Cup of Coffee: January 22, 2026

Good morning! And welcome to Free Thursday!

Cody Bellinger remains a Yankee and the United States remains a lawless police state and an international embarrassment. That and all the rest of yesterday's news in today's Cup of Coffee.

The Daily Briefing

Yankees sign Cody Bellinger

Cody Bellinger is staying with the Yankees on a five-year, $162.5 million contract. The deal includes a full no-trade clause, a $20 million signing bonus, and opt outs after 2027 and 2028. There are no deferrals. The deal is reported to be front-loaded.

The Yankees played a pretty smart waiting game here, as Bellinger's other reported suitors – the Mets, Dodgers, and Cubs – all made their own moves in free agency while these two sides faced off, making Bellinger signing anywhere else less likely. The Dodgers got Kyle Tucker. The Cubs got Alex Bregman. The Mets may have still theoretically been in the hunt even after signing Bo Bichette, but their trade for Luis Robert on Tuesday appears to have represented their bowing out.

Not that Bellinger got a bad deal here. At most he seems to have caved on a reported demand for a seven-year contract, but that always seemed to be something he only would've gotten if there was a true bidding war for his services and that never really developed. The opt-outs were likely thrown in late by the Yankees as a concession.

Bellinger, who was traded to New York in a salary dump just over a year ago, put together an excellent 2025 campaign in which he hit .272/.334/.480 (125 OPS+) with 29 homers and 98 driven in. He played all three outfield positions and a little first base last year, and he played all of those positions well, so he's certainly versatile. Going forward, however, he figures to be the Yankees' primary left fielder.

That puts Jasson Dominguez out of an everyday job, but given that the Yankees seem to specialize in not finding full time jobs for highly-touted prospects this is nothing new. Dominguez could be a fourth outfielder or he could be optioned to Triple-A to begin the year. I'm guessing his trade value isn't exceptional at the moment, but he'll just turn 23 in a couple of weeks so it's premature to call him a bust or anything. He's just a guy without a position right now and he could wind up as trade bait.

The Yankees played the long game and they ended up getting their man. He's the fifth player the Yankees have re-signed this offseason, following outfielder Trent Grisham, lefty Ryan Yarbrough, utilityman Amed Rosario and right-hander Paul Blackburn. It remains to be seen if their running back their 94-win team from 2025 – while, hopefully, getting back Gerrit Cole later in the year – will be enough for them to win the East, but this was a necessary move in that direction.

Mets get Freddy Peralta from Milwaukee

The New York Mets continued a big hot stove week yesterday by picking up starter Freddy Peralta and swingman Tobias Myers from the Milwaukee Brewers. Heading back to Milwaukee are prospects Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams.

Peralta, 29, finished fifth in the NL Cy Young voting last year after leading the National League with 17 wins and posting a 2.70 ERA (154 ERA+) in 2025. It was the third year in a row in which he made at least 30 starts and logged at least 165 innings. That, along with Peralta's good command and solid strikeout rates, makes a guy a frontline starter these days.

It's a frontline starter that will only cost New York $8 million in this, Peralta's walk year. That was a function of a team option on a very team-friendly deal Peralta signed with the Brewers several years ago. The fact that Milwaukee felt it necessary to trade such a good pitcher making far less money than he's worth is pretty damn stupid, but it's not like they didn't do the exact same thing with Corbin Burnes just before his walk year. And it's not like their approach hasn't worked for them, what with them increasing their win totals for four years running.

The Mets are also getting a useful pitcher in Myers. In 2024 he started 25 games for Milwaukee, posting a 3.00 ERA (138 ERA+). He was a swingman in 2025, starting just six games and appearing in relief in 16 more. I don't really recall seeing him pitch but his peripherals suggest that he's been doing it with smoke and mirrors, so we'll see.

The two guys heading back to Milwaukee, prospects Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams, probably didn't figure to play much of a role on the 2026 Mets. Sproat appeared in four games for the Mets last year and made 26 appearances at Triple-A. He didn't exactly set the world aflame, however. He had a future in New York but that future was not now and the Mets are all about the now.

Which is pretty much why they could part with Williams too. The 22 year-old shortstop doesn't have a future with Francisco Lindor around, at second base with Marcus Semien around, or at third base with Bo Bichette around. Meanwhile, the Mets picking up Luis Robert Jr. the day before pretty much said that they didn't think Williams was the answer to their outfield problems. All of which made it pretty easy, one figures, to include him in a deal for a guy like Peralta.

