The New York Yankees vowed they’d be aggressive after losing a bidding war for Juan Soto, struck again Friday by acquiring two-time All-Star closer Devin Williams from the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Brewers will receive veteran starter Nestor Cortés, infield prospect Caleb Durbin and $2 million cash in the deal.

An interesting aspect of the deal is that both pitchers surrendered gut-wrenching late-inning homers in the 2024 postseason. Williams gave up a three-run, ninth-inning homer to Mets first baseman Pete Alonso in Game 3 of the NL wild-card series, costing the Brewers a chance to advance to the NLDS. Cortés gave up a walk-off grand slam to Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman in Game 1 of the World Series.

The Brewers had planned to keep Williams, who’s eligible for free agency, at least until the trade deadline but found the deal was too good to resist.

The Yankees, who lost part-time closer Clay Holmes in free agency, had been in talks with free-agent closer Tanner Scott, but pivoted to Williams. Williams, who missed the first half of the 2024 season with stress fractures in his back, saved 65 games with 221 strikeouts in 141 innings over the past three seasons. The 2020 NL Rookie of the Year, Williams has a 1.83 ERA in 241 career games, averaging 14.3 strikeouts per nine.

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Cortés, who’s also a free agent after the 2025 season, was 9-10 with a 3.77 ERA for the Yankees last season, pitching 174 ⅓ innings. He immediately becomes one of the Brewers’ front-line starters.

Durbin, 24, was selected as the Arizona Fall League’s Breakout Prospect of the Year, hitting .312 and stealing 29 baes and was recently added to the Yankees’ 40-man roster. He was considered a strong candidate to make the team on opening day.

“I think he’s a stud, frankly,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone told reporters last month. “Great bat-to-ball [skill], elite ability on the bases as a base stealer, a good defender in the middle of the diamond at second base. He’s really started over the last year-plus to create some position flexibility, too. …

“Really competitive, kind of that hard-nosed, tough player.’

The Yankees, in the wake of losing Soto to the Mets, have now signed left-handed starter Max Fried to an 8-year, $218 million contract,  acquired Williams, and are in trade talks with the Houston Astros for outfielder Kyle Tucker while also negotiating with free agent first baseman Christian Walker.

They plan to fill in holes throughout the roster, they said, with the money they didn’t spend on Soto in hopes to return to the World Series.

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This story has been updated to include new information.

Lindsey Vonn is ready to race.

A month after announcing she was coming out of retirement, Vonn said Friday that she’ll return to the World Cup circuit next week in St. Moritz, Switzerland. The super-G races will be her first since February 2019, when the toll of several injuries forced her to retire.

But Vonn had a partial knee replacement last April and felt so good afterward that it got her thinking about returning to ski racing.

‘The last years of my career were a lot more challenging than I let on, than anyone really understood. But I feel stronger now than I did in my mid- to late-20s,’ Vonn, who turned 40 in October, said in a news conference ahead of the first women’s World Cup race at Birds of Prey in Beaver Creek, Colorado.

‘The passion for skiing has never gone away, I just wasn’t physically able to do it anymore,’ Vonn added. ‘Now that I have the chance to do what I love, why would I not try? Life is short. You’ve got to live every day to the maximum, and that’s all I’m doing.’

Here’s what you need to know about Vonn’s return to elite ski racing:

When will Vonn return to the World Cup circuit?

Next weekend!

Vonn will ski the super-G races in St. Moritz, a place where she’s won five times and finished on the podium another five times. Her last win there was in a super-G in 2015.

‘It’s a perfect place to start because I know that hill very well. I love it,’ Vonn said. ‘And it’s nice to start with super-G, as well, just to kind of dip my foot in, see how it goes.’

The first race is Saturday, followed by a second super-G on Sunday.

Is Vonn racing at Birds of Prey?

She’d hoped to, but no.

Even Vonn, who has won more World Cup races than anyone besides Mikaela Shiffrin and Ingemar Stenmark, can’t just show up at the starting gate. She had to get enough points to qualify for World Cup races, which she did last week with four races at Copper Mountain. She also had to re-enter the anti-doping pool.

By the time she got all that done, it was just too quick of a turnaround to be ready to race this weekend.

‘I couldn’t physically make it possible,’ Vonn said.

