Jesse joined ESPN Chicago in September 2009 and covers MLB for ESPN.com.
Michael Busch has been a first-round draft pick, a top-100 prospect and a Pacific Coast League MVP during his ascent toward the majors. In most organizations, that kind of résumé gets you fast-tracked to the big leagues. But as a prospect in the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ system, the path was much more complicated.
First, it was perennial All-Star first baseman Freddie Freeman signing a long-term deal to occupy Busch’s primary position in Los Angeles for years to come. Then, an offseason later, it was Shohei Ohtani joining the Dodgers, likely penciling Ohtani’s name into the designated hitter spot for the next decade.
Busch insists he wasn’t fazed by the splashy additions crowding L.A.’s depth chart before he could get the chance to prove himself at Dodger Stadium. But there was one question the former North Carolina star was consistently asked this offseason: Where would he get his at-bats?
“I got that a lot from my friends,” Busch told ESPN this week. “I was always like, ‘Adding those guys is going to increase our chances to win.’ I looked at it as: ‘How can I help this ballclub now?’ Honestly, that was my mindset.”
Busch put that to practice in recent seasons, agreeing to play all over the diamond in hopes of finding a place that would allow him to showcase his bat as an everyday player. Despite the challenges that come with learning a new position each year, Busch never stopped hitting, belting 32 home runs in 2022 and following up by posting a 1.049 OPS on his way to winning the Pacific Coast League’s top honor last season.
“They gave me an opportunity to play second base and I was excited about it,” Busch said with a smile. “Then last year they gave me an opportunity to play third base and I never played third base in my life. I got excited about that as well.”
Then on Jan. 12, Busch’s road to the majors finally opened up — but not with the team that drafted him in 2019. Busch and reliever Yency Almonte were traded to the Chicago Cubs for Single-A players Zyhir Hope and Jackson Ferris — a pair of prospects who were high on L.A’s draft board before being selected by the Cubs.
“It just became harder and harder with the way we were constructed to get him playing time,” Dodgers GM Brandon Gomes said recently. “We all felt Michael was a big leaguer and ready to take the next step towards facing MLB pitching every day. And we just didn’t have the opportunity to do that.”
A move that went under the radar during the hot stove season alleviated the Dodgers’ 40-man roster crunch while giving the Cubs a potential long-term solution at a position they have struggled to fill since trading away Anthony Rizzo in 2021.
“He fit the profile of a need that we had,” Cubs GM Carter Hawkins said. “We knew that he was a player that was going to be available, and we knew he was really good — but the Dodgers knew he was really good and weren’t going to give him away.”
The timing of the trade allowed Busch to immediately introduce himself in his new home. Upon learning of the deal, he left in the middle of a visit to Chapel Hill to head to Chicago, put on a Cubs jersey and walked out to applause at Cubs Convention — even though he didn’t entirely know what the team’s popular offseason event was.
“I just know how important it is to be on a team and to build that culture,” Busch said. “Showing up to spring training made it a little easier after being at the convention.”
But the real introduction came a few months later, when Busch entered the season with his name atop an MLB depth chart for the first time. The Cubs’ new first baseman immediately impressed his teammates with his ability at the plate, hitting .389 with five RBIs in six games during his first Wrigley Field homestand — and belting his first home run against the team that drafted him in a thrilling win over the Dodgers.
Then came the streak. From April 10 to April 15, Busch homered in five straight games, tying a franchise mark that put his name in the record books alongside Chicago icons Sammy Sosa and Ryne Sandberg.
“Even before he had that out-of-body stretch of home runs, I saw the consistency in his at-bats, against all types of pitchers, leverage counts, two strike counts, whatever,” second baseman Nico Hoerner said. “And then the raw power is more than I realized.”
Busch’s ability to hit with authority from the left side was already an important component of a lineup that struggled against right-handed pitching a season ago, and it has become even more important now that Cody Bellinger is out with two cracked ribs suffered while running into the Wrigley Field wall.
“I think we’re in that position,” manager Craig Counsell said. “To minimize [the absence] a little bit. And to cover it a little bit.”
Bellinger isn’t the only key player missing from the lineup. The Cubs are also without right fielder Seiya Suzuki, who injured an oblique in the midst of a red-hot start to the season, adding to the need for Busch and others to pick up the slack to avoid a drop-off like the one Chicago suffered when Bellinger was out this past May.
“The challenge part of it I love,” Busch said. “I’ve been happy with the adjustments in my career, dating back to high school and college and pro ball. I think I can continue that here.”
Mike Tauchman, who is filling in for Bellinger in center field, has noticed a presence from Busch that you’d expect to see from a seasoned veteran, rather than a rookie with just 50 major league games under his belt.
“He has a pretty natural feel for how to take at-bats,” Tauchman said. “The home runs have been impressive, but that stuff can come and go. But when he’s not hitting home runs, he’s in control of his at-bats.
“The adjustments have come pretty quickly, which signals a pretty mature approach for a young player. There isn’t a ton of overreaction to a bad at-bat, which is hard to do.”
That scouting report might remind fans of the last player to hold down first base in Chicago for an extended period — and Busch isn’t backing down from the challenge of living up to the standard Rizzo set at the position.
