This morning, uber-prospect Kevin McGonigle and the Detroit tigers finalized an eight year, $150m contract extension. The deal covers the 27-34 seasons, effectively buying out the first three years of McGonigle’s free agency, and includes escalators that could increase its value to $160m. Even assuming McGonigle breaks arbitration records (firmly on the table, given that he’s hitting .311/.417/.492 in his first 72 MLB PA with peripheral stats that suggest he really is that good), that values his age 27-29 seasons at $90-100m. He’s one of a spate of top prospects to sign for big money right at the beginning of, or even shortly before, their MLB careers so far this spring:

Several young but established big league stars have also extended recently, including Diamondbacks shortstop Geraldo Perdomo, Red Sox ace Garrett Crochett, and Orioles starter Shane Baz. The Jays were active in that market last year, signing Alejandro Kirk last season to a deal that now looks like theft after his breakout 2025 and then paying Vladimir Guerrero jr. what amounts to a retail price free agent deal to keep him in Toronto for the remainder of his career.

The Jays don’t have any clear extension candidates right now. Daulton Varsho is the obvious name, but he’s having something of a weird start to the season with his speed, range and power significantly down so far but his contact rate and overall offensive production looking excellent. Combined with a potential offensive breakout being derailed by injury last year, he might be a guy where both team and agent decide to wait and see before valuing his free agency.

I still think this trend is of interest to us on this site, though, because it probably reveals something about the direction the economics of the sport and the process of collective bargaining between the MLB Players’ Association and the league are headed. The current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) runs through the end of this season, at which point it’s been widely predicted that there might be a lockout. Owners are said to be upset about the lack of parity in payrolls, with the New York Mets’ $362.6m 2026 expenditure being more than five times the last place Cleveland Guardians’ $69.4m. Of course, one might reasonably then ask what the Guardians are doing with the roughly $200m disbursement of national and pooled local revenues each franchise receives, at which point owners tend to harumph and storm out of the room.

Regardless, it’s very clear that ownership intends to push for a salary cap. Progressively stricter luxury taxes have proven ineffective in curbing top team spending. Nine teams are paying some tax in 2026 and five are into the top tax bracket, including clubs like the Blue Jays and Mets that were not regular tax payers 5+ years ago. If a soft tax won’t stop spending, a hard cap is the only way to do it. On the other side, though, a cap has always been a firm red line for the union. They rely on high spending teams to set the market and to force cheap owners to spend. If owners are willing to press their case, there’s a risk of a lockout that could shorten or even scrap the 2027 season. Both sides are gearing up for a prolonged stoppage, with the MLBPA allocating 100% of player licensing revenues (the share the player gets when, e.g., you buy a replica of their jersey) in each of the last two seasons to build up a strike fund that’s now over half a billion dollars, while the owners have a war chest about four times as large.

There’s also a larger economic backdrop. The local cable sports market (referred to as regional sports networks, RSN), which is the backbone of MLB teams’ local revenues, is collapsing. Main Street Sports Group, which operates the FanDuel Sports Network RSNs that broadcast nine MLB teams’ games, has had to try to renegotiate rights deals it couldn’t afford to pay. Most of the teams eventually just transferred their rights to MLB.tv, which is partnering with ESPN to sell local streaming rights for roughly half of the league starting next season. Commissioner Rob Manfred is scrambling to redesign the league’s revenue model around streaming, but how well that will work isn’t clear, and he’s facing opposition from more successful teams that like owning their own regional broadcast rights. Owning a north American sports franchise has been a bonanza to TV money and skyrocketing franchise valuations over the last 30 years. Whether that will continue is at least a little murky. The potential for a lockout further clouds the picture. Attendance took a decade to recover from the 1994 strike. A prolonged 2027 lockout, at a time when the league is navigating the streaming transition, could be even more damaging.

