Worldwide Sports News

The Braves are still looking for a television broadcast partner after moving on from Main Street Sports Group (aka the company that runs Fanduel Sports Network). However, six of other eight teams are not looking anymore for this season.

The Brewers, Marlins, Rays, Royals, Cardinals, and the Reds are moving on over to MLB Media. The Tigers, Angels, and your Atlanta Braves are not. That’s not how I would have expected it to break, but it’s still early. The St. Louis Cardinals moving to MLB Media is the eyebrow raiser here. Then again, this appears to be just for 2026, and 2029 is when the long-term rights deals are expected to be made.

The Braves have some time, but right now there are no hints or rumors of hints about where you can see Atlanta Braves baseball in 2026. You will see them somewhere though. I found it interesting that this news is occurring today after Gray Media has been spamming my algorithm the last three days with the open salesperson roles. Does it mean anything, other than the fact that companies everywhere hire salespeople all the time? I don’t know. Tune in and find out. Where do you do that? Right here, I can tell you that for certain.

The Royals notified MLB that they will transfer their media rights to the league, rather than continue their relationship with Main Street Sports, the company that owns FanDuel Sports Kansas City. According to reporting from sports business reporter John Ourand at Puck, the Royals are one of six teams that notified the league they will abandon Main Street Sports. Previous reports indicated Main Street Sports could file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and liquidate as soon as this week if it cannot find a buyer. The Royals had previously opted out of their deal a few weeks ago, but Main Street Sports had hoped to negotiate new fees.

On Saturday at Royals Rally, Royals president of business operations Cullen Maxey indicated the team preferred to stay with FanDuel, if possible, but that reverting rights to MLB would be an option.

“There’s some instability of the FanDuel Sports Network, so they’re seeking out a merger partner to help them create a little bit more financial stability,” Maxey said. “Our plan with them is to stick with our partners as long as they can convince us that there will not be a risk of interruption during our season of bringing games to our fans. That’s the most important thing.”…

“We would like to stick with them, but we do need to feel very stable that there will be no interruptions during the season, and that decision will come soon. If we do pivot from FanDuel Sports Network, we’ll be going to Major League Baseball.

MLB already owned the TV rights to the Arizona Diamondbacks, San Diego Padres, Cleveland Guardians, Colorado Rockies, Minnesota Twins, Seattle Mariners, and Washington Nationals.

What does this mean for viewers? Well, Royals games will still air on TV, it will just be under a different banner. The teams that MLB developed broadcast for last year offered a very similar product to the one FanDuel Sports Network provided, with a similar $19.99 direct-to-consumer streaming option and availability on many cable and satellite providers. Teams with broadcasts developed under MLB have typically rebranded the channel under the team name, like “Twins.TV” or “CLEGuardians.TV.” And unlike FanDuel, MLB-provided games are generally offered with no blackout restrictions, unless you live in another MLB market subject to blackout restrictions. If you are a subscriber to MLB.tv, you will also be able to access your local team, although there may be an upcharge. Twins.TV was available for an additional $39.99 for a full season last year. ESPN purchased MLB TV rights last fall, including in-market rights for some teams, but will not air local games until 2027.

The Royals announced over the weekend that several games will also air on free, over-the-air TV, including the Opening Day game against the Braves, which will air on KCTV 5 in Kansas City.

Welcome all to another year of Braves baseball, and with it comes one of our favorite things to do – our Top 30 rankings. After another strong draft that saw the Braves go heavy on position players, we are starting to see these players rise up the ranks and fill out what has been a list that has been dominated by arms as of late. While the Braves still sit near the bottom of all farm system ranks, there is hope in the near future as the young talent continue to develop and show substantial progression across multiple areas.

As we’ve done in the past the Battery Power Top 30 Prospects is a composite of an awesome minor league staff featuring Matt, Brady, Garrett and myself. We start this weeks shenanigans off with the players who narrowly missed out on our top 30. In what has been mainly filled with reliever arms, our honorable mentions feature some intriguing players that have ceilings a lot higher than you would think for players outside of our Top 30. Lets get this weeks fun started by taking a look at those 6 players.

