Exactly one month from today, Major League Baseball’s 2021 regular season will come to a close.
When it does, which of the current contenders will be headed to the playoffs? Which teams will be on the outside looking in? Will the San Francisco Giants edge the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West, or vice versa? Who will be the favorites to reach the Fall Classic? How will the MVP and Cy Young award races shape up? What will Shohei Ohtani‘s final batting and pitching lines look like at the end of the two-way star’s historic year for the Los Angeles Angels?
And what other surprises might await us down the stretch?
To get a sense of what the final month of the regular season might bring, we convened a panel of 17 ESPN baseball experts to answer some of the game’s biggest questions, covering September and beyond. We also asked them to justify their answers — particularly those who went against the grain.
Below, you’ll find our picks for the postseason, the major awards and more, including a few out-on-a-limb answers and some bold predictions about what’s next.
Which team currently in or very close to the playoff field is most likely to miss out?
Reds: 8 Red Sox: 5 Padres: 2 A’s: 1 Yankees: 1
So we’re not sold on the Reds, eh? None of the teams that would currently make the playoffs are really floundering. The Reds are probably the closest to a team playing over its head, while the Padres are the one team in striking distance that has fallen short of expectations. Cincinnati may hold on, and the field grows more crowded by the day, but San Diego has more talent than the Reds, Cardinals or Phillies. — Bradford Doolittle
Nor the Red Sox? Let me just say: I still think the Red Sox make the postseason. But if there’s anything likely at this point to completely derail a team, it’s a COVID-19 outbreak that turns over a third of the roster, and that’s exactly what the Red Sox are dealing with right now. They’ve weathered it reasonably well so far, but they’ve still got series against the Rays and White Sox over the next 10 days, and with Oakland just one game back in the loss column and Toronto ever lurking and dangerous, the Red Sox have work to do if they want to send Chris Sale to the mound in the AL wild-card game. — Jeff Passan
Who will finish the regular season with more wins: the Giants or the Dodgers — and how many W’s for each?
Dodgers: 11 (High: 105; Low: 99; Average: 102)
Giants: 6 (High: 105; Low: 98; Average: 101)
Why the Dodgers? While San Francisco is without a doubt the biggest surprise team in the majors this year, it will feel like a heartbreak when the Giants finish second — because they’re going to wind up with 102 or 103 regular-season victories and get stuck playing a one-game wild-card in the postseason. A great year of progress will all come down to those nine innings. The Dodgers, building on the momentum they have gathered since the trade for Max Scherzer and Trea Turner, will finish with 105 victories. They may not be one of the best teams of all time, which seemed possible in April, but they’ve got the best shot of any team since the Yankees clubs of 1996-2000 to go back-to-back. — Buster Olney
Why the Giants? While some of the Giants’ September schedule is tough, as they’ll take on the Padres and Dodgers in the division, about half their games are against the Diamondbacks, Cubs and Rockies. The Giants aren’t one of these highly volatile teams with huge swings at home or on the road or against plus and minus .500 teams. They’re solid in all areas. There’s no reason to think they’ll slow down in the final month after playing great baseball for so long. They may get beat out by the Dodgers but it’ll be because Los Angeles is just that good. The Giants will keep proving they are as well. — Jesse Rogers
You voted for a season-ending tiebreaker. Paint us a picture. The great NL race between the surprising Giants and star-laden Dodgers goes down to the wire — and ends in a tie, both teams with 103 wins. So we get the third Giants-Dodgers tiebreaker in history, following 1951 (“The Giants win the pennant!”) and 1962 (the Giants won that one as well, with four runs in the top of the ninth in Game 3 when it was a best-of-three). The Dodgers go with Walker Buehler and he clinches the Cy Young Award with a 4-0 shutout win, relegating the Giants to the wild card. — David Schoenfield
Who will be the No. 1 seed in the AL?
