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On Sunday, March 8th I entered my first official salary cap draft of the 2025 fantasy baseball season – a $150 Online Auction Championship at the NFBC.

For those that are not familiar, it’s a 15-team format that utilizes 23 roster spots – 14 hitters (2 Catchers, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, Corner Infield, Middle Infield, 5 OF and Utility) and 9 pitchers. Each team is given $260 to spend during the salary cap draft and the entire 23-man starting roster must be filled out during the salary cap draft. There is then a seven-round reserve draft afterwards. In addition to competing for league prizes in this 15-team league, there is also an overall component in which this team will be competing against all other leagues for overall prizes as well.

Over the years in this space and in our draft guide I have already delved deeply into basic strategy for salary cap drafts, but for this article I wanted to give readers a deeper insight into my personal process for these types of drafts. In fact, I’m writing up this first section the day before the draft.

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Let me start out by saying that I’m not the type of drafter who has dollar values for every particular player that will be available in the draft and who goes into the draft simply looking for discounts and to accumulate as much “value” as I possibly can. I’m someone who believes strongly in getting my guys, and I’m willing to go down fighting with the players that I think are the best options on the board. Entering this draft, or any draft for that matter, I usually start with about 25% of the player pool crossed off my board and around another 25% that I’d only really be interested in at a steep discount.

Now historically, I skew slightly more towards pitching, usually devoting around 59% of my budget on the hitting side ($140) and 41% ($120) on the pitching side. That strategy hasn’t worked out well for me in recent years though and I wanted to try to mix things up in this one. For me personally, I’m usually better at identifying and finding viable pitching options in the middle and late rounds than I am finding impact hitters – especially power bats. So I asked myself, what if I devoted an unreasonable amount of my budget towards offense and absolutely dominated the power categories while competing in speed and batting average as well – and then just tried to make the pitching work?

The idea intrigued me. If you’re going to build a team that’s going to absolutely dominate in power, you’re going to want to have a few of the sluggers that are projected to lead the league in home runs. Your Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, Cal Raleigh types. So what if we went out and tried to get all three? Remember, this is a salary cap draft, not a standard snake draft. The whole player pool is available to you. You can try any wacky strategy that you want. So I dove in a bit deeper. Looking at average auction values over the past few weeks, I looked at the maximum bids that each of those players had gone for – and budgeted those into my pre-draft plan. For Ohtani, that was $53 ($48 AAV), for Judge it was $53 ($48 AAV) and for Raleigh it was $32 ($29 AAV). Assuming we would need to go to the max to get them, that would be $138 of our $260 on just three players, but it would be three players who would provide an unimaginable base in power while also delivering a smattering of speed, terrific counting stats and a strong batting average.

From there, I started to plan out what other players I would want to add to that strong offensive base. It’s no secret that Brice Turang has been a target of mine in every draft that I have done this year. Second base is an incredibly weak position overall and I think he’s going to have a monster five-category season. His contributions in batting average and stolen bases in particular would gel really well with that top three. His max mid over that same time frame was $24 (AAV $21), so let’s pencil that in.

Do you know who else would deliver five-category production with a major emphasis on batting average and stolen bases while filling another infield position? Trea Turner. His maximum bid during that stretch was $29 (AAV $26), so we’ll add that to the draft plan as well.

If we could get those five bats at those maximum bids, that would take us to $191 and leave us with just $69 to fill out the remaining nine spots on offense and our nine pitching spots. That’s not ideal, but we can also assume that we won’t need to get all five of those at their maximum bids. If we can get them closer to their combined AAV of $171, that would give us an extra $20 to play with and make the experiment much more intriguing.

Staying with the hypothetical for now though. There’s one other player on offense that’s kind of a must-have for me right now and that’s Kazuma Okamoto. I think he’s extremely undervalued in both standard snake and salary cap drafts. He also fills a shallow position that doesn’t have may other options that I like. He has gone for a max of $12, which likely prices him out for me unless I’m able to get him closer to his AAV of $7. We’ll budget $7 for now and adjust from there.

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Here’s what the plan looks like so far:

Budgeting $1 for every available spot around those six, we’re looking at devoting $206 of our $260 on offense, leaving just $54 on the pitching side, keeping in mind we’re hoping to gain back somewhere in the range of $15 based on discounts that we can secure those hitters for off of their maximum bids.

