Category: Sports News

Today marks the end of our AL Central preview series. The Chicago White Sox may have drawn first pick in the draft lottery, but their 60 wins were only good for the final entrant here. Unlike previous years, though, the White Sox are full of young, interesting hitters. While they aren’t likely to set the world on fire, a few breaking out could have the team pushing .500 like last year’s something or other Athletics.

Projected Record and Team Summary

Yet again, the project systems agree here: the Chicago White Sox are likely to be pretty poor again this year. PECOTA projects a 68-94 record, while the Depth Charts have them at 69-93. Both are sizable improvements from the 2025 squad that went 60-102,, their third straight season with at least 100 losses. Much of that improvement comes from a new, exciting lineup of youngsters with the potential to be pretty solid instead of a group of veteran placeholders plus Luis Robert.

That’s right, after three years of talking about it, the White Sox finally bit the bullet and traded Robert; in return, they got Luisangel Acuna and a low-minors pitching prospect for their mercurial superstar. They also made a shocking strike for NPB star free agent Munetaka Murakami when the rest of MLB decided they actually didn’t want the 26 year old who averaged about 35 HRs per season the last 6 years in Japan. Instead of the huge payday he was expected for, Murakami settled for 2 years with the White Sox to hopefully prove he can hit major league pitching, too. That’s a boon for Chicago.

The Sox also made a few other trades, most notably bringing in Jordan Hicks and David Sandlin in a salary dump from Boston. Otherwise, they spent the winter making marginal improvements in free agency and on the waiver wire. Seranthony Dominguez, Austin Hays, Sean Newcomb, and Erick Fedde are fine veterans to add to a young team and Anthony Kay is an interesting import from overseas. None are likely to impact the team like Murakami should, but they add some much-needed stability to an otherwise unproven team.

Greatest Strength: Young Offense

Don’t look now, but the White Sox had a downright respectable offense in the second half last year. An emphasis on young bats in the draft and in trade returns has mostly panned out. Chase Meidroth, Colson Montgomery, Kyle Teel, Luisangel Acuna, and Edgar Quero are all players with club control that have a role on a winning team. Montgomery and Teel in particular look like full time starters, as the rookie shortstop hit 21 HRs over 71 games and the rookie catcher posted a .786 OPS after his June 6 debut. They then went and added the best power hitter in the NPB, 26 year old Munetaka Murakami, on a two year deal after his market failed to develop. We’ll see how prescient concerns about his whiff rates really are this season. Plus, Braden Montgomery, a power hitting college outfielder from the 2024 draft class, is poised for a quick ascent through the upper minors if Chicago so chooses.

The rest of the lineup isn’t particularly special. Chicago has done a nice job of acquiring former top prospects who have struggled for cheap, like Curtis Mead or Miguel Vargas, so their bench has a surprising amount of upside. At the same time, Lenyn Sosa, Austin Hays, and Andrew Benintendi are veteran roster filler. The best case scenario for these guys is a minor trade at the deadline, hopefully clearing a roster spot for a prospect at the same time. Otherwise, their job is to not be horrible and try to show the rookies the ropes as they matriculate up from the minors. This is almost certainly a few pieces short of a good lineup, but there’s enough here to be very, very interesting.

Greatest Weakness: Starting Pitching

If you had to squint to see an offensive core, you’ll be looking even harder for the pitching staff. The major league roster is about 8 arms short of competent. The starting rotation has little ceiling or depth, as Rule 5-breakout Shane Smith was the only starter under a 4.00 ERA last year. Chicago did backfill with some veteran SPs, Erick Fedde and Anthony Kay, but that’s about it. Davis Martin is a fourth year MLB starter who doesn’t get enough strikeouts to offset his walks and his hard contact and Sean Burke had a 4.59 ERA as a starting pitcher. As a team, the White Sox struggled with walks and home runs, an unenviable combo, and did very little to remedy that.

The bullpen isn’t in much better shape. Seranthony Dominguez, Jordan Hicks, and Jordan Leasure are solid bullpen arms, but at this point in their careers profile a few pegs lower in the totem pole than closer and main setup arms for a contender would. Otherwise, the bullpen should have a lot of moving parts aside from Jedixson Paez, a depth starter Chicago nabbed from Boston in the Rule 5 draft. When prospects like Noah Schultz, Hagan Smith, and Nick Sandlin are ready, expect them to push some of the current starters into the bullpen. Until that happens, this is a pretty uninspiring group.

X-Factor: Munetaka Murakami and Noah Schultz

Sometimes the X-Factor decision is easier than others. Picking Murakami here is one of those: I’m not sure there’s another player in the division, or maybe all of the majors, with a wider range of outcomes and expectations. Murakami started the winter as an international superstar and a top free agent but found shockingly little interest from American teams after a strikeout-heavy performance in the NPB. Of course, he also hit 22 home runs in 56 games, 5thmost in the league despite playing less than half the season.

After almost every team declined to pursue him in earnest, the White Sox swooped in with a 2 year, $34M contract. Murakami reportedly has struggled with velocity, but he didn’t see much of it overseas and has hit for plenty of power in Spring Training so far. The ceiling here is something like Kyle Schwarber or Giancarlo Stanton, where huge power and a good batting eye cover for some serious contact issues. If the strikeouts become untenable, the whole profile could collapse to something like 2021 Keston Hiura. We won’t know until we know, but adding this much upside for only $17M a year is very smart for a team with no pressure to win this year.