Rays 14 Astros 2 White Sox 1
What makes the Rays so dominant? The Rays are the best-run organization in baseball from rookie ball through the major leagues. Their secret, among many, is that everyone plays, everyone contributes. Their 25th man is better than anyone else’s 25th man. Their 20th through 25th men are better than any other team’s 20th through 25th. The Yankees won 13 games in a row in August, and lost ground to the Rays, making the Yankees the fourth team in history to do that in any month, the first since the 1965 Giants. — Tim Kurkjian
Yet you chose the Astros. Why? It’s as simple as the schedule: The Astros’ remaining slate is a little easier than the Rays’ — those being my top two candidates — and when the two teams link up for three in the final week, with home field probably on the line, the games will be played in Houston. Plus, the Astros are a better — and healthier — team today than the one we’ve seen the past month-plus, with Alex Bregman and Jose Urquidy now back (or close to it, with the latter). — Tristan Cockcroft
And you were the one person who chose the White Sox. Why Chicago? Six of Chicago’s last nine series will come against teams that don’t have anything to play for in this final month (two against the Tigers and one each against the Royals, Angels, Rangers and Indians). The Rays, residing at the top of a fiercely competitive division, still have to play the Blue Jays (twice), Yankees, Red Sox and Astros. It’s a massive gap to make up, I know, but the White Sox have the talent to get scorching hot when they want. — Alden Gonzalez
The 2021 World Series matchup will be … ?
AL White Sox 7 Astros 5 Rays 4 Yankees 1
NL Dodgers 12 Giants 3 Brewers 2
Dodgers-White Sox was our most-picked matchup. Why will these two teams meet in October? The Dodgers are the best team in baseball. The White Sox might not be the best team in their own league, and they’re six games back of the best record, but here’s what they do have. Luis Robert, healthy and awesome. Yasmani Grandal, healthy and awesome. Perhaps the deepest lineup in the league. Carlos Rodon, Lucas Giolito, Lance Lynn and Dylan Cease. And a fearsome bullpen, which has been pretty rough, truthfully, in the second half but is calibrated for playoff excellence. Explaining why the Dodgers is like explaining why cookies. Just because, OK? The White Sox, on the other hand, might ultimately not be the best, but they look the part more than any of their AL contemporaries. — Passan
Our runners-up in each league were the Astros and Giants. You picked both. What makes you think they’re the teams to beat? The Giants have been consistently excellent. Their offense remains a constant threat for the long ball, yet their pitching keeps the ball in the ballpark. They get the quick score, but make opponents work for every run. The Astros have been a run-differential machine, outscoring opponents through a high-powered offense that got healthier with the return of Alex Bregman. Their pitching has been effective with a mix of young arms coming into their own, excellent defense and strong additions in the bullpen at the trade deadline. These are undoubtedly two of the best teams in baseball, and there is no clear favorite over either of them in their respective leagues. The Astros have shown they can get smoking hot; no reason they can’t do the same in the postseason.— Doug Glanville
You cast the lone vote for the Yankees — and one of just two for the Brewers. Tell us why. When your preseason pick is still alive, despite some ups and downs, now is not the time to abandon it. The Yankees fixed their lineup at the trade deadline and have a sneaky-effective starting staff. If Aroldis Chapman has one good month in him, watch out: The men in pinstripes will pull off an upset or two and still be standing for the Fall Classic. On the other side, how can you not like the Brewers? They have everything a team needs to go all the way — a solid offense, three top starters and a good bullpen led by lefty Josh Hader. On top of everything, they have dominated the powerhouse NL West all season, compiling a 23-9 record against the division including a 12-6 mark against the Dodgers, Giants and Padres so far. Milwaukee should be one of the favorites in the NL. — Rogers
How great has Ohtani been? The most futile task in sports is defining Shohei Ohtani’s season. Comparisons no longer work, since there are no longer any reputable comparisons. The stat-facts that begin, “Shohei Ohtani became the first player in 103 years to do something that nobody will ever do again,” have long ago lapsed into parody. Adjectives — astonishing, incredible, unprecedented — are true but unhelpful. He is not just a pitcher who hits, or a hitter who pitches; he is among the top four or five most proficient people in the world at both. He has consistently thrown the ball faster than anybody in baseball while consistently hitting the ball harder and farther than anybody in baseball. It is, in a word, indescribable. — Tim Keown
