Don’t look now, but the Sixers actually might have over half of their starting lineup available.

Philadelphia released their injury report ahead of their matchup with the Chicago Bulls, and there’s some potentially good news: Joel Embiid is listed as questionable. Embiid has yet to play in the month of March, suffering an oblique strain on Feb. 26 after a collision with Miami Heat center Kel’el Ware. Embiid has only played in five games since the beginning of February.

During this absence, there was a slight glimmer of hope he’d get on the court earlier. Embiid was briefly listed as doubtful for their March 19 matchup against the Sacramento Kings, but was ultimately ruled out hours before tip-off.

The Sixers didn’t hold an official practice Tuesday, but Nick Nurse said in a pregame availability the day before that Embiid would go through a heavier workout and the team would go from there. Given the upgrade in status, it would seem everything is going well so far.

Nurse says Joel Embiid had a “decent” on court workout after shootaround today.

Nurse says tomorrow should be a “heavier session” for Embiid and they’ll see where they’re at after it.

— Josh Grieb (@JGrieb10) March 23, 2026

After being banged up for most of the month, the Sixers could suddenly get a lot of reinforcements back all at once. Regardless of if Embiid is able to go against the Bulls or not, Paul George will play in his first game back from his 25-game suspension. Despite the lack of practice, George did speak to reporters for the first time since the suspension.

Quentin Grimes, who missed the Sixers’ last game against the OKC Thunder with an illness, is only questionable against the Bulls. Dominick Barlow, who sprained an ankle two games ago in Utah, is not listed on the injury report.

Another reunion with an old friend isn’t likely for this one though. For the Bulls, Guerschon Yabusele is listed as doubtful with an ankle sprain. He didn’t play in their most recent matchup against the Houston Rockets. On top of guys they’re trying to shut down for the year, Anfernee Simons and Isaac Okoro are also doubtful for Chicago.

Update: 3/25/26, 6:42 p.m.

Both Embiid and Grimes are available for the Sixers and will start.

At the dawn of the 2025 season, we published a column with the headline, “What’s the future for aging Angel Stadium? It feels like an increasingly uncertain one.”

With opening day 2026 upon us, we’d like to update that: “What’s the future for the Angels? It feels like an increasingly uncertain one.”

I don’t mean to be an alarmist. Nothing is happening today, or tomorrow, or in the very near future.

However, the Angels’ stadium lease expires in six years, so what might happen beyond then is starting to come into focus. Angels owner Arte Moreno turns 80 this summer. Moreno — or a new owner, if Moreno eventually sells the team — could simply exercise options to extend the lease for another six years.

Read more:In Anaheim and Sacramento, a two-front challenge to the Angels’ Los Angeles name

But that would not resolve the larger issue of replacing or renovating Angel Stadium. In the coming months, the city expects to release an assessment of what it would take to keep the stadium up and running for years to come, and that could trigger a debate between the city and the Angels about who should pay for what.

The Angels are frustrated by all of this, and in particular by what they consider the curiously timed skirmishes over their 21-year-old Los Angeles name. They are annoyed that, for the second consecutive season, city issues have detracted from the hope and faith and joy that surrounds opening day. It is the city, after all, that walked away from two deals that would have secured the Angels’ long-term future in Anaheim.

During negotiations for the last deal, city officials made clear that keeping the Angels was the top priority, even if Anaheim could make more money selling the stadium property to a developer that would not need to retain the stadium.

Now, with six years left on the lease and no commitment beyond then, the mayor of Anaheim says it is time to prepare for a future with or without the Angels.

“We need to plan for what we see as a vision for that property when the lease has expired,” Mayor Ashleigh Aitken told me. “That’s going to take time. No matter how that deal goes, we’re not breaking ground on any project next year.

“But what we need to do, whether it includes the Angels — which I hope it does — or not, is come up with a vision that includes everything residents want to see happen on that land. And only then can we truly advocate for a project that makes sense for us.”

On the day of the home opener last season, Aitken issued an open letter inviting Moreno to meet with her for “an open and honest conversation about the future of baseball in Anaheim” and listing eight starting points for negotiations on a new deal, including the Angels’ restoration of the Anaheim name.

“They have not reached out to us about reopening negotiations for potential development around the property,” Aitken said.

Moreno previously explored other potential ballpark sites, including Tustin in 2014 and Long Beach in 2019.

In Tustin, the targeted land is no longer available. In Long Beach, the proposed waterfront lot remains vacant, but the challenge remains too: Over 81 games each season, how would tens of thousands of fans drive into and out of a ballpark primarily accessible by a single freeway?

Read more:Angels, with longest playoff drought in MLB, turn to first-time manager Kurt Suzuki

For the Los Angeles Angels, perhaps the solution could be found in Los Angeles County.

The Dodgers could bar every other major league team from moving into L.A., but not the Angels. Under MLB rules, neither team could stop the other team from moving anywhere within Los Angeles County or Orange County.

The logical landing spot would be Inglewood, where the Rams, Chargers and Clippers have moved since 2020. Inglewood Mayor James Butts said SoFi Stadium and Intuit Dome have helped to revitalize the city, with unemployment down, home prices up, and municipal revenue up.

“Before, we were known for gangs and crimes and poverty,” Butts told me.

“Now, we are known as the sports and entertainment capital of the western United States.”

How about a baseball stadium in place of the Forum?

“The Forum parcel is absolutely not large enough for a baseball stadium,” Butts said.

Butts said he believes a baseball stadium there would require about 170 acres for the stadium and surrounding parking. Angel Stadium and its surrounding parking lots cover about 150 acres.

On the other hand, the Athletics are building a ballpark on a nine-acre site in Las Vegas, where nearby parking, entertainment and dining options already exist, with more on the way, and with the A’s not responsible for any of that. The same could be true for the Angels in Inglewood, with Rams owner Stan Kroenke and Clippers owner Steve Ballmer developing the land around the sports facilities.

However, Butts said he did not envision baseball coming to Inglewood, at least so long as he remains the mayor. Not enough room in town, he said.

“We’re maxed out when it comes to sports,” Butts said. “We are not going to reduce the housing stock and move residents out to have a baseball team.”

Anaheim has one, plus a 150-acre site perfect for a new stadium surrounded by restaurants and shops and homes. There will be days to be anxious and worried about the Angels’ future in the city they have called home for 60 years. Today is not one of them.

Read more:Shaikin: Angels should match Zach Neto’s loyalty and give him a long-term deal

Take it from the mayor of Anaheim, who told me that even after telling me why she wants the city attorney to look into whether the Angels are violating their stadium lease.

“Opening day, to me, is nothing about clauses in a contract,” Aitken said. “It’s about family traditions. It’s about kicking off summer. And it’s about getting so many factions and neighborhoods of Anaheim together for a singular purpose, which is cheering on our hometown boys. That’s the beauty of baseball.”

And, as a lifelong Angels fan, she had one more thing to say.

“Right now,” Aitken said, “we’re tied for first place.”

Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

In a different timeline, Tony Vitello would be gearing up for another grueling weekend of SEC competition right now. Fresh off a walk-off win over USC-Upstate, his Tennessee Volunteers would have just a couple of days to regroup before trekking a few hours west to take on in-state rival Vanderbilt in the second week of conference play.

Instead, a different challenge awaits: the New York Yankees, Vitello’s first opponent as manager of the San Francisco Giants. If anything, facing a franchise that has epitomized the term “professional baseball” for generations is a fitting introduction to Vitello’s new surroundings. But for the former head baseball coach at Tennessee, this is just the beginning. 

On Wednesday at Oracle Park, Vitello will make history as the first to make the leap from college head coach to major-league manager without any prior experience at the pro level. It’s a debut that has been in the making since his stunning hiring was announced in October, but it’s also the culmination of so much more: a gradual climb to the mountaintop of collegiate coaching, one that made a strong enough impression to earn Vitello an unprecedented opportunity in the big leagues.

Draft your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball team for the 2026 MLB Season

While nine major-league teams named new managers this past offseason, no hire stood out more than the Giants’ choice of Vitello, who spent the previous eight seasons building the University of Tennessee baseball program into a certified juggernaut. Vitello got the gig in Knoxville — his first as a head coach — after serving as an assistant first at his alma mater, Missouri, and then at TCU and Arkansas. 

Never a player of particular repute as a walk-on infielder for the Tigers, Vitello found his niche in the coaching space, gaining a reputation as a relentless recruiter. At the time of his hire in 2017, Tennessee had sunk into irrelevance in the unforgiving SEC, a sad state of affairs after thriving in the mid-’90s. But in Vitello’s second season, the Volunteers won 40 games for the first time since 2005. Three years later, they were SEC champions for the first time since 1995. In 2024, they won it all, becoming national champions for the first time in program history.