If we only have $54 to start with on the pitching side though, some sacrifices are obviously going to have to be made. The easy one is closers. We’re not going to be able to compete for the top options there and are going to have to go the speculative route. Trying to get two guys for $1-$3 each is probably the best case scenario there and then we’ll have to attack the category through FAAB throughout the season. It’s not the way that I like to build my teams normally, but we don’t really have an option if going with this extreme build on offense.

I would also still like an ace on my staff. It’s crazy to try to shop in the Tarik Skubal or Paul Skenes range, as the rest of the staff would be woefully underfunded if trying to do that. I’m a huge believer in Yoshinobu Yamamoto though and I still feel like he’s being discounted relative to the top of the pitching market. His maximum bid during this stretch has been $29 with an AAV of $26. I’d love to try to get him at or near that AAV, and may even extend to that max depending on whether or not we have landed any discounts before then. Let’s work with that $26 number though and go from there.

If we’re just going to have one ace at the top of the staff, we’re going to need at least two additional quality arms that we think can outperform industry projections and expectations and help to solidify this group. We can’t miss on these guys, because the rest of the staff behind them is going to be basically $1 arms. There are two names specifically that I’m very high on this year that I think fit in here perfectly. Drew Rasmussen and Trevor Rogers. Rasmussen has an AAV of $12 with a max of $15. Rogers has an AAV of $9 with a max of $15. We’re not going to be able to go to $15 for both of them, but could probably make it work if we can get them close to their AAV. We’re going to budget with that and adjust as necessary if we’re able to secure discounts on offense.

If the prices in the pitching market soar and we’re unable to get Rasmussen and/or Rogers, we’re going to have to fall back to other options in the same price range that we like but are not quite as high on. For me that’s Kevin Gausman, Michael King, MacKenzie Gore, Shota Imanaga, Tatsuya Imai and Robbie Ray. If I wind up with two from that group it’s fine, I just won’t like the staff as a whole as much as I would if getting Rasmussen or Rogers – or ideally both. We’re also going to budget $1 for Justin Verlander, as he’s a top target of mine and should be easy to secure at that price, as long as I wait for the right time. If someone clicks him to $2 and I need to go $3, that would be a disaster.

Adding in the AAV’s that we’re trying to get Rasmussen and Rogers at, we’re going to have to put the budget for the speculative closers at $1 to make it work – at least initially. We can add back there as well when/if we get any discounts. So here’s what the draft plan looks like heading into the draft:

Honestly, I’m very intrigued by the possibilities here. I genuinely feel like the bones of this team would be good enough to make it competitive overall with strong in-season FAAB work. Of course, this plan could fall apart very quickly, especially if we’re unable to get any of the arms that we’re looking for at the prices that we’re hoping to see – or if we get a lot of pushback on offense and have to go to the previous max or beyond to land those core five bats. Let’s see how it unfolds!

It actually took me a little bit of time to get into the action, as most of the first round of nominations were lesser players and didn’t factor into my draft plan at all. It wasn’t until near the end of the first round that Aaron Judge came up for nomination. I knew that he was an integral part of this plan and that I needed to get him at all costs – hoping to not go beyond the $53 that I had in the budget for him. Needless to say, I was thrilled when I clicked the bidding to $48 and heard crickets from the rest of the room. Starting off with a $5 discount gave me the confidence to think that this plan could actually work. I didn’t re-distribute that $5 initially but knew that I had it in my pocket.

A couple of picks later, Shohei Ohtani was nominated. We went into it the same way that we did for Judge, willing to go to $53 but hopeful that we would be able to get him for less. Imagine our shock and dismay when we only needed to go to $47 to get the job done. Two superstar hitters secured at a total of $11 less than we had budgeted. We were off and running.

Shortly after that, our expected ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto was nominated. We weren’t as confident about this one. The Dodgers’ right-hander had gone as high as $29 in recent salary cap drafts but we were hoping to keep it around his AAV of $27 instead. If we had to go to $28 or $29 – or even $30 – we would probably do so based on the savings that we got from Judge and Ohtani, but we’d really like to use those savings elsewhere if possible.

