baseball Page 7 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

It's almost 2024 and the Yankees still won't allow beards
Earlier this year, the New York Yankees added sponsored sleeve patches to player jerseys, but as one ex-player pointed out, still won’t let go of its outdated facial hair policy that’s likely still costing the Bronx Bombers from signing certain players....

The Orioles should be stocking up for a World Series run, but opt to torture their fanbase instead
Baltimore Oriole fans looking to cleanse their palates of a bitter end to the team’s 101-win season will have to seek out a charcuterie board because the franchise’s big splash at the Winter Meetings is . . . Craig Kimbrel? ...

Why is Juan Soto such a burden?
Juan Soto might be the best hitter of his generation. In the past 53 years, only six players have accumulated more fWAR than Soto has before hitting age 25. They are Mike Trout, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, Ken Griffey Jr, and Andruw Jones. All of them Hall of Famers except for Jones. And the othe...

Every trade ever made between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox
Amidst slow winter meetings, two of baseball’s biggest rivals broke the ice by making a rare trade. The New York Yankees acquired Boston Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo in exchange for Richard Fitts, Greg Weissert, and Nicholas Judice. ...

Go ahead Jerry Reinsdorf, make everyone’s day
As has often been stated on these pages, Jerry Reinsdorf hates Chicago White Sox fans. And White Sox fans hate him. That’s the only fundamental anyone has to understand to get what’s going on the Southside. Or in this case, Nashville (insert Steve Harvey voice, “Takin’ his punk ass to Nashville…”)...

The Winter Meetings don’t work that way, Shohei
If you exist on a plane outside the insular world of sports Twitter (sports X?), you might not be aware that the world currently hinges on MLB free agent Shohei Ohtani picking a new baseball team. Until said team is chosen, those of us left behind in the bubble can do nothing but hit “refresh” on th...

It’s fight night at the Winter Meetings, maybe out of boredom
I had sort of bought into the magic of the Winter Meetings there for a second, and I know better. These haven’t been a thing for some time and yet many a writer show up thinking that deals will take place in the lobby or the bar where they can witness them come together over drunken arguments betwee...

CC Sabathia, ex-MLBers to play in revived Negro League East-West All-Star Game
The National Baseball Hall of Fame is set to revive the Negro League’s East-West All-Star game with a legends exhibition in Cooperstown, New York next May. ...

Could you imagine if Shohei Ohtani signed with the Blue Jays?
A new team has entered a bid in the Shohei Ohtani raffle — the Toronto Blue Jays. ...

The Baseball Writers Association of America’s anonymous ballot problem is hopefully ending soon
According to FanGraphs senior writer Jay Jaffe, the BBWAA has voted to make all Hall of Fame ballots an opt-out disclosure instead of an opt-in. The decision is still implemented to the Hall of Fame’s approval....

Do the Miami Marlins have Google?
Back in October, we learned that highly respected baseball mind and glass ceiling-smasher Kim Ng stepped down from her GM role because the Marlins, whom Ng had improved from a record of 57-105 to 84-78 and an NL Wild Card berth, insisted on hiring a president of baseball operations to be Ng’s boss. ...

The week in random sports news: Mbappe could be gone, the Bears, well, are the Bears and what were the Yankees thinking?
In the end, the Chicago Bears screwed up what could have been something historic. Last week they managed to be the first team to lose while winning the turnover battle by three and holding the ball for 40 minutes. They had the chance to do it two weeks in a row and live forever. Instead, they’re jus...

The week in MLB: Cody Bellinger's free agency twist, Luis Severino changes boroughs, Nelson Cruz lands role with Dodgers
On the surface, Cody Bellinger’s life is about to get better no matter what. He was a down-ballot MVP candidate last season who’s heading into free agency, as well as a former MVP and Rookie of the Year. He would have been labeled a unicorn back in the day, given his ability to play Gold Glove-level...

Being a fired college football head coach is the best job in America
Being a coach is a tough and thankless job. It’s a profession where everybody thinks they can do your job better than you, which often leads to a high turnover rate — especially when you’re the head coach of a Power Five college football team. But, being fired isn’t so bad when you have a million-do...

Who else but the Yankees would release a statement about Henry Kissinger dying?
There is probably a long treatise on how a crumbling empire of a baseball team wants to honor Henry Kissinger, the architect of American exceptionalism being an excuse to do whatever that country wants around the world that only led to this crumbling empire, but quite frankly I’m too tired and incap...

Deion Sanders deserved Sportsperson of the Year honors — 28 years ago
In 1992, Deion Sanders was named first-team All-Pro for the first time in his career as a cornerback for the Atlanta Falcons. One of the games he missed that season was to play in the World Series for the Atlanta Braves. They lost to the Toronto Blue Jays in six games. Those who thought that Sanders...

The NBA's In-Season Tournament takes from soccer but isn’t a cup
I’ll give the NBA this, as a soccer fan. It’s the only league to take notice of soccer’s consistently rising popularity and attempt to capitalize on that by co-opting some element of it. This is where anyone like me has to fight a blinding urge to scream about promotion and relegation, and earlier t...

The curious case of Cody Bellinger’s free agency
On the surface, Cody Bellinger’s life is about to get better no matter what. He was a down-ballot MVP candidate last season who’s heading into free agency, as well as a former MVP and Rookie of the Year. He would have been labeled a unicorn back in the day, given his ability to play Gold Glove-level...

The Cardinals appear to want to assemble the worst starting rotation
The 2023 season for the St. Louis Cardinals was an absolute disaster. Though they entered it as the NL Central favorites, even if by default, they lost 91 games as pretty much everything went wrong. The epicenter of their collapse was their starting rotation, which contained pitchers that couldn’t s...

The NHL is pawing at international competition again
While admitting I’m completely clueless as to the detailed logistics of constructing an international hockey tournament, the overall idea of it isn’t complicated. While the actual hockey is probably better before the NHL season when players are fresh and teams have a chance to practice and shape the...