TORONTO, CANADA - JANUARY 26: Scottie Barnes #4 of the Toronto Raptors, Kawhi Leonard #2 of the LA Clippers, and Bruce Brown #11 of the Toronto Raptors wait for a rebound during the game on January 26, 2024 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2024 NBAE (Photo by Mark Blinch/NBAE via Getty Images) | NBAE via Getty Images
ESPN has named two Raptors forwards as making their list of the top-20 players in the NBA. It’s great to see Toronto finally standing amongst the big dogs of the league, both from a media perception perspective, and a roster construction one. The front office is doing the right things, and the outlets are in agreement.
The Kid and the Klaw
Scottie Barnes and Kawhi Leonard were ranked at 17th and 15 best in the league, overall, by ESPN, both ahead of players like LeBron James, Tyrese Haliburton, and Devin Booker. This is chalked up to Barnes’ two-way play, and Leonard’s scoring, with both players able to contribute significantly on both ends of the ball, unlike some of the players ranked below them.
They both saw massive upticks in their ranking compared to those from last year’s list: Barnes jumped 13 spots, from 30th in the league to 17th, while Leonard leapt up five, from 20th to 15th.
LOS ANGELES, CA – FEBRUARY 15: Kawhi Leonard #2 of the USA Stripes Team handles the ball as Scottie Barnes #4 of the USA Stars Team plays defense during the game during the 75th NBA All-Star Game as part of NBA All-Star Weekend on Sunday, February 15, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2026 NBAE (Photo by Kyusung Gong/NBAE via Getty Images) | NBAE via Getty Images
Their placement in this list is almost perfect, though it may seem strange to see a two-time All-Star ranked higher than four-time MVP LeBron James. But, this list is tracking the ascension of Barnes into a franchise cornerstone, a fact that after his playoff performance last year, cannot be ignored. They call Scottie a “do-everything engine”, which sums up his place on the Raptors, and in the NBA, extremely well. Barnes’ versatility is one of his key strengths, and especially in the postseason, having someone who can score, guard, rebound, and pass is key to surviving some of the league’s tougher matchups, especially on a team without a top-tier centre.
What Kawhi brings to the table is, of course, a little different. Centrally, Leonard is someone who the Raptors need to score without being a defensive liability, a role he should take to like a fish to water. ESPN puts an asterisk on Leonard’s placement, noting that he “hasn’t advanced past the first round since 2021,” and “must prove he can still crank it up in the playoffs.”
Fighting for position
Kawhi is ranked just below Jaylen Brown and Kevin Durant in the list, two big stars who have had notable playoff struggles in recent years as well. No one is doubting the performances of any of the three, but ESPN even point to Brown potentially fighting for touches in a stacked Philadelphia roster as a potential drain on his output going forward. The “too many cooks” situation is a reality for Philadelphia, with a number of ball dominant players all together on one roster, something that Kawhi Leonard will not face in Toronto.
INGLEWOOD, CA – DECEMBER 23: Kevin Durant #7 of the Houston Rockets and Kawhi Leonard #2 of the LA Clippers during the game on December 23, 2025 at Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2025 NBAE (Photo by Juan Ocampo/NBAE via Getty Images) | NBAE via Getty Images
The article also points to Durant’s combination of leadership and consistent output over the past seven years, facts than cannot be ignored. Durant is many things, but inconsistent is not one of them. What the Slim Reaper brings to the table is something that should be be ignored, but for roster construction, Kawhi Leonard is undoubtedly the better fit for Toronto.
Nevertheless, ESPN’s article isn’t necessarily about team success, rather, about which individual players are the “best”. And maybe, if the Larry O’Brien went to the winner of a 1V1 tournament, Kevin Durant would have ten of those things. But, thankfully, while basketball is a star dominated sport, it’s also one where players succeed as teams and fail as individuals. It’s five guys out there on the court every night, and if Kawhi Leonard and Scottie Barnes and two of those five, odds are that they’re going to beat you. By a lot.
Still, it’s gratifying to see both Scottie and Kawhi climb the ranks, with the young star ascending in the eyes of the public, and the older veteran getting to relive his glory days yet again. After a playoff push this year, the two Raptors might jump up even higher in the rankings, but ultimately, that’s for the guys on the court to decide.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 30: Trent Grisham #12 of the New York Yankees makes a catch for an out on a ball hit by Jahmai Jones #37 of the Boston Red Sox during the sixth inning in game two of the American League Wild Card Series at Yankee Stadium on September 30, 2026 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Caleb Bowlin/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Yankees outfielder Trent Grisham has been nursing right hamstring issues since the summer. Two injured list stints and many missed games later, the problem appears to be mostly behind him, as he was activated on time for the AL Wild Card Series against the Boston Red Sox. We say ‘mostly’ because, even though the Yankees have deemed him healthy enough to play, we have no idea if he’s actually close to 100 percent, and the one thing we know for sure is he didn’t seem fully himself in the first series of the postseason.
He was fine at the plate, notching two hits and a walk in Wednesday’s Game 2, but he didn’t look the part in center field. He has been far from his 2020 and 2022 Gold Glove-winning versions in the last two seasons, but the image he projected in the Wild Card round was much, much worse.
The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner noted that Grisham’s sprint speed when attacking and fielding that ball was 23.5 ft/s. He was so slow that Nate Eaton took advantage and turned it into a double when it should have been a single. For reference, Kirschner reported that just three players had a slower average sprint speed than that this season, and all of them are what you would consider slow catchers: Christian Vázquez, José Trevino, and Sandy León.
Of course, the fact that he was so slow to the ball doesn’t necessarily mean that he can’t run faster. Maybe he was too confident and didn’t think Eaton would go for it. Or, perhaps, he was still tentative when running because he didn’t want to risk aggravating an injury that was already deemed a Grade 2 hamstring strain just over a month ago.
In any case, it’s definitely cause for concern. The Yankees would be better off handing regular center field duties to rookie Spencer Jones, who is younger and more athletic, and only using Grisham sparingly at the position if needed. This is not to say he should or shouldn’t be on the AL Division Series roster, but he is just not a starting center fielder at the highest level anymore. Not with two straight years of subpar performance there, not with a bum hamstring, and certainly not against the Rays.
When you face a team like the Rays, used to maximizing its strengths and attacking the opposing squad’s weaknesses, every little detail counts. Having a well below-average defender cover the most important outfield position regularly is, at this point, in this series, and against this particular rival, malpractice.
Grisham used to be a very, very solid defensive center fielder. The two aforementioned awards prove it. However, his decline started in 2025, when he finished with -11 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) and -2 Outs Above Average (OAA) in center field. The 2026 campaign wasn’t much better. He posted -8 DRS and -6 OAA this year, in 961.1 innings. Evidently, he doesn’t have the range he used to have, and the hamstring(s) could be behind his regression with the glove. This season, Grisham ranked in the 18th percentile in Fielding Run Value, even worse than last year’s 30th percentile. His lousy range (OAA) had him in the 10th percentile.
