Meet the Wild’s secret weapon — who won’t play a single minute this season
-
Ryan S. Clark
Scouts throughout the NHL all have a story about the one prospect they watched for countless hours that they begged their organization to draft — only to watch that player become a success elsewhere.
For Judd Brackett, his cautionary tale of what could have been has helped the Minnesota Wild build what might be the NHL’s best farm system as part of a larger plan to become the next long-term Stanley Cup contender.
Before Brackett was the Wild’s director of amateur scouting, he was an amateur regional scout. His life was about those numerous long car rides through hundreds of miles of dreary and repetitive landscapes, with the payoff in finding a prospect who could possibly reach the NHL.
One day, Brackett found one of those prospects. He filed reports about a two-way player who had size, skill, could skate and score goals. A crossover scout came to watch the prospect, only to see him have his worst game of the season. Brackett pushed for another chance, but was told to forget about the player.
Except Brackett didn’t forget. It still haunts him more than 15 years later for two reasons: the prospect was a later-round draft pick who won a Stanley Cup with the team that drafted him, and it taught Brackett the value in making sure that every scout feels heard, a concept he continues to uphold in his current role.
“I always try to be cognizant that even if I see a guy and they didn’t play well, whether it’s in the car ride home or next week, I am calling the scout in the area,” Brackett said. “I ask them, ‘Tell me again what you like?’ If it was just a bad game, it’s a one-off. If I’ve got a scout who really believes in a player and I didn’t see it, I still have to find the right place for that guy.”
When the Wild named Bill Guerin their general manager in 2019, it came with the belief that he could lead the franchise to new heights. The Wild are in position to reach the playoffs for the fifth time in Guerin’s six seasons, but have had to maneuver around salary cap challenges.
How they’ve done that is having young talent on team-friendly contracts who could play right away. That’s what makes Brackett and his staff so valuable to the Wild. Even though Bracket is not in a front-facing role, the work he and his staff have done has been visible for years.
Their first draft pick under Brackett, who started in the 2020-21 season, was Marco Rossi, who has emerged into a top-six center. The Kevin Fiala trade — which led to them getting a franchise cornerstone defenseman in Brock Faber along with a first-round pick that became promising prospect forward Liam Ohgren — was orchestrated with Brackett’s insights.
And with the foundation that Brackett has laid — and some big cap hits coming off the books — they are in position to make a bigger splash this offseason.
“Judd’s critical to what we’re doing,” Guerin said. “I cannot express how important he is to us and how great of a job he has done for us and what it’s allowed us to do with how to operate with our empty cap hits. It’s his staff, his department; he runs it, draft day is his, and he’s a very smart guy and good leader.”
THE CENTRAL DIVISION is arguably the NHL’s toughest, particularly among the top five teams.
Many of their division rivals have chosen to build through the draft. The Dallas Stars, St. Louis Blues and Winnipeg Jets each have more than 11 players that they drafted or signed as undrafted free agents. The Colorado Avalanche have five on their current roster, but their 2022 Stanley Cup team was built around a homegrown core that had nine players who were drafted or undrafted free agents.
The Wild have only three on their current roster — for now. But the need to develop more talent from within further amplifies what makes the work done by Brackett and his staff so crucial to the Wild’s short- and long-term plans.
“I don’t know what he does, but he does it,” Guerin joked. “He gets it, and he knows and I trust him wholeheartedly. We have Judd with us for development camp, for training camp, for [free agency], for the trade deadline, because even players that have been in the league for three or four years that we’re considering, we go with Judd. We go back to [the player’s] draft year. What do we know about him? What do we know about his character? He has all that information.”
Keeping pace with division powers like the Avs, Jets and Stars is only part of the equation when it comes to the Wild. It’s something that should become hypothetically easier once July 1 arrives and the Wild attain the financial flexibility they’d been missing because of the combined Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts.
The Parise and Suter buyouts in 2021 were nine years after they each signed identical 13-year contracts worth $98 million back in 2012. A year later, the NHL and the NHL Players Association came to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement limiting the maximum contract length to eight years.
If they had remained with the Wild, those contracts would be coming off the books after this season. The first of the buyouts saved the Wild more than $10 million at a time in which every team was even more financially conscious because of the flat salary cap. However, the second year of the buyouts went from costing the Wild a combined $4.7 million cap space in the first year to $12.743 million in the second season. The third and fourth years increased to $14.743 million in cap space.