As Vitello piled up victories and Tennessee started to produce pro prospects as reliably as any program nationwide, his status on Rocky Top rose exponentially. Opponents weren’t always thrilled to compete against his teams, unapologetic purveyors of bombastic celebrations and over-the-top on-field intensity, but his own players revered him. His postgame media conferences occasionally dissolved into rambling tornados of verbal chaos, contrasting with the more composed presentations of some of his coaching peers and highlighting his unwavering commitment to his players and passion for his position. There were speedbumps along the way, but Vitello’s standing within the college baseball ecosystem soared nevertheless; the talent he recruited and helped develop spoke for itself, as did his gaudy win-loss record.

But baseball is not football or basketball, in which high-profile head coaches regularly move between the collegiate and professional levels. Advances in player development have resulted in more specialists moving between college and pro ball; pitching minds, hitting savants and defensive gurus are routinely plucked from the collegiate levels by major-league organizations. But the top jobs have remained separate; the best college skippers have not been floated as realistic options to translate their leadership and coaching bona fides to the pro ranks. As such, gossip about head-coaching movement in college baseball tends to be centered on possible jumps among the top programs, not vaulting up and out of the Division I level.

So when reports surfaced last fall that Vitello was on the Giants’ radar for their managerial opening, the idea seemed outlandish on its face. But those rumors quickly became reality, shattering preconceived notions about the major-league managerial hiring cycle and expanding the scope of who could hold one of the 30 MLB positions. Vitello was introduced as the 40th manager in Giants franchise history on Oct. 30, sending a shockwave of intrigue through the industry.

The Giants’ stunning decision to hire Vitello — and Vitello’s agonizing decision to leave the program he built — rocked two different baseball worlds at once. In Knoxville, it shook up the status quo for one of the most prominent programs in college baseball midway through its fall practices. In San Francisco, it marked the latest bold maneuver by president of baseball operations Buster Posey in his quest to restore the San Francisco Giants to glory.

That Posey identified this season as the time for drastic change for San Francisco shouldn’t come as much surprise. The Giants, a staple atop the National League during the bulk of Posey’s playing career, have descended in recent years into a morass of mediocrity they can’t seem to escape. Since Posey’s final season on the roster — the memorable 107-win campaign in 2021 — San Francisco has arrived at win totals of 81, 79, 80 and 81 the past four years. Bob Melvin, the three-time Manager of the Year hired in 2024 in hopes of steering San Francisco back to contention, had his contract extended last July but was ultimately dismissed at the end of the season following a second straight middling finish.

It was time for something different. So after parting with the steady and stoic Melvin, who’d been there and done that, Posey swerved in the opposite direction, toward a much more animated alternative: Vitello, without a day of professional baseball as a player or coach on his résumé. It was an ambitious bet by Posey and general manager Zack Minasian that despite his lack of experience at the highest level, Vitello’s boundless energy and unfettered passion for winning and the game itself could provide the spark to return San Francisco to relevance.

Mallory Bielecki/Yahoo Sports

‘Baseball is baseball’

Of course, Vitello will not be embarking on this journey alone, and his knack for recruiting came in handy when constructing his coaching staff. As it turns out, his ability to convince others to come along for the ride is not limited to his past pursuits of the best high school players around the country.

“To be honest with you, he’s a heck of a recruiter,” new Giants infield coach Ron Washington said in February, at the outset of his 56th big-league spring training. “He never mentioned about me coming on as one of his coaches. We talked on the phone. He called me every afternoon, and then he sent me a text and decided to fly me out to Nashville for lunch. So I went out there and had lunch with him, and he continued to call me for a few more days, and then the Monday after Thanksgiving, Zack Minasian got in touch with me and offered me a contract.”

Washington made his MLB debut as a player in 1977 — the year before Vitello was born — and has spent more than three decades coaching, including 10 seasons as a major-league manager. His most recent stint as manager of the Angels was cut short last season when he had to undergo quadruple-bypass heart surgery, but Washington has put that health scare behind him and is eager to contribute to yet another big-league coaching staff. 

Washington had no personal connection to Vitello before fielding his calls, but those early conversations — and a little bit of digging — made a compelling first impression.

“I’ve heard all the things that people say — ‘How can you hire a college coach?’ — and then I did some studying, I did some research, and he’s done a lot,” Washington said. “Although it’s been in college, baseball is baseball.”

In preparing for his new role, Vitello has also leaned on Bruce Bochy and Dusty Baker, two managerial icons who held the same position in San Francisco, and Bochy has not been shy about endorsing Posey’s pick based on those early conversations. But having Washington, who has navigated the highs and lows of professional baseball for longer than Vitello has been alive, in the dugout alongside him on a daily basis adds another layer of comfort.

“He’s been through a lot,” Washington said. “Even though he was in college, he’s still been through a lot — won championships, then failed, had to bring people together. He did all of that. He led people. And that’s what it takes in baseball.”

Vitello’s bench coach in San Francisco will be Jayce Tingler, who arrives with substantial experience on major-league coaching staffs and ties to the new manager; the two were teammates at Missouri and have remained close in the years since. New hitting coach Hunter Mense — who also played at Missouri while Vitello’s coaching career was just getting started in Columbia — comes over from the reigning AL champion Toronto Blue Jays. New pitching coaches Justin Meccage and Christian Wonders joined from Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay, respectively. New bullpen coach Jesse Chavez just wrapped an 18-year career pitching for nine MLB organizations. If Vitello has any questions as the season gets underway, the answers are probably nearby.

“The thing about the major-league side of it,” Washington said, “[is] he’s got people to stand him up when he starts to fall.”

‘Being around people like that makes you better’

In addition to the wealth of knowledge he’s tapping into, Vitello rallied two familiar faces from his time in Knoxville to join him with the Giants. Frank Anderson, the father of former big-league left-hander Brett Anderson, will serve as director of pitching performance after decades in the college ranks, most recently as Vitello’s pitching coach at Tennessee. Anderson will be making his first foray into working with professional pitchers, but there’s optimism that his track record of developing impact arms in Knoxville can carry over, even in more of an oversight role.

More familiar with the pro experience is the Giants’ new director of sports performance, Quentin Eberhardt, another key figure during Vitello’s Vols tenure. Eberhardt’s roots are in the strength and conditioning sphere, as he spent eight years as a strength coach in the minor leagues with the Astros, Cardinals, Braves and Marlins. One of his minor-league players, Josh Elander, had starred at TCU when Vitello was on staff. When Elander went into coaching and joined Vitello’s staff in 2017, he reached out to Eberhardt, then in Triple-A with the Marlins, to gauge his interest in leaving pro ball to help revitalize the Vols’ program.

“At first I wasn’t too interested. And then he asked if I would be interested in having a conversation with, then, a guy who I’d never heard of, Tony Vitello. And I’m always down for a conversation, right?” Eberhardt said. “… And in business, you know, sometimes people say they’ll call you, and it usually ends up being weeks later. Tony said he’s gonna call me — he called three hours later. We talked for two hours. He and I are very similar, which is how we started to get close over the years. But hearing the vision he had and the vision that I had for success and for winning and for helping build something special, it was like, OK, and those conversations continued.”

As Tennessee blossomed into a premier program, Eberhardt became a crucial figure behind the scenes. His work elevated the Volunteers’ potential on both sides of the ball, achieving physical gains in the weight room and ensuring an edge in the mental part of the game as well. While Elander took over as head coach in Knoxville after Vitello departed last fall, Eberhardt jumped at a new chance to build something special alongside Vitello.

“Me and Q were very aligned, just the mentality, the way we think,” said outfielder Drew Gilbert. One of the faces of the Volunteers’ rise to relevance at the start of the decade, Gilbert is now looking to make his mark in the majors with the familiar support of Vitello and Eberhardt, having been acquired by the Giants last summer. “Being around people like that makes you better. I’m super grateful to have him back here again.”

Gilbert isn’t the only former Vol in the organization, as right-hander Blade Tidwell is also expected to contribute in the majors this year. And even before he was on their radar as a managerial candidate, the Giants corresponded with Vitello last summer about one of his best players, infielder Gavin Kilen, whom San Francisco selected 13th in the 2025 MLB Draft and who is now one of the organization’s top prospects.

‘You could tell he loved the game’

But Vitello’s connections run much deeper than just his former players. “He knows a lot of people,” Washington said.

For instance, Vitello chased hard after top Giants prospect Bryce Eldridge back when Eldridge was an elite high school player in Virginia, only to see him commit to conference rival Alabama (before forgoing college altogether). Reliever Sam Hentges, then the best prep pitcher in Minnesota, committed to Arkansas during Vitello’s Razorbacks tenure, though he ultimately signed with Cleveland instead. Once they teamed up this spring, Vitello didn’t hesitate to tease Hentges about what he missed out on.

