‘Believe in the power of cheese’: How a group of rookies helped give the Brewers the best vibes in baseball
MILWAUKEE — The Milwaukee Brewers had just finished one of the most successful road trips in their history, a 7-3 romp through the western regions of the big leagues, when the team returned home to bad news.
Garrett Mitchell, a rookie who had had a blistering first three weeks as the team’s starting center fielder, suffered labrum damage on an aggressive slide into third base during extra innings in Seattle.
The severity of Mitchell’s injury was announced Friday, and Mitchell spoke to the gathered media after manager Craig Counsell broke the news. After explaining that he was still processing the blow and declaring his intention to get back by the end of the season if at all possible, the almost impossibly upbeat Mitchell turned into a P.R. rep for the player replacing him, a 6-foot-4, blond-haired, toolsy rookie named Joey Wiemer.
“Joey is going to be fine,” Mitchell said. “The organization, all of the fans, should be happy, excited for him. He’s going to do a good job.”
Wiemer, who has all of 24 big league games under his belt, started about 80% of his games in the minor leagues on the outfield corners, mostly in right, where he featured one of the strongest arms in professional baseball. Center field is another beast, of course, but during his 44 games in The Show, Mitchell has shown signs of becoming an elite defender at that crucial position, the one held down so well in recent seasons by now-retired Lorenzo Cain.
On April 22, the day after Mitchell’s pep talk, the Brewers were clinging to a one-run lead against the Red Sox in the fifth inning. Boston’s Alex Verdugo blistered a Wade Miley pitch 103.7 mph to dead center. Wiemer got a quick read on it, raced for the warning track and made a leaping, twisting, falling grab on a ball that might have left the park had he not caught it.
It happened again in the eighth: With Milwaukee still leading by a run, Verdugo launched a 103.2 mph drive, right at Wiemer, who took a few long strides toward the wall and leaped slightly to make the grab. This was another ball that would have clanged off the fence if Wiemer had not reacted so quickly, moved so well or, let’s face it, if he were not so huge. He made it look easy.
“I’m very comfortable in center,” Wiemer said, with the kind of nonchalance only a rookie can summon. “I just touch the grass and if the ball’s in the air, go catch it. I just treat it all the same.”
This is just an anecdote, but it illustrates some crucial things about this version of the Brewers. They are younger. They are more athletic. They are more fun. They are deeper. And because of all these factors, they are better.
This can change. After all, we haven’t even reached the end of April. But when it comes to the Brewers, don’t look at this start as a mirage. This team was already pretty good, but now it’s better. In fact, while it’s too soon to make this a declaration, we can at least speculate that when the dust settles, we might just look at these Brewers as the most improved team in baseball.
THIS QUESTION OF “most improved” is a nebulous concept that depends on how you frame things. In this case, you can’t really predict that the Brewers will improve their win total more than any other team, simply because Milwaukee was already good. The Brewers won 86 games last season and missed the playoffs by only one game.
This is more a matter of trajectory. Milwaukee’s win count in 2022 was a nine-game drop over 2021. The roster was getting older, with an average age of 29.1 for the position players, the highest figure for the Brewers in more than a decade. Things appeared to be heading in the wrong direction and if that were the case, at the very least a season of retrenchment could be expected as the Brewers transitioned some of their top prospects to the majors.
Instead, this year’s group has been recharged by the injection of a group of rookies, not just onto the roster but into featured roles.
Between Mitchell and Wiemer, the Brewers have had a rookie starting in center field every game this season. Brice Turang, a Kiley McDaniel top 100 prospect heading into the season, has started most of the games at second base.
Youthful energy is one thing, but for a team with the stated goal of getting back to the playoffs, production is even more important. Wiemer ranks third among National League rookie position players by fWAR, Mitchell is sixth and Turang is 12th, even while all of them are still developing at the plate. That’s what a full set of tools can do for a young player.
“When you have young guys like that, you want to let them play, and so you try to give them some real runway,” said Matt Arnold, who took over baseball operations for the Brewers this winter. “It’s not just that they’re young, those guys are special. They’re young and they’re talented and they’re energetic. They just bring so much positive energy to the table.”