This wound up being the biggest surprise of the draft for me as once the bidding got to $24, everyone simply backed off. Perhaps they were waiting and saving their pitching budgets to fight for Skubal and Skenes. Either way, I couldn’t believe the way that the start of this draft had unfolded in my favor. Not only did I get my desired ace, but I did so at a significant discount.

The next player that was integral for the plan that came up for nomination was Cal Raleigh. Similar to our plan for Judge and Ohtani, we were prepared to go to the previous maximum ($32) to get him but hoping to land closer to his AAV. With that in mind, we were more than happy to secure his services for only $28. Operation crush the baseball was now in full effect.

The next name up that we were concerned with was Trea Turner. The plan had us getting him for $29, so anything around there would have been perfectly fine. Turner, like many players nominated in the first couple of rounds of this draft, got to his AAV that was listed on the site and the bidding stopped. He was ours for $26.

The final piece of the big five clicked into place on offense shortly after that when we nominated Brice Turang. Our budget was starting to dwindle and I wanted to have clarity on where to go at the second base position if I was unable to get Turang. I also had backup options at other positions – namely Freddie Freeman – that I was willing to pivot to if I couldn’t secure Turang. Either way, I needed to know so I didn’t let other contingency plans go by. We didn’t wind up with as steep of a discount on Turang, going $22 which was $1 above his AAV but still $2 below the $24 that we had targeted from his previous max.

Now came the waiting game. This part of the draft was absolutely brutal as we basically had to sit on our hands for the next hour and not compete on any players. We threw a couple of bids in here and there trying to get players at a discount, but we were basically sitting around and waiting for Drew Rasmussen and Trevor Rogers to come up without having to nominate them too early ourselves.

Finally, after nearly 100 players went off the board, Rasmussen was on the block. We knew from our draft plan that he had a previous max of $15 but were hoping to get him closer to his AAV of $12. So there was some frustration when we got to $14 and someone else clicked him up to $15. Not to worry though, as we were happy to tap into those earlier discounts that we secured to get the guy that we had targeted. Thankfully, $16 is all that it took. I don’t like the overpay, but in the end was thrilled to still get the player that I had targeted as my SP2.

The next player up for bid was Rogers. My initial assumption was that he was going to wind up going for a similar bid to Rasmussen after other managers in the league just missed out on the Rays’ right-hander. I was able to breathe a gigantic sigh of relief this time when the bidding stopped at $11. We had now secured each of the top five bats that we targeted and the three SP that we wanted to build this team around. Now all we had to do was fill out the rest with a limited budget.

The next name that we picked up much further down the road wound up being Justin Sterner. He’s someone that I had in mind going in as a potential closer option that could be had for $1 or $2. I didn’t nominate him, so I had to go to $2 but was overjoyed when the bidding stopped right there. At least had a shot at some cheap saves.

I made a play to try to get Robert Garcia, going as high as $6, but couldn’t bring myself to go to $8 and give up what little flexibility that I had in the draft at that point. The only other strong target that we had on offense was Kazuma Okamoto, with his AAV of $7 penciled into the draft plan. Once again we were able to secure an unexpected discount, getting him for just $5. That one got a fist pump.

At this point on offense we still needed to find a second catcher, first baseman, corner infielder, middle infielder and four outfielders. If you’re going to have a weakness somewhere on offense, those aren’t bad positions to need to fill in-season as options on the waiver wire are usually plentiful – especially if you’re streaming bats weekly.

I took a shot at some other bats. Adolis Garcia I went as high as $10 but couldn’t go to $12. Matt McLain I went up to $9 as a middle but couldn’t go to $11. Sal Stewart I went to $8 as a first base option before bowing out. Calen Durbin I also took the bidding to $8 before letting him go for $9.
I tried to get a few more options on the pitching side as well, going to $5 on both Tatsuya Imai and Carlos Rodon before painfully watching them land elsewhere as big discounts at $6.

It wasn’t pretty, but I picked up another speculative closer in Kirby Yates for $3. Not thrilled about it, but if he opens the season with the job it will be worth it. Otherwise, no harm, no foul. I filled my second catcher spot with a $2 Carson Kelly.

