Latest news with #All-StarGameMVP
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Red Sox no longer considering trading former All-Star Game MVP
After much recent speculation, the Boston Red Sox do not appear to be on the brink of trading a young outfielder who finished in the top 10 of American League MVP voting last season. WEEI baseball insider Rob Bradford recently reported that Jarren Duran is no longer on the trade block. "Multiple major league sources have said that the Red Sox are no longer entertaining the idea of trading Jarren Duran, which is an obvious step in the right direction in the eyes of this current clubhouse," Bradford wrote. Duran, 29, is part of a Red Sox logjam in the outfield, with four players vying for three spots. Roman Anthony, Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu are also considered everyday options in the outfield. Although Duran is the oldest of the four, he is under team control for the next three seasons. Duran's numbers are down from last season, when he finished eighth in the AL MVP voting and earned All-Star Game MVP. This season, he's hitting .259 with a .768 OPS, nine home runs and 55 RBIs. He does lead the AL with 12 triples. Last season, Duran hit .285 with an .834 OPS, along with 21 home runs, 14 triples, 48 doubles and 111 runs scored. MORE MLB NEWS: How a Padres pitcher is driving the market before trade deadline Why Bryce Harper told Rob Manfred to 'get the f—' out of Phillies clubhouse Guardians' Emmanuel Clase put on paid leave amid MLB's sports-betting investigation Most home runs in an MLB game, from Lou Gehrig to Nick Kurtz Yankees linked to 3 shortstop trades in AL East
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Sport
- Boston Globe
How Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran is dealing with self-imposed pressure to live up to last year's All-Star season
And yet Duran's season doesn't exist in isolation. It's taking place in the shadow of his remarkable 2024 performance, during which he hit .285/.342/.492 with 83 extra-base hits and 34 steals, a dynamo who won All-Star MVP honors and finished eighth in American League MVP voting. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Often this year, Duran has been minding that gap. Advertisement 'It's kind of hard to not look at last year, because all the negative stuff I see is that I suck and I'm not what I was last year,' said Duran. 'Everybody loves to talk about it, but at the same time it's like, I don't think these people realize how hard it is to be an All-Star Game MVP every single night. It's just not humanly possible. This game is a game of failure. You fail more than you succeed. [But] knowing myself, I always see all the negative stuff. 'I think this whole year has just kind of been like one big blur of not being able to be comfortable and trust myself. Sometimes I trust myself, and then two seconds later I don't. So I feel like this whole year has just been me fighting my own self.' Advertisement Baseball isn't a high jump. You don't set one personal standard, raise the bar, then diligently work toward the next one. A 162-game season is defined largely by the baseline standards that players can establish, rather than their peaks. And yet Duran always measures success based on his pinnacle. 'It's just how I am. I mean, honestly, when I won the All-Star Game MVP last year, I was happy about it, but at the same time, I was like, 'Well, crap. I'm going to have to put this pressure on myself to be this player every single night,' ' he said. 'As dumb as it sounds, I was like, 'Oh, [expletive].' I'm just putting more pressure on my own self, like, 'I've done this. Now I expect myself to do this every night.' ' Related : But recently, Duran has been a bit more forgiving of his performance, a development with two sources. First, he looks like he's turned a corner. His line sat at .252/.310/.398 on June 28. But in Duran is less concerned about those numbers than the approach that underlies them. He's cut his chase rate from 33 percent to 24 percent during his recent run — and even sees a positive in the fact that 25 percent of his strikeouts have been called during this run, a contrast to the beginning of the season in which just 11 percent of his strikeouts had been looking. Advertisement Why is that meaningful? 'It means I'm controlling the zone better,' said Duran. 'Pitchers are way too good these days to chase them around the entire plate. So, if I'm trying to get them in a specific area and they just happen to paint something that's not in the area that I'm looking, you've got to tip your cap. 'Nobody wants to strike out, but I'm trying to keep the positive mind-set, even after a strikeout. It was, 'OK, he made a great pitch away. I wasn't looking away. I was still staying in my area. I was staying [true] to where I thought I could do damage and get an actual competitive pitch to hit.' ' The other reason why Duran is more at ease than he'd been for much of the season: the changing dynamics of the Red Sox. Duran has found joy in the arrivals of Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer. He's been happy to share his experiences about finding his footing in the big leagues with the rookies, but in many ways, Duran has taken reassurance from players who are 21 (Anthony) and 22 (Mayer). 'The young guys are just like, 'I'm just going to go out there and just do me and have fun.' It's kind of cool. I see the younger guys, and I'm like, 'Shoot, maybe I should think about it like that,' ' said Duran. 'They're just two of the best people I've ever met, and I can't imagine not having them on my team, or just being able to talk to them every day.' Related : Advertisement There is at least the hint of a question about whether that opportunity will remain in place. Earlier this month, the outfield/DH crowd of Duran, Anthony, Wilyer Abreu, Even so, until Thursday's trade deadline passes, there will at least be curiosity about whether Duran might move. But with the Sox having pushed into wild-card position, Duran does not share it. 'Honestly, that's probably one of the things I actually don't stress about,' he said. 'I have no control over it. If it happens, it happens … It's just all rumors for now, so I'm just going to keep having fun with my boys.' Alex Speier can be reached at
Atlantic
2 days ago
- Sport
- Atlantic
The WNBA Has a Good Problem on Its Hands
