Category: Teams

Third Base is a Full House for the New York Mets

The New York Mets’ third base position reminds me of the famous line in Forrest Gump: “Life is like a bunch of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get”. Coming into this season, it looked like Mark Vientos was the answer at the hot corner, with him coming off a 32 home run season. However, Vientos was not looking like the 2024 breakout star and appeared more like……well, a guy that was lost at the plate. At the beginning of June, a hamstring injury forced him to the injured list. Eventually, Brett Baty got some reps at third and after starting slowly, he turned into thumbs up Baty before reverting back to thumbs down Baty. Ronny Mauricio was called and has found most of his Major League time being spent at third. Even Luisangel Acuna has seen action there as a defensive replacement.

It would be nice for Mark Vientos to reclaim the third base job. Credit: Sports Illustrated

Third base is like the village bicycle. Everyone gets a turn.

Vientos is about to begin a rehab assignment and could conceivably rejoin the Mets this weekend. He should be the frontrunner to reclaim the position as he is the one with the best, albeit brief track record of performing at the Major League level. None of the other three players have grabbed a hold of the spot the way Vientos did in 2024. Now does this mean he gets to remain the starter should his on base percentage hover below .300? I would say no considering Baty, Acuna and Muricio are all well thought of in the organization. What the chaos at the corner should do is bring out the best in each player. After all, the other guys that don’t step up at third do have second base to fall back on. Those who lose out on both second and third slide into a utility role or all the way down to Syracuse. In Vientos’s case, he doesn’t have that luxury. It’s either third base or thrown into another crowded space at designated hitter. Talk about a good problem to have. The team has one of the best records in baseball and their biggest worry is to find enough playing time for their youngsters.

The Mets have arguably entered their toughest stretch of the season. They have lost four consecutive games for the first time in 2025 and travel to Philadelphia after finishing up in Atlanta. Now would be the perfect time for someone, anyone to grab a hold of third base for the remainder of the season.

Philadelphia Phillies Can Use Andrew Painter in the Bullpen

A week ago at this time, things were bleak for the Philadelphia Phillies. The team had just been swept by the Pittsburgh Pirates and sat 4.5 games out of first place in the National League East. The deficit would grow to five games after losing 8-4 to the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday. Now? The Phils are only 2.5 games behind the New York Mets, having just swept the Toronto Blue Jays. Ranger Suarez, Cristopher Sanchez and Zack Wheeler all turned in outstanding efforts on the mound this weekend. The rotation is one of baseball’s best and the lineup is deep. The one thing that potentially dampens Philadelphia’s hope for a fourth consecutive playoff season is the bullpen.

Time for Andrew Painter to land in Philadelphia. Credit: The Philadelphia Inquirer

Enter Andrew Painter.

The Phillies’ top prospect should be looked at to bolster a suspect group. Their 4.50 ERA ranks 23rd out of 30 teams. Jose Alvarado, who was the team’s best reliever prior to getting suspended for 80 games for a positive PED test, won’t return until the middle of August. Jordan Romano has not worked out as expected in the closer’s role. Promoting Painter and putting him in the bullpen lessens the need to part with a good prospect for a rental. Despite underwhelming numbers in ten Minor League starts (4.82 ERA and seven home runs allowed), his 98 PMH fastball is the tonic for a struggling unit. Keep in mind that Painter missed all of 2023 and 2024 due to Tommy John surgery. Having him transition to a relief role could be a way to “ease” him into dealing with Major League hitters in preparation for making the big club out of Spring Training in 2026.

There is a precedent for this. In 2008, David Price was the top prospect of the Tampa Bay Rays. In September, he was brought up to the Majors and pitched out of the bullpen. In fact, it was Price that recorded the final out of Game 7 of the American League Championship Series to send the Rays to their first World Series appearance. The Phillies are a win now team and need to exhaust all options in order to return to the playoffs. Andrew Painter pitching out of the bullpen to me seems like a logical move. The resident Philles’ fan in the house also agrees with this assessment. Will Dave Dombrowski listen?

