Le Journal

It’s important to remember this time of year that sometimes the most impactful moves are the ones a team doesn’t make. One abysmal contract can set a franchise back years. The Braves know this better than most, which is why they’ve traditionally been extremely cautious, often outright avoiding bidding wars for top free agents. One of the clearest examples of a near disaster came just a couple of offseasons ago, when Atlanta attempted to pry All-Star Aaron Nola away from the Phillies. Before reaching free agency, Nola had been one of the most durable and consistently excellent starters in the National League. From 2018–2023, he posted 25.9 WAR and didn’t miss a single start. But since signing his seven-year, $172 million deal to stay in Philadelphia, he’s produced just 3.4 WAR — making only 17 starts this past season while posting a 6.01 ERA. It’s been such a steep decline that Nola landed in the honorable mentions section of Cody Stavenhagen’s list of the worst contracts in baseball for The Athletic. “In November of 2023, Nola was a legit frontline starter, and the Phillies re-signed him on a seven-year deal. But after a rocky 2025 season, this contract suddenly looks very concerning. Some of Nola’s underlying metrics were better than his dismal 6.01 ERA, but the Phillies are paying him more than $24 million for the next five seasons. Can he rebound in 2026?” Had the Braves struck a deal with Aaron Nola, the conversation surrounding this offseason would look much more grim. Their money would be tied up in an aging, seemingly declining starter coming off his first significant injury concerns in nearly a decade. And Nola isn’t the only player on Stavenhagen’s list the Braves were linked to over the years. Another notable example came just last offseason, when Atlanta was outbid by the Dodgers for Tanner Scott. He secured a four-year, $72 million deal — a contract that now ranks as the tenth-worst in baseball entering the 2026 season, according to Stavenhagen. “Scott’s deal seemed lavish last winter. It feels straight-up excessive after Scott’s 4.74 ERA in his first year with the Dodgers. Even if Scott suppresses the home runs that plagued him in 2025, it’s very difficult for any reliever to be worth $20 million on paper. Opponents slugged .520 against his four-seam in 2025.” Another name on Stavenhagen’s list is one Braves fans have begged to reunite with every offseason — 2021 World Series hero Joc Pederson. His infectious personality consumed the city during his brief time in Atlanta, and there’s no denying how beloved he remains. But the Braves never seemed to show interest in bringing him back at the price other teams were willing to pay. Pederson hasn’t been awful since leaving — he even made an All-Star team in 2022 — but he’s coming off a season where he didn’t crack the Mendoza Line, and he’s owed more than $20 million in 2026. “Castellanos’ contract has been bad for a while. But last season, Joc Pederson’s first year in Texas was an even worse deal. Signed to provide left-handed power and jolt the Rangers’ lineup, Pederson instead hit only .191 with nine home runs in 96 games. Pederson was marred by an unusually low .203 batting average on balls in play but had a disastrous minus-7 run value against four-seam fastballs. Maybe Pederson can have a better year in 2026. The Rangers are also paying a lot for a left-handed platoon bat who spent only three innings in the field all season.” For as frustrating as the Braves’ approach to free agency can be at times, the alternative is often far worse. Frivolous spending by teams without limitless financial resources is how franchises end up forced into rebuilds. The Braves may have been a massive disappointment this year, but they don’t have any true albatross contracts weighing them down. That gives them the flexibility to shake things up while still attempting to find the right balance that gets them back into championship contention. — Photo: David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire…

