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Winnipeg Free Press
an hour ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Sabres avoid arbitration with Bowen Byram by signing him to a 2-year, $12.5M contract
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The Buffalo Sabres avoided arbitration with Bowen Byram late Monday night by re-signing the restricted free agent defenseman to a two-year contract worth $12.5 million. Byram will count $6.25 million against the salary cap through the 2026-27 NHL season. He was considered a candidate for a trade or an offer sheet from another team before the Sabres elected salary arbitration with him earlier this month. The 24-year-old is coming off setting career highs with 31 assists, 38 points and 116 blocked shots while playing all 82 games in his first full season with Buffalo. The team acquired him from Colorado in exchange for center Casey Mittelstadt at the 2024 trade deadline. Byram had nine points on the Avalanche's 2022 Stanley Cup run. He has 33 goals and 89 assists in 273 regular-season and playoff games since debuting in the league in 2021. Thursdays Keep up to date on sports with Mike McIntyre's weekly newsletter. ___ AP NHL:


Globe and Mail
2 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
Robot umpires to make All-Star Game debut as MLB looks at possible regular-season use
Tarik Skubal views the strike zone differently than robot umpires. 'I have this thing where I think everything is a strike until the umpire calls it a ball,' Detroit's AL Cy Young Award winner said ahead of his start for the American League in Tuesday night's All-Star Game. MLB has been experimenting with the automated ball-strike system in the minor leagues since 2019 and will use it in an All-Star Game for the first time this summer. Each team gets two challenges and retains the challenge if it is successful. 'Pitchers think everything is a strike. Then you go back and look at it, and it's two, three balls off,' Pittsburgh's Paul Skenes, starting his second straight All-Star Game for the National League, said Monday. 'We should not be the ones that are challenging it.' MLB sets the top of the automated strike zone at 53.5% of a batter's height and the bottom at 27%, basing the decision on the midpoint of the plate, 8 1/2 inches from the front and 8 1/2 inches from the back. That contrasts with the rule book zone called by umpires, which says the zone is a cube. 'I did a few rehabs starts with it. I'm OK with it. I think it works,' said three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers. 'Aaron Judge and Jose Altuve should have different sized boxes. They've obviously thought about that. As long as that gets figured out, I think it'll be fine.' Opinion: Robot umpires aren't meant to get the call right. They're all about manufacturing drama Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred anticipates the system will be considered by the sport's 11-man competition committee, which includes six management representatives. Many pitchers have gravitated to letting their catchers and managers trigger ball/strike appeals. Teams won 52.2% of their challenges during the spring training test. Batters won exactly 50% of their 596 challenges and the defense 54%, with catchers successful 56% of the time and pitchers 41%. Hall of Famer Joe Torre, an honorary AL coach, favors the system. After his managing career, he worked for MLB and helped supervised expanded video review in 2014. 'You couldn't ignore it with all the technology out there,' he said. 'You couldn't sit and make an excuse for, 'Look at what really happened' the next day.' Now 84, Torre recalled how his Yankees teams benefitted at least twice from blown calls in the postseason, including one involving the strike zone. Opinion: AI officiating gives us a grim look into our future With the 1998 World Series opener tied and the bases loaded with two outs in the seventh inning, Tino Martinez took a 2-2 pitch from San Diego's Mark Langston that appeared to be a strike but was called a ball by Richie Garcia. Martinez hit a grand slam on the next pitch for a 9-5 lead, and the Yankees went on to a four-game sweep. Asked whether he was happy there was no robot umpire then, Torre grinned and said: 'Possibly.' Then he added without a prompt: 'Well, not to mention the home run that Jeter hit.' His reference was to Derek Jeter's home run in the 1996 AL Championship Series opener, when 12-year-old fan Jeffrey Maier reached over the wall to snatch the ball above the glove over Baltimore right fielder Tony Tarasco.


CTV News
4 hours ago
- CTV News
Wingham teen drafted by Kansas City Royals
Arva's Blake Gillespie has been selected by the New York Yankees, and Wingham's Tyson Moran was drafted by the Kansas City Royals in Monday's MLB draft.