In MLB clubhouses, September hype is building … for fantasy football
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Tim Kurkjian, ESPN Senior Writer
The energy in the clubhouses for Friday night’s game between the Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards was unmistakable.
It was the same intensity that existed in every baseball clubhouse in the major leagues that day — at Fenway, Wrigley, Dodger Stadium. Yes, it’s September, it’s the stretch run, with great pennant races, but this excitement was different because Thursday night, the NFL season opened with the Kansas City Chiefs‘ 27-20 win over the Baltimore Ravens. That means fantasy football is back.
“Guys came in the clubhouse today and they were already running their mouths about last night … and there was only one game — one game,” Orioles catcher James McCann said. “After the first weekend of fantasy, every baseball clubhouse will be bedlam.”
“Monday will be unreal,” said Orioles pitcher Zach Eflin. “Unreal.”
Rays infielder Taylor Walls, who Eflin, a former teammate, lovingly calls “a lunatic” about fantasy football, says it is “an event. I love it because it allows me to — sorry for my language — to talk s—, which I love to do. It allows you to look at a teammate and say, ‘How can you be such an idiot?’ Motor [Rays hitting coach Chad Mottola] had three playmakers from the Ravens on his team last night, and we were all over him today, like, ‘How could you play a running back, wide receiver and a tight end on the same team?’ But fantasy football is all about camaraderie, it’s about bringing a spark to the end of the season. It’s an escape. It’s about staying in the loop with guys even after the season ends.”
This goes on in most clubhouses around the major leagues. The Arizona Diamondbacks determined the order of their fantasy draft by placing each team’s fantasy league name on 12 different baseballs: Whichever manager Torey Lovullo hit the farthest in batting practice got the No. 1 pick, second farthest got No. 2, etc. The Oakland A’s put baseballs with team names on the top of the Coliseum, and players from each fantasy team threw the balls from the roof to targets on the field — closest to the target got the No. 1 pick. The Boston Red Sox hit golf balls off the top of the Green Monster: closest to the pin picked first.
“We just picked out of the hat,” Walls said. “And it was still so much fun.”
Every major league team holds its fantasy league draft as a group, which they note is great for team building approaching a stretch run.
“Ours was so good,” Eflin said. “Pizza, beer and lots of trash talk. Lots of ‘What a reach!'”
The Rays held their 12-team draft when they were in Los Angeles at the end of August.
“It was very relaxed; I spent most of the time looking quietly at my phone,” Rays outfielder Josh Lowe said. “Then there was Motor. He had his pen and paper out, he had his spreadsheets laid out on all the tables as he prepared to take players who were five or six years past their prime.”
“We had 20 guys at ours, it was so good for team chemistry,” Orioles pitcher Danny Coulombe said. “We had guys trying to talk trades as soon as the draft finished. I looked at a few of them and said, ‘I guess you’re not happy with who you drafted, I’m happy with mine.'”
Rays pitcher Ryan Pepiot, during his rookie season with the Dodgers last year, didn’t have a fantasy team but still played a role on draft day.
“I didn’t participate, but they had me read the first-round picks, but they said I took too long, so they replaced me,” he said. “They had me start the proceedings by singing the national anthem. I can’t sing at all. It was more like I just spoke the national anthem. But I participated this year. My teammate is one of our clubhouse guys. I gave him the reins. He was up at 11 o’clock in the East on his computer while we were out West. He put in more effort than me.”
No one puts in more effort than Walls, say his teammates.
“He is a lunatic in a good way; he carries around a fantasy football notebook with him, and I’m sure he has a big white board at his house to track transactions,” said Rays second baseman Brandon Lowe. “He’s really good at his because he really does his homework.”
“That’s not true!” Walls said, laughing. “Guys came to the draft with notebooks and IPads. I winged it!”
Walls was Josh Lowe’s fantasy teammate last year, but each forgot to make a key transaction late during the playoffs, and they lost in the semifinals. So they went out on their own this year. Lowe got the No. 1 pick this year; Walls had it but traded down to No. 3.
“I had inside information on what he was going to do,” Walls said, smiling. “I fleeced him a little bit.”
Lowe said: “When we were general manager and assistant general manager last year, we fleeced a lot of guys. There were times that I had to talk him off the ledge from making another trade. Finally, I told him, ‘Dude, just let the players play.'”
This year, the Orioles also paired up players, instead of each player having his own team.
