MILWAUKEE, WI - APRIL 3: The sneakers worn by Ousmane Dieng #21 of the Milwaukee Bucks during the game against the Boston Celtics on April 3, 2026 at Fiserv Forum Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2026 NBAE (Photo by Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images). | NBAE via Getty Images
Australian goes down 0-6 6-2 6-2 6-3 to Jakub Mensik
No 8 seed will rue a golden chance to advance in Paris
Alex de Minaur was blown out of the French Open just when opportunity had knocked deafeningly for all the would-be contenders.
With Jannik Sinner’s sensational exit having made everyone believe their chance could be at hand, de Minaur’s enduring dream was this time dynamited by young Czech powerhouse Jakub Mensik 0-6 6-2 6-2 6-3 in the third round.
Undeniably a key factor in the Phillies’ turnaround after an atrocious start to the season, a recently recovered Zack Wheeler is winning the current round of a battle against Father Time by being one of the more dominant starters in the National League since his return to a big league mound in late April. Although it is not always the case, for Wheeler in particular, the level of dominance he has presented has been enough to make the Phillies unbeatable in his starts.
The Dodgers will be the seventh team to go up against Wheeler this season, and evidently the best he has faced. Los Angeles will try to accomplish what each of the previous six failed to do, which is to beat the Phillies, who are 6-0 in Wheeler starts.
Justin Wrobleski might not have been the first pick for such a lofty task, but the southpaw carries an edge in this particular matchup. The Phillies offense is redefining the meaning of “top-heavy,” with two-thirds of their lineup carrying an OPS of .656 or lower. Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and Brandon Marsh have carried this offense, all three of them lefties. Now, Harper and Schwarber are scary hitters regardless of who they’re facing, but you’d still prefer a lefty there.
This lack of anything even remotely resembling a bit of depth is why Philly enters play on Friday with the fifth-worst team wRC+ in the sport, relying primarily on their pitching to carry this team.
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - MAY 18: The mascot of the Seattle Mariners, Mariner Moose, gestures during the game between the Seattle Mariners and the Chicago White Sox at T-Mobile Park on May 18, 2026 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Maddy Grassy/Getty Images) | Getty Images
The Diamondbacks are the hottest team in baseball. Full stop. They have won nine of their last ten. They’ve done it with great starting pitching, better than average offense, and they’ve even mixed in some spectacular defense from time to time. Yes, it comes against two of the worst teams in baseball, but even when you’re playing bad teams, you still have to beat them, and to do so in such a stretch is both impressive and exactly what they needed to do. They’ve got to keep the momentum up against the top teams now, but this is exactly the kick start they needed.
They go from the bottom of the NL West, to the top of the AL West. The AL West is slightly less competitive than the NL West, though, so that isn’t as scary as it could be. The Mariners are currently first in their division, but that only requires a 28-29 record at the moment. They’re on a hot streak of their own, however. They just swept division rival Oakland. We’ll see which sweep of a sub-.500 team holds up more.
Game 1 — 5/29, 7:10 PM: Zac Gallen (-0.3 bWAR, 3-4, 4.80 ERA/85 ERA+, 1.43 WHIP) vs. George Kirby (1.0 bWAR, 5-4, 3.54 ERA/110 ERA+, 1.20 WHIP)
Someone should do the math on how much money each mediocre start costs Gallen. At the rate he’s going, it’s going to be a lot. His hopes of a bounce back campaign to secure the multi-year, nine figure contract is waning, and he just hasn’t done much of anything particularly of note this season. The month of May has been especially rough after a decent start to the season in April. He has given up more than four earned runs in three of his five starts so far, and gave up three in an additional start just for good measure.
George Kirby has had a solidly above average season so far, but he’s been on a bit of a downward trend lately. In seven of his first nine starts, he held opponents to two runs or less, and he did not give up more than four. He also has been consistently pitching into the sixth inning or longer. However, his last two starts against the Padres and the Royals have been out of the ordinary. HE gave up six earned runs to the Padres, and five runs, three earned, to the Royals. The Padres game he got bit by the home run ball, but the Royals it seems it was just the errors that held him back. The Diamondbacks have power, and they have the speed to force misplays, so they’ll be looking to recreate those games.
Game 2 — 5/30, 7:10 PM: Ryne Nelson (-0.3 bWAR, 2-3, 4.65 ERA/88 ERA+, 1.18 WHIP) vs. Bryan Woo (0.7 bWAR, 4-3, 3.82 ERA/102 ERA+, 1.03 WHIP)
Don’t look now, but Ryne Nelson has been actually rather successful in the month of May. He has an ERA of 2.36 for the month, with the crowning achievement being his eight innings of one run ball against the Rockies in his most recent start. The question becomes how sustainable it is. He has a FIP of 4.29 for the month, almost exactly two runs higher than his month of May ERA. The strikeouts are inconsistent, the walks are high, and he’s basically a guarantee for a home run per start. Not promising for long term success.
In 2026, Woo has had similar results to Kirby. About a month ago, Woo had back to back starts where he gave up seven and six runs repsectively, but beyond that, it’s been good starts. One thing to note, the only home runs he has given up this year came in those two previously mentioned bad starts. Other than that, he has kept the ball in the park all season long. He’s given up two walks in each of his last four starts, so he will give you those free base runners. The Diamondbacks should probably plan on building innings, not mashing home runs, for this one.
Game 3 — 5/31, 1:10 PM: Merrill Kelly (-0.1 bWAR, 5-3, 5.25 ERA/78 ERA+, 1.41 WHIP) vs. Bryce Miller (0.4 bWAR, 1-0, 2.25 ERA/176 ERA+, 1.00 WHIP)
After a very rough first four months, Merrill Kelly is starting to look much more like the Mainstay that we thought Hazen had signed this off season. In his most recent four starts, he has thrown at least six innings, twice going seven, and a complete game just for good measure. The Giants tagged him for a couple runs, three in their first start against him and two in their second, but nothing crazy. With how rough his first four starts were, it will take a while before the stats start to look better, but he’s making progress.
This will be Miller’s fourth game, but third start as his last appearance was actually out of the bullpen. Not much to go off of so far, of course, but early returns have been positive. He’s gone at least five innings in all of his appearances, including his relief outing, and he has yet to give up more than two runs.
Conclusion
We aren’t picking on the bottom of the standings anymore, so the Diamondbacks should expect the Mariners to put up a bit more of a fight. That being said, this is a division leader that is sub-.500. Still plenty of room for them to continue padding their win column. I expect them to take two out of three in fairly low scoring affairs.
Coming into the 2026 season, the Mets were seemingly blessed with an overabundance of starting pitching. They traded for Freddy Peralta, who joined Nolan McLean, Kodai Senga, Clay Holmes, and David Peterson in the rotation. They also acquired Tobias Myers, who is capable of starting, in the Peralta trade, and they had Sean Manaea, Christian Scott, and Jonah Tong as depth.
Heading into June, the rotation has become a big question mark. While the team got good news that he doesn’t need surgery, Holmes is out for the foreseeable future with a fractured fibula. Senga is has made a pair of appearances on a rehab assignment as he recovers from lumbar spine inflammation, but there’s no guarantee he can be an effective major league pitcher when he does return.