RHP Jeremy Reyes

Jeremy was a bit of a surprise, coming in just a couple decimal points behind our No. 30 prospect, who you will learn about tomorrow. He was a surprise, because of his substantial upside. While he has struggled with arm soreness at times, there’s no disputing what Jeremy can do on the mound. Still just 20 years of age, Jeremy be entering his third full season of professional baseball. He appeared in 18 games for the Augusta GreenJackets but registered a 2.71 ER with a batting average against of just .181. We saw him showcase five pitches throughout the season with a low-to-mid 90s fastball, a high 80s to low 90s 2 seamer, a biting slider, a strong changeup, and a cutter that he really began to throw a lot more last year. The main issue with him has been staying on the mound, as he’s struggled with shoulder soreness at times which has limited his innings – shown last year by the Braves limiting how deep he would get into games as he was often limited to 2-3 innings. If Reyes is fully healthy, he has some of the highest upside for a pitcher in the system because of his ability to generate whiffs with multiple pitches while being able to locate his four seam at the top of the zone consistently. If health is on his side, Jeremy likely quickly ascends up the list.

RHP Brett Sears

Much like Reyes, it was a bit of a surprise seeing Sears show up in our honorable mentions – especially after a season that saw him go from Low-A Augusta to Gwinnett across just 25 games. He will be entering just his second full season of professional baseball this year, but will also be turning 26 in May, which hurt his stock just a little bit. Overall on the season, Brett needed just five games in Augusta, six games in Rome, and then spent a majority of his season over in Columbus where he appeared in 15 games. He got a cup of tea with the Gwinnett team, but it did not treat him too well as he accumulated a 10.24 ERA but just across nine innings. Much like Reyes, Sears gets it done in a multitude of ways with a low-to-mid 90s fastball, a low-90s two seam, a high-80s cutter, and then a slider, curveball, and changeup. He works between the mid-70s and mid-90s making for an uncomfortable at bat when he’s got them all clicking. At times he would have difficulty with his slider, often throwing it too low in the zone. If he can get that squared away, along with sustained execution of his fastball in the upper thirds, Brett is another candidate to rise in the rankings and potentially see himself in a Major League role.

SS Juan Mateo

A good surprise on this list is Juan Mateo who was signed for just $10,000 out of the Dominican Republic. Coming in at 6’ 165 lbs, Mateo showcased versatility, and really strong contact skills in his debut year in the DSL back in 2024. Because of it, he surprisingly started the 2025 season in the FCL where he once again showed the same skill – putting together a slash line of .277/.352/.319 with a 10% walk rate, and mere 16.2% strikeout rate. After 51 games, the Braves saw enough out of him to move him up yet again to Low-A Augusta where he spent the second half of the season at just 18 years of age – playing against players older than him. While the strikeout rate rose it was still at a commendable 23.7% and the walk rate still stayed around the same at 9%. He was a little overmatched, but we did see the groundball rate drop while his line drive rate rose from 19% all the way to 23% against older competition. While he’s listed as a shortstop, versatility is his calling card as international scouts I spoke to said he could play all across the field, including the outfield if necessary. With a relatively high floor, thanks to his great contact ability, Juan Mateo looks like someone that can make a name for himself should he add some power to his skill set. Should he not, you are still looking at a player signed for $10,000 that has good contact skills, an ability to draw walks, and play all around the field – a very useful player type.

3B David McCabe

After being considered one of, if not the top positional prospect for the Braves over the last few years, David finds himself out of our top 30 despite one of his best statistical seasons. He finally stayed healthy a full season and played 133 games last season – hitting .286/.379/.434 in 105 games for the Columbus Clingstones before getting promoted to the Gwinnett Stripers where he hit .235/.321/.398. David got the start a third quite a few times for Columbus, but was just okay, showing pretty limited range. As a result, after his promotion to Gwinnett he was mainly a 1B/DH. David saw his line drive rate drop, and his fly ball rate drop, while his ground ball rate rose to nearly 50%. So despite the clear improvement that we saw last year, David now profiles as an on-base merchant 1B/DH who does not hit for significant power lowering his overall profile. After going unclaimed, while being unprotected, during the rule-5 draft, David will need an extremely strong 2026 with substantially more power in his age 26 season if he wants a chance to earn his way onto a major league roster.

