The Mets made a few moves ahead of Saturday’s game against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The team announced they have recalled LHP Brandon Waddell, and utilityman Jared Young from Triple-A Syracuse. In corresponding moves, they have designated outfielder Jose Azocar and LHP Genesis Cabrera for assignment.
With the 13-inning game on Friday night, Waddell’s call-up comes at a time when the Mets need a lift after using every arm in the pen. Waddell had made one appearance earlier this season, pitching 4.1 scoreless innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks on April 30. It was the 30-year-old’s first game in four years.
As for Young, he’s batting seventh on Saturday in the DH spot. It’ll be his first game in two years. With Mark Vientos and Brandon Nimmo day-to-day with separate ailments, the Mets could use the versatility that Young brings.
In Syracuse, Young was hitting .259 with five home runs across 22 games down in Triple-A.
Cabrera, 28, pitched two scoreless innings on Friday, allowing just one hit and striking out two. In six appearances this year with the Mets, he pitched to a 3.52 ERA and a 1.30 WHIP.
Azocar pinch-ran for Pete Alonso in extra innings on Friday but has had limited playing time with the Mets this season. He was 5-for-18 with a stolen base in 12 games.
Mayer is one of the top prospects in baseball, and Boston could use a boost with Bregman’s near future uncertain. He left Friday’s game with quad tightness and manager Alex Cora didn’t have more information after the game.
With Bregman out, Katie Morrison O’Day of MassLive reported that teammates were congratulating Meyer in the Worcester Red Sox clubhouse on Saturday. Boston posted video of Mayer getting the call on social media.
Shortly after, MassLive’s Christopher Smith confirmed the 22-year-old was en route to Fenway Park. However, that trip was delayed for a somewhat relatable reason: Mayer’s car keys have been lost for weeks and he needed a ride to Fenway from a Worcester clubhouse attendant.
We’re waiting for Marcelo Mayer to leave Polar Park but apparently he cannot find his car keys. Here is the group waiting to send him off pic.twitter.com/Aeu8nqzoyj
Meyer’s big opportunity comes after he batted 271/.347/.471 in 43 appearances for Triple-A affiliate Worcester this season. He also became the hit leader in the International League by blasting nine home runs, five doubles and a triple with 43 RBI.
His impressive performances led Meyer to be ranked as Boston’s second-best prospect, behind Roman Anthony, and eighth-best in baseball on MLB Pipeline’s rankings. The Chula Vista, California, native played collegiate baseball at USC and was selected by the Red Sox with the fourth pick in the 2021 MLB Draft.
Meyer could debut in the second game of a doubleheader against the Baltimore Orioles at 6:35 p.m. ET on Saturday. The Red Sox are 26-26 and sit in third place in the AL East after a 19-5 loss on Friday.
Mayer is one of the top prospects in baseball, and Boston could use a boost with Bregman’s near future uncertain. He left Friday’s game with quad tightness and manager Alex Cora didn’t have more information after the game.
With Bregman out, Katie Morrison O’Day of MassLive reported that teammates were congratulating Meyer in the Worcester Red Sox clubhouse on Saturday. Boston posted video of Mayer getting the call on social media.
Shortly after, MassLive’s Christopher Smith confirmed the 22-year-old was en route to Fenway Park. However, that trip was delayed for a somewhat relatable reason: Mayer’s car keys have been lost for weeks and he needed a ride to Fenway from a Worcester clubhouse attendant.
We’re waiting for Marcelo Mayer to leave Polar Park but apparently he cannot find his car keys. Here is the group waiting to send him off pic.twitter.com/Aeu8nqzoyj
Meyer’s big opportunity comes after he batted 271/.347/.471 in 43 appearances for Triple-A affiliate Worcester this season. He also became the hit leader in the International League by blasting nine home runs, five doubles and a triple with 43 RBI.
His impressive performances led Meyer to be ranked as Boston’s second-best prospect, behind Roman Anthony, and eighth-best in baseball on MLB Pipeline’s rankings. The Chula Vista, California, native played collegiate baseball at USC and was selected by the Red Sox with the fourth pick in the 2021 MLB Draft.
