Worldwide Sports News

Prior to getting into the meat of this week’s post, I wanted to add two disclaimers that many of you will probably deem unnecessary but for my own psyche, I am going to do it anyway.

1. The entirety of the article is assuming that JoJo Romero is going to be traded before the regular season. Yes, I know what assuming can do, but I believe at this point Chaim Bloom has shown his understanding of the current situation and is doing his due diligence before accepting a deal. After “panicking” for the inactivity, I am back on solid ground and ready for Chaim Time to continue.
2. Like Chaim, I also understand this is a rebuild. There have been a few comments in a couple previous articles pointing out that my desires for the team are not realistic during a rebuild. I am a fan first and still believe in the current talent, although it is lacking, of the majority of the roster, new decision makers, and Oli Marmol (insert jeers). While I know winning is not priority, I still crave competitive baseball with players getting their opportunity for proving themselves. I cannot support what the White Sox and Rockies had done, losing 100+ games on purpose, but if the Cardinals can hover 15 or less games under .500, I still anticipate plenty of fun and exciting games.

And with that, the main attraction.

The St. Louis Cardinals and Chaim Bloom are officially full speed ahead in the rebuild after trading Nolan Arenado to the Arizona Diamondbacks. With that necessary deal being done, it sounds like things are heating up around Brendan Donovan, but I will put his future in St. Louis at a true toss up. Even with the major league team having talent stripped from the roster, I believe there is still plenty to be excited about or storylines to follow.

The bullpen of any team is always one for conversation, but those talks differ depending on the contending status of each team. For the Cardinals, their current reliever set up would be cause for concern for teams with playoff hopes, but in St. Louis, this alignment means opportunity abound across the board. Assuming JoJo Romero is dealt to one of those postseason hopefuls, reliever Matt Svanson’s role is one that will be one to keep an eye on this season.

Matt Svanson could be the closer of the future or Kyle Leahy 2.0

Matt Svanson was acquired by John Mozeliak at the 2023 trade deadline for Paul DeJong, which surely Cardinals Twitter took kindly to and would never once call it “another dumpster dive by Mo.” Svanson had put together a nice season at the time of the trade, but did so as a 24-year-old in High-A. He demonstrated quality strikeout and walk abilities while allowing less than a base runner per inning, leading to the Cardinals to push him right to Double-A Springfield when he arrived to his new organization.

Svanson took well to his new team and level over 15 games, putting up a 3.00 ERA while still keeping his command and punchout stuff in his small sample. That momentum pushed into the 2024 season when Svanson really took off and became an interesting name to focus on for the future. Over 53 games, spanning 63.2 innings, Svanson took over the closer role for Springfield, closing 27 games with a 2.69 ERA. His peripherals took a hit, though, with his K/BB rate heading in the wrong direction, leading to a 3.93 FIP. That led to Svanson heading to the Arizona Fall League, where he was able to get his command back in order while playing in a lower stress environment against younger hitters.

Moving then to 2025, Svanson received an invite to major league Spring Training, but only received three innings of work before spending the rest of camp on the minor league side of things. He started the regular season in Memphis, but received his first promotion to the big league on April 16. Despite fine results in a mediocre bullpen, Svanson rode the Memphis shuttle multiple times during the season’s first half, totaling 26 innings over 17 games with a 3.12 ERA and showcasing his previous quality command and strikeout stuff.

The second half unlocked an even better version of the reliever with Svanson becoming a trusted part of the bullpen. After the All-Star break, Svanson pitched in 22 games and covered 34.1 innings of relief work while pitching in different situations. In those games, he put up a 1.05 ERA and a near 33% strikeout rate with opposing hitters totaling a .227 slugging percentage against him. For the year, the nearly-27-year-old went 4-0 with a 1.94 ERA (2.72 FIP) and a 29.1% K-rate.

Manager Oli Marmol was tasked with figuring out the best way to use a bullpen full of untested youngsters and that created opportunity to pitch in every inning except for the first two this season. As the Cardinals look into their best set up to win them however many games they do, the bullpen alignment figures to be a major part of whatever team success occurs this year. While he was called upon in any situation, Svanson’s strong first half made him a go-to guy later in the game. In his last 15 appearances, 13 of them came in the 6th inning or later. Over Svanson’s 39 games, 11 of them came when he had 0 or 1 day of rest, while 23 of his appearances were two days’ rest or less.

