Category: Sports News

For a pitcher who has made just seven appearances in the last two seasons combined, Tyler Wells suddenly looms very large for the 2026 Orioles. And not just because of his 6-foot-8 frame.

Wells, who hasn’t pitched in relief since 2023, enters the season as a key bullpen piece, likely serving as the late-inning setup man to closer Ryan Helsley. The right shoulder injury suffered by presumed eighth-inning guy Andrew Kittredge has created a void that Wells might be the best equipped to fill. The right-hander has a career 3.49 ERA as a reliever, holding opposing batters to a .168 average and .531 OPS. Wells briefly served as the Orioles’ closer during his rookie season in 2021 and again during the stretch run in 2023.

Most of the 2024-25 seasons were a wash for Wells, who underwent UCL revision surgery on his elbow after only three starts in 2024 and returned for just four outings last year. Entering this spring, his role was up in the air, but once the Orioles signed Chris Bassitt to bolster their starting staff, there was no potential rotation spot for Wells. The Kittredge injury further solidified the Orioles’ need for Wells in the bullpen.

The 31-year-old could be a boon to a relief corps that added nobody except Helsley and Kittredge this offseason and is filled with untested youngsters and uninspiring veterans. Wells attacks the strike zone and generally doesn’t get himself into trouble. As a reliever, he has a 1.7 BB/9 and an excellent 0.791 WHIP in 49 career games. His one bugaboo is home runs; Wells has served up nine career dingers in 67 relief innings. But at least there usually isn’t much traffic on the bases when he does so.

What do the projections say about Wells’s 2026 campaign? We’ll exclude ZiPS, which projects him as a starting pitcher, and instead look at the relief-only projections from Steamer and Baseball Reference:

• Steamer: 72 IP, 4.29 ERA, 8.5 K/9, 2.2 BB/9, 1.5 HR/9
• Baseball Reference: 68 IP, 3.97 ERA, 8.3 K/9, 2.6 BB/9, 1.5 HR/9

Both of these projections grade Wells as an adequate but unremarkable relief pitcher this year. That may be disappointing to O’s fans who are hoping Wells could turn into a lockdown setup man and backup closer. But hey, projections are just projections. They’re no guarantee of what’s going to happen.

What do you think will happen, Camden Chatters? What kind of 2026 season will Tyler Wells have?

Good morning.

• We’re coming off a terrific World Baseball Classic semi-final between the US and Dominican Republic with a controversial end. We’ll have more on that game later this morning. Here are some takeaways from the Team USA win.
• Some of the best photos from the game.
• Players from the Dominican Republic explain how baseball is like a religion in their country. Michael Clair with the story.
• The DR was managed by Albert Pujols. Cody Stavenhagen looks at Pujols’ ambitions and chances of being an MLB manager. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Mike Trout couldn’t play in the WBC this time around, but he’s thrilled so many people are getting excited about it this year.
• Tarik Skubal is defending himself against criticism (The Athletic sub. req.) that he betrayed Team USA by leaving the team early. On the one hand, Skubal has to do what’s right for him and he shouldn’t be criticized for not making a second WBC start. On the other hand, I love that American fans are getting this passionate enough about the WBC that they’re willing to be jerks about the whole thing. OK, I’m not thrilled about the jerks part. Just the passion part.
• Matt Snyder believes this time, the US has really bought into the joy of the WBC.
• Matthew Trueblood argues that the WBC is a wonderful celebration of baseball culture from around the world, and that includes US culture.
• USA catcher Cal Raleigh refused another in-game fistbumb from a teammate, but this one with Team Canada’s Josh Naylor was pre-arranged. Sort of.
• However, Kathryn Xu argues that no one is having more fun that Team Italy. (free reg. req)
• Tyler Kepner writes about how the mostly-American Team Italy is firmly embracing Italian culture as the Cinderella underdogs. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Italy has been celebrating home runs with espresso. Rustin Dodd looks at how caffeine affects athletic performance. (The Athletic sub. req.) Italy is juicing!
• Johnny Flores Jr. has a preview of tonight’s Italy/Venezuela semifinal. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Venezuelan native Francisco Cervelli manages Team Italy. He says that when he’s wearing the uniform, he’s all Italian.
• Venezuelan manager Otto López says his objective is to bring joy to his home country.
• Jake Mintz writes that Japan was simply outplayed by Venezuela in the semifinals.
• Japan manager Hirokazu Ibata resigned after the loss.
• Bob Nightengale talks to Shohei Ohtani and asks how Ohtani is processing something he has little experience with: failure. I mean, he was on the Angels for six years, Bob.
• Jake Mintz has the story of Ohtani’s first ever international game, and 18-and-under loss to Canada. Team Canada, which included Josh Naylor and Cal Quantrill, were still impressed with him.
• Here’s what many of you want to know about Samurai Japan: Which players on Japan’s WBC team could be coming to MLB next? Jorge Castillo with the story.
• Union president Bruce Meyer has warned that a work stoppage in 2027 could affect MLB player participation in the 2028 Olympics.
• Meyer also said that if MLB players do play in the Olympics, MLB is considering exhibition games between major and minor leaguers to fill the time the league shuts down for the Games. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Katie Woo reports that the Dodgers have sold naming rights at Dodger Stadium to the Japanese company Uniqlo. (The Athletic sub. req.) It will still be Dodger Stadium, it’s just going to be something like “Uniqlo Field at Dodger Stadium.” One, that’s a terrible name. Second, the Dodgers already have enough money and don’t need to do this.
• Kevin Acee reports that four bids have been submitted to buy the Padres.
• Jeff Passan has a short season preview of all 30 teams.
• Six darkhorse candidates to win MVP.
• Six darkhorse candidates to win the Cy Young.
• One player from each MLB team who has made the biggest impression in Spring Training.
• Giants pitcher Hayden Birdsong is getting a second opinion after being diagnosed with a Grade 2 right forearm strain and ulnar collateral ligament sprain. Obviously Tommy John surgery is a possibility.
• The Giants named Logan Webb as their Opening Day starter for the fifth-straight year. Only Juan Marichal, with six, has more consecutive Opening Day starts in Giants history.
• Here’s an interesting article with lots of quotes from Pete Crow-Armstrong in it. How difficult is it for outfielders to play in each MLB park?
• And finally turning to college baseball, Georgia beat Tennessee on Sunday thanks to this amazing walk-off home run robbery.

