Category: Sports News

Shohei Ohtani’s plans are unchanged.

Despite his injury crisis this year, and the limitations it left him with in the playoffs, the two-way star still wants to be a two-way player again next season.

“Yes, definitely,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton on Thursday night, when asked if he intended to return to pitching in 2027. “And [I’m] looking forward to having a better season next year.”

The Dodgers would shudder at the idea of another Ohtani campaign going worse than this one.

In his attempt to return to a full-time two-way role for the first time since 2023, the four-time MVP ended up getting hurt, being shut down as a pitcher after only 85 innings, and slumping mightily at the plate for much of the playoffs while trying to manage his far-less-than-100% health.

His October limitations proved costly to the Dodgers.

His inability to withstand the physical toll of his one-of-a-kind role was one of the key reasons they were knocked out in the National League Championship Series.

On Thursday night, he indicated it’s possible he might need to have offseason surgery, as well; though he did not specify if it would be for his inflamed left knee, ailing right arm, some other unknown issue, or potentially all of the above.

“Hard to tell at this point,” Ohtani said. “It’s something that’s going to be analyzed, discussed over the offseason, and see if that’s a viable thing to do.”

And yet, the 32-year-old didn’t waver in his desire to continue to both hit and pitch moving forward.

He didn’t seem daunted by the disastrous way this season played out.

“I haven’t been able to really come to grip in terms of what I’ve learned overall this season,” he said. “It’s something that I’m going to kind of go back to the drawing board in terms of treatment, training program, and see what I can come up with for next season.”

The question, of course, is not whether Ohtani can still be dominant in his two dueling roles. This year, he still batted .275 with 30 home runs and 81 RBIs as a hitter, while going 8-2 with a 1.79 ERA in 14 pitching starts.

The problem was, after his knee started barking in June, and his arm became increasingly bothersome from July onward, he wasn’t able to make much of an impact on the mound or in the batter’s box.

His final pitching start came on July 3, with repeated attempts to build back up scuttled by physical setbacks.

His form at the plate dipped drastically over the final two months of the regular season, requiring an injured list stint in September that did little to get him back to himself.

In the playoffs, Ohtani hit just .192. Before his three-run homer in Game 4 of the NLCS, he didn’t have an extra-base hit or an RBI.

Because of all that, there was speculation the Dodgers might try to manage him differently next year –– and, if not ask him to give up on pitching, try to moderate his workload in a way that won’t be so taxing on his body.

If anything, however, Ohtani on Thursday night seemed to bemoan the fact he didn’t pitch more this year, noting how he wasn’t available for the postseason rotation.

“Not quite satisfied with how things shaped up on the pitching side,” he said.

What all that means for 2027 remains unclear –– especially with the threat of a looming lockout and potential offseason recovery process.

The only thing Ohtani knows for sure: He still wants to continue in his two-way role.

As the Rockies try to claw their way back to winning, there has been lots of discussion about how the organization needs to follow the example of the Chicago White Sox, who went from 102 losses in 2025 to the playoffs this season. President of baseball operations Paul DePodesta and manager Warren Schaeffer have both talked about it.

Over the years, there have been many organizations that have provided a model that Colorado could try to emulate, including small-market teams like the Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers. Whether it’s how to thrive with a smaller payroll, how to use data, strategies and technology, or how to build a roster, there are many great ideas out there.

On Oct. 14, The Athletic’s Eno Saris provided more grist for the Colorado mill, going on a deep dive into the Rays and Brewers and laying out some interesting approaches both teams have taken to achieve success over the years to end up deep in the postseason in 2026. In his piece titled “Rays, Brewers always outperform expectations. These ‘Moneyball’-like edges are the key,” Sarris explores numerous factors in detail: types of technology used, data, pitch framing, catcher defense, creative pitching strategies, roster height, outfield route running, pitch design innovation and more.

Sarris’ analysis is loaded with ideas to look at throughout the offseason, especially considering the Rockies are led by the Moneyballer himself — president of baseball operations Paul DePodesta.

