Sark: HS coaches must stay present in recruiting
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Dave Wilson
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Texas coach Steve Sarkisian used his pulpit in front of thousands of Texas high school coaches to encourage them to fight off outside interests who are getting involved with their players.
Sarkisian, during a keynote address at the Texas High School Coaches Association convention, said he wanted to get on his soapbox about how many coaches — turned off by agents or handlers — have taken a back seat in their players’ recruitments.
“The game is changing,” Sarkisian said. “Not the game on the field, the game off the field, NIL, revenue sharing, publicity rights, whatever you want to call it. Agents have gotten involved, trainers have been more involved. And I’m imploring upon you not to throw your hands in the air and just say, ‘Hey, it’s out of our control.’ We can’t do that. Agents are new to us. I’ve got to deal with agents. That’s real.”
This year’s convention had 18,562 attendees, the second-biggest crowd for the event ever, and Sarkisian spoke to thousands of them — not as the Texas coach, but as a representative for college coaches as a whole, even covering his Longhorns logo on his shirt at one point.
“You are still the ones raising your kids. You’re still the ones right, that they look to for guidance,” he said. “This idea right now of what’s happening in my opinion, is because of the agents. They’re going to shop your kids. And we can’t lose sight of trying to offer really good advice.”
Sarkisian noted that 19 of the Longhorns’ 23 NFL picks over the past two seasons — the most by any program in the nation — were Texas products. He told the crowd it was because of them and stressed how important it is to remain the leaders of their players.
“College football has changed for decades. There’s been changes all along the way and we’re in the midst of a lot of change right now. And not all of it is bad. We’ll get to a good place. There’s good people involved in this that are going to get us to a good place. I’m just asking of you stay connected. Be the leaders of your program, be committed to your program. That’s what we chose to do. We chose to be coaches, we chose to be leaders of men. And so I’m asking that of you as we move forward.”
Sarkisian even made a pitch for the roster of coaches across the state, noting that Texas A&M “is in the best hands they’ve been in a long time with Mike Elko,” highlighting TCU’s 2022 run to the national title game under Sonny Dykes, Dave Aranda’s 2022 Sugar Bowl win, the investment that Joey McGuire has at Texas Tech and the track record of Willie Fritz who’s embarking on a rebuild at Houston, and yesterday mentioned SMU’s playoff run under Rhett Lashlee last season as evidence that players don’t need to play elsewhere.
“The programs in the state of Texas right now — I can’t speak for 20 years ago — but man, they are on an all-time high level,” Sarkisian said. “There’s thousands that leave the state that go play college football. But I surely would love that they go play at UTSA or A&M or Houston or Tech.”
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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — The Yankees are acquiring third baseman Ryan McMahon from the Rockies in exchange for minor league pitchers Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz, sources confirmed to ESPN on Friday.
The Yankees will assume the remainder of 30-year-old McMahon’s contract, which includes approximately $4.5 million for the remainder of 2025 and $32 million over the next two seasons.
An All-Star last season, McMahon was batting .217 with 16 home runs and a .717 OPS in 100 games for Colorado in 2025. He hit home runs in the first two games after the All-Star break and another on Tuesday and is on pace to keep his four-year 20-homer streak alive.
While the production has resulted in a 92 OPS+, which suggests McMahon has been 8% worse than the average major league hitter this season, he still represents a significant offensive upgrade at third base for New York.
The Yankees have had Oswald Peraza, one of the worst hitters in the majors, manning third base nearly every day since the club decided to release DJ LeMahieu, another former Rockies player, earlier this month and move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base. Peraza, while a strong defender, is slashing .147/.208/.237 in 69 games this season. His 24 wRC+ ranks last among the 310 hitters with at least 160 plate appearances this season.
Defensively, McMahon is a Gold Glove-caliber third baseman whose four Outs Above Average is third in the majors this season. He joins a Yankees club that has been marred by sloppy defense, most recently on Wednesday when it committed four errors in a defensive meltdown against the first-place Toronto Blue Jays.
Herring, 22, has recorded a 1.71 ERA in 89⅓ innings across 16 starts between Low- and High-A this season. He was a sixth-round pick out of LSU in the 2024 draft.
Grosz, an 11th-round pick in 2023, had a 4.14 ERA in 87 innings over 16 games (15 starts) for High-A Hudson Valley this season.
With third base addressed, the Yankees will continue to seek to acquire pitchers to bolster both their rotation and bullpen.
MLB.com first reported on the Yankees trading for McMahon.
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Jorge Castillo
The Mets acquired left-handed reliever Gregory Soto from the Orioles on Friday in exchange for two minor leaguers in what could be the first of multiple moves by New York to bolster its bullpen before the trade deadline Thursday.
The trade, which sent Class A right-hander Wellington Aracena and Double-A right-hander Cameron Foster to Baltimore, gives the Mets a hard-throwing left-hander to complement the club’s only lefty on the roster, Brooks Raley, who returned from Tommy John surgery last week.
Soto, who is 30 and was an All-Star with the Detroit Tigers in 2021 and 2022, has posted a 3.96 ERA with a 27.5% strikeout rate in 45 appearances this season. The Mets will be his fourth team since the 2022 season.
On Monday, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns plainly signaled that upgrading the bullpen for the stretch run is his top priority.
The need is clear. Injuries and overuse have depleted a relief corps that led the majors in bullpen ERA through May 31. Since June 1, the group has posted 4.52 ERA, good for 23rd in the majors.
Aracena, 20, is 1-1 with a 2.38 ERA in 17 games for St. Lucie. The Orioles said he is one of two pitchers in the minors this season to have thrown at least 60 innings without surrendering a home run.
Foster, 26, is 5-2 with two saves and a 2.97 ERA while pitching at the Double-A and Triple-A levels.
BOSTON — Hundreds of Aramark workers at Fenway Park are on strike and planning to stay out for all of a homestand between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers starting Friday night.
Concession workers had set a deadline of noon Friday for Aramark and Fenway Park to reach an agreement with the Local 26 chapter of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island hotel, casino, airport and food services workers union.
The union went on strike at noon asking for “living wages, guardrails on technology and R-E-S-P-E-C-T!”
With the Red Sox and Dodgers scheduled to start at 7:10 p.m. EDT, union officials had a request for fans attending this homestand with food and beer workers on strike.
“We’re asking you to NOT buy concessions inside the ballpark,” Local 26 wrote on social media. “Tailgate before the games!”
Union workers walked the picket line wearing green T-shirts declaring “FENWAY WORKERS ON STRIKE.” They carried signs in the shape of a baseball proclaiming Local 26.
The Red Sox go out of town Monday with a game that night at Minnesota.
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