With the Yankees and Giants on track to open the 2026 season tonight on Netflix and the rest of the league scheduled to follow suit tomorrow, it is time, for the 16th consecutive year, to look into my crystal ball and make my picks for the division, league, and major award winners for the upcoming season.
East: Blue Jays
Central: Tigers
West: Mariners
Wild Cards: Yankees, Red Sox, Astros
AL Champion: Tigers
Cy Young: Tarik Skubal
MVP: Julio Rodriguez
With fewer good productions airing on network and cable networks and instead moving to the various streaming platforms, that seems to have taken over as my main form of non-game show or sports television watching. Now that I work from home full time, I have plenty of time to take in whatever they have to offer. Since we cover the network and cable shows that I watch elsewhere, let’s take a look at the 17 seasons of shows I streamed on eight different platforms this year.
Based on a True Story Season Two (Peacock)
A copycat killer starts terrorizing LA.
Black Doves Season One (Netflix)
When a spy’s lover is killed, she puts her undercover identity in jeopardy to find out what happened.
Black Mirror Season Seven (Netflix)
The British anthology returns with a strong six-episode season, including a sequel from a previous favorite.
Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 18 (Paramount+)
The BAU returns once again, following up on plot threads from the previous season.
Doctor Who Season Two (Disney+)
Ncuti Gatwa exits what was intended to be a new era for Doctor Who.
Ginny & Georgia Season Three (Netflix)
Georgia’s past comes back to haunt her, and her kids pay the price.
Mr. Mercedes Seasons One – Three (Peacock)
An adaptation of the Bill Hodges trilogy of novels by Stephen King.
On Call Season One (Amazon Prime)
A training officer and her rookie try to keep the streets of Long Beach safe.
Only Murders in the Building Season Five (Hulu)
Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez return for another investigation into a murder in their building.
The Pitt Season One (Max)
Noah Wylie returns to the emergency room.
Pluribus Season One (Apple TV)
A space virus has turned the human race into a single hive mind, save for a handful of immune survivors.
Poker Face Season Two (Peacock)
Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne return after more than a year for a second installment.
The Sex Lives of College Girls Season Three (HBOMax)
The final season sees Reneé Rapp move on for a music career and a new roommate move in to take her place.
Shrinking Season Two (Apple TV+)
Brett Goldstein joins the cast as the drunk driver who killed Jimmy’s wife.
The White Lotus Season Three (HBOMax)
The third season action moves to Thailand.
The national and streaming television landscape for Major League Baseball will be changing for 2026 as the league prepares to overhaul its approach starting in 2029. This past February, ESPN opted out of the final three years of its deal with the league that would have paid MLB $550 million per year. Those rights will be split up three ways for the next three seasons, with chunks going to ESPN, Netflix, and NBC/Peacock. Between the three, MLB is expected to get $750 million per year in total over the next three seasons.
ESPN will receive a national 30-game package throughout the season available exclusively on ESPN’s television networks and streaming app. They will also continue to carry the Little League Classic and will stream over 150 out-of-market games, one per day, via the ESPN app. In addition, they will take over control of the out-of-market streaming capabilities available today through MLB.tv. Details on how that will work were not made available at this time.
Netflix will get exclusive rights to the standalone Opening Day game in prime time, the Home Run Derby and the Field of Dreams game. No word yet on if they will produce these events in house and, if so, who the broadcasters may be.
NBC and its streaming app Peacock will become the new home of Sunday Night Baseball and the Wild Card round of the postseason. The network will also take over the Sunday Leadoff game, a package that premiered on Peacock but has aired on Roku for the past two seasons.
The rest of the national agreements, with FOX, TBS, and Apple TV, will continue as is through 2028. At that point, all of MLB’s television rights will be coming up together at the same time. Commissioner Rob Manfred would like the league to control the local rights for all teams by that point, hoping a singular package will generate the most revenue. Teams that have ownership stakes in their own local RSNs, like the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, and Cubs, may not be aligned with this approach.
It is time once again to take a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school. This year, I’m once again on pace to set a new record for books read in a year, so I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through August of this year. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 1xx books, so there should be some movement over the past two years. Without further ado, it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much over the years. We continue today with the lone author I’ve read 19 times, starting in 2018.
Karin Slaughter
In March of 2018, I was flying to Las Vegas for the IBM Think conference and I clicked open Pretty Girls, a standalone work by Karin Slaughter, which had been on the Kindle for a while. Little did I know that I would average close to three books per year for the next seven years.
After That Night – Karin Slaughter
The following year, I jumped into her Will Trent series, accidentally starting with the eighth entry The Kept Woman. I worked my way through that series, becoming current in 2023. That summer, I went back to her older Grant County series, having some familiarity with characters who had crossed over. Earlier this year, I knocked off Pieces of Her, which was adapted by Netflix for a show in 2022 and has a sequel waiting for me. On top of all that, she has a new series which started in August. I imagine she may take the top spot next time I run through this list.