Why vote for Harper — and not Tatis? Tatis, who seems to lack his typically infectious energy since making the temporary move to the outfield, could be another shoulder subluxation away from his season coming to an abrupt end. Harper doesn’t have those concerns. And he has been scorching hot at the plate, batting .332/.448/.668 since the start of July. There’s no reason for that not to carry over into what will be a critical September for his Phillies. — Gonzalez
It’s Cole and Buehler by a mile. What gives them such a huge edge? This is really just a case of consistency meeting expectation, for both pitchers. To start the season, Cole and Jacob deGrom were the consensus best pitchers in the game. Cole started like a house on fire, fell off some after the new sticky-stuff enforcement (but not all that much, really) and has since resumed his place atop the pecking order. Buehler was probably more like the fourth- or fifth-best NL pitcher going into the season (by perception). Then deGrom got hurt, Clayton Kershaw got hurt, etc. Buehler has been the only elite NL hurler to exceed expectation over the course of the full season. Because Cole and Buehler are doing what they were supposed to do, there’s no reason to think it won’t continue to the end of the season. So they have become no-brainer Cy Young picks in their respective leagues. — Doolittle
Buehler? Buehler? Sorry, friends, but you biffed the NL Cy Young voting. What if I told you there’s a pitcher who leads all qualified starters in strikeouts per nine, ranks third in walks per nine and leads in homers per nine with a number nearly twice as good as the next guy? He is the Cy Young winner, right? Of course he is, which is why the choice of the Dodgers’ Walker Buehler over Milwaukee’s Corbin Burnes is just wrong. The AL isn’t cut-and-dried, either, with Robbie Ray and Lance Lynn at least in Gerrit Cole’s neighborhood. But overlooking Burnes is silly. Buehler has been undeniable: an MLB-best 2.05 ERA, 176 innings pitched (ranking second overall), great peripherals. A vote for Buehler is understandable. It’s just not the right choice when Burnes is punching out 12.24 per nine, walking 1.68 in the same time period and allowing only five home runs in 139 innings. This much is for sure: The winner of the NL Cy Young almost certainly will have a last name that starts with B-U. — Passan
Why Josh Hader? I am getting more and more reluctant to give this award to a “starter.” The ability to win a game is so much more heavily dependent on the right matchups in the bullpen. Even the best starters do not complete games or even enter the seventh inning, let alone the ninth. That might not be their fault, but someone like Lance Lynn, who has had a great year, averages less than six innings per start. If Craig Kimbrel had the kind of year he is having but had been in the American League all season, he would deserve a lot of votes — just as someone like Ryan Pressly is worth considering. But as we know, there is a lot of baseball left and relievers’ numbers can implode with one bad outing. — Glanville
This has been the Year of Shohei Ohtani. What will be his final batting and pitching lines?
Average batting line: 49 HR, 107 RBIs, .262 BA
Average pitching line: 10-2, 159 SO, 3.07 ERA
As a group, we have Ohtani finishing just shy of 50 homers. You were the high vote — at 51. Why? Ohtani would need nine homers in September to get to 51, something he has done in two of the five months so far this season — in June, when he hit 13 homers, and in July, when he hit nine. August was Ohtani’s worst month at the plate — he slashed just .202/.345/.404 — but given that the Angels won’t be making the playoffs, all that’s left for September (and the first few days of October) is putting the cherry on top of his magical season. — Joon Lee
Looks like Mike Trout was right. Ohtani will finish with 50 homers, and 10 victories — which means that Trout’s preseason prediction of 30-plus homers and 10-plus wins for Ohtani will be right on. It’s been a frustrating, injury-plagued season for Trout, but he saw before anybody how extraordinary Ohtani’s season would be. — Olney
Ohtani … for Cy Young? Ohtani will get MVP votes and Cy Young votes. And I think he stays at his current pace. He has been amazingly consistent considering the many roles he is playing. That alone is amazing. My first full season as an everyday starter, I completely collapsed in September. It is hard enough to be an everyday player, let alone at this level in more than one major role. — Glanville
Make one bold prediction about the final stretch
In the American League …
The Yankees will win the AL East. — Marly Rivera
The Red Sox have appeared to be in deep trouble multiple times this year, and each time, mainly because of manager Alex Cora, they pull out of it and start winning again. The Yankees looked like they were going to run away with the first wild-card spot, then became the first team since the 1994 Royals to lose three in a row directly after winning 13 in a row. These teams are headed for a tie at the end of the regular season for the first wild-card spot. Then we will get Gerrit Cole against Chris Sale in a winner-take-all game. It can’t get much better than that. — Kurkjian
