ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.
Major League Baseball and the Atlanta Braves formally filed an objection to Diamond Sports Group’s reorganization plan Friday, citing, among other things, a lack of information to corroborate the viability of the company’s projections.
In a motion filed in Houston bankruptcy court, MLB and the Braves wrote they possess “grave concerns that, if the plan is confirmed, there is a substantial likelihood that the debtors will find themselves once again in financial distress and/or bankruptcy court in the near future.”
Later on Friday, the Cincinnati Reds officially split from Diamond, according to another court filing.
Diamond, approaching 20 months in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is scheduled to begin its confirmation hearing Thursday, during which a federal judge will determine whether to approve the operator’s go-forward plan. Diamond held regional-sports-network contracts with 12 MLB teams during the 2024 season but decided last month to keep only the Braves deal under its current iteration while hoping to negotiate new terms with some of the other clubs. Five teams have since departed.
On Oct. 8, the Milwaukee Brewers, Cleveland Guardians and Minnesota Twins joined MLB, which will broadcast at least six teams during the 2025 season, while the Texas Rangers announced they would explore local media alternatives. The Reds broke away precisely one month later, though it is unclear whether they too will join MLB.
With six days remaining until Diamond’s confirmation hearing, the Tampa Bay Rays, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Angels and Kansas City Royals remain in limbo. Like the Reds, the Royals and Angels are joint-venture teams that maintain partial ownership of their RSNs and thus are not formally part of the bankruptcy process. An emergency motion described the Reds’ departure from Diamond as a “consensual termination” after the two sides could not agree to renegotiated terms, while adding that contracts for the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers and NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets will be unaffected.
Diamond, which recently rebranded from Bally Sports to FanDuel Sports, currently has linear and digital rights deals with 13 NBA and eight NHL teams. In addition to obtaining clarity with its remaining MLB teams, Diamond is also hoping to finalize a commercial arrangement with Amazon that would allow it access to Amazon’s direct-to-consumer platform, Prime Video.
MLB and the Braves cited a lack of clarity on that deal among their concerns in Friday’s objection, writing that Diamond’s “refusal to produce information concerning the proposed commercial lynchpin of the go-forward business plan as to [direct-to-consumer] subscribers, a subscriber base that the debtors estimate in the financial projections to grow by hundreds of percentage points between now and the end of 2027, by itself justifies a finding that the debtors cannot meet their feasibility burden.”
MLB and the Braves added that Diamond has “consistently failed to produce” information about its new distribution agreements to allow for cross-examination in the linear-cable space and that they should not be “compelled to partner with a business that does not have a realistic roadmap to future operations.”
ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.
LOS ANGELES — Mookie Betts stubbed a toe on his left foot during an off-the-field incident and was out of the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ lineup Friday night for the opener of a highly anticipated weekend series against the New York Yankees.
Betts was scheduled to undergo X-rays at Dodger Stadium before first pitch. Until then, the team will hope for the best.
“It’s day-to-day right now,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So, that’s where we’re at.”
The incident — affecting Betts’ second toe — was believed to occur late Wednesday night, after the Dodgers returned from a six-game road trip through New York and Cleveland. Roberts didn’t find out until Betts called him Friday morning. He was vague on the details.
“I really don’t know,” Roberts said when asked how the injury occurred. “I think it was at home. It’s probably a dresser, nightstand, something like that. It’s just kind of an accident. I think that Mookie will be able to give more context, but that’s kind of from the training staff what I heard. So hopefully, it’s benign, it’s negative. Not sure, but I feel confident saying it’s day-to-day … but putting on a shoe today was difficult for him.”
Betts’ injury isn’t the Dodgers’ most serious at the moment. Late-inning reliever Evan Phillips, who was rehabbing a forearm injury, didn’t feel right playing catch earlier this week and will undergo Tommy John surgery next week, knocking him out for all of 2025 and most of 2026.
Phillips, 30, was released by the Baltimore Orioles in August 2021 and designated for assignment by the Tampa Bay Rays less than two weeks later. The Dodgers picked him up and turned him into a valuable late-game option. From 2022 to 2024, Phillips posted a 2.21 ERA and 0.92 WHIP, saved 44 games and struck out 206 batters in 179 regular-season innings.
But Phillips dealt with arm issues during last year’s postseason run and was left off the team’s World Series roster. He then went on the IL because of a rotator cuff strain in the middle of March, returned a month later, notched seven scoreless appearances, then went back on the IL on May 7 because of what the team called forearm discomfort. Platelet-rich-plasma injections did not take. Phillips never got better.
“As we started getting into it, it wasn’t really responding,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said. “We felt like this could be a possibility, so as he got deeper into the process and it wasn’t really getting better, the decision to do it was pretty much evident with our information.”
The Dodgers tried to backfill some of that depth by trading for former All-Star closer Alexis Diaz on Thursday. But Diaz, who struggled so badly this season that the Cincinnati Reds optioned him to Triple-A, will initially work out of the Dodgers’ spring training complex in Glendale, Ariz.
The Dodgers also have three starting pitchers — Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki — recovering from shoulder injuries, with Shohei Ohtani not expected to join the rotation until sometime after the All-Star break.
The lineup, at least, had been healthy. Until now.
Betts, 32, got off to a slow start but was still slashing .254/.338/.405 with 8 home runs and 5 stolen bases while slotting between the hot-hitting Ohtani and Freddie Freeman in the No. 2 spot. More notably, Betts had proven to be a capable major league shortstop after working during the offseason at the position.
But the toe injury could set him back, in much the same way a broken left hand robbed him of nearly two months in 2024.
At this point, Roberts said, “I don’t see it being long term.” But the Dodgers can’t say that definitively yet.
“We need to see the doctors and kind of get a better sense of it,” Gomes said. “It happened pretty recently, so it’ll take some time before we have a better understanding.”
TORONTO — The Blue Jays put slugger Anthony Santander on the 10-day injured list Friday because of left shoulder inflammation and recalled outfielder Alan Roden from Triple-A Buffalo.
Santander is batting .179 with six home runs and 18 RBI in 50 games. The veteran switch hitter has missed a handful of games because of left hip and left shoulder soreness over the past three weeks.
Santander signed a $92.5 million, five-year contract with Toronto in January after eight seasons with Baltimore. He hit a career-best 44 home runs for the Orioles last season.
The outfielder had an MRI after Thursday’s 12-0 win over the Athletics, when he was 0 for 2 with two strikeouts and two walks, Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. The team was still determining whether the next steps would include a cortisone injection or rehabilitation, the manager said.
“I think it just got to the point to where it was bothering him,” Schneider said before Friday’s game against the Athletics. “You can’t really put the work that you want to put in volume-wise, and we just think it’s best for him right now.”
Roden rejoins the Blue Jays after batting .178 with one home run and five RBI in 28 games for Toronto earlier this season, his first in the majors. Roden hit .361 with three homers and 12 RBI in 18 games at Buffalo after being sent down May 7.
SEATTLE — The Minnesota Twins reinstated center fielder Byron Buxton from the seven-day concussion injured list Friday before beginning a three-game series in Seattle, two weeks after he collided with shortstop Carlos Correa in pursuit of a shallow fly ball.
Buxton missed 11 games after the collision, which also sent Correa into the concussion protocol. Correa needed only the minimum seven-day stay on the injured list and missed five games.
To make room for Buxton, outfielder Carson McCusker was sent back to Triple-A St. Paul. Buxton was batting .261 with an .834 OPS and 18 extra-base hits, including 10 homers, before he was hurt. He also had 33 runs, 27 RBIs and 8 steals in his first 41 games.