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Entering the 2026 season, there was some speculation around what we’d see from pitching prospect Riley Quick. Despite some concerns about the Tommy John surgery he underwent in college (which limited his career workload at the University of Alabama), the Twins selected him 36th overall in the 2025 MLB Draft. They clearly believed the talent outweighed the risk, and based on what we saw from Quick this year, it’s hard to blame them. Quick finished the year with a 4.74 ERA in 81 2/3 innings, split between Low-A, High-A and Double-A. He racked up 110 strikeouts, good for a 30.6% strikeout rate, and the swing-and-miss stuff that made him such a high-upside prospect in the first place was obvious. As a result, he earned Twins Daily’s minor league pitcher of the year honors and ends the season ranked within the top five organizational prospects. What did he do that made him so successful, and what areas does he need to work on this offseason? A Definite Out Pitch Let’s start with what made him so successful. As I mentioned, the swing-and-miss was his best friend. Quick finished the year with a very strong 14.6% swinging-strike rate, in large part thanks to his wicked slider. Over the course of the season, 37.3% of the pitches Quick threw outside of the strike zone generated a swing. That’s downright filthy, and opposing hitters only connected on a quarter of their chases. That slider was sliding, and it should continue to be a really strong pitch for him as he progresses through the Twins’ system. He also did a good job of keeping the ball on the ground. A whopping 52% of batted balls against him were grounders. Quick’s fastball is more of a sinker than a traditional four-seam fastball, and that pitch (along with his changeup) helped him consistently induce pitcher-friendly contact. When you combine that with his ability to miss bats, it gives him a really strong foundation moving forward. However, it obviously wasn’t all good. The Name of the Game: Throw Strikes The biggest problem was walks. Quick’s 13.4% walk rate is far too high, and if he’s going to be a front-line starter (or a starter at all) in the majors someday, that number is going to need to come down. It’s easy to just say “throw more strikes,” as if every pitcher who has ever struggled with command hasn’t thought of that already. The more important question is how Quick can achieve that. The best pitchers in baseball, guys like Tarik Skubal, Jacob Misiorowski and Paul Skenes, are throwing first-pitch strikes to roughly two-thirds of opposing hitters. Quick was just below half, at 49.9%, and the difference those first-pitch strikes make cannot be overstated. Aaron Judge, who’s arguably the best hitter in baseball when healthy, has a career .319 batting average when he gets ahead in the count 1-0. When he falls behind 0-1, that number drops to .239. Getting ahead gives pitchers a massive advantage, and Quick has incredible swing-and-miss stuff to take advantage of those favorable counts. If he can't fill up the zone, though, hitters will stop helping him out by swinging at pitches outside it. Quick did also struggle with the long ball a bit once he got to Double-A, but I’m not overly concerned about that part of his profile. Just under 30% of the fly balls he allowed with Wichita wound up leaving the yard. That’s an extremely high number, and it’s simply not sustainable over a larger sample. There’s always going to be some fluctuation in home-run rates, particularly when dealing with a relatively small sample size at one level. If Quick can continue doing a good job of keeping the ball on the ground while generating plenty of swings and misses, I’d expect that home-run rate to come down next season. There was a lot to like from his first year of professional baseball. He worked his way through three levels, struck out more than 30% of the hitters he faced, and showed off a slider that can make opposing hitters look silly. There are certainly things he needs to clean up, particularly when it comes to his command. But that’s also why I think there’s reason to be excited about what Quick could do in 2027. I expect a jump from Quick next season. And depending on just how big that jump is, I think there’s a possibility we see him at Target Field in 2027—maybe even by the All-Star break. View the full article

Yes, it's nice to have the monkey off their back. No longer can anyone say that the Brewers haven't won on the road in the postseason since 2018. Yes, it was nice to see the formula work to perfection on the mound, even with Robert Gasser as the first hurler of the night. When the Brewers closed out the Padres Wednesday night, though, they didn't just achieve an important symbolic or moral victory. The significance of the win wasn't in the resilience it took to achieve it. It's much more concrete than that, and much greater. Winning this series in four games was huge. It might well be the difference between winning and losing in the NLCS. Jacob Misiorowski did briefly warm up in the ninth inning, but he never had to truly fire it up, let alone come into the game. More importantly, he won't have to pitch Friday in Milwaukee to save the team's season. Instead, he gets another clean start in a Game 1 at Uecker Field, facing the Dodgers as the tone-setter in his team's bid to avenge their loss in last year's version of this matchup. The difference between Misiorowski having to start Game 5 against the Padres and getting to start Game 1 against the Dodgers is probably a full expected win in the series for Milwaukee. Firstly, there's much less chance that Misiorowski is limited to one start in the series. Secondly, his first start will come at home, where he's been much better this year (for a tangible reason: the mound there is better for him than when the Brewers are on the road), rather than coming at Dodger Stadium in Game 3. In other words, in most of the cases in which he gets an extra start this way, it's a start at home that's added to the mix. Thirdly, if the series should go to seven games, Misiorowski is likely to be available in relief, whereas he would only get a second start if the series went seven games had he pitched Game 3. He's worth about 1.3 runs above average per 20 batters faced, and he probably picked up 20 expected batters faced in this series by getting to pitch in Game 1 of it. If you take even one or two runs away from the Dodgers in a given game because Misiorowski is available to work it instead of (for instance) Chad Patrick or Shane Drohan, you dramatically alter the balance of that game. Just as importantly, the Brewers will get extra rest for their relievers, whom Pat Murphy (unsurprisingly) rode hard in this series. Top three bullpen options Abner Uribe, Aaron Ashby and Trevor Megill combined for 10 appearances and 12 2/3 innings pitched. If the series had gone to Game 5, the trio might all have appeared again. At a minimum, they probably would have added another seven outs to that collective tally, and they'd have entered the NLCS with just one day of rest. Instead, all three (and the rest of the staff) get three days to relax and recover. Multiple Brewers position players showed signs of fatigue or nagging injury either late in the season or during this San Diego series, too. Brice Turang, Jake Bauers, Joey Ortiz and William Contreras will all benefit from an extra couple days to prepare for the series ahead. Last fall, the emotion and the stakes of the Brewers' series against the archrival Cubs seemed to drain them, and they had little turnaround time before the NLCS began. Their win over the Padres was extreme;y hard-fought, too, but they don't come out of it seeming nearly as spent. They didn't celebrate as rowdily. This team is ready to take on Los Angeles this fall, in a way they weren't last year, and their win in Game 4 Wednesday night set the stage for them to do just that. It was, arguably, the biggest win the franchise has had since they claimed their only pennant, in Game 5 of the 1982 ALCS. It might be remembered as the game that facilitated the team's push to a second such flag. View the full article

There's a reason baseball plays 162 regular season games. Over six months, flaws are exposed, depth is tested and the most complete teams usually rise to the top. Heading into 2026, the Toronto Blue Jays appeared poised for another playoff run and perhaps some redemption after their Game 7 World Series loss the previous year. Instead, they finished 79-83 and last in the American League East, a stunning reversal from their 2025 pennant-winning season. The offence collapsed. Toronto scored just 648 runs, the fewest in Major League Baseball. The Jays also ranked last in home runs (152), 26th in on-base percentage (.310) and 29th in slugging percentage (.381). The pitching staff held up considerably better, finishing among the league's better run-prevention units despite a relentless wave of injuries. The 12 playoff teams who reached this year’s postseason did so through different methods. Some relied on stars, some on depth and others on elite player development. There is no single formula for success, but there are lessons to be learned. The Blue Jays do not need to become the Dodgers, Brewers or Rays. Instead, they’ll undoubtedly study what those teams did to build rosters capable of winning. Toronto's 2025 club had a clear identity. It got on base, made contact and created pressure throughout the lineup. In 2026, much of that disappeared. The Blue Jays remained difficult to strike out and finished ninth in batting average, but the contact often produced little damage. They finished last in runs, last in home runs and near the bottom of the league in slugging percentage. The best teams in baseball weren't dependent on a single strength. The Dodgers paired elite offensive talent with frontline pitching. The Yankees combined power with strong run prevention. The Brewers won with depth, versatility and outstanding pitching. The Rays, as they normally do, relied on organizational depth and player development. Even teams with obvious flaws generally possessed enough strengths elsewhere to compensate. When the Blue Jays' offence disappeared in 2025, there was no fallback. Unless Brett Bateman's energy counted as an emergency offensive strategy, the club rarely had an answer when its primary strengths vanished. Championship contenders are rarely perfect, just like the 2025 Jays. Those teams are simply built to withstand adversity better than everyone else. The Dodgers remain the gold standard for a reason. Their roster is loaded with impact players capable of changing a game at any moment. Concentrating elite talent raises both a team's floor and its ceiling. When one star struggles, another often fills the void. That approach also costs a lot of money. The Blue Jays already spend like a large-market team. They do not need to match Los Angeles player for player, but they do need more impact from the top of their roster. At the same time, the Brewers demonstrated that depth can be a competitive advantage. Milwaukee entered October following the best regular season in franchise history with a roster built on versatility and quality pitching. It probably doesn't hurt that visiting hitters occasionally seem convinced the roof at American Family Field has Gold Glove-calibre range. Toronto's depth looked adequate entering the season, but injuries exposed just how thin that margin can be. At least 28 players spent time on the injured list. No team can completely prepare for that level of attrition. However, the best organizations continually replenish talent and avoid becoming overly dependent on a small group of players. The lesson is not to choose between stars and depth. The lesson is that contenders need both. No organization illustrates depth better than the Rays. Tampa Bay won the AL East with a 98-64 record despite operating under dramatically different financial constraints than Toronto. Year after year, the Rays identify value, develop players and replace departing contributors without dramatically changing their competitiveness. The Blue Jays do not need to adopt Tampa Bay's financial model, but there is value in emulating its ability to continuously generate contributors. Contending teams need inexpensive players capable of filling meaningful roles. They need prospects who can step into the lineup. They need a development pipeline that reduces the need to solve every problem through free agency. To their credit, Toronto appears to be moving in that direction through recent drafts and acquisitions. The challenge now is continuing to create opportunities for those players. The Yankees offered another important reminder this season. Although they reached October as a Wild Card club, they possessed one of the strongest run differentials among American League playoff teams. They backed that up by dominating Boston in the opening round. Over a full season, run differential tends to reveal how strong a team actually is. Good teams do not spend six months surviving one-run games and bullpen escapes. They consistently outplay opponents and build separation on the scoreboard. Toronto finished with a minus-46 run differential, scoring 648 runs while allowing 694. The Blue Jays pitched well enough to remain competitive in many games, but they simply did not score enough. Pitching can keep a team afloat, but offensive shortcomings eventually catch up. The Cubs and Guardians demonstrated opposite versions of the same lesson. Cleveland reached the postseason despite offensive limitations because its pitching staff provided a strong foundation. Toronto can relate to that. Despite the disappointing season, the Blue Jays still finished with a respectable 3.90 ERA. Dylan Cease was especially outstanding, posting a 2.40 ERA with 239 strikeouts in 169 innings. The Cubs arrived in October with one of baseball's better offences but legitimate questions on the mound, despite the addition of Kevin Gausman. Those concerns quickly surfaced during their brief postseason appearance. The takeaway for Toronto is straightforward: No single strength can cover every weakness indefinitely. Putting the ball in play cannot permanently offset a lack of power. Great pitching cannot fully compensate for one of baseball's weakest offences. Strong bullpens cannot rescue every close game. The deeper teams advance into October, the more complete they tend to be. The playoff field offered many different models for success, but several consistent themes emerged. First, Toronto needs another legitimate middle-of-the-order hitter. Second, the organization needs Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to return to being a foundational offensive force. Third, adding at least one dependable starting pitcher should remain a priority. Cease gives the Blue Jays an ace, but the injuries of 2026 demonstrated the danger of relying on optimistic health projections. Fourth, Toronto needs a deeper and more versatile bench capable of surviving inevitable injuries. Fifth, the club should continue giving younger players meaningful opportunities to earn roles. Sixth, roster additions should complement existing strengths and weaknesses. Another contact-oriented hitter would only reinforce an existing imbalance. This lineup needs more power and more on-base ability. Finally, the Blue Jays should preserve what worked. Run prevention remained respectable despite extensive injuries. Cease emerged as a frontline starter. Kazuma Okamoto delivered 33 home runs. Several younger players showed promise. The task is to repair the roster, not demolish it. The Blue Jays fell from fourth in MLB in runs scored in 2025 to last in 2026. They lost more than power. They lost on-base ability, lineup depth and the capacity to absorb underperformance. Injuries then attacked the pitching depth that might otherwise have kept them competitive. This year's playoff teams showed there is more than one route back to contention. The most important lesson from October is not that the Blue Jays need to become the Dodgers, Brewers or Rays. It is that championship teams are built to remain dangerous when things go wrong. Toronto's 2026 team wasn't. Its next roster must be. View the full article

Miguel Useche has a remarkable story. The 25-year-old backstop started last year in the Frontier League. Now, 13 homers, 51 RBI, and an 11.0% walk rate later, Useche not only helped the South Bend Cubs (High-A) to a playoff berth, he earned a Double-A promotion and hit .300 with the Knoxville Smokies. View the full article

Jake Bennett made his MLB debut in 2026 and looked sharp doing so, giving the Red Sox another young arm to build around. Here’s a closer look at his first season in the majors and what could be next. View the full article

