Dallas Stars defenseman John Klingberg will miss at least two weeks after being injured while being hit by a puck during Tuesday's game against the Colorado Avalanche, according to coach Jim Montgomery.

Klingberg, 27, did not play in the third period of the Stars' 4-1 win. Montgomery said the sixth-year veteran suffered a lower-body injury on the same play in which a puck struck him in the face. Klingberg stayed in the game at first but was ultimately ruled out for the final period.

He is expected to undergo further evaluation Wednesday.

Klingberg has played in all 17 Stars games this season, with one goal and three assists while averaging 23:36 in ice time per game.

The Stars were already without defenseman Andrej Sekera, who missed his fourth straight game Tuesday. Montgomery said Sekera hurt his chest, back, both hips and a knee when he crashed into the boards on Oct. 26. Defenseman Roman Polak also has not played since fracturing his sternum in the team's season opener.

Just when you start to think that you have a good grasp on the NHL, it knocks you on your butt by throwing a curveball at you. We're now through the first month of the regular season, and the standings still look predictably unpredictable.

Whether it's the Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers or Buffalo Sabres, there are a number of teams that have risen from the basement to the penthouse in the early going, bumping those that we had penciled into those top spots further down the pecking order.

Let's try to run some quick diagnostics on the presumptive contenders that have come out of the gate sputtering, see if there are any quick fixes that can help them reverse course and start playing the type of hockey we've come to expect, as well as whether they'll actually get back on track.

San Jose Sharks

The problem: Pretty much everything that could've conceivably gone wrong in San Jose already has. Only the Red Wings have more losses than their 10 defeats, and only the Red Wings have a worse goal differential than their hideous minus-29. The defense is once again bad, but what's different this season is that the offense hasn't been there to bail it out. The Sharks have the 29th-ranked offense at 5-on-5, and if not for a power play that's still got some bite to it, they'd be near the bottom overall. The offseason talent exodus -- and subsequent hit to their depth -- has played a role in that dip, but their remaining star players aren't without blame because they haven't played up to their usual standards, either.

Given their remaining talent, the goals will start to come, but their inability to keep the puck out of their own net looks like it'll ultimately be their demise yet again. After being 21st in goals against last season, they're now down to 28th, and it's silly to expect different results when they keep doing the same thing over and over again without making any real changes.

The fix: In this case, identifying the problem is the easy part, but finding a realistic solution isn't quite so simple. Considering that the combination of goaltenders Martin Jones and Aaron Dell are 30th in 5-on-5 save percentage and 29th in all-situations save percentage, the natural reaction would be to suggest finding a new goalie. The issue runs deeper than that, however. On the one hand, the Sharks are heavily committed to Jones financially for five more seasons beyond this one, and it's not really possible for them to take on any more money at the position without getting out from under his cumbersome contract first. That's not happening, because no one is taking a 30-year-old goalie with an .895 save percentage since the start of last season who is still owed $21 million.

The other complicating factor is that it's not even a given that a different goalie would fare much better in this environment as currently constructed. Only the Rangers and Blackhawks give up more high-danger opportunities, and if you tack the Jets onto that group, those three are the only teams that are currently sporting worse expected-goals-against rates than the Sharks. Whether it's the personnel or the system, the reality is that San Jose bleeds odd-man rushes and scoring chances of such high quality and quantity that it's unreasonable to expect any netminder to thrive in that crease.

So how do the Sharks address that, then? Without the benefit of financial flexibility or even a 2020 first-round pick to go out and add a player via trade, the only path for improvement left for them is through internal adjustments to the personnel they already have.

The first step is to free up Brent Burns so that he can run wild and create offense like he has in the past. They've really done him a disservice thus far by attaching him to Marc-Edouard Vlasic as Justin Braun's successor this season, both because Vlasic is a shell of his former self but also because Burns' unique skill set is wasted playing the types of defensively slanted minutes that have been reserved for Vlasic's shutdown pairing in the past. With Burns and Vlasic on the ice together at 5-on-5, the Sharks have mightily struggled, controlling just 46.9% of the shot attempts, 30.8% of the goals scored and 40.6% of the expected goals.

Considering how vital it's been for the Sharks to run their offense through Burns over the years, it's no surprise that they've been as anemic at even strength as they have while he's been anchored. They need to help him shake free, and let him loose on the opposition doing what he does best. Bumping Vlasic down the lineup, and pairing Burns with essentially anyone else while feeding him softer minutes in the attacking zone would be a good first step toward accomplishing just that.

The outlook: The Sharks need to do something and do it quickly, because throwing away a season at this point isn't a palatable option. With the way they've built their roster and pushed all of their chips into the center of the table with this group, the window for San Jose to contend has a well-defined shelf life to it. Between Erik Karlsson, Burns, Vlasic, Logan Couture and Jones, they have north of $40 million committed to a group of players who are either already in their 30s or about to enter them, and all of those deals run for another handful of seasons. With those players soaking up that much cap space while progressively depreciating, it's tough to envision a scenario in which the Sharks are better positioned to make some noise than they are at the moment.

That's a scary thought given how bad they've looked early on, but the silver lining is that all is not lost quite yet. They still play in the Pacific Division, and despite the hot starts for the Canucks and Oilers, it's a division that once you get past Vegas still looks wide open moving forward. A lot of the complementary spare parts have been stripped, but the engine of a group that was the league's best possession team, finished second in goals and with 100-plus points, and made it all the way to the conference finals just one year ago is still there. It just needs to find a way to kickstart it before it's too late.

Dallas Stars

The problem: Last season, the Stars were able to get by just fine with the 28th-ranked offense because they weren't really giving anything up on the other end of the ice. Jim Montgomery's system was suffocating, and goaltenders Ben Bishop and Anton Khudobin cleaned up the rest. Of all 31 teams, only the Islanders yielded fewer goals against and had a better team save percentage. When you're that stingy in goal suppression, the bar you need to clear offensively yourself to come out as a net positive is exceedingly low.

The issue is that performance from one season to the next at the goaltending position is not reliable, and unless you're being coached by Barry Trotz and Mitch Korn, banking on that to carry you in perpetuity without a fail-safe option is awfully risky. Dallas is learning that the hard way this season, because the main difference this season compared to last is that the goalies have been just good at stopping the puck (91.5% of the time) as opposed to great (92.9% of the time). The rate at which they're conceding shots and chances against are actually even better thus far, as is the expected goals against total. Even acknowledging that, it's hardly a given that their goalies will be able to match their sparkling numbers from a season ago.

The fix: Now that they can't afford to get away with the absolute bare minimum offensively, they'll need to push the envelope to create more goals. Part of that onus is certainly on the players themselves. While it's great for Roope Hintz individually that he's already scored nine times and lived up to all the preseason buzz, it's unacceptable for the rest of the team that he's scored more times than Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn, Joe Pavelski and John Klingberg combined.

Seguin is the name that most notably jumps off the list, because he's off to a start that's similar to the one that notoriously drew public criticism from the team's CEO last season. On the one hand, the 6.5% of his shots he's turning into goals won't continue for the 11% career shooter, just like it didn't last season when he was at just 7.5% before being called out. The difference this time is that the volume of looks he's generating has substantially dipped, with his attempts, shots on goal and chances all being at a career low on a per-minute basis. That needs to improve if he's going to turn things around and get back to scoring at his usual level, and the Stars need that to happen because he's their best pure scorer.

The coach himself isn't without blame, either. The Stars are playing at a snail's pace this season, currently the sixth-slowest team at 5-on-5 when using shot attempts generated for and against as a proxy. It's a recipe that worked for them last season when they could win 2-1 every game, but now that they need to jump-start their offense, opening things up would go a long way toward accomplishing it. With players like Miro Heiskanen, Klingberg, Hintz, Denis Gurianov, Alexander Radulov and Seguin, there's no reason the Stars should be as methodical and plodding as they've been.

The outlook: There's a reason the Stars were a trendy preseason pick to carry over their success from the end of last season and make some noise in the Central Division. As bleak as it has looked for stretches, all of those reasons are still there. With the injuries to Blues dynamo Vladimir Tarasenko along with Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog in Colorado, there's an opening right now for Dallas to dig out of its early hole. It'll never be able to match what division rivals like the Avalanche and Predators can do with the puck, but it doesn't need to. All the Stars need to do is strike a better balance so that they're not so one-dimensional and reliant on their goaltending.

Winnipeg Jets

The problem: The Jets find themselves in quite the predicament. Their defense has been decimated, with Josh Morrissey and Dmitry Kulikov currently representing the only holdovers from the team's blueline depth chart last season. The domino effect of losing that many key pieces without adequately replacing them is that you wind up forcing the remaining players you do have to play roles for which their skill sets aren't really suited.