“I am the owner of the team this year because the last few years haven’t gone very well,” Eflin said, smiling. “I’m with Mitch [Plassmeyer, a pitching instructor] and [pitching coach Drew French]. They make all the player decisions. We have a club president and general manager. I am now just a special assistant.”
According to Coulombe, teammate and fellow reliever Craig Kimbrel has more of a hands-off approach to fantasy.
“Craig said he doesn’t know the players, he’ll just be a silent partner who offers moral support,” Coulombe said. “I asked [Orioles general manager] Mike Elias if he wanted to be our GM, and he said he had a real major league team to run.”
McCann is teammates with outfielder Austin Slater.
“With the Mets, Mark Canha and I won our fantasy league,” McCann said. “But last year didn’t go well. I drafted the All-Injured Team.”
Among the top names of fantasy teams among the Rays and Orioles this year:
“We wanted to play off the [clear] mask that I wear when I catch,” McCann said. “So we’re The Masked Bandits. But if we lose for a couple of weeks, I’m sure we will change.”
“We are The Ef Shack,” Eflin said. “I don’t know what that means.”
“I am ‘The Real Slim Shady’ because I have Joe Burrow, and he has gray hair,” Walls said.
“I am JLowe,” Lowe said. “If I start to lose, I’m sure I will change it.”
“Our team is Love Thy Nabers because we drafted [Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers],” Pepiot said.
Each MLB team has a commissioner; the Rays’ is pitcher Kevin Kelly.
“[Teammate] Pete Fairbanks gave me the job last year because I was a rookie, he just gave me some pens and paper and asked me to go around the room and see who wants to play,” Kelly said, smiling. “I don’t do much. I just collect the money. Technically, all transactions have to go through me. I don’t have a team in the league. That would be a conflict of interest. That’s another reason they made me commissioner.”
The Orioles’ commissioner is Ryan Klimek, a statistical analyst.
“His team won last year,” Coulombe said, adding with a laugh: “We’re not happy that he is still the commissioner.”
And though a lot of players monitor fantasy football very closely — “a lot of the guys come to me during a game and say, ‘Go check the score, go check the score,'” said Pepiot of days when he’s not playing — the fantasy football craze is all for fun.
“We play 162 games in 180-some days, sometimes you have to get outside of the game and enjoy something else,” Lowe said.
“It really brings the clubhouse together,” McCann said. “We are heading toward playoff time, we need to take our minds off the things that are really important. I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes, you have to make it about something different. It’s like binge watching a new show, sometimes you have to just open a new head space. That’s what it does.”
Though the Rays have money at stake — between $200 and $1,000 — Walls said, “It’s not about the money, it’s about the competition, it’s about bragging rights.”
The competition in baseball clubhouses just got more intense. Football is here.
“I had dinner with my mom the other night and I told her right now is the best time of year,” McCann said. “It’s September baseball. The playoffs are ahead. And football has started.”
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Greg Wyshynski
Winnipeg Jets forward Nik Ehlers could muster only one word to describe the feeling of their 4-3 double-overtime Game 7 victory that eliminated the St. Louis Blues on Sunday night.
“Joy.”
Here’s another word: historic.
Captain Adam Lowry‘s goal at 16:10 of the second overtime closed out the series and advanced the Jets to face the Dallas Stars beginning Wednesday in Winnipeg. But overtime doesn’t happen without forward Cole Perfetti‘s goal with three seconds remaining in regulation, which established an NHL record.
Perfetti’s goal at 59:57 was the latest game-tying goal in a Game 7, topping the record set by Vancouver Canucks winger Matt Cooke (59:54) in the 2004 conference quarterfinals against Calgary. The Flames won the series in overtime. Perfetti also tied Washington’s Dale Hunter (1993) and Carolina’s Eric Staal (2006) for the second-latest game-tying goal in NHL playoff history. Cooke’s goal with two seconds left in a conference semifinal for Minnesota in 2003 is still the fastest.
Perfetti redirected a desperation Kyle Connor one-timer past St. Louis goalie Jordan Binnington off a cross-ice pass from Nik Ehlers.
“I fanned on the first [shot], so I thought I’m not going to let that happen again. If we could get the goalie moving just a little bit, we might be able to create something,” Ehlers said of his pass.
“Sometimes, for whatever reason, if you look at the home teams in this series, the puck luck was incredible,” St. Louis Blues coach Jim Montgomery said.
Winnipeg didn’t have much luck to start the game. Jordan Kyrou gave the Blues a 1-0 lead just 1:10 into the game, as lackluster defense from Connor led to a 2-on-1 down low. Defenseman Colton Parayko found Kyrou for his third goal of the postseason. The Blues scored in the first period of every game of the series.