“When we met up again here, he was like, ‘Now I don’t have to hate you anymore because we finally get to play together,’” Hentges said. “I was like, ‘You’ve done plenty. You didn’t need me to do what you did.’”

Having interacted with Vitello long before he was a household name, Hentges isn’t surprised by how his career has taken off.

“He was hungry. You could tell he loved the game,” he said. “He still has that same vibe. He loves the game of baseball. He loves competing. He’s very vocal about that and wants everybody to feel the same way. He was like that — what was that — 12 years ago? … [These days] he just has a little bit more experience and wisdom.”

That distant yet personal history affords Hentges a level of familiarity that is rare for a manager and player. “I know my family’s very excited that he’s here because he was up at our house a couple times when I was in high school, and my family loved him,” he said.

While the majority of Giants players don’t have past connections to Vitello, anyone in the clubhouse who played Division I baseball over the past decade likely began this year with some sense of what to expect. 

“I heard how Tony was,” left-hander Carson Whisenhunt said with a smirk, having played with Gilbert and Tidwell on the 2021 collegiate national team. “They said he was a great coach. You could go to him for anything.”

Vitello has also made a point to connect with the Giants with zero ties to his previous world, those who signed out of high school or hail from other countries. That includes some of the most important players on the roster, so the new manager wasted no time reaching out to ace Logan Webb and spent time in the Dominican Republic with Rafael Devers and Willy Adames. In January, Vitello and Adames journeyed across the globe with a sizable front-office contingent to visit Jung Hoo Lee in his native South Korea.

These intentional, sometimes international offseason interactions marked important first steps as Vitello ingrained himself in the organization. But the real fun began once he could put on baseball pants and bounce around a more familiar environment on the field. In his new gig, practice, which used to be a time for teaching, is now an opportunity to witness excellence. Now entrenched with some of the best on the planet at their craft, Vitello’s experience with elite college players only heightens his appreciation for what the sport’s highest level looks like up close.

“It’s a higher level of skill, and you’re almost in awe of it sometimes, but also you’re excited about the fact that they approach everything like a pro … they know exactly how they’re going to come to work every day and get better,” Vitello said. “All these guys approach it like that because it is their job. Some people say that like a negative thing, like it’s a kid’s game, but to me, it’s a good thing it’s their job because they approach it in such a methodical fashion that, as a coach, you’re excited to watch, you’re excited to contribute, and sometimes you learn from what they’re doing.”

‘He’s gonna bring it every day’

No matter the depth of Vitello’s preparation, no matter the mentors surrounding him, no matter how smoothly spring training seems to have gone, the novelty of his first MLB season will be unavoidable. Division I baseball features a 56-game regular season starting in February, with the road to the College World Series stretching to mid-June. MLB demands six weeks of spring training before a 162-game regular season and a postseason that pushes into November.

“I think the thing that jumps off the page is obviously just the length of the season,” reliever Tristan Beck said. “A bad two weeks in college can kind of sink the season, versus, you know, a bad two weeks in pro ball — that’s just every year.”

“We’re just gonna have, hopefully, a little more passion,” Logan Webb told reporters earlier this week. “Tony is gonna bring that. He’s gonna bring it every day.”

As the season begins, gone for Vitello are the days of mining the transfer portal, balancing NIL budgets and chasing premium recruits; he must now navigate the usage and evolution of a 26-man roster over a marathon season, even if its construction is no longer under his primary purview. The Giants’ roster is not a group of 18-to-22-year-olds hand-picked by Vitello and his inner circle; it’s a much broader assortment of ages and backgrounds who found their way into San Francisco’s clubhouse for myriad reasons that have nothing to do with the word “recruit.” Working toward October with a vast range of well-paid professionals is a wildly different task than guiding a group of college-aged ballplayers to Omaha. But meshing these personalities is the job of any manager, and Vitello seems to have the interpersonal skills to make that happen.

“It’s the same as the college guys,” he said. “They love baseball. They like the camaraderie factor. They want to have success. They want to be helped. So, you know, as everyone harps on all these differences for my job or what’s going on, or people ask me, ‘What’s the biggest difference?’ … There’s a lot of similarities. And I kind of take comfort in that.”

Outside the clubhouse, Vitello will serve as a vibrant new voice as a near-daily public speaker, a significant change from his prior media responsibilities. Major-league managers are the unofficial spokespeople for their organizations, obligated to speak to reporters before and after every game. How Vitello’s authentic and often endearing yet unpolished presentation manifests in those settings through the highs and lows of a big-league season will be its own subplot to monitor. 

And yet, with infinite questions looming over Vitello’s historic transition, optimism abounds. His infectious energy and genuine passion for his new job have injected life into an organization that sorely needed a jolt. Whether Vitello succeeds or fails will depend on much more than his own ability to adjust — after all, managers can control only so much — so as this fascinating, never-before-seen story airs its first official episode on Wednesday (on Netflix, appropriately enough) all we can do now is sit back and watch.

In a different timeline, Tony Vitello would be gearing up for another grueling weekend of SEC competition right now. Fresh off a walk-off win over USC-Upstate, his Tennessee Volunteers would have just a couple of days to regroup before trekking a few hours west to take on in-state rival Vanderbilt in the second week of conference play.

Instead, a different challenge awaits: the New York Yankees, Vitello’s first opponent as manager of the San Francisco Giants. If anything, facing a franchise that has epitomized the term “professional baseball” for generations is a fitting introduction to Vitello’s new surroundings. But for the former head baseball coach at Tennessee, this is just the beginning. 

On Wednesday at Oracle Park, Vitello will make history as the first to make the leap from college head coach to major-league manager without any prior experience at the pro level. It’s a debut that has been in the making since his stunning hiring was announced in October, but it’s also the culmination of so much more: a gradual climb to the mountaintop of collegiate coaching, one that made a strong enough impression to earn Vitello an unprecedented opportunity in the big leagues.

Draft your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball team for the 2026 MLB Season

While nine major-league teams named new managers this past offseason, no hire stood out more than the Giants’ choice of Vitello, who spent the previous eight seasons building the University of Tennessee baseball program into a certified juggernaut. Vitello got the gig in Knoxville — his first as a head coach — after serving as an assistant first at his alma mater, Missouri, and then at TCU and Arkansas. 

Never a player of particular repute as a walk-on infielder for the Tigers, Vitello found his niche in the coaching space, gaining a reputation as a relentless recruiter. At the time of his hire in 2017, Tennessee had sunk into irrelevance in the unforgiving SEC, a sad state of affairs after thriving in the mid-’90s. But in Vitello’s second season, the Volunteers won 40 games for the first time since 2005. Three years later, they were SEC champions for the first time since 1995. In 2024, they won it all, becoming national champions for the first time in program history.

As Vitello piled up victories and Tennessee started to produce pro prospects as reliably as any program nationwide, his status on Rocky Top rose exponentially. Opponents weren’t always thrilled to compete against his teams, unapologetic purveyors of bombastic celebrations and over-the-top on-field intensity, but his own players revered him. His postgame media conferences occasionally dissolved into rambling tornados of verbal chaos, contrasting with the more composed presentations of some of his coaching peers and highlighting his unwavering commitment to his players and passion for his position. There were speedbumps along the way, but Vitello’s standing within the college baseball ecosystem soared nevertheless; the talent he recruited and helped develop spoke for itself, as did his gaudy win-loss record.

But baseball is not football or basketball, in which high-profile head coaches regularly move between the collegiate and professional levels. Advances in player development have resulted in more specialists moving between college and pro ball; pitching minds, hitting savants and defensive gurus are routinely plucked from the collegiate levels by major-league organizations. But the top jobs have remained separate; the best college skippers have not been floated as realistic options to translate their leadership and coaching bona fides to the pro ranks. As such, gossip about head-coaching movement in college baseball tends to be centered on possible jumps among the top programs, not vaulting up and out of the Division I level.

So when reports surfaced last fall that Vitello was on the Giants’ radar for their managerial opening, the idea seemed outlandish on its face. But those rumors quickly became reality, shattering preconceived notions about the major-league managerial hiring cycle and expanding the scope of who could hold one of the 30 MLB positions. Vitello was introduced as the 40th manager in Giants franchise history on Oct. 30, sending a shockwave of intrigue through the industry.

The Giants’ stunning decision to hire Vitello — and Vitello’s agonizing decision to leave the program he built — rocked two different baseball worlds at once. In Knoxville, it shook up the status quo for one of the most prominent programs in college baseball midway through its fall practices. In San Francisco, it marked the latest bold maneuver by president of baseball operations Buster Posey in his quest to restore the San Francisco Giants to glory.

