Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

No division race is tighter than the AL East, with the Yankees leading the Orioles by just 1.5 games ahead of their three-game matchup that begins tonight in the Bronx. Both teams are virtual locks to make the playoffs, but securing the division title is crucial because of the almost-certain bye that would come with it. This is a fierce race that looks like it’ll go down to the wire, but these head-to-head games might not be as important for their divisional hopes as their off-the-field showdown leading up to the trade deadline.

While the Orioles and Yankees won’t have much overlap in terms of trade needs — and as such won’t be competing for many of the same players — they’re obviously competing to get better and build more complete rosters so they can outlast the other and make a deep October run. The thing is, considering there are only five teams right now that are out of the playoff picture — the White Sox, Marlins, Athletics, Rockies, and Angels — actual upgrades available on the trading block might be in short supply. That means the Yankees and Orioles will need to capitalize on whatever improvements they can make. This environment could set the stage for New York and Baltimore to be among the most active teams over the next month and a half.

The Yankees have arguably the two best hitters in the entire league in Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, and though the rest of the lineup is good, it doesn’t inspire nearly as much confidence. Anthony Volpe’s flattened swing path has helped him cut down on his strikeout rate and spray more hits to the opposite field, but this month his strikeout rate is back up to 27% and he hasn’t walked since May 30. Alex Verdugo has been solidly above average and stabilized left field, which had a cavalcade of players come through last year, and Giancarlo Stanton’s streakiness has worked itself out to a 121 wRC+ and 17 homers, even though his on-base percentage is below .300. The catching duo of Jose Trevino and Austin Wells has come around too, though Trevino’s throwing issues were firmly on display on Sunday, when the Red Sox stole nine (!) bases against him.

And then there’s the triumvirate of underperforming infielders: Anthony Rizzo, Gleyber Torres, and DJ LeMahieu. I’d be shocked if Torres didn’t keep his job; after an anemic start, his bat has started to come around (112 wRC+ since May 12). But LeMahieu hasn’t hit much at all since signing his six-year deal before the 2021 season, and Rizzo has struggled for a full calendar year now, though at least some of his 2023 woes can be attributed to the post-concussion syndrome that caused him to miss the final two months of last season. Further complicating matters is Rizzo’s latest injury, a fractured right arm that won’t require surgery but will keep him out for an estimated four to six weeks, according to The Athletic. In the short-term, the Yankees are expected to play Oswaldo Cabrera at third and LeMahieu at first, with catcher/first baseman Ben Rice likely to replace Rizzo on the roster. A bat like Rockies third baseman Ryan McMahon would go a long way toward lengthening the lineup while also improving the defense.

The Orioles, on the other hand, have gotten strong production up and down the lineup, with the exception of Cedric Mullins, who has made up for his offensive struggles with excellent defense. But their pitching — widely viewed as a strength coming into the offseason — has been hammered by injuries.

The Yankees weathered the loss of Gerrit Cole with aplomb — so much so that I’m not sure they’ll need to be in the market for starting pitching, even as Clarke Schmidt is expected to be out for a while with a lat strain. Cole is slated to be activated and make his season debut tomorrow night. Meanwhile, the sheer quantity of Orioles starters on the IL all but necessitates making an acquisition on that front. Dean Kremer will be back soon from triceps tightness, but Tyler Wells and John Means are out for the year, and Kyle Bradish could be destined for the same fate. He recently landed on the IL for a second time this year with a sprained UCL in his elbow. That leaves AL Cy Young frontrunner Corbin Burnes, Grayson Rodriguez, and Kremer as the top three starters of a playoff rotation, with the revelatory Albert Suárez and Cole Irvin right behind and rookie Cade Povich potentially pushing for a spot as well.

There would certainly be worse playoff rotations around the league, but the O’s would be doing a disservice to their deep offense if they neglected to improve their starting pitching, especially after they failed to address last year’s rotation before the deadline and then were pounded by the Rangers and swept out of the ALDS. Their wealth of position player depth in the minor leagues should allow them to add at least one or two of the top available starters: Garrett Crochet, Erick Fedde, Tyler Anderson, Cal Quantrill, and Jesús Luzardo.

The one mutual need for the Yankees and Orioles is where all teams overlap at the deadline: the bullpen. Both teams have excellent back-end duos — Baltimore has Craig Kimbrel and Yennier Cano, while New York boasts Clay Holmes and Luke Weaver — but there’s a steep dropoff after that. The shallow seller’s market ought to create a lesser supply of available relief arms, which would likely inflate the cost that teams would ask for in return. This is where the strength of the New York and Baltimore farm systems (both of which are excellent) really come into play. These two organizations can afford to overpay for a third high-octane reliever — such as Carlos Estévez, Tanner Scott, Michael Kopech, and perhaps even Mason Miller — without sacrificing their long-term outlook.

The final distinction is the two teams’ disparate payroll situations. While it doesn’t appear as if the Yankees have any restrictions for this season — and the pursuit of keeping Soto surely will be unaffected — owner Hal Steinbrenner certainly sounds like a man who wants to decrease payroll from the $302 million it’s at this season. Next year’s payroll is already at $182 million, and that’s before factoring in arbitration raises to key players like Trevino, Schmidt, and Nestor Cortes — not to mention the exorbitant price that’ll be required to re-sign Soto. Torres and Verdugo are also set to hit free agency this offseason, and the current payroll figure for 2025 doesn’t include what it will cost either to bring them back or backfill their positions. That could make them less interested in trading for players on guaranteed contracts beyond this season, even those who would fit well, like McMahon.

On the flip side, the Orioles have an extraordinary amount of flexibility under new owner David Rubenstein, who hasn’t publicly commented on specific payroll plans but essentially can’t do anything but spend more than the Angelos family did in the last several years of its ownership. Huge raises are coming for Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Ryan Mountcastle, Bradish, and others, but Baltimore has a paltry $2 million committed to next season. That should give GM Mike Elias carte blanche to acquire anyone he wants at the deadline no matter how many years of club control the player has remaining, provided he’s willing to give up the necessary prospects.

All of this will play out over the next six weeks before the deadline. In the meantime, the battle for the AL East begins in earnest tonight.

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

It’s not exactly uncommon for league champions to struggle the following year. The most extreme versions of this are the Marlins, who sold off just about all of their good players after winning the World Series in 1997 and in 2003. The Nationals, who still haven’t had a winning season since their World Series title in 2019, are a more recent example. But, usually, at least one of the two teams to play in the previous World Series has a strong follow-up season. In fact, over the first 29 seasons of the Wild Card era, only twice have both league champs from the same year missed the playoffs the next season; interestingly, those two years came back to back, in 2006 (White Sox and Astros) and 2007 (Cardinals and Tigers). That’s why it’s quite jarring to see both the Rangers and Diamondbacks under .500 entering play this weekend.