For the first time in the nearly three-decade history of U.S. professional women's basketball, its star players have become household names. What would it take for them to get paid accordingly? While warming up recently for the WNBA All-Star Game, players wore T-shirts that read Pay Us What You Owe Us, in reference to the ongoing collective-bargaining negotiations between the players and the league. Until that point, there had not been much buzz about the WNBA's negotiations, but the shirts had their intended result, taking the players' labor fight mainstream. As the WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert presented the All-Star Game MVP award to Napheesa Collier, fans inside Indianapolis's Gainbridge Fieldhouse booed Engelbert and chanted, 'Pay them!' Outside the arena, however, the reaction was more mixed. As the WNBA became a trending topic on X and national pundits began to weigh in, many turned out to not share the perspective of the fans at the game. Dan Hollaway, a co-host of the podcast Drinkin' Bros, posted on X that the players should actually be paying back the team owners, given the league's unprofitability: 'Ladies, you owe, not the other way around.' Another post critical of the players' efforts was viewed nearly 40 million times. 'Imagine being an employee at a company that has NEVER turned a profit and showing up to work in these shirts,' Jason Howerton wrote. Many critics cited a New York Post article from last October reporting that, despite the WNBA's explosive growth in 2024—which was punctuated by the arrival of the Indiana Fever sensation Caitlin Clark—the league was expected to lose $40 million that year. A source close to the situation told the Post that the NBA, which owns a large share of the women's league, was antsy about the WNBA's unprofitability. The timing of the Post 's report was interesting. It came three days before the WNBA players' union announced that it was opting out of the current collective-bargaining agreement. To some degree, this is part of the gamesmanship that takes place whenever there is labor tension between players and owners. During the 2011 NBA lockout, owners claimed that they were on track to lose $300 million that season and had suffered similar losses since 2005. Further analysis showed that this wasn't true, and that the league was in fact profitable. Jemele Hill: The one downside of gender equality in sports To be fair, claims that the WNBA has been unable to turn a profit during its 28 years of existence are more credible. Over that time frame, NBA owners have indeed spent a considerable amount of money to keep the league afloat. But that spending wasn't charity; it was an investment. And the investment is very clearly about to pay off. The 30 NBA team owners own 42 percent of the WNBA; another 42 percent is controlled by private WNBA ownership, and the remaining 16 percent belongs to an investment group that stimulated a $75 million capital infusion in 2022. Among the notable names in that investment group are former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, The Boston Globe CEO Linda Henry, and Michael and Susan Dell. The capital raise was so big because investors could see what was coming. The WNBA's profile had already been growing steadily. Then came Clark, whose presence—and rivalry with fellow rising star Angel Reese, of the Chicago Sky—is poised to financially elevate the WNBA beyond anyone's expectations. Last year set popularity records for the WNBA across the board, and the growth shows no signs of slowing. In 2024, ESPN, the league's primary television partner, saw a 170 percent boost in viewership. Overall ratings are up by 23 percent this year. Ticket sales are up 26 percent, and merchandise sales have increased by 40 percent. The most important figure is $2.2 billion. That's the value of the 11-year media-rights deal that the WNBA secured last year, which starts in 2026. It includes partnerships with Disney (ESPN's parent company), Prime Video, and NBC Universal. The league also signed a separate deal with Ion Television to air games on Friday nights. Terms weren't disclosed, but reports speculated that between the two deals, the WNBA has a media package worth close to $3 billion over the next decade. This colossal source of revenue helps explain the immense valuations of WNBA franchises. The WNBA will add five expansion teams by 2030. Owners in the three cities that have so far been awarded a franchise—Detroit, Philadelphia, and Cleveland—paid a fee of $250 million each to join the league. Ten of the existing 13 WNBA teams are valued at $200 million or more. The Golden State Valkyries top the list, at an estimated $500 million. The Valkyries, which in 2023 became the WNBA's first expansion team in 17 years, are the first women's professional sports team to ever be valued that high. They also lead the league in attendance—a sign that the sport's popularity doesn't depend on Clark. Alex Kirshner: Caitlin Clark is just the beginning With such outsize growth happening across the league, the fact that WNBA players currently receive a mere 9.3 percent of the league's total revenue is embarrassing. (That works out to about $78,000 for Clark and a bit less for Reese, who are still on their rookie contracts, and just over $249,000 for the league's highest-paid veterans.) By comparison, players in the NBA, the NHL, and the NFL all receive about half of their league's sports-related income. Even in the Ultimate Fighting Championship—which has a nasty history of underpaying its fighters—the athletes receive 16 to 20 percent of the revenue. The WNBA isn't yet as big as those leagues, and its players have never said they should be paid as much as Patrick Mahomes or LeBron James. Their argument is only that they deserve a similar proportion of the revenue generated by their labor. Every professional sports league has experienced financial ups and downs, but that has never stopped the players from demanding and receiving more. The NBA was in such bad shape in the late 1960s and early '70s that teams had to pool together money to subsidize the salaries of the league's top players, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Elvin Hayes. Heading into the early '80s, the league's future was precarious because of rampant drug problems among players and low television ratings. The arrival of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird helped change all of that. In every sports league, players have had to fight for their worth. At 28 years old, the WNBA is arguably in better shape than the NBA was at the same juncture. As the league grows, the players' salaries should be growing right along with it.