As for the other starters, here’s how they’ve fared in the month of May:
Freddy Peralta: 2-1 with a 3.52 ERA
Nolan McLean: 1-2 with a 6.92 ERA
David Peterson: 3-1 with a 4.30 ERA
Christian Scott: 0-0 with 3.00 ERA
Myers isn’t stretched out and has been used both as an opener and a long man. He is 0-0 with one save in ten appearances in May. His ERA is 5.54 in those ten games. Jonah Tong has been fantastic since his call-up, but he has yet to start a game. In his two games, he has yet to give up an earned run in 6.2 innings.
And then there is Manaea. Overall his numbers look terrible, as he’s 0-1 with a 5.56 ERA in 34.0 innings pitched this season. And the fact that he’s coming off a 2025 season in which he struggled with both injuries and ineffectiveness isn’t exactly inspiring. In the month of May, however, he is 0-1 with a more respectable 3.75 ERA. He has been fine serving as the long man out of the bullpen when called upon.
At this point the team has nothing to lose giving Manaea a chance to start. They are in desperate need of arms, and he is capable of giving them some innings. Carlos Mendoza would not commit to giving Peterson another start after his last disastrous outing so there is an opportunity to piggyback the two. Plus in that scenario the team wouldn’t need to burn an opener like Huascar Brazobán, meaning crucial bullpen arms will be available in the later innings.
The current state of the rotation is a mess, so now is the time to get creative with the arms you do have and that means giving Manaea an opportunity to prove himself as a stater. There is still every chance that he will not succeed, but with the Mets already in last place, why not see what you have? The only way to go is up, right?
Apr 14, 2026; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Adolis Garcia (53) reacts after striking out against the Chicago Cubs in the fourth inning at Citizens Bank Park. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Ross-Imagn Images | Kyle Ross-Imagn Images
When Adolis Garcia came into camp after signing with the Phillies, the team had specific ideas on what they wanted him to work on in the hopes that he could recapture his past form. Garcia tweaked his batting stance and worked on improving his plate discipline to try and cut down on his high chase rate. So far, he has done exactly that, as his 28.1 % swing rate on pitches outside of the zone is the lowest it’s been since 2023, which was the best season of Garcia’s career and the last time he was an above average hitter. He’s also cut down his overall swing rate to 43.4% from 52.2%, cut his whiff rate down to 12.9% from 14.6%, and his 83.7% rate of contact on pitches inside the zone is the best of his career. Through the first two months of 2026, he’s accomplished all of the goals he and the Phillies laid out for him this spring.
Season
Swing Rate
Chase Rate
Whiff Rate
Zone Contact Rate
2025
52.2%
35.7%
14.6%
79.4%
2026
43.4%
28.1%
12.9%
83.7%
So why is he in the midst of the worst season of his career after a particularly brutal month of May where he hit .141 with a .447 OPS and 33 strikeouts in 24 games?
To attempt to understand that conundrum, we must first look at what made Garcia successful in the past. In that All-Star 2023 season, Garcia was one of the most aggressive hitters in baseball, swinging early and often as evidenced by his swing rate of 48.6%. He did not hit for a high average at just .245 overall, but his .508 slugging percentage was tenth best among all hitters with at least 600 plate appearances. Garcia still swung and chased at a high rate, but he did damage on the pitches he got to hit.
Fast forward to 2026, and Garcia’s .312 SLG is among the worst in baseball, and he has the worst barrel percentage of his career by half. His new swing and approach have resulted in the intended plate discipline improvements but have had unintended side effects.
Cutting back on his aggressiveness has limited Garcia’s ability to do damage on the increased amount of pitches he’s seen in the zone. Even in a poor 2025 season where Garcia had the worst SLG of his career to that point, his expected SLG of .427 was right around league average and his 11.6% barrel rate was above average. In 2026, those numbers are dramatically lower, with Garcia carrying a .350 xSLG and a 7.1% barrel rate that would both be his career worst for a full season. He’s especially struggling to catch up to fastballs, as his .284 actual SLG and .378 xSLG against heaters are both the worst marks of his career. He hasn’t been any better on breaking balls, with a .292 SLG and .294 xSLG that are also the worst of his career and a 39.4% whiff rate that is the second worst of his career.
Garcia is hitting more line drives at a career best 24.4% rate, but his flyball rate has plummeted ten percentage points to a career worst 36.2%. He’s also pulling the ball at a career worst rate of 37.8%, continuing a declining trend that started in 2024. His isolated power of .111 is another career worst mark and is over a 50-point dropoff from last season. Simply put, Garcia is not impacting the ball even close to the way he used to and has been worse at it than even his disappointing 2025 season.
Season
SLG
xSLG
Barrel %
ISO
2025
.394
.427
11.6
.168
2026
.312
.350
7.1
.111
Now, some of this can be contributed to the obvious factor: age. At 33-years-old coming off of two below average seasons, it’s quite likely that Garcia is in decline and will never reach his previous heights but rather will continue to get worse. But the steep drop from even his poor 2025 suggests that maybe something else is at play here. There’s not much to contribute to luck either, as Garcia’s .276 BABIP is only slightly below the league average of .287 so far.
Perhaps trying to change Garcia into a different hitter has made him worse than he already was in two disappointing seasons. A hitter trying to become more patient at the plate is not necessarily a bad thing, as it usually leads to more quality plate appearances. But that’s not the case for everybody. Some hitters thrive on being aggressive. Garcia is one of those hitters. By trying to cut back on that aggressiveness, Garcia and the Phillies have inadvertently taken away the few things he was still good at even in his worst years.
Maybe better results with the new approach will come eventually. It isn’t exactly “early” in the season anymore as we’ve passed the first unofficial checkpoint of Memorial Day, but there are still 106 games to go. That’s still plenty of time for something to click and everything to fall in place.
Or maybe the Phillies and Garcia need to accept that he is what he is at the plate and let him go back to leaning on his strengths, even if the result is another below average season. Because even below average is better than what Garcia is right now.
On the eve of Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals, the Orlando Magic are reaching into San Antonio's bench to snag a coach.
Sean Sweeney, the Spurs' defensive coordinator, has been tapped to be the next head coach of the Orlando Magic, reports Shams Charania of ESPN, and since confirmed by other reports. Sweeney will continue with the Spurs through the remainder of their playoff run, then head to Orlando after the season.
Former Bulls coach Billy Donovan was considered the frontrunner in Orlando, but the Magic front office went younger, choosing an untested but promising coach.
Sweeney will replace Jamahl Mosley, who was let go after a disapointing 45-win season in Orlando that saw the Magic bounced in the first round of the playoffs by the Pistons. After trading four first-round picks to get Desmond Bane last offseason, expectations were sky high in Orlando entering the season. While Mosley dealt with a rash of injuries, the issues with a stagnant offense and slipping defense seemed bigger than that. Mosley landed on his feet, taking over as the New Orleans Pelicans head coach a couple of weeks after being let go by the Magic.
Sweeney was at the front of the line of assistant coaches around the league who deserved a shot in the big chair. He's a smart hire for a team that built itself around a defensive identity, something that slipped this past season. That said, it's easier to design a defense with Victor Wembanyama on the back line and high-level defenders like Stephon Castle on the perimeter.