While both teams won on Thursday, they’re not in great position right now. The Diamondbacks are 8.5 games out of first place with a 33-36 record (though they’re just a game out of the final NL Wild Card spot); the Rangers’ 33-35 record has them five games behind the first place Mariners and 3.5 games away from a wild card berth. The sluggish start gave the reigning world champs just a 19.2% chance of making the playoffs entering Thursday; Arizona’s odds weren’t that much better, at 27.9%.

Considering this, let’s look at what has gone wrong for each team and determine how they can avoid becoming the third pair of league champions in three decades to each fall short of returning to the postseason in their follow-up campaigns. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

Things have taken a rough turn for the Chicago Cubs since the end of April. Over the weekend, they lost three of their four games against the Reds, lowering their record to 32-34 ahead of their upcoming a three-game set against the Rays in Tampa Bay.

The Cubs started strong, with a 17-9 record that ranked third in the National League, but their 17-0 loss to the Red Sox on April 27 kicked off a nightmarish 15-25 run. Since then, only the putrid White Sox have fewer wins than their crosstown rivals during that 40-game stretch. So what’s gone wrong? And what can the Cubs do to fix it? We’ll get to that second, more complicated question a bit later, but before we do, let’s answer that first one because it’s pretty simple. What’s gone wrong? Pretty much everything.

Since April 27, the Cubs rank 25th in the majors with an 87 wRC+, down from the sixth-ranked 112 wRC+ they posted across their first 26 games. Meanwhile, over their last 40 games, their pitching staff has a 4.14 ERA, which ranks 19th. Their bullpen has been especially bad, with a 4.90 ERA that is the fourth-worst mark in the majors during that span. Even fielding the ball has been a struggle; despite having reigning Gold Glovers Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner at the middle infield positions, Chicago has been among the seven worst defensive clubs in the majors, with -20 DRS and -10 OAA.

Jed Hoyer’s tenure as president of baseball operations has been defined by building depth and accruing volume rather than star power. Despite running one of the four franchises valued at $4 billion or more, Hoyer hasn’t signed a player to a contract larger than Swanson’s $177 million, and as things stand, he has not doled out a deal worth $30 million for a single season. (If Cody Bellinger opts out after the season, the Cubs will pay him a total of $30 million, but that technically wouldn’t be $30 million for one year; rather, Bellinger would earn $25 million in 2024, with a $5 million buyout allocated to 2025.)

Obviously, there aren’t any marquee free agents to sign right now, and it remains to be seen if the Cubs will be in the market for the best available players this coming offseason. (As of now, Juan Soto and Corbin Burnes look like the only two who’ll command average annual values of $30 million or more.) But letting perfect contract terms be the enemy of good teams has arguably been what’s prevented the Cubs from making the postseason in every non-COVID year since 2019. The team was at least loosely connected to Bryce Harper, Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts, and Carlos Correa in their free agent years, all of whom besides Bogaerts would be the Cubs’ best player right now. Of course, there are more factors to signing a free agent besides offering the most money — Turner preferred being out east, for example — but the Cubs’ inability, or perhaps lack of desire, to even get close to finalizing deals with elite free agents may well be directly contributing to what has been a middling team for the past handful of seasons.

This is not to say that all the Cubs’ recent signings haven’t worked out. The Swanson deal looked great last year when he hit 22 home runs, posted a 104 wRC+, and was worth 4.4 WAR; we shouldn’t lose sight of that just because he’s struggled this year. Similarly, Chicago’s decision to sign Shota Imanaga was brilliant. Although he didn’t come to the U.S. with the same hype as Yamamoto, and therefore came cheaper, Imanaga has been arguably the best pitcher from last offseason’s free agent class.

But along with those two astute signings, there are plenty of others for “middle-class” free agents that haven’t worked out, among them are the deals for pitchers Jameson Taillon, Drew Smyly, Michael Fulmer, Brad Boxberger, first baseman/DH Trey Mancini, and catcher Tucker Barnhart. Settling for these value deals for mid-tier players has led to Chicago’s middling performances. The Cubs can afford to spend more than they have under Hoyer, and part of the reason why they are floundering now is because they don’t have enough high-end talent to contend with the best teams. To get star-level players, you need to pay star-level prices. Maybe those prices are excessive and don’t make sense according to dollars-per-WAR calculations, but they’re often necessary to assemble a winning roster, especially for the clubs that have the financial flexibility overpay for players. As Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman once said, being rational doesn’t consummate many deals. That sentiment can also be applied to trades — the Cubs haven’t swung a significant one on the buying side since acquiring Jose Quintana during the 2017 season.

Andrew Friedman: "If you're always rational about every free agent, you will finish third on every free agent."

— Andy McCullough (@ByMcCullough) December 6, 2016

That hesitation to swing major trades has had a positive effect, though, in that it’s given the Cubs an incredibly deep farm system. In their piece on the Cubs’ top prospects, Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin described the organization’s minor league system as “one of the very best” in MLB, noting that the franchise has more top 100 prospects (9) than any other team.

But, having a great farm system doesn’t mean much if you’re not going to use your prospects either to beef up your big league club or trade them for impactful players on other teams.

The Cubs have already tried the former, to mixed results. Three of their nine top 100 prospects are already on the major league roster: first baseman Michael Busch, who has a solid 123 wRC+ at first base; Pete Crow-Armstrong, who has struggled at the plate (60 wRC+) but is already one of the league’s finest center fielders (4 OAA, 6 DRS); and Jordan Wicks, whose peripherals (4.01 xERA and 3.23 FIP) indicate that he’s been better than his 4.44 ERA in five starts and a relief appearance would suggest. The problem is that none of them, at least right now, are enough to help the Cubs break through.

So where do the Cubs go from here? Well, they probably can’t look within the organization to stop the bleeding. Outfielder Owen Caissie, their sixth-ranked prospect and no. 69 overall, is tearing it up in Triple-A right now (130 wRC+ in 238 plate appearances), but he’s the only one of their six top 100 prospects still in the minors who is close to being ready for the big leagues. Instead, the best way to fix things for this season would probably involve trading away at least one of their top four prospects: Crow-Armstrong, right-hander Cade Horton (currently out with a lat strain), infielder Matt Shaw, and outfielder Kevin Alcántara.