That usage did not hurt Svanson’s overall efficiency, as he had a stronger second half than first. After the All-Star Break, he had a minuscule 1.05 ERA with 44 strikeouts in 34.1 innings of work. Svanson grabbed his second win of the season with two innings of scoreless work and then followed it up one day later with his first career hold. The fact that Svanson was able to maintain his workload while also increase his strikeout stuff after the break, ramping it up to a 32.1% K-rate after July.

When determining what Svanson’s best role is for the future, I looked at FanGraphs’ split that breaks appearances down into low-, medium-, and high-leverage situations. In his 60.1 innings, 42.1 were what were considered low-leverage spots, and that is where Svanson thrived (as to be expected when this was the bulk of his work). He held hitters to a .132 batting average, compared to a .217 average in 13.2 medium-leverage innings, and a .250 average in a small 4.1 frame sample size in high-leverage spots.

For next season, the Cardinals figure to have an opening in every meaningful role, with Romero being the player with the most closing experience and Kyle Leahy being moved to the rotation. For the 2026 Cardinals, winning is unfortunately not priority number one, so that closer role may be one that the team is not as eager to fill at this moment. Ryne Stanek could be someone that the Cardinals turn to for a temporary option in the ninth inning, but they could also turn to Svanson after he has shown the ability to handle the role in Springfield. That could provide long-term stability for the backend of the Cardinals’ bullpen, but betting on extended effectiveness for relievers is always a tough gamble.

Another factor that the coaching staff will have to take into account is how often Svanson would throw if he were to be a closer. The Cardinals are currently projected to win around 73.5 games next year, meaning there may not be a lot of save opportunities for whoever the Cardinals deem the ninth inning guy. Because of that, Svanson may best be utilized in the vacant Kyle Leahy role and be that guy who can pitch at any spot in the game. Leahy did that last season, making at least one appearance in every inning, including his spot start at the end of the year. In term’s of FanGraphs’ leverage meter, Leahy threw 52.1 of his 88 innings in medium- or high-leverage spots. He became the guy that Marmol could call on most everyday (36 of his 62 appearances came with two days of rest of less) when the team need to get out of a jam.

In order to maximize Svanson’s value for this season, I would like to see him be that firefighter that Leahy turned into last year. Working against him, though, would be his groundball rate, which came in at 43% last season right around league average. If the Cardinals want to find a guy who can get a double play in a big spot, Svanson may have to use his sinker in a different way in order to get those grounders.

Regardless of where Svanson ends up out of Spring Training, the Cardinals have to be thrilled with what he has shown thus far. With a 97mph fastball and above-average breaking stuff, Svanson could stabilize that relief corps until a more solidified role for his future comes up.

Meet the Mets

With Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette both off the board, Cody Bellinger is still potentially in the cards for both the Mets and Yankees, with the Mets still needing an outfielder and the Yankees needing protection for Aaron Judge in the lineup.

Max Goodman of NJ.com runs down a list of five possible targets for the Mets after the Bo Bichette signing—a list which includes Bellinger.

Travis Sawchik of MLB.com explores the best fit for Framber Valdez between the Mets, Orioles, Giants, and Cubs—all of the teams that have been connected to the top remaining free agent starter—when considering rotation depth, ballpark, and the fact that he is an extreme ground ball pitcher.

Around the National League East

Mike Petriello of MLB.com looks into whether Bryce Harper can be elite again in 2026.

The Nationals signed righty Trevor Gott to a minor league contract yesterday.

Around Major League Baseball

Reds star Elly De La Cruz turned down an extension offer from the Reds last spring that would have been the largest contract offer in franchise history, eclipsing Joey Votto’s ten-year, $225 million deal from 2012.

Speaking of the Reds, they are reportedly receiving trade interest in their starting pitchers.

After 13 seasons as an MLB reliever, Ryan Pressly has announced his retirement.

For The Athletic, Chad Jennings and Stephen J. Nesbitt take a look back through sports history to try to find precedent for the dynasty the Dodgers are currently building.

This Date in Mets History

On this date in 2018, the Mets formally announced the signing of first baseman Adrian Gonzalez. It ended up being his last major league season.

The Dodgers have been fairly quiet this offseason compared to the last two, but when they have struck, the bounty has been plentiful.

After bringing back Miguel Rojas for the final season of his big league career, the Dodgers shored up their bullpen by bringing in Edwin Díaz to a three-year deal worth $69 million. After a month of wondering where star free agents like Kyle Tucker, Cody Bellinger or Bo Bichette would sign, the Dodgers stunned the baseball world by agreeing to a four-year, $240 million deal with Tucker, making him the highest paid outfielder per annual average value in baseball history.