LHP Landon Beidelschies

Landon, a starter for Arkansas last season was drafted by the Braves in the sixth round of the 2025 draft after a solid season for the Razorbacks where he had a 4.82 ERA in 61.2 innings pitched. It was his strikeout and walk rate that really stood out as he had a dynamic 10.2 K/9 rate, while showcasing good command with just a 2.92 BB/9 rate. The Braves saw enough in his pitch mix to select him in that sixth round and he appeared in two games for the Augusta GreenJackets where he continued his strong strikeout rate (11.37 K/9, 2.84 BB/9), but continued his struggles with the long ball. While he has three pitches, Landon is primarily a two-pitch pitcher with a four-seam, and slider – sitting primarily in the low 90s with his fastball, and low-to-mid 80s with his slider. His third pitch, a changeup, is still a work in progress as its release point is substantially enough different from the two pitches potentially making it easier for hitters to identify. While he has shown flashes with it, it’s still below average with work to do. Landon will enter the season at 22 years of age, and thanks to his college experience he will likely rise quickly should he show good success. That said, he definitely profiles more as a reliever than he does a starter, which hurt him in our rankings – leaving him out of our top 30.

The past few seasons of Yankee baseball have produced a familiar pattern when it comes to closing games. The first option the team tabs to handle the ninth inning invariably falters, forcing Aaron Boone to thumb through his bullpen to find a suitable replacement, or for Brian Cashman to acquire one from elsewhere.

In 2022, Aroldis Chapman’s struggles led to Clay Holmes being installed as the closer. Holmes held the role until 2024, when a succession of blown saves forced Boone to replace him with Luke Weaver. Last offseason, the Yankees traded for Devin Williams in the hopes that they’d have more stability in the role, but Williams’ unreliability forced Cashman to bring in more outside help. That came in the form of Pirates All-Star David Bednar.

Bednar was the closer the Yankees needed to stabilize the bullpen and gave them an option they could feel confident about in 2025. The two-time All-Star was lights-out, performing better in New York than he did in Pittsburgh. But again, we’ve seen this movie before. The Yankees’ ninth-inning guys have performed well…right up until they haven’t. Can Bednar buck the trend and provide a full season of late-game reliability?

2025 statistics (between PIT & NYY): 64 games, 62.2 IP, 2.30 ERA, 2.18 FIP, 27 SV, 34.3 K%, 7.6 BB%, 2.0 fWAR

2026 Depth Charts projections: 65 games, 65 IP, 3.26 ERA, 3.26 FIP, 33 SV, 30.2 K%, 8.1 BB%, 1.3 fWAR

Reasons for concern do exist for Bednar despite his spectacular excellent 2025 season. After all, the Pittsburgh native began the year in Triple-A, and slogged through 2024 with an ERA well north of 5. But Bednar has faced plenty of adversity in his career already. A former 35th-round draft pick who used his myriad rejections from Division I schools to fuel his competitive fire, Bednar has been underestimated and doubted before.

The routine questions about whether Bednar had the makeup to succeed under the bright Yankee Stadium lights were assuaged when Bednar pitched to a 2.19 ERA with 10 saves after the trade. He finished all three games the Yankees won in their eventual far-too-short postseason run, allowing just one run over six total appearances.

Bednar boasts a strong three-pitch mix, but his success hinges on his ability to get ahead in the count and put hitters away with his curveball. He has a north-south attack, with his fastball working best up in the zone and changing eye levels to set up his curve and his split. Both pitches missed bats at an elite level last season. As a result he boasted a strikeout rate just outside the top-10 in baseball for pitchers who threw at least 50 innings.

FanGraphs projections don’t predict his strikeout rate to regress much from that elite clip, and similarly don’t forecast his walk rate to increase much from 7.6 percent, where it sat last year. Bednar proved to be less volatile with the free passes than Williams, and has only exceeded 10 percent once across a full season in his career, in 2024.

