Having led Europe to a comfortable win at Rome’s Marco Simone Golf Club in 2023, captain Donald stayed in post to guide them to a stunning victory on US soil at Bethpage Black, in New York, in 2025.

At Adare Manor, he could become the first captain to win three in a row and will be only the fourth captain to lead at three straight Ryder Cups after Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and Bernard Gallacher.

He says Harrington will form a key part of his backroom staff in his quest to make history.

“I’ve been around Padraig in many Ryder Cup team rooms, as a player, as a vice captain to his captaincy, and he’s been a vice captain before as well,” Donald said. “So he brings a wealth of experience.

“I do love the fact that there’s a connection. He understands the Irish crowds and all that goes with having a Ryder Cup in Ireland. I think it’s going to be very special for him.

“He’s loved in Ireland with what he’s achieved in the game, and that will only bring more energy to our team.”

It will be the first time the competition has been held in Ireland since 2006, when Harrington was in the European team that won 18½-9½ at the K Club, County Kildare.

“You wouldn’t want to miss out with it being in Ireland, so I’m very pleased,” Harrington added. “I think it will be a spectacular occasion and one of the great sporting events to be played in the country. The whole of Ireland will be behind it, watching it, enjoying it and living it.

“The fans are going to be fantastic, and I think the atmosphere will be second to none.”

In total, Harrington played in 25 matches across six Ryder Cups, winning 10½ points for Team Europe, while he also boasts 44 tournament victories across a glittering career.

He still plays on the DP World Tour and in major championships, most recently at The Open.

Since turning 50 in 2021, he has starred on the Champions Tour, including winning a record-equalling three US Senior Open titles.

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Thunder struck and heavy rain pattered as Breece Hall spoke with a smile, a fitting metaphor for these New York Jets. For those on the outside looking in, the Jets — and most iterations of them over the last 15 years, to be fair — have looked like a mess. Aaron Glenn, expected to shepherd in what’s supposed to be a new era, is the face of it. There’s a reason he tops many oddsmakers’ lists of coaches most likely to be fired in 2026.

Glenn’s Jets went 3-14 in his first season as head coach, and at times he looked out of his depth. Press conferences were contentious. Decisions, both in-game and in the offseason, were often questionable. He’s a defensive coach, but his Jets set records for defensive futility. He fired half his coaching staff. He took over defensive play-calling; he called it his “superpower.” He declared Geno Smith would bring the Jets to the “promised land.”

He was mocked and ridiculed. That’s all the rain falling outside.

“Honestly, I think everyone that comes to New York, even though he’s played here before, it’s like: You bite off a little more than you can chew,” Hall said. “You don’t realize it. His first year, he dealt with the high highs and the low of lows.”

Glenn’s messaging to the world isn’t the same as it is inside the locker room. A coach standing at a podium saying he has a plan is hard for a fan or anyone following this team to believe in, especially as Glenn has sometimes been less-than-forthcoming with details about that plan.

What he gives his players is different. Maybe they don’t believe what they’re saying — but Glenn is staking his job on them speaking truth to power.

“You have 90 men in that locker room who would run through a wall for him,” said linebacker Demario Davis.

Said Smith: “AG has done a great job of laying out the blueprint for this team and where he wants to take us. It’s our job to bring that into manifestation. I think he’s an outstanding coach and it’s our job to go prove him right.”

The only person who knows if Glenn is actually on the hot seat is his boss, Jets owner Woody Johnson. This is not the same situation as the one Glenn came from in Detroit, where Lions fans called for Dan Campbell to be fired after a 3-13-1 first season and a 1-6 start in year two. That’s when Lions owner Sheila Ford Hamp held an impromptu news conference to say that Campbell wasn’t going anywhere. Privately, that meant everything to Campbell, and to Glenn. The Lions turned it around, finished 9-8 that season, and are on a four-year run of winning records — something the Jets haven’t done in 10 years, when Smith was still in his first go-round with the team.

Maybe Johnson will show him a similar level of patience. We won’t know that for a while.