If the Cubs don’t think they can sign Soto or Burnes, trading for established stars is really their only path to acquiring a player who could drastically improve the floor and ceiling of a roster that’s more quantity than quality, with Bellinger, Christopher Morel, and Seiya Suzuki showing flashes of stardom but not on a consistent basis. The Cubs haven’t had consistent All-Star performers on offense since the days of Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo; on the pitching side, they haven’t had a single ace-level starter since Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta and Kyle Hendricks in their peaks — though Imanaga certainly appears on his way. They haven’t had a closer last an entire season in the role since Wade Davis in 2017.

Ultimately, if the goal is to win — and with Craig Counsell at the helm for $8 million a year, it certainly ought to be — then acquiring a true anchor for the roster is paramount. But if the team appears too flawed for a single star player like Luis Robert Jr., or Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to make a difference, then the best course of action might be to further augment the farm system by selling before this year’s trade deadline, even if they only trade rental relievers like Smyly and Héctor Neris. They could then finally make this coming offseason the one where they get aggressive rather than shrewd, going to the market instead of waiting for it to come to them. If they went all in and signed Soto, he’d be the best hitter they’ve had in decades. And despite some of the questions about the long-term viability of Pete Alonso, he’d certainly be the team’s biggest power threat since Sammy Sosa. With either or both of those stars on the roster, the Cubs would be able to let the top players in their farm system develop while contributing in supporting roles instead of having to fulfill their potential right away.

Whether it comes now, at the deadline, or in the offseason, the Cubs need to do something different. Going back to the well with good-not-great players is how you get good-not-great teams.

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

On Tuesday, I wrote about how the Brewers have been able to leverage largely unheralded depth into an excellent start to their season. In a conversation about the column with one of my friends the following day, I referred to the Brewers as “Rays North” for their ability to extract the most out of players and pile up wins. But really, the Brewers are paving their own trail and the Rays are at something of a crossroads.

Entering a huge four-game series against the Orioles on Friday, the Rays are 31-31, and 13 games back in the AL East. They’ve got 100 games left, so there’s no need to panic just yet, but they’re at risk of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2018, and for their first losing season since 2017.

The ever-present depth that has defined the Rays for much of Kevin Cash’s tenure just hasn’t been there, especially on the pitching side. The bullpen, which has been fodder for cheeky memes whenever the Rays pick a reliever up off waivers (I love tweeting “1.80 ERA coming” for every arm they snag off the scrap heap), has plunged to 29th in WAR, with the team simply not possessing the breadth of arms that it has in years past. The middle relievers have been especially troublesome; while Pete Fairbanks, Jason Adam, and Garrett Cleavinger have all been excellent once the ball has gotten to them in the late innings, the bridge to them is crumbling.

And their starters aren’t helping matters. Only Ryan Pepiot and Zack Littell have ERAs below 4.00, and Aaron Civale and Taj Bradley have been hit especially hard. Bradley has tantalizing potential and can carve through hitters with the best of them when he’s on — he struck out eight batters in his first three innings against the Red Sox two starts ago — but when he’s off for an inning or two he gets absolutely hammered. He’s allowed seven homers across five starts. That inconsistency has fueled a rotation that ranks 26th in WAR, and unlike in prior years, the Rays don’t have reinforcements on the way. Joe Rock is their only prospect pitching particularly well at Triple-A.

It’s a bit more encouraging — if not by much — that Tampa Bay sits 19th in the majors by position player WAR, and maybe that’s enough to conjure up some Rays magic. However, I’m just not sure this offense should even be this good. Isaac Paredes is almost singlehandedly carrying the bats, with last year’s core of Yandy Díaz (99 wRC+), Randy Arozarena (83 wRC+), and Josh Lowe (109 wRC+ in just 15 games thanks to a couple IL trips) failing to support him. I don’t think Díaz is suddenly an average bat; he won the batting title in 2023, continues to hit the ball hard, and still makes great swing decisions. Arozarena is a different story. His swing-and-miss issues and newfound inability to optimally hit the ball (his sweet-spot percentage is in the first percentile) don’t exactly give me hope that a turnaround is imminent.

So, where do the Rays go from here? Many other teams would be relieved if they still had a .500 record as plenty of their most important players underperformed; those clubs might bank on some positive regression and decide to upgrade their roster before the trade deadline. But that’s not how the Rays operate, especially in an extremely tough AL East.

Complicating matters is their payroll, which is currently at $97 million, by far the highest of the six years for which we have payroll data at RosterResource. While teams will never open the books and say exactly what a particular payroll means for financial losses and gains, owner Stuart Sternberg claimed before the season that the high payroll would lead to “real losses.” Sternberg added that he views those losses as worth it because he’d “like to keep [the successes] rolling,” and I have no real reason to doubt that he means that; the Rays have been good for years, and he’d surely like to have a talented team when the franchise’s new stadium ostensibly opens in 2028. What I’m not sure, though, is if augmenting this deeply flawed team to win this season is the best move. For the first time in a while, I could see the Rays going in the complete opposite direction.

The Rays are never ones to make huge additions at the deadline — it’s more complementary players like Nelson Cruz and Civale, and longer-term plays for untapped potential like Arozarena and Fairbanks — but that doesn’t mean they might not make huge subtractions. Tampa Bay is famous for never having untouchables, and despite his anemic performance, teams are apparently quite interested in Arozarena. He has the third-highest salary on the team, and I have no reason to believe the Rays also wouldn’t entertain offers for their two highest earners, Zach Eflin and Díaz, if the return is commensurate and the front office thinks that such a move would be the best path toward improving in 2025 and beyond. On a smaller scale, if the Rays are roughly .500 by the time the deadline rolls around, I’d be surprised to see Amed Rosario, Shawn Armstrong, Phil Maton, Chris Devenski, and Harold Ramírez still on the team.

As usual, what the Rays end up doing at the deadline might lead to some head-scratching; plenty of their moves during their stretch of success seemingly came out of nowhere, and some of those surprises hardly made sense at the time. But this is an organization that is always thinking about what’s next rather than pushing all its chips in for a single season. And there’s no reason to think that this won’t be a quick reset rather than a long rebuild. Next year, ace Shane McClanahan, Jeffrey Springs, and Drew Rasmussen are expected to return to the rotation after recovering from elbow injuries that will cost them most or all of this season. Also, the Rays should have über-prospect Junior Caminero, who is currently battling quad issues in Triple-A, healthy and ready to contribute in 2025. And don’t forget about Xavier Isaac, who’s tearing through the minors himself and could be an option for the big league club as soon as next year. Playing for next season is probably the smart move for the Rays at this point, and if that means trading away some talent from this year’s club, then so be it.

