Category: Sports News

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.

Ah, the World Baseball Classic. The FIFA World Cup’s strange cousin who trades the English-invented soccer for an American invention with a stick and many strange rules based on the number nine. And just like how England gets consistently embarrassed by nations they technically exported soccer to, the United States looks well and truly poised to do the same with baseball (sarcastic applause). 

It is very hard to predict who is going to win this thing because trying to predict the outcome of a single baseball game is of similar statistical merit to getting a hit: if you succeed 30 percent of the time, you’re doing pretty well! Baseball is shockingly random, and three of the teams remaining have bona fide god squads. To keep things exceedingly simple, the United States, Japan and the Dominican Republic have easily the best three rosters on paper — they’re also the only three nations ever to win the WBC. Whether or not any of that will translate to a victory is anyone’s guess. I’m going to guess anyway.

1. Dominican Republic

They aren’t the defending champions and they have arguably a worse roster than the United States on paper but come on man… this batting order is just outrageous. 

Tatis Jr. leading off, never fun. Get through him and Ketel Marte cleanly you get Juan Soto. One of them gets on? Vlad Guerrero Jr. Heart of the order? Machado, Caminero, JRod. If you don’t understand what that means, it can easily be translated into two words: home run.

This team is power personified. It’s a walking bat flip. It’s every bit oozing with swag and intimidation as it is exit velocity and launch angle. There’s a reason most MLB home run derbies have a strong Dominican presence. There isn’t a single hitter to attack, and rock solid starting pitching to get them through the knockout rounds. 

Why are they above the United States and Japan? Well, for one, how am I out here picking the United States to win after the week they just had (more on that below)? And for all the Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto awesomeness for Japan, this lineup is just way better one through nine. And among all the lineups, it is so easily the coolest. In a world where I am predicted one game series’, cool counts for something.

2. United States of America

So… not great thus far. 

Just as a rule, I’m not a fan of my manager going on TV and saying that the team had clinched a quarterfinal berth when it had not and then my team going out there against Italy to not clinch because Red Sox legend Greg Weissert fanned Aaron Judge on four pitches in the bottom of the ninth with a man on down two… only to then get bailed out by Italy the next day because they’re a juggernaut and beat Mexico to get Team USA a spot.

All that said, it is undeniable that Team USA is an absurd collection of baseball talent that can and should be the best team in whatever game they play. The problem is they just haven’t been so far; that game against Italy was legitimately alarming, and the offense couldn’t get a leadoff hitter on all night. 

Pitching is so variable, and Team USA has amazing pitching even without Tarik Skubal. That said, the offense — and Aaron Judge, who has been a visible and obvious no-show in the WBC so far — needs to be better. There is no reason it shouldn’t be better, and it must be for the United States to achieve anything more.

3. Japan

Coming in at a very close second in coolness ratings behind the DR is Japan, boosted mightily by having the coolest dude ever leading off, the World Series MVP as your ace, newly minted Chicago White Sock Munetaka Murakami and Barry Bon… I mean Masataka Yoshida (who the Red Sox were or are still actively trying to trade) going crazy. Lots of other great MLBers too like Seiya Suzuki and Yusei Kikuchi, but Japan’s success comes, in truth, on the backs of their domestic league.

Japan is a country with a robust and professional baseball infrastructure, and they are the defending champions for a reason. One of the only countries in the world where baseball is the most popular sport and by far the most populous (for those who didn’t know yet, baseball is in third place in the United States… has been for a while now), Japan has shown an ability to develop talent and produce quality national teams for the entire existence of the WBC. They have the best player in the world and probably of all time on their team. 4-0 in the group. 

Frankly, it’s all well and dandy. From an on-paper talent perspective, it isn’t as good as the USA or DR, but Japan could totally win. They literally won last time.

4. Italy

I have chosen, against my better judgment, to provocatively put Italy here, bucking the trend of basically going in order of who I think has the best team when Venezuela is definitely a better group. That is for one simple reason: Italy is playing Puerto Rico and Venezuela is playing Japan.

Italy, described by some as “American 2: Italy Edition” since 24 players on the roster were born in America and only three in Italy, has been playing like the best team in the world (for some reason) for this entire tournament, pretty soundly annihilating Team USA until the very end when it got close. Our guy Greg Weissert had it covered, though.

This is a very solid team with a deep list of professional hitters — captain Vinnie Pasquantino is a power slugger for the Royals and straight up has an Italian Beef Sandwich named after him called the Pasqwich that they sell at Royals games. I mean, come on now. How are we doing any better than that?

I would not be surprised if Puerto Rico beats Italy — I thought they were a better team coming in (everyone did). But it would be disrespectful to the 4-0 Italians to have them lower.

5. Venezuela 

Second half of the provocative 4-5 slots is the second most populous country where baseball is the most popular sport: Venezuela, with a squadron of great players that is unfortunately playing Japan in the quarterfinals. 

Venezuela has a bunch of great players: Acuña, Arraez, two Contrerases (contrari?) and legends like Salvador Perez. They just aren’t as deep as other teams and will have to beat three great teams in a row to win it all. They are a great team themselves, but it’s simply not as likely.

6. Puerto Rico

A decent team with professional talent but even less depth than Venezuela, Puerto Rico would have to beat Italy (which they could do) but then defeat two consecutive titans (don’t see that happening. They are missing some of their best players, too, with Francisco Lindor and Carlos Correa not playing in this year’s tournament. I will, however, take this moment to remind everyone that it’s not crazy for any team to beat any other team because this is baseball. I do not take responsibility if something crazy happens.

7. South Korea

Another team with lots of home league players, this team is also sneaky-solid. Jung Hoo Lee and Hyeseong Kim are the two players most MLB fans will have heard of, but South Korea took Japan the distance and could be an upset factor if their young hitting can get hot. That said, every team can be an upset factor if their hitting gets hot. And they’re playing the Dominican Republic, who was my number one. So…

8. Canada

Fun team, lots of fun players, two Naylors, my guy Abe Toro, major-leaguers all around the batting order. I just have a hard time imagining this team beating the United States with their pitching staff. They essentially do not have a single major league reliever, so unless they can go completely nuclear on offense, it’s a hard sell. Totally defensible to swap them with South Korea, too. You would not lose any points on the test if you did that.

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?