Francisco Lindor has played MVP-caliber baseball for the Mets over the past three seasons and change. He finished as the runner-up to Shohei Ohtani in last year’s NL MVP voting after ninth-place finishes in 2022 and ‘23, and over that span, no position player besides Aaron Judge has accumulated more WAR than his 20.8. Yet Lindor hasn’t made an All-Star team since 2019, in part because he’s often started slowly, making it easier for voters and managers to bypass him. While he was scuffling along in typical April fashion until eight days ago, he’s spurred a seven-game winning streak that’s given the Mets the best record in baseball at 18-7.

Through 25 games, this is the Mets’ best start since 1988, when they also jumped out to an 18-7 start. Those Mets finished 100-60, taking the NL East title under manager Davey Johnson before losing a seven-game NLCS to the upstart Dodgers. They also started 18-7 in 1972; the only time they’ve done better was in 1986, when they started 20-5 and went on to win 108 games and the World Series.

Admittedly, these Mets haven’t assembled their record against the most robust competition. While they did just sweep a three-game series from the Phillies, who won 95 games last year, they’ve played 12 of their 25 games against the Marlins (who lost 100 games last season), A’s (who lost 93), and Blue Jays (who lost 88); their other 10 games have come against the Astros (who won 88), the Cardinals (who won 83), and Twins (who won 82) — and St. Louis and Minnesota appear to have taken several steps back from their 2024 mediocrity, at least in the early going. The Mets have won blowouts (4-1 in games decided by five or more runs) and close ones (7-2 in one-run games); they’ve dropped series only to the Astros and Twins, each of whom took the rubber game of a best-of-three by one run. Competition aside, New York’s record isn’t soft, in that the club is only about one win ahead of its major league-best PythagenPat and BaseRuns winning percentages (.675 and .672, respectively). Read the rest of this entry »

You’re welcome, Yankees fans. Exactly one year ago today, I checked in on Aaron Judge while the slugger was in the throes of a season-opening slump. Though the Yankees were 16-8 when I wrote that piece, it was a dark time for Judge, who a few days earlier had heard a smattering of Bronx cheers while striking out four times on Aaron Judge Bobblehead Day and conceded with typical Jeterian diplomacy and humor, “I’d probably be doing the same thing in their situation.” He’d shown faint signs of turning things around since, combining a couple of days worth of hard-hit balls — including a double on April 23, his first extra-base hit in 10 days — with the apparent end of a strikeout spree, but he wasn’t out of the woods.

In the year since, Judge has put together what might be the best offensive performance any of us has seen. He not only recovered from his slump, he went on to hit 58 homers, win his third home run title and American League MVP award, help the Yankees to their first World Series since 2009, and secure his place in the pantheon of the game’s greatest hitters. What do you even do with these numbers besides gawk?

For sheer offensive impact as measured by wRC+, that performance would outrank any AL/NL season — even Barry Bonds’ best:

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Perhaps it was the batting order switcheroo, or maybe it was the minor league ballpark. Bumped out of the leadoff spot for the first time since last August 11, and down to fifth in the order for the first time during Bruce Bochy’s run as manager of the Rangers, Marcus Semien recorded his first multi-hit game of the season on Tuesday night in Sacramento. The 34-year-old second baseman went 2-for-3 with a three-run homer, a walk, a sacrifice fly, and four runs batted in against the Athletics — a much-needed positive sign given his season-opening slump.

