Trade talks & temper tantrums

⚾️ MLB trade deadline mayhem kicks into high gear. Teams will have until July 31 to buy some shiny new toys for their Postseason runs. It will mostly be mid-tier rental players, bullpen arms, and bench bats traded, but since that’s not very fun, here are the all the big names to watch: 

• Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran, Diamondbacks 3B Eugenio Suárez, Cleveland outfielder Steven Kwan, and Baltimore 1B Ryan O-Hearn. 

• On the pitching side, keep an eye on the Rangers’ Jacob DeGrom, Diamondbacks Zac Gallen, Twins ace Joe Ryan and star closers Emmanuel Clase and Jhoan Duran.  
  

• Teams to watch: The Chicago Cubs, Toronto Blue Jays, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres and New York Yankees are all expected to push their chips to the front of the table.

⛳️ Scottie Scheffler doesn't love golf, but golf loves him. After giving a speech about how winning only feels good for two seconds and that golf doesn’t “fulfill the deepest desires of his heart”, Sheffeler went out and won the British Open, his second major of the year. 

• Scheffler is now the only player to win four major titles this decade (no other player has more than two).
  

• The best part of the win was the Emo Scottie memes the internet conjured up. 

👴 Old heads hang em up… and some stick around. Former QB and current father of 10 Philip Rivers announced he was signing a contract to retire a Charger, which was really shocking news for everyone who thought the 43-year-old had been retired for the last five years.

• On the flip side, 45-year-old Rich Hill pitched this week for the Kansas City Royals, his record-tying 14th MLB team. Fun fact: His teammate Jac Caglianone was 2 when Hill made his debut.
  

• Meanwhile, 10-year MLB veteran Monte Harrison will go play wide receiver for Arkansas this season as a 30-year-old sophomore. Talk about a victory lap. 

🫠 The Yankees have an all-time meltdown north of the border. The Yanks not only lost 5 of their last six games in Toronto, but made 12 errors in their last ten games against the Blue Jays — who now have a convincing four-game lead over them in the AL East. 

• Their defensive circus was on full display Wednesday night when they made four brutal errors (it was actually more like seven) to lose the series. Here’s a quick recap if you missed it.
  

• The frustration of watching one of the worst defensive performances in years boiled over for manager Aaron Boone, who gave us yet another great ejection video. 

We’ve still got over a month until our Sundays are, once again, dedicated entirely to RedZone, but training camp is officially underway and there’s plenty of storylines to help us pretend football is back. 

No contract, no football. 

• Star pass rusher Micah Parsons is at Cowboys camp, but isn’t super happy about his contract situation. Parsons even shared a JJ Watt tweet calling out Jerry Jones’ absurd (and inaccurate) comments about how many games he missed with an injury last year.

• Washington Commanders wide receiver Terry McLaurin and Cincinnati Bengals pass rusher Trey Hendrickson are both holding out from camp until they get new deals. 

QB battles are brewing. 

• The Cleveland Browns have an entire team of quarterbacks: 40-year-old Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco, former Steeler Kenny Pickett and rookies Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders. The favourite appears to be old man Flacco at the moment.
  

• Anthony Richardson and Daniel Jones will be duking out for the QB 1 spot in Indianapolis. Coaches have reportedly been impressed with Jones so far in camp.
  

• In possibly the saddest position battle in the league, the New Orleans Saints will have to pick between Spencer Rattler, Jake Haener and rookie Tyler Shough. Saints fans are definitely in ‘tank for Arch Manning’ territory. 

NFL debuts and new threads.  

• Titans rookie QB Cam Ward and Vikings’ JJ McCarthy are both set to take their first NFL snaps this season.
  

• Eyes will also be on Raiders’ rookie RB Ashton Jeanty and Jaguars’ Travis Hunter (mostly to see if he really tries to play on both sides of the ball).
  

• We’ve also got a lot of big names making debuts in new homes: Aaron Rodgers and DK Metcalf in Pittsburgh, Sam Darnold in Seattle, Geno Smith (who had a hilarious quote about choosing Vegas), Stefon Diggs in New England, Deebo Samuel in D.C., Davante Adams in L.A., and big Joey Bosa in Buffalo. 

Bottom line: Training camp isn’t going to win or lose you anything, but it’s where we start to see the cracks on rosters, and of course, when a player's nasty practice highlight convinces us to take them way too early in our fantasy draft.

@SCAR2222 is our winner this week, hitting an absolute centipede of MLB player props. Eight of the nine legs were overs, including a home run call on Aaron Judge (there’s definitely worse guys to bet on to leave the yard). 

Full Parlay here.

On this day in 1999, Lance Armstrong won his first of seven consecutive Tour de France titles. It was the start of a heroic story for the cancer survivor that was, unfortunately, a lie — Amrstrong famously had all of his titles stripped for doping violations and was later outed as the ring leader of his team’s steroid program. A fall from grace like no other.

Alright, that’s enough yelling for one Friday.

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