Despite that, there are still some indications—which I pointed out in his report card post last fall—that Bednar won’t perform quite at the same level in 2026. For one thing, Bednar’s strand rate with the Yankees was unsustainably high: 84.2 percent. That number is bound to regress at least a bit; otherwise we have another real Houdini on our hands. (Happy retirement, D-Rob!)

Second was the high volume of seemingly free strikes Bednar was receiving early in the count, as hitters’ approach towards him was oddly passive. He only saw a 62.9% in-zone swing rate on his pitches, a little more than four percentage points below league average. If teams get a bit more aggressive, might that play to their favor? Or will they overcompensate and become more vulnerable to chasing? That will be a dynamic to follow with number 53 this season.

Ultimately, even if he allows more of his baserunners to score and allows more loud contact, I don’t believe Bednar will suddenly turn into a pumpkin this season. Glancing at his percentile rankings year-over-year, it’s fairly obvious that 2024 was the outlier for him. He’s an excellent closer who got a good dose of big-game experience last year, has less overall risk in his profile than Williams’, and got a full offseason to get fully accustomed to his new digs. I expect the Renegade to have it made at the back of the Yankee bullpen in 2026.

See more of the Yankees Previews series here.

It’s prospects week here at Bleed Cubbie Blue as today I’m starting the countdown of my top 25 Cubs prospects for 2026. Each day we’re going to look at five new prospects until we get down to the top five on Friday.

The Cubs farm system is definitely down at the moment. It’s not the worst system in the majors nor is it the worst that I’ve seen in my nearly 20 years of doing this. (Where has the time gone?) There is a lot of talent in the system at the top. I’d say that while the top prospects definitely aren’t the best I’ve seen in the Cubs system (that would probably go to 2014, 2015 or 2024), it’s at least average and maybe a little better than that. The problem is that once you get past around the eighth-best prospect, things thin out really fast. While it’s always an issue that there normally isn’t any real difference between the prospects ranked three or four spots apart as you go down the system, this year there were several players that if you wanted to rank them ten spots lower or higher, I probably wouldn’t argue with you. After the eighth prospect, it’s either guys with low ceilings or injury issues or who just haven’t proven themselves as a professional yet. There are six recent 2025 draft picks in the top 25 and I’m pretty sure that’s a record for me. Four of them have yet to even make their professional debut. 

The good news is that the system is down for a lot of the right reasons. Over the past two seasons, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Cade Horton, Matt Shaw, Michael Busch, Ben Brown, Jordan Wicks, Daniel Palencia and others have left the farm system and become important contributors to the major league team. On top of that, the Cubs have traded away several very good prospects like Cam Smith, Zyhir Hope and others. I was left scrambling to find two more prospects to replace Owen Caissie and Cristian Hernandez, both of whom were traded to the Marlins for Edward Cabrera. There were other players who would have been in the top 25 this spring who were dealt at the trade deadline in July. 

The bad news is that in this situation, you hope that the minor leaguers who remain step up and distinguish themselves as top prospects to replenish the system. While there are a few who really did, not enough of them did. Some prospects who were expected to be top ten prospects this year took steps backwards, either because of injury or just poor performance as they went up a level. This is one reason why there are so many draft picks this year.

A third reason the system is down that is neither good nor bad is something I mentioned last season: the minor leagues are just down everywhere. In particular, the quality of pitching has been quite poor and it’s not just the Cubs’ system that is hitter-heavy. We can only speculate why that is, although I certainly think the elimination of one level of the minors plays a role. 

Another reason there are so many draft picks this year is because I simply don’t rank players who haven’t left the Dominican Summer League left. There are a few reasons for this, but the biggest one is I simply don’t have enough independent information to make my own evaluation. There isn’t much video and what there is tends to be two or three years out of date—when the player was 14 to 16 years old. But there are a few players down in the Dominican that I’m looking forward to seeing in the US this year and I hope that they’ll lift the system by this time next year. 

Other than that, to be considered for this list you have to still have prospect eligibility, which is defined as fewer than 130 at-bats, 50 innings pitched and less than 45 days on an active roster. Even though Moisés Ballesteros and Kevin Alcántara have played in the major leagues, they’re still eligible.

On a “we’re all getting older” note, I expect that Riley Martin will be my final ranked prospect whose birth year starts with a “19.”

