> What are the odds?

The kid is back. An extended college season. Conference Champions. Regional Champions. Super Regionals ... out in 2 straight extra-inning games. And now she's back. After 4 years at 2 US colleges. She's back on the household roster.

It hasn't hit me yet. Maybe it will in the fall. But there's more softball. Because a 60-game college season isn't enough for some players. There's also the Provincial Senior team that wants to win Canadian Nationals. Her closest friends. All US college players in their own right. The D1 MAC pitcher. The D2 All-American pitcher. The D2 catcher. The D2 Canadian National Team slapping speed demon. The many JUCO-experienced multi-tool players. Its a good team. As good as most any D2 team in the US.

She has played for this team since she was 13. Its a 13-player team. She has come up through the U14, U15 and U16 teams. She graduated to the U19 3-year team. And now 3 years on the u23 senior team. No guarantees. Tryouts every year including this past winter. 9 years considered but not an automatic.

There are 9 million people in Quebec. There are maybe 60 players on the various provincial teams. And what are the odds?

When my daughter pitched, we would practice on out street. I would sit on a bucket on the lawn. She would stand on the other side of the street. People would walk through the pitching lane. The younger girls in our dead-end street would walk by quickly. Eyes down. But I would always catch them looking back at the next pitch.

A year or two later, we were in the front yard, a bownet behind us, whiffle balls in a bucket and I was throwing the ball as hard as I could to speed up her bat. It must have looked ridiculous. But my daughter was hitting them off the house, onto the roof, into my stomach. And I noticed these 2 girls ... the same girls ... maybe 10 years old now ... they walk by and then they stopped at the edge of our property. They watched. My daughter ripping whiffles at high speeds. It must have looked impossible to them. How can she hit those? I'm no Paul Skenes but I was 20 feet away so I might as well have been.

2 years ago, I noticed one of them wearing a familiar softball uniform. The same uniform my daughter wore for her regional team. I noticed her outside practicing a lot. She was outside often. With a friend. With her dad. They speak French. We speak English. A language divide. I don't talk to my neighbours in general. I'm not a very social person. My daughter has never said one word to this neighbour, 3 doors down. Curious, we asked around the softball community and found her name.

And a few days ago, on Facebook, I saw a post for the Provincial team's new lineup for the 2026 season. For the u15 team. And the 4th player listed was the girl 3 doors down. A catcher. The odds???

The odds of 2 players in a 9 million person province, who have no real connection, playing in the same 60-person softball program at the same time. 3 doors down.

But maybe ... I don't know ... I'm just Catfish Hunter spit-balling here... I can't help but wonder if maybe its only a little bit of a coincidence ... Maybe. Again, I don't know for sure ... but maybe those days they spent watching my daughter hit whiffle balls. Or pitch. Or work on short hops or backhands or fly balls or throws or bunt coverage. I can't help but wonder if we had an impact on those odds.

+ The TBC+ batting metric indexes players against the league average for OPS with stolen bases added. It isn't any more complicated than that. The metric is available for all leagues/levels, including college. The metric is intended as a guide to a player's performance for that season/league. An asterisk (*) means the player's stats are not super significant (i.e. not enough plate appearances). Players with only a few plate appearances won't be given a score. A score of 100 means the player was average. A score of 115 means the player was 15% better than average. Cal Raleigh scored a 126 last year but currently sits at 80 for 2026. Possible #1 pick Roch Cholowsky is also at 126 for 2026. Vahn Lackey? 137.

Working on a pitcher's version.

+ Dominican Summer League Stats are streaming through. Their stats will be available for tracking.

+ The TBC Daily Newspaper got another upgrade for TBC PREMIUM subscribers. You can now highlight "Young Players" in boxscores with the click of a button. I set the age at 24 but I might eventually lower to 23.

Here are the current value-added Newspaper features for Subscribers:
- Highlight my Tracked Players
- Highlight Young Players
- MLB Season Stats by team on a single page
- MLB Season Stats for <=24 years old on a single page (sortable)

I love suggestions. Let me know what to add or better yet, let me know what I can add that would entice you to sign up to PREMIUM!

+ Added MLB Pipeline Scouting Grades to Player Pages for 2026. I don't own these ratings and I realize a lot of work goes into them and so I put them behind the paywall in TBC PREMIUM so that they aren't available to the masses.

The scouting grades are 20-80 ratings where 50 is MLB Average. The rankings are given for raw tools such as Speed, Power, Fielding, Hitting and Arm strength. Pitchers are ranked by pitch type and control and both have an overall rating. The ratings were added for all current Top 30 prospects and the top 200 MLB Draft prospects for 2026. If players had ratings from prior years, they can also be viewed on their player page, above the stat grids. Ratings are in increments of 5 between 20 and 80.

They are different than the Talent Ratings which appear at the bottom of each page. The talent ratings are statistical ratings on 100 based on their relation to their statistical rankings throughout all leagues in their career.

+ The Regionals phase of the Men's College World Series is the best! The format and drama is exceptional! I would say the same about the final 8-team stage as well but the Super Regionals...meh. Best of 3 is boring. Imagine the excitement of Major League Baseball if they (or any pro sport other than Football) adapted this format? 4-team pods at a host? Unfortunately, it would mean a lot less money in pockets because the stadium would not fill up for a Rockies/Marlins elimination game at PNC Park. But a guy could dream.

But back to college: What if we did 4-team Super Regional pods. 4 of them...winner advances automatically...and then the 2 teams with a win play-off in a 1-game winner takes all, secondary bid to the final-8.