Sweeney takes over a roster with some big-name talent — Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, Jalen Suggs, Bane — that has never really meshed. Orlando's front office appears more interested in keeping the roster together and betting on a coaching change to make things work. An assistant coach in the NBA since 2011, Sweeney has worked with plenty of stars, including Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic and now Wembanyama.
The Orlando Magic have concluded their search for a new head coach and are ready to usher in a new leader.
The Magic are finalizing the hire of San Antonio Spurs associate coach Sean Sweeney as their new head coach, according to ESPN.
Sweeney broke into NBA coaching in 2011 as a video coordinator for the New Jersey Nets. From there he was promoted to his first assistant coaching gig as the Nets moved from New Jersey to Brooklyn. He spent four seasons in Milwaukee as an assistant from 2014 to 2018, where he began to gain of repertoire for development after helping Giannis Antetokounmpo become an All-Star.
Following his four seasons in Milwaukee, Sweeney took another assistant position with the Detroit Pistons, where he coached under Dwane Casey for three seasons.
Sweeney then went to Dallas to reconnect with then-head coach Jason Kidd, for whom Sweeney was an assistant with the Bucks. Together they reached the 2024 NBA Finals, where they lost in five games to the Boston Celtics.
Sweeney, 41, has coached under the likes of Avery Johnson and P.J. Carlesimo, in addition to Casey and Kidd. He's surrounded by the San Antonio culture and has been able to soak up knowledge and wisdom from one of the greatest coaches in NBA history in Gregg Popovich.
Sweeney replaces previous head coach Jamahl Mosley, who was fired on May 4. Mosley, who was hired by the New Orleans Pelicans as head coach on May 18, spent five seasons in Orlando and coached the team to a playoff berth in each of the past three seasons. The Magic never advanced past the first round, however, and they had a 3-1 lead against the Detroit Pistons in the first round of the 2026 NBA playoffs before allowing the Pistons to rattle off three consecutive wins to take the series.
Sweeney will assume the Magic head coaching role following the 2026 postseason, as his Spurs are in a battle with defending NBA champion-Oklahoma City Thunder for a spot in the 2026 NBA Finals against the Eastern Conference champions, the New York Knicks. The Spurs-Thunder series is tied, 3-3, as a deciding Game 7 tips off on Saturday, May 30 at 8 p.m. ET.
May 8, 2026; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Colorado Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman (15) reacts with infielder TJ Rumfield (7) after hitting a two-run home run against the Philadelphia Phillies in the fourth inning at Citizens Bank Park. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Ross-Imagn Images | Kyle Ross-Imagn Images
Paul DePodesta made a name as one of Billy Beane’s acolytes during the Moneyball era and in 2004, at the age of 31 became the Dodgers’ GM. He was hounded by the musty old LA Times sportwriters (who called him “Google Boy) and local LA media for the two seasons he lasted in the job — one local radio host summoned all of his brain cell to coin the name ”Paul Stupid-desta.“ He landed on his feet with the Padres and then the Mets before leaving MLB altogether. In January 2016, he became the ”chief strategy officer” of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns and proceeded to spend 9 years further burying the wholly irrelevant franchise while introducing the NFL to SQL.
So, when the Colorado Rockies — a franchise that hasn’t had a winning season since 2018 and has lost 629 games over the previous 7 seasons —set out to hire someone from outside the organization to run the operation, DePodesta was at the top of their list, naturally. He has similarly introduced the Rockies to Computer and it seems like it’s going… okay? They’re 20-37 as they prepare to host the loserly San Francisco Giants in Coors Field for the first time this season, and while that’s definitely not good, it’s a vast improvement over where they were a year ago. Their record through 57 games going back to 2019:
There’s bad, there’s awful, and then there’s whatever the Rockies have been. It’s not pleasant to look at and it’s only palatable when they’re losing to your favorite team. Even with the DePodesta providing his “genius” as President of Baseball Operations— and with Josh Byrnes back in the org as GM (he’d been their AGM at the turn of the century) following successful stints with the Red Sox, Diamondbacks, Padres, and Dodgers — they’re still the worst lineupe in the sport (81 wRC+) with the worst team ERA in the sport (5.18). Their 229 runs scored isn’t last (it’s 21st) but that’s the extent of the Coors Field effect. They still don’t hit for power (.135 ISO — 24th) or walk much (7.6 BB% — 29th) and they strike out a lot (24.3 K% — 28th). They are tied with the Giants in home runs with 49. Their team batting average of .241 is 15th, though, not too far behind the Giants’ .245 (10th).
They’re just 6-19 in May with a -70 run differential. The Giants are 9-16 with a -28.
So, while the Rockies are worse than the Giants both on paper and in reality, they’re probably a lot closer in quality than Giants fans want to admit and Rockies fans might be surprised to see.
They didn’t do much in the offseason, but their “big” acquisitions have made impacts:
INF Willi Castro (2 years, $12.8 million) hasn’t hit much (77 wRC+), but has been great on defense (+1.8 Defensive Runs Above Average)
SP Michael Lorenzen (1/$8MM) has been one of the worst starters in baseball (7.21 ERA / 5.13 FIP), but has a comically large home/road split: HOME: 10.03 ERA (2.44 WHIP), ROAD: 5.04 (1.48 WHIP).
RHP Tomoyuki Sugano (1/$5.1MM) has been their most consistent starter, with a 4.01 ERA (5.33 FIP) in 11 starts.
1B TJ Rumfield (acquired in trade with Yankees) has 7 home runs and a triple slash of .281/.359/.448.
Before he hit the IL, they were getting a great contribution from starter Chase Dollander, their 1st round pick of the 2023 draft. But otherwise, the modest bounceback from the demonic 2025 season seems to be the result of tinkering at the margins as DePodesta and Byrnes assess the entire organization. Not unlike how 2019 was a transition season as Farhan Zaidi took over from Bobby Evans.
But the question is if Computer will beat No Computer in the battle for Not Last Place in the NL West. The Rockies have been last place for so long that it has started to feel like they’d achieved a tenured position. But this year, the Giants might be bad enough — and dumb enough — to unseat them from the Last Place Chair.
Series overview
Who: San Francisco Giants (22-34) at Colorado Rockies (20-37) Where: Coors Field | Denver, Colorado When: Friday at 5:40pm PT, Saturday at 6:10pm PT, Sunday at 12:10pm PT National broadcasts: None.
Projected starters Friday: Logan Webb (RHP 2-4, 5.06 ERA) vs. Michael Lorenzen (RHP 2-7, 7.21 ERA) Saturday: Adrian Houser (RHP 2-4, 5.30 ERA) vs. TBD Sunday: Robbie Ray (LHP 3-6, 4.60 ERA) vs. Tanner Gordon (RHP 0-0, 5.85 ERA)
Players to watch
Rockies
Antonio Senzatela: He’s been a foil for the Giants throughout his career (5-3, 4.89 ERA) and this season might change the nature of the rivalry in that he’s transitioned from an iffy starter to a dominate reliever. In 33 IP (16 G), he has a 1.36 ERA (3.19 FIP) and allowed just 2 home runs (career 1.1 HR/9). Conventiently, Michael Baumann wrote a nice piece about Senzatela this morning for FanGraphs.
