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The Yankees closed their Grapefruit League spring training schedule with a 6-2 win over the Philadelphia Phillies Sunday at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Fla., where Aaron Judge hit his first home run since rejoining New York after the World Baseball Classic.

Takeaways

1. Judge's first game back as a Yankee after almost three weeks with Team USA was this past Friday's 3-1 win over the Baltimore Orioles, in which he struck out three time in as many at-bats. Saturday's 3-1 loss at the Detroit Tigers saw Judge sit, and the day off fared well for his Sunday return.
   
   His 1-for-2 afternoon featured a leadoff home run in the fifth inning against Aaron Nola -- Judge's first long ball since returning to New York from the WBC -- where Judge sent Nola's 2-2 pitch, an 85 mph changeup, down the left-field line and into the second deck.
   
   Players of Judge's caliber should not miss a beat. After he returned to the tune of Friday's 0-for-3 performance, his Sunday bounce back -- a third-inning walk included -- is a welcome sign for the Yankees with three days until Opening Day.
2. Will Warren saved his best for last. He allowed one hit -- Kyle Schwarber's leadoff double -- in five shutout innings, retiring 15 straight Phillies while striking out six.
   
   Warren threw 44 strikes on 62 pitches. He ends his spring with a 1.42 ERA in 25.1 IP over six starts, striking out 16 and walking three.
3. Ryan McMahon was a bright spot at the plate. His 2-for-3 day featured a third-inning leadoff single an RBI knock with two outs in the fourth, scoring Giancarlo Stanton and putting the Yankees up 1-0.
4. In the outfield, Jasson Domínguez and Amed Rosario each had a defensive lapse. Domínguez, who will start the season with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, did not do himself any favors with his 0-for-2 performance after he replaced Judge's lineup spot. Domínguez's  misread on a deep fly ball to left field went down as an error and was a reminder of the struggles and inconsistencies that he has faced at the position.
   
   Rosario's right-field whiff should not be discounted, though he made the most of his mistake with an RBI single to polish off the Yankees' 6-2 lead with two outs in the eighth inning.

Who's the MVP?

Warren, who put the exclamation point on an impressive spring training and seems primed for this season.

Highlights

Aaron Judge ‼️💣 pic.twitter.com/wMt5RakpD8

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) March 22, 2026

What's next

The Yankees head to Sloan Park in Mesa, Ariz., for the first of their final two spring training games against the Chicago Cubs -- 3:05 p.m. starts Monday and Tuesday -- before they open the regular season with Wednesday's 8:05 matchup at the San Francisco Giants.

Although the San Diego Padres Prospects lost a 7-5 game against the Chicago Cubs Prospects at Sloan Park in Mesa, Ariz. on Saturday, there were multiple notable and positive signs to come from the contest. With a farm system currently ranked at or near the bottom according to multiple evaluators, the Padres fielded a team filled with young players. The starting lineup had catcher Ethan Salas (19), shortstop Jorge Quintana (19), catcher Ty Harvey (20), outfielder Kale Fountain (20) as well as pitchers Kruz Schoolcraft (18) and Taiwanese righty Lan-Hong Su (18) all playing against mostly more advanced prospects for the Cubs.

The starter for the Padres, Luis Gutierrez pitched a scoreless inning and was followed by Miguel Mendez, Schoolcraft, Kannon Kemp, Kash Mayfield, Jaxon Dalena, Johan Moreno, Lan-Hong Su and Garrett Hawkins. All pitched an inning except Dalena, who allowed four runs and four hits over 0.2 innings and was replaced by Moreno for the last out.

Su, the young righty from Taiwan, had the most impressive performance. Signed in October of 2025 during the International Signing Period, Su made his Padres debut in this game. Pitching the seventh inning, Su threw four-seam fastballs between 96-98 mph and also featured a curveball and a changeup. He got two strikeouts over his 10 pitches thrown and most of his pitches were strikes. He is slated to begin the season at Low-A Lake Elsinore and will rise quickly if he pitches this well.