The fact that he’s about to turn 30 — center fielders tend to decline relatively quickly with the glove — plus his injuries, have led to Grisham not being the defensive player he used to be. He suffered a left hamstring issue last year and experienced countless setbacks with the right hamstring in 2026.
Grisham’s bat and, especially, his power can still make an impact against top competition. The same can’t be said about his glove, and the Yankees should act accordingly.
DENVER, CO - SEPTEMBER 16: Colorado Rockies fans hold a sign referring to "Rocktober", or a Rockies playoff run, during a game between the Colorado Rockies and the San Diego Padres at Coors Field on September 16, 2017 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Good morning, Rockies fans!
Back in 2007, the Rockies did the unthinkable. They punched their postseason ticket after a remarkable winning streak at the end of the season. They rode that winning streak all the way to the World Series. Then it all came crashing down.
After a losing season and surrounded by other teams celebrating advancing to the Division Series, it’s helpful to think about the good times occasionally. And no one tells the story better than the manager who helped make it happen:
19 years ago today, we played Game 163.
Two weeks before that, the Rockies were buried in the standings.
We won 13 of our last 14 regular season games to force it. Won it on a play at the plate in extra innings that people still argue about.
After that lovely trip down memory lane, it’s time to return to the present. Here’s the Rockies news and information from around MLB. At least some of it is happy.
When Hunter Goodman hit two homers to help the Rockies beat the White Sox on Sept. 25, it directly led to the Cleveland Guardians winning the American League Central. The Cleveland fans found a gracious and creative way to say thank you to the Rockies All-Star catcher. Over 700 fans combined to donate $22,000 to Clothes to Kids of Denver.
It’s hard to square four straight 100-loss seasons with an increased price for tickets. Citing lower ticket prices than other mid-market teams and increased costs, Walker Monfort told Troy Renck that the Rockies had to “narrow the gap” to justify the 12% jump. It’s a hard case to make with the terrible ending to the 2026 season. Walker might soon find himself in the company of his father when it comes to drawing the ire of Rockies fans.
It’s rare to find Rockies in best-of-MLB lists, but 20-year-old RHP Sandy Ozuna did. The prospect, who the Rockies signed out of the Dominican Republic in June of 2023, is No. 1 in most added fastball velocity.
Prospects that added the most fastball velocity in 2026 🔥
Following the requirement that a player had to throw at least 50 fastballs in 2025 and 100 in 2026, and comparing average velocities, Ozuna bumped up his fastball 9.5 mph. More Rockies made the list as well, including Yanzel Correa (+4.2 mph), Onofer De La Cruz (+3.5 mph), Gleiderson Mendoza (+3.4 mph), Efrain Cubilla (+2.9 mph), Sean Sullivan (+2.8 mph), Victor Castellano +2.4 mph), Nick Frasso (+2.1 mph), Odarlin Cruz (+2 mph) and Eric Veras (+2 mph).
Arizona signed Torey Lovullo to a two-year contract on Thursday. Lovullo is the Diamondbacks all-time winningest manager with a 750-768 record. He’ll be back in 2027 after Arizona just missed the playoffs in 2026.
October doesn’t seem to be bringing fall. With records in the 80s in Denver expected for the next week, it will be even hotter in Los Angeles. The Dodgers and Braves will play at 1 p.m. Pacific Time when it is expected to be 98 degrees. Even worse, the “RealFeel” heat index is forecast to be 105 degrees for Saturday.
The Rockies, the rest of the NL West and most MLB fans, I would expect, are really hoping the answer is yes. Katie Woo got really good quotes from Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, who point to last chances and closing windows. The stars are in their mid-30s, like many on the team. While the pending post-primes and retirements could point to signs of hope, we all know how good the Dodgers farm system is.
AKRON, OHIO - JULY 12, 2026: Brandon Butterworth #4 of the Chesapeake Baysox bats during the fifth inning against the Akron RubberDucks at 7 17 Credit Union Park on July 12, 2026 in Akron, Ohio. (Photo by George Kubas/Diamond Images via Getty Images) | Diamond Images/Getty Images
During the Orioles’ frenzied trade deadline selloff in 2025, one of the last deals to come in under the wire was the biggest of them all: a seven-player swap that sent Ryan O’Hearn and Ramón Laureano to the Padres for five prospects.
It was a trade that, even in a lost season for the Birds, brought grumbling from a large swath of the fan base. O’Hearn and Laureano were two of the Orioles’ most productive bats, and while O’Hearn was a pending free agent, Laureano was under team control for another season, irking O’s fans who wondered why the club would give up on a potentially valuable piece for 2026. (It didn’t quite turn out that way, as Laureano struggled to a .660 OPS for San Diego this year before suffering a season-ending labrum injury in May.)
Still, Mike Elias found the package of prospects the Padres offered as a deal too good to pass up. The headliner was the towering lefty Boston Bateman, now one of the Birds’ best pitching prospects, whom we’ll discuss in a separate article. Two others, infielder Cobb Hightower and righty Tyson Neighbors, won’t appear on many prospect lists. Hightower played just 18 games this season before undergoing ACL surgery, while Neighbors bombed to an 8.82 ERA in 33 minor league games this year.
Then there’s the other two prospects from the trade. Victor Figueroa and Brandon Butterworth aren’t household names, and they don’t possess the kind of high-ceiling potential that Bateman does. But both of them delivered performances in 2026 that put them on the radar as possible future big leaguers.
Let’s start with Butterworth, who has shown himself to be more than just the guy whose name reminds me of pancakes. The Padres’ 12th-round pick in 2024 out of NC State, Butterworth was having a solid season offensively in High-A when the O’s acquired him last July, posting a .782 OPS and ranking third in the league with 155 total bases. Still, it wasn’t his bat that made him intriguing.
FanGraphs, which ranked Butterworth as the Orioles’ #27 prospect in May, praised him as a “plus glove” with “great hands and a strong arm.” The article’s co-authors, Eric Longenhagen and Brendan Gawlowski, wrote, “He has plenty of range for the position, but what really stands out is the speed with which he gobbles a grounder, transfers, and fires accurately from any angle.”
Butterworth is a versatile defender, too. In the minors this season, he started at least eight games apiece at five different positions: second base, shortstop, third base, left field, and center field, with shortstop (33 games) being his most frequent one. “Whatever gets me in the lineup, I’ll catch if you guys need me to, it doesn’t matter,” Butterworth told PressBoxOnline. His defensive prowess was enough for Longenhagen and Gawlowski to project him as a future utility infielder, but they cautioned, “Butterworth isn’t going to hit much.”
Maybe he’s not. But you wouldn’t know it from his 2026 performance at the plate. Starting the season at Double-A Chesapeake, where he’d posted just a .677 OPS in 34 games last year, Butterworth erupted. In 52 games, he posted a .269/.377/.497 line — all career highs — and bashed 10 home runs and 22 extra-base hits.