We continue our series previewing each position on the Brewers by looking at the outfield, and we’ll also discuss the designated hitter spot, as Christian Yelich’s transition into full-time designated hitting continues. As for the actual outfield, two of these three spots are firmly spoken for. But the third outfield spot is, if not necessarily in flux, a position where there’s likely to be a decent amount of rotation throughout the season. Let’s take a look.

Jackson Chourio

There is something worth remembering about Jackson Chourio: he only just turned 22 last Wednesday. Anyone hinting at the idea that Chourio’s first two seasons in the big leagues were disappointing would be, in a word, wrong. While some were perhaps hoping for a bigger leap in his second season, Chourio has still put together two productive seasons, back-to-back 20/20 seasons in which he’s averaged about three WAR per season. That makes him one of the most productive Brewers, and to bring it back to where we started, I want to re-stress that he has not yet played a regular-season game over the age of 21.

All of that said, it would be great to see Chourio level up in 2026. There have been times, including in the postseason, when Chourio looked pretty clearly like the best hitter on the team. The defense has been a bit up and down, but there have been encouraging signs. You’d like to see him lower his caught-stealing rate, but he’s very fast and clearly has some base-stealing ability. And, most encouragingly, after starting last season with an alarmingly bad walk rate, his plate discipline has looked rather good this spring.

Chourio can hit a baseball. He has extremely quick hands, and he can get to pitches that maybe he shouldn’t be able to get to. Simply improving his plate discipline — which improved quite a bit over the course of last season — and making modest gains in his consistency in the field and on the basepaths would make him a borderline All-Star.

But we can all kind of feel that he’s going to make gains, one of these days, in batting average (he’s hit .275 and .270 in his first two seasons) and homers (21 in both years). Who knows? Maybe we’ll get a 30/30 season.

Sal Frelick

Frelick almost feels like a solid, we-know-what-we’ll-get veteran at this point in his career, even though he’s not quite 26 yet and he’s only played two full seasons in the big leagues. It’s also worth remembering that Frelick improved quite a bit last season — his OPS went up by over 100 points, he hit six times as many homers as in 2024, and his wRC+ went from 87 to 114. Defensively, Frelick didn’t quite perform at the level he did when he won a Gold Glove in 2024, but he was still one of the better corner outfielders in the league.

What can we expect from Frelick in 2026? It seems unlikely that his power is going to creep up a whole lot more, and he did benefit from a solid .317 BABIP (though that was at .306 the year before, and Frelick, because he’s fast and hits a lot of weird little ground balls, might just be a guy who always has a pretty good BABIP). There seems to be a feeling that Frelick, with that 114 wRC+ in 2025, was pretty close to his ceiling.

I’m not completely sure. Frelick hit only 20 doubles last year, and he seems like a guy who could be a classic doubles hitter. Even if he plateaus near his .288 batting average and 12 homers from 2025, there’s a lot of room for improvement in the doubles category, and his 2021 college season and 2022 minor league season both make him look like a guy who could easily hit 30 doubles in the majors.