This meant the Wild needed to find talent with team-friendly contracts who could contribute to their lineup.
ENTER BRACKETT, his staff and how their haul from the 2020 NHL draft has benefitted the Wild in multiple ways.
-
They used their first-rounder on Rossi, who has emerged into a top-six center the last two seasons
-
Their second-round pick, Marat Khusnutdinov, played 57 games in a bottom-six role this season before he was traded for forward Justin Brazeau
-
Defenseman Daemon Hunt, who was drafted in the third round, was part of a trade earlier in the season to get prospect defenseman David Jiricek, who was the sixth overall pick in 2022.
Guerin said Brackett was “extremely involved” with the Jiricek trade, just like he was with the Fiala trade with the Los Angeles Kings in 2022. Faber, who was runner-up for the Calder Trophy in 2023-24, has become the Wild’s top-pairing defenseman, while Ohgren played in 24 games this season.
Between Faber, Khusnutdinov, Ohgren and Rossi, it was a quartet that combined to play in 227 games this season, at a collective cost of $3.6 million.
The Wild could have another prospect who plays a pivotal role for them in the playoffs in Zeev Buium. The University of Denver defenseman was part of a Wild draft class that earned an A grade from ESPN’s Rachel Doerrie, and Guerin moved up one draft spot to No. 12 to ensure the Wild could select him. He signed his entry-level contract on Sunday, and began practicing with the team on Monday.
Buium, a Hobey Baker finalist, scored 11 goals and 50 points as a freshman in 2023-24 — tops among all defensemen — as he helped Denver win its NCAA-record 10th men’s national championship. He also won gold twice with the United States at the World Junior Championships. Buium led NCAA defenseman in scoring again in 2024-25, and was a finalist for the Hobey Baker award as college hockey’s top player.
Brackett said every trade scenario — whether for an NHL player, or swapping draft picks — presents multiple options for a team to discuss. He said that it’s difficult to concentrate on one player, because the other team might say no; that makes it important to have someone on staff who can speak about most, if not, all the potential prospects in play going each way.
“It usually starts at a moment’s notice,” Brackett said. “Most trades take some time, but the framework might be right there. There’s usually some ongoing discussion so there’s more time to dig a little bit deeper.
“But you know you must be prepared. You know you could get a phone call whether it’s Bill or from an assistant GM or somebody. They want to know about a player, and you have to be ready to speak about that player with all the pros and cons.”
EVEN THOUGH BRACKETT has a cautionary tale, he also has a success story about the player who made him believe he could be a scout someday.
That player was Marty Reasoner. Brackett was a high school goalie in Massachusetts before he played at Northeastern and later, Connecticut College. He played against Reasoner, who would become a first-round pick in 1996 and play nearly 800 NHL games. Facing Reasoner back then led to Brackett evaluating what made him so good at the time.
Brackett said looking at traits such as Reasoner’s vision and selflessness along with his talent gave him a reference point when it came to player evaluations. It’s something he took with him when he began working as a scout for the Gatineau Olympiques in the QMJHL for nearly three full seasons. Gatineau won the President’s Cup in his final season.
Brackett was then hired by the Indiana Ice in the USHL as their head scout and vice president of player personnel where he helped the franchise win two Clark Cups. He drafted or signed 34 future NHL players during his time with the Ice, before he was hired by the Canucks in 2008.
He was an amateur regional scout for seven seasons and was then promoted to amateur scouting director in 2015. Brackett played a role in the Canucks drafting future cornerstones such as Brock Boeser, Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson before departing the club in 2020 to join the Wild.
“Bill and I didn’t have any prior relationship before coming to Minnesota,” Brackett said. “We go about it in a very honest way in terms of our evaluation. We try to be unbiased when we’re making those decisions or recommendations.”
His work has been especially important with the Parise-Suter buyouts at their most expensive, with hope on the horizon: The buyouts will cost a combined $1.6 million annually over the next three years, and PuckPedia projects the Wild will have $21.8 million in cap space this offseason.
The team has five pending unrestricted free agents, including Marcus Johansson, Gustav Nyquist, Brazeau, Jon Merrill and Marc-Andre Fleury, while pending restricted free agent Rossi will also need a new contract. The majority of the core is under contract for at least one more season before star forward Kirill Kaprizov becomes a free agent after 2025-26.
Once they re-sign Rossi, it will leave Guerin with more cap space to address the roster than he’s had in recent years. But he can further maximize that space by tapping into a farm system that’s been strengthened by Brackett and his staff.