Take the cheesehead, introduced as a home run celebration. You have probably seen it on highlights. Every team comes up with something. The Pirates have a sword. The Orioles have a water bong. And the Brewers have the cheesehead, donned by every player who swats a ball out of the park. It’s the most Wisconsin thing ever, especially since it hit the big time in a game won on a Mitchell longball off the New York Mets‘ Adam Ottavino with Green Bay Packers running back A.J. Dillon in town. Dillion threw out the first pitch the night before, chugged a beer during the game and declared cheeseheads for all.
“I do believe in the power of cheese,” Mitchell said after his heroics. “It seems to be working. I think we should continue using it.”
They have continued using it, even perching it on the plus-sized dome of Tellez, the team’s preeminent home run hitter. During an MLB.TV interview, Tellez half-heartedly suggested the originator of the celebration, shortstop Willy Adames, should upgrade.
“I tell him we’re going to have to get a bigger one,” Tellez said. “Because it looks like a little Cheez-It on my head.”
Underlying this is a key point: This team has fun, in the clubhouse and on the field, and that makes it fun to watch. The clubhouse part is always hard to read when a team is playing well, because you don’t know if the upbeat mood is from the winning or if the winning is an outgrowth of the upbeat mood. Either way, the Brewers have both the wins and the fun. The kids are at the center of the MLB-elite defensive metrics on the field, but also in the ping pong matches and pop-a-shot H-O-R-S-E contests in the clubhouse.
“Young players, just because of where they’re at in their careers, they’re fun,” Counsell said. “They’re going through experiences for the first time and all the other players, they enjoy going through that experience again as well. Because it’s one of the best times of your life, getting called up to the big leagues and your first weeks in the big leagues.
“Everybody enjoys kind of reliving that. I don’t know what baseball player wouldn’t. And you get to do it through a bunch of guys, and they’re good teammates, they’re good people and they’re easy to root for. I think that’s definitely energized us.”
For the rookies, the effect is heightened by the fact that they are doing it as friends and teammates who rose together through the Milwaukee system. “Yeah, it’s awesome,” Wiemer said. “It really helps you, just to have a guy to look to, knowing they’re in the same boat trying to prove the same things. We just go out and feed off each other.”
This process would be more difficult if the veterans weren’t accommodating or were even resentful of the new faces. Clearly, that’s not the dynamic in Milwaukee.
“The veteran guys and the guys who have been here for a while have allowed us to be ourselves,” Turang said. “It’s been one of the biggest keys. Those guys have done nothing but respect us and allow us to play the game the way we play the game. It’s everybody in this locker room that’s helping each other out.”
The rookies have reciprocated the hospitality with real contributions to the Brewers’ fast start. Through the Boston series, no team had more WAR from rookies than Milwaukee.
YOU MIGHT NOTICE the absence of the word “surprise” throughout this story. That’s because you can call the 16-8 Baltimore Orioles a surprise, albeit a mild one, given preseason forecasts. The National League-leading Pittsburgh Pirates certainly qualify as a surprise and probably the Texas Rangers as well, simply because they lost so many games over the past couple of years. But the Brewers’ 16-9 start — they’re currently one game behind the Pirates in the NL Central — shouldn’t really be a surprise.
That’s because the Brewers have become one of the more consistently successful teams in the major leagues, and in the process, one of the most incessantly overlooked. Since the beginning of the 2017 season, only the Los Angeles Dodgers and Braves have won more games among NL clubs. That the Brewers have been able to put a halt to what seemed like an emergent downturn — while getting younger and more sustainable at the same time — is only the latest example of this consistency.
But a reset, if not a full rebuild, appeared likely after David Stearns, the respected architect of the recent run of solid Milwaukee clubs, announced he was stepping away from his job running the baseball operations of the Brewers and moving into an advisory role. His job was filled by Arnold, who had worked alongside Stearns in recent years.
Facing his first offseason as the head honcho, Arnold described his overall plan for the winter with utmost clarity.
“I think the overarching theme was we’ve got to get back to the playoffs,” Arnold said.
So a retrenchment was not in the offing. But with an aging roster and a gap in your postseason résumé, the task of reversing an apparent decline isn’t easy, especially when you’re not going to be in play for the top free agents. Opportunism becomes the strategy, in moves that won’t generate many hot stove headlines. And for an organization like the Brewers, that approach must be accompanied by faith in the players your system is pushing up to the majors.
