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For Nationals fans accustomed to watching promising innings disappear on the basepaths, 2026 offered a welcome change. The Nats played aggressive baseball, but with better results. Stealing bases and taking the extra bag became meaningful strengths, giving them another way to generate offense.

The improvement also deserves to be counted among the successes of manager Blake Butera’s coaching staff, particularly first-base and baserunning coach Corey Ray.

The Nats finished with 178 stolen bases and 40 caught stealings, succeeding on 81.7% of their attempts. In 2025, the Nationals stole 132 bases and were caught 48 times, a 73.3% success rate. That means they added 46 steals while making eight fewer outs trying to steal. More attempts produced substantially better efficiency.

The comparison with 2024 is revealing, too. That team piled up 223 steals but was caught 73 times, converting 75.3% of its attempts. The Nats 2026 club finished with fewer steals, but its success rate was more than six percentage points higher. There is value in putting pressure on the defense. There is also value in keeping a runner available for the next hitter.

The progress extended beyond stealing. Baseball-Reference’s extra-base-taken percentage measures how frequently runners advance more than one base on a single or more than two on a double when opportunities arise. The Nats rate climbed from 40% in 2025 to 47% in 2026, exceeding its 45% mark from 2024 as well. Those advances can turn an ordinary single into a first-and-third situation or bring a runner home without requiring another hit.

Advanced metrics reinforce the picture. Baseball-Reference credited the Nationals with nine baserunning runs above average in 2026, with another six runs credited separately for avoiding double plays. These measures put a run value on contributions that batting average and home run totals miss. The Nats were creating advantages between contact and the next plate appearance.

FanGraphs’ BsR, which expresses baserunning value in runs above average, also shows how widely those contributions were distributed. CJ Abrams finished at +4.7, Dylan Crews at +3.6, Jacob Young at +3.5, Daylen Lile at +2.0, and James Wood at +1.6, as the Nationals finished first in baseball in total BsR at +15.7, all the way up from -0.6 in 2025.

That is where the coaching deserves attention. In February, Mark Zuckerman reported in Nats Journal that Ray was physically positioning himself near first base during drills, requiring runners to make tighter turns around the bag. Butera emphasized foot placement, efficient routes, and the difference even an unnecessary extra foot could make. The staff was teaching specific, repeatable details from the beginning of camp.

No statistic can assign an exact share of the improvement to Ray, Butera, or third-base coach Víctor Estévez. The players deserve the largest share of the credit for executing. Still, the connection between the staff’s documented emphasis and the season’s results is a reasonable one. Better baserunning was an explicit priority, and the Nats delivered it.

There were rough edges. The Nats recorded 59 non-steal outs on the bases, up from 47 in 2025, so this was hardly a mistake-free team. But the broader gains were substantial: more successful steals, fewer failed attempts, and more extra bases taken. For a young club trying to establish better habits, that represents tangible progress—and something worth carrying into 2027.

Dodgers left-hander Blake Snell, sitting next to soon-to-be free agent Tarik Skubal at their lockers in the aftermath of their team’s elimination from the National League Championship Series elimination, made a promise:

“I’ll be recruiting,” he interjected with a smile, as Skubal declined to comment on free agency, saying it was too soon to try to predict what the future would hold for him.

That would be Snell’s side project between rounds of video games — 2K specifically. (Skubal admittedly “sucks” at the game, but Snell says his teammate “has heart, though.” The rest can be taught.)

Read more:It wasn't just Brewers dominance. There's a simpler explanation for the Dodgers' demise

The Dodgers, after falling short of a three-peat, will look a little different next year. Skubal, whom they acquired at the trade deadline to boost their chances at a World Series title, is set to hit free agency. So are perennial postseason performer Kiké Hernández and high-leverage relievers Alex Vesia, Evan Phillips and Blake Treinen. On Thursday, clubhouse leader and 2025 World Series hero Miguel Rojas announced his retirement.

The expected lockout, and MLB’s insistence on a salary cap in their CBA proposals have also cast doubt on what the system will look like next year — whenever the season begins.