Reflecting on the Colorado Rockies

I have been paying extra attention to the Colorado Rockies recently. After all, each of the teams we root for will have played this woe-filled team by the end of next weekend. The Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees took turns fattening their records in Colorado earlier this week while the New York Mets will be hosting them next weekend. I don’t think we have to get into how bad the Rockies are except for this one fact. They could eclipse the Cleveland Indians’ (now Guardians) 22 game winning streak by a game and still be 11 games under .500. Perhaps I am in the minority but I don’t think it’s really that funny. Actually, it’s quite sad.

Nothing but love for Brenton Doyle and the Rockies. Credit: MSN.com

I often wonder what goes through the minds of players who are on a histroically bad team. Do they come to the ballpark anticipating a loss that day? How upset are they that by the end of April, they realize they won’t be in the playoffs? Are they saying, “Here we go again” after falling behind early? I have been a fan of some pretty bad teams. The 1990 New York Yankees come to mind. I had no illusions the Yanks were going anywhere. Their eventual 67-95 record bore that out. It’s depressing to know that your favorite team will be toast by June 1. It will be a long Summer. The Rockies are so much worse. They could be 30 games behind those Yankees by the end of the season. What do their fans think? Do they see any hope? After all, Colorado is coming off consecutive 100 loss seasons. Those two teams are miles ahead of the 2025 version.

It’s not as though the Rockies are devoid of talent. Brenton Doyle had 23 home runs, 30 steals and a Gold Glove last year. Ezequiel Tovar‘s 45 doubles led the league in a season ago. Zach Agnos looks promising as a closer. However, the fortunes of the franchise could be summarized with the Kris Bryant contract. His seven year, $182 million dollar contract has defined this era of Rockies’ baseball. He has played no more than 80 games in any season so far and there are still three years left on his deal. I don’t have any real insight or opinions on the state of the organization as I don’t follow it religously. However, this article from Sports Illustrated is pretty insightful about we have arrived at this point.

I really hope the Colorado Rockies don’t finish with the worst record in MLB history. We just went through that with the Chicago White Sox. Yes, the players make more money that we will ever see. However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t show sympathy for their losing. The best way they can make us smile is by sweeping the Los Angeles Dodgers June 24-26.

MLB Rivalry Weekend: Where Are They?

I love the idea of a Rivalry Weekend in Major League Baseball. It adds a little spice to a regular season that can experience some downtime. With the right matchups, this can be a weekend that baseball fans all over the country can be fired up about just as we get to the start of warmer weather. Because the season is so long, you can actually have two Rivalry Weekends.

The key phrase is “having the right matchups”. This current weekend does not provide them.

Aaron Boone should be leading the Yankees against the Red Sox this weekend. Credit: USA Today

I don’t want to be the guy to pooh-pooh a Yankees-Mets weekend tilt. Anytime they meet during a late Spring or Summer weekend, you are bound for some excitement. However, when I think of a rivalry series the Yankees should be a part of, I’m thinking of the Red Sox. Same goes for the Mets. It’s the Phillies they should be playing this weekend, not the Yankees. Yankees-Red Sox and Mets-Phillies are actually playing for playoff seeding and divisional supremacy. Yankees-Mets, Cubs-White Sox and Dodgers-Angels generate fan excitement for their respective cities but there is not the “hatred” for the Mets for a Yankees fan as there is for the Red Sox. The Dodgers-Giants rivalry is over a century old. Is any Dodgers fan jacked up for three games against the Angels?

That’s the other fault to this particular scheduling of Rivalry Weekend. By having the Mets and Yankees play one another, the Red Sox are facing the Braves while the Phillies are squaring off with the Pirates. Are those really rivals? This weekend would have been perfect for the Dodgers to face either the Giants or the Padres. This could have been the first matchup for the Dodgers and Padres since last year’s playoffs where San Diego almost derailed Los Angeles’s path to a World Championship. How about the Cubs and Cardinals? While the Cubs are hosting their fellow Chicago citizens, the Cardinals are in Kansas City to face the Royals. KC is not a bad substitute but the temperature is much lower for Cardinals’ fans than if they were facing their heated rivals from Chicago’s North Side.