Jung Ho Lee detained by Border Patrol

San Francisco Giants outfielder Jung Ho Lee was detained by Border Patrol after arriving at LAX on a flight from Korea yesterday. He was let go shortly after. The San Francisco Chronicle said that the Giants worked through Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's office who, in turn, got with the feds to effect Lee's release.

His agent, Scott Boras referred to it all as a "paperwork issue" and seemed to blame his own client for his detention, telling the San Francisco Chronicle, “I’m not sure what was lacking but it was something with the proper paperwork. I think he just forgot one of the documents.”

Maybe. But Boras has an incentive to play it all down and I find it telling that Pelosi's office got involved in Lee's release. And that's before you get into just how fucking out-of-control Border Patrol has become and how they're not at all entitled to the benefit of the doubt.

It wouldn't shock me if a number of foreign players have issues returning to the U.S. for spring training over the next few weeks.

Kyle Tucker was the Rubicon? Really?

On Tuesday night Evan Drellich of The Athletic reported that, in the wake of the Dodgers signing Kyle Tucker, MLB “owners will push for a salary cap.” Drellich says that Tucker’s decision to sign with the Dodgers was “a boiling point” for the owners, who are also upset about the Mets’ deal with Bo Bichette.

These justifications are not to be confused with past reasons the MLB owners have attempted to push for a salary cap, which have included the advent of free agency, the original A-Rod contract, and the continued existence of days which end in "y."

Sorry if I come off flippant about this, but I come by my flippancy honestly. The owners have sought salary caps, sometimes seriously and for an extended period, sometimes merely rhetorically and only briefly, in the run-up to every labor negotiation for over 30 years. They have to cite Tucker's deal this time around because he was the highest-profile free agent, but they would've done it if it was him or someone else. They would've done if if the deal was a long-term deal or, as was the case with Tucker and Bichette, short-term, high-AAV deals. They also would've done it if were teams other than the Dodgers and the Mets signing those deals, even if those two high-payroll teams make convenient targets.

As for those teams: Drellich goes on to suggest that “the Dodgers and Mets might be the only teams that will try to stand in the way of a cap.” This is also bullshit that completely ignores the reality on the ground. That reality: any cap will, necessarily, come with a floor and there are a load of teams such as the Pirates, Rockies, A's, Rays, Marlins, White Sox, Nationals, and Twins who don't want that because it will require them to increase their payrolls and eliminate their ability to cut things to the bone while putting a crap product on the field.

There are also some realistic team ownership groups who, while perhaps not spending as much as the Dodgers and Mets do, understand that the process of imposing a salary cap would require at least one completely lost year of revenue and possibly along with protracted legal battles and that that pain is hardly worth whatever benefit a cap may confer upon them.

All of which is to say that this, like so much of what one sees when it comes to collective bargaining stuff, is ownership propaganda. The leak that Drellich is acting on led to the exact article the leakers wanted him to write. It's a piece of work aimed at focusing fan anger on the Dodgers and Mets and other big spenders in order to shape the coming P.R. battle over this November's inevitable lockout. It happens every single time. And it really doesn't matter because (a) the players have not historically given a crap about public opinion when it comes to their negotiating position; and (b) most people are on the owners' side anyway when it comes to this stuff.

This time around it's more laughable than usual, though, because rather than focusing their attention on a huge contract handed out by a rich team to an MVP-caliber superstar that no one else could've possibly signed, the pretext of this propaganda is Kyle Freakin' Tucker. Who, while a nice player and a decent guy as far as I know, is a five-win player who only happened to snag the biggest deal because this year's free agent class was far weaker than most. This is a real "you furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war" kind of deal.

You will see a lot more stories like this in the coming months. Read them because they're entertaining, but do not think for one minute that anything they say about the owners' or the players' negotiating strategy is true or particularly relevant.

Other Stuff

Trump is sending the army to occupy the Twin Cities

In the event that anyone is still under the illusion that what's happening in the Twin Cities is an immigration enforcement action of some kind, please read this:

The Pentagon has ordered active-duty military police soldiers based in North Carolina to prepare for possible deployment to Minneapolis, three people familiar with the matter told MS NOW.

A prepare-to-deploy order was issued yesterday for members of an Army military police brigade stationed at Fort Bragg, two of the people told MS NOW. At least a few hundred soldiers are being prepared for the possible mobilization to Minneapolis, two of the people said . . . The possible infusion of military police is in addition to the Pentagon orders last Friday that two battalions with the Army’s 11th Airborne Division prepare to deploy. The 11th Airborne is stationed in Alaska and specializes in winter weather conditions. Each infantry battalion has at least 500 soldiers.

