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No. 18 Saint Louis received a wake-up call ahead of its Atlantic 10 showdown with VCU on Friday night.

The Billikens (24-2, 12-1 A-10) saw their 18-game winning streak end with an 81-76 loss at Rhode Island on Tuesday night. Saint Louis turned the ball over 18 times, including 11in the first 9:33 of the game.

"I think it's a bit of complacency," Saint Louis guard Dion Brown said. "We're 24-1, we think we're a good team, and (Tuesday) showed that we weren't as good as we thought. We come out of the mindset that, hey we're going to win this game. It takes away from our preparation."

Saint Louis will try to rebound when it hosts the red-hot Rams (21-6, 12-2) at Chaifetz Arena.

"It's hard when you win 18 games in a row to maybe maintain the humility and hunger it takes to play your best," Saint Louis coach Josh Schertz said. "But at the end of the day, that's what championship teams are able to do. They're able to continue to improve while they win. Maybe this is what we needed to reset ourselves and get back to the team that we've been for most of the season."

VCU's 89-75 victory over George Washington on Tuesday night extended its winning streak to 10 games and left it with a 45 NET ranking.

"It was buckling down at the defensive end," VCU coach Phil Martelli Jr. said. "It was another of those games, if we guard, we're going to win the game. And we did."

The Billikens, who are 16-0 at home this season, have a 22 NET ranking after their loss.

"They're obviously a great team," Martelli said. "I think they are a second weekend NCAA Tournament team. We get to go there and play a meaningful, high-level game on Feb. 20th, like you can't ask for any better than that."

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The Rams lost to the Billikens 71-62 on Jan. 7 at home. VCU shot 18-for-63 from the floor, including 6-for-24 from 3-point range in that game.

But Martelli believes the Rams have made strides since these teams first met.

"I think we're a better defensive team certainly," he said. "We've kind of gotten our legs to us and a kind of a rhythm to us that I think we were still searching for then."

Both teams feature a nine-man playing rotation and balanced scoring. VCU guards Terrence Hill Jr. and Jadrian Tracey are both shooting 38.0% from 3-point range on high volumes.

Prior to losing at Rhode Island, Saint Louis led the NCAA Division I with an average scoring margin of 23 points. Through 25 games they ranked second in 3-point shooting with 40.9% accuracy.

The Billikens have seven players averaging at least 9.3 points per game this season, led by Robbie Avila (12.7 ppg), and nine players averaging at least 15.2 minutes per game.

But Schertz believes the group lost its edge this month.

"We've been playing with fire the last three or four games in terms of our execution and physicality and competitiveness," Schertz said. "The things that were our superpowers have been our effort and our toughness and our execution and our connectedness."

--Field Level Media

UCLA basketballcoach Mick Cronindid it again Tuesday night— he keeps doing this — and someone needs to get him under control. I'd suggest Cronin needs to control himself, stop bullying his players and others, but these aren't isolated incidents. This keeps happening. It's who he is:

A bully. A vicious one.

Yeah, I hear some of you:Wah, wah, you're so soft…

Maybe so. But maybe being soft, being vulnerable, is more of what this world needs. Everywhere you look, on the streets and on social media and even in our seats of government, we're being hard, being invulnerable, being downrightmean. Look around. You like what you see? Not me.

College basketball hot seat:13 coaches who may be in trouble

March Sadness:College basketball's 10 most disappointing teams

And what we're seeing from Bruins coach Mick Cronin is appalling. Here's what we saw Tuesday night, and please, see the whole picture. Don't focus on one thing — the foul by one of his players — and decide: Welp, that's what the kid deserved.

Nah. UCLA senior forward Steve Jamerson II didn't deserve this.

Neither did the reporter who asked Cronin, afterward, about the atmosphere in East Lansing, Michigan.

Here's how it started:

Michigan State's Carson Cooper is running down the court, ahead of the pack, going up for a dunk. The No. 15 Spartans lead UCLA by 27 with 4½ minutes left, well on their way to victory, when Cooper rises for a dunk. Behind him, Jamerson arrives a split-second late. He goes for the block, nothing dirty — watch the play yourself — but Cooper's momentum, combined with the contact Jamerson makes on his arm, sends Cooper to the floor.