Tucker is now slated to be the team’s primary right fielder, sliding Teoscar Hernández back to left field where he primarily played during the 2024 season. Hernández was previously involved in trade rumors during the winter meetings, as the Kansas City Royals expressed interest in him, but the Dodgers are reportedly unlikely to deal him away, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The Dodgers are more likely to consider deals for either outfielder Ryan Ward or pitcher Bobby Miller.

Fresh off their stunning signing of free-agent right fielder Kyle Tucker, the Dodgers are expected to keep Teoscar Hernández and move him to left field. As reported previously, Hernández’s name has surfaced in trade conversations. The Dodgers, however, are more likely to explore deals for outfielder Ryan Ward, a career minor leaguer who last season was MVP of the Pacific Coast League at 27, or right-hander Bobby Miller, who has been a disappointment.

Links

Alongside the Dodgers in the sweepstakes for Kyle Tucker were the New York Mets and the Toronto Blue Jays. The Mets reportedly offered a similar short-term deal for Tucker reported at four years for $220 million that included a $75 million signing bonus with no deferrals, while the Blue Jays were the only team of the three to go for a long-term deal, with Jon Heyman of the New York Post tweeting that the deal was for 10 years for $350 million.

On the surface, Kyle Tucker didn’t have quite the success at home with the Chicago Cubs than he did away from Wrigley Field. In reality, his home and road split divergence was mostly due to a fractured hand that tanked his second half numbers at the plate, but it doesn’t help that Wrigley Field isn’t so friendly to hitters, ranking 26th in park factor. Mike Petriello of MLB.com examines how the move to a more hitter-friendly environment in Dodger Stadium (along with the hopes of him staying healthy) could help Tucker put up similar offensive numbers he had with the Houston Astros.

Chad Jennings and Stephen J. Nesbitt of The Athletic compare the Kyle Tucker signing to other notable moves across sports where a star player joined a defending champion, such as Kevin Durant’s heavily maligned move to join the Golden State Warriors.

On Thursday, news broke that Kyle Tucker, the top free agent in this year’s market, signed a four-year, $240 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Tucker’s massive contract — the second-largest by average annual value in MLB history — gets added to a cadre of other gigantic free-agent deals the team is currently paying for:

• Shohei Ohtani: 10 years, $700m (through 2034)
• Blake Snell: five years, $182m (2031)
• Mookie Betts: 12 years, $365m (2032)
• Tyler Glasnow: five years, $136.5m (2029)
• Yoshinobu Yamaoto: 12 years, $325m (2035)
• Freddie Freeman: six years, $162m (2027)
• Edwin Díaz: three years, $69m (2028)
• Teoscar Hernández: three years, $66m (2028)
• Tanner Scott: four years, $72m (2028)
• Tommy Edman: five years, $74m (2030)
• Will Smith: 10 years, $140m (2033)

In 2026, the Dodgers will also pay Max Muncy $10 million and the nearly unusable Blake Treinen $13.5 million. Spotrac has the Dodgers’ 2026 payroll at $413,597,413, which will add a luxury tax penalty of just over $160 million, which means that the Dodgers will be paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $575 million for their roster in 2026, at least as far as the bookkeeping goes (Ohtani, for example, will get paid $2 million in 2026 to play for the Dodgers and $68 million sometime after he is retired; for luxury tax purposes, his contract counts as about $46 million in 2026). The total amount of money they have committed is over $2 billion.

Frankly, this is absurd.

The second-most expensive roster in baseball is the New York Mets, who come in with a pre-tax payroll of about $360 million. The Phillies and Blue Jays are at $325 million and $312 million, respectively, and five other teams (the Yankees, Red Sox, Padres, Braves, and Cubs) fall between $250 and $300 milliion. As of this moment, half the league has a payroll under $200 million, or less than 47% of the Dodgers’ pre-tax payroll. When you factor in the luxury tax, only the Mets are within even 80% of what the Dodgers are spending. And 22 of the league’s 30 teams would be spending less than half of what the Dodgers are.

The Milwaukee Brewers, with a current estimated total payroll via Spotrac of $155.5 million, will barely spend a quarter of what the Dodgers will, and will spend less on their entire team than the Dodgers will pay in luxury tax. These two teams met in the National League Championship Series last season.

