Much has been made of the Cardinals’ efforts over the last several months to grow their player development side and infuse it with young, exciting, high-upside talent. One of the men in charge of contributing to that process is Cardinals Assistant General Manager and Head of Player Development Moises Rodriguez. Along with Tyler Gettinger, who writes for CardinalsProspects.com and operates under the online name Redbird Farmhands on all of his social media platforms, we had the privilege of sitting down with the point man when it comes to International scouting. In his time with the St. Louis Cardinals, Rodriguez has helped identify and sign names like Carlos Martinez, Alex Reyes, the late Oscar Taveras, and current Cardinals C/DH Ivan Herrera and Leo Bernal.
Third-party evaluators like MLB Pipeline, Baseball America, and others have started to rank some of the Cardinals’ ascending International talent, including top prospect Rainiel Rodriguez, Yairo Padilla, Emmanuel Luna, Sebastian Dos Santos, Miguel Hernandez, Xavier Cruz, Branneli Franco, and many more. Thus, getting valuable insight into what the team is doing on the international side, in order to help further expedite the Cardinals return to MLB relevance, felt very important to obtain the opportunity to highlight an under-discussed element and bring you all this conversation.
00:00 Introduction to the Viva El Birdo’s Podcast
00:12 Meet the Hosts
00:23 Introduction to the Podcast and Guests
01:42 The Evolution of International Scouting
04:39 Identifying and Acquiring Top Talent
08:37 Differences Between International and Domestic Scouting
11:33 The Debate on International Draft
14:36 Incorporating Biomechanics in Talent Evaluation
17:25 Leadership Changes and Their Impact
20:40 Evaluating Player Adaptability and Makeup
23:15 Investment in the Asian Market
27:25 Navigating Free Agency and Scouting Challenges
28:42 Success in Caribbean Scouting
33:16 Emerging Talents in the Cardinals System
40:09 Evaluating International Pitching Prospects
44:28 The Rise of Emmanuel Luna
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Transcript:
Jake Wood (00:23)
Welcome to the Viva El Birdos podcast. My name is Jake Wood, and I write for Viva El Birdos.com. I am the host of the show, and I am joined by special guest host Tyler Gettinger, also known as Redbird Farmhands on all of his socials. Tyler, thanks for hopping on and helping me out today.
Tyler Gettinger (00:40)
Yep. Glad to be here.
Jake Wood (00:42)
Please be sure to like and subscribe to our channel. We are available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all of your favorite audio streaming platforms. Just a quick side note: if you or someone you know is interested in becoming a sponsor of the show, please be sure to reach out to me via social media. We would love to begin a partnership with anyone interested in sponsoring the show. The Cardinals Minor League system has a major up arrow next to its name, and there are several areas of talent flowing into the organization. Thanks in part to our guest of today’s show, Cardinals Assistant General Manager and Head of International Scouting, Moises Rodriguez.
Moises, thank you so much for the time today. We really appreciate you hopping on and talking some Cardinals baseball with us.
Moises (01:42)
Yeah, no problem. Thank you, Jake and Tyler. Appreciate you guys having me here, and yeah, looking forward to talking some international scouting with you guys.
Jake Wood (01:50)
You know, you came to the Cardinals in two thousand seven, and you know, you’re closing in on twenty years with the St. Louis organization. You’ve been a part of identifying and signing names like Carlos Martinez, Alex Reyes, current Cardinal Ivan Herrera, you know, and even the late Oscar Taveras. You know, are there any talents that you have brought in over the last couple of years of international cycles that kind of remind you of some of those guys that were listed previously?
Moises (02:19)
Yeah, that’s always tough, right? That’s a pretty high bar. Some of those names that you mentioned, our scouts at the time identified some unbelievable talent in some of those names that you mentioned. But, you know, we are now in a part of the cycle where we feel we’re restocking; we’re getting back to producing impact players, and some of these guys that you’re starting to see at the upper levels, some that are reaching the big leagues now, kind of remind me of that wave of success that we had early on and even in the mid 2010s. Guys like Rainiel, Bernal, a lot of the names that you guys know. Some guys in the pipeline are really low levels that maybe haven’t, you know, performed, but we like some guys in the DSL as low as that level that we’re really excited about. So yeah, really feel that what we have in the pipeline now resembles a lot of the early success that we had here, you know, in the late two thousands and mid two thousand tens.
Tyler Gettinger (03:16)
Moises, you’ve been in the org since two thousand and like seven, right? So like, how has international scouting overall just changed since you entered the org to where it is at this point?
Moises (03:25)
Yeah, it’s a great question. I’d say the most nota noticeable difference in the industry is just how many teams are competing, how many teams have built out their departments; everybody’s got a robust, you know, staff operation. When I started in 2007, I’d say maybe there were a handful of teams that were like super, super active. You know, you fast forward nineteen years later, everybody’s got scouts in every country. Everybody’s got a Dominican Republic Academy where guys are placed as soon as they’re acquired. Everybody’s got technical assist tech assistants; everybody’s got video people; everybody’s got analysts. It just feels like everybody’s competing because the international arena is one you can’t ignore if you want to have a really thriving organization. So I would just say the amount of competition, the amount of structure, the amount of attention that is now being paid to the international side is something very prominent and something that we need to, you know, not only keep up with, but build upon, innovate, and try to be the best at.
Jake Wood (04:39)
You know, last spring training there kinda began a buzz about two international prospects that, you know, Baseball America, as just one third-party outlet, identified as, you know, these guys to watch out for. Those, of course, were like the aforementioned Raniel Rodriguez and another kid named Yairo Padilla. You know, obviously, you fast forward about twenty-four months later and Rodriguez is now near a consensus top-ten prospect in the sport, you know, and Padilla, when he was able to stay on the field, flashed some of those raw tools that had evaluators excited. You know, what did you guys see in the Cardinals system that, you know, screamed, you know, gotta have these guys?
Moises (05:16)
Well, I’m assuming you’re talking about the acquisition process. So, you know,
Jake Wood (05:19)
Correct, yes.
Moises (05:20)
Rainel was an i Rainell was an interesting story. He was going to a high school in Pennsylvania in the spring of his sophomore season. He decided, you know what, I want to try something else. He had a contact in the Dominican Republic and left Pennsylvania. So when he got to the Dominican Republic, where we scouted him and completed our evaluation, he was a little bit of an unknown, right? Like we had reached out to some of our Northeast scouts, and just because some of the things that he was doing when we invited him to our tryouts were freakish, right? He was hitting the ball hard. It wasn’t just pull-side hitting the ball in the air, just doing damage, and you know, it was a little short, a little out of shape. You know, the offense and the bat were definitely ahead of his defense. But, you know, again, just sort of unknown on the circuit. We really had a solid relationship with his agent. kept seeing him, kept not believing what we were seeing with our eyes as far as, like, how hard he was hitting, hitting the ball, performance, and you know, we got to a point where we needed to ignore the profile ’cause I think sometimes you get a little too hung up on, you know, how good of a defender is gonna be. And we’ve learned from some prior mistakes, you know, looking at players through that lens a little too much. So we’re right now, it was just a special bat from the beginning, and you know, every time he’d do something, we’d look around as though to say, Hey, did you see that? And fortunately, you know, we hammered something out with the agent and got it done. As far as Padilla, Padilla’s a really good P D success story. When we did see him, he was projectable; he was a premium position, you know, shortstop that can defend, had really good hands. You could tell he was gonna stick at the position, really balanced from both sides of the plate, really liked that. Not a ton of impact in his swing, but made a ton of contact. Always put the ball in play, was a little bit on his front foot, was a little weak, but just kind of like oozed projection, and you know, really speed was a big part of his game. So just a really interesting package that you could dream on. And you know, once we got him into the system, he put on some strength. He’s battled some injuries as of late, as you mentioned, but you know, this year he’s starting hitting the ball a lot harder. He’s always made contact. He’s, you know, borderline reckless on the bases. He just plays really hard. It’s not a knock. That’s actually a compliment. Love the way he competes, and you know, still a lot of still a lot of upside there, and somebody that we should really hone in on because if he puts together a healthy season, the sky’s the limit for him.
Tyler Gettinger (08:17)
Yeah. Moises, when looking at, like, international scouting, especially when compared to its domestic counterpart, you know, obviously domestically you’re scouting mostly like college kids, maybe some high schoolers, but you have like the perfect game events and obviously the college season. But internationally, with the signing period and just how the academies work, how is that different from, you know, the domestic draft counterpart?
Moises (08:37)
Well, it’s huge. Fundamentally, obviously, on the international side, it’s free agency, and the draft is, you know, a selection process, right? So huge differences on the free agency side. In theory, you can agree with a ten-year-old, right? As long as you secure a verbal commitment in the draft, you’re not always gonna get the guy that you love, that you scout, that you’re all in on because you’ve got to wait your turn. So that’s the exciting part on the international side: as long as you’ve got your process complete, in theory you can reach a verbal agreement with anyone. The huge difference is the youth baseball infrastructure; obviously here in the draft you’ve got high school, you’ve got college, you’ve got, you know, much more organized like youth baseball like entities. In a lot of these countries, you don’t have high school baseball. In fact, in the majority of where we scout, there isn’t high school baseball. So you’re very dependent on trainers. A lot of these inde independent, Buscon- that’s a term that you’ve heard a lot- academies. So we count a lot on those relationships, access to players, and that’s really what drives our strategy is like accessing the best players, and the way that you do that is being really tapped in. Our scouts gotta have networks, you gotta maintain relationships, and you know, at the end of the day you’ve gotta close deals, right? So that’s the exciting part about it: you go out, you see a player you like, and you’ve gotta be responsible; you’ve gotta check the boxes, make sure your evaluation is complete, within what you’re doing internally, within your systems. But that’s the biggest difference. It’s just free agency versus draft, and you know that’s the thrill of it, that at any time you could show up, come across a player that’s eligible and shake his hand and hope it materializes, you know, two years later. And that’s also a dynamic that’s very unique to the international space: you not only have to, you know, reach an agreement, shake hands with the trainer, the family, the player, but you’ve got to be able to see that commitment through the day that they’re actually eligible to sign, right? So it’s a very complex process. You shake hands, yes, we’ve got a deal in place, but you’ve also got a window between that deal and the time they sign, they put ink to paper, where you’ve got to take advantage of development time. You’ve got to make sure that other teams aren’t trying to jump in there and offer more money. So that’s where the relationship part comes in. You’ve got to have really sound relationships. So when you shake hands with a player, with an agent, it stays in place.
Jake Wood (11:33)
No, and I don’t want to ask you directly about the CBA because obviously that’s just a little bit above you, right? But you know, one of the topics that frequently is talked about when negotiations are present is the idea of an international draft. And, you know, kind of on the topic of what you were talking about, is that a concept for you specifically that you would support? Obviously, you know, kind of like you mentioned, we see stories from around the league being talked about where some Latin-born players are agreeing to pre-arrange deals at like 12, 13 years old. You even mentioned as low as 10. You know, some around the industry raise the question of the morality in doing so; you know, would this be a responsible step on behalf of Major League Baseball and curtailing some of those issues altogether?
