Worldwide Sports News

Heading into this season, the Braves were anticipating that Spencer Schwellenbach would be healthy and ready to go after he had his 2025 season cut short due to a fractured elbow. Unfortunately, here on the first day of pitchers and catchers being at spring training, it’s become clear that Schwellenbach’s elbow is still bothering him.

Braves beat writer Mark Bowman of MLB.com is reporting that Spencer Schwellenbach is experiencing elbow inflammation in his throwing arm and as such, he’ll be starting the year on the 60-Day IL.

The only good news about this is that because we’re so early on in things, if all goes well then he could start ramping up to return starting in April since recovery from having bone spurs removed via surgery is usually 10-12 weeks. Still, you never want to see pitchers miss this much time early on since they’ll be behind the proverbial 8-ball once the regular season rolls around and Schwellenbach starting the season on the 60-Day IL means we’re not going to see him pitch for a couple of months as a result — smooth recovery or not. You also definitely don’t want to see elbow issues of this magnitude coming from a young pitcher of Schwellenbach’s caliber — especially considering that elbow issues are what ended up costing him the majority of his 2025 campaign.

The only thing the Braves can do now is just hope that the inflammation is being caused by the bone spurs, since that’d be pretty straight-forward in terms of treatment and recovery. If anything gets more complicated then that’ll certainly be concerning and then he could very well miss a ton of time once the regular season rolls around. We’ve just got to hope for the best when it comes to this and have also got to hope that between this and Ha-Seong Kim’s stroke of bad luck that the Braves are getting their bad injury luck out of the way early on. Atlanta has some pretty high expectations for this upcoming season and just about the only way that this could be derailed is if they end up going through another injury-plagued season.

The good news is that Atlanta’s offseason dealings have insured that they will at least have a lot better depth than they did during the 2025 season but it’s certainly kind of lame to see that depth being put to the test right from the jump.

Also in other news, Bowman is also reporting that Robert Suarez will be late reporting to camp because he’s dealing with visa issues. Fortunately, that’s not an injury but it’s still just another frustrating thing for the Braves to deal with this early on in the campaign.

The return of Texas Ranger pitcher Cody Bradford from internal brace surgery has been both eagerly awaited and a topic of much discussion among Rangers fans over the winter. Jeff Wilson talked to Bradford this morning in Surprise, and we have good news in regards to an update.

Per Wilson, Bradford is throwing his seventh bullpen session today, and after the first six featured all fastballs, Bradford will be looking to throw “8-10” changeups today. Bradford also said he is “[s]till aiming for a May return.”

This is one of those situations where no news — or at least, no change in the news — is good news. May has been what has been suggested as a target date for Bradford’s return for some time, and the fact that he is still on track to do that is a positive. And while I will note that a “May return” is kind of vague and could be interpreted different ways — does that mean a return to the big leagues in May, for example, or a return to pitching in competitive games in May, which would mean starting a rehab assignment then — Bradford has previously indicated that he was hopeful to be close to being ready to go out on a rehab assignment soon after the season starts, which would seem to mean that May is when he would potentially be ready to return to the big club.

Bradford followed up an up-and-down rookie season in 2023 with a 2024 campaign that saw him perform well when he was healthy enough to be on the mound. Bradford put up a 3.54 ERA and 3.44 xERA for Texas in 2024, making 13 starts and a relief appearance and throwing 76 innings. It was hoped that Bradford would be able to step up and claim a rotation spot in 2025, establishing himself as a member of the rotation, before his elbow issues ended up costing him the season.

The Rangers currently have a front four in the rotation you have to feel good about, with Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, MacKenzie Gore and Jack Leiter. Kumar Rocker and Jacob Latz appear to be the favorites to claim the fifth spot in the rotation to start the season, with Jose Corniell also a possibility to contribute to the rotation at some point in 2026, and non-roster invitees Cal Quantrill, Pat Murphy and Austin Gomber in camp.

If Bradford can return on schedule and perform like he did in 2024, the Rangers would have a very solid 1 through 5 on paper, and allow them the luxury of using Latz in the bullpen as a swingman, having Rocker in AAA as depth along with any veterans who don’t opt out, and allowing Corniell, along with the likes of David Davalillo and Winston Santos, to get regular starts in the minors.

The phrase "Game 7" is often labeled as the best two words in sports. And last season for the Dodgers, it's hard to argue otherwise.

