Category: Uncategorized (Page 1 of 2)

By Ryan Bologna
Feb. 18, 2025
Clutch­Points

The Toron­to Blue Jays and star first base­man Vladimir Guer­rero Jr. were not able to agree on a con­tract exten­sion before the slug­ger’s set dead­line, and he will be hit­ting free agency next off­sea­son, leav­ing many won­der­ing if he will be trad­ed at some point either this spring or in the sum­mer before the trade deadline.

After adding Antho­ny San­tander this off­sea­son, Toron­to does seem intent on con­tend­ing in 2025. It could be the last ride, not only with Vladimir Guer­rero Jr. but Bo Bichette as well. Both are sched­uled to be free agents and if the Blue Jays fall out of the play­off race, they could essen­tial­ly con­trol the trade dead­line with two of the biggest chips that buy­ing teams would like to acquire.

With that being said, let’s get to the top trade des­ti­na­tions for Blue Jays slug­ger Vladimir Guer­rero Jr.

Boston Red Sox

The Boston Red Sox are one of the top teams from a vari­ety of per­spec­tives, as not only do they have the prospect cap­i­tal to make a trade, but they are report­ed­ly one of the top suit­ors to sign Guer­rero in free agency.

The Red Sox are loaded with prospects, with Roman Antho­ny Kris­t­ian Camp­bell and Marce­lo May­er head­lin­ing their cur­rent crop. How­ev­er, they could like­ly do a deal with­out includ­ing any of those three, even after mak­ing the trade for Gar­rett Cro­chet ear­li­er this offseason.

Short­stop Franklin Arias could head­line a deal for the Red Sox from a prospect per­spec­tive, but acquir­ing Vladimir Guer­rero Jr. would like­ly mean that Tris­ton Casas’ days in Boston are done. Get­ting Casas in a trade involv­ing Guer­rero would be a way for the Blue Jays to strike a bal­ance between build­ing for the long-term and win­ning now.

The Red Sox are hop­ing to enter true con­tention soon with the sign­ing of Alex Breg­man and their young play­ers. Adding Guer­rero could make sense this sum­mer before the dead­line if the team lives up to expec­ta­tions, and it would give Guer­rero a taste of what play­ing in Boston is like before hit­ting free agency.

New York Mets

When it comes to finan­cial might, the New York Mets are arguably at the top of the list in Major League Base­ball, with the Los Ange­les Dodgers being the oth­er team in the con­ver­sa­tion. The Mets have already been list­ed as a poten­tial top suit­or for Guer­rero next off­sea­son, as Steve Cohen, David Stearns and Co. could be look­ing for young, right-hand­ed slug­ger to pair with Juan Soto.

The pres­ence of Pete Alon­so com­pli­cates things a bit in 2025, but he could sim­ply slide to des­ig­nat­ed hit­ter in the short term. In fact, the Blue Jays report­ed­ly con­sid­ered doing that this off­sea­son when they pur­sued Alonso.

Stearns is try­ing to build a sus­tain­able win­ner with the Mets, but the orga­ni­za­tion does have prospects to poten­tial­ly deal. Some­one like Bran­don Sproat or Jett Williams could head­line a deal.

When it comes to trade suit­ors for Guer­rero, the Red Sox and Mets stick out above the rest.

Seattle Mariners

The Seat­tle Mariners have been a frus­trat­ing team to fol­low over the last few years, as they have a young team that should be aug­ment­ed with tal­ent. The pitch­ing staff is stacked with tal­ent, and Julio Rodriguez car­ries an offense that oth­er­wise has strug­gled. The team could use anoth­er impact bat, but they have not spent sig­nif­i­cant mon­ey in that area.

Seat­tle in all like­li­hood would not be able to re-sign Guer­rero, but they have prospects to poten­tial­ly make a deal. If the Mariners are in con­tention to win the Amer­i­can League West, they could decide to take the leap with Guer­rero and try to make a run in 2025. Prospects like Michael Arroyo or Jon­ny Farme­lo stick out as options to include in a trade.

Detroit Tigers

The Detroit Tigers are one of the up-and-com­ing teams in base­ball, and have the prospect cap­i­tal to make a deal. They were unable to land Alex Breg­man in free agency, but their pur­suit of him was aggres­sive. It is not known if the Tigers would be able to com­pete with the Mets or Red Sox finan­cial­ly, but per­haps trad­ing for Guer­rero dur­ing the sum­mer could give them a bit of an edge in the winter.

Colt Kei­th is cur­rent­ly the Tigers’ first base­man, but Guer­rero would obvi­ous­ly be a big upgrade. He would also bal­ance out a line­up that has a lot of left-hand­ed hit­ters. Some­one like Bryce Rain­er could be includ­ed in a deal, or Thay­ron Liranzo.

In a very winnable Amer­i­can League Cen­tral divi­sion, the Tigers could make a state­ment this sum­mer by acquir­ing Guer­rero if they are in contention.

New York Yankees

The Yan­kees are list­ed as one of the top poten­tial free agent des­ti­na­tions for Guer­rero, so they have to be on this list in some form. They do not have the prospect cap­i­tal that oth­er teams do, how­ev­er. That is why the Red Sox and Mets are ranked ahead of them in this article.

The sce­nario in which the Yan­kees end up acquir­ing Guer­rero in a trade would be if teams like the Mariners and Tigers do not have the appetite to make the deal for a rental they like­ly will not be able to re-sign and the Mets and Red Sox decide to wait until free agency to pur­sue him.

