Top-30 MLB free agent finally signs, plus 2 unbelievable GIFs

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Teams that sign top-50 guys tend to do that before spring training. Or during the first part of spring training. Or, failing all else, right around Opening Day. Giolito, 31, spoke about his free agency a little over a week ago on the ”Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast, and said it just came down to value — both the value that he and his agent believed he was worth, along with the value that teams (and their internal algorithms) deemed appropriate. In the end, that value ended up being “one year and $3 million, with a mutual option for 2027.” That’s a far cry from the three-year, $57 million deal once projected by Tim Britton.  Whatever the reason for the divide, the one-time White Sox All-Star makes a lot of sense for the Padres, who are missing three starting pitchers, but are still 16-8 and — oh wow, look at that — tied with the Dodgers for first place in the National League West. Giolitio, who started 26 games in 2025 for the Red Sox, will head to Low-A Lake Elsinore to get fully back up to game speed. Barring injury, he’ll be back in the big leagues soon. There’s one player left on that Top 50 list who still hasn’t signed: No. 50, relief pitcher Michael Kopech, most recently a Dodger. Over to Ken. An excerpt from my latest column:  Walt Weiss, in his first season managing the Atlanta Braves after spending eight years as their bench coach, has guided the team to a 16-8 start and a five-game lead in the NL East. He is intensely competitive. Unfailingly humble. Something of a hitting nerd. And, as the baseball world witnessed during a brawl between the Braves and Angels on April 7, a black belt in taekwondo who, at 62, was capable of tackling a player considerably larger and nearly three decades younger, Jorge Soler. But according to another of Weiss’ former players with the Braves, Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, his defining quality, the one that could make him a great manager, is how much he cares about others. Three new members of the Braves noticed that in Weiss immediately. Utility man Mauricio Dubón called him a “father figure.” Infielder Kyle Farmer was struck by how Weiss remembered his children’s names. First baseman Dominic Smith said both Weiss and president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos checked on him daily before he lost his mother, Yvette, to cancer on March 15, and have kept up their inquiries since. “It’s not like fake, ‘Hi, how are you, how’s your family?’ And then he doesn’t talk to you for three weeks,” Freeman said. “It is every day, making sure, ‘Is your family OK? Are you OK?’ That makes you want to run through walls.” Freeman said even when hurt, he fought to get on the field to play for two managers he described as similarly empathetic, his current skipper, Dave Roberts, and Weiss’ predecessor, Brian Snitker. In Freeman’s view, a manager’s ability to elicit such passion is far more important than, say, his rationale for bullpen decisions. Many of those moves, Freeman said, are scripted based on which relievers are available and which are not, knowledge often kept from the media and fans. Weiss, though, isn’t just compassionate with players under his current watch. During the World Baseball Classic, he reached out to Team USA manager Mark DeRosa, whom he mentored as a teammate toward the end of his playing career with the Braves, after DeRosa had created a firestorm by mistakenly saying his team qualified for the quarterfinals when it had not. “I lean a lot on my own experiences,” said Weiss, who spent 14 seasons in the majors with the Athletics, Rockies and Braves. “I’m not saying you had to have played to be a manager. Obviously, we can debunk that theory. But I do think it adds an element to it.” The longest losing streak in the big leagues no longer belongs to the Mets. After dropping 12 in a row, they snapped the skid with a 3-2 win over the Twins last night. Juan Soto’s return wasn’t without a bit of drama — he made headlines by acknowledging that he hadn’t been in touch with his teammates while they were on the road, mired in a hellish losing streak. (Multiple veterans brushed that off, saying it’s completely normal.) Soto did advance a runner with a long fly ball that eventually led to a run, but the win can be more credited to Francisco Alvarez (who drove in a run with a fourth-inning double) and Mark Vientos, who atoned for a TOOTBLAN by singling home Brett Baty in the eighth inning to give the Mets (8-16) the lead for good. Likewise for starter Clay Holmes, who wasn’t dominant — he gave up two runs in seven innings, striking out only three — but kept it close enough for his teammates to come through late. However, even this big sigh of relief did not come with permission to inhale, just yet. On the day that Soto returned from a calf injury, Francisco Lindor left the game because of … his left calf. He’ll undergo an MRI today. More losing streaks: The Phillies’ is up to eight games, and now J.T. Realmuto is on the injured list. Last night, we saw two incredibly strange occurrences. I have GIFs. First: A’s right fielder Carlos Cortes hit a 108 mph line drive right back up the middle, and a bunch of us learned a new rule, because this … … was ruled a single. Wait, what? The ball didn’t hit the ground between Cortes’ bat and the inside of Logan Gilbert’s jersey. So why was it a single? MLB’s Daniel Kramer explains it here, but the short version is: If a ball is trapped in a player’s jersey, it’s a dead ball, and it’s basically up to the umpires’ discretion. But was that the most unusual play of the night? No, and here’s why: I’ve actually seen it before, in 2014, when Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor took a bad hop right into his jersey. Here’s the video, which features the official MLB YouTube account spelling Odor’s first name “Roughed” (as in “roughed up,” which is ironic). And it was easy enough to find a couple more examples. Here’s the kind of play I’d never seen before, though: Oneil Cruz hit a home run off the top of the foul pole. I’d never heard of it happening before. The sheer physics of this make it seem entirely impossible, even though I’ve now seen it with my own eyes. As you might expect, given where it “landed,” that ball was 116.9 mph off the bat. It’s the hardest-hit home run in MLB this year. Wild. Even rarer: The White Sox and Diamondbacks have combined for six triples and 12 home runs in the first two games of their series. Per the D-Backs broadcast, that has never happened in MLB history. Ever. It appears the Royals are staying in Missouri, thanks to a $1.9 billion stadium in downtown Kansas City. I loved this. Jayson Jenks spoke with Keith Foulke and Jason Varitek, the batterymates who ended the Curse of the Bambino. When the Yankees signed Gerrit Cole, they probably didn’t know they’d be getting two aces out of the deal. Here’s how a conversation with Cam Schlittler is still paying off. I wanna take you on a journey. First, read Chris Kirschner waxing eloquent on the gradual degradation of the Yankees’ mystique. Then, and only then … click here and just read the headline. Benjamin Burrows sat down with Braves creative director Insung Kim about what makes the Braves’ City Connect uniforms work so well. Things I learned yesterday: One: “Platform tennis” exists, and is distinct from pickleball, tennis, table tennis, paddleball, padel and “other paddle tennis.” Two: Our Jon Greenberg has a paddle tennis newsletter. Three: Ernie Clement of the Blue Jays is a big-time paddle tennis guy. Ohtani on-base streak counter: Ohtani’s streak ended at 53 games, as he was too busy pitching six shutout innings and lowering his ERA to 0.38 and didn’t get on base. Nevertheless, we promised you the answer to yesterday’s trivia question, so here are the six on-base streaks longer than NL record-holder Duke Snider’s 58 games: 6. Jim Thome (60, 2002-2003 — CLE) 5. Mark McGwire (61, 1995-1996 – OAK) 4. Orlando Cabrera (63, 2006 — LAA) 3. Ted Williams (73, 1941-1942 — BOS) 2. Joe DiMaggio (74, 1941 — NYY) 1. Ted Williams (84, 1949 – BOS) Most-clicked in our last newsletter: Jim Bowden’s list of the six struggling expected contenders. 📫 Love The Windup? Check out The Athletic’s other newsletters. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms