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Spring training is a time for hope. It can come in two forms – fans hope their team will put it all together to make a run at a happier ending to their season than the one before while teams hope their players make it through the gamut unscathed. Injuries are a concern and everyone just wants to make it out alive.

Spring training is also a time for contract extensions. Teams were likely working behind the scenes during the winter to talk to player agents in the hopes that they can get a certain player to extend their stay on the roster. The focus for many of those talks are on players that are either really close to free agency or really far away. These past few weeks around the game has seen teams trying to make sure their young talent that is further away from reaching free agency would agree to a deal that would make them instantly wealthy for an extended period of time while also securing their future at cheap reasonable rates while assuming a decent amount of risk that the deal will bust out. There has been a deal in Baltimore where the Orioles made sure Shane Baz sticks around while the Brewers and Mariners made sure their shortstop phenoms would spend their best years in their cities before even making a major league debut. Konnor Griffin jumped on the extension train hours before his major league debut, so it seems as though there is a pattern. The suspicion of teams getting ahead of things prior changes to the CBA, but for the most part, it’s just good business on the part of the team.

It makes one wonder if the Phillies would consider doing the same.

Right now, there are three contenders for getting this kind of extension: Justin Crawford, Andrew Painter and Aidan Miller. All three would fall into that category of “signing him now to avoid future expense”, but each would be their own special case. Were the team to sign Miller, it would look as though they were just joining in the young shortstop extension fun. With Crawford and Painter, it would be similar in that they were young players the team wished to make sure didn’t get too expensive, but at different positions, it would have a different shade of extension.

Aidan Miller

It seems that the new cool thing to do is signing your young shortstop that has yet to debut. As mentioned before, Pratt, Emerson and Griffin now have their grandchildren’s children set up for life with generational wealth while also preserving the ability to make even more money later on due to their current youth and end date of the contract. Looking down prospect lists and noticing that others might still do the same (Kevin McGonigle, J.J. Wetherholt, Jesus Made to name a few), one might wonder about if the Phillies were interested in doing the same. Where that might end up would depend on a few things.

The first thing to worry about is Miller’s health. They can continue to talk with optimism all they want with regards to his back injury, but those are the ones that scare teams. A lot. Miller would have to prove that he is capable of repeating the kind of season he had in 2025 without the fear that his back was going to give out before the team committed large swaths of money to his future.

The second thing is exactly that: do it again. He had a marvelous season in 2025 that catapulted him to the top of the team’s prospect rankings, yet he also was struggling to begin the season. Maybe seeing him repeat what he did last year, to a certain extent, would help soothe some of the fears that he just rode a hot streak, though scouting reports and under the hood numbers suggest he is more than capable of repeating his 2025 year.

Justin Crawford

Of the three players here, Crawford seems least likely to get an extension offer as it really just doesn’t feel like it would be necessary based on his offensive profile.

Why?

Baseball has been trending to power tools being more highly valued over hit tools for quite a while. The ideal is to find a player that can have both and can be developed and refined at the big league level, but if druthers were to be had, the power would be what teams wanted. We’ve already seen flashes of having both skills from McGonigle, who looks to have a preternatural feel for doing both and doing both quite well. With Crawford, his success at the minor league level is something that cannot be denied. He’s produced at every level he has played at, though maybe missing the power that is desired by major league teams. It’s also simply not his game to have over the fence power, but more of the gap to gap variety. Nothing wrong with that as plenty of players have that same kind of game and have found success. The drumbeats of “Crawford needs to hit the ball in the air more” have gotten louder with each rung climbed on the minor league ladder, yet here he is in the major leagues, performing decently in the early going. No one in the organization was going to expect much this year from him, preferring to lower expectations in his first go ‘round.

Yet for an extension, there has to be some kind of “above and beyond” to his game that we haven’t really seen flashes of just yet. It’s still very, very early in the season and he’s doing pretty much exactly what the team was expecting him to do, yet that isn’t the kind of offensive profile that gets one contract extensions. For those that lean on the negative side, there’s might even be the idea that if he were flashing more in his offensive game (more home run power, more balls in the air), there might even be an idea of “show it more than once” before they even thought of talking about an extension.