For now, training camp kicks off Wednesday with a roster and coaching staff full of new faces, free agents such as Davis who chose the Jets and holdovers such as Hall who signed long-term extensions. By all accounts, they are buying what Glenn is selling.

“He knows what he wants out of the organization, out of the coaches, out of the players,” Hall said. “I just think he’s very to the point and direct. It’s very good for us to see that this is the standard, this is what we have to do, this is how we want to police the locker room, the weight room, practices, everything like that.”

Davis, who played with the New Orleans Saints when Glenn was an assistant coach from 2016 to 2020, said he would follow his head coach “into battle anytime.”

“Just because of the character that he has and the type of person that he is,” Davis said. “I believe leadership isn’t based on title, it’s based on relationships. And he’s a phenomenal leader. I’m not shocked he’s doing a tremendous job being a head coach, setting the culture and direction for this team. … He has a keen vision on what’s expected and what the standard is, and he’s laid that out.”

Davis later emphasized that Glenn “has a phenomenal vision of where this team has to go and what it has to do to get there.”

Only Glenn knows that vision, the plan that everyone talks about. Presumably, it starts Wednesday in training camp. He has this stretch before the season opener on Sept. 13 to finish installing his defense; for offensive coordinator Frank Reich to finish installing his offense; for the new players, rookies and vets to ingratiate themselves with the returning members of the team. Last year’s Jets lacked an identity. They can’t again.

That’s all part of Glenn’s plan. And the path to figuring out whether it’s the right plan starts now.

Well, well, well. The trade deadline is less than a week away, and the mailbag was absolutely humming with questions about the strategy and chicanery to come in the days ahead. Let’s get to it.

Some questions have been edited for clarity. 

It feels like if the Brewers don’t go all in, like they did with CC Sabathia, and trade for Tarik Skubal, then the Dodgers will, and thus end Milwaukee’s hopes of the Fall Classic yet again. With the Brewers so close to being the best team in the National League, would they? Should they? — Tanner T. 

We begin with a version of the central question of the trade deadline: Whither Tarik Skubal? The answer is not yet clear. Detroit probably should trade him. This was not the plan when the season began. But the team has been below .500 since May 5. On Monday morning, FanGraphs pegged their championship odds at 2.6 percent. Feels like a good time to sell. Tigers executive Scott Harris will set an exorbitant price for Skubal, as he should. But that price tag will discourage some buyers, which limits the number of teams in the mix, and reduces the chances Skubal actually switches teams.

You mentioned two of the four acquiring clubs that make the most sense. The other two would be the Braves and the Rays. Of those four, I’d set the Brewers as the least likely to make the move. The Sabathia comp has come up so often this year that I feel like folks forget that the 2008 Milwaukee Brewers did not, in fact, win the World Series. They lost in the NLDS. Sabathia gave up a grand slam. He was awesome as a Brewer, and I think it’s pretty cool that the team put him on the Wall of Honor, but the acquisition of Sabathia did not end the team’s championship drought. So I don’t know how persuasive that argument would be to Brewers exec Matt Arnold.

It was Theo Epstein who said, after acquiring Aroldis Chapman for his Chicago Cubs in the summer of 2016, “If not now, when?” That is the dilemma. This past decade has been the best in Brewers history. And they are well-situated to rule the National League Central for the rest of this decade, too. I just don’t think that right now is their “when.” They got to this point through discipline. I suspect that instinct will carry the day through this deadline. Should they cast that quality aside and go for it? I’ll tell you this: I bet the Dodgers wouldn’t be thrilled to see Skubal suited up for Milwaukee in October. That should tell you something.

The Dodgers are pursuing a three-peat, but the team’s recent trade deadlines have been characterized by restraint. Is the idea of a dynasty important enough to the front office and ownership that it would motivate uncharacteristic aggression? The team has too many chips to shove all-in, but could the front office have a “damn the torpedoes” moment? — Jay O. 