In the National League …
Atlanta has me believing. The Braves will double their lead in the division and win it by eight or more games, something that was inconceivable a month or so ago. — Rogers
The San Diego Padres will find their way and climb their way back to the playoffs. This is the first major obstacle that the Tatis-era Padres face, given the expectations placed on the team. This Padres core has the potential to be one of the defining teams of this era of baseball, but talent can take you only so far, especially in a sport with so many games. This squad clearly has the talent to go far in the postseason, but these Padres will need to overcome some obstacles and gain some experience under their belt to establish themselves as a serious postseason force. — Lee
The Brewers will tie the Giants with 100 wins and earn the NL’s No. 1 seed. Everyone’s talking about the exciting NL West race, but the Brewers boast three legit aces, the best one-two bullpen tandem and an emerging offense, especially after Christian Yelich hit .313 in August. Perhaps his power returns soon, too. This is a dangerous team, with an appealing September schedule, and definitely a World Series contender. — Eric Karabell
The Mets discourse gets even more dismal. I sent in that prediction before the Zack Scott DWI, marking the “thumbs down” circus as the spot from where I thought things would get worse — and they already have. The Mets are down to a single-digit percentage chance of making the playoffs and now there is widespread and well-founded concern about literally every single part of the organization. The Mets have two first-round draft picks next summer, but this group just oversaw the worst draft-related disaster in recent memory. The Mets should be competitive next year, but I don’t see them taking a step forward until at least 2023, unless drastic (and successful) changes are made. The changes part is looking more likely by the day, but the successful part is still an open question. — Kiley McDaniel
In both leagues …
The Phillies rally past the Braves to win the NL East and end the longest playoff drought in the NL and, in even more improbable fashion, the Mariners rally past the A’s and Red Sox to win the second wild card and end the longest playoff drought in the majors (since 2001). Since the Reds will also make the playoffs, the new longest playoff drought will belong to the Tigers and Angels, who last made it in 2014. — Schoenfield
As for individual players …
Logan Webb will become known far and wide. Webb has allowed two or fewer runs in 14 consecutive starts. He is proof that a sinker-slider guy who doesn’t rely on spin rate and the high fastball can still dominate major league hitters. He throws a “heavy ball” — “Like catching a shot put,” Giants catcher Curt Casali says — and his wipeout slider is becoming one of the best pitches in the game. One huge reason the Giants have been able to remain the best team in baseball: Second-half Webb has been first-half Kevin Gausman. Right now, he is the guy to start a wild-card game or the first game of a series. If you don’t know him, you will soon. Hitters already do. — Keown
The Royals’ Salvador Perez will not only blow by Johnny Bench’s record for homers by a primary catcher in a season, but he’ll also break Jorge Soler‘s Royals record (48) and become the first backstop to go deep 50 times. — Doolittle
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will win the American League’s Triple Crown. Maybe that isn’t such a crazy thought, because as we closed on August, Vlad Jr. led the AL in runs, hits, on-base percentage, total bases and OPS+. His biggest challenge will be leading the AL in RBIs, given Jose Abreu‘s lead. But remember: Vlad Jr. has a bunch of games left against the Orioles, and White Sox manager Tony La Russa will be customizing Abreu’s workload to prepare him for October. — Olney
AUSTIN, Texas — Steve Sarkisian enters his fifth season as head coach at Texas with the program facing big expectations after reaching the semifinals of the College Football Playoff in consecutive years.
The Arch Manning era has officially arrived in Austin, as he’ll be the Longhorns’ full-time starting quarterback this fall. Manning is humble enough that he has won over the locker room and self-assured enough that he’ll occasionally wink at Sarkisian after a good play in practice.
“Almost like, ‘Did you like that?'” Sarkisian chuckled about the winks.
With Texas headed into its second season in the SEC, there is a stout roster, strong returning cores on both sides of the ball and the reality of playoff expectations hovering again. There’s also a defense that’s experienced and explosive enough that Sarkisian says, “I don’t think Arch is ever going to have to go into a game thinking we have to outscore ’em.”
We’ll know right away with the Longhorns traveling to Ohio State for the marquee game of Week 1. Here is Sark on Manning, the state of the program and why Texas has established itself as a top 10 program again.
