Newsletter Excerpt, March 30, 2026 -- "Thinking Inside the Box"

 

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Marlins 4, Rockies 3

                 AB  R  H  BI

Caissie PH-RF     2  1  1   2 HR

Owen Caissie wasn’t in the Marlins’ Opening Night lineup until Christopher Morel pulled up lame hours before the first pitch. Dropped into the DH slot, Caissie had an RBI double off lefty Kyle Freeland in a 2-1 Marlins win. He followed that up with three hits Sunday before once again being sent to the bench against a lefty Sunday. Caissie grounded out hitting for Austin Slater in the eighth, then came up with the tying run on second and two outs in the ninth and walked it off. (That’s a great shot of the moment Caissie transitions from “run!” into his home-run trot.)

But for the Morel injury, Caissie might not have started two of the first three games, which is a terrible way to handle a young player. Come to think of it, so is watching him get hits off lefties in his first two games and then sitting him against the next one anyway. We’re seeing this around the league, where Jac Caglianone and Marcelo Mayer were both platooned with fringe veterans in the season’s first weekend. Slater has his uses, but there is no reason for the 2026 Miami Marlins to be getting cute with a player who can become a core piece for them. No left-handed hitter ever learned to hit lefties while watching waiver bait from the bench.

 

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, March 29, 2026 -- "Season Preview 2026: Teams #3-1"

 

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1. Los Angeles Dodgers (98-64, first in NL West, 844 runs scored, 661 runs allowed).

They added a top-15 player and a top-five relief pitcher to the two-time defending World Champions.

The meta aspects of that aside -- you know I’m all for teams competing as hard as they can using any and all tools at their disposal, because their job is to win for their fans, no one else’s -- it makes it hard to do a Dodgers preview. Yes, there are age issues, same as the Phillies, but the Dodgers’ older core is better and their next group of players, your Will Smiths and Max Muncys, is better. The Dodgers worked in Andy Pages last year and will give Alex Freeland a chance to make the team younger this year.  

If MLB were run like the English Premier League, where the champion is the team in first place at the end of the year, no month of max-intensity playoffs to follow, the Dodgers might win 115 games. They could win 120. I would love to watch that. I mentioned in Gaming that no team has won even 100 games since 2023, the product of the structural changes to the sport this decade. I think the Dodgers are a 108-win team that wants to win exactly one more game than it needs to to make the playoffs. As we saw last year, they didn’t seem to even flinch at playing in the first round. 

The Dodgers have spent the last two years playing for October. They didn’t win 100 games in either season, but they went 24-8, a .750 winning percentage, in the playoffs and won two World Series. It’s hard to argue with that kind of success. 

The main concern as they enter 2026 is the pitching. Blake Snell is out for two months, Roki Sasaki is a mess, and Emmet Sheehan is missing a lot of his 2025 velocity. Blake Treinen is somehow still here, likely to outlast all of us. The Dodgers have their usual melange of vaguely familiar names coming back from injury, and we’ll no doubt see Landon Knack and River Ryan and Gavin Stone this year when someone more famous goes on the IL with a blister or heartburn or nightmares. 

The next important game the Dodgers play is more than six months away. Until then, enjoy this incredible collection of baseball talent, and try not to think about what it could do if the rules were better.

Upside: They could set the record for wins, but I’m long past going on #117Watch. They’d probably top out at 112-50 if they wanted to.

Downside: There’s a famous tweet about how the Dodgers look like a juggernaut in April and a jalopy in October. I guess it could happen again, but I’ve baked that it here and projected them at the bottom of their range. They won’t fall past 96-66. 

Modest Proposal: Give Sasaki, who has looked good for two playoff appearances since signing with the Dodgers, the Roy Halladay treatment. Send him to A ball and let him start over, and don’t think about bringing him to the majors until he’s ready. 

 

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, March 28, 2026 -- "Season Preview 2026: Teams #6-4"

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

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4. New York Yankees (94-68, second in AL East, 821 runs scored, 680 runs allowed).

Wednesday night, ESPN’s Jeff Passan referred to the “run-it-back rhetoric” around the Yankees, which stuck in my craw. This isn’t some made-up narrative. The Yankees return their top 11 players from last year by playing time, including every single hitter who played during their postseason run. (Anthony Volpe and Jasson Dominguez didn’t make the Opening Day roster.) Every starting pitcher they used in the playoffs comes back, as well as ten of the 12 pitchers the team used. Hell, the other two, Devin Williams and Luke Weaver, stayed within the city limits. Those are facts, not rhetoric: The Yankees are running back last year’s team as much as any team this century has.

 

 

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, March 28, 2026 -- "Season Preview 2026: Teams #9-7

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $79.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card. (Zelle users, please email me for details.)

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8. New York Mets (87-75, second in NL East, 809 runs scored, 731 runs allowed).

David Stearns moved on from the core he inherited, which wasn’t an unreasonable decision given that core’s age and limitations. In practice, though, he’s built an awkward roster, a mix of free agents and free-agent-like substances, crowding out the products of the strong farm system he inherited. 

However awkward the mix, the Mets are going to score runs. This is the second-best offense in the game, with rookie Carson Benge or trade pickup Luis Robert Jr. the low man, and they’re likely to hang around a 95 wRC+. Juan Soto is at his peak, Bo Bichette brings a much-needed skill set -- singles and doubles to drive home the guys who draw walks -- to Queens, and you’re surely already sick of me talking up Francisco Alvarez. 

 

 

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, March 27, 2026 -- "Season Preview 2026: Teams #12-10"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

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10. Arizona Diamondbacks (86-76, second in NL West, 801 runs scored, 766 runs allowed).

This year’s winner of the award for Best Tee-Ball Team is...

Offense: fifth

Defense: third

Starters: 23rd

Bullpen: 23rd

You can’t say they haven’t invested in pitching, signing Corbin Burnes, Eduardo Rodriguez, Michael Soroka, and Jordan Montgomery in free agency, and pulling back Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly from that same pool. They built a pretty good bullpen, the best of which will miss most-to-all of the season with injuries. Maybe you ding them for bad judgment in some of their choices, but who was really against signing Burnes or giving Justin Martinez an extension a year ago.

The Diamondbacks have been better than they are given credit for. They won the NL pennant in 2023, missed the playoffs on a three-way tiebreaker at 89-73 the next year, and had to sell at the ’25 deadline when all their best pitchers got hurt, only to go on a 29-18 run that had them a game out of a playoff berth with five to play. They lost a Calvinball game to the Dodgers, though, then got crushed in a bullpen game, ending their run. 

This core is extremely strong, Corbin Carroll, Geraldo Perdomo, and Ketel Marte each has a top-five MVP finish over the last three years. That group is finally joined by forever prospect Jordan Lawlar, still just 23, and now an outfielder who did post a 14/10 K/BB in spring training. The floor for position players is high, with Alek Thomas plus defensively in center and big defensive upgrades on the infield corners with Carlos Santana and Nolan Arenado. We’ll see how Lawlar works out in left while waiting for Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s return, but there’s a pretty good argument that the Diamondbacks won’t have a below-average defender on the field most days.

They’ll have to out-hit and out-field their pitching, and I think they can, especially getting Burnes back at midseason and being able to go into the market to add relievers at the deadline. There’s a very small chance they push the Dodgers in the West, and a much higher one they settle into a wild-card berth.

Upside: The MVP candidates all play at that level together in one season, the team leads MLB in runs scored, and they give the Dodgers a fright at 93-69.

Downside: Even a strong defense can’t keep them from giving up 800 runs, and the bad bullpen causes them to lose a lot of close games. They sell at the deadline, but stay in the mix again and finish 81-81.

Modest Proposal: Drey Jameson didn’t pitch well in the Cactus League, earning a trip to Reno in his return from a couple of years lost to elbow issues. I wouldn’t let him get comfortable in the Biggest Little City in the World, as he was throwing 97 in camp and both his slider and change were getting some whiffs. Of the many options to bolster this pen, I like him the best.

 

 

 

Newsletter Excerpt, March 26. 2026 -- "Season Preview 2026: Teams #15-13"

 

This is a preview of the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider.

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14. Toronto Blue Jays (84-78, fourth in AL East, 776 runs scored, 748 runs allowed).

I struggled with where to rank the reigning AL champs, whose 2025 run was fueled by depth and defense, and who went out and added one of the top free agents on the market in Dylan Cease. When I ran the numbers, though, all I saw was regression from the team’s core of returning players. The Jays won’t be a lot worse on either side of the ball, about 20 runs each, but throw in a shaky bullpen and it’s unlikely they go 27-20 in one-run games again.

Remember that their entire margin of victory in the division a year ago was extra-innings Calvinball, where they went 10-4. The Yankees were four games better in nine-inning contests and the Red Sox had a slightly better winning percentage than the Jays did in regulation. Flags fly forever, but when I look at the 2025 team, the run through the playoffs gets weighted a lot less than their 90-72 third-order record does.

So it’s no one thing. It’s them scanning as a bit worse than 94-68 last year and seeing them a little worse at the plate, a little worse on the mound. I don’t know which hitters you can expect to be better than they were in 2025; George Springer and Daulton Varsho had their best seasons, Alejandro Kirk his second-best. I wrote a few times last year just how much they got from the bench, guys like Tyler Heineman and Myles Straw. Kazuma Okamoto could replace Bo Bichette’s 2025 production; he’s unlikely to improve on it. They had a good health record last year, and if that turns even a little, they’ll be exposed.

Adding Cease and Cody Ponce builds out the starting rotation nicely. They start the year under the gun injury-wise, but we’ll eventually see them get Trey Yesavage and Shane Bieber to the mound. The pen...well, it’s last year’s pen with Tyler Rogers added to the mix. By the end of the postseason, John Schneider had a pretty small circle of trust, so we’ll see whether he regains comfort with Brendon Little, Braydon Fisher, and Mason Fluharty. As the starters get healthy, Eric Lauer should slide into the pen. I ranked them 13th, which is just outside the group of good bullpens and into the next tier down.

For all the struggles I had getting here, I end up as confident in this prediction as in any of the 30 I’ve made. This is a good team, not a great one, with every chance to get back to the tournament and make another deep run.

Upside: They need the pitching to be just a bit better, not a lot better, than I project to get to 88-74 and the playoffs.

Downside: The lack of depth gets exposed, as last year’s bench is this year’s problem. It’s still a high floor, say 81-81. The Jays have a small range of possible outcomes.

Modest Proposal: The Jays open with a super-soft schedule, four non-contenders wrapped around a visit from the Dodgers. Schneider should use the time to experiment a bit with the lineup and bullpen, figure out his best options in the outfield corners and the seventh through ninth innings.