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The last time Shohei Ohtani was in the World Baseball Classic, he struck out his then-Angels teammate Mike Trout to give Team Japan their third title in tournament history. Three years later, fans from around the world will only get to see half of the Ohtani experience.

After a 22 month absence from pitching on a big league mound, Ohtani tossed 47 innings in the 2025 regular season to the tune of a 2.87 ERA before tallying an additional 20 1/3 innings in the Dodgers title run. With a full offseason to prepare himself on both sides of the field, the goal for Ohtani in 2026 is to have his first full season of two-way activities in a Dodger uniform, notes Sonja Chen of MLB.com.

“I wasn’t surprised. I can’t even say I was relieved,” Roberts said. “Understanding what he did last year, what he had to go through to then how best to prepare himself for ’26 to do both — it just seemed like the right decision.”

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After undergoing ankle surgery in November, the expectation for utility man Tommy Edman was that he’d be ready around the start of spring training. With just three weeks remaining until the Dodgers play their first cactus league game against the Angels, Edman provided an update to David Vassegh of AM 570 at DodgerFest on Saturday, stating that he is back to regular baseball activities and ready for the spring.

“I’m feeling good. I just started baseball activities again, so I’m feeling like I’m in a good spot going into the spring… I just very lightly started swinging and started throwing again this past week, and that’ll be ramping up as we get closer to spring. I’m really looking forward to being a baseball player again.”

The addition of outfielder Kyle Tucker gives the Dodgers one of the most complete and dangerous lineups in all of baseball, and Dave Roberts is starting to get a feel as to how the top half of the order will shape up for the 2026 season, per Jack Harris of the California Post.

Dave Roberts hasn’t decided exactly how the Dodgers’ batting order will look in the wake of Kyle Tucker’s signing, but he did drop some hints, saying Ohtani will still lead off, Betts will likely hit third, and Will Smith will hit fifth. That presumably leaves Kyle Tucker and Freeman for the Nos. 2 and 4 spots, in some order.

Eli Morgan is a Royal. Or an Omaha Storm Chaser, on a minor-league deal, according to sources. David Robertson has retired.

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• Jordan Bastian (MLB.com*): How Cubs’ bullpen is shaping up as camp nears. “The bullpen is where the team has turned over the most and looks different the most,” Counsell said during Cubs Convention in mid-January.
• Joe Trezza (MLB.com*): These Cubs prospects could crack the Top 100 soon. “… prospect development is all about the future…”
• Keith Law (The Athletic* {$}): Ranking all 30 MLB farm systems, from the Brewers to the Padres. “… these rankings only consider players currently in a team’s system and eligible for the rankings…”

Food For Thought:

Please be reminded that Cub Tracks and Bleed Cubbie Blue do not necessarily endorse the content of articles, podcasts, or videos that are linked to in this series. We will not wittingly publish A. I. – driven articles or clickbait, and insist on unimpeachable sources.

On Friday, the Athletics of Sacramento and eventually Las Vegas, inked their young shortstop, Jacob Wilson, to a seven-year, $70 million deal that buys the club Wilson’s first two years of free agency and all of his 20’s.

The Detroit Tigers already did something like this with Colt Keith prior to promoting him to the major leagues before the 2024 season. There’s a fair chance that signing that deal was Keith’s ticket to an Opening Day major league debut rather than the Tigers potentially waiting until sometime in May to save a year of service time and give Keith more Triple-A plate appearances to get ready.

Of course, Keith signed his deal through 2029 for a very reasonable price, with the Tigers getting club options from 2030-2032. This wasn’t Scott Boras making a deal. Keith’s mother acted as his respresentative, and he was willing to take more guaranteed money over his years of team control rather than expecting to make bank in his arbitration years and then in free agency. From his perspective perhaps, he already has all the money he’s ever going to need if managed well, and now he doesn’t have to deal with the business side at all for years, potentially not until he’s 31 years old.

That’s a decent deal for Keith, and hopefully a nice bargain for the Tigers over the long haul.

It also brings up the question of which Tigers player you’d currently like to see extended the most? Tarik Skubal ain’t happening so let’s not pain ourselves any longer on that front. Should the Tigers extend Riley Greene? Or would you prefer they try to work out a bigger, but similar deal to Colt Keith’s with Kevin McGonigle or Max Clark?

Or, perhaps you don’t think extensions for either prospective 2026 rookie are a good idea just yet. Obviously the price matters a lot.

It’s your call.

In 1970, two years before he died, Jackie Robinson spoke at his son’s high school graduation.