Cooper rises, angry. Hey, that's his right. Jamerson stands his ground. His right, too.

And then Mick Cronin did one of the single cruelest things I've ever seen.

First, UCLA's Mike Cronin ejects his own player

You're picturing the scene, right? The Breslin Center is furious, turning all its rage on Jamerson. That was the crowd's right. So far, nobody has done anything wrong. Jamerson was hustling, competing. Didn't look frustrated, just a split-second late as he contested the shot. Cooper was angry. The crowd was furious.

It happens.

But then Cronin does something that can't happen. Cronin grabs Jamerson by the shirt, by the arm, and tells him to get out. Points angrily to a staffer, then to Jamerson, and gives the "get him out of here" signal.

Watchthe video. See that look on Jamerson's face? He's bewildered, dejected. The entire building has just turned on him, and now his coach is sending him off the court, into the locker room, to face all that fury by himself? The video shows students giving Jamerson the middle finger, and shouting at him. You can see the finger(s). Can't hear the shouting, thank goodness.

You hope Jamerson didn't hear it, either, but that's naïve.

This was the worst example, but just the latest example, of Cronin humiliating his players. His postgame news conferences tend to go viral after losses, because he questions his players' toughness or effort in the most straightforward terms, and has even suggested — rather blatantly — that his playersaren't smart enough.

"The most important thing for a teacher is for his students to have aptitude or they can't learn,"he said in 2024after a loss to Stanford. "If a team makes adjustments, we struggle to adjust to instruction on the fly."

"It's really hard to coach people that are delusional,"Cronin said in 2025after a loss to Michigan. "We got guys who think they're way better than they are. They're nice kids. They're completely delusional about who they are."

"You can't call your mommy; she can't help you,"he said in 2024. "You've got an opportunity of a lifetime and it may not last forever depending on your performance."

Cronin thinks he's old-school tough, and that players are soft. He's not the problem — they are.

"If you're hard on Little Johnny in this era," he said earlier this month, after a win at Rutgers, "you might get investigated."

At first, forgive me, I found it almost refreshing. Maybe that's because I was inclined to like Cronin — because I'd always liked Cronin — since meeting him 20 years ago when he was coaching Cincinnati and I was living there, covering college basketball for CBSSports.com.In 2011,when players from Xavier and Cincinnati brawled, Cronin's postgame disgust was so real, so deserved, I texted him that night to thank him for standing up for decency.

Now this is me, standing up for decency, and telling Mick — or telling UCLA — this has to stop. What happened to Steven Jamerson was the breaking point, for me.

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What happened afterward, to a reporter? Another brutal, bully move.

Then Mick Cronin bullies a reporter

This story hinges onXavier Booker,who spent the past two seasons at Michigan State before transferring to UCLA this season. The Breslin Center student section, the 5,000-strong Izzone, taunted Booker by chanting his name.

Afterward, a reporter asked Cronin what he thought about that.

"I could give a rat's ass about the other team's student section,"Cronin said. "I would like to give you kudos for the worst question I've ever been asked."

A second reporter starts to ask a question on another topic, but Cronin ignores him to turn on the first reporter. His team has just been embarrassed. Cronin's about to take it out on someone else.

"Youreallythink I care about the other team's student section?" he asks.

The second reporter tries to defend himself, and if his voice went up ever so slightly — and that's all it was — could you blame him? He was being humiliated by the coach of UCLA, with cameras running. He was standing up for himself, and you know bullies:

They don't like that.

"Are you raising your voice at me?" Cronin demanded.

The reporter, trying to calm the situation, backed down and said he wasn't.

"Yeah, you are, yeah, you are," Cronin said. "Come on, dude … everybody's standing here listening to you. Everybody. This is on camera. They can hear you. I answered the question. I could give a rat's ass about the other team's student section. I coach UCLA. I don't care about Michigan State students. Who cares?"

This was the biggest kid in the schoolyard, pushing down a smaller one and then mocking him. It's what Cronin had done to Jamerson, using the assembled crowd to reinforce his own cruelty.

