Worldwide Sports News

I’m taking a break from looking at players on the 40-man roster, because there is one man outside it, who increasingly appears to be a candidate to make the Opening Day 2026 squad for the Diamondbacks. Ryan Waldschmidt was selected in the draft barely eighteen months ago, being picked by Arizona in the 1st round (31st overall) of the 2024 event. We largely have Corbin Carroll to thank for Waldschmidt’s presence, because that was the pick the team gained for Carroll’s Rookie of the Year win. Ryan signed on July 23rd, getting the full slot value for a #31 pick, of just over $2.9 million.

He had a brief stay in A-ball Visalia after getting signed, playing just fourteen games for the Rawhide. The following spring, he was put in High-A Hillsboro, and found that not much of a challenge. His .862 OPS was the best on the team, Waldschmidt batting .268 with almost as many walks (51) as strikeouts (53). In late June, Ryan was promoted to Double-A Amarillo. As we previously discussed, that’s the most hitter-friendly park in the minors, but even allowing for that, Waldschmidt’s numbers impressed. He had a line for the Sod Poodles across 66 games of .309/.423/.498 for a .921 OPS – the team average was almost 150 points less, at .777 – and a K:BB of 53:45.

There, for the moment, his progression rests. Ryan has already been named the team’s top prospect by both Fangraphs and Prospects 1500 this winter: I fully expect MLB Pipeline to follow suit when they publish their list. He was also recently the only D-back to be listed in the top hundred prospects list by Kiley McDaniel (ESPN) and Keith Law (The Athletic). Worth quoting the blurb from some of them in more depth:

• Fangraphs: “While he lacks a signature plus-plus tool, the 23-year-old does just about everything you want at the plate and he looks the part of a bat-first future regular in the box… The bat should carry Waldschmidt to a productive career, and he projects as a middle-of-the-order hitter. It’s a power-and-OBP-over-hit skill set, but Waldschmidt’s median outcome is as a regular, and there’s 30-homer upside if everything clicks.”
• McDaniel: “I still think Waldschmidt is a long-term left fielder, but now he looks pretty good out there defensively. He looks like he’ll hit 20 to 25 homers with a roughly average on-base percentage and some value on the bases.”
• Law: “He has excellent feel for the strike zone, chasing pitches well out of the zone just 12% of the time, although Double-A pitchers showed that he needs to work on picking up spin.. He looks like a solid regular with above-average defense in an outfield corner who could get to All-Star level in years when he gets to 20-plus homers.”

Going into his age 23 season, and with less than 150 games in his professional career, the general expectation would be to have Ryan advance to Triple-A, and if he does well, perhaps look to have him make his debut as a September call-up. However, the team’s needs suggest that timeline could end up being brought forward. Because after the trade of Jake McCarthy to Colorado, the D-backs have only four outfielders on the 40-man roster – and that includes Lourdes Gurriell Jr, who is currently rehabbing from surgery to repair a torn ACL. It also includes Jorge Barrosa, who hit barely a buck forty across 33 appearances last season.

The D-backs have certainly seen young outfielders become everyday players before, and experience good results there. Obviously, Corbin Carroll was 22 when he made 645 PA during his rookie season. And he was positively geriatric, compared to Justin Upton, who debuted while still a teenager, and was an All-Star in his age 21 campaign. Chris Young was, like Waldschmidt is going to be this season, 23 when he came fourth in Rookie of the Year in 2007. Other outfielders that age or younger, to have trod the field at Chase with some success, include Ender Inciarte, Brandon Drury and Alek Thomas.

Nor is it unprecedented for an Arizona prospect to skip (or almost skip) Triple-A on his way to the majors. The first to come to mind is Mark Reynolds, who not only skipped AAA, he only made 67 appearances in AA ball, before reaching the big leagues at age 23. In 2011, Ryan’s neo-namesake Paul Goldschmidt also went straight from Double-A to the show. Carroll made just 33 appearances for Reno, before never enduring bus travel again. Outside of the D-backs, Manny Machado and Juan Soto also bypassed Triple-A. Indeed, the latter almost skipped Double-A and High-A too, with just eight and fifteen games respectively at those levels.