GMs and agents are intensely aware of all of this, of course, which is why the recent extension spree is interesting. Early career extensions are a team friendly bet, in general, as players trade upside for certainty. They hit the market later and with fewer prime seasons remaining, taking the possibility of ever signing a true top of the market contract off the table in exchange for locking in set for life money now. That Scott Boras clients don’t take extensions has become a fan cliche because the hyper-aggressive agent pushes his guys to hit the open market, a bet that pays off more often than not. And now, the fact that agents are directing their clients towards extending shows that they’re leaning towards the safety side of that bet.

Teams are typically in a position to be less risk averse. A player only gets one career, and if something goes wrong that career can be cut short before they strike it rich. A team expects to operate indefinitely, and its revenue is stable as long as the fans show up. It’s still somewhat telling that they want to sign these deals, though. The Tigers clearly think locking in the right to pay McGonigle over $30m in 2034 is worth taking on that risk, which doesn’t point to an expectation that the top end of the free agent market is going to downshift in any huge way.

Overall, then, I think the signs are modestly pessimistic for labour, but arguably slightly optimistic for fans wanting to watch a 2027 baseball season. After all, negotiations need both parties to have a basically similar understanding of reality to work out, and it doesn’t hurt when failing to strike a deal has some painful consequences. The fact that a lot of extensions are getting done suggests that players and their agents are not expecting a world where salaries skyrocket while GMs don’t significantly fear the bottom of the free agent market dropping out. The league’s forced pivot towards variable streaming revenues has the potential to make viewership damaging antics by owners more damaging to everyone. Those factors in combination give me a little hope that reasonable positions will be taken and the gap can be bridged. Still, there are choppy waters ahead.

1915
It was the biggest shutout in team history, as the White Sox pasted St. Louis, 16-0. The Pale Hose put up seven runs before the home Browns even got to bat, and scored in every inning but the third, seventh and eighth. It was just a 15-hit assault with no homers, so how did the Sox score 16? With help from five Browns errors and six stolen bases!

Buck Weaver went 3-for-6 with a double and two runs, pacing all the White Sox hitters … except starting pitcher Red Faber, who went 4-for-5 with a double and three runs, leading the team in total bases! Faber, no clouter him, pitched in an AL-high 50 games in 1915 and racked up 118 plate appearances and 84 at-bats … yielding 11 hits. Yes, more than a third of Faber’s hits in 1915 came in this game.

Also a curiosity, the win moved the White Sox into first place, at 2-0 on the season, and Faber’s season record was 2-0 was well. How? Well, Opening Day was a 13-inning thriller that saw the second-year hurler relieve in the 12th inning (not too well, either, giving up two earned runs) to earn the win — with fellow young hurler and future star Eddie Cicotte getting the save with a clean 13th. The next day, this blowout, Faber threw a complete game despite eight innings of the contest qualifying as garbage time!

This game stood as the biggest White Sox shutout win until 1925 and a 17-0 drubbing at Washington (and later tied in 1987). The game remains the third-biggest shutout in team history and tied for the 18th biggest win ever for the White Sox.

1954
The White Sox helped reintroduce Major League Baseball to Baltimore (in front of a crowd of 46,354) for the first time since 1902, as they played the new Baltimore Orioles in the first-ever game at Memorial Stadium (the franchise had moved from St. Louis that offseason). Virgil Trucks got the start for the White Sox, but the O’s won, 3-1, starting a run of numerous unfortunate, strange and bizarre happenings at Memorial Stadium over the next 37 seasons.

1972
The first labor impasse to cause regularly-scheduled games to be cancelled had caused Opening Day of the 1972 season to be pushed back. Thus in the first game of the new season was in Kansas City, where the Sox lost to the Royals, 2-1, in 11 innings despite Dick Allen’s first White Sox home run. Allen blasted a shot in the ninth inning off Dick Drago to give the team a brief, 1-0 lead. Kansas City tied the game with two outs in the ninth inning on a Bob Oliver home run off of Wilbur Wood, then go on to win the game.

