Chris Sale won’t be a free agent after the 2026 season.

The Atlanta Braves announced they have agreed to a contract extension with the 36-year-old lefty through the 2027 season, with a club option for 2028.

Sale is set to be paid $27 million in 2027 and would be paid $30 million in 2028 if the Braves pick up the option. He’s making $18 million in 2026.

The nine-time All-Star won the first Cy Young Award of his career in Atlanta in 2024, when he posted a 2.38 ERA and 225 strikeouts in 177 2/3 innings pitched while going 18-3. Last season, Sale threw 125 2/3 innings and had a 2.58 ERA with 165 strikeouts. He missed more than two months in the summer after fracturing ribs.

That 2024 season was his first in Atlanta. Sale began his career with the Chicago White Sox and spent his first seven MLB seasons on the South Side before he was traded to the Red Sox in December 2016. He then spent seven seasons in Boston.

The Braves acquired Sale for Vaughn Grissom in December 2023 after the pitcher had dealt with injuries for years. After not playing in the shortened 2020 season, Sale threw just 151 innings across his final three seasons in Boston, including 5 2/3 innings in 2022. In his final season with the Red Sox, he had a 4.30 ERA over 102 2/3 innings pitched.

Sale has bounced back in a big way with the Braves as they attempt to keep pace with the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL East. Atlanta was second to the Phillies in 2024 and fell to fourth in the division in 2025.

Pete Crow-Armstrong grew up the son of a Chicago Cubs fan in Los Angeles. 

He went to Dodgers games as a kid, but claims he was never a fan, under strict orders from his father. Here’s Crow-Armstrong from a September article he wrote for The Players’ Tribune:

Growing up in L.A., my dad gave me a couple of rules.

1) I couldn’t root for the Dodgers.

2) I couldn’t root for the Cardinals.

Now a 23-year-old star outfielder for the Cubs, Crow-Armstong is outwardly expressing disdain — not for the Dodgers, but for their fans. Here’s Crow-Armstrong from a feature on him published by Chicago Magazine on Monday:

“I love Chicago more and more,” Crow-Armstrong said. “It’s just an incredible city. The people are great. They give a s***. 

“They aren’t just baseball fans who go to the game like Dodgers fans to take pictures and whatever. They are paying attention. They care.”

That shot at Dodgers fans appears to have come out of left field. There’s no context for it in the story, at least. Crow-Armstrong was addressing his acclimation to Chicago and growing love for the city and apparently decided to throw in a swipe at sports fans from his home town.

He’s not the first. Taking shots at Southern California sports fans is a time-honored tradition in cities that take pride in their working-class roots — especially those in cold-weather locales. 

Look at those soft sports fans with their nice weather and other things to do than watch a game, so the trope goes. 

Bottom line: This should play well in Chicago. And a young player who already won the North Side’s collective heart in his breakout 2025 campaign has certainly endeared himself further with Cubs fans. 

Yahoo Sports’ (total score: 9/30) | 2025 rank: 29

Young MLB hitters (4/10): C Hunter Goodman, SS Ezequiel Tovar, OF Jordan Beck, 2B Adael Amador, INF Ryan Ritter
Young MLB pitchers (3/10): RHP Chase Dollander, RHP Victor Vodnik, RHP Seth Halvorsen, RHP Juan Mejia, RHP RJ Petit
Prospect hitters (1/5): 1B Charlie Condon, OF Cole Carrigg, OF Zac Veen, OF Jared Thomas, 2B Roc Riggio, SS Ethan Holliday
Prospect pitchers (1/5): LHP Carson Palmquist, RHP McCade Brown, RHP Brody Brecht, LHP Welinton Herrera, LHP Sean Sullivan

29. (total score: 12/30) | 2025 rank: 23

Young MLB hitters (5/10): SS Zach Neto, 1B Nolan Schanuel, C Logan O’Hoppe, INF Vaughn Grissom, OF Wade Meckler, INF Christian Moore, INF Oswald Peraza, INF Matthew Lugo, INF/OF Kyren Paris
Young MLB pitchers (3/10): LHP Reid Detmers, RHP Grayson Rodriguez, RHP José Fermin, RHP Chase Silseth, RHP Ben Joyce, RHP Jack Kochanowicz, RHP Caden Dana
Prospect hitters (1/5): OF Nelson Rada, SS Denzer Guzman, INF David Mershon
Prospect pitchers (3/5): RHP Tyler Bremner, LHP Sam Aldegheri, RHP George Klassen, RHP Ryan Johnson, RHP Chris Cortez, RHP Chase Shores, RHP Walbert Urena