If you take “believe” to mean “think Senzatela will continue to put up Prime Dennis Eckersley numbers,” there’s reason to be skeptical. Senzatela’s running a .198 BABIP, an 87.8% strand rate, and a 5.4% HR/FB rate, which is a little over a third of what it usually is. All of those are big, honking regression indicators.
But where should we expect Senzatela to regress to? Well, his FIP is 3.19 and his xERA is 3.09. Not only are those numbers really good for a multi-inning reliever, full stop, they’re also about half of what he was running last year. That’s a huge improvement. He’s like a new pitcher.
So what’s different?
The Rockies have done some weird stuff with bullpen roles this season (pre-injury Chase Dollander’s stint as the world’s greatest bulk reliever comes to mind), and they’ve been similarly creative with Senzatela. He’s faced at least four batters in all 16 of his appearances this year, and recorded five or more outs on 14 occasions. He’s yet to pitch on back-to-back days, and he’s turned over the lineup more often (five times) than he’s pitched on just one day’s rest.
The piece goes on to highlight how he throws a great fastball and more than one fastball: a four-seamer, a sinker, and a cutter, which opponents have hit just .143 against.
This will be an interesting series because the Rockies’ formal closer, Victor Vodnik, has been on the IL since 5/20 with right ulnar nere inflammation. Dollander, who has also relieved, is on the IL. It’s not as though the Rockies had a great bullpen before, but it’s a little dinged up.
TJ Rumfield: The offseason acquisition has been day to day recently after a hit by pitch on May 25th. Prior to the injury, he was hitting .308/.400/.500 in May with 4 homers and 3 doubles, with 13 strikeouts against 9 walks. Pretty close to a Three True Outcomes player who would be one of the biggest threats in the Rockies’ lineup with Mickey Moniak on the IL. Otherwise, it’s last yaer’s All-Star and Silver slugger Hunter Goodman who is the real remaining power threat (12 HR).
Tanner Gordon: His third major league start ever came back in 2024 against a barely recognizable Giants lineup:
DH Jorge Soler RF Mike Yastrzemski CF Heliot Ramos LF Michael Conforto SS Tyler Fitzgerald 3B Matt Chapman 2B Brett Wisely 1B David Villar C Curt Casali SP Hayden Birdsong
He gave up 4 runs in 6 innings but struck out 5 and walked 0. Last season, he started 15 games for the Rockies and… it didn’t go well (6.33 ERA). His first 7 appearances this year were in relief, but his last appearance was against the Dodgers in LA. He allowed just 1 run on 6 hits in 5 innings of work, striking out 3 and walking 1.
Giants
Rafael Devers: He has 3 homers in 8 career games at Coors, making a triple slash of .229/.315/.454. His 0-for-4 in Wednesday’s game didn’t damage his hot May too much. He’s at .287/.333/.564 (.897 OPS) through the first 25 games of the month. Can he start another hot streak in these three games?
Jung Hoo Lee: He’s set to be activated off the IL today and for good reason. He has a career .911 OPS against Colorado, but in Coors Field, he’s hitting .357/.455/.539 (.990) in 33 PA. Not a robust sample size, but maybe a great way for him to step into a hot streak right off the IL.
Logan Webb: On the flip side, this is a tough place for a pitcher to come off the IL, but the Giants need Webb to get that ace-like performance going ASAP. In 10 career starts at Coors, he’s got a 4.37 ERA. The Rockies have a team groundball rate of 42%, which is 14th in MLB, so it might not be that easy for Webb to get the groundballs he needs in order to get out of long innings. On the other hand, they have just a 37.1% flyball rate, one of the worst in the sport (24th) and their HR to flyball rate of 9.5% is also nearer to the bottom third of the sport (19th). It could go either way, which only means that if Webb is right, he should be able to give the Giants a solid start.
Tony Vitello watch
His opponent in the Rockies dugout is Warren Schaeffer, who was a Rockies farmhand turned coach who wound up on the major league coaching staff in 2023 before taking over as interim manager from the deposed Bud Black. I only bring this up because in the first couple of months of the season it has seemed as though the least experienced managers still have an edge over Vitello simply by having been around the major leagues more. That doesn’t mean Vitello might never become the type of success he was in college ball, but it suggests that aura isn’t transferrable. Or, at least, there’s an exchange rate.
If you remember, Coors Field is where Buster Posey first met Tony Vitello, and it was this meeting that Andrew Baggarly remembered when coming up with a list of managerial candidates following Bob Melvin’s dismissal. Does this stadium hold a special place in Vitello’s memory or has it become a house of horrors for him as it has for the Giants over the years?
Prediction time
Last time out, I predicted that the Giants would not get swept by the Diamondbacks, so, what do I know? Also, what an embarrassment. I thought the Giants could win 1 game at home against a division rival. Oh well. Lesson learned. This time, I’ll predict that the Giants will hit at least 5 home runs in this series.
BAYONNE, NJ - MAY 25: The sun sets on the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building in New York City on May 25, 2026, as seen from Bayonne, New Jersey. (Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images) | Getty Images
June 5, 1994
Game 7. ECF. 34 and a half seconds left. Knicks down one. I’m 15, watching in the living room with my papi. My mother and sisters are elsewhere; they don’t want to deal with our stressing.
Charles Oakley inbounds to John Starks, surprisingly wide-open for the pass given all 19,763 in attendance and the millions watching at home know exactly what’s about to happen: Starks running a pick-and-roll with Patrick Ewing. Starks is as open as he is because his defender, Reggie Miller, made a business decision as he trailed Starks towards an Anthony Mason screen. Miller is alive today because he didn’t test Mase.
Starks dribbles to his right, past the pick. Antonio Davis, Ewing’s defender, hesitates for a split-second, giving Starks all the runway he’d need to take it to the cup. It’s the same action the ‘90s Knicks ran whenever they were in desperate need of a last-second bucket.
Once Ewing slammed home the rebound to put the Knicks up one, Papi and I allowed ourselves the briefest expression of joy, a “yes!” as short and sibilant as airbrakes on a truck. For the next 22.7 seconds, neither of us breathes. Instead we wait. For the other shoe to drop. Or not.
I’d never seen the Knicks advance so far. Papi saw them win two titles, but that was back in ye olden days, the 1970s. This was the mid-‘90s — too late for Hammer Time, too soon for Y2K. The Knicks were thisclose to a championship. The Rangers, too. It was a glorious time.
Not so much for a Knicks/Rangers fan living in western New York. The move from Long Island to Rochester introduced the Mirandas to garbage plates, ice storms, the highest concentration of Confederate flags north of the Mason-Dixon and a particular strain of hate for all things NYC. Western New York has this particular paranoia where many locals believe NYC gets all of the state funding without contributing enough revenue to deserve it. It’s like a small child being pissed that their parents who work 40-50 hours a week “only” give them a weekly allowance and not their whole paycheck.
After the Rangers won their first Stanley Cup in 54 years, a local sportswriter penned a column crying about how insufferable that was in and of itself, and that if the Knicks won, too, life up here in God’s Arctic armpit would suddenly be intolerable.