I’m not really here to talk about how unfair it is that the Brewers could realistically only afford to pay one or two contracts like the 12 that the Dodgers currently have on their roster — and simply could not afford several of them, no matter the circumstances. I’m not really here to bemoan the fact that the Brewers aren’t stretching their budget a little further; while I might have one or two complaints, what, realistically, should they do? The Tuckers, Alex Bregmans, and Bo Bichettes of the world simply are not going to play in Milwaukee. There are enough teams in “more desirable” cities that would merely need to match the Brewers’ offer — which they could, easily, without stressing their overall payroll in the same way that Milwaukee would have to — that those players would simply go somewhere else, no matter how good the Brewers are. Needless to say, Milwaukee is not going to be a destination for a player like Ohtani, no matter how good they are and how much money they could offer.

I don’t blame the players for this. I don’t really even blame the Dodgers for this: they have the money for Tucker even though they don’t really need him. Why not spend it?

No, I’m writing this because, while there are arguments to be made that certain small-market clubs should be spending more money and some mega-wealthy owners should invest more of their own cash into their teams, the simple fact is that baseball has reached an untenable place.

For what it’s worth, I do not believe the Brewers are cheap. They’ve done an excellent job investing in infrastructure and player development, and while they’re in the league’s smallest market, they have a bigger payroll than 11 other teams at the moment. The numbers are a little tricky to track down, but by net worth, Mark Attanasio — while mega wealthy — ranks near the bottom of the league (27th among 30 by most estimates). Frankly, he’s done an excellent job getting results on the field, given the market he’s working in and the resources available to him.

The problem here is that the wealthiest owners in the sport keep getting wealthier. The Dodgers and Blue Jays, for example, are effectively governed not by “owners” but by conglomerates that are worth tens of billions of dollars. How is a team like the Brewers supposed to compete with that?

This will all come to a head after next season, when baseball’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) expires. It is almost a guarantee that there will be a lockout; whether that extends into the beginning of the 2027 season will be the biggest storyline of next offseason.

But the first battle that will happen in 2027 is not going to be between the owners and the players, but between the owners like Attanasio and the ownership groups like Guggenheim Baseball Management and Rogers Communications. Essentially, what’s going to happen is that most of the teams in the league are going to argue that baseball needs far more revenue sharing and limits on how much money the wealthiest teams can spend. The wealthiest — and most powerful — owners are going to fight tooth and nail to avoid this outcome. (Interestingly, the teams arguing for more revenue sharing, or at least on salary limitations, will likely include the New York Yankees, the traditional “evil empire.”)

We keep hearing about a salary cap and how ownership is going to push for that as a solution to limiting salaries. If they’re smart, the owners will come up with a slyer way of presenting this option; the term ‘salary cap’ is politically charged in baseball labor history and is thus something that the players will probably absolutely refuse under all circumstances.

Ownership should look to the NBA for inspiration, in more than one way. In 2023, the league snuck what was essentially a hard salary cap by the players in the latest CBA, but instead of calling it a “hard cap,” they called it “tax aprons.” The penalties levied on teams for exceeding these aprons, which include severe restrictions on roster flexibility in addition to financial penalties, function essentially as a hard cap. But they didn’t call it that, so players were more open to it, and it seems like the effectiveness of these tax aprons was perhaps underestimated (probably by both sides).

Personally, I’d like to see baseball go to a flexible cap system more like the NBA used prior to the last labor negotiation — I think this type of system can benefit both the best players, who can still make massive amounts of money, and younger players, who reach a version of free agency more quickly (they become restricted free agents after four years) than their counterparts in baseball (unrestricted after six years). The “max contract” system also naturally limits how many huge contracts a single team can have at a time, and the accompanying salary floor required in this system means that every team in the NBA can — and often does — have max contracts. The Cleveland Cavaliers currently have three players on max contracts, more than the Los Angeles Lakers do.

Beyond that, the league can push for more revenue sharing, but I think the roster restrictions will be the key to creating real change. What if, for example, teams who exceed a certain luxury-tax threshold aren’t allowed to trade more than one prospect at a time, making it harder for them to get in on bidding for players available in trades without giving up their most precious assets?

What’s the downside of sticking with the current system? People can complain all they want about how poorer owners should spend more or sell, but the gap is widening. Many fans already believe that the league is unfair. The Dodgers have won three of the last six World Series and keep adding the best players in the league. The worst case is that fan sentiment turns to the point that fans of smaller teams just lose interest. If fans of the Cleveland Guardians or Miami Marlins figure they have absolutely no shot, what’s to keep them interested?