Semien’s big night took place at Sutter Health Park, where the relocated A’s and their opponents have bashed out 5.4 runs per game while batting .270/.342/.466. Whether or not the venue was a factor, Bochy’s new lineup worked like a charm, as new leadoff hitter Josh Smith, new no. 2 hitter Wyatt Langford, and the slumping Jake Burger all homered for the Rangers as well. All of the shots were served up by 29-year-old righty Osvaldo Bido; Semien, who had already plated the Rangers’ second run with a first-inning sacrifice fly, crushed a middle-middle sinker 417 feet to center field to break open a 4-2 game in the fifth inning:

The homer was just Semien’s second of the season, and just his third extra-base hit. He entered the game batting .141/.209/.192 for a 17 wRC+, with all four of those numbers ranking among the bottom four among the 170 players with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. His new and improved slash line (.160/.231/.247, 39 wRC+) now puts him among the bottom 10 qualifiers in those categories, but he isn’t close to being the worst on the team. Joc Pederson (.052/.141/.069, -37 wRC+) is having even bigger problems, including an 0-for-3 on Tuesday, but the Rangers don’t have nearly as much invested in him as they do in Semien, whom they signed to a seven-year, $175 million deal in December 2021. Read the rest of this entry »

12:01

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks!

12:01

Jay Jaffe: After spending most of the past 24 hours in bed with a low-grade fever and stomach bug, I have returned to the land of the living

12:02

Jay Jaffe: Before I went under, I wrote about the weirdness of Sunday’s Yankees game, with the official scoring change regarding Max Fried’s no-hit bid and the umps appearing to mess up a call on a potential Aaron Judge home run https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-no-hit-bid-and-home-run-that-wasnt/

12:04

Jay Jaffe: He’s off to a great start, and it’s certainly nice to see. I don’t expect him to stay this hot but I think he can be a force in that lineup if he stays healthy. The thing is, health is a skill, and he’s had a hard time staying available. Fingers crossed he can do so

Read the rest of this entry »

Chandler Simpson may be the fastest player in baseball. At the very least, the 24-year-old center fielder is one of the few major leaguers with 80-grade speed, befitting a player who stole 104 bases in 110 games at two minor league stops last year. A day after making his major league debut with the Rays, Simpson’s speed figured into a controversial play in Sunday’s game against the Yankees at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, as he broke up Max Fried’s no-hitter… retroactively. That might not even have been the game’s most contentious call, as Aaron Judge lost an apparent home run on a towering fly ball that was ruled foul, even after a replay review.

Fried had held the Rays hitless through 5 1/3 innings when he faced Simpson for the second time in the bottom of the sixth inning. With a 2-2 count, Simpson hit a 78.6-mph grounder between first and second base. Yankees first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, a four-time Gold Glove winner, ranged over to his right to field the ball, but as he did, it deflected off the heel of his glove and towards second base. Simpson reached safely.

The play was initially ruled an error on Goldschmidt, and Fried carried on, retiring five of the next six hitters — the exception being when he grazed Curtis Mead’s right foot with a sweeper — and keeping the no-hitter intact through seven innings while the Yankees stretched their lead to 3-0. By the time the 31-year-old lefty took the mound for the eighth, the official scorer had reversed his previous decision, wiping out Goldschmidt’s error, crediting Simpson with a hit, and ending Fried’s no-hit bid. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mets upgraded their outfield in a big way this past winter simply by signing Juan Soto, but even with the $765 Million Man hitting reasonably well — if not up to his own high standards — the unit has been one of the majors’ least productive thus far. Now an injury has shaken up the roster, as Jose Siri has been sidelined by a fractured tibia, leading the team to test Jeff McNeil in center while he’s on a rehab assignment and setting up some further experimentation.

The Mets acquired the 29-year-old Siri in a trade with the Rays last November 19. Through the first two and a half weeks of the season, he shared time in center with Tyrone Taylor; both players are righties, so the Mets didn’t have a strict platoon in place. On Saturday, Siri fouled a ball off his left shin, and while initial X-rays were negative, a follow-up MRI taken two days later revealed a fracture. The Mets finally placed Siri on the 10-day injured list prior to Thursday’s game, but they haven’t given any indication as to when he’ll return. As manager Carlos Mendoza said, “[H]e’s going to be out for a while.”