Moises (12:15)
Yeah, so the international draft topic has been around since my MLB days over twenty years ago. It seems to come up in every CBA negotiation. As far as our position on it, yes. I think we’d love to have a more structured system so you’re not out scouting an age range between twelve and eighteen. I mean, that puts a lot of pressure on, and by the way, all teams are dealing with this pressure, right? Everybody’s competing, as I mentioned earlier. But it puts you in a position without a draft where you’re hurrying, you’re rushing to scoop up sort of quote-unquote whatever talent is left. And it just accelerates the evaluation process to the point where you’re scouting twelve-year-olds. So I do think it’d be healthy for our industry to have a draft, where it ends up obviously above my pay grade, as you said. But I think it would be beneficial. I think internally we’ve been preparing for that scenario, just by the way we operate, how we go about reporting evaluations or scouting formats. I think a lot of the tools that we’re using, a lot of the ball tracking, data points that we’re incorporating. A lot of that we’ve been preparing for a couple of years, even I think during the last negotiation five years ago. But I do think it’d be healthy. I look at it; it used to be that if you reached a verbal deal with a player one year before July second, when July second was the signing eligibility day, that was considered early. And now again we’re seeing that four years before. And when you think about high-risk category, for example, in the draft, we talk about how the high school pitching demographic is such high risk. Well, put that into context with what we’re doing, right? Which is even way riskier. You add on attrition rates, and it’s just like it’s a very difficult thing that we do as an industry. So yeah, to answer your question, I think a lot of people would support it. I don’t think anybody enjoys getting up at three in the morning to go scout a thirteen-year-old. And as responsible as you wanna be, we’re gonna make mistakes. Again, not just the Cardinals, but as an industry, and I think we just wanna be in a position where we’re scouting guys that are closer to maturity than we are now to make better decisions.
Tyler Gettinger (14:46)
So you guys brought in Jacob Buffa this last off-season to be part of the international group, and and I at the time I thought that was an interesting h hire because he’s big into the sports science and biomechanics of it all. And can you speak to Jacob specifically or just as a whole, like how does biomechanics play into evaluating, you know, such young talent, you know, teenage talent since, you know, they are far away and there is a lot of projectability there?
Moises (15:09)
Yeah, that’s an evolving area. That’s a good point that you’ve noticed. So the one thing I would say is when Chaim came in we just wanted to make sure that in every acquisition area we were leveraging all our areas of expertise, be it player development, by way of, like, coaching assessments when we’re looking at some of these players, incorporating that. On the performance science, you know, we call it performance internally, physical assessments, like leveraging the expertise of people that we have in-house that can assess physical traits of some of these players. Jacob does have that background, which is beneficial; it’s super valuable. So that’s a work in progress, but it’s definitely an edge; it’s definitely something that we’re using to make decisions. And look, we need to be ahead of the game. And, you know, Chaim is always challenging us with, you know, what could we do to be better? And bringing people in like Jacob with different perspectives and combining him with our scouts that have had success here for many years, just kind of meshing that in addition to a lot of these new tools that we’re incorporating into our decision-making, it’s only gonna make us better. But yeah, the physical assessment part is something that is evolving. We are using it to, you know, within our evaluations, whether it’s getting guys on force plates, whether it’s movement screens, and just trying to, like, more objectively, you know, document a lot of these physical traits and trying to learn how those, you know, traits age over time, right? Like we’re just learning how to gauge a lot of these traits, these physical characteristics in fourteen- to fifteen-year-olds, and like what happens four years down the line? Like what you measured at fourteen, fifteen, is that something that’s gonna age out in a certain way, whether it’s twitch, whether it’s a strength profile. So again, an evolving area, and it’s something that we’re spending a lot of time trying to get a better handle on.
Jake Wood (17:26)
You know, obviously, so you came into the organization around two thousand seven, which was right around the same time that John Mozeliak took over as, you know, general manager, then elevated to president of baseball operations, and now Chaim came in in twenty twenty four. Can you kind of talk about how, like, not only has your or at least your element of the organization changed since Chaim, you know, transitioned and took, you know, point to kind of what it was like under John Mozeliak, because like you had mentioned, you know, in the mid twenty tens the international team was having a lot of of success and, you know, I don’t I think there was still a relatively steady stream of international talent coming into the organization, but clearly it’s not on the same level of what it is right now that w that we’re kind of seeing and that obviously that’s a credit and a testament to the work that, you know, your team is doing. But just kinda, can you kind of talk about the differences under the two different leadership structures?
Moises (18:24)
Yeah, it’s a good question. I would say, you know, a lot of what we’re seeing now, part of it is a result of some initiatives and some things that we’re implementing around two thousand twenty-two, two thousand twenty-three, where we started using more tools a pr as part of our evaluation process. And sometimes, you know, these things are in the pipeline. You put these things into practice, and it takes a little bit to get some results. So I would say we started adding a lot of these new methods and incorporating more of that around two thousand twenty-three. We had some internal staff restructuring at the leadership level, at the country level, on the technical level, that kind of got us moving forward in a more positive direction around two thousand twenty-three. But you know, time would tell. Look, Chaim has a lot of experience. He’s been with two organizations that were very strong internationally. Chaim was very present with Tampa when they were super successful in Venezuela. So he’s very familiar with the international space. He’s very supportive, and you know we have a solid foundation to build on that we’ve, you know, had here. You know, we’ve had dry spells, no question about it. But I think what we’ve seen from Mr. DeWitt and our ownership group throughout the years is that they’re willing to spend in this area, and you know we keep heading in a very positive direction. But yeah, I would say, like, around two thousand twenty-three just started incorporating a lot more data. We started, you know, subscribing to more, like, ball track packages outside of the academy, right? Because at the academy we’ve got all the tools in the world, but you can’t get in, you know, 13, 14-year-olds at that age. So you’re scouting these guys outside of your environment. You know, what tools can you take a look at and use to, you know, fine-tune those evaluations. So definitely heading in a great direction, a lot of analysis, using a lot of our areas of expertise to get better. And at the end of the day, look, we’re doing this with fifteen- to sixteen-year-old kids. We’re gonna make a lot of mistakes as an industry, and our goal is really to, you know, in some ways make fewer mistakes than our competitors.
Tyler Gettinger (20:54)
Yeah. I’ve always thought like these Dominican and Venezuelan kids, you know, they have one of the hardest jobs to do, which is moving from the Dominican Republic Academy to stateside. So how can you guys, like, evaluate makeup, and is there any way to, like, evaluate whether this, you know, a certain player might make it that transition smoothly or if they have the personality to ad adapt to, you know, li living a thousand miles away from, you know, where they’re originally from?
Moises (21:17)
Well, that’s where Academy comes in, right? A lot of times you’re agreeing with these guys at fourteen, fifteen years old. You may have access to the player a year before they, like, report to the academy to be there on an everyday basis, and be under contract. So the process of acclimation, the process of what it takes to be a pro starts very early on. So a lot of that work, as soon as you shake hands with the agent, there’s an agreement in place; you start that process. And Joseph Cesado, who’s our assistant director of international operations, is very locked in from the time we shake hands with these players. Okay, where are these guys educational-wise? Where are these guys instruction-wise? I mean, those are all assessments that take place right away. And wherever those guys need support, we implement it immediately. And once they get to the academy, a lot of times you’ll have these guys in the academy one or two years before they travel. And for those not familiar with the academy, it’s a mini campus. These guys live there; they’ve got dormitories, they’ve got their classrooms, they’ve got obviously all their baseball facilities and spaces, they’ve got a training room, they’ve got a weight room, they’ve got admin spaces. So those guys, pretty much for a year, year and a half before they travel to the US, are just being poured into by our support staff. And by the time they jump on a plane, you know, we want to make sure they’re comfortable enough. And there’s nothing like landing in the US, living a new culture. You can only prepare them so much for it, but at least by the time they land, they’re in a better position to succeed. And hopefully you’ve taken away some of the anxieties that you know a normal human being has. For example, I travel to Asia, and you know, I’ve been around for a while; I’m an educated person, I’m bilingual, and I’ll go to Asia, and not being able to speak Japanese or Taiwanese, it’s very intimidating. I mean, so, you know, our job is to put these guys in the best position possible so they can focus on their on-field progress, their on-field development, and the more support staff you’ve got in-house specializing in those areas, the better job you’re gonna do with that.
Jake Wood (23:44)
You know, you brought up the internal or the Asian market. And I apologize. I kinda screamed there for a second. Just ’cause I’m so excited about this topic. The international side specifically, you know, Matt Slater was someone who was in charge of kind of the Asian side of things for a long time, and obviously he left the organization a couple of years ago. And so now that we’re seeing not specifically Shohei Ohtani, but a lot of these likely high-impact Asian players coming over, kinda like like Murakami, like Kazuma Okamoto, like all of these different names that are coming over from the Asian market. And obviously there’s some young asian players who may be available this offseason as well that a lot of Cardinals fans are very interested in. You know, what would you say is the level of investment the Cardinals have in the Asian market currently? And I think a lot of Cardinals fans would be curious to know about, like, just, I guess, the direction of that because obviously we haven’t had, I believe, a Japanese player since, like, KK back in, like twenty twenty, twenty twenty one. So, like, you know, w where where does the status of the Cardinals’ investment might be the wrong word, but you know, involvement in the Asian market stand today?
Moises (25:04)
Wow, KK, that’s a good name. I think he started game one of our playoff series against the Padres, if I’m not mistaken, in two thousand twenty, two thousand twenty-one. So
Jake Wood (25:12)
Yep. I believe so. I think that’s correct, yeah.
Moises (25:14)
Good success story there. Yeah, broad topic. The one thing I would say is we’ve got two areas in Asia, right? You’ve got your pro market, which is pretty much major league free agency if you want to look at it and simplify it that way. And then you’ve got your amateur market. The latter is a lot harder to tap into because a lot of these young amateur players have a professional league in their country, whether it’s the NPB, whether it’s actually college underneath the NPB, right? So a lot of these amateur players that are just as talented, maybe more talented than some of the guys on this side of the world, they’ve got options, right? There are protocol agreements; it’s very hard to pry them away; it’s very difficult. Even for some of the teams that have had like longstanding relationships and and successes in Asia, getting a lot of these amateur players is very difficult. So that’s not a broad population of players. That said, over the last few years, you know, we do have a scout in Japan that monitors both the pro and the amateur space. And over the last five years, I mean, we’ve been in on a lot of the small number of amateur players that have flirted with MLB- a lot of the guys that you’re probably reading about on Twitter right now, we’ve we’ve engaged, we’ve been doing the work, and sometimes it doesn’t go our way, and sometimes those guys just stay in Japan. So a lot of work is being put behind the scenes on the amateur side. On the pro side, which is probably what a lot of our fans really are interested in. You know, you touched on a couple of success stories, KK in Korea,
Mikolas is an expat, not really a sort of true international
Jake Wood (27:01)
Right.
