#mlb

#mlb

There is a somewhat prevalent belief among fans that baseball should be boring. That is, baseball is a sport best suited for the interminable regular season grind of 162 games, and is best viewed at noon with a beer in hand, not in discrete odd-numbered series. Even though dismissing the euphoric potential of postseason baseball is straightforwardly outrageous, there are certain truths to this school of thinking.

M.L.B.'s owners look likely to lock out the players when the collective bargaining agreement expires in December 2026 in an effort to bring a cap to the sport. As the world watches, baseball is in jeopardy. Four more wins and really ruin baseball. The Dodgers top four pitchers all basically came from the market, and not at a small price over $1 billion. Then there's the hitting, buoyed by a trio of M.V.P.s, all L.A. transplants.

"We didn't ask to have legalized sports betting," Manfred said before Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday night. "It kind of came, and that's the environment in which we operate. Now we don't have a lot of choice about that, and if it's going to change -- broadly change -- probably the only way it would happen is the federal government."

If the player rejects the QO, his former team is now in line to receive a draft pick if the free agent signs elsewhere. Here is the (mostly set) rundown of what every team will receive should one of their qualified free agents indeed head to another club.... Revenue Sharing Recipients: Diamondbacks, Rockies, Reds, Brewers, Pirates, Marlins, Athletics, Mariners, Tigers, Royals, Twins, Guardians, Orioles, Rays

The Tigers and manager AJ Hinch quietly agreed to a long-term contract extension during the 2025 season, president of baseball operations Scott Harris announced today at his end-of-season press conference ( video link). Harris and Hinch did not specify the length of the contract, but Hinch ostensibly is now signed through at least 2027. Harris effused praise for Hinch, calling him one of the best managers in the sport and saying he hopes to continue working with him "as long as I can possibly work with him."

Pomeranz went 2-2 with a 2.17 ERA in 57 regular-season appearances, with 53 of them coming in relief. He has struck out five without allowing any hits or walks in five scoreless innings this postseason. He has pitched one inning in each of the last three games of this series. Pomeranz was the winning pitcher in Game 3 on Wednesday.

Mathematical probability, in a perfectly equitable distribution of championships, means each MLB team would win a World Series once every 30 years. That is not the world we live in, of course, so many franchises have experienced long title droughts that have stretched into multiple decades. There is even one that has never appeared in the Fall Classic.

"When seasons don't go the way you want them, it's never one person's fault. It's never one group's fault," said president of baseball operations Buster Posey on Monday. "But when they don't go the way you want, you can't, in my opinion, sit there and say, 'We're going to come back and do the same thing that we did this year for the next year. Having said that, that's part of why we landed where we landed."

NEW YORK -- The news spread like a flash of lightning on the night of Dec. 8. The New York Mets and free agent outfielder Juan Soto had reached an agreement on a jaw-dropping 15-year, $765 million contract that would be the largest in professional sports history once signed. That's larger than any deal global superstars such as Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo or LeBron James have ever inked with any of their teams.

And now we start watching the Astros. The Cleveland Guardians, remarkably, have overtaken the Tigers for the AL Central lead. The Tigers are clinging on to the third Wild Card, one game below the Sox. And the Astros got shut down by secret agent Jeffrey Springs out in NorCal last night, dropping them out of the race for now. With the Sox owning the tiebreaker against the Stros, a combination of three Red Sox wins or Astros losses clinches a spot in the postseason.