Morrissey has been absolutely caved in this season, but it's hard to completely blame him considering that he's gone from shouldering a reasonable workload alongside Jacob Trouba to playing heavy minutes next to inferior partners. They were so paper-thin at the position to start the season that they rushed 18-year-old Ville Heinola into the lineup to cover the gaping hole before sending him down to the AHL for further seasoning before they would have to burn a year off his entry-level deal. They're now left giving regular minutes to players like Anthony Bitetto and Luca Sbisa, who arguably shouldn't be everyday players in the league at this point of their careers.

The fix: Getting some sort of resolution to the ongoing Dustin Byfuglien saga would go a long way. Using the remaining $6 million they have in cap space to go out and trade for a defenseman would help, but they can't really afford to do so while his return is still in limbo. Even when they do know how to proceed, neither option is ideal, however. If Byfuglien does come back, it seems unrealistic to expect a 35-year-old who has missed as much time as he has to immediately step into the lineup and be the peak version of himself. If he doesn't come back, the options available via the trade market in the middle of the season aren't particularly inspiring.

Most likely, the Jets would just be adding another body to eat up minutes, which wouldn't move the needle nearly enough given their current needs. The only way they'd likely be able to get their hands on a long-term difference-maker would be if they parted with one of their young highly coveted forwards, but as we've learned from trades like the infamous Taylor Hall-for-Adam Larsson swap in the past, dealing from a position of desperation just to fill an immediate need can have disastrous consequences down the road.

The outlook: It's quite startling just how dramatically the trajectory of this franchise has changed in such a short period of time. Just two seasons ago, the Jets were carrying much of the play in the Western Conference finals. Even after ultimately losing to the Golden Knights in that series, they were (justifiably) considered to be on the short list of teams positioned to sustainably compete for Stanley Cups for years to come.

They're now left scratching and clawing just to keep their heads above water while they wait for a life raft to materialize. What's left now is a sad reminder of how quickly things can change in a salary-cap world and how you need to take advantage of your opportunity to compete while you can because you can't take future success for granted.

New Jersey Devils

The problem: The Devils have had the opening month from hell. All of the goodwill and hype they built up this summer by using the draft, trade market, and free agency to acquire a bunch of shiny new toys seems like a distant memory now. They've won just three of their first 11 games, failing to take advantage of a friendly schedule front loaded with home games. What's even worse than the actual results themselves is the path they took to get to all of those losses, blowing a number of multi-goal third period leads along the way.

The biggest issue has undisputedly been the goaltending, which isn't necessarily a surprise given the number of question marks we had about both Cory Schneider and Mackenzie Blackwood heading into the season. Only the Red Wings and Kings are conceding more goals per game than the Devils thus far, and that's largely due to the league worst .863 save percentage they're currently getting from their netminders.

While there's typically a lot of different factors that go into keeping the puck out of your net, in this case it feels justified to put the majority of the blame on the puck stoppers themselves considering that the shots they're facing don't actually appear to be all that bad, in either quality or quantity. In fact, only the Wild give up fewer high-danger chances on average, and only the Flyers surrender more total shots against overall.

To put all of that into proper context, here are the teams with the biggest disparity between the number of goals they're actually giving up per hour of play and the number of goals we'd expect them to give up based on the quantity and quality of shots they're surrendering defensively (via Natural Stat Trick):

• Devils: 3.83 goals against vs. 2.24 expected goals against = -1.59 goal difference

• Kings: 4.04 goals against vs. 2.66 expected goals against = -1.38 goal difference

• Blue Jackets: 3.53 goals against vs. 2.38 expected goals against = -1.15 goal difference

• Wild: 3.49 goals against vs. 2.36 expected goals against = -1.13 goal difference

• Red Wings: 3.93 goals against vs. 3.00 expected goals against = -0.93 goal difference

• Panthers: 3.34 goals against vs. 2.37 expected gaols against = -0.90 goal difference

• Flyers: 3.25 goals against vs. 2.37 expected goals against = -0.88 goal difference

• Sharks: 3.72 goals against vs. 2.91 expected goals against = -0.81 goal difference

The fix: While Schneider's post All-Star break performance last season was encouraging, it's not too long ago that he'd gone over a full calendar year without a regular season victory to his name. Considering that his lower body is held together by duct tape after all of the injuries he's battled through, it's fair to wonder whether this is the end of the road for him. He's still owed $6 million in each of the next two seasons, but if the Devils were to buy his contract out this summer, his remaining cap hit would be a much more manageable $2 million spread over the four following years.

As for Blackwood, it's still far too early to say whether or not he's any good, but after an encouraging 20-game cameo last season, he's been equally dreadful in 2019-20. He's still only 22 years old, but until he proves otherwise, he shouldn't be getting the lion's share of the starts at the NHL level at this point. The issue for the Devils is that they don't really have a better option internally at the moment. They just acquired Louis Domingue, but aside from winning a bunch of games last season behind a historically great Lightning team, he hasn't exactly proven he's anything more than a replacement-level goalie either.

The list of proven goalies available at the moment isn't a particularly promising one. Ryan Miller would be an interesting fit, but with his contract he gets to choose where he plays and it's possible he wouldn't want to leave California. Jimmy Howard would've been a logical choice, but he has looked dreadful himself in the early going, and would presumably prefer to go to a more viable contender given the playoff bonus in his contract.

The outlook: The Devils need to figure out who they are this season and what they want to accomplish before they can proceed. They're not going to get very far with this level of goaltending, but it's also tough to justice aggressively spending on another goalie because it's not like they've shown themselves to be a juggernaut from the crease out. If they're not going to legitimately compete for a playoff spot, then they're going to need to look themselves in the mirror and ask the tough question of what they should do with Taylor Hall, who is an unrestricted free agent this upcoming summer. He's still a magnificent talent and players that provide his kind of on-ice impact are hard to come by, but he's also about to turn 28 years old.

The thought of investing the type of money and years it'll presumably take to sign him this summer should be concerning, factoring in all of the time he's missed with injury throughout his career and how important skating is to his game. The Devils would surely receive quite the return for him in trade if he were made available, but it's admittedly easier to say that would be the prudent move from the outside. New Jersey has made the playoffs just once in the past seven years, and making that kind of a move is a difficult step backwards both in terms of the on-ice product and in terms of marketing and sales off the ice. Hall's presence not only gives the organization a star player and recognizable face of the franchise, but it helps make life that much easier for young centers like Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier as they grow into their pivotal roles moving forward. That said, if they keep losing the way they have thus far, then suddenly making that kind of decision might just become a little bit easier.

Toronto Maple Leafs

The problem: It's certainly been an uneven start to the season in Toronto, and that, unsurprisingly, hasn't gone unnoticed. They've lost as many games as they've won, and they've essentially given up as many goals as they've scored. Given that there's never going to be any doubt about their production offensively, the question with the Leafs as currently constructed is always going to be how effectively they can keep the puck out of their own net.

• Shots against: 33.1 last season (24th), 33.3 this season (26th)

• Chances against: 11.06 last season (16th), 9.91 this season (14th)

• Expected goals against: 2.76 last season (26th), 2.72 this season (20th)

• Goals against: 3.04 last season (20th), 3.40 this season (22nd)

• Save percentage: 90.84 last season (10th), 89.89 this season (22nd)

The good news is that their underlying numbers don't really look much different than they did last season, but the bad news is that the results have been worse because Frederik Andersen hasn't been nearly as good as he has been in the past. Considering that he's proven himself to be one of the most consistent goalies in the world year to year, his early struggles shouldn't be much of a concern moving forward. He's finished between .917 and .919 in save percentage in each of the past four seasons, and despite how random performance at the position can be, he's earned the benefit of the doubt at this point.

The fix: A certain level of patience is required. The absence of John Tavares exposed some flaws up front, but nearly any team would similarly feel the loss of a player of his caliber. Now that he's back, the Leafs should once again be an offensive buzzsaw, and their ability to score goals in a flurry gives them a good chance to win every single night.

The biggest beneficiary will be Mitch Marner, who has struggled to produce at five-on-five despite his 90-plus point pace at the moment. After scoring 16 goals and adding another 42 assists in his first season playing next to Tavares, he's managed just four assists total thus far. While it's certainly not ideal that a player now making nearly $11 million is that reliant on another player to produce, that's a problem for another day now that one of the league's most lethal passer-to-shooter combinations has been reunited.

Beyond just getting healthy, there are two obvious upgrades the Leafs could -- and arguably need to -- make at some point this season:

1. A reliable backup goalie to occasionally spell Andersen -- and not lose. Michael Hutchinson hasn't had an easy go of it having to face the Bruins, Capitals, and Canadiens the four times they've gone to him this season, but he has also yet to stop 90% of the shots in any of those starts.

Given how important every point will be when it comes to jockeying for position atop the Atlantic Division, the Leafs can't really afford to be giving them away whenever they decide to give Andersen rest. But they also need to play the long game, and can't afford to needlessly burn their starter out again in the regular season. He's once again on pace for 60-plus appearances, which would be his fourth consecutive season hitting that mark since coming to Toronto. With more and more teams embracing the concept of load management and gravitating towards time shares in net, it's imperative for the Leafs to eventually find a sustainable second option to go to on Andersen's nights off.