There were a lot of candidates for the second name here, but I chose Noah Schultz because the White Sox desperately need some pitching. In 2025, their best pitcher was Rule 5 pick Shane Smith, and while breakouts from the Rule 5 are always a boon, it isn’t a good sign if your best pitcher has a 3.81 ERA. Schutlz is a candidate to debut this year and add immediate upside to Chicago’s staff. As a 6’10 lefty, the Randy Johnson comparisons are inevitable and unfair, but Schultz is no slouch. His 70-grade slider leads the way of a strikeout-heavy profile and he can get up to 98 MPH on his heater. He can get out of sync and rack up a lot of walks, but the stuff is irrefutable. He still needs some refining in the minors before they unleash him on the league. Once he proves himself against AAA hitters and shows some command development, he’ll be an exciting arm for Chicago to build around.

For the first time in a while, the Chicago White Sox are an interesting baseball team. The makings of an offensive core are in place; an unsuspecting pitcher is liable to get burned if they try to sleepwalk their way through Chase Meidroth, Colson Montgomery, and Munetaka Murakmi gauntlet in the first inning. The pitching is still in tough shape outside of All-Star Shane Smith, but help is on the way from Hagan Smith and Noah Schultz. It’s a shallow roster, to be sure, but there’s enough good players that Chicago posting a solid season and becoming more irritant than pushover should no longer feel like a surprise.

It's been an eventful decade of Mets baseball, with the 2016 through 2025 seasons running the gamut. 

Below, we rank every season in terms of not just performance, but enjoyment...

10. 2017: 70-92, 4th in NL East

This was not only the worst Mets team of the decade, but one of the most disappointing. After the club went to the World Series in 2015 and made the playoffs again in 2016, this version faltered badly. 

It was brought down by a subpar offense, a post-thoracic outlet surgery Matt Harvey not being the same, and an especially poor season from Zack Wheeler -- who had a career-worst 5.21 ERA and also dealt with injuries, including a stress fracture that ended his year in August.

9. 2020: 26-34, 4th in NL East

The COVID season was shortened, strange, and distant, with fans not allowed in any ballpark for most of it.

On the field, the Mets won their first game and then spent the rest of the season at or below .500. They were within 3.0 games of first place as late as Aug. 29, and had some fun moments (including Amed Rosario's walk-off homer at Yankee Stadium), but this was a team and season to forget.

8. 2023: 75-87, 4th in NL East

Coming off a 101-win campaign the year prior, the Mets let Jacob deGrom go to the Rangers via free agency and added Justin Verlander to pair with Max Scherzer at the top of the rotation. But following a 14-7 start, things fell apart.

After falling to 36-46 on June 30, New York went on a bit of a run to push their record to 50-55 on the eve of the trade deadline. But that wasn't enough to stave off a sell-off that sent Verlander to the Astros and Scherzer to the Rangers. 

7. 2021: 77-85, 3rd in NL East

This squad had the pieces to be competitive, and they had a solid first half of the season, going 48-40.

But they struggled after the All-Star break in Francisco Lindor's first year in Queens, due in part to an injury that ended Jacob deGrom's season after his start on July 7, when he had a 1.08 ERA and was steamrolling toward a truly historic season.

6. 2018: 77-85, 4th in NL East

The 2018 Mets had the most nondescript offense of the last decade, which was devoid of stars and had just one batter with more than 18 home runs (Michael Conforto's 28). Still, the team started the year 13-4 before faltering and falling out of contention.

They had a very good rotation fronted by an otherworldly deGrom, who led the majors with a 1.70 ERA over 217 innings as he won his first Cy Young award. The deGrom factor alone made the team interesting.

5. 2025: 83-79, 2nd in NL East

The 2025 Mets, with Juan Sotoin tow and fresh off an NLCS run, had the best record in baseball in the middle of June and appeared like a sure bet to reach the postseason.

Instead, New York suffered a slow collapse (with the starting rotation being the main culprit) and wound up missing the playoffs. A few months later, the core was broken up, with Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz leaving via free agency, and Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil traded.

4. 2016: 87-75, 2nd in NL East, lost in Wild Card Game

A year after reaching the World Series for the first time since 2000, the Mets had high hopes and a vaunted rotation. But the starting staff was shaken when Harvey needed surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome.

Still, the club persevered, led by Yoenis Cespedes, Curtis Granderson, and Asdrubal Cabrera on offense, and a still-emerging Noah Syndergaard, who had a 2.60 ERA and struck out 218 in 183.2 innings.

But Syndergaard and the Mets were taken down by Madison Bumgarner and the Giants in the Wild Card Game at Citi Field.

3. 2019: 86-76, 3rd in NL East

The 2019 Mets provided a breath of fresh air sandwiched between four losing seasons.

With an offense led by Alonso, who hit a rookie record 53 home runs, Conforto (.856 OPS), and J.D. Davis (.895 OPS), and a rotation was again headed by deGrom -- who won his second Cy Young in as many seasons -- this club was fun and meshed well.

They went on a tremendous run over the summer, ripping off a 27-9 stretch to push their record to 67-60 and put themselves in playoff contention on Aug. 22. Ultimately, they couldn't get over the hump.

2. 2022: 101-61, 2nd in NL East, lost in Wild Card Series

The 2022 Mets were dominant until they weren't, as they squandered the NL East late in the season when they were swept on the road in Atlanta -- when just one win would've given them a stranglehold on the division title. With the air out of the balloon, New York fell in three games to the Padres in the Wild Card Series at Citi Field.

Still, a team that wins 101 games is a rarity. And this club got huge seasons from Alonso, Lindor, McNeil (in his batting title year), Nimmo, Starling Marte, Scherzer (2.29 ERA), and Edwin Diaz (who had one of the most dominant relief seasons ever).

