The Juan Soto era of Yankees baseball is off to a resounding start. The 25-year-old superstar put on a tour de force as his new team swept a four-game series against the Astros in Houston to open the season, most notably by throwing out the potential tying runner at the plate in the ninth inning on Opening Day and then driving in the decisive runs in each of the next three games. The sweep would not have been possible, however, without a couple of unheralded reserves rising to the occasion, namely Oswaldo Cabrera and Jon Berti, both filling in for the injured DJ LeMahieu at third base.

First, let’s note Soto, who absolutely wore out Astros pitchers by going 9-for-17 with a trio of walks and a quartet of RBI, one in each game. He began with a fifth-inning single off Framber Valdez that brought home the Yankees’ first run of the season and started a comeback from a 4-0 deficit. Then with one out in the ninth and the Yankees up 5-4, he scooped up Kyle Tucker’s single and nabbed Mauricio Dubón at the plate. In the seventh inning on Friday, he worked a bases-loaded walk against Rafael Montero to break a 1-1 tie, and in the bottom half of the frame followed with a sliding catch off an Alex Bregman bloop that could have brought in the tying run. In the seventh inning on Saturday, he broke a 3-3 tie by poking an opposite-field solo homer into the Crawford Boxes at the expense of Bryan Abreu. And in the ninth inning on Sunday he again broke a 3-3 tie, capping a three-hit day by slapping a two-out, full-count RBI single off Josh Hader. Oh, is that all?

The Yankees couldn’t have asked for more from their latest marquee addition, who helped them to their first 4-0 start since 2003 (also on the road) and their first four-game series sweep ever in Houston. Including their three-game sweep at Minute Maid Park last September, they’ve won seven in a row against the team that has tormented them for most of the past decade by eliminating them from the postseason in 2015, ’17, ’19, and ’22. For a Yankees team that missed the postseason last year, that has to be a boost.

They did it all while scrambling to fill the shoes of the 35-year-old LeMahieu, who was slated to be their leadoff hitter and regular third baseman to start the season. On March 16, LeMahieu fouled a ball off the top of his right foot in an exhibition game, and was initially diagnosed with a bone bruise after X-rays, a CT scan, and an MRI all came back negative. His slow recovery made apparent his need to start the season on the sidelines; on Opening Day, the Yankees made it official by placing him on the IL retroactive to March 25. A follow-up MRI on Saturday revealed that he had actually suffered a fracture.

This is the second year out of three that LeMahieu has contended with an injury to his right foot. In 2022, he broke a sesamoid bone in his right big toe that led to ligament damage in his second toe; he needed a cortisone shot at the All-Star break and played through the injury for most of the second half, hitting just .228/.308/.327 over that span, spiraling into a 1-for-31 slump before missing three weeks in September, and getting left off the postseason roster. He never underwent offseason surgery to alleviate the issue, which may have contributed to his first-half struggles in 2023 (.220/.285/.357, 77 wRC+), but thanks to former hitting coach Sean Casey, who helped LeMahieu improve his lower body positioning, he hit for a 129 wRC+ in the second half, though he still finished with a thin .243/.327/.390 (101 wRC+) line.

While the Yankees did not announce a full timeline for his return, manager Aaron Boone said the infielder would work out at the team’s spring training facility in Tampa as his pain allows, and that he would be re-imaged in two weeks; a best-case scenario might put his return at the end of April, though the team isn’t going to rush him back. LeMahieu’s slow recovery from his previous foot injury is an “added concern, which is why we’re not pushing it,” Boone said, “It’s not something that he’s going to play through. He’s going to be 100 percent.”

The Yankees hadn’t confirmed the fracture until after the season started, but they knew LeMahieu would be out and also that Oswald Peraza would begin the year on the IL with a right shoulder strain. Both injuries prompted New York to pulled off a three-team trade just 24 hours before Opening Day, acquiring Berti from the Marlins, trading 18-year-old outfielder John Cruz — a “prospect of note” on the Yankees’ Top Prospects list — to the Marlins and 26-year-old out-of-options backup catcher Ben Rortvedt to the Rays, with 23-year-old outfield prospect Shane Sasaki going from Miami to Tampa Bay, as well. In 2023, the 34-year-old Berti, who spent the past five seasons with the Marlins, batted .294/.344/.405 (103 wC+) with seven homers in a career-high 424 plate appearances en route to 2.1 WAR; his batting average was a career high, and he just missed setting full-season highs in the other slash categories. One oddity about his numbers is that he went from stealing a major league-high 41 bases in 46 attempts in 2022 to just 16 in 22 attempts in ’23 despite the new rules that had so many players running wild; even so, his sprint speed still placed in the 95th percentile, according to Statcast.