Not to mention, the stars in the Dodgers lineup, already the oldest in the majors (weighted by at-bats and games played), will be another year older.

Could this be the end of an era?

“I don’t feel that at all,” Skubal said. “It’s hard to win the World Series, and this group has done it the last two seasons. Obviously, not this year, but … I think that this group is incredibly talented. And the preparation and the work ethic that this group has — I don’t buy into that narrative.”

Said Snell: “We’re only getting better.”

Plenty of people outside of the Dodgers’ downcast clubhouse Thursday evening saw the Brewers’ four-game sweep of the defending back-to-back champions as the fall of a dynasty. But the players inside fervently disagreed.

Read more:Plaschke: The Dodgers had everything needed to three-peat. This is why they failed

“When you have Shohei Ohtani on your team, Yoshinbou Yamamoto, Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts and the years ahead of these guys, you can never think that it’s going to be the end,” Rojas said. “And I know this organization so well, they’re not going to be satisfied with this loss. I think they’re going to move forward and continue to improve the team in any capacity, and I believe that we’re going to be even better next year.”

Said Hernández: “I don’t know what’s going to happen with me personally, moving forward for next year. But this team is well-positioned to keep winning and keep competing deep into October. So not only is this locker room very talented, but there’s a lot of guys knocking on the door in the minor-league system that can be really impactful players. So the organization is in good hands.”

Rookie Josue De Paula showed down the stretch, and with his plate discipline even in high-octane moments in the postseason, just how impactful the young players in the Dodgers’ system could be. And there are more behind him.

This offseason, the Dodgers front office will try to strike a balance between continuity and fresh faces. For some of their impending free agents, who spoke highly of the organization, that meant uncertainty in the immediate aftermath.

“I love this place,” Hernández said. “I’ve played for three other teams, but every time I look at my career, I obviously go back to this place. I’ve been here the longest. I hope I get back. I feel like I have a lot left. … I would love to have one more try, trying to win another one. But I don’t really know what’s going to happen.”

Vesia, too, said he’d love to return.

Read more:Shaikin: Questions about Shohei Ohtani's health, a salary cap and Mark Walter loom for Dodgers

“From the coaching staff, to the front office, to the players that have taken me under their wing, have helped mold and shape me into who I am and how I carry myself, how I go about my business,” Vesia said of his six years in the organization. “And if it wasn’t for the people in the room in this room, I would not be where I’m at today. So, very thankful. This whole experience has been life-changing.”

Skubal is in a unique situation. In line to be the top free agent pitcher in this year’s class, he held his cards closer to the vest. But he gave a glowing review of his time with the Dodgers.

“It was an honor and a privilege to be here and compete with these guys, and to wear LA across your hat and across your chest,” he said. “It’s something that I took a lot of pride in. And, obviously, didn’t end the way that I wanted it to. But that’s life. That’s baseball. I had a ton of fun here, and I loved competing with these guys.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers did not have a save of at least three innings in 2026, their first full season without one since 2016. They also did not win or reach the World Series this year.

Coincidence? Yes, of course. Let’s not be daft.

But three-inning saves are still cool as hell, as I’ve explainedmany a time here and in audio form elsewhere.

We nearly saw a four-inning save at Dodger Stadium in the National League Division Series, when Braves right-hander Didier Fuentes retired 11 in a row before allowing a two-out home run in the ninth inning. That pulled the Dodgers to within a run, and Atlanta manager Walt Weiss went with his closer Raisel Iglesias for the final out.

The Braves won that night, but never again this season.

The back end of the Brewers bullpen — Trevor Megill, Aaron Ashby, and Abner Uribe — is one of Milwaukee’s great strengths, with that trio this postseason having allowed three runs (two earned) in 24 1/3 innings, with 23 strikeouts. Ashby has pitched in six of Milwaukee’s eight games, totaling 12 1/3 scoreless innings, with 11 strikeouts.

In the NLCS, Ashby pitched two scoreless frames in Game 1, then got a five-out save to close out Game 2. Even before Game 4, Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman extolled the virtues of the Brewers bullpen, and specifically mentioned the left-hander.