“In a land where we declare that we have liberty and justice for all,” Robinson said, “it seems that slogan really means liberty and justice for all as long as you do and say what some people want you to do and say.”

Those words ring uncomfortably true today.

Robinson often spoke out on civil rights, challenging both political parties. If you visit the Jackie Robinson Museum, as the Dodgers did when the museum opened in 2022, you see displays on civil rights and economic opportunity and social justice before you get to the baseball showcases.

“Jackie’s passion was civil rights and equality, and more so than baseball,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said then. “It was more of, baseball was just a vehicle for him to use his voice, which is pretty cool to see and actually pretty inspiring.”

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

In these perilous times, in which “indivisible” has been replaced by “you’re with us, or you’re the enemy within,” Robinson’s team will have the opportunity to celebrate its latest World Series championship at the White House.

Last month in Minneapolis, two American citizens were shot to death on American streets by agents of the American government. In this fragile moment, I asked Roberts if he would feel comfortable visiting the White House as the manager of Jackie Robinson’s team.

“For me, I stand by: I’m a baseball manager,” Roberts told me Saturday at the Dodgers’ fan festival. “That’s my job.

“I was raised — by a man who served our country for 30 years — to respect the highest office in our country. For me, it doesn’t matter who is in the office, I’m going to go to the White House. I’ve never tried to be political. ... For me, I am going to continue to try to do what tradition says and not try to make political statements, because I am not a politician.”

Neither was Robinson. In 1944 — three years before he broke baseball’s color barrier and 11 years before Rosa Parks — Robinson refused an order to move to the back of a bus. He was an Army lieutenant, prosecuted by a military court for insubordination and then acquitted.

In the wake of the killings of Renee Good and then Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, federal officials hurried to television cameras and social media accounts. None of the usual admonitions against leveraging tragedy for political purposes. No thoughts and prayers, even, just a rush to dehumanize the dead with labels such as “domestic terrorist” before any investigation.

The last words of Good, to one of those federal agents: “I’m not mad at you.” The last words of Pretti, to someone needing assistance: “Are you OK?”

Jackie Robinson: “The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time.”

After the killing of Pretti last week, the BBC exhaustively checked the claims of federal authorities against video evidence from a variety of sources: “None of the videos we have analyzed show Alex Pretti holding a gun. There is no available evidence that he was an assassin who tried to murder federal agents, no available evidence he intended to massacre law enforcement, nor that it was a violent riot, no available evidence that this was an individual who arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.”

Read more:Hernández: Dodgers visiting Trump's White House goes against everything they represent

In Minnesota, the immigration sweeps proceed unabated. The Star Tribune reported Saturday of a local detention facility so overcrowded that a woman had been locked inside a bathroom with three men.

In a suburban Minneapolis incident captured on video, an agent tells a man he must produce citizenship documentation “because of your accent.”

The Huffington Post reported that four children from an elementary school in a heavily Latino suburb of Minneapolis had been shipped to a detention facility in Texas.

This is what America voted for. The “Mass Deportation Now!” placards at campaign rallies in 2024 were held high.

Yet a judge ordered one of those children released Saturday, blasting what he called the “ill-conceived and incompetently implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”

Jackie Robinson: “The most luxurious possession, the richest treasure anybody has, is his personal dignity.”

This is not something the Dodgers can dismiss as an out-of-town issue. Federal immigration agents operate in Los Angeles too.

And, since Dodger Stadium has become a must-see Japanese tourist attraction in the Shohei Ohtani era, how much might tourism drop if Japanese citizens could be forbidden from entering the United States without sharing their social media history from the preceding five years and every personal and business email address from the preceding 10 years, as federal officials have proposed?

Jackie Robinson: “To build for leadership, one must base his standing on what is right, not what is expedient.”

I asked Dodgers president Stan Kasten whether the team had decided to visit the White House.

“I don’t have any news for you on that,” he said Saturday.

To skip the trip could be uncomfortable, but the Dodgers would not have to stand on a Washington street in protest, or issue a blistering statement. All they would need to do is decline a photo opportunity.

The Dodgers are free to make their own decision, of course. They’ll be in Washington for their first road series of the season, in the first week of April. Then they’ll return to Dodger Stadium, for the annual Jackie Robinson Day festivities.

For me, going to the White House would feel more expedient than right. If the Dodgers do go, they ought to skip the tributes to Robinson’s grand courage, since they would not have been able to muster up a fraction of their own.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Another day, another cold snap that reminds us that the hot stove is probably turned off. Talk to me again when the warm sunshine of Florida is on my screen and I’m whining about how long spring training is.

At least there is the World Baseball Classic this year.