The righty-swinging Berti can play second base, shortstop, and third base, and also has experience at all three outfield positions, though 29 of his 30 starts in the outfield over the past three seasons were in left field. He didn’t see his first action for the Yankees until Sunday, when he went 1-for-4 with a fourth-inning single off Astros starter J.P. France; the hit brought home Anthony Rizzo to put the Yankees ahead 2-1, but they couldn’t hold that lead. It was in the ninth inning where Berti came up bigger. With the Yankees having taken the lead thanks to Soto’s RBI single, the Astros began the inning with back-to-back singles by Jeremy Peña and Victor Caratini against closer Clay Holmes. Jose Altuve then ripped a hot grounder down the third base line, but Berti prevented what could have been an RBI double with a diving, backhanded stop, then recovered to beat Peña to third for the force out.

Berti didn’t get to play until Sunday because the 25-year-old Cabrera had done such a strong job holding down the hot corner. A 45-FV switch-hitting prospect who was more or less crowded out of the middle infield by the rises of Peraza and Anthony Volpe, both younger and with higher ceilings, Cabrera reached the majors first, on August 17, 2022. He hit .247/.312/.429 (111 wRC+) with 1.5 WAR in 171 PA in a utility role over the final third of the season, learning the outfield corners on the fly but starting key games at shortstop as well, including two against Houston in the ALCS. He made the team out of spring training last year and spent most of the season in the majors but struggled mightily, hitting just .211/.275/.299. His 60 wRC+ tied for the sixth-lowest mark among players with at least 300 PA, and he finished with -0.6 WAR. He struggled from both sides of the plate, with a 61 wRC+ against lefties and a 60 against righties.

While he started spring training in a 1-for-23 slump, Cabrera overhauled his swing and approach. He ditched a high leg kick in favor of a toe-tap that he had previously used mainly in two-strike situations in order to reduce his movement and simplify his path to the ball. He also focused more on contact and on hitting line drives after observing Soto in batting practice. Cabrera told The Athletic’s Chris Kirshner:

“The one big thing that I see from that guy is he doesn’t try to hit fly balls… He’s not trying to hit the ball in the air every time. His hands just get quick to the ball. That’s what got my attention. He’s always trying to hit line drives. When I saw Soto hitting in the cage for the first time, it was low line drives all of the time, so what am I doing trying to hit homers all of the time? I talked with the hitting coaches about it — obviously, Soto and I are not the same. But I’ve been trying to take some of the things he does into my game.”

On Opening Day, Cabrera batted ninth and collected a fifth-inning infield single off Valdez and then a game-tying solo homer off Montero in the sixth. On Friday, he went 4-for-5, with a single and a double off Cristian Javier, then an RBI single off Tayler Scott, and a two-run single off Parker Mushinski. While he batted right-handed against Valdez, he went lefty-on-lefty against Mushinski, something the team is having him do against certain southpaws. He had less success with that approach against Josh Hader, striking out against him on both Saturday and Sunday, but in the first of those games he had already hit a game-tying two-run homer in the seventh off Abreu, a righty. He started at shortstop on Sunday, filling in for Volpe, who sat due to a stomach bug.

Cabrera’s .438/.471/.875 across 17 PA is a clear signal that we’re in small-sample territory, but it’s worth at least a passing note regarding how much harder he’s hit the ball. Last season, he averaged just 87.8 mph in exit velocity, with a 3.5% barrel rate and a 32.5% hard-hit rate. Through his first 10 batted balls, he’s averaged 91.6 mph with one barrel and five hard-hit balls.

Obviously, the samples will have to get much larger before we have any real idea whether Cabrera truly has improved. Nonetheless, his rising to the occasion in timely fashion offers hope that the Yankees are a deeper team than last year, one that will be able to weather the absence of LeMahieu.

