodgers, Red Sox and Padres have been linked to him, too.

Will Teruaki Sato sign before the MLB lockout?

Players posted from Japan normally get 45 days to sign. Sato's window opened Nov. 2 and would run through Dec. 16.

It won't get that far. The collective bargaining agreement expires at 11:59 ET on Dec. 1, and a lockout freezes every signing. The league has said it will not pause the posting window this time.

The last lockout went the other way. In 2021-22, MLB froze Seiya Suzuki's window for all 99 days of the lockout and he signed for five years and $85 million with the Cubs once it ended

Sato has three weeks.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How good is Teruaki Sato? MLB has three weeks to find out

This is the news many of us were expecting, reported by Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic:

Chicago Cubs pitcher Ben Brown underwent successful cervical spine surgery Monday, according to a source familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. Brown is expected to start a throwing progression in the new year, and the hope is he will be ready for game action during the first half of the 2027 season.

So, this can probably be viewed as good news. Brown had a neck issue in 2024 that apparently was mis-diagnosed, and it recurred last summer and finally the team got a proper diagnosis:

When the issue recurred in 2026, the original diagnosis of a stress reaction in his neck was confirmed. The surgery was a proactive procedure involving Brown’s C5 vertebra, done with the belief that it would speed up healing in the area.

Brown was having a breakout season as a starter when this issue ended his season in June. After a rough outing in relief on Opening Day against the Nationals, when Jacob Young hit the very first 2026 pitch thrown by Brown for a home run, Brown posted a 1.67 ERA and 0.928 WHIP and allowed just one more home run among 252 batters faced, and struck out 62. He was beginning to anchor the rotation at the time of the injury.

Based on this report, Brown could be back early in 2027, and who knows? If the upcoming lockout does cancel games, maybe he won’t miss any games at all. As always, we await developments.