As stated in the beginning of this post, I love the Rivalry Weekend concept. There should be two weekends of these games, one with true divisional rivals and one with the intracity/intrastate state contests. MLB gets an A for effort (most, if not, all games will be free on MLB.TV) but a B for matchups. I advise MLB that in 2026 make one Rivalry Weekend in May at this time and the other in August right before Labor Day. And next time, make the true rivals face one another.

Yankees, Mets and Phillies: Problems Abound?

The Major League Baseball season is seven months of ups and downs. It is important to not get too high or too low, particularly during April. It goes double for a team with high expectations. The first five game losing streak doesn’t necessarily mean a complete re-evaluation. Conversely, winning eight out of ten from April 15 through April 27 doesn’t translate into a parade. I have three fans in the house that I have to periodically remind that we have more than 75% of the season left to play. The New York Yankees, New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies have already dealt with some adversity and should still be playoff bound. However, that doesn’t mean that there are situations that bear watching.

Devin Williams will hopefully regain the closer’s role. Credit: NY Post

New York Yankees: It is a month into the season and Devin Williams has already lost his closer’s role. On Friday night, chants of “We Want Weaver” resonated throughout Yankee Stadium as his latest poor outing concluded. Call it an adjustment period, call it a lack of confidence right now. Williams is too talented to go an entire season like this. I don’t think this is going to be a situation where the home run he gave up to Pete Alonso in last year’s playoffs starts the decline of his career. However, if the Yankees are to repeat as American League champions, Williams will need to fix his confidence, his mechanics and whatever else ails him. If not, those chants Friday will be mild compared to what will come later.

New York Mets: Out of the three teams, the Mets seem to have the least amount of worry. Despite a brutal loss on Sunday, they still own the league’s best record. It feels like they need bullpen help after coughing up a six run lead on the day A.J. Minter went on the Injured List. That is merely a coincidence. Until Juan Soto starts hitting more consistently, I feel as though the offense will still go on these wild swings of ten runs in one game and then ten over the next four contests. That seems like a contradiction considering the Mets’ record, however it is something that has happened in the early going.

Philadelphia Phillies: It seems like the Phillies have been searching for a guy to lock down the ninth inning for years. They signed a previous All Star closer, Jordan Romano but so far, the early results have been discouraging. The defection of Jeff Hoffman to the Toronto Blue Jays has made a shaky part of the team even more suspect. Outside of Jose Alvarado, is there anyone to trust to keep a one run lead? Also, Alec Bohm‘s second half slide from 2024 has carried over to this season. He hasn’t homered in 107 at bats and his OPS is .532. Perhaps all of the trade talk surrounding him in the offseason has affected his on field play.

Will Ben Rice Keep Starting in the Summer?

Giancarlo Stanton has yet to appear in a Major League game this year. But you already knew that. The latest word on Stanton, last year’s ALCS MVP, is that he is coming along slowly due to torn tendons in both elbows. He is in New York and continues to hit off of a machine, according to MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch. Despite the loss of the prodigious slugger in the middle of their lineup, the New York Yankees have learned to win without him over the years given his numerous injuries. However, this time a viable alternative has emerged, providing thump at the designated hitter spot, though mostly from the leadoff spot.

Ben Rice is a legit Major League hitter. Credit: Associated Press

Ben Rice is turning into a bona fide Major League hitter.

Let’s face it, Rice could have 25 home runs by the All Star Break and the minute Stanton returns, the rookie will head to the bench. It’s a matter of economics. There is no way the Yankees will make the $32 million Stanton a part time player when he is ready to rejoin the team. However, will that be the right move? How do you take a guy out of the lineup who will be (presumably, hopefully?) still a force in the lineup? Yankee fans will not be patient should Stanton come back and start with ten strikeouts in his first fifteen plate appearances. Rice has been successful reaching base in 13 of his first 14 games. He has five home runs and his on base percentage is over .400. That does not sound like a player who should be benched for any reason.