When we lived on Long Island, my uncle lived around the corner. He was a K9 officer in NYC. When I’d stop over to visit he’d order a whole pizza, just ‘cuz I was there. The day my friend and I were chased by two pit bulls, it was my uncle who shot his gun into the air, bringing the dogs to a stop before loudly yelling to their owners they could either come get their dogs now — alive — or wait until later, when they wouldn’t be.
Upstate cops were different. Anytime I walked around my neighborhood with a Black friend, we’d see people peeking out from their homes, behind curtains. Without fail a cop car would show up within 10 minutes, always wondering what we “were up to.” I called the police once in my entire time in Rochester, when an angry white man with a bat was threatening my Puerto Rican friend’s mother. The police came, ignored me, ignored us, spent 30 minutes talking to the man, then all the white neighbors, the ones who’d come out of their house once the police were there, all telling me, “You’re gonna get it now, spic. Gonna get what you’ve got coming.” Only after all that did the offier approach us. My friend’s mother told me in Spanish not to say anything. The cop asked if I was Puerto Rican. I said yeah. He said, “Do you have a father in the home?”
When the Knicks held on to advance to the Finals, I felt closer to them, to the city. Closer to my papi, who played at the Garden in high school and taught me everything I knew about watching and playing the game (except how to beat him one-on-one; now that he’s in his 70s, I might have a shot — maybe). I was living somewhere that was never home, never right, but I knew I wasn’t alone. Not with my family there. Not with Papi there.
And while the Mets and Jets were trash, and the Rangers had finally done the impossible, the Knicks were just four wins from what I’d waited my whole life as a fan (at that time, “my whole life as a [Knick] fan” equaled four seasons). Once they won, I’d rock my Ewing sneakers, my Knicks shorts, my Knicks T-shirt (featuring Ewing, Starks, Mason, Charles Oakley and Greg Anthony; people forget Greg was highly regarded coming out of UNLV), and the cheap giveaway Knicks hat I’d gotten at a game three years earlier. I’d strut into school, letting all the racists and bigots look upon my wardrobe with despair.
Family was forever. Justice was inevitable. The Knicks would always be there for me.
June 11, 1999
The Knicks advanced to the Finals three hours ago. I didn’t see it. I was in a bar.
I was drinking and drugging a lot. My parents’ relationship was fraying, one sister out of college, the other just started. The house had been sold. I’d set the game to tape, figuring if they won I’d re-watch, if not I wouldn’t.
I spent that night in a pool hall with some friends, where we noted on one of the televisions that the Knicks had won. One was a Laker fan, my best friend since moving upstate. Years later our friendship ended, after he started stealing from me and lying to his wife to support his drug habit. The other, a Celtic fan and fellow socialist, would remain close to me another 20-plus years, until, after buying a nice big house in a pretty suburb for his wife and two kids, he cut all ties as the Black Lives Matter movement was moving, telling me I couldn’t understand “how hard it is to be a Republican under Trump,” and that “property rights matter, too.”
I came home and slipped silently into the living room, the same room I’d seen the Knicks win the East five years prior. I rewound the tape far enough to see late in the fourth quarter. The Garden crowd chanting “JEFF VAN GUN-DY *CLAP* *CLAP* *CLAP CLAP CLAP!* Allan Houston hugging his coach; Latrell Sprewell waving a towel. For the first time in my life as a Knick fan, and only one of two times ever as one, I wept (the other was beating Boston last year).
Suddenly from behind, noises. A blanket being whipped off. A middle-aged man, awakened from a rough night on the living room couch. Papi. Not at all thrilled to have been woken by his 20-year-old oblivious son turning on the TV after midnight. Clearly there’d been another fight between my parents. Even on a night like this, reality wouldn’t stop being real. My drinking all night, getting high, even the Knicks: nothing put a dent in the pain. Whatever tears I’d shed from joy grew hot and fell fast, no longer sparked by wonder, but blunder.
The Knicks had no chance in the Finals; everyone knew. Ewing was out with an Achilles tear. Larry Johnson was injury-compromised. Going up against David Robinson and Tim Duncan, the Knicks’ best big, Marcus Camby, was no thicker than a Fruit Roll-Up. And the thing was, this might be as good as it was gonna get for New York.
The Ewing era was coming to a close. My family was falling apart. The century was coming to an end. The future, long a land I’d longed to live in, now seemed as likely an outcome as me pitching for the Mets.
May 25, 2026
In the city for the first time in a while. I let a few people know I’m there. All respond the same way: “Are you here for the Knicks?
I am not. My father and I have tickets to a Mets game, purchased months before the season started, before David Stearns re-invented a worser wheel by turning Pete Alonso into Jorge Polanco’s DL stay. I’m staying on 36th Street, my father on 37th.
I don’t remember the last time I saw him. Since the divorce he’s married twice, lived in Virginia, Bulgaria, rural Missouri, Puerto Rico, Cape Cod. His old man died when my dad was 19. My old man didn’t die, but by my mid-20s I got used to not seeing him for months or years at a time, the way an amputee gets used to a phantom limb.
Every time I see him, it’s too short. A girlfriend in college tore me a new one once. I had an hour lunch and worked 20 minutes away from her. So I picked up some drive-thru and drove to spend the time we could together. I couldn’t understand her at the time, telling me through tears that she’d rather not see me at all than only see me for a few minutes before I left again. I grew to understand her.
My entire adult life, seeing my father has always sparked joy and anger. Joy at this wonderful, loving, miracle of a man reminding me why I’ve always loved him so much, even when I didn’t want to. And anger over all the years lost, the conversations never shared, the things he could have taught me, the memories we’ll never share.
He’s one street away, but I don’t see him the day he arrives. He’s going to get food from the same restaurant I am, but I end up getting takeout with a friend; he doesn’t ask to eat together, neither do I. Not because I don’t love him. But because I do.
We’re going to the Met game Tuesday, before we leave town Wednesday. Tuesday, right after I finish a call with a Knick fan who runs an animation studio who’s such a lovely dude, I try to call my father. I can’t. My phone’s been suspended. I can’t call or text.
I don’t know where he is. His hotel is far enough from mine (avenues are loooong) that if I walk all the way there and he’s not there, I’ll risk missing any chance of catching the game. I email him, hoping he’ll check it even though he’s retired. I should have known better.
My father has never retired. He can’t. Whether working in education or ministry, he’s never been able to stop. He ran dozens of marathons, up until he was 60. He played high school baseball, was scouted by one or two MLB clubs, then played men’s “senior” baseball from his 30s into his 60s. Of course he checks his email. We connect and meet at an Italian place around the corner, then head to Citi Field.
The meal is delicious and delightful (vodka pie). He was in London the week before, so I’d asked him to bring me back anything relating to Manchester City. When we meet in front of the restaurant, he’s very proud to show me my “surprise.” And it is a surprise — a hat and jersey in the red of Man United. He didn’t realize he’d mixed them up. He feels terrible. I don’t. Laughing, I assure him the story of his mix-up makes the United shirt mean more to me than the City kit ever would’ve.
I tell him about the months of depression. The struggles the past few months. Years. The dreams I’ve let go. Tell him about my new plan, my new purpose. I’m going to save up for a year and move to NYC. It’s the only place I’m happy. The only place where I really ever feel alive. Where I ever really feel me.
On our way to the 7 train, we’re crossing an intersection. It is 80 degrees, the first sunny, nice day of the trip. We’re joking, happy. Everything feels right with the world. Then, without warning, for a moment, I think that I’m floating. It’s not the euphoria.
