the-mlb Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The umpires strike back
There is no longer season than the MLB one, and it’s understandable that just about everyone is at the end of their rope and not ready to deal with any sort of guff from any sort of swine. ...

The National League Cy Young race is kind of a mess
With one month to go in the MLB season it’s generally about the time that not only playoff spot chases become pretty clear, but so do individual award chases. If not a clear winner, as one might find with the AL MVP, then at least a couple of candidates have separated themselves and voters at least ...

The Angels wave the white flag, and Gregg Berhalter doesn’t know how a phone works
It obviously hasn’t worked out for the Anaheim Angels. While their determination to try and make themselves worthy of Shohei Ohtani’s long-term commitment, or at this point even a short-term one after the season, was admirable and certainly unique to MLB these days, their immediate nosedive after ac...

What if there was a Mendoza Line for other baseball stats?
Mario Mendoza put together nine nondescript major league seasons from 1974-1982 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Seattle Mariners, and Texas Rangers. He was good for -2.7 WAR and finished with a career .215 batting average....

Jerry Reinsdorf emerged from his crypt long enough to fire White Sox GM, VP
Not to turn this morning wake-up companion into Chicago White Sox Daily, but it’s a slow time of year. We’ll get through this together, I promise. ...

The Tampa Bay Rays are running out of dudes, and ESPN somehow becomes more of a farce
The Rays might be the best developmental organization in baseball, staying on top of an AL East where they’re constantly outspent by factors of three by their competitors by consistently bringing dudes through their system and onto the MLB roster. Or they toast other organizations in trades and turn...

The San Diego Padres: The weirdest team money can buy
The main headline of the MLB trade deadline was the New York Mets surveying the landscape and basically coming to a “fuck this” conclusion. They punted a good chunk of the roster, and haven’t really done much to deny that their eyes are now set on 2025 and beyond, not even next year. Certainly the s...

The Baltimore Orioles and Cincinnati Reds are cowards
The MLB trade deadline passes, with perhaps the most major deal being the Astros acquiring Justin Verlander. And really, who doesn’t want to relive 2017 except everybody? The Mets clearly have punted on next season too, considering the money they’re kicking to Houston to cover an option year that Ve...

Pat McAfee certainly knows the douchebag playbook
When you hand a bloated gas bag a Brink’s truck to work for your company, it can’t be much of a surprise when he acts like a bloated gas bag. People tend to keep doing whatever made them rich. Pat McAfee at least figured out that much, and ESPN is almost certainly getting what it paid for, whatever ...

NFL causes social media stir by posting entire Falcons Super Bowl collapse on Twitter
The NFL knows that football fans are starting to itch. No games have been played since the week of Valentine’s Day. Scott Hanson is sending out his weekly summer countdown of how many Sundays remain until the RedZone returns to our lives — nine weeks. Still, that first Sunday is after Labor Day. Wit...

The Braves and the White Sox were supposed to both have bright futures
Now that the MLB has reached the midsummer classic portion of its schedule, it gives me time to reflect. This period of deep thought has taken me back to a time when the Chicago White Sox and Atlanta Braves had the two best farm systems in MLB....

MLB's Home Run Derby Chain is terribly uncool
Look at MLB attempting to improve its All Star production with 2004 John Cena-levels of swagger jacking. Remember the G-Unit spinner chain? It has gone from Cena’s WWE championship belt now to the Home Run Derby. The 2023 winner will receive a chain with a bejeweled spinning plus sign....

Tough luck Pittsburgh, no Beyoncé for you
A significant blow was delivered to the Pittsburgh economy on Wednesday. At summer’s end, Acrisure Stadium will have hosted only one of the biggest concert tours of the season. Taylor Swift performed there in front of a record crowd in June. Beyoncé was scheduled to take that stage in August but the...

The NFL and NBA players associations are taking questionable leadership routes
The first collective bargaining agreement in the history of professional sports was signed by the MLB and MLBPA in 1966. At that time the executive director of the MLBPA was the late Marvin Miller, formerly a union negotiator for workers of U.S. Steel. His fierce advocacy for labor rights is largely...

NHL Draft: Who is going to take hockey's Sidd Finch?
The NHL Draft, which takes place tonight and tomorrow, isn’t quite the NFL Draft. Most of the players taken won’t show up for a season or two with their NHL teams. It’s also not the MLB draft, where it’ll be a long time either and everyone spends those middle years going off Twitter videos from vari...

Rob Manfred perpetuates the stereotype of Rob Manfred
I don’t want to speak for an entire fanbase here, but I’m 99.99999 percent confident when I say Rob Manfred can take his sympathy for Oakland A’s fans and shove it up his (redacted) until his (redacted) are popping out of his (redacted). Go (redacted) yourself, you (redacted) lying heap of (redacted...

PGA Tour commish Jay Monahan eating his words after LIV merger
Oh to be in that room when Jay Monahan had to look the players on the PGA Tour in the face on Tuesday. The chainsaw from Scarface couldn’t have cut the tension in that room. A room of the players who weren’t offered hundreds of millions of dollars of Saudi Arabian Money — or worse, were offered but ...

MLB’s shift ban hasn’t solved baseball's real problem, but it also probably can’t
A little more than two months into the MLB season, the first with a shift-ban that keeps two infielders on each side of second base, and the league will probably declare victory. There are more hits, and left-handed batters are seeing more grounders and line-drives are resulting in base hits, which ...

Which MLB hot starts through Memorial Day are here to stay?
We’ve reached Memorial Day, the first real milestone of the MLB season. The first seven weeks or so don’t decide who makes the playoffs, but it gives us a pretty good barometer. But which (at least somewhat surprising) starts are here to stay?...