If Marte was fully healthy in the postseason, and if Scherzer didn't throw a clunker in Game 1 against the Padres, perhaps things turn out differently.

1. 2024: 89-73, 3rd in NL East, lost in NLCS

After hovering around .500 for most of the season, the OMG Mets caught fire at the end of August and rode a 20-9 stretch to a Wild Card spot that was only clinched when they vanquished the Braves in Game 1 of a doubleheader in Atlanta on the day after the regular season ended -- with Lindor's monster home run being the difference.

The Mets then outlasted the Brewers in the Wild Card Series, with Alonso's three-run homer in the ninth inning erasing a 2-0 deficit in Game 3.

In the NLDS, the Mets took the Phillies down in four games -- punctuated by Lindor's grand slam -- clinching a playoff series at Citi Field for the first time ever.

The magical run came to an end against the Dodgers in the NLCS, with the Mets falling in six games.

Tyler Glasnow was at his best on Sunday, striking out 11 Angels in five strong innings. His curveball was especially electric, finishing off all 11 of those strikeouts. He induced 13 swinging strikes among the 36 curves he threw, the former matching the most whiffs on that pitch he’s ever gotten in a game, way back on August 25, 2020.

Most importantly, it’s been a relatively normal spring training for Glasnow, who had a standard gradual build up during Cactus League play, pitching into the fifth inning twice before completing five innings on Sunday in Anaheim.

He’s in line to start next Saturday at Dodger Stadium, the finale of a season-opening three-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. But how many starts will he make this season?

Glasnow pitched 90 1/3 innings and made 18 starts last regular season, but most importantly he was healthy down the stretch and for all of the postseason, after missing the playoffs in his first year with the Dodgers in 2024. Glasnow over the last three seasons averaged 114 2/3 innings and just over 20 starts, and his 21, 22, and 18 starts over the previous three years are his top-three such seasons of his career.

If there’s a caveat heading into this season, outside of the usual injury concern, it’s that Glasnow’s 11.7-percent walk rate last season was his worst in eight years, and much higher than the 7.1-percent walk rate over 2023-24.

Here are his projections entering his age-32 season.

Tyler Glasnow 2026 projections

• Marcel: 118 IP, 3.66 ERA, 28-percent K rate
• Steamer: 24 starts, 139 IP, 3.61 ERA, 28.1 K%
• ZiPS: 20 starts, 105 1/3 IP, 3.76 ERA, 28.6 K%
• THE BAT: 22 starts, 129 IP, 3.97 ERA, 27.2 K%
• OOPSY: 24 starts, 135 IP, 3.39 ERA, 28.2 K%
• PECOTA: 26 starts, 139 2/3 IP, 3.69 ERA, 26.6 K%

Today’s question is how many starts and innings do you expect from Tyler Glasnow in the 2025 regular season?

Hey. Hey! I thought today was when we were gonna talk about the Braves Are Doomed, Reynaldo Lopez Edition. Then this happens.

Not too much more to say, really. Injured List, meet Spencer Strider. Spencer Strider, meet the Injured List. Oh, what’s that? You’re already acquainted? In fact, you were already acquainted in these exact circumstances late in the 2022 season, when Strider was shut down with an oblique issue for the last few weeks of the season (but returned to make a playoff start). Well, in that case…

In any case, this probably won’t help the feeling of gross stuff in the gorge for those of you fully subscribed to the Braves Are Doomed feed. This does maybe make the guys-who-are-out-of-options roster math a little easier for the Braves coming out of Spring Training, but it’s also not clear how long Strider will be out. Again, this could be a very minor setback, but Strider’s had enough issues in his brief career so far that nothing seems “very minor” as far as his availability and effectiveness are concerned. Obliques are often talked about as lingering, but that tends to be in the context of hitters — the Braves did feel comfortable giving Strider about two weeks off in 2022 with a similarly-described issue and then throwing him right into a playoff start afterwards. (He was not very good in that start, but there’s no useful way to pin that on the injury or missed time.)

The runway just keeps widening for Didier Fuentes to make some noise. Or, the Braves may pick up some roster cut for additional depth. Maybe this forces Martin Perez into early season plans. Stay tuned.

At this time, the Opening Day rotation is now six Bryce Elders. (Okay, fine, it’s technically Chris Sale, Grant Holmes, Reynaldo Lopez, Elder, and… Fuentes? Perez? What’s Rich Hill doing?)

Had we written about Sean Manaea’s upcoming season earlier in spring training, the premise would’ve been a bit more straightforward. Coming off a season that saw him spend more time on the injured list than on the mound, Manaea would be looking to be healthy and bounce back from a 2025 season that saw him finish with a 5.64 ERA.

That’s still true, of course, but with the Mets having set their rotation for the beginning of the 2026 season, Manaea isn’t in it. Instead, the 34-year-old lefty will begin the year as the second part of a piggyback plan that will see him pitch multiple innings in relief of one or more of the Mets’ five starting pitchers. Assuming everyone stays healthy, he’ll presumably slot into the Mets’ rotation if and when the team deploys a six-man rotation.

Velocity is of concern, at least from our perspective as fans. Both Manaea and Mets manager Carlos Mendoza insist that they aren’t concerned about a fastball that’s averaged 88 miles per hour in spring training games. Having averaged just shy of 93 miles per hour with the fastball in his first season with the Mets in 2024 per Brooks Baseball, Manaea saw the pitch dip a bit to 91.5 miles per hour last year as he pitched through a loose body issue in his pitching elbow.