That Posey identified this season as the time for drastic change for San Francisco shouldn’t come as much surprise. The Giants, a staple atop the National League during the bulk of Posey’s playing career, have descended in recent years into a morass of mediocrity they can’t seem to escape. Since Posey’s final season on the roster — the memorable 107-win campaign in 2021 — San Francisco has arrived at win totals of 81, 79, 80 and 81 the past four years. Bob Melvin, the three-time Manager of the Year hired in 2024 in hopes of steering San Francisco back to contention, had his contract extended last July but was ultimately dismissed at the end of the season following a second straight middling finish.

It was time for something different. So after parting with the steady and stoic Melvin, who’d been there and done that, Posey swerved in the opposite direction, toward a much more animated alternative: Vitello, without a day of professional baseball as a player or coach on his résumé. It was an ambitious bet by Posey and general manager Zack Minasian that despite his lack of experience at the highest level, Vitello’s boundless energy and unfettered passion for winning and the game itself could provide the spark to return San Francisco to relevance.

Mallory Bielecki/Yahoo Sports

‘Baseball is baseball’

Of course, Vitello will not be embarking on this journey alone, and his knack for recruiting came in handy when constructing his coaching staff. As it turns out, his ability to convince others to come along for the ride is not limited to his past pursuits of the best high school players around the country.

“To be honest with you, he’s a heck of a recruiter,” new Giants infield coach Ron Washington said in February, at the outset of his 56th big-league spring training. “He never mentioned about me coming on as one of his coaches. We talked on the phone. He called me every afternoon, and then he sent me a text and decided to fly me out to Nashville for lunch. So I went out there and had lunch with him, and he continued to call me for a few more days, and then the Monday after Thanksgiving, Zack Minasian got in touch with me and offered me a contract.”

Washington made his MLB debut as a player in 1977 — the year before Vitello was born — and has spent more than three decades coaching, including 10 seasons as a major-league manager. His most recent stint as manager of the Angels was cut short last season when he had to undergo quadruple-bypass heart surgery, but Washington has put that health scare behind him and is eager to contribute to yet another big-league coaching staff. 

Washington had no personal connection to Vitello before fielding his calls, but those early conversations — and a little bit of digging — made a compelling first impression.

“I’ve heard all the things that people say — ‘How can you hire a college coach?’ — and then I did some studying, I did some research, and he’s done a lot,” Washington said. “Although it’s been in college, baseball is baseball.”

In preparing for his new role, Vitello has also leaned on Bruce Bochy and Dusty Baker, two managerial icons who held the same position in San Francisco, and Bochy has not been shy about endorsing Posey’s pick based on those early conversations. But having Washington, who has navigated the highs and lows of professional baseball for longer than Vitello has been alive, in the dugout alongside him on a daily basis adds another layer of comfort.

“He’s been through a lot,” Washington said. “Even though he was in college, he’s still been through a lot — won championships, then failed, had to bring people together. He did all of that. He led people. And that’s what it takes in baseball.”

Vitello’s bench coach in San Francisco will be Jayce Tingler, who arrives with substantial experience on major-league coaching staffs and ties to the new manager; the two were teammates at Missouri and have remained close in the years since. New hitting coach Hunter Mense — who also played at Missouri while Vitello’s coaching career was just getting started in Columbia — comes over from the reigning AL champion Toronto Blue Jays. New pitching coaches Justin Meccage and Christian Wonders joined from Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay, respectively. New bullpen coach Jesse Chavez just wrapped an 18-year career pitching for nine MLB organizations. If Vitello has any questions as the season gets underway, the answers are probably nearby.

“The thing about the major-league side of it,” Washington said, “[is] he’s got people to stand him up when he starts to fall.”

‘Being around people like that makes you better’

In addition to the wealth of knowledge he’s tapping into, Vitello rallied two familiar faces from his time in Knoxville to join him with the Giants. Frank Anderson, the father of former big-league left-hander Brett Anderson, will serve as director of pitching performance after decades in the college ranks, most recently as Vitello’s pitching coach at Tennessee. Anderson will be making his first foray into working with professional pitchers, but there’s optimism that his track record of developing impact arms in Knoxville can carry over, even in more of an oversight role.

More familiar with the pro experience is the Giants’ new director of sports performance, Quentin Eberhardt, another key figure during Vitello’s Vols tenure. Eberhardt’s roots are in the strength and conditioning sphere, as he spent eight years as a strength coach in the minor leagues with the Astros, Cardinals, Braves and Marlins. One of his minor-league players, Josh Elander, had starred at TCU when Vitello was on staff. When Elander went into coaching and joined Vitello’s staff in 2017, he reached out to Eberhardt, then in Triple-A with the Marlins, to gauge his interest in leaving pro ball to help revitalize the Vols’ program.

“At first I wasn’t too interested. And then he asked if I would be interested in having a conversation with, then, a guy who I’d never heard of, Tony Vitello. And I’m always down for a conversation, right?” Eberhardt said. “… And in business, you know, sometimes people say they’ll call you, and it usually ends up being weeks later. Tony said he’s gonna call me — he called three hours later. We talked for two hours. He and I are very similar, which is how we started to get close over the years. But hearing the vision he had and the vision that I had for success and for winning and for helping build something special, it was like, OK, and those conversations continued.”

As Tennessee blossomed into a premier program, Eberhardt became a crucial figure behind the scenes. His work elevated the Volunteers’ potential on both sides of the ball, achieving physical gains in the weight room and ensuring an edge in the mental part of the game as well. While Elander took over as head coach in Knoxville after Vitello departed last fall, Eberhardt jumped at a new chance to build something special alongside Vitello.

“Me and Q were very aligned, just the mentality, the way we think,” said outfielder Drew Gilbert. One of the faces of the Volunteers’ rise to relevance at the start of the decade, Gilbert is now looking to make his mark in the majors with the familiar support of Vitello and Eberhardt, having been acquired by the Giants last summer. “Being around people like that makes you better. I’m super grateful to have him back here again.”

Gilbert isn’t the only former Vol in the organization, as right-hander Blade Tidwell is also expected to contribute in the majors this year. And even before he was on their radar as a managerial candidate, the Giants corresponded with Vitello last summer about one of his best players, infielder Gavin Kilen, whom San Francisco selected 13th in the 2025 MLB Draft and who is now one of the organization’s top prospects.

‘You could tell he loved the game’

But Vitello’s connections run much deeper than just his former players. “He knows a lot of people,” Washington said.

For instance, Vitello chased hard after top Giants prospect Bryce Eldridge back when Eldridge was an elite high school player in Virginia, only to see him commit to conference rival Alabama (before forgoing college altogether). Reliever Sam Hentges, then the best prep pitcher in Minnesota, committed to Arkansas during Vitello’s Razorbacks tenure, though he ultimately signed with Cleveland instead. Once they teamed up this spring, Vitello didn’t hesitate to tease Hentges about what he missed out on.

“When we met up again here, he was like, ‘Now I don’t have to hate you anymore because we finally get to play together,’” Hentges said. “I was like, ‘You’ve done plenty. You didn’t need me to do what you did.’”

Having interacted with Vitello long before he was a household name, Hentges isn’t surprised by how his career has taken off.

“He was hungry. You could tell he loved the game,” he said. “He still has that same vibe. He loves the game of baseball. He loves competing. He’s very vocal about that and wants everybody to feel the same way. He was like that — what was that — 12 years ago? … [These days] he just has a little bit more experience and wisdom.”

That distant yet personal history affords Hentges a level of familiarity that is rare for a manager and player. “I know my family’s very excited that he’s here because he was up at our house a couple times when I was in high school, and my family loved him,” he said.

While the majority of Giants players don’t have past connections to Vitello, anyone in the clubhouse who played Division I baseball over the past decade likely began this year with some sense of what to expect. 

“I heard how Tony was,” left-hander Carson Whisenhunt said with a smirk, having played with Gilbert and Tidwell on the 2021 collegiate national team. “They said he was a great coach. You could go to him for anything.”

Vitello has also made a point to connect with the Giants with zero ties to his previous world, those who signed out of high school or hail from other countries. That includes some of the most important players on the roster, so the new manager wasted no time reaching out to ace Logan Webb and spent time in the Dominican Republic with Rafael Devers and Willy Adames. In January, Vitello and Adames journeyed across the globe with a sizable front-office contingent to visit Jung Hoo Lee in his native South Korea.