As always, any mistakes here are my fault.

If you click on a player’s name, it will take you to his milb dot com page where you can get more statistical information. 

21. Tyler Schlaffer. RHP. DOB: 5/24/2001. 6’1”, 180. Drafted 9th round (2019) Homewood-Flossmoor High School (IL)

Schlaffer has been in the Cubs system a long time and is just starting to put things together now. Part of the reason for that is Tommy John surgery, which cost him the entire 2023 season. But Schlaffer put up the best season of his career in 2025 and finished the year with nine starts in Double-A Knoxville, where he went 4-2 with a 2.78 ERA.

Schlaffer’s pure stuff isn’t going to blow anyone away, but he does have five decent pitches that he mixes up well to keep hitters off balance. His fastball has average velocity in the 92-94 range, but its flat shape keeps it from being a better weapon. His best pitch is his low-80s changeup, which is a real weapon against lefties. He also has a slurvy curve ball which he can use as an out pitch when he’s locating it well. Schlaffer has a fringy slider and a sinker, although both pitches sometimes play better than that. Schlaffer does close to equally well against left- and right-handed hitting, so that versatility plays in his favor. 

The big issue with Schlaffer is his overall command and control, which abandons him at times. When it’s on, he can keep hitters guessing with a smart pitch miss, When it’s not, he ends up walking too many batters and leaving fat ones over the plate. Luckily last year, he was on more often than he was off. He will need to show more consistency in throwing strikes to be a major-league contributor. 

Schlaffer was “on” in June, when he went 3-0 with an 0.69 ERA and 27 strikeouts in 26 innings that earned him Midwest League Pitcher of the Month honors. It also got him promoted to Double-A Knoxville.

Schlaffer’s pedestrian pure stuff probably relegates him to being a back-of-the-rotation starter with a lot of relief risk. He should return to Knoxville this summer with a promotion to Iowa that could come sooner rather than later.

Here’s Schlaffer striking out ten batters for South Bend in June.

22. Riley Martin. LHP. DOB: 3/19/1998. 6’1”, 215”. Drafted 6th round (2021), Quincy (IL) University.

Martin is extremely likely to make his major league debut this year as the Cubs added him to the 40-man roster this past winter. He’s an odd left-handed reliever who has had consistent reverse-platoon stats throughout his professional career. 

Martin is a fastball-curve reliever, although he does have a slider and a change that he breaks out occasionally. The fastball comes in at 93-to-95 miles per hour and has decent movement on it. The curve is a real swing-and-miss pitch with mid-80s velocity and a sharp downward break. 

Martin repeated Triple-A Iowa last year and was one of the I-Cubs best relievers all year, going 6-2 with four saves and a 2.69 ERA. He struck out a whopping 80 batters in 63.2 innings last year and has consistently struck out more than a batter an inning throughout his career. As you probably expect, he does have issues with control with 35 walks. However, that marked an improvement over his previous years. If he can make a similar jump forward this year, Martin could end up being a real weapon in a major league bullpen.

Martin is likely to start the season in Iowa again, but with his 40-man status, he’s going to get his chance at the majors as soon as an injury opens up a spot for him. If he can seize that opportunity, he could have a decent career as a major league left-handed middle reliever.

Here are some Martin highlights from early last season.

23.  Nick Dean. RHP. DOB: 12/26/2000. 6’3”, 180. Drafted 19th round (2023). Maryland.

If you look at Dean’s 2025 season, you might question why he’s on this list, beyond the fact that the system starts to get thin around here. Between South Bend and Knoxville, Dean went 1-7 with an ERA of 5.43 over 15 starts. The Cubs even took him off the roster at one point and put him on the development list so he could work on straightening things out in a lower-stress environment. 

But Dean’s strikeout and walk totals speak of a starting pitcher who can control the strike zone. Last year, Dean struck out a solid 27.4 percent of batters last year between the two levels and walked an impressive 6.9 percent. Yes, Dean gave up too much hard contact and too many home runs. But his overall command of the strike zone gives the Cubs something to work with here.