In a trade, the Yan­kees would almost sure­ly keep Jas­son Dominguez out of con­ver­sa­tions, as they are try­ing to con­tend in 2025 and he is slat­ed to be the start­ing left field­er. Oth­er prospects like George Lom­bard Jr., Rod­er­ick Arias or Spencer Jones could be includ­ed in the deal. How­ev­er, there are con­flict­ing views on Jones specif­i­cal­ly due to his high strike­out rate in the minors.

The Yan­kees will like­ly do their due dili­gence if Guer­rero is made avail­able in a trade, espe­cial­ly if Paul Gold­schmidt is not per­form­ing. How­ev­er, they like­ly will not be able to out bid oth­er teams’ prospect packages.

By Ryan Bologna
Feb. 10, 2025
New York Sports Nation

When the New York Yan­kees lost Juan Soto to the New York Mets, they swift­ly piv­ot­ed and signed left-hand­ed start­ing pitch­er Max Fried to an eight-year, $218 mil­lion contract.

Oth­er notable moves, like acquir­ing Cody Bellinger, Devin Williams and Paul Gold­schmidt, were made to fill out the roster.

How­ev­er, Fried is eas­i­ly the most sig­nif­i­cant sign­ing for the Yan­kees this off­sea­son, and they are bet­ting on him to essen­tial­ly play the role of Robin to Ger­rit Cole as the No. 2 start­ing pitcher.

Fried is a bit of a unique pitch­er, so let’s take a deep dive into who Fried is and his out­look for 2025.

Fried comes to the Bronx after play­ing eight sea­sons with the Atlanta Braves. His career ERA+ mark of 140, accord­ing to Base­ball Ref­er­ence, puts him in the upper ech­e­lon of start­ing pitch­ers dur­ing his career. Fried, how­ev­er, achieves these great results in a dif­fer­ent way than oth­er top pitch­ers. For exam­ple, Corbin Burnes and Blake Snell, the oth­er two top start­ing pitch­ers who hit free agency this off­sea­son, have his­tor­i­cal­ly thrived by strik­ing out a lot of batters.

When look­ing at Fried’s Stat­cast num­bers, his chase rate (28.9%), whiff rate (24.1%), and strike­out rate (23.2%) all rank around aver­age. Not bad, but cer­tain­ly not his call­ing card. Fried is elite when it comes to aver­age exit veloc­i­ty (86.3 mph), bar­rel rate (5.0%), hard-hit rate (34.6%) and ground ball rate (59.2%). He was in the 95th per­centile for aver­age exit veloc­i­ty and the 96th per­centile for ground ball rate in 2024. In short, Fried lim­its hard con­tact and keeps the ball on the ground. That is usu­al­ly a good recipe.

When tak­ing this into account, it is easy to see why the Yan­kees have pri­or­i­tized defense this off­sea­son, espe­cial­ly in the infield. Gold­schmidt should be an upgrade at first base defen­sive­ly, and the depar­ture of Gley­ber Tor­res fits this mold as well. To max­i­mize the Yan­kees’ $218 mil­lion invest­ment in Fried, strong infield defense is a requirement.

Fried boasts a unique fast­ball, which moves in on right-hand­ed bat­ters. It aver­ages around 94 mph, so he does not rely on high veloc­i­ty. He also fea­tures a cut­ter, slid­er, curve­ball and change­up pre­dom­i­nant­ly. By not rely­ing much on veloc­i­ty and fea­tur­ing a diverse pitch mix, many believe that Fried could age well over the course of his contract.

In 2024, Fried did miss some time due to left fore­arm neu­ri­tis, which can be a pre­cur­sor to Tom­my John surgery. That is a con­cern, but Fried has been most­ly a reli­able pitch­er innings-wise in his career so far. In addi­tion, pitch­ers like Zack Wheel­er (2022) and Zac Gallen (2021) have suf­fered fore­arm injuries in the past with­out much fur­ther trou­ble since.

In 29 starts in 2024, Fried post­ed a 3.25 ERA, which is the high­est mark he has had since 2019, when he had a 4.02 ERA, accord­ing to Fan­Graphs. He had ERAs of 2.48 and 2.55 in 2022 and 2023.

The Yan­kees would sign up for that lev­el of per­for­mance from Fried in 2025, but there is rea­son to believe he could improve from last season.

Fried is usu­al­ly a slow starter, so in the first few games of his sea­son, he like­ly is not going to per­form at his peak. After return­ing from his fore­arm injury, Fried took some time to get back into form once again. Post­ing a 3.25 ERA despite those stretch­es is impressive.

In addi­tion to this, Fried’s change­up was not as good as it usu­al­ly is in 2024. Hit­ter had xwO­BA marks of .216, .206, and .213 against that pitch in 2021, 2022 and 2023, accord­ing to Stat­cast. In 2024, hit­ters had an xwO­BA of .286 against Fried’s change­up. If 2024 proves to be an out­lier and Fried regains the feel for his change­up that he had in pri­or sea­sons, his ERA could creep back towards 3.00.

As with any start­ing pitch­er the Yan­kees sign, there is a ques­tion of their fit in Yan­kee Sta­di­um. Luck­i­ly, Fried Tru­ist Park has a Park Fac­tor of 100 over the past three sea­sons, the exact same rat­ing as Yan­kee Sta­di­um. How­ev­er, Yan­kee Sta­di­um had a 119 home run fac­tor, as opposed to Tru­ist Park’s num­ber of 105.