The left-hander Mayfield pitched the fifth inning on nine pitches with two fly-outs and a single allowed. The fastball for starter Gutierrez reached a new velocity of 97 mph during his one inning pitched.

On the position player side, Salas put on a show. Starting at catcher, he experienced the ABS system but not in a positive way. Challenging two calls behind the plate, Salas lost both challenges in the first three innings and the Padres played the rest of the game without that option.

But otherwise, it was a standout performance from the young catcher. Salas had a loud out at 108.5 mph, a single and a three-run home run that left the yard at 104.9 mph. He worked a long plate appearance for a walk, scored a run, had a stolen base after his single and threw out two runners attempting to steal second base. If he wanted to announce his return with authority, he did a good job.

Fountain, 6-foot-5 and 230-pounds, played the 2025 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He also had hamstring issues last season which limited his playing time. He was drafted in 2024 as a corner infielder but played this game in right field and is being transitioned to a corner outfielder this spring. Fountain has tremendous power potential, as he showed in the game. He launched a home run deep onto the center field berm at 109.1 mph and it traveled 455 feet. He also had a 110.3 mph single while going 2-for-2 with a walk and a run scored.

Spring Training will be coming to an end this week for the players headed to Triple-A El Paso as their season begins March 27. The other minor league teams will finish their spring games and travel to their locations for early April starts.

There will be a preview coming later this week and the rosters for the respective teams should be coming out over the next week-and-a-half with El Paso this week.

Expect the Padres to continue to push their young and talented prospects with Salas starting in Double-A San Antonio. As individual players perform well, there will likely be promotions to the next level and there are several prospects who could meet that criteria.

On Sunday morning, the Colorado Rockies announced the following position players will break camp with the team:

• Mickey Moniak (OF)
• Jake McCarthy (OF)
• Brenton Doyle (OF)
• Jordan Beck (OF)
• Kyle Karros (3B)
• TJ Rumfield (1B)
• Brett Sullivan (C) 
• Edouard Julien (INF)
• Willi Castro (UTIL)
• Ryan Ritter (UTIL)
• Ezequiel Tovar (SS)
• Hunter Goodman (C)

Additionally, the rotation is set as such:

• Kyle Freeland (LHP)
• Michael Lorenzen (RHP)
• José Quintana (LHP)
• Tomoyuki Sugano (RHP)
• Ryan Feltner (RHP)

The most interesting note was that RHP Chase Dollander will begin the season with the Rockies, but he will start off in the bullpen.

On Feltner, Schaeffer had this to say: 

“Looking at this spring is a part of it. When Feltner did get ahead, he was our best pitcher in camp [while] ahead. It was just a matter of getting him there, and there’s been a commitment to that. We also liked Feltner’s track record of success in the big leagues.”

Schaeffer explained the Rockies thinking in moving Dollander to the bullpen:

“We want Chase to develop at the big-league level, too, and feel like facing big-league hitters on a consistent basis is going to lead to his development better than it would in Triple-A at this point.”

That said, they don’t necessarily see Dollander in the bullpen as long-term.

“We see Chase Dollander as an eventual frontline rotation guy,” Schaeffer continued. “The path there right now – the best path for him in our minds – is to be a length guy in the bullpen. That’s where we’re going to start the season. We’re going to evaluate and move forward as we go, but we believe we’ve got something really good with Feltner as the fifth guy and Dollander in the bullpen.”

Here’s what Schaeffer had to say about the other moves:

Brett Sullivan over Braxton Fulford

“Brett Sullivan had a very, very good camp. He swings left-handed, and swung the bat well, but also just the overall game with the interactions with the pitchers plus the offensive camp led to go with Sullivan.”

He noted that Fulford had a good camp as well but felt it would be best for him to get daily at-bats in Albuquerque. 

Additionally, Schaeffer said that Sullivan will not see a lot of DH at-bats as a left-hander.

