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Okay, so we’ve got to talk about Didier Fuentes. I think everybody here knows by now that spring training results should usually be taken with a grain of salt. The level of competition can vary from “everyday big league starter” to “ Guy who is really hoping to make it to Double-A this season” and then you also don’t know if the other player is working on something specific instead of going full tilt, themselves, so it’s not like there’s anything concrete that can be gleaned from spring training game results.

With that being said, holy smokes — Didier Fuentes has been on a tear. The Atlanta Braves are clearly very high on the guy as in their desperation during last season’s pitching injury debacle, he got the call-up to the bigs during his Age-20 start and made four starts during that span. Granted, they were four starts that ranged from “okay” to “disastrous” which showed that he clearly wasn’t ready for the big leagues at that point in time.

So now, his excellent performance during spring training (as noticed by Matt Powers in an article from earlier today) begs the question: Is he ready now? On its face, the answer to that question is still “No” but we’re officially in the territory of that answer being “Probably not” rather than “Absolutely not!” A lot of that has to do with the fact that Fuentes has reportedly taken leaps and bounds in development since the 2025 season ended. MLB.com Braves beat writer Mark Bowman talked with Braves pitching coach Jeremy Hefner last week about Fuentes and he did mention that while Fuentes is still a work in progress, things are starting to come together:

“He has three above-average pitches,” Braves pitching coach Jeremy Hefner said. “The changeup is still coming in terms of location, but the shape is really good. He’s taken to this harder slider, and the fastball is real, obviously.”

The fastball is most certainly real — last season during his brief stint in the bigs, Fuentes averaged 96-mph with his four-seamer. That’s still above average for righties but not particularly eye-popping or anything like that. However, he’s been sitting at 97 here in spring training and as that linked article above mentioned, he reached 99 on the gun while striking out Yankees OF Cody Bellinger. Part of that may have been that Fuentes was amped up to be facing one of his favorite childhood teams in the Yankees and one of his favorite childhood players in Cody Bellinger but then you fast forward to Wednesday’s action and Fuentes was still sitting in the 97-mph range against Philadelphia’s organizational depth.

Still, even if the guys that Fuentes was facing at CoolToday Park weren’t exactly the formidable nine that you’ll expect to face on a typical night at Citizens Bank Park, it’s still impressive to look at his stuff on display. Plus, he did get to face guys like Bellinger, Trent Grisham, Randal Grichuk and Ryan McMahon during his start against the Yankees so he did show that he could get it doe against guys who have done it before in the bigs. That’s what makes it a bit impressive that Fuentes’ line so far in spring training has been 9 IP, 0 hits, 0 walks, 1 hit-by-pitch, 17 strikeouts. Yes, you read that correctly: Fuentes has essentially pitched a complete no-hitter so far during spring training and has been dominant while doing so. Sheesh!

Like I mentioned earlier, a strong performance like this doesn’t guarantee that Fuentes will be breaking camp as part of the Opening Day rotation for the Braves. I’d imagine that the organization still wants him to get some seasoning in the minors before eventually calling him up for some more big league action. While I’m still very skeptical that he’ll make the Opening Day roster, I’m pretty certain that we’ll be seeing Fuentes again at some point down the road if needed in a spot start situation. I also have more faith now than last season that Fuentes would be able to pitch his way into sticking around.

So as far as right now is concerned, the minors better get ready to deal with this guy since he looks like he’s going to mow down hitters at that level here in 2026. Whether that’ll translate into big league success this year remains to be seen. Still, if you’re excited about seeing Didier Fuentes pitch soon, you’ve got very good reason to feel that way since he’s absolutely giving us fans a glimpse of what the future may hold for him as a starter for this Braves ballclub.

Discuss the Cleveland Guardians’ Spring Breakout game below! Here is the starting lineup for the Guardians’ prospects:

Kahlil Watson CF

Cooper Ingle C

Ralphy Velazquez 1B

Milan Tolentino 3B

Angel Genao SS

Alfonsin Rosario RF

Jaison Chourio LF

Wuilfedo Antunez DH

Dauri Fernandez 2B

Yorman Gomez SP

Who is he and where did he come from?

He’s Tommy Kahnle and, like most relievers in their mid-to-late 30s, he comes from all over the league. As one of the rare baseball players to grow up in upstate New York, Kahnle settled for Division II baseball in college before being selected by the Yankees in the 2010 amateur draft. But he made his big league debut with the Rockies, who swiped him from the Yankees in the Rule 5 draft, and has since spent 11 years in the majors, dividing his time between Colorado, the South Side of Chicago, the Bronx, Chavez Ravine, the Bronx again, and Detroit. The Sox signed him to a minor league deal yesterday

Is he any good?