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

It’s understandable to want to blame injuries when your favorite team underperforms expectations. But every team deals with them, and the truly great ones are able to weather that storm and succeed when their best players aren’t in the lineup. The Brewers sure look like a great team right now, with a commanding seven-game lead in the NL Central even after dropping Monday night’s game in Philadelphia. They are where they are despite having a whole rotation’s worth of starters on the injured list, getting zero innings from star closer Devin Williams, and losing important position players Christian Yelich, Rhys Hoskins, and Garrett Mitchell to injury at various points this year.

How has Milwaukee thrived under less-than-ideal circumstances? The answer is one of my favorite topics: depth. For the most part, it’s fairly easy to look at a team’s Opening Day roster or offseason RosterResource page and prognosticate how things will play out if everyone stays reasonably healthy; it’s much harder to go two or three players deep at a position and figure how good a club will be if it has to depend on those guys. The Brewers have assembled a team that may not be as top heavy as some of the other contending clubs, but when it comes to the entire roster, few teams are deeper. So let’s run through some of the unlikely contributors for the Brewers this season.

All stats are updated through the start of play Monday.

Position Players

The Brewers haven’t been terribly unlucky in this department: Yelich missed 25 days with a back strain, Hoskins 17 with a hamstring strain, and Joey Wiemer 16 with knee discomfort. Mitchell has missed the entire season thus far with a fractured finger suffered in the final days of spring training, but if there’s anywhere the Brewers could’ve afforded an injury, it was out on the grass.

Still, the names covering for Mitchell aren’t exactly as expected. Top prospect Jackson Chourio has struggled out of the gate, batting .214/.257/.345 with a 71 wRC+ over 180 plate appearances. While his fielding (2 OAA, 1 DRS) and baserunning (1.7 BsR with seven steals in eight tries) have kept him above replacement level, he obviously hasn’t lived up to the hype thus far.

Fortunately, Blake Perkins has basically been what Milwaukee hoped Chourio would be. The switch-hitter was elite on defense in his rookie year last season, with 11 DRS and 7 OAA in just 400 innings in the outfield, though his bat lagged behind (88 wRC+). This year, his fielding has remained excellent while he’s taken a big step forward at the dish (98 wRC+), especially against righties (114 wRC+).

Perhaps overshadowed by Yelich, William Contreras, and Willy Adames, infielders Joey Ortiz and Brice Turang have both broken out in meaningful ways, lengthening a lineup that looked a little light entering the season. Ortiz leads all rookies this season with 2.0 WAR and his 155 wRC+ is the highest among all big league third basemen with at least 150 plate appearances. He’s also a slick fielder who can also hold his own at second and short. Turang has more than doubled his wRC+ from his rough rookie season last year. He’s also swiped 20 bases in 21 tries and has flashed an elite glove at the keystone. (If you’re noticing a trend here, yes, the Brewers have great defense across the diamond.)

Lastly, I’d be remiss if I failed to mention Gary Sánchez: He’s only caught 11 games so far behind the iron man that is Contreras but is getting plenty of plate appearances at DH. His seven home runs and 116 wRC+ make him one of the game’s best backup catchers, and he’s played some backup first base, too.

Pitching

Here’s where things could have gotten ugly for Milwaukee. Corbin Burnes is an Oriole. Brandon Woodruff and Wade Miley are both out for the entire year. Jakob Junis, Joe Ross, and DL Hall are all on the injured list as well. (Junis and Hall appear to be nearing returns, but they’ll likely pitch out of the bullpen when they’re back.)

How the heck have the Brewers stayed afloat with what’s basically been Freddy Peralta and a second-string cast of other starters? It’s twofold: The replacement arms have filled in more than admirably, and the bullpen has been excellent despite the loss of Williams.

Peralta and Colin Rea are the only arms who remain from the season-opening starting five, and they actually have the highest ERAs in the current four-man rotation (the team has been bullpenning every fifth game). Formerly a failed starter, Bryse Wilson has made a triumphant return to the rotation after working entirely in relief last year. Across seven starts he has a 2.76 ERA and a 3.35 ERA over his 15 total outings this season. (Wilson served as the bulk man in Monday night’s loss to the Phillies, tossing 5.2 innings and allowing three runs.) Robert Gasser, who despite failing to achieve nominative determinism (his fastball averages just 93 mph), has been excellent in his first five starts, walking just one (!) of the 114 batters he’s faced. Unfortunately, the beat will have to go on without Gasser, just as it has without Burnes and Woodruff: The rookie lefty has elbow tightness and soreness and is scheduled to get a second opinion sometime soon; it’d be hard to see him dodging the IL at this point. In the interim, the Brewers could turn to Aaron Ashby or Tobias Myers — both of whom have made starts this year — or perhaps righty Chad Patrick, who’s not exactly a prospect but has pitched well at Triple-A Nashville this year.

Papering over the ragtag rotation has been a well-performing bullpen, belying its 16th-ranked FIP with a sixth-ranked ERA. Going through a handful of closers by June isn’t usually a recipe for success, but the Brewers have kept on chugging despite pulling the plug on Abner Uribe (now in Triple-A) and Joel Payamps as primary closers. The guy right now is Trevor Megill; a concussion and bruised elbow have limited him to just 15 innings, but they’ve been 15 excellent ones, with 21 strikeouts compared to just three walks and a one homer allowed. It’s a continuation of Megill’s breakout 2023 in which he struck out 35% of the batters he faced over 34.2 innings. Before last year, he had a woeful 6.03 ERA in 68.2 combined innings for the Cubs and Twins.

Even more anonymous is Bryan Hudson, who was acquired in a minor trade with the Dodgers over the offseason and is now pitching to a 1.13 ERA (four runs in 32 innings). The 6’8” lefty is tough on both sides of the plate, but he’s been especially lethal against lefties, with a sub-.200 wOBA. Joining him off the scrap heap and pitching well are Enoli Paredes, Jared Koenig, and Kevin Herget, none of whom made the Opening Day roster but have stepped in and pitched like they belong. Like many good bullpens, the Brewers’ is defined by the performances, not the names.

All in all, Pat Murphy’s Brewers are much like the clubs of previous Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell: a whole team that is greater than the sum of its parts, creating a Voltron of a limited number of stars and mostly unheralded names who just get the job done.

The Mariners Add Victor Robles

As first reported by Locked on Mariners’ Ty Dane Gonzalez, former Nationals outfielder Victor Robles will be headed to the other Washington, joining Seattle as backup outfielder who will start primarily against lefty pitching.