Butterworth’s season was interrupted by a knee injury in early May that sidelined him for two months. Once he returned to the Baysox, he was more locked in than ever. During his first 27 games back from the IL, Butterworth his .294 with a .953 OPS. That hot streak earned him a promotion to Triple-A Norfolk, where, at 24, he was more than three years younger than the average player. He struggled to acclimate there, batting .208/.296/.396 in 28 games.
Because of Butterworth’s extended IL stint this season, the Orioles are sending him to the Arizona Fall League to get some more reps. There doesn’t seem to be much question that his glove is major league ready, but the 5-foot-9 utility man will need to prove he can hit enough to be worthy of a bench spot in the bigs. He’s held his own, and occasionally thrived, at every rung of the minor league ladder so far. Triple-A will the next task for him to conquer, with an eye on a potential late-2027 big league debut.
Butterworth’s fellow trade acquisition, Figueroa, is a very different type of player. His defense isn’t his ticket to the majors. Nor is he going to slap-hit the ball with a contact-oriented approach. The 6-foot-5 first baseman does one thing above all else: mash lots of dingers.
Figueroa’s 27 home runs this season were the most of any Orioles minor leaguer. He blasted 22 of them for High-A Frederick before a late-July promotion to Chesapeake, where he hit five more. It was a dramatic improvement over his 2025 performance, when he went homerless in 98 PAs after joining the O’s organization.
The 22-year-old, an 18th-round Padres pick in 2024 from Florida SouthWestern State College, clocked in at #33 in FanGraphs’ rankings in May. “Figueroa has real thunder in his hands and enough juice to hit for power the opposite way, which he must because his swing’s length causes him to spray most of his well-struck contact that way,” write Longenhagen and Gawlowski. “He’s a stiff-legged guy and below-average athlete, a one-tool player with enough power to carry some value despite his issues.”
Chief among those issues: the strikeouts. Figueroa fanned in more than 30% of his plate appearances this year, racking up 155 Ks in all. Anyone striking out that much in the minors is going to have a very difficult path to the majors, so Figueroa will need to cut down the swing-and-miss to have a future as anything more than an organizational player.
The lefty-swinging Figueroa also had rather drastic splits. He crushed right-handers to the tune of a .935 OPS, hitting 24 homers against them. Versus southpaws, Figueroa’s OPS was nearly 300 points lower (.638), and he totaled only three roundtrippers in 109 PAs.
Let’s be clear here. Neither Figueroa nor Butterworth represents a star in the making for the Orioles. The odds are against either of them having an extended major league career, if they make it to the bigs at all. But if you squint, you can make out a scenario where one or both of them contributes in some way, Butterworth as a useful utility guy and Figueroa as a bench bat with some pop.
It may not be sexy, but every team needs a few players who can serve as complementary pieces to the team’s biggest stars. Now the Orioles need to work on actually getting big stars, but that’s a story for another time.
ATLANTA, GEORGIA - OCTOBER 01: Aaron Nola #27 of the Philadelphia Phillies walks to the dugout against the Atlanta Braves during the first inning in game three of the National League Wild Card Series at Truist Park on October 01, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Edward M. Pio Roda/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Meet the Mets
Tim Britton spoke to other executives around the league as he broke down what’s gone wrong for David Stearns in his time with the Mets and what he might be able to do to turn things around.
Gray wasn’t the only player on Boston’s roster to express frustration after that game, as the team’s in-game decisions and use of data were questioned by Willson Contreras.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 7: General view of Dodger Stadium during the game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds on September 7, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Good morning, baseball fans!
The 2026 MLB Playoffs continue this weekend, as the National League and American League Division Series begin tomorrow.
As of the time this is being written, the final game of the Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves series has not yet been played. I will try to update that information if I get a chance to but as of right now I don’t yet know who will be playing against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Also, as with the rest of the games so far, national radio coverage will be available on ESPN Radio.
Saturday
10:00 a.m. PT – Chicago White Sox vs. Cleveland Guardians – TBS/HBO Max
1:00 p.m. PT – Atlanta/Philadelphia vs. Dodgers – Fox/Fox One
3:30 p.m. PT – New York Yankees vs. Tampa Bay Rays – TBS/HBO Max
5:30 p.m. PT – San Diego Padres vs. Milwaukee Brewers – Fox Sports 1/Fox One
Sunday
1:00 p.m. PT – Padres vs. Brewers – Fox Sports 1/Fox One
5:00 p.m. PT – Atlanta/Philadelphia vs. Dodgers – Fox Sports 1/Fox One
DENVER, CO - AUGUST 02: A detail shot as Salvador Perez #13 of the Kansas City Royals signs an autograph on a Nike shoe prior to the game between the Kansas City Royals and the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field on Sunday, August 2, 2026 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Casey Paul/MLB Photos via Getty Images) | MLB Photos via Getty Images
They will not become a playoff team merely by getting healthier. (And shouldn’t this season prove there is no guarantee they will get healthier anyway?) The Royals were indeed decimated by injuries, to be clear, but they decimated their own season long before the injuries took the wheel. They were 22-37 through May, back when everyone they expected to be part of the lineup was still part of it, other than Jonathan India…
Think of this: In games in which Witt, Pasquantino and Garcia all appeared, the Royals went 30-44. Two numbers should stand out there. They only had 74 games with all three players healthy — and they won just 40.5% of them…
There are three perceived locks for next year’s rotation — Michael Wacha, Noah Cameron and Seth Lugo. When they were on the mound, the Royals were 36-59 this season.
“I was still a little bit intimidated by Mr. K, but he … said you’re going to have other opportunities, and you’re going to have decisions to make as you work your way through this business, and he said, you have to weigh them carefully, and then you’ll make a decision,” Matthews recalled.
“He said, ‘We like the way you do the games, and you can stay here as long as you want.’ And I thought, ‘Wow, this is just after my third year, so that’s pretty strong.’ And again, there was no reason for me to move because I was very comfortable. I love the city, I love the organization and everybody in it. And if you’re unhappy in your job, you’re probably looking to move. I’ve never been unhappy in my job. Period. So here we are, 58 years later. But I had no idea. Chicago, St. Louis, oh boy, let’s go. That’s my dream job. Still is. I could still do it.”
While it’s technically a blog, I think I’ll add Joel Goldberg’s blog entry to the “official” section of today’s Rumblings. He reflects on the finished season:
My son Mason may have described it best. He spent his first season working on the Royals television home production crew and told me he was sad it was over. He compared it to the last day of school when you realize you’re not going to see that same group of people all together for a while…
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve also learned that my post-season evaluation goes beyond the actual job. Taking better care of myself physically and mentally is critical to the stamina that baseball season demands, and that becomes even more important as I shift gears into speaking. My natural tendency is to fill the void left by baseball with another schedule, another goal, and another list of things I want to accomplish.