When the offseason began, surgery was one of the options on the table for Manaea, but he opted not to have surgery and came into camp feeling good. And in the innings Grapefruit League innings he threw, he managed a 3.72 ERA, albeit with a 5.11 FIP thanks to the pair of home runs he gave up in just 9.2 innings of work.

Of the projections published at FanGraphs, a couple have Manaea with a sub-4.00 ERA this season, but the general consensus projects a low-4s ERA in about 125 innings of work. That certainly wouldn’t be what the Mets were hoping to see when they inked Manaea to a three-year, $75 million deal coming off his incredible second half of the 2024 season, but it would still be helpful to the team.

If his velocity doesn’t come back and he struggles like he did last year, well, that’d be a bummer for Mets fans. We’ll have to wait and see what happens in relatively sparse outings early in the season. And if those appearances go reasonably well, Manaea might get his first start of the season during the Mets’ first full home stand of the year as the team hosts the Diamondbacks and A’s from April 7 to 12 before flying to Los Angeles for three games against the Dodgers without an off day in between.

I always enjoy writing about Dellin Betances — not the least because he’s one of my personal favorite Yankees. In terms of post-dynasty players, he’s easily on my Mount Rushmore of favorites. But his is also a great story. The hometown kid burst on the scene with a ton of prospect hype, only to look like he was going to flame out.

Then, in a wonderful plot twist, Dellin turned into perhaps the most dominant and unhittable relief pitcher in the big leagues for a few years, confounding opposing hitters with his upper-90s fastball and a 12-6 knuckle-curve that instantly turned batsmen’s knees al dente. Betances made our Top 100 Yankees of All-Time, so it certainly makes sense we are going to wish him a happy birthday.

Name: Dellin Betances
Born: March 23, 1988 (New York, NY)
Yankees Tenure: 2011-19

A hometown kid, Betances was born in Manhattan and later moved to the Lower East Side when he was 10. That same year, Betances happened to be at Yankee Stadium on May 17, 1998.  Nothing like getting to see David “Boomer” Wells hurl a perfect game in person.

By 2006, Betances stood 6-foot-9 and his fastball was touching 95 mph. Considered a first-round talent, he’d committed to Vanderbilt and there was concern it would take a king’s ransom to get him to break that agreement. Accordingly, the Yankees and every other team passed on him in the first round.

The Yankees stayed patient and eventually selected him in the eighth round, 254^th overall. A $1 million signing bonus was enough to get Betances to forgo college ball. Dellin was a Yankee.

Betances’ prospect star waxed and waned as he struggled with command. But by 2011, he was Baseball America’s 43^rd-ranked prospect. That season, he made his MLB debut in September, along with his first and only MLB start. Unfortunately, 2012 was a disaster, with Betances completely unable to locate his fastball.

With Betances still struggling in 2013, the Yankees made the fateful decision to move him to the bullpen, where he shined at Triple-A. He struggled in another brief cameo in the majors that year but there was hope.

The stage was set for one of the most surprising individual seasons in recent Yankee history. 2014 Dellin Betances was the kind of thing you tell your grandkids about someday. His stat line was breathtaking: 70 G, 90 IP, 1.40 ERA, 274 ERA+, 135 K, .442 opponent OPS, 3.7 bWAR.

As I noted when writing about his 2014 campaign, the effect was that he basically turned all major league hitters into a pitcher when they came to bat.

Betances was absolutely on another level. He basically turned MLB hitters—the best in the world at what they do—into John Smoltz at the plate for an entire season. The Hall of Fame hurler retired with a career .159 BA and a .433 OPS. Opponents hit .149 against Dellin in his breakout campaign, with a .442 OPS.

If you are a visual learner, here’s 2014 Dellin eviscerating Miguel Cabrera, one of the great hitters of his generation.

2015 was more of the same. Betances was so dominant that when Game 162 had come and gone, he led the Yankees in rWAR. As a relief pitcher. He did not allow an earned run until his 27^th appearance of the season, in the Yankees’ 55^th game. That is insane. 2014-15 Dellin Betances was historically great. After crunching numbers, I identified in Dellin’s Top 100 article:

Since 1990, the list of relievers who topped Betances by rWAR over two years is short: Boston’s Jonathan Papelbon, who compiled 8.1 rWAR from 2006-07, and Mariano Rivera, who bested Dellin in five different two-year stretches (lol). That’s it. No Billy Wagner. No Craig Kimbrel. No Eric Gagne. No Francisco Rodriguez. Not even a Trevor Hoffman. It’s just Mo, Papelbon, and Dellin.

2016 found Betances pitching out of the same bullpen as Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman. For the first time as a major league reliever, he was a one inning-and-done guy. And he was really good at it, to the tune of 126 strikeouts in 73 innings. The mid-2010s were a weird time for the Yankees, with only one playoff game to their name between 2013-16. But Dellin at least did his part to make his innings a thrill.

That offseason saw an ugly arbitration session, wherein Randy Levine and the Yankees seemed to go out of their way to disrespect Betances. This wasn’t Tarik Skubal and the Tigers either, with a $14 million gap between the camps. Betances wanted a $3 million salary. The Yankees offered $5 million. All that for $2 million. Anyway, you can read the infuriating details of that elsewhere.

Betances pitched two more full seasons in pinstripes as New York returned to regular postseason form. 2018 saw him make baseball history as he became the first reliever to record 100 or more strikeouts in five consecutive seasons.

Little did anyone know his magical run as an elite reliever was over. A should injury in March 2019 sent him to the injured list where he remained until mid-September, when he made his return against Toronto, striking out both hitters he faced. Two days later, the club announced Betances had partially torn his left Achilles during his return outing.