The first domino was a late-November trade that sent Hunter Renfroe to the Los Angeles Angels for three pitching prospects, including Janson Junk and Elvis Peguero, both immediate depth options. Just as importantly, moving Renfroe’s power bat opened up an outfield slot and, as we’ll see, the Brewers needed to create opportunity in the outfield.
In early December, another opportunity was created when Milwaukee sent veteran second baseman Kolten Wong to the Seattle Mariners for Jesse Winker and Abraham Toro. This opened second base for Turang and gave Milwaukee an everyday-against-righties DH in Winker and quality veteran depth in Toro, who started the season in Triple-A.
Other moves flew way under the radar. Owen Miller (Cleveland Guardians) and Javy Guerra (Tampa Bay Rays) were added as players to be named later from trades earlier in the year. Minor league free agent Blake Perkins was signed. Former Brewer starter Wade Miley was signed to a free agent deal, returning to Milwaukee for the first time since 2018.
Then, that opportunism came into play. First, Arnold injected the Brewers into the Sean Murphy sweepstakes by offering up the prospect the Atlanta Braves needed to sway the Oakland Athletics, sending Esteury Ruiz to Oakland. Murphy headed for Atlanta, which sent a clutch of prospects to the A’s to join Ruiz. Arnold, for his trouble, added a complementary big league reliever in groundballer Joel Payamps and a 25-year-old starting catcher in William Contreras, who made the NL All-Star team last season.
Finally, Brian Anderson, who was non-tendered by the Miami Marlins in November, signed with the Brewers in late January.
“It was just a combination of how to do things, to improve everywhere, across the board,” Arnold said. “Improve our depth, improve our rotation and our bullpen. It’s challenging to do, especially in a market that was pretty crazy, but fortunately, we were able to add some guys that have so far played really well.”
CONSIDERING ALL OF this change — plus an early injury to starting third baseman Luis Urias — the bottom line is this: Of the nine players who have currently played the most at their respective positions, only three are carryovers from last season: Tellez, Adames and Christian Yelich.
Yelich’s tenure with the club is an interesting prism through which to view the Brewers’ success. His first season with Milwaukee was 2018, when the Brewers won 96 games and finished one win shy of the World Series, losing to the Dodgers in the NLCS. Even as the roster keeps churning, the Brewers have remained competitive ever since, with four playoff appearances in the past six seasons — in the other two, they finished a single game out of the NL bracket. And yet Yelich is the only position player remaining from his first Brewers team.
There are many explanations for this ongoing competitiveness despite so much turnover. One is a willingness to spend, at least moderately: Milwaukee is baseball’s smallest market, but the Brewers’ payroll has ranked in the 19-20 range the past three seasons, per Cots Contracts.
Counsell’s nine-year tenure is another, one constant in the storm of iteration that marks baseball in a market like Milwaukee.
“He’s a winner,” Turang said. “He wants to win as much as we do. When you have that atmosphere and that’s all you have to focus on, leaving stuff off the field at the door, it’s been awesome.”
In practical terms, this has been evident in different ways over the years, all while Counsell has soared to the top of his profession. He (and his pitching coaches, currently Chris Hook) have been able to put relievers in the right roles to bridge the innings from Milwaukee’s strong starting staff to its lockdown closer, formerly Josh Hader and now Devin Williams. It’s also evident in the Brewers’ ability to field elite defenses, with Counsell usually deflecting the credit for that to coaches like Pat Murphy and Nestor Corredor.
But maybe it’s evident most of all in the way the players so often seem to just get better after they join the Brewers. For all the attention that has gone to teams like the Rays, Dodgers and San Francisco Giants for their ability in this area, Milwaukee ranks right with them. Two of the offseason acquisitions, Anderson and Contreras, are the latest examples of this.
Anderson has been a major boost to the roster in a number of ways. On offense, he’s simply hitting the ball harder more often than ever before. His barrel rate this season (18.9%) is in the top 10 percentile of big league hitters. And, in his first season with the Brewers, it’s more than double the career standard he established with the Marlins (7.8%).