+ Did you see the UCLA comeback against VT?

+ There are 3800+ listings in my eBay Baseball Card Store. Only Baseball Cards. Support the Cube. Buy a card of your favorite player!

+ The 2026 MLB Draft is approaching. Did you know the TBC Data Store has products related to the draft? In fact, there are pre-packaged datasets for all sorts of topics! Although I used the word pre-packaged, they are all re-processed at the time of purchase to ensure most up-to-date is sent along.

+ Added 2026 World Baseball Classic Information to the Notes section for participants in 4 different categories. Players. Managers. Coaches. Pitcher Pool. Player Notes appear in the middle of each player page.

+ Added scans for the 2026 Topps Heritage baseball card set. This year's Heritage set is based on the 1977 Topps card design. The set is 400 cards for the first issue and there will likely be a high numbers release later in the year. The set typically has short prints bundled together in a 100-card range, usually in a 500-card set but this year, the Short Prints are scattered throughout the set. Owen Caissie has 2 identical cards in the set, with different card numbers. 1 of which is a short print. Very odd. Personally, I'm looking forward to the 2027 set which will be based on the 1978 Topps set which is the first set that I ever started collecting. From there, I'll like try to complete the set each year.

View all of our Baseball Card sets.
Also, Visit my eBay store!

+ A new TBC PREMIUM feature: You can now merge Summer League Stats into the regular season player stats grid. You can do this through the "Site Options" section of the accounts page. You can toggle "Yes" for merge and "No" for leave them out. The College Summer League stats will continue to appear in the "Other" stat grids.

This was from a user suggestion. Please let me know if you have any others!

+ Added 2026 Spring Training statistics to the site. Includes standings (who cares) and stats for all teams in the prickly Cactus League and the sour Grapefruit League. I don't like Cacti nor do I like Grapefruits. But I do like Spring Training. Spring Stats are available since 2006. You can buy them if you want.

+ Also added 2026 coaching staffs for the Complex Leagues. Arizona Complex League (ACL) and the Florida Complex League (FCL).

> And just like that, in the blink of an eye, the College Softball season is over. From the March trip to Florida to a 4th place Conference finish to a Conference Championship and then to an East Regional Pod Championship to the Super Regionals. It happened so fast. It was a blur. The juggernaut team who grew so much over the year hit a wall on their way to Nationals. They lost 2 games in extra innings in the best of 3. They clawed and fought for every run and got out of numerous jams. Coaches made a dozen moves each game to maximize winning potential. They tried everything. But in the end, they ran into another juggernaut who refused to lose and the season is over. And so is the kid's college career. It was a great run. 4 years at 2 colleges. 4 conference tournament finals, 3 conference championships, 2 trips to JUCO Nationals and a Regionals and Super Regionals in the NCAA. It wasn't perfect but it was full. It was memorable. And now she starts the transition from college athlete to an open horizon. Its the end of an era for all of us.

There will be some grieving tomorrow when I pick her up. I'll be okay though. I'll just find a Dick's and buy some Bowmans. It will be good.

+ For TBC PREMIUM subscribers ($24/year)... You can now highlight your players on the Daily Newspaper.

Just click the "Highlight my Players" checkbox at the top of the page and voila! All references to your tracked* players will be highlighted in yellow on the page. Now you can scour boxscores with a little bit of help.

*You can track players to see their daily pro stats using the TBC Player Tracker. The Tracker is included with your TBC PREMIUM subscription.

> I spent the last 5 days in the Northeast. The kid is graduating. I was expecting to bring her home. Her college softball career suspected to be over. I brought 5 t-shirts and a collared shirt. 4 pairs of sweatpants and my dockers. A pair of hokas and some stylish brown shoes.

After winning the Conference Championship in dramatic fashion, they qualified for the NCAA D2 East Regional as the 5-seed, in a pool with the 1-seed. Regionals are typically Thursday-Saturday. Graduation was Sunday. WAS is the keyword. New England got rained on hard on Thursday, pushing the tournament to Friday-Sunday. In Iffy weather on Friday, the girls pulled off a 7-1 win against the 4-seed and in beautiful weather on Saturday, took down the 8-seed, also 7-1. They would go directly to the finals. Do not pass graduation. Do not collect a diploma. At least not yet.

The girls agreed before the tournament to miss graduation if necessary. Believe it or not (I couldn't) a past Senior class had decided to forego the regional final to attend their graduation ceremony. A pact was needed to avoid a repeat.

In the Regionals, you get 2 lives if you go direct to the final. We used 1 of them up with a 9-4 loss in the first game on another beautiful day. It was a postage stamp strike zone and our pitchers could not adjust. Many hits. Many runs. Much concern. But then a normal strike zone. The bats came alive. 9-0 win and the school's first ever softball Super Regionals berth and a real chance at the College World Series.

And so Monday was graduation day for the 8 softball seniors. The school did a fantastic job honoring them. The small auditorium was packed with friends and family. The stage was full of school dignitaries. It was a real ceremony. It felt real. And it was mercifully short. It was perhaps more memorable than the mass graduation the prior day.

The plan was to pack the car and bring the kid north. And although we did pack the car with non-essentials, the kid had to stay just a bit longer.

These are the top 50 "active" Major Leaguers with the most career Wins. The list is dynamic and is updated daily during the season. A player is considered active if he has Major League experience in last 2 years and is not labelled as retired.