Los Angeles trailed the Toronto Blue Jays 4-2 entering the eighth inning, before going on a magical run filled with home runs, great defensive plays and the pitching performance of a lifetime to win 5-4 in extra innings and win the team's second consecutive World Series.

Now, the Dodgers are sharing relics of that historic comeback with fans. The team announced Monday this upcoming 2026 season would feature a Game 7 Bobblehead Series. There will be four different bobbleheads in the series, each depicting one of the game-changing plays in the team's Game 7 comeback.

The first will come on Saturday, March 28 vs the Arizona Diamondbacks, the team's third game of the season and first weekend game. It will be Will Smith bobblehead night. Smith hit the go-ahead home run in 11th inning of Game 7.

The second bobblehead in the series features Miguel Rojas, who became the first player in MLB history to hit a game-tying home run in the 9th inning or later of a World Series Game 7. This bobblehead will be featured on Friday, May 8 vs the Atlanta Braves.

The third bobblehead, and perhaps the most important of the three, is the Yoshinobu Yamamoto "Game 7 Last Out" Bobblehead on Wednesday, May 27 vs the Colorado Rockies. Yamamoto provided a Herculean effort in Game 7, pitching 2.2 innings of shutout baseball on zero days rest, having just dominated Game 6. It put an exclamation point on what was already one of the most dominant World Series runs by any pitcher in history.

The final bobblehead in the series comes on Friday, June 19 vs the Baltimore Orioles, showcasing the final out of the game. Mookie Betts, who spent a decade as a perennial Gold Glove outfielder, shifted to play shortstop for the Dodgers due to team injuries and has now made the position home.

He made the final play of the World Series, producing an unassisted 6-3 double play to end the game and the series.

While these four bobbleheads certainly make up quite the showcase, the Dodgers have a staggering 24 bobblehead nights this season, despite leading the league every year in attendance since 2013.

Individual game tickets go on sale to the public on Thursday, February 12 at 1 PM ET.

_Matt Liberman is a reporter and video producer for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture. _

Football is over, the weather in Kansas City is spring-like, and today we can say one of the sweetest sentences you can hear in February. No, it’s not “Happy Valentine’s Day,” it’s “pitchers and catchers report today.”

Pitchers and catchers will have their first workout tomorrow, while the rest of the squad will have their first full workout on Monday, February 16. The Royals will have a little over six weeks to prepare for the season opener on March 27 in Atlanta against the Braves. In the meantime, here is what you need to know about the boys in blue in Arizona.

Where do the Royals spend spring training?

The Royals’ spring training facility is in Surprise, Arizona, just outside of Phoenix. They share a facility with the Texas Rangers and play games at Surprise Stadium, which seats 10,500 fans. For more information on the stadium or to order tickets, click here.

Fifteen teams train in Arizona, which has a drier climate and allows for closer proximity to other teams than spring training in Florida.

What is the spring training schedule?

The Royals will play 32 exhibition matchups to prepare for the regular season, beginning on February 20 against the Rangers. In addition to playing other MLB teams training in Arizona, the Royals will take on Team Cuba on March 3, as that team prepares for the World Baseball Classic. MLB will also once again hold Spring Breakout games, where prospects for each team get the spotlight. Royals prospects will take on Rangers prospects on March 20. The team then breaks camp and heads to Arlington, Texas for two exhibition games on March 23 and 24 before they begin the regular season in Atlanta.

What about the World Baseball Classic?

Many players will not be part of camp as they participate in the 2026 World Baseball Classic. Pool play takes place March 5-11 in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Tokyo, Japan; Houston, Texas; and Miami, Florida, with the championship game to be played March 17 in Miami, Florida. You can watch games on FOX, FS1, and FS2. Among the Royals participating are:

• Bobby Witt Jr. and Michael Wacha (USA)
• Seth Lugo (Puerto Rico)
• Salvador Perez and Maikel Garcia (Venezuela)
• Carlos Estévez (Dominican Republic)
• Vinnie Pasquantino and Jac Caglianone (Italy)

How can I follow Royals spring training games?

The Royals have ended their relationship with FanDuel Sports Network to create Royals.TV. They anticipate some spring training games to be televised, but have not yet announced which games will air. Royals.TV will be available on many cable and satellite providers, and is available as a direct-to-consumer streaming option at $19.99 per month or $99.99 for in-market viewers, or $149.99 for out-of-market viewers. Ryan Lefebvre, Rex Hudler, and Jeremy Guthrie return for television broadcasts, with Joel Goldberg and Jeff Montgomery on pre- and post-game coverage.