So while he’s doing well in his first tour around the majors, there still just isn’t enough there yet that shouts “CONTRACT EXTENSION!” for Crawford.

Andrew Painter

Pitching is expensive. We know this.

Starting pitching is really expensive. We know this as well. So why would an extension for Andrew Painter make sense over the other two? The reason is simple: ceiling and money.

Right now, the ceiling that Painter possesses is greater than anyone in the team’s minor league development system. If he reaches that ceiling, the team is looking at having another top tier starter, most days a #2, some days scraping ace-level performances. There might be a few down ballot Cy Young votes along the way, an All-Star appearance or two, all the makings of a very good pitcher. That kind of performance gets paid, handsomely.

Giving Painter an extension now might mean that the team is avoiding those awkward arbitration hearings where players hear how bad they are, contrary to their performance on the field. It would also mean locking in free agent years, however many would be agreed on, at a below market value rate, allowing the team to use possible savings to shore up different parts of the roster. As mentioned before, it makes sense from a roster standpoint so long as the money saved on one player is in turn spent on another (not necessarily a guarantee).

However…

Painter is a pitcher. Pitchers break, as Painter already has. He has made exactly one career start in the major leagues as of this writing (two by the time you read this). That is something teams rarely do for pitchers that have as little experience as Painter has. It’s not to say that teams haven’t given extensions to pitchers with little time. A list of current pitchers are:

• Brayan Bello: 6 years, $55 million – signed after he had 1+ seasons of experience
• Spencer Strider: 6 years, $75 million – highest AAV at the time for pitchers of 1+ seasons of experience
• Hunter Greene: 6 years, $53 million – signed after one year of experience

The list continues, but the theme is the same. The pitchers all had at least a year of experience pitching in the majors before the team agreed to a deal with them.

Painter, while possessing a ceiling that is on par with at least three of these names, hasn’t shown anything outside of at least one decent start that would make the Phillies want to commit long term just yet. Those talks could happen once the season is over provided Painter shows that he is worthy of the deal. There just isn’t any reason for it happen right now.

The team has received an injection of youth from Crawford and Painter so far this year and may get another if Miller proves his talent and health are worthy of a promotion. For now, though, it just doesn’t make any sense to give them guaranteed money without better (and more of a track record of) results on the field.

Here’s the Royals’ lineup:

Here’s the Guardians’ lineup:

Let’s go, Guardians!

While it was the pitching staff that carried the team through the first week of games, the offense began to break out scoring 23 runs in their three-game set against the Marlins. The unit is still far from firing on all cylinders, Aaron Judge yet to truly ignite his season. Instead, they’ve had to rely on the contributions of a different pair of sluggers, Giancarlo Stanton picking up this season where he left off last year while Ben Rice looks poised to break out as the league’s next offensive juggernaut.

We join Rice leading off the bottom of the seventh, the cleanup hitter having already endured an 0-for-3 night with three strikeouts. However, the Yankees are winning, and Rice remains one swing away from transforming a stinker of a night into a productive outing.

The Marlins have brought in a fresh reliever for the seventh, the hard-throwing Michael Petersen hoping for a clean inning. He throws one of the best four-seamers in the game when you combine its velocity and movement, so it’s no surprise to see him start Rice with the ol’ No. 1.

Petersen commands this 97 mph four-seamer almost perfectly to the corner down and away and earns the called strike. Statcast reveals that this pitch is out of the zone, but the Yankees have already exhausted both their ABS challenges, and in truth it’s a good take from Rice given how little you can expect to do with a pitch located that well.

Now that Petersen has shown Rice the high velo cheese, he attempts to get him chasing out in front of a changeup below the zone.

You just aren’t going to get Rice to chase a pitch like this. The changeup is a ball out of Petersen’s hand and never looks like breaking toward the zone, making for an automatic take from one of the most disciplined hitters in the league over the last 12 months.