Moises (27:02)
story, but that was a big hit. Seunghwan Oh, a Korean guy that ended up playing in the NPB. So, you know, we’ve had some successes with moderate investments, guys that returned a whole bunch. You know, once you start getting into the Yamamotos and the Sasakis, that’s where, you know, it becomes a little challenging. We do our work, we engage agents, we send scouts there annually. I go there once a year; we’re tapped in, and at the end of the day it’s like How much do you want to pay for a free agent? What we’ve done a better job of is putting ourselves in a better position to have these conversations, but a lot of times our geography, where we are physically in the United States, doesn’t help us. But look, we’re not taking a back seat; we’re not conceding. We we we’ve got a brand; we’ve got a very historic franchise to sell. And I’ve always got the, you know, pedal to the metal, so to speak. And I never want to give in to those narratives that we can’t compete. But, you know, it does become a game of, you know, how much you want in the stomach when it comes to free agent acquisitions, and a lot of what we’ve done over the years is try to understand how the Asian performance will translate into the US. So we feel like we’re in a good position there, understanding, you know, how some of that’s gonna carry over. And, you know, again, a lot of the exercises that we do with major league free agents are what we’re doing in this market as well.
Tyler Gettinger (28:42)
Yeah, I’m gonna flip it back to the Caribbean. You guys have had really good success in both Panama and Nicaragua lately. You obviously got Kenley Hunter from Nicaragua and then Leo Bernal, Ivan Herrera, and Juan Rujano from Panama. But like, is that something you guys are actively scouting those, you know, not those top two countries of the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, or are those players coming to the Dominican Republic or Venezuela and going to tryouts or going to, you know, events in those countries?
Moises (29:11)
Yeah, Panama, that story is fascinating. So when you think about where all the players in Latin America come from as far as, you know, signing on the international side, I think we counted the other day somewhere around eighty-seven percent of the signings come from two countries, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. And that’s where we spend a lot of our time. We’ve got robust operations as far as Panama, so that leaves thirteen percent for a lot of other countries, right? Including the small ones that come from Asia, but mostly Panama, Mexico, Cuba. You can’t scout in Cuba, but Cuban players are all over the place. Not sure if I mentioned Colombia. But Panama, when I was at Major League Baseball and even in my early days here with the Cardinals, fascinated me because I made a visit to Panama. I fell in love with the country; I fell in love with the youth baseball infrastructure. They’re crazy about baseball. They hold the youth tournament every January for 14- to 16-year-olds; it’s on TV, it’s carried on radio; it’s televised. It’s got a little bit of an NCAA vibe to it. And you see players playing under the lights. I was just fascinated by how s how sound the Panamanian player was, fundamentally. I’d laugh because w when I went to one of these tournaments and I saw Edmundo Sosa for the first time, and Edmundo Sosa didn’t start the game that I was scouting that day, and the shortstop was actually the coach’s son. Who was not a prospect. You know? He was just a solid player that was making plays, but you know, when you start projecting and checking the boxes that we do with Scout, he wasn’t a prospect. And Edmundo Sosa comes in in the eighth inning of the game as a defensive replacement, plays second base, and makes a crazy instinctual play. And I’m like, whoa, kind of like it opened my eyes. Then he comes to the plate, takes a great at-bat. But I saw that within a super competitive environment. Now we didn’t make a decision to sign Edmundo Sosa based on that, but that environment, the little things that I saw in that environment, led us to invite Edmundo Sosa to a tryout in the Dominican Republic. We flew him over, completed our evaluation, and the rest was history, and you know he added value, and that’s a great success story. But the other thing about Panama is I always felt when I started in this job is that it would be great to have a cross-checker live in Panama because it’s so centrally located to the rest of Latin America that I always thought that was like the ideal place to have an international cross-checker. So, you know, we ended up hiring a gentleman locally by a scout of ours who’s now our assistant director of international scouting, Damaso Espino, as a local scout there who eventually grew to be a cross-checker, and he was the guy behind Ivan Herrera’s evaluation among other people, but he was the guy that worked with Ivan and, you know, put us in a great position to sign him. The same with Bernal, the same with Rujano. So kinda I’m not gonna say fell into success. I mean we sort of designed it over the years, but you’ve got to be really fortunate. You’re competing against 29 other teams and just really fortunate to have a presence with a good employee on the ground that put us in position to sign these guys and just keep going back to the well, right? We’ve done well there
Tyler Gettinger (33:00)
Yeah.
Moises (33:01)
And you know, after Ivan it was Bernal. After Bernal it was Rujano. Rujano’s got a lot of work to do, but just a baseball crazy country with a great, you know, infrastructure that we love to scout in.
Jake Wood (33:16)
You know, I wanna kinda use the rest of our time to kind of dive into some of the players that are starting to gain a little bit of steam in the Cardinals system. So, you know, we saw other talents take some really encouraging steps forward this season, like a Miggie Hernandez and a Sebastian dos Santos. You know, what should Cardinals fans know about these two guys who have some really loud upsides to both?
Moises (33:36)
Well for so people for people who followed our system, it’s really rare to have a player go from the DSL one year to traveling for the first time to the US and playing in Low-A. That’s pretty unheard of. It’s becoming a little more common, right? Because we’ve eliminated short-season leagues, and there are a lot more tools now to assess where a guy stands in his development curve. But for those guys to go from the DSL one year to make it to Low-A playing Palm Beach, where they did this year, that’s just a huge testament to their skill set, to their development process, to their makeup. Quite frankly, Tyler talked earlier about, you know, how do you know when someone’s ready to travel? Both of these guys, like, exemplify preparation, solid makeup; they love playing baseball and, you know, obviously they’re talented. They could swing the bat. They’ve been getting stronger, which, you know, happens when you’re when you go from sixteen to your age-eighteen season; naturally, you’re gonna get stronger. You saw it in the exit velos for Dos Santos with Hernandez, and just really exciting two up the middle prospects that I think we’re gonna hear from, and I think we’re gonna get a lot of contributions from for years to come. But it’s funny because Tyler, you asked me earlier like, Hey, what do you see in this guy, or Jake, you asked me what you see in these guys when we scouted them? You know, Sebastian dos Santos w came from an academy. The academy is Cesar Izturis’ Academy. Cesar Izturis
Jake Wood (35:19)
Mm-hmm.
Moises (35:20)
was a ridiculously sound defender, you know, with the Dodgers, with the Blue Jays back in the day. At the end of his career, he was a Cardinal, right?
Jake Wood (35:27)
I was gonna say I believe he moonlighted with Saint Louis, yeah.
Moises (35:33)
So, you know, Sebastian came from that academy. What did we know about Sebastian? We knew he was getting great instruction from a former major league player that was an unbelievable in-house, clubhouse person, excuse me, and Cesar passed along unbelievable fundamental training to Dos Santos, and then when we scouted him, just a beautiful swing from both sides of the plate, very sure-handed, quality plate appearances was already, you know, barreling up the baseball and, you know, Santos just kinda ran with his opportunity. Now, when we signed him, he was sort of a boxy five-foot-eight middle infielder running a seven-two and the sixty-yard dash. And that’s probably why we were able to get him at a lower price and why these guys are on third-party lists. But again, he grew two inches, he got stronger, he took advantage of his opportunity, and here he is as one of our better, you know, prospects.
Jake Wood (36:37)
Which kind of, you know, how you described him there in the end is also just another reminder of why, like, international scouting is a little bit both an art and a science, because there’s no way to perfectly project what these guys are eventually able to become, but you know, you take these measured risks and kind of project forward what they what you think they could be.
Moises (37:00)
Yeah, that’s absolutely right. I mean, there’s a ton of projection and scouting of fifteen-year-olds. Now the tricky balance on our end is, you know, how much can you dream on that projection? Because you still gotta have skill. You still gotta have talent. Everybody’s looking for it. There’s a reason why we were all over Rainel Rodriguez and Emmanuel Luna. I mean, these guys have some present tools. So there are cases where you dream a little bit, and you know, I’ll t I’ll give you an example, like Hancel Rincon. We signed Hancel Rincon, who made the big leagues this year, throwing eighty-four, eighty-five, and, you know, had a good arm. Had some athleticism, had some traits that we liked, and we dreamed on him a little bit because he was, like, lanky, 6’2, and you know, there’s other guys that show you tools right away, like Luis Gastelum. Like, he had a good changeup. Now, Gastelum also had a good body; he also threw strikes. But there are different ways. You got to identify talent, skill. But there are times where you dream on a kid, and you take a shot on some athleticism and bet on the PD, yeah.
Tyler Gettinger (38:11)
How how how difficult is it to like, evaluate international, you know, these sixteen, seventeen year old pitchers when you’re like scouting ‘Cause I I feel like we always talk about the the international bats ’cause those are the ones that kinda move quicker, but how difficult is it to like get the pitchers and, you know, dream on that projectability with them?
Moises (38:28)
Yeah, pitching and scouting fifteen, sixteen-year-olds is, as I mentioned earlier, right? Like the high school pitching demographic is like that high-risk category in the draft. Put that in perspective with what you just mentioned, right? We’re doing this with fifteen,
Tyler Gettinger (38:44)
Yeah, yeah.
Moises (38:45)
sixteen-year-old kids. So I think the industry, and you guys may have the numbers, but as an industry, I think we’re paying less and less for the fifteen-, sixteen-year-old pitcher, and we’re moving toward, you know, spending a lot more of our money on the bats, on the position players. So what do we look for to answer your question? I mean, look, a lot of common denominators, right? Some good arm action, some athleticism, good delivery. Obviously, you want guys that have a feel for the strike zone, but you know, can they spin the baseball? A lot of these breaking balls aren’t gonna be defined, but like, you know, does their arm work in a way where you could dream on them developing or fine-tuning a breaking ball even more, right? We’re doing a lot of camera work where We’re trying to identify who pronates, who supinates, and look at the high-risk category of sixteen-year-old pitchers is one we’re scared to death of, and again just try to identify some athletes, some good arm actions, guys that fill up the zone and you know, there’s savvy that you wanna identify. There’s some poise, there’s some pitchability, and a lot of the things that we look for as scouts, but you know, definitely spending a lot more time and investing a lot more resources on the bats lately.
Jake Wood (40:09)
There were a couple of arms that I, you know, I’ve read about that I wanted to ask you about. Specifically, one that Tyler talks about a lot is Xavier Cruz. And then another name who kinda came with a little bit of fanfare was Branelli Franco. You know, can you tell us a little bit about those guys? What drew your attention to the to those those talents who primarily, you know, work off the bump?