These intentional, sometimes international offseason interactions marked important first steps as Vitello ingrained himself in the organization. But the real fun began once he could put on baseball pants and bounce around a more familiar environment on the field. In his new gig, practice, which used to be a time for teaching, is now an opportunity to witness excellence. Now entrenched with some of the best on the planet at their craft, Vitello’s experience with elite college players only heightens his appreciation for what the sport’s highest level looks like up close.

“It’s a higher level of skill, and you’re almost in awe of it sometimes, but also you’re excited about the fact that they approach everything like a pro … they know exactly how they’re going to come to work every day and get better,” Vitello said. “All these guys approach it like that because it is their job. Some people say that like a negative thing, like it’s a kid’s game, but to me, it’s a good thing it’s their job because they approach it in such a methodical fashion that, as a coach, you’re excited to watch, you’re excited to contribute, and sometimes you learn from what they’re doing.”

‘He’s gonna bring it every day’

No matter the depth of Vitello’s preparation, no matter the mentors surrounding him, no matter how smoothly spring training seems to have gone, the novelty of his first MLB season will be unavoidable. Division I baseball features a 56-game regular season starting in February, with the road to the College World Series stretching to mid-June. MLB demands six weeks of spring training before a 162-game regular season and a postseason that pushes into November.

“I think the thing that jumps off the page is obviously just the length of the season,” reliever Tristan Beck said. “A bad two weeks in college can kind of sink the season, versus, you know, a bad two weeks in pro ball — that’s just every year.”

“We’re just gonna have, hopefully, a little more passion,” Logan Webb told reporters earlier this week. “Tony is gonna bring that. He’s gonna bring it every day.”

As the season begins, gone for Vitello are the days of mining the transfer portal, balancing NIL budgets and chasing premium recruits; he must now navigate the usage and evolution of a 26-man roster over a marathon season, even if its construction is no longer under his primary purview. The Giants’ roster is not a group of 18-to-22-year-olds hand-picked by Vitello and his inner circle; it’s a much broader assortment of ages and backgrounds who found their way into San Francisco’s clubhouse for myriad reasons that have nothing to do with the word “recruit.” Working toward October with a vast range of well-paid professionals is a wildly different task than guiding a group of college-aged ballplayers to Omaha. But meshing these personalities is the job of any manager, and Vitello seems to have the interpersonal skills to make that happen.

“It’s the same as the college guys,” he said. “They love baseball. They like the camaraderie factor. They want to have success. They want to be helped. So, you know, as everyone harps on all these differences for my job or what’s going on, or people ask me, ‘What’s the biggest difference?’ … There’s a lot of similarities. And I kind of take comfort in that.”

Outside the clubhouse, Vitello will serve as a vibrant new voice as a near-daily public speaker, a significant change from his prior media responsibilities. Major-league managers are the unofficial spokespeople for their organizations, obligated to speak to reporters before and after every game. How Vitello’s authentic and often endearing yet unpolished presentation manifests in those settings through the highs and lows of a big-league season will be its own subplot to monitor. 

And yet, with infinite questions looming over Vitello’s historic transition, optimism abounds. His infectious energy and genuine passion for his new job have injected life into an organization that sorely needed a jolt. Whether Vitello succeeds or fails will depend on much more than his own ability to adjust — after all, managers can control only so much — so as this fascinating, never-before-seen story airs its first official episode on Wednesday (on Netflix, appropriately enough) all we can do now is sit back and watch.

The Boston Red Sox enter 2026 with the clear expectation of returning to the playoffs in consecutive seasons for the first time in eight years.

The 2026 team stands on a foundation of exceptionally deep starting pitching, horses to stabilize the bullpen, and colossal pressure on Roman Anthony to carry a reshuffled offense. In fact, it’s basically the opposite of how they entered the season last year in terms of roster construction. Boston’s 2025 Opening Day lineup in Texas seemed poised to put on a power show all summer long; the pressure was on newly-acquired ace Garrett Crochet to anchor an injury-plagued, inconsistent rotation. But these two completely different roster constructions should land the Red Sox in the exact same place: A playoff berth, likely followed by an early exit in the building block years of a return to contention. 

The 2026 team, like last year’s version, should teeter around 90 wins, though playing through the gauntlet that is the American League East says more about Boston’s talent than the win total. What’s probably ahead for the Red Sox is a simple step forward. Host playoff action at Fenway Park and make it to the ALDS. Anything added on is gravy. 

You know what this two-year stretch feels like? The building stages we went through in 2016 and 2017. 

The Red Sox offense produced like an absolute wagon in 2016. That year featured David Ortiz’s retirement tour, the last healthy season from Dustin Pedroia, 31 homers from Mookie Betts, and the ascension of Xander Bogaerts. The offense told the story of the team. Despite a solid Boston introduction for David Price and a Cy Young award for Rick Porcello, pitching shortcomings led to a first-round sweep at the hands of the Cleveland Indians. 

That feels like the 2025 Red Sox. 

In 2017, the Red Sox got real with pitching, as Chris Sale racked up over 300 strikeouts and Craig Kimbrel cruised to 35 saves and a microscopic 1.43 ERA. Ultimately, the offense regressed without any real power threat and found the same result: 93 wins followed by an ALDS loss, this time to the Houston Astros. 

In shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone in the 2026 Red Sox trend in that direction. Boston structured two totally different rosters for Alex Cora to navigate to October. Understand the direction. Understand the growth. Understand the value of playoff experience.

These may not be the years the duck boats roll through the city. But what Boston should see this year is October baseball and the early chapters of the next true Red Sox contender.

Of all the people to exceed Kobe Bryant’s legendary 81-point game, it was a bit of a surprise that Bam Adebayo was the one to do it. Kevin Porter Jr. now has an even bigger surprise in mind.

During an appearance on a Twitch stream this week, the Milwaukee Bucks guard was asked about his previous 50-point game and quickly pledged to beat the Miami Heat center’s recent 83-point game:

“I’m trying to drive 80. Shout-out to Kobe. Shout-out to Bam, because I’m beating that one day. For sure. Now that Kobe got beat, I gotta beat Bam just for the respect of Kobe.”

Draft your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball team for the 2026 MLB season

Porter posted that 50-point game on April 29, 2021, during his second year in the league while he was with the Houston Rockets. Since then, he hasn’t scored more than 36 points in a game. He has also missed several games this year with a knee issue.

His pledge was met with quick mockery from the Twitch comments. His response:

“There’s a thing called manifestation. You gotta manifest what you believe in.”

The easy response is indeed mockery. Porter has shown talent as a scorer in the NBA, but even his career high, seen as a wild outlier from the rest of his time in the league, is still 33 points short of his stated goal. And you really have to wonder if the best way to honor Bryant’s legacy is for another player — one with significantly less fame than Adebayo — to score in the 80s.

However, the thing about professional athletes is that if you gave the entire NBA truth serum, more than a few of them would probably think they are capable of breaking 80. None of these guys are making millions of dollars playing basketball because they lacked for confidence growing up. Porter is no exception to that.

We could very well see players push to match Adebayo and Bryant — or even Wilt Chamberlain — in the coming years, especially given the discourse around how Adebayo got there. It’s easier said than done, but if a player has a huge first half in a game of little consequence (such as Adebayo’s Heat playing the tanking Washington Wizards), they might start wondering what’s stopping them from asking for the ball on every possession and seeing what happens.

On Monday evening, I sat in my office with two screens, one showing Spurs-Heat and the other showing Pistons-Lakers. As the postseason nears, I try to pay closer attention to the inner workings of these “high-profile” matchups, viewing them from a playoff lens. 

Is Team X truly hitting their stride? Can Team Y adjust to an opponent’s adjustment in the second half? How does Team Z fare against a shapeshifting zone? 

What I took away from those two games not only reinforced why both Detroit and San Antonio are among the best teams in the NBA this season, but why their coaching has separated them from the rest of the pack — and why crowning just one as Coach of the Year is cruel. 

Draft your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball team for the 2026 MLB Season

The Pistons, who were without Cade Cunningham (and will be for some time as he recovers from a collapsed lung), held the Lakers to 23 points in the fourth quarter, including 0-for-5 from 3 and seven turnovers to boot. Daniss Jenkins (who went undrafted, by the way) continued to excel functioning as a primary initiator, leading the way with 30 points on an efficient 11-for-18 shooting to go along with 8 assists and 4 rebounds.

Gregory Shamus via Getty Images

Detroit’s defense-by-committee limited Luka Dončić to 32 points on 29 shots, and its two most important possessions had Kevin Huerter and Jalen Duren tasked with stopping the Slovenian and succeeded, a reminder of the trust that head coach J.B. Bickerstaff has in his entire group. (The Lakers were also one of the hottest teams in the league, having won 12 of their past 13 games. So there’s that.)

