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🗞️ LATEST HEADLINES
⚾️ Jays sign Cease — 7-year, $210 million deal
🏟️ Rendon buyout talks — Halos talking buyout for the final year of his deal
💰 Skenes record payout — Rookie righthander earns $3.4M in pre-arbitration bonus pool
🧢 Imai won’t join Dodgers — Japanese ace says he wants to beat LA
📈 Ohtani in WBC — Shohei confirms he’ll play for Japan in the next World Baseball Classic
🧾 ON DECK TODAY
1️⃣ 🔥 First Pitch — The Hot Stove ⚾️
2️⃣ 🟢 The Good — Tatsuya Imai 🧢
3️⃣ 🧨 The Bad — George’s Son, Hal 👎
4️⃣ 🛑 The Ugly — Anthony Rendon 🙈
5️⃣ 🚙 One For the Road — Curtis Pride ⚾️
🔥FIRST PITCH — Hot Stove!💰
We’ve had our first big free-agent signing of the offseason: Dylan Cease to the Blue Jays — seven years, $210 million.
Hmm. Well, he has been consistent — 30 starts a season for the past five years.
That’s the bar? Thirty starts? A warm body every fifth day?
Yes, Cease has — five straight 200-strikeout seasons, with a mid-to-upper 90s heater. Solid numbers. But if Toronto’s expecting a big-game pitcher, good luck.
In 2025, Cease went 8–12 with a 4.55 ERA, and against the Dodgers over the past two seasons, he was 2–4 with a 5.05 ERA, including a brutal showing in the 2024 LDS.
Bottom line: The Blue Jays got a guy who’ll take the ball every fifth day, rack up his 200 Ks — as your number 3 or 4 starter.
Worth $30 million a year? You tell me.
Now… about this “blockbuster.”
Some folks are labeling the Semien–Nimmo trade a blockbuster.
The Mets sending Brandon Nimmo — career .260, 135 homers — to Texas for Marcus Semien, a .253 lifetime hitter.
That’s a solid trade for both teams.
But a blockbuster? Come on. That word used to mean something.
A blockbuster is 2022, when the Padres landed Juan Soto and Josh Bell from the Nationals for CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, Luke Voit, James Wood, Robert Hassell, and Jarlin Susana.
Or 2020, when the Dodgers stole Mookie Betts and David Price from the Red Sox for Adam Verdugo and two lotto tickets.
Those were blockbusters. They shook the room.
So yeah — call the Semien–Nimmo swap whatever you want.
Just don’t call it a blockbuster.
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🟢 THE GOOD — Tatsuya Imai
For everyone convinced the Dodgers are ruining baseball by collecting every Japanese star like they’re Pokémon cards — relax. Not every ace dreams of living in Dodger blue.
Tatsuya Imai, the newest NPB standout to hit the posting market, says he has zero interest in joining Ohtani, Yamamoto, or Sasaki in Los Angeles.
Why?
Because he’d rather beat them.
“Winning against a team like that and becoming a world champion would be the most valuable thing in my life. If anything, I’d rather take them down.”
— Tatsuya Imai
Take. Them. Down.
Those are fightin’ words.
Imai isn’t huge at 5'11", but the stuff is loud: mid-90s fastball, with a changeup, and splitter. His 2025 line? A ridiculous 1.92 ERA with 178 strikeouts — and MLB teams are already circling.
Because in baseball — as in life — the rule never changes:
To be the champ, you gotta beat the champ.
🧨 THE BAD — George’s Son, Hal
Is Hal Steinbrenner the owner of the New York Yankees — or the Tampa Bay Rays? Seriously.
In an interview, Hal said it would be “ideal” if the Yankees’ payroll dropped from $319 million next season.
Ideal?
Yankees fans nearly spit out their morning coffee.
This is the NEW YORK YANKEES — a team worth $8 billion, pulling in roughly $700 million in annual revenue — and Hal’s talking like it’s time to start clipping coupons.
The Bronx Bombers under George Steinbrenner were always about bold moves and bigger checks.
Come on, Hal. The Pittsburgh Pirates talk budget analysis and “financial flexibility.” Not the Yankees.
New York hasn’t won a title since 2009, and the heir to the Yankee throne thinks the secret sauce is… belt-tightening?
Imagine telling ‘Georgie’ that the road back to the Canyon of Heroes starts with cutting payroll.
Somewhere, The Boss is flipping a desk right now.
🔴 THE UGLY — Anthony Rendon
Is the Anthony Rendon saga finally staggering to the finish line?
The team is reportedly negotiating a buyout for the final year of his deal. And calling that contract a disaster is like calling the Grand Canyon a “pretty big hole.”
Seven years. $245 million. One good season.
Then? Injuries, vanishing acts, and vibes that screamed “I’d rather be anywhere else.”
“It’s (baseball) never been a top priority for me. This is a job. I do this to make a living.”
Yeah. Nothing fires up the boys like hearing the $245 million man say baseball ranks somewhere behind yardwork and renewing his driver’s license.
He played just over 200 games in the last five seasons — while pocketing $35 million a year. For a guy not playing, not producing, and not exactly radiating passion, Rendon became a full-time embarrassment in Anaheim.
If the buyout happens, one thing’s certain:
Nobody in Orange County is holding a farewell parade.
🚙 ONE FOR THE ROAD – Curtis Pride
Finally — a story that actually inspires.
Making it in pro sports is a moonshot. Only a sliver of players ever reach the big leagues, and even fewer last long enough to be remembered.
Curtis Pride was born deaf. The sounds we take for granted — the chatter, the crowd noise, the crack of the bat — none of it was part of his world.
And still, he found a way.
His first big-league hit? September 17, 1993. Pride, with the Montreal Expos, ripped a two-run double.
“I was standing at second base. There were 45,000 people cheering, and I didn’t know they were cheering for me.”
His third-base coach motioned for him to wave his helmet.
“That’s what I did. It was very emotional. I tried to keep a straight face — to let people know I’m serious. I’m not a one-hit wonder or a charity case. I’m here to stay.”
And he did.
Across 11 seasons and six teams, Pride logged more than 400 games and 20 home runs — a living reminder that grit can silence doubt.
It wasn’t easy. In 1992, at just 23, stuck in Double-A and worn down from a brutal year — rough season, bad breakup, teammates riding him — he was ready to quit.
But his parents encouraged him to stay.
“My dad told me he didn’t raise me to be a quitter,” Pride said. “He wanted me to finish the season.”
He did. And that winter, Pride worked at his old high school in Maryland, helping kids with learning disabilities. None of them knew he was a pro ballplayer — not until one teacher let it slip.
“They asked, ‘How can you play baseball? You’re deaf.’ I told them — no matter what disabilities we have, we all have goals and dreams. Don’t ever let anyone tell you what you can’t do.”
That moment lit the fuse. The next year, Pride got the call.
His story is told in the new book I Felt the Cheers: The Remarkable Silent Life of Curtis Pride — a fitting title for a player who never needed the noise to make an impact.
“I’m just very thankful for the wonderful people in my life who helped make that story — an amazing dream,” he said.
A dream that reminds us what this game is really about: perseverance, pride, and the power to keep swinging, no matter what you can’t hear.
A lesson for anyone who’s ever been told they can’t.
John Boxley
High N Tight
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