There’s a maybe two-foot deep hole in the middle of the intersection. New York bedrock being more solid than diamond, I wasn’t on the lookout for any two-foot deep holes. Suddenly I’m flying face-first toward the street. You know it’s bad when it’s 5:00 in Midtown and all the strangers around you stop and gasp as you tumble; these people wouldn’t stop to look if Abraham Lincoln passed by riding on top of Napoleon. My brain races right to chill mode. Get up. Now. Laugh it off. If you’re not bothered, it’s no big deal.
I start to stand, and am shocked to find I’m falling again. My legs are trembling. My father reaches out his hand to help me up, but before I can reach it I’m going down again. My hand lands on his knee, and for a second I let it stay there. More than a second.
I look up, now a middle-aged man myself. There is Papi. Older, grayer, thinner (far thinner than me, goddamnit). But it’s Papi. Lifting me up. Showing me love. Never there when I want him, but always there when I need him.
24 hours earlier, the Knicks clinched their first trip to the Finals since 1999. We did not watch the game together. We didn’t need to. Family is forever. Justice, while slow, is inevitable. And the Knicks will always be there for us.
The Knicks’ resiliency will be put to the test once again.
Everything has been coming up Knicks over the past few weeks, but they were dealt a pretty big blow on Thursday night, as it was revealed that Mitchell Robinson suffered a broken right pinky.
It’s still unknown exactly how/when the injury occurred, as Mike Brown said Friday afternoon that it didn’t happen during Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals or at practice.
Brown and Knicks PR simply said that they weren’t going to get into specifics.
Either way, Robinson was forced to undergo surgery earlier this week, but he is pushing hard to get back out there for Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
Whether Robinson is ready or not come Wednesday night's tip-off, the resilient Knicks are confident that they will be able to weather the storm.
“Whatever the picture ends up being, us having those trials and tribulations where things weren’t looking good, just like in December with the 2-9 11-game stretch, it shows we have resiliency,” Karl-Anthony Towns said.
“If this playoff run has shown anything, 1 through 15 can go out there put a Knicks jersey on and get the job done, and we truly believe that -- this is a situation that we’ve garnered enough experience and trust in each other that whatever the picture ends up being we feel confident.”
Brown said the team is preparing everybody in case they need to be called upon in Robinson’s absence.
The big man has been stepping up to play key minutes off the bench through the playoffs, providing a spark with his tenacious defense and rebounding prowess.
Robinson’s averaging 5.5 rebounds and 5.5 points across 13 postseason games.
New York certainly could use his downlow presence as the team looks to contain San Antonio star Victor Wembanyama or OKC’s front-court duo of Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein in the next round.
Jace Avina of the Somerset Patriots is present before a Minor League Baseball game at TD Bank Ballpark in Bridgewater, United States, on May 15, 2026. (Photo by Dan Squicciarini/NurPhoto via Getty Images) | NurPhoto via Getty Images
As much as some people seem to deny it, the Yankees’ player development has taken tremendous strides over the last several years and is generating value all throughout the 20 rounds that the team gets in each year’s MLB Draft.
Every year, there’s a new prospect that seemingly comes out of nowhere to shoot up the minor leagues or become interesting enough to become trade bait. We’ve seen Ben Rice rise from a 12th-round pick to a star, we’ve seen Cam Schlittler go from a seventh-rounder to a Cy Young candidate, and we’ve seen Will Warren progress nicely from his origins as an eighth-round pick out of Southeast Louisiana.
Even guys like Dillon Lewis, Dylan Jasso, and Brendan Jones, three position players who massively overperformed their draft positions, combined to make up a trade package that got the Yankees a high-upside arm in Ryan Weathers. Regardless of whether these players ever play in pinstripes, they can produce value.
So who could be the next player to join this crop of players? Here are five candidates from all around the diamond:
Jackson Lovich
It’s not every day that you see a shortstop with considerable game power, but that is what the Yankees have in Lovich, who they selected in the 16th round under 11 months ago out of Missouri. If you want to see who could move through the minor leagues in the fashion that Rice did a few years ago, Lovich is the best bet.
The 6-foot-3 right-handed hitter made his professional debut last August, where he excelled in six games with Single-A Tampa over the course of 10 days, going a blistering 14-for-22 with six extra-base hits, four walks, and three stolen bases. He started 2026 on the injured list, but made his season debut just a week later.
He’s gone through the ebbs and flows of a minor leaguer in his first full season, opening the season on fire before enduring a prolonged slump at the end of April. He’s wrapping up a stellar May that’s seeing him slash .362/.438/.797 through Thursday night, including a three-homer game last Wednesday.
Lovich leads the Florida State League with 11 home runs and is third with a 162 wRC+. He posts well above-average barrel and hard-hit rates, while also displaying great speed and athleticism, with 11 stolen bases while splitting time at third base and shortstop. It’s more likely he mans the hot corner as he climbs the minor league ladder, but the longer he keeps getting reps at short, the better.
Here's every Minor League shortstop to have multiple 113+ MPH barrels in their ENTIRE MiLB career.
There are multiple areas that the 22-year-old can still improve upon. His game power in all fields is extremely impressive, but he’s got the James Wood disease of being unable to harness his raw power into launching fly balls to the pull side. His Pull Air% is just 6.5 percent.
Another area he’s lagging behind is his overall contact rates, as he is striking out 29 percent of the time with mediocre chase and whiff rates. There’s some vulnerability against non-fastballs, and his Z-Contact% is Spencer Jones-level bad, but has steadily improved as the season has continued. He’s still young, so his ability to cover up the in-zone hole in his swing will be the difference between being a Jones-level hitter or a Rice-level hitter.
Wilberson De Pena
Good organizations can take toolsy prospects from the Dominican Republic and make them into something. Every team dangles young players currently playing in the Dominican Summer League in trade conversations due to how far away they are from a big league impact and the low hit rate, but good orgs can make you pay. Just look at what the Dodgers are doing to Christian Zazueta, whom the Yankees sent them for… Caleb Ferguson.
The other team from LA swung a recent trade with the Yankees, which saw things go the opposite way. Out went the perennially underwhelming Oswald Peraza to Anaheim in exchange for Wilberson De Pena, an 18-year-old who was going through the motions in the DSL in his second pro season. At least initially, there wasn’t much to talk about with him.
Now there is. He came stateside to the Florida Complex League and has spent the first three weeks of the season absolutely raking. In 18 games, he’s slashing .392/.451/.743 with an FCL-leading six home runs, 27 RBI, 13 extra-base hits, and 11 stolen bases. His 184 wRC+ is eighth in the FCL. He’s already topped his full-season totals from 2025 in several categories. He already has more stolen bases and home runs and has tied his XBH total in 40 less plate appearances.
FanGraphs ranked him the No. 15 prospect in the organization entering the season, but he was unranked on MLB Pipeline. The big concern that FanGraphs had was his contact ability, but he seems to be improving in that regard, slashing his strikeout rate to under 18 percent. He’s reaching his game power potential while using his speed tremendously more. He’s split time across all three outfield positions in 2026, but he’ll almost certainly settle into a corner down the road.