A little over 1,000 miles away, the Spurs were able to turn one of their biggest weaknesses — functioning against a zone defense (fourth-worst points per possession) — into a strength against the Heat, the heaviest zone usage team in the NBA (978 possessions, per Synergy tracking data). They registered a monstrous 1.875 points per chance on spot-ups against Miami’s zone, and 1.333 points on cuts, per Synergy tracking data.

San Antonio stretched an eight-point lead, from the 8-minute mark of the second quarter, to a whopping 30-point lead by the midway mark of the third quarter. Dylan Harper and Keldon Johnson both finished with 21 points apiece off the bench, Bam “Mr. 83” Adebayo struggled courtesy of an aggressive Spurs defense (18 points on 17 shots) and 136 points were dropped on the NBA’s No. 7 defense. 

In both instances, coaching was at the epicenter. There are various storylines you could pluck from either team. For the Pistons: the improvement of Duren, the development of Jenkins, and the consistency of Cunningham. For the Spurs: Stephon Castle’s rapid rise, Johnson’s malleability and Harper’s reliability. The list goes on and on. 

You could also point to the success both teams have had without their best players. Detroit is 8-2 without Cunningham this season and San Antonio is 10-5 without Victor Wembanyama. 

Again, coaching. 

So how do you determine who should win Coach of the Year? 

This is where it gets tricky. Late March is typically when awards discourse heats up around the league. Look no further than Wembanyama himself making his case for why he should win MVP over the incumbent Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. The sheer fact that Wemby is passionate enough about regular-season accolades is refreshing, but hearing him elaborate on his reasoning drove home the realization that criteria — both for voting and non-voting individuals — is fluid, and the narrative can change from year-to-year. 

This season has already yielded the need for rule changes to address tanking, gambling and overall integrity. But why stop there? Let’s add another tweak to the awards, and add an All-Coaching team.

We already have the MVP award, but that is supported by All-NBA teams. The Defensive Player of the Year is crowned and there are two All-Defensive groups. Even the Rookie of the Year has two All-Rookie teams. So why not expand the award based on the individuals tasked with leading these great players and teams on a nightly basis? 

As with any award selection, my methodology of differentiating who and who doesn’t belong on my All-Coaching team is down to the following criteria: 

• Season expectations (a combination of previous season’s record and Vegas odds)

• Talent level and development 

• Player availability and maneuvering in the presence of injuries

• Current success

These would be my five selections for the inaugural All-Coaching team:

J.B. Bickerstaff, Detroit Pistons

• Vegas preseason win projection: 46.5

• Current record: 52-19 (10th in offense, 2nd in defense)

Who needs to shoot a bunch of 3s when you lead the league in turnover rate? Bickerstaff has done perhaps the most remarkable coaching job in the league this season. The Pistons are playing with house money, being considerably ahead of schedule, spearheaded by Cunningham’s MVP-esque campaign, the NBA’s No. 2 defense and an abundance of youth. Detroit, which won 44 games last season, isn’t supposed to be here right now. Period. 

Mitch Johnson, San Antonio Spurs

• Vegas preseason win projection: 44.5

• Current record: 54-18 (4th in offense, 3rd in defense)

Coming off of Wembanyama’s second season, one would have assumed the Spurs would at least challenge for a play-in spot. Making it to the NBA Cup final, going band for band with the reigning champs, having beaten them four out of five times this year already, wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card. The Spurs are 20-2 over their last 22 games. Johnson has built this team in his image. He has gotten complete buy-in from the veterans and is challenging the status quo. Oh, and Wemby looks like the best player in basketball right now and still has other levels to get to. 

Joe Mazzulla, Boston Celtics

• Vegas preseason win projection: 41.5

• Current record: 47-24 (2nd in offense, 4th in defense)

2025-26 was slated to be a mulligan for Boston, with Jayson Tatum gone for the majority of the season rehabbing a torn Achilles, and Celtics ownership stripping the roster down to its barebones to avoid heavy tax penalties. Tell that to Mazzulla, who shoehorned Jaylen Brown into an uber-efficient, hybrid scorer/playmaker/primary defender role, Neemias Queta as an athletic anchor, and Derrick White as apparently a top-5 player with analytical ethical ball. 

Mark Daigneault, Oklahoma City Thunder

• Vegas preseason win projection: 62.5

• Current record: 57-15 (6th in offense, 1st in defense)

When Vegas made its projections for a Thunder team fresh off winning a title, continuity was assumed. Explain that to a Thunder team that has Cason Wallace and Isaiah Joe as its two most-played guys. Jalen Williams has appeared in just 27 games this season, Isaiah Hartenstein has played in 40 — which ranks 15th and 11th on the roster, respectively. Daigneault’s Finals-winning lineup has played 52 minutes across six games! How he’s responded to his lack of player availability is by extracting an All-Defensive season out of Wallace, developing Jaylin Williams into a reliable floor spacer, creating a solid secondary creator in Ajay Mitchell, and having all roads lead back to SGA, who has had just about as fine of a potential repeat season as any former MVP. 

Charles Lee, Charlotte Hornets

• Vegas preseason win projection: 27.5

• Current record: 38-34 (5th in offense, 13th in defense)

The Hornets were destined for another season rooted in mediocrity, but Lee sold his vision on making Charlotte an offensive juggernaut and viable defensive unit. Since Jan. 1, the Hornets lead the league in point differential, have won 27-of-39 games and sport the No. 1 offense and No. 5 defense in that span, per Cleaning the Glass. Expand that to all season and the Hornets are just outside the top-five in net rating.

Lee has convinced the likes of LaMelo Ball, Miles Bridges and Brandon Miller to accept lesser roles within the overall structure for the betterment of the group, and has rookie Kon Knueppel as a real threat to snatch Rookie of the Year from Cooper Flagg. How many folks could predict that the Ball-Bridges-Miller-Knueppel-Moussa Diabate lineup would score 136.7 points per 100 possessions, with a +28.4 in differential? I’ll hang up and listen. 

NBA commissioner Adam Silver backed the league’s 65-game rule during the Board of Governors meeting on Wednesday. The rule, implemented in the 2023-24 season, requires players to appear in at least 65 games to be eligible for major awards such as MVP, All-NBA and Defensive Player of the Year.

“I’m not ready to say it’s not working,” Silver said. “It is working. I’m not ready to say that because there is a sense of unfairness for one player, the rule doesn’t work.”

Silver explained that the rule was introduced to curb load management and increase player participation. His comments come after the National Basketball Players Association issued a statement on Tuesday regarding Cade Cunningham’s award eligibility.

Draft your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball team for the 2026 MLB season

The union’s statement read:

“Cade Cunningham’s potential ineligibility for postseason awards after a career-defining season is a clear indictment of the 65-game rule and yet another example of why it must be abolished or reformed to include an exception for significant injuries. Since its implementation, far too many deserving players have been unfairly disqualified from end-of-season honors by this arbitrary and overly rigid quota.”

Cunningham has played 61 games and was expected to be in contention for All-NBA and MVP honors before suffering a collapsed lung last Wednesday. He is set to be reevaluated in early April. To qualify for awards, he must play in four of the Detroit Pistons’ remaining 11 games.

Cunningham’s agent, Jeff Schwartz, told ESPN’s Shams Charania that the 24-year-old point guard should be granted an exception.

“Cade has delivered a first-team All-NBA season,” Schwartz said. “If he falls just short of an arbitrary games-played threshold due to a legitimate injury, it should not disqualify him from recognition he has clearly earned over the course of the season. The league should reward excellence, not enforce rigid cutoffs that ignore context. An exception needs to be made.”

Other players who could be affected by the rule if they fail to reach 65 games include Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokić, Victor Wembanyama, Anthony Edwards, Cooper Flagg, Kawhi Leonard and Tyrese Maxey.

While Pistons head coach J.B. Bickerstaff said he understands the rule, he told reporters that players should not feel pressured to play through injuries to qualify for awards. Meanwhile, Steve Kerr of the Golden State Warriors suggested the league could reduce the number of games to help players stay healthy.

Silver also noted that the league plans to address ongoing concerns about tanking.

What is a baseball season, if not a series of cascading stories, unfurling one after another? October is its own grand beast, but the marathon regular season is a stage all its own. The singular length of the MLB calendar allows for narrative arc, for character development in a way other sports do not. This is the lens through which we’ll attempt to preview the upcoming campaign.

Who are the figures most likely to define, influence and dictate the 2026 season? When the dust settles in November, what and whom will we remember? That is the admittedly vague framework for this list of the top 50 people who will impact the MLB season. But this is not a science, so lighten up and enjoy the ball, why don’t ya?