Perhaps just as important, Anderson’s defensive ability in both the infield and the outfield has allowed Counsell to shape his lineup in a number of ways even as he moves players around and covers for the absences of Urias, Tyrone Taylor and, now, Mitchell.
“We’ve come to realize just how valuable that is, especially with our injuries,” Counsell said. “The infielder-outfielder, just the flexibility that it gives you, just increases the floor for your team.”
Contreras made the NL All-Star team last season largely because of his bat. He produced at 136 OPS+ for the Braves but was dealt largely because they believed Murphy’s defense made him a more viable everyday option.
It’s early days when it comes to looking at this game of catching musical chairs, but Contreras has been a big part of Milwaukee’s elite run prevention unit so far. According to Fangraphs’ consensus rating for defense, Murphy indeed leads all backstops with 3.5 runs saved above average. But Contreras is tied for second at 3.3, along with his brother, Willson.
“Contreras is a dynamic player and it’s happening on both sides of the ball, which has been a lot of fun,” Arnold said. “Same with Brian Anderson. There aren’t too many guys that can go at third and to the outfield at a very high level. So those kinds of profiles, when they come available, we just do what we can to hop in and get involved.”‘
THERE WILL BE challenges ahead for the Brewers. The Mitchell injury was a gut punch, especially given an injury to Sal Frelick, the highly rated outfield prospect who likely would have been his replacement — if not for the ill fate that he sprained his left thumb in the minors on the very same day that Mitchell injured his shoulder in Seattle. Like Mitchell, Frelick suffered the injury on a slide.
While Frelick’s injury required surgery, his recovery is expected to be much quicker than that of Mitchell — Frelick could be back in as soon as six weeks. Whenever he returns, adding another rookie of his caliber could help perpetuate this feeling of forward momentum for Milwaukee, even as everyone holds out hope that Mitchell can return to help out late in the campaign.
The team continues to wait to see how long it might have to go without ace starter Brandon Woodruff, who has an ailing shoulder. Meanwhile, co-ace Corbin Burnes has been up and down to start the season, though given his track record, that’s only another spot at which Milwaukee can look to get better as the season goes along. Eventually, Urias will add to that dynamic as well.
But on the field, the Brewers show every sign of being a sustainable contender. Only five teams have a better run differential during the early going, even though Milwaukee has played a tough early schedule.
The Brewers rank in the top 10 positionally by fWAR at most spots and are in the positive at most of the others, except for DH. And that ranking could change fast if Winker gets going. They rank second in Fangraphs’ team defensive metric and have an elite ERA+ of 120.
In other words, this is a complete team without any glaring weaknesses and with excellent depth (as long as the injury bug doesn’t get worse), a balanced set of skills and a number of players who should continue to trend in a positive direction.
So if the Brewers aren’t the most improved team in the majors yet, they might just get there by season’s end. Either way, this is a team that is just enjoying what it is doing right now. It plans to keep doing it.
“We’ve had a good time,” Turang said. “We just keep continuing to go out there every day, give it all we got and try to win ball games. But we know nothing’s promised. So we’re just going to keep the energy high and the focus going.”
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David Schoenfield
There’s plenty of history in the rivalry between the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies. It’s about 116 miles from Citi Field to Citizens Bank Park. The two teams been competing for the NL East since 1969. Star players from Tug McGraw to Jerry Koosman to Lenny Dykstra to Pedro Martinez to Zack Wheeler have played for both franchises. Mets fans loathe the Phanatic, and Phillies fans laugh derisively at Mr. Met.
Despite this longevity, the two teams have rarely battled for a division title in the same season. The only years they finished No. 1 and 2 or were battling for a division lead late in the season:
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1986: Mets finished 21.5 games ahead
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2001: Both finished within six games of the Braves
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2006: Mets finished 12 games ahead
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2007: Phillies finished one game ahead
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2008: Phillies finished three games ahead
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2024: Phillies finished six games ahead of Mets and Braves
So it’s a rare treat to see the Mets and Phillies battling for the NL East lead in as New York faces the San Francisco Giants on “Sunday Night Baseball” this week. This season has also been a bit of bumpy ride for both teams, so there is pressure on both front offices to make trade deadline additions in hopes of winning the World Series that has eluded both franchises in recent years despite high payrolls and star-laden rosters. Let’s dig into what both teams need to do before Thursday.