This is who Cronin is with cameras rolling, and NBA scouts tell me he's even worse behind closed doors, at practice. A Western Conference scout, a longtime friend of mine, was discussing Cronin's recent odd behavior with me before tipoff at a recent Big Ten game. This was before the incident Tuesday night at Michigan State — that's how bizarre Cronin has been behaving — when the scout told me:

"He mother(bleeps) them in practice like you wouldn't believe," the scout said. "Oh, he (bleeps) them. Mick is the only coach I know who doesn't film his practice. You know why? He doesn't want evidence."

An Eastern Conference scout, another longtime friend who has attended UCLA practices, said he's heard the same — that Cronin doesn't film practice — and added: "John Wooden would be beside himself" at the way Cronin treats his players on a daily basis.

"Not sure why he's so combative," the scout continued. "He's an excellent coach, and actually a great guy off the court."

As I said, I've found Cronin to be charming away from the court as well, and was such a fan of his — past tense,was— thatI suggested the Indiana basketball program hire Cronin last seasonafter firing Mike Woodson. It's OK to admit when we're wrong.

What is Cronin waiting on? How about you, UCLA? Contrast UCLA's silence, its unspoken approval of Cronin, with what Kansas State did Sunday, firing basketball coach Jerome Tang for a postgame rant that included: "These dudes do not deserve to wear this uniform, and there will be very few of them in it next year."

You ask me, Kansas State wasn't standing up for its players but being cheap and opportunistic, using Tang's rant to try to fire its losing coach for cause — and get out of his $18 million buyout. That might stick in court, but probably not.

Contrast Cronin's postgame behavior Tuesday with Purdue coach Matt Painter the same night, when Michigan trounced his team at Mackey Arenaand Painter stuck up for his players,said he "liked" them and even "loved" them, and then joked with reporters afterward.

"That was way too much talking," he said as he rose to head back to the locker room.

"That's on you," a reporter teased.

"You have to own your part," said Painter, teasing back, maybe the nicest great coach ever.

Mick Cronin? If he's not the meanest coach in the country, God help the players of any coach who deserves the title more.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel onThreads, or onBlueSkyand Twitter at@GreggDoyelStar, or atwww.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar. Subscribe to the free weeklyDoyel on Demandnewsletter.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Mick Cronin ejects UCLA players, rips into reporter. Can't stop bullying

Texas Tech will be without star JT Toppin the rest of the way.

The Red Raiders announced on Wednesday that Toppin will miss the rest of the season with a torn right ACL. Toppin went down late inNo. 13 Texas Tech's 72-67 loss at Arizona State, and had to be helped off the floor.

Toppin tried to drive to the rim in transition late in the second half of the contest at Desert Financial Arena on Tuesday when he appeared to lose his balance right as he was going up. That sent Toppin crashing down to the court hard, and he reached for his leg almost immediately under the rim, clearly in a lot of pain.

After remaining down on the court for quite some time, Toppin was helped off and back to the locker room. He did not return.

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Toppin had 20 points and eight rebounds when he went down. The junior, who was named a preseason All-American back in October, has averaged 21.8 points and 10.8 rebounds per game this season.

Texas Tech now sits at 19-7 on the season with Tuesday's loss, which came just days after they knocked off then-No. 1 Arizona on the road.

The Red Raiders have been hanging with the top of the Big 12 pretty successfully this season, thanks in part to a big win over Houston late last month. They handed Duke its first loss of the season back in December, too, and currently sit in fifth in the conference standings entering the final stretch of the season.

But Toppin has undoubtedly been a major part of that success. While the rest of their schedule is relatively tame, save for a trip to Ames to take on No. 6 Iowa State next week, surviving the Big 12 tournament and making a run in the NCAA tournament without Toppin is going to be much more difficult.

A New Jersey Catholic diocese outside Philadelphia hasagreed to pay $180 millionin a clergy sexual abuse settlement, the latest in a church scandal set off more than two decades ago.

The settlement, which must still be approved by a bankruptcy court, comes after the diocese had fought a state agrand jury investigationfor years beforerelenting last year.