Instead, Vonn will serve as a forerunner, a person who skis the course before a race so the first skiers don’t have an advantage over the rest of the field.

Why is Vonn coming back?

Because she can. And because she loves ski racing.

Vonn is one of the greatest ski racers ever. In addition to her 82 World Cup victories, she won four overall World Cup titles and the downhill at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. While the speed events were her specialty, she also won World Cup races in slalom, giant slalom and combined.

But Vonn badly injured her right knee in a crash in February 2013 — she tore her ACL and MCL and also had a tibial plateau fracture — and missed the Sochi Olympics in 2014 after re-injuring it in December of that year. She was injured ‘pretty much’ every season after that until she retired.

‘I kept going through all the injuries because I love ski racing. And no injury ever held me back until it finally broke me,’ Vonn said.

Vonn said she thought long and hard before having knee replacement surgery, and did extensive research before deciding to go ahead with it. Simply being pain-free was the goal, but when she was able to do things she hadn’t in years, she naturally wondered if racing was possible.

Vonn said she wasn’t concerned about her age, and took inspiration from Simone Biles’ comeback. Biles won her second Olympic all-around title in Paris at 27, an age once considered ancient for a gymnast.

‘I’m not the first person to do it. I’m just maybe the first woman to do it in ski racing,’ Vonn said. ‘I think Simone Biles is a perfect example of what can be done at an older age. And she’s not even old! It’s just — it’s outside the confines of what we believe is the right age for the sport.

‘I don’t think I’m reinventing the wheel,’ Vonn added. ‘I’m just doing what I feel is right for me but, at the same time, continuing on what other women have done before me.’

What does Vonn want from her comeback?

What do you think?

Vonn is, again, one of the greatest ski racers ever. If she’s coming back, she’s coming back to win.

‘Success is not just participating,’ she said. ‘While I am very excited to be participating, I definitely have goals and expectations and I’m trying to be as patient as possible with myself on this journey and take it step by step and not skip any steps.

‘I know my way back to a competitive level might take a race or two, but I certainly intend on getting back to where I was before.’

Travis Hunter has magnificently proven a point. Go ahead, keep telling the best player in college football what he can’t do. He wasn’t supposed to survive, let alone thrive, in the face of excruciating demands while playing full-time at two positions.

Or so said the conventional wisdom. 

And look at him now: The throwback Colorado Buffaloes star wide receiver and, er, cornerback, is the favorite to collect the Heisman Trophy on Saturday night. 

Surely, as the NFL looms, Hunter can’t expect to excel at both positions on the next level. 

Can he? 

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“I don’t want to say what the man can’t do,” Charles Woodson, the Pro Football Hall of Famer, told USA TODAY Sports. “We just watched him do it in college. 

“I would prefer that he didn’t. If I was an NFL team, having a guy as talented as him, I would play him on defense. But I would have some packages for him on offense. He’s too talented of a player not to use at all on offense. But I wouldn’t put him out there full-time on offense and defense. The NFL is, just in terms of the physical nature of the game, guys’ body styles are much more mature, there’s a different speed of the game, just because guys are much better at every level of the game. 

“So, I wouldn’t try to play him every snap, but I would put him out there; I’d play him some snaps on offense.” 

Woodson, who played 18 seasons in the NFL as a defensive back and now serves as a studio analyst for Fox Sports, is as credible as anyone in reflecting on Hunter’s achievements and assessing the enormous prospects for his NFL future. 

On his path to winning the Heisman Trophy in 1997, Woodson was the supreme cornerback who dabbled as a wide receiver at Michigan. During his final two seasons with the Wolverines, Woodson caught 24 passes and logged 6 rushing attempts. 

The comparison stops when considering that as incredible of an athlete as Woodson was, he was merely a part-timer on offense. That’s one reason why he’s so impressed with Hunter, who averaged 113 snaps per game – with essentially a 50-50 split between offense and defense – to help ignite Colorado (9-3) to a berth in the upcoming Alamo Bowl. 

As a big-play receiver, Hunter caught 92 passes for 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns this season.  

As shutdown corner, he snagged four interceptions, tallied 11 pass break-ups and had a key, game-sealing forced fumble.  

