Believe it or not, we have played five weeks of the regular season, and already we’ve seen enough to identify reasons for optimism and pessimism for all 30 teams. Is the glass half-empty? Half-full? From those at the top of the MLB power rankings to those at the bottom, every team has reasons for hope … Read more
No player is untradeable, not even an aging, broken-down, signed-through-2030 Mike Trout. But with Trout’s latest injury, the horrifying thought of him spending the rest of his career with the Los Angeles Angels is moving closer to becoming reality. Trout, who turns 33 on Aug. 7, is expected to be out at least 8 to … Read more
As Astros fan Saul Malek read the criminal complaint alleging interpreter Ippei Mizuhara stole more than $16 million from Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani to pay his gambling debts, Malek was less stunned by the enormity of Mizuhara’s sports betting habit than by how familiar his behavior felt. Malek, 26, is a recovering gambling addict. The rush … Read more
In the story Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter Ippei Mizuhara initially told to ESPN, the two men logged into Ohtani’s bank account together on eight or nine occasions in 2023 and wired increments of $500,000 to Mathew Bowyer, an alleged illegal bookmaker under federal investigation. In the story Ohtani told the public days after Mizuhara recanted his initial … Read more
The Athletic’s MLB offseason grades 1.0. By Tim Britton, Grant Brisbee and Aaron Gleeman According to a report by an economics professor at Yale University, roughly 80 percent of all grades handed out to undergraduate students last year were As. Too bad for major-league executives, then, that they don’t attend Yale (at least not anymore, in several cases). … Read more
MLB began a formal investigation Friday of gambling allegations surrounding Ippei Mizuhara, the longtime interpreter of Shohei Ohtani, who was fired by the Los Angeles Dodgers this week amid conflicting stories about money paid for gambling debts. Commissioner Rob Manfred’s office said in a statement that the league had begun its formal process through its … Read more
TEMPE, Ariz. — Every morning for the past six years, no matter how early Angels players and staff got to Tempe Diablo Stadium, they saw a throng of Japanese media standing on the Tempe Butte mountain overlooking the team’s spring training complex. This wasn’t a recreational sunrise hike. Every camera was zoomed in, waiting for … Read more
As Jonah Heim squeezed the final strike of the 2023 postseason and Josh Sborz spiked his mitt on the mound to celebrate the Texas Rangers’ first World Series title, a thought crossed my mind: How will this change the franchise rankings? See, the Wild-Card Era (1995 to present) franchise rankings are not a creation of … Read more
As the February sunshine beams down on all of baseball, and the standings say that everyone is undefeated, it’s easy to melt into a zen state of spring training nirvana. But there’s one question in our annual spring survey that jolts us back to life. That’s the part where we ask our voters — a … Read more
Allegiant Stadium can host up to 72,000 fans for special events like Super Bowl LVIII. If every player in the history of Major League Baseball got a ticket, there would still be almost 50,000 available for Sunday’s game in Las Vegas. Pat Mahomes, whose son Patrick is the quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs, would … Read more
