MESA, Arizona — I decided to head over to Sloan Park Monday, as I heard the equipment truck that left Chicago Friday was going to arrive. You can see the truck at the top of this post; here are some more photos of Cubs staffers unloading equipment:

While I was there I headed over toward Field 1, the main practice field at the Sloan Park complex. There was a bit of batting practice going on. Here are Carson Kelly and Dylan Carlson chatting, Kelly sporting a full beard:

Here’s Carlson taking a swing in the cage:

Also near Field 1 is the new building for players and staff that was completed over the winter. This building will host the Pitch Lab and some additional batting cages:

On the buildings on the right field side of Sloan Park itself, the team has put up 10 large photos of players. These were obviously done before Alex Bregman was signed, otherwise they surely would have included him:

Pitcher and catcher official report day is a week from Wednesday, Feb. 11, though as you can see, some players are already working out in Mesa. Baseball isn’t too far away!

Pitchers and catchers may not have reported yet, but I figured I need to get an early jump on our usual review of the non-roster invitees to spring training. That’s because there are an awful lot of them this season. The team announced the list on Friday, and there are thirty-two non-roster invitees, in addition to a full 40-man roster. I hope the locker room at Salt River Fields is big enough for everyone. As noted there, that compares to the fewer than twenty present last year – and there may still be some further additions to come, if the rumblings out of the front-office are to be believed.

These players may not be on the 40-man roster yet. But they still “matter”. Of those nineteen NRI in camp last year, over half ended up appearing in the big leagues. Five were pitchers (Kyle Backhus, Jeff Brigham, José Castillo, Christian Montes De Oca, Juan Morillo) and another five were position players (Tristin English, Aramis Garcia, Garrett Hampson, Connor Kaiser and Ildemaro Vargas). Garcia and Vargas are back in the same situation this spring. Should Vargas appear for the D-backs in 2026, it will be his seventh season doing so. That would be more than franchise cornerstones like Justin Upton, Steve Finley and Gerardo Parra.

But let’s begin our review – which will likely take much of the month to complete! – with the left-handed pitchers who will be reporting to Salt River Fields next week.

Spencer Giesting (70)

An 11th-round pick in 2022, out of the University of North Carolina, Giesting split time in 2025 between Double-A Amarillo and Triple-A Reno. His numbers at the former stop were excellent, especially considering its status as the most hitter-friendly park in the minors: a 3.67 ERA, compared to a team figure a hair below five. Spencer did struggle after moving to the (relatively pitcher-friendly!) Aces, with a 6.47 ERA across seventeen starts. But he was more than four years younger than average for that level. Giesting also finished strongly, with a 3.14 ERA over his final five starts, and being named the team’s minor-league pitcher of the month for September.

Tommy Henry (47)

This is obviously a name you should recognize, since at one point Henry (pictured top) looked set to become a regular member of the big-league rotation. He made sixteen starts in 2023, and had a 4.15 ERA when elbow inflammation ended his season in July. Sadly, Tommy hasn’t been the same since. His ERA ballooned to over seven in 2024, and he barely got a cup of coffee last year, making just two appearances before that elbow required Tommy John surgery in June. Henry was designated for assignment in November, but re-signed to a minor-league contract the following month. He obviously won’t be doing much in camp, since he is still recovering from that surgery.

Yu-Min Lin (89)

It kinda feels like we’ve been taking about Lin for a while, but he only signed with the D-backs in 2022. Hopefully, he will arrive on time this year: he was late to spring training in 2025 due to obligatory military service back in his home country of Taiwan. He made 23 starts for Reno, and labored a bit, with an ERA of 6.64. But he only turned 22 in July, so like Giesting, is very young for Triple-A. One three-game stretch, where he allowed 18 ER over 6.1 innings, was definitely a factor; he then rebounded with three ER over 17 innings. Yu-Min should start in Reno again, but I would not be surprised if he were to reach the major leagues this season.