The Royals will also likely air many spring training games on the Royals Radio network, but those games have not yet been announced. You can also, of course, discuss Royals spring training games in Royals Review gamethreads!

Who is in camp?

The Royals will have 67 players in big league camp – their 40-man roster plus 27 non-roster invitees. The list of non-roster invitees includes former first-round picks Blake Mitchell, Gavin Cross, and Frank Mozzicato, as well as MLB veterans like Jorge Alfaro, Luke Maile, Abraham Toro, Aaron Sanchez, and Héctor Neris.

*-denotes non-roster invitee

Catchers (10): Jorge Alfaro*, Canyon Brown*, Omar Hernandez*, Carter Jensen, Luke Maile*, Elih Marrero*, Blake Mitchell*, Salvador Pérez, Ramon Ramirez*, Luca Tresh*

Infielders (13): Brandon Drury*, Maikel Garcia, Jonathan India, Connor Kaiser*, Michael Massey, Kevin Newman*, Vinnie Pasquantino, Josh Rojas*, Tyler Tolbert, Abraham Toro*, Daniel Vazquez*, Peyton Wilson*, Bobby Witt Jr.

Outfielders (11): Dairon Blanco, Jac Caglianone, Gavin Cross*, Isaac Collins, Kyle Isbel, Nick Loftin, Kameron Misner, John Rave, Carson Roccaforte*, Lane Thomas, Drew Waters

Pitchers (33): Luinder Avila, Ryan Bergert, Mason Black, Kris Bubic, Noah Cameron, A.J. Causey*, Eric Cerantola, Dennis Colleran*, Steven Cruz, Jose Cuas*, Lucas Erceg, Carlos Estévez, Bailey Falter, Stephen Kolek, Ben Kudrna, Alex Lange, Seth Lugo, Daniel Lynch IV, Alec Marsh, Chazz Martinez*, James McArthur, Nick Mears, Frank Mozzicato*, Héctor Neris*, Helcris Olivárez*, Shane Panzini*, Hunter Patteson*, Cole Ragans, Aaron Sanchez*, John Schreiber, Matt Strahm, Michael Wacha, Steven Zobac

What are some spring training storylines?

There are really three big storylines going into camp. First, are Jac Caglianone and Carter Jensen ready for the big leagues? The Royals need to upgrade their offense and lengthen the lineup, and both hitters show tremendous potential. Jensen excelled in a month-long call-up last year, while Caglianone struggled. The Royals have said Caglianone will have to earn a spot in the lineup, so his spring performance could be important.

Second, is the Royals pitching staff healthy? Cole Ragans and Kris Bubic each missed the second half of the season with injury, hurting a strength for the team. Seth Lugo really struggled the final two months and will look to enter this season refreshed and looking to return to his 2024 form. The Royals have built depth in their rotation – enough that they looked to trade some of it for a bat – but they’ll need their frontline pitchers to stay healthy to have a chance to compete.

Finally, is the team done upgrading? J.J. Picollo cited the offense as a concern last year, and did add some improvements by acquiring Isaac Collins from the Brewers and signing free agent Lane Thomas. But he has not acquired the impact bat that can move the needle, and opportunities have dwindled as an already-thin free agent market has been depleted. There is still time to make a trade, but time is running out and the Royals may begin the season with the team at hand.

Are you headed to spring training? Any tips for someone checking out some Arizona baseball?

Heading into the 2026 season, the New York Yankees have some kinks to work out and some roles to be filled by those who are able to step up to the plate (for lack of a better phrase) and take advantage. The pitching staff is dealing with injuries—primarily to the starters—and the bullpen lost a couple of weapons who, despite both having down years in their careers, did eat up innings for them last season.

There are plenty of arguments to go around about which pitchers in the bullpen should take which spots. The Yankees brought back some familiar faces and acquired hurlers on multi-year contracts at last year’s trade deadline to help themselves out, but there are a few new faces in the clubhouse as well, including Angel Chivilli, who was acquired on January 28th from the Colorado Rockies.