The Sox dropped three consecutive one-run games to the Royals to start the season, two in extra innings, but ended up with 87 wins in 154 games and battle the eventual World Series champion Oakland A’s until the end of September.

1983
Former Cubs pitcher Milt Wilcox had his perfect game ruined with two outs in the ninth inning when White Sox pinch-hitter Jerry Hairston ripped a clean single up the middle. It was the only hit of the night for the Sox, who lost to Detroit, 6-0. Hairston’s hit marked just the third time in major league history that a perfect game was broken up with just one out left. Billy Pierce was one of the other two pitchers to have that happen to him, when he lost his to the Senators on June 27, 1958.

1985
In a game at Boston, pinch-hitter Jerry Hairston collected his 51st safety in that role, setting a White Sox all-time record. Jerry would lead the league in pinch-hits from 1983-85 and retired with 87 total in his career. He also hit the last home run to set off Bill Veeck’s original exploding scoreboard in October 1981 — a grand slam off of future Sox pitching coach Don Cooper!

1987
Future White Sox bullpen coach Juan Nieves tosses the first no-hitter in Milwaukee Brewers history, defeating the Baltimore Orioles, 7-0. Nieves was a pitching coach in the White Sox minors from 1999-2007, then worked under Don Cooper as the bullpen coach on the South Side from 2008-12. He also appeared as Francisco Delgado in the 1999 Kevin Costner baseball film For the Love of the Game.

2006
It was an all-time great defensive play.

In the ninth inning of a game at U.S. Cellular Field against Toronto, Sox second baseman Tadahito Iguchi had to charge in on a slowly-hit ball by Bengie Molina. Iguchi’s momentum carried him forward, forcing him to leave his feet and start to fall to the ground. Before he hit the field, though, he got a throw off, despite being parallel to the ground. His throw was strong enough to get Molina at first.

The Sox won the game, 4-2.  

2024
In his very first MLB start, Nick Nastrini retired the first 11 batters he faced, the most consecutive outs since 1960. In the process, Nastrini broke Bruce Tanner’s mark from back on June 12, 1985.

However, the punchless White Sox still lost the game, shut out, 2-0, by the Royals — tying a dubious record. It marked the sixth time in 16 games they were held without a run to start a season. The last time that happened in the modern era was in 1907 to the Brooklyn Superbas.

The White Sox were held to four singles in the game, and if not for a stolen base by Braden Shewmake in the fifth inning, no Chicago batter would have reached second base.

Let’s bounce back and win a series

Here’s the Guardians’ lineup:

Here the Cardinals’ lineup:

Let’s go, Guardians!

It’s been a tale of two ballclubs for the Nationals to start the season, as on one hand, they have what is currently a top 5 offense in all of baseball, ranking 4th in wRC+ at 117 and 4th in WAR at 3.6, and on the other hand, they have a bottom 2 pitching staff in all of baseball, ranking 2nd to last in ERA at 6.08 and last with a -2.5 fWAR, miles worse than every other ball club. Outside of a strong start to his MLB return for Foster Griffin, there have been very few bright spots in the rotation or bullpen, and recent injuries to Ken Waldichuk and Cole Henry tighten things even more for an already taxed group.

While help to the rotation may be coming in the next few months in the form of top prospect Luis Perales and reliable righty Riley Cornelio, the bullpen could see new additions very soon, as guys at the major league level falter and arms in the minor league flourish. Let’s take a look at 3 Nationals minor league relievers who could make an impact at the big league level in 2026.

LHP Zach Penrod

The current Nats minor league arm I think it is most likely we see in the big leagues in 2026 is Zach Penrod, a 28-year-old righty currently at Triple A. Penrod has thrown 5 innings for the Red Wings in 2026, and while the results are mediocre currently, with a 9 ERA and .609 opponents slugging percentage, it’s the improvements to Penrod’s arsenal which lead me to believe he could be the best current left hander in the big league bullpen.