Perhaps Petersen saw that Rice didn’t even flinch at the last pitch, because he ditches the changeup for the four-seamer for the rest of the AB.

This is a helluva four-seamer at 98 mph with an eye-popping 22 inches of induced vertical break (18 inches is considered elite). Petersen throws one of the ten best four-seamers in the league when measuring vertical movement, this barely dropping from its plane during its path to home plate. It’s such a difficult pitch to track for the hitter — with practically any other four-seamer you expect it to drop into the zone but Petersen’s almost rises as it approaches home. Rice can absolutely be forgiven for chasing and whiffing under this almost gravity-defying pitch.

Just like that, Rice finds himself in a 1-2 hole and on the precipice of donning the dreaded golden sombrero. If Petersen can repeat the pitch he just threw, Rice is almost surely toast.

Wait a second. Rice isn’t supposed to be able to pull this pitch into the second deck just foul after getting beaten badly by an identical four-seamer one pitch prior. This is some kind of adjustment from Rice to be able to immediately doctor his swing plane to match the pitch that just beat him.

After watching Rice clobber that elevated four-seamer into the second deck, you might expect Petersen to go with something off-speed to take advantage of Rice’s sped up bat. Instead he tries to sneak another four-seamer by Rice in the same spot.

Bad idea. In addition to this pitch actually being in the zone, Rice has fully adjusted his swing to do damage, and boy does he, lasering a 111 mph frozen rope into the seats in right for his second home run of the season. That’s two adjustments in the course of three pitches — the mark of a hitter who is not only locked in but also fully understands every facet of his own swing.

Here’s the full AB:

Rice alongside Cam Schlittler has been one of the true developmental wins for the Yankees since Aaron Judge ascended to superstardom. His emergence as a middle-of-the-order bat comes at a crucial time for the Bombers as they suffer through fielding the worst six-through-nine hitters in all of MLB

You always knew Ryan McMahon and José Caballero were apt to struggle offensively, but the lack of production from Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Austin Wells has seriously shortened the lineup in the early going. The onus is therefore on the first five hitters to shoulder the majority of the offensive burden. If Rice can continue his own ascent toward becoming one of the most dangerous first basemen in the league, the Yankees should still continue to score runs irrespective of the impotence of the bottom of their order.

We all know about Rice’s batted ball supremacy — over a quarter of his batted balls have been barreled while almost four out of every five is hard-hit. We also know how he has made himself into a strike zone savant, placing in the 90th percentile or better in walk and chase rates. However, this encounter showcases another pair of skills he has developed in his time in the majors. His ability to make adjustments pitch-to-pitch and AB-to-AB is already elite. But perhaps even more impressive, his mentality to immediately turn the page after experiencing disappointment — as evidenced by his home run and two-run double after striking out in his first three at-bats of this game — is what I believe will take Rice into the stratosphere of MLB hitters.

The Yankees 2026 regular season and pursuit of another American League East title and, most of all, a World Series championship is underway with about as few hitches as a fan could ask for. Despite a troubling start for the bottom half of the order, the Yankees have managed plenty of runs to win games (seven of their first nine to put them 2.5 games up on the Tampa Bay Rays) through excellent starting pitching and contributions from hitters 1-5 in the lineup.

One player that has really had a hot start (and needed it, after only playing 77 games last season but raking in those games) is Giancarlo Stanton. However, he didn’t get here without some legitimate concerns from those who follow the team.

After suffering tennis elbow in 2025, there were reports that the Yankees slugger couldn’t “open a bottle or a bag of chips” due to the pain he felt. So, there were questions about whether or not Stanton would be able to return to baseball at all, let alone be his normal self. And while 2026 hasn’t looked the same so far in terms of the power Stanton has provided, he has still proven to be useful in the top part of the order.

Stanton currently sits with a slashline of .394/.429/.545 for an absurd 182 wRC+ and 0.4 fWAR through eight games. And, yes, that’s a very small sample, but when someone like Stanton is leading the team in batting average, hits, and OPS, even for a short time, it’s something that’s noteworthy given how far that strays from his normal archetype.