2. Getting Morgan Rielly a new, non-Cody Ceci partner. Ceci is an easy target, but this early experiment of force feeding him top minutes alongside Rielly -- and hoping that a better environment around him will draw more out of him than he's shown to this point in his career -- isn't really working. His underlying numbers have improved from the abomination they've been in the past, but that'll happen when you go from having Max Lajoie, Zack Smith and Chris Tierney as the three players you most frequently share the ice with to having Rielly, Auston Matthews and Marner filling that role.

I just don't see it. Not only does he not look all that much more competent while playing with significantly superior players around him, but the bigger issue is that the stink of his game really seems to be dragging Rielly down with it. Visually, Rielly looks completely discombobulated out there after playing like a viable Norris Trophy candidate last season.

While Rielly is never going to be mistaken for a traditional stay-at-home defenseman, the instability of playing with a partner who similarly doesn't appear to know where to stand, what to do, or who to cover in the defensive zone only exacerbates all of those issues without the puck. The list of clips of the two of them looking around cluelessly while an opponent gets to the net and scores easily grows with each passing game. I don't know how much longer it can conceivably last before Mike Bobcock self-combusts on the bench, but the sooner the Leafs pull the plug on the experiment and free Rielly up to play with someone more capable while decreasing Ceci's exposure, the better.

The outlook: Any thought of the Leafs entering the season with an added sense of urgency in trying to win the Atlantic Division and afford themselves an easier first-round matchup has nearly gone out of the window already with this start. Only compounding matters is that the Bruins have come out of the gate absolutely firing on all cylinders, and look well on their way towards a special season at both an individual and team level.

While a new opponent would be a sight for sore eyes in Toronto in a way, after everything they've been through in recent postseasons facing the Bruins, the idea of potentially having to instead face a Tampa Bay Lightning team that's currently laying in the weeds -- but still appears to be as talented as ever on paper -- isn't a significantly more appealing option.

Furious Inter Milan coach Antonio Conte has lambasted the directors of his club for poor planning after seeing his team squander a two-goal half-time lead and lost 3-2 to Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League.

Conte repeated his complaint that his squad is too thin and players too inexperienced to battle on two fronts and suggested that club directors should face the television cameras as well as himself.

"Some important mistakes have been made at the planning stage, we can't play both the Champions League and Serie A with such a small squad," Conte said after Tuesday's match.

- Champions League group stage: All you need to know
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"I'm tired of saying the same things over and over again, perhaps they could come here over and say something. I hope that this will help them understand a few things."

There was no immediate reaction from the club leadership.

Conte conceded that he felt like a broken record as he kept complaining about the crowded fixture list and explaining that Inter are still in the early stage of building a new team.

"They tell me that I should smile more on television," he added. "But I always end up saying the same things, about the growth process, about taking it step by step.

"The lads are giving everything and going at full pelt and I can't ask them for more than that," he said.

"We are talking about players who, apart from Diego Godin, have never won anything. Who do we turn to? Nicolo Barella who has come from Cagliari? Or [Stefano] Sensi, who came from Sassuolo?"

Conte made similar complaints when he was coach at Juventus, where he won three successive Serie A titles but struggled in the Champions League, famously saying saying: "You can't eat at a €100 restaurant with a €10 note."

His comments are likely to raise eyebrows as Inter spent more than €150 million on new signings during the transfer window.

However, they also let a number of key players go including Mauro Icardi, their leading scorer for each of the last five seasons, and midfielder Radja Nainggolan.

Chinese-owned Inter, who have not won any major silverware since 2011, are second in Serie A, one point behind leaders Juventus. Tuesday's defeat left them third in Champions League Group F, three points behind Borussia Dortmund.

"We need to keep a low profile," Conte added. "Our position in Serie A should not allow us to forget our problems."

Ernesto Valverde still has the support of the Barcelona board but sources have told ESPN FC there is increasing concern about how the team is playing.

Barca have endured their worst start to a league campaign in 25 years this season, failing to win in any of their first three away games.

They lost 3-1 against Levante last Saturday and were held at home to Slavia Prague in the Champions League on Tuesday. Some supporters at Camp Nou jeered the players off at full time.

Sources have told ESPN FC that Barca president Josep Maria Bartomeu is not prone to making rash decisions and still supports the manager but a continuation of bad results in the coming weeks could force a re-think.

There were calls for Valverde to be sacked at the end of last season following losses to Liverpool and Valencia in the Champions League and Copa del Rey. Bartomeu, who handed the coach a contract renewal until 2021 in February, backed him at the time and continues to do so for now.

However, after the games against Levante and Slavia, there's an acknowledgement that performances have not been good enough. Barca still top La Liga and their Champions League group but their displays have been criticised even when they've won matches.

After the win in Prague last month, goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen said the team needed a meeting to discuss what was going wrong.

Sources have told ESPN FC that there was a sour atmosphere in the dressing room after Tuesday's draw against Slavia and that the players are also worried about how they're playing.

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The sources added there are people at the club who feel the team is falling short on a tactical level, while some players believe the training sessions are not as intense as they should be.

Another concern running through the club is the amount of muscle injuries being picked up this season.

Luis Suarez is out with a calf problem and Jordi Alba suffered a relapse of a hamstring injury against Slavia. Lionel Messi and Ousmane Dembele are among the other players to have spent periods on the sidelines this season.

India are the top-ranked Test side in the world, and only behind England in ODIs, but they haven't quite been up there in T20Is, where they are currently fifth in the ICC rankings. For India's stand-in captain Rohit Sharma, though, it's not something to lose sleep over. With the next T20 World Cup just under a year away, he says the focus is on strengthening India's bench, while not compromising on results.

"Of course this a format where we are trying a lot of players," Rohit said at a press conference ahead of the second T20I against Bangladesh in Rajkot, when asked why the team wasn't up among the best in the format. "The key players are not involved so we're trying a lot of younger players in the lot, sitting on the fringe.

"Probably that's one of the reasons, to be honest. The other formats, we have our entire squad playing the game. You get what you want from that squad. This is a format where you can try [other players], and there's no harm in that."

India have won just two of their five T20I series since November 2018, both wins coming against tenth-ranked West Indies. Following a series loss at New Zealand's hands earlier this year, they lost a series against Australia at home and drew one against South Africa. A loss in the first T20I against Bangladesh in Delhi has led to questions being asked anew.

"We've seen a lot of players who have emerged from this format and have gone on to play ODIs and Tests. We want our bench strength to be as strong as possible so this is probably the reason why you see so many new guys coming into the fray"

India are without regular captain Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni continues to be on an indefinite break, and a number of fast bowlers including frontman Jasprit Bumrah are missing at the moment.

"We want to try a lot of players and make then ready for other formats," Rohit said. "This is the format where these individuals can come out and express themselves so they're ready for ODI and Test cricket also. We've seen a lot of players who have emerged from this format and have gone on to play ODIs and Tests. We want our bench strength to be as strong as possible so this is probably the reason why you see so many new guys coming into the fray.

"It doesn't mean that we have to not win games. Winning is the priority, but again these guys will learn from it. This is how a lot of guys, including me, learnt. That's how it happens."

India have handed four T20I debuts this year, to Navdeep Saini, Mayank Markande, Rahul Chahar and Shivam Dube. While Markande did not get another chance after his debut against Australia, the other legspinner, Chahar, who made his debut against West Indies in August, was included in the squads for the games against South Africa and Bangladesh. Dube earned his maiden call-up in the Delhi T20I against Bangladesh, while Saini has missed out because of injury.

In the first T20I against Bangladesh, the relatively inexperienced bowling attack was handled competently by the seasoned Mushfiqur Rahim and Soumya Sarkar. Young Khaleel Ahmed, given the job of bowling three overs in the last six, went for 18 runs in the 19th over, which pretty much sealed the game for Bangladesh, leaving them needing just four off the last over.

Rohit, however, was not ready to point fingers at anyone. "Pressure is just on the team to perform and on no particular department," he said. "You've lost as a team, not lost as a bowling unit. The focus will be on the team to perform so collectively all of us need to come together.

"Bowlers need to come and get crucial wickets and defend the score. That'll be the idea. We aren't focusing on one department. We lost as a team and not as individuals."

Another area that has come under the spotlight is India's cautious approach while batting in the Powerplay; they only scored 35 in the first six in Delhi.

"Conditions were not ideal," Rohit, who lost his wicket in the first over of the match, said. "The pitch was a little soft. The shot-making was not easy, so we have to assess and see what sort of score we want in the first six overs, then seven to 15, and the last five overs. You have to break it down like that. When you are playing on a pitch like that, you've to see what the ideal score would be to defend. That was the idea. But if the pitch is good you'll see a different team India approach tomorrow."