Injuries and COVID conspired to confound Betances, who never returned to form after signing with the Mets in December 2019. He officially retired from baseball in August 2022, but is still involved with the game and began doing work with YES Network in 2025. Look to see him more in the studio in 2026.

Happy birthday, Dellin! I’ll always remember the 2017 Home Run Derby when we were all Dellin Betances, awestruck watching Aaron Judge.

See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.

Hope springs eternal, and never is that phrase more applicable in baseball than February and March. Players start showing up to Spring Training in great shape, and the excuses–legitimate or not–of the previous year are washed away. Injuries healed. Disappointments left behind. During Spring Training, you can easily convince yourself that just about everyone can be better when the season starts.

The unfortunate truth is that everyone can’t improve. Even when lots of players improve, some don’t. Some do worse. Others get hurt. Take any two consecutive years and you’ll see that pattern. Like, look to the 2015 Royals championship season, a big step forward over 2014. Some players got better, but not all: Alcides Escobar was worse, Alex Gordon got hurt, Salvador Perez was worse, Jason Vargas got hurt, Omar Infante was worse, Greg Holland got hurt, Danny Duffy was worse. 

So when looking ahead to this upcoming season, we have to take into account that it’s just not gonna go the way that we hope it will for certain players. Now, which ones? That’s the real question. 

A month ago, my answer would have been clear that Maikel Garcia was the likeliest Royal hitter to regress. Garcia had a breakout 2025, turning in one of the most impressive Royals seasons in recent memory; he hit for average, he had great plate discipline, he hit for power, he fielded like a madman. He turned into an All-Star and arguably the best defensive third baseman in baseball, nabbing his first career Gold Glove.

But development is not linear, and Garcia has a lot of baseball history that suggests 2025 may be a sort of outlier. Prior to last year, he turned in 1,164 plate appearances where he hit .251/.301/.344–about 20% worse than league average overall. During that time, defensive stats suggested that he was a good-but-not-great third baseman. Garcia’s improvements in 2025 were real, but when you add almost 200 points of OPS in one season there is plenty of room to slide back a bit. Projection systems thought so, too, and they think he’ll be worth three and a half Wins Above Replacement or so as opposed to the five and a half he put up last year.

Now, I’m not so sure.

Maikel Garcia ripped through the World Baseball Classic like he was on a mission of baseball domination. In 28 plate appearances, Garcia hit .385, had three extra base hits, and stole a trio of bases without getting caught. He was big in big moments, as his above home run to bring Venezuela within a run of the imposing Japanese squad shows. And his single to left field against Italy gave his country a 3-2 lead.

At the end Venezuela stood alone, hoisting the World Baseball Classic trophy. And at the end, Garcia stood alone as MVP of the whole tournament. 

Being a good baseball analyst means trusting the numbers and knowing the red flags, and the red flag of the nation of Small Sample Size waves clearly here. That’s because 28 plate appearances is basically nothing in the context of baseball. To trust those plate appearances more than years of recent history would simply be bad analysis.

At the same time, we don’t pit spreadsheets against each other to see who wins. Athletes are humans first, and humans are messy. We’re anxious. We doubt. We have confidence, we lack confidence, we seek confidence. We’re often equal parts brilliant and broken. And because athletes are complicated human beings, raw athleticism only goes so far. There’s a certain X-factor, a je ne sais quoi, a secret ingredient, that often drives athletic success. 

And you know what? I think Maikel Garcia has it, whatever it is. He’s certainly got the tools while having plenty of room to grow–specifically in regard to barrel rate and bat speed. But that’s not just it. His performance in the World Baseball Classic is one intriguing point. His passion for the game is another, that his teammates rave about him as a player and person one more. And Garcia’s dedication to learning and mastering English is one of those things that reflects underlying and enduring positive traits, too. 

I still wouldn’t be surprised if Garcia isn’t quite as good as his career year in 2025. But my intuition tells me that Garcia still has it in him to take another big step next year. If that happens, the Royals’ opponents need to watch out.

Team news

[Dbacks.com] Ross, Loáisiga make club as D-backs announce 3 more cuts – Left-hander Philip Abner was optioned to Triple-A Reno while catcher Aramis Garcia and infielder Jacob Amaya were reassigned to Minor League camp. In addition, the Diamondbacks have informed right-handed relievers Joe Ross and Jonathan Loáisiga that they have made the team and will have their contracts purchased. That seemingly sets the 13-man position-player roster with Corbin Carroll, Alek Thomas, Jordan Lawlar, Nolan Arenado, Geraldo Perdomo, Ketel Marte, Carlos Santana, Pavin Smith, Gabriel Moreno, James McCann, Ildamaro Vargas, Jorge Barrosa and Tim Tawa.

[Yahoo] Two veteran relievers clinch jobs on Diamondbacks’ Opening Day roster – Loaisiga’s inclusion was long anticipated. Signed to a minor-league deal in January, he showcased impressive stuff, including a fastball in the upper-90s, and posted solid results during spring training, logging a 3.86 ERA in seven appearances. “I thought he had some of the better stuff in our pen,” Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen said. “We’re trying to improve the aggregate stuff that we have going out there, from a (swing and) miss standpoint, and he looked good. He had a good spring.” Ross had been trending toward making the club in recent weeks as it became apparent that his ability to go multiple innings in relief appealed to the Diamondbacks.