I’ve felt this way at times this offseason. The Brewers, for example, could really have used Bichette, who is, what, like the 85^th best player in the league? But at no point did I think it was remotely plausible that the Brewers would sign him, nor did I think it would’ve been the right move, given how it might’ve caused tough financial decisions down the line. He ended up with a contract worth $42 million a year, 75% more than the Brewers have ever paid a player in a single season.

The other thing that I feel has already started to happen is that MLB will evolve into what we already see in European soccer. Take, for example, the Premier League: there are extremely unpopular and convoluted rules in place about who can spend what — in the most basic sense, it’s ostensibly to prevent teams from spending more than they can afford, but it’s an inequitable system that heavily favors the teams who were already rich when the rules went into place. As a result, the same teams consistently dominate the top European leagues. In some cases, like in England, it’s a group of teams — the “Big Six,” as they’re called there. It’s even worse in the other, slightly less popular leagues — Bayern Munich has won the German Bundesliga in 13 of the last 14 years, and just this week set the league record for points at the halfway mark of the season. The last time a team other than Real Madrid, Barcelona, or Atlético Madrid won the Spanish league championship was in 2004.

While the playoff system will ensure that surprises happen in baseball, this isn’t where MLB is headed — it’s where they already are. The Dodgers might not win the league every year, but they will be right there every year, and the smaller-market teams that are left adrift — the Rockies, the Pirates, the Reds, etc. — will just fall further and further behind, only occasionally making leaps into relevancy, crossing their fingers that the chips fall their way just once. It’s where we are right now as Brewers fans.

Milwaukee has done an excellent job keeping pace thus far, but they cannot pull this off forever. The playing field needs to be leveled, at least a little bit, or the league risks losing huge portions of its fanbase. People like to feel like they have a fair shot.

Baseball has never exactly been a league that thrived on competitive balance; between 1936 and 1962, for example, the Yankees won 16 of 27 World Series, including separate stretches of four and five in a row. And one could argue that there’s nothing more quintessentially American than baseball, jazz music, and a rapidly widening wealth gap in which hyper-capitalists dominate those with fewer resources.

But the league and its players need to understand that the Dodgers being this far ahead of the field is not good for the game. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a top dog — that can be good for the game in its own way — but in the last three years, the gap between the top of the league and the bottom of the league has grown from what was already a chasm into the Mariana Trench.

I certainly hope that we don’t miss any games in 2027, spring training or otherwise. I’m not optimistic. People at this level of wealth think that they should never have to settle for anything other than exactly what they want, and we live in an adversarial time. Missing games would be another huge mistake. The best thing is for everyone to admit that something needs to change and come up with reasonable, intelligent solutions that make fans of the poorer teams feel like they have a chance.

Should be easy, right?

One hallmark of the AJ Hinch-era Detroit Tigers, especially with Scott Harris in charge, has been flexibility. On a roster without many stars, Hinch’s job has been to maximize the value of each player. This takes different forms for each facet of the game. On the position player side, it usually means defensive versatility – eight Tigers played at least two positions at some point last season – pinch hitting for any potential edge, and a general trend favoring the platoon advantage.

Today, I’m going to take a look at how Hinch attempted to control the game with his offensive strategies. To do so, I’ll be comparing how often he puts his players in the best position to succeed and how well they do once they get into these advantageous situations. Spoiler alert: he’s very good at it.

Let’s start with pinch-hitting. This is the part of a game the manager can most obviously exert his control. The eye test says Hinch loves to pinch hit, often to our collective outrage. Let Kerry Carpenter hit! What do you mean Trey Sweeney is hitting for Javy Baez against a right-handed reliever? Taking a step back, though, shows Hinch frequently used his weapons at the best time and situations. Here’s a table showing both how often teams used pinch-hitters, and also how well they did, sorted by wRC+.

Here’s what stands out from that table. Firstly, the Tigers lapped the field in pinch hitting plate appearances. I sorted by success because that’s important too, but Detroit was first in plate appearances for pinch hitters. Their 41-PA lead on Cleveland and Texas is roughly the same as the gap between Cleveland/Texas and Arizona in 12th. Put differently, the Tigers pinch-hit about 80% more than a league average team.

Fortunately, those weren’t wasted plate appearances. Detroit’s collective wRC+ of 106 ranked 7th overall, but that’s not the whole story. Only one of the six teams ahead of them, Toronto, used an above-average amount of pinch hitters. Essentially, the Tigers pinch hit more than any team and got better results than all but one team who came close to matching their frequency. Teams like Washington might have done a bit better, but by using less than half the plate appearances as Detroit, it impacted far fewer games.