“Quite honestly, it’s a luxury having a guy like Judd,” Guerin said. “I trust him wholeheartedly. We know we are going to get players that have a chance. Even when we were making the deal for David Jiricek, Judd was the first to raise his hand and say, ‘Don’t worry about our pick this year. Get him.’
“That’s when you know a guy has confidence, and a belief in what he’s doing.”
-
Bill Connelly
Back in May, ESPN’s team of college football reporters voted on the sport’s best coaches for 2025. The results were about as you would expect: Start with the three active guys who have most recently won national titles (Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Ohio State’s Ryan Day, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney), move on to guys with recent top-five finishes or national title game appearances (Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian, Oregon’s Dan Lanning, Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer, Penn State’s James Franklin), then squeeze in a couple of long-term overachievers at the end (Utah’s Kyle Whittingham, Iowa State’s Matt Campbell).
The rankings made plenty of sense, but I couldn’t help but notice that the top eight coaches on the list all work for some of the richest, most well-supported programs in the country. There are some epic pressures associated with leading these programs — just ask Day — but there are also major advantages. It might only take a good head coach to do great things in those jobs, while at programs with smaller alumni bases or lesser historic track records, it might take a great coach to do merely good things. They’re such different jobs that it’s almost impossible to even know how to compare the performance of, say, Matt Campbell to Steve Sarkisian. Could Campbell have led Texas to back-to-back CFP semifinals? Could Sark have brought ISU its first two AP top-15 finishes?
The May rankings made me want to see if there were a way to apply stats to the conversation. If you think about it, we’re basically measuring two things when we’re gauging coach performance: overall quality and quality relative to the expectations of the job. I thought it would be fun to come up with a blend of those two things and see what the results told us.
Performance versus expectation
Gauging overall performance is easy enough. You could simply look at win percentage, and it would tell you quite a bit. From 2015 to 2024, the active coaches with the best FBS win percentages (minimum 30 games) were Day (.870), Lanning (.854), Swinney (.850) and Smart (.847). All ranked high in the May rankings. I tend to want to get fancy and use my SP+ ratings whenever possible, and they tell a similar tale. Looking at average SP+ ratings for the past decade, the top active coaches are Day (30.4), Smart (27.0), Lanning (22.3), Swinney (21.9), Franklin (20.3) and Freeman (19.0). They’re all in the May top 10 too.
Again, though, all of those coaches are employed by college football royalty. (Granted, Swinney gets bonus points for helping Clemson turn into college football royalty, but still.) Isn’t it more impressive to win 11 regular-season games at Indiana, as Curt Cignetti did in 2024, than to go 10-4 like Swinney did? Isn’t it probably harder to finish 12th in SP+ at SMU, as Rhett Lashlee did in 2024, than to finish fifth like Franklin did?
I’ve begun to incorporate teams’ performance against long-term averages into my preseason SP+ projections, and it seems we could use a very similar concept to evaluate coach performances. For each year someone is a head coach, we could compare his team’s SP+ rating for that season to the school’s average from the 20 previous years. (If the school is newer to FBS and doesn’t have a 20-year average, we can use whatever average exists to date. And for a program’s first FBS season, we can simply compare the team’s SP+ rating to the overall average for first-year programs.)
By this method, the 10 best single-season coaching performances of the past 20 years include Art Briles at Baylor in 2013-14, Jim Harbaugh at Stanford in 2010, Mark Mangino at Kansas in 2007, Bobby Petrino at Louisville in 2006, Greg Schiano at Rutgers in 2006 and Jamey Chadwell at Coastal Carolina in 2020 — legendary seasons of overachievement — plus perhaps lesser-remembered performances such as Gary Andersen at Utah State in 2012, Matt Wells at Utah State in 2018 and Brian Kelly at Cincinnati in 2007.
As far as single-season overachievement goes, that’s a pretty good list. And if we look at a longer-term sample — coaches who have led FBS programs for at least nine of the past 20 years — here are the 15 best performance versus baseline averages.
(Note: I’m looking only at performances within the past 20 years, so Nick Saban’s work at LSU (2000-04) or Michigan State (1995-99), for instance, isn’t included. I also went with nine years instead of 10 so Smart’s current nine-year run at Georgia could be included in the sample.)