It comes as no sur­prise that Yan­kee Sta­di­um is much more friend­ly for home runs, so Fried is like­ly to give up more than he has in the past. Still, the offen­sive envi­ron­ments are sim­i­lar over­all, and Fried’s skillset direct­ly com­bats the most hit­ter-friend­ly aspect of Yan­kee Stadium.

As dis­cussed above, Fried gen­er­ates a ton of soft con­tact and ground balls. That is a good way to avoid giv­ing up home runs in any ball­park. The num­bers back that up, as Fried’s HR/9 marks have been at 0.81, 0.58, 0.81 and 0.67 over the last four seasons.

Fried is still like­ly to give up more home runs than before, but when com­par­ing to the Yan­kees’ last big start­ing pitch­er sign­ing, Car­los Rodon, he is much bet­ter equipped to pitch in the Bronx. Rodon has HR/9 marks of 2.10 and 1.59 in his first two years with the Yan­kees, accord­ing to Fan­Graphs. He also had a ground ball rate of 34.6% in 2024, which was in the eighth per­centile in all of MLB. Fried is essen­tial­ly the oppo­site type of pitch­er as Rodon.

The Yan­kees are head­ing into 2025 with arguably the best pitch­ing staff they have had in a long time, and the addi­tion of Fried is arguably the biggest rea­son why.

By Ryan Bologna
Jan. 21, 2025
New York Sports Nation

With the New York Yan­kees los­ing out on Roki Sasa­ki to the Los Ange­les Dodgers, many are won­der­ing how they can make the Bronx more appeal­ing for Japan­ese play­ers in the future.

The Yan­kees have now lost out on Shohei Ohtani, Yoshi­nobu Yamamo­to and Sasa­ki, and that is a dis­ap­point­ing fact for a lot of fans.

For many, the next name to keep an eye on is infield­er Mune­ta­ka Muraka­mi from the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.

Yan­kees announc­er Michael Kay even recent­ly said that he knows the orga­ni­za­tion would like to have him.

“Now, the slug­ging first base­man Muraka­mi is going to be a free agent at the end of this year,” Kay said on his radio show, accord­ing to Jim­my Has­cup of NJ.com. “I know the Yan­kees would love to have him. That’s why they don’t want to sign a long-term deal for a first base­man. Are they going to be able to get him, or is he going to end up on the West Coast?”

Muraka­mi is set to come over to MLB in 2026, and the Yan­kees’ sign­ing Paul Gold­schmidt to a one-year, $12.5 mil­lion con­tract does line up to leave first base open for the Japan­ese slugger.

How­ev­er, there are some real con­cerns when it comes to Murakami’s game as far as how he will trans­late to MLB. It is unknown if Kay’s report tru­ly rep­re­sents the Yan­kees’ mind­set, but Murakami’s 2025 sea­son is vital to how much inter­est teams will have in him as a free agent.

Muraka­mi right­ful­ly got a lot of atten­tion for his 2021 and 2022 sea­sons. In 2021, he post­ed a slash line of .278/.408/566 with 39 home runs, only to put up an even bet­ter sea­son in 2022 with a .318/.458/.711 slash line and 56 home runs, accord­ing to Base­ball Reference.

The 2022 sea­son was per­fect­ly timed with the 2023 World Base­ball Clas­sic, where Muraka­mi had mul­ti­ple big moments. He hit a walk-off dou­ble in the semi­fi­nals against Team Mex­i­co and then hit a game-tying home run against Team USA.

Muraka­mi cer­tain­ly left an impres­sion on many who nev­er saw him play before the World Base­ball Clas­sic in 2023. As a result, he has been viewed as the next star slug­ger from Japan to come to MLB. How­ev­er, many fans have not tracked Murakami’s per­for­mance in Japan since then, so it is easy to see why some are miss­ing the con­cerns that have pre­sent­ed them­selves over the last two seasons.

In 2023 and 2024, Muraka­mi post­ed slash lines of .256/.375/.500 and .244/.379/.472. The regres­sion itself is not a con­cern, as the last two years have marked a dead-ball era for the NPB. How­ev­er, the con­cern is regard­ing Murakami’s strike­out rates, which have spiked about 10% in 2023 and 2024 com­pared to his dom­i­nant sea­sons in 2021 and 2022.

As you can see below, Murakami’s strike­out rates have spiked sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the last two seasons:

• 2021: 21.63%
• 2022: 20.92%
• 2023: 28.14%
• 2024: 29.51%

In addi­tion to this, Murakami’s in-zone con­tact rate of 74.1% (as of July 9, 2024) was by far the worst in NPB, accord­ing to Yuri Kara­sawa of World Base­ball Net­work. It is pos­si­ble that the com­po­si­tion of the base­balls in 2023 and 2024 is play­ing a part in the increase in strike­outs. Still, this type of pro­file will remind many of play­ers like Joey Gal­lo, who had sev­er­al suc­cess­ful years with the Texas Rangers but fell off a cliff when he was trad­ed to the Yan­kees in 2021.

With MLB pitch­ers throw­ing at faster veloc­i­ties and with bet­ter stuff when it comes to move­ment, there is rea­son for skep­ti­cism when it comes to Muraka­mi lim­it­ing strike­outs enough to be a pro­duc­tive hitter.

