#50-home-runs

#50-home-runs

Baseball doesn't actually need defending. It's one of the world's great global games and is enjoyed in various forms by hundreds of millions of people every year. It's going to outlive all of us, I promise. But because of baseball's historical and cultural position in America, it is constantly subjected to a weird kind of forensic analysis that isn't usually applied to other sports: is it dying? Is it too slow?

Springer rebounded from a rough 2024 season to post a .959 OPS and hit 32 home runs, to go with a .399 on-base percentage, 27 doubles in 140 games. He also scored 106 runs, the most Springer has scored in a season since his All-Star season in 2018 with Houston. He also had some big moments during the season, including a grand slam against the New York Yankees in a pivotal Canada Day win. The Blue Jays swept that four-game series and never let go of first place in the AL East.

In today's game, there's a ton of different ways that you can get things across to players and a ton of different ways to help players get better from an individual standpoint, from a holistic team standpoint. If you're just limiting yourself to one of those things, you're in a tough spot. If I'm boxing myself in any sort of way, I'm a hitting coach that loves to score runs.

The Yankees finished last year with a 94-68 record, tied with the Blue Jays for the best record in the AL East and the American League as a whole. An 18-7 record in September and an eight-game win streak to close the season put a bunch of pressure on the Blue Jays to keep winning. Unfortunately for the Yankees, though, a 5-8 record against the Jays swung the tiebreaker in Toronto's favour.

The Baseball Hall of Fame will have two new members in a few months, as Carlos Beltran and Andruw Jones were officially elected yesterday. The two Red Sox legends on the ballot, Dustin Pedroia and Manny Ramirez, failed to hit the 75% vote threshold. Pedroia, though, is only in his second year on the ballot and saw his vote percentage jump from 11.9 to 20.7, which bodes well for his campaign going forward.

Good morning! Boston saw its first significant snow storm of 2026 yesterday, and it's well below freezing today. In other words, it very much does not feel like baseball season here. But baseball is being played all around the world, including in the Dominican, where a spot in the LIDOM championship series was decided by a walkoff walk: Game 1 of the championship series is on Wednesday and you can stream it on MLB.TV.