The most important decision that will be made about a Cubs player's contract option for 2027 won't be made by the Cubs. Clay Holmes, whom the team acquired on August 3 from the Mets, can elect to receive a $12-million salary next season, or to hit free agency for the second time. The Cubs have no say in the matter, and Holmes is overwhelmingly likely to decline his option. In fact, if he accepts it, that will feel like a red flag about his health or his hopes for next year. The team also holds three club options, though, and there are four more deals that include mutual options for next year. Mutual options are as much financial tricks as real contract years, because both sides must exercise them in order for the option to be activated. That hardly ever happens, and (spoiler) it won't happen with any of these deals, either. To run through them in an organized way, let's rank these options in terms of the difficulty of the Cubs' decision about them, from easiest to most difficult. 1. Matthew Boyd Boyd's contract paid him $10 million in 2025 and $17 million in 2026, including his signing bonus. The 2027 option attached to the end of it is worth $15 million, but it's only a $13-million decision for the team. If either side declines the option, Boyd receives a $2-million buyout. Even at $15 million, a one-year commitment to Boyd is a no-brainer. At $13 million, he'd be a steal. All of that means that he'll turn down his half of the option and become a free agent, but from the Cubs' side, exercising it should take almost no thought at all. 2. Carson Kelly This is the same thing, at the other end of the battery. Kelly's contract paid him $5 million each of the last two years, but he'd make $7.5 million in 2027 if the mutual option were exercised. There's a $1.5-million buyout in this one, so the difference for the Cubs is only $6 million. As with Boyd, this is an easy call. Kelly is an aging catcher, but he's worth at least $6 million per year on a two-year deal. For one season, that price would be a colossal bargain. The Cubs won't be so lucky; Kelly will become a free agent. 3. Caleb Thielbar These aren't all clear-cut in the same direction. Unfortunately, Thielbar looks to have reached the end of his improbably great career. He's nearly 40 years old, and there were too many days this season when it looked like it. His stuff isn't entirely gone, but it's become inconsistent and unreliable. A mutual option in the deal the Cubs and Thielbar signed last winter would pay him $6 million for 2027; he's not worth that money. The Cubs will turn down their half of the option and pay Thielbar $500,000 as a buyout. Then, they'll have to find other relief options. 4. Javier Assad Declining Assad's option is also relatively easy, but the reason is purely logistical. When the team and the player avoided arbitration last offseason, the Cubs negotiated a $3.3-million club option for 2027. They'll turn that down, but Assad won't become a free agent, as a result; he'll just be dumped back into the arbitration system. He's not in position to garner a big raise from the $1.8 million he made in 2026, because (thanks to repeatedly being optioned to the minors) he didn't get to a new service-time threshold. He earned too little service time to go from a 3+ to a 4+ guy, so he's still three years from free agency. The system is being deeply unfair to Assad. He'll turn 30 next July, and he's pitched 425 innings in the majors over parts of five seasons. Yet, he won't be a free agent until at least the end of the 2029 season, unless the Cubs non-tender him between now and then. That's unlikely to happen this winter. For one more year, he's an optionable swingman. He'll probably make about $2.3 million along the way, instead of the $3.3 million he'd receive if the Cubs exercised their option. 5. Jacob Webb We're still in the realm of the relatively easy. Webb's one-year contract for 2026 contains a club option for 2027, worth $2.5 million. Even after Webb had a brutal finish to the year, he's clearly worth that much. Assuming the Cubs are more successful in reinforcing their bullpen next season, Webb should slide back into a middle-relief role. As that kind of guy, rather than a de facto relief ace, he's well worth keeping around. He was a positive presence in the clubhouse, too, which makes the decision easier on roster spots like this one. 6. Hunter Harvey Yes, believe it or not, there's something to think about here. Harvey barely pitched in 2026, with trouble in both his triceps and his shoulder. He's due $8 million if both sides exercise the mutual option for 2027, with a $1-million buyout if either side declines it. Presumably, Harvey will trigger his side of the option. He's not in a position to make more than that on the open market. Before the Cubs decline their half, though, they have to consider upside. Harvey does have the kind of arm the team has needed more of for several years. When healthy, he throws harder and strikes out more batters than almost anyone else in the Cubs organization. His health is so unreliable that the team should still turn down the option, unless they intend to spend huge money this winter to address their pitching shortfalls. If they do plan to get as ambitious as they should, though, they might be right to roll the dice on Harvey for $7 million in net spending. 7. Colin Rea There's no question that this is the toughest call. It's a club option, so if the Cubs want Rea back in 2027, he'll be back. For that to happen, they have to be willing to pay him $7.5 million. That's the salary on his option. Even if they turn that option down, they'll owe Rea $1 million, so it's a $6.5-million decision. At that number, he's pretty fairly priced. He's a great organizational soldier, willing and able to pitch in multiple roles. He's been durable and resilient, and his career (like Thielbar's) has stretched longer and been more fruitful than anyone would have expected half a decade ago. He's not clearly worth $6.5 million, but nor would he clearly impede the team's roster-building at that salary. Keeping him around makes sense. However, the team might decide that they need the roster spot and the extra scratch more than what Rea brings to the table. View the full article

Every so often, a pitching prospect rolls around where you look at him, you look at his numbers, and you can go, “Yeah, that guy’s gonna be an ace someday.” That’s where I’m at with Royals left-handed pitching prospect David Shields. Shields comes in as Kansas City’s No. 2 prospect after the team used its second-round pick in the 2024 MLB Draft on him, and the dude has done nothing but produce since then. He’s quickly established himself as one of the better young pitching prospects in the game, and there’s a pretty strong argument that his ceiling is even higher than his current prospect ranking would suggest. Across 116 2/3 innings this year at High-A Quad Cities, Shields finished with a 4.01 ERA and a 1.08 WHIP. He also struck out 139 batters while walking just 28, giving him a 30% strikeout rate compared to a 6% walk rate. Those are obviously some sharp numbers on their own, but his 3.51 FIP would suggest that Shields was actually better than his ERA. And when you start digging into the numbers a little more, it becomes pretty easy to see why there’s so much excitement surrounding the young lefty. Keep in mind, Shields was just 19 years old this season. That kind of production is not normal for a pitcher his age, especially at the High-A level. Plenty of 19-year-old pitchers are still trying to find their footing in the lower levels of the minor leagues, and Shields has already shown he’s more than capable of holding his own and even dominating at times. He showed that ability last season as well. In 2025, he posted a 2.01 ERA at Low-A, a level that plenty of 18-year-old pitchers never even reach. He’s been ahead of the curve since the Royals drafted him, and that continued again in 2026. This guy can play. It’s not just the production that makes him so intriguing. He’s also got the physical makeup and arsenal of a potential future ace. Shields is a big dude at 6-foot-2, 210 pounds, giving him plenty of room to continue developing physically. His fastball currently sits in the low-90s, which obviously isn’t going to jump off the page when you look at it on its own. But the pitch plays up because of its shape and Shields’ ability to command it. He’s also gotten up into the mid-90s with the fastball before, and it’s entirely possible that he’ll add more velocity as he continues to get bigger and stronger. If he can consistently push that fastball velocity into the mid-90s while maintaining the command he already possesses, that could turn into one of baseball’s better fastballs. From there, Shields has a pair of breaking balls that both have the ability to generate plenty of swing-and-miss. His 14.3% swinging-strike rate is a pretty strong indicator of that. He has the ability to make hitters miss, and that’s obviously a huge part of what makes the ceiling here so high. His changeup could also develop into a really strong fourth pitch as he continues to mature. Even with velocity that, by itself, is fairly uninspiring, his level of control and command within the strike zone allows his entire arsenal to play up. He doesn’t need to throw 97 mph to get outs. He can locate, change speeds, move the ball around the zone, and use his breaking stuff to keep hitters off balance. And what’s crazy is that for as good and as promising as this year was for him, Shields could have been even better. I already mentioned his FIP being half a run lower than his ERA, but it doesn’t stop there. He posted a .312 BABIP this season, which is a pretty high number and typically isn’t something you would expect to be sustainable over a long period of time, especially for a pitcher who does as good a job limiting hard contact as Shields does. He allowed just 98 hits and 10 home runs over those 116 2/3 innings. So, in addition to limiting walks, he does a really good job of locating within the strike zone and preventing hitters from consistently doing damage when they do make contact. Those are two traits that just aren’t common, dare I say rare, for pitchers this young. Now, this isn’t to say Shields is perfect by any means. There are still some things he’ll need to work on as he continues moving through the Royals’ system. For one, he’s given up a lot of line drives as a professional, and that could eventually become a problem as he reaches the higher levels of the minors and, eventually, the majors. He’s also probably going to need to add some velocity if he wants to reach his absolute ceiling. His fastball plays well right now, but hitters at the upper levels are going to be much more capable of handling low-90s velocity if he isn’t locating perfectly. Still, it’s hard not to be incredibly impressed by what Shields has accomplished so far. His combination of command and bat-missing ability is extremely impressive, especially when you consider that he was doing it at 19 years old in High-A. There’s obviously still a long way to go before Shields reaches the major leagues, and plenty can change as he continues to develop. But if the Royals can help him continue to refine his arsenal, add some velocity and maintain the command that has carried him this far, there’s legitimate ace potential here. And for Kansas City, having a young lefty with that kind of ceiling working his way through the system is a pretty exciting development. View the full article

The Minnesota Twins aren't for sale. At least, that's what Tom Pohlad wants everyone to believe. After spending roughly 10 months exploring a sale of the franchise, the Pohlad family pulled the Twins off the market in August 2025. Rather than finding a new controlling owner, the family brought in several limited partners to address the organization's significant debt while maintaining majority control. That decision eventually led to Tom Pohlad taking over as the team's chairman. At the end of the 2026 season, he made it clear that the family had no plans to reopen the sale process. “I can’t say that my enjoyment in the role is the sole reason for how long we intend to be owners, but I can tell you that we’re long-term oriented,” Pohlad said. “We’ve got big goals and a lot of work to do, and it’s going to take some time. We are in this for the long haul.” Pohlad doubled down on that sentiment. “We are reenergized, for sure,” he added. “After a trying two years and that sale process, I’m frankly surprised at how energized we are, to be honest with you.” That sounds pretty definitive. Then came a report from Pioneer Press columnist Charley Walters. “A sale of the Twins to the New York-based global investment firm Varde Partners, which has an office in Minneapolis and in 2025 became a Twins limited partner to help the franchise out of $500 million in debt, is said to be heating up. Varde Partners reportedly manages $15 billion in assets.” Things might not be so clear-cut, then, after all. Värde Is Already Inside the Building There is an important distinction between what the Pohlad family did in 2025 and what Walters is now reporting. The family didn't simply abandon the sale process and walk away. It brought investors into the ownership group. Värde Partners co-founder George Hicks became one of those limited partners. The ownership restructuring also included Glick Family Investments and Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold. The group took minority positions, while the Pohlads retained control. Reports indicated the transaction valued the Twins at approximately $1.75 billion and eliminated a significant portion of the franchise's roughly $500-million debt. That was presented as a way for the Pohlads to remain owners while putting the franchise on stronger financial footing. And, to be fair, that's exactly what it could have been. But there is another way to look at it. Värde already has a financial interest in the franchise. Its co-founder is already part of the ownership group. The company understands the team's finances. It has relationships with the Pohlads. It knows Target Field. It knows the Minnesota market. If Värde eventually wanted to increase its investment and acquire control, it wouldn't be starting from scratch. That's a pretty significant advantage. It also makes the timing of a potential sale particularly interesting. The Twins Are Suddenly Worth a Lot More When the Pohlads explored selling the Twins, the reported asking price was $1.8 billion. That number doesn't look nearly as impressive today. The San Diego Padres were sold in 2026 for a reported $3.9 billion valuation. The Los Angeles Angels then surpassed that figure, with Stan Kroenke agreeing to purchase the franchise for an MLB-record $4 billion valuation. Obviously, every franchise is different. Los Angeles has a massive market, while San Diego offers its own unique advantages. The Twins aren't suddenly a $4-billion franchise simply because two other teams changed hands. But MLB franchise valuations are clearly moving upward. And that's where the timing gets fascinating. If the Pohlads really wanted to sell, waiting until the market demonstrated that buyers were willing to spend $3.9 billion and $4 billion for MLB teams would be a pretty good strategy. The family's previous sale attempt was complicated by the Twins' debt, declining local media revenue, and questions about the organization's financial outlook. The limited-partner investment addressed some of those concerns. Now, the franchise could be presented to buyers with less debt, a new ownership structure and an MLB market that has established dramatically higher valuations. That's a much different sales pitch. The Labor Fight Could Change Everything There is another piece of this puzzle that could make a potential sale even more intriguing: baseball's economic system. MLB owners are scheduled to lock out players on December 1 if the two sides fail to reach a new collective bargaining agreement. The biggest sticking point is the league's push for a salary cap, something the MLB Players Association has repeatedly opposed. MLB has also proposed a salary floor as part of its economic system. That could have a major impact on the Twins. A salary cap would limit the spending advantages of the richest organizations. But a salary floor would force teams near the bottom of the payroll rankings to spend considerably more. For a franchise that has spent recent years operating with one of the league's lower payrolls, that could result in more spending on the roster. It could also make the Twins more attractive to prospective buyers. If the new economic system guarantees a minimum level of spending across the league while providing greater cost certainty from revenue sharing, buyers could view MLB franchises as even more valuable assets. If the Pohlads were able to sell the Twins for upwards of $2 billion (not long after failing to get $1.8 billion), the financial incentive would be enormous—especially after the family reduced the franchise's debt burden through minority investment. So, Are the Pohlads Selling? There isn't enough evidence to say that the Pohlads are secretly selling the Twins. In fact, the public evidence currently points the other direction. Tom Pohlad has repeatedly talked about being committed to the organization. The family retained control when it could have sold. Tom took over as controlling owner. The addition of minority partners was specifically structured to allow the Pohlads to remain in charge. But Walters's report is difficult to ignore, particularly because Pohlad's vows to stick around for the long haul were a bit vague. If Värde is seriously discussing purchasing the Twins, the most important question isn't necessarily whether the Pohlads have secretly changed their minds. It's whether the family has discovered that owning the Twins might be worth considerably more than it was when they first decided to explore a sale. Maybe the Pohlads really are in this for the long haul. Maybe Tom Pohlad genuinely is reenergized and wants to lead the Twins toward another championship. Or maybe the family has simply put itself in a much better position to sell the franchise whenever the right offer comes along. If Värde is already sitting at the table, that offer might not have to travel very far. Will the Pohlads sell the Twins? Leave a comment and start the discussion. View the full article

Last week, Jake Bauers reflected candidly on last year's Brewers team, which was swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS. After the best regular season in franchise history and an emotional win over the Chicago Cubs in the NLDS, they looked like shells of themselves in a largely non-competitive series. Once the Dodgers punched first with a Game 1 win, the Brewers looked exhausted and defeated. "When I think back to last year, I think there was an element of maybe a little bit of lack of belief that we could do it, maybe a little too much doubt," Bauers said. "I think going into this postseason, there's a different feeling around the team." The Brewers' offense got away from its strengths in last year's NLCS. Against tough Los Angeles pitching, their hitters stopped responding to adversity and started expanding the strike zone. Bauers felt that would be different this year. "I think we've built a really good team, a really good culture, and I think we believe in each other," he said. "I think we all know that whether one person doesn't get it done, there's someone right behind them that's going to be ready to pick them up. And that's something that we've done all year, and I think that's only added to the confidence." Unlike in last year's NLCS, the Brewers weren't fazed by adversity. Yes, they caught a break on Ty France's redirected flyout off American Family Field's roof in Game 1, but a lot went wrong in a tense NLDS against the San Diego Padres. Jacob Misiorowski and Logan Henderson were not their sharpest. The infield defense was shaky. They made more hard contact (45%) than the Padres (30%), but well-struck outs kept them from building more comfortable leads. Through it all, the Brewers stayed consistent in two ways that ultimately won them the series in four games: they pitched exceptionally, and they stuck to their disciplined approach. Milwaukee pitchers posted a 1.80 ERA and 3.47 FIP in the series to outlast San Diego's vaunted bullpen. Its offense chased just 26% of pitches outside the strike zone and swung at 63% of pitches in the zone, slightly better than their regular-season swing decisions. That consistency amid adversity came to a head in Game 4, where the Brewers held off the Padres to advance to the NLCS. San Diego repeatedly threatened to send the series back to Milwaukee for an elimination game, but while the Brewers bent in multiple key moments, they did not break. Robert Gasser was tested immediately in his first career postseason start. One out into the bottom of the first inning, Jackson Merrill blooped a single and Manny Machado bunted for a hit. Instead of turning an inning-ending double play on a ground ball to third, Joey Ortiz strolled to the base and held onto the ball after retiring the lead runner. His unnecessary caution nearly created a big inning, as Gasser walked Austin Hays to load the bases. Gasser bore down, though, getting ahead to Xander Bogaerts and inducing an inning-ending pop-up with a 0-2 sweeper. He went on to work four innings of one-run ball, keeping the Brewers in the game and allowing them to avoid using their higher-variance relievers in the middle innings. Offensively, the Brewers made some loud contact early against Walker Buehler, without much to show for it. Jackson Chourio and Christian Yelich hit hard groundouts in a scoreless first inning. They scored with nobody out in the third on consecutive singles by Sal Frelick and Garrett Mitchell, but hopes of a big inning were dashed when Ortiz drilled a 108-MPH ground ball right at Bogaerts for a double play. After the Padres tied it on a Fernando Tatis Jr. homer a few minutes later, Frelick smoked a 100-MPH grounder up the middle to a shaded Bogaerts in another unsuccessful scoring situation. The Brewers didn't change their approach, though, staying selective and striking at the right pitches. After Mitchell led off the fifth with a triple, Jackson Chourio muscled a Bradgley Rodriguez sinker into center to score the go-ahead run. They added another on Frelick's sac fly in the sixth. By then, the defense locked back in. Pratt, who committed his third error of the series an inning earlier, robbed Tatis of a single with a diving stop in the fifth to help Aaron Ashby through his first of three scoreless innings. In the eighth, a shaky Abner Uribe nearly allowed a game-tying home run to Manny Machado, but Garrett Mitchell reached over the short wall in center to bring it back for the second out. Brice Turang then called off Jake Bauers to snag an inning-ending pop-up on the run in foul territory. Trevor Megill slammed the door with a perfect ninth. The Brewers weren't their best. The Padres made them work for nearly every out and nearly every run. They hardly seemed fazed, which should serve them well in an NLCS rematch with the Dodgers. By winning the series in four games, they'll get three days off to recharge for the series instead of last year's one-day break after the Cubs series. After Megill struck out Gavin Sheets to end the series, the Brewers lined up and shook hands in a subdued celebration similar to a regular-season win. It was another reflection of how their standards and expectations have grown. They still face real challenges and concerns in reaching their first World Series since 1982, but this team is showing signs of being different than those that fell short before it. View the full article

