MLB Goes Netflix

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🧾 ON DECK TODAY

1️⃣ 🔥 First Pitch — The Deal is Done! 💰
2️⃣ 🟢 The Good — Field of Dreams 🌾
3️⃣ 🧨 The Bad — The Trade 🕊️
4️⃣ 🛑 The Ugly — Friar Sale🌴
5️⃣ 🍌 One for the Road — Going Bananas 🙃

🔥💰 First Pitch — The Deal is Done!

Thank God! Our long national nightmare is over 😎— MLB’s new media deal is complete.

After months of wrangling and coming off a ratings bonanza in ‘25, the league finally inked fresh contracts with ESPN, NBC, and Netflix.

Now try finding that game. Starting in 2026, baseball will bounce between six dance partners — Fox, TNT, Apple, ESPN, NBC, and Netflix. Quite the spread of baseball, Commish!

It’s not a TV deal — it’s a relay race.

Let’s see:

📺 Netflix gets the Home Run Derby + Opening Night exclusive
📺 NBC grabs Sunday Night Baseball + Wildcard Series
📺 ESPN gets midweek + rights to sell MLB.TV
📺 Apple holds Friday Night Baseball
📺 FOX owns regular season + All-Star Game + October
📺 TBS continues Tuesdays + Divisional Series + LCS

Welcome to MLB’s new ecosystem:
more platforms, more confusion, more eyeballs.

And honestly? Congrats to Manfred — somehow, he pulled it off.

💸 The QO Club

A lot’s been made about those so-called Qualifying Offers — that $22 million one-year deal teams dangle in front of their pending free agents.

The logic: if the player rejects it and signs elsewhere, the team gets a draft pick as a consolation prize.

Since 2012, only about 10% of players have accepted the QO.
Until this year.

Thirteen players were given qualifying offers in 2025.
Four said yes.

💸 Brandon Woodruff (Brewers)
💸 Shota Imanaga (Cubs)
💸 Gleyber Torres (Tigers)
💸 Trent Grisham (Yankees)

Why? Simple — none of those guys were sniffing $22 million on the open market.

And if you’re Trent Grisham, making $22M to play in the Bronx — life’s good.

Might’ve torpedoed the Yankees’ shot at Cody Bellinger — but that’s on them.

After 2026, who knows what the free-agent landscape even looks like?
You don’t wanna be the one left standing when the music stops.

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🟢 THE GOOD — Field of Dreams

And with this week’s new media deal, there’s one added bonus — the return of the Field of Dreams game.

⚾️ The corn’s calling again.
That’s right — baseball’s packing its bags for Dyersville once more. The Twins will host the Phillies on August 13, 2026, marking MLB’s return to the Field of Dreams site for the first time since 2022.

💭 Same magic, new lens.
The big twist: the game will stream on Netflix, part of MLB’s fresh partnership that brings the sport’s cinematic heart straight to the world’s biggest living rooms. Small-town nostalgia meets global reach — cornfields meet content strategy.

If you’ve never visited Dyersville, the site of the park, and the movie, Field of Dreams, it’s a must-see. Not promising you’ll catch Kevin Costner walking out of the cornfields, but it’s still baseball heaven.

🕰️ If you build it, they’ll binge.
Dyersville’s back on the map — and this time, it’s streaming worldwide.

🧨 THE BAD — The Trade

Seriously, Baltimore — did you really just get fleeced by the Angels?

The Angels and O’s pulled off a 1-for-1 this week: Taylor Ward heads to Baltimore, while pitcher Grayson Rodriguez — fresh off elbow surgery and a lost 2025 season — goes to Anaheim.

Here’s the deal: when healthy, Rodriguez has ace potential. He’s expected to be ready for 2026 and isn’t a free agent until after 2029. For the Angels, that’s a win-win — a controllable arm with upside and time to spare.

As for Ward? He’ll be a free agent after 2026. A one-year rental for Baltimore.

Was he really the missing piece for the O’s in that bloodbath of an AL East?

Give it two years — this could age like spoiled milk for Baltimore and like a steal for Anaheim.

🔴 THE UGLY — Friar Sale

They were a blast — loud, fearless, always swinging at their rich neighbors up north.

Yeah, the Padres gave San Diego some of its best baseball ever. Four playoff trips in six years. Packed houses. SD was alive.

But those days are gone. The team’s headed for a sale, and every day brings a new wrinkle.

Why sell? More than $400 million in debt. Can they still field a competitive roster?Those 3 long-term contracts — Machado, Tatis, Bogaerts — aren’t gonna age well.

The late Peter Seidler spent like a man chasing the parade. But now the bills are due. Payroll cuts? Almost certain.

Yeah, it sure was fun.
But the bills are due.

🍌ONE FOR THE ROAD - Jackie Bradley Jr. Goes Full Bananas

🎷 Baseball’s loudest, wildest experiment just landed a former champ.

The Savannah Bananas — the TikTok-scorching, sold-out-everywhere show that turned baseball into a carnival — have their first full-time ex-MLB player: Jackie Bradley Jr.

⚾️ The 11-year big leaguer and 2018 World Series champ was drafted No. 1 overall by the Indianapolis Clowns in the first-ever Banana Ball player draft, becoming the first major leaguer to commit full time.

💛 The Clowns’ return is pure baseball magic — a team that once signed Hank Aaron and bridged baseball from the Negro Leagues to the majors, now reborn in Banana Ball’s 60-game championship league launching in 2026.

🎪 Bradley’s daughter is a Bananas superfan, which led to a Fenway cameo and a call from Bananas founder Jesse Cole. Now JBJ’s suiting up for the game’s most chaotic joyride.

Bradley says, “It’s about growing the game — and having fun doing it.”

🔥 If Banana Ball keeps luring names like Bradley, this might be the start of something wild — a new end-of-career runway for big leaguers and maybe the most fun baseball revolution yet.

—
John Boxley
High N Tight