Now, now. Any student of Dodgers history knows they won’t damn the torpedoes. They will burn the ships. This is canon.

I think if you injected the team’s brass with sodium pentothal, they would tell you that they already view this group as a dynasty. It is hard to argue otherwise. Three World Series rings this decade. The first back-to-back championships in 25 years. Winners of the National League West in 12 of the past 13 seasons, with another division crown on the way in 2026. The last time the Dodgers missed the postseason occurred during Barack Obama’s first term in office. This is, truly, the Golden Era of Los Angeles Dodgers baseball.

And so, this deadline is the same story as always for Andrew Friedman. You know the buzzwords. Optionality. Hang around the backboard. Be opportunistic. They are tapped into every market and capable of anything. (Except Mason Miller.) They don’t want to overpay, but they will if they must. They would consider swapping some of their outfield prospect surplus for infield or catching prospects, but those types of trades make more sense in the offseason, and not many people in the South Bay really care about the prospect rankings. They just want to know if Skubal is coming to town. Friedman often shoots for the top of the market when he senses the team has a specific need: Yu Darvish in 2017, Manny Machado in 2018, Max Scherzer and Trea Turner in 2021. But they have been less aggressive in recent years, in part because the team has not featured glaring holes.

The question will be, as the Dodgers monitor Skubal’s market, just how worried are they about their starting pitching? Blake Snell should be fine for October. But it is hard to bet on Tyler Glasnow’s readiness. And the “regression” that Shohei Ohtani experienced in his left knee after last week’s bullpen session sounds worrisome, at the very least. Perhaps Ohtani, who on Tuesday also told reporters that his biceps issue remained a concern, will be back to his usual two-way antics by August. But the specter of injury is never far for him, given the immensity of his physical tasks. So that would create an opening for Skubal. And the Dodgers have the prospects necessary to make the deal, and their desire to see him not in a Brewers uniform might only enhance the interest.

Or they could stand pat, wait for the reinforcements to arrive from the injured list and hope Ohtani can make it through the season. Optionality, and all that.

Has there ever been a buyer’s market? — DO I GO H. 

Certainly not since MLB expanded the postseason.

Speaking of …

Will the Guardians ever be buyers? – Sam S. 

As long as they continue to play in the American League Central, in an era of expanded postseason, I don’t foresee it.

Speaking of …

Despite the joyride the Red Sox have taken recently, I expect this team to finish the season right around .500. They may squeak into the postseason, and it’s clear they can go on a tear and could go deep into October if they’re hot when it counts.

My question is: how can baseball justify a playoff structure that would allow a deeply mediocre team—one which could lose more than half its regular season games—to make a run at a championship? It would be embarrassing for baseball if a sub-.500 team won the World Series. It creates incentives for ownership to put together mediocre teams knowing that’s “good enough” to make the playoffs and have a shot.

How can we restore the integrity of postseason baseball by reserving all the slots for the best teams? — Nunya B. 

Spoken like someone who took this 2020 column to heart.

This is the system the stakeholders of the sport – the players and the owners — collectively bargained to create after the 2021 season. The expanded postseason generates money in the form of television deals and ticket sales and all that jazz. Indeed, it would be a tad embarrassing if a 79-win team won the World Series. But the checks would still clear. So it goes.

Can you identify a time when a front office/owner hubristically bought at the trade deadline to bolster a mediocre team, and won it all? Has this ever worked? — Dorkus Malorkus 

This next answer is going to be quite controversial in a place where I used to live. But in the past decade, I have been surprised by the number of officials from other teams who have characterized the 2015 Kansas City Royals in this way. At the deadline that summer, Dayton Moore crafted two significant prospect packages to acquire starting pitcher Johnny Cueto and super-utility man Ben Zobrist. Those guys, Zobrist especially, helped the team win its first World Series since 1985.

When I talked to rival execs about the quality of that overall roster, they tended to be dismissive, as if the Royals just BABIP’d their way to a title. I’m not sure I totally agree. I was the beat writer at The Kansas City Star back then, and I liked to say that every night they played as if they were the best team on the field and the toughest team on the field. But it’s possible I was just being a small-town homer defending my turf. And it’s undeniable that that team knew how to BABIP.