Beyond that, the Brewers just need Frelick to keep doing Frelick things — run hard, crash (safely) into walls, play good defense — and he should be one of the more reliable contributors on the 2026 squad.

Christian Yelich

We’re going to put Yelich here because he used to be an outfielder once. He isn’t anymore, really. Yelich played left field 19 times last season, and it’ll almost certainly be less than that in 2026.

But Yelich will be the Brewers’ most-used designated hitter, and even at age 34 with a balky back, he will probably be one of their best offensive contributors when he’s available. It was a rough end to the 2025 season, but Yelich still finished with an OPS near .800 (121 OPS+) and team-high 29 homers while playing in the most games he’s appeared in since 2022.

There’s some real concern about the back, though. Yelich missed a week at the beginning of September to rest that back, and upon returning, he hit .233/.291/.370, and then he went 6-for-33 (.182) with five singles and a double in the postseason. The optimist would say that Yelich was just tired and needs more rest — reasonable, given that he turned 34 in December.

It seems reasonable to limit Yelich to about 135 games next year, even if he’s more-or-less healthy the whole year. They could certainly find ways to put him in an at least occasional platoon situation; Yelich last season was a legitimate stud against right-handed pitching (.274/.356/504, 25 homers in 438 plate appearances) and struggled against lefties (.242/.316/.344, four homers in 206 plate appearances, an OPS 200 points lower than against RHP).

Either way, I’m not out on Yelich, no matter how rough it looked at the end of last season. While I’m hoping that Chourio is ready to become the team’s best hitter, there is absolutely no denying that when he was feeling good, that title still firmly belongs with the former MVP.

Blake Perkinsand Brandon Lockridge

I’m going to group Perkins and Lockridge because there’s a lot of overlap in skillset, here, and whichever of them is in the big leagues at any given time, they’re going to fill a similar role.

That role is to play great defense and run fast.

Neither will hit a whole lot (though Lockridge, surprisingly, has three homers this spring), but both should be able to play Gold-Glove-level defense when they’re on the field. Brewers fans are probably hoping that they won’t be on the field all that much, but right now it looks like one of them — probably Perkins, who has a lot more big league experience — will be in the lineup on Opening Day.

Perkins seems to be a favorite of manager Pat Murphy, and it’s not difficult to see why. Murphy loves a guy who doesn’t make mistakes in the field, and Perkins is one of the smoothest fielders in the league. Offensively, though, Perkins has never had an OPS+ above 85, and his offensive shortcomings were laid especially bare in the postseason, when the Brewers probably asked too much of him.

Lockridge doesn’t have a lot in his profile to suggest that he can be much better than Perkins at the plate, but what if the power he’s showcased this spring is somewhat real? Perkins has just 13 homers in almost 800 career plate appearances. And while Lockridge has only one in his major league career (79 plate appearances), he did hit 13 and 14 homers in less than 110 games in each of the 2021 and 2022 seasons in the minors.

There’s probably not room on Milwaukee’s roster for both of these guys, and Perkins should have the inside track on the big-league roster spot. But I’m sure we’ll see Lockridge in Milwaukee at some point this season, and if he’s swinging for the fences, it might be an interesting wrinkle as the Brewers look for just a little bit of offense out of this defensive duo.

Garrett Mitchell

The assumption is that Garrett Mitchell will start the season on the Brewers’ roster. His pedigree and previous flashes have probably earned him that.

More than anything, Mitchell needs to prove that he can stay healthy. I don’t need to elaborate much here. As much promise as he has shown, it doesn’t matter — this is a good place to drop in the painful cliché that the greatest ability is availability.

But… Mitchell also needs to prove that he’s a good baseball player after all the injuries he’s been through. It was only 25 games, but Mitchell struggled in 2025 with a .206/.286/.294 batting line in 78 plate appearances before his season-ending injury last year. This spring, Mitchell has hit the ball hard when he has hit it, and he’s been patient, but he’s also struck out an alarming 10 times in 22 plate appearances (an unsustainable 45.5% strikeout rate, 12 points higher than his career regular season rate).

Mitchell is probably still pretty good, but he’s 27 now, and he’s really got something to prove. If this season doesn’t go well, either because of injury or because of a lack of production, he may not have a place with the team by the end of the summer.

Who else?

It looks like Jake Bauers: left fielder is going to be a thing. (See more about Bauers in our first base preview.) He appeared in left field 21 times last season (compared to 40 at first base), and it seems extremely likely that he’ll appear in the outfield more than Yelich will this season. Is he a good left fielder? No, I don’t think so. But if they limit his exposure and don’t need to rely too much on him, he’ll probably be okay.