By this point, the talent pool was dwindling, and I actually had a decent amount of money remaining compared to the rest of the league. While there wasn’t a lot of talent left in the player pool, it meant that I could at least be competitive in securing what was there. I chose to do my shopping in the outfield, landing some discount power speed options in Ramon Laureano ($6), Jordan Beck ($6) and Mickey Moniak ($5). Not players that I necessarily targeted coming into the draft, but all were still on my board and I think can be solid and capable producers.

That didn’t leave much for the final four spots. We ended up settling on Kyle Manzardo ($2), Colt Keith ($1), Andres Gimenez ($2) and Jesus Sanchez ($1). On the pitching side, we added another speculative closer in Kevin Ginkel ($1), while adding to the rotation with Chad Patrick ($1), Connelly Early ($1) and as expected Justin Verlander ($1).

Here’s the full final team through the salary cap portion of the draft:

Overall, we actually ended up with $2 of profit against AAV while devoting nearly 77% ($200) of our budget toward the hitting side. As far as executing a plan goes, this one wound up going about as smoothly as you can imagine in a salary cap draft. We were able to get all six of our pre-draft targets to build the offense around and were successful in getting all four starting pitchers that we targeted as well. If this team ends up failing, it will be because I targeted the wrong players – which is ultimately how I would prefer to be judged.

There are obviously holes to fill on the edges of the offense and we’re going to need to bolster the backend of the starting rotation while chasing saves all year, but I firmly believe that this team has the bones to compete – not just for league prizes, but to be a contender in the overall competition if things break right for us.

In the supplemental draft portion, here’s what we added to the mix:
SP – Jameson Taillon
SP – Tyler Mahle
2B/3B – Luis Rengifo
SP – Clay Holmes
SP – Nick Martinez
OF – Isaac Collins
SP – Payton Tolle

Basically wanted to add as many quality options to the mix for the rotation to try to maximize starts early in the season and see what shakes out. I also like the addition of Rengifo for flexibility considering how weak we are going in at both the corner and middle spots.

Here’s a quick look around the rest of the league and how their builds turned out:

Team 1

Team 1 went with nearly a 50/50 split between offense and pitching and started that $132 staff by taking the top two names on the board in Tarik Skubal and Paul Skenes for a combined $79. Overall it looks like he did well against AAV, but that entire difference is coming from the pre-injury AAV on Hunter Greene. Remove that, and he’s actually -$1 in total. The pitching is going to have to carry the team, as the offense looks a bit light across the board – especially in the stolen base department.

Team 2

Overall, Team 2 finished with $3 in surplus value against AAV while going with a 62.31%/37.69% split between offense and pitching. That’s a much more standard split than what we saw from myself and Team 1. I really like the top three starting pitchers that he chose to build his staff around, though I would’ve preferred to see him get a second closer to pair with Jansen. The offense obviously is build around a terrific outfield, but man does that infield need work overall. I feel like a couple of those spots are going to be a problem for him throughout the season. I think this team is solid enough that it could compete for league prizes.

Team 3

While my strategy in this draft was a bit extreme and unconventional, somehow this team usurped what I did to be the most interesting squad in the draft. At first I wasn’t sure what was going on with the offense. I didn’t know if he was just a super fan of the Athletics, or if he was trying to take advantage of them playing in Sutter Health Park once again in 2026 – as he built his offense around Nick Kurtz, Brent Rooker, Shea Langeliers, Tyler Soderstrom, Jacob Wilson and Zack Gelof – taking most of them at a premium. I see that he then added three pirates (Konnor Griffin, Brandon Lowe and Ryan O’Hearn) and a pair of Yankees (Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger). He then filled out his offense with injured and/or suspended players in Jordan Westburg, Jurickson Profar and Anthony Santander. I don’t believe he timed out, so perhaps he just wasn’t prepared for the endgame? Either way, he wound up with -$12 against AAV on offense and will need his A’s stack to crush all season to have a shot there. On the pitching side, it’s confusing as well. Started out paying a premium for Kevin Gausman and then landed some solid arms and a pair of closers in Pagan and Megill (maybe). He then finished it with a $3 Paul Sewald and two setup arms from the Tigers in Will Vest and Kyle Finnegan. He also ended up leaving $3 on the table. Perhaps the plan all along was to speculate on saves late, but the rotation depth concerns me. I wouldn’t be surprised if this team winds up near the bottom of the standings.