“It’s really hard to roll with two catchers in the game at one time, and we’re going to do it a lot with ‘Goody’ DH-ing, so to do it the other way around doesn’t make much sense for us.”

TJ Rumfield

“The overall quality of his at-bats on a consistent regular basis showed us who he is and lined up with what he’s done in the past in Triple-A for the Yankees. But seeing it on an everyday basis was impressive. The way he controls the zone, the way he gets a swing off, the damage he can do, the walks he can take… just on a consistent basis, the quality of the at-bats. And he played well defensively, and I think just his overall game – he’s a high-level player.”

Kyle Karros

“It was obvious [that he was ready]. Then the wherewithal that we all have that he has not had a ton of minor league seasoning. That was talked to him about before camp started, and that this wasn’t a lock for him. He had to go do his thing. We were going to watch him, and it became blatantly obvious that he’s ready to play third base in the big leagues on both sides of the ball.”

Willi Castro

“Expect all year for Willi to have a different role. His role is to play a lot – you saw him play first base. There’s definitely right-handed at-bats for him at first base. It’s great that he’s a utility player that can play everywhere and switch hit. I mean, you talk about value, that’s huge for our team. And that value wouldn’t mean anything if he wasn’t willing to do everything – like, legitimately willing to do everything – for the team. He’s a super guy, a team guy, and so you’re going to see him in a lot of different places. But Kyle Karros is here to play third base the majority [of the time], so I think it’s safe to say you’ll see a lot of second base out of Castro.”

Ryan Ritter

“I loved his ability to come into camp and compete for a job, and add new things to it – which is not an easy thing to do at all – and be really good at it. He played left field at a high level, in my opinion, from first jumping out there and he’ll only get better. I’m really impressed with what ‘Ritt’ did. There was some really, really high competition there with him – Chad Stevens, really good player; Nicky Lopez, really good player. So for ‘Ritt’ to go win that battle was a big deal.”

Edouard Julien

“You’re going to see Eddie Julien against right-handers a lot. I like guys that get on base and he does it a lot. So there’s DH at-bats there, there’s second base, there’s some first base for him. So he’s going to be a big part of this team.”

On the general depth of the roster

“I like it. I hope that you see that. The splits are way better, versus right and versus left. Our team is going to be lined up with better matchups overall. We had to option some really good ballplayers today, and I feel for them because they all played really well. Honestly, there were a lot of position players in this camp that played well, so it made a lot of decisions difficult, but it does lend to our depth. I like our 13 guys plus I like the guys in Triple-A. I like what we’ve got. It seems to be a really good starting point for us. And they’re meshing as a team, and I’m excited to see what they’ve got.”

Closing Thoughts

In addition to setting half of the roster, the Rockies also announced the following moves:

The Rockies made some expected and unexpected moves today. Which ones were the most surprising to you? 

The bullpen will be announced tomorrow. Who do you think will make it?

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Yesterday the Colorado Rockies organization took two losses. First, a 5-6 defeat for the major league squad at the hands of the Kansas City Royals despite a scoreless four inning start from Kyle Freeland, and a two double performance from Troy Johnston. Later in the day, the Rockies top prospects came together to be beaten 10-3 by their counterparts on the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Today the Sacramento Athletics will visit Salt River Fields to take on the Rockies.

On the mound for the A’s will be veteran left hander Jeffrey Springs. His career so far having been defined by injuries, Springs’ ability to take the ball 32 times and pitch 171 innings last year was a welcome accomplishment.

While his velocity is nothing to write home about, Springs features a changeup that is a genuine put-away pitch against righties (41.3% whiff rate in ‘25) and a solid slider that he uses equally against batters on both sides of the plate.

Opposing him will be Michael Lorenzen making his first start for the Rockies since an impressive run with team Italy in the WBC.