24. (total score: 14/30) | 2025 rank: 7

Young MLB hitters (6/10): C Drake Baldwin, OF Michael Harris II
Young MLB pitchers (5/10): RHP Spencer Schwellenbach, RHP Hurston Waldrep, RHP AJ Smith-Shawver
Prospect hitters (0/5): 1B/3B David McCabe, SS John Gil, SS Alex Lodise, OF Pat Clohisy
Prospect pitchers (3/5): RHP Didier Fuentes, RHP J.R. Ritchie, RHP Owen Murphy, LHP Cam Caminiti, RHP Lucas Braun, RHP Ian Mejia

19. (total score: 16/30) | 2025 rank: 16

Young MLB hitters (5/10): DH Iván Herrera, SS Masyn Winn, OF Jordan Walker, CF Victor Scott II, 3B Nolan Gorman, INF Thomas Saggese
Young MLB pitchers (3/10): LHP Matthew Liberatore, RHP Michael McGreevy, RHP Gordon Graceffo, RHP Richard Fitts, RHP Hunter Dobbins
Prospect hitters (4/5): SS JJ Wetherholt, C Leonardo Bernal, C Jimmy Crooks, 1B Blaze Jordan, OF Nathan Church, OF Chase Davis, OF Joshua Baez, C Rainiel Rodriguez
Prospect pitchers (4/5): LHP Liam Doyle, SHP Jurrangelo Cijntje, LHP Quinn Mathews, RHP Tekoah Roby, RHP Tink Hence, LHP Ixan Henderson, LHP Brandon Clarke, RHP Chen-Wei Lin, RHP Tanner Franklin

14. Miami Marlins (total score: 16/30) | 2025 rank: 27

Young MLB hitters (5/10): OF Jakob Marsee, C/DH Agustín Ramírez, SS Xavier Edwards, OF Owen Caissie, INF Connor Norby, INF Graham Pauley, UTIL Javier Sanoja, OF Heriberto Hernández
Young MLB pitchers (5/10): RHP Eury Perez, RHP Ronny Henriquez
Prospect hitters (2/5): C Joe Mack, INF Starlyn Caba, 1B/3B Deyvison De Los Santos, OF Kemp Alderman, SS Aiva Arquette, OF Dillon Lewis, OF Brendan Jones
Prospect pitchers (4/5): LHP Robby Snelling, LHP Thomas White, RHP Karson Milbrandt, LHP Dax Fulton

13. Cleveland Guardians (total score: 16/30) | 2025 rank: 9

Young MLB hitters (4/10): 1B Kyle Manzardo, INF Gabriel Arias, OF/1B C.J. Kayfus, C Bo Naylor, INF Brayan Rocchio, OF George Valera, UTIL Angel Martinez
Young MLB pitchers (6/10): RHP Gavin Williams, LHP Joey Cantillo, LHP Parker Messick, RHP Andrew Walters, RHP Peyton Pallette
Prospect hitters (4/5):  OF Chase DeLauter, 2B Travis Bazzana, INF Juan Brito, 1B Ralphy Velazquez, SS Angel Genao, OF Kahlil Watson, C Cooper Ingle, OF Jace LaViolette
Prospect pitchers (2/5): RHP Khal Stephen, RHP Austin Peterson, RHP Daniel Espino, LHP Matt Wilkinson, LHP Josh Hartle, LHP Doug Nikhazy

12. Los Angeles Dodgers (total score: 16/30) | 2025 rank: 5

Young MLB hitters (3/10): Andy Pages, Dalton Rushing
Young MLB pitchers (7/10): Emmet Sheehan, Roki Sasaki, Justin Wrobleski, Will Klein
Prospect hitters (4/5): Alex Freeland, Zyhir Hope, Josue De Paula, Mike Sirota, James Tibbs
Prospect pitchers (2/5): Jackson Ferris, Adam Serwinowski, Zach Root, Peter Heubeck

11. Boston Red Sox (total score: 16/30) | 2025 rank: 1

Young MLB hitters (8/10): OF Roman Anthony, 1B Triston Casas, INF Marcelo Mayer, OF Ceddanne Rafaela, OF Kristian Campbell, INF Caleb Durbin
Young MLB pitchers (4/10): LHP Connelly Early, LHP Payton Tolle
Prospect hitters (2/5): SS Franklin Arias, INF Mikey Romero, OF Allan Castro
Prospect pitchers (2/5): LHP Jake Bennett, RHP Kyson Witherspoon, RHP Anthony Eyanson, RHP Marcus Phillips, RHP Gage Ziehl, RHP Juan Valera

Dillon Brooks’ breakout season has been one of the most surprising stories of the NBA season. That story is now on hold.