“Awhile” will be measured in months. According to the Baseball Prospectus Recovery Dashboard, the few examples of position-player absences due to tibia fractures ranged from 86 days (Tommy La Stella in 2019) to 160 days (Andre Ethier in 2016), with Nick Gordon’s 137 days in 2023 representing the midpoint; one has to discount the 60-day absence of former Met Phillip Evans because the 2018 regular season ended before he could recover. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Padres signed Nick Pivetta to a four-year, $55 million deal in mid-February, it marked an awakening from a sleepy and disappointing winter. With ownership embroiled in a battle over who would control the team in the wake of Peter Seidler’s death, San Diego had let several key free agents from last year’s 93-win Wild Card team depart, including Jurickson Profar and Ha-Seong Kim, but hadn’t spent more than $3.5 million or issued a contract longer than a year when it came to restocking. Pivetta was the exception, and while he was signed to be the fourth starter behind Dylan Cease, Michael King, and Yu Darvish, so far he’s been the stingiest rotation member on the hottest team in baseball.

On Wednesday afternoon at Petco Park, Pivetta spun six innings of one-run ball against the Cubs, allowing just four hits and striking out six, while Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. each drove in a pair of runs. Though reliever Wandy Peralta served up a solo homer to Pete Crow-Armstrong in the eighth inning — the rare lapse by a bullpen that’s been lights out so far — the Padres won 4-2. After beginning the season with seven straight wins over the Braves and Guardians, and winning their first 11 games at home before losing to the Cubs on Tuesday, they’re now a major league-best 15-4, outdistancing the world champion Dodgers, who have played just .500 ball since opening the season 8-0.

Though San Diego swept the Braves in the Wild Card Series last year and then went the distance with the Dodgers in the Division Series before getting eliminated, this season’s club wasn’t expected to be a particularly strong one in light of its offseason inactivity, which also included losing reliever Tanner Scott and catcher Kyle Higashioka to free agency. The Padres replaced Profar — who had followed up a career-worst season with a career-best one that earned him his first All-Star selection — in left field with a platoon built around 35-year-old Jason Heyward, whom they signed for one year and $1 million. They went light at catcher following Higashioka’s departure, cobbling together a tandem of Elias Díaz and Martín Maldonado, two backstops who were released by their respective teams last summer; San Diego had added Diaz after he was dropped by the Rockies in August, then retained him on a one-year, $3.5 million deal. The Padres appeared so geared toward reining in spending that the Pivetta move was initially presumed to be a precursor to trading Cease. Read the rest of this entry »

While the Twins continue to stumble, the Tigers are in first place in the AL Central, having recently won nine out of 11 games. Spencer Torkelson played a big part in that surge, homering four times over that span and five times so far this season, putting him halfway to last year’s total before tax day rolled around. As he’s done on and off throughout his brief career, the top pick of the 2020 draft is raking, but given his ups and downs since reaching the majors in ’22, it will take more than a few strong weeks to convince anyone he’s truly turned a corner. Still, the adjustments he’s made suggest this is more than just a random hot streak.

Through 156 games, the 25-year-old Torkelson is hitting an impressive .288/.380/.627. His slugging percentage ranks sixth in the American League, while his 184 wRC+ ranks eighth; he was second behind only Aaron Judge in both categories until Monday’s 0-for-4 against the Brewers. Admittedly, he hasn’t exactly been beating up on Cy Young Award hopefuls, as his homers have come at the expense of the Dodgers’ Alex Vesia, the White Sox’s Davis Martin, the Yankees’ Carlos Carrasco, and the Twins’ Kody Funderburk and Simeon Woods Richardson. But Tork and his teammates are part of the reason that list looks inauspicious, as the Tigers — who are 10-6 thus far, their best start since 2015 — have beaten up opposing pitchers, scoring 5.0 runs per game (tied for second in the AL) with a 116 wRC+ (third). Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe Walker Buehler will be all right, after all. Through his first two starts with the Red Sox — his first two since nailing down the final three outs of the 2024 World Series with a surprise bullpen appearance on his throw day — the 30-year-old righty had been pummeled, allowing three homers and nine runs in 9 1/3 innings. On Thursday afternoon at Fenway Park, he turned the page, putting on a “pitchability clinic” opposite Toronto’s Chris Bassitt.