The Camden diocese, like others nationwide,filed for bankruptcyamid a torrent of lawsuits after the statute of limitations was relaxed.

Here is a list of some of the other large clergy abuse settlements reached by the Catholic Church in the U.S.

Los Angeles

In 2024, the Archdiocese of Los Angelesagreed to pay $880 millionto more than 1,000 victims of clergy sexual abuse dating back decades.

The archdiocese, which covers Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, had previously paid more than $740 million to victims, making the total payout more than $1.5 billion.

New Orleans

The New Orleans Archdiocese agreed topay at least $230 millionto hundreds of survivors of clergy sexual abuse under a settlement approved by a federal judge in December.

The settlement followed years of negotiations and included policies intended to prevent abuse from happening in the future. The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in 2020 to avoid handling each of the more than 500 abuse claims separately.

San Diego, California

The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego agreed in 2007 to pay $198 million to settle more than 140 clergy sexual abuse claims.

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The diocese filed for bankruptcy in 2024 in response to roughly400 additional lawsuitsalleging priests and others sexually abused children decades earlier. The lawsuits were filed after California lifted a statute of limitations on childhood sexual abuse claims in 2019.

Northwestern US

The Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, a Jesuit order, agreed in 2011to pay $166 millionto more than 450 Native Americans and Alaska Natives who were abused at the order's schools across the northwestern U.S. The order also agreed to pay $50 million to settle another 110 sex abuse claims in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 2007.

Orange, California

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange reached a $100 million settlement with about 90 victims of sex abuse in 2004. Three years later, the diocese agreed to pay another $7 million to settle four additional sexual abuse lawsuits.

Portland, Oregon

The archdiocese in Portland was the first Catholic diocese to file for bankruptcy in 2004 over sex abuse allegations after settling more than 100 cases. By the time the bankruptcy was complete three years later, the archdiocese had settled more than 300 claims andpaid out nearly $90 millionin claims and attorney fees. In 2019, the archdiocese agreed to pay nearly $4 million to settle eight additional claims of clergy sexual abuse.

Boston

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston agreed to pay $85 million to settle more than500 clergy sex abuse lawsuitsin 2003. The scope of the sex abuse crisis in Boston set off reports around the United States and the world of widespread abuse by priests and the church's efforts to hide it.

Covington, Kentucky

In 2006, the Diocese of Covington paid more than $81 million to more than 200 sexual abuse victims in a court settlement.A report from the diocesereleased in 2020 found that 59 Catholic priests and 31 others associated with the church had sexually abused children since the 1950s.

Philadelphia

As of 2022, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia has paid more than $78 million to settle 438 claims of clergy sexual abuse, accordingto a report. In 2023, the archdioceseagreed to pay $3.5 millionto settle an additional sex abuse case.

Wilmington, Delaware

TheCatholic Diocese of Wilmington, which serves Catholics in Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland, agreed in 2011 to pay $77 million to roughly 150 clergy sex abuse victims.

Oakland, California

The Diocese of Oakland reached a $56 million settlement with 56 survivors of sexual abuse in 2005. The diocesefiled for bankruptcyin 2023 after more than 300 child sex abuse lawsuits were filed after a new state law temporarily extended the statute of limitations for child sex abuse litigation.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of days when theweather gets hot, dry and windy — ideal to sparkextreme wildfires— has nearly tripled in the past 45 years across the globe, with the trend increasing even higher in the Americas, a new study shows.

Climate Wildfire Weather

And more than half of that increase is caused byhuman-caused climate change, researchers calculated.

What this means is that as the world warms, more places across the globe are prone to go up in flames at the same time because of increasingly synchronous fire weather, which is when multiple places have the right conditions to go up in smoke. Countries may not have enough resources to put out all the fires popping up and help won't be as likely to come from neighbors busy with their own flames, according to the authors of a study in Wednesday's Science Advances.

In 1979 and for the next 15 years, the world averaged 22 synchronous fire weather days a year for flames that stayed within large global regions, the study found. In 2023 and 2024, it was up to more than 60 days a year.

"These sorts of changes that we have seen increase the likelihood in a lot of areas that there will be fires that are going to be very challenging to suppress," said study co-author John Abatzoglou, a fire scientist at the University of California, Merced.