It is still possible the team may sign an experienced major-leaguer to play left field until Gurriel returns, and be a fourth outfielder thereafter. However, we’re now less than two weeks from the start of spring training, and every day that passes seems to make this less likely. They could also use Blaze Alexander, who acquitted himself very well in left field last year. After the signing of Nolan Arenado to play third (probably… but let’s not get into that here!), this might be the most likely scenario. Tim Tawa or Jordan Lawlar are other candidates for the position, with varying degrees of experience in the outfield.

In the slightly longer term, once Gurriel comes back, he is being paid $13 million so will have a place in the line-up. But if the ACL issue hampers his defense, he could end up moving to DH, and whoever is playing left could take over on a full-time basis. If Alek Thomas doesn’t improve on his career 76 OPS+, and if Waldschmidt’s bat represents a clear upturn, then the team could decide to use Ryan in center. That would depend on his defense there being serviceable, and not outweighing the offensive positives. It’s going to be very interesting to see how the team opts to handle things in 2026, with Carroll in right about the only certainty.

Remember when everyone was excited about Matt “Mash” Mervis making the major leagues?

In 2022, he had batted .309/.379/.605 with 36 home runs at three levels of the Cubs system, and got off to a good start at Triple-A Iowa in 2023. When both Eric Hosmer and Trey Mancini were found somewhat wanting at first base, Mervis was called up to make his MLB debut.

I’ll never forget the sight of fans wearing Mervis jerseys at Wrigley Field that day — before he had played a single MLB game.

He went 1-for-4, an RBI single, in his debut game. And got a hit the next day, and two the day after — but also struck out six times in 14 at-bats. And that would be his undoing. In 27 games and 99 plate appearances for the Cubs in 2023, Mervis batted .167/.242/.289 with three home runs — and 32 strikeouts. He was sent back down.

Called up about three weeks into the 2024 season, Mervis was pressed into service as a pitcher April 27 at Fenway Park, with the Cubs down 11-0 to the Red Sox going to the bottom of the eighth.

He began with a ground out, allowed two singles, then a line drive to left.

And then… things spiraled out of control. The next five Red Sox got hits, with five runs scoring. Here is one of those hits, a two-run double by Bobby Dalbec [VIDEO].

The Cubs trailed 16-0 when Mervis was replaced by Patrick Wisdom. We’ll cover that in the next installment of this series.

Mervis never did hit for the Cubs, batting .155/.222/.259 with three home runs in 36 games and 127 plate appearances. He was traded to the Marlins before the 2025 season for Vidal Bruján. There’s a trade that didn’t work for either team. Bruján rarely played for the Cubs and departed in August. Mervis had a hot streak in April and over a 12-game span hit .263/.364/.763 (10-for-38) with six home runs.

Had he turned a corner? Nope; Mervis batted .134/.205/.224 (9-for-67) with 26 strikeouts through the end of May, at which time he was sent to Miami’s Triple-A affiliate in Jacksonville. The Marlins released him in August — literally one day after Bruján was claimed on waivers by the Orioles. Mervis wound up with the Diamondbacks’ Triple-A affiliate in Reno. where he hit 13 home runs in 35 games — the kind of guy often called a “Quad-A hitter,” someone who could wear out Triple-A pitching but not hit in the majors.

Mervis signed a minor-league deal with a NRI with the Nationals for this year. He grew up in the DC area, so it would be a nice story if he could make the Nats roster, and with Washington seemingly rebuilding again, he might have a chance to do that. If so, we’ll see him at Wrigley Field on Opening Day.

The Mets will broadcast 13 spring training games across SNY and PIX11, beginning with February 21st against the Marlins, and wrapping up on March 21st against the Astros. All of the SNY/PIX11 broadcast games will take place at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie.

As per usual, the bulk of the Mets’ spring games are against the fellow east coast Grapefruit League teams of the Cardinals, Astros, Marlins, and Nationals. The Mets will also face off against the crosstown rival Yankees and see the American League champion Blue Jays.

While the spring broadcasts often feature fill-ins due to other obligations and/or last minute vacations, the Mets’ broadcasts will be anchored by some combination of Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez, and Ron Darling ahead of their 21st season together.