Goaltender Connor Hellebuyck allowed a questionable goal 6:16 later, as Mathieu Joseph wristed one past him from the top of the circle for a 2-0 lead. Hellebuyck finished the series with an .830 save percentage and a 3.85 goals-against average.
Winnipeg was 2-25 all time in the playoffs when trailing by multiple goals at any point in the game.
To make matters worse, defenseman Josh Morrissey left the game just four shifts into the first period because of an apparent shoulder injury. That meant Winnipeg played the majority of Game 7 without its top defenseman and second-leading scorer, as center Mark Scheifele missed Games 6 and 7 because of an upper-body injury suffered in Game 5.
This is the same scenario the Dallas Stars faced in winning Game 7 of their series against Colorado, playing without defenseman Miro Heiskanen and winger Jason Robertson. Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel said he cited Dallas’s late-game comeback against Colorado on Saturday night to give the Jets hope for a rally.
The Jets chipped away at the lead in the second period on Perfetti’s power-play goal, but St. Louis’ fourth line — one of its best in this series — got it back with Radek Faksa‘s goal with 35 seconds left in the period.
“We obviously didn’t get the start that we wanted today,” Ehlers said. “They got another one at the end of the second period. But there was belief in this group. Nobody was hanging their heads. We looked at each other and said we’re not done playing hockey yet. It was special.”
Entering Sunday night, teams with a multigoal lead in the third period of a Game 7 were 119-4. Things were looking good for the Blues — until they weren’t.
Winnipeg pulled Hellebuyck with 3:14 left, leading to Vlad Namestnikov scoring with 1:56 left in regulation. Perfetti then scored with three seconds left.
The teams were scoreless in the first overtime, with Binnington (11 saves) busier than Hellebuyck (4 saves) in the opening extra session. Then, Lowery ended the series with his deflection of Neal Pionk‘s shot at 16:10 of the second overtime.
Lowry was born in St. Louis. His father, Adam Lowry, played five seasons with the Blues during his 19-year NHL career.
The Jets mobbed Lowry in celebration. For Hellebuyck, there was also a palpable sense of relief.
He’s considered the best goaltender in the world, expected to collect his third Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s top netminder this season, giving him back-to-back Vezina wins. But Hellebuyck had been a playoff disappointment in the Jets’ first-round losses in 2023 and 2024, both in five games. He was disastrous against the Blues, especially on the road: getting pulled in three straight road games with a .758 save percentage and a 7.24 goals-against average.
The last time he was across the ice from Binnington in overtime was the championship game of the 4 Nations Face-Off in February, when Binnington was brilliant in leading Canada to victory over Hellebuyck and the U.S.
This time, Hellebuyck was saving the day until his team could win the game in double overtime. He made 13 saves in the final three periods.
“Amazing. Absolutely amazing,” said Arniel, who won his first playoff series as an NHL head coach. “I’ve seen a lot of hockey games. I’ve been around a lot of hockey games. Man, it was thrilling.”
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Kristen Shilton
Winnipeg forward Mark Scheifele did not play in Game 7 of the Jets’ first-round Stanley Cup playoff series against the St. Louis Blues on Sunday due to an undisclosed injury, coach Scott Arniel said.
Arniel ruled out Scheifele following the team’s morning skate. He was hurt in Game 5 — playing only 8:05 in the first period before exiting — and then did not travel with the Jets to St. Louis for Game 6. Arniel previously had said Scheifele was a game-time decision for Game 7.
Scheifele, 32, skated in a track suit Saturday, and Arniel told reporters the veteran was feeling better than he had the day before. Scheifele, however, was not able to participate in the Jets’ on-ice session by Sunday, quickly indicating he would not be available for the game.
Winnipeg held a 2-0 lead in the series over St. Louis before the Blues stormed back with a pair of wins to tie it, 2-2. The home team has won each game in the best-of-seven series so far.
The Jets’ challenge in closing out St. Louis only increases without Scheifele. Winnipeg already has been dealing with the uneven play of goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, a significant storyline in the series to date. Hellebuyck was pulled in all three of his starts at St. Louis while giving up a combined 16 goals on 66 shots (.758 SV%). In Game 6, Hellebuyck allowed four goals in only 5 minutes, 23 seconds of the second period.
Hellebuyck was Winnipeg’s backbone during the regular season, earning a Hart Trophy and Vezina Trophy nomination for his impeccable year (.925 SV%, 2.00 GAA).
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