“Ashby — I don’t understand that. It’s 98 to 100 from up here and sinking and curving,” Freeman said. “They’ve just got a lot of weapons.”

In Game 4 on Thursday, Ashby allowed doubles in the seventh and eighth inning, each of which represented the potential tying run. But he stranded them both.

“I was just praying for a little peace in the chaos, because with this crowd and this team, things can happen fast,” Ashby told Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports on the field after the game. “I was just trying to be calm out there, that’s pretty much it.

Then Ashby got the ninth inning as well, his 31st relief appearance involving multiple innings this season, tied for most in the majors. He retired the Dodgers in order in the ninth, with Jackson Chourio making a nice running catch in left field to clinch the Brewers first pennant since 1982.

Ashby recorded just the fifth save of three innings or longer in a postseason clinching game since saves became an official statistic in 1969, and the first since Lance McCullers Jr. with a four-inning save for the 2017 Astros in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series.

Working backward retroactively, two other postseason clinchers before 1969 had long saves as well.

In 2025, there were 49 saves of at least three innings in MLB, 15 more than the previous season and the most in any year since 1999. In 2026, there were 50 saves of at least three innings. This is a new golden age of extended saves, but the Dodgers did not take part this year.

The Dodgers for much of the season didn’t really have a long man in the bullpen, like at times in recent years. Eric Lauer seemed destined for this role, but he kept sticking around in the rotation as various other starters were either injured or optioned.

Jonathan Hernández pitched in a lot of mop-up roles but mostly topped out at two innings. Plus after June, the Dodgers mostly stopped collecting blowout wins, which tends to pave the road toward a three-inning save.

Landon Knack has recorded one save in each of his three major league seasons to date, including an 11-out save on the final day of the regular season in 2025. He had the best shot on the Dodgers for a three-inning save in 2026, as he was warming in the bullpen on August 12 after Lauer pitched six innings at 107 pitches, eight more than his second-most this season.

But Lauer instead got one more batter to open the seventh inning, and struck out Josh Rojas. Then, Knack entered and got a save of 2 2/3 innings, protecting a 4-2 lead. It was the Dodgers’ first eight-out save since Brian Holton in 1987, so that was something, at least.

But it was no three-inning save. At least Dodger Stadium, in seeing its third consecutive National League pennant clinched on Thursday, got to go out with a very cool pitching outing to put a cap on 2026.

We’ll always have the six-inning save by Jackson Ferris on September 9 for Tripe-A Oklahoma City though to tide us over through the winter.

Every season has the good and the bad, and 2026 was no different. The worst thing obviously was missing the playoffs despite winning 86 games. Goes without saying. But why did this team miss the playoffs? We as fans of the Arizona Diamondbacks are no strangers to missing the playoffs and having a whole laundry list of items to stew over for the offseason. However, I wanted to limit this list just like in my previous article to just the top 5 things. In order to do this in the most fair and balanced way, I chose an analytical approach. I ranked the list of things that went wrong and tried to quantify each by WAR against preseason projections (Steamer and ZIPS average), or in other words what went wrong relative to expectations. So ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, here is stack ranked what went most wrong for the Dbacks in 2026:

1. The Projected Rotation Collapsed: 7.8 wins lost

This one is ugly. 4 of the 5 starters they planned around combined for about -0.6 WAR against 7.2 projected. This aspect of the team far and away takes the crown for the biggest thing that went wrong for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2026. Merrill Kelly had the worst underlying numbers of any regular starter in baseball with an xERA and a K-BB% that both ranked dead last amongst qualified starters. And he took the ball every 5th day for 162 IP so those innings did real damage to this team.

Zac Gallen went from having an elite 4 seamer in 2023 (98th percentile by run value) to 8th percentile in 2026 at the same velocity. Hitters simply stopped chasing as the league adjusted to Gallen in a big way and Gallen has simply failed to make an adjustment back. Because he signed the big contract in the offseason, he got waaaay to much leash this season pitching 105 innings of 6.07 ERA baseball. Ouch.

