Another story that both outlets wrote about was Vinnie Pasquantino being a player correspondent for the World Series. From the MLB story<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Pasquantino was the correspondent for Media Day on Thursday and will fill that role for Friday\u2019s Game 1 in Toronto, where he\u2019ll produce content on MLB social channels, provide behind-the-scenes access to the Fall Classic and be a part of social media takeovers. Known for showcasing his humor, Pasquantino\u2019s personality will be on full display as he interviews friends, players and celebrities, appears on MLB Network, and shares his insights on the matchup between the Dodgers and Blue Jays\u2026<\/p>\n Pasquantino has been on the receiving end of two of the three fastest pitches that Ohtani has thrown in his career: a 102.0 mph fastball during the 2023 World Baseball Classic that Pasquantino whiffed on and a 101.7 mph pitch on June 28 this season that resulted in a double play. (Ohtani also threw a 101.7 mph pitch against the Phillies\u2019 Kyle Schwarber last month.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Pete Grathoff wrote about it<\/a> for The Star:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cYeah, he keeps doing that to me,\u201d Pasquantino quipped after the game. \u201cI just saw that the fastest pitches he\u2019s ever thrown in his career, two of them, are against me, his two hardest throws. I need to talk to him.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n I went back and looked and I don\u2019t think this was mentioned earlier this week. Scott Sharp is no longer in the running<\/a> for the Rockies GM job:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Reports emerged a few days ago that the Rockies were entering the finalist stage of their search for a new front office leader, and the field has now been whittled down to perhaps just two names. The Athletic\u2019s Brittany Ghiroli and Ken Rosenthal report that Guardians assistant GM Matt Forman and Diamondbacks assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye are under consideration for the job, though it is possible another unknown finalist may also still be in the mix. Former Astros GM James Click and Royals assistant GM Scott Sharp had been candidates for the Rockies job but are no longer in consideration.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Old friend Richard Lovelady re-signed with the Mets<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n How about some listicles?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n At CBS Sports, RJ Anderson lists the Top 25 free agents for 2026<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n 25. OF Mike Yastrzemski <\/strong><\/p>\n Potential suitors: Guardians, Reds, Royals<\/strong><\/p>\n Here\u2019s a tidbit to chew on: Yastrzemski has tallied more Wins Above Replacement than Kyle Schwarber since debuting in 2019. Schwarber has an edge in expected payday all the same and it\u2019s for good reason. Yastrzemski, historically a solid most-days starter, has shown signs of decline as he enters his age-35 season, at least as it pertains to physical markers (like sprint speed). He can still mind the zone and put a stick on the ball, but the margins are thinner for a player of this caliber. Between the modest ceiling and heightened crater risk, he may end up having to settle for a one-year arrangement.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Also at CBS Sports, Scott White listed his top 40 SPs for 2026 Fantasy baseball<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n 12 Cole Ragans Kansas City Royals SP<\/strong> ESPN\u2019s David Schoenfield \u201cRank[ed] the best World Series matchups since 2000<\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n 23. 2014: San Francisco Giants over Kansas City Royals, 4-3<\/strong><\/p>\n (read article for more information)<\/p>\n 12. 2015: Kansas City Royals over New York Mets, 4-1<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n The Royals proved their 2014 World Series appearance was no fluke, winning 95 games with a better team that included trade-deadline additions Ben Zobrist and Johnny Cueto. The Mets won the NL East behind a young, powerful rotation that featured Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom. It was a fun matchup of teams trying to avoid lengthy title droughts — 30 years for the Royals, 29 for the Mets.<\/p>\n Actual World Series: <\/strong>C+. It only went five games, but the Royals won the opener in 14 innings, won Game 5 with a three-run eighth inning and then won the clincher in 12 innings — after Mets manager Terry Collins\u2019 ill-fated decision to leave in Harvey to start the ninth with a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n David Lesky ($) pitches Maikel Garcia as an extension candidate<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n So the first question to ask is if a player like Garcia makes sense for an extension. My gut is yes, but there are reasons to say no. He\u2019ll be 26 next season and is under team control through 2029, which means they already have Garcia tied to the Royals through his age-29 season. At least offensively, he\u2019s only been above average once in his three full big league seasons. What happens if it turns out this year was a fluke? I think the underlying stats support the breakout continuing, but we\u2019ve seen guys have one good year all the time. If you fall in the camp that you\u2019re fine paying a little bit more year-to-year if he breaks out even more, I totally get it. I think I disagree with it, but I get it.