6:00 PM ET Moments after Michael Brantley swung through the last strike of the 2019 World Series, the reticent Stephen Strasburg struggled to hold back tears as he absorbed the Washington Nationals‘ standing as baseball champions, and in the handful of words he mustered, the pitcher referred to Washington, D.C., as home. Free agency is
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3:50 PM ET Well, the hot stove is officially lit. An eye-popping $245 million deal for ace Stephen Strasburg to return to the Nationals got the fun started on the first day of baseball’s winter meetings in San Diego. As the defending champions bring back their World Series MVP, we asked ESPN.com’s Bradford Doolittle, Sam
4:40 PM ET SAN DIEGO — Speaking to minor league baseball’s executives about a controversial proposal to contract 42 teams, MILB president and CEO Pat O’Conner delivered a blistering rebuke of the plan. “We cannot allow ourselves to be splintered for this next deal,” O’Conner said. “No one’s future is safe, unless all of your
2:50 PM ET Stephen Strasburg and the Washington Nationals have reached agreement on a seven-year, $245 million deal, sources told ESPN’s Jeff Passan on Monday. That deal surpasses the previous high for a pitcher’s contract, set by David Price when he signed a seven-year, $217 million deal with the Boston Red Sox. Strasburg also has
1:58 PM ET ESPN News Services BOSTON — Pete Frates, a former college baseball player whose battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease helped inspire the ALS ice bucket challenge that has raised more than $200 million worldwide, died Monday. He was 34. Frates died peacefully, surrounded by his family, they said in a statement. “A natural
9:28 AM ET A pair of Chicago Cubs interleague games against the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees will feature on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball 2020 first-half slate, as announced by the network Monday. The Cubs are hosting the Red Sox and visiting the Yankees in back-to-back weeks in June, with games on June
9:49 AM ET Jeff PassanESPN Close ESPN MLB insiderAuthor of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” SAN DIEGO — The winter meetings, once the domain of blockbuster trades and megabucks free-agent signings, have in recent years gone into the sort of hibernation typically associated with the season. They’ve
8:33 PM ET Associated Press SANTO DOMINGO — Former Red Sox slugger David Ortiz made his first public appearance in the Dominican Republic on Sunday nearly six months after he was shot in what authorities called a case of mistaken identity. The Dominican-born superstar was greeted by a standing ovation and raucous cheers when he
8:31 PM ET Associated Press SAN DIEGO — Marvin Miller, the union leader who revolutionized baseball by empowering players to negotiate multimillion-dollar contracts and to play for teams of their own choosing, was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame on Sunday along with former St. Louis Cardinals catcher Ted Simmons. After falling short in his
Dec 6, 2019 On Sunday night, we will (or will not) have some new Hall of Famers. We probably will, given the results of the recent deliberations of the current version of the Hall’s veterans committee. Those folks* will convene in San Diego this weekend, and they’ve got some serious work to do — debating