While his spring training appearances leave something to be desired, across his two appearances in the tournament he logged 7.1 innings with a 3.68 ERA. That included earning the win against a stacked team USA lineup in pool play. He’ll look to keep those strong performances going against a good A’s lineup in what will be his final start before the regular season.

First Pitch: 2:10 pm MDT

TV: None

Radio: None

MLB Gameday: Live Box Score

Lineups:

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If there’s one player we’re a good deal higher on than the industry, it’s left-handed starting pitcher Jake Miller. Personally, I think Miller has a solid chance to develop into a mid-rotation caliber starting pitcher. Others will note the 2025 injuries that stalled his workload progression and see too much downside risk. More likely, he’s a good swingman who spot starts occasionally, but is still a very valuable member of the Tigers’ pitching staff in the years ahead. We’ll see how it turns out over the next few seasons.

Miller had just turned 21 when the Tigers selected him out of Valparaiso in the 2022 draft. They used their eighth round pick on the lefty, paying him the minimum bonus. That looks like another steal from the college pitching ranks. Miller was unheralded in college despite being a left-hander, in part because his fastball sat in the low-90’s. Over the past three full seasons of pro ball, he’s built that up to sit 94 mph. In the process, he’s developed above average command of a deep mix of secondary pitches, helping them all to play up and work in concert together.

The 6’2” left-hander initially weighed in at a somewhat lanky 185 pounds, but has added 15-20 pounds of good muscle over the last few years. He has a simple compact delivery, working into his motion with a rock step and a fairly high leg kick from a closed stance that gives him some deception, and then firing his quick arm through a standard three-quarters arm slot into release.

In his first full season of A-ball, Miller wasn’t particularly impressive until his command really came together late in the year to finish strong. He stayed in Lakeland to start the 2024 season, but eventually moved to High-A and reached Double-A by the end of the year. He posted a combined 1.85 ERA with a 30.4 percent strikeout rate against a truly miserly 5 percent walk rate over 87 1/3 innings of work. His command of a solid fastball and a plus changeup together was just overwhelming to A-ball level hitters.

Miller is typically 93-94 mph with his fastball, hitting 95-96 at max effort. It’s a straightforward fourseam fastball with a bit of riding action and a pretty flat plane to the top of the zone, but nothing outstanding. His crossfire and quick arm accleration give him some deception, and he moves around on the rubber to get different angles depending on the pitch and hitter, shifting his foot on the rubber into his delivery. All that helps make his release point trickier to track for hitters. It’s really just a perfectly average major league fastball, but he does a lot of little things to help it play up.

Miller began the season with Erie, and put together four good starts out of the gate before going on the injured list. There weren’t any reports at the time, so we had to wait until season’s end to find out what was going on. Rumors were that back spasms were the issue, and Miller had a procedure and missed all of May, June, and July, before making a few rehab appearances in Lakeland to close out the year. His second rehab appearance saw him smoked in the back by a 105 mph comebacker and knocked out the game. Kind of a microcosm of his year than as soon as he got back on the mound, something else went wrong.

The back trouble actually turned out to be caused by hip issues. Miller was announced for the Arizona Fall League last fall to make up some innings, but further medical exams after the reguar season ended showed partial tears to both hip labrums. Miller had surgery on both hips and he’s been completing his offseason rehab work throughout camp. Reports on his progress are positive, but he might take until late April for him to get on the mound for the Toledo Mud Hens, where he was optioned back on March 6.

The best secondary pitch in Miller’s toolkit is a plus circle changeup that really falls off the table with good deception and fade away from right-handed hitters. His command of the fastball-changeup combination is his bread and butter. Miller doesn’t just throw a good ratio of strikes. He already spots the fastball consistently all around the zone, jamming right-handers and adding a bit of cut to the fourseamer to do so, and getting more twoseam looking run on it to his armside. He’s very adept at tying up hitters inside and then getting them to expand the zone chasing fastballs up and away, or by dropping the changeup off the same eye line for whiffs and plenty of weak contact. He’ll use it left-on-left, and his excellent armspeed really helps him sell it and get hitters way out in front.