Sources: The #Mariners will be filling their open 26-man roster spot with former Nationals OF Victor Robles.

— Ty Dane Gonzalez (@TyDaneGonzalez) June 3, 2024

Robles obviously hasn’t lived up to his prospect billing that plateaued with a fourth-overall ranking in 2018, but with the Mariners, he doesn’t really have to be the guy the Nationals were expecting. He’ll earn the prorated league minimum (under $500,000) while being paid the balance of the $2.65 million the Nationals owe him, and he’s not going to be relied upon to put up big numbers. Instead, he’ll spell Luke Raley or Dominic Canzone against lefties in the corner outfield. His main job will be to catch fly balls, a skill of his that cratered in center field last year but remains strong in left and right.

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

The Mets entered this season caught in the middle of contending and rebuilding, and that was by design. Their strategy during the offseason was to assemble veteran players on short-term contracts who could either help the team make a wild-card push if things went well or flip them at the deadline if the club floundered. And, oh boy, floundered is putting it mildly. After sitting a game above .500 at the end of April, the Mets have posted an abysmal 8-19 (.296) record in May. I didn’t expect to be declaring them as hard sellers on May 31, but that’s pretty much their only viable option at this point unless they turn things around quickly. Shortstop Francisco Lindor acknowledged as much after Wednesday night’s game.

“The front office is going to make decisions no matter what. Whether it’s to add or subtract, whether it’s to focus on the next season or focus on August and September, they’ve got to make decisions,” Lindor said. “We don’t have 100-plus games for that moment, but we do have time to make sure we are above water. I’ve always said stay above the water. Before the All-Star break and before the trade deadline, you’ve got to stay above the water. You can’t have the water be nose deep. I’m not a good swimmer. We’ve got to make sure — we’ve got to find ways to get the water to at least our shoulders because [otherwise] that’s when the decisions come in, [and] it’s the one we don’t want.”

If, indeed, the verdict from the front office is not the one Lindor wants, these are some of the players the Mets could trade away by the July 30 deadline.

The Shiniest Rental

Pete Alonso is more Mercedes-Benz than Rolls-Royce these days, as I’m pretty convinced his best days are already behind him at age 29. He has a 121 wRC+ since the beginning of last season, down from 137 he posted over his first four years. A righty first base-only is a risky proposition in free agency, and his lack of positional flexibility will dampen his trade value as well. He’s undoubtedly an impact bat who lengthens any lineup, and despite his dip in production, he’s still one of the game’s great home run hitters. The thing is, he’s no longer in that upper echelon of dangerous, all-around hitters.

For that reason, along with the fact that he’s on an expiring contract, the Mets shouldn’t expect a package of multiple top prospects for him. I think he’ll get a return closer to the one the Orioles got for Trey Mancini two deadlines ago. The Mets could, of course, make a trade more enticing by paying down some of Alonso’s salary. As it stands, whichever team acquires him will have to pay about $6.8 million for the remainder of the season.

Further complicating things is that the best contenders all have fairly capable first basemen. Every team currently in playoff a position is getting at least league-average offensive production from that position. From my vantage point, Alonso would fit best with the Mariners or Rays, teams that both lack power production and are not getting much from their DHs at the moment: Entering play Thursday, Seattle’s DH wRC+ was of 79; Tampa Bay’s was 85.

Another factor to consider: The Mets may decide that any potential trade return would be less valuable to them than the draft pick compensation they’d receive if Alonso were to decline their qualifying offer. This seems unlikely, though, because the Mets cleared the last luxury tax line last year, so the pick they’d get if Alonso walks in free agency would come after the fourth round of the 2025 draft. If the Mets can’t get a prospect or two worth more than a fourth-round pick for Alonso, they should hold onto him and use those extra two months to work out an extension or try to re-sign him after the season.

Everyone Needs Pitching

The Mets were smart to load up on rental pitching in hopes that those hurlers would bounce back enough to either (a) help lead the Mets to the playoffs or (b) be worth something to someone else in a trade. So far, pretty good results there!

Luis Severino (on a one-year deal worth $13 million) still isn’t dominating as he was back in his peak years of 2017 and 2018, with his strikeout rate up only a point-and-a-half from his horrendous final act with the Yankees last year. But his newfound sinker — now representing 19% of his pitches, per Statcast (3% last year) — has served to deaden the contact against him considerably, with the average exit velocity he’s allowing down 3 mph; his groundball rate is up nearly nine points. The lack of swing-and-miss, and his corresponding reliance on contact, makes him more of a mid-rotation arm than a frontline starter, but he’d clearly be an upgrade for just about any team looking for starting pitching.

Sean Manaea is in a more complicated situation, as his two-year, $28 million contract allows him to opt out after this season. It’s certainly trending that way with a 3.16 ERA (3.46 FIP, 4.20 xERA) in 10 starts, making it an almost certainty that he’ll test free agency this offseason so long as he stays healthy. But that’s a double-edged sword: Teams may be scared to acquire him in the event that he gets hurt or underperforms and they’re saddled with his $13.5 million salary for 2025, and the Mets may market him as a player with over a year of club control left and ask for a more valuable return as a result.

Throwing Darts

I don’t think any of these players would return much in a trade, but considering the Mets acquired a guy who’s now a top-100 prospect for Tommy Pham at last year’s deadline, it’s always worth crossing your fingers and hoping that your pro scouting department comes back with under-the-radar names that you can add to the organization:

• Putting J.D. Martinez in this section feels a little rude given his pedigree, but he’s a DH-only who’s popped just four homers in 30 games (including the go-ahead blast in last night’s 3-2 win over the Diamondbacks) and is striking out a third of the time. The same factors that caused Martinez to sign at the very end of spring training will work against his trade value, too.

• Harrison Bader has played like an ideal bottom-of-the-order bat, with an above-average wRC+, and he actually has reverse splits this year that belie his career norms. As usual, he’s done his best work in the field, with 2 DRS and 4 OAA in center. At absolute minimum, he’d be a perfect fourth outfielder for a contender.

• Adam Ottavino has hit a rough patch, with his ERA soaring from 2.95 to 5.48 over the course of just four appearances in which he allowed seven runs across three innings. Still, he’s struck out opponents at his highest rate since his breakout 2018 season, and his FIP (3.55) and xERA (3.07) portend better results to come.

• Jose Quintana isn’t the contact-suppression king he was last year; he’s already allowed nine homers in 58.2 innings after surrendering just five in 75.2 innings last season. But the guy takes the ball every fifth day, and there’ll be a team willing to give up a lottery-ticket prospect for him, especially if the Mets pay down some of his $4 million-plus that he’ll be owed after the deadline.