Tandis que la Coupe du monde par équipes mixtes de tennis de table bat son plein en Chine, l’équipe de France fait les beaux jours de la FFL à l’autre bout du monde. À lire aussi : Tennis de table | Bonne nouvelle pour les frères Lebrun ! Le tennis de table français en bonne posture au Mondial par équipes mixtes Vous l’ignorez peut-être, mais la Coupe du monde par équipes mixtes de tennis de table a débuté à Chengdu, en Chine. Et si l’équipe de France est mal entrée dans sa compétition en battant le Brésil lors du premier match (8-0), le second face à l’Allemagne est bien plus FFL compatible si vous voyez ce qu’on veut dire. Pourtant, tout a très mal commencé avec la victoire de la paire Alexis Lebrun – Jia Nan Yuan en double mixte (2-1). Un succès qui aurait pu propulser les Bleus vers la victoire, mais ce fut tout le contraire. FRANCE 2⃣ – 1⃣ ALLEMAGNE CHOOOOO ! La France prend les devants grâce à Alexis Lebrun et Jia Nan Yuan ! pic.twitter.com/fT5XpCv4I2 — Cho Allez ! (@ChoAllez) December 1, 2025 Mal embarquée, l’équipe de France a pu compter sur Prithika Pavade pour la remettre sur les bons rails. En effet, cette dernière s’incline trois sets à zéro face à Sabina Winter qui a, comme son nom l’indique, glacé les espoirs tricolores. Et réchauffé les nôtres. FRANCE 2⃣ – 4⃣ ALLEMAGNE Sabine Winter écrase totalement Prithika Pavade et donne à l’Allemagne deux longueurs d’avance… pic.twitter.com/yrcozIm0pt — Cho Allez ! (@ChoAllez) December 1, 2025 Menés 4-2 par les Allemands, les Bleus s’en remettent alors à Félix Lebrun, qui doit défier l’une de ses bêtes noires, en la personne de Benedikt Duda. Et fidèle à son statut d’enquiquineur en chef de Félix, l’Allemand remporte le duel et permet aux siens de creuser l’écart au tableau d’affichage (6-3). FRANCE 3⃣ – 6⃣ ALLEMAGNE Félix Lebrun s’incline 2-1 face à Benedikt Duda…ça devient compliqué… pic.twitter.com/6glnb62iVc — Cho Allez ! (@ChoAllez) December 1, 2025 Après une dernière défaite des frères Lebrun en double, l’équipe de France s’incline 8-4 face à l’Allemagne, et peut encore espérer ne pas voir le jour des quarts de finale. Pour cela, il faudra réitérer la même performance ce mardi face à la Roumanie. On y croit dur comme fer. L’ÉQUIPE DE FRANCE TOMBE FACE À L’ALLEMAGNE ! Malgré une bonne entame, Sabine Winter et Benedikt Duda ont mené l’Allemagne vers la victoire… La qualification se jouera donc face à la Roumanie demain ! pic.twitter.com/4SQ0r87K5M — Cho Allez ! (@ChoAllez) December 1, 2025 À lire aussi : Tennis de table | La fin de match irréelle de Flavien Coton et Léana Hochart aux Mondiaux jeunes L’article La France rayonne à la Coupe du monde de tennis de table est apparu en premier sur FFL.

Why didn’t Tom Stoppard win the Nobel prize? Every autumn, when conversation turned to the question, he was my go-to pick. An unanswerable nomination. Each year, of course, with ritualistic inevitability the Swedish Academy would identify another post-colonial blank-verse poet or Icelandic memoirist never before translated beyond his own village dialect and thrust the prize towards them instead. Stoppard, though, was multiply disqualified from the Nobel. First, there were the scores of plays, film treatments and bon mots, all too obviously designed for the enjoyment of others. Popular without being populist, Stoppard’s career consisted in exercising an astonishing capacity for giving pleasure to millions of people. His plays were precision-made exhibitions of his own striking capacity for a kind of high-intellectual screwball: hard to devise, but not hard — not really, despite what people say — to appreciate. That that is not a glib trick, but an unusual gift, is suggested by how few writers show much inclination to follow his literary or commercial example. Part of Stoppard’s trademark effect was to flatter his audience in the presumption that they were in on the joke, however esoteric. That alone — Stoppard’s talent to amuse — would have registered as a big no-no to the Swedish Academy. It can’t have helped, either, when it came to judging his literary accomplishment, that Stoppard was so obviously at ease with his own talent and success, seeming to find it neither a burden nor a distraction. He was a global star, would commute if need be by Concorde, and each summer hosted legendary fête champêtres to which he would invite Harrison Ford, Alfred Brendel, Mick Jagger, the Duchess of Devonshire, and no more than 500 or so other close friends. “There is a god,” Stoppard once reflected, “and he looks after English playwrights.” Suggested readingThe hidden desire of Tennessee WilliamsBy David Mamet Perhaps the Swedish Academy, party to a widespread but pretentious prejudice, felt that true artists are not supposed to be so glamorous and palpably well-adjusted, nor so candidly attuned to the possibility of commercial reward. When asked by the press to explain what Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, his first major theatrical hit, was “about”, Stoppard is said to have replied: “It’s about to make me very rich.” At the height of his fame he became the well-rewarded script “doctor” of Hollywood producers — not just for Shakespeare in Love, for which he asked, and received, a $1 million repair-job fee — but also blockbusters such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. That the last in that franchise is arguably the best is in no small part due to Stoppard’s expert doctoring. Not every job had so much room for remedy. While he was working on Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, he was less a script doctor than a battlefield surgeon. But even here, his trademark humour remained. Teased about whether Shakespeare would have written screenplays, Stoppard replied unembarrassedly. “No, he’d have rewritten them.” And then, to pile discredit upon discredit in the eyes of the Swedes, there was Stoppard’s first career as a journalist, and worse still the damaging fact that he seems to have enjoyed it. According to an early interview, young Stoppard conceived of himself, in the late Sixties, as having “no higher ambition than to make a gaudy mark in Fleet Street”. Reporting on a regional paper, he felt delighted by the decidedly parochial glamour of “flashing his press card at flower shows”. He was, briefly, the only motoring correspondent in the land unable to drive (“I used to review the upholstery”). And even then, too, there were early symptoms of the incipient dilettantish condition that critics would later claim to detect in his plays. Applying for a job at the Evening Standard, Stoppard found himself put on the spot by then-editor Charles Wintour who, perhaps doubtful of the true extent of Stoppard’s declared interest in current affairs,…