Penrod threw his fastball about 40% of the time in 2025, and 5 other breaking ball or offspeed pitches, and the results were terrible, with a 7.83 ERA and 6.80 FIP in 33.1 innings pitched. This year, he’s refined his arsenal, dumping his sinker and curveball and making improvements to his remaining 3 secondary offerings. He’s increased his slider usage from 13% in 2025 to 39% in 2026, with it’s new, sharper movement dropping opponents expected batting average on it from .321 to .240.

His changeup and cutter have seen improvements as well, with the changeups Stuff+ rating going from 81 to 96, and the cutter from 82 to 102, giving Penrod more options to attack hitters with, as long as he’s throwing them for strikes.

My one area of concern for Penrod currently is that his fastball has lost some spin and movement in 2026, grading out much more poorly according to Stuff+ and currently getting hammered at Triple A, but if he can show he’s found a feel for the pitch again in the next few outings, Penrod could find himself in the Nats big league bullpen, looking to help turn the ship around.

RHP Eddy Yean

Some folks might remember the name Eddy Yean from the Josh Bell trade way back in 2020, where the Nats sent right handed pitchers Wil Crowe and Eddy Yean to Pittsburgh for the slugging first baseman. Well, Yean is now back in the Nationals organization after 5 seasons in the Pirates organization, where he climbed to Triple A before being released in the offseason. Like Penrod, Yean was throwing a lot of pitches in 2025, but only one really good one in his sinker, but in 2026, he’s simplified his arsenal and made improvements to what he does have.

The sinker is the calling card for Yean, and it’s nasty, sitting 97 MPH with almost 17 inches of arm side run, grading out at near the top of the scale 117 Stuff+. He throws the pitch 40% of the time, and while it doesn’t induce much swing and miss, it does miss barrels, with an opponents expected batting average of .147 and expected slugging percentage of .163.

Yean has a fastball and changeup he throws roughly 23% of the time each, which have performed well so far but don’t grade out well, but the secondary pitch I want to focus on is his slider, which looks much sharper so far in 2026 than it did in 2025. His slider now has less vertical movement and more horizontal movement, raising it’s Stuff+ grade from 89 to 95, and so far it is doing damage against Triple A hitting, with a 66% whiff rate and .054 opponents batting average.

Despite the 5.14 ERA in 7 innings so far, Yean looks to be having a breakout season at Triple A with his swing and miss stuff, while also avoiding hard contact at a very high rate, 2 ingredients to success in the big leagues.

RHP Julian Tonghini

One more under the radar pick for a Nationals minor league reliever who could make their big league debut in 2026 is Julian Tonghini, the Nats 7th round pick out of Arizona last season. Tulian always had the strikeout stuff in college, with a 37% strikeout rate his senior year, but was held back by his shaky command, walking over 10% of batters all 4 years. He still managed a very good 25.2 K-BB% in 2025 with the Wildcats, and cut his walk rate by over 2%, showing if he could just find a little more command, he could be a breakout reliever in pro ball.

Lucky for the Nats, Tonghini has come out throwing strikes in 2026, as the righty currently has a 5.6% walk rate at High A in 4.2 innings pitched, less than half of what it what in 2025 and in the 79th percentile of all High A pitchers. To go along with his much improved command, Tonghini is also pairing swing and miss stuff with an elite groundball percentage, as he is 66th percentile in whiff rate, 87th percentile in called strike + whiff percentage, and 100th percentile in groundballs rate, keeping it on the ground 91.7% of the time.

Tonghini is only 4.2 innings into his professional career, so I won’t declare him the savior of the Nationals bullpen or anything, but he is also 24 years old and showing legitimate success right now, meaning there is the possibility of him fast tracking his way through the Nationals minor league season. If he can stay at the level he’s at currently, there’s a chance he finds himself in the big league bullpen in the backhalf of 2026.