Tired of complaing about the Royals? Now you can do something about it! Join the Royals analytics staff (2 positions open):
Job Summary: The Kansas City Royals are seeking a highly motivated and creative analyst to join the organization. Working under the direction of the Director of Research & Development, Christine Harris, the analyst will be fully integrated into the Major League clubhouse to provide resources, answers, and ideas to the Major League Pitching group. The successful candidate will combine analytical expertise and clear communication skills to translate baseball data into insights that give The Royals an edge when our pitchers step onto the mound.
Carlos Estévez, RHP: $13MM club option ($2MM buyout)
2026 was a nightmare season for Estevez. He made one bad appearance to start the year, allowing six earned runs in a third of an inning. He spent the rest of the season on the injured list, meaning he finished the campaign with an awful ERA of 162.00. He underwent shoulder surgery last month and has an unclear timeline. Even before this injury-marred year, there were concerns. While he posted a 2.45 ERA in 2025, his strikeout rate was way down at 20.1%. It’s an easy call for the Royals to let Estevez walk.
Tony Gonsolin, RHP: $2.5MM club option (no buyout)
Gonsolin has been in the injury wilderness for a while. Due to various woes, including Tommy John surgery, he only made eight appearances over the 2024-26 seasons. That includes one outing for the Royals late this year. Gonsolin was a steady rotation member for the Dodgers once upon a time, with a 2.51 ERA in 572 2/3 innings from 2019 to 2022. The option price is modest but it’s hard to know what to make of Gonsolin after so much time off. It’s a reasonable gamble if the Royals think he’ll be healthy next year.
How about some news around the league?
Braves/Phillies Game 3 finished after I finished writing this. So we’ll just mark it as “LATE” and you can check out the score on your own.
After rumors of MLB investigating a potential Grand Teton game leaked out, Manfred says it’s not happening.
A number of major Royals blogs looked back at the season.
David Lesky ($) put the end-of-year presser in perspective with previous years:
You might remember that at the 2023 press conference, we learned that the Royals planned to sign multiple relievers and two starters. They did just that. The bullpen additions didn’t work out great, with Will Smith and Chris Stratton struggling, though John Schreiber did work out for a while. The starting pitching additions were pretty spectacular, at least in 2024 when it comes to Seth Lugo and for the last three years when it comes to Michael Wacha.
This year, I thought the answers were a little less definitive, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t plenty to take away from the comments, which came mostly from JJ Picollo, with some from Matt Quatraro. There was a lot of talk about processes, about winning in 2027 and beyond, and about some staff changes that we’ve discussed in this space quite a few times. Let’s just take it in order.
Picollo opened the presser noting that not only would Zumwalt not be returning to the dugout, but almost the entire major league medical staff—Head Athletic Trainer Kyle Turner, Assistant Athletic Trainer Chris DeLucia and Major League Rehab Coordinator Jeff Blum—would be leaving the club. Also moving to a minor league role is Melissa Lambert who was Director of Behaviorial Science.
This feels pretty seismic. Turner had been with the Royals for 17 years. DeLucia was with the team for 20 years and Blum was here for 19 years. The trio had all been in their current positions for five seasons. Lambert is returning to a focus on the minor leagues after four seasons in her role in the dugout. She’s been with the team since 2020.
Much like they did with Rooker and O’Hearn, the Royals have gotten back to whiffing on player evaluation. They shipped off Jonathan Bowlan for Matt Strahm just to watch Bowlan become a key piece of the Phillies bullpen. They sent Evan Sisk to acquire Bailey Falter. Sisk pitched to a 3.04 ERA for the Pirates this season across 44.2 IP. Two relievers worth an fWAR or so aren’t franchise altering players, but they’d surely have helped this team more this season than either player they were traded for.
Trade deadlines have shifted back to snoozefests in true Dayton Moore fashion. When the Royals should be capitalizing on any value possible, they instead cling to any chance at 81-81 they can get. It’s just an extension of the player loyalty that’s become two sides of a coin for the Royals. On one-hand, it helps to attract a certain type of free agent. On the other hand, it gives you the current version of Seth Lugo. Picollo has preached loyalty when choosing not to trade aging veterans like Seth Lugo or Michael Wacha. That loyalty led to a Lugo extension that has become one of the worst moves in the entire J.J. Picollo era.
According to Picollo, the move wasn’t due to Zumwalt’s performance, but to the team’s confidence in assistant hitting coaches Dawson and Thames moving forward. Both coaches replaced Keoni DeRenne and Joe Dillon last offseason, and the Royals offense improved from ranking 24th in wRC+ in 2025 (93) to 19th this season (98).
Rumors suggested Dawson and Thames took on greater responsibilities during the season, likely in preparation for Zumwalt’s eventual move back to Minor League player development. Zumwalt found success in this role with former colleague Drew Saylor, but Saylor struggled solo in the Director position after Zumwalt moved up to the Majors. The position has remained vacant for the past year, suggesting the Royals may have been eyeing Zumwalt to return regardless of how the team fared offensively.
Picollo praised Zumwalt’s work and noted that his tenure as hitting coach was never meant to be long-term.
I’m going to try something different today. I liked the idea when I came up with it, but it’s been sitting in my queue for a couple of months as I’ve struggled with how to refine it. If it works out, I have another idea that is similar-ish and I’ll trot it out sometime next year. But if you don’t like it, well, it’s the offseason and you’re not going to see me the next two weeks and your refund check is in the mail.
Today’s topic is “shoes”. I’m a very light sneakerhead, with a heavy emphasis on the “light” part. I typically have 6 pairs of shoes at any given time, depending on how you’re counting: the current pair, the next pair I’m breaking in, the old pair for lawn work, a nice pair, sandals, and rain boots. Do the rain boots count? I don’t think they should. I also usually have 2-4 pairs in reserve in my closet, which are in line to become “the next pair”.
Why do I have “shoes in reserve”, as my wife calls them? Well, it’s hard for me to find shoes. What sizes are easy to find? Up to 12. Grumble: it used to be up to 13. Second grumble: somewhere in the last 5-10 years, Nike started vanity sizing so that everything went down about a half size. My feet that used to fit in a 13 now require a 14. Sure, feet flatten with age, and it’s not uncommon to gain a size. However, I don’t think I’m there yet. A pair of old 13s at my parents’ house still fit me decades later and I can wear 13s in some other brands. Regardless, since 13s /and/ 14s are hard to find now, it doesn’t matter.
NOTE: I think I’ve also complained here that the same thing happened to t-shirts: some old 2008 XLs are now larger than some 2026 2XLs and almost all 2008 XLs are larger than any 2026 XLs. But I digress.
Growing up, clothes were generally cheap for me. I’ve always been a t-shirt and jeans guy. Really, though, growing up in Houston, I was a t-shirt and shorts guy. One year in high school, a girl counted the number of days I wore long pants – it was less than 20. I thought it was because I was a curiosity; my wife thinks it might have been something more and I was cutely naive as I’ve always been. The long and short (that’s two bad puns already) of it is – because my clothes were cheap and I am not fashionable, my parents indulged me ever so slightly on shoes.