Question: Arch Manning’s moment is finally here. He’s waited patiently for it. He’s the focal point of both the offense and the locker room now. How’s he embraced the new reality?
Sarkisian: I think there’s something that’s unique about Arch. You can watch him throw and you see when you get up on him in person, man, he’s a bigger guy than maybe people think. When you watch him throw, the arm talent and the deep ball is there. Then you watch him move and you’re like, wait, this guy’s a better athlete than I thought. Definitely got grandpa’s gene. It’s not the uncles, he got grandpa’s gene. There’s an infectious leadership that he has, that I don’t want to say is unintentional because he intentionally leads. You can feel that. But the unintentional leadership ability he has, players gravitate to him, they want to be around him.
They like him for who he is, not for the name on the back of his jersey. And I think that’s something that he provides. He’s a fiery guy. He enjoys playing the game. Even in practice he’ll make a throw, and he’ll look over at me and wink at me almost like, ‘Did you like that?’ And so we have really good rapport, but I understand now because of my rapport with him, why the players have really good rapport with him. He just has a natural ability to engage with people.
Q: What’s that rapport like?
Sarkisian: Sometimes it’s verbal, sometimes it’s nonverbal. But I think that’s part of the responsibility as a quarterback that when you look at a quarterback and why is it this position in sports that is so coveted? It’s because your job is really to instill belief in the locker room, your job is to instill belief in an organization or a team or in a staff, and then ultimately your job is to instill belief in a fan base. And I think that he does that very naturally. It’s not something that is manufactured or fabricated. It’s very natural for him to go along with all those other things, the skill set, the ability to do those things. And so, I’m excited for him. I just want to make sure that we’re really strong around him, that he doesn’t feel the weight of the world to have to go perform. I want us to play really well around him to enhance what he’s able to do.
Q: Will there be some grace for growth? Some people already are pegging him the first-team All-SEC quarterback. He’s spent his whole life as a Manning, so he’s prepared, I guess, but do you think he’s prepared for the first interception in Columbus? Or the moment when on-field adversity hits? Do you think he’s ready for the level of both praise and criticism that will come?
Sarkisian: I think one, the exposure he got last season was helpful. He got two career starts. He started as our quarterback in the first SEC game in the history of the school. And those were not all perfect. Granted, there were some great moments. He threw nine touchdowns and almost a thousand yards. There was a couple of bad picks in there, too. And in the end, I think he understands he is not riding the emotional roller coaster of the opinions of others and staying [with a] level of consistency in his approach, in his play, in his ability to pick people up. Easier said than done when you’re not in the real fire of it all. But we are fortunate that he got exposed to some of that, and he threw a couple bad picks, and it was OK.
Q: He missed a few blitz pickups, right?
Sarkisian: Yeah, and he gets hit in the back and things like that. Like he’s learning. And yeah, there’s probably going to be some grace needed. Unfortunately, it’s probably not going to be grace granted outside of our building. Inside of our building, sure, there will be, but outside of the building, the pundits are going to be the pundits, the fans are going to be the fans, the opposing fans are going to be the fans. But inside our building, I think the support that he’s going to get is going to be one that he’ll definitely appreciate.
Q: One impactful change this spring has been Duane Akina being back on the field. He was here from 2001 to 2013 and coached an elite assembly line of defensive backs. What’s it been like having him back?
Sarkisian: Having Coach Akina back has been awesome. It’s been great in the building and the timing felt right. When we lost Blake Gideon [to Georgia Tech], we still had Terry Joseph on staff [and a] connection between he and Pete Kwiatkowski was a perfect fit. I had heard about [Akina] as a coach on the field, but I had never really seen it. And he’s a very kind of even-keel guy in and around the building. But when you watch him coach, the energy that he provides at practice is infectious. It’s what you always wanted in all of your coaches. And so the fact that here’s this guy, the oldest coach in our staff and he’s running to the ball, he’s demanding excellence out of every player, I think has just been infectious. Not only amongst the staff, but I think the respect that the players have, knowing the history and track record that he’s had of great players … here when it was DBU to what he was able to do at Stanford. He’s been an awesome addition.
Q: Identity-wise on defense, will this team be built around the defensive backs?