Put differently: With their shock troops failing in spectacular fashion, Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are now drawing up plans to literally invade a U.S. city.

Not that the shock troops aren't causing horrific damage as they struggle vainly to subdue an entire American city. Just yesterday afternoon they held a person down on the ground and, while they were completely helpless, sprayed a massive amount of pepper spray into their eyes:

That stuff is designed to subdue a crowd of people from a distance. Doing what they're doing here stands a great chance of blinding this person. This is state-sanctioned torture, carried out in broad daylight against someone who is utterly powerless, for no reason whatsoever.

Later in the day it was reported that ICE agents are acting pursuant to a secret memo, released by a whistleblower, which purports to authorize agents to break into homes without a judicial warrant and drag people away. It's blatantly illegal – it's something straight of out a fascist's most intense fever dream – yet that is what is currently governing the rules of engagement and there is no one doing a thing to stop it despite its manifest unconstitutionality.

Finally I saw a photo of a young child, a little boy no older than five, being taken away by ICE agents after his father was arrested. First, however, ICE agents apparently used him as bait to apprehend his own father. There was no effort made to find the child's mother. The child has reportedly been whisked, alone, to a prison in Texas. It's an open question as to whether he'll ever even see his parents again. A report about that all can be seen here.

There have been scenes and stories like this every day, but yesterday something broke in me and I was filled with a murderous rage. I feel so helpless. It all feels so hopeless. Twisted, hateful, and evil actors are using the power of the state to attack its own people for no cognizable reason and to no legitimate end. The attack is the end. It's immiseration, terror, torture, child trafficking, and even murder for its own sake, ordered by lawless and immoral people and carried out by an American Gestapo who have been told that the law does not and never will apply to them. They have been told to brutalize others because fuck them, that's why, and they are doing it with gusto while trying to foment riots so that they'll have the pretext to expand their violent campaign.

I had to close the laptop and sit in silence for a good long while after taking that all in. There are other items below this one in today's newsletter. I wrote them before I wrote this. I couldn't write anything after this. It seemed pointless and frivolous to do so anyway. I feel like I'm losing my fucking mind.

Trump's batshit speech

Trump gave a rambling and frankly unhinged speech at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland yesterday. In addition to being all over the place he repeatedly confused Greenland and Iceland and otherwise continued to demonstrate that he is unwell in a literal medical and psychological way.

But what stood out the most to me was just how blinkered the American media was with its immediate takeaways. Here were the push alerts that came out as Trump was still speaking:

And here was a Google News search result for "Trump speech Greenland" as of 1PM yesterday afternoon:

This "Trump rules out force" takeaway is based solely on Trump saying that if the U.S. did decide to take Greenland by force it would be "unstoppable," but "I don't want to use force. I won't use force. All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland."

Herein we see the difference between transcribing and responsible reporting.

Transcribing entails writing down what Trump actually said – "I won't use force" – and stating it as a fact. Responsible reporting would involve the media outlets in question (a) acknowledging that Trump is a pathological liar; and (b) appreciating that Trump, as a New York real estate developer, has aped the patois of construction-adjacent organized crime figures for his entire professional life and acknowledging that he's doing that once again here. Anyone who understands that knows that what Trump is saying is, "Greenland is a nice country. It'd be a shame if someone used force on it." It's a threat in every way that matters. Anyone who knows the first thing about Trump, about authoritarians, and about bullies in general can see it for what it is.

The press seems completely incapable of acknowledging this, however, in much the same way they refuse to say that Trump and his people lie, preferring instead to say they "state falsehoolds," and refuse to say Trump and his people break the law, preferring to say that they "push boundaries" or whatever the hell.

In doing so the press is doing a grave disservice to its readers and viewers and to the country in general.

Mark Carney tells it like it is

Yesterday I wrote that, in light of Trump's dangerously irresponsible actions and rhetoric that the United States should be subjected to loud, widespread rebuke by foreign leaders and that countries such as Canada should be expelling the U.S. ambassador and stuff.

While no one's ambassador has been expelled yet, on Tuesday Canadian Prime Minster Mark Carney gave a scathing speech at the Davos conference about how the rest of the world needs to decouple itself from America and how countries need to seek national and economic security either on their own or in coalitions or through organizations which are not dominated by American hegemony.

You can read a good summary of Carney's speech here, or you can watch the whole thing in its entirety. A key passage:

"Canadians know that our old, comfortable assumption that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security is no longer valid . . . Many countries are drawing the same conclusions. They must develop greater strategic autonomy: in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains. A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself."