A couple of words of warning about today’s post. First off, there are going to be a lot of pictures and social media posts. It’s going to be a lot easier to show than to tell for this OT. I’m going to try and use as many embedded pictures from our standard Getty/USA Today archives, but some pictures were only available on social media. Also, there’s not a lot of shoe talk in “mainstream” news sources, Wikipedia, or the like. I’m relying a lot on blogs and fansites, so these sources aren’t quite as vetted as my usual standard. Finally, a lot of these shoes are pre-internet or early internet so there just aren’t many sources to link to.
You’ve been warned. Let’s dive in!
The first “big name” sneakers I remember wearing were the Air Tech Challenge III. I didn’t know their name at the time. But I knew they were the awesome neon shoes that Andre Agassi wore. Look at those beauties! They just scream early 90s. We had just moved to Houston, I was starting middle school, and wanted something to help fit in. Spoiler: I was a big nerd then just like I am today and nothing was going to help that. However, the shoes didn’t hurt and they were comfy. I liked them so much I got a second pair the next year when I wore out/outgrew these. This was a shoe faux pas, apparently. Whatever – I liked them. We’ll talk more about Nike and re-releases later, but it looks like the last time these were available was 2015.
This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive history of shoes, just of my shoes. But if we can take a detour through some sneaker history, so much the better. Near as I can tell, Converse was the first major athletic shoe company, with the Chuck Taylor All-Stars dominating in the 60s and 70s. Chucks never fit me – I needed more ankle support – but there’s no denying their iconic shoe status. However: “Converse lost its athletic shoe monopoly from the 1970s onward, as new competitors, including Puma, Adidas, and Nike, grew in popularity.” FYI: Converse is now owned by Nike.
In the 80s and 90s, Nike and Reebok battled for the crown: “By mid-decade, Reebok’s sales were about $1 billion, and it overtook Nike, Inc. as the largest athletic shoe manufacturer in the US before losing the top position in 1988”.
In 1989, Rebook released the Reebok Pump and they were one of the major shoes of the early 90s: ”In February 1991, Dee Brown inflated his Reebok Pumps in front of a national audience before scoring a title-winning dunk during the 1991 NBA Slam Dunk Contest”. Shaq’s explosion onto the NBA scene further popularized the brand before it got stale later in the decade. I don’t remember which Pumps I had – it might have even been the Omni Lites in the picture above. I’m not familiar with “That Good Dubai”, which described itself as a society/culture magazine and now appears defunct. But they had a nice retrospective on the Pump back in 2014.
We live in the insane age of Shohei Ohtani. I can’t imagine how giddy that adolescent me would be if I told him there would be another Babe Ruth in our lifetime: a player good enough to win MVPs for hitting while also being a great pitcher when healthy. Heck, adult me is pretty giddy about that. Though much less so now that he’s with the Dodgers juggernaut.
Then again, growing up, there were a number of players who were in both the MLB and the NFL, which seems unfathomable today. Of course, everyone remembers the iconic Bo Jackson, his career(s) cut short by injury. Not many remember DJ Dozier or Chad Hutchinson. Brian Jordan played a lot more baseball than football. And then there was Deion Sanders.
I didn’t really care for Deion the player, but his Air Diamond Turf was my second favorite shoe of all time. Ignore the cleats in the picture above. Nike made a wildly popular cross-trainer version, too. I loved the shape of those 90s cross-trainers, though they have mostly fallen out of fashion. Low tops didn’t have enough support for me, high tops were too heavy, but the 3/4 or mid-tops were just right. Not only were they comfortable, but they were also stylish with a little gold mesh “window” on the side that looked cool. I liked the red and black colorway shown there. Later, I would also get the “emerald” colorway, which looked even better, replacing the red accents with absolutely gorgeous emerald green ones. They even re-released them last year, but now cost more than $200 on the secondary market.
I looked through our entire picture archive and couldn’t find a clear picture of the Air Max Penny 1. Thankfully, Sneaker Freaker has a full writeup, including a discussion on the Lil’ Penny ad campaign. I had those exact ones featured at the top of the page and they were gorgeous. A great balance of black and white, just enough blue accent to give it color, a beautiful jeweled swoosh, the giant air max air pocket, a little air “porthole” on the bottom, and a new logo. Those were some great shoes and I had forgotten all about them until I went digging through old shoe sites to try and remember which shoes I had owned.
In the picture above, but Shaq and Penny were in the process of being dispatched by my beloved Houston Rockets in the 1995 NBA Finals. NBA Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon did not have a high-profile shoe for his fans. In fact, he went the other direction, as chronicled in this 2015 article from The Guardian: “How Hakeem Olajuwon tried and failed to stop the 90s sneaker killings”. Hakeem released a $40 shoe from Spalding because “a mother with four children can’t afford to spend $400 on shoes that will wear out in a couple of months”. Unfortunately, without a massive advertising push from the likes of Nike or Reebok, it bombed. In Houston, they were harder to come by: I only saw them out in the wild once or twice and never got them, sadly. Olajuwon would later buy up a mansion in southeast Houston and turn it into a high-end boutique store, featuring a high-end luxury shoe. However, the mansion is now gone, and I can’t find anything about DR34M brand. (NOTE: Frustratingly, I ran across a bunch of garbage stories with unverifiable information about Hakeem’s shoes that appeared to be written by AI. Finally, I stumbled upon Spalding as the manufacturer and I started making headway on this part of the story.)
I don’t remember a lot about my shoes of the late 90s and early 00s, when I went off to school and had to buy shoes with my own money. One memory I had from that time was the Eastbay catalog. This 2019 walk down memory lane from Dan Woike of the Los Angeles Times gives you a sense of what it was like if you weren’t around or it wasn’t your scene:
Lakers forward Lance Stephenson, a former Brooklyn streetball legend, studied the Eastbay texts just as Tucker did, marking up his favorite pairs in pen even if he knew he’d never get his hands on them. Now a nine-year veteran who has earned more than $30 million, designer shoes and limited releases spill out of Stephenson’s locker.
“I would circle all the shoes I liked but I never got them,” Stephenson said. “I was a sneakerhead; I always liked sneakers. When that book would come out and you could see all the sneakers before they even come out, it was like you were seeing [the future].
When I started working in IT, I started with casual dress shoes. But I soon realized that The Shawshank Redemptionhad it right: “Neither did I… I mean, seriously, how often do you really look at a mans shoes?” Then I started looking for comfortable shoes. If I was going to be driving to customer sites and walking around all day, I needed to be comfortable. That’s when I started cheating with my work shoes: they could be athletic shoes, so long as they were mostly black. If I could splash on some subtle color, so much the better. In 2009, I found the perfect shoe.