While the end of the 2026 season didn’t go how the Boston Red Sox wanted, that doesn’t change how good their pitching staff was throughout the year. They allowed the second-fewest runs in all of baseball, giving up just 611 over the course of the season. That’s an especially impressive number when you consider the fact that Garrett Crochet missed most of the year with shoulder issues. The Red Sox had plenty of different pitchers step up when they needed them, and one of the biggest contributors was rookie left-hander Jake Bennett. Bennett was acquired by Boston from the Washington Nationals this past winter in exchange for fellow pitching prospect Luis Perales. At the time, it was an interesting swap of two talented prospects, but so far, the Red Sox are looking like the clear winners. After posting a ridiculous 1.60 ERA across nine starts with Triple-A Worcester to begin the season, Bennett earned his first opportunity in the majors. He didn’t look like a rookie once he got there, either; the southpaw quickly established himself as a reliable part of the rotation and wound up putting together a very impressive first season in the big leagues. He finished the year with a 3.65 ERA and a 1.10 WHIP across 113.1 innings, along with 91 strikeouts and just 21 walks. Those are some pretty sharp numbers for a rookie pitcher, especially one who was making the jump from Triple-A to the majors for the first time. And the truth is, Bennett actually pitched even better than those numbers would indicate. Both his expected ERA (xERA) and FIP came in lower than his 3.65 ERA, suggesting some positive regression might be coming his way in the future. Bennett also didn’t put up the kind of strikeout numbers that immediately jump off the page, but that’s not really what his game is about. Instead, he found other ways to make hitters uncomfortable. His chase rate was in the 98th percentile among all qualified pitchers, with more than 37% of the pitches he threw outside the strike zone generating swings. That's the kind of blue-chip skill that can carry a profile at the highest level. Bennett’s arsenal isn’t necessarily designed to overpower hitters. It’s built around keeping them off balance, changing speeds and generating weak contact. He leaned heavily on his changeup and sinker as his primary secondary pitches off his four-seam fastball, and all three pitches have similar horizontal movement. They all tail in on left-handed hitters and away from right-handed hitters, but they do so with different speeds and vertical profiles. That makes it extremely difficult for hitters to sit on one pitch, especially when Bennett threw all three of them at least 24% of the time. He also has a sweeper with a lot of bite, giving him another pitch capable of generating swings and misses below the strike zone. But there’s another important reason he was able to generate so many chases: how much he works within the zone. Bennett’s 4.6% walk rate ranked in the 99th percentile among all pitchers. It’s one of the biggest reasons why his approach worked so well. It’s a lot easier to get hitters to chase pitches outside the zone when you’ve already established that you’re capable of throwing strikes consistently. He didn’t give hitters many opportunities to simply wait him out. He attacked the zone, avoided free passes, and then used his secondaries to get hitters to expand once he got ahead. It's all a rather mature approach for someone who spent the entire season as a 25-year-old. On top of limiting the walks, Bennett also did a pretty good job of limiting hard contact. He finished the season with above-league-average marks in both hard-hit rate and average exit velocity, while also doing a good job of keeping the ball on the ground. That’s another promising sign for a pitcher whose game isn’t built around simply blowing hitters away. The foundation of what made him so successful throughout his minor-league career translated extremely well to the major leagues. His command, pitch sequencing, ability to change speeds, and knack for getting hitters to chase all carried over almost immediately. Of course, there are still things Bennett will need to prove as he gets more experience. Major-league hitters will have more information on him heading into 2027, and they’ll have a better idea of what to expect. He'll need to make the necessary adjustments and show he can keep delivering the same kind of results. But this was only his first taste of the big leagues, and there’s already a lot to like. The Red Sox appear to have found a keeper. Despite the sour ending to the season, this is the kind of development that can make the organization a true championship contender in the future. View the full article

As the Miami Marlins organization heads into the winter, they have breakout prospects to be enthused about while having good reason to hold out hope for others who haven’t met expectations. Overall, Miami will head into 2027 with a top-heavy system featuring some of baseball’s top talent, some of which rose to that level during the past six months. Question marks are abound in the B-tier of the system; questions arising from both injury and subpar performance. Finally, the back third of our newest top 30 consensus list features some up-and-comers we simply need to see more positive production from. How did some of our standouts and top movers get to where they are on our list and who just missed the cut? Here’s a closer look. 2025 MLB Draft picks impress It’s no secret: before the 2025 class, the Marlins had struggled developing draft selections in the post-Stan Meek era, especially in the early rounds. While foregoing the likes of CJ Abrams, Brooks Lee, Matt Shaw, Theo Gillen and Carson Benge, Miami has seen JJ Bleday, Kahlil Watson and Jacob Berry come and go from the organization without making an MLB impact and has witnessed Noble Meyer and PJ Morlando slog through injury-riddled tenures early in their pro careers. Needless to say, new amateur scouting director Frankie Pillierie and his staff needed to prove their direction and strategy in discovering and scouting talent will work, especially for a Marlins organization that needs to be able to maximize on investments. As such, Pillere and company should be ecstatic with what they saw out of their 2025 class this season. In their first full year pro, multiple members of the signing period were some of the brightest stars in the Marlins’ minor league system and in some cases, Minor League Baseball as a whole. First-round pick Aiva Arquette (#5 on FOF Top 30) had a late start to the year and also ended the season on the IL, but what he showed in between was plenty encouraging. The 22-year-old started the year at High-A, but after a .276/.333/.517 start was a quick promotee up to Double-A. In a larger sample at a higher level, Arquette slashed a similar .271/.325/.443. He hit 12 total homers and showed off plus speed by stealing 21 bases in 23 attempts. Along with his ability to stay healthy, swing-and-miss potential partially related to a swing with a lot of moving parts will be question marks for Arquette as he continues to develop, but initial returns were more than satisfactory. Defensively, Arquette will likely be moved off of shortstop long term, but has shown the qualities to stick at third base. Arquette maintains a solid top five spot on our end-of-season list. From satisfactory to eye-popping, we move from Arquette to Cam Cannarella (FOF #3). After suffering an early-season wrist injury in an outfield collision, the competitive balance round pick came back with a full head of steam and didn’t hold back all year. A brief 19-game stint with Beloit parlayed into a .344/.453/.607 tenure with Pensacola. Cannarella spent the final 45 games of the season at the highest level of the minors where he hit .282/.393/.813. Outside of a slightly higher K rate at Triple-A, the two changes in level and improvement in quality of stuff did not bother Cannarella much as he hit both velocity and breaking stuff well consistently, showing fantastic barrel control, and plate coverage to go to all fields. Earning percentile ranks in the 90s or higher in average exit velo, hard hit rate, and O-swing with Jacksonville, Cannarella swung nearly exclusively at strikes and when he made contact, it was of the squared up variety. One of the best bats in the entirety of MiLB, the long-term center fielder is looking every bit like a big leaguer. With Jakob Marsee injured, we could potentially see the organization’s MiLB Player of the Year and our third-ranked prospect with the Fish early in 2027. Brandon Compton (FOF #10), the Marlins’ third overall selection from 2025, followed a similar trajectory as Cannarella and made a similar amount of extreme noise with the bat. After being somewhat limited by a hamate injury that he played through during the early part of the season, Compton rebuilt his strength back to 100% and adjusted to a new bat grip by June. From the 1st of that month through the rest of the season, Compton was statistically the best hitter in all of Minor League Baseball. Absolutely feasting on opposite side pitching and fastballs, Compton tore through Double-and-Triple-A slashing .309/.409/.685 in his final 85 games of the season. In the field, the converted pitcher spent most of his time in the outfield but with a history of Tommy John and just average route running ability, Compton moonlighted as a first baseman late in the season. Along with his defensive home still being up in the air, there are also reservations about Compton’s high K rate, very lopsided platoon splits and his ability to handle breaking stuff. A man of extremes, Compton hit just .130/.323/.247 against same-side pitching and held a similar slash line against non-fastballs. To his credit though, Compton has been able to make a great impression in a very short amount of baseball games. There are still a lot of “ifs” Compton will have to fulfill to reach a ceiling reminiscent of Rookie of the Year favorite Sal Stewart, but settling somewhere in the neighborhood of Griffin Conine wouldn’t be terrible. Cautiously optimistic When it comes to their 2026 draft class, the Marlins opted to take a cautious approach, holding most of their selections out of official game action and instead, relegating them to scrimmage work at the Jupiter Academy. Miami did allow four players to get a taste of affiliated action, though, one being first-round pick Jacob Lombard (FOF #4). Pilliere and the Marlins were “thrilled” when the prep shortstop from Gulliver Prep who grew up in the shadow of loanDepot park fell to them at 14th overall this past July. In 22 games, Lombard showed flashes of the raw tools he possesses that caused evaluators to label him the second-best prep shortstop in the nation. Stemming from quick wrists and hands and good involvement of his lower half, Lombard showed very strong exit velocities reaching as high as 105 mph and which averaged out at 90.6, within the 90th percentile in the Florida State League. Bat control seems to be where Lombard needs the most work. While he didn’t swing outside of the zone often (just 20% of the time) he struck out at a 39% rate, alarmingly high no matter the level of competition. Defensively, Lombard showed good range and a strong but inaccurate arm that largely accounted for his seven errors. If the Marlins can get the most out of the crowned jewel of their 2026 class, he profiles as a four of five tool player, but there’s understandably for a 19-year-old, his tools need polish. Because of the validity of his high school career, the fact that many evaluators pin him more advanced than his brother George Jr. when he was the same age, and his potential ceiling, we remain cautiously optimistic about Lombard’s future. He comes in at fourth on our end of season list. His first full season will be a much better barometer for how close he can get to being a five-tool guy. It was a tale of two halves for Dillon Lewis (FOF #6). After making a strong impression in spring training with his new team, the 6’3”, 205 unit reported to Double-A Pensacola for his debut at the level. His .267/.389/.533 spring campaign parlayed into immediate success with the Wahoos, particularly relating to his propensity to hit baseballs very far. Between April and June, Lewis hit 17 homers, putting him on pace for 30+ over the course of the full season slate. However, Lewis met with a much more unfortunate fate. Following Pensacola’s June 24 contest, it was discovered that Lewis suffered a broken hamate bone that required removal surgery. Lewis made it back from the injury in the regularly expected time frame of around seven weeks and while it was clear he was healthy enough to play, it was also evident he was still building back strength. From his return on August 14 up until the final game of the regular season, Lewis did not hit another home run. His second half slash was .243/.257/.340. Lewis is a pure power hitter who will always have a high propensity for strikeouts. If he is not hitting for power, his above-average K rates will be hard to overlook. Because of his absurd raw strength and overall athleticism though, we remain high on Lewis’ ability to fully come back from injury and continue to slug while providing the speed and arm necessary to hold down any outfield spot. As such, he remains ranked well within our top 30, at sixth. The 23-year-old will attempt to make up for lost time this autumn in the Arizona Fall League before taking part in another spring training ahead of 2027. An MLB debut next season shouldn’t be ruled out. We need to see more Several position player prospects have shot up our list following incredible but limited showings this season. The first name that comes to mind is another 2025 draft pick, Max Williams (FOF #22). Miami’s third rounder from last season, Williams wasn’t ready for in-game action until July due to a shoulder injury suffered in spring training. But from the moment Williams stepped into the batter’s box for Low-A Jupiter on July 9, he was making noise. A 2-for-5 effort that included his first homer in his first effort of 2026 parlayed into a 20-for-58 effort at Low-A, prompting his call to Beloit. Williams met that level with a 29-95, 7 homer effort earning him another promotion to Double-A. He lived out his final nine games going 12-for-34 with six more bombs. Williams homered at an audacious pace, going yard once in every 17 at bats. Overall, Williams slashed .326/.399/.620. As incredible as the 22-year-old’s run was, we simply need to see a larger sample and to see him spend a longer tenure at a single level, which will give pitchers and teams an opportunity to adjust to him. Additionally, while Williams was healthy enough to bat, he was held out of playing the field until very late in the season. How will Williams’ look during the course of a full season in the upper minors and how will his throwing arm look post-labrum surgery? These are all questions we will get answers to next season. If he can somehow prove the torrid offensive pace he showed this season is sustainable and if he can remain eligible in the corner outfield spots, Williams will continue to rise up our prospect rankings. For now, he comes in at 22nd overall. Another short-but-incredible offensive showing took place in the international ranks, this time by a player still in his teenage years. Participating in his first professional season, Santiago Solarte (FOF #12) put up a .339/.450/.538 slash line with 10 homers and 42 stolen bases in 52 games. A massive 6’5”, 200 pound specimen at age 17, Solarte put peak athleticism on full display in every facet of his offensive game, showing off easy power and speed. The swing-and-miss potential was a bit high for Solarte (26% K rate) against the most nascent level of competition, but he was able to rival it with a 12.9% walk rate. With plenty of room to grow into an already impressive frame, the mix of power and speed here is alluring. What Solarte will need to find is a defensive home. Scouted and signed as a shortstop, Solarte made 13 errors in just 24 appearances a the position, causing Miami to also feed him 19 games at third base. Solarte fared much better at the hot corner and will likely be tried as a full time third baseman next season. How he fills out his frame, how much he can keep Ks in check at higher levels, how his body responds to a full slate of games, and if he can in fact handle third on a full-time basis are all questions we need to see answered as Solarte matriculates stateside next season. Safe floors In the middle of our list lie a grouping of players who do a lot of things right. Though the tools may not be massive or loud, the sum of their parts will equal a dependable Major League Baseball player in some capacity. The first name within the grouping is Fenwick Trimble (FOF #16). A member of Miami’s 2024 draft class, Trimble spent the entirety of 2026 in Double-A after spending 2025 at three different levels. In an extended look at Southern League pitching, the success Trimble had at the level last year not only stagnated, it was more robust. In 85 games, the 24-year-old improved his average by more than 30 points (.263) and added nearly 100 points to his slug (.465). The improvement in power came by way of an improvement in his ability to get under the ball as his fly ball rate grew from 28% to 37% without sacrificing his bat speed. The full year with Pensacola and the newfound power did come at the expense of some points on his walk rate (9.2%) and OBP (.344), but if Trimble can find a happy medium between power and patience as he fills out, his ceiling is that of a starting outfielder at any spot, including center field. Known as a pesky out who views the strike zone well before this past season and with above average speed that allotted him 31 bags, there is definitely an MLB future here, at least as a fourth outfielder. The beginning of next year should give us a good idea of how close he can get to his ceiling before a possible MLB call up, especially if the Marlins don’t look for right handed bats. While none of Trimble’s tools are very loud, many of them are good and he may have just solved for one clear offensive gap. These facts give us reason to slot Trimble right around the midway point of our list at 16th. Another high-floor player comes in at 21st on our list: lefty Nate Payne (FOF #21). Also part of the 2024 draft class, the high schooler made his pro debut in 2025 first in the FCL then with Low-A Jupiter. Right away, Payne showed a solid foundation, particularly with an advanced curveball. Command was still an evident work in progress, as he allowed walks at an extremely elevated 16.2% clip, but Payne showed good poise with runners on and limited damage to tune of a 3.20 ERA. This spring and summer, Payne worked to revamp his arsenal, turning his cutter into his most utilized secondary and blending his changeup into a his sharp diving splitter. By pounding the zone and garnering more swings outside of it particularly with his always-great anchor curveball and newly improved splitter, Payne drove up his whiff rates walked just three more than his 2025 total in more than twice as many innings pitched. Payne’s percentile rankings light up the page as he earned marks in the 80th percentile or better in K rate, whiff rate and CSW. The only knock on Payne was the fact that he was a bit susceptible to the long ball, allowing 15 on the season (1.21 HR/9). While we need to see how that plays as Payne matriculates to the upper minors especially with limited velo (sitting 92), his good size, wide arsenal, and great command at age 21 give him a solid future as a back-end starter or, at the very least, a multiple inning reliever potentially in short order given his sudden growth and the fact he’s a southpaw. He’s an under-the-radar name who has handled failure well and drastically improved early in his pro career to keep tabs on. New kids in town The Marlins weren’t necessarily buyers or sellers at this year’s deadline; they settled somewhere in the middle. As a result, several new prospects entered the organization and by way of their 2026 accomplishments, earned Top 30 spots. Coming in at 19th is infielder Brayden Taylor, a product of the Liam Hicks trade. Tampa Bay’s 2023 first-round pick, Taylor came to the Marlins riding high, slashing .284/.384/.513 with the Montgomery Biscuits. Upon joining the Marlins, he was promoted the Triple-A Jacksonville. There, in an even more hitter friendly league, Taylor’s on-base and power numbers persisted through 33 games, but he hit a lowly .194. The culprit for Taylor’s lack of hits with Jacksonville wasn’t the fact that he swung at bad pitches (20.1% O-swing); it was attributed to a heightened whiff rate (27.8%) and a lack of contact swinging at pitches in the zone (80.5% Z-contact). Additionally, his hard-hit rate fell to 37.8% which, along with a stroke of bad luck, paved the way to a lowly .234 BABIP. While the 33-game spell at Triple-A could have gone better in terms of making a good first impression with his new organization, Taylor still showed the underlying tools that made him the central return piece of the deal. As long as he’s able to come back advantageously from that end of season slump in terms of his contact rates, Taylor’s ability to select pitches and drive the ball to his pull side could carry him to a good ceiling. On top of that, Taylor earns high marks as high as 60-grade at a position of need for the Marlins, third base where he has reliable arm strength, quick hands and good range to his left. He also has the versatility to play second base. All in all, Taylor checks many boxes and could be the Marlins’ long-term answer on the left side of the infield as long as he’s able to make consistent contact by not forcing pull contact. Expect him to get a look in spring training before a possible call-up as early as the first half of next season. Another part of the Hicks trade, righty Jacob Kisting, slots in at 25th. A 14th-round pick by the Twins in 2024, Kisting came to the Marlins in the middle of his second year pro. Dominating at High-A within the Rays system, the Marlins saw it fit to challenge him to Double-A ball upon his arrival to the organization. Kisting took the promotion in stride and continued to turn in very similar results over his first 24 innings at the level. In five games with the Blue Wahoos, Kisting tossed 24 innings worth of 1.88 ERA ball with 31 strikeouts and seven walks. Kisting is another sum-of-his-parts type prospect who doesn’t do one thing great, but does a lot of things well. He isn’t going to blow anyone away with velocity or stuff as he sits around 93 with his fastball and doesn’t have a true standout secondary. However, at his best, Kisting is effective by way of mixing speeds, shortening distance to the plate, changing eye levels and giving hitters many different looks at a wide arsenal. To his credit, Kisting throws a slider, sweeper, kick changeup, and splitter. The slider is probably his best secondary because of his ability to land it for strikes. The rest of his secondaries are usable, but his feel and command over them is fringy. That fact plus a low BABIP with the Wahoos this year provide some skepticism surrounding how effective Kisting’s arm will be in extended looks against upper minors pitching. If the Marlins can continue to riddle out his command and build up his arsenal, he could stick as a starter, but may be better suited only facing lineups a maximum of twice per game. At the least, the 6’5” specimen has a future as an MLB reliever. Just missed With an improving system and only 30 spots to fill, we need to give credence to players who were in significant discussion to make our list but for one reason or another, we’re left off. The first of this crowd is infielder Echedry Vargas. A Texas Rangers signing from the 2021-22 period, Vargas came to the Marlins in the Jake Burger trade in 2024 on the heels of a .276/.321/.454 season at Low-A. Right on schedule in development and continuing to jump a level each year, the Marlins promoted Vargas to Hogh-A to begin his tenure with the organization in 2025. It was a rude welcome to the level for Vargas though as, in limited action (82 games), he slashed just .201/.255/.322 with an audacious 80/12 K/BB. Clearly overmatched at the level and with competition for playing time nipping at his heels, the Marlins demoted Vargas back to Low-A for 2026. This season, back in Jupiter, Vargas absolutely exploded for what would become a historic season in the Florida State League. The 5’11”, 170 Vargas hit .323/.372/.611 with 27 homers, the most ever by a Hammerheads player. Vargas decimated the ball all season long, but still was not promoted back to the High-A ranks. The case could be made that Miami didn’t send Vargas back to Beloit to allow him to continue to build confidence. It could also be said that the 21-year-old remained with Jupiter to try to improve his walk rate which still sat at a lowly 6.5%. Whatever the reason, as good as this year was, we are still wary of buying in on a K rate historically north of 21% (he still struck out 22% of the time this year), very little walks, and nearly exclusive pull side contact. Vargas has proven he has the raw thump to make noise at the plate and he quieted down his approach a bit this year, but we need to see it matriculate to higher levels. Particular improvements needed include his ability to work counts, use more of the field, and not force power. With just an average glove, Vargas currently profiles as a boom-or-bust, power or nothing profile. We are intrigued to see how he is able to build off 2026, but for now, his future remains just too volatile for us to buy in. It’s been quite the roller coaster ride for Brandon White thus far in his pro career. Drafted in the 12th round in 2021, the massive physical specimen missed nearly the first two full years of his pro tenure due to injury. Finally, in 2024, White was able to get nearly a full season’s worth of innings under his belt. White was 24 that year, but developmentally, he was still 21 simply needing innings and experience to make up for lost time. In 2025, the Marlins decided to be cautious with White’s arm and psyche, delegating him to a swing man role. Results were solid for White with the Sky Carp as he tossed to a 4.06 ERA with a 73/26 K/BB. He ended that season on a great run tossing the best baseball of his life, allowing just 10 earned runs over his last 47.1 innings. Finally, it looked as though the massive 6’8” righty looked to be on track and was showing the potential to fulfill his MLB dream. Things started just as swimmingly for White this season as he made the jump to the upper minors. After a healthy spring, he held down a 3.00 ERA in 33 frames for the Blue Wahoos. White was also showing an enhanced ability to garner whiffs and limit walks as he had a 39/5 K/BB. Needing to challenge the 26-year-old quickly, the Marlins pushed White to Triple-A in May. With the Jumbo Shrimp in the hitter friendly International League, command consistency was an issue for White and Triple-A hitters didn’t let his mistakes go to waste. To go along with a lowly 36% ground ball rate due to his inability to keep the ball down in the zone, White allowed homers on fly balls at a 17% clip. Thanks in large part to the homers, White had a 6.08 ERA, 4.94 of which belonged to his FIP. White has good velocity, topping at 98 and sitting 96, a good fading mid-80s changeup and some of the best extension in all of MiLB, but he has struggled to develop a third pitch. His slider hit the zone just 39% of the time with Jacksonville and his new sweeper which Miami attempted to teach him this year, is very much in the nascent stages. To be as statistically imposing as he is physically, White will need one of those pitches to develop quickly. He will also need to control his massive levers more consistently in order to plane his pitches downward to induce more weak contact. Inasmuch as White showed solid flashes last year and at Pensacola this year, he still has a lot of ground to make up to become MLB ready. At this point, we have our doubts but remain optimistic. 2027 will be a huge year for him. View the full article