On to the links.

Phillies news:

• Ranger Suarez is in Boston, which means the rotation is going to have a whole new look in 2026. How are those options stacking up?
• It’s prospect ranking season, which means local writers have their own top ten. Here is a glance, as well an outlook for each for 2026 ($).

MLB news:

• Handsome Dave Robertson has retired from the game. His calves were memorable, his pitching as well. He should be remembered as one of the best non-closer relievers of all time.
• Luis Arraez is heading to the Giants to get base hits and “play” second base.
• This was a fascinating story that followed Edgar Quero to the Driveline hitting labs as it profiles the hitting program they are instituting.
• Austin Hays is going to the South Side of Chicago to get some regular playing time with the White Sox this year.
• Puerto Rico is considering withdrawing from the World Baseball Classic because of insurance issues with several players.

Hello, friends.

There are now 53 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day. We’re getting there! WBC-participating pitchers and catchers report to Sarasota in just eight days, while the first Grapefruit League game for the Orioles is 19 days away. We’re in the month where fake games will be happening! That’s more fun for me than it typically is since, you know, I’m sick of all of this snow/ice lingering around.

I’m also kind of sick of all the speculating about Framber Valdez. Just sign a contract already, man! Get the best deal that’s out there right now. I don’t think anybody’s going to blink and give you more. Maybe the market has gotten really weird for him and there’s nothing even worth signing right now, I don’t know. If nobody’s even offering like 3/100, then sure, wait it out.

My suspicion is that Valdez could get that from the Orioles today, maybe he wants a few million more in AAV or maybe he wants an extra year. But it’s February 1 now, and again, some people will be in camp in eight days! It’s time to get some certainty here. I’ve been on “Valdez or bust” train for a while, so I don’t think there are even any alternatives worth considering for the O’s at this point. Zac Gallen, Lucas Giolito, Chris Bassitt, whatever, I don’t care. Unless there’s a surprise injury to a starting pitcher that we don’t know about beyond “maybe Zach Eflin isn’t going to pitch before May” then they don’t need any more back end guys.

Perhaps for the sake of negotiating, Mike Elias needs to pretend he might sign one of those other guys. He has some credibility in making that claim. We know he’ll sign a mediocre-at-best starting pitcher who nobody really wants. He’s got a real track record of that and he might still do it even in this winter where he’s otherwise been fairly aggressive in getting things done. I don’t know. I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten figured out yet.

Orioles stuff you might have missed

Mailbag: Is it Framber Valdez or bust for the rotation? (The Baltimore Sun)
People are wondering whether the Orioles really have any interest in non-Valdez pitchers left out there. I’m skeptical, but there’s no way to know for sure until we see who’s left after Valdez signs.

The Orioles have had a busy winter, and say it’s boosted ticket sales (The Baltimore Banner)
They can say all that they want. The final ticket numbers for 2026 will tell the tale, and that tale will probably be told more by how the team plays than by anything that has happened since October.

Rogers reflects on magical 2025 season (School of Roch)
This was also in yesterday’s Bird Droppings and I’m including it here mostly to note that there’s enough in here to indicate that you probably don’t need to worry about Trevor Rogers being in the “day 1 of spring training secret offseason injuries” news dump.

Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries

Today in 2010, former Orioles broadcaster Jon Miller was named the year’s winner of the Ford Frick Award, an honor given out annually by the Hall of Fame since 1978 for “meritorious service by baseball broadcasters.”

In 2024, the Orioles traded Joey Ortiz and DL Hall, plus a competitive balance draft pick, to the Brewers for Corbin Burnes. What an exciting couple of days that was with news of the sale of the team one day and the Burnes trade the next.

There are a few former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2012 two-gamer Joe Mahoney, 1998 outfielder Rich Becker, 1996 pitcher Kent Mercker, and 1964-76 outfielder Paul Blair.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include:

On this day in history…

In 1884, the first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary was published. Volume 1 covered A to Ant.

In 1896, Puccini’s opera La bohème had its premiere performance. This show’s story was later adapted into the long-running musical, Rent.

In 1964, the Beatles single “I Want To Hold Your Hand” reached #1 in the United States, the band’s first #1 hit here.

A random Orioles trivia question

I received a book of Orioles trivia questions for Christmas. I’ll ask a question each time it’s my turn to do Bird Droppings until I run out of questions or forget. If you are answering the question early in the day, please be considerate of others arriving later and place your response behind spoiler text in the comments. Thank you!

Which Orioles player was the first to record a 50+ home run season? As a bonus, in what year did he do it?

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on February 1. Have a safe Sunday.