“You watch a game and they get off the field on defense and everybody from the defense goes over to the sideline, and he’s in the offensive huddle, getting ready to line up and play offense,” Woodson said. “So, very impressed with what he’s done. Travis has taken care of himself and makes sure that each and every week, he’s prepared to play.” 

Still, this sort of double duty would be a bit much to expect in the NFL. Even for Hunter, 21, considered the most gifted athlete poised for the NFL draft in April and projected as a top five pick. Yet after convincing his college coach, Deion Sanders, to allow him to play both ways – first at Jackson State, then the past two seasons at Colorado – Hunter (6-1, 185) has been adamant that he wants to continue playing both ways in the NFL. 

It’s going to be a tough sell – at least in envisioning full-time roles at both positions. 

Two high-level talent evaluators for NFL teams told USA TODAY Sports, under the condition of anonymity, that they project Hunter as a cornerback who could be used to a lesser extent as a wide receiver – essentially echoing Woodson’s sentiments. The team executives did not want to be identified because of the proprietary elements associated with personnel evaluations. 

“I see him as a cornerback that can give you some wide receiver snaps,” said the personnel director for an NFL team. “I think he could play wide receiver as his primary position, but he is more valuable to me as a corner because of the impact he could have there.” 

In other words, there’s a supply-and-demand equation working here. It is much more difficult for NFL teams to land an elite cornerback than to secure an elite receiver. 

“He has a big upside as a cornerback,” said an NFL general manager. “And you can find wide receivers almost anywhere now, if that makes sense.” 

Then there’s just the thought of the demands that it would take for Hunter to excel at two positions. This season, Hunter has logged 688 snaps on defense and 672 plays on offense. 

Let it be noted: The line in the sand is drawn for Hunter and those visions of going both ways as a full-time player at the next level.  

As the GM put it, “I cannot see how he holds up playing 100-plus snaps per game for 17 weeks in the NFL.” 

The personnel director concurs: “I think playing both ways in the NFL would be too much in terms of the playbook, coverages, adjustments, situationally, all of those things.” 

Woodson, drafted fourth overall by the Oakland Raiders in 1998, chuckled when asked if he could have envisioned playing both ways in the NFL. Even just a little bit. 

“I wish I could have played more snaps on offense in the NFL,” he said. 

During the early years of his NFL career, Woodson got a handful of snaps on offense. It’s not even a footnote on his illustrious NFL resume, which includes a Super Bowl championship with the Green Bay Packers, eight All-Pro selections, a Defensive Player of the Year award and a share of the league’s record with 13 career defensive touchdown returns. During the 1999 and 2000 seasons, Woodson caught two passes for 27 yards and rushed once for minus-3 yards. 

“I used to beg Jon Gruden, man, to put me in the game more on offense,” Woodson recalled, referring to his Raiders coach. “I don’t know if it was him and he just didn’t want to do it. I don’t know if it was Al (Davis). I would have been more than welcome to play more on offense.” 

When he starred at Michigan, Woodson had a much more receptive ear to that suggestion from coach Lloyd Carr after starting receivers Amani Toomer and Mercury Hayes completed their college eligibility with the 1995 season. 

“We lost those big-time guys after my freshman year with Mercury and Amani,” Woodson reflected. “I went up to Lloyd, like, ‘Hey, man, I can play a little offense, too.’ That’s kind of how it started. Even with that being said, I only played a handful of plays on offense. 

“But for Travis, he just continued that high school mentality over to college.” 

As Woodson pointed out, it’s typical for many elite high school players – in Hunter’s case at Collins Hill High School in Suwanee, GA; for Woodson at Ross High School in Fremont, Ohio – to play both ways before declaring one position in moving to the college level. 

When Hunter, however, made it clear as one of the nation’s top recruits that he intended to play both ways in college, only Sanders, aka “Coach Prime,” among the many college coaches he encountered during the process, agreed to the possibility. 

Sanders, who once played simultaneously as the NFL’s best cornerback and kick returner, while playing as a Major League Baseball outfielder, undoubtedly has a different perspective than most of his coaching colleagues. And he’s the Hall of Famer who played some wide receiver during his 14-year NFL career – most notably in 1996 with the Dallas Cowboys, when he caught 36 passes for 475 yards and hauled in a 47-yard reception during the Super Bowl 30 victory against the Pittsburgh Steelers. 