The St. Louis Cardinals will try to win the series versus the Cleveland Guardians Wednesday afternoon at Busch Stadium. Dustin May, who is 1-2 with a 9.45 ERA on the season, will make his 4th start for the Cardinals. Slade Cecconi, who is 0-2 with a 5.74 ERA, will start for the Guardians.

Coming into the season, one of the more polarizing prospects that was supposed to make his debut was Justin Crawford. One would think that a player that had as good a set of numbers from his minor league days as Crawford had would be the actual opposite of polarizing, but his case became an argument in “data vs. production”. From the scouting community, there was an overwhelming sense that Crawford’s success at the major league level would be muted due to his swing path and tendency to hit the ball on the ground. From Fangraphs:

Whether mechanical intervention will improve Crawford’s output, or whether it will happen naturally as he gets stronger, we just won’t know until he’s allowed to face and adjust to big league pitching over a long period of time. His groundball rate has at least been trending in the right direction since he turned pro. He was way up in the 70% range when he first debuted, and his spray chart looked like the most cartoonish slash-and-dash hitter. Zac Veen is a recent prospect whose underlying data contained similar warning signs (Crawford is also fairly chase prone), but his on-field performance began to dip once he reached the upper levels, while Crawford’s has not. Make no mistake; Crawford’s tools are going to help a big league club in some capacity, just probably as an action-pressing nine hole hitter who bunts and slashes his way on base.

From Baseball Prospectus:

Offensively, we could pretty much cut and paste any report we’ve written about Crawford since he was drafted here. He still hits the ball on the ground way too much, he still runs like the wind, he still puts the ball in play a lot, and he still swings at way too many pitches for a guy who has what is otherwise a 1990s leadoff man profile. He made some real improvements around the edges of his very durable broad profile in 2025—he cut his chase rate by over five points year-over-year, which got it from catastrophic to merely bad, while turning a few grounders into line drives—but for the most part what you think about his offensive game still depends on whether you think his reliance on nine-hopper singles can sustain a plus-or-better hit tool outcome in the majors. We’re probably a little less high on that profile than a lot of our peers in the public prospect analysis space.

And yet, so far this year as he has in his minor league career, he has produced. It’s still way, way too early to make any kind of definite determination about how actual career arc will be created, but he has gotten off to a start that has been quite good for a team that has had little production from its nine hole spot in the lineup over the past several seasons (all stats for Crawford and/or ninth spot in lineup through Monday’s game).

2026: .315/.403/.481
2025: .246/.307/.398
2024: .230/.279/.333
2023: .265/.314/.398

Based on what we’ve seen from Crawford, there are reasons to believe that he can actually producing. After all, bat control like this doesn’t come around too, too often.

With 10% of the season already in the books, it’s worth at least exploring what has happened so far with Crawford since he’s an interesting player.

Failure to launch

We all knew that one of the traits scouts have wanted Crawford to change has been how often he hits the ball on the ground. Baseball has changed so much from the Whitey Herzog days when Astroturf allowed players to hit the ball on a carpet and have it scoot into the outfield for a hit. Fielders have improved so much both in terms of their positioning and how well they field that a ball on the ground is almost an automatic out.

As of Monday, Crawford has an average launch angle when he hits the ball of -3.2^o. If that number strikes you as a startingly low number, you’re not alone! I went back through the Statcast era (2015 on) to find qualified hitters that had a launch angle that was a negative throughout the entire season. To the surprise of no one, there were very few:

Eric Hosmer ‘18: -1.5^o
Wilson Ramos ‘19: -0.1^o
Raimel Tapia ‘21: -4.4^o
Gilberto Celestino ‘22: -1.9^o
Jake Mangum ‘25: -0.7^o

These hitters are not ones that one would mistake for being productive in those seasons, so while it doesn’t mean it can’t happen, history suggests that it’s not going to happen. It’s possible for a player to go through an entire season having an average launch angle that low, but as you can see, the opposing team would be more than happy to have that happen. There just isn’t much of a threat to the defense.

