Latest news with #WorldSer
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Manfred eager to see how many fans turn out for the MLB Speedway Classic at Bristol
Derek Schiller, president and CEO of the Atlanta Braves, speaks during a news conference about the Speedway Classic baseball game, Tuesday, April 22, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV) The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series auto race is run in Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday, Aug. 25, 2012, in Bristol, Tenn. (Andrew Coppley, CIA Bristol Motor Speedway via AP, Pool, File) Derek Schiller, president and CEO of the Atlanta Braves, speaks during a news conference about the Speedway Classic baseball game, Tuesday, April 22, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV) The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series auto race is run in Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday, Aug. 25, 2012, in Bristol, Tenn. (Andrew Coppley, CIA Bristol Motor Speedway via AP, Pool, File) NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Major League Baseball has played at the 'Field of Dreams' movie site. Now baseball is eager to see just how big a crowd will show up for a game at a NASCAR bullring of a track. And Bristol Motor Speedway can hold a lot of people. Advertisement It's part of Commissioner Rob Manfred's push to take MLB to locations where baseball isn't played every day live. MLB played a game at the movie site in Iowa in both 2021 and 2022. Alabama, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, too. Now it's Tennessee's turn. Manfred noted Tuesday after speaking at the CAA World Congress of Sports Presented by Sports Business Journal that the Tennessee Volunteers are the defending college baseball national champions with Vanderbilt winner of two college titles. Manfred sees lots of alignment between NASCAR and MLB fans. 'Big crowd, big crowd,' Manfred said of what is expected at Bristol on Aug. 2. 'We think that it's an opportunity to have a really large audience for a major league game, and we think the setting in really a legendary speedway is going to be awesome for a baseball game.' Advertisement Nobody is ready to put a number on how many will turn out for the MLB Speedway Classic when the Cincinnati Reds host the Atlanta Braves. Bristol set a record for a college football game in 2016 and has a capacity of 146,000 for racing. This game will be played on a field laid over part of the speedway infield and the high-banked track. Derek Schiller, president and chief executive officer of the Braves, said MLB approached the team a few years ago about this possibility. Schiller said the Braves were adamant about wanting to be a part of this game. 'We know that there's a uniqueness to it that is unmatched,' Schiller said. "Playing a baseball game at a motor speedway and being part of that was really important also because this is part of where our fan base comes from. So we we think many, maybe most of those fans are going to be Atlanta Braves' fans.' Advertisement Officials announced Tuesday that country superstar Tim McGraw will perform a concert an hour before first pitch. McGraw has ties to baseball having earned a college scholarship playing the sport. His late father Tug McGraw won two World Series titles pitching for the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies. That's just part of the day of events planned leading up to the game. Jerry Caldwell, president and general manager of Bristol Motor Speedway, would only tease that more announcements are coming. All are designed to give fans reasons to get to the track and into their seats as early as possible. Hosting an event like this is nothing new for Bristol. The track hosted the Tennessee Volunteers and Virginia Tech in the Battle of Bristol in 2016 before a record 156,990 fans. So track officials have experience adapting the half-mile concrete track into something new. Caldwell said preparations started before the track's spring race April 13, won by Kyle Larson. Bristol then will have six weeks until hosting a night NASCAR Cup Series race in the playoffs on Sept. 13. Advertisement 'It's becoming very real," Caldwell said. "We're approaching 100 days out from the game, and we're thrilled with the progress.' ___ AP MLB: and AP NASCAR:
Fox News
27-03-2025
- Sport
- Fox News
World Series champion has 1 major worry for the Mets going into the season
The New York Mets signed outfielder Juan Soto to the largest contract in professional sports history to bolster their lineup this offseason, but World Series champion AJ Pierzynski is concerned about their pitching staff. He said Soto would make an impact and express concerns about those on the mound. "I think (Soto will) have a significant impact because of the bat that he brings and the at-bats, the mindset that he has. The only thing I question about the Mets, who's going to pitch? Who's going to be their starting pitcher?" Pierzynski asked during a recent appearance on OutKick's "Don't @ Me with Dan Dakich." "(Sean) Manaea is already hurt, Clay Holmes is their opening day starter, is he going be able to pitch all year? And then you worry about (Kodai) Senga's health who missed a lot of the year. They've already lost Frankie Montas for a bunch of time, who's going to be their starting pitching? That's the one thing I worry about with the Mets." Manaea, who re-signed with the team on a three-year deal, sustained a right oblique strain and is expected to return at some point in April. Montas, a free agent acquisition, sustained a high-grade right lat strain and was shut down from throwing for 6–8 weeks in mid-February. Holmes has spent the last three-plus seasons with the New York Yankees as a high-leverage reliever and closed games for them at points in his tenure. Over the course of his seven-year career with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Yankees, Holmes has only started four games and will now be relied upon as a key member of the Mets' starting rotation. When he signed with the Mets in free agency, Holmes transitioned back into a starting pitcher, after he came up in the Pirates' system as a starter. Senga would likely have