The oth­er com­po­nent of all of this is that Muraka­mi is not viewed as a good defend­er. The expec­ta­tion is that he will be a first base­man or des­ig­nat­ed hit­ter type of play­er in MLB, which puts a lot more pres­sure on him to be an elite offen­sive play­er. That fact could take the Dodgers out of the pic­ture, how­ev­er, with Ohtani and Fred­die Free­man on the ros­ter for the fore­see­able future.

The good news is that Murakami’s pow­er is obvi­ous, as you can see with his home run num­bers in NPB over the years, his mon­ster home run in the World Base­ball Clas­sic and hard-hit rates that remain strong despite his over­all regres­sion in 2023 and 2024.

When Muraka­mi con­nects, good things hap­pen. He still has the upside of being a very good hit­ter in MLB, but there are red flags. If he mit­i­gates the strike­outs and comes with­in even a shout­ing dis­tance of his 2022 sea­son in 2025, then he could be in for a big pay­day. If he per­forms more in line with his 2023 and 2024 sea­sons, the Yan­kees need to have real­is­tic expec­ta­tions for him at the MLB lev­el if they do plan on sign­ing him.

By Ryan Bologna
Dec. 14, 2022
New York Sports Nation

The Yan­kees got their biggest move of the off­sea­son done by re-sign­ing Aaron Judge to a 9‑year $360 mil­lion con­tract, and now it’s about improv­ing oth­er areas of the team.

Bri­an Cash­man men­tioned that he was tar­get­ing right field, left field and start­ing pitch­ing at the begin­ning of the off­sea­son. Right field is obvi­ous­ly tak­en care of. Unless you have been liv­ing under a rock, you know that the Yan­kees have been heav­i­ly involved in the Car­los Rodon sweep­stakes. They are viewed as the favorites to land Rodon, who has had two real­ly good sea­sons back-to-back. It is a wait­ing game in regards to that signing.

The left field spot is much more wide open. Cash­man has said pub­licly that he would like to bring back Andrew Ben­in­ten­di, who is com­ing off of wrist surgery, so there is an inher­ent risk there. The team has also been con­nect­ed to Michael Con­for­to, who sat out all of last year due to injury. The third free agent they were most-con­nect­ed to was Japan­ese out­field­er Masa­ta­ka Yoshi­da, who signed with the Red Sox and has con­cerns on the defen­sive side. With how tough it is to play left field at Yan­kee Sta­di­um, it nev­er made much sense for the Yan­kees to invest sig­nif­i­cant mon­ey in Yoshida.

The Yan­kees and Dia­mond­backs have been con­nect­ed in trade talks, par­tic­u­lar­ly for out­field­ers like Corbin Car­roll, Daulton Varsho and Alek Thomas. All of the poten­tial trade can­di­dates from the Dia­mond­backs are young and would cost a decent amount of prospect capital.

The most inter­est­ing team the Yan­kees have been linked with recent­ly is the Min­neso­ta Twins. The name Max Kepler has specif­i­cal­ly come up in reports. Kepler peaked in 2019 with a 122 wRC+, fol­lowed by 109 in 2020, 97 in 2021 and 95 in 2022.

While Kepler’s pro­duc­tion has declined over the last cou­ple of years, his advanced met­rics show rea­son for opti­mism, espe­cial­ly if he were play­ing in Yan­kee Sta­di­um. Accord­ing to base­ball savant, Kepler ranked right around league aver­age in bar­rel rate, aver­age exit veloc­i­ty and hard-hit rate in 2022, but was well above-aver­age in expect­ed bat­ting aver­age, strike­out rate, chase rate and walk rate.

You will also see that Kepler grades out very well in defen­sive stats like outs above aver­age, out­field­er jump and arm strength. He also had nine defen­sive runs saved in the out­field in 2022. Even if Kepler is just about league-aver­age with his bat, he pro­vides val­ue because of his strength on defense.

As men­tioned above, Kepler would ben­e­fit from play­ing at Yan­kee Sta­di­um. It is easy to see by tak­ing a quick look at his spray chart.

Many of those dou­bles to right would fly over the fence at Yan­kee Sta­di­um. Kepler hit nine home runs in 2022, and play­ing in the Bronx would have added 14 home runs to his total.

While Kepler isn’t a super­star by any means, and he prob­a­bly won’t pro­duce like he did back in 2019 on offense, he could still be a sol­id addi­tion for the Yan­kees in 2023.

By Ryan Bologna
Oct. 18, 2023
Clutch­Points

New York Yan­kees short­stop Antho­ny Volpe has been named a final­ist for the Gold Glove Award for short­stop in the Amer­i­can League, Rawl­ings announced on Twitter.

Vet­er­an short­stops Corey Sea­ger of the Texas Rangers and Car­los Cor­rea of the Min­neso­ta Twins were the oth­er two final­ists named for the award. It was a sur­prise to some that Kansas City Roy­als short­stop Bob­by Witt Jr. was not among the final­ists after a strong defen­sive season.

Volpe being named a final­ist for the Gold Glove may come as a sur­prise to some. His offen­sive per­for­mance left some to be desired in his rook­ie sea­son. How­ev­er, when look­ing at the defen­sive met­rics, Volpe put togeth­er a strong season.