[Arizona Sports] Abner optioned to Triple-A, Diamondbacks down to 1 lefty reliever – Philip Abner has been optioned to the Triple-A Reno Aces, leaving Brandyn Garcia as the lone lefty arm in bullpen barring a late addition. There was recent precedent for the club adding a lefty to its bullpen room so close to Opening Day, Arizona signing Jalen Beeks one day before the first game of the 2025 season. The Diamondbacks also reassigned catcher Aramis Garcia and infielder Jacob Amaya to minor league camp, which brought its camp to 33 players. Each MLB team has until Opening Day to trim its roster down to 26.

[SI] Gabriel Moreno Silences Injury Concerns in Unbelievable 2-Homer Game – [Moreno] played his first game behind home plate since he was forced to shut down throwing due to right forearm tightness. With no structural damage revealed, the hope was always that Moreno would be healthy for opening day. The first of Moreno’s homers traveled 445 feet, coming off the bat at 108 MPH. That, apparently, was not enough, as he followed that blast with a 110 MPH, 459-foot homer just one inning later. The second home run fell just shy of his 460-footer from earlier this spring. That is still the longest ball Moreno has hit.

And, elsewhere…

[Chicago Tribune] ‘Just feels like you’re on fire’: How Cubs and White Sox players adjust to record-breaking heat in Arizona – Sox third baseman Miguel Vargas kept it all in perspective. “We need to enjoy these couple of weeks when we’re here in the heat because it’s going to be cold (in Chicago),” Vargas told the Tribune last week. Vargas is feeling at home with the conditions. “I’m from Cuba, it’s hot out there every time,” he said. “Hydration” was the key word for [manager Will] Venable.“We have all of our trainers and strength coaches with all the resources they need to support these guys with hydration,” Venable said last week. “In between every half inning, you hear five different people yelling, ‘Hydrate.’

[ESPN] Phillies ace Cristopher Sanchez agrees to new 6-year contract – The team announced Sunday that the deal will start in 2027 and includes a team option for 2033. Financial terms were not disclosed, but sources told ESPN that the deal is worth approximately $103 million in new money. Sanchez will make $3.5 million in salary for 2026 before the new deal starts next year. The contract supersedes the deal Sanchez signed before the beginning of last year — one that paid him $47 million over four years, including two team option years. Sanchez went 13-5 with a 2.50 ERA in 32 starts last season and struck out a career-high 212 batters. He’s 30-21 over his five-year career.

[MLB] Experts predict all of this season’s stats leaders – With Spring Training winding down and Opening Day just days away, intriguing questions abound, from which teams will bounce back after subpar seasons last year to whether anyone will be able to dethrone the reigning MVP and Cy Young Award winners. One of the big ones to consider at the dawn of a new regular season is: Which players will lead their league in each major statistical category? We asked 57 MLB.com staff members to weigh in, and here are the results [Jim: No D-backs are mentioned. #SavedYouAClick]

Finally, here’s one from yesterday’s This Day in Baseball which I feel deserves more explicit coverage. It is still March 22 when I’m writing this so it is technically still This Day in Baseball. 🙂

As the Red Sox approach Opening Day, it’s time to start taking a look at the other American League playoff contenders. Next up, a team that’s led by the best pitcher on the planet.

What’s this team’s deal?

For the past few seasons, The Tigers have been Tarik Skubal and the Skubettes. Fans, who are for some reason obsessed with “value”, have been wishing a Skubal trade into existence for multiple seasons in a row now. The Tigers instead have opted to keep Skubal and try to win with him, which has resulted in ALDS defeats in two straight seasons. Last season, in his two ALDS starts, he threw seven innings of two-run baseball and six innings of one-run baseball. They lost each game by a final score of 3-2. What’s the point of having incredible baseball players if you’re not going to try to make a run with them? Sure, they might not be able to retain Skubal in free agency (although they could if they wanted to. Tigers ownership group, Illitch Holdings, generated over five billion in revenue in 2025, according to Forbes), but having Skubal right now is more fun than talking about prospects, so I applaud them for keeping him and giving it a go.

I did gloss over the fact that one year after a miraculous post-trade deadline run to make the postseason, the Tigers choked away a 15.5-game lead in the American League Central to the Cleveland Guardians. In a twist of cruel fate for Guardians’ fans, however, they played the Tigers in the Wild Card round, and Skubal struck out 14 over 7.2 innings in game one. The Tigers went on to win the series, 2-1, and the whole world kind of forgot about the meltdown.

How good are they?

They’re pretty much exactly as good as they need to be. The Tigers have the luxury of playing in the American League Central, where nobody is really that good. Detroit ranked 11th in runs per game, 14th in runs allowed per game, and 15th in fielding run value last season. They were basically middle of the pack across the board, which led them to 30 wins in the division, 87 wins overall, and the final Wild Card spot.

Offensively, they’re a young team that used home runs to power their offense. Detroit struck out at the fourth-highest rate in baseball, but hit the tenth-most home runs. There isn’t one player in the lineup that scares you to death, but they’re fairly solid top to bottom. Dillon Dingler was the only player to accumulate more than four fWAR, largely due to his defense behind the plate. Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson, and Kerry Carpenter hit 36, 31, and 26 home runs, respectively. In total, they had nine players hit double-digit home runs. Infielder Zach McKinstry made a leap and put together his best career season, while Gleyber Torres quietly continued to produce offensively.