The Nike Air Griffey Max 1 is one of the best shoes of all time. It’s extremely comfortable and durable. It’s been re-released in a multitude of color, ranging from the two original Mariners colorways to a Los Angeles sunset-inspired colorway to an HBCU colorway to his all-white Hall of Fame induction colorway. A Cincinnati Reds colorway is set to re-release next week. But the one that worked for my work was the 2010 Triple Black colorway. I bought one pair and beat them up for a couple of years before getting another on sale and doing it all over again. If they want to re-release them again, I’ll go buy them again (if I can find them – but complaining about intentional scarcity in modern shoe releases is a rant for another day). I went this same route with the Kyrie 4 Blackout colorway in 2018. I also really liked those shoes – they were less comfy than the Griffeys, but also lighter.
Honestly, I don’t like the Air Jordan 1. I can’t deny its place in history or its iconic look. But it’s made with a lot of old tech, before the sneaker wars really pushed technology forward in the early-mid 90s. Give me an 11 or an 8 (Aqua!) or a 13. Maybe that’s why I landed on the Jordan 6 Rings shoes sometime in the mid 2010s: “The Jordan 6 Rings (aka Jordan Six Rings, Or Montells) is a combination of the seven Air Jordan shoes that Michael Jordan wore during his 6 championship seasons. That includes the Air Jordan 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13 and 14.”
It’s hard to know what will be an “iconic”shoe going forward and I’ve been shopping more in the bargain bin, of late. Really, it’s not even the bargain bin so much as what Nike, Adidas, Reebok, et al., have available in size 14 in mid/high top at their outlet stores. We have a half dozen Nike Factory stores around the Houston area. However, my favorite is the Clearance store in Pasadena – this is where the excess shoes from all the other Factory stores go to die. If you go when the store opens, you’ll have to fight through sneakerheads and scalpers, grabbing armfuls of rare finds to resell or add to the collection. Me, I’m just looking for something that fits and, often, I have to ask an employee to go into the back and just bring out whatever they have in 14 that’s mid or high top. It’s a relaxing experience for me and something I like to do on my birthday.
Here’s what I’ve been wearing the last few years:
I liked the look and feel of these Giannis Zoom Freak 4s, but they didn’t have enough ankle support and I wore through the bottom of the shoes. My best-fitting shoe of the last few years is the LeBron Witness VII. They take a little time to break in, but, once you do, they’re comfy and breathe well. They’re just a good, all-purpose shoe and they can be found for around $50 on a good day, so long as you’re not picky about colorways. My current dress shoe is the previous version, the Witness 6, with the “Black Volt” colorway. It’s not as comfortable as the VIIs (yes, they are named the “6” and “VII”), but they’re the perfect color balance for my dress shoes: mostly black but with a splash of color. Looping back around to where we all started, the “next shoe” that I’m starting to break in is a pair of KD17s in a promotional colorway called “Game Royal”. It’s awfully blue and it taking a little bit to get comfortable in, but I think it’ll be a good shoe and it was reasonably priced at the Outlet store.
The Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake is just about a month away. I might have scored tickets to one of the Zelda 40th anniversary concerts this week, too.
Happy Friday, everyone. I know this week hasn’t gone the way we had hoped, and that October baseball is now over for the Cubs, but the postseason rolls on, and we’ll still be keeping an eye on its progress as the month goes on. Today, we look at how the Astros fans turned on their own club as the disappointment of being swept out of the postseason got the best of them. We see how the Yankees proved they could win even without Aaron Judge, and how their ability to avoid rigid lineups might have helped them best the Red Sox. We also share takes from several players who were none too pleased with how the postseason turned out for them.
Willson Contreras has some feelings about Big Data.
Willson Contreras: "It's not enough when you have talent, or you have data, or you have computers telling you what to do, because this is baseball. The data is here to help us, but at the end of the day, you need experience and veteran guys to win games. There's a lot of stuff I… pic.twitter.com/MS7u5yy96y
OAKLAND, CA - AUGUST 11: Fans make fun of the "celery caps" in baseball on the eve of a Major League Baseball strike before the game between the Seattle Mariners and the Oakland Athletics at the Oakland Coliseum on August 11, 1994 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Brad Mangin/MLB Photos via Getty Images) | MLB Photos via Getty Images
Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has a rule: don’t talk about negative subjects or collective bargaining topics (one and the same, really) until after the trophy in his name is hoisted. Sorry Rob, but to paraphrase the Clown Prince of Crime: “the only sensible way to live in this world is without rules—and tonight I’m gonna break your one rule”.
Over the course of this 2026 MLB season, I checked in on some key topics regarding the upcoming labor negotiations (especially as they relate to the salary cap/floor issue)…
In April, I analyzed team franchise values and how rising valuations haven’t solved widespread financial inequity within MLB
August brought a straight-up poll (taking a lockout/strike off the table) that showed an overwhelming majority of Twinkie Town readers supporting a cap/floor salary structure in MLB
We’ve now reached the final phase of this series: how much Major League Baseball are you willing to lose for cap/floor progress? Per Hamlet: “Therein lies the rub”. One one hand, it’s clear the sustainability of baseball’s economics is heading in the wrong direction. On the other hand, MLB just saw its first four-year attendance growth period since 2004-2007. It is somehow both the perfect time and worst time for a lockout or strike.
One final thing to get out of the way: the worst possible lockout/strike scenario is a prolonged absence where nothing materially changes (see: 1994). I’m not even including the option in this poll because of how depressing that would be. So, assume in all choices that progress was made on a cap/floor salary structure.
I think all the qualifications are on the table now. Without further ado…
The NBA has a couple new points of emphasis every year when it comes to the officiating, and the top focus ahead of the 2026-27 season could have a big impact on some of the best players in the world. The NBA intends to give defenses more of a chance to actually play defense this season, and superstars like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jaylen Brown are going to have to adjust their games quite a bit … if the officials actually stick to calling it all season.
The NBA’s first point of emphasis this year is outlawing off-arm push-offs for drivers. This has been a weapon for star scorers dating back to Michael Jordan’s series-clinching shot in the 1998 NBA Finals, but it seemed to get more egregious this past season with players fully extending their off-arm to gain separation from their defender. This move has been particularly effective for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and I’d go as far as to say that it has helped fuel his rise to a 2x MVP that absolutely no one saw coming when he entered the league out of Kentucky.
The league dropped a video explaining their points of emphasis for this season, and even though SGA isn’t included in the examples, he feels like the main person who will be under the spotlight on this. Check it out here:
See below for Part 1 of the 2026-27 Points of Emphasis video (narrated by SVP, Head of Referee Development and Training Monty McCutchen), which provides examples and guidance regarding Off-Arm Push Offs by Offensive Players and Freedom of Movement – Screens: pic.twitter.com/zMMmOK3Kxq
The league’s other early point of emphasis is banning push-off screens, which is another big potential boost for defenses around the league. The on-ball push-offs feel more interesting, and I’m fascinated to see how it’s officiated throughout the regular season.