For my money, the best pitcher in the National League right now is Braves right-hander Spencer Strider. The 25-year-old with the Kurt Russell-in-Tombstone mustache struck out 281 batters last year, which is impressive in any context, all the more so because he did it in just 186 2/3 innings, while using two and a half pitches. He’s got an upper-90s four-seamer, an outrageous slider, and a changeup that he uses sparingly against lefties and basically not at all against righties.

Strider’s slider (which is a top-three Shel Silverstein poem) is clearly capable of serving as a secondary arsenal all on its own. That’s because Strider can add or subtract from the pitch at will. Last year, he threw more than 1,000 sliders in the regular season, and those pitches varied in velocity by 10 mph, in spin rate by more than 500 rpm, in gravity-adjusted vertical movement by 16 inches, and in horizontal movement by 10 inches. In short, it’s technically one pitch, but with a lot of room to change speed and shape.

Nevertheless, Strider has added a curveball this season, and after a soft launch in spring training, he threw it in anger for the first time on Friday. Read the rest of this entry »

Enrique Bradfield Jr. has good wheels, and he can also hit a bit. Drafted 17th overall last year by the Baltimore Orioles out of Vanderbilt University, the 22-year-old outfielder not only slashed .311/.426/.447 over three collegiate seasons, his table-setter batting style translated smoothly to pro ball. In 110 plate appearances versus A-ball pitching, Bradfield batted .291 with a Bonds-esque .473 OBP.

The chances of Bradfield’s ever being comped to Barry Bonds are basically nonexistent. At 6-foot-1 and 170 pounds, the erstwhile Commodore is, in the words of our prospect co-analysts Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin, “a contact-oriented speedster who will also play plus defense.” Power isn’t a meaningful part of his game. Bradfield went deep just 15 times at Vandy, and not at all after inking a contract with the O’s.

He doesn’t expect that to change. When I asked him during spring training if he’s ever tried to tap into more power, Bradfield said that has never been a focus, adding that he’d “be going in the wrong direction if it was.” That seems a shrewd self-assessment. A line-drive hitter who swings from the left side, Bradfield will ultimately reach Baltimore by continuing to propel balls from foul pole to foul pole. Read the rest of this entry »

It was the dawn of a new era in Baltimore, as the new owners made their first real impression on their new adoring public. Michael Arougheti bought a round at the bar. David Rubenstein visited the MASN booth and held forth on the Magna Carta with Ben McDonald; the conversation had to drift that far afield because Rubenstein’s two-inning television appearance was extended when Patrick Sandoval simply could not get out of the inning. Before Rubenstein left, he asked (I’m choosing to interpret this as a sick burn rather than a genuine point of inquiry) if MLB had a mercy rule.

The Orioles won 11-3. Every Baltimore starting position player reached base and either scored or drove in a run; eight of the nine recorded at least one hit. And only three of the 10 hits went for extra bases. This was one of those methodical conga line outings in which the Orioles won not so much by knockout as by submission. Had the norms of the game allowed the Angels to tap out without shame, they might’ve done so. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back baseball! This offseason was excruciatingly slow, but we’ve finally made it to Opening Day.

This year, we’re introducing a complete revamp of how these power rankings work. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team throughout the season, and by September, it was giving far too much weight to a team’s full body of work without taking into account how the club had changed, improved, or declined during the season. Instead, we’ve decided to build our power rankings model using a modified Elo rating system. If you’re familiar with chess rankings or FiveThirtyEight’s defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution that measures teams’ relative strength and is very reactive to recent performance.

To avoid overweighting recent results during the season, we weigh each team’s raw Elo rank using our coinflip playoff odds (specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing in weight as the season progresses to a maximum of 25%). As the best and worst teams sort themselves out throughout the season, they’ll filter to the top and bottom of the rankings while still being reactive to hot streaks or cold snaps.

First up are the full rankings presented in a sortable table. Below that, I’ve grouped the teams into tiers based on both their outlook for this season and the long-term state of their organizations. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — for example: The Reds, Tigers, and Pirates are ahead of the Angels in the rankings, but the Angels are grouped with the Red Sox in the fifth tier while the aforementioned trio is among the up-and-coming clubs in Tier 6 — but generally, the ordering is consistent. (Note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coinflip odds that are used in the ranking formula).