Sarkisian: I would argue it might be the best position group we have on our team right now from sheer talent. Now we have some experience there with Michael Taaffe coming back, Derek Williams getting healthy, Jelani McDonald‘s experience, Jaylon Guilbeau‘s experience, Malik Muhammad‘s experience. But below those guys, I think our ability to recruit that position the last two years is really evident. The guys look the part, they all are impactful players on special teams and so [Akina has] inherited a really good room of talented players, competitive players that are going to help us down the road.
Q: Texas went through a nearly two-decade drought for first-round offensive linemen. Now there’s a flurry of them coming out and seemingly emerging. How do you feel about the offensive line and skill around Arch?
Sarkisian: We feel good, obviously, on the offensive line. There’s a couple new faces, but again, we got exposure to a couple of those new faces early on. And so the experience of [senior guard] DJ Campbell and [senior interior lineman] Cole Hutson are big. The experience that [sophomore left tackle] Trevor Goosby got, Trevor was blocking real guys in the last month of the season, which was good for him. The emergence of some new faces is going to be good. These guys were all high-level recruits, and now it’s time, and that’s OK.
Q: There has to be some optimism at tailback, right?
Sarkisian: I think that the backfield will be better, in some degree. We got two guys coming off of injuries in CJ Baxter and Christian Clark, and we really think highly of both of them. We have a 1,000-yard rusher coming back, Tre Wisner, and we have a true freshman kid who’s going to be a sophomore in Jerrick Gibson, who played some really significant meaningful snaps in some big games. And so I feel really good about the running back room.
Q: They’ll be some familiar faces at receiver, too, right?
Sarkisian: I think having DeAndre Moore and Ryan Wingo back is going to be big. And then we got some guys that, it’s time to step up and it’s their moment. I would say the one room that we probably have our biggest question mark in is in the tight end room. So the offense is there.
Q: What’s the vibe on the defensive side?
Sarkisian: I think more importantly is who we are on defense and the growth of who we have been as a defensive team from Year 1 through Year 4. Going into Year 5, we have real playmakers on the defensive side of the ball, whether it’s Anthony Hill, Colin Simmons, Trey Moore, and we touched on Michael Taaffe, we touched on Derek Williams and Liona Lefau and Ethan Burke. We have some real players on the defensive side of the ball, to where I don’t think Arch is ever going to have to go into a game thinking we have to outscore ’em. We need to play good football, and as a team we can win a lot of games. It’s not going to feel like the weight of the world where if we don’t score 40, we’re in trouble. We’re going to be in plenty of high-level games where 24, 28 points is going to be good enough to win. Now do we want to score 35, 42, 49? Of course. But I don’t think we’re always going to have to. It’s managing some of those games the right way to make sure that our defense can play to their ability.
Q: Let me wrap with a macro question. How do you feel going into Year 5? At age 51, you’ve said you were ready for this job as a head coach, having endured some adversity in your career. Can you reflect on the collision of the consistency you’ve had the last few seasons with your preparedness and maybe where you see it’s going at this moment?
Sarkisian: You never know why you’re really here. Why are you hired? There’s been great coaches before. All guys who have been really successful at other places. Why weren’t they as successful here? And then: Why are you here now? And I jokingly say, this administration thinks they hired you for a reason, and what the issues were, but in reality, a lot of times they don’t know because they’re not looking behind the curtain. They don’t know. And as we’ve gone through this journey going into Year 5, we’ve really tried to look forward and be forward thinking rather than look backwards and say what’s wrong? What was wrong? What’s going to be right?
And along the way, there’s been all these changes in college football that have happened, right? Literally, we got hired in the middle of COVID. So we were dealing with COVID. We were dealing with the new facility getting built. We didn’t have a team room, we didn’t have a locker room, I didn’t have an office. Then here comes, they say the transfer portal, but nobody really knew what that was and so we didn’t really know how to tap into it. Then here comes conference realignment, and we’re in the midst of moving from the Big 12 to the SEC. Then here comes College Football Playoff expansion, and we’re going from four teams to 12. Then here comes NIL, and what does NIL look like? And here comes collectives and how do you manage collectives and what that looks like. And now here comes revenue share. And now here comes a potential different expansion to the College Football Playoff.