Read more: Top 50 people who will impact the MLB season, Nos. 50-26

25. Kevin McGonigle, Tigers infielder
24. Konnor Griffin, Pirates shortstop

Oh, to be young and full of promise.

Widely considered the two best prospects in baseball, McGonigle and Griffin are both expected to be major contributors this season. McGonigle’s impact should start right away; the 21-year-old made Detroit’s Opening Day roster. Skipper A.J. Hinch said McGonigle will go back and forth between third base and shortstop, but his magic is in the batter’s box, where he projects as a special, special hitter. It’s a short, compact move with legit juice and elite swing decisions. McGonigle immediately becomes one of the Tigers’ best bats and represents the club’s only major offensive addition from a year ago. How quickly he hits the ground running will play a big role in determining how good Detroit’s lineup is in what is likely the final year of the Tarik Skubal Era.

Griffin, almost two years younger than McGonigle, did not make Pittsburgh’s roster. That decision, despite all the hype, was likely more about legitimate player development concerns than service time tomfoolery. The 19-year-old Mississippian clocked some big homers in spring training but didn’t otherwise blow the lid off the joint. Besides, Griffin has yet to take a Triple-A at-bat. He’ll be up in Pittsburgh soon enough, and when that happens, he’ll be the most hyped Pirates rookie position player since Andrew McCutchen.

23. Emmanuel Clase, former (?) Guardians pitcher and alleged gambler

A word to the wise: If you’re a major-league ballplayer, you probably shouldn’t be wagering on Major League Baseball.

Clase, once the most dominant closer of his generation, has become the face of something much more sinister. His direct alleged involvement in a gambling scandal was made public just before last year’s trade deadline and has since become one of the most important stories in the sport. Allegedly, Clase was intentionally throwing balls outside the strike zone in predetermined moments while an off-site accomplice was placing prop bets on the outcomes. He’s also accused of roping in teammate Luis Ortiz into the scheme, though Clase appears to have been the ringleader. 

The trial won’t commence until after the World Series, but this story will most certainly cast a shadow on the 2026 season. MLB’s embrace of the online betting world is equal parts understandable and unsettling. All the other leagues are doing it, the money is there to be had, and partnering with gambling sites, in theory, allows for better monitoring practices. But with Pandora’s box completely ajar, scandals such as Clase’s will keep happening as long as stupid ballplayers are around to do stupid stuff.

Draft your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball team for the 2026 MLB Season

22. Elly De La Cruz, Reds shortstop
21. Gunnar Henderson, Orioles shortstop

Here we have two of the game’s most talented young players coming off down years. Health, for both, was a huge factor in 2025, even though Henderson played 154 games and De La Cruz played all 162. A left shoulder issue limited the O’s shortstop’s offensive output, though he finished the season with 17 long balls and 5.3 bWAR. De La Cruz battled through a partial strain of his left quadriceps, an issue that significantly restricted his trademark athleticism. Before the injury, he was having the most consistent season of his career.

Clean bills of health should propel both unicorn shortstops to bounce back, and that will only raise the volume on their futures. Henderson is a free agent after 2028, De La Cruz after 2029. Both are represented by agent Scott Boras, renowned for his aversion to contract extensions. Perhaps a new economic model brought about by the future collective bargaining agreement alters that calculus, but it’s fair to begin thinking about whether and how the Reds and Orioles can keep their cornerstones around for the long haul.

20. Tony Vitello, Giants manager
19. Rafael Devers, Giants infielder

The San Francisco Giants, under new president of baseball operations Buster Posey, took two massive swings in 2025. First, they pulled off a shocking blockbuster with the Red Sox that brought Devers to the Bay. Then, after the season, they tabbed University of Tennessee head coach Tony Vitello to be their new manager. Both have to be considered high-risk, high-reward moves. 

Vitello was a superstar in the college ranks, a polarizing but undeniably effective leader who turned Volunteer Baseball into a national brand. He is the first figure in the modern era to make the leap directly from college head coach to big-league manager. Vitello might need an adjustment period — he’s liable to say and/or do a ton of newsworthy things this year — but the ball coach can really coach ball. This was a fascinating hire and a reminder that Posey is willing to color outside the lines. 

Devers’ is a more familiar story. The Giants took on his entire, bulky contract to make him the face of their franchise, and now they expect him to hit. The baby-faced slugger was great, though not spectacular, after his midseason changing of clothes, with his OPS 100 points lower as a Giant. Some of that is attributable to the poor hitting environment at Oracle Park, but that’s not changing anytime soon. After being the center of so much drama in Boston in 2025, the Giants want Devers to focus on just hitting in 2026. Good thing that’s his job.

18. Garrett Crochet, Red Sox starting pitcher
17. Roman Anthony, Red Sox outfielder

Can Garrett Crochet do that — 205 1/3 innings, 2.59 ERA, 255 strikeouts — again? Can Anthony, who doesn’t turn 22 until May, live up to the hype and carry an entire offense on his shoulders? Therein lies the 2026 Red Sox’s season.

Craig Breslow, Boston’s chief baseball officer, has made an abundance of transactions since taking over as head honcho in October 2023. No move has proven more immediately fruitful than the trade he swung for Crochet last winter. The swashbuckling southpaw made The Leap in 2025, finishing second in AL Cy Young voting and solidifying himself as one of the game’s true aces. It’s a lot to ask, but Boston needs Crochet to do that again, even with offseason rotation reinforcements Ranger Suárez and Sonny Gray now in the fold.

Anthony, who debuted in June, is expected to lead the line for Boston’s lineup. The Red Sox have a lot of nice hitters, but Anthony is the likeliest to evolve into a game-changing monster. Every World Series champion since the 2015 Royals has had a truly elite hitter in the middle of the order. Everyone around baseball believes Anthony can become that type of player, but whether he can do it right away will likely dictate how Boston’s season pans out.

Dillon Minshall/Yahoo Sports

16. C.B. Bucknor, MLB umpire

Statistically, Bucknor is a bad umpire. He’s not the absolute worst at calling balls and strikes, but he’s darn close. Believe it or not, that still matters, perhaps more than ever, with MLB’s implementation of an automated ball-strike (ABS) challenge system.

Instead of full-blown robo-umps, starting this season, teams will have two challenges to potentially overturn bad calls. If they fail the challenge, they lose the challenge. But all things considered, they’d rather not even use the challenge. It all means that umpires will be under the microscope more than ever this year.

During each challenge, the home plate umpire will remove their mask and announce the challenge to the crowd. Rather than relegating them to the shadows behind a veil of technologies, umps are about to become main characters. We will see their faces and hear their voices. Some will become appreciated, even beloved, as they nail challenge after challenge. Others, like Bucknor, will have to up their game or risk notoriety.

15. Kyle Tucker, Dodgers outfielder
14. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Dodgers starting pitcher

Is the Dodgers’ dominance boring? Yes and no.

Tucker’s decision to join up with the Los Angeles juggernaut was one of the top stories of the offseason. Considered the market’s best free agent, many prognosticators expected the 29-year-old to sign a long-term deal somewhere. Instead, he ended up with the Dodgers on a four-year, $240 million contract. Tucker is a sensational hitter who rocked an adjusted OPS 43% better than league average in a so-called down year with the Cubs in 2025. But as a character, there’s not much exhilarating about Tucker. He’s a subdued cat, happy to stay out of sight until he needs to skulk into the batter’s box. That will, in some ways, make him a perfect new villain on a Dodgers club that has already irked so many fans around the country.

Yamamoto, on the other hand, is an utter delight even when he’s carving your team into shreds. His World Series heroics made even the troll-iest of haters tip their caps. Armed with an aesthetically diverse arsenal and top-shelf athleticism, Yamamoto is a joy to watch pitch. He’s also damn good. If he can work a bit deeper into games and get his innings total up, the 27-year-old can give Paul Skenes a run for his NL Cy Young money.

13. Cal Raleigh, Mariners catcher
12. Julio Rodríguez, Mariners outfielder

Cal Raleigh probably isn’t hitting 60 homers again. Such is the humbling pendulum of baseball. That’s not an indictment of Seattle’s Large Caboose — he’s still one of the best backstops in MLB — it’s just that the only players ever to go 60-piece in back-to-back seasons were Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998 and 1999. Give me the under, your honor!

That means a different Mariner will have to step up in 2026. Enter J-Rod. Still only 25 years old, Rodríguez has delivered a stellar four-season opening salvo to his big-league career, with three All-Star Games, three top-10 MVP finishes, an average of 31 homers per 162 games and spectacular defense in center. Yet the charismatic Dominican has yet to reach his offensive ceiling. Rodríguez could continue to be what he has been and nobody in navy and teal would complain. But if it fully clicks? Watch out.