Moises (40:31)
Man, Xavier, what an arm talent. Huge fastball. I mean, night and day from when we signed him. He was a converted shortstop, and he had just gotten on the mound when we scouted him. He went to our academy and was really mechanical in his delivery. But we knew he was a shortstop. So we knew there was some athleticism in there that we could get out of him. But he’s very upright in his delivery. Showed some fastball traits that have developed even further, spun the ball, had some good separation between his fastball and his breaking ball at the time, but just super raw, just super skinny, somebody that needed to add strength to his frame and a really great story. Injuries have really gotten in the way, but I think this year for, you know, a two-month period, you saw what we dreamed of when we signed him. I mean, upper nineties, fastball, big IVB, huge break on his slider and his curveball. I mean he he spends his curveball so much. I mean, he has a hard time landing it, right? So he’s kinda pitching people or steering him a little bit more toward the slider. But a lot to love there. Obviously the injury got him there at the end, but big, big arm talent when you speak to our pitching people, you know, he’s one of the names that they highlight and put up there with the likes of a Tanner (Franklin). As far as arm talent, obviously Xavier’s got a long way to
Jake Wood (42:04)
Wow.
Moises (42:04)
go and, you know, he’s still at the lower levels but can grow into a really huge, valuable pitching piece for us.
Jake Wood (42:15)
Tyler, do you have any more questions for Moises? No? Okay.
Tyler Gettinger (42:18)
No, I was I was gonna let you
I was gonna let Moises talk on Bernelli Franco if you wanted to.
Jake Wood (42:22)
Yeah, yeah, sorry.
Moises (42:25)
Man, Franco big Huge arm. Injuries got a little bit to him a little bit in the DSL his first season and beginning of his second season. Finished that DSL season strong, got in the strike zone more with his fastball, jumped on the plane here to the US, kind of struggled mechanically earlier in the year, was missing a ton on the arm side, was working through some mechanical adjustments, but look, huge, huge Fastball comes out super easy. Our staff and Branelli have done a good job of fine-tuning his breaking ball, adding some raw spin, really working on that, but high-octane stuff. You saw him a couple of times in Palm Beach and what he could do there. And again, with a lot of these young guys that have got arm talent, it’s all about consistency, right? You look at Velo, you look at some of the swing-and-miss, it’s great. And it’s more about getting in the zone, getting to trust their stuff. Xavier Cruz, going back to him, if you look at the rate at which he’s, you know, missing bats in the zone, it’s impressive. Now we just gotta get in the zone more, and the same with Branelli. But time will tell these guys at the lower levels, and make sure the health accompanies them, and see what we got.
Tyler Gettinger (43:52)
When I was I went down to spring training earlier this year, the thing that surprised me Branelli is like he’s massive. Like, you, you, like, look at him; like, the guy’s jacked. Like like I was surprised, you know, just how big he was for you know, just in terms of strength-wise; he looked
Moises (44:07)
He’s well built. You could put him in a big league clubhouse now, or you’re like, yeah, who’s that big leaguer? I mean, physically, you’re right. He’s just strong, durable, you know, six-three and kinda what you look for from a scouting eye, and yeah, you see him, and you point to him, you’re always like, Who’s that guy?
Tyler Gettinger (44:23)
Yeah.
Jake Wood (44:28)
Well, you know, talking about guys who are well built, you know, I want to go back to a name that you kind of referred to a little bit earlier. It’s not often that you hear someone referred to as the “Dominican Aaron Judge,” right? But that’s the moniker
Moises (44:38)
Ha ha ha.
Jake Wood (44:39)
around in Emmanuel Luna, who was one of the highest-paid international signings in recent memory for St. Louis. And, you know, he’s kind of the last name I wanted to touch on before we we gros close out the show. You know, from what you were able to observe before signing him. What immediately stood out to you, probably besides his size, that your team just absolutely loved about Emmanuel Luna?
Moises (45:02)
My first reaction is raw power. I don’t think we’ve scouted a guy, or very few guys, who we’ve scouted over the years, who show the raw power that Luna showed us when we were scouting him, and it’s carried over and actually turned into game power. You know, in the DSL, and obviously hampered a little bit by some, you know, soft tissue injuries early on. But just the power. And when you combine his strike zone management, his strike zone awareness with how hard he hits the ball, and then you couple that with, you know, the premium position, power-speed profile in center field, it’s just like a really intriguing, super high upside piece. And I think I read the other day that he had the hardest-hit ball in the DSL th this year, had the highest EV on a swing, and it was actually a hard ground ball to second base, right? So this isn’t a guy that’s just running into balls, just trying to like pull pull everything. He hits it, you know, opposite-field backside as hard as anyone. And again, it’s gotta stay on the field and probably got less than fifty plate appearances between DSL and instructional league this far, but in fifty plate appearances I think he hit six or seven home runs. I mean, the power’s real. It’s there; he’s a great kid, and you know, when you talk about prospect upside, the makeup is a huge part of it and I remember the day that we signed him on January fifteenth, he pulled me over to the side, and he said, “Look, I’m not gonna disappoint you. You’re giving me a lot of money. I’m not gonna disappoint this organization. You’ll see.” And I was just like blown away by
Jake Wood (46:54)
Wow.
Moises (46:55)
You know, those words by a sixteen-year-old. And, you know, it wasn’t eyewash; it was very genuine, and just a very driven kid from a great family wants to be great, and it’s interesting because he came from the same academy. That Jasson Dominguez came from and Samuel Basallo came from. And you know, this goes back to my earlier comment on, you know, having strong relationships with agents. Like we were in on Jasson Dominguez; didn’t win that, but you know, maybe that pursuit showed the agent that, look, these guys are serious and you know, put us in a good position to sign Luna years after, right? So just a great talent, hoping he can have a healthy two thousand twenty seven. He’s gonna be promoted, you know, next year, and yes a a name we definitely should keep an eye on and track.
Jake Wood (47:53)
So your expectation is that he will come stateside starting next year?
Moises (47:57)
He will. That decision has been made, and he’ll travel to the US in two thousand twenty-seven, and we’ll see him in spring training, and you know, a lot of times players tell us as to where he’s gonna play. They’ll tell us, but he’ll report to Jupiter and we’ll take it from there.
Jake Wood (48:12)
Very exciting.
Moises, I cannot thank you enough for taking some time out of your busy day to speak with us and, you know, shed some light on one of the more under-talked-about elements of the Cardinals’ talent acquisition side, at least, you know, from a media standpoint, of the farm system. So it continues to grow, it continues to improve, and, you know you’re in your team’s role is providing more high quality talent to it, and we we’re just so thankful again for you to take the time out to speak with us today.
Moises (48:38)
Yeah, I love chatting with you guys, and any time you guys want to talk international scouting, let me know.
Jake Wood (48:43)
Appreciate it. Tyler, thanks for stepping in and helping me out today, man. Obviously, you have your sources in the international scene and follow along with these guys as closely as you do. There’s nobody I could have thought of to help me with this conversation today. So thank you for your time as well.
Tyler Gettinger (48:56)
Thank you, Jake, and thank you, Moises, for hopping on with us.
Moises (48:59)
Yeah, good job, fellas. Appreciate the support. Take care.
Jake Wood (49:01)
absolutely.
Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the Viva El Birdos Podcast. Don’t forget to rate, review, and hit that subscribe button and notified every Monday morning for a new episode like this one. For Tyler Gettinger and Cardinals Assistant General Manager Moises Rodriguez, my name is Jake Wood, and we’ll talk to you all next week and bring you more great Cardinals content. Have a great day, St. Louis, and let’s go cards.
-Thanks for reading
The World Series is set! Last night, the Tampa Bay Rays defeated to the Cleveland Guardians 7-3 to advance to their third World Series. They lost to the Phillies in 2008 and to the Dodgers in 2020.
On Friday, the Rays will travel to Milwaukee for game one of the World Series. Neither the Brewers nor the Rays have won it all in their franchise histories. In a nice turn of events, the World Series will take place between the best team in the National League and the best team in the American League.
As for the Guardians, they’ll have to wait at least one more year to bring home their first World Series title since 1948.
It’s not as exciting as having a team in the postseason, but the Orioles had news of their own yesterday. President of Baseball Operations Mike Elias finally hired himself a General Manager. We’ve all been loosely calling Elias the GM since he was hired, even though he received a secret promotion to POBO prior to the 2025 season.
In the latest and biggest shakeup in Elias’s front office, he added Jared Banner as GM to lead player development and coaching and assist Elias with more strategic efforts. This follows his moves at the end of the regular season, when the Orioles parted ways with Matt Blood, the vice president of player and staff development, and reassigned Sig Mejdal. Mejdal had been an assistant GM in charge of the team’s analytics; his new role will focus on emerging technologies.
Banner comes to the Orioles from the Cubs, where he had been since 2020. Starting in 2024, Banner served as assistant GM. As Mark Brown said in his story yesterday, none of us really know much about Banner. The successes and failures of an assistant GM from another city aren’t necessarily made clear to even baseball sickos.
One thing this front office shakeup shows is that Mike Elias realizes that his regular way of doing business did not work. Now, my opinion is that Elias should have been fired after his failed rebuild. But he was not fired and we are stuck with him going forward. I approve of him making moves and bringing in outside voices to provide different ideas and perspectives. The Orioles’ front office has been notoriously insular.
Is this hire the right move? None of us knows. But while I cannot applaud Elias for the pick, I do applaud him for making changes. The cynics will have other opinions on the matter. They’ll say that Elias is just adding another fall guy for when it all goes wrong, or that there is no way Elias could make a good choice given his overall failure. I don’t think that is true. And honestly, since he is sticking around, I’ll choose to hope for the best.
Links
All the ways new Orioles GM Jared Banner can make an early impact– The Baltimore Banner
Jon Meoli’s take on how Banner can make his mark with his new team.
Makes you wonder – MASN Sports
For some non-Banner talk, here is Roch Kubatko with random Orioles thoughts.
Baltimore Black Sox sculptures will complete the city’s baseball story – The Baltimore Banner
If you don’t know Toby Mendez’s name, you definitely know his work. Mendez sculpted the statues of Orioles legends located behind center field at Camden Yards. Now he’s sculpting 10 players from the Baltimore Black Sox of the Negro Leagues. The statues will be placed in the new Westport Waterfront Park.
Birthdays and History
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! You have two Orioles birthday buddies. Bobby Floyd (83) started his career with the Orioles and appeared in 47 games with the team from 1968-70. And Ty Blach (36) pitched in five forgettable games for the Orioles in 2019.
On this day in 2015, the Vance Worley era for the Orioles began. They claimed him off waivers from the Pirates. He appeared in 35 games for the Orioles in 2016, mostly out of the bullpen.
That’s about it for Orioles history, if you can even call it that.
On this day in 1982, the Milwaukee Brewers played game seven of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. The Brewers led 3-1 going into the bottom of the sixth but could not hold the lead. The Cardinals scored three times in the bottom of the sixth and twice in the eighth to back and capture the title. In just a few days, the Brewers will get to make new World Series memories.