At long last, in the sixth inning, you could start to breathe—as long as you're not the claustrophobic type. The Brewers already led 2-1 when the inning began, and then Jake Bauers hit a single. Cooper Pratt followed with an automatic double, and Sal Frelick followed that with a sacrifice fly to bring home Bauers. That gave Milwaukee a two-run lead. In this series, that's a lot; that's a windfall. It was fitting that Bauers, Pratt and Frelick would combine to push across the final tally and begin to stretch the game toward its conclusion—to bring on the sense of inevitability that accompanied so many Brewers wins this year, but which had been absent from the series until that late juncture. After a mostly dreadful series, Bauers was miles better in Game 4; he delivered exactly what the team needed. Walks in his first two plate appearances kept the line moving and broke down the Padres' initial pitching plan, which was in tatters by the middle of the game. He also saved a throwing error by Pratt on one bad throw early in the contest. Pratt, meanwhile, made more than one bad throw (including one Bauers couldn't save him from) early; he looked tight and scared. He was having bad at-bats, too. Overall, though, he had a strong series, with some key offensive contributions, so to come back with such force in the middle of the game Wednesday night was somewhat to be expected. Frelick, whose hard-worked walk and superb baserunning and strong throwing arm were keys to the team's moving Game 2 comeback, finished the team's final scoring rally with a just-enough batted ball; the perfect emblem with which to seal a just-enough, hard-worked series win. They were far from being the only heroes, of course. Robert Gasser put the team ahead of schedule with four innings on the mound, looking unflappable even amid terrible early support from his defense. Joey Ortiz allowed a bunt single to Manny Machado by being too slow charging and throwing, and later in the first inning, he eschewed a throw to first base on what could have been an inning-ending 5-3 double play. There were mistakes and missed opportunities like that dotted throughout the game for the Brewers, just as there were throughout the series, but Gasser's ability to work around the problem and avoid damage kept the miscues behind him from snowballing. Aaron Ashby came through equally brilliantly. Taking over for Gasser, he ended up working three almost-spotless innings, with his power sinker and his high-spin curveball both humming. It was under Ashby's watch that the game really settled down. The Brewers first took the lead, then extended it, and Ashby didn't even permit rallies that he then had to thwart. He was in command, and after a while, so were the Brewers. Then, of course, they nearly weren't. That's how this series has gone, so it was no surprise when Abner Uribe walked Fernando Tatis Jr. to lead off the bottom of the eighth. If Danger wasn't in your face hollering at you, over the last four games, it was just circling around behind you, ready to rise at your back like the sun—hot, lethal, unstoppable, eternal. Uribe walked Tatis, but he recovered to strike out Jackson Merrill. That brought up Machado, though, and Machado has already gotten a long look at Uribe during this series. He got a sinker that was down, but on the inner half, and he dropped the bat head on it. It was a classic Machado swing, and that almost-safe two-run lead looked like it was sailing into the night, never to return. But Garrett Mitchell was there. Mitchell had plenty of time to get under the ball. He'd been playing deep, and it was hit with plenty of loft. The wall just to the right of dead center at Petco Park is not very tall. Mitchell got into position, went up off both feet, and caught the ball with both hands—smartly using both, because it helped him manage and survive contact from the reaching hands of fans hoping to catch the hero shot. He came down with it. One harmless foul pop-up (harmless, at least, thanks to Brice Turang and Bauers communicating well and not panicking on an in-between ball) later, the Brewers were back in the dugout. Six outs later, they got to celebrate. It was Mitchell's night; he had a leadoff triple in the top of the fifth and came home with what was officially the winning run. He was everywhere in Game 4, after often looking overmatched in the first three contests. His catch will be part of Brewers playoff lore forever. It was a wonderful set of moments, for a player who almost wasn't part of this team. Mitchell's chronic injury issues left his future very much in doubt by the end of last season. The Brewers tendered him a contract at the November deadline, but it wasn't without a conversation about whether to do so. His talent has always been obvious, but he's so rarely been able to stay on the field and display it that the club almost had to move on. Now, after a season in which he more than doubled his career playing time, he's also a playoff hero again. That sums up this team quite nicely. The series was exhausting. Of the 300 plate appearances between the two teams over four games, less than 20% came with a two-run cushion either way, and neither team ever held a lead larger than that. In fact, until that Frelick sacrifice fly in the sixth inning Wednesday, there'd been only 30 such plate appearances in the series, with the plurality of them coming in the first three innings of Game 1. That's how ferociously the combatants contested this set. That's how easily it could have tilted either way. Huge numbers of plays weren't made (or were made badly) in this series. There were some bad at-bats, especially when the team had chances to cash in big opportunities on offense. Fortunately, the series won't be remembered for those. It will be remembered, instead, for Jackson Chourio's walkoff single in Game 2, and for the homers by Chourio and William Contreras to win Game 1, and for Mitchell's heroics in Game 4. It might also be remembered mostly as a stepping-stone series. The Brewers hadn't beaten a team outside the NL Central in a playoff series since 2018, and they hadn't won a road playoff game since then, either. With those demons vanquished, they enter the NLCS against the Dodgers (who finished off the team from outside Atlanta Wednesday night) feeling like a more fully qualified challenger to the two-time defending champions. They should even be the favorites. This should finally be the year that the Brewers claim their first National League pennant, and although that moment (if it comes) will be much more thrilling for most fans, this series was a very worthy chapter in any championship storybook. View the full article

It is OK to be mad. The San Diego Padres were that close to potentially having not only one game, but any if not all of the four going their way. It is OK to be sad. What the Padres did since July 24 almost feels miraculous. They were on the verge of being declared dead for the season. It is OK to be envious. What happened to the Padres wasn’t easy to do. Probably only three teams had the wherewithal to do what the Milwaukee Brewers did to the Friars. But this will be one to stew over all winter and into spring or beyond, depending on when the lockout ends. The Padres rolled into the NL Division with a short deck of pitchers and it cost them. The strength of the Padres all season was the area they fell short or underperformed throughout this series. The bullpen. It ended rather solemnly. A 3-1 loss gave the Brewers the requisite three wins in the best-of-five series. The Brewers have bigger dreams than just advancing out of the Division Series, which would have been a huge accomplishment for this Padres team that was at one point 50-53, then sprinted home and earned the top NL wild-card spot. A full-throated crowd of 47,712, four more than the day before that was the third-highest gathering of the Friar Faithful in Petco Park history, was there from the first pitch to give the Padres every extra ounce of energy the players would need. It almost worked. Just ask Manny Machado, who saw a potential tying two-run homer in the eighth robbed by center fielder Garrett Mitchell. Yes, the players on the field Wednesday lost this game. It was another fierce battle with a Brewers team that has put up the best record in MLB each of the last two regular seasons. But it was how the Padres approached their bullpen in the first three games that left them in this situation. Yes, you want to have your best pitch in the biggest situations, but there were other avenues to take to get there. It was the decision of president of baseball operations A.J. Preller and manager Craig Stammen to go with only 11 pitchers on their postseason roster for the Division Series, just like they did for the Wild Card Series against the Chicago Cubs. It was the same 11. Three pitchers—Walker Buehler, Robbie Ray and David Morgan—didn’t see action in the two games from the first round. Two pitchers had yet to see action entering Game 4 vs. the Brewers. They were Morgan and Joe Musgrove. Even the two pitchers who were on the roster for a combined three games due to Buehler and Mason Miller being away from the team as their wives gave birth didn’t set foot on the mound. One of those was Randy Vasquez, who was surprisingly left off the Division Series roster. The desperation set in during the sixth inning. Miller, the superstar closer, warmed up in the sixth inning. That is because manager Craig Stammen was burning through relievers like a 7-year-old devours candy bars at Halloween. After four combined innings from Buehler and Ray, the oft-used Bradgley Rodriguez and Yuki Matsui combined for just three outs. Jason Adam got the Padres through the sixth, but he allowed a run. The Miller plan backfired, though not as bad as it could have. The Brewers, as they do, made Miller work. Facing the top of the order, Miller got two quick outs, then yielded two singles and a walk before getting a lineout to center on his 20th pitch to end the inning. Miller went just the one inning before sitting and watching the final two innings of the season. Then it was Joe Musgrove, who made his triumphant return for the final inning of the Wild Card Series. He pitched the eighth and ninth, a feel-good story after missing all the time he did. While the game was still tight, it also had a feel of mopup duty because the offense couldn’t solve the Brewers’ rested bullpen. They carried 13 relievers. With 11 pitchers, Rodriguez and Matsui, two of the Padres' top five relievers, wound up being the early firemen. They appeared in all four games. Morejon’s shoulder injury, sustained when he went two innings in Game 1, left only 10 available arms for Games 2, 3 and 4. He warmed up in the ninth, but didn't come in. If he was truly available, he would have been in sooner. Jason Adam pitched in three and perhaps it should have been four as he wasn’t used in Game 2. Was leaving Vasquez off the roster worth the extra bat? Austin Hays got more plate appearances than you would have thought with Miguel Andujar and Gavin Sheets on the roster. Sheets, though, was scratched from the Game 3 lineup with a stiff neck after missing most of September with an injured left foot. Vasquez gave the team important innings throughout the season, starting and relieving, and took a bullet for the team by pitching six innings in the regular-season finale. Preller and Stammen said he would be on the Division Series roster. But he wasn’t. Sure could have used him. For Stammen, a first-year manager who did a superb job of keeping what at one point felt like a sinking ship afloat, it was certainly a learning experience. Who swayed the decision to go with 11 instead of 12 pitchers? Preller should have known better that an extra arm or two would prove valuable. There were better decisions to be made that would have alleviated the issues that forced the Padres into their Game 4 plan. But that is tough to do when you didn't have the trust in the unit you trusted all season. View the full article

After a season-saving performance by a starting pitcher in a relief role, the San Diego Padres are turning to their most postseason-tested pitcher to force a decisive Game 5 in the NL Division Series. Right-hander Walker Buehler is the starting pitcher for the Padres in Wednesday's Game 4 against the Milwaukee Brewers at Petco Park (7:08 p.m., FS1). The other options are left-hander Robbie Ray and right-hander Joe Musgrove. Both of those pitchers, though, were warming up in the bullpen during the frantic ninth inning of Game 3, a 4-3 Padres win that staved off elimination for the first time this postseason. That could be indicative of their role for Game 4. Buehler, who, like Pivetta in Game 3, will have a short leash, has 19 games of postseason experience, all but one a start. It is mostly a good track record, although he has four blowup outings of four or more runs. Two of those came in his first two playoff appearances in 2018, with the last one coming in his first of four games in 2024. Buehler also notched the final out of the 2024 World Series. Three of those 19 postseason games have come against the Brewers, two in the 2018 NL Championship Series and the other in the 2020 NL Wild Card Series. The most crucial of those was Game 7 of the 2018 NLCS, where he went 4⅔ innings, allowing a run on six hits and no walks while punching out seven. That one run was a first-inning homer by Christian Yelich, who would not drive in another postseason run until Tuesday's Game 3. Buehler faced the Brewers once this season. In an 11-2 win on Aug. 11 at Petco Park, Buehler tossed six innings, giving up a run on three hits and two walks with five strikeouts. There is a very small sample size of the Brewers against Buehler during the regular season. Yelich is the only Brewer on the current roster with even six plate appearances vs. Buehler. Yelich is 2-for-6, Garrett Mitchell is 1-for-3 with two walks, Jackson Chourio is 1-for-3 with a walk and two RBIs. Walker Buehler vs. Milwaukee Brewers: Current Batters Table Rk Player B PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS SH SF IBB HBP GIDP 1 Christian Yelich L 6 6 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 .333 .333 .333 .667 0 0 0 0 0 2 Jake Bauers L 5 5 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 .200 .200 .800 1.000 0 0 0 0 0 3 William Contreras R 5 4 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 .000 .200 .000 .200 0 0 0 0 0 4 Garrett Mitchell L 5 3 1 0 0 0 0 2 1 .333 .600 .333 .933 0 0 0 0 0 5 Brice Turang L 5 4 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 .250 .400 .750 1.150 0 0 0 0 0 6 Jackson Chourio R 4 3 1 0 0 0 2 1 0 .333 .500 .333 .833 0 0 0 0 0 7 Bo Naylor L 3 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 .000 .333 .000 .333 0 0 0 0 0 8 Sal Frelick L 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .500 .500 .500 1.000 0 0 0 0 0 9 David Hamilton L 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .500 .500 .500 1.000 0 0 0 0 0 10 Luis Lara B 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0 0 0 11 Joey Ortiz R 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0 0 0 12 Brandon Lockridge R 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.000 1.000 1.000 2.000 0 0 0 0 0 Provided by Stathead: Found with Stathead. See Full Results. Generated 10/7/2026. The Brewers are going with left-hander Robert Gasser, a former Padres prospect who was shipped to Milwaukee in the Josh Hader deal at the 2022 trade deadline. Gasser doesn't have much of a track record against the Padres. In fact, he has faced just one of the current Padres hitters. That is Gavin Sheets, whom Gasser faced in a 2024 start when Sheets was with the Chicago White Sox. Sheets homered in one of his two at-bats, striking out in the other. Gasser made two opener-type starts in the 2025 postseason, going three innings in one and 2⅔ innings in the other. This year, Gasser was a solid performer in the Brewers' rotation. He started the season at Triple-A Nashville and was yo-yo'd a few times. He had a 4.24 FIP (3.87 ERA) in 109⅓ innings, with a good 7.6% walk rate and a 22.2% strikeout rate, right at the MLB average. However, he had a 1.67 ERA over his final six outings. He is capable of going deep, having pitched seven shutout innings in his next-to-last start of the regular season, a 1-0 win over the Baltimore Orioles, but with the Brewers' bullpen in decent shape, the hook will be quick. Robert Gasser vs. San Diego Padres: Current Batters Table Rk Player B PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS SH SF IBB HBP GIDP 1 Gavin Sheets L 2 2 1 0 0 1 2 0 1 .500 .500 2.000 2.500 0 0 0 0 0 Provided by Stathead: Found with Stathead. See Full Results. Generated 10/7/2026. View the full article

As the annual reshuffling of the Mets coaching deck occurs, gleaning meaning from the moves is tempting, but it can be harder than reading Bigelow Tea leaves. We watch a lot of baseball, and some of us watch a LOT of baseball, but we don't see too much coaching, and if we're honest, we can glean little insight into the coach/player dynamic. But pay attention long enough, and patterns emerge. Or delusions. That happens too. Transactions, 10/6/2026 GOING GOING GOING NEUTRAL Non-Tendered Non-Tendered Non-Tendered Projected to Transfer from Hitting Coach Hitting Coord. Strategy Coach Bat'g Pract. Pitcher Hitting Coord. Jeff Albert Danny Barnes Kevin Mahoney Troy Snitker R/R DoB: 1992-08-16 High Level: MLB (2026) L/R DoB: 1989-10021 High Level: MLB (2026) L/R DoB: 1987-05-11 High Level: MLB (2026) R/R DoB: 1988-12-05 High Level: MLB (2026) COMING COMING COMING Projected to Be Promoted from Syracuse Projected to Transfer from Director of Defense, Baserunning, & Gameplay Projected to Be Promoted from St. Lucie Bench/Assistant Hitting Coach Hitting Coach Strategy Coach Bat'g Pract. Pitcher Nate Irving Tucker Frawley Jonathon Cramman R/R DoB: 1992-10-17 High Level: MLB (2024) S/R DoB: 1984-05-08 High Level: Development (2026) R/R DoB: 1991-03-23 High Level: A (2026) The highest-profile Met coachie to not get asked back is Jeff Albert. While repeating the caveat that we don't know what's going down, this comes as something of a surprise at Met Roster Central, as much of the 2026 offensive failure came from veterans — presumably more set in their ways and less sensitive one way or the other to the whims of coaching — while rookies Carson Benge (after needing an April mulligan) and AJ Ewing prospered. Maybe it was the struggles of mid-career-types like Brett Baty and Mark Vientos that did him in. Francisco Alvarez, too. That's our theory. That Mets previous hitting coordinator Eric Chavez, rather than finding new MLB work like many of his fellow 2025 veterans, spent much of 2026 telling everyone who would listen that the Mets (a) generally had their heads up their butts as an organization, and (b) that splitting the hitting coach role was counterproductive. Now that his successor has followed him into the "ex-" column among Met coaches, we can expect him to double down. Anyhow, we're putting our kranepools down on junior hitting coach Troy Snitker elevating to senior status. Troy has not only the name-brand Snitker pedigree, but he has the track record, having been co-hitting coach (with Alex Cintron) for the 106-game/World Championship-winning 2022 Astros. Who gets his junior chair is more likely to come from outside the organization, but Nate Irving is an organizational guy on the rise, having coached the superb 2025 Binghamton squad, who were near the league lead in pretty much all offensive categories, and then moved up to Syracuse in 2026. He's coached Ewing and Benge in the minors as well as many of the prospects who will hopefully follow them. Danny Barnes is a tough loss, as the former Princeton Tiger represented an organizational commitment to brains over brawn and the good old boy hiring network. Danny, 36, had started with the ambigous title of "coaching assistant," and the team continuously re-worked the role to suit the man. He spent five years with the big-league team in multiple roles under four different managers. He was even put in charge of organizing the team's MLB spring training camp. With the manager coming out of the development staff, it is certainly easy to see the new strategy coach guy (assuming there is one) coming from there. Among other things, Tucker Frawley has also had a broad portfolio that could serve him well at helping implement organizational strategy at the big league level, and was praised for his work with Mitch Voit, Who knows how a batting practice pitcher gets fired, other than losing the strike zone, and figuring who his most likely replacement might be is clearly a shot in the dark, but we stayed within the organization, and our arrow struck St. Lucie bench coach/assistant hitting coach Jonathon Cramman. You have to go pretty low in the chain to find somebody who will take such a narrow role. The Haringey, London, UK-born Crammy managed the Under-23 squad for Great Britain, so having had that sort of authority over young men, along with a smart British accent, could bring some authority to keep him from being a mere lackey. He could also bring some reverse-Ted Lasso fun to the clubhouse, along with an appearance of the Union Jack on our roster grids. Mets Roster Central looks forward to updates involving players, but it'd b good to see Andy Green's braintrust in early in the offseason, even if they fail to bring back Antoan Richardson. Your Projected 2027 New York Mets Starting Pitchers Sean Manaea Nolan McLean Christian Scott Zach Thornton Jonah Tong R/L DoB: 1992-02-01 R/R DoB: 2001-07-24 R/R DoB: 1999-06-15 L/L DoB: 2002-01-17 R/R DoB: 2003-06-19 Relief Pitchers Chayce McDermott Tobias Myers Cionel Pérez Kodai Senga Robert Stock Austin Warren Devin Williams L/R DoB: 1998-08-22 R/R DoB: 1998-08-05 R/L DoB: 1996-04-21 L/R DoB: 1993-01-30 L/R DoB: 1989-11-21 R/R DoB: 1996-02-05 R/R DoB: 1994-09-21 Relief Pitchers Catchers Infielders Jefry Yan Francisco Alvarez Luís Torrens Bo Bichette Francisco Lindor Ronny Mauricio Jorge Polanco L/L DoB: 1996-08-17 R/R DoB: 2001-11-01 R/R DoB: 1996-05-02 R/R DoB: 1998-03-05 S/R DoB: 1993-11-14 S/R DoB: 2001-04-04 S/R DoB: 1999-11-13 Infielders Outfielders Marcus Semien Mark Vientos Jared Young Brett Baty Carson Benge A.J. Ewing Juan Soto R/R DoB: 1990-09-17 R/R DoB: 1993-12-11 L/R DoB: 1995-07-09 L/R DoB: 1999-11-13 L/R DoB: 2003-01-20 L/R DoB: 2004-08-10 L/L DoB: 1998-10-25 Also on 40-Player Roster Starting Pitchers Relief Pitchers Tylor Megill Philip Abner Daniel Duarte Reed Garrett Justin Hagenman Nathan Lavender Dedniel Núñez Jonathan Pintaro Dylan Ross R/R DoB: 1995-07-28 L/L DoB: 2002-05-04 R/R DoB: 1996-12-04 R/R DoB: 1993-01-02 R/R DoB: 1996-10-07 L/L DoB: 2000-01-20 R/R DoB: 1996-06-05 R/R DoB: 1997-11-07 R/R DoB: 2000-09-01 Relief Pitchers Catchers Infielders Outfielders Jack Weisen- berger Cameron Weston Hayden Senger Christian Cairo Christopher Morel Eric Wagaman Nick Morabito "Cristian Pache " R/R DoB: 1997-10-08 R/R DoB: 2000-08-27 R/R DoB: 1997-04-03 R/R DoB: 2001-06-11 R/R DoB: 1999-06-24 R/R DoB: 1997-08-14 R/R DoB: 2003-05-07 R/R DoB: 2020-08-21 Your Projected Mets Coaching Staff Manager Bench Coach Pitching Coach Hitting Coord. Third Base Coach First Base Coach Bullpen Coach Ass't Pitch. Coach Andy Green Kai Correa Justin Willard Troy Snitker Tim Leiper Gilbert Gomez José Rosado Dan McKinney DoB: 1977-07-07 DoB: 1989-07-14 DoB: 1990-09-09 DoB: 1988-12-05 DoB: 1996-07-19 DoB: 1992-03-08 DoB: 1974-11-09 DoB: 1989-06-06 Hitting Coach Strategy Coach Catching Coach Coaching Assistant Bat'g Pract. Pitcher Equip. Manager Bullpen Catchers Bullpen Catchers Nate Irving Tucker Frawley J.P. Arencibia Rafael Fernandez Jonathon Cramman Kevin Kierst Eric Langill Dave Racaniello DoB: 33894 DoB: 1984-05-08 DoB: 1986-01-05 DoB: 1988-08-03 DoB: 1991-03-23 DoB: 1964-07-09 DoB: 1979-04-09 DoB: 1978-06-03 Your Projected Mets Training Staff Director of Player Health Head Athletic Trainer Assistant Athletic Trainer Recond. Coordinator Recond. Therapist Head Performance Coach Assistant Performance Coach Performance Coordinator Soft Tissue Specialist Brian Chicklo Joseph Golia Bryan Baca Sean Bardanett Josh Bickel Dustin Clarke Tanner Miracle Jeremy Chiang Hiroto Kawamura DoB:1972-07-17 DoB:1978-??-?? DoB:Circa 1980 DoB:1988-06-23 DoB:1996-??-?? DoB:1987-??-?? DoB:1991-??-?? DoB:????-??-?? DoB:1962-07-19 View the full article

