American League Page 4 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

If Aaron Judge were an Angel…
They still wouldn’t make the playoffs. Thanks, I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your waiter. ...

Best non-MVP seasons in MLB history
The MVP Award is the pinnacle of baseball. Anybody who wins that award has cemented themselves in the annals of baseball history, and while one win doesn’t guarantee enshrinement in Cooperstown, it’s still one of the highest honors a baseball player can ever receive. The only bad thing about the awa...

Many want Shohei Ohtani to be the best player ever, but this season belongs to Aaron Judge
The Shohei Ohtani love has officially gone off the rails....

Should the Rays, Jays, and Mariners race to the bottom?
We knew the new baseball playoff system, with the addition of a third wildcard team, would create quirks. In a vacuum, it works because all division winners are considered equal. But in reality, where people play the games, they very much are not. Teams are hard to judge on just their record, becaus...

Lamar Jackson betting it all on Lamar Jackson
Lamar Jackson sees his market value. With the bank accounts of proven starting quarterbacks soaring, and the number of them throughout the NFL fluctuating, the Ravens starter is one of two former NFL MVPs to be active and not past their prime....

The Julio Rodríguez deal happened quickly, but it’s absolutely worth it
As of writing this, Mariners’ outfielder and 2022 All-Star Julio Rodríguez has played in 109 career games. He’s had 463 career plate appearances and has already earned himself $210 million guaranteed, and potentially more than $450 million in total. Over how many years? We don’t really know....

The DH could solidify the Dodgers’ transformation into the First Order
The perception of the National League to fans of AL teams is that of inferior baseball, due largely to the (until recently) absence of the designated hitter. This kind of bias happens in other sports, but it’s mostly unproven generalizations like the Western Conference is finesse basketball compared...

The Yankees could finish with a worse record than last year
October of last year may feel like an eternity ago, but take yourselves back for a moment. The Yankees were 92-70, securing a wildcard spot on the last day of the season. They lost the wildcard game to the Red Sox in a game where Gerrit Cole didn’t make it through three innings....

The Yankees are so horrendous, fans would rather cut hair than watch them
After starting the year on fire, the Yankees have cooled tremendously recently. They no longer hold the best record in the American League. The team has lost 11 of their last 13, and fans are so disappointed in their Bronx Bombers that I wouldn’t be shocked if the team’s subreddit morphs back into a...

Did the Guardians win the Francisco Lindor trade?
Perhaps the biggest bane of modern baseball is most teams’ aversion to keeping the biggest stars in the game, or even having them in the first place. Only a few teams are willing to pay the best players what they’ve earned, and everyone else is looking for ways to move them along as soon as the play...

Aaron Judge is in a one-man race for home run immortality
It’s never happened. In the current digital age, baseball has never had a true chase for the sport’s most sacred single-season record. Aaron Judge is making his games appointment television in a transcendent way that the Major Leagues haven’t had for a non-playoff game since Barry Bonds’ 73-home run...

Miguel Cabrera is why you don’t trade Juan Soto
Miguel Cabrera was the easy comparison for Juan Soto when he was made available and then eventually shipped out of DC to San Diego. Miggy was the last historically good hitter to be traded at a still pre-peak age. He was 25 when he started in Detroit after coming up with Florida....

Mariners make splash in hopes of ending lengthy postseason drought
The Seattle Mariners are looking to make the playoffs for the first time in over 20 years. Ichiro’s rookie season was the last time they played past 162 games. Heading into Saturday’s games, Seattle is only a half-game ahead of Tampa Bay in the Wild Card standings, and it’s far from a guarantee the ...

Texas Rangers could (eventually) have two top-of-the-line starters in their rotation
Finally, the Texas Rangers’ front office is attempting to position the franchise out of American League irrelevance. The team hasn’t won a postseason game since 2015 and, in the seven years since, Texas has tried to revamp its roster multiple times with players like Ian Desmond, Mike Napoli — eligib...

Things are changing in baseball
Black baseball is coming back....

Imagine if Josiah Gray develops an elite fastball
Coming into the 2022 season, Josiah Gray was Washington’s No. 3 prospect. He was a top-100 prospect throughout all of last season when he was dealt to the Nationals as part of the Trea Turner/Max Scherzer deal. In his limited time with the Dodgers and Nats last season, Gray showed flashes of excelle...

What does it take for the Seattle Mariners to get a starting All-Star spot?
Come on, MLB fans. Take a seat at the dinner table. We’re going to have a little chat. I’m not mad, just disappointed....

The New York Yankees got their 50th win last night, and are on a pace similar to the ‘01 Mariners
The evil empire has returned in a major way. The New York Yankees became a championship contender following the trade in which they acquired 2017 National League MVP Giancarlo Stanton, just one month after he won the award. The Bombers won 100 games in 2018 and 103 in 2019, but suffered some setback...

Tony La Russa got the Matt Nagy treatment on Saturday, but at least he’ll only hear it at his home ballpark
Fortunately, for Tony La Russa, the chants for his firing won’t follow him everywhere around Chicago. Even if the Chicago Bulls were playing in the NBA Finals right now, there likely wouldn’t be enough White Sox fans at the game for the chant to ring out enough for a viral moment. Also, La Russa’s k...