All told, the Mets will play 30 games this spring, mostly against other MLB clubs, but also featuring exhibition games against the World Baseball Classic teams for Nicaragua and Israel. Some of these other games will likely be broadcast on MLB Network, ESPN, and elsewhere, though no additional broadcasts have been announced yet.

SNY/PIX11 games:

2/21 1:10 PM SNY vs. Marlins
2/24 1:10 PM SNY vs Astros
2/25 1:10 PM PIX11 vs Cardinals
2/28 1:10 PM SNY vs Nationals
3/1 1:10 PM SNY vs Astros
3/8 1:10 PM PIX11 vs Yankees
3/9 6:10 PM SNY vs Marlins
3/10 1:10 PM SNY vs Cardinals
3/13 6:10 PM PIX11 vs Marlins (Split Squad)
3/15 1:10 PM PIX 11 vs Blue Jays
3/16 6:10 PM SNY vs Nationals
3/20 1:10 PM SNY vs Cardinals
3/21 1:10 PM PIX11 vs Astros (Split Squad)

The snow lingers.

Anyone in the Philadelphia area looks outside today and sees white, frozen nothingness that will permeate our thoughts these next few days as the continued frigidness lingers. It’s things like this that cause our minds to wander to Clearwater, to the impending sound of bats against balls, rawhide being hurled on leather, a color other than white that helps us realize dreams of warmth and sunshine.

Spring training is nearing and what better time to think about the Phillies than to take a guess as to what they are going to look like once the curtain drops on the 2026 season. Here is the first guess.

Catcher – J.T. Realmuto, Rafael Marchan

Another season with this tandem behind the plate should lead to the pitching staff doing backflips. There are some serious questions that need to be answered by both of these catchers though:

• Can Realmuto improve both behind the plate and at the plate?
• Can Marchan hit enough to justify Rob Thomson giving him more playing time?
• Will Thomson actually give Marchan more playing time?

The answers to all three of these questions are probably obvious, but there is hope that the opposite answer can be given.

Infield – Bryce Harper, Bryson Stott, Trea Turner, Alec Bohm, Edmundo Sosa, Otto Kemp

The starting four, obvious.

The bench, also kind of obvious.

What’s interesting is how much the team is talking up Kemp this winter. We hear platitudes heap upon Kemp by the manager and the POBO, something that is interesting considering his skillset. He’s a good bench piece, but there seems to be a sentiment behind their comments that they see something more.

I’d like to know why.

Outfield – Brandon Marsh, Justin Crawford, Adolis Garcia, Johan Rojas

The question with this outfield alignment is: how far is the gap between the worst case scenario and the best case. Where the arrow points more towards this season is going to determine a lot about their direction. If it’s more worst case scenario, not only are they having to trade more prospects for a band aid, they also have an answer to their question about the viability of Crawford as a major league piece, about Marsh and if he can be something closer to a regular, not needing a platoon and about Garcia and whether that one-year deal was a wise choice.

If it leans more towards the best case scenario, then the biggest weakness this team has is suddenly something better, perhaps even – dare I say it – a strength?!?

Personally I’d be happy with splitting the difference.

Designated hitter – Kyle Schwarber

There are about 150 millions reasons why this is a stone cold lock. The more interesting question about Schwarber is the other positions he might play. If we set the over/under at games played at first base and/or left field at 15, which are you taking?

Starting rotation – Cristopher Sanchez, Jesus Luzardo, Aaron Nola, Taijuan Walker, Andrew Painter

There is a capital A “Ace” here in Sanchez, a solid #2 in Luzardo…

…and a whole lot of question marks.

Getting back Aaron Nola to his pre-2025 form would be a boon for this rotation. Based on his history, betting on something closer to that form would be wise, but building in some buffer would also be wise. If Andrew Painter can take a step forward for this rotation, it would also be a large boost as he might be able to settle into something between a #3 and 4 were that to happen, something more being his ceiling. I’ve never really considered Taijuan Walker as anything more than a LAIM (League Average Innings Muncher), so if he can give the team five innings each start, that’s a win for the team.

It’s just that there are so many question marks for a team that leans into the rotation as its strength. Getting Zack Wheeler back and healthy makes this unit looks so much better, but that’s something can’t really be counted on until we actually see it in practice.