How would the addition of another umpire exclusively for making no-ball calls affect the game? If it helps "arrive at the right decision", the former Australia wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist is "all for it."

Front-foot no-ball calls have been a contentious issue in cricket for a while, with replays on TV broadcasts often showing on-field umpires missing a number of no-ball calls, and only checking with the third umpire if batsmen have been dismissed.

"It is pretty challenging for the on-field umpire to look down there, look up there, have everything else going on," Gilchrist said at an event organised by Tourism Western Australia in Mumbai. "Surely there was a replay last year that showed it was a no-ball [in the game between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians in Bengaluru]."

As revealed by ESPNcricinfo in August, the ICC is conducting trials to put TV umpires in charge of these calls, which the IPL looks set to emulate in the coming months.

One of the main concerns over involving TV umpires has been over whether it would slow the game down, but Gilchrist, who works as a broadcaster in Australia with Fox Sports, said it wouldn't be a major issue given the technology available in the game.

"No, no [I don't think it'll slow things down], because they can do it in an instant. I know, I work in broadcast, you can have a replay within five seconds. In football, VAR seems to be slowing it down a little bit," Gilchrist said, referring to the Video Assistant Referee, which has been a contentious topic in recent months in football. "I think, if it's a line decision [in cricket], you can have a replay like that [in a matter of seconds]."

The modalities, though, will be for the ICC and the IPL governing council to decide. Should the third umpire monitor no-ball calls? Or is there enough justification to bring another umpire in? Gilchrist is firmly in the former camp. "Why can't the third umpire just look at the replay and just go not out? That should be allowed. Whether you need a fourth umpire, maybe not".

Minnesota Timberwolves players are served meals fit for Michelin Star restaurants. The team has hired James Beard Award-winning chefs to concoct mouth-watering meals for their franchise stars and newcomers alike.

Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins and the rest of the team have the option to munch on protein powder pancakes and crispy turkey bacon for breakfast. And thanks to the Wolves' state-of-the-art nutrition program, they'll always have the perfect individualized recovery food ready for players after practice or a game.

For rookie Jarrett Culver, there's one problem. These world-renowned chefs cannot quite duplicate one of his favorite foods: his mother's scrambled eggs.

"I just love Mom's eggs," Culver said. "I don't know what the difference is. It just always tastes a little better."

So what is Regina Culver's secret? Fresh basil? Some diced peppers? Maybe a few sauteed onions?

Nope. The simple recipe consists of a sizeable splash of whole milk "to make them fluffy" and, most importantly, a heaping spoonful of salted butter.

"I didn't think it was anything major," Regina said with a chuckle.

Tasty fats, however, have become a universal no-no for optimal NBA nutrition. So in an attempt to bridge the gap between Culver's pallet and the team's dietary goals, the Wolves flew Regina to Minnesota to map out her son's meal plan.

And, of course, to show the Wolves the ropes.

"Right now we are a butter-free kitchen," team chef Ryan Stechschulte said. "[But] I think we are going to need to bring in some butter."

For Culver, the Wolves' No. 6 overall pick out of Texas Tech, there is more to it than preferring his mother's cooking -- the team has found that other egg recipes actually make Culver physically ill.

During a routine diagnostic lab test, the Timberwolves staff discovered that Culver has a sensitivity to eggs. He isn't quite allergic, but his body does have a mild reaction to non-mama-made eggs.

"Mom knows him and we want to embrace it," Wolves VP of Basketball Performance and Technology Dr. Robby Sikka said.

"What we've discovered is, when you mask the eggs with butter or milk or other things, his body doesn't treat it the same."

NBA teams have more nutritional metrics at their disposal than ever before. As a result, players have gone vegan, ditched gluten, or experimented with intermittent fasting.

The Wolves have taken the league's nutritional data trend to new heights, unveiling the league's first load-based nutrition plan, where each player's daily meals are tailored to his workload (Culver's nutritional goals include adding lean muscle).

But even cutting-edge programs and food cooked in the fanciest kitchens couldn't crack Culver's egg puzzle. For that, they needed Regina.

"He is such a routine kid," Regina said. "He likes to go to the gym at the same time, he likes to nap at the same time."

Regina's eggs were a part of that routine.

"I think with him being so far away, those are things that -- when you think about being home or missing home -- these are dishes that we bring up because that is part of what you miss about being home," she said.

Culver was raised in Lubbock, Texas, and cooking was a family activity. Regina is a skilled chef but an even better baker, and was often whipping up brownies -- Culver swears they should be world-famous -- and cakes. Regina especially loved to bake around the holidays, using Christmas recipes she saw on late-night television.

Growing up, the Culver family had mandatory Sunday family dinners. Sometimes, Regina would play short-order cook, making Italian food for Culver and sweet potatoes and fried chicken for his younger brothers. Sometimes, Culver would join Regina in the kitchen.

"He'd probably die that I am saying this now, but he fixes a really good omelet," Regina said. "That is one of the first things he learned how to cook."

And you bet that Culver prepares the eggs for the omelet with milk and plenty of butter.

When Culver played his lone college season, he was usually able to make it back home for Sunday night dinners. "I just always want my mom's cooking when I'm away from home," Culver said.

Culver isn't so much a picky eater as he is refreshingly unpretentious, preferring Pop Tarts to tofu. His favorite dishes include spaghetti (his mother adds sugar and spices to the sauce), chicken casseroles and, on occasion, he's known to inhale a sleeve of Oreos. He is 20 years old, mind you.

During Regina's trip to Minnesota to meet with Stechschulte and take in the Timberwolves' first game of the season, she also put aside an hour and a half to set up in Culver's home kitchen. She went to work right away, boiling pots of water for spaghetti, measuring out spices for pasta sauce and preparing chicken and rice, which she then ladled into Tupperware and stacked into Culver's freezer.

Culver didn't mind the mess spread across his pristine countertops. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, after all.

Before the 2019 MLB season began, we tried to define what "success" could look like for each of the 30 teams. Obviously, winning a World Series would count as successful no matter the team, but baseball's rewards aren't nearly that one-dimensional. Teams enter seasons with different goals and priorities and advantages, at different stages of their historical narratives and having made different investments for the next six or seven months. Further, the moments a fan or player remembers 50 years later might well come out of nowhere and have little to do with a World Series parade.

This is a brief exit interview for the 30 team seasons we just watched. Mostly, we'll be keeping it simple, answering a variation of one basic question: If you had told a team's front office, its uniformed personnel, its owner and its fans that this would happen, would they have embraced that outcome or spun again?

(One note for this season, when tragedy and scandal sometimes pushed aside the more frivolous activity on the field: We are limiting this survey to the baseball aspects of each team's season -- with one notable exception.)

The successes that felt great

1. Washington Nationals

The year they won their first World Series

If you had a magic baseball wand and wanted to generate the most happiness a single season could produce, you'd start by picking a World Series champion that hadn't won it all in at least a generation. The first title for a fan isn't merely more satisfying than any that follow. The first is life-changing. It rules out curses. It tells you, the fan, that even if death is surely coming for us all, it can't truly defeat you because you've already lived. It is, in many ways, infinite. It fills up every crack with the reassurance that, yes, indeed, it could happen for you again -- because it has happened before.

This was the right year for Washington to win it. Last year would have been right, too, but next year would have been wrong. The story of this era of the Nationals began in 2009 and 2010, when the team drafted Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper, the two most famous draft prospects in history. Those two drafts set up nearly a decade near the top for Washington baseball: Eight consecutive winning seasons, four division titles and five playoff appearances -- but before this year, nothing but frustration in the postseason. Harper left last winter, and Strasburg (and Anthony Rendon) might this winter. Without a World Series, all those playoff appearances would have been remembered as frustrating and incomplete, hardly worth the hype. But with a World Series, all those playoff appearances are reinforcement of this team's status as one of the great teams of the era. This was the last chance for the Nats to turn all that work into something they could hold on to instead of having it crumble into dust.

Also, these were no generic World Series champs. The Nationals' comeback from last place in May will be cited in fun facts for a half-century. Their path to the World Series -- the most difficult in history, by some measures -- will be the standard against which future playoff teams are judged. They were giant slayers, and there's a good chance history won't forget it.

2. Tampa Bay Rays

The year Tyler Glasnow and Austin Meadows turned the Chris Archer trade into a historically imbalanced snookering

Here's the bad news for the Rays: The Yankees won 103 games and didn't look fluky doing it. The Rays have not only never won 103 games; they've never won more than 97. Until they do, it's fair to wonder whether it's possible for any team, no matter how smart it is, no matter how innovative, to win 100 games while spending one-third of what the Yankees do and selling fewer tickets, even in its best seasons, than any other AL team. Maybe the Rays can -- they came close, and an exceptional farm system is still pumping out hits -- but they haven't yet, which means they need the Yankees (and Red Sox) to stop winning 100 games, or else they must accept the bleak limitation of wild-card entries.