Could we be looking at a platoon situation? The Yankees don’t want to relegate Stanton to pinch hitting duty but you also cannot take Rice out the lineup should he keep producing at this clip. It’s a nice problem for the Yankees to have. In fact, they should tell Stanton to take all the time he needs in rehab. This will be a fascinating storyline as the season flips to Summer.

MLB Managers: Safer than NBA Coaches

When it comes to firing head coaches, no one does it better than the NBA. This was borne out earlier in the week when the Denver Nuggets fired their coach, Mike Malone, two years after he led the team to the NBA title. The Nuggets were literally three games from completing the regular season and they decided to overhaul (General Manager Calvin Booth was let go the same day) their most recognizable non-players. In fact, several NBA Championship coaches who won recently were all fired within two years of winning it all (Nick Nurse, Mike Budenholzer, Frank Vogel). Not only was Malone canned recently but Taylor Jenkins, the best coach in Memphis Grizzlies’ history was fired with nine games left in his team’s season.

Rob Thomson took an opportunity and ran with it to the World Series. Credit: Sports Illustrated

There have been plenty of instances in baseball where a change in manager can get a team going all the way to the playoffs and beyond. Just look at the Phillies who fired Joe Girardi in May 2022, promoted Rob Thomson and went to the World Series. However, it just doesn’t happen in baseball when a team is close to the playoffs in say, September and an organization decides to change the manager. The instance I can think of is the 2008 Brewers who fired Ned Yost with 12 games left in the regular season and gave the job to Dale Sveum. The Brewers won the Wild Card but lost to the Phillies in the first round. Most times, when a manager gets fired toward the end of the season, that team is not going to the playoffs. Usually, organizations are not in a hurry to fire successful managers. The one notable exception was, again, Girardi, this time with the Yankees. He won a World Series in 2009 and led the team through a transition in the middle part of the 2010’s. Girardi and the 2017 Yankees made it all the way to Game 7 of the ALCS. His reward? He was asked not to come back.

Sure, there have been a fair share of head scratching managerial changes. Girardi’s case is notable , as is Mike Shildt getting let go by the Cardinals after the 2021 season. However, MLB managers enjoy job security that NBA coaches can only dream about. The stability for NBA coaches is so tenuous, that they should think about forming a union.

Torpedo Bats: Advantage or Myth?

Who knew that the biggest story of the MLB season so far would be a bat? More specifically, the Torpedo bats that the New York Yankees “unveiled” over the weekend against the Milwaukee Brewers. Nine home runs in a single game will bring you lots of attention and since Saturday, most of the baseball world can’t stop talking about the Torpedo. However, they are not new to Major League Baseball, nor limited to the Yankees. Giancarlo Stanton used one last year while Francisco Lindor and Elly De La Cruz have been using them this year. So is this bat a game changer?

Jazz Chisholm, Jr. is one of the Yankees using the Torpedo. Credit: Sports Illustrated

One weekend series is a ridiculously small sample size. Sure the the Yanks clubbed 15 home runs in three games. However, four of them were hit by Aaron Judge who does not use the Torpedo. Also, one day after leaving New York, the Brewers’ pitching staff was torched for 11 runs by the Kansas City Royals, a team not advertising use of the Torpedo. Players are now very interested , with the belief that, they too, can pad their offensive numbers. Having a bigger barrel would most certainly be an advantage, one that I am sure the league does not mind because, you know, offense is what brings attention. Or, as a certain Hall of Fame pitcher said on a commercial a couple of decades ago, “Chicks dig the long ball”.

The bottom line is that though appears the Torpedo is giving hitters a leg up, we won’t know more until at least a month into the season. By that time, I would speculate the majority of hitters will be using them and we can begin to compare numbers to previous seasons. The Phillies’ Matt Strahm had an interesting observation from a pitcher’s point of view, one that has some merit. In fact, if the Torpedo is here to stay, maybe baseball can rethink pitchers using pine tar. That I would love to see.