The Mariners fell one game short of a first World Series appearance in 2025, then doubled down over the winter, re-signing Josh Naylor and trading for Brendan Donovan. Even so, their season will likely be defined by how much worse Raleigh is than last year and how much Rodríguez is able to fill that gap.

11. Bobby Witt Jr., Royals shortstop

At this point, everybody more or less agrees that Bobby Witt Jr. is the third-best baseball player on Earth. In this era, there’s no shame in bronze. Aaron Judge might be the greatest right-handed hitter who has ever lived. Shohei Ohtani pitches and hits! And so Witt is forced to settle for the title of “best all-around player.”

His numbers actually took a step back in 2025, which mostly speaks to just how outrageous his 2024 season was (9.6 bWAR, 174 OPS+, 32 homers, 31 steals, .977 OPS, Gold Glove defense at shortstop). Still only 25, Witt enters this season looking to carry the Royals back to the postseason. Kansas City won a playoff round in 2024, but Witt was generally underwhelming during that run, going just 5-for-26 with one walk and no extra-base hits. October glory seems like a birthright for the preternatural Texan, but as Mike Trout learned the hard way, it gets late early around here. Witt is currently at the peak of his powers. That means the clock has begun to tick.

10. Vlad Guerrero Jr., Blue Jays first baseman

Do you know where Vladdy finished in AL MVP voting last season? I bet you didn’t guess 13th.

That’s not too shabby, but for a player of Guerrero’s immense talent, it’s too low. The landmark contract extension in April and epic postseason performance in October somewhat overshadowed the fact that Toronto’s franchise man was simply great and not otherworldly in 2025. Guerrero went yard just 23 times, and his OPS was only .848. 

Yes, he made good in the playoffs, clobbering eight homers in 18 games and winning ALCS MVP. But there’s much, much more in the tank here as far as regular-season output is concerned. And with former sidekick Bo Bichette now in Queens, Guerrero needs to reemerge as one of the absolute best bats in the sport if the Jays want to win another AL East crown.

9. Bryce Harper, Phillies first baseman

Is Bryce Harper still elite? Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski certainly has his doubts. “He didn’t have an elite season like he has had in the past,” the veteran exec proclaimed during his postmortem presser for the 2025 season. “And I guess we only find out if he becomes elite or if he continues to be good.”

While it was questionable and shocking to hear Dombrowski critique his superstar publicly, Harper’s season stats reinforce that claim. An .844 OPS with 27 home runs is very much not elite. Harper clearly took his boss’ comments to heart, sporting a black T-Shirt with the words “not elite” on it in an offseason workout video.

For team and player, this bizarre storyline only raises the stakes as Philly seeks to keep its window of contention propped open. Harper, the face of this franchise, isn’t getting any younger. He turns 34 in October. There is still no championship ring on his finger. Whether he’s elite or not in 2026 will go a long way in determining if that continues to be the case.

8. Paul Skenes, Pirates starting pitcher

It all happened very fast for Skenes, who was pitching against the Louisville Bats at this time two years ago. His brilliance, at this point, is inarguable. Skenes is a unicorn, an athletic marvel, a finesse pitcher with an array of offerings who also happens to throw 99. There’s nothing like him, and barring injury, he will post ERAs under 3.00 for the foreseeable future.

For the Pirates, things are much hazier. Pittsburgh enters this season with legitimate playoff aspirations for the first time in a while. They at least attempted to rehabilitate an offense that finished dead last in homers last year, adding Ryan O’Hearn, Brandon Lowe and Marcell Ozuna. Griffin will show up at some point. The other arms behind Skenes are legitimately good. There’s a world in which the Pirates play October baseball this season. Wouldn’t that be something? Skenes, who won a national championship with LSU, is clearly thirsting for meaningful games. Getting to witness him truly unleashed on a grand stage would be a win for us all.

7. Bruce Meyer, MLB Players Association interim executive director
6. Rob Manfred, MLB commissioner

There’s a labor tsunami coming, a runaway freight train of exhausting discourse and no baseball. With the collective bargaining agreement set to expire Dec. 1, the entire baseball world is preparing for a messy, acrimonious battle. A league-initiated lockout is almost definitely happening. Team owners want a salary cap. The union does not. Missing games is a real possibility.

Because negotiations will begin during this upcoming season, Manfred and Meyer will find themselves making headlines quite often. Manfred, as the most powerful person in the sport, is on this list every year. His inclusion needs little explanation. Meyer, however, is new to this particular stage. The veteran labor lawyer was named interim executive director in mid-February after it was revealed that former director Tony Clark was engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a coworker (who also happened to be his sister-in-law).

Meyer was previously the No. 2 at the MLBPA, an influential figure tasked with developing the union’s bargaining strategy. That part won’t change. Now he just has to deal with media floogies like me.

5. Francisco Lindor, Mets shortstop
4. Juan Soto, Mets outfielder

The 2025 Mets were not a trainwreck because Lindor and Soto didn’t become besties. The shambolic starting pitching and disorganized defense were much, much bigger problems. However, things definitely weren’t all peaches and cream between these two superstars. Both are on the team for the long haul, so it would behoove everyone in Queens if Soto and Lindor could get on the same page. Again, they don’t need to have scrapbooking sleepovers or anything, but there’s room for them to establish a more productive working environment.

Separately, too, these two are crucial characters for the season. Lindor is working back from a hamate injury, an issue that can sap a hitter’s power for a little while. When will he return to full strength? Soto’s first year with the Mets, statistically speaking, lived up to the hype. He hit 43 homers, stole 38 bases, had a .921 OPS and finished third in NL MVP voting. His defense in right field, unfortunately, was horrendous. The Mets have moved him to left, where the responsibilities are somewhat lighter, but Soto making any sort of significant improvement defensively would be a massive development.

If the Mets and their rejuvenated roster don’t make the playoffs, next winter is going to be a hot-take snowball fight for the New York media, with Lindor and Soto at the center of it.

3. Aaron Judge, Yankees outfielder 

Judge is the greatest Yankee ever without a World Series ring. From now until the day he retires or raises a trophy, that reality will define Judge’s professional life. Such are the stakes in the Bronx. Still, it’s difficult to pin New York’s 17-year title drought on Judge, who has established himself as one of the most productive right-handed hitters in MLB history. He has won the AL MVP award in three of the past four seasons and enters 2026 as the favorite to win a fourth. Most importantly, his preposterous 13-for-24 performance in the postseason quieted some of the “Judge can’t handle October” gobbledegook.

Fair or not, Judge’s legacy won’t be secure without a ring. That’s true even in the most team-oriented sport there is. Whether Judge reaches the promised land depends largely on whether the 25 other souls on the Yankees show up when the weather gets cold. That’s the whole thing. The regular season is just a preamble, a home run derby exhibition for the best to ever do it.

2. Tarik Skubal, Tigers starting pitcher

Barring an unforeseen contract extension, the two-time reigning Cy Young will reach free agency for the first time at season’s end. What happens between now and then is anybody’s guess.

The likeliest scenario is probably the most boring one: Skubal is excellent again, the Tigers make the playoffs but don’t win the World Series, a richer ballclub pays Skubal to leave. But all of that is far from a given. If the Tigers struggle and find themselves out of contention at the trade deadline, Skubal could become the best hurler to hit the midseason trade block since … Randy Johnson in the late 1990s? 

Painful though it would be to deal away Skubal, the alternative is even scarier. The Angels learned this the hard way, when they clung to Shohei Ohtani at the 2023 deadline before missing the playoffs, a decision that set their entire franchise back. No matter how things play out this season, each Skubal outing will feel like a referendum on his future and his team’s future. It’s a fascinating dynamic.

1. Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers two-way player

Who else? There are a gazillion interesting things about Ohtani, like there are stars in the sky. Such is life as the game’s most transcendent figure. This year, the Ohtani storyline is all about the two-way superstar’s full-time return to pitching. Elbow surgery in September 2023 left the four-time MVP sidelined from the mound for all of 2024 and much of 2025. When he came back halfway through last season, he did so very gradually, very carefully. Los Angeles loosened its grip a bit during October, but Ohtani was clearly limited to some extent.

So here we go: The most famous player in baseball is once again trying to do the thing for which he is famous. It has been three years since Ohtani did his two-way schtick without limits. How differently things look in Dodger blue compared to Angel red will be interesting to follow. Anaheim let Ohtani do whatever he wanted; Los Angeles has already been much more hands-on. How will the Dodgers limit his workload? Will his offensive output decline now that he’s working two jobs? Can he continue to do both at such a high level now that he’s a few years older? Who knows, but I can’t wait to find out.