The Phoenix Suns star sustained a broken left hand seven minutes into Saturday’s 113-110 victory over the Orlando Magic, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. The injury is reportedly expected to keep Brooks out for 4 to 6 weeks.

Brooks scored five points and grabbed three rebounds in the Magic game before he went down.

It’s a rough development for the Suns, who also have Devin Booker out for at least one week with a right hip strain.

Brooks has made his presence felt since joining the Suns in an offseason trade that sent him and Jalen Green to the Suns, while Kevin Durant was sent to the Houston Rockets. Brooks, 30, has averaged a career-high 21.2 points per game, plus 3.7 rebounds, 1.8 assists and 1.1 steals on 44.1% shooting this season.

Brooks’ presence went beyond his numbers. He served as a stabilizer, enforcer, defensive presence and a veteran on a young team.

The Suns have also been one of the most surprising teams in the NBA, currently holding a record of 33-24 after bringing in new head coach Jordan Ott this offseason and despite having both Devin Booker and Green miss portions of the season.

With Brooks out, the Suns can be expected to rely on Green, Grayson Allen and Collin Gillespie to pick up the scoring load. Green filled in for Brooks when Brooks missed Thursday’s game against the San Antonio Spurs. Allen scored 27 points against the Magic.

Brooks spent his first six years with the Memphis Grizzlies before playing with the Rockets for two seasons.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Major League Baseball is changing … again.

Amid an era that has already seen significant alterations to the sport, most of which have been received favorably by fans and players alike, MLB will introduce perhaps its most dramatic change yet in 2026: the ability to challenge ball and strike calls.

For the past four seasons, MLB has invested heavily in testing the use of Automated Ball Strike (ABS) technology, predominantly at the Triple-A level but also during 2025 major-league spring training and the 2025 All-Star Game. At the minor-league level, early experimentation included the use of ABS to call all balls and strikes based on a designated virtual strike zone — crafted in space using 12 Hawk-Eye cameras placed around the perimeter of the field and tracking the pitch’s location, with the top and bottom boundaries of the zone determined by the batter’s height — with calls communicated to the home plate umpire via earpiece. But feedback on such a comprehensive system was less than positive among fans and players.

Instead, there was quickly a consensus among all parties that ABS would be better deployed in a limited capacity. Rather than completely eliminating the home plate umpire’s perspective, ABS — which offers a more black-and-white interpretation of the strike zone than a human ever could — could act as more of a support system than an overarching rule of law. Indeed, starting this season, no longer will MLB players have to begrudgingly accept a home plate umpire’s ruling no matter what; modern technology has provided the chance for recourse.

In September, the Joint Competition Committee — a group of six owners, four active players and one active umpire — voted to introduce the ABS challenge system for the 2026 season. On Thursday, at the conclusion of the annual Cactus League media day, former big-league pitcher and current vice president of on-field strategy for MLB Joe Martinez gave a presentation on how the ABS challenge system will function in 2026. It was similar to the one MLB gave a year ago ahead of its first round of testing in big-league spring training games, but this time, the stakes are considerably higher. This is no longer some early-stage experiment. This system is coming on Opening Day.

Welcome to a world in which players canargue balls and strikes — at least some of the time. In reintroducing the concept of the ABS challenge system, MLB stated its objective early and emphatically: “To provide players with an opportunity to correct missed calls in high-leverage moments in a manner that fans like.”

Here are the basics of how the ABS challenge system will work:

• Each team will have two challenges to begin each game, and all successful challenges will be retained. 

• Only the batter, catcher and pitcher are allowed to challenge a ball or strike call; protests from the bench or elsewhere on the field are prohibited, and umpires have the ability to deny a challenge if they believe it was aided or influenced by anyone else on field or in the dugout.

• To challenge a call, the pitcher, catcher or batter must tap his head immediately (in less than two seconds, roughly) to initiate a review. At that point, the umpire will announce the call is being challenged, and a graphic showing the ball’s location as determined by ABS will be displayed on the scoreboard and broadcast. The result of the challenge will be announced, and play continues. (In the past, even before ABS was a factor, there have sometimes been minor discrepancies between the strike zone displayed on the broadcast, the one embedded in MLB’s Gameday app and the one appearing on Baseball Savant’s Gamefeeds. MLB is working to ensure that all available forms of the strike zone are reflective of the zone being used by the ABS challenge system.)