Lorenzo Cain and the 2015 Royals went for it, and it resulted in a World Series trophy. (Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)

I guess it just depends on how you define “mediocre.” Those Royals won 95 games, but their Pythagorean record suggested they should have won 90. No one on the roster hit more than 22 home runs. Kendrys Morales led the team with a 127 OPS+. The offense ranked 11th in wOBA and 24th in home runs. No member of the starting rotation was worth more than Edinson Volquez at 2.8 bWAR. As a unit, the rotation posted a 4.34 ERA, which rated 23rd in the majors. The starters struck out 6.49 batters per nine innings. Even when accounting for the team’s vaunted bullpen, the pitching staff rated 10th in ERA, 25th in strikeout rate and 14th in fWAR.

Does that sound like a mediocre club? Honestly, yes. There were no Hall of Famers on the 2015 Royals. (Please send all your emails stumping for Salvador Perez to Jayson Stark, but I just don’t see it.) Lorenzo Cain finished ninth among position players with 6.1 fWAR; the team’s next most valuable hitter was Mike Moustakas (3.8 fWAR) at No. 45 followed by Eric Hosmer (3.5) at 55.

How does a team with only two players in the top 50 in the majors win the World Series? Buddy, you had to be there. That team played with heart and verve and all the other vague but enthusiastic descriptors that writers use when we can’t properly explain why a team performs better than the sum of its parts. And it’s a credit to Moore and his front office for recognizing that quality in his team and going for it at the deadline. They weren’t driven by hubris. They were driven by the recognition that their fans had waited long enough, and their team possessed the sort of alchemical ability that might not be easily replicated. If not now, when, right? And that flag will fly forever. Therein lies the counter to the calculus currently being computed in Milwaukee.

Another point worth noting. Kansas City traded five legitimate prospects to acquire Cueto and Zobrist: Brandon Finnegan, Sean Manaea, John Lamb, Cody Reed and Aaron Brooks. Manaea emerged as a useful back-end starter. The other four faded away.

Not so much a question as a statement. The Tigers should trade Tarik Skubal before the deadline. As an example, I use the 2023 Angels. That team was within striking distance of a wild card, and were buyers at the deadline. They missed the playoffs and lost Ohtani for nothing. The Angels could have rebuilt for the future by trading Ohtani, but missed the chance. The Tigers are in the same boat. Holding onto Skubal is shortsighted. It would be better to bring in players for the present and the future and not be the Angels. — Gary R. 

Since this wasn’t actually a question, I’ll respond with a non-sequitur. I have been quite amused at the long afterlife of Our Guy Ken’s story about the Angels not trading Ohtani at the 2023 deadline to Tampa Bay for Junior Caminero.

Can you imagine where the Angels would be with Junior Caminero?!? 

Yes, I can. Probably in the same place they had been when they employed Ohtani and Mike Trout: not in the postseason. Arte Moreno’s franchise is not exactly one player away from competence.

Are there any trades or free-agent signings from last year and last offseason that teams are already looking to move on from before the trade deadline? — David M. 

Look no further than the Mets, who are expected to tear down the unsightly roster put together by David Stearns this winter. As part of that overhaul, the team may move starter Freddy Peralta, outfielder Luis Robert Jr. and reliever Luke Weaver. Both Peralta and Robert were acquired via trade during the winter, and can become free agents after this season. But Weaver just signed a two-year, $22 million contract. The market for relievers is always hot at this time of year, so Stearns is likely to capitalize on that.

Is it set in stone that Weaver will lead to the biggest return for the Mets? Or is there any chance that given Peralta’s pedigree, and teams thinking they can address his mechanics, that trading him will lead to a larger haul? – David E. 