Some prospects have flashy profiles, went to a college powerhouse like LSU, and have extensive reports written about them. Miguel Useche doesn’t have that kind of hype. He won't be topping any organizational prospect lists or making the global top 100 rankings. He's a great story, though, and he might yet turn out to be a good player, even in the big leagues. Let’s dive into one of the Chicago Cubs’ most underrated prospects, and why he may not be under the radar much longer. Miguel Useche’s Background Useche, 25, is a minor-league catcher in the Cubs system. He was born in Venezuela, but his family moved to Florida when he was a child; he went to high school in the Miami area. He wasn't a top prospect there, though, and initially signed on to play ball at College of Central Florida, before transferring to LSU-New Orleans. By the time he wrapped up his NCAA time in 2024, Useche had come into his own. At various points, he was named First Team All-Southland Conference, Second Team ABCA All-Region and Second Team All-Louisiana. Useche also finished his college career tied for the program record in doubles, with 54. He also spent time getting reps (and getting better) in wood-bat summer leagues, between his collegiate campaigns. He spent 2021 (Traverse City Pit Spitters) and 2023 (Kenosha Kingfish) in the Northwoods League. Useche hit .213 in 2023 with Kenosha, but he managed a .397 on-base percentage and walked (13) more than he struck out (6) in 22 contests. He also spent 2022 (Waynesboro Generals) in the Valley League. This meant that in those years, Useche was playing in upwards of 75 games, even though his college seasons were quite short. Undrafted? Doesn’t Matter After a successful run in both summer ball and college ball, Useche went undrafted and looked to independent leagues to extend his playing career. In 2025, he spent 14 games in the Frontier League (Tri-City Valley Cats), slashing .333/.412/.444, and made himself impossible to ignore. In the market to add some depth to their catching corps, the Cubs signed Useche to a minor-league contract and assigned him to South Bend to wrap up the 2025 season. That’s where he’d start his 2026 campaign, as the gritty sandlot star found a power surge and helped the Cubs’ High-A affiliate to a first half title and playoff appearance. Useche slashed .260/.369/.447 with seven home runs in 42 games before earning a promotion; his career-high in any college season was six long balls. He didn’t stop there, throttling six more homers (to go with a .300 batting average) with the Double-A Knoxville Smokies, impressing in 47 contests to wrap up a remarkable 2026 campaign. Overall, the surging prospect finished the year with 13 home runs (he had 14 in his college career), 53 RBIs, 31 extra-base hits and an impressive 11% walk rate. According to Prospect Savant, he also ranked in the top quartile of minor-league batters in strikeout rate (19.8%), chase rate (23.1%), swinging strike percentage (8.9%) and wRC+ (131). He's very aware of the strike zone, which has augmented his modest power. On to the Arizona Fall League Being the hard worker that he is, the Cubs’ up-and-coming catcher isn’t done playing baseball this year. He's representing the team as a member of the Salt River Rafters in the Arizona Fall League. In just four plate appearances, Useche already has a pair of walks, a pair of runs scored and an RBI. From Independent Baseball to an impact player at the Double-A level, this catcher is an example of resilience to the highest degree. He's still not a big-time prospect, but once you're a competent catcher in Double A, there's at least a chance you'll get a cup of big-league coffee someday—and there's plenty of room to carve out a career as a minor-league catcher and/or coach. View the full article

Prospect rankings are constantly changing, but some jumps are more meaningful than others. MLB Pipeline recently completed its final Top 100 update of the 2026 calendar year. Those rankings can provide plenty of entertainment for fans, but they also have practical value for organizations trying to determine which prospects could be moved in trades to strengthen a big-league roster. For the Minnesota Twins, one of the biggest risers on the list was shortstop Marek Houston. Houston jumped from No. 71 to No. 54, tied for the second-largest rise among all prospects in the latest update. That movement is even more impressive when considering where Houston started the year. He wasn't even included in MLB Pipeline's Top 100 entering the 2026 season. So, what changed? Quite a bit. Houston's Bat Took a Significant Step Forward Houston entered professional baseball with a reputation for being an outstanding defensive shortstop who could hit enough to become an everyday player. The question was whether his offensive game would develop enough to raise his overall ceiling. His 2026 season provided an encouraging answer. Houston spent the entire year between High-A Cedar Rapids and Double-A Wichita, producing a .312/.392/.455 slash line with 12 home runs, 28 doubles, 50 stolen bases and a 120 wRC+ over 116 games. The production remained relatively consistent after his promotion to Double-A. At Cedar Rapids, Houston hit .325/.406/.461 with an .867 OPS. He posted a .301/.379/.450 line with an .829 OPS at Wichita. His wRC+ remained above league average at both stops, a particularly encouraging development for a player who was viewed more as a glove-first prospect coming out of college. Houston's offensive profile isn't built around one overwhelming tool. Instead, it is becoming a combination of contact ability, plate discipline, speed and enough emerging power to make pitchers pay for mistakes. There was a brief period late in the summer when it looked like the grind of his first full professional season might be catching up with him. Houston struggled during August (.580 OPS), but he quickly found his stroke again. He finished the season on a 10-game hitting streak, batting .405 with eight strikeouts and seven walks across 50 plate appearances. He had a .941 OPS in September, which was higher than his season average. That type of finish matters. Houston didn't simply survive his first full season. He responded to his first significant slump and finished the year looking like the player who had forced the Twins to challenge him with a Double-A assignment. The Glove Gives Houston a High Floor Even if Houston's offensive development had been slower, there would still be plenty to like about his long-term outlook because of his defense. Houston was regarded as one of the best defensive shortstops in the 2025 draft class, and that reputation has carried into professional baseball. His actions are smooth, his range allows him to make plays on both sides of the bag, and he has more than enough arm strength for the position. That combination is important. There are plenty of prospects who can hit their way into a Top 100 ranking. Houston's defensive ability gives him a much stronger floor because he doesn't need to become an elite offensive player to provide value. He has a chance to be a plus defender at shortstop at the major-league level, with the range and arm strength to remain at the position. That gives the Twins an extremely valuable combination: a player who can potentially provide Gold Glove-caliber defense while also contributing offensively. It's also one reason Houston could move relatively quickly through the organization. Speed is another major part of the profile. Houston's speed is easy to overlook when discussing his development, because his defensive ability and improving bat receive so much attention. It shouldn't be overlooked, though, if only because it augments and facilitates both of those tools. He stole 27 bases during his three-year Wake Forest career, including 19 steals in 2025. He was successful on 19 of 21 attempts during his junior season, helping establish the speed that would become an even bigger part of his professional game. Houston took that part of his game to another level in 2026. He stole 50 bases between Cedar Rapids and Wichita, giving him 57 stolen bases in his first two professional seasons. That is more than just a nice statistical addition. His speed complements the rest of his offensive profile. A player who gets on base at a solid clip, puts the ball in play and can immediately turn a single or walk into scoring position becomes much more dangerous when he also plays a premium defensive position. Houston doesn't need to become a 20-home-run hitter to have an impact. His ability to get on base and create pressure with his legs gives the offensive profile another dimension. Where Can Houston Still Improve? The biggest question is consistency at the plate. Houston has already made significant strides, but there is still room for the offensive profile to become more complete. The easiest path toward a Top 50 ranking would be adding a little more power without sacrificing the skills that have made him successful. Houston will probably always be more of a hit-and-on-base player than a pure power hitter. That's not a bad thing. But he can continue adjusting his swing to create more loft and generate harder contact in the air. That was an area of focus throughout the 2026 season. Houston has continued working with the Twins on his swing path since joining the organization, and the results have been encouraging. The goal hasn't been to sell out for power. Instead, he has worked to find better line-drive angles and barrel the baseball more consistently. Adding strength and muscle has also helped address some of the questions surrounding his future impact at the plate. If Houston can turn some of those line drives into extra-base hits without losing his contact skills, patience or speed, his offensive ceiling will continue to rise. Houston's jump from No. 71 to No. 54 on MLB Pipeline's Top 100 isn't simply the result of a strong batting average or a prospect evaluator falling in love with a hot streak. It's the result of a player improving in multiple areas at once. The defense was already a major strength. The speed was already evident. What Houston needed to show was that his bat could hold up against professional pitching and eventually against more advanced competition. He did that. Houston went from being outside the Top 100 entering the season to becoming a Top 55 prospect after completing his first full professional campaign. He reached Double-A, stole 50 bases, posted a 120 wRC+ and demonstrated that his offensive game has more upside than originally expected. There is still work to do. More power would make his profile considerably more dangerous and could eventually push him into the Top 50. But that's the exciting part for the Twins. Houston doesn't need to completely reinvent himself to become a legitimate major-league shortstop. He already has the glove, speed and contact ability. If the offensive adjustments he's making continue to produce better quality of contact, his prospect stock could keep climbing in 2027. And considering where he started this year, it would be foolish to assume No. 54 is anywhere close to his final destination. How high will Houston rise on other national top-100 lists? Leave a comment and start the discussion. View the full article

While Tuesday night’s Game 3 loss is far from the end of Milwaukee’s season, it highlighted something that has plagued this team for multiple years now. The Brewers have had plenty of opportunities to score throughout this NLDS. The problem is that they haven’t been able to consistently turn those opportunities into runs, and that can be a fatal problem in October. Over the course of the regular season, there was no better team in baseball with runners in scoring position than the Brew Crew. Their .797 OPS in those situations led the league, and they consistently found ways to capitalize when they had an opportunity to put runs on the board. But the postseason has been a different story. Through three games against the Padres in the NLDS, Milwaukee is just 6-for-23 with runners in scoring position. A .261 batting average in those situations (by itself) isn’t all that bad, especially over such a small sample size. Too few runs are resulting from those hits, though. The Brewers have left 27 runners on base through the first three games of this series. They’ve obviously been able to win two of those three, but they’ve also scored no more than four runs in any of them. All three games have been decided by one run, which makes every missed opportunity that much more significant. The epitome of it all came Tuesday night, when William Contreras managed a hit with a runner on second—but the Padres kept it on the infield and the run didn't come home. In last year’s NLDS, Milwaukee took the first two games against the Cubs and looked like a team that would be extremely difficult to knock out. They came through in clutch situations and looked like a force to be reckoned with. Then came Games 3 and 4. The Brewers went a combined 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position in those two contests, and the Cubs forced a decisive Game 5. Milwaukee went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position in that game, but still managed to get the job done and advance to the NLCS. That’s where their inability to consistently convert those opportunities finally caught up with them. Against the Dodgers, the Brewers went just 1-for-16 with runners in scoring position across the four-game series. They were swept, bringing a disappointing end to what had been a great season. Milwaukee was the National League’s No. 1 seed that year, just like it is this season, but by the time the NLCS rolled around, it certainly didn’t feel like it. Every postseason is different, and this Brewers team has already shown that it can win games without consistently piling up runs. But if Milwaukee wants this year to be different, it’s going to have to start converting scoring chances. The margin for error in the postseason is incredibly slim. That’s been apparent throughout these first three games against San Diego. Milwaukee’s pitching staff has done an excellent job of keeping the team in these games, while Jackson Chourio provided some fireworks in Game 2. Those things have helped the Brewers take a 2-1 series lead, despite leaving a significant number of runners on base. It’s worth pointing out that San Diego hasn’t exactly been great in those situations, either. The Padres are just 4-for-21 with runners in scoring position through the first three games, which has kept Milwaukee from paying a much bigger price for its own struggles. But Milwaukee can’t count on that continuing. If the Brewers are going to advance to the NLCS (and hopefully make an even deeper run from there), they’re going to need more than dominant pitching and the occasional big swing. At some point, the offense is going to have to start making the most of the opportunities it creates. That was one of the biggest strengths of this team during the regular season. It’s also been one of its biggest weaknesses in recent postseason history. The Brewers are still in a very good position, and Tuesday’s loss certainly doesn’t mean their season is in danger of falling apart. But the longer they continue to leave runners stranded, the more difficult they’re making things for themselves. View the full article

The San Diego Padres fought hard for a huge Game 3 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday night, keeping their season alive and putting themselves in position to force a winner-takes-all Game 5. But the job is far from over. If the Padres are going to make that Game 5 a reality, they have to get it done once again tonight at Petco Park. There are obviously plenty of things that need to go right for San Diego to come away with another win, but one of the biggest could be forcing Milwaukee to turn to their bullpen sooner than they would like. There are multiple reasons why that could be so important. For one, the Brewers only got three innings out of Dustin May in Game 3. They had to piece together the final five innings with four different bullpen arms. That could have a pretty significant impact on Pat Murphy’s plans tonight, especially considering the varying workloads those relievers took on Tuesday. Abner Uribe threw just seven pitches, and Antonio Senzatela only needed 14. But D.L. Hall and JoJo Romero each threw around 30, altering the Game 4 picture. That doesn’t necessarily mean Hall and Romero won’t be available tonight, but Murphy may have to be a little more selective with how he uses them. And if San Diego can force Milwaukee to turn to those arms again, or just make Murphy burn through more of his bullpen earlier than he’d like, it could put the Brewers in a much more difficult spot as this series moves forward. There’s also the fact that, should the Padres force a Game 5 on Friday, it lines up perfectly for Jacob Misiorowski to take the mound for Milwaukee. Misiorowski threw 88 pitches in Game 1 on Saturday, meaning Friday would mark six days of rest between starts. That’s about as ideal of a setup as the Brewers could ask for with their young flamethrower, and it’s never exactly fun having to face the guy who sits around 101 MPH with a ton of run on his fastball, especially twice in the same series. At the same time, though, it’s difficult to have success against the same team twice in one week. The Padres already showed they can do some damage against Misiorowski, putting up two earned runs against him over four innings in Game 1. He certainly wasn't terrible, but he wasn't his usual dominant self, either. Getting Misiorowski on an island in Game 5 would be a much better scenario for San Diego than allowing Milwaukee to have their choice of fresh late-game arms available behind him. If the Padres can force the Brewers to use some of their best relievers tonight, they could potentially make the Game 5 pitching situation much more manageable. And there’s another wrinkle to all of this. If (hopefully when) San Diego wins tonight, there will be a travel day on Thursday as both teams head back to Milwaukee for Game 5. That means both bullpens will have a built-in day of rest heading into the deciding game. Pat Murphy has leaned heavily on his bullpen throughout this series, but the travel day means Milwaukee won't necessarily be punished for using some of those arms tonight. Instead, not getting to the Brewers' bullpen early could actually allow that group to enter Game 5 even fresher than it otherwise would have been. Fortunately for San Diego, there is reason to believe they can force the issue tonight. Craig Stammen has shown throughout the season that he’s not afraid to play the matchups, and Milwaukee has already used all of their right-handed starters through the first three games of this series. That could open the door for Stammen to really utilize San Diego's platoon options and force the Brewers to counter with some uncomfortable decisions of their own. With Robert Gasser grabbing the start tonight, expect a very right-handed-heavy lineup from the Padres. And once that starter exits, Stammen could lean on his bench early and often to keep those favorable matchups coming. The Padres don't necessarily need to score 10 runs or blow the game open in the first few innings. They just need to make Milwaukee uncomfortable. Make the Brewers burn through some of their bullpen, make Murphy use pitchers he would rather save, and force him to make decisions earlier than he wants to. Because the more work Milwaukee's bullpen has to do tonight, the more pressure could fall on Misiorowski if these teams meet again Friday. View the full article