• Omar Narváez and Tomás Nido haven’t hit well, and one of them will be DFA’d well before the trade deadline, whenever Francisco Alvarez comes back. The other could, I suppose, be moved in July, though catchers are rarely moved at the deadline.

Cross Them Off The List

Not every rental can always be traded, of course, no matter how extensive the rebuild is. Brooks Raley would’ve been a hot commodity at the deadline, but he’ll be out until sometime next season after undergoing Tommy John surgery this week.

The Mets also have long-term contracts for Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, Edwin Díaz, and Jeff McNeil on the books, but I’d be extremely surprised if any of them are moved. All four are underperforming (and Díaz is currently on the IL with a shoulder impingement), though I still think Lindor, Nimmo, and Díaz can be key parts of the next good Mets team.

Even if the initial reaction to the trades are underwhelming — rentals just don’t return all that much — this should be a formative deadline for the Mets. I don’t expect them to get a Luisangel Acuña– or Drew Gilbert-level prospect, nor do I see their moves signaling a hard reset for 2025 or an expansive rebuild. But as David Stearns and Steve Cohen look to recalibrate and lay a foundation for the future, they’re certainly not going to just sit on their hands and hold onto anybody if the right deal is there.

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

The emotional toll of losing Ronald Acuña Jr. to another ACL tear is obvious. The entirety of the baseball world came together to express shock and disappointment at Sunday evening’s news that Acuña would need season-ending surgery for the second time in four years. At his best, Acuña is arguably the most electric player in the game, as we saw last year during his otherworldly MVP-winning campaign, when he became the first player ever to hit 40 home runs and steal 70 bases in the same season. Baseball is simply not as exciting without him on the field.

Beyond that, though, the injury is a devastating loss for the Braves, whose probability to win the NL East — which was already diminished, as Dan Szymborski noted in his column on Friday — sunk by 10 percentage points within a day after Acuña went down. Sure, he was struggling over the first third of the season — he hit just four home runs in 49 games, and his OPS was nearly 300 points lower than last year’s mark — but his importance to the Atlanta lineup is undeniable.

Monday’s game, an 8-4 loss to the Nationals, provided a look at what the Braves’ offense will look like without the reigning MVP. The good news was that third baseman Austin Riley returned after missing 13 games with an intercostal strain, but it was clear that this was not the same unit that last year drew comparisons to the 1927 Yankees. Second baseman Ozzie Albies replaced Acuña in the leadoff spot, with Riley sliding to the two-hole and DH Marcell Ozuna, who’s been the team’s most productive hitter this year, moving from fifth to third in the order, ahead of slugging first baseman Matt Olson. After that, things drop off considerably, though it helps that catcher Sean Murphy is back from the oblique strain that kept him out since Opening Day. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

The Blue Jays haven’t yet crashed into a windowpane, never to recover, but 23-26 certainly isn’t what was expected of them entering the season. Before the season, our playoff odds gave them 49% chance to make the postseason. Toronto’s odds peaked at 57.9% on April 22, but since then, the team has fallen off. As of this morning, the Blue Jays have a 24.0% probability to make the playoffs. That leaves them with some serious decisions to make over the next two or so months before the July 30 deadline. Considering their current situation, let’s take a look at their options if they choose not to bolster their big league roster by the end of July.

Stand Pat

This is the most straightforward option: Don’t do anything and hope for some improvements. Every hitter other than Daulton Varsho, Davis Schneider, and Danny Jansen has underperformed this year, and maybe the Blue Jays can stay in the hunt long enough for their bats to catch fire. The organization may determine this is its best option simply because their players probably would have less trade value while they are playing below expectations. If the return package isn’t what the Blue Jays want, why not stay they course?

Only Sell The Rentals

The Blue Jays have a whole bunch of free agents after the 2025 season. And while they could decide to trade those guys (more on this later), Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins may find it best to hold on to them and go for one last run next season. But that doesn’t take the Blue Jays out of the action at the deadline; they have several enticing players on expiring contracts to dangle to contenders.

Justin Turner has slumped horribly recently — entering last night’s game, his wRC+ in May was -21, after 152 in March/April, bringing his seasonal wRC+ down to 96 — but if he can rebound to being solidly above average, contenders would be happy to acquire his righty bat and postseason experience. The Twins, Rangers, and Rays all have gotten wRC+ values below 80 from their designated hitters, and Turner can also fill in at third base, second base, and first.

Yimi García has been one of baseball’s best relievers this season, allowing just one run in 19 innings. He’s also struck out 35% of opponents, and his xERA (1.44) and FIP (2.24) both back up his solid performance. He would make any contender’s bullpen better, and he’s always bounced around between roles, so he doesn’t have to be pigeonholed into a particular inning or situation. It is worth noting that García has never been this good before, and as Ben Clemens wrote in his column yesterday, “you can’t trade your newfound reliever for a shiny prospect,” so it’s unlikely that García alone would net the Blue Jays a strong return package. That said, if Toronto is out of the race, it might as well get something for a 33-year-old reliever who might not be with the team next year anyway.

Lefty Yusei Kikuchi is rather quietly pitching the best he ever has in the majors, with a 2.64 ERA across 10 starts and a career-low walk rate of 5.5%. Teams always need starting pitching, and his above-average rate of inducing grounders and popups will play anywhere.

Rounding out this group is Jansen, who on a rate basis has hit better than any other catcher in baseball, with a 191 wRC+ in 82 trips to the plate entering last night’s game. His injury history should scare teams a little bit; he’s never had more than 384 plate appearances in a season, and that was back in 2019. It’s also worth noting, as our associate editor Matt Martell wrote last year for the New York Times, that teams rarely trade for a catcher during the season because of the particular challenges that come with the position. Even so, I think Jansen is well-suited for the role Mitch Garver held last year with the Rangers: catching sometimes but also getting plenty of plate appearances at DH to make sure his bat stays in the lineup.

Defensive whiz Kevin Kiermaier, righty changeup specialist Trevor Richards, and lefty power bat Daniel Vogelbach round out the group of seven Blue Jays who get to fly freely at the end of the season.

Blow It Up

OK, but what if the Jays do decide to more or less tear it down? After all, it is the struggling big three hitters — Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, and George Springer — who deserve at least a decent chunk of the blame for Toronto’s underperformance. The team didn’t even get a homer from a cleanup hitter until Bichette hit one on Wednesday — 48 games into the season!

I don’t think the Blue Jays would go so far as to trade Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt, or José Berríos, since Berríos is the only one pitching particularly well this year and his opt out after 2026 may complicate things too much to work out a trade, but the rest of that group of players with club control beyond this season could be on the block, headlined by Guerrero Jr. and Bichette.