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The Braves haven’t budged from the top of these rankings thanks to their deep and talented roster. They made it through spring training without any major injury scares, and even added a bit of depth to their outfield by reuniting with Adam Duvall just in case Jarred Kelenic doesn’t pan out. Chris Sale has looked healthy and strong this spring, and Spencer Strider added an exciting new pitch to his already dominant repertoire. This team is ready to compete from day one and anything less than a championship at the end of the season will be a disappointment.

The betting scandal involving Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter Ippei Mizuhara will dominate the headlines surrounding the Dodgers until it is resolved. That will overshadow a team that has a bit more volatility than you’d expect from a roster that’s projected to win 93 games. Mookie Betts’ unexpected move to shortstop could have some disastrous effects on the defense on the left side of the infield, and the injury question marks in the starting rotation won’t be answered anytime soon. Still, if the two-game opening series in Korea showed us anything, it’s that this offense is capable of covering all manner of woes.

The Astros head into the season with a handful of pitching injuries to navigate. Justin Verlander’s shoulder issue delayed his ramp up this spring and José Urquidy is out with an ominous-sounding forearm strain. It sounds like Verlander’s injury isn’t that serious, and the midseason recoveries of Lance McCullers Jr. and Luis Garcia should provide some reinforcements later on, which is why Houston’s preseason projection wasn’t affected all that much. With Yordan Alvarez, Jose Altuve, and Alex Bregman, among others, the Astros still boast a potent offense, and they bolstered their bullpen with the addition of Josh Hader. Once again, Houston is the team to beat in the American League.

The season hasn’t even started and the Yankees are already in a precarious spot. An elbow ailment likely will force Gerrit Cole to miss the first couple of months of the season, exposing the lack of depth in New York’s starting rotation. Pair that with Aaron Judge’s mysterious abdominal discomfort — as well as a few other spring knocks to DJ LeMahieu and Anthony Rizzo — and the injury issues that sank the team last season have already started to rear its ugly head. Even with Juan Soto poised to contribute in his contract year, the Yankees feel like they’re sitting on a knife’s edge. They’re not facing the worst-case scenario yet, but it won’t take much to get them to that point if anything else goes wrong.

If you look at all the individual projections on the Rays roster, you probably won’t walk away that impressed. But they’re simply better than any other team at seemingly maximizing the production of every single player in the organization. That’s how they’re projected to win 86 games despite heading into the season a little light on pitching after trading away Tyler Glasnow and following the injuries of Shane McClanahan, Jeffrey Springs, Drew Rasmussen, and Taj Bradley. Could it all collapse this year? It’s possible, but their track record speaks for itself.

The fear that the Mariners could squander Julio Rodríguez’s youth and one of the best starting rotations in the game is ever present. It got a little more real after the team announced Bryan Woo would start the season on the IL with a minor elbow issue. Seattle will also have to overcome a few injuries to some of its best relievers early in the season. That said, the Mariners look more talented than they have the past couple of years — on paper, anyway. There’s plenty of risk present in the lineup, so they’ll have to lean heavily on their elite run prevention unit and their homegrown superstar to carry them through a long season.

After a quiet offseason, the Twins are still the favorites to defend their AL Central crown. Despite that healthy lead in the projections, it doesn’t feel like their path to the playoffs will be as smooth as it was last year. They’re already facing some injuries in their pitching staff, with Jhoan Duran’s oblique the most concerning of the bunch. Health was always going to determine how successful they would be this year, and thankfully, Carlos Correa, Royce Lewis, and Byron Buxton all emerged from spring training ready for Opening Day.

The expectations for the Orioles are sky high after their surprising rise to the top of the American League last season. We’ll have to wait a little bit before watching Jackson Holliday, who ranks no. 1 on our Top 100 Prospects list, make his debut, but their roster is packed with young talent and should be plenty entertaining until he arrives. Baltimore was smart to trade for ace Corbin Burnes, because even with him, there are some questions about whether this starting rotation is deep enough. Even if the O’s can’t recapture last year’s magic, they should be right in the middle of the playoff picture this season.