Interestingly, there’s pretty limited connection between overall team quality and pinch-hitting frequency. The Phillies and Yankees are the only top 10 offenses with a far below average number of pinch hitters, while Seattle and Toronto are in the top 10 for both team wRC+ and pinch hitting PAs. There isn’t a painstakingly obvious trend that says good teams should or shouldn’t pinch hit; it’s a personnel decision that Detroit has decided to go against the grain to lean into.

Conventional wisdom says pinch-hitting is generally a poor idea. The “pinch-hit penalty” is pretty widely accepted. Last year, the league-average pinch hitter posted an 81 wRC+ last year, about the same as Matt Vierling or Andy Ibanez. Managers know this, and yet Hinch intentionally embraced pinch-hitting in 2025.

Clearly, Detroit thinks they’ve found an advantage here. With both intentional roster building decisions and Hinch’s generally hands-on managing tendencies, Detroit has created an outlier. It seems likely that Hinch is driving this shift for Detroit, since he’s ultimately responsible for deciding who plays when and where and for preparing his players to impact the game. By making this a fundamental part of his team strategy, players know their role and players on the bench anticipate getting into the game rather than just sitting on the bench until their name is called. It’s a small area to have a large advantage in, but consistently timely results from pinch hitting can skew more games than a typical 200-PA sample would suggest.

Another element of offensive optimization is the platoon advantage. There’s a lot of overlap here with pinch hitting, because most pinch hitters will enter to obtain the platoon advantage, but consistently getting the platoon edge goes far beyond pinch hitting. Here again we see Hinch’s Tigers prioritizing this strategy. Let’s check a similar table as before, but with the platoon advantage replacing pinch hitting.

As with pinch hitting, the Tigers are one of few teams to be in the top-10 for both platoon-advantage PAs and performance. Using the platoon advantage, though, seems like a better understood strategy than pinch hitting, though. Team performance is clustered pretty tightly around average, unlike for pinch hitting. There also seems to be a much stronger relationship between team success and how well they do with the platoon advantage, which makes sense. An ambitious manager can get the platoon advantage in something like 4000 plate appearances, rather than 200 for pinch hitters. This means Hinch stands out less, but still compare favorably to the rest of the league when it comes to leveraging the platoon advantage for his hitters.

Neither of these stats is the end-all, be-all, of course. Both have some flaws or overall codependency with other, more important, variables. It’s difficult to distinguish which managers get the most plate appearances to batters with the platoon advantage from managers who have lots of switch hitters, for starters, and the best offenses get more plate appearances in basically any situation by way of making outs less frequently. Still, it’s better to be good at these than not, and the way Hinch has separated the Tigers from the rest of the pack is particularly notable. It’s particularly crucial for a team with a deep roster of average or better hitters, but little in the way of true star power on the offensive side.

When considering his success with both pinch-hitting and platoons and with the frequently-covered, highly-aggressive baserunning the Tigers have exhibited lately, it’s clear Hinch is doing his best to maximize every player on his roster. For the Tigers to bounce back from a disappointing second half with a similar roster, he’ll need to continue getting more out of his players than anyone expects. Look for continued aggression with the flexible parts of his roster, and hope for continued success, as Detroit tries to win its first division title of the decade.

Matt Shaw says he has spent a good deal of time in the outfield in college and he’s up for the challenge of being a supersub. I’m not going to discourage him. Nico Hoerner opined that it was a good thing to have a quality player as a sub, and that time off isn’t a Bad Thing. Nico is a ballplayer — right now he’s the face of the Cubs, and that’s the attitude fans want to see.

I think, in the end, that it really was Kyle Tucker’s approach that doomed him in Chicago. He wasn’t seen to be giving it his all. Whether that perception is accurate, I don’t know. But it is real. Ian Happ has suffered some from a similar perception despite his propensity for flinging his body about with abandon.

Anyway. ‘King Kyle’ is planning on winning a ring. The Dodgers have already meatloafed — they’re eyeing a threepeat. That would even them up with the Oakland Athletics (1972-74), and the Yankees (1998-2000), who also have skeins of four (1936-39) and five (1949-53) consecutive wins. The Cubs are among the handful of teams that have repeated.

The Phillies, Mets, the Cubs, and possibly the Brewers will have something to say about that. Others could surprise, but then they would have to. The Blue Jays, Mariners, and possibly the Red Sox will have words.

But it would surprise exactly nobody if the Dodgers won.