But here's the good news: The Rays won 96 -- we whiffed when we said before the season that it was hard to imagine them winning 95 -- and took the wild-card game, then came within a game of knocking off the 107-win Astros in the division series. If the postseason had started two weeks later, the Rays might well have had Glasnow and Blake Snell at full strength, and who knows if Houston would have survived that.

When, as kids, we imagine finding a genie who will grant us three wishes, we all default to figuring out the right way to ask for more money. But the Rays subverted that: They asked the genie to make everything they want in trade cost less. They built the best bullpen in the game out of pitchers almost nobody had heard of a year ago. They made the trade of the season, getting reliever Nick Anderson from the Marlins at the deadline. Glasnow (a Cy Young candidate before a May injury) and Meadows (one of the 20 best hitters in baseball) were so good that they probably got Pirates GM Neal Huntington fired. It can be obnoxious describing the Rays' acquisitions as only a series of controlled costs, but with Anderson, Glasnow, Meadows, Yandy Diaz, Emilio Pagan, Oliver Drake and Tommy Pham -- all stolen in recent trades -- you don't even have to look at how much they're paid to know the Rays are doing something in their player acquisitions. That's the core of a really good team -- maybe a 100-win team.

3. Atlanta Braves

The year Ronald Acuna and Ozzie Albies signed extensions

As the Phillies might be showing us, tanking is no guarantee of a worthwhile reward. The Braves' multiyear rebuild -- 2015 to 2017, concurrent with the Phillies' -- led to a division title in 2018, but it wasn't obvious that it would lead to a permanent powerhouse. The Braves projected, by some systems, to finish fourth in an extremely competitive NL East, and if the ascendant Phillies developed a bunch of their prospects and spent their big-market money, the Braves seemed in danger of being left behind.

Well, those fears are no more. The Braves won the NL East for a second year in a row, with 97 wins, the most by the club since 2003. The young duo at the top of their lineup -- second baseman Albies and outfielder Acuna -- signed extensions that carry through 2027 and 2028. Acuna could have 400 homers by the time the Braves need to Talk About The Future with him again. The over/under on Hall of Fame careers produced by Albies and Acuna is 1½, and if they go, they're wearing Braves hats on the plaque.

4. Minnesota Twins

The year they hit 307 home runs

We figured -- as did Cleveland -- that the Twins' ceiling would be a good season with a lot to build on. Instead, the Twins came within a win of the franchise record and spent all but seven days in first place. Plus, there was a lot to build on! They had a new manager and a new pitching coach, each one an unconventional hire in some ways and each one fantastically successful in year one. Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton each had his best season and could be aging into his prime with three years remaining until free agency. Max Kepler did, too, and he signed an extension that will take him through 2024. Tyler Duffey was this year's best reliever in the second half, helping erase the shame of trading Ryan Pressly (last year's best reliever in the second half) to Houston. Mitch Garver was, I would argue, the most shocking home run story of this home run season, with 31 homers in 311 at-bats as a catcher.

Perhaps most importantly, the Twins got a team nickname. The great teams we remember 50 years later are often the ones with nicknames. If the Twins win the World Series next year, Rocco Baldelli will be right: I don't think anybody will ever forget the Bomba Squad.

5. St. Louis Cardinals

The year Jack Flaherty became Bob Gibson in the second half

On the last weekend of the first half, the Cardinals were under .500 and in third place. Paul Goldschmidt, the ink still smudge-able on his five-year contract extension, was hitting .249/.337/.417, barely league average and considerably worse than Carson Kelly, the young catcher the Cardinals traded to get him. Yadier Molina was having his worst offensive season since he was 23 and was injured to boot. Matt Carpenter, the Cardinals' most reliable power hitter the previous four years, was hitting a punchless .216 and was about to hit the injured list. The Cardinals' starting pitchers ranked 24th in the majors in WAR, and their closer had just been lost for the year.

If their turnaround wasn't quite as dramatic or conclusive as the Nationals', it was nevertheless the sort that turned a bottom-of-this-list season into one near the top. Flaherty emerged as a genuine ace -- probably one of the 10 best starters in baseball going forward -- and Goldschmidt rebounded with a second half that was, if not quite up to his previous standards, strong evidence that he hadn't aged like Dorian Gray on his 31st birthday. Molina returned to hit like he had in his late 20s, Carlos Martinez took over as closer and blew only one save the rest of the way, and even if Carpenter never bounced back, the player who replaced him -- Tommy Edman -- extended the Cardinals' streak of turning some non-prospect late-round pick into an above-average regular. In 92 games, Edman was about as good, by WAR, as Astros phenom Yordan Alvarez.

I wouldn't say that this turnaround convinced us all that the Cardinals are a great team -- they were the worst postseason team to make the division series round -- or that they're poised to repeat next year. But the Cardinals had been pretty good the previous three years and hadn't made the playoffs. Sometimes you just need to make a sale, to receive a nice compliment, to have a good day so your brain can remember that it knows how to get from here to there.

6. New York Yankees

The year everybody got hurt but the Yankees somehow got better

Every year there's a team that can be explained only by the story of the Chinese farmer, which, in brief, goes like this: Farmer's horse runs away. His neighbors all say, "Awww, what rotten luck." Farmer says, "We'll see," and the next day his horse returns, bringing seven wild horses back with it! "What great luck!" his neighbors say, and the farmer says, "We'll see."

If third baseman Miguel Andujar hadn't been injured early in the season, it seems pretty unlikely that Gio Urshela's breakout -- as a 27-year-old who had been in Triple-A, with no pedigree and recently on waivers -- would have happened. If Giancarlo Stanton hadn't been injured, I doubt Mike Tauchman -- who produced more WAR than Manny Machado in barely half the playing time -- would have gotten a real look on the Yankees. But for injuries, Cameron Maybin wouldn't have had the best offensive season of his career. DJ LeMahieu wouldn't have started every day and emerged as an MVP candidate. Mike Ford wouldn't have made his major league debut (and, in limited time, hit like Aaron Judge).

The Yankees won 103 games, hit 306 homers and won their first division title since 2012. As a teaser for next year, they saw Luis Severino return with his full arsenal late in the season. They did this all in a year when seemingly every week brought at least two season-ruining injuries, which not only didn't ruin the season but also, in totally unanticipated ways, made it even more memorable.

7. Arizona Diamondbacks

The year they barely tried and found a playoff race

The Diamondbacks spent most of the year as the .500est team in history -- 31 days at .500 on the dot, including a midsummer run of hitting it almost literally every other day -- but it was one of the most satisfying .500s ever. After seemingly punting the season in the winter (by trading Goldschmidt away), they ended up getting more WAR from the return (Kelly and Luke Weaver) than Goldschmidt produced. Then, while seemingly giving up in late July (by trading Zack Greinke), they added two pretty good starters to their rotation, went 31-22 the rest of the way, stayed alive in the wild-card race well into September and ended up with 85 wins, three more than in 2018. The D-backs did this while improving their minor league system from 25th to fifth, according to FanGraphs' farm value rankings. They saw Ketel Marte develop into a genuine superstar, a power-hitting, multiposition WAR monster who didn't turn 26 until after the season ended. It was frustrating, both before and during the season, to see the Diamondbacks' brass show so little interest in pushing for a playoff spot, and that posture can certainly be debated, but few recent teams have so successfully rebuilt in so little time without getting worse in the interim.

The successes that felt a bit disappointing

8. Los Angeles Dodgers

The year they lost in the NLDS

I keep saying it, but I think it keeps being true: If the Dodgers eventually win a World Series in this seemingly never-ending competitive window they've opened, all these postseason losses will get retconned to their benefit. Instead of being seen as grave disappointments, the Dodgers' October omnipresence will prove that they were the team of this era, the powerhouse that dominated every regular season for a decade or more and occasionally won a World Series. They just have to, you know, occasionally win a World Series, and your assessment of this season, like the ones that preceded it, depends on your faith that they eventually will.

This was probably the best Dodgers team in history. Their third-order winning percentage at Baseball Prospectus -- a measure of offensive, defensive and pitching strength that tells us more about a team's talent than record alone -- was the third best since at least 1950. They set a franchise record for wins, with the second-best offense in Dodgers history (by OPS+) and the third-best pitching in Dodgers history (by ERA+). They did what the powerhouse Yankees of the previous decade always struggled with -- incorporating new rookies -- and ended the season with one of the five best farm systems in baseball, even after the debuts of Gavin Lux, Will Smith, Matt Beaty and Dustin May. They have so many good players that I'm nearly certain you could split this franchise in two and have two winning teams. It's a total triumph of team building.

I think they'll win a World Series someday.

9. Oakland A's

The year Mike Fiers threw a no-hitter

From 2015 to 2017, the A's finished in last place and drew a miserable 1.6 million fans per season. In the past two years, they've won 97 games each season, made the playoffs each season and done it without preemptively trading any of their young and likable stars. In 2019, they spent more than $100 million on players for the first time -- more than $20 million more than their previous highest payroll. For that, over the past two seasons, they've drawn ... 1.6 million fans per season.

There's a sadness that follows the A's. It's the attendance, partly. It's the fact that every fan expects the best players to be traded away. It's the postseason: They lost the wild-card game this year, and Billy Beane's A's have now made the playoffs 10 times and won only one postseason round. But underneath that sadness, what a season: Ace Sean Manaea and the two best pitching prospects -- A.J. Puk and Jesus Luzardo, both major-league-ready -- were injured early, and first-half ace Frankie Montas got popped for PEDs, yet the A's again patched together a successful staff from pitchers you swear wouldn't stand a chance anywhere else. (The last pitcher to have a strikeout rate lower than Brett Anderson's and an ERA+ higher than Anderson's was Mark Buehrle a decade ago.) By September, Manaea, Puk and Luzardo were in Oakland, Montas had served his time, and one could really imagine a great Oakland rotation next year. You don't have to imagine the great offense or the great defense, as those are already established.

10. Milwaukee Brewers

The year they came back

Two things, one good and one bad, will make these Brewers more memorable than the typical wild-card-and-out team: The first was that they had one of most shocking September comebacks of the division era, jumping from 5% playoff odds to 97% playoff odds in 17 days, improbably coinciding with the sudden loss of their best player to a foul ball off the knee. The second was that Josh Hader blew a two-run lead to Washington in the wild-card game. That shocking turnaround was a load-bearing wall in the narrative Washington built as never-out comeback kids. The Brewers will play the Ralph Branca role in the Nationals' story.

This season marked the first time the Brewers made the playoffs in back-to-back seasons since the early 1980s and the most wins they've had in consecutive seasons since the late 1970s, so this is arguably the golden age of modern Brewers baseball. But it never felt like something big was happening this year, and it doesn't feel like something big was growing, either. The second- and third-best position players, Yasmani Grandal and Mike Moustakas, were playing on one-year deals and will now presumably move on. The pitching staff is still underdeveloped, and the September charge was dependent on generic relievers getting hot at the right time. The Brewers outscored their opponents by only three runs. Their farm system produced one last pot of gold -- Keston Hiura, an offensive marvel -- but is now empty, perhaps the worst in the game. Their hitters are old.

Those are concerns for next season. This year, though, Christian Yelich got naked, Hiura found his power stroke, the Cubs collapsed, and the Brewers made the playoffs. That's a good six months.

11. Houston Astros

The year they lost the World Series

The Astros set a franchise record with 107 wins, had the best third-order winning percentage since at least 1950, had the seventh-best offense of all time by OPS+, had the 20th-best pitching staff ever by ERA+ and fielded as much talent as the nine worst teams in baseball combined. Alvarez was the second-best rookie hitter ever, Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole raced each other for the Cy Young award, and Alex Bregman was the league's best hitter in the second half, which could all result in the Astros sweeping the postseason awards. Their bullpen was great, their defense was great, they added Greinke, and even the "disappointing" player seasons were encouraging in their own ways: Jose Altuve started slow but had a huge second half, Carlos Correa missed time but had his best season on a per-PA basis, Wade Miley pitched like an All-Star for five months, etc. Everything went perfectly -- until they won the ALCS.

It's impossible to separate the Astros' on-field season from their off-field controversy because at the heart of it is whether they can put everything in the preceding paragraph in perspective. When their assistant GM loudly gloated at three female reporters about having taken advantage of a domestic violence situation to acquire a better closer -- and when the organization rallied around him and baselessly attacked one of the reporters -- it suggested that the Astros think the baseball success actually matters more. That they actually believe that winning baseball games is an end and that baseball is more important than caring about other people's safety. Obviously, it's not -- baseball is just play -- and it's heartbreaking that somebody could devote so much passion to such a misguided idea. A few Astros fans told me that week that they were no longer sure they could root for their favorite team. No other team's fans told me that this year, no matter how few games their team won.

12. San Diego Padres

The year Fernando Tatis Jr. became the most exciting player in the game

Other than the Tigers, no team underperformed its preseason ZiPS projections by more games than the Padres, who looked like a dark horse and ended up with 70 wins. The Padres were worse than the Orioles in the second half, Eric Hosmer and Machado combined for fewer WAR than (scanning for just the right name) Hanser Alberto, and the manager got fired -- we have an unofficial rule of thumb that it's not a good season if the manager gets fired -- but danged if there wasn't a lot to love in this bridge year: The Padres finished the season with four good starting pitchers 26 or younger (including the already ace Chris Paddack), Kirby Yates had one of the best relief seasons in history, corner outfielders Franmil Reyes and Hunter Renfroe each had unexpectedly good first halves (Reyes netted the Padres elite outfield prospect Taylor Trammell in a July trade), and Tatis was the fourth-best 20-year-old in the past 100 years.

Don't undersell that last one, no matter what happens to the Padres as a team going forward. There is a story that gets told about the Angels that says they're wasting Mike Trout and what a bummer that is. But the more accurate story about the Angels is that, even though they haven't won a playoff game in a decade, they've been selling tickets, making history, giving fans something incredible to see every night -- because Trout exists. Having Trout would be better with a lot of wins, of course, but having Trout might also be better as a fan experience than wins alone. There's probably no next Mike Trout, but in Tatis the Padres have the closest thing to it.

13. Toronto Blue Jays

The year the juniors got here (and thrived)

The season began in indignity and frustration, with the Blue Jays keeping their best hitter locked up so he couldn't start making any real money, but after Vladimir Guerrero Jr. debuted on April 26, the fun began: He, Cavan Biggio and Bo Bichette all succeeded to different degrees and ended the season as three of the club's four best hitters and three of the American League's six best rookies. Guerrero became a superstar the night he set a Home Run Derby record -- fair bet that in a few years we'll remember him winning the derby, not finishing second -- and Biggio had the fourth-best walk rate in baseball, just behind that of Trout and Alex Bregman. Bichette, the last of the three to debut, was the biggest revelation, with an age-21 season that, prorated for a full year, would look a lot like Alex Rodriguez's historic, age-20 campaign: 30 or so homers, 50 or so doubles, a high batting average and good defense at the most important position in the infield. These three will be together in the Toronto infield for the next six years.

14. New York Mets

The year Pete Alonso won all the HR derbies

When we set, as a preseason goal for Mets success, "86 wins, preferably evenly spaced out," we meant this: If they won a lot early and blew it, they'd still be those joke Mets, always blowing it. If they started terribly and won a bunch too late, nobody would notice because they'd already be out of the playoff race. So what do we make of the actual timing of their actual 86 (on the dot!) wins?

That winning streak they had in late July felt a bit like the Saving the Orphanage trope, in which the big, bad developer was about to tear this starting rotation down until the gang came through at the last second to raise the wins they needed to be buyers. It was all very conveniently timed, narratively, and if it wasn't nearly enough to get the Mets into the playoffs, it did two things: It kept them playing meaningful games into September, and it motivated them to keep Noah Syndergaard, trade for Marcus Stroman and enter the 2020 season with a pretty great rotation. For the long term, maybe the Mets would have been better off trading Syndergaard, as it looked like they were poised to do before the winning streak. But this team isn't a joke. It won 86 games, and its third-order record was about as good as the Braves', Cubs' and Brewers'. The Mets had the best homer-hitting rookie in history. They probably have the best starting pitcher in the NL, and if you squint, they might have the best 2020 rotation in the NL. This is a good team, and it took a totally unexpected and perfectly timed winning streak to keep the GM and ownership from LOLMets-ing it all down. Orphanage saved!

15. Cleveland Indians

The year they traded Trevor Bauer

Ultimately, Cleveland was no worse than we thought it was, and when you include the unforeseeables -- Corey Kluber missing almost the entire year after a comebacker broke his arm, Carlos Carrasco missing most of the year with blood cancer -- 93 wins looks like an incredible achievement. It's two more than the Indians had in 2018. It's enough to have won the AL Central in six of the previous seven seasons. But Cleveland's decision to take last winter off -- it actually cut payroll -- now looks like the hare being beaten by the tortoise, an act of hubris the team paid for. The Twins and Rays sprinted past the Indians. Cleveland won 93 games but missed the playoffs, becoming the best team (by wins) to miss the postseason in the two-wild-card era.

Whether this was the first year of a long decline depends on whether Carrasco and Kluber are healthy next year and whether those two aged significantly in the meantime. Shane Bieber and Mike Clevinger were two of the dozen best starters in baseball, by ERA+, and if Kluber and Carrasco match their career norms, then Cleveland goes into next year looking a lot like Washington did this year, with not just three but four ace-level starters and two of the league's best position players in Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez. The Indians also have the best defensive catcher in baseball, Roberto Perez, who is just an absolute joy to watch. And now, at least, they know where the Twins are on this course: ahead of them. This might be the wake-up they needed.