The Rockies are trying to implement, have yet to try, or aren’t succeeding at many of Sarris’ points; however, there are also some areas in which the Rockies are showing growth. Opting for a positive take in this first analysis — knowing there will also be lots of areas for improvement — I figured I’d start with one of Sarris’ points on the value of emphasizing contact and speed. 

Sarris starts this section out by saying,

Everything old is new again. As the league’s strikeout rate has climbed and teams have focused on power, the speedy slap hitter has largely gone out of style. Well, the Rays had the best strikeout rate in baseball this year, and were also second in steals, while the Brewers were fourth in steals and featured five or six important hitters with great contact rates, depending on how you count.

Let’s bring the numbers and the Rockies into that.

The Rays are the best at not striking out. The Brewers? No so much. The Rockies? They’re getting better.

Colorado went from striking out 25.9% of the time in 2025, which was the second-worst in MLB, to striking out 22.8% of the time this season. The better plate discipline bumped the Rockies from No. 29 to No. 21, showing that they are on the right track. 

The Brewers rank No. 17 in strikeout rate, just four spots ahead of Colorado, but they also have significantly better pitching than the Rockies. Colorado has to bank on putting the ball in play more, having more runners and getting them to score by any means necessary to help combat the runs we know the pitching staff will surrender. 

That’s where base running came in.

The Rockies went from being atrocious at stealing bases in 2025 to a little above average in 2026. While the numbers aren’t high, Colorado did jump from No. 23 in stolen bases with 87 in 2025 to No. 13 with 109 in 2026. That’s largely due to Jake McCarthy’s 32 steals, which were the most by a single Rockie in a season since 2015 when Charlie Blackmon swiped 43 bags. While still far behind the Rays (164) and Brewers (162), that’s a big jump in one season.

Sarris explains a key stolen base success rate that each team should be aiming for:

The numbers say that every team should be stealing more. Depending on how many outs there are, the break-even point in terms of the value of that extra base put against the value of the out is around a 70-75 percent success rate. If you are successful less often, you’re costing your team too many outs for the value of getting to second. If you are successful more often than that, you’re leaving potential extra bases on the table and being too careful.

The Rockies were 72.7% effective when trying to steal bases in 2026, which is more than 4% better than in 2025. Both the Rays and Brewers are above 75%. Considering again that the Rockies need to score more than the average team to win games, they need another jump in their success rates in 2027 to keep trending in the right direction. They will also need to steal a lot more often to ever grow their totals to the likes of the Rays and Brewers, which stole 55 and 53 more bases, respectively, than the Rockies last season. 

The takeaways — at least in these two areas — are simple: Put the ball in play more and get caught stealing less, while trying to steal more. It’s easier said than done, but at least the Rockies are making progress.

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Pittsburgh Pirates second baseman Brandon Lowe was a massive boost for the team in his first season with the Bucs. After being acquired in a three-team trade with the Tampa Bay Rays and Houston Astros in the offseason, Lowe had arguably the best statistical season of his career in 2026.

Lowe had a batting average of .260, with 35 home runs and 96 runs batted in. He posted a career-high 5.4 wins above replacement in 150 games with the team. This makes him one of the top free agents on the open market, and the Pirates are going to have to pay up if they want to keep him.

“He’ll hit the open market as one of the most highly coveted position players available,” Aiden Stepansky of MLB.com wrote. “(Pirates general manager Ben) Cherington described the return of Lowe as a ‘great outcome if he’s a Pirate next year.’ But it will cost a pretty penny, likely a sizable increase from the $11.5 million he earned in 2026, and Lowe, at 32 years old, could find interest in a longer-term deal.”

The Pirates have the money to spend on Lowe, but given their spending habits over the last couple of years, it remains to be seen whether Pittsburgh would invest in him for a long period of time.

BD community, how do you feel about Lowe entering free agency this offseason? How much should the Pirates be willing to pay to keep him in Pittsburgh? Let us know in the comments section below.

The Milwaukee Brewers are the 2026 National League champions. That’s objectively a neat and fun thing for sports fans. The Brewers only went to the playoffs twice in their first 39 years of existence, and while they have been a playoff staple since 2018, they’ve never made it to the Fall Classic. They’ve never won the World Series, either. They will get a chance to do so soon.