Saturday, the Cubs convention was in full swing. We’ll have another stacked playlist. Congratulations to Jon Lester, Jody Davis, and the late Vince Lloyd, who talked to me from the radio and TV quite a bit when I was small. And good luck to Da Bears, who play tonight at Soldier Field.

*means autoplay on, (directions to remove for Firefox and Chrome). {$} means paywall. {$} means limited views. Italics are often used on this page as sarcasm font. The powers that be have enabled real sarcasm font in the comments.

Today’s playlist.

• Paul Sullivan (Chicago Tribune* {$}): Something old, something new and a whole lot of blue at the Chicago Cubs Convention. “It was really cool for me to celebrate their World Series,” Cubs left fielder Ian Happ said with a laugh Friday afternoon.
• Meghan Montemurro (Chicago Tribune* {$}): Edward Cabrera brings high upside to Chicago Cubs — with some risk: ‘He’s going to help us win ballgames’. “I’ll go out there and give them my 100% to reach the end goal, which is to win,” he said Friday through an interpreter. Maddie Lee has more*.
• Sahadev Sharma (The Athletic {$}): ‘Irreplaceable’ Nico Hoerner hopes trade rumors fade as Cubs load up for a 2026 run. “Once the buzz wore off from the Alex Bregman signing, the questions began.“
• Paul Niemiec (North Side Baseball*): Can Alex Bregman remain elite throughout the life of his Cubs contract? “Bregman will turn 32 right as the regular season begins in late March.”
• Jay Cohen (AP*): Matt Shaw is preparing for a super-utility role with the Cubs in the wake of Alex Bregman’s arrival. “In addition to backing up Bregman at third and Nico Hoerner at second, Shaw also is expected to play in the outfield.”

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 reputable sources.

The independent minor leagues are baseball’s laboratories.

Pitch clocks? The robot umpires coming to the major leagues this year? The home run derby used to settle ties, as seen in last year’s All-Star Game? All first tested in an independent league.

Some concepts are hits. Some are flops.

The experiment to watch this year is almost spiritual in nature: Can professional baseball make starting pitching great again?

Read more:Plaschke: Dodgers' ruination of baseball continues with Kyle Tucker, and it’s a beautiful thing

Baseball’s obsession with velocity has dampened the soul of the sport. The marquee pitching matchup is an endangered species. The oohs and aahs over a 100-mph pitch have been replaced by yawns.

The potential solution, or at least a piece of one, is evident in this job description:

The United Shore Professional Baseball League (USPBL), an independent league based in Michigan, is recruiting for the position of “primary starting pitcher.”

The game isn’t building traditional starters anymore. At the @uspbl, were changing that.

We are actively recruiting Primary Starting Pitchers who want to take the ball every week, pitch deep into games, and become the durable, innings-capable arms MLB organizations need.

This… pic.twitter.com/0JZvXEFsqW

— Justin Orenduff (@JustinOrenduff) December 1, 2025

The language is intentional. In today’s major leagues, a starting pitcher generally is selected, trained and deployed to throw as hard as he can for as long as he can. Five innings is perfectly acceptable, with a parade of harder-throwing reinforcements in the bullpen.

What the USPBL plans for a primary starting pitcher: “Build the ability to pitch deep into games.”

That used to be self-evident for a starting pitcher, but no longer. Yoshinobu Yamamoto turned into Sandy Koufax last October, with back-to-back complete games during the Dodgers’ championship run.

However, in the regular season, the Dodgers did not throw a complete game, and neither did 12 other teams. The Dodgers’ starters averaged 4.85 innings per game; no team averaged even six innings.

In 2025, three major league pitchers threw 200 innings. In 2010, 45 did.

Read more:Dodgers' scorching offseason continues by landing star outfielder Kyle Tucker

“Being able to get more Mark Buehrles or Cliff Lees back into the fold would be good for the game,” said Justin Orenduff, a 2004 Dodgers first-round draft pick and now the USPBL executive director of baseball strategy and development.

Buehrle, a five-time All-Star, and Lee, a four-time All-Star, each featured precision rather than power.

Lee, twice a Game 1 World Series starter, did not average 92 mph on his fastball but pitched 200 innings eight times. Buerhle, whose average fastball did not top 90 mph, pitched 200 innings for 14 consecutive years.

Neither might be drafted today. Major league teams crave velocity, and young pitchers train to boost it. The number of players throwing at least 95 mph at the Perfect Game national showcase increased sevenfold from 2014 to 2024, according to a report from Major League Baseball.

