— As I started writing this, Shohei Ohtani hit a home run in his first at-bat of the 2025 Cactus League; Ohtani was a 50-50 guy last year, but this year he figures to get back on the mound too.
Ohtani is 38-19, 3.01 in 86 MLB starts, with a 1.08 WHIP; he is coming back from Tommy John surgery.
Dodgers have spent a boatload of $$$; they’re favored to win the World Series again this year. It has been 25 years since a team won the World Series two years in a row.
— Juan Soto signed a 15-year, $765M contract with the Mets, who went 89-73 last year but lost the NLCS to the Dodgers in six games. Mets have Lindor-Soto-Alonso leading off their lineup, but how good is their batting order after that?
— New York’s American League team hasn’t won a World Series since 2009, despite having a huge payroll every year; last year was first time since ’09 they were in a World Series. They’ve made the playoffs seven of last eight years, but now they lost Soto, but added Paul Goldschmidt, Cody Bellinger and Max Fried.
— Tampa Bay Rays will play their home games this year in a minor league stadium in Tampa, because the Trop was wicked by a hurricane last year. Rays will play ton of home games early in the season, to avoid the humid summer weather in Florida.
A’s will be playing home games in Sacramento’s minor league stadium the next three years; hopefully they’ll move to Las Vegas for the ’28 season, but since their owner is a cheap bastard, no one knows for sure.
Summer weather in Sacramento is said to be a lot warmer than Oakland, so A’s home games figure to be more high scoring than previous years.
— Still unclear what the Red Sox lineup is going to look like; they signed Alex Bregman, but also have Rafael Devers- they both play third base. Devers is banged-up right now; when he gets back in the lineup, does Bregman move to 2B? Does Devers move to 1B?
Boston seems to have an excess of hitters; will they trade one for a pitcher (Dylan Cease)?
— Pittsburgh haven’t had a winning season since 2018, haven’t made the playoffs since 2015, but their pitching rotation is pretty good; too bad they won’t spend $$$ on some hitters- they could compete for a playoff spot in a less-than-stellar NL Central.
— Wish they’d put in the ball/strike replay challenge thing in for this season; it seems to be a very good idea, from what I’ve seen in spring training. MLB and the players’ union could get together and make this happen right?
— Famous birthdays, March 1st:
Elvin Bethea, 79
Brian Winters, 73
Ron Howard, 71
Catherine Bach, 71
George Eads, 58
Chris Webber, 52
Trevor Cahill, 37
Michael Conforto, 32
Tyreek Hill, 31
Ja’Maar Chase, 25
— Watching spring training games is fun (to a point); watch lot of Dodger games, listen to Rick Monday do analysis- he does radio during the season. He is 79 years old, has a great voice.
When I was a little kid, Rick Monday was an outfielder for the A’s; he was the first player taken in the 1965 amateur draft, which was the first-ever amateur draft.
He played 19 years in the majors and since has had an excellent broadcasting career.
— Read that All-Stars will be wearing their team’s uniform during the All-Star Game this year, which is a good thing, a throwback to the old days.
— Jose Altuve is going to play LF for the Astros this year; Christian Walker will play 1B, Isaac Paredes will replace Bregman at 3B, and it looks like Brendan Rodgers will play 2B.
Altuve’s defensive metrics at 2B weren’t good last year, so they’re moving him to the outfield. Left field in Houston’s stadium isn’t big; am curious where he’ll play in road games.
— Will Nolan Arenado remain a Cardinal, or get traded to a contender? He is on the books for $32M this year, $27M next year, $15M in 2027; he said he wanted to get traded to a contender, but apparently vetoed a trade to Houston.
Cardinals don’t appear to be a contender this season, so unloading a big contract makes some sense for St Louis.
— Mike Trout is moving to right field this year, as he tries to stay healthier; Trout will be 34 in August, has played in only 266 games the last four years, 41% of the Angels’ games. Not ideal for a guy who is on the books for $37M a year through 2030.
— Terry Francona is the new manager in Cincinnati; Reds have made the playoffs only once since 2013, the short season in 2020, but Francona is a Hall of Fame-level manager, winning two World Series in Boston, winning an AL title in Cleveland.
Reds have had three winning seasons the last five years, but were 77-85 last year, going 15-28 in one-run games. Reverse that stat, and Cincinnati would’ve been a playoff team.
— Arizona Diamondbacks lost the World Series in 2023, then won five more games last year than they did in ’23, but narrowly missed the playoffs.
Arizona added P Corbin Burnes, 1B Josh Naylor, but lost Christian Walker; they’re trying hard to win, but being a division rival of the Dodgers can be discouraging. More than likely, they’ll be hunting for a Wild Card spot, like the one they got in 2023.