The researchers didn't look at actual fires, but the weather conditions: warm, with strong winds anddry air and ground.

"It increases the likelihood of widespread fire outbreaks, but the weather is one dimension," said study lead author Cong Yin, a fire researcher at University of California, Merced. The other big ingredients to fires are oxygen, fuel such as trees and brush, and ignition such as lightning or arson or human accidents.

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This study is important because extreme fire weather is the primary — but not only — factor in increasing fire impacts across the globe, said fire scientist Mike Flannigan of Thompson Rivers University in Canada, who wasn't part of the study. And it's also important because regions that used to have fire seasons at different times and could share resources are now overlapping, he said.

Abatzoglou said: "And that's where things begin to break."

More than 60% of the global increase in synchronous fire weather days can be attributed to climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, Yin said. He and his colleagues know this because they used computer simulations to compare what's happened in the last 45 years to a fictional world without the increased greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

The continental United States, from 1979 to 1988, averaged 7.7 synchronous fire weather days a year. But in the last 10 years that average was up to 38 days a year, according to Yin.

But that is nothing compared to the southern half of South America. That region averaged 5.5 synchronous fire weather days a year from 1979 to 1988; over the last decade, that's risen to 70.6 days a year, including 118 days in 2023.

Of 14 global regions, only Southeast Asia saw a decrease in synchronous fire weather, probably because it is getting more humid there, Yin said.

The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP'sstandardsfor working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas atAP.org.

HONG KONG (AP) — At Lunar New Year, red holds the promise of luck and reunion — a color meant to call people home and carry wishes for the year ahead.

Lunar New Year Red Photo Gallery

It sits at entrances and lingers along walls. It threads through wishes and wraps around food. In smoke, it lifts and thins into the air.

Across much of Asia — where the festival is known as the Spring Festival, Tet, or Seollal — the new year is marked by rituals long believed to gather people against darkness and draw good fortune near. This year's festival begins the Year of the Horse, one of the twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac.

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These photographs follow the color red from public celebrations to smaller, everyday spaces.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP'scollaborationwith The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

With the fresh fantasy baseball season approaching, it's time to get you some tiered rankings from my Shuffle Up series. Use these for salary cap drafts, straight drafts, keeper decisions or merely a view of how the position ebbs and flows. We've already handled all the hitters; now, we move to the mound.

Starting pitchers in fantasy baseball are similar to running backs in fantasy football. The position will generally be riddled with injuries. We'll want to have several speculation plays on our bench, guys who just need one thing to click. And getting this position right — or running lucky at this position — is probably the most important part of your fantasy season.

[Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league for the 2026 MLB season]

In past years, I would often be the last manager to address starting pitching, blanching at the uncertainty. Occasionally, I had success with this concept (one year I won the Yahoo Friends & Family League despite not drafting a starter; I did build a staff later) but I've since discarded the idea as a -EV strategy.

I want to proactively build my staff, like most of my competitors, at the draft. And I'll have to live with the variance like anyone else.

The numbers are unscientific in nature and meant to reflect where talent clusters and drops off. Assume a 5x5 scoring system, as usual, and away we go.

More Tiered Rankings

• Catcher

• First Base

• Second Base

• Shortstop

• Third Base

• Outfield

• Starting Pitcher

• Relief Pitcher

The Big Tickets

• $43 Tarik Skubal

• $41 Paul Skenes

• $39 Garrett Crochet

• $36 Cristopher Sánchez

• $35 Yoshinobu Yamamoto

• $35 Hunter Brown

• $34 Logan Webb

• $32 Logan Gilbert

• $31 Jacob deGrom

• $30 Chris Sale

If you're open to a high-priced ace but would prefer to start with a hitter, pray that Crochet slips to the second part of your draft. He's in the prime of his career, tied to a team expected to contend for the playoffs and not reliant on a max-velocity fastball. Crochet will also be helped by his defense — the infield might be in flux, but the outfielders are all excellent, and the catching is also above average. Crochet was a little homer-prone at Fenway but still dominant there, and no one touched him on the road (2.25/1.00). The Red Sox were right to go all-in on Chris Sale once upon a time, and history repeated itself when it cleared out the prospect chest for Crochet last year.

