players Page 25 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Rays are at it again
The Tampa Bay Rays once again ducked having to pay a player some serious money when they shipped Austin Meadows off to Detroit for Isaac Peredes. Meadows is still some three years from free agency, but the Rays are probably fearing that second arbitration year like Baba Yaga. I mean, Meadows might m...

Have you noticed the Padres starters?
Boy, the Padres sure love a starting pitcher, don’t they?...

Can the Mets still compete with deGrom sidelined?
Jacob deGrom is the best pitcher in baseball when healthy. That’s indisputable at this point. Since the start of 2018, deGrom has posted a 1.94 ERA, 205 ERA+, 12.0 K/9 rate, and 0.881 WHIP across 581 innings pitched. No one else even comes close to those figures. The problem has been deGrom’s inabil...

Ben Simmons files grievance to get back $20 million
After a season spent off the court but directly in the glare of the national basketball media spotlight for his refusal to play with the 76ers, Ben Simmons is filing a grievance against his former team to the tune of $20 million in unpaid salary....

Dodgers need a closer, so they get a closer
The Los Angeles Dodgers don’t know when enough is enough, huh? No matter how much fire power they have, they can always have more. Earlier today, the Boys in Blue traded for Chicago White Sox All-Star reliever Craig Kimbrel, giving up outfielder A.J. Pollock in the process....

The Dodgers make it so difficult to hate them
On Tuesday the Los Angeles Dodgers re-signed Andrew Toles so that he can have access to mental health care and therapy as he battles schizophrenia. Toles played in just 96 major league games for the Dodgers and hasn’t played since 2018....
![Spring is in the air, so of course Mets fans have bad news [UPDATED]](https://images.deadspin.com/tr:w-900/2438bbb460694b8924e530450dc2f2cf.jpg)
Spring is in the air, so of course Mets fans have bad news [UPDATED]
UPDATE: ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweeted at 4 p.m. EST that Jacob deGrom would miss Opening Day and be shut down for a month and that the timetable for his return was unclear....

Brian Cashman making dumb excuses for team’s failures
The best way to keep a job you’re in jeopardy of losing is to insist that the failures aren’t your fault. Occasionally, it’s true. You could’ve been in the World Series had the Houston Astros not sounded the alarm for fastballs in the ALCS. That’s misleading because there’s a decades worth of slacki...

Japanese baseball is light years ahead of MLB
Major League Baseball is great. As long as no one is complaining about the unwritten rules and Nick Castellanos isn’t at the plate, the game is laid back and fun. I doubt I could enjoy it any more than I already do....

The White Sox are getting to their proper level of cantankerous
The term “White Sox” in baseball basically means anger. Or at least a heavy pinch of it to go with however else it might be defined. There is always an undercurrent of seething with the White Sox and their fans. It’s part of their identity. The White Sox are a symbol of their part of Chicago, the So...

Albert Pujols will have what Coach K is having
Opponents of the St. Louis Cardinals better get their rocking chairs and kitsch retirement gifts ready because another act had been added to the team’s retirement tour. Former lead singer/first baseman and current designated hitter Albert Pujols is rejoining the Red Birds for what he says is his “la...

PHF goes into new era, maybe, with a bang on a good night for women’s sports
While NC State and UConn were producing the college basketball game of the year in the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament, professional women’s hockey was also having a blinder on its biggest night as well....

MLB ventures further into the Why Not?
It has become tiring to describe baseball and those in it and just outside of it, as crusty. But it also hasn’t stopped me from being crusty on certain subjects that MLB has discussed to try and liven the game up. I hate the expanded playoffs. I don’t mind the DH in the NL anymore, though I used to ...

No, Toronto isn’t getting a ‘competitive advantage’ due to Canada’s vaccine mandate
Brandon Nimmo wants everyone to know that he’s “thankful” for New York mayor Eric Adams’ decision to cave in to Kyrie Irving and other giant babies who don’t care if you live or die, so long as they don’t have to get a shot, and lift the city’s vaccine mandate for athletes and performers....

What milestones might we see in baseball this year?
The coronavirus pandemic is going to wreak havoc on long-term baseball achievements for years to come. Obviously, anyone chasing career records took a hit from the 60-game season in 2020, and a lot of players were in and out of the lineup last season due to the virus. That also means interruptions t...

Can anyone fill the void left by Serena Williams and now Ash Barty?
Ash Barty’s retirement from professional tennis was a blunt instrument between the eyes of the WTA community. Barty was coupled with Naomi Osaka as the future of women’s tennis. At 25, she was coming into her own after winning the Australian Open in January, Wimbledon in 2021 and the 2019 French Ope...

The Phillies OF should probably wear their helmets in the field, too
When in the NL East, and having designs on competing to win it, the natural conclusion is that you’ll have to score a lot of runs to do so. Fair enough. The Braves are still here, Ronald Acuña Jr. is going to be healthy (enough), A team also can’t expect Francisco Lindor to be in a constant state of...

Steve Cohen Tax? It’s Mets’ rivals flashing cash
One of the headline parts of the new Major League Baseball collective bargaining agreement was the “Steve Cohen Tax,” a new level of the not-a-salary-cap salary cap system designed to rein in the Mets’ billionaire owner....

The Rockies don’t make any sense
As infuriating, or disappointing, or occasionally exciting as baseball teams can be these days, you can generally figure out their direction and aims pretty quickly. As well as where they are on said arc. You don’t need a Watson to figure out what the Reds and A’s are doing. Nor do you for the Mets ...

The decline and fall of the New York Yankees
It’s not just that the Yankees haven’t won a World Series since 2009, although it can’t be repeated enough that the Yankees haven’t won a World Series since 2009....