Vladdy continues to tantalize with his bullet home runs (though he has only five this year) and massive exit velocity, but as we move further and further away from it, his MVP-caliber 2021 campaign looks more like an outlier than a sign of things to come, as it surely appeared to be in its immediate aftermath. Still, he’s in just his age-25 season, and it’s absolutely plausible that another team could bring out the best in him. I’m puzzled trying to figure out what he’d bring back in a trade, since he’s making $19.9 million this year and will probably be up around $25 million next year, but let’s not overthink things. He’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and if his suitors aren’t going to give up at least one top 100 prospect for him, the Blue Jays should tell them to get lost.

Bichette is more or less the same guy at the end of every season, with a wRC+ between 120 and 130 in each of the last four years; over the last three, he’s hit 29, 24, and 20 home runs, respectively. His fielding is always below average (but not terrible), and the only skill that’s on the decline is his base-stealing, with 25 stolen bases in 2021 followed by 13 in ’22 and just five last season, though he already has four this year. On the surface, the man is a metronome, but things get … weird … under the hood. Last year, his first-half wRC+ was 132, followed by 109 in the second half. The year prior, it was just 106 in the first half before he surged to 164 after the All-Star break. That streakiness is why I’m really not concerned about his performance thus far this year; the dude is bound to get hot at some point! It would be foolish of teams to just assume things will even out, but they shouldn’t read too much into his slow start, either. A contending team in need of a shortstop this year, such as the Giants or Guardians, would certainly be interested.

The Blue Jays would get far more modest returns for right-handed closer Jordan Romano, righty relievers Chad Green and Erik Swanson, lefty relievers Tim Mayza and Génesis Cabrera, and utilitymen Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Cavan Biggio, but they could be used as an add-on piece to sweeten the return in a trade for one of Toronto’s top players or to acquire prospect depth in a separate deal. After all, the Blue Jays’ farm system has just two Top 100 Prospects: lefty pitcher Ricky Tiedemann and infielder Orelvis Martinez.

I’m not here to advocate for Toronto to take any particular path; I’m just laying out the options. The worst plan for the Blue Jays would be not having one.

Weekend Windup

Here are some things to keep an eye on as we head into the long Memorial Day weekend:

• Ketel Marte looks to extend his 21-game hitting streak — the longest in the majors this season — when the Diamondbacks begin a three-game set at home tonight against the Marlins. Lefty Braxton Garrett gets the start for Miami, which bodes well for Marte, who is hitting .347 against lefties this year.

• The Cubs and Cardinals will finally meet for the first time this year, opening a three-game set tonight at Busch Stadium. The Cardinals have looked cooked for most of the first quarter of the season, but they enter the weekend just five games out of first place in the NL Central after winning eight of their last 10 games — including being the first team to sweep the Orioles in the regular season since Adley Rutschman came up two years ago.

Meanwhile, the Cubs are trending in the opposite direction after going 3-7 in their last 10 games. Still, they’re only two games behind the first-place Brewers. After a run of facing plenty of high octane starting pitchers (Jared Jones, Paul Skenes, Max Fried, Chris Sale, AJ Smith-Shawver), they’ll get to see three lower-velocity guys in Miles Mikolas, Matthew Liberatore, and Sonny Gray.

• Juan Soto returns to San Diego for the first time since the Padres traded him to the Yankees last December, and comes back to town on fire. Over his last six games, Soto is 9-for-23 (.391) with four home runs and seven RBIs. After a mini-slump dropped his average to .301 and his OPS to .917, those numbers are back to .312 and .972, respectively. He’ll be flanked in the lineup as usual by Anthony Volpe, who’s got a 16-game hitting streak, and Aaron Judge, who homered yet again on Thursday for his 15th of the season.

• Once his 10-game suspension for pitching with “sticky stuff” is over, Ronel Blanco is set to return on Sunday against the A’s. While he asserted the substance he got caught using was just rosin mixed with sweat, he’ll surely be under increased scrutiny. Blanco, who has a 2.09 ERA in eight starts so far in 2024, was the first pitcher to be suspended for foreign substances this season after four were suspended last year.

• Nick Lodolo is aiming to return to the Reds rotation on Monday, and boy could they use him. The Reds have floundered to a 4-16 record in their last 20 games, and Lodolo had a 3.34 ERA and 2.90 FIP in six starts before hitting the IL with a groin injury. That was his second IL stint this year, after he missed the season’s first couple weeks while recovering from the leg fracture that cost him most of 2023.

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

Losing your starting shortstop and no. 2 hitter all at once is one of the worst things that can happen to a team, but somehow, the Phillies have weathered the absence of Trea Turner better than anyone could have hoped. The All-Star departed Philadelphia’s May 3 game against the Giants (in which he also scored from second on a wild pitch!) with a strained hamstring; at the time, he was expected to miss about six weeks, though he is “progressing at a surprising pace given the original timetable,” as Matt Gelb of The Athletic recently reported.

Obviously, the Phillies would love to have Turner back ahead of schedule, but they have more than held their own without him. They are 12-3 in their 15 games since May 4, their first following Turner’s injury, and their 123 wRC+ is the second-best mark in the majors during that stretch, behind only the Yankees. Philadelphia’s success isn’t due to the other positions carrying the load; though they’ve certainly been playing well, too. Rather, Philadelphia’s shortstop platoon of Bryson Stott and Edmundo Sosa has combined for a 163 wRC+ over that 15-game span; that’s better than every other NL team’s shortstop production. Only the Orioles, led by Gunnar Henderson, have gotten more offense at short.

Since Turner went down, Stott leads the Phillies with a 230 wRC+ and ranks fourth in the majors among players with at least 50 plate appearances in that span. Meanwhile, Sosa’s 167 wRC+ as a shortstop is the second-best mark since May 4, behind Henderson (187). Catcher J.T. Realmuto (153), first baseman Bryce Harper (180), and DH Kyle Schwarber (129) have also propelled the offense over these last 15 games. Additionally, the Phillies have received surprising contributions from utilityman Kody Clemens, who’s popped a couple of homers and has a 183 wRC+ across his 25 plate appearances since he was recalled to replace Turner on the roster. Even right fielder Nick Castellanos has woken up a bit, mustering a respectable 117 wRC+ during the 15 games without Turner after having posted a woeful 42 wRC+ from Opening Day through May 3.

On the other side of the ball, Phillies pitchers have kept up their end of the bargain for pretty much the whole season, and they’ve continued to perform well over the last 15 games, ranking fifth in ERA (2.78) and third in FIP (3.22).

