Mar 24, 2023 Associated Press TEMPE, Ariz. — It was back to business as usual for Shohei Ohtani on Friday. The two-way star returned to Los Angeles Angels camp after his MVP performance in the World Baseball Classic. Three days after striking out Mike Trout to clinch the WBC title for Japan against the United

Mar 24, 2023 Jeff PassanESPN Close ESPN MLB insiderAuthor of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” Eight former Cy Young Award winners are scheduled to start Opening Day next Thursday, including a matchup between reigning National League winner Sandy Alcantara and three-time honoree Max Scherzer, whose New York

12:42 PM ET Ahead of making the Opening Day start for the St. Louis Cardinals, right-hander Miles Mikolas has received a two-year contract extension, the team announced Friday. Sources told ESPN’s Jesse Rogers that Mikolas is getting $40 million in the new deal. He will receive a $5 million signing bonus and a $3 million

7:02 PM ET Associated Press Big league pitchers can signal electronically what they plan to throw this year. Major League Baseball expanded use of the PitchCom device to pitchers in addition to catchers on Friday. “Use of the PitchCom device is optional for clubs and wholly voluntary for players,” MLB said in a memo to

12:56 AM ET Associated Press YOKOHAMA, Japan — Trevor Bauer apparently was shunned by every major league team, so he’s signed a one-year deal with the Yokohama DeNA BayStars. Before about 75 reporters in a Yokohama hotel, he slipped on the BayStars uniform — No. 96 — on Friday and said all the right things.

7:00 AM ET Can a change of scenery fix new Chicago Cubs center fielder Cody Bellinger? Winner of the National League MVP Award in 2019, Bellinger has been on a downward spiral at the plate ever since. It led to him being released by the Los Angeles Dodgers in December and eventually signed by the

2:36 PM ET Major League Baseball franchise values are on the rise, according to Forbes, despite turmoil caused by the recent bankruptcy filing of Diamond Sports and the continued disintegration of the regional sports network model that could shake up baseball broadcasting for this season and beyond. The New York Yankees topped the list published

3:52 PM ET ESPN News Services Houston Astros star second baseman Jose Altuve had surgery to repair a fractured right thumb and will not resume baseball activities for at least two months, general manager Dana Brown said Wednesday. Altuve, playing for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic, was injured Saturday when he was drilled by

7:33 AM ET Tristan H. Cockcroft Editor’s Picks 2 Related Oh, how I very much missed live fantasy baseball salary cap drafts during the pandemic. Tout Wars, one of the two longest-standing fantasy baseball industry analysts leagues, took place this past weekend, drafting live for the first time since 2019. Although it wasn’t my first

11:01 AM ET ESPN Fantasy The ESPN fantasy baseball crew conducted its third fantasy baseball mock draft of the season, this time using a points scoring format. This draft was held on Tuesday and included AJ Mass, Pierre Becquey, Eric Karabell, James Best, David Schoenfield, Joe Kaiser, Sachin Chandan, Tristan H. Cockcroft, Todd Zola and