Carney acknowledged that the breakdown of the old multinational order in favor of a more isolationist approach is suboptimal – it will make countries poorer, it will make peace more fragile, and it will make international cooperation less common – but that there is little choice when faced with the belligerence of larger, wealthier and better-armed countries. Carney is, quite obviously, talking about the United States. He is talking about how Canada and, I strongly suspect, most other liberal democracies in the world can no longer pretend that the United States is a reliable ally and that the old western alliances exist in any functional way.

I suspect that Carney's speech will one day be cited as the beginning of the end of a world order that, for whatever its faults, has delivered peace and prosperity in ways that the pre-World War II order – which featured far more common and far more deadly wars, sickness, disease, death, and misery – never could. It was a world of unpredictable aggression that was not sanctionable without resort to warfare, and with America becoming an unpredictable and unreliable gangster state we're likely heading right back into that kind of reality.

Gaetz skates

Former Congressman Matt Gaetz was found by the U.S. House of Representatives Ethics Committee to have committed statutory rape, paid for sex, and used illegal drugs. That was enough to derail his nomination for Attorney General and is what more or less forced him out of Congress. It's not, however, enough for him to even suffer a bit of discipline from the Florida State Bar.

We learned that via The Florida Bulldog which obtained the report from the Florida Bar Grievance Committee which dismissed ethics charges against Gaetz. Why? In the words of the Committee's chair – a lawyer from Gaetz's former Congressional district who probably knows Gaetz personally – "there is a distinction between offenses of personal morality or alleged crimes which do not have a connection to fitness for the practice of law or otherwise indicate characteristics relevant to law practice.” Put more simply, the Committee does not believe that raping underage girls makes one a bad or unfit lawyer because, hey, the law requires different skills.

Needless to say that's a horseshit distinction that would never, ever fly in most jurisdictions. One's personal deportment and criminal activity, charged or not-charged, is always relevant when it comes to a lawyer fulfilling the bar's character and fitness requirements. Indeed, if someone with Gaetz' ethical resume were sitting for the bar exam for the first time the state's bar examiners, who conduct mandatory interviews of candidates, would disqualify him on the spot. When I was being admitted I was advised to disclose speeding tickets for Christ's sake.

My presumption is that Gaetz is getting the benefit of such magical thinking because of who he is, where he lives, and what his politics are. That doesn't change the fact that he's a rapist and one of the worst people to attain a position of prominence in U.S. government in my lifetime, but it sucks to know that, if he wants to, he can hang out a shingle tomorrow and hold himself out as an officer of the court.

Eighteen minutes of joy

As you probably heard, on Tuesday night Air Force One took off from Andrews Air Force Base en route to Switzerland but then had to do a U-turn and go back to D.C. due to an electrical issue of some sort.

For around 18 minutes we knew the plane was returning but did not know why. During those 18 minutes everyone who was still awake and online was fantasizing about the reasons for why the plane was heading back. As you can imagine, they were very satisfying fantasies:

Sadly, Donald Trump did not die in a toilet-related mishap. But to paraphrase the IRA's statement after just missing Margaret Thatcher with a bomb at a Brighton hotel in 1984, on Tuesday night we were unlucky. But remember: we have only to be lucky with airplane toilets once. Trump has to be lucky with airplane toilets always.

Also during those 18 minutes I legitimately wondered what I should do if the plane diversion was because of a Trump medical crisis and/or dirt nap. Allison was asleep by then. Should I wake her up? Should I just tell her in the morning? What are were my responsibilities as a husband and an American in such a situation?

In order to be prepared, I asked her about it yesterday morning:

Glad that's cleared up.

As for me: I put my phone on do not disturb when I go to bed, but I do allow texts from Allison, my parents, and my kids to come though in case of emergencies. So if Trump bites it after my bedtime I am almost certain to be alerted to it immediately by my son Carlo, who is a night owl and who is plugged into the digital zeitgeist in ways that only a 20 year old can be. He's how I heard of Charlie Kirk getting got, for example, even before it appeared on most media sites. I strongly suspect that he'll be how I hear about any truly earth-shattering news for the rest of my life.

So between that and the fact that we always have one bottle of champagne in the fridge at all times, we are prepared for good news at Chez Calcaterra.

Yeah, I could've gone with the Temptations' version, but (a) this version charted higher; and (b) given all of the Greenland bullshit, I think it's better to imagine celebrating Trump's demise with a band called "Rare Earth."

And yes, the full version of this jam was over 21 minutes long. If this bothers you, fast forward to the 2:20 mark when the familiar intro to the song begins.

Have a great day everyone.