I’ve already talked about him extensively a couple of times in this series, but if I were a betting man, I’d say that the most likely place that Jett Williams gets playing time with the Brewers this season is in the outfield. That might mean center field, but we’ll have to see how the Brewers choose to align from the outset; if Bauers is playing a lot of left field this season, that likely means Chourio plays a lot of center, and if Milwaukee thinks Chourio is a better center fielder than Williams, then Williams — who has played mostly shortstop and center in the minors — could conceivably move to a corner.

In a somewhat similar boat to Williams is Tyler Black, who seems not to have a real position. The general consensus is that if he’s going to play in the field for the Brewers, it will be in an outfield corner — he’s only played four games with the Brewers this spring because he’s been away with Team Canada, and he played three games at first base and one in left field. Black could conceivably slide into the Bauers’ role (a left-handed hitter who plays mostly first base and a little left field) if Bauers gets hurt, but the most likely route to playing time for Black might be at designated hitter in the event that Yelich misses time. Black still has time, but he’s quickly moving to the outside of the Brewers’ prospect situation, and it’s going to take one or more injuries to get him time in Milwaukee this summer.

The Brewers signed Akil Baddoo to a small major league contract this season, but it’s difficult for me to see how he gets into the mix here. Baddoo also injured his quad late last week and won’t be ready for the beginning of the season. He should be back in April, but being behind schedule doesn’t exactly help a guy who didn’t have an obvious route to playing time anyway.

Steward Berroa is also still on the Brewers’ 40-man roster, but he hasn’t played in the Cactus League and is reportedly nursing a shoulder injury.

Beyond that, there aren’t many options near the top of the minors, and the outfield is one of the few places where the Brewers lack prospect depth. (This is why I think Williams most likely ends up in the outfield.) If Lockridge and/or Perkins weren’t with the team, Luis Lara could conceivably be a late-season defense-only option, but he’d be worse — possibly much worse — than either of those guys at the plate. There are no other real outfield prospects close to the big leagues in the system.

Vinnie Pasquantino, Jac Caglianone and Team Italy defeated Seth Lugo and Puerto Rico on Saturday.

On Saturday, Lugo — representing Puerto Rico — took the mound against Italy in the World Baseball Classic quarterfinals at Daikin Park in Houston. He stood squarely across from Vinnie Pasquantino and Jac Caglianone.

“No, to be honest with you,” Caglianone told reporters of any pregame banter. “I know Seth’s a very smart player. I spent a lot of time last year just talking game plan with him in the dugout. He definitely sees the game differently. But I think as long as we can keep doing what we’ve been doing, I think we’ll be in a good spot.”

Vinnie is becoming a star in Italy.

“I opened my phone after the game to like 60 DMs and it was in words … I didn’t know how to say,” the pitcher explained Sunday of his direct messages. “So definitely going to have to do some Google translate, for sure.”

And he is proud of his Italian heritage.

“I’m just trying to take in as much as I can because I know that there’s a lot of people that are upset that we represent Italy, being Italian-American, but I take so much pride in it because it is my roots,” Pasquantino said. “My family came over for a better life to America and, I honestly don’t have any issue representing those members of my family and it’s just super cool to be given this opportunity from these guys.”

Rustin Dodd at The Athletic writes about the benefits of drinking espresso in the dugout. [$]

Maikel Garcia and Salvador Perez lead Venezuela over Japan.

The Royals have been featured very prominently in the World Baseball Classic.

“It’s been a lot of fun watching our guys go out there and have big games, come through in clutch moments,” Michael Wacha said. “That’s building confidence for them coming into the regular season, finding their swings, finding their pitches, it will only help us out during the regular season.”

“That’s the buzz that has been going around here, seeing what those guys have been doing over the last two weeks,” Schreiber said. “We’re super proud of them.”

Kansas City had the highest TV ratings of any market for the WBC pool play.

Anne Rogers writes the Royals are considering a six-man rotation at times.

“We’re talking about that all the time,” Sweeney said. “It could happen at different points of the year: ‘Is this the right thing to do?’ We have those first games and then the off-day, and then we’re 12 in a row in early April. That’s where a lot of injuries happen. ‘Should we do it there?’ We have to be really smart with these starters because workload matters for a healthy guy and a guy that was injured last year. How do we keep these guys running through the finish line and through October?”

She has a Jonathan India update.

MLB.com lists one player who has made a spring training impression for each team.

ROYALS: UTIL Nick Loftin

Most of the roster seems set for the Royals, except for the final spots. That includes the bench, and Loftin has established himself as a frontrunner to grab hold of it, not only because of his performance in Cactus League games, but also his defensive versatility. He’s played everywhere, including the corner outfield, his main positions in the infield and more first base than ever before. He’s also hitting the ball hard and making good swing decisions. Every one of those things has him inching closer to being on the roster come Opening Day.