Relief pitching – Jhoan Duran, Jose Alvarado, Brad Keller, Tanner Banks, Orion Kerkering, Zach McCambley, Seth Johnson, Jonathan Bowlan

It’s probably been said before, but on paper, this might be the team’s best complete bullpen in a long, long time. There is depth, there is swing and miss stuff, there is upside, there are projects that can be worked with unlock something a little more. A lot of that is something the Phillies’ bullpen hasn’t had in quite some time.

For me, the biggest question is: where does Kerkering rank among all of these arms? Fifth? Sixth? Seventh?

Injured list – Zack Wheeler

As badly as he might want to be ready for the first series of the season, it’s likely that the team proceeds cautiously with Wheeler. There is little doubt he’ll be working his tail off to get ready, but with the team pumping the brakes a bit, a late April season debut is far more feasible than to be ready by Opening Day.

Though, I wouldn’t count him out just yet…

With the 2025 Texas Rangers season having come to an end, we shall be, over the course of the offseason, taking a look at every player who appeared in a major league game for the Texas Rangers in 2025.

Today we are looking at relief pitcher Cole Winn.

So is Cole Winn good now?

Winn, the last man standing (or, at least, still in the organization) from the disastrous 2018 draft, seemed to be destined for perpetual NRI-land not too long ago. A consensus top 100 guy heading into the 2022 season, he got his shit rocked in AAA in both 2022 and 2023, to the tune of a 6.83 ERA in 222 innings for the Express in those two campaigns. A more successful 2024 in AAA, in a relief role, led to opportunities in the majors, and after five scoreless appearances to start his major league career he allowed 15 runs in his final eight major league appearances before missing the final three and a half months of the season with “right shoulder discomfort,” which is never good.

So coming into the 2025 season, the answer to the “is Cole Winn good now?” question would have likely been, no, probably not.

But that was then, this is now, as the Monkees once sang, and as we used to see on the HBO listings constantly in the mid-80s (I guess someone there was a big Emilio Estevez fan). And as of now the answer is…probably different?

Winn was sent to AAA to start the year and put up 12 straight appearances without allowing any earned runs. That’ll get you noticed. It led to him being brought up to the majors in mid-May, and he continued that remarkable streak, putting up 11 straight appearances in the bigs before allowing a run in late June against the Mariners. Two days later he gave up a three run homer to Mitch Garver in the 12th inning, and even though he’d shut down the M’s in the 11th, he was sent back to AAA (though really, that was about fresh arms more than anything).

Continued good work in AAA got Winn back to the majors after the All Star Break, and he kept putting up zeroes, registering 11 more straight scoreless appearances before going K, walk, homer (to Bobby Witt Jr., so I mean, whaddya gonna do?), HBP in a mid-August game, after which he was put on the injured list with nerve irritation in his hand. Winn returned in mid-September, allowed two runs in eight appearances, then spent the final series on the injured list because of shoulder irritation again.

Winn ended the year with a 1.51 ERA in 41.2 innings over 33 appearances for the Rangers, and his 1.1 bWAR was second highest among relievers, behind Shawn Armstrong’s 1.5 bWAR, unless you consider Jacob Latz a reliever despite his eight starts, in which case Winn was third on the team. Either way, pretty good.

Ah, but now, as Paul Harvey says, you’re going to hear the rest of the story.

Winn didn’t miss a ton of bats in 2025. His K rate of 21.6% was a shade below league average. That’s fine, except he also walked 10.5% of batters he faced. That’s not good. That’s comfortably below average. In addition, his hard hit rate of 48.1% was way below average.

So not surprisingly, the non-ERA stats show reasons for concern. Winn had a 3.90 FIP, a 4.37 xFIP, and a 4.12 xERA. He did allow just 3 home runs, in large part because he generated lots of ground balls. But he also allowed just a .194 BABIP, with over 90% of the runners he allowed being stranded. Neither of those are encouraging from a sustainable-future-performance standpoint.

Winn, unusually for a middle reliever, threw five pitches regularly, six pitches in all (he threw his curve just six times, so we can ignore that). He threw three varieties of fastball — a four seamer, a sinker, and a cutter. None of them featured a lot in the way of movement. All three had a xwOBA over .300, and his sinker, which he threw 21% of the time, was especially lit up, as he allowed a .400 wOBA and .389 xwOBA off of it.

