TAMPA — Dan Moeller’s known for two decades what some of the kids on his staff are about to find out: When pulling a tarp across an infield in the rain, it’s best to pull from the corners. The guys who pull from the middle are the ones who trip, slip, and end up underneath … Read more
MARS, Pa. — It’s just after lunch on a snowy January day, and the math teacher in Room 222 is sketching Pascal’s triangle on the whiteboard. Andy Bednar did not go to Cornell to teach advanced algebra. He went there to pitch for the baseball team, kick for the football team and study civil environmental … Read more
It’s an annual tradition: My column explaining why I think your favorite team isn’t going to win as many games as you think they are. These predictions are for fun, not a demonstration of my deep-seated loathing for your favorite team, and not the product of a sophisticated machine-learning algorithm to produce impeccable forecasts. I … Read more
Look, we didn’t want to ruin the baseball season for you, but we’re professionals, so when our bosses asked us collectively to predict the best players and best teams of 2025, we knew you’d take it as the gospel truth with no arguments or complaints. Sure, there might be a few rogue outliers in the … Read more
CLEARWATER, Fla. — Do you miss those robots yet? We’ve spent the past five weeks watching them pop out of hiding, every time a catcher, hitter or pitcher tapped his head to ask his favorite robot umps: Where the heck was that pitch? Then, almost instantaneously, a six-second animation would roll on the ballpark videoboard … Read more
In the 17 months since the Boston Red Sox hired Craig Breslow as chief baseball officer — their fourth leadership change within the past 10 seasons — the organization has undergone sweeping changes, particularly behind the scenes in the front office. Under Breslow’s direction, longtime employees have been fired, while others have left on their … Read more
The news … it’s not good. Arm after arm, it seems, has been felled by one injury or another. So it’s time to update the rankings. For some, like Gerrit Cole, they’re out for the year and it’s as simple as removing them from these one-year rankings. But others, like Brayan Bello, Tobias Myers or … Read more
TOKYO — During the early innings of a nighttime exhibition between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Yomiuri Giants, Nori Kawana walked through the concourse of the Tokyo Dome in disbelief. As the head of Fanatics’ East Asia operation, Kawana leads MLB’s merchandising in Japan, and the day had already set his company’s sales record in … Read more