Well, I can put it this way. It would be stunning if the Mets received a return package for Peralta that can match, in terms of surplus value, the package they sent to Milwaukee to acquire him. (You can also look at the struggles of Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams with the Brewers this season as evidence that, as William Goldman once said about Hollywood, nobody knows anything.)

The point is that the Mets gave up a lot to get a two-time All-Star coming off the best season of his career. There simply is not likely to be a similar amount of interest for a guy with a 4.99 ERA who has looked uncomfortable during his brief tenure in Flushing. And there will be far more suitors lining up for Weaver.

That said, it is incumbent upon Stearns and his front office to find the best possible return for Peralta. That means combing the lesser prospect tiers of interested organizations for submerged value. This, of course, is a challenge. But that is what Steve Cohen pays them to do. Is there another Fernando Tatis Jr. or Yordan Alvarez lurking somewhere? Maybe!

So while it is possible that in the long run, the Peralta return will prove to be more useful than the Weaver return, I don’t believe folks will think that on Aug. 4.

Which GM on a hot seat can lower the temperature fastest, and how? – Timothy K. 

Yes, David Stearns can lower the temperature if he somehow acquires the equivalent of prospect-age Yordan Alvarez, and also can communicate that prospect’s bright future in convincing fashion to the public and his owner.

(This will not be easy.)

My actual answer is that if Dana Brown can make useful additions that permit the Astros to sneak back into the postseason, that would aid his ambitions to receive a new contract from owner Jim Crane.

Can the Yankees actually win a World Series without Aaron Judge the same way the Braves did without Acuña? What would they need to do before Aug. 3 to give them the best shot possible? — Anonymous

Interesting premise. The difference between the two situations is that when Acuña tore his ACL in 2021, the Braves knew he was done for the year and acted to replace him. Acuña played his last game that year on July 10. Alex Anthopoulos picked up Adam Duvall, Joc Pederson, Eddie Rosario and Jorge Soler in the next three weeks. All four played a significant role in that World Series run.

The Yankees still don’t know when Aaron Judge might return. (Wendell Cruz / Imagn Images)

Judge’s status is a bit more nebulous. He still might return this season. So I expect the Yankees to focus their resources on improving at catcher — Ryan Jeffers makes all the sense in the world — while aiming to upgrade the bullpen. They are one of the few teams with the prospects and the gumption required to land Mason Miller, if the Padres decide to move him. What else could they do? After landing Jeffers, I would keep calling the Twins about Byron Buxton until Jeremy Zoll blocked my number. I would pester Paul Toboni about CJ Abrams. But mostly, I would hope Judge got healthy.

Are there certain front offices that simply can’t work with other front offices for non-baseball reasons? I know there are certain folks in my fantasy leagues who are seemingly incapable of negotiating reasonably or outright refuse to trade with me for personal reasons. Does the same thing happen in MLB organizations? – Julian B. 

My colleague Zack Meisel and I wrote a fairly extensive series of stories about this dynamic last summer! Really fun project, and you should give it a read if you need to kill time at work while waiting for X notifications from Ken.

The short answer to your question is: Yes. There are some front offices that don’t make many deals together. Sometimes that is because the executives do not like or trust one another. They don’t see the world in the same way. But other times it happens because the executives may think too similarly, and can’t find a fit for a trade. The more common setup is that two executives will find it easy to trust each other and communicate, setting the groundwork for lots of deals. Jerry Dipoto and A.J. Preller. Alex Anthopoulos and David Forst.

And executives who have worked together in the past tend to make a lot of deals together. Anthopoulos made a bunch of trades with Perry Minasian. The former lieutenants of Andrew Friedman — Matt Arnold, Peter Bendix, Chaim Bloom, James Click, Erik Neander — work well together.

So while the Connelly Early-Curtis Mead raised some eyebrows, the two teams making the deal made sense. Paul Toboni worked for Craig Breslow in Boston before taking over the Nationals. His understanding of the Red Sox system, and his relationship with his former boss, helped make the trade possible.

Would the Giants be able to trade Rafael Devers? He has played so well recently and the Giants’ ballpark is very tough for lefty hitters.