We’re finally in the home stretch of the offseason. Spring training is just a couple of weeks away, and before we know it the 2026 Yankees will be taking the field and playing ball with the goal of avenging their disappointing finish last year. This is true moreso than most teams that got bounced because general manager Brian Cashman largely decided to run back the roster from last year, with the biggest get of the offseason being re-signing Cody Bellinger on top of some tweaks to the bullpen.

Now that the roster speculation is all said and done, it’s time to critique the final result and where it stands relative to the league. Are the Yankees well-suited to take back the division, or has the challenge grown even more? What was their biggest miss of the offseason, and what kind of grade would you give their work overall? If you have questions like these, or anything else on your mind, send ‘em in for a chance to be featured in our Yankees mailbag.

Answers will run on Friday afternoon. All questions received by the night of February 5th will be considered. You can leave your submissions in the comment section below or by e-mail to pinstripealleyblog [at] gmail [dot] com.

With New York Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury announcing the team’s intentions to retool the roster, trade rumors have begun to run rampant regarding multiple players. 

That includes Braden Schneider, who, throughout his Rangers tenure, hasn’t been the subject of much trade speculation. 

For many years, Schneider was perceived to be part of the Blueshirts’ core and someone who would emerge as a cornerstone piece of the future.

However, for essentially the first time in his Rangers tenure, there has been serious chatter that the team will look to move Schneider. 

The 24-year-old defenseman is set to become a restricted free agent after the 2025-26 season comes to a close, leaving his future in New York uncertain. 

Schneider reiterated that he loves playing for the Rangers, but what ultimately may transpire before the March 6th NHL Trade Deadline is out of his control. 

“I don't have any social media or anything like that, so it's not like I'm running into it a whole lot,” Schneider said of trade rumors. “Obviously, you hear about the noise and stuff, and it sucks to hear because of the expectation that we had this year. 

“I love being a Ranger, it's awesome. Just the results this year it makes it tough. It's one of those things that you understand. It's stuff that at this point is out of our control, and whatever happens happens, but I keep my focus here in this room with my teammates and still trying to get wins and get better each day.”

Through 56 games this season, Schneider described his game as “up and down”. 

Despite continuing to provide a physical presence for the Rangers and attempting to make subtle improvements in creating chances offensively, Schneider’s plus/minus rating of -14 is the lowest of his career. 

Holding himself to a high standard when it comes to defending, Schneider has been frustrated with the number of goals against he’s been on the ice for.

“I feel like this year, it’s crazy because we’ve been getting scored against a lot. I take a lot of pride in obviously not getting scored against and being a mindless player. On a team that’s struggling you always want to do more,” Schneider said. “I think throughout the course of the year, I've done a better job at getting pucks to the net, whereas earlier on, it was really hitting a lot of shin pads or missed the net or missing chances that you should capitalize on, and things like that… 

“I think it's hard to feel good about your game at times. My main goal is not to get points or anything like that, it is to get wins. When you are not getting wins, you feel like you need to do more.”

Schneider’s rise into the Rangers’ lineup came as the team was experiencing some incredible success, including two trips to the Eastern Conference Final. 

The young blueliner is learning more about the business side of hockey, watching the same core group of players being broken up over the past year and a half, and is really reaching a boiling point now. 

A lot could change both for the Rangers and for Schneider from an individual standpoint, and he knows that he must be prepared for all possible scenarios. 

“It's probably the hardest thing about being a professional hockey player is building these relationships with these guys over a course of a couple years, and you don't perform as a team, and it's time to make changes,” Schneider said. “That's the way it goes, and it sucks. You always wish that you could have had the results to keep the team together, because we really do have a great group of guys in here. It's sad to see some guys go but at the same time, it's the business of things. I think everyone understands what the expectation is when you're not not meeting it, you're gonna have to make those decisions. So it's a double edged sword, where it's sad, but at the same time, you have to understand what's going on.”

Earlier on Monday, we got word that the Atlanta Braves were one of three teams (alongside the Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Angels) that didn’t decide to follow the Brewers, Cardinals, Rays, Reds and Royals to MLB Media as far as their televised games are concerned.