Now, can we expect Crawford to have this low of a launch angle all season long? Probably not. At some point, he’s going to figure out how to drive the ball in the air and he does have some good power when he barrels up a baseball. He’s a lot of hittable pitches as well; he’s just hitting them into the ground.

For now, it’s just a curious thing, a negative launch angle, to see since it’s so rare that it happens for a full season. Maybe some balls in the air change things, maybe not.

BABIP, you BIP, we all BIP

Whenever one sees a ball trickle through the infield on the ground, get blooped down the line, get nubbed down the line, one silently says a prayer to the baseball gods to say think you. Specifically, the BABIP gods that allowed the ball to miss gloves on it’s way to the grass in the first place. It helps the personal numbers because, as is said, “it’s a line drive in the books!” However, having a high BABIP can often times signal that a regression is coming and with Crawford, it could be something to consider.

As of Tuesday morning, Crawford’s .405 BABIP is tied for 15th in the game among all active hitters and could be one that is ripe for regression. But what if it doesn’t regress as much as we think it will? He’s going to hit the ball on the ground as we see from above, but it’s not as though he isn’t hitting the ball hard. His average exit velocity of 88.5 miles per hour, right in the middle of the pack (and better than some current Phillies hitters). What if he’s going to be able to continue to just find holes and poke baseball down the line and keep being productive?

There’s no reason right now to change much of anything with Crawford. He’s finding success in the major leagues and isn’t being asked to do a lot hitting from the nine hole in the lineup. He can continue seeing how pitchers attack him and adjust accordingly. Moving him up in the lineup doesn’t really seem to be in the cards at the moment, nor should it be. He’s doing just fine where he is, though if he moved up a spot or two to better use his speed instead of anchoring him in front of Turner/Schwarber/Harper, that would be fine as well.

Long before the Yankees became the Yankees of Ruth, Gehrig, October mythology, and even Gerrit, Leonard Leslie “King” Cole (not to be confused with Nat) was one of the franchise’s most intriguing early arms. For a season, he looked like the kind of pitcher who could help stabilize a club still searching for its identity.

Instead, the ending was rushing toward him long before anyone realized it. Tragically the King’s New York chapter became one of the shortest, strangest, and saddest stories of the franchise’s early years.

Leonard Leslie “King” Cole
Born: April 15, 1886 (Toledo, IA)
Died: January 6, 1916 (Bay City, MI)
Yankees Tenure: 1914-1915

Before he ever became “King,” Leonard Leslie Cole’s story began in much humbler surroundings. Born on April 15, 1886, in the rural Iowa town of Toledo, Cole’s early life carried a level of instability that would quietly mirror the unpredictability of his later baseball career. A troubled family situation led to his separation from home at a young age, and by 14 he had been sent to the Industrial School for Boys in nearby Eldora. In those difficult early years, the baseball diamond quickly became home.

By his late teens, Cole had already built a reputation as a talented pitcher for Toledo’s town team, the kind of local arm whose name traveled beyond county lines before organized baseball ever formally called. His path to the majors was anything but ordinary.

In 1907, Cole joined one of the era’s barnstorming “Bloomer Girls” teams, one of the traveling girls clubs that toured the country playing against town, semipro, and minor league men’s teams. To help draw crowds and raise the level of play, these clubs often employed male pitchers and catchers known as “toppers,” players who wore wigs to blend into the novelty of the traveling roster. For a brief stretch, Leonard Cole was one of them.

It is one of the strangest and most perfect details in his baseball story: before becoming King Cole, he sharpened his game as a pitcher for a Bloomer Girls club, barnstorming across the Midwest and learning the loose, restless rhythms of early baseball life. That journey helped carry him to Bay City, Michigan, a place that would become deeply important to both his personal and professional life.