Best performance vs. historic baseline averages for the past 20 years (min. nine seasons):
1. Chris Petersen, Boise State (2006-13) and Washington (2014-19): +12.8 points above historic baseline
2. Art Briles, Houston (2005-07) and Baylor (2008-15): +12.8
3. Gary Pinkel, Missouri (2005-15): +12.5
4. Nick Saban, Alabama (2007-23): +10.7
5. Jeff Monken, Army (2014-24): +10.3
6. Willie Fritz, Georgia Southern (2014-15), Tulane (2016-23) and Houston (2024): +10.0
7. Lance Leipold, Buffalo (2015-20) and Kansas (2021-24): +9.5
8. Bobby Petrino, Louisville (2005-06), Arkansas (2008-11), Western Kentucky (2013) and Louisville (2014-18): +9.5
9. Gary Patterson, TCU (2005-21): +8.6
10. Jim Harbaugh, Stanford (2007-10) and Michigan (2015-23): +8.5
11. Blake Anderson, Arkansas State (2014-20) and Utah State (2021-23): +8.5
12. Steve Spurrier, South Carolina (2005-15): +8.2
13. Greg Schiano, Rutgers (2005-11 and 2020-24): +7.8
14. Jeff Brohm, Western Kentucky (2014-16), Purdue (2017-22) and Louisville (2023-24): +7.7
15. David Cutcliffe, Duke (2008-21): +7.7
If we are looking for pure overachievement and aren’t in the mood to reward coaches for winning at schools that always win, this is again a pretty good list. Petersen was spectacular at both Boise State and Washington, while Briles, Pinkel, Monken and Patterson all won big at schools that hadn’t won big in quite a while. (Monken, in fact, is still winning big.) Blake Anderson’s presence surprised me, but most of the names here are extremely well regarded. And Saban’s presence at No. 4, despite coaching at one of the bluest of blue-blood programs, is a pretty good indicator of just how special his reign at Alabama was.
Still, looking only at performance against expectations obviously sells coaches like Saban and Smart short. Saban is probably the best head coach in the sport’s history but ranks only fourth on the above list. Meanwhile, Smart has overachieved by only 6.0 points above the historic baseline in his nine seasons at Georgia thanks to the high bar predecessor Mark Richt set. But he has also won two national titles, overcoming Georgia’s history of falling just short and at least briefly surpassing Saban as well. If our goal is to measure coaching prowess, we need to account for raw quality too.
The best coaches of the past 20 years
If we combine raw SP+ averages with this performance versus baseline average, we can come up with a pretty decent overall coach rating. We can debate the weights involved, but here’s what an overall rating looks like if we use 60% performance versus baseline and 40% SP+ average:
I always like to say that numbers make great starting points for a conversation, and this is a pretty good starting point. Anyone reading this would probably tweak this list to suit their own preferences, and while it probably isn’t surprising that Pinkel is in the top 20, seeing him fourth, ahead of Meyer, Harbaugh and others, is a bit jarring. (I promise that this Mizzou alum didn’t put his finger on the scales.) Regardless, this is a fun mix of guys who won big at big schools and guys who won pretty big at pretty big schools. That was the goal of the exercise.
Maybe the most confusing coach in this top 20 is Dabo Swinney. Clemson had enjoyed just one AP top-five finish in its history before he took over 16 years ago, and he has led the Tigers to 2 national titles, 6 top-five finishes and 7 CFP appearances. And while they haven’t had a true, title-caliber team in a few years, they’ve still won two of the past three ACC crowns. How is he only 10th?
The main culprit for Swinney’s lower-than-expected ranking is his recent performance — it has been inferior to both national title standards and his standards. Since we’re using a team’s performance against 20-year averages, a lot of this rating is basically comparing Swinney to himself, and he hasn’t quite measured up of late.
From 2012 to 2020, Swinney’s average rating was an incredible 17.0, which would have ranked second to only Saban on the list above. But his average over the past four seasons is only 3.6.
Part of what made Saban so impressive was how long he managed to clear the bar he himself was setting in Tuscaloosa. Per SP+, his best team was his 14th — the 2020 team that won his sixth and final title at Bama. While Swinney was basically matching Saban’s standard 12 years into their respective tenures, Saban continued at a particularly high level for at least three more years while Swinney fell off the pace.
Comparing Saban, Swinney and Smart year by year, we see that Smart was hitting Saban-esque levels seven seasons into his tenure, but his rating has fallen off each of the past two seasons. Even Saban slipped starting in Year 15, even though he still had nearly the best program in the sport for a couple more years.