2025 Stats (with Rockies): 43 GP, 58.2 IP, 7.06 ERA, 6.03 FIP, 1.68 WHIP, 6.60 K/9, 3.53 BB/9, 1.99 HR/9, -0.7 fWAR

2026 ZiPS Projections: 30 GP, 30.0 IP, 4.49 ERA, 4.48 FIP, 1.37 WHIP, 8.13 K/9, 3.33 BB/9, 1.30 HR/9, 0.0 fWAR

An offseason critique of the decision-making from this Yankees’ front office is that they didn’t bring in any names to bolster the bullpen. Instead, they brought in a handful of reclamation projects that need lots of coaching before they’re able to trim their ERAs down to a respectable level. Chivilli, while a young pitcher with some promise, is one of the projects for pitching coach Matt Blake and his staff.

At just 23 years old heading into this season, Chivilli has some traits that could be highly useful and, more importantly, refinable for his second full season at the major league level (as my colleague Josh cited in his feature on the Chivilli trade). Between 2024 and 2025, his average fastball velocity jumped from 96.2 to 97.1 mph. In fact, his fastball sat in the 88th percentile among all major league pitchers after the 2025 season, according to Baseball Savant.

Chivilli also throws a changeup and a slider, which have proven to be decent secondary and tertiary pitches, as he tosses his slider at almost 91 mph on average and a whiff rate of over 45 percent, while his changeup comes in with a .225 batting average against and a 42.6-percent whiff rate.

However, his fastball and slider were hit a lot last season. Opposing batters hit .366 against the fastball and .302 against the slider, but the difference between the pitches comes in what batters were expected to do against them. The fastball—while an impressive velocity—wasn’t as lethal as it could have been, coming in with an expected batting average of .338 with very spotty command. On the other hand, the slider finished with an expected batting average of .202.

All those numbers are a bit concerning, considering everything at stake here for the Yankees. If they are unable to work through Chivilli’s troubles with his two main pitches, then that’s another option in the bullpen down the drain, and it makes the workload much harder for everyone who is already being relied upon to produce outs. However, there is reason to believe that the fastball can be figured out. For such a young pitcher to have that velocity relative to his peers is exciting, and getting him out of the Colorado altitude—and the taxing travel that comes with flying back and forth from Denver—should immediately give him at least a minor boost anyway. It’ll be the job for Blake and the Yankees to figure out why he’s been hit so hard and how to address it. It would be a project worth pursuing regardless; the pressure will just be higher given the bullpen’s other needs.

If Chivilli is going to work out with the Yankees, there needs to be some serious work on his ability to control the ball and find a strikeout touch (or even just a “get outs” touch). Clearly, Chivilli has the kind of arm that should be able to get outs at the highest level. He has a chance to be another helpful reclamation project out of the bullpen, following the likes of Tim Hill, Fernando Cruz, Ian Hamilton, and Lucas Luetge. Whether the Yankees are able to hit on someone like Chivilli and find a diamond in the rough could go a long way toward determining the bullpen’s fate in 2026.

See more of the Yankees Previews series here.

Do y’all remember the time when Baseball Prospectus would drop their annual PECOTA projections and there would be gnashing of teeth and rending of garments on the Braves Country corner of the internet? That was because for years, if there was any team that represented the whole “PECOTA hates your team” belief, it was the Braves because they’d routinely come in somewhat underrated compared to how the fanbase or even other projection models felt about the team.

Well, those days appear to be over because PECOTA has actually been quite fond of the Braves in recent seasons. Baseball Prospectus has just released their annual PECOTA projections for the 2026 season (and I highly recommend that y’all go over there and subscribe so you can get even more high-quality baseball analysis and data concerning these projections) and just like FanGraphs, PECOTA figures that the Braves are going to bounce back in 2026.

As of right now, PECOTA has the Braves winning 92 games and losing 70 — it’s actually 69.8 but I’m rounding up, as usual. They’re currently projected to win the division with a 57 percent shot at doing that and they’ve also been given a 34 percent shot at making the Wild Card, which has sent them up to a 90 percent shot of making the Postseason. Additionally, PECOTA is giving the Braves a 72 percent shot at making the Divisional Round and a nine percent chance at winning the World Series altogether. That’s once again good for the second-best odds in the National League and they only trail the Dodgers. If PECOTA could actually be infatuated with a team then I’d imagine that it would be singing the words to OutKast’s “Prototype” to the Los Angeles roster.

Here’s a look at one of the graphs that comes associated with the standings, which shows the simulated win percentage for each team in the NL East. I like this because I’m definitely a visual learner and also it gives you a better idea of how the divisional race is projected to shake out.