As for how Stanton has managed these hits, it’s primarily due to a different approach at the plate, one that’s focused on making contact instead of swinging for the fences.

A look at Stanton’s Statcast page on Baseball Savant suggests an approach that includes slowing the bat down, making contact through the zone, and hitting the ball in the air. Stanton’s bat speed is down 1.4 mph since last season, leading to a lower average exit velocity and a max exit velocity down almost two mph from last year, but he’s getting the ball off the ground, sitting with a 72% air rate compared to a 28% groundball rate. And given his frame, he’s still able to swing the bat at a fast pace and give the ball a good trip to the outfield when need be. He’s barrelling the ball fewer times, but he also has his highest solid contact rate since 2021.

Even if Stanton has slightly altered his approach, it is only a matter of time before he returns to Earth, or at least stops hitting almost .400 without much power. And, at 36-years-old with bad elbows, there’s likely only so much his body can do, and it’s worth wondering if he’ll be able to get to as much power as he has even in recent years. Generally speaking, it’s likely he will still be an above-average hitter and hit for some insane power on occasion, but there’s still some concern in the lesser bat speed and thump that he’s shown thus far, as you need a guy like Stanton to have the potential for home runs every time he steps up to the plate.

While Stanton’s injuries weren’t something that could keep him off the field, they seem to be having an effect on his ability to swing the bat with the same inhuman force that he has for his whole career. An alternate approach is working for now, but the Yankees will probably be best off if Stanton shows off the form he had in their 2024 run to the World Series and for most of his time on the field last year. What he’s done so far might be too good to be true, as Stanton isn’t going to be a guy who hits above .300 without driving the ball harder than anyone else. We’ll see in the coming weeks how his swing, and his production, start to stabilize.

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Cubs fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.

Cubs fans received some bad news today about Cade Horton; if you haven’t seen it yet, you can read about it here.

Between Horton’s injury and Matthew Boyd missing some time (at least that injury doesn’t sound serious), the Cubs will be employing their sixth and seventh starters this week against the Rays, Javier Assad tonight and Colin Rea tomorrow.

Those guys are both competent starters, but obviously not at the level of Horton or Boyd. Still, the Cubs survived losing Justin Steele for most of last year — and he should be back by late May or early June.

In any case, we certainly hope the Cubs don’t lose any more starters to injury. But if they do, who should they call on as another replacement? Some of the guys listed in the survey below are already in the Cubs organization, some aren’t.

Vote in the survey and I’ll have the responses here later this week.

MAILBAG: This communique from Rangers Fan In Florida – Sir Al Greenberg – points an accusatory finger at Artemi Panarin: 

"Interestingly," says Greenberg, `'the Rangers' late season – and commendable – victory rush coincides with the trading of Breadman Panarin. Considering Artemi's importance to the team, his plus-minus mark of MINUS - 16 hurt the Blueshirts."

Perhaps more than we ever imagined.

Like The Maven, Sir Alan questions aspects of GM Chris Drury's "Retooling" or whatever you choose to call the full-speed ahead youth movement.

"They have a heck of a prospect in (left wing) Adam Sýkora but I'm baffled by the fact that they let him rot in Hartford when he could have flourished in New York. Same with Gabe Perreault, Jaroslav Chmelař and Noah Laba."

Thanks for the "heads-up" Brother Greenberg, too bad you weren't in the general manager's chair; this team could have made the playoffs! 

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Bundle up for today's MLB best bets, with a cold front sweeping across the league today.

Tuesday will be one of the coldest days for baseball in recent history with eight games played in the 40s, including five that will dip into the 30s.

Home runs per game and the estimated weather effect on similar slates over the years: pic.twitter.com/SBLRjoseXS

— Ballpark Pal (@BallparkPal) April 7, 2026

Despite the frigid temps, we've polled our baseball experts for their favorite MLB picks today — and thanks to prediction markets like Polymarket, bettors all over the country can join us on the action as well!