Kevin O’Brien at Royals Keep wonders if the WBC spotlight previews bigger things for Maikel Garcia.

The Giants came one within one out of throwing a spring training perfect game.

José Ramírez suffers a shoulder injury in his spring training game Sunday.

Francisco Lindor is increasingly likely to be ready by Opening Day.

Seiya Suzuki bangs up his knee in the WBC quarterfinal on Saturday.

The Mets claim reliever Richard Lovelady off waivers.

Three Statcast highlights from WBC pool play.

What are some career milestones to watch for in 2026?

Chris Davis and Storm Davis will be inducted into the Orioles Hall of Fame.

The MLBPA says a work stoppage could impact player participation in the 2028 Olympics.

What it’s like to be an official scorer.

Drew Brees plays for the Savannah Bananas in the Superdome.

10 takeaways from the men’s NCAA tournament bracket reveal.

UConn is the top seed in the women’s NCAA tournament bracket.

YouTube face has infected the internet.

A study may detail why cats always seem to land on their feet.

Here is a full list of 2026 Oscar winners.

Your song of the day John Mellencamp with R.O.C.K. In The USA.

After an incredibly long drought of middle infielders since the days when Willy Adames and Eugenio Suarez were young Detroit Tigers shortstop prospects, a new golden era is upon us as the Tigers farm system is suddenly packed with middle infielders. This has been a clear focal point to the club’s revamped draft strategy in the last three years. The theory is sound. If you draft shortstops and center fielders, you’re improving the overall athleticsm of your club, even if those prospects don’t ultimately stick at those positions. 20-year-old Franyerber Montilla was signed in the Al Avila years, but his emergence over the past year adds yet another athletic middle infielder to the Tigers’ prospect hoard.

Montilla was signed in January of 2022 out of Caracas, Venezuela. The Tigers paid him a $500K signing bonus and sent him to the Dominican Summer League at age 17 and 18. The slick fielding, switch-hitting shortstop arrived in Lakeland at age 19 in 2024 and tore up the Complex League. He got a quick look at Single-A ball that summer, and then returned in 2025 mainly playing second base while Bryce Rainer handled shortstop. Once Rainer damaged his shoulder in early June, Montilla moved over to play more shortstop over the next six weeks, until he too suffered a major injury, blowing out his his right ACL in his knee on an infield collision in late July.

The injuries, both in pitcher attrition and just plain back luck for Rainer and Montilla, have really been a plague over the past two seasons system wide. Hopefully they come back with arm strength intact in Rainer’s case, and footspeed intact in Montilla’s case, as those two tools are big parts of their secondary skills beyond the most important factor, their hit tools.

Montilla is a really slick, efficient defender with good hands and range, and a strong throwing arm. He profiles well at shortstop, and it was only Rainer’s absolute cannon at the shortstop position that had the Tigers focusing on him as the regular Flying Tigers’ shortstop. That range is a function of good instincts, but also plus speed, which he put to good use on the bases as well. He stole 27 bases in 67 games last year.

At the plate, Montilla has an efficient, pretty level swing and sprays line drives around the field from both sides of the plate. His big strength is his plate discipline. He walked in 12.7 percent of his plate appearances last year and rarely chases much out of the strike zone. He did strike out 24.7 percent of the time, and at times his discipline can perhaps slip into passivity, allowing pitchers to get ahead with fastballs for strike one and forcing him to battle out long at-bats. The fine line between grinding out pitchers, and failing to jump on mistakes early in counts, is a zone he’s still working to master.

The biggest issue before Montilla is strength and batspeed. He consistently squares up pitches, and he handled all pitch types to an above average level, but it’s below average raw power and he can be a little overwhelmed by good velocity in the zone. Montilla has a pretty slender six-foot tall frame, and needs to keep adding muscle to build a little more batspeed and both get to average power, which is roughly his ceiling, and handle velocity more consistently. He’s closer to getting there as a left-handed hitter, but the samples for him hitting right-handed against lefties are still very small, so more info is required.

Assuming his foot speed isn’t impacted by the ACL, which is usually but not always a safe assumption, the Tigers have a speed player who switch hits, steals bases, and should be capable of playing plus defense either at shortstop or second base. He takes his walks and makes plenty of good contact, but the batspeed still has to improve quite a bit to be able to project him for 15-20 HR level production down the road at the big league level. There’s a very strong floor in place, because Montilla screams utility player, but if he can get past the injury with some strength gains in the rehab process and look like he’ll get close to average power, suddenly the Tigers will have a player that projects like Zach McKinstry with more speed and better defense. If Montilla really maxes out his hit tool, then we’re talking about an everyday infielder anywhere you want to put him.