Well, now we know why the Braves didn’t join that pack of ballclubs when it came to making that jump. As it turns out, the Braves are reportedly about to launch their own TV network. Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal is reporting that this is the path that the Braves are going to go down. He laid it out pretty clearly in his article detailing what the Braves and the eight other clubs are planning to do with their TV coverage going forward.

…The Braves are expected to launch their own network, perhaps to air on a national streaming platform such as Amazon or Apple or with a template similar to the Rangers Sports Network — which has direct-to-distributor deals with cable and satellite providers, a local over-the-air partner and a streaming outlet in Victory+.

In case you’re wondering, here’s a link to the Rangers Sports Network’s programming page. The way it works for them is that the Texas Rangers have their own platform where they can reach fans through either cable and/or satellite, over the air, and even streaming as well. The cable/satellite and OTA options would be available for fans across the Braves TV market (which is essentially the vast majority of the entire Southeastern region of the United States) and the streaming option would give fans from outside of the market a way to watch the team as well — and in Atlanta’s case, the options of Amazon Prime and Apple TV would be very appealing.

The Braves were already available to watch locally via streaming platforms on Amazon Prime if you chose to buy a subscription to FanDuel Sports Network through that platform for $19.99 a month. Id imagine that if this is what the Braves do then they’d simply transition to that platform while staying on Amazon Prime, so I can’t anticipate that this would be a major change for fans who have already been watching the Braves via streaming platforms.

However, this would be a pretty big change for the TV side of things, since this would essentially be a brand-new frontier for the Braves in terms of TV. They’ve been part of the RSN model since their days of being broadcast nationwide on cable via the TBS Superstation (a.k.a the good ol’ days) and now it’s apparent that the team has decided that the future involves doing their own in-house production and televising of their own product.

Either way, it’s clear that the Braves are going to be out of the RSN TV business if this is the path that they’re going down. There’s still no guarantees yet when it comes to figuring out a permanent TV home for the Braves but as of right now, we’re closer to figuring that out now than we have been in the past. We’ll see what happens!

New Dodgers closer Edwin Díaz will pitch for Puerto in the World Baseball Classic in March, it was announced Monday.

Díaz, who signed a three-year, $69-million contract in December as the most sough-after reliever in free agency, pitched for Puerto Rico in the 2023 WBC but tore the patellar tendon in his right knee while celebrating a win over the Dominican Republic that pushed the team into the quarterfinals. He missed the entire 2023 MLB season as a result.

The 31-year-old Díaz has a 2.82 ERA and 253 saves over his nine-year career. In that time, no other MLB reliever tops him in strikeouts (839), while only Kenley Jansen has recorded more saves (334). With the New York Mets this past season — his second since returning from knee surgery — Díaz also had one of his best career campaigns, posting a 1.63 ERA with 28 saves in 31 opportunities and 98 strikeouts in 66 ⅓ innings.

His announcement comes days after it was revealed Dodgers teammate Shohei Ohtani will not pitch in the WBC in order to focus on ramping up to pitch during the season without restrictions. Yoshinobu Yamamoto will pitch for Team Japan and catcher Will Smith and recently-retired left-hander Clayton Kershaw will be on Team USA's roster.

Read more:Shohei Ohtani will not pitch for Japan in WBC: 'Just seemed like the right decision'

Complete rosters for the 20 teams participating in the WBC will be revealed on Thursday on MLB Network.

Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas announced last week that he was forced to withdraw from consideration for the WBC, joining teammates Teoscar Hernández, Andy Pages, Andy Ibáñez. The hurdle for Rojas, who turns 37 next month, was difficulty in obtaining insurance to guarantee his $5.5-million salary in case he missed Dodgers games because of injuries incurred during the WBC while representing his native Venezuela.

“I didn’t know that my chance to go represent my country for the first and only time, probably as a player, was going to get caught up because of an insurance problem,” Rojas said Saturday during the Dodgers' annual fan event at Dodger Stadium.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.