Team 4

This looks like a pretty standard build overall with a 63.85%/36.15% split between offense and pitching. The offense looks solid from top to bottom, and while there are players that I don’t typically target mixed in, there’s a nice balance to it. He had to overpay a bit on the pitching side, giving up $8 against AAV to build his staff, which hurt the overall quality in my opinion. He’s really going to need Cam Schlittler and Kris Bubic to stay healthy and produce strong seasons if he’s going to be competitive. He’ll also need to find a second closer if Taylor Rogers doesn’t win the Twins’ job. A fine squad, at a glance I’d expect him to finish somewhere near the middle of the pack.

Team 5

Team 5 came out at $8 below AAV in terms of their total team value at the end of the draft while using a traditional 67/33 split between offense and pitching. As a whole, I like the five bats that he chose to build the offense around, with a stack of three big Braves’ bats leading the way (Acuna Jr., Olson and Riley). I’m concerned that there’s just not enough around them though. I like Zack Wheeler as much as the next person, but counting on him to be an SP2 out of the gate might be a stretch. I like that he strengthened his SP3-SP5 though to be able to pick up the slack if Wheeler misses more time than expected or shows significant rust upon his return. This is another team that feels like middle of the pack to me.

Team 6

Posted on March 13, 2026

Gilgeous-Alexander breaks 63-year NBA points record

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said he gives the "game everything" after breaking the 63-year-old NBA record for the most 20-point games in a row.

The reigning MVP scored 35 points for the Oklahoma City Thunder in a 104-102 win against the Boston Celtics – extending a sequence of scoring at least 20 points that began on 1 November 2024 and now stands at 127 consecutive games.

The legendary Wilt Chamberlain held the previous record with a 126-game streak between October 1961 and January 1963.

"All the records and accomplishments are great, but they don't matter if you don't win and that's all that was on my mind," said Gilgeous-Alexander, who starred for the Thunder as they won the NBA title last season.

"I would have given the record for the W any day of the week. I'm glad we won and I got the record."

Gilgeous-Alexander made history when he sank a 20-foot jumper with seven minutes and four seconds remaining in the third quarter as he reached 21 points in the game.

He went on to add 14 more points in a performance which also included nine assists and six rebounds.

"I just give the game everything I have," said the 27-year-old Canadian.

"There are so many things in basketball and life that you can't control. I've just found success in focusing on the things I can control and giving my best effort.

"I put my head down and done those things and look up and I've accomplished a few things."

The victory was a seventh in a row for the Thunder, who are top of the Western Conference with a 52-15 record, while the Celtics (43-23) are second in the Eastern Conference.

Posted on March 13, 2026

Matas Buzelis motivated Luka Dončić to have his best game as a Laker

LOS ANGELES — As the NBA’s leading scorer and one of the few players who can make an argument as the best player on the planet, Luka Dončić doesn’t need anyone to inspire him to be great.

Luka’s drive is what makes him such a force of nature and a fierce competitor. When it’s being used for good, he dominates opponents and leads his team to victory. And, at times, it works against him, and he gets technical fouls for saying the wrong thing in the heat of the battle.

In the Lakers’ 142-130 win against the Bulls, we saw the best aspects of his competitive fire, and it came from an unlikely place: Bulls forward Matas Buzelis.

During the second quarter, unprompted, Buzelis decided to start trash-talking Luka.

The moment surprised Luka, but once he took in what was said, Dončić borrowed a page from Michael Jordan’s book and took it personally.

“I’m not going to say what he said, but if I would’ve said that, I would definitely get a tech,” Luka said postgame. “But really, these games, sometimes you’re going easy and we kind of went easy in the first quarter, then he woke me up.”

Luka knocked down a 3-pointer over Buzelis shortly after his remarks. Upon releasing the shot, Dončić smiled maniacally and added some words to his actions.

Luka and Matas chirping 👀

📺Stream Bulls-Lakers: https://t.co/c3215XVUbupic.twitter.com/LuAo8SF9kH

— Bulls on CHSN (@CHSN_Bulls) March 13, 2026

The officials talked to both players and calmed the situation down, but the damage had already been done. Luka was fully engaged and seeing red.