• MLB defines the strike zone as “a two-dimensional rectangle that is set in the middle of home plate with the edges of the zone set to the width of home plate (17 inches) and the top and bottom adjusted based on each individual player’s height (53.5% of the batter’s height at the top and 27% at the bottom).” If any part of the ball is touching that strike zone — as tracked by the Hawk-Eye cameras — it is considered a strike. 

• Because the system is based entirely on player height, MLB has arranged for independent testers to measure all players during spring training using a standardized process to ensure that no player’s zone is too large or small based on a misreported height.

• If a game goes to extra innings, each team will be awarded one extra challenge each inning, but only if they do not have any remaining. For example, a team that has two challenges left after nine innings would not gain a third challenge for the 10th, but a team with zero challenges remaining after nine innings would regain one challenge for the 10th. This repeats with each successive extra inning.

• Challenges cannot be used if a position player is pitching.

On Thursday, MLB also supplied some data regarding how challenges came into play during spring training last year and another full season of testing in Triple-A. The overturn rate in Triple-A in 2025 was 50%, while the rate in spring training was 52%. Interestingly, catchers (56% overturn rate) were notably more successful at overturning calls than batters (50%) or pitchers (41%), lending credence to the possibility that some teams will institute strict guidelines regarding which of their players have the latitude to challenge calls. That’s just one of several strategic elements of the ABS challenge system that are still being contemplated by front offices, coaches and players in camp. 

[Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league for the 2026 MLB season]

Another data point that could illuminate potential strategy is when during games the challenges have most commonly been deployed. In Triple-A, challenges were far more frequent in the later innings than the early innings, perhaps a reflection of a strategic preference to save challenges for more consequential or higher-leverage moments later in a game.

Conversely, in big-league spring training last year, the bulk of the challenges were used earlier in games, often in the first three-to-five innings. But as Martinez pointed out, that likely had less to do with a conscious strategy and more with who was playing earlier in those games: veterans testing the system before they exited to make way for the prospects and minor leaguers who often occupy the later innings of Cactus and Grapefruit League contests. This dynamic is crucial to keep in mind as we prepare for another spring with the ABS challenge system in action. 

Before we get to Opening Day, this spring will provide a larger sample of data for us to glean a preview of what’s to come. Last year, Hawk-Eye was installed in a select number of spring training ballparks, thus limiting certain teams’ exposure to the system; this time around, Hawk-Eye is in every spring training ballpark. But while teams are now preparing behind the scenes for how to take advantage of the challenge system in games that count, it’s unlikely that will meaningfully change their behavior — or that they’ll reveal such strategies — in exhibition contests.

Further complicating matters is the high percentage of players who will depart spring training early to participate in the World Baseball Classic — in which the ABS challenge system will not be used — and thus miss out on the reps with the system leading up to its official introduction in the regular season. 

All of this adds to the intrigue surrounding a new technology that will transform the sport in myriad ways we are still in the earliest stages of fully grasping. A spring training with widespread use of the ABS challenge system will serve as an appetizer to this new world we’re about to enter. 

But we won’t know the full scope until the real games commence at the end of March. Opening Day can’t get here soon enough. Let the head tapping begin.

After months recovering from a back surgery, Justin Thomas is ready to return to the PGA Tour.

Thomas will be in the field next week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, he announced on Monday night. It will mark Thomas’ first start of the 2026 season and his first since he underwent surgery to fix a disc in his back last fall.

“I’ve obviously missed it,” Thomas said on ESPN while playing in a TGL match in Florida. “It’s been a long time, but it’s good to be back here and playing, to feel the juices, the competitiveness, the adrenaline, and just competing. I’ve watched these guys on TV the last, what feels like, a very, very long time. So it’s good to be playing with them.”

Thomas announced in November that he had undergone surgery to fix a disc issue in his back. He had been dealing with “nagging hip pain” for a few months, and has been recovering ever since.

Thomas last competed at the Ryder Cup in September, though Team Europe rolled over the United States at that event at Bethpage Black in New York. Thomas was set to play in The Skins Game on Black Friday, too, but he had to pull out as a result of the surgery.

Thomas has won 16 times in his career on Tour, most recently at the RBC Heritage last season. He had eight top 10 finishes in 2025 and three runner-up finishes. Thomas has struggled in the majors since his PGA Championship win in 2022, however, and has only finished inside the top 30 once and has missed the cut seven times in his last 14 major starts. Despite not playing in recent months, Thomas is currently at No. 14 in the Official World Golf Rankings.

The Arnold Palmer Invitational, set for Bay Hill Club and Lodge, marks the third signature event of the season and the last tune-up before The Players Championship next month. The first round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational will kick off on March 5.