By 1908, Cole was pitching for semipro clubs in Iowa and Michigan, continuing to sharpen the command and durability that would later define his major league peak. Then in 1909, Bay City gave him the kind of platform every talented regional arm needed. He thrived there.

Cole went 21-7 as Bay City’s ace, a dominant season that drew the full attention of the Chicago Cubs, still a powerhouse having won three pennants in a row from 1906–08 and the last two World Series in a row. Chicago signed Cole and gave him a chance late that season to make his professional debut, and he made sure no one forgot it, throwing a six-hit shutout in his major league debut against the Cardinals while also collecting three hits at the plate.

Just like that, the road from rural Iowa, reform school, and barnstorming Bloomer Girls clubs had delivered him to the major leagues. The Bay City chapter changed more than just his baseball life.

During the offseason, Cole stayed in Michigan, took up barbering as a trade, and earned yet another fitting nickname: “The Bay City Barber.” It was there that he also met Ada Seder, beginning the relationship that would soon lead to marriage just as his Cubs career was taking off. By the time 1910 arrived, Cole was no longer just a fascinating baseball story. He was on his way to becoming one of the National League’s best pitchers and be anointed King.

Cole won 20 games for the Cubs in 1910, leading the Senior Circuit with a 1.80 ERA and posting the kind of frontline production that made him one of the National League’s top arms. In the Deadball Era, where one run often felt decisive, pitchers who could control games deep into the afternoon carried enormous value, and Cole fit that mold perfectly. It was the season that truly made “King” feel like more than just a nickname, and if the NL Rookie of the Year Award existed back then, he probably would’ve won going away.

The Cubs romped to their fourth pennant in five years with 104 wins but fell to the similarly potent Philadelphia Athletics in the World Series. Cole got the start in Game 4, which ended up being the only playoff start of his career, and held the A’s to three runs in eight innings of work to help the Cubs stave off a sweep in their home park (West Side Grounds, Wrigley’s predecessor). Ace Mordecai “Three-Finger” Brown relieved him and held the A’s in check while the Cubs rallied a couple outs from elimination to tie it in the ninth on a leadoff double by Frank Schulte and a game-tying triple from player-manager Frank Chance. They ended it in the 10th on a Jimmy Archer and a walk-off single from left fielder Jimmy Sheckard. Alas, the A’s followed suit, beating up on a tiring Brown—starting on no rest, because hey it was 1910—to take the series with a 7-2 triumph.

Cole followed that with another strong year in 1911, winning 18 games and proving the previous season was no fluke. Even if he did not quite match the 1910 peak, Cole still looked like the kind of pitcher a manager could trust every time they put him on the rubber. At his best, he was not overpowering so much as dependable, the kind of arm managers leaned on because they knew exactly what they were getting. Then came the collapse.

The 1912 season started disastrously in Chicago. The sharpness that had defined his best years disappeared almost overnight, and what had once looked like steady command turned into something far less reliable. The King had become the Jester and was so famous for the excuses he gave that he inspired short story “Alibi Ike.”

The Cubs eventually sent him to Pittsburgh to finish the season, where he was better, but not remotely close to the pitcher he had been just a few seasons ago. The brilliance of 1910 had already started to feel far away. So far away that Cole was sold by the Pirates to Columbus of the minor league American Association.

After spending the winter barbering in Chicago and Bay City, Cole proved his career wasn’t over by reporting to Columbus and having a stellar year. He posted a 23-11 record and received offers from several major league clubs following the season. The New York Yankees, now managed by Cole’s former boss with the Cubs, Chance, had the winning bid.

When New York picked him up for the 1914 season, Cole was still chasing the heights of his Cubs peak as much as he was trying to prove he still belonged in the major leagues at all. And for a time, it looked like he did. In that comeback season Cole went 10-9 with a 3.30 ERA making 15 starts in 33 games.