Meyer could debut in the second game of a doubleheader against the Baltimore Orioles at 6:35 p.m. ET on Saturday. The Red Sox are 26-26 and sit in third place in the AL East after a 19-5 loss on Friday.
BOSTON — Red Sox third baseman Alex Bregman could be nearing a trip to the injured list after leaving Friday’s game with right quadriceps tightness, manager Alex Cora said.
“He’s getting an MRI. He’s sore,” Cora said at Fenway Park on Saturday morning before Boston was set to face the Baltimore Orioles in the first game of a split doubleheader.
“We’ll see where he’s at,” Cora said before later adding that Bregman said it felt “worse” than he expected.
When ask if a stint on the IL could be coming, Cora said: “I don’t want to jump into conclusions, but yes.”
If Bregman does need to go to the IL, who will play third?
Cora said the plan is for the team to “mix and match” and answered “no” when asked if Rafael Devers could be in the immediate plans.
“There’s a lot of guys in the conversation,” Cora said. “Roster construction comes into play, guys in the minor leagues, how they fit the roster — all that stuff.”
Could Devers be in the mix at some point?
“We made a decision in the offseason and this is where we’re going,” Cora said, without completely closing the door. “There are a few things that we took into consideration and I think we’ve been very consistent with it.
“I’m not going react to the outside world because (they) think that’s the right move. Maybe it’s not, right? Maybe we’re doing it right? Maybe we’re doing it wrong?”
Earlier this month, Devers told the Red Sox he wasn’t moving to play first base. The DH has been red-hot lately after collecting a career-best eight RBIs in a lopsided victory over the Orioles on Friday afternoon.
“I know the guy. He’s raking. He’s the best DH in the American League right now,” Cora said. “If he keeps continuing to do this, he’s going to be in the All-Star Game as the DH and going to win a Silver Slugger as a DH. This is where we’re going. We’ll continue to talk. I’m not going to say we’re going to close the door.”
Boston already lost a corner infielder for the season when first baseman Triston Casas ruptured a tendon in his left knee and had season-ending surgery. The loss of Bregman could be a big blow to a lineup that’s struggled, at times.
“We’ll be OK. Obviously, he’s a big part of our offense,” Cora said. “Triston is a big part of our offense. We’ve just got to find a way to score runs in a different way and we’re prepared for that.”
Devers, the team’s third baseman for eight seasons, was moved to DH after Bregman signed a three-year, $120 million deal as a free agent and was given the job. Following a slow start at the plate, Devers has heated up and is batting .299 with 12 homers and 47 RBIs.
Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns, two All-NBA players, are the headliners. OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart are all high-level, two-way NBA starters.
On paper, the New York Knicks roll out a contender-level starting five — and coach Tom Thibodeau leans hard into this group, playing them 21.5 minutes a night through the first two games of the Eastern Conference Finals.
That lineup is also getting outplayed. Badly. They are -29 through two games against the Pacers, a series where the Knicks as a team are -8. The starting five has a -42.9 net rating and an atrocious 155.1 defensive rating.
Because of this starting five, the Knicks are down 0-2 to the Pacers, having dropped both games in Madison Square Garden.
Indiana isn’t doing anything different tactically than nearly every other team has done: Guard Towns with a wing because he isn’t going to punish them in the post, and put a rim-protecting center on Josh Hart and leave him open to shoot 3-pointers. When opponents have the ball, they target Towns and Brunson in pick-and-rolls. It’s a strategy teams have used against New York all season and there is no reason to change it up — it’s working.
The Knicks have looked better with their starting five broken up and Mitchell Robinson on the court. Miles McBride is also having a strong series off the New York bench.
Is it time to break up the Knicks’ starting five?
“We always look at everything,” Thibodeau said as a non-answer to that question.