Once again, it’s looking like this’ll be a three-way dance between the Braves, Mets and Phillies for the NL East crown. PECOTA is actually pretty low on the Phillies but then again, they were also low on them heading into last season and look how that turned out. The point is that once again, we’re not going to know how any of this shakes out until the games actually get played but for now and that there’s always a chance that this could look very different once October rolls around.

With that being said, I think everybody here on the Braves corner of the internet is hoping that these projections actually stick for once. The Braves have had some rosy projections for a couple of seasons now and none of it really came to pass. Here’s hoping that this season actually does go how the projection models figure it will (well, outside of the Dodgers sauntering to another World Series crown) and that the Braves are once again mixing it up with baseball’s elite clubs.

We’re not too far removed from this team spending two-and-a-half years across 2021 through 2021 as one of the most dominant teams in the regular season and hopefully these projections from both PECOTA and FanGraphs signal a return to that level of form for the Braves.

After spending all winter long scouring the free agent market for a veteran addition to their starting rotation, the A’s finally landed one just in time for Pitchers and Catchers reporting, agreeing to terms with right-hander Aaron Civale on a one-year deal for the 2026 campaign.

One of the items on the team’s offseason wishlist was adding a veteran starter to stabilize a rotation short on certainty. Civale fits that bill to a T and it’ll only cost $6 million to secure his services (plus incentives). That’s a great deal for a pitcher like Civale at this stage of the offseason and fits perfectly with the Athletics’ needs.

The 30-year-old Civale began his career in Cleveland and spent the first four and a half years of his career with the Guardians. At times the right-hander flashed potential but he was never quite able to find much consistency, though he was a reliable member of their starting staff for years.

Civale found his way to Tampa in a mid-season trade in 2023 but struggled in the second half of that year as well as the first half the following season, eventually finding himself on the move again mid-season to Milwaukee, where he stepped his game up over the final couple months of the 2024 campaign.

The right-hander began this most recent season in the Brewers’ starting rotation but was bumped to the bullpen when Milwaukee promoted top pitching prospect Jacob Misiorowski. That didn’t sit well with the 7-year veteran who subsequently requested a trade to a team that would use him as a starter. He got his wish with another trade, this time going to the Chicago White Sox and making 13 starts for the South Siders. The results weren’t great and he’d find himself on the move one more time before the season was out, getting claimed by the other Chicago squad and pitching five games in relief for the Cubbies, his first five relief appearances in his entire career. Overall on his big league resume Civale has a 4.14 EEA in 140 games as a big league pitcher.

Civale should immediately slide into the starting rotation behind fellow veterans Jeffrey Springs and Luis Severino. The A’s had lots of interesting young arms on the verge of being able to contribute but the team needed more certainty, and to replace the lost innings by the departures of JP Sears and Osvaldo Bido. Civale should be a workhorse for the A’s during the first half of the season and as always with these types of deals if Civale is pitching well come the trade deadline he could be used as trade bait to acquire more prospects to improve the farm system even further/opening a rotation spot for a younger pitcher.

Now there are only two spots in the starting rotation left to be fought over. One would have to think left-hander Jacob Lopez has a leg up on one of those spots but he dealt with an injury at the end of last year so the A’s might take things easy with him to start. Arms like Luis Morales, JT Ginn, Gunnar Hoglund, and Jack Perkins now face an uphill battle to break camp with the club as a starting pitcher (though the bullpen may await one or two of those arms as well).

Welcome aboard Aaron! You’re joining a team certainly on the rise with outside hopes of contending. You’ll like the crew we have here.

Pitchers and catchers report to Dunedin tomorrow, so I wanted to ask who you’re most interested in watching this spring?

All eyes are going to be on Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce, as the big offseason signings. We know that Cease will look great, it’s just a matter of seeing whether his stuff translates into results this season. Ponce will be interesting, we’ll get to find out how his improved stuff translates back to North America after his time in Japan and Korea

We’ll also have last year’s guys to scrutinize. Will Jeff Hoffman bounce back? Can Jose Berrios regain his form?

Prospect hipster that I am, though, I might be most intrigued by Spencer Miles. The Rule 5 pick touches 98 with what’s reported to be a nice slider and even some command. He’s managed just 23 innings in three and a half seasons since being drafted, but then he’s punched out 34 in that time. He’s a long shot to stick with the team, but if he does there’s some fun upside.

Whose shaky iPhone workout videos will you be poring over this week as we desperately pretend that baseball is here?