Dean’s fastball is a pretty pedestrian 89-91 miles per hour with decent break, although not a lot of deception. However, it plays better than it might otherwise because of a low-80s “Bugs Bunny” changeup that grades out as plus. Dean also mixes in a fringy curve and a fringy slider. 

With only one pitch grading out as even average, Dean’s upside is limited. But he throws strikes and has that changeup going for him, so he certainly could carve out a role for himself as a back-of-the-rotation starter. More likely, he’s an up-and-down sixth starter.

Dean will likely return to Knoxville to start the season. Should he find a way to limit the hard contact, he should see Iowa sometime midseason. 

Here’s Dean striking out three batters in South Bend.

24. Dominick Reid. RHP. 6’3”, 201. 11/28/2003. Drafted 3rd Round (2025) Abilene Christian.

The Cubs’ third-round pick from last summer’s draft hasn’t made his professional debut yet and I try to be a bit conservative when grading players who haven’t hit a minor league diamond yet. That practice has gone a bit out the window this year, but I still think that Reid’s ranking here is perhaps overly conservative but fair.  

Reid spent two seasons (barely) pitching out of the bullpen at Oklahoma State before transferring to Abilene Christian for his junior year. He made 15 starts for the Wildcats (yes, I had to look that up) and went 6-3 with a 3.26 ERA. More impressively, he struck out 112 batters and walked just 27 over 88.1 innings. That was enough to get the Cubs to take Reid in the third round and hand him a nearly $650k signing bonus. 

Reid’s best pitch is his changeup that comes in at 82-to-84 miles per hour and provides an excellent contrast to his average 91-95 mph fastball. He also has a low-80s slider and an upper-70s curve. He has at least average control on all four pitches.

Beyond that strong changeup, a lot of the appeal of Reid is the belief that he hasn’t maxed out his potential. Reid is a big right-hander without a lot of college experience. He might be able to add a few more miles onto his fastball with some tweaks. He’s also going to need to improve either his curve or his slider if he wants to stay a starting pitcher, but he could probably have a career as a reliever with just that changeup. 

As the Cubs are wont to do, they shut down Reid after drafting him last summer. He should make his professional debut this spring. Myrtle Beach is the most likely starting spot for him, but depending on how much progress the Cubs feel he’s made over the past six months, he could start in Mesa or South Bend. Reid is a project, but one that could pay off with a back-end starter somewhere down the line.

Here’s every pitch Reid threw in a game for Abilene Christian last year.

25. Kaleb Wing. RHP. 6’2”, 180. DOB: 1/12/2007. Drafted 4th round (2025), Scotts Valley HS (CA)

Wing is a lanky right-hander who recently converted to pitching. Wing is a four-pitch pitcher with a whip-like delivery. His fastball sits 92-to-93 miles per hour with good arm-side ride, but it has touched 95 at times. I suspect that the Cubs believe that he can hit that velocity consistently with more experience and maybe some added weight. 

Wing’s primary secondary pitch is an upper-70s changeup that mimics the movement of his fastball, except with a much greater vertical drop. He also has a big, loopy, knee-buckling curveball that could be plus if he learns to locate it with any consistency. Wing’s low-80s slider is a work in progress, but it does have some horizontal cut to it. 

Wing was a shortstop before converting to pitching, and that athleticism and experience helps him field his position well. That’s not something we mention often for pitching prospects, but it can make a difference.

One thing that stands out as a possible negative on Wing is his body, which is wiry to say the least. Some observers think there’s some room on his frame to add some muscle and others aren’t so sure. But there is some question as to whether his body can withstand the rigors of starting every fifth day as a professional. Certainly there’s always a relief risk with a young pitcher, but there may be more relief risk than normal. But on pure stuff, he could be a number-four starter. 

Fun fact: Kaleb’s father Ryan was a second-round pick of the White Sox and made it as high as Triple-A. 

The Cubs took Wing in the fourth round last year and signed him away from Loyola Marymount for $1.5 million, which is second-round money. Like nearly every newly-drafted pitcher, the Cubs shut him down for the rest of the year, so he hasn’t made his professional debut this year. Depending on how much progress he made on the backfields of Mesa last fall, he could make his pro debut in the Complex League or Myrtle Beach. But clearly the goal is to get him to Myrtle Beach some time this year.  