<\/p>\n The reason I disagree is that you\u2019re not paying for his bat only. You\u2019re paying for his ability to work a count and play defense and be a positive on the bases. He put up an 85 wRC+ in 2023 and was still worth 2.2 fWAR. This is not a hard and fast number, but if you consider 1 WAR to be worth $8 million, that\u2019s a $17.2 million player. He was terrible <\/em>offensively in 2024 and was worth 1.2 fWAR. That\u2019s worth $9.6 million. You\u2019re not wanting to pay full free agent freight on a contract extension, but his non-offensive ability leads to a fairly high floor, at least when it comes to value. That said, nobody wants to be paying eight figures for a utility man. So, again, I do get it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n I know I said I would do this next week. But we\u2019re all just waiting around for the World Series to start and it\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve done a good rant, so\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Halloween is next Friday so we\u2019re talking Halloween candy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n First off, prices have gone insane. I\u2019m the primary grocery buyer in our house and, as such, I\u2019m the couponer-in-chief. If you were diligently monitoring sales, you could easily get even your favorite candy for less than 10c per piece a couple of years ago. Now it\u2019s almost impossible to find candy for that price. At least not without getting tiny portions (no, minis are not fun-sized<\/a> so stop trying to pass them off like they are) or in a mixed bag with a lot of mediocrity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cBut, SI, inflation is all around us and prices are up\u201d. Not like this. And, since it\u2019s me, you know that I\u2019ve got some numbers to back it up<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Halloween candy prices are actually outpacing inflation.<\/p>\n The increase in Halloween candy prices from 2023 to 2025 was more than 3.5 times greater than the increase from 2020 to 2022, according to a FinanceBuzz study.<\/p>\n The average price for a 100-piece bag of candy is $16.39 in 2025, up $7.20 compared with 2020, when 100 pieces of candy could be purchased for $9.19. That\u2019s a 78% increase, which is more than triple the national rate of inflation, 25%, over that same time period.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n That lines up exactly with what I\u2019ve seen: average price went from 9.1 to 16.4. And it\u2019s been particularly egregious the last couple of years. At least that last part makes some sense: I know our Halloween traffic was way down in 2020-22 due to COVID. For the last couple of years, Halloween has been in the middle of the week. Now we\u2019re back to weekend days with 2025 on Friday and 2026 on Saturday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n So, what\u2019s to blame for that?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Notice how all of those stories also talk about how candy is \u201coutpacing inflation\u201d, as above? That\u2019s weird – it\u2019s almost as if there\u2019s a new cover story every year. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s not the expensive acquisitions<\/a>, failed buyouts<\/a>, and stock buybacks<\/a> that need to be paid for by the consumer in an ever less competitive marketplace.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In my mind, there are four major candy holidays: Halloween, Christmas, Valentine\u2019s Day, and Easter. Back when I was much younger and had more time than money, I used to love the day after those holidays. I lived in a certain college town just to the west of Kansas City, and I would hit up every grocery store, drug store, discount store, etc. to get cheap candy at 50% off or more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That\u2019s all but gone, too. Many retailers seem to be supplying just enough to get to the week of Halloween now so there\u2019s nothing left to clearance. From Reddit<\/a>, so take it with a boulder of salt, but there were people talking about how some retailers ship it around the week of Halloween from one lower-performing store to a higher one (yay, JIT inventory?) and other retailers \u201cdonating\u201d it to Goodwill and the like for a tax write off.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Purely anecdotal, but here\u2019s what I\u2019ve found over the past couple of years. I visited the big name \u201cbox stores\u201d – you know the large blue one and the large red one – those had a very limited selection and it was moved to an obscure corner of the store with minimal discounting. Still, people were buying up the mediocre candy with a middling 10-20% discount. Our couple of large grocery stores left them in the seasonal area, but they didn\u2019t mark them down much either, like 25%. Finally, the couple of large drug store chains – the space seems most important to them – and they were both at 50% off. However, their candy was also marked up the highest to start with so the discount was less impressive than it seemed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I always liked these sales. It was a chance to stock up on my favorites that aren\u2019t in the variety packs: things like Take 5 or even Butterfinger. You\u2019ll rarely find those in the \u201cmixes\u201d. The other thing I liked to do was try out some of the wacky flavors. And that\u2019s just not around much anymore, which leads me to\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n We have been cheated out of Halloween candy variety. There just used to be more choices. At least I think there were.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n However, I am open to the idea that I have Super Bowl Commercial-type bias. What do I mean by this? Think about that loud coworker who always has to be right about everything. He talks about how the Super Bowl ads suck. Every. Single. Year. This isn\u2019t a legit complaint like \u201cthere are too many dot com ads this year\u201d or \u201cI think the mean tone of ad A, ad B, ad C, and ad D was off-putting\u201d. No, no – every year, he makes some grand statement like \u201cThis year\u2019s ads suck. Why don\u2019t they make ads like they used to?\u201d and his examples are three of the best ads of the 90s. Like not from one year – his entire childhood.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I feel so many Halloween flavors have come and gone. At some point or another, seemingly every candy had a dark chocolate variety. Remember back when people (purposely) misread that chocolate cures cancer? Every vapid local news reporter ran with the story. Yup, go ahead and eat that 500-calorie milk chocolate bar loaded with sugar and cocoa butter! That is definitely good for you! Even some legit organizations reluctantly agreed that dark chocolate can be good for you, with caveats. And so the \u201cdark chocolate is healthy\u201d era began.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n There were also eras of mint, pumpkin spice, caramel apple, glow in the dark, and more. I kindof like the Ghoulish Green ones<\/a> that we\u2019ve had for a few years now. But that\u2019s just food coloring for a single brand and no special flavor. Also, we\u2019re not talking international candy – was just trying to limit it to the USA – but if you\u2019ve never fallen down the Japanese KitKat rabbit hole<\/a>: is this your first day on the internet? But my memory isn\u2019t great so I wanted to look on the internet to see what flavors others missed. But I could hardly find a whisper amongst all the SEO garbage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I\u2019m sure this will get better as AI-created slop gums up the works even more. My searches kept pointing me back to a site called \u201cfreshrecipes.net\u201d. I wouldn\u2019t give them the satisfaction of free clicks. However, their AI is so bad that it\u2019s worth laughing at. Like this story about \u201cDiscover the Joy of Frozen Whipped Coffee<\/a>\u201d? Only the graphic says \u201cQucce wceld thie the\u2019 Firzoiney Wih(unknown letter)ipped Coffee\u201d and the picture further down where the Coffee jar uses the less common \u201cCaffree\u201d spelling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But the real reason I ended up there is because they showed up in an image search for \u201cpumpkin spice Snickers\u201d with this horrible AI barf of \u201cSnickers Strawberry Cheesecake<\/a>\u201d. I can\u2019t even tell if they made such a thing. I\u2026 think they might have, but I can\u2019t get any confirmation from a real source. All the links are to Facebook or TikTok or Pinterest. Snickers doesn\u2019t have it on its product page<\/a>. So this is what I\u2019m dealing with.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The other tactic I took was to search for discontinued Halloween candy. But even with \u201cHalloween\u201d as a required term, I just got the same non-Halloween items on listicles. Over and over and over again. Getting past the complete disregard for my \u201cHalloween\u201d search term, how many cut-and-paste lists are there with Wonka Bars,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n How many times can you cut-and-paste the same list with Wonka Bars, Altoids Sours, and that Chicken candy from the 20s? No one missed the short-lived Bubble Beeper Gum and Berries and Creme Starburst like the people who needed padding for their listicles. I\u2019ll at least give this list<\/a> credit for half of it being Halloween or fall-themed candy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In the end, I started this list because I miss Butterfinger Crisp and Butterfinger BBs; the latter was on a number of these copied lists. I was reminded of a few other fun things I had forgotten like the Gatorade Gatorgum, Life Savers Holes, and Dweebs (the squishy version of Nerds, for those who don\u2019t remember). But, hey, if this quote<\/a> doesn\u2019t sum up the whole endeavor:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Hershey\u2019s had a massive hit with Kisses \u2014 a candy classic since 1907 \u2014 but took it too far with Kissables, colorful mini-Kisses that were basically like M&M\u2019s with a different shape. They were pretty successful for a couple of years after their 2005 launch, but a 2007 cost-cutting reformulation (cocoa butter was replaced with cheaper fats and \u2014 surprise, surprise \u2014 people noticed) led to their 2009 demise.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n In short, I gave up before I really found what I was looking for: a list of old, discontinued Halloween flavors. I\u2019m fairly certain this isn\u2019t a \u201cMandela effect<\/a>\u201d thing so much as a \u201cfew people cared to document this\u201d thing. And the modern internet is making this impossible to find. I\u2019d have a better chance of time-traveling back to 2003 and finding it on Geocities than I would now. Then again, the only place I\u2019d find a lot of these flavors is 2003 (or 2006 or 2011, etc.) and they\u2019re not coming back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The guess here is that Ragans will be a tough sell for many given that he missed most of 2025 with a strained rotator cuff and ended up delivering just a 4.67 ERA. But the small sample is responsible for the outlandish ERA, which is betrayed by some jaw-dropping strikeout numbers that reveal him to be, in no uncertain terms, an ace of the highest standing. Twelfth may be too low, honestly.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n
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