The best coaches of 2025
Six of the top seven coaches on the list above are either retired or coaching in the NFL now, so let’s focus our gaze specifically on the guys who will be leading college teams out onto the field in 2025. Using the same 20-year sample as above — which cuts off the tenure of Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz but includes everything else — here’s how the current crop of FBS head coaches has performed at the FBS level. We’ll break this into two samples: the guys who have coached for at least four years in this sample and the guys who have coached between one and three years.
Our May top 10 list featured eight guys who have been head coaches for at least four years; all eight are represented on this list, including four of the top five. (Sarkisian has averaged a 13.8 rating over the past two seasons, which is a top-five level, but his overall run as head coach at Washington, USC and Texas has featured a number of ups and downs.)
Maybe the name that jumps out the most above is Josh Heupel. I think anyone would consider him a very good coach (he’s 37-15 overall), but he doesn’t exactly draw any “best in the game?” hype. He benefited from a positive situation at UCF, where he inherited a rising program from Scott Frost in 2019 and produced big ratings in his first couple of years on the job. But his average rating at Tennessee has been a solid 14.0 as well; the Volunteers had been up and down for years, but he has produced four top-20 SP+ ratings in a row and two top-10s in the past three years. He might not be getting the credit he deserves for that.
All in all, I enjoy this list. We’ve got mostly predictable names at the top, we’ve got some oldies but (mostly) goodies spread throughout, and we’ve got room for up-and-comers like Jeff Traylor too. This 60-40 approach probably doesn’t give enough respect to the Chris Creightons of the world — the Eastern Michigan coach has overachieved against EMU’s baseline by 7.2 points per season, which is a fantastic average, but at such a hard job, his Eagles have still averaged only a minus-14.4 SP+ rating during his tenure. Still, this is a mostly solid approach.
Now let’s talk about some small-sample all-stars.
Four of the top six of this list coached in the College Football Playoff last season, and while the guys ranked fifth and sixth made our May top 10 list, the guys who won big at SMU and Indiana, not Oregon and Notre Dame, take priority here. I was honestly floored that Curt Cignetti didn’t make our top 10 list; he led James Madison to one of the best FBS debuts ever, going 19-4 in 2022-23, then he moved to Bloomington and led Indiana — INDIANA! — to 11 wins in his first season there.
On this list, however, Rhett Lashlee tops even Cignetti. I’m not sure we’ve talked enough about the job he has done at SMU. He, too, inherited a rising program, as Sonny Dykes had done some of the nitty-gritty work in getting the Mustangs back on their feet (with help from an offensive coordinator named Rhett Lashlee). SMU hadn’t produced a top-50 ranking since 1985 before Dykes did so for three straight seasons (2019-21). But after holding steady in his first year replacing Dykes, Lashlee’s program has ignited: 12-2 and 24th in SP+ in 2023, then 11-3 and 12th in 2024. Looking specifically at the 2021-24 range, as the game has undergone so much change, Lashlee’s 16.8 average rating ranks second overall, behind only Smart (18.0) and ahead of Kiffin (15.1), Cignetti (15.0), Odom (15.0), Heupel (14.0) and Day (13.9).
Along with quite a few others here, Lashlee made my 2024 list of 30 coaches who would define the next decade; he’d definitely still be on the list — along with new additions like GJ Kinne and perhaps Fran Brown — if I remade that list today.
It’s 2025 MLB All-Star Home Run Derby day in Atlanta!
Some of the most dynamic home run hitters in baseball will be taking aim at the Truist Park stands on Monday (8 p.m. ET on ESPN) in one of the most anticipated events of the summer.
While the prospect of a back-to-back champion is out of the picture — 2024 winner Teoscar Hernandez is not a part of this year’s field — a number of exciting stars will be taking the field, including Atlanta’s own Matt Olson, who replaced Ronald Acuna Jr. just three days before the event. Will Olson make a run in front of his home crowd? Will Cal Raleigh show off the power that led to 38 home runs in the first half? Or will one of the younger participants take the title?
We have your one-stop shop for everything Derby related, from predictions to live updates once we get underway to analysis and takeaways at the night’s end.
MLB Home Run Derby field
Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners (38 home runs in 2025)
James Wood, Washington Nationals (24)
Junior Caminero, Tampa Bay Rays (23)
Byron Buxton, Minnesota Twins (21)
Brent Rooker, Athletics (20)
Matt Olson, Atlanta Braves (17)
Jazz Chisholm Jr., New York Yankees (17)
Oneil Cruz, Pittsburgh Pirates (16)
Live updates
Who is going to win the Derby and who will be the runner-up?