been the opening-day starter over Holmes, but he pitched in just one regular-season game last year due to injury, and the Mets are being cautious with him entering the season. Last season, Senga dealt with shoulder, triceps and calf injuries. "At the end of the day, if you want to win in Major League Baseball, I don't care you can rake all you want, but if you don't have the pitching to back it up you're not going to win over a long haul and over in the playoffs," Pierzynski said. With the injuries to Montas and Manaea, these are the five starters the Mets are rolling out for their first five games: While worried about the pitching staff, Pierzynski praised the Mets' offense. "I think their lineup is going to be unbelievable. They brought back Pete (Alonso), who I love, (Francisco) Lindor obviously, I think (Mark) Vientos is going to be a stud for them in the everyday lineup. We saw what he could do in the postseason," Pierzynski said. Pierzynski played 19 seasons in the big leagues, playing for the Chicago White Sox, Minnesota Twins, Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers, San Francisco Giants, Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals. The two-time All-Star hit .280 with 188 career home runs in his career. Pierzynski won the World Series in 2005 with the Marlins. Holmes will take the mound for the first time with the Mets when they take on the Houston Astros for their season opener on Thursday, at 4:10 p.m. ET. Follow Fox News Digital's sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Rob Manfred thinks Dodgers' spending is 'a great thing' as payroll hovers around $400 million
Many MLB fans are upset that the Los Angeles Dodgers are entering uncharted territory when it comes to payrolls. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred thinks the sport has bigger problems. Speaking with reporters in Phoenix on Tuesday, Manfred once again addressed what has turned into the dominant narrative of the offseason: the Dodgers signing basically every player they wanted not named Juan Soto and building up what would be the largest payroll in MLB history in the process. The commissioner basically said he isn't upset about it, but understands why some people are upset, via Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times: [The Dodgers] have gone out and done everything possible, always within the rules that currently exist, to put the best possible team on the field. I think that's a great thing. That type of competitive spirit is what people want to see." 'It's clear we have fans in some markets that are concerned about the ability of the team in their market to compete with the financial resources of the Dodgers. If we've been consistent on one point, we try to listen to our fans on topics like this. And I have heard people, believe me.' As things currently stand, the Dodgers' competitive balance tax payroll — the 40-man payroll number used by MLB to determine luxury tax payments, which adjusts for deferral inflation — sits in the neighborhood of $400 million. Baseball Prospectus projects it at $402.3 million, while Spotrac believes it's $392.5 million. Either number would pretty easily be the biggest the league has ever seen, and that's not the end of the spending. Because Los Angeles is more than $150 million above the luxury tax line, it is also facing a record $142 million tax bill at the end of the season. The Dodgers didn't have baseball's most expensive offseason — that title belongs to the New York Mets, whose $765 million Juan Soto contract is actually twice as big as every Dodgers contract this offseason combined — but the impact feels greater because a) the Dodgers just won the World Series, b) they just had their own $1 billion offseason last year thanks to the Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto deals and c) they got Roki Sasaki at an outrageous discount. On the flip side, 10 different MLB teams are currently projected to have CBT payrolls lower than the Dodgers' tax bill, per Spotrac. That includes the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays, who will be playing in minor league stadiums this year after longstanding disputes over their future homes (the A's made the move voluntarily, the Rays not so much). The Chicago White Sox are also in that group after losing an MLB-record 121 games and then trading their best remaining player. Manfred seems more concerned about MLB's non-competitive teams and other issues, again via Harris: 'If I'm going to be critical of something, it's not going to be the Dodgers. It's going to be the system." In case you need a recap, here are all nine MLB free agent contracts the Dodgers signed since winning the World Series (returnees are italicized): SP Blake Snell: five years, $182 million RP Tanner Scott: four years, $72 million OF Teoscar Hernández: three years, $66 million RP Blake Treinen: two years, $22 million OF Michael Conforto: one year, $17 million IF Hyeseong Kim: three years, $12.5 million RP Kirby Yates: one year, $13 million SP Clayton Kershaw: one year, $7.5 million UTL Kiké Hernández: one year, $6.5 million That doesn't include Sasaki's $6.5 million international free agent bonus, nor the five-year, $74 million extension Tommy Edman got. All together, the Dodgers arguably walked away with two of the four best starting pitchers on the market in Snell and Sasaki, three of the best relievers in Scott, Treinen and Yates and the second-best outfielder in Teoscar Hernández. All of this has made the idea of a salary cap, long taboo in MLB, more attractive to fans, though that would probably limit player salaries league-wide than hurt the Dodgers. As the Sasaki deal showed, the Dodgers have leveraged their resources in a lot more areas than payroll and would be an attractive destination for any free agent not getting what he wants in the market. This season's outcome isn't a foregone conclusion, though. Yes, the Dodgers are the clear World Series favorites at +250 odds with BetMGM, but that works out to Vegas only giving them a 28.6% chance to win the title. On a mechanical level, the sport of baseball has been quite unwelcoming to teams who think they can just spend their way to a title in recent years.
