I can’t remember a year in which there were so many potential Comeback Player of the Year candidates, but also so many who are legitimate Cy Young Award or MVP candidates as well, highlighted by former Cy Young winners (Jacob deGrom, Sandy Alcantara) and former MVPs (Mike Trout, Ronald Acuña Jr.). Of course, Chris Sale…
SURPRISE, Ariz. — The groundwork for Joc Pederson becoming a Texas Ranger was laid last September, when Rangers president of baseball operations Chris Young sat with Arizona Diamondbacks general manager Mike Hazen. The two men were discussing the divergent paths taken by their teams. After meeting in the World Series the year before, the runner-up…
After the Texas Rangers acquired Max Scherzer at the 2023 deadline, a number of their players were unsure of how to act, and almost distanced themselves out of respect for the future Hall of Famer. Catcher Austin Hedges, who joined the Rangers two days later in a separate trade, took the opposite approach. “He was…
When I rank prospects every offseason here at The Athletic, I’m considering the players’ eventual peaks and their long-term values, which is why you’ll see prospects who were just drafted or have only played in the complex leagues alongside prospects who’ve already made their major-league debuts. For readers more interested in which prospects might have…
By Chad Jennings, Aaron Gleeman and Tim Britton The semester was about to end, and too many of our students still hadn’t finished their homework, much less taken their final exam. Giving them grades took a while. But now that spring training is in full swing — and now that Jack Flaherty, Pete Alonso and…
The morning after Alex Bregman made his free-agent decision, Fred Petersen sent a text to his former boss with the Boston Red Sox, Amiel Sawdaye. “We got BERGMAN,” Petersen wrote. With that, a running joke between those who were with the Red Sox when the team drafted Bregman in 2012 came full circle. Sawdaye, now…
Pitchers and catchers have officially reported, full-squad workouts are almost here and spring training games start in a week. Although there are still some quality free agents on the market, most of the offseason moves have been made, so it’s time for my first MLB power rankings of the year. Let’s take stock of the…
Welcome to this year’s ranking of the top 100 prospects in baseball. I’ve been compiling and writing such rankings for 18 years now, and those of you who’ve read them before will find the format here similar to those from the recent past. My farm reports covering at least 20 prospects in each team’s system,…
NEW YORK — The passage of time is an unavoidable conversation these days for Rob Manfred, the 66-year-old commissioner of Major League Baseball. Sitting in a conference room at his Manhattan office this month, he scurried out mid-sentence to retrieve a piece of paper, a small square with ruled interlocking lines and a dot in…
There are still a number of difference-making free agents on the board and likely some significant trades still to come, but let’s take stock of each team’s offseason moves — or lack thereof. The teams that have had the best offseasons so far include the Yankees, Dodgers, Mets, Diamondbacks, Cubs and Red Sox. The worst?…