The average MLB fastball rose from 91 mph in 2008 to 94 mph in 2024, the report said.

“Velocity is the No. 1 predictor of success,” Billy Eppler, then the Angels’ general manager, told me in 2018.

Velocity also is associated with an increased risk of injury. Teams have implemented well-intentioned measures — pitch counts, innings limits, more rest between appearances — that have not mitigated the risks and might well have led to more injuries.

Kyle Boddy, the founder of Driveline, the seminal program for velocity training, said a hard-throwing pitcher is not going to manage his velocity on an inflexible pitch count.

“If he goes 60 or 70 pitches, he’s going to sit 100,” Boddy told Baseball America. “He’s not stupid. And if we tell him, ‘There’s no limits on you,’ but we keep taking him out after 70 pitches every time, he’s going to realize what’s going on.

“If he can’t control the volume, the one lever he can control is the intensity. I personally think that’s worse for his arm, going max effort for shorter stints.”

That ultimately works against developing starting pitchers capable of delivering six innings, the MLB report said.

“Modern workload management strategies — ostensibly intended to prevent overuse, protect pitcher health, and maximize pitcher effectiveness — may actually increase injury risk by allowing and even incentivizing pitchers to throw with maximum effort on every pitch,” the report said, “rather than requiring pitchers to conserve energy and pace themselves in an effort to pitch through longer outings.”

Not only does throwing harder increase the risk of injury, the MLB report said, but the resulting parade of strikeouts runs “counter to contact-oriented approaches that create more balls in play and result in the type of on-field action that fans want to see.”

In the independent Atlantic League, the league has run several years of testing on a “double hook” rule: when a team removes its starting pitcher, it loses its designated hitter. That would incentivize a major league team to use its starter for six or seven innings instead of four or five, but it would not solve the underlying problem: What if the starting pitcher cannot work six or seven innings?

That is where Orenduff and the USPBL come in.

Every general manager says he would love a rotation of five 200-inning starters, if only he could find them. They cannot offer on-the-job training in the majors, lest their team find itself at a competitive disadvantage.

In an independent league, Orenduff need not worry about that. Tough matchup with the bases loaded in the fourth inning? Third time through the order in the sixth inning? Pitch through it.

“It’s not going to be that quick pull,” he said.

This is not about leaving a starting pitcher out there to get crushed just to pitch through it. This is about shaking off the shackles of those one-size-fits-all limitations.

“You basically want to start by showing fans and the industry, for example, that 100 pitches is just a number,” he said. “It’s completely arbitrary.

“Some guys may be able to go 110, 120. We want to be able to show that the game can still produce players that are successful on the mound, most importantly, but are capable of going beyond the fifth inning and beyond 100 pitches if the expectation and the leadership and the structure are there to support it.”

The USPBL will have pretty much the same technology as major league teams do, to measure spin rates and recovery rates and every other rate. If you can maintain command and velocity, if you can get outs without max effort on every pitch, and if you can bounce back between innings and between starts, you may be able to be that primary starting pitcher.

Frankly, Orenduff says, all the velocity in the world cannot help your team if you cannot pitch.

Read more:Dodgers' scorching offseason continues by landing star outfielder Kyle Tucker

“That has to be a metric too: sustainability and availability,” he said.

He conducted a study evaluating each team’s top three pitching draft picks since 2013. With the caveats that some pitchers were traded and some prospects still are developing, Orenduff found that three in four of those top drafted pitchers never have pitched for the major league team that drafted them, at a combined cost to the 30 MLB teams of $800 million in signing bonuses.

“We just have to have some sort of proof we can help more players have longer careers by being a little more flexible in how we frame things for them,” Orenduff said.

Here’s hoping the USPBL can discover some training methods that major league teams can use. Better that than listening to a major league manager with a 13-man pitching staff say after a game that he ran out of pitchers, as we too often hear. Can you imagine what Tommy Lasorda would have to say about that?

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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On to the links.

Phillies news:

• The National League East, always a thrill ride, has some added layers to it after Bo Bichette signed. Here is what’s next for all of the teams in the division ($).
• They didn’t get Bichette, which stinks. What now though? Does the team re-invest that money into another position? ($)

MLB news:

• Justin Verlander has worn a lot of shades of orange, but maybe one more for the road would be appropriate ($).
• Elly de la Cruz, according to reports, has turned down the largest contract offer in Reds history ($). Good for him.
• With Bichette moving on, might the Diamondbacks peddle Ketel Marte to the losers of the chase? Not at this point, according to their GM.