MLB expert picks for today

Pick	Odds
Josh Inglis: LAD/TOR u7.5	+113
Neil Parker: WAS ML	-104
Joe Osborne: NYY -1.5	-104

Prices courtesy of Polymarket.

Josh Inglis' expert pick: Dodgers/Blue Jays Under 7.5

Price: 47¢ (+113) at Polymarket

The Toronto Blue Jays' offense is in a tough stretch, scoring just 10 runs during their current five-game losing streak, and now they draw a difficult matchup against Yoshinobu Yamamoto. On the other side, Kevin Gausman, who has cashed the Under in both of his starts so far, should be given a long leash, with Toronto leaning on its A-bullpen behind him after burning the B arms yesterday. Yes, the Los Angeles Dodgers have a potent lineup, but Toronto’s high-leverage arms should be able to limit scoring late — and with the Dodgers also resting their top bullpen options last night, run production in the final innings should be limited.

Neil Parker's expert pick: Nationals moneyline

Price: 51¢ (-104) at Polymarket

There’s a screaming statistical correction coming for Cardinals lefty Matthew Liberatore, and the Nationals lineup is set to serve it. Liberatore’s 1.64 ERA through two starts is saddled with a 5.28 xFIP, and both his .216 BABIP and 100.0% strand rate are going to take hits tonight against a Washington lineup that paces the majors in on-base percentage and ranks third in wOBA against southpaws.

Joe Osborne's expert pick: Yankees -1.5

Price: 51¢ (-104) at Polymarket

Cam Schlittler couldn’t have asked for a better start to the season, allowing zero earned runs with just three total baserunners and 15 strikeouts across two road outings. He’s supported by a rested bullpen that ranks first in FIP, while the offense is rolling with 5+ runs scored in five straight games. They’ve also dominated A’s starter Aaron Civale, posting a 1.095 OPS in 59 combined at-bats — plus, all seven of the Yankees' wins have come by at least two runs.

More MLB best bets for today

This article originally appeared on Covers.com, read the full article here and view our best betting sites or check out our top sportsbook promos.

Man, if the Dodgers offense had been this hot the last time they were in Toronto, the series would not have gone seven games. But then I suppose we would’ve been robbed of all that amazing drama.

Coming into the middle game of the Blue Jays series, the Dodgers have scored eight or more runs in every game of this first road trip of the season.

On Tuesday, Yoshinobu Yamamoto returns to the mound where he last stood as a World Series champion. Dodger fans remember his heroics, going six innings in Game 6 and then pitching the Dodgers to the championship by handling extra innings duties just a day later. Overall, Yamamoto had an incredible 1.02 ERA against the Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series. The team is looking for both Yamamoto and the offense to continue their dominance.

Will Smith returns to the lineup after having two days in a row off to rest his legs. Dalton Rushing has filled in splendidly, going 5-for-7 with including three home runs.

That hot offense will face Kevin Gausman, who so far this season has a miniscule 0.75 ERA with 21 strikeouts over just 12 innings. Starter Max Scherzer lasted just two innings in Monday’s game, so the Blue Jays will be hoping for a lot of length out of Gausman. It will be interesting to see which one of these factions wins out. Yamamoto famously doesn’t get a lot of run support.

Yamamoto vs Gausman is a replay of Games 2 and 6 of the 2025 World Series.

In fairness to the Blue Jays, half of the team has been sidelined by the flu, and quite a few more are injured, so they are definitely not playing with a full tank of gas. Still, it is fun to watch this high powered and highly paid offense do what it is supposed to do.

So, apply all of the normal thoughts to this game – Dodgers have scored so many for the last four games they are due for no offense, especially since Yamamoto is pitching. Regardless hopefully it will be an impressive outing by both pitchers, as the last four Dodger games have been blowouts.

Tuesday game info

• Teams: Dodgers at Blue Jays
• Ballpark: Rogers Centre, Toronto
• Time: 4:07 p.m. PT
• TV: SportsNet LA, TBS
• Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)