On the other hand, his slider and split-finger were both much better. The slider showed a ton of horizontal movement, and his split finger had a bunch of drop. The slider resulted in a .154 wOBA against (though a .276 xwOBA) with the splitter resulting in .206/.255. His splitter was his least used pitch, though he still threw it 12.1% of the time.

Simplistically speaking, we could say Winn should use the slider and splitter more and junk the sinker, though of course reality is much more complicated and we are talking about a rather small sample size of pitches.

So is Cole Winn good now? I don’t know. He’s obviously quite reliant on his defense as a groundball guy who doesn’t strike out a ton of guys. The 3.90 FIP and 4.12 xERA make him someone who is fine, I guess, in a low-leverage role in the pen, though obviously, if you think his true talent is more like the 1.51 ERA he put up (oh, and the 0.59 AAA ERA last year), then you can slide him much higher up in terms of the leverage role he fills.

Winn is out of options, so barring injury (and after two i.l. stints with shoulder issues and an i.l. stint with a nerve issue in the past two seasons, I’m starting to worry about whether there’s a TOS issue looming), he’ll be in the Ranger pen to start the season. There’s not a lot of blue chip, skins on the wall relievers in the mix, so he will get the opportunity to show what he can do.

It would be nice if he turned out to be a solid relief pitcher. I think the Rangers could use one of them.

Previously:

Gerson Garabito

Tyler Mahle

Kyle Higashioka

Adolis Garcia

Luis Curvelo

Alejandro Osuna

Blaine Crim

Jake Burger

Jacob Webb

Nick Ahmed

Jon Gray

Carl Edwards Jr.

Josh Jung

Leody Taveras

Dustin Harris

Marc Church

Luke Jackson

Danny Coulombe

Wyatt Langford

Dylan Moore

Michael Helman

Evan Carter

Lázaro Estrada is a 26-year-old (27 in April), right-handed pitcher, from Cuba.

He made it to the majors for the first time last year, pitching in two games, 7.1 innings. He was hit pretty hard, 10 hits in 7.1 innings, but he also had 10 strikeouts.

Lázaro was #36 on our Top 40 Prospect list in 2024 (in 2025, he turned 25, and we don’t consider players 25 and over ‘prospects’). Tom_M wrote:

There are three pitches in Estrada’s arsenal. The fastball is a four seamer that’s not hard, sitting 91-94, but has nice vertical ride and horizontal run. His changeup is rarely used and doesn’t have impressive shape, but it does sit 10mph off his fastball and can get some chases. In the past, his breaking ball has been the star of his arsenal. Before 2023, it was a curveball that he could occasionally snap off with spin rates up to an elite 3,400 RPM. This year the curve was replaced with a slow slider. He still spins it at around 2,700 RPM, which would be in about the 90th percentile in MLB, but in a couple of looks this year the movement wasn’t as impressive as that would suggest. Estrada’s command is solid and seems likely to end up average.

Estrada profiles mostly as a reliever, with only one pitch that looks like it has the potential to be a difference maker in MLB and a spotty track record of durability, but he’s performed so far and the breaking ball bears watching. At 25 and rule 5 eligible, he’ll need to move this year to have a hope of reaching Toronto.

He pitched most of the 2025 season in Buffalo. He had a 5.73 ERA in 26 games, 25 starts, with a 5.73 ERA. In 97.1 innings, he had 99 strikeouts and 32 walks.

Estrada has two option years left, but I’m thinking this is a pretty important year for him, if he’s going to have a major league career.

Steamer thinks Estrada is going to pitch in 23 games, 23 innings, with a 4.19 ERA with 21 strike outs.

The team has added a bunch of relievers this off-season and there are younger arms coming up quickly behind Lázaro. But he gets a lot of movement on his pitches, as you can see in this gif from Sportsnet. He would be better off on a team that could let him pitch and find his way in the majors. But, unless he’s DFAed, I think he’s going to end up in Buffalo, hoping to be next in line when we need a pitcher in case of an injury.

I don’t think there is enough prospect shine left on him to be a trade piece, but who knows. I think he could be a good major league pitcher. I’m not sure he’ll get the chance.