Jeff Passan: Raleigh. His swing is perfect for the Derby: He leads MLB this season in both pull percentage and fly ball percentage, so it’s not as if he needs to recalibrate it to succeed. He has also become a prolific hitter from the right side this season — 16 home runs in 102 at-bats — and his ability to switch between right- and left-handed pitching offers a potential advantage. No switch-hitter (or catcher for that matter) has won a Home Run Derby. The Big Dumper is primed to be the first, beating Buxton in the finals.
Alden Gonzalez: Cruz. He might be wildly inconsistent at this point in his career, but he is perfect for the Derby — young enough to possess the stamina required for a taxing event that could become exhausting in the Atlanta heat; left-handed, in a ballpark where the ball carries out better to right field; and, most importantly, capable of hitting balls at incomprehensible velocities. Raleigh will put on a good show from both sides of the plate but will come in second.
Buster Olney: Olson. He is effectively pinch-hitting for Acuna, and because he received word in the past 72 hours of his participation, he hasn’t had the practice rounds that the other competitors have been going through. But he’s the only person in this group who has done the Derby before, which means he has experienced the accelerated pace, adrenaline and push of the crowd.
His pitcher, Eddie Perez, knows something about performing in a full stadium in Atlanta. And, as Olson acknowledged in a conversation Sunday, the park generally favors left-handed hitters because of the larger distances that right-handed hitters must cover in left field.
Jesse Rogers: Olson. Home-field advantage will mean something this year as hitting in 90-plus degree heat and humidity will be an extra challenge in Atlanta. Olson understands that and can pace himself accordingly. Plus, he was a late addition. He has got nothing to lose. He’ll outlast the young bucks in the field. And I’m not putting Raleigh any lower than second — his first half screams that he’ll be in the finals against Olson.
Jorge Castillo: Wood. His mammoth power isn’t disputed — he can jack baseballs to all fields. But the slight defect in his power package is that he doesn’t hit the ball in the air nearly as often as a typical slugger. Wood ranks 126th out of 155 qualified hitters across the majors in fly ball percentage. And he still has swatted 24 home runs this season. So, in an event where he’s going to do everything he can to lift baseballs, hitting fly balls won’t be an issue, and Wood is going to show off that gigantic power en route to a victory over Cruz in the finals.
Who will hit the longest home run of the night — and how far?
Passan: Cruz hits the ball harder than anyone in baseball history. He’s the choice here, at 493 feet.
Gonzalez: If you exclude the Coors Field version, there have been just six Statcast-era Derby home runs that have traveled 497-plus feet. They were compiled by two men: Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. James Wood — all 6-foot-7, 234 pounds of him — will become the third.
Olney: James Wood has the easy Stanton- and Judge-type power, and he will clear the Chophouse with the longest homer. Let’s say 497 feet.
Rogers: Hopefully he doesn’t injure himself doing it, but Buxton will break out his massive strength and crush a ball at least 505 feet. I don’t see him advancing far in the event, but for one swing, he’ll own the night.
Castillo: Cruz hits baseballs hard and far. He’ll crush a few bombs, and one will reach an even 500 feet.
Who is the one slugger fans will know much better after the Derby?
Passan: Buxton capped his first half with a cycle on Saturday, and he’ll carry that into the Derby, where he will remind the world why he was baseball’s No. 1 prospect in 2015. Buxton’s talent has never been in question, just his health. And with his body feeling right, he has the opportunity to put on a show fans won’t soon forget.
Olney: Caminero isn’t a big name and wasn’t a high-end prospect like Wood was earlier in his career. Just 3½ years ago, Caminero was dealt to the Rays by the Cleveland Guardians in a relatively minor November trade for pitcher Tobias Myers. But since then, he has refined his ability to cover inside pitches and is blossoming this year into a player with ridiculous power. He won’t win the Derby, but he’ll open some eyes.
What’s the one moment we’ll all be talking about long after this Derby ends?
Gonzalez: The incredible distances and velocities that will be reached, particularly by Wood, Cruz, Caminero, Raleigh and Buxton. The hot, humid weather at Truist Park will only aid the mind-blowing power that will be on display Monday night.
Rogers: The exhaustion on the hitter’s faces, swinging for home run after home run in the heat and humidity of Hot-lanta!
Castillo: Cruz’s 500-foot blast and a bunch of other lasers he hits in the first two rounds before running out of gas in the finals.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike