NFL
By: Joe Cardoso
I love baseball, but we can all agree the season is long. We have seen a ton of action, great plays, and been disappointed by our teams more than once, and YES, I’m talking to you Mets fans. So, I boiled it down to my top 4 storylines of the 2026 season.
Robot Umps are here! They are changing the game:
This is the first season with ABS, and it has flipped the game on every level. Each team gets a limited number of challenges per game on balls/strikes, with ABS making the final call on the play. The results are the same as what we saw in the minor leagues: more strikeouts and more walks, with both pitchers and hitters adjusting in real time and adding another fun level to the game. If you are a catcher who made his name by framing pitches, you are becoming a dinosaur, and managers need to learn when to use those challenges. When this comes into play during the World Series, and it will, that is when the game would have fully changed. When ABS swings a series, the internet will melt.
Who are These Chicago White Sox?
If this isn’t the story of the year, I don’t know what is. It was just in 2024 when we saw this team go 41-121 and another 100-loss season to boot, so how has this team spent most of 2026 in first place in the NL Central? It starts with a young core with studs like outfielder Sam Antonacci, Miguel Vargas, Colston Montgomery, and Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami turned a team projected for 95-plus losses squad into a shocking surprise. They have lost some steam down the stretch, but turnarounds like THIS are rare in baseball. Whatever happens in October doesn’t matter; this is already the making of a great Netflix sports doc.
The Dodgers are Good, And Everyone Hates Them:
The boys in white and blue are going for a third straight World Series title. We haven’t seen that since my Yankees in 1998-2000. This team is always looking to add more pieces and apply the pressure on the rest of MLB. At the trade deadline, they grabbed pitcher Tarik Skubal in a trade deadline blockbuster that had haters steaming mad, while fans started making parade plans. This team is the clear top dog in baseball, with everyone else looking up at them. The Dodgers have not been the regular-season beast as in seasons past, but in the postseason we all know they flip the switch and get it done. The question is, does ANYONE have what it takes to knock them off the top when it counts?
September is a genuine free-for-all:
The season is winding down, more than half the league entered the stretch run either in playoff position or within a handful of games of one. The Brewers (baseball’s best record, behind the arm of NL Cy Young frontrunner Jacob Misiorowski) and Dodgers look locked into division titles, but almost everything else is up for grabs. The Rays are holding off a Yankees team that just got Aaron Judge back from injury in the AL East. The Braves, led by a resurgent Ronald Acuña Jr., are clinging to the NL East lead over a Phillies team that fired its manager in April and stormed back anyway. Add in tight wild-card fights in both leagues, and September 2026 is shaping up as one of the most crowded, chaotic playoff pushes in recent memory, and I LOVE IT!! Now is the time to get caught up before the MLB playoffs start.
What are the storylines YOU loved this season? Drop it in the comments.