MLB Schedule Is March Madness

Hand wringing. Sleep walking in the morning. Attention diverted from work. If you think I am talking about the NCAA Tournament, you are correct. All of the above conditions are the feelings felt by sports fans and the rest of the population that believes they will win their office pools. It truly is March Madness. There is another period of time during this month that can also be described as March Madness. However, unlike the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat that comes with the Tournament, this time of March is just………maddening.

Opening Day in Japan is March Madness at its worst. Credit Yahoo Sports

I am referring to the beginning of Major League Baseball’s regular season.

For the second straight year, there is no real Opening Day. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs open the season in Japan on Tuesday, a full nine days before the rest of the league begins playing games that count. Madness. Two teams play regular season games and then don’t participate in another meaningful contest for close to a week and a half. Madness. The first important games of 2025 and they begin at 5:10 AM CST and 3:10 AM PST for the two fanbases they affect. Madness. As you can tell, I am not a fan of this first series being played an ocean away. I’ve long given up on the idea that MLB would restore Cincinnati as the rightful place to play the first game of every regular season. To begin a season where 95% of fans who love a sport (like my family and me) will watch no more than two innings of a game in a country that needs no introduction to baseball is sheer madness.

To be sure, we will be watching Cubs-Dodgers on Tuesday and Wednesday before heading off to school and work. Some baseball is better than no baseball. I get that Major League Baseball is trying to spread its product worldwide. But to do so at the expense of the cherished traditions of Opening Day is………..complete madness.

MLB Offseason: Yankees Play Landlord, Phillies Speculation, Mets Injury News

The Major League Baseball season ended two weeks ago and though it seems Spring Training is years away, in reality, we are under 100 days. By far, the biggest storyline of the offseason is where is Juan Soto going to sign? Given that Scott Boras is his agent and that he will have a handful of big money suitors, I don’t expect his decision until after New Year’s. The business of baseball over these next three months is more than just Juan Soto. There are still awards to hand out, players to be wined and dined and of course, the Winter Meetings in December. Our three teams have been in the news for one reason or another so far. All three have big expectations for the 2025 season. Now is the start of it.

Steinbrenner Field, home of the Rays in 2025. Photo from NBC News

Yankees Hosting a Rival

When Hurricane Milton rolled through southwest Florida in October, one of the casualties was Tropicana Field, home of the Rays. Extensive damage was done to the roof of the Trop, casting doubts on where the Rays would play in 2025. It was revealed that Steinbrenner Field, Spring Training home of the Yankees and the home of their Single A team would be Tampa’s domain for the season. With a capacity of 11,026, Steinbrenner Field is a more viable alternative to the other ballparks in the area. In exchange for their “generosity”, the Yanks will receive $15 million, helping them pay for about 38% of Aaron Judge‘s salary for 2025.

Interesting Phillies’ Rumor

Rumors are everywhere at this time of year. One that caught my eye, and when Caitlyn learned of it was “devastated”, is Alec Bohm being traded, as reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan. In corresponding speculation, Buster Olney of ESPN stated that the Phillies could a be place for Alex Bregman to land. This potential swap of third basemen is curious. Signing Bregman for a position that is not really a need adds another large salary to an already high Phillies payroll. Bohm has another two years of club control and is coming off his first All-Star selection. However, his steep drop in the second half and playoff disaster is giving management pause in making him the long term answer at the hot corner.

Met Injury News

The offseason got off to a painful start for Mets’ outfielder Tyrone Taylor. At the end of October, he underwent an umbilical hernia repair as well as right elbow surgery. Although this sounds troubling, Taylor is expected to start Spring Training on time. With Harrison Bader a free agent, Taylor is currently the only center fielder on the roster. He received a lot of playing time during New York’s playoff run, seeing action in every game and contributing a home run. Ideally, his role would be that of fourth outfielder, getting around 350 at bats between all three spots.