7:00 AM ET Now that Jon Lester has announced his retirement from baseball after 16 major league seasons, there will undoubtedly be a good discussion about his Hall of Fame candidacy in five years. But as far as his teammates are concerned, there is no debate. “I told my kids, I’m not going until Jon

10:37 PM ET Tampa Bay Rays bullpen catcher Jean Ramirez died Monday, the team announced. He was 28. No further details were provided by the team. “Jean was an incredible teammate and friend,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said in a statement Tuesday. “He brought so much passion and energy each day to our clubhouse and

11:42 AM ET Jeff PassanESPN Close ESPN MLB insiderAuthor of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association plan to hold a bargaining session Thursday, the first since the league locked out the players Dec. 2, sources familiar with the situation told

7:00 AM ET The intrigue around the greatest class of free-agent shortstops is down to a final pair. Soon after the next collective bargaining agreement is concluded, Carlos Correa and Trevor Story will sign whopper deals, and then a lot of the sport’s transactional focus will shift to another position — third base, including the

7:00 AM ET The Jacob deGrom of 2021 was a synthesis of exceptional athleticism, acumen, competitiveness and analytics, and it stands to reason that what he was last summer — before he was sidelined with an elbow issue — was the best starting pitcher we will ever see. He accounted for 10 runs as a

9:30 PM ET ESPN News Services Rachel Balkovec will manage the low-A team for the New York Yankees this season, making her the first female skipper in affiliated professional baseball, according to a report by The Athletic. Balkovec, who joined the Yankees as a minor league hitting coach in November 2019, will lead the minor

9:02 AM ET Five-time World Series champion and Cy Young Award winner David Cone is joining the announcing booth for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, which will also feature a secondary broadcast led by Alex Rodriguez, the network announced Friday. Cone will serve as an analyst alongside Karl Ravech, who will become the fourth-ever play-by-play announcer

7:00 AM ET The Hall of Fame has been at a crossroads for more than a decade now due to uncertainty on how to consider what I call the PED Five, which sounds like an outlaw gang that used to rob stagecoaches and saloons in Dodge City: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa

6:12 PM ET The New York Mets have agreed to hire Eric Chavez as their hitting coach, just weeks after he joined the crosstown New York Yankees as an assistant hitting coach, sources confirmed to ESPN on Thursday. Neither team has spoken publicly on the matter, but the transition, while uncommon, was said to have

12:14 PM ET NEW YORK — — Former New York Mets acting general manager Zack Scott was acquitted Thursday of drunken-driving charges stemming from his arrest last August after he attended a fundraiser at team owner Steve Cohen’s house, his attorney announced. “Today, after hearing and seeing all the evidence against our client, a judge