Corbin Burnes was sold to the fanbase since spring training as someone who was going to come back and provide this team a real shot in the arm. The actual results? He basically didn’t even pitch logging just 10.1 innings and looking like he was most certainly rushed back too fast.

As a team, the starters allowed the 3rd hardest contact in MLB (xwOBA .341) and ranked 28th in K-BB% despite throwing the 5th most innings. Put plainly, if it wasn’t for Eduardo Rodriguez and Michael Soroka (+3.5 WAR over projection combined) this season would’ve been an absolute disaster. And to add even more doom and gloom, ERod’s 2.89 ERA came with a 4.27xERA (41 st percentile) so the Dbacks need to really do something this offseason with Soroka becoming a free agent to drastically sure up this rotation.

2. Dead AB’s at 1B, LF, and DH for half the season: about 5 wins lost

Lourdes Gurriel Jr, Max Kepler, Pavin Smith, and Carlos Santana were combined -5.4 WAR against projection. Gurriel alone was -1 WAR and add Adrian Del Castillo to the mix and that group took 665 PA below a 60 wRC+. Ouch. This group drug the team down so much that the offense went from 19th in runs per game before the break to 4th after the break and about 85% of that rise came from changing who batted. This was a massive miscalculation by Hazen and co. in the offseason when they built this team. Several people such as our good friend Jack Sommers called out in the offseason that this team badly needed an impact left handed bat this offseason.

However Hazen shrugged those concerns off when asked about them before the season started and it really came back to hurt this team. To make matters worse, the coaching staff was still trying to coach this group as if they were the thumpers from seasons before having them sell out for pulled fly balls and the result? Production on pulled fly balls and line drives ranked 30th or dead last in the league. Put another way, Hazen and co. constructed a lineup full of guys who lacked the pure bat speed to make the pull fly ball approach work, and the coaching staff continued to coach to it despite disastrous results. Yuck.

3. Marte’s Lost second half and the ‘big 3’s’ step back: about 2 wins vs expectations (about 7 vs 2025)

The chart below says it all. At least where Carroll and Perdomo fell flat with the bat they were able to add value on the bases and the field, however Ketel Marte was the real miss here (-1.9 WAR vs expectations). Marte’s chase rate jumped from 25% to 32% before any injury. After the all star break his xwOBA fell from .364 to .307 and his hard hit rate went from 45% to 36%. And that was aside from all of the extra negative attention he brought this team after the break which if I was in charge I’d add another -1 WAR for that alone! Carroll was close to his projection, although his swing got longer and loftier as the season went on and the pitchers just attacked it with more fastballs. His whiffs per swing on fastballs rose 3 straight years to 25.5% in 2026. He did begin to adjust in the second half as the fastball whiffs dropped down to 21.9% but his results simply didn’t follow. There is something to be optimistic about there at least.

4. Injuries Especially to the Arms

Now, I know what people will say, every team has injuries. And that is certainly true. The Dbacks actually had some good injury luck in 2026 relatively. However I have stuck to the plan this long taking an analytical approach and so I need to stay with it. If we look at the injuries from the standpoint of total IL days, the Dbacks actually ranked 6th most in MLB with 2,107 IL days. MLB median was about 1,660. Here is the list:

Not really that much to say here except for another year it seems like this team’s replacement depth got tested with guys like Mitch Bratt and Jose Cabrera pitching meaningful innings. Hazen and co need to anticipate these injuries rather than point to them as an excuse and build more depth into the organization so that when they happen, its more of a minor drop in production not production falling off a cliff. Expect injuries.

5. The Left Handed Core Stopped Hitting RHP and they Didn’t Acquire a Bat TWICE

You guys lnew this was coming. And it partly underlies #2 on this list. However, it was so bad, it definitely deserves its own spot. The overall read: This team went from being one of the best hitting teams against right handed pitching in the league to being one of the worst and finishing about 4 wins below average against righties. This matters so much because righties pitched against the Dbacks in 73% of their plate appearances. Against lefties, they were 2nd in MLB at +44 runs. The root cause of their offensive struggles is pretty simple.