16. San Francisco Giants

The year Madison Bumgarner finished as a Giant

The Giants' major addition last winter was, of course, Farhan Zaidi, plucked from the Dodgers' front office to be the Giants' president of baseball operations, filling Giants fans with hope that he'd bring some One Neat Trick to foist the team ahead of the next big trend. Almost every GM/GM equivalent who gets hired in a new organization brings a flurry of roster activity, but Zaidi completely overturned the Giants' recent tradition of roster continuity. As Grant Brisbee found in August, Zaidi made nearly twice as many moves -- 165 -- in his first nine months as the Giants made in the same period one year earlier. They were mostly small moves, waiver claims and subsurface trades and minor league free agents, but Zaidi has a gift for this stuff. If you don't think he found a Max Muncy in all that mess (as he did in Los Angeles) or even a Brandon Moss (as he did in Oakland), he definitely found a lot of unexpected good stuff:

• Stephen Vogt, signed in February, was the NL's fourth-best offensive catcher at 34 and coming off a missed season.

• Alex Dickerson, acquired in a July trade for a minor leaguer named Franklin Van Gurp, outhit Kris Bryant and Nolan Arenado. He missed all of the previous two seasons and was 29.

• Donovan Solano, signed in January, had a career year at age 31 after spending the previous two seasons in the minors.

• Mike Yastrzemski made his major league debut at 28, after Zaidi got him in a March trade for a minor leaguer named Tyler Herb. He outhit Acuna, by OPS+, and led the Giants in home runs. It had been a decade since a left-handed hitter slugged more homers for the Giants.

A great team? Goodness, no. The Giants used 64 players -- tying the all-time record -- and most of the 64 weren't very good. But they were good enough to get back into the wild-card race just before the trade deadline, and if that plot twist kept Zaidi from trading Bumgarner, an impending free agent, it wasn't all bad for the Giants' future. Sam Dyson, Drew Pomeranz and Mark Melancon all had fantastic Julys in the bullpen, and the Giants got to be sellers without giving up on the season. Besides, the average Giants fan probably didn't really want to see Zaidi trade one of the last remaining heroes of the team's early-decade dynasty, especially not in the middle of Bruce Bochy's farewell tour.

17. Chicago White Sox

The year Lucas Giolito broke out

The White Sox, remember, thought they were competitive enough that they spent the winter collecting Manny Machado's friends and family and trying to sign the superstar free agent. But there was a lot of unearned faith in that self-assessment, given that Chicago hadn't turned any of its heralded prospects into good major leaguers, and Giolito in particular looked at the time to be a lost cause.

By wins, the Sox stayed stalled in 2019, and adding Machado to this roster would have done nothing. But at least they earned some faith in the future, as they have the two very good players the Chris Sale and Adam Eaton trades were supposed to deliver: Giolito cut his ERA almost in half, finished fourth in the AL in pitcher WAR and threw a scoreless inning in the All-Star Game, and Yoan Moncada finished seventh among all third basemen in WAR. (Eloy Jimenez, one of the prizes of the Jose Quintana trade, hit .292/.328/.542 in the second half!) I don't think the White Sox emerged from this season in great position to push Cleveland or the Twins, but they answered some questions about their ability to scout and handle top prospects.

18. Boston Red Sox

The year the GM got fired and people started talking about trading Mookie Betts

Yes, the Red Sox lost 24 more games than they did the year before, they finished 10 wins below their ZiPS projection, and their streak of division crowns ended at three. And, yes, their GM was fired midseason, and we were all confronted with takes about whether the Red Sox, of all teams, should trade Betts, of all players. Sale, right after signing a five-year extension that hasn't even kicked in yet, had (in April, July and August) the three worst months of his career and failed to qualify for the ERA title for the second year in a row. The first year of Nathan Eovaldi's four-year deal detoured to the injured list, the bullpen and the Land of 6.00 ERAs. Franchise spirit animal Dustin Pedroia played only six games and sounded like there's no promise he'll play another. Finally, the Sox have, if not the worst farm system in baseball, maybe the second worst.

It wasn't that bad, though. By third-order winning percentage, they were one of the 10 best teams in baseball, and they spent the first half of the season in a pennant race. Between the bad months, Sale had two fantastic ones: 116 strikeouts and 14 walks in 71 innings as his early-season velocity climbed back to normal in May and June. This was a failure of a season, but it wasn't the polar opposite of a World Series title, and nobody in Boston really needed a great season after the delirious gluttony of 2018. The Sox got through it, and on Opening Day 2020, they'll have at least four MVP candidates and a Cy Young candidate on the lineup card, plus a new chief baseball officer (Chaim Bloom) they poached from their smartest rival's very smart front office.

19. Texas Rangers

The year Mike Minor and Lance Lynn dominated

Some fun facts about Lynn and Minor, which are actually just one fun fact rephrased a bunch of times:

• They were the first pair of Rangers starters to each top six WAR in a season.

• They were the first pair of Rangers starters since 1978 to each top five WAR.

• They were the first pair of Rangers starters since 2002 to each top four WAR.

• Using Baseball-Reference's WAR model, they were an even better pair than Verlander and Cole.

In a Major League Baseball season with very few team surprises -- projected team win totals and actual team win totals had a correlation of 0.83, which has to be some kind of record -- the Rangers were one, winning 10 more games than projected (the most of any of the rebuilding teams) and holding a wild-card spot as late as the last day of June. That beats last place.

The failures that felt bad

20. Cincinnati Reds

The year Joey Votto got old

The Reds traded for Sonny Gray and immediately gave him a four-year contract extension, even though Gray was coming off a terrible year (and two terribles in the past three). He had his best season, crushed his career-best strikeout rates and, with more run support, might have won the Cy Young Award. The Reds also traded for Bauer, and Bauer ended up with a 6.39 ERA. Only one NL starter was worse in the second half.

21. Chicago Cubs

The year PECOTA said they would be bad

The truth is PECOTA wasn't actually that close on the Cubs. The projection system anticipated a team that would score and allow the run differential of an 80-win team, and the Cubs -- who won 84 games -- had the run differential of a 90-win team, good enough to make the postseason many seasons and good enough to expect they'll make the postseason next year. But what we'll all remember is the top line: A computer system projected the mighty Cubs to miss the playoffs, the Cubs all got snarky and dismissed it as junk science, and then they missed the playoffs. Sometimes failure is a feeling, and the Cubs went from winning the World Series in 2016 to losing the NLCS in 2017 to losing the wild-card game in 2018 to missing the playoffs in 2019.

22. Los Angeles Angels

The year 102 innings led the team's pitching staff

The Angels are one of six teams to make it through the decade without a single postseason victory, and they did it with big-market payrolls and perhaps the greatest player of all time on the field for almost all of it. This was the Angels' worst season since 1999, their fourth consecutive losing one and the only one Brad Ausmus got to manage. But it was also, for 63 home games, incredibly entertaining because Trout took the field. Trout is no ordinary franchise player. The Angels drew three million fans to see this mess because Trout is perhaps the greatest player of all time and because, when he signed a 12-year extension just before the season, he asked the fans to trust him, and they do.

23. Colorado Rockies

The year Coors Field hit back

Since 1993, 139 teams have won at least 93 games in a season -- the Diamondbacks four times, the Yankees 16 times, the Royals once, etc. Every team has done it except the two expansion teams that debuted in that 1993 season: the Marlins and the Rockies. The Marlins have long been a joke, run into the ground by owners trying to strip copper out of the club's walls. But the Rockies haven't been. They've played different styles, under different front offices. They've signed some great players and developed many more. The only variable one can latch on to is the ballpark: a pitching-crushing force that simply makes it too hard to attract or develop pitchers due to the compounding strain of high-stress innings and energy-sapping altitude. (Also, the apparent hangover effect that altitude has on Rockies hitters when they go on the road.) Until the Rockies put together a truly great team even just once, a Colorado fan has to live with the existential dread of believing the universe despises them.

The park was especially buoyant this year, at least in the first half, when Coors Field was playing more hitter-friendly than it had in decades. The dream that last year's club offered -- three genuinely good starting pitchers, all homegrown, all healthy and all seemingly impervious to the thin air -- died May 31, when 2018 ace Kyle Freeland was demoted to Triple-A with an ERA north of 7. There were successes -- Jon Gray had his best season so far -- but roughly half of the club's most used pitchers finished with ERAs more than 6.00, including four of the six most used starters and high-priced closer Wade Davis. It's back to scratch for Colorado. It has been 28 seasons, and it isn't clear this team has yet figured out how to survive on this strange planet.