Here’s Wing pitching in a showcase game last year:

Tomorrow: Prospects 16 through 20.

We’re trying a new series at Royals Review, a daily mid-day question of the day to hear about your opinions on a fun or pressing question affecting the Royals or baseball in general. Chime in and drop your answers below!

Have the Royals done enough this offseason to upgrade the roster and get back to contention? Perhaps, although it sounds like J.J. Picollo still wants to do more to improve this team, particularly in the outfield and bullpen. Has it been a perfect offseason? Assuredly, no.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can pine over those deals that perhaps could have helped the Royals. What would you have done? What is a move from another team that you wish the Royals would have done? Or perhaps there’s a deal that wasn’t executed you think could have benefitted the Royals (try to refrain from the unreasonable “Jonathan India-for-Jarren Duran” trade ideas, we’re not Yankees fans!)

Here is a list of free agents who have signed so far this offseason or you can use the transaction tracker at FanGraphs. What move do you think the Royals should have made?

The story need not be repeated. You are already familiar with the tale of Alec Bohm’s irritated mutterings, and the camera that caught them, the ensuing apology and appreciative ovation that followed. This article is not going to be about that. It’s not going to be about the psychology of being an athlete in the spotlight or the sociology of fandom. It’s going to be about meteorology, and why it might give Bohm good reason to dislike playing at Citizens Bank Park.

Backing up for a moment: earlier this week, wanting to take a walk but not being able to stroll through the streets of beautiful Philadelphia on account of the snow, ice, and my own general clumsiness, I was instead taking a stroll through Baseball Savant. This sort of wandering does not offer the charm of birdsong, old buildings, or conversations with strangers that more traditional flâneuring does, but it does offer the opportunity to notice something odd or eye-catching on the page of one Phillie or another. On this occasion, I noticed that Alec Bohm’s performance at the plate on the road had been better than his performance at Citizens Bank Park for each of the past three seasons.

Those differences aren’t huge. And it’s worth noting that he was better at home than on the road in 2021 and 2022. Nevertheless, I was stuck at home, and, in truth, in need of something to write about. So I decided to poke around a little more, just in case those small differences were hiding something interesting.

There isn’t an immediately obvious reason to suspect that calling CBP home may be a negative for Bohm. It is a better park for lefties than for righties, but that has more to do with dimensions that are exceptionally conducive for lefties to hit home runs than any sort of hostility to the non-sinisters. Per Statcast’s park factors, the Bank plays as neutral for right-handed hitters. That being said, there is something unusual about CBP.

Over at MLB.com, Mike Petriello recently wrote an interesting article about how Kyle Tucker’s performance as a Cub had been dramatically better when outside the (apparently not-so-) Friendly Confines of Wrigley. This was, in part, due to the brutal breezes of the Windy City. That got me wondering if, perhaps, Bohm’s superior performance on the road over the past three seasons might be influenced by the winds. Though Citizens Bank Park doesn’t have Wrigley’s reputation for weather-related chaos, it is a sufficiently breezy place. The wind at CBP tends to rob players of homers, to a greater degree than most stadiums league-wide. That may come as a bit of a surprise, given that (again per Statcast) CBP has been more homer-happy than all but a trio of other stadiums (Dodger Stadium, Great American Ballpark, Yankee Stadium and her horizontally-challenged right field porch) over the past three years. But these facts can coexist happily; it simply means that CBP would be even more conducive to round-trippers were it not for the wind.

So I decided to look at how Alec Bohm performs against the wind, with his fellow righties added in for comparison.

Here’s how all the Phillies righties (min 250 PA) did, 2021-2025, when the wind was blowing in vs. when the wind was blowing out, since 2021 (appearances as a Phillie only). For the moment, we’re looking at overall performance, without home/road splits.