The perfect trade deadline for the Mets
1. Bullpen help
The Mets already acquired hard-throwing lefty Gregory Soto from the Orioles, but David Stearns will likely look for another reliever, given that the Mets’ bullpen has struggled since the beginning of June with a 5.02 ERA. In my grade of the trade, I pointed out the importance for the Mets to add left-handed relief. Think of potential playoff opponents and all the key left-handed batters: Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper on the Phillies; Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy on the Dodgers; Kyle Tucker, Michael Busch and Pete Crow-Armstrong on the Cubs.
Soto has held lefties to a .138 average this season, and it does help that the Mets have two lefty starters in David Peterson and Sean Manaea. They also just activated Brooks Raley after he had been out since early 2024. If he is back to his 2022-23 form, when he had a 2.74 ERA and held lefties to a .209 average, maybe the Mets will feel good enough about their southpaw relief.
They could still use another dependable righty reliever. Mets starters were hot early on, but they weren’t going deep into games, and outside of Peterson, the lack of longer outings is a big reason the bullpen ERA has skyrocketed. Carlos Mendoza has overworked his setup guys, including Huascar Brazoban and Reed Garrett. Brazoban has never been much of a strike thrower anyway, and Garrett similarly faded in the second half last season. Adding a high-leverage righty to set up Edwin Diaz makes sense. Candidates there include David Bednar of the Pirates, Ryan Helsley of the Cardinals, Griffin Jax or Jhoan Duran of the Twins, or maybe a longer shot such as Emmanuel Clase or Cade Smith of the Guardians.
2. Think big, as in Eugenio Suarez
Mark Vientos was a huge key to last season’s playoff appearance and trip to the NLCS, hitting .266/.322/.516 with 27 home runs after beginning the season in Triple-A. He hasn’t been able to replicate that performance, though, hitting .224/.279/.354. That has led to a revolving door at third base, with Vientos, Brett Baty and Ronny Mauricio starting games there in July. Overall, Mets third basemen ranked 24th in the majors in OPS entering Friday.
Lack of production at third is one reason the Mets’ offense has been mediocre rather than very good — they’re averaging 4.38 runs per game, just below the NL average of 4.43. They could use another premium bat, given the lack of production they’ve received from center field and catcher (not to mention Francisco Lindor‘s slump since the middle of June). Maybe Francisco Alvarez‘s short stint back in Triple-A will get his bat going now that he’s back in the majors, but going after Suarez to hit behind Juan Soto and Pete Alonso would lengthen the lineup.
3. Reacquire Harrison Bader to play CF
Tyrone Taylor is a plus defender in center and has made several incredible catches, but he’s hitting .209/.264/.306 for a lowly OPS+ of 65. Old friend Bader is having a nice season with the Twins, hitting .251/.330/.435. Maybe that’s a little over his head, given that he had a .657 OPS with the Mets last season, but he would still be an offensive upgrade over Taylor without losing anything on defense — and he wouldn’t cost a top-tier prospect. The Mets could still mix in Jeff McNeil against the really tough righties, but adding Suarez and Bader would give this lineup more of a championship feel.
The perfect deadline for the Phillies
1. Acquire Jhoan Duran
Like the Mets, the Phillies already made a move here, signing free agent David Robertson, who had a 3.00 ERA and 99 strikeouts in 72 innings last season with the Rangers. On paper, he should help, but he’s also 40 and will need a few games in the minors to get ready. Even with Robertson, the Phillies could use some more help here. They’ll eventually get Jose Alvarado back from his 60-game PED suspension, but Alvarado is ineligible for the postseason. At least the Mets have an elite closer in Edwin Diaz. Jordan Romano leads the Phillies with eight saves and has a 6.69 ERA. Matt Strahm is solid, but more useful as a lefty setup guy than a closer (think of all those left-handed batters we listed for the Mets, then sub out Juan Soto and Brandon Nimmo for Harper and Schwarber).
And the Phillies’ bullpen has consistently come up short in big games. Think back to last year’s NLDS, when Jeff Hoffman lost twice to the Mets. Or 2023, when Craig Kimbrel lost two games in the NLCS against the Diamondbacks. Or the 2022 World Series, when Yordan Alvarez hit the huge home run off Alvarado in the clinching Game 6.