All in all, even without Turner, everything’s clicking for the Phillies this season. They enter play Tuesday with a five-game lead over the Braves in the NL East, with the highest scoring offense (5.33 runs per game) and by far the most valuable pitching staff (9.3 WAR) in the majors. As Jake Mailhot noted in yesterday’s Power Rankings, Philadelphia has played the weakest schedule in baseball so far this season, so perhaps the team won’t maintain its .708 winning percentage the rest of the way. Even so, the Phillies have been winning at an .800 clip without their superstar shortstop. That is certainly encouraging.

Quick Hits

Let’s run through some other notable things from the past few days of games:

• The Yankees’ seven-game winning streak was snapped Monday night in heartbreaking fashion, when closer Clay Holmes allowed his first four earned runs of the season to blow a 4-1 ninth-inning lead against the Mariners in an eventual 5-4 Seattle win. Nevertheless, New York is playing its best baseball of the year right now. Aaron Judge has continued his reign of terror on opposing pitchers, going his 14-for-28 with 10 extra-base hits, including four homers, in his last eight games, and after a mini-slump, Juan Soto is catching fire again; over his last four games, he is 7-for-15 (.467) with two homers. Luis Gil, who wouldn’t have made the rotation if not for Gerrit Cole’s injury, struck out 14 in his start on Saturday. The Orioles lost on Monday as well, keeping the Yankees’ division lead at two games. The two sides don’t meet again until June 18.

• Like the Yankees, the Astros also coughed up an early lead on Monday night after a recent stretch of excellence. Houston led 6-1 before the Angels scored seven runs in the top of the fifth inning in what ended up as a 9-7 Astros loss. Still, the Astros have won each of their previous three series and jumped back into the AL West race after their dreadful start. They enter play Tuesday 4.5 games behind the first-place Mariners. Less than two weeks ago, on May 8, they were 8.5 games back. Yordan Alvarez still isn’t hitting anywhere near his abilities — though perhaps a double, single, and walk on Monday portends the start of a hot streak — but Alex Bregman has woken up and Kyle Tucker is playing like an MVP.

• Red Sox third baseman Rafael Devers set a franchise record Monday night when he homered in his sixth consecutive game. His home run, a two-run blast, came in the fourth inning off Rays righty Taj Bradley and extended Boston’s lead in its 5-0 win. Over his last six games, Devers is 7-for-24, his only non-homer hit being a single, with a 1.042 slugging percentage. With his home run Monday night, Devers surpassed the six other players who went yard in five straight games with the Red Sox: Bobby Dalbec (2020), Jose Canseco (1995), George Scott (1977), Dick Stuart (1963), Ted Williams (1957), and Jimmie Foxx (1940). The major league record for consecutive games with a home run is eight, shared by Dale Long (1956), Don Mattingly (1987), and Ken Griffey Jr. (1993).

Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.

When I think about openers, I think about Ryne Stanek. His statistics as a Ray in 2018 and 2019 were comical: Before he was traded to the Marlins in 2019, he made 100 appearances over those two seasons; 59 of them were “starts.” In those opening appearances, he never threw more than 37 pitches, recorded more than six outs, or faced more than nine hitters. But since leaving the Rays, despite appearing in 234 games, he’s pitched for more teams (three) than he’s made starts (zero). In fact, he’s averaging less than one inning per appearance.

I searched my brain to figure out who is today’s version of Stanek circa 2018-19, only to realize that there isn’t one. I turned to Stathead and confirmed my inkling: The opener has gone by the wayside in 2024.

In my query, I set a couple of filters as guardrails. First, I limited my search to pitchers who were on, at most, three days of rest. That way, I could eliminate the true starters who got hurt or blitzed out of games from this sample. I also capped the number of batters faced at nine. Facing the leadoff man twice goes against the spirit of the opener, where the aim is to prevent batters from seeing any one pitcher too many times.

It doesn’t take a math degree to know that nine is far fewer than 154. But it’s not quite that simple. Remember, we’re only a quarter of the way through the season, and there will almost certainly be more openers used the rest of the way. That said, baseball is on pace to use 33 openers in 2024, which would be the fewest since the opener was first utilized in 2018 — yes, that includes the shortened 2020 campaign. It’s worth noting that only 12 openers were used at this point in 2023, so we could see opener usage ramp up as this season progresses, too. Even so, it’s clear that something has changed.

I don’t really have a take on whether or not the opener is a good strategy in today’s game. I also don’t think there’s an obvious explanation for why the fall of the opener is happening. Some of it may just be circumstance. Gabe Kapler’s Giants frequently used openers, and he’s no longer managing. The 2018-19 Rays had Blake Snell and Charlie Morton, but they also had plenty of pitchers who were best deployed in short outings. This season, the Rays feature a deeper group of pitchers who are capable of carrying a starter’s workload. Five years ago, Tampa Bay turned to openers out of necessity; now, that’s no longer necessary.

What To Look Forward to This Weekend

• The Mariners have played great baseball of late, winning eight of their last nine series, bringing their record to 24-20, and entering play Friday in first place in the AL West. But they’ve got a big test coming up, with three games in Baltimore followed by three games in the Bronx, two exciting series that will give the Mariners ample opportunity to show the league they’re for real. George Kirby and Corbin Burnes face off in a marquee pitching matchup on Sunday.

• The Rockies are looking to extend their winning streak that currently sits at seven games, beginning tonight in San Francisco. Colorado started out its streak last week with a win against the Giants, scoring seven runs off Keaton Winn, who is set to start for the Giants on Sunday. Whether or not the Rockies will be riding a nine-game streak at that point will depend on San Francisco starters Kyle Harrison and Jordan Hicks, as well as a piecemeal Giants lineup that’s without Patrick Bailey, Michael Conforto, Jung Hoo Lee, and Jorge Soler.

• Although they’re still the league’s worst team, the White Sox have played less embarrassingly of late, going 8-4 over their last 12 games. This weekend, though, they head to the Bronx to face the first-place Yankees. Led by a ridiculously hot Aaron Judge, New York has won four straight games and 10 of its last 12. During the Yankees’ three-game sweep of the Twins in Minnesota, Judge went 7-for-11 (.636) with five doubles and two home runs. On the season, he’s slashing .262/.393/.555 with 11 homers and a 169 wRC+, which is remarkable considering how much he struggled in April.

Lastly, a quick programming note. Beginning next week, we’ll be shifting Top of the Order to a twice-weekly schedule, running on Tuesday and Friday mornings. See you then!