Buehler shut out the Blue Jays over his first six innings of work, allowing just four hits without a walk while striking out seven. Bassitt matched him with zeroes until the sixth, when Jarren Duran walked with one out, stole second base, advanced to third on a fly out, and scored on an Alex Bregman single. Buehler departed two batters into the seventh, after he’d walked rookie Will Wagner on four pitches to lead off the inning and retired Ernie Clement on a fly ball to center. When reliever Justin Wilson allowed two hits and shortstop Trevor Story made a throwing error on a potential inning-ending double play, Buehler could only watch from the dugout as the Blue Jays took a 2-1 lead. The Red Sox tied the game up in the eighth, and won 4-3 in 10 innings when Toronto second baseman Andrés Giménez bobbled Story’s grounder with the bases loaded — and, oddly, threw to first base for a meaningless out as David Hamilton crossed the plate.

This was the kind of start the Red Sox envisioned when they signed Buehler to a one-year, $21.05 million deal in January, hoping that he could build upon the great postseason run with the Dodgers that helped him salvage his first season back from his second Tommy John surgery. During the regular season, Buehler pitched to an ugly 5.38 ERA and 5.54 FIP in 16 starts covering 74 innings, and missed eight weeks due to inflammation in his right hip. He showed faint signs of improvement in September, allowing two or fewer runs in three of his five starts, compared to just once over his first 11. Still, had the Dodgers rotation not suffered a variety of injuries and collapses, he wouldn’t have been anyone’s first choice for a playoff start, even given the big-game reputation he’d earned while helping the Dodgers win a pennant in 2018 and a championship two years later. Read the rest of this entry »

Their $200 million shortstop has grounded into more double plays than he’s hit singles. Their star center fielder is striking out 37% of the time. Their oft-injured third baseman is (sigh) injured again and won’t return until sometime next month, and their top starter left Tuesday night’s game with a hamstring injury. After squandering a playoff berth over the final quarter of last season, then mostly remaining on the sidelines this winter, the Twins opened this year by losing eight of their first 11 games, their worst start since 2016 — a season in which they went 59-103.

These Twins — who did win on Wednesday night to improve to 4-8 — aren’t likely to be that bad. In fact, our preseason Playoff Odds favored the Twins to win the AL Central, albeit with a modest 36.2% chance of winning the division and a forecast for just 84.1 wins, with the Tigers, Royals, and Guardians all packed within five wins of their total. The system estimated Minnesota had a 55.2% chance of making the playoffs, but so far this does not look like a team that belongs in the postseason.

The Twins stumbled out of the gate, dropping three straight to the Cardinals in St. Louis before getting stomped by the White Sox in Chicago, 9-0; through their first four games, they were outscored 28-6. They recovered to win their next two games against the White Sox, but then returned home and lost two out of three to the Astros. Now in Kansas City, the Twins have lost two out of their first three games of their four-game set against the Royals. The dispiriting start feels like a carry-over from last season’s collapse. To refresh your memory:

As of last August 17 — the last time they had a streak of more than two wins in a row, ahem — the Twins were 70-53, second in both the AL Central (two games behind the Guardians) and the AL Wild Card standings (a game and a half behind the Orioles), with a 92.4% chance of making the playoffs. Though their odds rose as high as 95.8% circa September 2, they proceeded to go just 12-27 after August 17, half a game better than the historically futile White Sox. At 82-80, they placed fourth in the division, 10 1/2 games out of first, and fifth in the Wild Card race, four games out. Adding insult to injury, both the Royals and Tigers (whose fortunes mirrored the Twins) earned Wild Card berths. Read the rest of this entry »