Dončić tormented Chicago the rest of the night with a buffet of buckets. He scored on long twos, hit eight of nine from the charity stripe, and knocked down nine 3-pointers. It wasn’t just Luka’s scoring that was elite, he dominated the defensive glass with 10 boards and had a team-high nine assists.

When it was all said and done, he had 51 points, making this the first time he hit the half-century mark as a Laker.

As he was being subbed out of the contest during the closing seconds, the Lakers showered him with praise for his efforts. LeBron James was encouraging fans to get loud, and they responded by chanting “MVP” as Dončić walked off the floor.

After the game, head coach JJ Redick took a moment to commend his superstar for finding a way to turn this interaction into a peak performance.

“It’s not just the fact that he responds to a rough play or trash talking, it’s that he can channel it,” Redick said. “And he can channel it while still doing all the other things that needs to be done. And that’s obviously reflected in his defensive rebounding, his assists, his steals. Again, another game where he gets the high assist number with low turnovers. He’s playing as well as anybody in the NBA right now.”

With the Lakers playing against the Bulls without Jaxson Hayes, Maxi Kleber and Marcus Smart, Luka’s gaudy numbers weren’t just welcomed, but necessary.

Los Angeles is fighting for playoff positioning, and even games that seem like easy wins on paper have to be played with a certain level of seriousness and urgency.

Luka upped his backcourt production with the frontcourt depth missing, and it led to LA’s fourth consecutive win, placing them as the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference with 16 games to go.

Nights like these are a reminder that Luka is a superstar player and whatever weaknesses and gripes one might have with his game, the good far outweighs the bad. And when he gets hot, he is one of the most electrifying players to ever step on a basketball court.

And as for Buzelis, he revealed the key takeaway he had from this experience after the game.

“Probably not to talk to him.”

Good idea, Buzelis, good idea.

You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.

Posted on March 13, 2026

It is designed to make you feel small; Mariners drop game to Cubs, 7-4

Hello friends, this is another #Laterecap (#Latercap? What do we like?) as your lovely blogueuse (thanks, Duolingo) is en route back to Seattle. Today was my last day in camp, and I’m sad to be leaving just as players are coming back from the WBC, but also so happy to have gotten to connect with many of the new faces brought in over the off-season and players I might not have talked to as much otherwise. Look for those stories over the coming weeks. For right now, I’m tucked up in the peacock blue-paneled Victorian-style library in the historic Grand Canyon Hotel in Williams, Arizona. Bless ample wifi, charming family-run historic hotels, and the ability to take a birds-eye view of today’s 7-4 loss in Mesa against the Cubs and put it in its proper size.

I was sad about leaving camp without seeing one final Emerson Hancock start, and very torn about disrupting my travel plans just to see it (which would have then led into sticking around for Kade Anderson’s start tomorrow, and so on…). Hancock has been sterling this spring, and with Bryce Miller questionable to start the season, the fifth starter job seems his for the taking. With the caveat that I was listening to this game while driving through the red rocks of Sedona and being shot full of positive energy from the vortex, today seemed like another notch in Hancock’s Bulldog-red belt. The sweeper continued to be a weapon, getting weak-contact outs, called strikes, and whiffs, including an inning-ending strikeout on the sweeper to Chas McCormick, and he was also able to use the changeup for outs.

The one tricky part is the fastball velocity: Hancock opened sitting around 95, ending the first on a strikeout looking to Ian Happ on 95.5 perfectly located. In the second, he undressed Dansby Swanson on three pitches, getting him swinging three times through the four-seamer. But as the outing went on, he dropped from 95-96 to 93-94 in his final inning of work, the fourth. That is the danger zone for Hancock, as we’ve noted in the past, and it means his secondaries have to be perfectly crisp in order to balance out that more hittable fastball. But, it is spring training, and this is an actual starter’s workload for Hancock rather than the piggyback situations he’s been pitching in behind Anderson, so some of this might be a mid-spring recalibration into a starter’s mindset.

(If you’re looking at Hancock’s line, take out one run from the third inning, which opened with a sun double to Michael Arroyo playing in a tough left field in Mesa. The other run definitely belongs to Hancock, who left a sweeper somewhere Ian Happ could get after it for a two-RBI double hit at 103 mph.)