While the San Diego Padres were able to maneuver around not having either of their top relievers and won Game 3 of the NL Division Series, one will be back for Game 4 with the other's status up in the air. Superstar closer Mason Miller was activated off the paternity list after his wife gave birth on Tuesday. Manager Craig Stammen said "everything went well" with the birth. Left-hander Wandy Peralta was removed from the roster. Peralta was not used in Game 3. The Padres won Game 3 4-3 and trail the best-of-five series against the Milwaukee Brewers 2-1. As for left-hander Adrian Morejon, Stammen said the team had yet to see him report to the clubhouse to see how he was feeling and to evaluate his availability for Wednesday's Game 4. Morejon has not pitched since going two innings in Game 1. Stammen said postgame Tuesday that Morejon had "stickiness" in his left shoulder. On Wednesday, Stammen said Morejon felt slightly better following the game than he did beforehand. Miller and Morejon have been the top bullpen pair in MLB this season, but both took losses in the two games in Milwaukee. View the full article

I've already graded the Blue Jays' position players and starting pitchers. Now, I'm finishing the series with the bullpen arms. Toronto ranked third in MLB in bullpen innings, with their relievers averaging 4.23 innings per game. Those relievers also ranked among the top third of teams in ERA, xERA, and FanGraphs WAR. Their 52 saves were the third-most in the majors, behind only the Rays and Brewers, who finished with the best records in their respective leagues. Similarly, the Blue Jays finished third in save percentage, trailing only Aroldis Chapman's Red Sox and Josh Hader's Astros. One Toronto reliever led the AL in ERA and fWAR, while another led the majors in holds. Three Blue Jays ranked among the top 10 relievers in games pitched, including one who led all MLB hurlers with 83 appearances. The last time any pitcher made more appearances in a single season was 2011. It wasn't all sunshine and roses for a Blue Jays bullpen that was often overburdened, but by and large, it was a successful season for the arm barn. Let's get to the grades. Tanner Andrews: B- Andrews made two scoreless appearances in May, then spent the rest of the season in Buffalo. Brendan Cellucci: B+ The 28-year-old rookie was quietly excellent for the Blue Jays in September, pitching 8.2 scoreless innings with 11 strikeouts. Chad Dallas: C+ Dallas threw some innings. Aside from one blow-up outing, he did his job. Lazaro Estrada: C Estrada threw some innings. They were fine. A long IL stint kept him from pitching more. Braydon Fisher: A- I briefly considered being cheeky and grading Fisher as both a starter and a reliever. After all, he started 10 games, he finished 10 games, and he made at least one appearance in every inning from the first to the 11th. The righty is the only pitcher in major league history to pitch at least 75 games in a season, start at least 10 of them, and finish at least 10 of them. And he did all that with a 3.21 ERA and 1.63 WPA. Josh Fleming: C Fleming had some success for Triple-A Buffalo, but he gave up four runs in three innings in his only appearance for Toronto. Mason Fluharty: A Fluharty pitched in more than half of Toronto's games this year, and I only wish he could have pitched in more; the Jays were 46-37 (.554) when he played and 33-46 (.418) when he didn't. The southpaw dominated same-handed hitters, ranking third among AL relievers (min. 50 BF) in wOBA and second in xwOBA against lefties. All told, Fluharty finished with a 7-1 record, 19 holds, and a 3.30 ERA. Tyler Heineman: B Heineman pitched 3.1 innings in 2025, giving up 12 runs on 15 hits. In 2026, he threw another 3.1 frames for the Jays, but this time he only gave up five runs on seven hits. That improvement earns him a solid grade (despite his 13.50 ERA). Jeff Hoffman: B Some blown saves in March and April cost Hoffman the closer's job. Yet, all things considered, his 2026 was an improvement over his 2025. His 3.94 ERA with the Jays was solid, and his underlying numbers were even better. Hayden Juenger: C After several years in the Blue Jays' minor league system, Juenger gave up three runs in one inning during his big league debut. He only pitched one more game for Toronto before he was DFA'd. John Klein: B Klein threw four scoreless innings in his lone outing for the Jays. Chase Lee: C- I was hoping for more from the side-armer. He didn't deliver. Brendon Little: C+ In 2025, Little was dominant through the first half and struggled after the break. This year, it was the other way around. He gave up 11 runs in his first 3.2 innings, then spent most of the next three months in Buffalo. After he rejoined the Jays in the second half, he posted a 2.28 ERA with similarly strong peripherals down the stretch. I struggle to justify a grade above the C-range given his full season numbers, but I'm optimistic about Little heading into 2027. Michael Lorenzen: D+ Lorenzen was not very good for the Blue Jays. Adam Macko: C The Slovakia-born, Alberta-raised lefty made his MLB debut in 2026. Only eight players on this list gave the Jays more innings than Macko. Joe Mantiply: B+ Mantiply was trying to get his career back on track after a dismal 2025. He largely succeeded, pitching to a 3.00 ERA in 27 frames. Spencer Miles: A+ The Toronto Star's Mike Wilner asked Blue Jays players to vote for four team awards: MVP, top pitcher, top rookie, and unsung hero. Miles received votes in all four categories. I can't quite see the argument for Miles over Cease or Varland in the MVP and top pitcher categories, but I'm giving him the same grade as both of them because of how wildly he exceeded expectations. A Rule 5 pick, Miles came into the season with almost no professional experience. He turned in 95.2 innings over 45 games with a 2.63 ERA and 2.0 fWAR. Tommy Nance: B Nance took a step back from his shockingly impressive 2025, but he was perfectly solid in a low-leverage role for the Jays. Before he was traded, he pitched to a 3.82 ERA in 33 innings. José Rodríguez: B Rodríguez made four scoreless appearances in September. I have very little else to say about him. Yariel Rodríguez: D+ It was a rough year for Rodríguez. His ERA and xERA both started with a seven, and his strong numbers at Triple-A Buffalo weren't strong enough to convince the Jays to give him a longer leash in the majors. Then he spent the last three months on the injured list. Tyler Rogers: A+ The rubber-armed Rogers has casually become the game's premier setup man. He has thrown at least 70 innings in each of the last six years, reaching 30 holds in five of them. By ERA, 2026 was his best full season yet, thanks to a career-high groundball rate and a career-best hard-hit rate. Connor Seabold: C Seabold gave up three runs in 3.1 innings for the Blue Jays. Paul Sewald: B+ The former closer made 17 appearances for Toronto. He only gave up one earned run in 14.1 innings of work. Myles Straw: B+ Straw took over as the team's go-to emergency arm after Heineman was traded. He made it through his first three outings without allowing a run before he gave up a homer in his final pitching appearance of the season. Ricky Tiedemann: B+ The former top prospect made his long-awaited big league debut in 2026. He threw six innings in five games and only gave up one run. CJ Van Eyk: C Van Eyk was a human being who pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2026. Louis Varland: A+ Do I even need to explain this one? Varland wasn't just the best reliever on the Blue Jays – he was the best reliever in the American League. He saved 35 games in 37 chances, pitching to a 1.27 ERA. I hate to say it, but if Varland had been the closer from day one, maybe this whole season would have turned out differently. Austin Voth: C Voth was a human being who pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2026. Matt Waldron: C Waldron was a human being who pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays in 2026. (Can you tell I'm getting tired?) Simeon Woods Richardson: B- Woods Richardson was surprisingly effective for the Jays until the wheels came off in his final appearance. View the full article

When Walker Buehler takes the ball and climbs the hill to start Game 4 of the NLDS Wednesday night, the clocks will already be ticking, metaphorically. There will be an actual clock marking the time of day, somewhere in Craig Stammen's field of vision, and there will be another counting down the seconds until Buehler must deliver his next pitch, but Stammen won't pay any attention to those. He'll be keeping time, though, in three ways, updating his clocks and syncing them to one another as he tries to stay ahead of the swing of a metaphorical second hand that will chase him around like a sword until it either stops short, or cuts the Padres' season so. One clock will be pitch count. Buehler hasn't pitched since September 26, so he's fresh, but he's not as ready to work deep into a game as another pitcher might be. He had to prepare differently over the intervening days than he normally would, first in deference to the team's Wild Card Series needs, then to work around being away briefly for the birth of his child. He threw 73 pitches on the penultimate day of the regular season; it's safe to say that he won't go past 75 in this one. That's likely to be the easiest clock to manage, at least for Buehler. The next clock will be batters faced. Some bad matchups for Buehler lurk in the bottom half of the Brewers' likely batting order, so whereas the initial plan might ordinarily be to get through the order twice before turning to the pen in an elimination game, Stammen is likely to look for a good way to get Buehler out after 14 batters in Game 4. Fourteen batters faced would mean lifting him after he faces the No. 5 hitter the second time. In each of the two games started by righty hurlers in this series for the Padres, Milwaukee has answered with a lineup that slots lefty batters (Christian Yelich and Garrett Mitchell) into the No. 5 and No. 6 spots, and they're likely to have either Sal Frelick or Luis Lara (a switch-hitter) at the bottom of the order, too. Thus, the clock might really run out on Buehler after 13 batters. That's when Robbie Ray should enter the fray. A new clock starts then, but Ray's pitch count won't matter much, either. Nor will he work to 13 or 14 batters; he's likely to face no more than 11. In fact, in a perfect world, Stammen would probably avoid having any Brewers batter see Ray a second time. If he can bring him in to face that lefty pocket right away, however, he buys himself some wiggle room. That way, should a Brewers batter face him twice, it's one over whom he holds a platoon-based matchup edge. Ray is an important part of the gameplan. Although this marks just the fourth day since his Game 1 start, he's firmly in play, with all hands needing to be ready for a potential Game 5 after another day off. Because Yuki Matsui has pitched three times (all for relatively significant stretches, as short reliever workloads go) in the first three games of this series, Stammen needs to stay away from him in Game 4. He's likely to be fatigued and make a mistake, but there's also matchup exhaustion at work. The Brewers' lefty bats have already seen plenty of him. The mystery is beginning to wear off. Name Matsui Morejon Ray Adam King Miller Morgan Musgrove Pivetta Rodriguez Vasquez Buehler Peralta Contreras XX X XX X XXX X XX X Sanchez X Vaughn X X Bauers XX X XX X XXX X XX X Turang XXX X XX XXX X XX X Pratt X X X XXX XX XX Ortiz X X XX XX Hamilton XXX X Chourio X XX X XXX X XX XXX Mitchell XX X X XX X XX XX Lara X X X Frelick XX XXX X XX Yelich XXX XX XXX X XX X If things break right, Stammen can probably get through 25 batters with the combination of Buehler and Ray. That could mean getting all the way through six innings, but it's likely to leave Ray out of runway somewhere in the middle of the sixth. That's where a third clock that Stammen will need to be tracking becomes the dominant one. It runs backward. It's counting down outs until it's safe for him to turn to Adrian Morejon and Mason Miller. Morejon was unavailable in Game 3, and obviously, there's no ironclad guarantee that he'll be usable in Game 4. It seems safe to guess so, though. The team has been careful with him, but the way they had to use their staff to survive Game 3 only sharpened their desperation to get him back in the mix. Meanwhile, Miller is back from a one-day absence for paternity leave. He hasn't pitched since Game 2, so though he threw 40 pitches that day, he's had time enough to recover. He'll be available—no, he will pitch, is a better way to put it. Someday soon, in a situation like this, we'll see a team simply start the game with their Miller-like relief ace. Until then, suffice it to say that Stammen won't let the season end without Miller at least holding the Brewers where they are at the end of the game. Between Morejon's balky shoulder and Miller's difficult outing in Game 2, though, Stammen must know he can't ask either for two full innings again. He'll have to wait until the seventh if he wants to close the game out with just his two relief aces. Morejon can get four or five outs, but shouldn't be asked for more. Ditto for Miller. That leaves a tiny hole, perhaps, in the sixth. It's there that the game might be decided. The Brewers sent 36 batters to the plate (in eight turns) in Game 1, and 37 (ending in a walkoff, so they never made their 27th out) in Game 2. In Game 3, it was 41. The Padres' plan for Game 4 has to center on the number 42. If they have a flexible set of plans that gets them from Batter No. 1 to Batter No. 42, they have a chance to win. Buehler and Ray cover 25 of the 42. Morejon and Miller can combine for 12. That leaves five batters to account for. It might turn out to be just one or two; it might turn out to be six. But let's say it's four or five. Who fits into that hole, facing the bottom of the order the third time and the top of the order the fourth? David Morgan is a candidate. He's on the roster, but has yet to appear. By now, even though Stammen plainly (and rightfully) trusts Bradgley Rodriguez far more, Morgan has to be a real option. Like Matsui, Rodriguez has appeared in each of the first three games of the series. There hasn't been as much overlap in which batters he's faced, so there's a bit less accumulated familiarity for individual hitters against him, but Rodriguez should be down for Game 4, too. If Game 5 happens, he and Matsui can be heroes again. For now, they have to count on the rest of the squad to get them there. The other name is the fun name—but also the dangerous one. Joe Musgrove's return to the mound in the Wild Card Series was emotional and triumphant. It was also easy. There was no pressure; just love. San Diego had a huge lead in that game, and knew they were going to win it. Musgrove's appearance was practically a cherry on top of the sundae. That's not the kind of appearance the team is likely to need in Game 4. Even if the margin is the same on the scoreboard (which is unlikely), the series is very different. Musgrove has to be ready to attack and to beat hitters, if he's to get a look at (among others) Jackson Chourio with the Padres' season on the line. Still, that's the right move. If Stammen trusted Morgan, we'd have seen him already. His walk rate is scary; Stammen is right to be wary. A bout of wildness could set off a crooked-number rally that puts the game out of reach, in the tiny crease between the bulk pitchers the team trusts and its relief aces. They need someone who has a history of throwing strikes under playoff pressure. They need to trust Musgrove in that little lacuna where this game is likely to be decided. The Road to 42 (batters faced) is also the Road to 27 (outs), and that road leads back to Milwaukee and Game 5. To traverse it safely, Stammen will need a deft touch and some flexibility in his mindset, but this should be his roadmap. Buehler, Ray, Musgrove, Morejon and Miller can replicate what Nick Pivetta, Jason Adam, Matsui, Rodriguez and Michael King did in Game 3. The rest of the burden will fall on the offense, as the Brewers try to sketch their own roadmap to victory. View the full article