So, yes, a shutdown closer is a must. Maybe that’s Bednar, maybe Clase if he’s available (although he struggled in last year’s postseason), maybe Helsley. But the guy Dave Dombrowski should go all-in to get: Duran. The window for the Phillies is slowly closing as the core players get older. Duran is under control through 2027, so he’s a fit for now and the immediate future. The trade cost might be painful, but with his 100 mph fastball and splitter, he has the elite stuff you need in October.
2. Add Ryan O’Hearn
The Phillies have received below-average production from both left field (mostly Max Kepler) and center field (Brandon Marsh/Johan Rojas platoon). The center-field market is pretty thin except for Bader or maybe a gamble on Luis Robert Jr. I’d pass on Robert, stick with the Marsh/Rojas platoon and upgrade left field with O’Hearn, who is hitting .281/.375/.452 for the Orioles. He isn’t the perfect fit since, like Kepler, he hits left-handed and struggles against lefties, but he’s a patient hitter with a much better OBP, and he’s passable in the outfield.
3. Acquire Willi Castro
Here’s the bottom line: The Phillies have to admit that some of their long-term position players aren’t getting the job done — such as second baseman Bryson Stott, who has a 77 OPS+. Third baseman Alec Bohm has been better but also has a below-average OPS.
That makes Castro a nice fit. He’s not a star, but he’s an above-average hitter, a switch-hitter who plays all over the field for the Twins, having started games at five different positions. He could play second or third or start in left field against a lefty. Philadelphia could even start him in center instead of Rojas, although that would be a defensive hit. Bottom line: Castro would give the Phillies a lot more versatility — or a significant offensive upgrade over Stott if they start him every day at second.
Note as well: Stott has hit .188 in 33 career postseason games. Bohm has hit .214 with two home runs in 34 postseason games. The Phillies need a different offensive look for October.
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Buster Olney
It would be ideal if every MLB team were so desperate to win that they would do whatever it takes. But in an industry with so many variables from team to team — roster composition, payroll commitment, market size, owner ambition, fan rabidity and history — some organizations are willing to go further and do more than others.
The New York Mets paid more in luxury taxes last season ($97 million) than the Pittsburgh Pirates have dedicated to payroll this season, and Pittsburgh could attempt to reduce salary commitments even further at this year’s trade deadline.
Some teams are more desperate than others. As we near the July 31 deadline, we present the teams most desperate to make a deal.
New York played in the World Series last year, and in a lot of markets, that might be enough to satisfy a fan base. But not with the Yankees, whose most faithful fans judge them under the George Steinbrenner Doctrine: If you don’t win the World Series, you’ve had a bad year. This is a constant.
The Yankees could return to where they were last October. The 33-year-old Aaron Judge, one of the most dynamic hitters ever, is having another historic season. New York wants to take advantage of that — particularly because the American League is wide open with as many as seven or eight AL teams having reasonable paths to the World Series.
But the Yankees still have distinct holes. They badly need an upgrade at third base, which someone like Eugenio Suarez could fill. Gerrit Cole and Clarke Schmidt suffered season-ending elbow injuries, leaving a need for another experienced starting pitcher. Their bullpen also needs help in the sixth and seventh innings.
After the departure of Juan Soto, Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner and general manager Brian Cashman are probably under more pressure to do something this season than any of their peers. What else is new?
It’s remarkable how similar this version of the Phillies is to the teams that president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski constructed in Detroit, with Philadelphia’s strong starting pitching (Zack Wheeler and Cristopher Sanchez playing the roles of Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer) and a lineup of sluggers (Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper as Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder).
The major question that hangs over this Philadelphia team, as was the case with those Tigers teams, is about the bullpen: Is there enough depth and power? For the Phillies, that is complicated by the situation with lefty Jose Alvarado, who will return in August from his 80-game suspension under the PED policy but not be eligible for the postseason.
The Phillies paid heavily for free agent reliever David Robertson, giving him the equivalent of a $16 million salary for the rest of the regular season, but they could use another reliever who is adept at shutting down high-end right-handed hitters in the postseason.