The video above has examples of proper and improper off-arm contact. The difference looks pretty minimal to the naked eye. Essentially, the league is saying players can’t fully extend their off-arm, but that’s not the only criteria. If the contact is a) initiated by the offensive player, b) forceful, and c) impacts the primary defender’s ability to defend the play, then it’s supposed to be called an offensive foul. Offensive players are allowed to “firm up” at the point of contact, but if the refs think they’re pushing off, the possession will be going the other way.
How will officials determine what’s “forceful” beyond a full extension? Your guess is as good as mine. I just know that this could be very bad for Gilgeous-Alexander if the refs are willing to call it all year.
I’m a big SGA fan — and I know I’m probably on an island on that one outside of OKC. I was really high on him in the 2018 NBA Draft, but obviously not even his biggest fans would have predicted he’d eventually become the 16th player ever to win multiple MVP awards. As someone who has watched SGA dating back to college, I really believe his mastery of the off-arm rules is what took him to the next level. That’s not to discount his awesome three-point shooting improvement, absolutely nasty handle and footwork, and improved ability to read defenses. He has gotten better in so many ways, but his ability to create separation with his off-arm without getting called for it is really what unlocks his game.
He’s a classic example of an SGA push-off. When you combine his mastery of this move with the fact that he has a 7-foot wingspan and deadly mid-range shooting touch, it makes him almost impossible to defend.
It seems like this move will be called an offensive foul for the upcoming season. Right? Or is the push-off not “forceful” enough? You can see why this is going to be very difficult to legislate.
Here’s another example of an SGA push-off that’s more of a shoulder bump than a full extension. I assume this is still within the rules of acceptable contact, but I’m not totally sure. The contact is forceful in my view, but it’s more of a shoulder thump than a push-off. I’d call this a chicken wing. The chicken wing is still, cool?
It seems like the officials actually started to make this adjustment during the playoffs. Gilgeous-Alexander was called for push-offs throughout his playoff run, including in the Western Conference Finals. Jaylen Brown was called for multiple push-offs in the first-round against the Philadelphia 76ers.
As John Voita at Bright Side of the Sun notes, the NBA has set a point of emphasis in the past and only called for them for the first couple weeks of the season before going back to business as usual. Will they actually see these rules all the way through the year? It was already going to be hard for Gilgeous-Alexander to win a third-straight MVP just because of voter fatigue, but it’s going to be even more difficult if the refs stick to their plan entering the year.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 30: The Boston Red Sox look on from the dugout during the ninth inning against the New York Yankees in game two of the American League Wild Card Series at Yankee Stadium on September 30, 2026 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Forget the results, if you can. Losing two games in a row is a rounding error for a baseball team in every other month, but in October, it’s definitive. Win and you’re good. Lose and you’re bad. In this telling, the Red Sox rapidly lost to the Yankees, ergo they’re bad. I disagree, and this felt different to me, at least through the first six innings of both games, when things were still close enough. I felt like it was the beginning of the next great era of baseball’s best rivalry.
Despite the result, I still think that.
Prior to this season — and maybe including it — I’ve felt that that the Red Sox/Yankees first-round playoff serieses haven’t been all that consequential or compelling, because the teams are so obviously limited. I mean sure, playoff baseball widens the aperture of what’s possible for good teams, but I thought neither team was likely to truly contend in 2021 or 2025, even with baseball’s chaotic-by-design playoff system. This year is different. While the AL competition was so soft, like it was for last year’s Patriots, both teams were plenty good enough to make the World Series, which is all you can ever ask.
The lack of Garrett Crochet and Aaron Judge left the series with a distinctly large cast of new main characters, personified by the starters, beloved Red Sox Nation blue-collar immigrant Payton Toll, despised Red Sox Nation white-collar emigrant elite Cam Schlittler and (sigh) Ben Rice. Central casting did its job for giving each fanbase its broadly-dreamt personification in a SP1, whether or not the personification has a representation in reality. we got what we wanted. The Yankees, with Rice and former MVP Cody Bellinger, got a little more, and their season continues.
But the broader question is: are we back? And not in a short-term sense? In the sense that the misery of the Yankees will return to the forefront of our minds on a daily basis? I hope so, because it’s so much better that way. I think we are, after a needed cooling off period, and not just for the fans but for the owners and the league. Sometimes you need a moment alone. I live in suburban NY and they’ve hated the Astros since before COVID despite the multiple postseason matchups with the Sox, and I think older Red Sox and Yankees fans as a whole are happy for the interregnum on a broader horizon. Or maybe I’m just projecting, and it’s certainly something I have enjoyed. I’ve had a break, and I’m ready to hate again.
That is, there’s too much gold in these there hills to leave the rivalry comparatively dormant for so long. Not that you don’t want to beat each other, every game, but the feeling of something far beyond that. This feeling, like a sourdough starter, needs time to regenerate; if it ends up taking 25-30 years, whih seems like an eternity in the moment, it’s just sort of how it has gone on a longer time horizon. The last high point was 2003-2004, but before that it was Bucky Dent, in the fertile year of 1978. Before that, DiMaggio and Ted Williams in the pre- and post-war 1930s/40s era. Before that, 1918. So yeah. Every 25-30 years it happens. It doesn’t have to be that way, but it just is.
On that schedule, I suspect or just wish we’re due for a Retvrn to becoming the biggest story in baseball on a daily basis, and one that expands the reach of the game as effectively as Shohei Ohtani, who’s done a decade’s worth of heavy lifting. I am definitely wishcasting this toward existence, but I also think it’s a real possibility for the next 5-to-10 years given how committed both organizations have been to similar projects in the last decade. Now they get to shut down the Dodgers by any means necessary this offseason and return to the top of the heap, even if they have to threaten the game’s survival to do so. And you know what? They’ll fuckin do it. If the Sox and Yankees aren’t top of mind, it’s gotta be a structural problem, right? Right?
True or not, both teams are so close to accomplishing a renovation that puts them back the center of baseball dialogue that we can almost taste it. If I’m right, the good news is that this year’s loss, while a bummer, is still just an appetizer, and hopefully the last one. We’re ready for the main courses. The divisional and LCS rounds beckon, and the identities of the post-teardown squads will further solidify. But the picture is coming in to focus: Schlittler will win the Cy Young; Tolle has won over everyone else. In this particularly illustrative case, the NY/Boston coding, as least as we’d like to conceive of it, is perfectly balanced, as all things should be. I hope this particular infinity war is ready to flare back up.
Northampton star on his tenacious rise to the international ranks – and eating ‘massive cakes’ with Springbok colossus Ox Nché
Some people are destined from day one to play international rugby for England. Others owe their selection to an injury crisis or simply get lucky. And then, in a totally different category, there is Steve Borthwick’s latest new cap, a player whose unlikely journey to the top has required inspirational levels of resilience and fortitude.