De Pena doesn’t seem long for the FCL, and we’ll get a chance to see more with Statcast data when he gets promoted to Tampa, but the signs are there for him to rise the rankings.
Jace Avina
We showed you the profile of a player with great raw power who wasn’t able to optimize it due to an inability to pull it in the air. Now, what if you had a player like that who’s the same age, playing two levels higher, and has an innate ability to drive the ball in the air to the pull side.
That, my friends, is Jace Avina. Originally a 14th-round pick out of Spanish Springs High School in rural Nevada by the Brewers, he was traded to the Yankees along with Brian Sanchez after the 2023 season for Jake Bauers. Avina spent a year and a half with High-A Hudson Valley, steadily improving before earning a promotion to Double-A Somerset in July 2025, where he endured growing pains.
Now, as he nears his 23rd birthday, he’s figuring out yet another level. He’s been one of the best players in MiLB in May, slashing .313/.411/.615 with seven home runs and 19 RBI after a so-so April. On the season, he’s got an .895 OPS and a 135 wRC+.
Jace Avina rips his 12th HR of the season to tie things up in Bowie!
Avina’s profile is pretty straightforward. He has tremendous pull-side power that he gets to quite easily. Since joining the Yankees’ organization, he’s pulled 54 percent of his batted balls and has never posted a ground ball rate north of 33 percent. He hits the ball in the air and pulls it, which doesn’t have quite the same impact as a right-handed hitter in this specific system, but is usually a successful formula for power bats.
Defensively, he’s considered to be decent enough in center field with a fair amount of athleticism, but being pushed to a corner is definitely possible in the future. So far this year, 20 of his 38 starts have came in center field.
The weaknesses are the same as guys like Jones and Lovich: his ability to consistently make contact. His strikeout rate has spiked from 24.4 percent in High-A last year to 31.6 percent this year. It doesn’t help that he’s also walking less. He’s also tremendously inconsistent, going from one of the best hitters in the system one month before ghosting the next.
Lovich and Avina are similar prospects in some ways, but completely different in others. Not only do they have completely different styles of displaying their raw power, but they also thrive on different pitches. Avina feasts on breaking balls, but struggles against fastballs. But still, with him just now turning 23 in early June in his fifth minor league season and a propensity to figure out a level in his second year there, he’s on a solid trajectory.
Tyler Boudreau
The Yankees certainly aren’t starved for high-end pitching prospects, but it doesn’t hurt to have more in your arsenal. You know the big names: guys like Ben Hess, Carlos Lagrange, Elmer Rodríguez, Bryce Cunningham, etc. Guys like Pico Kohn and Thatcher Hurd have more pedigree. Where’s the later round guy that could emerge as Warren and Schlittler did?
Let’s go way outside the box. Tyler Boudreau didn’t get drafted out of Texas Tech in the 2025 MLB Draft, but was scooped up by the Yanks shortly after as an undrafted free agent. He became a rare pitcher to toss pro innings in his draft year, striking out nine in five innings for Tampa in August of last year to set up his rotation spot this year.
Through eight starts, he’s pitching to a 2.94 ERA and 3.19 FIP in 33.2 innings with 42 strikeouts to just 12 walks. Posting a 22.2 K-BB% as a starter in Single-A is elite, and when you couple that with premier chase and whiff rates? That’ll play.
#Tarpons RHP Tyler Boudreau (W, 1–1) logged a scoreless 5.1 IP (4H, 1BB, 5K, 79P/56S), lowering his ERA to 2.94. In 4 May starts, owns a 1.83 ERA (4ER/19.2IP) w/ 22Ks and only 6BB. #Yankeespic.twitter.com/N9hmyibpfT
The Halifax, Canada, native is 23 in Single-A after spending four years in the Big 12, so the performance numbers themselves aren’t too impressive, but let’s look at the pitch data:
Tyler Boudreau, an UDFA, was my breakout pitching prospect for the Yankees this season, and he delivered in his first start!
The 23-year-old righty flexed his high-riding fastball in addition to his trio of secondaries to strike out 9 over 4.1 innings. Excited to see more of him pic.twitter.com/kupdYtCPCe
He leans heavily on a low-to-mid 90s fastball that has tremendous ride, frequently sitting with over 19 inches of induced vertical break (IVB). He couples it with a changeup that grades out pretty well, as well as a slider and curveball. At 6-foot-1, he’s not the stereotypical massive starter that the Yankees have thrived with of late, but figures to be able to fill out a bit more. With his age, we’ll know pretty soon how the Yankees feel about his long-term prospects.
Ben Grable
Lastly, let’s look for someone who can be a big-time relief prospect. The Yankees used their 2025 11th-round pick on a solid Big Ten reliever from Indiana in Ben Grable. Despite nothing jumping off the page in terms of his collegiate performance, the Yankees pushed the 24-year-old to High-A immediately, where he dominated with 17 strikeouts in 7.1 innings.
Ben Grable (RHP – 11th round 2025) tonight: 1.2 IP 0 ER 0 H 5 K 1 BB + 1 HBP
Ben was featured in Baseball America's statcast standouts article released after the draft under the Yankees' subsection. Ben made easy work of this Blue Rocks lineup with his fastball to both R/L… pic.twitter.com/RVndrJNxQp
That earned him a quick promotion to Somerset, where he’s endured some growing pains in immediate high-leverage roles. Still, the fact that an organization that has multiple elite High-A relievers at a similar age seemingly stuck has pushed a guy like Grable after less than eight innings shows the belief they have in him. So far in his 18 career innings, he has a 35.0 K-BB%.
Baseball America has already shot him up to No. 14 in the system, thanks to his electric mid-to-upper 90s fastball that has up to 21 IVB. His three-pitch mix also includes a slider and splitter, but he hasn’t seemed to trust either of them as much as his complete outlier of a four-seamer.
There were a grand total of ZERO MLB pitchers last year to average 95+ MPH and 20”+ IVB on their fastball.
The fact that his entire professional career has been contained in the two full-season levels without Statcast data makes it harder for more in-depth analysis, but it’s clear that he’s on the fast track to big league consideration. As of Friday, he is the only member of the 2025 draft class to be above A-ball, and he’s been aggressively promoted in a way that we haven’t seen from this organization with relievers. He’s absolutely someone to watch going forward if you’re looking for homegrown relief pitching.
OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA - MAY 18: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver looks on after the most valuable player trophy presentation before Game One of the NBA Western Conference Finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs at Paycom Center on May 18, 2026 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images) | Getty Images
The NBA officially passed its contentious lottery reform on Thursday afternoon in an attempt to address a purported tanking crisis. My initial concerns about the plan still stand, and the NBA added in a couple more bizarre elements for the final product.
It was originally reported that teams can’t pick in the top-5 three years in a row, or No. 1 overall in consecutive years, as part of the new lottery changes. This is seemingly meant to address the San Antonio Spurs moving up into the top-4 in three straight lotteries to draft Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, and Dylan Harper. That rule created a dilemma over picks that had already been traded. The league decided that it will not grandfather in traded picks, meaning teams who initially made those deals are now punished for them.