La Coupe du monde de biathlon vient tout juste de reprendre ses droits, et nous devons déjà encaisser un premier record historique de l’équipe de France. Ce n’est pas une vie ça. À lire aussi : Biathlon | Le finish irréel entre la France et l'Allemagne Le biathlon tricolore fait encore pire que l’an passé Le premier week-end de la saison en biathlon aura été un immense raté. On ne s’attendait à aucune bonne nouvelle, et nous avons quand même été déçus. Et pour cause, le relais féminin a lancé les hostilités de la pire des manières en remportant la première course de la saison. Mais n’allez pas croire que la délégation tricolore allait se satisfaire de cette mauvaise note. Après avoir gâché l’entame, c’est la conclusion du week-end qui a été noircie avec le succès du relais mixte. Deux victoires en un week-end, mais surtout quatre podiums tricolores en quatre courses. Vous vous en doutez, mais nous vous le confirmons ; il s’agit du meilleur départ de l’histoire de l’équipe de France en Coupe du monde de biathlon. Ou du pire, c’est selon le point de vue. #Biathlon | 4 COURSES, 4 PODIUMS ! L’équipe de France signe le meilleur départ de l’histoire du biathlon tricolore avec quatre podiums dont deux victoires lors des quatre premières courses de la saison ! pic.twitter.com/FB8f8GjHzB — francetvsport (@francetvsport) November 30, 2025 À lire aussi : Le biathlon français s'effondre en Coupe du monde L’article Ce record historique du biathlon français qui ne passe pas du tout est apparu en premier sur FFL.

Il y a quelques jours, nous vous parlions d’un départ de toute beauté survenu en Arabie saoudite. Et bien dites-vous que la Thaïlande a fait aussi bien, si ce n’est mieux. À lire aussi : La fin de course hyper poissarde d'Isack Hadjar en Formule 1 Le départ inexplicable venu tout droit de Thaïlande Si la Formule 1 a grandement impacté ce week-end avec la stratégie foireuse de McLaren, le monde du sport automobile peut se targuer d’avoir été le théâtre d’un autre grand moment de sport. Pour cela, il faut se rendre sur le circuit de Bira, en Thaïlande, dans le cadre de la Geely Super Cup Pro. Cette compétition, qui met aux prises des voitures estampillées des marques du Geely Group Motorsport, ne souffre pas d’un manque de divertissement. Et ce n’est pas la course de ce week-end qui va nous contredire. En effet, alors que le départ est donné, une voiture démarre avant toutes les autres. Mais alors que le pilote souhaite doubler son concurrent et prendre les rênes de la course, il percute celui-ci et finit sur deux roues. Avant que sa voiture ne chavire, et ne termine sur le toit. Telle une tortue sur sa carapace. On vous prévient, vous ne verrez rien de plus beau aujourd’hui. À lire aussi : La stratégie brillante de McLaren qui permet à Verstappen de viser le titre en Formule 1 L’article Le départ renversant venu tout droit de Thaïlande est apparu en premier sur FFL.