A follow up to the FOX hit That ’70s Show, That ’90s Show revolved around the daughter of Topher Grace’s Eric Forman and Laura Prepon’s Donna Pinciotti spending the summer with her grandparents in Point Place, Wisconsin and making a group of friends. It debuted on Netflix in January of 202, quickly picking up a renewal for a second season. That second season, which I haven’t watched quite yet, was split into two parts, releasing in June and August of 2024. Netflix announced the cancellation in October of 2024.
While it was nice to see the returning characters again, this show, at least in the first season, lacked some of the punch that its predecessor had. Barring any improvement in the second season, I can see why Netflix decided to cut bait.
Pieces of Her – Karin Slaughter
When a video from a shooting at the local mall goes viral, Andy’s mom quickly kicks her out of the house and sends her away. She starts to piece together that her mother may not be what she seems, finding clues that lead her from Georgia to Texas and, ultimately, to Illinois, where she learns the truth: her mother was part of a terrorist group and is now living under an assumed name. When she is taken hostage by one of her mom’s old confederates, Andy learns that while her mother may not be who she thought she was, she is still her mother and will fight for her.
I first became acquainted with Karin Slaughter’s Pieces of Her in 2022, when I watched the adaptation on Netflix. I remembered the main beats, but I think the ending was different. There is another book in this series which I will get to one of these days, along with her other series that I am in the middle of.
With the advent of winter premieres, the start of the premium cable network shows, and with February sweeps around the corner, it’s time to revisit my thoughts from the beginning of the season and look ahead at what’s to come for Sunday nights.
Now, let’s see what interesting tidbits are coming this spring:
Suits: L.A. – A spinoff of the old USA Network series, which became a big hit on Netflix in 2023.
Grosse Pointe Garden Society – Starring Melissa Fumero and Aja Naomi King as members of a suburban gardening club that share a murderous secret.
The White Lotus – The show returns to HBO for its third season, with Leslie Bibb and Carrie Coon in tow.
With less and less good productions airing on network and cable networks and instead moving to the various streaming platforms, that seems to have taken over as my main form of non-game show television watching. Now that I work from home full time, I have plenty of time to take in whatever they have to offer. Since we cover the network and cable shows that I watch elsewhere, let’s take a look at the 22 seasons of shows I streamed on six different platforms this year.
9-1-1 Seasons 1-7 (Disney+)
I was introduced to this show when I was in Amsterdam and decided to watch from the beginning once I got home.
Based on a True Story Season 1 (Peacock)
Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina start a podcast with a serial killer.
The Blacklist Season 10 (Netflix)
One final go-around for the former NBC hit, which wrapped up its run in the summer of 2023.
Criminal Minds: Evolution Season 17 (Paramount+)
The BAU returns once again, following up on plot threads from the previous season.
Derry Girls Seasons 1-3 (Netflix)
A group of friends in Northern Ireland grow up amidst a changing political climate.
Doctor Who Season 1 (Disney+)
Ncuti Gatwa ushers in a new era for Doctor Who.
Grey’s Anatomy Season 19 (Netflix)
A new set of interns start at Grey Sloan.
Nobody Wants This Season 1 (Netflix)
A gentile sex/relationship podcaster falls in love with a rabbi.
Only Murders in the Building Season 4 (Hulu)
Yet another murder in the building brings Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez back together for another investigation.
Remington Steele Season 2-5 (Amazon Prime)
The 80s hit, starring Pierce Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist, has become a weekend morning staple.
This is the Zodiac Speaking (Netflix)
The latest attempt to identify the notorious Zodiac killer.
Created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher, Never Have I Ever premiered on Netflix in 2020 during the early months of the pandemic. While I enjoyed the show, I lost track of it and didn’t realize additional seasons were released until 2022, when I caught up on seasons two and three. The fourth and final season was released last June.
Loosely based on Kaling’s childhood experiences in the Boston area as the child of Indian immigrants, the show centered around a teen girl trying to balance her life in high school with a more traditional experience at home, with her widowed mother and a grandmother over from the home country. Series star Maitreyi Ramakrishnan has what it takes to build a sustainable career, so I’ll be interested to see what she has coming out next.
None Of This Is True – Lisa Jewell
A chance meeting between two women who share the same birthday, Josie, a local housewife, and Alix, a successful podcaster, leads to a new project tracking Josie’s path as she, or at least claims to, forge a new life for herself. Unfortunately for Alix, Josie seems obsessed with her, showing up at her home and stealing small mementos. Alix puts up with it, though, as she feels she is getting great content that will become a winning podcast. Instead, she ends up with more than she bargained for when Josie, claiming spousal abuse, moves in for a week. As Alix starts to see Josie’s story fall apart, she worries she may have put her family in danger, but is it already too late?
A 2023 nominee for Best Mystery and Thriller in the Goodreads Choice Awards, None of This Is True is my first go-around with the works of Lisa Jewell. She tells a riveting story, switching perspectives between the two birthday twins and with the purported Netflix documentary of the podcast as it is being produced. If this is a good representation of Jewell’s work, I may need to dig into her extensive back catalog as time goes on.