Unfortunately, ACL tears are usually nine months to a full year to completely rehab, so he may not be back on the field until July, when he’ll be 21 years old. Still, there’s plenty of time to make those strength gains and build on what is a very strong set of secondary tools. Like so many of the Tigers talented youngsters, patience is still required. Hopefully he can get back into a groove this summer and play for West Michigan, then look to take the next step sometime in 2027.

Jose Ramirez left the game early yesterday after sliding into third base on a successful steal attempt and jamming his shoulder and if it affects him this season, I will lose my sanity.

Yes, USA beat the Dominican Republic in a close game that was unfortunately affected by Cory Blaser’s ump show in the bottom of the 9th where he decided Mason Miller needed help so he called sliders three inches below the zone strikes. I was rooting for USA so it has to be pretty bad for me to complain here. But, now USA will face the winner of tonight’s game between Italy and Venezuela on Tuesday.

The Guardians beat the Athletics yesterday 12-6. Tanner Bibee seems to be just throwing strikes and letting in fly in Arizona as he gave up six runs and 13 hits but he didn’t walk anyone. I’m sure that’ll be fine… right?

The big news was hoping José is ok. Stephen Vogt said after the game that Jose would be day-to-day. David Fry, Stuart Fairchild, and CJ Kayfus had homers, Travis Bazzana had a couple singles, Steven Kwan tripled, Jose doubled, and Gabriel Arias and Chase DeLauter also had a couple hits. Colin Holderman, Cade Smith and Erik Sabrowski put up scoreless innings from the bullpen.

Jim Rosenhaus spoke to Jose, Smith and Tim Herrin on the latest Guardians Weekly podcast.

It’s a Monday in March, and you know what that means: it’s time for another edition of Pinstripe Alley’s Making the Team Meter! The third week of March is typically a major milestone, as we are now officially closer to Opening Day than we are to the first spring training game. As such, this is typically the week that teams take an axe to their spring training roster, and the Opening Day squad begins to slowly take shape. Thanks to the World Baseball Classic, however, the Yankees have taken their time trimming down the roster, as they have worked to make sure that they have kept enough players in the big league camp to get through the spring schedule.

Despite this relative lack of cuts, we can look at usage, individual performance, and comments by Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman to get a sense as to how these few roster battles are shaping up, and begin to more firmly project the anticipated Opening Day roster — although, as will be clear shortly, comments from the organization might actually increase the uncertainty, rather than help us gain an insight into what the team is thinking.

As always, in case you need it, I’ve included the key below as a refresher. I’d also like to remind you that, like last week, players who were cut or removed from the injured list prior to last Monday will not appear on these lists, while those cut in the last seven days will.

As always, let’s start with the pitchers:

In a spring where injury news has been fortunately few and far between, the majority of the pitching staff looks, in theory, rather set. Max Fried, Cam Schlittler, Ryan Weathers, Will Warren, and Luis Gil represent the team’s five starters. David Bednar, Camilo Doval, Fernando Cruz, and Tim Hill will be the team’s quartet of high-leverage relievers, while Ryan Yarbrough and Paul Blackburn will at least open the year as multi-inning relievers capable of starting if needed. Even if Weathers and Gil have looked inconsistent on the mound so far this spring, nothing that we have seen has truly changed this projection, which leaves just two bullpen spots up for grabs.

And yet, early during yesterday afternoon’s broadcast on the YES Network, Michael Kay, David Cone, and Meredith Marakovitz threw a wrench into these projections by highlighting the number of off-days the Yankees have during the first month of the season. From the start of the season on March 25th through the end of April, New York has a whopping five days off, including three in the first eight days of the season. Because of this, the team can open the season with just four starters for at least the first two trips through the order.

Judging from Aaron Boone’s comments during his fourth inning interview on YES, I think the Yankees are inclined to use a four-man rotation to start the season; after all, Boone did say he wants to avoid giving his starters seven or more days of rest between starts, something that can easily happen with a five-man rotation early in the season. But exactly how this changes their plan for the roster remains to be seen. The simplest way, which the Yankees have done in recent years, is to have the No. 5 starter begin the season in Triple-A, allowing them to carry an extra reliever for the season’s first week; this is especially useful, as most starters are only built up to 80-90 pitches for their first start anyway. But Boone stressed the fact that the team has seven to eight players who will be built up as starters, and suggested that possibility of lining up those not in the rotation to piggy back behind the starter, allowing them to remain stretched out, at least early in the season.

How the Yankees opt to approach this — something which Boone suggested they will do this week — will have ramifications throughout the roster. If they take the first way and bring an extra reliever, one of Warren and Gil will open the season in Scranton (hence why both are now listed as yellow, although I think the team is more likely to carry Warren than Gil, even before Gil’s stinker yesterday), and they will carry three relievers. If they opt to employ Yarbrough, Blackburn, and Warren/Gil as swingmen, as David Cone called the role yesterday, then they may be able to carry one fewer reliever than normal, allowing them to carry 14 position players (and thus solving the roster jam there, discussed below).