On the days Tarik Skubal pitches, the Tigers could be the best team in baseball; it’s possible that in the postseason, he could be his generation’s version of Orel Hershiser or Madison Bumgarner, propelling his team through round after round of playoffs to the World Series.
But the Tigers might have Skubal for only the rest of this year and next season, before he, advised by his agent Scott Boras, heads into free agency and becomes maybe the first $400 million pitcher in history.
Now is the time for Detroit to make a push for its first championship in more than four decades. And for Scott Harris, the team’s president of baseball operations, that means adding a couple of high-impact relievers capable of generating a lot of swing-and-misses.
The Mariners showed they are serious about making moves before this deadline with Thursday’s trade for first baseman Josh Naylor.
The last time the Mariners reached the league championship series, Ichiro Suzuki — who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame this weekend — was a rookie. Edgar Martinez was a 38-year-old designated hitter, and Jamie Moyer and Freddy Garcia were the staff aces. You get the point: It has been a really long time since the Mariners have had postseason success, and the team has never reached the World Series.
An opportunity seems to be developing for Seattle. The talented rotation, hammered by injuries in the first months of this season, could be whole for the stretch run. Cal Raleigh is having the greatest season by a catcher, contending with Judge for the AL MVP Award. Julio Rodriguez has generally been a strong second-half player.
Even ownership seems inspired: After a winter in which the Mariners spent almost nothing to upgrade the roster, other teams report that Seattle could absorb money in trades before the deadline.
5. New York Mets
Owner Steve Cohen doesn’t sport the highest payroll this year — the Dodgers’ Mark Walter is wearing that distinction — but the Mets are well over the luxury tax threshold again, in the first season after signing Juan Soto. Cohen has made it clear that generally, he will do what it takes to land the club’s first championship trophy since 1986.
But that does not include preventing David Stearns, the Mets’ respected president of baseball operations, from doing what he does best — making subtle and effective deals at the trade deadline. Rival execs expect that Stearns will work along the same lines he did last year — finding trades that improve the team’s depth without pillaging its growing farm system. That could mean adding a starting pitcher capable of starting Game 1, 2 or 3 of a postseason series, as well as bullpen depth.
Cohen is experiencing the impact of overseeing a front office that made an impetuous win-now trade at the 2021 deadline, when the Mets swapped a minor leaguer named Pete Crow-Armstrong for two months of Javier Baez. That clearly didn’t pan out for them. Cohen is desperate to win, but within the prescribed guardrails.
Last winter, the Padres had to live with the knowledge that they were probably the best team other than the Dodgers and that they came within a win of knocking out L.A. There is a lot about San Diego’s 2025 roster to like: Manny Machado clearly responds to a big stage, and the bullpen could be the most dominant at a time of year when relief corps often decide championships.
However, as Padres general manager A.J. Preller navigates this trade deadline in the hopes of living out late owner Peter Seidler’s dream of winning San Diego’s first World Series title, he has a relatively thin, aging, top-heavy roster with a lot of significant payroll obligations. This is why the Padres are considering trading Dylan Cease, who is potentially the highest-impact starter available on the market. Preller could move Cease to fill other roster needs, current and future ones, and then deal for a cheaper veteran starter to replace him.
“He’ll have to rob Peter to pay Paul,” one of Preller’s peers said.
Hope has emerged after the team’s all-in, $500 million signing of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., with the Blue Jays taking the lead in the AL East.
Toronto’s rotation is comprised of an older group — 34-year-old Kevin Gausman, 36-year-old Chris Bassitt, 40-year-old Max Scherzer and 31-year-old Jose Berrios. Without a clear favorite in the AL, Toronto could break through for its first title since the Jays went back-to-back in 1992-93 — and in just the second season since the club’s expensive renovations of Rogers Centre were completed. When Alex Anthopoulos led the front office a decade ago, he made an all-in push to get the Jays back into the playoffs, adding players like David Price because he believed this was the right time for them to take their shot — and they came very close to getting back to the World Series.
Reportedly, Mark Shapiro — the team’s incoming president at the time — did not approve of Anthopoulos’ strategy. Now, Shapiro’s Blue Jays are in a similar situation in 2025 to where they were under Anthopoulos: Will they wheel and deal aggressively before the deadline, or will they be conservative?