Thibodeau is stubborn and stuck with this group when it wasn’t working well in the first two playoff series — they were just +3 in six games against Detroit and -24 in six games against Boston. The starting five’s problems go back further than that, this lineup was an unimpressive -9 from Jan. 1 through the end of the season.
The starting five puts the Knicks in a hole to start every game — it was 19-9 in Game 2 Friday — and then New York spends a chunk of the game just trying to get back in it. That lineup is shooting just 29.6% from 3 against the Pacers, which isn’t helping the comeback cause, but even when they close the gap, it’s time and energy spent to have to do it.
“Collectively, we gotta get it together,” Brunson said. “That’s really it.
“We’re just putting ourselves in a deficit, and I told you how we can’t keep doing that,” Towns said after the Game 2 loss. “It’s not every time we’re gonna be able to fight back and find ourselves with a win, so, you know, just gotta execute and be more disciplined.”
“I think it’s a defensive thing,” Bridges said. “Sometimes you’re so in that you have to go back and watch the game, but we just have to talk to each other off the jump. We have to be physical off the jump. I think, maybe, we’re playing a little too soft in the beginning of the halves.”
When Mitchell Robinson was out the first half of the season recovering from ankle surgery, Thibodeau commonly said the team was playing without its starting center. It may be time to put words into action and start two bigs, Robinson and Towns. That duo is +27 for the playoffs (in 106 minutes) and +3 against the Pacers through two games.
Whatever the answer, New York has 48 hours to come up with one that works, because if they go down 0-3 to the Pacers, they can start booking tee times in Cancun.
When Kyle Harrison missed out on the Giants’ final rotation spot in spring training earlier this year, the team remained confident there would be opportunities for him to start at the big league level in 2025.
With veteran pitcher Justin Verlander on the 15-day injured list, that chance came Saturday for Harrison against the Washington Nationals. The 23-year-old felt good about his outing in San Francisco’s 3-0 loss at Nationals Park, but he certainly wishes he could have one pitch back.
“Just proud of how I felt out there and how I responded,” Harrison told reporters after allowing five hits and two earned runs while striking out four in four innings against Washington. “… Just that one mistake [then] felt like I settled in a little bit. Can’t make those mistakes.”
Harrison toed the rubber for his first Giants start of the season after a mild pectoral strain sidelined Verlander earlier this week, and Saturday got off to a rocky start when the young southpaw surrendered a one-out double to Nationals third baseman Amed Rosario in the first inning followed by a James Wood homer that put San Francisco into a 2-0 hole.
“Especially early, I was really just strike-focused, attacking those guys, and ultimately that ended in me leaving a little pitches over the plate too much,” Harrison said. “After that inning, looked at the locations and just had to get off the plate a little more because they were willing to swing and chase. As soon as I tapped into that a little bit more, got a little better.”
Unfortunately for Harrison, who cruised through the next three innings and said he felt like he could have pitched the fifth, the Giants’ lineup couldn’t get anything going against Washington righty Jake Irvin. The Nationals starter allowed just three hits and struck out seven Giants over eight frames in his team’s shutout win.
Though Harrison was fully stretched in the minors, he hadn’t thrown more than 38 pitches in an appearance during his time back with San Francisco and was limited to just 57 on Saturday. He threw 43 of those for strikes, however, generating a game-high eight swings-and-misses while topping out at 96.3 mph with his four-seam fastball.
“I thought he threw good,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said of Harrison after the game. “It was just one pitch to Wood, hung a breaking ball. Other than that, [velocity] was up, he was pretty efficient, actually, for his pitch count. Got four innings in, so could move a little bit further along after that. But all in all, it just came down to one pitch.
“When you don’t score any runs, it is what it is.”
The Giants dropped to 30-22 after the loss and are 2.5 games behind the Dodgers for first place in the NL West, with Los Angeles set to face the New York Mets on Saturday afternoon. With Verlander slated to miss at least one more start, Harrison certainly will look to improve upon his first of the season his next time out.
“Felt good to have a day dedicated to me and go out there, went about my business, got to get in the routine again,” Harrison said. “Good to be back, for sure.”