“For Coach Prime to see that talent in him and say, ‘You know what? I’m going to let you do this thing. I’m going to let you go out here and play the game each and every snap. As long as you can get out there and play the game,” Woodson said. “I think it’s had a tremendous impact on his life.” 

The moral of the story for Hunter: Never say never when telling him what he can’t do. 

Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Jarrett Bell on X @JarrettBell.

While the four finalists have yet to learn their Heisman Trophy placement, college football’s most prestigious award announced the fifth-through10th-place finishers on Friday night.

Colorado receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter, Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty, Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel and Miami quarterback Cam Ward will finish in the top four for the award as finalists who will attend the award ceremony in New York City on Saturday night.

The rest of the top 10 placers, who also had impressive seasons, had their finish revealed on Friday. One interesting tidbit about the top 10 Heisman finishers this season was that there wasn’t a single SEC player included, despite the conference being one of the strongest in the sport.

The rest of the non-finalist placers included Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders, Arizona State running back Cam Skattebo and Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke, to name a few.

Here’s the full list of fifth through 10th-place finishers in the Heisman Trophy voting:

Heisman Trophy voting

Note: Travis Hunter, Ashton Jeanty, Dillon Gabriel and Cam Ward will finish in the top four, with the winner announced Saturday night

Here are the top 10 Heisman Trophy finishers in 2024, as fifth through 10th place was announced Friday:

• 5th place: RB Cam Skattebo, Arizona State
• 6th place: QB Bryson Daily, Army
• 7th place: TE Tyler Warren, Penn State
• 8th place: QB Shedeur Sanders, Colorado
• 9th place: QB Kurtis Rourke, Indiana
• 10th place: QB Kyle McCord, Syracuse

Skattebo, who espoused his own Heisman candidacy after leading Arizona State to the College Football Playoff, came in at fifth place after rushing for 1,568 yards and 19 touchdowns on 263 carries. He also caught 37 passes for 506 yards with three touchdowns.

Sanders was also a notable addition, as the expected first-round pick in the 2025 NFL draft threw for 3,926 yards with 35 touchdowns to eight interceptions this season. Hunter, his teammate, is the favorite to win the Heisman, however.

Army quarterback Bryson Daily came in at sixth place after having the best season rushing by any quarterback in college football, as he ran 264 times for 1,480 yards with a whopping 29 touchdowns in the Black Knights’ triple-option offense.

Penn State tight end Tyler Warren and Rourke finished seventh and ninth, respectively, with both competing for a national championship as their teams made the CFP. Tenth place went to Syracuse quarterback Kyle McCord, who threw for 4,326 yards with 29 touchdowns to 12 interceptions in his first season after transferring from Ohio State.

Phoenix Suns minority owner Justin Ishbia is interested in buying the Minnesota Twins, according to multiple reports.

The Twins finished the 2024 season with an 82-80 record and missed the playoffs. Minnesota has made the playoffs four times in the last eight seasons, including in 2023 when it won the AL Central title and ended its lengthy playoff losing streak.

Here’s what you need to know about Ishbia and the Twins:

Who is Justin Ishbia?

Ishbia is a minority owner of the Suns and the Phoenix Mercury and also the founder and managing partner of Shore Capital Partners, which is a private equity firm based in Chicago.

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Justin’s brother, Mat, is the Suns’ majority owner. The team was purchased on Feb. 7, 2023 for $4 billion from Robert Sarver.

How much is Justin Ishbia worth?

Justin Ishbia is worth $4.9 billion, according to Forbes.

Who owns the Minnesota Twins?

The Pohlad family, which expressed its intent to sell the team earlier this fall.

“For the past 40 seasons, the Minnesota Twins have been part of our family’s heart and soul,” Twins executive chairman Joe Pohlad said in an October statement. “This team is woven into the fabric of our lives, and the Twins community has become an extension of our family. … We’ve never taken lightly the privilege of being stewards of this franchise.”

Joe’s grandfather, Carl, led the initial purchase of the team in 1984 from the Griffith family for more than $35 million.

The franchise relocated from Washington, D.C. to Minnesota and changed its name to the Twins in 1961 under the Griffiths’ watch.

How much are the Minnesota Twins worth?

The Twins are estimated to be worth between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, according to ESPN.