The Mariners got their first – and only, for most of the game – run in the third after Leo Rivas singled and stole second, moved to third on a Brendan Donovan ground ball single, and scored on a Cole Young RBI groundout. Which is fine but man. Young had a four-seam fastball right in the heart of the plate, something he’s been really working on this spring, and you’d love to see him do more with it than hit a 100 mph groundout, although to be fair to Cole, he also had a hard-hit single in the first, torching an Eduwrd Cabrera changeup at 106.4 mph for another ground ball base hit.

Things got, as they often have this spring, out of hand after Hancock departed the game in the fifth. Casey Legumina gave up a run but not much else, and Alex Hoppe pitched a mostly-clean sixth, walking Dansby Swanson but since he’d just been hit in the leg by a comebacker from Happ (and still made the play!), we’ll let it slide. Plus, Hoppe then came out to strike out his next two hitters, getting Owen Ayers hacking after a cutter that was headed for the center of the Earth, Magic Schoolbus-style, and flummoxing Dylan Carlson on a slider for another swinging strike three. Look for a deeper dive on Hoppe, who I think is one of the most interesting arms in camp, in the coming weeks.

Unfortunately that was the end of the fun pitcher contingent, as lefty Josh Simpson really struggled, giving up three runs and leaving Peyton Alford a mess to clean up (Alford let in one of his inherited runners, making it 7-1. But hey, a scoreless Troy Taylor inning in the eighth! He did hit a batter but that’s all that happened so we’ll call this progress.

The Mariners did get some back as the kids made noise, with Colin Davis reminding everyone there’s more than one player named Davis in this camp. His three-run shot made the game a respectable 7-4, but unfortunately that’s as close as the Mariners could get.

Today en route from Phoenix to Williams I went through Sedona and the Grand Canyon, which resulted in a camera roll full of silly pictures where I’m trying to put myself into scale with first the enormous rock formations and later the massive chasm behind me. It’s an impossible task; they don’t call it the Just Fine Canyon. When I studied abroad in Rome, I had a professor tell us “Rome makes you feel small, which is your proper size.” The Grand Canyon also has this effect, watching people scrambling along the canyon rim like so many ants clinging to the edge of a picnic paper plate. Humbling spring training outings also can make you feel small, but like the ant, like the tourist in Rome or in the Grand Canyon, no less important, I think; just appropriately-sized, waiting for something else to come into frame.

Posted on March 13, 2026

Brewers shut out by Guardians, 1-0

Box Score

The pitching staff put together a strong performance on Thursday night. Unfortunately, the offense couldn’t get anything going against the Guardians’ pitchers, and the Brewers lost their third straight game 1-0.

That one run was allowed by DL Hall in the first inning. He walked Chase DeLauter with one out, then threw a wild pitch that let DeLauter reach second. Kyle Manzardo singled to bring him in for the only run of the game.

The Brewers’ offense did have a few chances. Jett Williams hit a one-out double in the second, and a wild pitch by Slade Cecconi moved him to third. Unfortunately, two groundouts from Mike Boeve and Cooper Pratt stranded him there. In the next inning, Eddys Leonard singled with an out, then swapped places with Garrett Mitchell on a fielder’s choice. Mitchell stole second and got to third on a throwing error, but a Brandon Lockridge groundout stranded him there.

That was it for the Brewers’ offense. They got two more baserunners but neither made it past first base. In total, the offense was held to three hits and two walks.

Meanwhile, the pitching staff mostly matched the Guardians. The Brewers’ pitchers held the Guardians to one run, four hits, and two walks. Hall pitched two innings and allowed the one run on one hit, one walk, and two strikeouts. Easton McGee pitched two clean innings, allowing just one hit while striking out two. Jacob Waguespack had a clean fifth with a hit and two strikeouts. Drew Rom worked around a hit and a walk for a scoreless sixth and seventh inning. Peter Strzelecki finished the night with a 1-2-3 eighth inning, striking out one.

The Brewers are back home tomorrow for a Friday afternoon matchup against the Athletics. Kyle Harrison is scheduled to start against Gage Jump. First pitch is scheduled for 3:10 p.m. CT. The game will be broadcast on the Brewers Radio Network.