Miller’s breaking stuff is a more ordinary. He throws a pretty prototypical gryo slider around 84-85 mph, and over the past year shaped his power curveball into more of a sweeper at 79-80 mph. The slider is above average at its best but can be a little too rounded rather than breaking sharply. His consistency needs to improve a bit more with that pitch, while the sweeper is easier for hitters to recognize, but has serious horizontal break and is difficult to square up. The velocity on everything was down a tick or two during his rehab work in Lakeland last summer, and that’s the only Statcast data we have to work from, but when healthy he should be right back to the numbers provided here.

The pitcher who looks most similar to Miller on the Tigers’ right now is lefty Enmanuel de Jesus. They have similar stuff, though Miller at his best has a bit of a velocity advantage, but de Jesus’ ability to spot four pitches and really work hitters over with his command is very reminiscent of Jake Miller at his best. Pitchers like this are often underrated because there is no eye-opening “stuff” data to build a projection from, just a solid, well composed mix of pitches. It would help him to develop the slider into a harder, sharper version that plays more like a cutter, but command still plays even without a true plus pitch in the mix.

Most national sites have Miller as a 40+ future value grade. I’ll go two steps higher. He’s not a high percentage guy to develop into a number three starter in a good rotation, but the likelihood that he makes it as a backend starter, is pretty high in my opinion. Of course, he may be good enough to do that and still used in a hybrid/swingman role anyway. Should he come back strong from rehab and sitting closer to 95 mph consistently, as he has for a few brief stretches in the minors, he’ll push closer to top 100 status nationally.

The Tigers know what they have here, and they added Miller to the 40-man roster last fall to protect him from the Rule 5 draft. Instead of moving him to the 60-day IL this spring to open a roster spot for Enmanuel de Jesus, the Tigers moved Troy Melton onto that list instead. Reports from camp, along with that set of decisions, suggest that Miller is tracking well to get on the mound in April, but we’ll just have to see how it plays out. One way or another, a healthy Jake Miller is a weapon, and a pitcher who will probably help the Tigers out this year. He’ll just need some time in Toledo to get his timing and command all the way back after a tough 2025 season.

The Dodgers finally made a decision on the final spot for their Opening Day roster.

And their choice qualified as a mild surprise.

On Sunday morning, the team announced it had optioned infielder Hyeseong Kim to Triple-A Oklahoma City, clearing the way for fellow infielder Alex Freeland to make the team to begin the season.

Now, the Dodgers’ position player group looks set, with Freeland likely to platoon at second base alongside Miguel Rojas while Tommy Edman continues recovering from an offseason ankle surgery.

Freeland and Kim had been competing for that second base opening throughout the spring, trying to serve as a left-handed-hitting option opposite Rojas.

But for much of camp, it appeared Kim had the advantage –– thanks not only to Freeland’s struggles in Cactus League play, where he hit .116, but the added dynamic of Kim’s speed and ability to play in the outfield, as well as the strides he seemed to be making early in the spring with his swing mechanics.

However, during his time with Team South Korea in the World Baseball Classic, Kim’s swing suffered a rapid regression. He went 1 for 12 in the tournament with six strikeouts, even against largely lesser-quality pitching. And when he rejoined the Dodgers last week, manager Dave Roberts said his swing was looking “out of sync” compared with earlier in the spring.

Freeland, meanwhile, impressed Dodgers brass enough with his improved plate discipline in camp, drawing as many walks as he did strikeouts (11 each) in the Cactus League.

He also punctuated his spring with a highlight, hitting a home run in Saturday’s Cactus League finale.

“I think he’s taken great at-bats,” Roberts said this week of Freeland, who hit .190 in 29 major-league games as a rookie last year. “The numbers, the surface line certainly isn’t there. But it’s still spring training.”