Because the Dodgers already have nine toes in the playoffs, I'm going to be careful with workload projections for everyone on staff. Los Angeles will basically run a six-man rotation all year, and anytime a pitcher has the slightest hiccup with their arms and elbows, a rest is to be expected. Yamamoto is the only L.A. pitcher who's qualified for the ERA title over the last three years (162 innings), and he's also the only returning Dodger starter who logged more than 91 innings last year.

Webb is 60 innings ahead of the field over the past three years and working in San Francisco mitigates some of his mistakes. With a good-but-not-elite strikeout clip and a ground-ball bias, we have to accept that in some starts, Webb will get crushed by BABIP misfortune. And you have to be okay with his fastball checking in at an ordinary 92.6 mph. But Webb looks like a perfect fourth-round target to me.

DeGrom's inning count has turned into an unsolvable SAT question. Starting in 2021 and cutting off the partials, this is what we're looking at: 92, 64, 30, 10, 172. He's moving into his age-38 season. Maybe it's a fool's errand to suppose any pitcher has a legitimate floor, but I know deGrom at this stage doesn't have one. My heart will always be invested in deGrom, so I'll avoid doubling down with fantasy investment. You have to decide for yourself.

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Legitimate Building Blocks

• $28 Bryan Woo

• $27 Hunter Greene

• $26 Max Fried

• $25 Cole Ragans

• $25 Joe Ryan

• $25 Freddy Peralta

• $23 Framber Valdez

• $23 Jesús Luzardo

• $22 George Kirby

• $22 Dylan Cease

• $20 Blake Snell

• $19 Kyle Bradish

• $18 Nick Pivetta

Rotator cuff problems cost Ragans more than half of his season, but the rest of his results were a cause of bad luck — everyreasonable ERA estimatorsays he should have been in the mid-2s, not the 4.67 number on the back of his card. Ragans gave us a reminder of his upside with 13 return innings in September, striking out 22. There's no reason why he can't return to his 2024 level of production (3.14/1.14, fourth in Cy Young voting).

Cease was a frustrating case last year, as he piled up 215 strikeouts but gave us hurtful ratios (4.55/1.33). Toronto's defense should help him turn more batted events into outs. Maybe he's not going to challenge for the Cy Young again, but normalized sequencing should give him a mid-3s ERA, and he's proven to be durable. Don't let his standard stats scare you off.

Talk Them Up, Talk Them Down

• $17 Nolan McLean

• $17 Tyler Glasnow

• $15 Kevin Gausman

• $14 Eury Pérez

• $13 Sonny Gray

• $13 Luis Castillo

• $13 Trey Yesavage

• $13 Robbie Ray

• $13 Cam Schlittler

• $13 Zack Wheeler

• $13 Spencer Strider

• $13 Nathan Eovaldi

• $13 Michael King

• $12 Brandon Woodruff

• $12 Shane Bieber

• $12 Sandy Alcantara

• $12 Jacob Misiorowski

• $12 Gavin Williams

• $12 Chase Burns

• $12 Trevor Rogers

• $12 Shota Imanaga

• $12 MacKenzie Gore

• $12 Andrew Abbott

• $11 Emmet Sheehan

• $11 Nick Lodolo

• $11 Bubba Chandler

• $11 Ranger Suárez

• $11 Shohei Ohtani

• $11 Cade Horton

• $10 Ryan Pepiot

• $10 Tanner Bibee

• $10 Carlos Rodón

• $10 Jack Flaherty

The Brewers have become the new Rays, the low-market team that makes better decisions than just about everyone else and winds up in the tournament every fall. Thus, I want to be proactive with their high-upside arms like Misiorowski and Henderson, while fully understanding that the team will be careful with workloads and pitch counts. If Misiorowski even gets to 24 starts, he probably returns his spring draft cost.

The early market is not bullish on Abbott, which means he can actually be worse than last year and still return a profit. Regress-and-win players are my jam. The strikeouts will play, andfly-ball pitchersare misunderstood — at least they're showing control of their outcomes.

