Marcus Stroman is shaping up to be the odd man out in the New York Yankees' 2025 rotation. Stroman signed a two-year deal with the Yankees ahead of the 2024 season and was decidedly mediocre, going 10-9 with a 4.31 ERA and didn't make an appearance during his team's run to the World Series. Now the outlook is grim for Stroman as a starter; the pinstripes appear to have five ready-made arms to make up the starting rotation for 2025 in Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, Luis Gil, Clark Schmidt, and free agent acquisition Max Fried.

One way to fix that particular problem for both Stroman and the Yankees would be to move the righty to the bullpen. Stroman, however, does not appear to be willing to do that at all. He gave a defiant refusal to reporters when asked about the idea after showing up at spring training a few days after pitchers and catchers reported.

"I'm a starter," Stroman insisted to assembled media. "I'm a starter. I don't pitch in the bullpen. I'm a starter."

It's a bit of a change in tune from Stroman given he was willing to jump into bullpen work for the Chicago Cubs in 2023 as he worked his way back from an injury.

His stance and how strongly he sticks to it could complicate matters for the Yankees should they decide to trade Stroman instead of keeping his $18.3 million salary on the books as a sixth starter. A situation to watch as spring training gets underway.

The Minnesota Twins honored their six-time MLB All-Star and 2009 American League MVP Joe Mauer with a statue outside of Target Field in Minneapolis on Sunday.

Mauer, 41, is a St. Paul native and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2024 as a first-ballot entry. Now, he's enshrined in his city, steps outside of the Twins' ballpark.

“To think I’m bronzed here at Target Field in Minnesota, it means more to me than you guys will ever know,” Mauer said to a crowd as he stood beside his new statue Sunday via MLB.com. “Obviously it was a big summer last year, going into Cooperstown—that was just an unbelievable experience. But to see myself here, this isn’t going to be moving for a long time. Here in my home state of Minnesota, I was always proud to put on this uniform, to play for this club, and to go out there and try to win every night with my teammates. So this just means the world to me.”

In a heartwarming moment, the statue was unveiled to the large crowd by Mauer's children:

And the statue is extremely well done, too:

Before the Twins played the Detroit Tigers on Sunday, Mauer threw out the ceremonial first pitch to his longtime former teammate Justin Morneau, another Twins legend.

Mauer's signature No. 7 was retired by the Twins in 2019, one year after he retired following 15 MLB seasons, all in his home state of Minnesota. Now, he's forever commemorated right outside of Target Field.

With Selection Sunday next weekend, is here to highlight two key Top-25 matchups on tap for Saturday. We have a superb Big 12 battle between No. 17 Oklahoma State and No. 6 West Virginia, as well as a Big 10 showdown between No. 4 Illinois and No. 7 Ohio State. Both games have already received attention from sharp bettors in Las Vegas.

Another day, another baseball play we’ve never seen before.

Miami Marlins catcher Nick Fortes wanted to swing with two strikes against him in the bottom of the sixth inning against the Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday night. But after starting his swing, he tried to pull back, a move which would result in a strike or a ball depending on the umpire’s call 9,999 times out of 10,000.

But somehow, Fortes’s check swing turned into a grounder, as the 93-mph heater miraculously made contact with the knob of his bat and redirected the dribbling ball into the infield.

He didn't realize the ball was in play, waiting a moment to see what happened before he ran to first. While Fortes was thrown out at first, but the runners on first and second advanced a bag on the fielder's choice—they both later came in to score.

You can watch the wild sequence and heads-up play from Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm here:

You can file that away in your things you don't see every day folder.

The Marlins and Phillies are in the midst of a four-game weekday series at loanDepot Park in Miami. The Phillies took the first game of the series 5-2 on Monday.

Yusei Kikuchi started the Los Angeles Angels game against the Texas Rangers on Monday night. Kikuchi pitched five innings, giving up four runs on six hits. When he left the game after the fifth inning, his team trailed, but came back to win 6-5.

Not bad considering how things started for Kikuchi. Sam Haggerty, leading off for the Rangers, hit the ball back to Kikuchi on a 3-2 count in the first at-bat of the game. Kikuchi did not field the ball cleanly and chased after it, tripping over the mound in the process. Kikuchi tumbled and ended up on his knees, sitting feet away from the ball while Haggerty stood safely on second.

The next batter to come up, Corey Saeger, also took Kikuchi to a full count before he hit a two-run home run.

That's about as rough of a start as you can have. Two batters, 14 pitches, one home run, two earned runs, one embarassing fall. Going five full innings was downright heroic considering that start.

As you have surely heard by now, Los Angeles Dodgers two-way Shohei Ohtani smashed a gorgeous walk-off home run to break a tie vs. the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday night, extending L.A.'s now eight-game winning streak to start the season and just generally wow-ing baseball fans both at home and in the stands.

Unsurprisingly, he was also the subject of plenty of media attention after the fact, both on the field and in the locker room.

In the latter location, Ohtani spoke a bit about the team's ability to seal the deal during this opening stretch of games, which has seen them trailing during six of the eight outings, but able to come back and win every time. To that point, the future Hall of Famer thinks the general vibe of the team, in addition to other factors, has helped them defy the odds.

"Just grateful as a player to be able to perform in an opportunity like this. … We've been able to come back from behind especially in these games because of the bullpen and how much they do a great job giving us the opportunity to win."

"Overall, not just tonight, a really good vibe within the team so I think that's allowing us to come back from these games to win."

Take a look at that below:

The Dodgers will hope to keep those good vibes going with their first of three games vs. the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday at 6:45 p.m.

St. Louis Cardinals catcher Pedro Pagés is used to being behind the plate. Of his 77 MLB appearances heading into Friday night's game against the Philadelphia Phillies, all but one have been at catcher. The sole outlier was an appearance last year at first base.

Pagés was unexpectedly moved from catcher to second base Friday due to an injury to Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn. Once Winn was removed, St. Louis moved second baseman Thomas Saggese over to short and Pagés to second base to avoid losing their designated hitter for the rest of the game.

Brendan Donovan, who has started nine of the Cardinals' 13 games so far this season at second base, was the DH on Friday. If St. Louis simply moved Donovan from DH to the field, they would not have been able to use a DH to bat in place of their pitcher for the rest of the game.

That's where Pagés comes in. According to MLB.com's Cardinals reporter John Denton, Pagés estimated that Friday was the first time he played second base since he was 11 years old.

“Never did I think I would play second base in the big leagues,” Pagés, who even had to borrow Donovan's glove for the night, said.

Pagés fielded two ground balls hit his way for outs as the Cardinals held onto a 2-0 win over the Phillies. He went 1-for-3 at the plate and looked pretty comfortable as an infielder, considering the circumstances.

And the Cardinals gave him some credit for it on social media:

The traditional catcher may have turned into more of a utility player thanks to the clever substitution.

With Selection Sunday only a few weeks away, is here to highlight two Top-25 matchups that bettors should target on Saturday. We have a superb ACC battle between No. 11 Florida State and North Carolina, as well as an SEC showdown between No. 25 Tennessee and Auburn. Both games have already received attention from sharp bettors in Las Vegas.

Two days after its loss to Florida in an SEC tournament semifinal, Alabama has received positive news regarding the status of forward Grant Nelson.

Nelson—who suffered an apparent leg injury in that 22-point defeat—will be questionable for the No. 2 Crimson Tide's first-round NCAA tournament game against Robert Morris Friday. Alabama is hoping he can return for a potential second-round matchup against the winner of Vanderbilt's game against Saint Mary's.

"We dodged one," Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats said Monday evening on the radio via Nick Kelly of AL.com.

Nelson averaged 11.8 points and 7.6 rebounds per game for Alabama this season, helping the Crimson Tide snag their third top-two national seed in five years.

In 2024, Nelson was named All-Region as Alabama made its first men's Final Four. Before joining the Crimson Tide, he played three seasons with North Dakota State—making the All-Summit team in 2023.

Alabama's NCAA tournament journey will begin in Cleveland, with the potential of advancing to the East Regional semifinals in Newark.

Four full days of wall-to-wall NCAA tournament failed to create a single real Cinderella as Arkansas is the only team seeded worse than No. 6 to advance into the Sweet 16. Tenth-seeded Colorado State could have joined them but their dreams ended when Maryland's Derik Queen banked in the tournament's first true buzzer-beater. On balance, the 48 games played over the long weekend were not consistently compelling and scholars may argue that the beginning of this year's big dance was among the least exciting in a long, long time.

On the other hand, the television partners drew record ratings and there are some awesome heavyweight matchups slated to begin on Thursday night. But before anyone gets too excited about those, paused to consider if we may have all just watched the beginning of the end for the sport of college basketball as a whole.

Stephen A. Smith began Monday morning by looking into the camera and offering a grim warning about what would happen if Cinderellas became a thing of the past.

"If this continues, it will be the death of college basketball," Smith said.

Now, if you're thinking "didn't NIL become available to college athletes in 2021 and haven't there been some amazing runs from teams like Saint Peter's, Princeton to go along with Florida Atlantic and San Diego State making the same Final Four," just know that you'll feel silly when this whole thing comes crashing down.