I'm not sure I'd ever want to live in Cincinnati, but I know they do one thing right: Opening Day of the MLB season is an official holiday. If you thought I was going to say "Skyline Chili" I'm sorry to disappoint. The start of the 6-month grind deserves it's own day. While Opening Night between the Giants and the Yankees is the lone game on Wednesday (on Netflix, remember 👎), the rest of MLB's teams will get started on Thursday. Here are some things to watch for this MLB season along with a small preview of our local team, the Giants.
Around the League
ABS (Automated Ball/Strike System)
This season, you will see Major League batters, pitchers, and catchers tapping their heads after a ball or strike call they don't like. This is to indicate that they'd like to "challenge" the ball or strike, which will then be graded by a computer. I talked about some of the nuances this will take away in my previous write-up, but teams are only allowed 2 per game, for now. I don't love it, but players were overwhelmingly in favor of some sort of automated balls and strikes system. Let's revisit this a month into the season and see what the reviews are.
Dodgers 3-Peat?
Puke 🤢. The Dodgers are the betting favorites to once again win the World Series. And it's not particularly close (+225, Yankees are next closest at +1000). The reigning World Series champions ADDED to their roster by signing All-Star closer Edwin Diaz and All-Star outfielder Kyle Tucker. It will take regression from players across the entire roster for the Dodgers to limp into the postseason. If you're a hater (like myself) you're rooting for father time to catch up to some of Los Angeles's older players (Freeman, Betts, Muncy). It will also be interesting to see if they go the same route as last year and keep everyone fresh for the playoffs. They dealt with a litany of injuries to the pitching staff last year before bringing everyone back for the October run. The bullpen was still shaky, but the starting staff had little enough mileage on them to replace those bullpen innings. If the Dodgers are able to pull off the 3-peat, it would be the first time we've seen it since the 1998-2000 Yankees.
Enjoy Watching in 2026, a Lockout is Looming
The giant elephant in the room going into 2026 is that the Collective Bargaining Agreement expires on Dec. 1. The biggest point of contention going into these negotiations is the potential addition of a salary cap. People love to point out the disparity in payrolls between the highest spender (Dodgers, $395 million) and the lowest spender (Marlins, $77 million) and question how the league is supposed to have any competitive balance with that kind of gap. The MLBPA (player's association) is going to do everything they can to prevent a cap from being implemented, but their longtime head resigned just a couple months ago. With the game growing in popularity and ratings up, it would be a brutal time for a work stoppage, but most informed sources have forecasted that it is pretty likely. Enjoy the nostalgia while you can!
The Giants
Since the 107 win season in 2021, the Giants have played to the following records in the subsequent four seasons: 81-81, 79-83, 80-82, 81-81. A true model of consistency 🙄. Last season, in Buster Posey's first as President of Baseball Operations, the pre-season emphasis was clear: play cleaner baseball. Throw strikes, play better defense, run the bases well, put the ball in play. In the spring, things started great. A solid spring training followed by a 12-4 start looked promising. The Giants reached a high-water mark of 12 games over .500 on June 14th at 41-29. It was all downhill from there. Low lights included a 6-game July homestand in which they were swept by the Mets and Pirates, a separate 7-game home losing streak in August, and a low-water mark of 7 games under .500 on August 22nd at 61-68. The things they had done so well in March, April, and May had fallen off the wheels. The Giants finished 2nd worst in the National League in errors, last in the NL in stolen bases, and 4th worst in the NL in strikeouts. They traded away the bullpen at the trade deadline and the part of the team that was holding everything together was also gone. Why can year 2 of the Buster Posey era be different?
Additions
Harrison Bader and Luis Arraez are the main two additions to this roster. Bader is a gold glove defender that will hit for some pop, but you're going to see a fair share of strikeouts. Outfield defense was horrendous in San Francisco last year and Bader will certainly help with that. He's going to take over for Jung-Hoo Lee in center with Lee moving to right.
Arraez is a world class contact hitter. The metrics people don't love Arraez. His on base percentage is low for a guy that hits for a high average and has limited pop. He's also going to be asked to play a position he hasn't played in a year (2nd base). But you know he's going to put the ball in play. Arraez has only struck out 215 times in his career over 3533 plate appearances. That's less strikeouts than some guys have in a season now. Are these guys perfect additions? No. There weren't perfect additions on the market and these guys both make the team better in places they were deficient last season.
Tony Vitelo
This will be an interesting follow. I'm skeptical about the hire, as anyone should be. College baseball and professional baseball are basically two different sports. I don't doubt that Vitelo is a great baseball guy that can teach younger players how to play the game. I'm sure that was a point of emphasis for Buster in the hiring process. However, managing a baseball game and coaching players up are two different jobs. In college, when you're at Tennessee, you have the most talented roster in the country. When you roll out to play UT-Martin on a Tuesday evening followed by 3 days off before your big series with Florida over the weekend, you can reset your pitching easily and regularly. AND you have a WAY bigger roster/staff to do so. Tuesdays are going to be a little different for Vitelo now. It's not Arkansas Pine-Bluff rolling in for a nice 18-1 win, it's the Arizona Diamondbacks, who might actually have a more talented roster than you. It will be very interesting to see if the Giants can keep their pitching on track when they are forced to play 13 days in a row, which they do 3 times this season. I'm sure there will be some growing pains, but Giants fans should be careful to scrutinize EVERYTHING he does over the first few weeks. Every manager makes mistakes and fans will need to be open-minded.
Bryce Eldridge
This is the guy everyone is waiting for. The Giants haven't had a guy with power this effortless come up through the farm system possibly ever. It was surprising to some when the Giants sent Eldridge down to AAA-Sacramento at the end of the spring. Overall, he only hit .225 for the spring with a couple homers. I think the glaring red flag is the punch out rate. He struck out 19 times in 50 plate appearances with 9 walks. This isn't something new for him. Last year in AAA he struck out 88 times in 286 plate appearances before getting a small taste of the big leagues in September. People need to remember he is still VERY young. He's only 21. We've gotten accustomed to seeing 21 year-olds around the league come up and be successful, but those guys are few and far between. Even those guys come with growing pains. He also doesn't have a true position. He DH'd and pitched in high school, so he would probably best served getting every day defensive innings at the Minor League Level.
While the strikeouts are concerning, the plate discipline is actually pretty good. He has a reputation for laying off close pitches and taking walks. The power is undeniable and the part of his game people are excited about. After being sent down to AAA-Sacramento to play against the Giants in a pre-season exhibition game, he immediately homered and doubled. This is a prospect that Giants fans should be excited about, but expectations need to be tempered. He's not quite a "can't miss" prospect.
Hope that everyone is ready for the start of the real baseball season! Stay tuned for breakdowns geared toward teaching baseball plays and the subtleties of the game at highest level.