Would a team like the Yankees or Phillies, with deep pockets, take him on in order to improve their offense? He’s been one of the best MLB hitters of the last seven years. The Yankees especially need someone to hold Judge’s place and complement him when he gets back — and Yankee Stadium has a very short right-field porch. — William S. 

I would be absolutely shocked — shocked! — if the Giants could move Devers’ contract. Then again, I was shocked — shocked, I tell you! — when the Red Sox moved his contract last year.

I understand the argument you are making about the Yankees and the Phillies. Devers is a good hitter, and he would improve each team’s lineup. But his lack of positional versatility makes him an imperfect fit. In Philadelphia, the first base and DH spots are occupied. I suppose Devers could replace Alec Bohm at third base, but there’s a reason Boston wanted to move Devers off the position. With the Yankees, yes, Devers would help in Judge’s absence. But Judge will eventually return from the injured list, and Devers is under contract through 2033.

Part of the reason that the Giants took on Devers’ deal, which many executives had considered impossible to move, was that the team had struggled to land elite hitters in free agency. As you mentioned, San Francisco can be a tough place to hit. So the Giants had to take on some bad money in order to get a player like Devers. The Phillies and the Yankees don’t have that problem.

What will the White Sox do? Play around the edges or go all in? — Christopher P. 

What a credit to the White Sox that I’m fielding a question like this. This team lost 121 games in 2024 and 102 games last year. They were a laughingstock. Now they are a contender. Do I think the White Sox are a budding dynasty? Not really. The division is quite weak. But the lineup seems legit, and youth is on their side. Even if this season ends up being something of a mirage, it’s another big step forward under Chris Getz’s leadership.

All of that said … no, “all in” is not how I would describe their approach. The front office has a reasonable view of its position in the baseball landscape. The farm system is improving but far from a powerhouse. Most of the prospect gurus place them in the middle of the pack. They aren’t going to trade Caleb Bonemer for an upgrade at catcher or help in the rotation. But I do expect the team to make moves to bolster those areas.

At what point do we stop treating every Padres season as a separate disappointment and acknowledge there may be a deeper organizational problem? Every year it seems to be something different — roster construction, injuries, inconsistency, underperformance — but the result is always the same. I don’t need a superteam; I just want meaningful games in September and postseason baseball. What is actually wrong with this organization, and what needs to change at the deadline and beyond for the Padres to become a consistent playoff team? — Zach G. 

Jeez, tough crowd!

The Padres have made the postseason in four of the past six seasons. Before that, the franchise had reached the postseason five times in its entire history. Yes, I know, I know, expanded playoffs and all that. But San Diego has been a consistent contender for the entirety of this decade, all while sharing the same division as the Dodgers. That has not been easy to do. If you’re looking for meaningful baseball in September and postseason baseball, you have come to the right place.

But I do understand the frustration. This year’s team has underperformed, weighed down by a variety of players with onerous contracts: Xander Bogaerts, Jake Cronenworth, Jackson Merrill all come to mind, and the duo of Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado won’t appear on any MVP ballots, either. The team keeps churning through managers. A.J. Preller tends to take big swings in trades and free agency, and often appears to be scrambling to course-correct. The potential trade of Mason Miller, only a year after acquiring him in exchange for prized prospect Leo De Vries, must be irritating. The bill for all that excess may be coming due.

In the end, this era of Padres baseball may not include that championship that Peter Seidler so desperately sought and Preller has so desperately tried to grab. But it sure has been fun, right?

I would love to see what Tim Connelly of the Timberwolves could do as Twins’ GM, if he had a decent budget to work with and no NBA second apron to worry about. Talk about swinging for the fences … — Jonathan H. 

And I would love to see Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor remodel my bathroom. We all have dreams, I suppose.

Why do we need your insights into what will happen at the deadline? Why are we so obsessed with predicting the future? Why can’t we just live in the beautiful present? — Noah G. 

I give this question an A+.

See you next week!