“Great player and doing it at a high level for a long time,” Busch said. “You hear about how good he was in the clubhouse. He loved to work, he loved to play. So do I.”
Sportico places the value of the franchise and its team-related holdings at $4.2 billion.
Sixth Street’s investment, reportedly approved by Major League Baseball on Monday, will go toward upgrades to Oracle Park and the Giants’ training facilities in Scottsdale, Arizona, as well as Mission Rock, the team’s real estate development project located across McCovey Cove from the ballpark.
Giants president and CEO Larry Baer called it the “first significant investment in three decades” and said the money would not be spent on players.
“This is not about a stockpile for the next Aaron Judge,” Baer told the New York Times. “This is about improvements to the ballpark, making big bets on San Francisco and the community around us, and having the firepower to take us into the next generation.”
Sixth Street is the primary owner of National Women’s Soccer League franchise Bay FC. It also has investments in the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs and Spanish soccer powers Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.
“We believe in the future of San Francisco, and our sports franchises like the Giants are critical ambassadors for our city of innovation, showcasing to the world what’s only made possible here,” Sixth Street co-founder and CEO Alan Waxman said in the news release. “We believe in Larry and the leadership team’s vision for this exciting new era, and we’re proud to be partnering with them as they execute the next chapter of San Francisco Giants success.”
Founded in 2009 and based in San Francisco, Sixth Street has assets totaling $75 billion, according to Front Office Sports.
TOKYO — Shohei Ohtani seems impervious to a variety of conditions that afflict most humans — nerves, anxiety, distraction — but it took playing a regular-season big-league game in his home country to change all of that.
After the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ Opening Day 4-1 win over the Chicago Cubs in the Tokyo Dome, Ohtani made a surprising admission. “It’s been a while since I felt this nervous playing a game,” he said. “It took me four or five innings.”
Ohtani had two hits and scored twice, and one of his outs was a hard liner that left his bat at more than 96 mph, so the nerves weren’t obvious from the outside. But clearly the moment, and its weeklong buildup, altered his usually stoic demeanor.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Shohei nervous,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But one thing I did notice was how emotional he got during the Japanese national anthem. I thought that was telling.”
As the Dodgers began the defense of last year’s World Series win, it became a night to showcase the five Japanese players on the two teams. For the first time in league history, two Japanese pitchers — the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the Cubs’ Shota Imanaga — faced each other on Opening Day. Both pitched well, with Imanaga throwing four hitless innings before being removed after 69 pitches.
“Seventy was kind of the number we had for Shota,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “It was the right time to take him out.”
The Dodgers agreed, scoring three in the fifth inning off reliever Ben Brown. Imanaga kept the Dodgers off balance, but his career-high four walks created two stressful innings that ran up his pitch count.
Yamamoto rode the adrenaline of pitching in his home country, routinely hitting 98 with his fastball and vexing the Cubs with a diving splitter over the course of five three-hit innings. He threw with a kind of abandon, finding a freedom that often eluded him last year in his first year in America.
“I think last year to this year, the confidence and conviction he has throwing the fastball in the strike zone is night and day,” Roberts said. “If he can continue to do that, I see no reason he won’t be in the Cy Young conversation this season.”
Cubs right fielder Seiya Suzuki went hitless in four at bats — the Cubs had only three hits, none in the final four innings against four relievers out of the Dodgers’ loaded bullpen — and rookie Roki Sasaki will make his first start of his Dodger career in the second and final game of the series Wednesday.
“I don’t think there was a Japanese baseball player in this country who wasn’t watching tonight,” Roberts said.
The Dodgers were without Mookie Betts, who left Japan on Monday after it was decided his illness would not allow him to play in this series. And less than an hour before game time, first baseman Freddie Freemanwas scratched with what the team termed “left rib discomfort,” a recurrence of an injury he first sustained during last year’s playoffs.
The night started with a pregame celebration that felt like an Olympic opening ceremony in a lesser key. There were Pikachus on the field and a vaguely threatening video depicting the Dodgers and Cubs as Monster vs. Monster. World home-run king Saduharu Oh was on the field before the game, and Roberts called meeting Oh “a dream come true.”
For the most part, the crowd was subdued, as if it couldn’t decide who or what to root for, other than Ohtani. It was admittedly confounding: throughout the first five innings, if fans rooted for the Dodgers they were rooting against Imanaga, but rooting for the Cubs meant rooting against Yamamoto. Ohtani, whose every movement is treated with a rare sense of wonder, presented no such conflict.
JUPITER, Fla. — St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn was scratched from the lineup for their exhibition game on Tuesday because of soreness in his right wrist.
Winn was replaced by Jose Barrero in the Grapefruit League matchup with the Miami Marlins, with the regular-season opener nine days away. Winn, who was a 2020 second-round draft pick by the Cardinals, emerged as a productive everyday player during his rookie year in 2024. He batted .267 with 15 home runs, 11 stolen bases and 57 RBIs in 150 games and was named as one of three finalists for the National League Gold Glove Award that went to Ezequiel Tovar of the Colorado Rockies.
Winn had minor surgery after the season to remove a cyst from his hand. In 14 spring training games, he’s batting .098 (4 for 41) with 12 strikeouts.