The Marlins are ready to take the training wheels off with Pérez, and it's hard to unsee that tidy 0.96 WHIP he had over his final 16 starts. With the Tommy John surgery firmly in the background, Pérez is poised for a possible breakout. Hopefully, he doesn't feel like he needs to strike out the world — the Marlins have a problematic defense.

Some Plausible Upside

• $9 Drew Rasmussen

• $9 Shane McClanahan

• $9 Matthew Boyd

• $8 Merrill Kelly

• $8 Zac Gallen

• $7 Shane Baz

• $7 Edward Cabrera

• $6 Bailey Ober

• $6 David Peterson

• $6 Joe Musgrove

• $6 *Gerrit Cole

• $5 Aaron Nola

• $5 Tatsuya Imai

• $5 Bryce Miller

• $5 Jameson Taillon

Peruse theBoyd splitsand you might abandon the case — 12 of his wins were at home but he was a mess on the road, and his breakout stopped in the second half (4.63/1.19). And last season was his first full year starting out of six. But the Cubs have a top-five defense and a top-five lineup to support Boyd, and Yahoo rooms are giving you a reasonable 197.6 ticket. I can sign off.

Ober has always been a curious case, a 6-foot-9 righty withbelow-average velocity. A hip problem was probably responsible for his messy 2025; his three years prior gave us a 3.66 ERA and 1.03 WHIP. He's well priced for profit, even if the Minnesota defense is no longer an asset.

Nola routinely comes upshort of his expected statsto the point that you have to accept it as part of his profile. And even if that horrible 6.01 ERA was reduced to his 4.58 FIP, it's not like either stat helps you. His fastball has lost velocity for four straight seasons and homers, always a problem, hit a new low last season. Nola might seem like a tantalizing name pick at a reduced ADP, but I'm not chasing him on the back-9 of a slowly-fading career.

Bargain Bin

• $4 José Soriano

• $4 Roki Sasaki

• $4 Noah Cameron

• $4 Quinn Priester

• $4 Logan Henderson

• $4 Clay Holmes

• $4 Seth Lugo

• $3 Connelly Early

• $3 Ryne Nelson

• $3 Kris Bubic

• $3 Mitch Keller

• $3 Casey Mize

• $3 Michael Wacha

• $3 Sean Manaea

• $3 Shane Smith

• $3 Chris Bassitt

• $3 Brayan Bello

• $3 Ryan Weathers

• $3 Zebby Matthews

• $3 *Corbin Burnes

• $2 Yusei Kikuchi

• $2 Jack Leiter

• $2 Zach Eflin

• $2 Brady Singer

• $2 Reynaldo López

• $2 Parker Messick

• $2 *Hurston Waldrep

• $2 Ian Seymour

• $2 Brandon Pfaadt

• $2 Kodai Senga

• $2 José Berríos

• $2 Justin Verlander

• $2 Max Meyer

• $2 Lucas Giolito

• $2 Braxton Garrett

• $2 Dustin May

• $2 Cody Ponce

• $2 Matthew Liberatore

• $2 Dean Kremer

• $1 *Spencer Schwellenbach

• $1 *Grayson Rodriguez

• $1 Cade Cavalli

• $1 Jeffrey Springs

• $1 Joey Cantillo

• $1 Troy Melton

• $1 Will Warren

• $1 Braxton Ashcraft

• $1 Michael McGreevy

• $1 Luis Severino

• $1 Slade Cecconi

• $1 Mike Burrows

• $1 Chad Patrick

• $1 Jonah Tong

• $1 Zack Littell

• $1 Eduardo Rodríguez

• $1 Tyler Mahle

• $1 Payton Tolle

Senga has a wide range of outcomes — you could imagine him being in a playoff rotation come October, but he's also not guaranteed to make the Mets out of training camp. Maybe Senga's second-half collapse was mostly about hamstring problems, but keep in mind he's 33 and we're three years removed from his last full season.

With someone like Matthews, we follow the strikeout rate and the prospect pedigree and hope he can improve the control. His ultimate success will come down to finding a solution against lefties, who slashed .316/.372/.572 against him last year.