One fun fact from Cole’s first season with the Yankees popped up on October 2, 1914 at Fenway Park. Cole entered in relief of Carroll Brown, who started the game opposite of a rookie left-hander named George Herman Ruth in Boston. In the Babe’s third big-league game, the 19-year-old would limit his future team to six hits on the mound and lead off the seventh inning with a double off Cole — Ruth’s first MLB hit. Little did the 1,500 or so in attendance at the still-nascent ballpark know that they were witnessing history.

Cole’s first season with the Yankees gave the club exactly what early-era teams valued most from a pitcher: dependable innings and a calming presence on a still-developing staff. He was no longer the 20-game winner from his Cubs peak, but the command and poise that had once made him so valuable were still visible.

Across the 1914 and 1915 seasons, Cole would go 12-12 with a 3.27 ERA over 192.2 innings in pinstripes. Those numbers tell the story of a pitcher who still knew how to survive, compete, and help a club even as the overpowering version of his earlier career had faded.

That makes 1914 feel especially important in hindsight. It would be the final season in which Cole still looked like a veteran pitcher writing a respectable second act rather than a player unknowingly entering the final chapter of his life. That is what makes the turn into 1915 feel so much heavier.

In spring training, Yankees manager Bill Donovan noticed something was wrong. Cole had developed a growth on his leg, something he had apparently ignored for years because it had not yet caused him any pain. That detail says so much about the era and perhaps about Cole himself. Players then often pitched through discomfort, lived hard, and treated warning signs as inconveniences instead of alarms.

Cole’s instinct was simply to keep going until someone physically stopped him. That refusal to stop becomes the emotional center of the story. Even after surgery to try to address the tumors, Cole pushed to return quickly, insisting he would be back within weeks. And he did come back, pitching for the Yankees that summer despite diminished stuff and erratic command. The performances were uneven, and the club’s patience wore thin, but there is something deeply human in the image of a pitcher trying to outrun what his body was already telling him.

The quirks of his life off the mound only deepen that feeling. Cole’s 1915 season included missed trains, an indefinite suspension, and even an automobile accident in Yonkers that briefly put him in legal trouble, all while his health continued to deteriorate. It creates the portrait of a talented early ballplayer living with the loose structure and restless unpredictability of the pre-modern game, where routines were fragile and careers could tilt off course in an instant.

Then came the cruelest turn. By December, the cancer had returned aggressively. What had once seemed like a manageable operation became terminal illness, and on January 6, 1916, Cole died at just 29 years old. For a pitcher talented enough to win 54 major league games before turning 30, the loss feels especially haunting.

His Yankees chapter lasted only two seasons, but it remains one of the organization’s earliest reminders of how quickly baseball promise can vanish. What makes King Cole such a compelling birthday subject is not simply the tragedy. It is the strange mix of brilliance, stubbornness, unpredictability, and vulnerability that defined his final baseball years. In another era, maybe the diagnosis comes earlier. Maybe the recovery plan is stricter. Maybe the life lasts another few decades.

Instead, King Cole’s Yankees legacy became a snapshot of baseball’s rougher early century. A time where even “Kings” were still barbers in the offseason. A time when people and players alike ignored warning signs of their health. A time when the storylines the games and its players was able to create mattered almost as much as the games themselves.

Happy birthday, King Cole.

See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here

TV: NESN

First Pitch: 1:40 p.m. ET

Well, this series couldn’t have started any worse.

Red Sox starters gave up 15 earned runs in the first two games, thanks to disastrous starts from Garrett Crochet and Sonny Gray. Boston’s lineup also got shutout for the first time this season and is lacking momentum entering Wednesday afternoon. 

In another lineup shuffle, Ceddanne Rafaela moves up behind Roman Anthony in the No. 2 spot. Connelly Early gets the ball and while he needs to go deeper into starts, he’s impressed so far to the tune of a 2.63 ERA. 

Here’s who the Red Sox will send to the plate in the series finale. 

The Twins push for the sweep and sport the best record in the American League at 11-7. Simeon Woods Richardson takes the mound for Minnesota.