We’re forever evolving. And so the one thing that we’ve tried to do, like I said, is be forward thinking. And not playing catch up, but in essence, think about where are we headed and how do we continually adapt and do what’s best for our players and do what’s best for our team and try to minimize the noise outside the building and focus on what we’re doing here with the players we recruit, with the staff that we hire, with the expansion of the recruiting department and the scouting department with the evolution of understanding how do you manage NIL money to now? How do you manage a cap space and what does that look like, and be ahead of it all, which I think that’s something we’ve done a pretty good job of. We were one of the very first, when NIL got presented, we were one of the very first of utilizing that. … And then how do we still recruit the high schools and believe in high school recruiting to build our culture and to start that process.
Q: That makes sense here, right?
Sarkisian: And I look back at my time with Pete Carroll [at USC] and how important that was in that seven-, eight-year run of the development of players and the old players teaching the younger players. And then I looked at what Nick [Saban] did and how that [Alabama] roster turned itself over, but yet how did he hire really good coaches year after year? Because the cycle of success is you’re going to lose people.
And so we try to tap into history to look to the future. And so far, so good. And we haven’t been perfect, and I don’t pretend us to be perfect, but I do think we’ve done things, a lot of things really well that have allowed us to stay at the forefront of college football. And again, when I got here, I didn’t want to be a one-hit wonder. I didn’t want to live in the portal — one year we’re good and the next year we’re not. We wanted to build something that could sustain and that in my opinion is high school recruiting. We surely have tapped into the free agent market through the transfer portal to fill needs. And I think we’ve had a really good balance there. And ultimately, sure, I want to win a national championship. There’s no question about it. But the fact that we went from 5-7 to 8-5 to … in the semifinals two years in a row, I think lends itself to the consistency of our program and the foundation of our program. Now granted, we want to get into that [title] game, and we want to win that game, but I think we’ve built something here that’s going to be long lasting, that’s going to be sustainable.
And I’ve been telling everybody, my goal is to retire here and I’m 51 today, and I hope I can coach a long, long time. But the only way to do that is to have continued success because here the standard is a standard. You either compete and win championships or you don’t. There’s not a lot of gray area. And so to do that, you got to have the right amount of energy, you got to have the right people around you and allow them to do their jobs. You got to recruit the right people so that you don’t take those massive drops. You might have a blip on the radar, but yet we sustain it in a way that we’re proud of. And I think we’re doing that. But like I said, there’s always more work to do.
“Surgery today. Just wanted to take some time to say thank you to everyone who has sent their thoughts and prayers. Truly means the world to me at the number of people who have reached out to my family and me. It’s appreciated beyond belief. I’ll be back soon and better than ever.”.
Steele, 29, beat the Cubs to the announcement on Friday. It was known he would have reconstructive elbow surgery and miss the rest of the season, but it was unclear immediately if he had Tommy John surgery or a partial repair.
Steele is two years removed from being an All-Star selection and finishing fifth in National League Cy Young Award voting in 2023, when he went 16-5 with a 3.06 ERA in 30 starts.
Steele was 3-1 through four starts this season, with a 4.76 ERA and five home runs allowed through 22⅔ innings. His last outing on April 7 saw him toss seven shutout innings with eight strikeouts and just three hits against the Texas Rangers.
In five seasons with the Cubs, he is 32-22 with a 3.30 ERA in 102 games (91 starts), tallying 517 strikeouts and 155 walks in 506⅔ frames.
Chisholm was ejected in the seventh inning by plate umpire John Bacon for arguing after a called third strike on a full-count pitch from Mason Montgomery that appeared low, his fifth career ejection and first with the Yankees.
He posted on his X account, “Not even … close!!!!!” then deleted the post.
MLB regulations ban the use of electronic devices during games. The social media policy prohibits “displaying or transmitting content that questions the impartiality of or otherwise denigrates a major league umpire.”
“I didn’t think before I had anything that I said was ejectable but after probably,” Chisholm said. “I’m a competitor, so when I go out there and I feel like I’m right and you’re saying something to me that I think doesn’t make sense, I’m going to get fired up and be upset.
“I lost my emotions. I lost my cool,” he added. “I got to be better than that. … I’m definitely mad at myself for losing my cool.”
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