In 1990, the Reds completed a sweep of the A’s in the World Series. Pitcher José Rijo allowed just one run on two hits over 8.1 innings. Future Oriole Randy Myers got the last two outs for the save.
In 2002, Francisco Rodriguez (also a future Oriole) became the youngest player to get the win in a World Series game. K-Rod had just 15 games of MLB experience when he pitched three shutout innings in game two of the World Series. He was 20 years, 286 days old. If you’re wondering about Jim Palmer, he was 20 years and 356 days old when he won game two of the 1966 World Series.
The 2026-27 National Basketball Association (NBA) season starts Tuesday, 20 Octoberwith the Boston Celtics heading to the Detroit Pistons.
The regular season, as well as the in-season NBA Cup, takes place between October and April.
After that, the play-offs take place to determine the NBA champions, who are crowned in June.
All 30 teams are evenly split into two conferences of 15 - creating the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference.
Each team plays 82 regular season matches between October and April, with the top six teams from each conference qualifying directly into the NBA play-offs.
The teams between seventh and 10th enter the play-in tournament, where two more play-offs spots from each conference are up for grabs.
There are also three divisions in each conference, with teams playing every other team in their division four times in the regular season.
Teams will then play six of the other sides in their conference four times, while taking on the remaining four franchises three times. They will then face all 15 teams in their opposing conference twice.
While the regular season sees teams play against opposition in both the Eastern and Western Conferences, the play-offs are conference-specific. All rounds of the play-offs are played in a best of seven-match series.
The winner of the Eastern Conference will face the winner of the Western Conference in the NBA finals in June, with the winner being crowned NBA champions.
Eastern Conference:
Atlantic Division
Central Division
Southeast Division
Western Conference:
Northwest Division
Pacific Division
Southwest Division
The NBA Cup is an in-season competition where teams compete for a trophy, but some results also count towards the overall season standings.
The event starts on Friday, October 30, with the final taking place on Friday, December 11.
Teams face four teams from their conference and the group winners, as well as the best runner-up from each conference, advance into the quarter-finals.
Like the play-offs, teams only play against opposition in the same conference in the quarter-final and semi-final. Matches are also one-off knockouts, rather than a series.
The winners of each conference will meet in the championship game to determine the NBA Cup winner.
The Knicks are the defending NBA Cup champions, while the first edition in 2023 was won by the Lakers.
Three British players will start the 2026-27 season on active NBA rosters.
Forward OG Anunoby is part of the Knicks side that won the NBA Championship and NBA Cup last season.
Power forward Tobi Lawal was picked up in this year's draft by the Dallas Mavericks, while centre Amari Williams was signed in the 2025 draft by the Boston Celtics.
In the cases of Lawal and Williams, both have been listed on two-way contracts, meaning they will rotate between their respective teams' NBA sides and G League franchises.
Jeremy Sochan, who plays internationally for Poland, is officially recognised by the NBA as a British player having spent part of his upbringing in England. Sochan was part of the Knicks' side at the end of last season and despite joining the Portland Trail Blazers in the summer, he was released earlier this week and will start the season as a free agent.
Tosan Evbuomwan, who spent the last three seasons in the NBA and featured for the Memphis Grizzlies, Detroit Pistons, Brooklyn Nets and New York Knicks, now plays for Spanish side Barcelona.
For the second year running, the United Kingdom will host a regular season NBA match.
It will be the first time Manchester has hosted a game, as part of a European double header.
In January 2027, the New Orleans Pelicans and San Antonio Spurs will face each other at Manchester's Co-op Live, three days after facing each other in Paris.
The Denver Nuggets will also face the Indiana Pacers in Mexico City in November.
NBA's 2026-27 international games:
All eight NBA campaigns since the 2018-19 season have been won by different teams.
Prior to that, the Golden State Warriors were the most successful franchise in recent years, winning four NBA titles since the 2014-15 term.
The Boston Celtics, who were 2023-24 champions, are the most successful franchise in NBA history, with 18 title wins.
Last seven NBA-winning sides:
This article is the latest from BBC Sport's Ask Me Anything team.
On Saturday afternoon, the Devils faced off against the Capitals for the first time this season. Things seemed to start positively for the Devils, at least on the scoreboard. Areseny Gritsyuk scored his 3rd goal of the season halfway through the period, giving the Devils the first goal of the game for the 3rd game in a row. Playing from behind has recently been the kiss of death for the Devils and on the flip side, their record when scoring first has been stellar. Between their expected “high” from their victory over the Rangers and scoring first yet again, no one would have blamed you for having a good feeling about the rest of this game. Well, have I got some bad news for you.
Before the end of the first period, Ryan Leonard would score a power play goal for the Capitals. It was an amazing individual effort, similar to the 2nd goal of the night scored by Luke against the Rangers. Another way to put it would be that the Devils let Leonard basically skate his way through their penalty kill in a horrible show of “defense.” Either way you wish to view it, the teams headed into the second period tied at 1.
Similar again to the Rangers game, the second period is where the wheels fell off of this game. Only this time, it was the Devils falling apart in the second. The Capitals scored less than 2 minutes into the period, and again a little over 3 minutes later to take a quick 3-1 lead. Boone Jenner scored about halfway into the period, giving the Capitals a 4-1 lead and 4 unanswered goals.
Timo Meier scored a power play goal, his first of the season, with less than a minute left in the 3rd period to make the score and game look closer than it actually was. The game mercifully ended right after, with the Capitals skating away with a 4-2 win and the win/loss see-saw that is the Devils “consistency” continued yet again.
On Monday night the Avalanche faced off against the Flyers in Philadelphia. Matvei Michkov got the scoring started for the Flyers with a power play goal in the first period, scoring against our old buddy, Mackenzie Blackwood. Michkov would score again for the Flyers in the second period to put his team up 2-0 before Martin Necas scored for the Avalanche to send the teams to the 3rd period with a score of 2-1 Flyers.
The teams would trade goals in the 3rd period, however the Avalanche would end their night with a 3-2 loss. Blackwood took the L as the kids say these days, however he does have a 4-2-0 record on the season along with a decent 2.86 GAA and a not so decent .890 SV%. One thing is for sure. Either way you slice it, the Devils will be facing an ex-Devil in net tonight.
Per Amanda Stein on 10/19, there were no lines or pairings for practice. Instead the team worked on drills and “forcing players to be aggressive on pucks, ending plays quickly and taking out bodies in the corner.”
On the injury/illness front, Bratt, Glass, and Mantha missed practice today. However, Keefe noted that he expects Bratt, Glass, and Evangelista back for the game tonight while Mantha might be a game time decision.
One final update that will surely make some fans happy and some upset, is that Brenden Dillon will not be playing tonight.
Last season (like the Devils), Grimace started the season off hot, winning the majority of his predictions early in the year. This year, not so much. He hasn’t quite turned to drink yet, like he did last year, but I am starting to notice the changes in his mood. Whether it is his mood, the changing weather, or some other sign from above, he has unfortunately predicted a loss against Colorado tonight.
Grimace’s 2026-2027 Season Prediction record currently stands at 1-2.
What can you say about the game against the Capitals (or this team) after their last game? The victory against the Rangers produced amazing feelings of joy and positive vibes among the fan base, myself included. The game against the Capitals produced an effect 180 degrees away from the Rangers game. How can a team absolutely demolish and run a team out of the arena in one game, and then mail it in their next game? Well folks, if anyone on here knew the answer to that question, they would probably be in charge of the team. At this point, I will continue my belief that if he doesn’t know it yet, that Sunny is well on his way to figuring out what the deal is with this team.
I continue to believe that as constructed (that includes the players and Sheldon Keefe), that this team is exactly what we have seen over their first 8 games. Win some, lose some. They are the purest definition of an average (results wise) .500 hockey club. I think they have tons of talent and many great pieces. I do not think those pieces fit together and I don’t think they play nice together. We, as fans, have been asking for years not for an 84-0 record, but consistency. It is quite early in the season, but the infamous consistently inconsistent Devils are in peak form, sadly, as always.
In a shameless bit of non hockey related self promotion (approved by Chris – thanks Chris), I wanted to plug my podcast on here, if any of you are interested in listening. We have a light hearted, fun discussion about any movies, music, or video games mostly from the 1980s and 1990s. Please feel free to listen to us on any of the formats below and any feedback is welcome (positive and negative). Also, please follow us and subscribe, even if you think we stink. :).
The legend of Shohei Ohtani continues to grow.
The jersey that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar wore in the opening game of the 2025 Tokyo Series broke the record for most expensive jersey worn by a baseball player in the 21st century.
The jersey sold for $2,055,700 in an auction from The Realest, the company said in a press release on Monday, Oct. 19. The uniform featured the first gold MLB logo in the league's history. Ohtani was one of six players in 2025 to wear the Logoman patch, which was given to the winners of the previous campaign's major awards. He won the 2024 National League MVP after becoming the first player in MLB history to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in a season. Several of the patches were removed and turned into trading cards, so it is unique that this one remains intact.
The jersey, which was certified by The Realest's authentication program, also has a Tokyo Series patch and the Fernando Valenzuela patch the Dodgers wore that season after they won the 2024 World Series. It was autographed by the MLB superstar in kanji characters to further celebrate his heritage and the culture of the city the 2025 season opener was played in. It was Ohtani's first Major League Baseball game in his home country. He went 2-for-5 with a double in the Dodgers' 4-1 win over the Chicago Cubs at the Tokyo Dome.
“The greatest collectibles are the ones that capture moments that can never be recreated, and this jersey represents exactly that,” Scott Keeney, also known as DJ Skee, who is the founder and CEO of The Realest, said in a statement. “Ohtani is redefining what’s possible in the collectibles market, and the global response to this jersey reinforces just how significant these historic artifacts have become."
The Realest put the Ohtani jersey on display at ComplexCon in Los Angeles earlier this month alongside the last No. 8 jersey that Kobe Bryant wore in the NBA Finals. The company said that the winner of the auction also received the custom shrine featuring Japanese motifs that the jersey was displayed in.
The previous record for most expensive baseball jersey worn in this century was held by a New York Yankees jersey that Aaron Judge wore in his MLB debut in 2016 when he hit a home run in his first at-bat. That jersey sold for a reported $1.792 million. It last went to auction in July at Sotheby's alongside Derek Jeter's game-worn jersey from "The Dive."
Earlier this year, Ohtani's game-worn and autographed New Balance cleats from the same Tokyo Series game were sold by The Realest for $440,055, making them the highest-selling baseball cleat ever. This number puts the shoes in the same conversation as sneakers worn by Michael Jordan.
Ohtani was the MLB Rookie of the Year in 2018 after he debuted with the Los Angeles Angels. He had two American League MVP seasons with the Anaheim-based team before joining the Dodgers in 2023, shattering history with a 10-year, $700 million deal. He won the National League MVP award twice and has two World Series titles with the Dodgers, and this summer he joined the 300 home run club.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Shohei Ohtani Dodgers jersey from Tokyo Series makes history
The Cleveland Browns are 4-2, and the bandwagon has room for a lot more to jump on or return to the orange and brown of their youth. While the Browns four wins have not been pretty, with all of them (and the loss to the New York Jets) potentially going the other way, learning to win is an important skill for a very young team to learn.
Can Cleveland sustain this? Are the Browns the biggest frauds in the NFL?
Who cares? At least for now, Cleveland fans have something to be excited about, including Jason Kelce.
Growing up Browns fans, Jason’s brother Travis begged the team to draft him when he was coming out of the University of Cincinnati. Travis has also been a regular at many other Cleveland teams’ games and bought a ownership stake in the Cleveland Guardians.
Jason has been a little less Cleveland-forward in his presentation, until Monday Night Football when he started using the term “we” and a lot of excitement to describe the Browns start to the season:
Given the Browns positive start, it is possible that the team could get their scheduled flexed in the near future, but probably not to Kelce’s Monday Night Football just yet.
No matter what, a fun thing for Cleveland natives and fans is that the Browns are 4-2 and at the top of the AFC North. It is a big deal to see the elder Kelce join his brother in embracing the “we” that is their Cleveland upbringing. That moniker used to only be used by Jason for the Philadelphia Eagles.
How do you feel about Kelce and others jumping on or back on the Browns bandwagon?
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There’s simply no way Major League Baseball can spin this.
The Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays are in the World Series, directly defying the narrative that small-market teams are bedraggled, woebegone, hopeless entities needing a white knight like Rob Manfred and his 29 billionaires (plus John Fisher) to swoop in and save them.
The timing is hilarious, coming just six weeks before the commissioner Manfred imposes a lockout that shuts down the industry at a time it is in relative boom mode, what with increased attendance, enhanced access to the playoffs and desperate networks, streamers and monopolists lined up to pay hundreds of billions of dollars to get a piece of it when the league’s TV contracts hit the market in two years.
Instead, for the second time in five years, we will get a plug-pulling winter with no transactions, no trades, no hope for fans of nascent teams to see how their club might become the next Brewers or Rays or Cleveland Guardians or Los Angeles Dodgers.
Yes, those were your final four teams standing this autumn, one of them not like the others. Yet in what surely came as a surprise to “Our Fans” that MLB continuously cites from its focus group work, three of them are of the lower-revenue variety.
It will be Milwaukee vs. Tampa Bay in the World Series. The Dodgers are free to join the Yankees and Phillies and Mets at the swankiest resort in Cancun.
If you pay enough attention to the game, this October – and the season at large – only reinforced your priors. Most notably: Spending on your roster helps, of course, but it is no guarantee.
A resourceful front office is no good, either, minus an ownership group that cultivates a creative, supportive culture within the organization. That is perhaps the biggest reason you see so many repeat contenders in October, the Brewers most notably among them.
Oh, the spin is already beginning and you’re bound to hear it a few more times between now and Dec. 1 and beyond: The 2026 World Series winner is the aberration, the first true “small market” team to win it all since the 2015 Kansas City Royals. Just two in 12 seasons. Looks bad!
Technically, sure. Yet since we’re now entering Arbitrary Endpoints Season, here’s another – number of World Series appearances since 2008:
The Dodgers have five pennants. The Houston Astros have four, fielding a payroll outside the top 10 both years they won World Series titles.
And then there’s a floating mass of franchises that looks an awful lot like parity.
Your three-time league champions since 2008: Tampa Bay, Texas, Philadelphia, San Francisco.
Two-timers? That’d be St. Louis, Kansas City, Boston and the New York Yankees. Yep, both teams from the Show-Me State have made as many World Series appearances since 2008 as the vaunted Yankees and Red Sox.
Milwaukee, Arizona, Atlanta, Washington, the Chicago Cubs, Cleveland, the New York Mets and Detroit – they’ve all made one Fall Classic appearance in the past 19 seasons.
That’s 19 of 30 teams. And 12 franchises winning World Series titles.
There’s a problem here?
Here’s a crucial bit of verbiage worth parsing: The league insists it must offer greater competitive opportunities to “small market” teams. A more accurate phrase might be “low revenue” teams.
Because what, exactly, is a small market?
Is it Miami, because the Marlins have made one brief playoff appearance since 2003? Or is that a Marlins problem, given that Miami ranks 18th in market size, and eighth if you include the adjacent West Palm Beach market?
Is it Pittsburgh, since the Pirates haven’t won a division title since 1993 and owner Bob Nutting can’t seem to find the cash to pay a free agent more than $39 million?
Or is that a Bob Nutting problem, since Pittsburgh ranks one slot above San Diego in market size, and the Padres have proven both potent and prosperous in signing marquee players to big contracts while making the playoffs five of the past seven years?
Is it Tampa Bay, which has long punched above its perceived weight thanks to smarts and resourcefulness?
Well, Tampa-St. Pete is technically the 11th-biggest market in the country, wedged between those barren outposts known as “Boston” and “Phoenix.” Certainly, the geographics of the Bay area have been a drag on the Rays’ revenue as bodies of water bifurcate the population mass, but a sweetheart deal to build a new stadium in Tampa should solve many of those problems.
We will begrudgingly note that Milwaukee and Cincinnati are pretty small – the only current MLB markets with less than 1 million TV households, per Nielsen. Yet the Brewers and Reds are also perfect examples that competence and desire matter almost as much as revenue – the Brewers making the playoffs eight of the past nine years while the Reds mock their fans by noting that they have no choice but to come watch their below-average product.
There simply aren’t that many “small-market” teams. This is the big leagues. There are no Mayberrys.
But for the sake of this exercise, let’s go ahead and rope the four smallest markets - Kansas City, Cincinnati, Milwaukee and Las Vegas (a self-inflicted market wound MLB gladly endorsed) into their own special little bucket. That’s just four of 30 major league teams, or 13%.
Well, if Milwaukee hoists the piece of metal at the end of this World Series, that will be two totally “small-market” teams winning titles in our 19-season sample size. That’s 10.5%.
Not exactly hopeless. And is that gap in access worth blowing up the salary structure of Major League Baseball, and imperil the 2027 season in service of a salary cap?
Far better to consider that the Royals and Reds and Athletics and Brewers are outliers, just as the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets and Phillies are. No, the wider swath of championships and pennants and playoff berths for these past couple decades have been claimed by what we might call “normal” markets and franchises – San Francisco and Houston, Atlanta and Dallas-Fort Worth, Washington and Boston.
None of those teams have blown up the game’s salary structure. Rarely do they dip very far over the luxury tax line, and most of them duck back under it shortly thereafter. They can splurge on free agents and win a World Series and then go into the fetal position for six years, should they desire.
Their successes and failures are relatively cyclical. The nature of competition in a free market, you might say.
That’s not to say there aren’t problems. The profligate spending of the Dodgers and Mets – spearheaded by two billionaires with boundary-pushingreputations, we might say – rightfully raises eyebrows. In the last collective-bargaining agreement, the league and the union agreed to what was informally known as the “Cohen Tax,” a fourth level of luxury tax aimed to punish extreme spenders such as the Mets owner.
He said he’d blow right past it, and he did. Dodgers owner Mark Walter soon followed.
This is a baseball problem that in a sense mirrors a societal one: Extreme income/revenue inequality.
In this arena, it is the 0.1% that’s creating the impression the game is rigged, even if Juan Soto can’t stay off the injured list and Kyle Tucker looked lost in his first season in L.A.
Yet baseball has some $13 billion flying around annually. This is a problem it can remedy, a solution already partway there as luxury tax penalties go toward player benefits and, to a degree, revenue sharing.
If the Dodgers are “ruining baseball” while teams like the Brewers watch helplessly as their best players leave (never mind that Christian Yelich is a Brewer for life and Jackson Chourio and Cooper Pratt are locked up for the long haul), simply eliminate the middleman.
Create another tax threshold – perhaps call it the Bezos Tax, in case he decides to get in the game. Funnel that money directly to whatever MLB wants to call “small market.”
And stipulate that the money must be spent on player retention or acquisition. Because right now, revenue-sharing recipients have significant leeway regarding how they can spend their welfare checks. Somehow it never shows up at the big league level – or perhaps they’re serving their minor leaguers caviar every night.
And if “Our Fans” fret about their teams losing their favorite players, they ought to take a look at the NBA right now.
That’s a place where the once-champion Celtics just traded beloved Jaylen Brown, bringing 6-year-olds to tears. Where the Thunder methodically and smartly built what looked like a burgeoning dynasty – only to be forced to deal three rotation players from their championship team for cap reasons even as a $1 billion taxpayer-funded arena rises in Oklahoma City.
Where the New York Knicks won their first championship since 1973 – yet are now a lot closer to a breakup than they are a repeat. Where four of the past eight NBA Finals MVPs changed hands in a three-week span this summer.
That’s the other side of the salary cap “Our Fans” might not consider. And that would hit every franchise, especially when you consider that for all the gold-plated items on the Dodgers roster, it’s often the Kiké Hernándezes and Will Smiths and Alex Vesias that resonate as much as Ohtani with some fans.
Naturally, “Our Fans” answered yes when MLB asked if they favored competitive balance. But you also better ask them these questions:
Does your owner actually care about winning?
Is your front office and executive leadership competent?
Would you be willing to bid some of your favorite players goodbye in the name of “cap space?”
In the months ahead, we’ll hear plenty about how a cap is the only way to make things fair. Yet we’ve still got Milwaukee-Tampa Bay in front of us, anyway.
Enjoy the games. It should be a great Series, even if TV ratings may not reflect it. And it might be the last game for a while, unless the league loses the actual labor war as swiftly as it lost the narrative.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ready to blow up baseball for a salary cap, MLB can't spin this World Series | Opinion
The NBA is back, and this time opening night has a twist … it’s actually opening day.
The 2026-27 regular season tips off with the first-ever NBA opening-day tripleheader broadcast nationally, beginning with an afternoon tilt in the Motor City as the Detroit Pistons host the Boston Celtics. The evening brings two more marquee matchups with a championship celebration at Madison Square Garden when the New York Knicks host the Philadelphia 76ers and a Western Conference finals rematch when the San Antonio Spurs host the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The matinee in Detroit will feature “College Gameday-style activations," a "Blue Carpet" experience, a marching band rendition of "Roundball Rock" and other special festivities planned around Little Caesars Arena and downtown Detroit throughout the day. The afternoon game is an experiment conceived by the NBA and NBC entering Year 2 of their massive 11-year, $27-billion media rights partnership, with the goal of turning opening night into an all-day event.
And, while the pre-game excitement should spur plenty of interest, the matchup itself features two of the top contenders in the Eastern Conference as Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren and the Pistons face off against Jayson Tatum, Paul George and the Celtics.
New York, of course, never lacks for excitement but the buzz in Midtown will be even larger than usual as the Knicks raise their championship banner and receive their championship rings before taking the court for one of the most highly anticipated season openers in recent memory – which could also serve as a preview of a possible Eastern Conference final.
The Knicks return nearly all of the players that were part of that title-winning team, including Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns and OG Anunoby, and they’ll face an immediate test against the new-look 76ers, who added LeBron James and Jaylen Brown to a roster that already featured Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe.
Stream NBA opening-day games on Peacock
And despite all that, the best basketball game of the night could be the last one as the Spurs and Thunder renew their rivalry just months after a thrilling seven-game Western Conference final that saw San Antonio outduel the 2025 champs.
The Thunder and the Spurs might be the two most complete teams in the NBA and each features an MVP favorite: two-time winner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and reigning Defensive Player of the Year Victor Wembanyama. Oklahoma City placed a whopping seven players in our rankings of the Top 100 players for the 2026-27 season, and San Antonio wasn't far behind with five in the top 100.
Here is all the information you need to get ready for the opening day triple-header, including some key questions and how to watch each contest:
■ Key question: Will Celtics regret trading Jaylen Brown and replacing him with Paul George?
George, who will turn 37 in May, struggled to find efficiency in the preseason, hitting just 5-of-20 shots (25%), including just 3-of-14 attempts from beyond the arc (21.4%). Granted, it’s just preseason, so this shouldn’t be extrapolated into some final judgment, but Boston’s early-season success should hint to how this team will operate without Jaylen Brown and with Jayson Tatum as the face of the franchise.
■ Key question: Will Knicks have a title hangover?
For the first time in 53 years, the Knicks are raising a banner. It was a historic run, and New York City celebrated this team in lavish fashion. But contract negotiations between the team and starters Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart have stalled and will be pushed to the end of the season. Could this impact the locker room? Could an emotional season that required massive mental and physical energy prompt the Knicks to start slow? No team has had more continuity than the Knicks. They’ll need to lean on that early in the season.
■ Key question: How quickly with the new-look 76ers gel?
It might seem like a paradox, but adding massive stars can also be a burden. And with the acquisitions of LeBron James and Jaylen Brown, each of Philadelphia’s starting five players will need to tweak their games – to a certain degree. Based on preseason action, efficiency might take some time. The Sixers turned the ball over a significant amount when all starters were on the floor, and it appears clear there will be a sussing out period where players figure out how to space the floor and get the most out of each other. And there’s no better barometer than a primetime game against the defending champs.
■ Key question: The game’s best rivalry will be renewed. Do the Spurs still have the edge over the Thunder?
These two teams played 12 times last season, and San Antonio dominated, winning eight times. It created a very physical and entertaining seven-game Western Conference finals. And both these teams, by and large, are the overwhelming favorites to win the 2027 NBA Finals. The Thunder lost some key role players like Luguentz Dort, Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins, and the young Spurs will need to show they’ve matured after last season’s letdown in the Finals. These are among the more entertaining matchups in the entire NBA. Make sure you’re tuned in.
Contributing: Mark Giannotto
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NBA opens with historic triple-header: Key insights, how to watch games
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In hopes of salvaging something positive from an otherwise rotten road trip, the Pittsburgh Penguins headed to Salt Lake City on Monday evening to take on the Utah Mammoth. Proceedings could not have started better for the Penguins, scoring just over a minute into the game on an Erik Karlsson power play goal. That lead, only their second of the entire road trip, lasted all of five minutes before the Mammoth drew even then eventually pulled away in the end for a 5-4 victory, sending the Penguins back to Pittsburgh on a four game skid. [Pensburgh]
Good news for the Penguins? Last week was tough but now it’s behind them and this week is a fresh slate with a return home on the horizon. Bad news? That fresh slate will present another gauntlet of challenges that will test the Penguins. Don’t worry, I’m sure next week will be easier (it won’t). [Pensburgh]
If the Penguins can’t rebound from this slow start to the season and they are in a hole they don’t think they can recover from, it could put them in selling mode. There are several veterans who could be trade targets, but any return they get won’t provide immediate help to the lineup. [The Hockey News]
Declan Carlile signed with the Penguins this offseason as an under the radar player who was waiting to prove himself and stick in the NHL. His small sample size with the Penguins through nine games has brought good and bad moments, but he looks the part of an every game blue liner. [Trib Live]
It’s been a difficult few weeks between the Winnipeg Jets and goaltender Connor Hellebuyck. After requesting a trade, Hellebuyck was suspended and has yet to join the team for any hockey activities this season. With no end in sight, everything remains in a holding pattern between the two sides. [NHL]
The aforementioned suspension for Hellebuyck that was issued by the Jets is set to expire on Friday. That means they will have to start paying him, but could ask him to remain away from the team, and there is no guarantee any trade gets done before that deadline hits. [ESPN]
Connor McDavid has been the best hockey player in the world for some time now. In case you forgot how good he was over the offseason, he’s been reminding you every time he steps on the ice season as his torrid pace has him sitting among the greatest players in hockey history. [Sportsnet]
The Islanders begin their life — well, technically it began late in the first period in Toronto Saturday — with two more regulars out as they host the Ducks and Tough Negotiator Pat Verbeek on Long Island Tuesday.
The prognosis for the two newest injuries is not as bad as it could’ve been, but opposite what I at least expected. Center Cal Ritchie, who skated off on his own power, is expected to miss four to six weeks, while winger Matias Maccelli, who needed help off the ice and down the hall, is listed as two to four weeks.
Of course, with Mat Barzal still out despite “maybe being ready by opening weekend,” we’ll view all prognoses with even more suspicion than usual.
Regardless, Mitchell Chaffee gets the emergency recall and Kyle MacLean gets a turn in the lineup.
First Islanders Goal picks go here.
Oh, but speaking of the Barzal situation, which gets more concerning by the week:
We have arrived. The beginning of the most highly anticipated Sixers season of our lifetimes is upon us. A starting five of stars past, present, and future has been assembled to take Philadelphia to the promised land known as “beyond the second round of the playoffs”.
It all still feels a bit surreal. The Jaylen Brown trade came out of nowhere, after we had all but resigned ourselves to a purgatory riding out the contracts of Paul George and Joel Embiid. Now every conversation about the team seems like a harpist is playing while a personal chef prepares our dinner. The possibility of LeBron James signing with the Sixers was certainly discussed. But surely he would return to a past home in Cleveland or Miami. It was nice just to be thrown into the mix. Now the always a bridesmaid is being rushed to the altar in a helicopter from New York.
The actual basketball game tonight feels so much bigger than one regular season contest. The New York Knicks are raising their championship banner at the Garden prior to tip. Facing them feels like a true measuring stick moment for this group in which we’ve only seen the starting five together for one half of basketball during the preseason. Never mind that it’s just one of 82 regular season games and nobody cares about anything but the postseason anyway. They didn’t have a parade for the 2014-15 Hawks winning the conference and having all five starters in the All-Star game. Or maybe they did, I haven’t been to Atlanta in a while. The point is tonight’s result is largely inconsequential in the big picture, but it will still feel enormous in the moment.
We know we’re going to see the starting five together for their first extended run, but what about everyone else? Dominick Barlow (back) and Tacko Fall (hip) are out. Adem Bona and Anfernee Simons are both listed as questionable, but were coy when asked about a return to action for the opener and appear like they will play. Dean Wade truly questionable with an ankle injury after not practicing with the team yesterday. Meanwhile, the Knicks have a clean injury report; Josh Hart sat out the preseason finale with an ankle injury but will play tonight.
Knicks fans are understandably riding high. Winning their first championship in over 50 years will do that. They should soak up every second. But it has become increasingly difficult to have a repeat champion. James Dolan is treating the second apron like the apocalypse. Mitchell Robinson was a cap casualty and as great a guy as Andre Drummond was during his team here, that’s a downgrade as a replacement. The organization has tabled extension talks with key figures like Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Hart. There’s only one way to go when you’ve reached the top, but the starting group is still together for New York for now, and they’ll certainly be highly motivated after seeing their grand accomplishment rise to the rafters.
Spoiling tonight for the Knicks would feel so sweet. It wouldn’t make up for having to watch New York sweep the Sixers in the playoffs, with Knicks fans taking over the arena in Philadelphia, and then seeing them make their title run, but it would sure be a nice start. More than anything, though, we want to see the coalescence of this new era of Sixers basketball. For the unselfishness and togetherness and offensive brilliance we caught glimpses of during the brief preseason to blossom on the larger stage. For the vision of this dynamite roster on paper to begin to translate into an on-court product. Mike Gansey has constructed a dream for us. Now let’s watch the players make it a reality.
When: Tuesday, October 20, 7:00 p.m. ET
Where: Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
Watch: NBC, Peacock
Radio: 97.5 The Fanatic
Follow:@LibertyBallers
On the eve of Opening Night (Matinee?) and the 81st season of the Boston Celtics, it’s hard not to be thankful for everything that the franchise has accomplished and given to us fans.
“The people that came before you. The city. The fans. The expectation of winning. The players. The coaches,” head coach Mazzulla said when asked what makes the Celtics special.
“We only have a chance and it’s only special to have the job because of those that came before you that set the stage, set the tone, what the expectation is, what the responsibility is. I’m just really grateful to be a part of that.”
The eighteen banners that hang at TD Garden are a testament to the consistent excellence that Boston has maintained since the NBA was formed, but as Mazzulla said, it also just sets the stage for what we expect from them year in and year out: to win.
Over the offseason and now training camp, the front office and coaching staff is trying to maximize this roster by winning in the margins. That has meant trading Jaylen Brown for Paul George who called his first few months with the team a “beautiful challenge” in redefining himself in Year 17 of his decorated career. With the depth of the rotation being a major strength in this new CBA era, the team is also stressing the importance of possession maxxing by hitting the offensive glass and creating turnovers.
“We’ve done a lot of great things here in camp, things that we can continue to build on throughout the year,” Derrick White said before their final practice before playing the Pistons today to kick off the 2026-2027 season.
“Everybody is really excited right now, especially going into their first game. It’s just going to be a test for us to see if we can continue to grow, continue to get better.”
For us at CelticsBlog, I can’t tell you enough how much the staff is looking forward to this year. If our Slack channel had an AUX out, you could probably hear us from North Station to the Portland Expo in Maine. Already, this feels like a special year in the making. Here’s CelticsBlog on what we’re excited to see:
Nirav Barman: I’m excited to see Mazzulla Ball in its purest form. I’m fully bought in to the concept, Mitch and PG were perfect additions, we have healthy Tatum back, and the young wings have shown me that they are willing to outwork anyone and everyone, while also making huge strides in their own development.
Trevor Hass: I’m excited to see the Celtics carry themselves with a collective swagger, hunger and cohesiveness that never disappears throughout the season. This feels like a no drama, no excuses and no let up kind of group, and I think it will be an easy team for fans to get behind. We’ll see where it puts them in the standings and how far they ultimately go, but the 2026-27 season will be a joyous one regardless.