If Giannis Antetokounmpo’s tenure on the Milwaukee Bucks comes to an end this summer, it will confirm that his commitment to competing for championships is greater than his loyalty to the green and cream.
And it will be a warning to small-market contenders in Oklahoma City, Minnesota and Indiana: While their relationships with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Anthony Edwards and Tyrese Haliburton are on solid ground, those good vibes only extend as long as the Thunder, Timberwolves and Pacers can continue to contend.
It has been 15 years since LeBron James left the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat, a “Decision” that spawned the NBA’s player-empowerment era. In the years to come, a generation of superstars, including Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Kyrie Irving, Paul George and Jimmy Butler, fled smaller markets for bigger cities. Oklahoma City, Minnesota and Indiana were among the fan bases that felt the effects most harshly.
From rebuilds, the Thunder, Timberwolves and Pacers developed superstars and constructed contenders around them. It is not dissimilar to how the Bucks once built around Antetokounmpo, who wielded his power from within the organization, urging them to make trades each time an extension came due. First, it was Jrue Holiday. Then, it was Damian Lillard. In between, Milwaukee won a title, making it all worth it.
If you do not win, the pressure on a front office to satisfy its superstar increases severalfold. The Dallas Mavericks were so overwhelmed at the thought of building a sustainable winner around Luka Dončić — and the possibility he could bail amid the process — that they traded him before things came to a head.
Where did the Mavericks deal Dončić? The Los Angeles Lakers. Small markets are not gifted a superstar under the cover of night, for they have to wonder if he will leave them, too. For as long as we can remember, ever since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar left Milwaukee for L.A., superstars have been drawn to the NBA’s destination cities, where there is more money to be made — for both playersand teams — and things to spend it on.
(Davis Long/Yahoo Sports Illustration)
Dončić was an extreme, but eventually the bill comes due. Players age, contracts increase, luxury taxes skyrocket. The latest collective bargaining agreement is designed to close championship windows almost as soon as they open. We are only now beginning to see its effects on the NBA’s next generation of superstars, as rosters have deteriorated around Antetokoumpo and the Denver Nuggets’ Nikola Jokić.
While once we thought they might be lifers in their small markets, we must now consider the possibility that they, too, are spawns of the empowerment era. While their franchises have kept them satisfied for a decade, longer than the Cavs ever could James, all things come to an end. NBA assets depreciate, and once there is nothing left to wield power over, eyes begin to wander, as is the case with Antetokounmpo.
At what stage in this process are Gilgeous-Alexander, Edwards and Haliburton? Let us examine.
Oklahoma City is getting expensive
Oklahoma City’s Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams are due maximum contracts in the summer of 2026, when Gilgeous-Alexander will be eligible to sign a five-year, $380 million extension. The cost of those three — OKC’s Big Three — will likely cost the Thunder most of their current depth, as they also own player options of various sizes on Isaiah Hartenstein, Lu Dort, Cason Wallace and Kenrich Williams next summer.
Should the Thunder win this year’s championship, they will have a single season to run it back before the CBA reaps what it has sowed. The Boston Celtics faced the same reality on their title defense this season. Even before Jayson Tatum suffered his devastating injury, they were due changes to an expensive roster.
Except no team is better equipped to replenish its depth around a Big Three, as OKC holds a stash of draft picks as deep as any other team in the league. There is no guarantee that those picks become championship-caliber pieces around them. Consider Jokić’s Nuggets. As they lost key contributors to free agency, only Christian Braun developed to replace them. Other picks have been, for the most part, whiffs, and that set a second-round ceiling for the Nuggets this season. It cost general manager Calvin Booth his job. And, in a way, it cost head coach Michael Malone his gig, too. The NBA cost of depreciation is steep.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander dribbles the ball against Anthony Edwards in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals. (Photo by William Purnell/Getty Images)
William Purnell via Getty Images
There is also no guarantee that the Thunder remain healthy. Again: think of the Celtics, who watched as injuries and illness prevented them from submitting their best title defense. Series over. Season over. Era over? NBA fortunes can change in an instant, which is why it is so important to maximize the present.