Newsweek
22-07-2025
- Sport
- Newsweek
Phillies Owner Says Club Doesn't 'Need Any Motivation' To Retain All-Star Game MVP
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The Philadelphia Phillies are looking to capture the National League West for the second straight season and continue their march to the postseason, but they also have to look at the future with their star Kyle Schwarber. Schwarber is a free agent at the end of the year, and Phillies owner John Middleton isn't hiding his intention to keep him around, per a report by Bob Nightengale of USA Today. PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - JULY 19: Kyle Schwarber #12 of the Philadelphia Phillies reacts after hitting a grand slam in the bottom of the sixth inning against the Los Angeles Angels at Citizens Bank Park on... PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - JULY 19: Kyle Schwarber #12 of the Philadelphia Phillies reacts after hitting a grand slam in the bottom of the sixth inning against the Los Angeles Angels at Citizens Bank Park on July 19, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. More Photo bySchwarber just won the All-Star Game MVP last week after going 3-for-3 in his swings during the first-ever swing-off to decide the contest. The Phillies slugger has also mashed three home runs this season and has hit 30-plus in six of his last seven seasons, including leading the National League in 2022. The three-time All-Star has earned a contract extension, and Middleton wants to be the one to give it to him. "He's a great person in the clubhouse," Middleton told Nightengale. "We love him. We want to keep him. We don't need any motivation whatsoever." If Schwarber were to hit the market, he would be the most sought-after designated hitter this offseason and would certainly get paid handsomely for his power at the plate. The Phillies should be looking to solidify an agreement early with Schwarber to avoid letting him slip away. While the Phillies have their eyes set on October, the Phillies brass and Schwarber's team should be in the background talking about a contract to keep the slugger in the City of Brotherly Love. More MLB: A's Reportedly Shopping Starting Pitchers As Deadline Hot Stove Heats Up
Kuwait Times
21-07-2025
- Sport
- Kuwait Times
Collier breaks WNBA All-Star scoring record in win over Team Clark
INDIANAPOLIS: Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx (center) receives the MVP trophy from WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert (left). – AFP INDIANAPOLIS: Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier eclipsed the WNBA All-Star scoring record with 36 points to lead her team past Team Clark 151-131 on Saturday, capping a two-day showcase of the league's top talent at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Collier bested the previous scoring record of 34 points set by Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale last year and added nine rebounds, marking another high point in a fantastic 2025 campaign for the league's leading scorer in Indianapolis. Veteran guard Skylar Diggins brought more luster to the night for Team Collier, becoming the first player to record a triple-double in a WNBA All-Star Game with 11 points, 11 rebounds and 15 assists. The team's 151 points also marked an All-Star all-time high. 'We set a lot of records,' said Collier, who was named the All-Star Game MVP. 'It's just so fun.' Team Clark, which played without its injured namesake captain Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever, never found its rhythm on offense despite the urgings of the sell-out crowd. The All-Star Game a year ago pitted the 2024 US Olympic team against All-Stars, a marketing masterstroke that put pride on the line for players who were snubbed from the Team USA roster. The mood was far lighter this time around, as players joked playfully on the court and took advantage of the novelty '4-point shot' at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse, where the hometown hero Clark sat sidelined with an injury. The Dallas Wings' first overall draft pick Paige Bueckers opened up the scoring as she drained a shot from the 4-point range for Team Collier and the side was up 22 points at the half to create an unassailable lead. — Reuters