Kahnle was a big part of those Yankee super-bullpens of recent vintage, which is probably where you know him from. In fact, for the entire stretch between 2016 and 2024, Kahnle’s 3.11 ERA ranked 28th amongst relievers who threw at least 250 innings. He was a flat-out solid and dependable late-inning option for years, heavily relying on one of the game’s best changeups, which darts down and in on the arm-side. Earlier in his career he complemented that change with a fastball that approached 100 MPH, but that’s now down to the mid-90s.

Kahnle has battled injuries recently. From 2020 through 2023, he made just 14 appearances, missing significant time to both Tommy John surgery and subsequent forearm issues, and he then missed the first two months of the 2024 season with shoulder inflammation.

2025 was an up-and-down season for Kahnle in Detroit. He was outstanding for the first three months of the year, posting a 1.77 ERA in 35.1 innings pitched. But then he gave up five earned runs without recording a single out in his first appearance in July and looked cooked for the rest of the season, yielding 32 hits and 22 walks over 27.1 innings en route to an ugly 7.90 ERA. He made 32 appearances from July through the end of the season and gave up at least 1 run in 12 of them.

Tl;dr, just give me his 2025 stats.

63 IP, 51 H, 31 BB, 8 HR, 4.43 ERA

Show me a cool highlight.

Remember when I wrote that Kahnle relied heavily on his changeup? Well he once threw 61 of them in a row in 2024 playoffs while allowing just 2 earned runs over 8.2 innings.

Here’s a video of the first 56 of those:

What’s he doing in his picture up there?

Celebrating the fact that he now gets to join a bullpen with Garrett Whitlock, who, like him, is another quality reliever the Yankees lost in the Rule 5 draft. Lol, losers!

What’s his role on the 2026 Red Sox?

He’s signed to a minor league deal, but I fully expect him to be in the big league bullpen as soon as they deem him ready. He’ll start in a middle-innings role and whether he stays there will depend on whether he can figure out what went wrong in the second half of 2025.

You’ve already seen Jefferson Rojas and Pedro Ramirez play for the Cubs this Spring Training. Both have hit well and Ramirez, in particular, has flashed some glove at third base, shortstop and second base.

In 14 MLB spring games this year, Ramirez is batting .357/.429/.607 (10-for-28) with a double, two home runs, 11 RBI and five stolen bases. Rojas, in 18 MLB spring games, is batting .227/.277/.523 (10-for-44) with four doubles, three home runs and 10 RBI.

Ramirez was added to the 40-man roster last November, and even though he’s not quite 22 (turns 22 on April 1), it’s not impossible that we might see him at Wrigley Field this year.

The two will lead a roster of top Cubs prospects against top Padres prospects in a game this Saturday at Sloan Park. Game time is 8:05 p.m. CT and the game will be televised via Marquee Sports Network. There will be a game thread here Saturday both for this game and the MLB Cubs vs. Mariners game at Peoria, scheduled for 8:10 p.m. CT.

Other top Cubs prospects on the Spring Breakout roster:

• Catcher Owen Ayers, who had a good showing in the Arizona Fall League
• Jonathon Long, who has returned from an early spring injury and is playing well again
• Brett Bateman, a speedy outfielder who is 8-for-18 with three steals in MLB spring games
• James Triantos, the team’s No. 10 ranked prospect by MLB Pipeline

Here’s the complete Cubs Spring Breakout roster. The article has some more information about the game, the players, and how they were selected for this game.

There will be other Spring Breakout games in both Florida and Arizona beginning today. Here’s the entire Spring Breakout schedule, along with more information.

Earlier this month, Jurickson Profar shocked the baseball world with his incredibly foolish decision to take Performance-Enhancing Drugs the year after he had been suspended for 80 games in the past. Upon failing another test, Major League Baseball suspended Profar for the entirety of the 2026 regular season and Postseason.

However, the MLBPA did their due dilligence and launched an appeal and grievance on Profar’s behalf. While this was always a longshot, the hope was that the suspension could be reduced so that Profar could at least make some money from playing in games this season since PED suspensions are unpaid. Unfortunately for Profar, the appeal didn’t work. Jeff Passan of ESPN is reporting that the situation has been “resolved” and the result is that the suspension has been upheld and that Profar is officially done for 2026.

Atlanta Braves outfielder Jurickson Profar will miss the entire 2026 season after his appeal of a positive PED test was resolved. He will serve a 162-game suspension for testing positive a second time and will be ineligible for postseason play.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) March 19, 2026

I can’t imagine that anybody is surprised by this turn of events. As I mentioned earlier when the suspension was initially announced, these types of appeals don’t usually go anywhere in terms of any substantial overturns. This was simply MLBPA doing what they could to support a union member — whether that union member made an incredibly dumb mistake or not. It was always very unlikely that Profar would get this overturned since MLB usually does a solid job of proving intent whenever this turns into an investigation.