To describe the persevering Emmanuel Iyogun’s debut off the bench in Argentina in July as hard earned is to put it mildly. At times the Spain-born son of Nigerian immigrants has had to show immense levels of determination, just as his parents had predicted. “There was always a sense growing up of, ‘You’ll have to work harder than everyone else. You might not get the privileges that some people get initially. So when you get told no or something doesn’t go your way, you just have to keep working. There isn’t any argument about it.’”
MARYLAND
HEIGHTS, Mo. -- After
another underwhelming start to a season that had coach Jim Montgomery
talking about being ready when the puck drops in October by having a
very focused training camp, the time has arrived for the St. Louis
Blues to see if they can put their money where their mouth is.
When
the puck finally drops on the 2026-27 season starting with a
three-game road trip beginning Friday against the Dallas Stars (8
p.m.; TNT, ESPN 101.1.FM), the Blues are putting an emphasis of
getting off to a much better October than in recent years’ past.
Not
since 2021 when they came out of the gate hot at 6-1-0 have the Blues
had the kind of success needed to start a season that is essential to
a good season. They finished that season 49-22-11 and reached the
second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs before falling to eventual
Cup champion Colorado Avalanche in the Jordan Binnington gets taken
out by Nazem Kadri series.
In
the ensuing month of October’s, the Blues have gone 3-5-0, 3-3-1,
5-6-0 and last season, 3-6-2. The only time they reached the playoffs
was in 2025 when they were 5-6-0 by getting hot towards the end of
the season and needing a win in the regular season finale against the
Utah Mammoth to guarantee a spot.
Having
to chase the standings just isn’t feasible in the well-balanced,
plenty-of-parity NHL and the Blues, who face the Avalanche on
Saturday before closing the trip Tuesday against the Chicago
Blackhawks, know it. That’s why the emphasis began the moment
training camp, which was abbreviated with the 84-game regular-season
schedule and fewer preseason games, started.
“Yeah
we tried to establish competing first on pucks,” Montgomery said.
“There’s been competition in every day of practice of some form
to try and get our mindsets that we’re going to win. Every
competition matters, so that we have natural, competitive spirit to
try and start and be hard to play against. They go hand-in-hand.
That’s been something that I haven’t instituted very much because
I think if you’re a naturally competitive spirited person, I don’t
care if you’re working on 2-on-1s or 5-on-0s, you want to put the
puck through the back of the net. That just hasn’t transpired here.
That’s what we’ve clearly tried to institute is that when we get
on the ice, it’s an opportunity to compete and be grateful for it
and go out and compete.”
Among
the players, there has been some chatter on it, but not much. They
understand after finishing last season strong but falling short going
37-33-11.
“I
think it’s important,” Blues
defenseman Philip Broberg said.
“You don’t want to chase, you want to get off to a good start and
everybody feeling good about their game and being confident. I think
a good start is important and just keep building from that.
“I
think every team talks about a good start. I think in the past we
haven’t really had really good starts, so I think we want to put an
emphasis on making sure we prepare for the first game.”
The
players can talk about it all they want, but it’s the action that
will speak louder than the words. That’s why players feel like the
results will be the determining factors.
“I
think it’ll take care of itself,” Blues forward Jake Neighbours
said. “Obviously it’s a focus for us to get off to a good start.
It’s the same with any team. We’ve been chasing the 8-Ball the
last couple years and that’s something we don’t want to be in the
position to be doing this year. I don’t think it needs to be said a
ton by the leadership group or anyone else. It’s known. ‘Monty’
made an emphasis at the start of camp how important this camp is and
how we don’t have much time and it’s going to be the regular
season right away and now you’re feeling that. I like the way the
group’s progressed in camp. It seems that guys are bringing the
intensity and the habits that we’re going to need when the regular
season starts.”
Blues
defenseman Cam Fowler said, “I think there has to be (an emphasis).
We saw last year what happens when you get off to a start that is not
where you want to be and you just feel like you’re kind of chasing
things right from the beginning. … Talking with the players and the
coaches, there’s nobody that is very happy with the season that we
had last year. By the looks of it, it seems like everyone had a great
summer to refresh. The guys physically look really good out there.”
When
the puck drops Friday, the Blues will have 11 new players on their
opening night roster, the most they’ve had since 2023 (also 11).
Mason McTavish, one of their top pickups on the season when they
acquired the center at the 2026 NHL Draft for two 2026 first-round
picks, feels the Blues can make some noise in the Western Conference.
“Oh
for sure, just being on the ice with them, there's so much skill, so
much speed,” McTavish said when asked if the Blues can be a playoff
team. “I think guys are really hungry and we have a really
competitive group, as far as I can tell. That's something that is
never to be overlooked, how bad you want it and that compete level.”
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After a day off on Wednesday, the Montreal Canadiens returned to the ice Thursday afternoon, getting ready for their tilt with the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night. The Habs flew right to Pittsburgh after their win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday night and spent their day off doing team-building activities. Asked why it was important to do that, Martin St-Louis explained:
Because it’s an opportunity when there’s a break in a schedule like that, especially early on and when we didn’t have the opportunity to do it during training camp. It’s to…I know we have a very tight-knit group, but it’s to have opportunities to get even tighter. It doesn’t guarantee it, but if you don’t do it, you don’t even have the opportunity. So we’ve got some activities here where we can have some fun, and we’re working at the same time.
As for practice itself, the coach explained that it wasn’t so much about teaching as it was about working, putting in effort, and raising the heart rate. After missing the first game of the season, centerman Oliver Kapanen was back on the ice, wearing a normal jersey and fully participating in the session. Will he be back in the lineup this weekend? That remains to be seen, as the coach said he didn’t know yet.
At practice, the lines and pairings were as follows:
Alex Newhook played well in Kapanen's spot on Tuesday, but the line he formed with Juraj Slafkovsky and Ivan Demidov failed to put points on the board. Still, the Newfoundlander spent over 16 minutes on the ice, including 2:31 on the penalty kill and 1:24 on the power play. He had three shot attempts, only one of which got to the net, and he landed three hits; more importantly, he won seven of his nine draws for a 77.8% success rate.
If the Finn does return to the lineup, one can wonder whether he will land back on the second line. That’s where he started training camp, but he didn’t have a very productive preseason; still, the coach seemed to want to give him another chance after he scored 22 goals in his rookie season. It would therefore be surprising if he wasn’t even given a look in a single regular-season game before being unseated.
As for who would come out of the lineup, it would likely be between Kirby Dach and Alexandre Texier. While Dach had a good game on Tuesday, Texier does play on the power play, so that could be the deciding factor; time will tell.
The Canadiens will practice at 11:00 AM on Friday and face the Penguins at PPG Paints Arena on Saturday at 7:00 PM. The Pens will hope to build on the momentum from their first game, when they beat the Philadelphia Flyers 7-0 on the road.