What’s strange however is that the ‘big 3’ all bat left handed against righties and usually perform pretty well. The collapse of the ‘big 3’ against RHP is something that I don’t think anyone really saw coming in all fairness. So what happened to them? Here is the frustrating part: mostly bad luck. As a group, the lefties had a wOBA of .300 against an expected of .313. Marte and Carroll account for much of this bad luck however which is good news for 2027.

In addition to the core not producing against RHP, Hazen also whiffed on acquiring a left handed impact bat not once but twice. Before the season it felt more like hubris, at the trade deadline it came down to just more bad luck with multiple reported deals falling apart at the last minute due to medicals. Unfortunately it just seemed like destiny that this team was going to struggle against righties in 2026. Fortunately it appears as to most of that being due to bad luck so although this team definitely needs to acquire an impact left handed bat this offseason, they already have 3 who seemed to just get really unlucky all at once.

And so with that, let’s end this terrible exercise of doom and gloom with that little bit of optimism towards 2027!

Last night the Brewers swept the Dodgers in Los Angeles. It was the perfect answer to the Brewers’ 2025 playoff exit, when they were swept by the Dodgers. This year, everything came up Brewers. It didn’t matter that likely Cy Young Award winner Jacob Misiorowski only went 4.1 innings in his start, because Aaron Ashby threw 6.2 scoreless innings of high leverage relief across three games. Even when they were down four runs in Game 4, you could almost feel that they were going to come back. Of course NLCS MVP Jake Bauers got the comeback started [VIDEO].

But there’s another battle looming in baseball, one with even higher stakes than which teams will play in the 2026 World Series: this year’s renegotiation of baseball’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. The terms of that fight have been coming into focus for over a year now, with MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and company laying the groundwork to make their case for a salary cap with fan focus groups, citing survey results showing fans want a cap, trips around the league to try and break union solidarity and a relentless barrage of content on the disparities between the big and small market teams.

The Dodgers All-Star team that costs $339 million in 2026 (with more than a billion dollars in contract deferrals) being summarily swept out of the playoffs by MLB’s smallest market Milwaukee Brewers was clearly not part of the plan.

Meanwhile, the American League Championship Series is a battle royale between the team with the smallest payroll in MLB, the Guardians, and the team with the 28th smallest payroll in the league, the Rays. That’s right, one of the analytics darlings who don’t spend enough and are supposedly hamstrung by the massive salary differences in the league that make competitive balance impossible is guaranteed to win the 2026 World Series. It undermines the very core of the argument MLB and billionaire owners have been making for more than a year.

The question is, does it matter?

It certainly weakens the fan rationale for a salary cap. Manfred has been front and center for the better part of a year building his case for a cap around fans in Cleveland, Tampa Bay, and Milwaukee who deserve a shot at a championship. Those poor fans in Milwaukee who might have seen their team extend the Freddy Peraltas of the world rather than trade them if only baseball’s economic system mirrored the other big sports in America. Take for example, Manfred’s remarks during a media availability at the All Star Game:

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred says the gap between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the lowest-spending clubs in baseball is the reason he’s pushing for a salary cap.

“The gap is $441 million,” Manfred said, per ESPN’s Jesse Rogers. “It defies human experience to ask a fan to think that the bottom end of that gap has the same opportunity to win as the top end.”

Manfred added, per USA Today’s Bob Nightengale: “I have an ownership group that is more united than any group in my entire time in baseball.”

However, the degree to which fan sentiment has always just been a useful canard for billionaires who are really looking for labor cost certainty in their investment cannot be overstated. Evan Drellich made this point emphatically when he reported on the real motivations behind the league’s salary cap push in May for The Athletic:

Why, at a time when MLB has otherwise built positive momentum, would the league pursue such an acrimonious change, and risk alienating fans with a work stoppage? Many issues are at play, but none supersede the long game owners are playing. Their mission is to maximize the worth of their teams.