The Dodgers won the World Series in 2024, after taking the title in the shortened season of 2020. So, if they don’t win a championship this year, it’s not as if a bunch of people are getting fired and the roster will be jettisoned. But winning can be intoxicating, especially when the lineup and rotation are loaded with stars: The Dodgers can envision a postseason in which a starting staff of Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto could propel the team to a second consecutive title.
But the Dodgers’ bullpen — heavily worked in the first months of this season because of injuries to the rotation — is in tatters due to injuries. Will the Dodgers’ push to become the first team to repeat as champions since the 1998-2000 Yankees drive them to swap valuable prospects for needed bullpen help before the deadline? We’re about to find out.
This is a team very well-suited for the postseason: The Cubs are a strong defensive team; they have a deep lineup around Kyle Tucker, in what might be Tucker’s only season in Chicago; and they put the ball in play.
They’ve got a good farm system, as well as an experienced president of baseball operations in Jed Hoyer. He was part of championships in Boston in 2004 and 2007 and was the Cubs’ general manager for their 2016 title. He and Theo Epstein made the Nomar Garciaparra deal at the trade deadline in 2004, in advance of Boston’s breakthrough title in 2004, and the all-in trade for Aroldis Chapman on the way to the Cubs’ first World Series win in 108 years in 2016.
But the X factor for Chicago in recent years is whether ownership operates with the same desperation — in the way that Astros owner Jim Crane did when he pushed through a Justin Verlander trade for Houston in August 2017.
This seems to be a good time for the Cubs to be desperate, to do anything to win another championship. Will a title be a priority for owner Tom Ricketts?
NEW YORK — Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber topped Mark McGwire for most home runs among a player’s first 1,000 hits, hitting long ball No. 319 during Friday night’s 12-5 victory over the New York Yankees.
“I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not,” Schwarber said.
Ten days after lifting the National League to victory in the first All-Star Game swing-off, Schwarber keeps going deep. He hit a pair of two-run homers Friday night, with the first drive, his milestone hit, starting the comeback from a 2-0 deficit. He got the ball back after it was grabbed by a Phillies fan attending with his friends in Yankee Stadium’s right-center-field seats.
“I saw it on the video and then I see the dude tugging,” Schwarber said. “I’m like: ‘Oh, they all got Philly stuff on.’ That was cool.”
He met the trio after the game, gave an autographed ball to each and exchanged hugs. When he went to get a third ball to autograph, one of the three said he just wanted the potential free agent to re-sign with the Phillies.
“You show up to the field every single day trying to get a win at the end of the day, and I think our fans kind of latch on to that, right?” Schwarber said. “It’s been fantastic these last 3½ years, four years now. The support that we get from our fans and it means a lot to me that, you know, that they attach themselves to our team.”
Schwarber tied it at 2-2 in the fifth against Will Warren when he hit a 413-foot drive on a first-pitch fastball.
After J.T. Realmuto‘s three-run homer off Luke Weaver built a 6-3 lead in a four-run seventh and the Yankees closed within a run in the bottom half, Schwarber sent an Ian Hamilton fastball 380 feet into the right-field seats.
Schwarber reached 1,000 hits with eight more homers than McGwire. Schwarber has 36 homers this year, three shy of major league leader Cal Raleigh, and six homers in seven games since he was voted All-Star MVP. He has 33 multihomer games.
“I don’t know where we’d be without him,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “Comes up with big hit after big hit after big hit. It’s just — it’s amazing.”
Schwarber, 32, is eligible for free agency this fall after completing a four-year, $79 million contract. He homered on all three of his swings in the All-Star Game tiebreaker, and when the second half began, Phillies managing partner John Middleton proclaimed: “We love him. We want to keep him.”
“He’s been an incredible force all season long,” Realmuto said. “What he’s meant to his team, his offense, it’s hard to put in words.”
A World Series champion for the 2016 Chicago Cubs, Schwarber has reached 35 homers in all four seasons with the Phillies. He’s batting .255 with 82 RBIs and a .960 OPS.
He also has almost as many home runs as singles (46).
Schwarber had not been aware he topped McGwire for most homers among 1,000 hits.
“I had no clue. I didn’t even know it was my 1,000th, to be honest with you,” he said.
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