Regardless of the number of relievers the Yankees will take, there’s still very little clarity. The team cut another round of pitchers this week — Michael Arias, Brendan Beck, Kyle Carr, Dylan Coleman, Dom Hamel, and Ben Hess — but none of them were exactly in line to crack the roster anyway. Angel Chivili and Jake Bird have struggled, Cade Winquest and Osvaldo Bido need to make the roster (the former because he was a Rule 5 Draft pick, the latter because he’s out of minor league options), and Yerry De los Santos, Kervin Castro, and Brent Headrick have looked good this spring, but lack long track records. How will the Yankees weigh these considerations? Bryan Hoch has Bird and Headrick make the team, with a shoutout to Castro, but as we’ll see later, his projected roster has some flaws. The FanGraphs Depth Chart has not wavered from its Winquest/Bird pairing. For now, it truly is anybody’s game.

Catcher, on the other hand, looks very, very different:

Austin Wells will be the starter. J.C. Escarra will be the backup. With the Yankees opting to have Ben Rice focus on first base this spring, this will be the Yankees’ catching tandem. Michael Kay’s offhand comment yesterday that Ryan McMahon’s struggles at shortstop may put Escarra’s roster spot in danger should be ignored, because it would be malpractice to have Rice start the season as the backup catcher without any game action behind the plate to start the season.

Miguel Palma was reassigned to the minor league camp after yesterday’s game.

Last but not least, the position players:

Out of the players on this list, 11 can make the Opening Day roster. After the Yankees took an axe to the roster this week — George Lombard Jr., Marco Luciano, Braden Shewmake, Duke Ellis, Yanquiel Fernández, Ernesto Martínez Jr., Jonathan Ornelas, and Zack Short were reassigned to minor league camp, 23 remain with the big league club — a testament to the team’s need for bodies with so many players representing their country in the World Baseball Classic.

With a pair of veterans in Paul Goldschmidt and Amed Rosario under contract, the Yankees entered the spring with just one bench spot up for grabs. That fact has not changed, although the nature of that last spot has. Heading into the spring, Jasson Domínguez and Oswaldo Cabrera were penciled in by fans and journalists alike. The Martian, however, is now ticketed to Scranton despite a strong spring, barring an injury to one of the team’s three outfielders or Giancarlo Stanton, and while Cabrera has returned to the diamond, it seems likely that the team will have him start the year in the minors, possibly on a rehab assignment, as they continue to bring him along slowly as he recovers from last May’s gruesome ankle injury.

As it stands, the Yankees have two options for the final spot, either a right-handed hitting outfielder to serve as a platoon bat in Randal Grichuk, or a backup shortstop in Paul DeJong or Max Schuemann (Jorbit Vivas is not a realistic option due to his inability to play shortstop, while Zack Short is clearly behind the other two in the pecking order). In an ideal world, the Yankees clearly want to bring Grichuk north with them, letting Ryan McMahon open the season as the backup shortstop — both Hoch and FanGraphs, in fact, hand Grichuk the final spot on the bench. At the moment, though, this is unrealistic. McMahon has looked uncomfortable moving laterally at shortstop, and while he certainly can play the position in an emergency, the Yankees simply cannot go into the season without a backup to José Caballero. Unless the third baseman shows major improvement with more reps at the position, they almost certainly will be taking DeJong or Schuemann.

There may be a solution to this conundrum: piggybacking the starting pitchers. If the Yankees open the season with a four-man rotation, and use Gil, Yarbrough, and Blackburn for 60-70 pitches behind three of Fried, Schlittler, Weathers, and Warren, they may be able to operate with only 12 pitchers on the active roster, at least for the first two weeks of the season. Carrying one fewer arm than normal would allow the Yankees to carry 14 position players, enabling them to carry both a shortstop and Grichuk. It wouldn’t be a permanent fix — once the five-man rotation begins in earnest, they will need to bring the bullpen back to full strength — but as we’ve seen in recent years, by the time a decision will need to be made, the baseball gods tend to make the decision rather obvious.

And that’s where we stand today. We’ll be back again next week, this time on Monday, for one last projection before the Yankees open the season next Thursday. In the meantime, let us know in the comments section below what you think about our read on the Yankees roster bubble.

This starts the final full week of spring training games, meaning we are a bit closer to real baseball action. For those that aren’t fans of the WBC, this is a positive thing as seeing these few games of still minor leaguers starting in regular positions is getting tiresome. We all reach this point each year during spring where we just want it to end, but for the Phillies, they just want their guys healthy through this week.

On to the links.