Grant Burfeind: I’m excited to see Jayson Tatum win Comeback Player of the Year and MVP, Payton Pritchard repeat as Sixth Man, Neemias Queta take Most Improved, Hugo González, Baylor Scheierman, Ron Harper Jr. and Jordan Walsh win Best New Boy Band at the Grammys, and the Celtics hang Banner 19. The season hasn’t started, so I see no reason to be realistic yet.
Gio Rivera: I’m excited to see Boston’s big men trio — yes, trio — flourish. Obviously, Neemias Queta and Mitchell Robinson will log most of the minutes, whether starting interchangeably or paired together in a double-big combination, but Luka Garza can’t be overlooked. As Queta emerged as a first-time starter last season, Garza carved out a role for himself as the best 3-point-shooting center on the Celtics’ depth chart, bringing an inspiring, hustle-first mentality that leaves him sweating like he’s just finished running the Boston Marathon every time he returns to the bench for a breather. Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla has plenty of flexibility with the Queta-Robinson-Garza trio. They each bring a different skill set but share a similar brand of hard-nosed, unselfish basketball, giving Boston’s frontcourt intriguing potential this season.
Jake Issenberg: I’m excited to see Hugo Gonzalez take the leap. The Spanish wing turned in a historically impactful rookie season. He followed that up with a strong summer league performance, and a near perfect preseason. Swarming defense, isolation scoring, elite catch and shoot three-point shooting, Gonzalez flashed it all in his four preseason games. I’m excited to see more.
Ian Inangelo: I’m excited to see the young guys take another step. I think Baylor Scheierman, Hugo Gonzalez and Jordan Walsh are in store for big seasons. I think Scheierman has the chance to be the best this season and it wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up being a starter by the end of the year. Gonzalez going into Year 2 just came off an impressive preseason and I think is going to be a huge piece off the Celtics bench with not only his effort and defense but also some improved shooting. Finally, Walsh looks to have started taking another step forward with his aggression on offense and I think his ability to cut and play elite wing defense will make him another guy who could be a big piece for Boston.
Nate Moskowitz: I’m excited to see a more forceful Celtics defense. They finished as the 4th best defense last season, but they were near the bottom of the league in forced turnovers. A lot of their process was about controlling where teams shots were coming from, and defending without fouling. With some of the personnel changes and the early signs from preseason, they seem destined to generate more turnovers. I’m looking forward to them taking more risks and being a defense that’s very frustrating to play against.
Mike Dynon: I’m excited to see how the Paul George experience plays out with the Celtics. He knows he’s here because of an unpopular trade, yet he’s completely bought in to what has been called Celtics Pride. “This locker room, the culture here, the front office, the city, the organization, the tradition, all of that is something that I’ve never been a part of,” George told the Boston Globe. “Where everything is high quality. For me, it’s refreshing. Hopefully, I can remain healthy. I think I became a journeyman along the way [of my career]. At this point, I would love to be able to call Boston home.” Fans love that sort of commitment. Moreover, George has demonstrated that he plays defense and can impact winning, qualities that will further endear him to Celtics Nation. When the trade deadline comes, will he be the next Anfernee Simons, the guy who won us over and we regret when he’s traded away? Or will he be another Kristaps Porzingis, to use one example, who will sit out some games but be a key contributor to a memorable run of success?
Jack Quantrill:
I’m excited to see a bounce back season from Derrick White this year. According to a whole host of advanced metrics White was a top 30 impact player last year; shooting slump be damned. I think with this roster White slots back into a comfier role for his supreme talents and provides all that impact whilst posting sexy box score and efficiency stats. Tatum is a better facilitator of flow offence than JB, Paul George provides a great supplementary skills, plus shooting, playmaking capability and I expect to see Pritchard usurp White in the usage rankings this year leaving White to do what he does best. The out of this world role player stuff. I’ll welcome a healthier diet of assisted three’s, less pick and roll responsibility and far more second chance threes coming off of Mitch’s mighty mitts.
Noa Dalzell: I’m excited to see how Payton Pritchard improves his game this season – he has the long-term extension locked up, he’s the presumed No. 2 option, and he really thrived when he wasn’t sharing the floor with Jaylen Brown last year. Could another leap be in the works?
Bill Sy: I’m excited to see what Phil Pressey and the developmental coaching staff can do with rookies and two-way players. Big Fella University alumni Luke Kornet and Neemias Queta have become more than serviceable centers in the league and the rise of Boston’s four-headed wing rotation of Baylor Scheierman, Jordan Walsh, Hugo Gonzalez, and Ron Harper Jr. are going to be relied on as supporting role players. Those success stories will now be the blueprint for players like Devin Carter, Dillon Mitchell, Chris Cenac Jr., and Amari Williams.
Rich Jensen: I’m excited for the playoffs. Yep. I’ve seen enough of the team from last year and the preseason this year, to feel very comfortable with the quality of play we can expect in the regular season. The regular season is going to be fun, I think, but the big question is whether this team has what it takes to make some serious noise once the games really start to matter.
The New York Knicks will hoist their first NBA championship banner in 53 years tonight and then open their season against a primary threats to their title defense.
The Philadelphia 76ers with new acquisitions LeBron James and Jaylen Brown will be at Madison Square Garden to face the reigning champs in a game tipping off at 7 p.m. on NBC and Peacock. The 76ers complete their starting five with 2023 MVP Joel Embiid, All-Star Tyrese Maxey and rising second-year player VJ Edgecombe.
The Knicks have a returning core of NBA Finals MVP Jalen Brunson, All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns, playoff hero OG Anunoby and veteran leaders Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges.
New York is seeking to become the first repeat champion since Golden State in 2017-18. The Knicks became the eighth franchise to win an NBA title in the past eight seasons since then. None of the past seven champions advanced to the NBA Finals in the following season.
NBC and Peacock will feature 100 regular-season games throughout the 2026-2027 season across its three marquee nights of the week: Sunday Night Basketball (beginning Jan. 24, 2027); Peacock NBA Monday (beginning Oct. 26); and Coast 2 Coast Tuesday (beginning Oct. 27).
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By trading for Brown and signing James, the 76ers are trying to change a narrative of coming up short in the playoffs. Philadelphia's most recent appearance in the Eastern Conference Finals was in 2001 and its last championship was in 1983.
In six of the past nine seasons, the 76ers were eliminated in the second round, including last year's sweep by the Knicks.
"I didn’t leave my family to lose in the second round,” said James, who has made the conference finals 12 times.
James said helping the 76ers win a title will be the last goal of an illustrious career that began 23 years ago. He joins a team of several stars in their prime. Brown is coming off his best season with career highs in scoring (28.7 points per game), rebounds (6.9 per game) and assists (5.1 per game), and the 2024 NBA Finals MVP has played in an NBA-high 142 playoff games since joining the league in 2016.
Maxey averaged career highs in scoring (28.3) and assists (6.6) last season, and Embiid returned from missing 44 regular-season games with various injuries and an emergency appendectomy to lead the 76ers past the Celtics in the first round by averaging 28 points in the last four games of the series. Edgecombe, the third overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, led rookies with 35 minutes per game and was third in scoring at 16 points per game.
The Knicks return nearly the entire roster that won the championship over the San Antonio Spurs in five games, closing a 16-3 playoff run that included sweeps of Philadelphia and Cleveland.
Nine of the the team's top 10 leaders in playoff minutes are back with backup center Mitchell Robinson as the only departure. Andre Drummond was signed to replace Robinson.
There are still several questions looming about the future of this year's team. The Knicks announced Oct. 9 that all contract extension talks have been tabled until later in the season. Towns has been frustrated by trying to nail down a deal beyond a player option next summer. "Simply put, I want to do something to keep the team together and can work with the Knicks and also values me," Towns said. "And none of those things are close to happening.”
Hart, who is playing with a team option for next season, said, "You don’t want that trickling into the season because whenever there’s uncertainty, there’s going to be a lot of questions.” Key bench player Miles ‘Deuce" McBride said he was "disappointed" to enter the final year of his contract without an extension.
The NBA is back on NBC and Peacock for the 2026-27 season with 100 regular-season games across its three marquee nights of the week: Peacock NBA Monday, beginning Oct. 26; Coast 2 Coast Tuesday, beginning Oct. 27; and Sunday Night Basketball, beginning Jan. 24, 2027.
You can see the full schedule of 2026-27 NBA games airing on NBC, Peacock, NBCSN and Telemundo here.
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Another NBA regular season is set to begin, and the preseason player rankings have already been rolled out. While debates over the league's top stars never end, the exercise also offers a revealing snapshot of where each franchise stands entering the 2026-27 season.
USA TODAY's top 100 player rankings highlight the biggest names expected to lead championship contenders, excel for rebuilding teams and shape the league's future. There is widespread agreement that two-time reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic and San Antonio Spurs phenom Victor Wembanyama sit atop the NBA entering the season, with only their order up for debate.
But a team-by-team breakdown of each franchise's highest-ranked player revealed several surprises, including Tyrese Maxey's standing among his new, more accomplished 76ers' teammates and the one team that didn't have a player ranked among the top 100 heading into the season.
Here's what stood out while determining the highest-ranked player on each of the NBA's 30 teams entering the 2026-27 season:
Tyrese Maxey might not be the most well-known player on the Philadelphia 76ers, surrounded by two former MVPs and an NBA Finals MVP this season. But he is the highest-ranked Sixers' player in USA TODAY's rankings, checking in at No. 14 and above Jaylen Brown (15), LeBron James (19) and Joel Embiid (41). Maxey had a tremendous sixth season in the NBA last year, setting career highs in nearly every statistical category and emerging as a bona fide franchise player Philadelphia can build around for years to come. But his current ranking also reinforces just how important Maxey's shot creation and durability will be if the Sixers are to win a championship with the veteran core around him.
Of the 30 players identified as the best on their respective teams in USA TODAY's rankings, 10 are 25 or younger and the median age is 27. The Golden State Warriors' Stephen Curry and the Houston Rockets' Kevin Durant, meanwhile, are both 38. In fact, only one other player considered the top player on his team entering the season is older than 31.
Their continued excellence is a rarity in today's NBA. While most of their contemporaries have either seen their production decline significantly or left the league altogether, Curry and Durant remain franchise centerpieces and among the sport's elite talents. More than a decade after establishing themselves as superstars, Durant is still carrying championship expectations for the Rockets, and Curry remains the Warriors' standard-bearer.
The ommission of any Grizzlies players in USA TODAY's top 100 rankings is a reflection of both the youth of their roster and the uncertainty surrounding the franchise's long-term outlook. Rookie Cameron Boozer received consideration on some ballots but ultimately fell short of making the final list. Based on the early returns, he could move up the rankings quickly. But this designation demonstrates how much change the Grizzlies have gone through while offloading top 100 players like Ja Morant, Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. in recent years.
Teams listed in alphabetical order; number in parentheses is where each player landed in our Top 100 player rankings ahead of this season:
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: We ranked the best player on every NBA team. 76ers among biggest surprise
Kurt Helin
Raphielle Johnson