The main thing that’ll come of this latest development is that the Braves now know that they’ll have $18 million to play with. Whether they use that now on another free agent who’s still available or wait until the trade deadline to use for any potential deals remains to be seen. For now, we now know officially that Profar won’t be on the field for a single pitch of this upcoming season and I’d imagine that it’s an open question as to whether or not Profar will put on a Braves uniform ever again. We’ll see what happens but we won’t be seeing Profar during the 2026 season, for sure.

TAMPA – Carlos Rodonwas still walking off the field after throwing the equivalent of two innings to Yankees hitters Thursday when someone popped out of the dugout with questions galore.

"How did you feel?" an eager Gerrit Cole asked him. "Did you like the curve?"

The answer to the first question was "good." The answer to the second was "better." No one can relate to the zig-zagging process that is a return from elbow surgery quite like Cole, who is navigating his own version of that process these days, too. He knew Rodon didn’t like the way the curve felt in one of his two previous live sessions, but he also knew that it would probably feel better next time. It had for him.

"[I felt] physically fine. I’m just working to get a feel for things," Rodon told SNY afterward. "Obviously, I would like everything to be crisp, but it’s hard to do that when you have to build up and come back from surgery. It’s coming. Trying not to get frustrated with myself."

Rodon was scheduled for 35 pitches Thursday. He threw them against Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt, Spencer Jones, and Zack Short. He threw them to catcher Ben Rice, with whom he was in constant conversation between pitches, seeking feedback from his catcher and the screens Yankees coaches had behind the mound. The surgery he underwent in October removed loose bodies and a bone spur that limited his range of motion last season. But with increased range of motion comes more possibilities for variation around his arm action and release point, which means his spring training has been as much about building stamina as rebuilding his sense of where his arm needs to be and how best to get it there repeatedly.

"My arm moves a lot more, so it’s just understanding that leash I have, how far I’m going," Rodon said. "I just need to throw more, so I build the proprioception, build the feel of that."

The 33-year-old will not travel with the Yankees when they head to Arizona for next week’s spring-ending exhibition games. Instead, he said he will stay in Tampa to continue his progression – a progression Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he hopes will lead to a return in April.

"It feels like a normal progression. It’s just refining every day. Every day I play catch is taking in a lot of information," Rodon said. "It’s not like, drastically different. But building a new feel."

Howie Rose announced he is retiring at the end of the 2026 Mets season. The longtime broadcaster has been behind the mic for a myriad of signature sports moments across Mets, Rangers and Islanders games. Here are eight of his best calls.

1. Stéphane Matteau’s double-overtime game-winning goal in Game 7 of the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals against the Devils. 

Matteau’s epic goal sent the Rangers into the Stanley Cup Final, where they would capture their first championship since 1940.

2. Shawn Bates’ penalty shot in Game 4 of the 2002 first round.

Bates became the first Islander to score on a penalty shot in the playoffs. He was the second American-born player and 13th NHL player overall to do so. The goal won the game for the Islanders and tied their first-round series against the Maple Leafs, 2-2, before Toronto won the series in seven.

3. Mike Piazza’s home run in the first baseball game in New York after Sept. 11.

After the horrific terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Mike Piazza homered in the first baseball game back in New York. His home run secured a 3-2 victory for the Mets in an emotional moment for the city.

4. Johan Santana throws the first no-hitter in Mets history.

On June 1, 2012, Santana threw the first no-hitter in the Mets’ 50-year franchise history. He did it on an unfathomable 134 pitches.

5. Mets win the 2015 NL pennant to reach the World Series

The Mets swept the Cubs in the 2015 NLCS, snapping a 15-year drought since their last National League pennant in 2000.

6. Pete Alonso’s go-ahead, ninth-inning home run in Game 3 of the 2024 NL Wild Card round.

Entering the ninth inning down 2-0, the Mets rallied to win the 2024 Wild Card against the Milwaukee Brewers. Alonso was the hero, hitting a go-ahead, three-run home run off Brewers closer Devin Williams. 

7. Francisco Lindor’s grand slam in 2024 NLDS Game 4. 

Entering the sixth inning down 1-0, Lindor hit a go-ahead grand slam in Game 4 of the 2024 NLDS. It was off Philadelphia Phillies closer Carlos Estévez, which led the Mets to their first NLCS appearance since 2015.

8. The Mets clinch the 2006 NL East title

In one of the best seasons in franchise history, the Mets clinched their first division title since 1988 with a 4-0 win over the Marlins on Sept. 18.