The rook­ie Volpe record­ed 16 defen­sive runs saved, which was tied for the most in the Amer­i­can League, accord­ing to Fan­Graphs. Outs above aver­age did not rate him as high­ly, as he record­ed just one, and he did com­mit 17 errors.

Sea­ger had five defen­sive runs saved with neg­a­tive two outs above aver­age and eight errors, accord­ing to Fan­Graphs. Cor­rea had neg­a­tive three defen­sive runs saved with neg­a­tive one outs above aver­age. The for­mer plat­inum glove win­ner had a down year defen­sive­ly, but he still clear­ly has a lot of respect from the vot­ers for how strong he was in pri­or seasons.

Out of the final­ists, Volpe has the strongest stats. It would not be a sur­prise to see him win the award, but Sea­ger and Cor­rea have strong defen­sive rep­u­ta­tions, so they could get the nod.

Witt, who as men­tioned before, was arguably snubbed, had neg­a­tive six defen­sive runs saved, 14 outs above aver­age and 12 errors, accord­ing to Fan­Graphs. So Witt has some con­flict­ing rat­ings based on those stats, but the high amount of outs above aver­age is very impressive.

Regard­less, Volpe did put togeth­er a sol­id defen­sive sea­son and is deserv­ing of the nom­i­na­tion, even though it might have sur­prised some. He still has things to clean up, like poten­tial­ly bring­ing the error count down, but it was a strong rook­ie sea­son on the defen­sive side of the ball.

By Ryan Bologna
July 15, 2022
Only Play­ers

The crash of the cryp­tocur­ren­cy mar­ket has been well doc­u­ment­ed. Unprece­dent­ed down­turns have Bit­coin, the world’s biggest dig­i­tal coin, down 70 per­cent from its high in Novem­ber 2021. But what exact­ly is caus­ing con­cerns for pop­u­lar cur­ren­cies like Bit­coin and Ethereum? It’s a bit more com­pli­cat­ed than many think. The sus­tain­abil­i­ty of cryp­to min­ing has always been in ques­tion. Ener­gy bills con­tin­ue to stay high as the mar­ket keeps falling. The sit­u­a­tion is tough to eval­u­ate so here’s every­thing you need to know.

To grasp the sit­u­a­tion, you’ll need to under­stand what min­ing is. For exam­ple, when a Bit­coin is trad­ed, some­where a com­put­er needs to com­plete a com­pu­ta­tion that records the trans­ac­tion that hap­pened. These com­put­ers or “rigs” con­tain graph­ics cards that make them equipped to car­ry out that task. This process is referred to as “proof of work.” It is a very sim­i­lar process for oth­er currencies.

So why does this take so much ener­gy? These rigs run around the clock, and when the machine takes as much ener­gy to run as an air con­di­tion­er, that adds up. Min­ing busi­ness­es also have rooms full of rigs, tak­ing up elec­tric­i­ty and cre­at­ing heat. Know­ing that, it is easy to see why sus­tain­abil­i­ty issues exist. To paint the pic­ture even fur­ther, cryp­to min­ing con­sumed about as much pow­er as Argenti­na even with the mar­ket crash.

Most min­ers don’t take into account ener­gy con­sump­tion when decid­ing what coin to mine. An adjust­ment will like­ly have to be made, and poten­tial investors should keep an eye on what cur­ren­cies do to become more ener­gy effi­cient. That requires tran­si­tion­ing from the proof of work method detailed before.

One alter­nate method that is used by some cur­ren­cies like Car­dano and Peer­coin is called “proof of stake.” The proof of work method caus­es a lot of wast­ed ener­gy because it cre­ates com­pe­ti­tion for min­ers to val­i­date or keep a record of trans­ac­tions. Essen­tial­ly, it’s a lot­tery that results in a ton of min­ing rigs run­ning at the same time. Proof of stake choos­es val­ida­tors ran­dom­ly, elim­i­nat­ing that competition.

So are more cur­ren­cies con­sid­er­ing tran­si­tion­ing to this method? Yes. Ethereum, the sec­ond most valu­able coin, is tran­si­tion­ing to proof of stake. How­ev­er, Bit­coin does not seem to be fol­low­ing suit. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from both cur­ren­cies have tak­en jabs at each oth­er regard­ing the method.

There are some who dream of a day where they pay their bills in a decen­tral­ized cur­ren­cy, but some changes will need to be made before that hap­pens. Many believe a move to proof of stake could be a step to get us there. How­ev­er, giv­en how much Bit­coin rep­re­sents the cryp­to indus­try, the refusal to tran­si­tion from the inef­fi­cient method of proof of work could delay that timeline.

Until Bit­coin does make some kind of tran­si­tion, it would be wise for peo­ple con­sid­er­ing invest­ing in cryp­to to stay away. Keep an eye out for cur­ren­cies that have or are tran­si­tion­ing away from the proof of work method. Giv­en the mar­ket over­all, it still might not be wise to invest in any­thing right now, but when we come out of this “cryp­to win­ter”, this knowl­edge will still like­ly be valuable.

By Ryan Bologna
May 17, 2022
New York Sports Nation

The Yan­kees are off to one of the best starts fans have ever seen at 26–9, the best record in baseball.

This might be sur­pris­ing to many because a team formed of essen­tial­ly the same ros­ter won 91 games and lost in the Wild Card game in 2021. They didn’t make the big moves that near­ly every­one want­ed like sign­ing Car­los Cor­rea or trad­ing for Matt Olson. They also did not add any­one to the start­ing rota­tion. So what is the dif­fer­ence with this year’s team? Why are they so dra­mat­i­cal­ly better?