Phillies news:

• Chase Utley is being honored by the Phillies by getting a Wall of Fame. He’s continuing to build a case for Cooperstown ($).
• Garrett Stubbs is willing to do most anything they ask in order to stay on the major league roster ($). We’ll see about that.
• Turns out, Jesus Luzardo will not be pitching for Venezuela at all in the WBC. He’ll stick with the Phillies through the end of camp.

MLB news:

• The Padres’ sale will move forward with at least four groups known to have bid on them. The price might reach $3 billion.
• Seiya Suzuki had to leave Japan’s quarterfinal game with a knee injury. He’ll get some more tests this week while the Cubs hold their breath.
• Francisco Lindor made his spring debut on Sunday for the Mets, increasing the likelihood that he’s ready for Opening Day.

Good morning, Camden Chatters! Another Monday is upon us as we inch closer and closer to Opening Day 2026. We are now just 10 days from the first real Orioles game of the season. We’re so close! This is the final week of Grapefruit League games. The Orioles play the Red Sox at home this evening, at 6:05 EDT. After that, it’s just five more days of games before they head north for a pair of exhibitions against the Washington Nationals.

The Orioles attempted to play the New York Yankees last night, but the weather had other ideas. The game started on time and Tyler O’Neill made some noise with a two-run single to score Pete Alonso and Samuel Basallo, but the rain came in the third inning and washed away the game. Zach Eflin started and threw 32 pitches in 2+ innings.

We still don’t know if Eflin will be ready to join the roster on Opening Day, although Craig Albernaz says that Eflin is progressing faster than he expected. So we’ll see.

One spring mystery has emerged: Where is Coby Mayo? Mayo is the presumptive starting third baseman for the Orioles and he has been swinging a red-hot bat in spring training. On March 10th, he had four hits, including a home run. He hasn’t played since then! It’s been four games without Coby. There are, of course, other ways to practice and get ready that aren’t playing in games. And no one has reported any injury concerns for Mayo. But still, where is he? If we see him in the lineup tonight, I will retract my concern.

Meanwhile, the real baseball excitement continues with the World Baseball Classic. The United States eliminated Canada on Friday, which is why O’Neill was back in the Orioles’ camp. That same night, the Dominican Republic knocked out Korea. That set up a semifinal between USA and DR, which took place last night.

It was an exciting game that ended with USA on top. DR took an early lead on Junior Caminero’s home run, but Gunnar Henderson tied the game with a homer of his own in the 4th inning. Roman Anthony also homered and Team USA took a 2-1 lead that they did not relinquish.

DR got the tying run to third in the bottom of the ninth, and Mason Miller struck out Geraldo Perdomo looking on a pitch that was very clearly below the strike zone. What an awful way for them to go home. There is no ABS in the WBC.

Henderson goes into the final with an OPS of 1.358. His two homers so far are tied for the most on the team with three other players. He’s played in half as many games as those other guys, by the way. Has he done enough to get the start in the final?

On Saturday, Venezuela knocked out the defending champion Japan, while the underdog Italy beat Puerto Rico to make it to their first semifinal in WBC history. Italy and Venezuela face off tonight to see who will move on to play USA in the final on Tuesday.

Links

Orioles option Cade Povich to minors as rotation takes shape – The Baltimore Banner
If Cade Povich had made the Opening Day roster, it would have meant that something went horribly wrong. I expect we’ll see him at least a bit during the season, though. Andy Kostka takes a look at the current state of the starting rotation.

Cano back to being a pain for opposing pitchers – MASN Sports
I mean, I hope this is true. But it feels a little early to be making such a declaration.

Nick Markakis talks Orioles, Alonso, WBC – Baltimore Baseball
Markakis was in camp as a guest instructor.

Who bats leadoff for O’s? No answer yet, but Ward emerging as option – MLB.com
Jake Rill says that who will bat leadoff is a burning question in spring training. That feels a little dramatic. Per Rill, it’s down to Taylor Ward and Gunnar Henderson.

Camden Chat’s 2026 Pre-Season Contest
Are you looking for a fun activity? Participate in our pre-season contest! There are no physical prizes, but you can feel really good about yourself for being so smart.

Birthday and History

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! You have two Orioles birthday buddies, both of the old-timey variety. Catcher Hobie Landrith (b. 1930, d. 2023) appeared in 62 games with the Orioles in 1962 and 1963. He had a 14-season career, mostly with the Cincinnati Reds. Clint Courtney (b. 1927, d. 1975), also a catcher, played for the Orioles in 1954 and 1961.

There isn’t much happening on this day in Orioles history. In 2021, they signed Maikel Franco, who went on to play poorly in 104 games that season. In 2010, the San Francisco Giants returned Steve Johnson, who they had drafted in the rule 5 draft just a few months earlier.