Should the Thunder fail to win this year’s title, what better way to seize the moment than a pursuit of Antetokounmpo? All of those assets also make them better positioned than anyone for one big swing this summer. That assumes Antetokounmpo, who has fixed his eyeson bigger markets before, would want to re-sign in Oklahoma City, where he and Gilgeous-Alexander could form a dynamic duo or discover misfit chemistry. But Antetokounmpo’s arrival would not change the calculus of what is to come for the Thunder. It would only increase the pressure to win next year, ahead of rising costs and a diminished supporting cast.
Is this as good as it gets in Minnesota?
The Timberwolves recognized early what they had in Anthony Edwards and acted accordingly, trading the rights to six first-round draft picks for Rudy Gobert in July 2022. It led to last year’s Western Conference finals appearance, but financial costs came quick for them, too, so they swapped Karl-Anthony Towns for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo — a risky move that led them back to the Western Conference finals.
This recent spate of success — the franchise’s first taste of it since the early 2000s — is both a blessing and a curse. It has given rise to Edwards, one of the league’s most exciting young superstars. It has also given him a whiff of what it is like to contend, and he will expect as much, if not more, moving forward.
The Wolves owe $105 million next season to Edwards, Gobert and Jaden McDaniels, and that is before Randle and Naz Reid make decisions on whether to pick up a pair of player options worth a combined $45 million. Contracts for DiVincenzo, Mike Conley and Rob Dillingham push them beyond the salary cap and into the luxury tax. It will cost them Nickeil Alexander-Walker this summer, if not Reid or Randle.
They will be a little bit worse, and costs will rise. The roster will only continue to erode as years tick from Edwards’ contract. Barring some bold moves, this might be as good as it gets. Nobody wants to admit it.
It is hard not to be doom and gloom about these things, even as the Wolves enjoy the greatest run of success in franchise history. They trail this year’s conference finals to the Thunder, 2-0, and it feels worse. Suddenly the four years remaining on Edwards’ contract do not seem so long. Or seem longer to him.
Indiana has decisions ahead
Like the Wolves, the Pacers made a big-swing trade just as Haliburton’s rookie contract was coming to a close, dealing for Pascal Siakam in January 2024. Together they are working on max contracts that will eat 55-60% of Indiana’s salary cap for the next three seasons. This was nobody’s idea of a contender — until now, as Haliburton’s heroics have given the Pacers home-court advantage in the conference finals.
We thought the Pacers were one move away from more serious contention, and they still might be. BetMGM does not give them a great shot. Win this year’s title, though, and who is anyone to tell them what the ceiling is for a team led by a young, ascendent superstar? They have already defied the odds.
Either way, they will they find themselves in the middle of a math equation. Myles Turner is a free agent at season’s end. His $20 million salary was a bargain this past year, and he will expect a raise. The Pacers can afford it, since Andrew Nembhard, Aaron Nesmith and Obi Toppin are on affordable contracts for the foreseeable future. But then Indiana is locking itself into a team we think has already found its ceiling.
The Pacers could package some of those contracts and what is left of their draft capital for a missing piece, much like Milwaukee’s decision to trade for Holiday. That opened a window that was, in the end, only as wide as the season in which the Bucks won. Age, injuries and finances have gotten in Milwaukee’s way ever since. They had one final hand to play, and it was the wrong one, as Lillard was not the answer.
This is how hard it is to win a championship, how hard it is to keep a superstar satisfied in a small market. One misstep, and a window closes. And there are several steps left to take for each team that falls short. No team could possibly be better positioned to sustain success than the Thunder, and even they will feel the financial crunch in one season’s time. Decisions for the Pacers and Timberwolves come even sooner.
If Gilgeous-Alexander, Edwards or Haliburton eventually move on from Oklahoma City, Minnesota and Indiana, the NBA will have nobody but itself to blame, for this is what the league’s new CBA has wrought.