It isn’t one sin­gu­lar aspect, but arguably the biggest dif­fer­ence between the 2021 and 2022 teams is the defense.

Here are the team defen­sive runs saved sta­tis­tics for 2021 and the 2022 sea­son so far.

2021: ‑41 DRS (29th in MLB)

2022: 8 DRA (15th in MLB)

Since DRS is a count­ing stat, it would be rea­son­able to expect the 2022 num­ber to keep going up through­out the season.

There is a mul­ti­tude of rea­sons for the Yan­kees dra­mat­i­cal­ly improv­ing defen­sive­ly this sea­son. Let’s start with the left side of the infield.

The Yan­kees’ big move of the off­sea­son was acquir­ing Josh Don­ald­son and Isi­ah Kin­er-Fale­fa from the Min­neso­ta Twins. Gley­ber Tor­res’ strug­gles were well-doc­u­ment­ed at short­stop, and while Kin­er-Fale­fa cur­rent­ly has 0 DRS and is not elite by any means, he is still a big upgrade from what the Yan­kees had at the posi­tion last year. Don­ald­son has been great at third with 4 DRS so far, and while Gio Urshela made flashy plays, he did not have the best range so the met­rics were not as high on him as the eye test.

Speak­ing of Tor­res, he has tran­si­tioned back to where he is com­fort­able at sec­ond base and it has improved his defense as well. He is at 4 DRS at sec­ond base right now, which is very good. Add in a full year of Antho­ny Riz­zo and DJ LeMahieu’s abil­i­ty to play sec­ond base and third base well and you get an infield that is way bet­ter than it was in 2021.

The out­field is bet­ter just sim­ply due to health. A rota­tion of Aaron Judge, Gian­car­lo Stan­ton, Joey Gal­lo and Aaron Hicks is a lot bet­ter than what the Yan­kees ran out there for the major­i­ty of 2021. Before the trade dead­line, the Yan­kees’ best line­up includ­ed Judge play­ing cen­ter field with Clint Fra­zier in right field and Miguel Andu­jar in left field. With all due respect to Fra­zier and Andu­jar, I was always ner­vous when a ball was hit in their direc­tion in 2021.

Last­ly, we have the catch­er posi­tion. I was a Gary Sanchez sup­port­er, but main­ly for his bat. The Yan­kees have sac­ri­ficed offense for defense at the catch­er posi­tion. Jose Trevi­no is first in the league for Fram­ing Runs at 3.0, while Higash­io­ka is at 0.9. Sanchez is at 0 still. So the catch­ers are steal­ing more strikes this year, which makes it eas­i­er for a pitch­ing staff that is one of the best in the league.

Part of the hot start has to do with bounce-backs from play­ers offen­sive­ly, the Yan­kees improve­ments on defense have been a huge part of their suc­cess so far in 2022.

By Ryan Bologna
May 6, 2022
Only Play­ers

Every­one knows Nike — the sneak­er com­pa­ny that is worth bil­lions of dol­lars. In May of 2022, Nike turned 50. How did a track and field coach, a stu­dent-ath­lete and a waf­fle iron turn into one of the most icon­ic brands in the world? We tried to fig­ure that out.

Phil Knight attend­ed the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon where he met Bill Bow­er­man, the school’s track and field coach. Bow­er­man was always think­ing of crazy exper­i­ments with shoes to improve the per­for­mance of his team. The two even­tu­al­ly start­ed up a com­pa­ny called Blue Rib­bon Sports in Jan. 1964. After work­ing with a Japan­ese sup­pli­er for many years, which lat­er became Asics, the rela­tion­ship soured and Blue Rib­bon Sports cut ties.

Nike was born when Onit­su­ka ter­mi­nat­ed Phil Knight’s Blue Rib­bon Sports dis­tri­b­u­tion rights.

Image cred­it: @Nike pic.twitter.com/TwBbtjFrNJ

— Thomas Chua (@SteadyCompound) May 2, 2022

Knight and Bow­er­man decid­ed to keep pur­su­ing their ven­ture, but they need­ed a new name. The first employ­ee of the com­pa­ny was Jeff John­son, and he was charged with that impor­tant task. Knight want­ed to name the com­pa­ny “Dimen­sion Six,” but every­one teased him because he was the only one who liked the name. John­son came up with the name Nike in a dream. His rea­son­ing? Nike is the Greek god­dess of vic­to­ry. After some debate, Knight reluc­tant­ly agreed to go ahead with the name because they were up against the dead­line and, after all, it would fit on the shoe.

Knight was a pro­fes­sor at Port­land State Uni­ver­si­ty, where he found a stu­dent to design a logo. Design stu­dent Car­olyn Davis was paid $2 an hour ($35 in total) to pro­vide sketch­es, and the one Knight decid­ed to go with was what we know today as the Nike swoosh. Could you imag­ine being a col­lege stu­dent, cre­at­ing that logo and see­ing the brand take off? Luck­i­ly she was giv­en mul­ti­ple shares in the com­pa­ny, so she wasn’t left out to dry.