The rotation is headlined by Skubal, who is the favorite to three-peat as American League Cy Young. If I were ranking pitchers, I’d put Skubal at the top of the list, but if you want to pick Paul Skenes or Garrett Crochet, I won’t stop you. Behind Skubal is the new big addition in Framber Valdez. Valdez is super reliable, having thrown at least 175 innings in each of the last four seasons with an ERA between 2.82 and 3.66. He has a sinker-heavy approach that’s tried and true for him, and should continue to work so long as his velocity holds up. They also brought Justin Verlander back, which might not work, but at least it’s a fun story. Casey Mize is a strike-thrower who can dominate on a given day when everything is working. Jack Flaherty is similar, although it’s fair to wonder if his health and velocity will hold up. It’s a really solid five-man group, but injuries to Jackson Jobe, Troy Melton, and Reese Olson are seriously detrimental to the depth. Drew Anderson was brought over from the KBO and is intriguing. Sawyer Gibson-Long has some skills, but has never shown them consistently at the major league level. Keider Montero has a good sinker to throw to righties, but nothing to get lefties out with. There are some options, but each comes with questions.

The bullpen for Detroit should help them win games. They have three closers on the roster in Kenley Jansen (old friend), Kyle Finnegan, and Will Vest. Jansen figures to handle the ninth because he’s Kenley Jansen, with the other two working in the seventh and eighth. Troy Melton has “relief ace” potential when healthy, but he’s out for at least a couple of months. Tyler Holton is a solid left-handed option.

Overall, it’s more of the same for the Tigers. The offense has questions, but they bring back most of the same lineup and are looking for their young players to continue to improve. The rotation is solid, and the bullpen should be able to protect leads. While I don’t expect them to win 95 games, another 87-win season feels in the cards.

Who’s their most likable player?

The correct answer is Tarik Skubal, but he took some heat after leaving Team USA during the World Baseball Classic, so I’ll look at someone else. Jack Flaherty is very involved in the community and social activism causes. He’s also very animated on the mound, talking to himself almost all of the time. The real answer is Tarik Skubal, though. He keeps 100 mph fastballs in his back pocket for fun.

Who’s their least likable player?

It’s gotta be Framber Valdez after that stunt he pulled last season, where he threw at his own catcher. He can pretend it wasn’t on purpose, but it sure looked like it was.

Schedule against the Red Sox

The Red Sox and Tigers play seven games over the first two months of the season. The first four are at Fenway from April 17 to April 20. If you like knick-knacks and thingamabobs, you’ll want to be there. Each of the four games has a promo attached. We start with Brava Night, followed by Diary of a Wimpy Kid day, Margaritaville Day, and a nice windbreaker giveaway on Marathon Monday.

A couple of weeks later, the Red Sox go to Detroit for a three-game set, including a Bark at the Park night and a Tigers-branded euchre deck giveaway. After that, we’re done with the Tigers save for a potential postseason matchup.

Season Prediction

I think the Tigers win the American League Central this year. I have questions about the rotation depth, because getting 30 starts a piece out of Verlander and Flaherty seems like wishful thinking, but the lineup should be just as strong as last year, if not better, and the bullpen is talented at the back. I’ll put them at 88 wins, one game ahead of the Kansas City Royals in the American League Central. As for the postseason, I’ll say they lose in the ALDS for a third year in a row.

Since I can remember, the answer to the question, What is the Orioles’ weakest link? was always the same: the starting rotation. This winter brought high hopes for a top-of-the-market splashy signing of the kind that would put the conversation fully to rest: such a signing failed to materialize. Nonetheless, the mood around the rotation is unusually confident. “This might be the most underrated rotation in all of baseball,” said Opening Day starter Trevor Rogers. Free-agent addition Chris Bassitt added, “I would rather be a stealth bomber, so to speak, and not have anybody talk about us. Just surprise people.”

It’s not the flashiest group out there, but a starting rotation of Trevor Rogers, Kyle Bradish, Shane Baz, Chris Bassitt, and Zach Eflin looks better, perhaps, than anything Baltimore has put out there in recent memory. This group has an extremely high floor.

The picture came into focus on Saturday when the team made the shocking announcement that Dean Kremer was being optioned to Triple-A Norfolk to start the season. With the longtime Oriole starter required to stay there until April 9, the move confirmed what some had suspected: Baltimore is going with five men, not six, to start the season. Here’s who those five are and what to expect from them.

Trevor Rogers, LHP

Rogers is your Opening Day starter… which is a sentence that would have seemed impossible a year ago. Dealt from Miami to Baltimore at the 2024 trade deadline, Rogers posted a homely 7.11 ERA in four starts before getting sent down to Norfolk. Then in 2025, something clicked—in an astonishing way. Though he started the season late, his 1.81 ERA and 0.90 WHIP across 18 starts broke a 71-year-old franchise record and proved good enough for ninth-place in the AL Cy Young vote. He’s continued to look good this spring, and will get the ball on Opening Day, on March 26 against the Twins at Camden Yards.

The concern is the innings total—he threw just 109 2/3 last season—and whether the electric results hold over a full season. But why would you hand the ball to anyone else right now?

Kyle Bradish, RHP

It’s strange—but nice—to turn to the No. 2 slot in the rotation and find Kyle Bradish, the brilliant strikeout artist who’s posted a 2.78 ERA and 268 strikeouts across 44 starts since the beginning of 2023. Yes, that stretch was interrupted by Tommy John surgery, but Bradish returned last year and looked very much like himself: a 2.53 ERA and 47 strikeouts in six starts.

The surgery risk is real, but Bradish is brilliant enough that a lesser Bradish would still be brilliant. And so far this spring, the evidence (a 2.35 ERA, 12 K’s and a .207 opposing average in 15.1 innings) says Bradish is back. A healthy Bradish gives this staff a genuine two-headed monster at the top.

Shane Baz, RHP

The Baz acquisition was the most aggressive, and interesting, move of the offseason, costing four prospects and a competitive balance pick. It’s a pretty price to pay for a 26-year-old who posted a 4.87 ERA in 31 starts for Tampa Bay in 2025, and hadn’t thrown a fully healthy season in four years at the major league level.