The San Diego Padres are still alive after a dramatic 4-3 victory in Game 3 against the Milwaukee Brewers in the return to Petco Park. There will be a Game 4, and that leaves a lot of hope for the team and the fans, despite the fact that they are facing the most successful team of the regular season. However, San Diego could face an even more complicated challenge in Game 4: trying to find all the sufficient innings from the bullpen if they cannot count on left-hander Adrian Morejon and Mason Miller. Miller was not available in Game 3 after being placed on the paternity list, and Morejon is dealing with shoulder fatigue. It's unclear as of now if either (or both) pitcher will be able to go tonight. After throwing five innings with three hits allowed and one run on 72 pitches last Sunday in Game 2, Michael King handled the Padres’ final two innings with a spectacular finish, inducing Christian Yelich to hit into a double play to close out the game and preserve the one-run lead. King needed to throw 40 pitches, which adds up to a total of 112 over the last two playoff games. It has been a performance worthy of applause, as the ace of the staff has carried a huge part of the pitching load so far. Meanwhile, the other starters, Robbie Ray in Game 1 and Nick Pivetta in Game 2, combined for 114 pitches. Neither of them was dominant enough to control the Brewers’ offense and neither managed to earn the confidence to complete five innings. This is what the starters’ performances looked like: King: 7 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 SO, 0 HR, 27 BF, 63 Game Score, SV Ray and Pivetta combined: 7 IP, 9 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 2 BB, 5 SO, 2 HR, 32 BF, 45 Game Score King’s contribution added to the heavy workload the Padres’ bullpen has carried in this NLDS, handling 53.2% of the innings (13 2/3 of 25 2/3), but the plan for Game 4 could become the most complicated game if right-hander Walker Buehler cannot go deep enough. That said, assuming the bullpen will not have the availability of Miller or Morejon, Craig Stammen will need to trust less-heralded arms in high-leverage spots. Historically, Buehler has been a pitcher who tends to rise to the occasion when October arrives and, in fact, the only time he faced the Brewers this season was last August 11, and he had a solid start with six innings of one-run ball, with five strikeouts, two walks and only three hits allowed in the Padres’ 11-2 victory at Petco Park. However, he has struggled in his career against most of the Brewers’ left-handed hitters. Although the samples are small, it is clear how much of a difference some good at-bats from Milwaukee’s left-handed hitters throughout the lineup could make. Sal Frelick, David Hamilton, Christian Yelich and Garrett Mitchell have combined to go 5-for-13, with only three strikeouts—two by Yelich and one by Mitchell—in 15 plate appearances, while Brice Turang and Jake Bauers have the only extra-base hits, a triple and a home run, respectively. The other key hitter has been Jackson Chourio (1-for-3), who has reached base in two of his four at-bats against Buehler with a pair of RBIs. Therefore, it is clear that left-handed pitchers could play a fundamental role in the bullpen. Left-hander Wandy Peralta was added to the roster for this NLDS in place of Miller and could help alongside Yuki Matsui to face important situations against left-handed hitters. Peralta has an interesting history against the Brewers, as left-handed hitters have hit .276 (8-for-29) against him, with no extra-base hits, only three RBIs, six strikeouts and a pair of walks in 31 matchups. But that offensive line changes considerably when we take Yelich out of the equation, as he has carried a good part of that production with a 5-for-13 line, two RBIs, one walk and a .813 OPS in 14 plate appearances against Peralta. The rest of the hitters combine to go 3-for-16 (.188) with one RBI, four strikeouts and one walk. Matsui has relieved in every game so far, and has allowed only one unearned run and one hit against the 15 batters he has faced in 3 1/3 innings. His biggest complications have come with the two walks he has issued and one batter hit, but in his last two outings none of the four runners he has inherited were able to score. Matsui’s relief appearance in Game 3, when he came in to rescue Jason Adam, marked one of the turning points that kept the Padres alive. He came in and got Turang out with a ground ball to short to end the fifth inning. On the first pitch of the bottom of the fifth, Jake Cronenworth hit a solo home run to break the tie—his first postseason home run since the 2022 NLDS—and the Brewers could not come back on the scoreboard again. Between the fifth and ninth, the bullpen left nine of the 11 runners left on base in the game, including the bases loaded in the fifth inning, and two other scoreless innings with a pair of runners on base against Bradgley Rodriguez—who pitched in his third consecutive game in this NLDS—in the sixth and seventh, respectively. Besides Peralta and Matsui, Ray was warming up in the bullpen to be ready if needed in Game 3, so he could well be another left-handed arm to keep in mind for Game 4. So, if Morejon and Miller are not available this Wednesday for Game 4, it will simply be an all-hands-on-deck type of game for the bullpen. It will be another battle of life or death, so the Padres have to do everything they can to survive. View the full article

Today is a new day. Tuesday night’s loss is in the past, and the Milwaukee Brewers have another chance to secure their spot in the NLCS tonight. In order for that to happen, though, certain players are going to have to play an important role. Whether it’s getting the offense going, shutting down the Padres late, or simply making the routine plays, the Brewers need some of their key players to step up. Here are four who need to do exactly that in Game 4 if Milwaukee wants to end the series tonight. Brice Turang After struggling mightily during the 2025 postseason, Turang finds himself in a similar spot once again through the first three games of this NLDS. He started the series with an 0-for-10 at the plate, with just one walk to his name. However, Turang’s final two plate appearances last night might have been exactly what he needed to get himself going. In the seventh inning, he reached on a bloop single into the outfield, which is about as classic a slump-buster as you can find. Then, in the ninth, he worked a six-pitch walk against Michael King. Neither plate appearance was spectacular, but getting on base twice late in the game could be enough to help Turang turn things around. San Diego will start right-hander Walker Buehler in Game 4, and while the sample size is extremely small, Turang has had some success against him. In five career plate appearances, he’s 1-for-4 with a triple and a walk. Tonight feels like the night Turang finally comes through for this Brewers offense. Garrett Mitchell Through the first three games of the series, Mitchell has gone 2-for-11 at the plate. That’s not horrible, in such a small sample size. But there’s one number that stands out: six of his nine outs have come via the strikeout. That’s not going to cut it for a player who’s been hitting right behind the heart of Milwaukee’s lineup against right-handed pitching. If anything, too, the numbers undersell his struggles. He's looked overmatched in several key at-bats. With Buehler getting the start for San Diego tonight, there’s a good chance Pat Murphy will once again slot Mitchell into that same spot in the order. If the Brewers’ best hitters can get on base, Mitchell is going to have opportunities to drive them in. It’s time for him to take advantage of them. Like Turang, Mitchell has also had some success against Buehler in a very small sample. He’s gone 1-for-3 against the right-hander, while also drawing a pair of walks. Buehler won't work all that deep, though. Mitchell needs to cash in against the San Diego bullpen if the chance comes. He's unlikely to see Yuki Matsui for a third time in this series, but he could see Mason Miller, Adrian Morejon, or Jason Adam for a second time—or even Bradgley Rodriguez for a third. He's gotten his looks. It's time to get his licks. Name Matsui Morejon Ray Adam King Miller Morgan Musgrove Pivetta Rodriguez Vasquez Buehler Peralta Contreras XX X XX X XXX X XX X Sanchez X Vaughn X X Bauers XX X XX X XXX X XX X Turang XXX X XX XXX X XX X Pratt X X X XXX XX XX Ortiz X X XX XX Hamilton XXX X Chourio X XX X XXX X XX XXX Mitchell XX X X XX X XX XX Lara X X X Frelick XX XXX X XX Yelich XXX XX XXX X XX X Trevor Megill The Brewers’ closer hasn’t pitched since Game 2 on Sunday, and with an off day coming before a potential Game 5 on Friday, the odds are pretty good that Pat Murphy is going to get him into this game at some point. Megill pitched extremely well in the first two games of the series. He earned the save in Game 1 before picking up the win in Game 2, throwing 2 1/3 combined scoreless innings along the way. Both of those appearances came in the ninth inning, but Milwaukee could be a little more creative with how they use him tonight. If the Brewers have a tight game in the seventh or eighth inning with the top of San Diego’s order coming up, don’t be surprised if Megill trots out of the bullpen a little earlier than usual. This is the postseason. There’s no reason to save your best reliever for a save situation if the highest-leverage spot is setting up the guy throwing the ninth. Besides, Abner Uribe did work in Game 3, so he might be down in Game 4. Megill might be asked for six outs, or at least to provide a bridge to a closeout by Logan Henderson (who's on his throw day and might be available in relief). Cooper Pratt The 22-year-old shortstop has been fine at the plate through the first three games of the NLDS, going 3-for-11 with three singles. He hasn't exactly been a difference-maker offensively, but he also hasn't been a problem. Defensively, however, it’s been a different story. Pratt played some strong defense at shortstop during the regular season, but he’s already committed a pair of throwing errors in this series. Unfortunately, the second one came at a particularly costly time last night, allowing the game-winning insurance run to score. Pratt's a young player playing in his first postseason, and one costly throw doesn’t erase everything he did during the regular season. Nor was all the fault on that play his; Jake Bauers could (and probably should) have picked it. But Milwaukee needs more from their shortstop defensively tonight. The Brewers are one win away from the NLCS. If they want to get there tonight, they’re going to need contributions from plenty of different players. Turang and Mitchell need to find a way to get the offense going. Megill needs to be ready whenever his number is called, and Pratt needs to make the routine plays at short. Do those things, and Milwaukee has a very good chance to put this series away tonight. View the full article

Above all, prepare for an eyeroll's worth of allusions to 'Dad Strength' on Wednesday night's game broadcast. The Padres' star closer will be fresh off a (very brief) paternity leave. The Padres' starting pitcher will be fresh off paternity leave. Fans even informally call the Padres the 'dads' when this sort of confluence isn't happening. There will be signs in the stands; the TV cameras will find them. FOX's broadcast team will roll with it. See if you can get your feed to sync up with Brewers radio, and hope for the best. It's all we can do. Ah, but maybe you're (almost) as concerned about how the Brewers can actually win Game 4 and end the series—not to mention their 12-game road losing streak in postseason games, stretching back to 2018—as about how to avoid or absorb the tidal wave of puns ahead. In that case, let's break it down a bit. That new dad toeing the rubber to begin the game for the Friars is Walker Buehler. It's vital that the Crew pounce on him and score some runs, rather than trying to scrape their way to runs against the San Diego bullpen again. Who will be most important in that effort? What should their lineup look like? Let's consider the key factors. Firstly, if it's been a while since you paid close attention to Buehler, it's time to update your conception of him. The flamethrowing strikeout maven who was capable of overpowering hitters with a four-seam fastball and little else is long gone. On the other side of multiple years of injury trouble, Buehler is much less dominant—but he can still be quite effective. He's throwing the kitchen sink at you, but he's doing it with some feel and some smarts. To righties, Buehler leans heaviest on his sinker, but just barely. He has all three fastball variants, now, and he sprinkles in a slider and a sweeper that move away from same-handed batters. The sinker, running in on them, sets up those swerving breakers best. To lefties, though, he favors the cutter and the four-seamer, with the more vertical curveball and a fading changeup as the complementary pieces. When he had a power arm, the bulldog-like Buehler sometimes struck out over 29% of opposing batters, but you can't do that with the velocity or the arsenal he has now. He fanned a below-average 20.1% of batters this year, with roughly an average walk rate. That's why he ended up with an uninspiring 4.63 ERA, and why he didn't start either game of the Wild Card Series or figure into the team's plans for the first part of this one, even before stepping away from the team for the birth of his child. He's gettable now. In fact, go down the list of pitchers most similar to him in terms of stuff (according to Baseball Savant), and all you see are gettable guys. Javier Assad of the Cubs was his closest comp this year. There's hardly a stud among the collection of hurlers who broadly match what he does. There's an opportunity here. How can the Brewers best exploit it, though? Glad you asked. Of the 13 position players on Milwaukee's NLDS roster, 12 saw at least 31 pitches this year against the 18 pitchers shown above, including Buehler. (Gary Sánchez is the exception.) Garrett Mitchell, Brice Turang and Jake Bauers each saw over 100 pitches against that set of arms. From those matchups, we can glean something meaningful about who hits Buehler (and, crucially, pitchers like Buehler) well. Here are the big takeaways from studying the data: It Should Be Joey Ortiz Over David Hamilton Most Brewers fans don't need telling twice on this front. Ortiz has become far more popular than his hot-corner platoon partner, with good reason. From June 1 on, Ortiz batted .331/.375/.506 against right-handed pitchers, compared to Hamilton's .267/.328/.382, meaning he was better than Hamilton even in the portion of the platoon that should have belonged to the latter. (It's worth noting, though, that Ortiz was protected from bad matchups pretty proactively during that time, and got fewer plate appearances against righties in that span than Hamilton did.) He's also the most reliable defender at third base. Rather than complicating that picture, isolating matchups against this pitching cohort makes the decision far easier. Ortiz hit the ball on the ground a ton against the group, but he hit it hard, and he showed good plate discipline. Hamilton, by contrast, looked oddly overmatched in plate appearances against this type of righty, who shouldn't really overmatch left-handed batters. Ortiz was 2 runs better than average per 100 pitches seen against those 18 hurlers; Hamilton was 2.3 runs worse than average. This isn't a close call. Even if whoever starts only sees six or seven pitches against Buehler, Ortiz is worth about a third of an expected run over Hamilton in this matchup. That's a huge margin for such a small thing. Luis Lara Should Start Over Sal Frelick There's no easy platoon call to make between Luis Lara and Sal Frelick in right field, but the matchup favors Lara. The difference between them in showdowns with these 18 hurlers was 3.1 runs per 100 pitches, rather than the 4.3 that separates Ortiz and Hamilton, but that's still pretty telling. Frelick really struggled to get off his 'A' swing against that class of pitcher, especially as the season wore on. Lara went 0-for-2 against Buehler himself on August 11, but he seemed to see the ball well and worked ahead in counts. More broadly, he showed a knack for squaring up hurlers who pitch like Buehler does. Defensively, this is close to a wash. It might all come down to whether Pat Murphy believes Lara can stay within himself and play poised, smart baseball in the cauldron of noise and intensity that is Petco Park. By the numbers, though, Lara deserves the nod. Brice Turang Should Slide Back Up There's no perfect answer in the top half of the lineup right now. Brice Turang isn't at his best, but neither is Jake Bauers. William Contreras, meanwhile, had the worst outputs against this class of pitchers of any Brewers batter this year. He's manipulable in exactly the ways that Buehler likes to manipulate righty batters. Milwaukee needs to get runs in fast sequences that might start at the bottom of the order—in addition to Ortiz and Lara, Cooper Pratt did well against these 18 pitchers—but will need to be cashed in at the very top. Thankfully, Jackson Chourio's swing and approach are perfect for what Buehler tries to do. Chourio was worth 2.7 runs per 100 pitches seen against Buehler-like pitchers this season, though much of that damage came relatively early in the campaign. He should do damage in this game. Turang is the best lieutenant for him, though. He was about as good as Ortiz was against La Famiglia Buehler; Bauers has a brutal 34.9% whiff rate against them and needs to slide lower. Hopefully, a swift knockout punch from the top two in the order will spare Bauers the extra look at Buehler, anyway. Mason Miller and Adrian Morejon are, reportedly, available at the back end of the San Diego bullpen Wednesday night. The Brewers have already beaten each in this series, of course, but it wouldn't do to bet on doing that again. They need to take an early lead, for the first time in the series. That makes the first few innings high-leverage ones, from an offensive standpoint. To ensure that they win the pivotal first three frames, they should make sure Ortiz and Lara are in the lineup and that Turang is back in the 2-hole. View the full article