Mean­while, Bow­er­man was still try­ing to come up with inno­v­a­tive ideas for high-per­for­mance shoes. His first major break­through came while eat­ing break­fast. After sta

ring at the pat­tern of his waf­fle, he won­dered if it would make a sole for a run­ning shoe that gives more trac­tion. His first try result­ed in actu­al­ly glu­ing the waf­fle iron shut with rub­ber and, after some tri­al and error, the Waf­fle Train­er was born in 1971.

The shoe was a hit, the first of many in the 70s for Nike. Ten­nis play­er Ilie Nas­tase became the first of many ath­letes to sign an endorse­ment with the com­pa­ny in 1972. Nike lat­er found great suc­cess with their Tail­wind shoe that intro­duced their sig­na­ture air tech­nol­o­gy in 1979.

Nike was thriv­ing by this point, which led to the com­pa­ny going pub­lic in 1980. From that point for­ward, the com­pa­ny made an increas­ing­ly big cul­tur­al impact.  There was no big­ger deal, of course, than sign­ing Michael Jor­dan in 1984.

Both Jor­dan and Nike took a risk with this part­ner­ship. Jor­dan was a rook­ie in 1984, so Nike was plac­ing a bet on him becom­ing a super­star. (spoil­er alert: he did) Nike was nowhere near as estab­lished as Con­verse and Adi­das. The land­mark deal launched Air Jor­dan and the unique terms made Micheal Jor­dan the rich­est ath­lete of all time. Air Jor­dans were wild­ly suc­cess­ful and have shaped the cul­ture of shoe col­lect­ing since they were intro­duced. They have lost none of their icon­ic sta­tus in the near­ly 40 years since launch.

Nike did not stop there. The “Just Do It” cam­paign was intro­duced in the 1980s along with the “Bo Knows” adver­tise­ments fea­tur­ing NFL and MLB star Bo Jack­son. The com­pa­ny would con­tin­ue to sign mega ath­letes like Tiger, and LeBron not to men­tion inter­na­tion­al mega stars Ronal­do and Nadal over the next few decades.

Bo Jack­son Nike Poster. Today is his 59th Birth­day. pic.twitter.com/8uwTbEC8av

— Base­ball In Pics (@baseballinpix) Novem­ber 30, 2021

Nike’s imprint is all over the globe and espe­cial­ly omnipresent in the US where the com­pa­ny is the offi­cial sup­pli­er of the NFL and the NBA. Nike is also part­nered with 68 col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties account­ing for over 50% of all 130 FBS foot­ball programs.

It isn’t an exag­ger­a­tion to say that it would be impos­si­ble to imag­ine mod­ern-day sports or pop cul­ture with­out the under­stat­ed but indeli­ble swoosh. Not bad for a com­pa­ny that start­ed with a track and field coach, a young col­lege grad­u­ate and a waf­fle iron.

By Ryan Bologna
April 12, 2022
Only Play­ers

We are in the ear­ly stages of the NIL and one-time trans­fer era in col­lege sports. We are still fig­ur­ing out who it helps and who it hurts. Let’s dive into it.

Logis­ti­cal­ly one of the biggest ben­e­fi­cia­ries will be schools that have big fan bases in areas with no pro­fes­sion­al sports teams. Schools like Alaba­ma, Arkansas, West Vir­ginia, and Nebras­ka are exam­ples. They are the main sports focus of their areas, so NIL will make those des­ti­na­tions more desir­able for recruits because they pro­vide more oppor­tu­ni­ties for deals and brand building.

The top-rat­ed recruits will still end up going to the estab­lished top pro­grams, as they already have big brand­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and have a foothold on those play­ers already. One of the biggest exam­ples of this already hap­pen­ing is with the UConn Women’s Bas­ket­ball pro­gram. They were already land­ing tons of top recruits, but after Azzi Fudd filmed a Tik­Tok com­mer­cial with Allen Iver­son in addi­tion to NIL deals with Chipo­tle and Amer­i­can Eagle in just her Fresh­man year at UConn it strength­ened their pitch even more.

https://twitter.com/Radio_Reem/status/1453858031976976384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1453858031976976384%7Ctwgr%5Ef8e409725c6c8670ef030ce41b8a56338f94ab9b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.onlyplayers.com%2Fhow-do-nil-deals-and-the-transfer-portal-change-college-sports

Despite this, NIL deals can ben­e­fit “sec­ond-tier” pro­grams. For the most part NIL deals will go to the star play­ers, leav­ing depth play­ers at top schools hang­ing with lit­tle NIL oppor­tu­ni­ties and less play­ing time. That could result in schools like Alaba­ma and Ohio State not get­ting those four-star recruits for depth as much as they did before.

As a four-star recruit, why go to Alaba­ma or Ohio State and sit behind a five-star play­er for a cou­ple of years while they get the NIL deals and play­ing time? A pro­gram like Pur­due can offer the poten­tial of more expo­sure and play­ing time for those play­ers. It could even lead to a faster path to the NFL for some like it did for Ron­dale Moore. He nev­er would have got­ten play­ing time over play­ers like Jaylen Wad­dle at Alaba­ma, but he became a star at Pur­due and got picked in the sec­ond round of the 2021 draft.