24. Philadelphia Phillies

The year the Phillies made tanking-to-win look risky

A few years ago, when the Phillies tried to mimic Houston's path to the World Series, they cut payroll from $150 million per year to as low as $45 million, lost at least 90 games three years in a row, saw their attendance drop to half that of their peak seasons and prepared for an inevitable World Series parade. But if the Astros and Cubs were the Johnny Appleseeds of tanking-to-win, the Phillies are the Old Gil: They're making it look like just another risky scheme or bad lead. The top prospects they collected while losing have provided, essentially, squat, and even the first overall pick of the 2016 draft -- Mickey Moniak -- isn't much of a prospect anymore. The Phillies are now five years out of the trough, they've transitioned to spending and trading for "final pieces," they still haven't had a winning season or a positive run differential, and in October, they fired their manager.

Harper and J.T. Realmuto were good, though, and 2.7 million fans thought baseball in Philadelphia was back. That's good, even if the season wasn't.

25. Pittsburgh Pirates

The year Josh Bell found his power

A few years ago, they were writing books about the Pirates, and pitching coach Ray Searage had a growing legend as a pitcher whisperer. This year, the Pirates had the game's worst ERA+, they allowed more runs than any other NL team except the Rockies, and when it came time for the local sportswriters to name a pitcher of the year, they passed. Archer's ERA rose for the fourth season in a row, top prospect Mitch Keller debuted to a 7.13 ERA in 11 starts, and -- continuing a recent trend -- the Pirates traded Jordan Lyles and his 5.36 ERA away and then watched him cut that ERA in half elsewhere. The organization cleaned everybody out after the season: Manager, pitching coach, GM, team president -- all gone. At least Bell, with his titanic home runs, remains.

26. Seattle Mariners

The year Felix Hernandez and Ichiro Suzuki said goodbye

With little hope of competing -- especially after a sell-off/step-back offseason -- the Mariners entered this year with expectations of two big storylines: saying farewell to starting pitcher Hernandez and saying hello to starting pitcher Justus Sheffield. Neither went well. The King went 1-8 with an ERA of 6.40, and in his fifth-to-final start, he allowed 11 runs in two innings, the worst outing of his career. Sheffield, meanwhile, was so bad in Triple-A that he was sent back to Double-A for a spell. The Mariners' postseason drought is now a legal adult.

The 100-loss teams

27. Kansas City Royals

The year Jorge Soler hit 48 homers

The Royals were already so gutted coming into the season that there was little drama even around trade pieces or prospect arrivals. Soler's 46th home run -- on the penultimate day of the season, followed in quick succession by two more -- was the season's highlight, as he passed Trout to win the AL home run title. Of the 20 Royals hitters who played the most, 13 had on-base percentages below .300. The Royals have lost 207 games the past two years and still have one of the worst farm systems in baseball.

28. Baltimore Orioles

The year the pitching staff allowed 300 homers

While half the league's offenses were setting franchise home run records, half the league's pitching staffs were allowing the same. The Orioles led the farce, allowing 305 homers -- 35 more than the second-place Rockies and 47 more than the previous MLB record. The highlight of the season came in the eighth inning of the season's final game, when Stevie Wilkerson robbed Jackie Bradley Jr. of a home run with perhaps the best outfield catch of the season, saving Baltimore the indignity of allowing 306 home runs. The Orioles might never have recovered from that (though they did lose the game the next inning, as Betts scored from first on a weak ground ball single).

29. Miami Marlins

The year they drew 25 of the 30 smallest crowds of the season

The Marlins have built one of the hardest-throwing pitching staffs in the game, Brian Anderson is at least one player a fan can feel attached to (for now), and the farm system has become one of the best. But the Marlins ended the 2010s as the clear worst team of the decade, with the most losses, the most losing seasons (10) and not a single finish within 15 games of first place. Lewis Brinson, probably the best prospect they acquired in the fire sale of 2017-18, had the lowest WAR in the majors this year, with -2.2 wins. The two relievers who pitched the most innings for the Marlins -- Adam Conley and Wei-Yin Chen -- combined for a 6.56 ERA. Yes, they have prospects. But fool me 10 times, shame on me. Still, nothing is happening here.

30. Detroit Tigers

The year they lost 114 games

After the Tigers traded Nick Castellanos to Chicago at the deadline, they didn't have a single hitter on the roster with an above-average OPS. In the most juiced-ball season in major league history, no Tiger hit more than 15 homers -- or, for that matter, stole more than 12 bases, drove in more than 59 runs or scored more than 61. Even the undeniable success of the season -- Spencer Turnbull, Matthew Boyd and Daniel Norris all stayed healthy and pitched like solid No. 3 starters -- sets up another woeful fact: That trio went 15-42. The Opening Day starter, Jordan Zimmermann, went 1-13.

Exeter boss Rob Baxter says Saracens will have won their last two titles unfairly if their appeal against breaching salary cap rules fails.

Baxter's side lost the 2018 and 2019 Premiership finals to the London club.

Sarries are facing the docking of 35 points and a £5.36m fine after an inquiry into business link-ups between chairman Nigel Wray and some players.

"If this is upheld, it's pretty obvious those titles have been won unfairly," Exeter's director of rugby said.

Clubs cannot spend more than £7m on player salaries, although they are allowed two whose salaries do not count towards the cap, and can receive extra money for fielding home-grown players or to pay for injury cover.

It is claimed Saracens avoided the regulations by investing in companies co-owned by Wray and some of their star players, including England captain Owen Farrell and forwards Mako and Billy Vunipola.

"If you're asking me would I like to walk into Sandy Park and see three Premiership trophies there, I would love to," Baxter said, at this season's Champions Cup launch in Cardiff.

"In reality do I see that happening? No. There are too many other factors that come into play.

"I believe the way we played in the final last year would have beaten any other team in the Premiership."

The Chiefs were beaten 37-34 in a thrilling final in June as tries by Wales star Liam Williams, Scotland's Sean Maitland and England's Jamie George - who have all toured with the British and Irish lions - helped Saracens peg back a 27-16 deficit with 20 minutes to go.

But Baxter says that to suggest that his side would have won the title but for Saracens' alleged extra financial muscle is not necessarily the case.

"The whole truth is if Saracens had been operating with a different group of players last season they may not have got to the final, and if a different team had been there they might have outperformed us on the day," he continued.

"It would be ridiculous for me to say they were givens. How many results could have been different in the course of a season and the top four could have been created differently.

"Every one of the games, semi-finals and finals would have been different. To sit here and say 'we should have been given the title' is a little bit like a shortcut when the season is what you do as whole."

'Elephant in the room now out in the open'

Exeter were forced to let Argentina back Santiago Cordero and home-grown forward Tom Lawday leave the club in the summer as they could not afford to keep them and comply with the salary cap.

And Baxter believes it is right that investments by club officials in firms that are owned or part-owned by players should count towards the cap.

"We're supposed to be working within the salary cap to create a level of fairness and competition. That's what we have signed up to and agreed to," he added.

"If the first response is to say the payments, investments and inducements are outside the cap but are OK because the wording of the cap doesn't catch them, the concern is they will move on by finding another way of doing it outside the wording of the salary cap.

"You shouldn't be paying outside the salary cap and to dress it up in player welfare and developing the game sticks in the craw.

"There can't be many people within rugby circles who don't think this is just the elephant in the room finally coming out into the open, instead of being in the corner of the room."

Ralf Rangnick has joined Erik ten Hag and Thomas Tuchel in ruling themselves out of the running to take over at Bayern Munich, but Arsene Wenger has declared his interest in the job.

The former Arsenal manager said "of course" when asked about his interest in replacing Niko Kovac at the Bundesliga champions.

- Laurens: Arsene Wenger turns 70 and more than ready for next challenge

Kovac left Bayern following the 5-1 defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday, a result that left Bayern fourth in the Bundesliga table after 10 games.

Wenger, who has been out of work since ending his 22-year reign at Arsenal in 2018, turned 70 in October but is eager to find a way back into management.

Meanwhile, Rangnick followed Ajax boss Ten Hag and PSG coach Tuchel in distancing himself from the vacant position.

"No. Ralf Rangnick is not available," Marc Kosicke told Bild on Wednesday. "We don't believe Rangnick has what Bayern are currently looking for. And that's why it does not make sense to hold concrete talks."

Former RB Leipzig head coach and sporting director Rangnick took on a new role within the Red Bull system as the Head of Sport and Development in the summer.

Speaking on Tuesday, ahead of PSG's Champions League game against Club Brugge, Tuchel said: "It doesn't interest me because I'm PSG coach.

"I have a contract and I can't think for one minute about other clubs."

While on Monday, Ten Hag responded to a question about staying with Ajax for remainder of the season by saying: "Yes, I can confirm that.

"I feel a strong connection with my team and everyone at Ajax. I can confirm that I stay at Ajax this season."

Former Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri has also been linked but ESPN FC reported last month that he would take a sabbatical from management this season.

Former Germany national team assistant Hansi Flick is in charge of Bayern Munich on an interim basis and will oversee Wednesday's Champions League match against Olympiakos as well the Klassiker against Borussia Dortmund on Saturday.