This is an extremely high-risk, high-reward acquisition (kind of good, come to think of it, to say that about a move made by this front office). The 2017 first-rounder was the Rays’ No. 1 prospect in 2022, having struck out a whopping 113 strikeouts in 78 2/3 innings between Triple-A and Double-A the prior season. At one point, Baz was measured as one of 12 Major Leaguers with a fastball averaging at least 97 mph and 11.4 inches or less of vertical movement, putting him on a list that at one time included Aroldis Chapman, Gerrit Cole and Jacob deGrom. Whether the 26-year-old still has that kind of stuff remains to be seen; at least it can be said that, for a Orioles’ front office that doesn’t like to spend on pitching, the king’s ransom they shipped out for Shane Baz suggests they are pretty darn excited.

Chris Bassitt, RHP

Bassitt is this rotation’s version of a utility infielder: not flashy, deeply reliable, almost always there. His five-year average of 176 innings and 30-plus starts tells us pretty much what we’re getting: a professional who takes the ball, throws strikes, and keeps his team in games. His 3.66 ERA over that stretch is comfortably above average. Baltimore could have done much worse than slotting Bassitt into the back end of a rotation that has genuine upside at the top.

Zach Eflin, RHP

Outside of Baz, Eflin may be the rotation’s wild card, and not in a bad way. After back surgery last August cut short his 2024 season, he finished those final two months with a 2.60 ERA in nine starts before going under the knife. He’s been cleared and, by Mike Elias’s own account, looks excellent (this is the reason he leapfrogged Dean Kremer in the rotation). Forty plate appearances of elite production followed by offseason surgery is not a large sample to bet on, but Eflin at his best is a genuine asset.

And Kremer?

The Kremer demotion was striking—he’s logged over 600 innings for Baltimore and had earned himself a rotation spot. But with Eflin healthy and the April schedule full of off-days, Mike Elias framed it as a calendar decision rather than a capability verdict. The six-man rotation talk that dominated fan discussion this winter isn’t dead; Elias explicitly left the door open for revisiting it as the season develops. Kremer may be stung by this, but he’s hopefully the answer to the next injury or busy stretch, not a casualty of numbers.

FanGraphs projects 11.8 WAR from this group, tied for 16th in baseball and 10th in the American League. That’s a middle-of-the-pack projection, which is probably the honest baseline. The optimistic scenario looks much more exciting: Rogers sustains last year’s brilliance, Bradish returns to his 2024 form, Baz develops into the pitcher Tampa Bay always hoped he’d be. If all that goes right, it pushes this staff into a genuinely competitive tier. A few things would have to go right. It would be surprising, but hardly impossible.

Opening Day is just days away, which means it’s almost time to officially turn the page on the 2025 season and move on to 2026. But until those games begin, the specter of 2025 will hang over everything and define the narratives for the start of the season. These are some of the numbers that will frame those narratives as the 2026 season gets underway.

96

This one may seem obvious, but 96 is the number of games the Phillies won in 2025. They once again improved on the previous season’s win total but also once again stalled in the NLDS. The team has returned many of the same players, but they have widely been projected to win fewer games in 2026. Still, they are expected to once again be in the postseason, the question will be whether it be as a third straight NL East champion or as a Wild Card.

3

The last time the Phillies had a rookie hitter accumulate at least 3 WAR was Odúbel Herrera in 2015. You have to go even further back to find a rookie pitcher who accomplished the feat, with the last being Vance Worley in 2011. Justin Crawford and Andrew Painter will perhaps be the two players facing the most scrutiny as the 2026 season begins. The Phillies opted not to make any major, sweeping changes to their roster after another early postseason exit, rather they decided to look internally for a spark.

For the team to become the perennial, sustainable contender that ownership wants, you have to receive meaningful contributions from your farm, something the Phillies haven’t really seen much of over the last decade. The 2026 season doesn’t rest solely on the likes of Crawford, Painter, and potentially Aidan Miller, but the Phillies long-term competitive window will only remain open if some of these players become real big-league contributors.

43

That’s the percentage of pitches in the strike zone seen by Bryce Harper in 2025, the lowest of any qualified hitter. You have no doubt heard that exact phrase before, as it’s been a hot button topic in an offseason that also featured a rather public dispute/spat/kerfuffle between Harper and Dave Dombrowski. That disagreement stemmed from the latter’s comments about Harper not having an elite season in 2025. Harper and his agent Scott Boras pointed directly and indirectly towards lineup protection as one of the causes of his down season.

That percentage of pitches in the zone is unlikely to change in 2026, as Harper’s career average of pitches in the zone is 44.2%. The key to Harper recapturing that “elite” status and possibly the key to the entire Phillies season is if Harper can do more damage on those hittable pitches while not chasing outside of the zone, something he did at a higher rate than the previous two years.

149.2

That’s the number of innings Zack Wheeler threw for the Phillies last year, his fewest in a non-pandemic season since joining the Phillies. Wheeler’s season was of course cut short by a blood clot in August that later resulted in the Phillies ace needing thoracic outlet surgery. The Phillies weathered the storm in Wheeler’s absence thanks in no small part to the emergence of Cristopher Sánchez as an ace in his own right. But the Phillies rotation depth is much thinner this year, as Ranger Suárez is now in Boston and the back of the rotation is expected to be helmed by rookie Painter. Behind him and swingman Taijuan Walker, there is not much depth to speak of. The Phillies can’t afford to suffer another major injury beyond Wheeler, and they will need him to be a workhorse once he is able to rejoin the rotation.