Baseball has always been a business, yes — but not like this. Private equity has flowed into the sport for the better part of a decade, and someday, those investors will want a return. And even though every team continues to grow in value, many owners believe that their clubs should command still-higher prices.

The average baseball team is worth $2.9 billion, more than double MLB’s $1.3 billion average from a decade ago, per Forbes’ annual estimates. But some franchises are appreciating at a much slower rate than others. When they put their teams up for sale in recent years, the owners of the Los Angeles Angels, Washington Nationals and Minnesota Twins were disappointed by the bids that came in.

Admittedly, that piece of reporting predates Angels owner Arte Moreno selling LA’s second most valuable MLB franchise for $4 billion. It’s quite the return on a $182.5 million purchase in 2003. If only all of our retirement accounts could produce a profit of 22 times the original investment. To be clear, Moreno was one of the four holdouts who voted against ratifying the 2022 CBA, citing, amongst other things, concerns about the luxury tax levels:

Four Major League Baseball owners — Bob Castellini of the Reds, Chris Ilitch of the Tigers, Ken Kendrick of the Diamondbacks and Arte Moreno of the Angels — objected to raising the competitive balance tax to the levels the league ultimately proposed most recently, three people briefed on an owner-wide call held this week told The Athletic. MLB moved forward with the proposal anyway, moving its offer on the first threshold to $220 million — up $10 million from where it was in 2021, and $6 million from its previous offer, but still far below the players’ ask of $238 million.

The luxury tax’s rate of growth has not kept pace with the overall revenues growth in the sport, making it one of the main concerns for the players.

The resistance of the four owners reveals at least some of the hard-liners who are likely influencing perhaps the single-most contentious issue in negotiations that have already cost the sport games. One person briefed on the call noted that White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, a hawk in the 1994-95 dispute, was not among those to stand in the way. Not all small-market owners — owners who theoretically would be most disadvantaged by an increase in the luxury tax, which curtails high-end spending — were opposed to the raise, either. Rather, at least some of the four owners took stances based on their personal feelings toward costs and baseball’s economic system, sources said.

Apparently, an original investment appreciating from $182.5 million to $4 billion in 23 years just isn’t enough for the wealthiest people among us. They want more, they always want more. You don’t become a billionaire who owns one of only 30 MLB franchises without demanding even more for yourself, your investments and your interests.

And frankly, with that type of money, billionaires have a tendency to build their own reality. Which gets to the core of the real reason it probably doesn’t matter that the last three teams standing eviscerates the case MLB and the owners have made for the better part of a year for a salary cap. They’ll just abandon that specious argument and pivot to some other justification for a salary cap. Afterall, it’s all about maximizing profits for their investors at the end of the day.

Meanwhile, the Brewers might have to face their former ace Freddy Peralta if Tampa Bay beats Cleveland. It’s quite the turn of events after the team with the highest payroll in baseball, the New York Mets, couldn’t win enough to justify holding onto the flamethrower at the trade deadline. Yet another player who keeps thriving in smaller markets with robust analytics departments staffed by humans, jobs that apparently aren’t quite ready to be turned over to yet another billionaire dream of reducing labor costs, AI.

Amidst all of the gamesmanship around the future of the sport, I can’t help but return to this year’s NLCS MVP, Jake Bauers. While the titans of industry argue about who should reap the riches of America’s multi-billion national pastime that saw franchise valuations rise more than 50 percent to $87 billion from 2021 to 2026, his heroics at the plate weren’t the only reason Bauers was front and center throughout the Brewers v. Dodgers series. MLB on Fox just couldn’t resist the sharing the anecdote that Bauers thought about retiring, but then his wife got pregnant, and, well, like a lot of us, he needed his job to make sure he had healthcare:

A small market World Series is probably not going to save us from an offseason of billionaires risking chopping off the head of their golden gooses in the interest of making even more money. But seeing our own financial precarity, and the types of decisions we all make about jobs and healthcare, in the face of the NLCS MVP might be enough to move more fans into the Major League Baseball Player’s Association side of this fight. Who among us hasn’t stayed at a job longer than we probably should have to make sure we have healthcare?