One day last month, while killing time in the visiting dugout at Kauffman Stadium, Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt was asked what he actually did in his previous role as the Seattle Mariners’ bullpen and quality control coach. The first half of that label seemed obvious enough — bullpen coaches have been around in the…
By Grant Brisbee, Chad Jennings and Levi Weaver Every week, we ask a selected group of our baseball writers — local and national — to rank the teams from first to worst. Here are the collective results. Two surprising weekends can make a big difference in football, but small samples mean less in baseball. Keep that…
By Tim Britton, Johnny Flores Jr. and Andy McCullough Every week, we ask a selected group of our baseball writers — local and national — to rank the teams from first to worst. Here are the collective results, with the average rankings of our panel in parentheses. The first weekend of the baseball season offered its…
It’s an annual tradition: My column explaining why I think your favorite team isn’t going to win as many games as you think they are. These predictions are for fun, not a demonstration of my deep-seated loathing for your favorite team, and not the product of a sophisticated machine-learning algorithm to produce impeccable forecasts. I…
Look, we didn’t want to ruin the baseball season for you, but we’re professionals, so when our bosses asked us collectively to predict the best players and best teams of 2025, we knew you’d take it as the gospel truth with no arguments or complaints. Sure, there might be a few rogue outliers in the…
Editor’s Note: This article is part of our Rankings & Tiers series, an evaluation across sport about the key players, front offices, teams, franchises and much more. Welcome to The Athletic’s fourth annual MLB Position Player Tiers, where we rank the top 100 position players in baseball based on their expected all-around hitting, fielding and baserunning value for…
Editor’s Note: This article is part of our Rankings & Tiers series, an evaluation across sport about the key players, front offices, teams, franchises and much more. By Andy McCullough, Will Sammon and Sahadev Sharma The email from the New York Yankees arrived just past 6 p.m. a little more than a week before the first game of…
By Grant Brisbee, Andy McCullough and Stephen J. Nesbitt Every week, we ask a selected group of our baseball writers — local and national — to rank the teams from first to worst. Here are the collective results. It’s been 139 days since the New York Yankees fumbled Game 5 of the World Series and the…
It’s time for another round of the tested, trusted, completely objective, never-been-questioned, all-math, no-bias MLB franchise rankings. First, a change: Rather than span the Wild-Card Era (1995 to present) as we have done previously, the franchise rankings will henceforth cover the past 25 years, a floating time frame that feels right to start this year…
With spring training in full swing and Opening Day three weeks away, it’s time for my annual offseason report card that includes a breakdown of every team’s major-league signings and trades. Here are my final offseason grades for all 30 teams, along with each club’s best move, an “under-the-radar” move, a top storyline to watch,…