The one team this affects in the 2027 NBA Draft is the Memphis Grizzlies. The Grizzlies own the Utah Jazz’s unprotected first-round pick in 2027, but now it’s suddenly top-5 protected because the Jazz picked in the top-5 in 2025 and 2026, and thus can’t land a third consecutive top-5 pick in 2027 even if they’re not the ones making it. Somehow, that isn’t even the most bizarre amendment to the reform.
The NBA announced it is flipping the top-16 picks from the first-round in the second-round as part of the lottery reform. This means the team that picks No. 16 in the first-round automatically gets the first pick in the second-round. The team that holds the No. 1 overall pick in the draft won’t pick until No. 16 in the second. The team that drafts No. 2 overall in the first-round now has the 15th pick in the second-round, and so on.
This is an unprecedented move in American professional sports. Previously, the second-round of the NBA draft has been determined by overall record, meaning the Brooklyn Nets pick third in the second-round this year even though their first-round pick fell to No. 6 in the lottery, because they had the league’s third-worst record. Why would the NBA do this? John Hollinger of The Athletic talked to NBA executive vice president Evan Wasch to get an explanation:
Two pieces of logic drove this, according to Wasch. First was to “counterbalance to the luck of the draw in the first round” by at least giving the poor sap whose ping-pong ball was drawn last a better second-round pick.
Secondarily, however, the league wanted to guard against the scenario — one officials acknowledged was unlikely — whereby teams deep in the relegation zone started to tank to land the 31st pick.
My first question is: who asked for this? My second thought is that this is so strange and so creative that I can’t even really be mad about it. I’m mostly just amused.
I always thought a top-10 pick in the second round was pretty valuable. Some recent hits from that range include Jalen Brunson, Ajay Mitchell, Ayo Dosunmu, Herb Jones, Andrew Nembhard, and Neemias Queta. These days, the depth of the NBA Draft has been significantly thinned out by the NIL money flowing through college basketball, so the second round looks a lot weaker. The No. 31 overall pick (or the No. 33 overall pick once the Las Vegas and Seattle expansion teams join) is still a decently valuable asset, but it’s not really worth being upset over at this point.
The best news for NBA lottery reform haters like me is that it’s only a three-year commitment. Come the 2030 NBA Draft, we will possibly have another new lottery system. Three years is a really short trial run, but that’s what the NBA thought it needed to do to address the public relations black eye that came from tanking. It’s going to be fascinating to see how this all goes, including the suddenly flipped second-round.
NBA point guard Terry Rozier arriving at Brooklyn federal court in New York, where he faces charges connected with a sprawling illegal gambling indictment. (Yuki Iwamura / Associated Press)
Part of the rationale to legalize sports gambling was that professional athletes make so much money that they wouldn’t be tempted by bribes. It would be bonkers, the thinking went, to risk untold millions in career earnings by taking dirty dollars to throw games or manipulate statistical outputs.
Bonkers, meet Terry Rozier.
Federal prosecutors filed two new charges against the NBA point guard Thursday, alleging that he agreed to a $100,000 bribe as part of a gambling scheme that involved him intentionally removing himself early in a 2023 game so gamblers could win bets on him failing to reach his usual totals of points, assists and rebounds.
What might motivate Rozier to take part in such as scheme is perplexing. Consider this comparison:
Rozier, a 10-year veteran out of Louisville, has been paid $162 million playing for four NBA teams. He was under contract for $26 million for the 2025-2026 season. The $100,000 bribe prosecutors say he agreed to is the equivalent of $384 for someone making $100,000 a year.
The new indictment adds charges of bribery in sporting contests and honest services wire fraud conspiracy to the existing two wire fraud charges he has faced since October. Those charges followed a sprawling indictment of 34 defendants that also ensnared Hall of Fame player and Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and former Lakers assistant coach Damon Jones.
Rozier is not speaking to the media because of the ongoing criminal case, but his lawyer said that other defendants are lying about Rozier’s involvement to gain favor with prosecutors.
“There are some desperate men in this case with terrible criminal records and tons of exposure, and they know what to say to please these prosecutors,” said Jim Trusty, Rozier’s attorney.
In December, Trusty asked the federal judge overseeing the case, LaShann DeArcy Hall, to dismiss the initial charges against him, citing government overreach and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that narrowed the federal wire fraud statute. Hall heard oral arguments for the dismissal in April and has yet to issue a ruling.
“The new indictment confirms that our motion to dismiss was a good one — it’s just new charges and new theories trotted out in the hope that something sticks,” Trusty said.
The indictment alleges that Rozier — then a member of the Charlotte Hornets — informed co-defendant Deniro Laster that he would remove himself from a March 23, 2023, game against the New Orleans Pelicans because of a leg injury. Laster allegedly shared the information with several bettors, who bet $258,700 that Rozier would not reach his statistical averages.
Rozier was removed nine minutes into the game, finishing with five points, four rebounds and two assists. His rebounds total exceeded his average of 3.3 per game, causing some of the bets to lose. According to the indictment, Rozier agreed to reduce the alleged bribe to $70,000 to cover those losses.
As part of the proceedings Thursday, defendant Marves Fairley — described in the original indictment as representing himself on Instagram as a “gambling guru” — pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Fairley told the judge that he and associates obtained information from NBA players and coaches that could influence the outcomes of games and used it to place bets. He also said he placed fraudulent bets himself and on behalf of at least one professional player, who he did not identify.
“I agreed to pay a player to change their game performance to give me an advantage,” Fairley told the judge.
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Berman, however, named Rozier as the player. Fairley also admitted that he purchased information from Lakers assistant coach Damon Jones about the medical status of LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
Jones became the first of the 34 defendants to plead guilty, admitting in April that he urged a co-conspirator to “get a big bet on Milwaukee before the information is out!” ahead of a February 2023 game between the Lakers and Milwaukee Bucks in which James was a late scratch because of a foot injury.
Two unidentified sportsbooks were named as victims of the alleged conspiracy in the original indictment, and the superseding indictment names the NBA and the Hornets as additional victims.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 25: Tyler Stephenson #37 and Graham Ashcraft #23 of the Cincinnati Reds celebrate after the game against the New York Mets at Citi Field on May 25, 2026 in the Queens borough of New York City. (Photo by Ishika Samant/Getty Images) | Getty Images
The blows to the Cincinnati Reds bullpen keep right on coming.
On Friday, somewhat out of the blue, the Reds placed Graham Ashcraft on the injured list with what’s being called a “UCL sprain right forearm,” and they didn’t just place him on the 15-day IL, either. Ashcraft went straight to the 60-day IL, a move that’s both ominous and potentially an indication that we’ve seen the last of Graham for the 2026 season (and maybe longer).
The Reds announced the move on Friday afternoon, noting that they had selected the contract of Yunior Marte from AAA Louisville in a corresponding move.
Ashcraft was a key cog in the bullpen prior to the hamstring injury that landed Emilio Pagan on the 60-day IL himself, but had assumed a much higher importance in the wake of said injury. His last trio of outings had also been rock solid, and he was beginning to be looked upon as a legitimate closing option as the team attempts to manage Pagan’s absence.
Now, though, the Reds must figure out how to reconfigure their bullpen once again, while we all wait and see the severity of the injury. I’m not going to bring up the guy whose medical procedure has been named after him, but it’s hard not to go right to that with your mind the moment you hear that there’s damage to a UCL.
