Hello, baseball!

MMSR: 3/26/26

Well, well, well…spring seems to be in full swing. It’s Opening Day for Major League Baseball, beginning with a coastal clash between the San Francisco Giants and the New York Yankees. The game of baseball may have evolved with the times (pitch clock, the death of Chief Wahoo, Tesla Parking at Oracle Park, etc.), but it remains the national pastime, now streaming into your living room with your standard Netflix subscription. Way to meet the people where they’re at, MLB.

                We also have the Sweet Sixteen about to unfold in the March Madness basketball tournament, and I’m pleased to be the proud owner of an as-of-yet unbusted bracket. There were some surprises along the way: from First Four Texas rolling their way to their matchup against Purdue, to the biggest upset yet with No. 9-seeded Iowa taking down the Florida Gators, the first #1 seed to be sent packing in this year’s tournament. It’s been a pretty chalky tournament so far, minus the Gator roast, but with things really getting underway this Thursday and Friday, we are going to see some heavy hitters go down, and inevitably some bracket winners will start to emerge from the wreckage.

                I want to do a little bit on baseball, as it’s top of mind for me, and we have a couple weeks before the NHL playoffs begin to take shape. We will get to the Amazing Avalanche in time. But for now, let’s take a look at what is top of mind for the 2026 Baseball Season:

1 thing on my mind about the Rockies:
                Honestly, I haven’t thought about them much. I play in a fantasy baseball league and co-manage a team with my brother, and everyone makes a point to shit on the Rockies. Most of these guys are from Colorado, and I can’t tell how many are true Rockies fans. My brother and I are begrudging, suffering fans who love and hate this team in equal measure. This means that we will occasionally draft some of their players. This year, we weren’t able to acquire any of their starters on offense because they had been scooped up by the other teams.
                This is like that time you tried to tell your friends to listen to System of a Down, but it really wasn’t their thing, no matter how much you insisted that they rocked hard and yeah, Serj Tankian does some weird stuff with his voice, but these dudes are thrashing out about the Armenian genocide, trying to speak for their ancestors, and can’t you feel the intensity coming through the radio, not to mention all of the fun they’re having with time signatures and rhythm?!? But they wouldn’t listen to SoaD because YOU told them to do it.
                Fast forward to a post-Mezmerize tour stop at the Fillmore, and who do you see in the front row hugging the rail but Gary, into whose hands you placed a Toxicity record and said, “dude, just give it a spin”, to which he said “nah, man I’m good”.
                That frustration at the Fillmore with Gary is watching Mickey Moniak and Jordan Beck get drafted by every other team in the league. And you could add Kyle Freeland or Chase Dollander off of the waiver wire, just to roll the dice with some hometown pride, but you don’t do that because you’re also not a crazy person, and you’re a gentleman who can appreciate a sub 3.50 ERA. They’re going to be 65-97 to end the year, and that’s a generous bump from me.

1 thing on my mind about the Minnesota Twins:
Convince me, guys!! One great thing about being a Rockies fan is that they’ve been so bad for so long that you could at least get a cheap ticket to the ballpark. I’m not sure what the Rockpile seats cost these days, but I would imagine it’s one of the cheapest ways to see Shohei Ohtani on one of the several times he comes through Denver.

This is not the case for the Minnesota Twins. They are a franchise who spends like the Rockies (i.e.: Not enough), but has the swagger of a franchise like the San Diego Padres or the Milwaukee Brewers—they’re GOING to charge you for your time at the ballpark. And I just want to know one thing: Where in the world do you get off?!? What in the white-boy-confidence is this crap?!

They farmed out the team at the deadline last year, trading away a competitive roster in a very winnable division during a time when ownership was also trying to sell the team, breaking the hearts of Minnesotans everywhere when they decided not to, with a year left before the MLB collective bargaining agreement expires at the end of 2026. Was this the case of cheap owners selling high before a potential bargaining fight with more expensive veterans? Is this the ultimate case of Minnesota frugality?

It’s not like we are left with nothing—Brooks Lee, Austin Martin and Luke Keaschall are the former prospects who now have a chance to take their shot, and Byron Buxton and Joe Ryan are still sticking around, though I’m frankly not sure why. Teams like the Atlanta Braves would certainly benefit from the services of Buxton in particular, but we are left with this squishy, uncompetitive middle-ground team in a squishy, uncompetitive division.

                In a moment where it seems like baseball has never been so exciting, I can’t recall a time I’ve been more bored by the Twins and their play-it-safe philosophy of doing just enough to keep fans intrigued, but never enough to keep them satisfied.