Sunday’s move might say more about the progress the club still wants to see Kim make, as sending him to Triple-A will provide him with regular playing time he wouldn’t have gotten if he began the season in the majors.

After signing a three-year, $12.5 million deal last offseason, Kim hit .383 in his first 37 games but then slumped to a .175 average over the second half of the year, with MLB pitchers quickly learning to exploit holes in his swing (most notably, an ability to adjust to spin below the zone).

And while Kim still finished his nine Cactus League games this spring with a .407 average, he also struck out eight times and drew only one walk, showing some of the same bad habits that derailed his rookie campaign.

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Here’s the last Cactus League game lineup:

Kwan CF

Martinez LF

Ramirez 3B

Hoskins 1B

DeLauter RF

Arias SS

Naylor C

Manzardo DH

Rocchio 2B

Williams P

TAMPA — The Yankees swung a minor trade on the final day of camp as they whittled down their roster to 26.

The club is sending infielder Jorbit Vivas to the Nationals for minor league pitcher Sean Paul Liñan.

Vivas was out of options and was not going to make the team, so the Yankees were able to get a non-40-man player for him instead of potentially losing him for nothing.

Liñan, 21, is a right-hander who split 2025 between Single-A, High-A and Triple-A, posting a 3.03 ERA across 19 games (15 starts) with 106 strikeouts in 77 1/3 innings.

He was originally signed by the Dodgers out of Colombia before being dealt to the Nationals in a package for Alex Call last summer.

Vivas was also an original Dodgers sign before being acquired by the Yankees with reliever Victor Gonzalez for Trey Sweeney ahead of the 2024 season.

He appeared in 29 games for the Yankees last season but hit just .161 with a .516 OPS.

Trading Vivas opens up a spot on the Yankees’ 40-man roster.

The Yankees need at least one open spot to officially sign Randal Grichuk, who is making the club after being in camp on a minor league deal.

The Brewers will take on the Athletics today in the second of two Spring Breakout exhibition games. The Spring Breakout games are a way to highlight prospect talent by giving each team an opportunity to field a full lineup consisting of players from all levels of their minor league systems. Today’s lineup consists almost entirely of top-30 Brewers prospects, including the organization’s No. 1 and 2 prospects (infielders Jesús Made and Luis Peña) in the top two spots of the order. Third baseman Andrew Fischer, who smoked a 112.4-mph ground-rule double off of Mason Miller yesterday, is hitting third.

Blake Burke, who had one of the biggest second-half breakouts in the Brewers’ system, is hitting cleanup. He’s followed by Josh Adamczewski, in left field today, and 2025 sixth-round pick Daniel Dickinson. Matthew Wood, 2024 first-round pick Braylon Payne, and Josiah Ragsdale make up the bottom of the lineup. Starting on the mound today is Tyson Hardin, Milwaukee’s No. 19 prospect, who recorded a 2.72 ERA and 9 K/9 last year between High-A and Double-A.

You can watch today’s final Spring Breakout game on MLB TV and MLB Network. First pitch is slated for 3:05 p.m. CT.

The Philadelphia Phillies already had Cristopher Sánchez locked into a long-term deal that ensured the left-hander could remain a Phillie through 2030.

Yet they feel so strongly about their All-Star ace that they guaranteed him an extra $60 million into his mid-30s.

The Phillies announced Sunday, March 22, they signed Sánchez to a six-year contract that begins in 2027, runs through 2032 and includes a club option for 2033. Including the $3.5 million Sanchez will earn this season, he’s now guaranteed $107 million through 2032, according to The Athletic.

It’s an interesting maneuver for both sides: Sánchez had signed a four-year, $22.5 million contract in June 2024 that included club options of $14 million and $15 million in 2029 and ’30. That’s a decidedly club-friendly deal for a lefty who led all pitchers in baseball with 8.0 WAR in 2025, crossed the 200-inning mark with a 2.50 ERA and finished runner-up in NL Cy Young Award voting.