But make no mistake—they’ve earned it. The Brewers won 103 regular season games and swept their NLCS opponents, the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were the only other team in baseball to notch 100 victories.

That last part is particularly important. In the last few years, the Dodgers have overtaken the New York Yankees as Major League Baseball’s #1 bad guys. Prior to this season, they had been to five of the previous nine World Series and had come away with three wins, including back-to-back wins in 2024 and 2025. They’ve done so by drafting and developing well, sure, but also by brazenly outspending everybody and becoming the top destination for top-tier Japanese talent. Other teams literally can’t compete the same way.

Fans have noticed, and the grumblings have peaked at the same time as small market team ownership have grumbled. The owners, having sought a salary cap for years, have smelled blood in the water and have pushed hard for a salary cap as the previous collective bargaining agreement comes to a close.

One set of playoff games doesn’t mean everything, and both sides know this. But humans are influenced by the most recent events, and this year’s playoffs kicked off with some heavy hitters. The Dodgers ranked first overall with a $412 million payroll. The Yankees ranked third, with a $310 million payroll. Philadelphia, fourth, spent $290 million. Atlanta, sixth, spent $259 million. The Cubs, seventh, spent $254 million. The Astros, eighth, spent $240 million. The Padres, ninth, spent $219 million. The Red Sox, 11th, were at $203 million. In other words, only three of the top 11 highest MLB payrolls missed the playoffs.

There were a lot of potential matchups that could have heavily contributed to the argument for a salary cap. A Yankees-Dodgers rematch was possible. We could have gotten a Red Sox-Phillies series, or an Astros-Braves series. And yet, we got none of those things—we got the Brewers (19th in overall payroll at $142 million) spiking the Dodgers into oblivion on the National League side, with the Cleveland Guardians (29th, $87 million) and Tampa Bay Rays (28th, $90 million) duking it out in the American League. The Dodgers and New York Mets both spent more in payroll than those three teams combined.

In such a public industry, the CBA negotiations are a public relations battle. If any of the above scenarios had happened, the league could have simply shrugged and said, “Look at these big market teams crowding out the few small market teams. We need a salary cap to stop this from happening.” I think this would have been especially true if the Dodgers had put together a threepeat. None of the player arguments could have cut through those optics.

And yet, the one scenario that could have significantly defused momentum for a salary cap has played out: the Dodgers were sent home in embarrassing fashion, both the ALCS and NLCS featured small-market teams, and the World Series will be a small-market showdown.

This isn’t the perfect outcome for the players, because if, say, the $87 million payroll, 85-win Guardians come out victoriously then that isn’t exactly a great argument that owners should bother trying to spend to their capacity on player salaries. We could still get a salary cap, and it still might even be the right call. But no matter how the World Series ends, the players can point to it all winter and say that the league doesn’t need a salary cap for small market teams to succeed.

Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani hit his first home run since August 18 against the Milwaukee Brewers during Game 4 of the NLCS on Thursday night.

But it wasn’t enough to propel Los Angeles to a win, nor did it erase the brutal performance Ohtani produced not just during this NLCS sweep but throughout the postseason.

Ohtani addressed the media after the Dodgers’ 6-4 loss against Milwaukee and was asked how challenging the NLCS was for him.

“The Brewers were overall strong, and a very good team. And [they] really exposed parts of me as a player, and got to give some credit to that,” Ohtani said in translated English, per SportsNet LA.

Ohtani certainly looked exposed throughout the series, aside from that one swing in the second inning on Thursday night.

He had three hits and six strikeouts during the four-game series, producing a .231 batting average and a .795 OPS.

Throughout the postseason, Ohtani produced a .192 average, a .631 OPS, and 10 strikeouts compared to five hits. He also didn’t pitch during the postseason, so he wasn’t able to negate his mediocre hitting with success on the mound.

Ohtani is the world’s best baseball player. And even the world’s best baseball player is liable to face a slump sometimes.

It just came at the worst possible time for Los Angeles. His ailments likely did not help the situation, either.

But Ohtani’s comment convey that the Brewers managed to make matters even worse.