Bohm does better when the wind is blowing out versus when it’s blowing in, and that makes sense: wind blows out, ball travels farther, batter does better (Oddly, J.T. Realmuto does significantly worse when the wind is blowing out— but that’s a question for another time). What’s unusual here is how much better Bohm does when the wind is blowing out. wRC+ is standardized so that 100 is average, and each point above or below 100 indicates being one percent better or worse than average. When the wind is blowing in, Bohm is a significantly below-average hitter. When it’s blowing out, he’s above-average. He’s 53% better when the wind is in his favor. That’s enormous. I won’t bore you with the full chart, but suffice it to say Bohm’s gap between wind-out and wind-in performance is by far the largest of any current Phillie.

Now let’s look at the combination of wind splits and home/road splits.

Here’s the same chart, but only for plate appearances at CBP:

And here’s only plate appearances away from CBP:

Bohm performs better with the wind blowing out than with the wind blowing in at home and on the road, but the gap at CBP is 4.6 times as big as the gap on the road. When the wind is blowing in at CBP, Bohm’s wRC+ is a truly dismal 37. For what it’s worth, that puts Bohm at 397th of 407 players (min 7o PA) for performance at home with the wind blowing in. I have a feeling that statistic is a little too finely sliced to be all that meaningful, but it does illustrate just how rough Bohm’s performance under those conditions has been.

So we know that Bohm struggles, and struggles severely, when the wind is blowing towards him at home. Much more so than his teammates. As further evidence of this, take a look at his Batting Average on Balls in Play (2021-Present) broken out by wind in/out and home/road. The gap between his performance with the wind out and the wind in is twice as big at home than it is on the road.

But why? Is there something about Bohm’s performance at the plate that sets him apart from his teammates, and makes his batted balls particularly vulnerable to the impact of wind blowing in at home?

My first thought is that it might have something to do with the direction Bohm hits the ball. Bohm is disproportionately likely to hit the ball straight. Last season, 47.4 % of his batted balls went right back up the middle, putting him at #1 league-wide; the MLB average was 36.4% . It would stand to reason that a player who is especially likely to hit the ball up the middle would be especially vulnerable to the impact of wind blowing right back down the middle. But upon further investigation, I don’t think that explanation holds up. That 47.4% figure combines all types of batted balls. If we look only at batted balls in the air, Bohm is slightly more likely than average to hit them straight, but not to a huge degree. And he’s also less likely than average to hit the ball in the air at all. His exceedingly high percentage of batted balls up the middle is mostly the result of him hitting a lot of grounders straight, and I don’t see much reason to believe that the wind would have a large impact on those. On top of that, Bohm was more likely than average to hit the ball straight in the 2021 and 2022 seasons where his performance at home outstripped his performance on the road.

At this point, I have to consider the possibility that this may all be illusion. When you’re slicing up statistics with by using multiple splits, you’re looking at relatively small sample sizes. And small sample sizes produce odd results that often turn out to be nothing more than chance. There’s a statistical concept called p-hacking, which means looking at comparisons until you find one that, by pure chance, happens to seem significant, then reporting it as if it really means something. The fact is that Bohm’s superior performance on the road has only been the case for three seasons, and he produced the opposite splits in the two seasons to that. This could be nothing more than small sample size, and I might be putting a Phillies P in p-hacking.

But there is one more thing I want to look at before I wrap up. There’s another way that Bohm differs from all of his teammates— from nearly all of MLB. His swing. His attack angle (per Statcast, the “vertical angle at which sweet spot is traveling at the point of impact”) is 5°, which is exceedingly low. The average across MLB is 10°, and only 12 qualified batters had a lower attack angle than Bohm in 2025. On top of that, Bohm’s attack angle seems to have dropped over the past few seasons, going from 7° in 2023, to 6° in 2024, to the aforementioned 5°. Unfortunately, Statcast only started recording bat tracking data in 2023, so we can’t confirm that the pattern stretches back to 2021. Is it possible that the angle at which Bohm swings makes his batted balls particularly vulnerable to the winds at CBP? And is it possible that the change in Home/Road splits he experienced was the result of his attack angle declining?

I don’t quite have the data or expertise needed to check on that. And even if I did, there’s a good chance that I’m entirely off-base there. We’ll learn more as time passes. Perhaps Bohm’s performance with the wind at home will stay on the current trajectory. Or perhaps he’ll start hitting better at home, buffeted by the winds of change.