Schools with ties to com­pa­nies are in a posi­tion to ben­e­fit as well. Ore­gon is one of the biggest exam­ples due to its rela­tion­ship with Nike. They beat out Alaba­ma for edge rush­er Kayvon Thi­bodeaux in 2019, and he just recent­ly cit­ed that as to why he chose Ore­gon. Mary­land is a school to watch for, as they are try­ing to cre­ate a sim­i­lar dynam­ic with Under Armour.

https://twitter.com/CFBONFOX/status/1481297815640944644?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1481297815640944644%7Ctwgr%5Ef8e409725c6c8670ef030ce41b8a56338f94ab9b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.onlyplayers.com%2Fhow-do-nil-deals-and-the-transfer-portal-change-college-sports

The new one-time trans­fer rule impacts the top recruits that do not suc­ceed right away and look no fur­ther than the roller-coast­er sea­son that Okla­homa foot­ball just had. Spencer Rat­tler came into the sea­son per­ceived as a star and poten­tial first-round pick in the 2022 NFL draft. He strug­gled ear­ly on, and he even­tu­al­ly got benched in the mid­dle of their game against Texas.

Caleb Williams came in and hero­ical­ly brought them back to win the game, mak­ing Okla­homa fans believe they have a solu­tion. Then late in the sea­son Williams and Okla­homa lose a heart­break­er to Okla­homa State to miss the Big 12 title game. To top it all off Head Coach Lin­coln Riley left for South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, and Williams decid­ed to trans­fer as well. Where did he end up? You guessed it, South­ern California.

Rat­tler did man­age to main­tain suc­cess with NIL deals despite his lack of suc­cess on the field, as he secured a deal with a South Car­oli­na Chevro­let dealership.

All in all that is a bad fan expe­ri­ence for Okla­homa fans, they lose their head coach and their quar­ter­back to the same school. Many fans, includ­ing myself, will not have any empa­thy for Okla­homa fans. But these rules impact the lit­tle guy as well.

Look no fur­ther than St. Peter’s sen­sa­tion Doug Edert. He is try­ing to cap­i­tal­ize on his pop­u­lar­i­ty by trans­fer­ring to a school that will make him more vis­i­ble. This will be a com­mon trend for break­out play­ers from small schools in all col­lege sports, and there is not much that can be done to pre­vent this from happening.

These fac­tors cre­ate con­cern for mid-major pro­grams. Schools that find dia­monds in the rough will have a tougher time than ever retain­ing their tal­ent, as those play­ers will no longer be required to sit out a year and can not offer the same oppor­tu­ni­ties for NIL deals.

In total­i­ty NIL deals and one-time trans­fer, rules have ben­e­fits and draw­backs for the fan expe­ri­ence. I think the most like­ly out­come is that the top pro­grams see min­i­mal change if any, while sec­ond-tier pro­grams ben­e­fit sig­nif­i­cant­ly and low­er-lev­el pro­grams get hurt the most. The fan expe­ri­ence is either helped or hurt depend­ing on what pro­gram you follow.

By Ryan Bologna
Oct. 3, 2020
Green­wich Free Press

The fam­i­ly of Char­lie Capal­bo and about 12 to 15 oth­er friends will be depart­ing from The Cos Cob­ber to walk a marathon to Fair­field to raise funds for pedi­atric can­cer around 7 a.m. on Sun­day, Oct. 4.

The fam­i­ly would nor­mal­ly go to Boston and walk for the Boston Marathon Jim­my Fund Walk. Because of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, the route they are walk­ing now is a vir­tu­al sub­sti­tute for all of the peo­ple that would nor­mal­ly par­tic­i­pate to do so all over the coun­try wher­ev­er is con­ve­nient to them.

Char­lie Capal­bo was diag­nosed with lym­phoblas­tic lym­phoma dur­ing his senior year in high school. While he was get­ting treat­ment for that, flu­id from a spinal tap for chemother­a­py revealed a new of can­cer called acute myeloid leukemia(AML).

Char­lie was treat­ed at Yale New Haven hos­pi­tal and Boston Children’s Hos­pi­tal. After a long recov­ery, rehab process and iso­la­tion peri­od from May through Novem­ber in 2019, he was allowed to attend col­lege in Jan­u­ary of 2020 at Fair­field University.

Char­lie was friends with Greenwich’s own Steven Sudell. They went on a ski trip togeth­er with the Sun­shine Kids in March of 2018 and crossed paths again when they under­went treat­ment at Yale New Haven Hospital.

The Capal­bo fam­i­ly is thank­ful that Char­lie is still alive to this day and that is what inspires them to par­tic­i­pate in events that ben­e­fit pedi­atric cancer.

“Our fam­i­ly just tries real­ly hard to be grate­ful all the time and remem­ber how lucky we are to actu­al­ly have him still alive,” Charlie’s moth­er Jen­ny said.

The fam­i­ly has met a large num­ber of fam­i­lies through­out Charlie’s treatments.

“We have count­ed like 50 some­thing fam­i­lies that we have got­ten to know,” Charlie’s father Antho­ny said.

The Capal­bo fam­i­ly cre­at­ed a team that any­one can still join for $5 with a com­mit­ment to raise $95. Chil­dren can also join for $5 with a com­mit­ment to raise $20. Par­tic­i­pants can walk any­where they choose and for what­ev­er dis­tance they desire.

The walk will take place this Sun­day, but dona­tions will be accept­ed through Oct. 31.

Funds raised go to Dana Far­ber, an out­pa­tient can­cer insti­tute and Boston Children’s Hos­pi­tal, an inpa­tient hos­pi­tal for chil­dren who need treat­ment. Those two hos­pi­tals work hand-in-hand.

Any­one who wants to par­tic­i­pate or donate to the cause should click here.