Why fix what isn’t broken? After back-to-back NLCS appearances, the Phillies seemed content to simply stick with what’s worked. They’ve eliminated the Braves from the postseason each of the last two years, so even if they’re unable to chase down Atlanta for a division title during the regular season, they’re confident they’ll be able to make a deep run in October.

The Cardinals’ depth will be tested early this season as they’re already missing Sonny Gray, Lars Nootbaar, Tommy Edman, and Dylan Carlson because of injuries. Their lineup should be able to weather those temporary absences but there’s a lot less wiggle room in the starting rotation. Thankfully, it sounds like Gray will be able to make his first start of the season within a week or two.

The Diamondbacks capped off an encouraging offseason with the last-minute signing of Jordan Montgomery. That addition, along with fellow newcomer Eduardo Rodriguez, elevates their starting rotation into elite company among the game’s best (though Rodriguez will begin the season on the IL with a lat strain). With MVP candidate Corbin Carroll leading the offense, Arizona looks poised to follow up its surprising World Series appearance with another competitive season.

The Blue Jays have a lot riding on the shoulders of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. If he’s able to rebound after a down year in 2023, Toronto should be just fine. If not, well, the Blue Jays didn’t bring in much outside help this offseason to support him. They’re also banged up in their bullpen following elbow injuries to Jordan Romano and Erik Swanson. Extended absences for the two high-leverage relievers would further reduce the slim margin for error that Toronto already has in an extremely competitive AL playoff picture.

When they signed Blake Snell 10 days ago, the Giants finally made the big splash to put a cap on an active offseason. Before adding Snell, San Francisco also added third baseman Matt Chapman, center fielder Jung Hoo Lee, slugger Jorge Soler, righty Jordan Hicks, and catcher Tom Murphy. The Giants spent more than $325 million on free agents this offseason, the second highest total in baseball behind the Dodgers. All those moves put them solidly in the mix in the competitive NL Wild Card race.

Unsatisfied with a step-back season after trading away Juan Soto earlier in the offseason, the Padres did an about-face and landed Dylan Cease from the White Sox two weeks ago. That stabilizes a rotation that was in flux throughout the offseason and provides some more high-level talent for the roster. Is San Diego better off now than it was with Soto in the mix? The projections see it all as a wash, though the Padres still have a critical lack of depth across their roster. In that sense, they’re essentially in the same position as they were last year: They have a ton of talent but very little room for error.

The Cubs finally addressed the Cody Bellinger-sized hole in their lineup by simply re-signing the man himself. And with Shota Imanaga looking impressive during spring training, there’s some cautious optimism surrounding this ballclub. Chicago has essentially pulled even with the Cardinals in what should be a competitive race for the NL Central, and if the Cubs fall short in the division, they could sneak into the playoffs via a wild card berth.

The Rangers are betting they can hit well enough to stick around in the AL playoff picture until Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, and Tyler Mahle are healthy to reinforce their starting rotation. There’s plenty of risk involved, but that’s not necessarily a bad bet. Corey Seager and Josh Jung have progressed enough from their spring injuries and will be ready for Opening Day, and Texas should also enjoy full seasons from its pair of highly regarded rookies Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford, our no. 2-ranked prospect. Even so, as things stand, the Rangers’ potent offense might not be enough to carry them to the playoffs.

The worst-case scenario for the Marlins appears to already be in full swing. They were already going to miss Sandy Alcantara for the entire season after his Tommy John surgery, and now Eury Pérez, Braxton Garrett, and Edward Cabrera are all on the IL to start the season with various injuries. Max Meyer, their second ranked prospect, should be able to step in to fill some of the gap, and Miami is also having lefty A.J. Puk, who to this point has pitched exclusively out of the bullpen in the majors, handle a starter’s workload. Suddenly, the clear strength of this roster doesn’t look so strong.

Like the Marlins, the Brewers’ starting rotation, once a clear strength, is looking a little diminished this season, after they traded Corbin Burnes and lost Brandon Woodruff to injury. On top of that, Devin Williams, their best reliever, is expected to miss the first half of the season with a back injury. All eyes will be on young Jackson Chourio to see if he can quickly acclimate to the big leagues after turning 20 years old just a few weeks ago. Milwaukee will be competing in the wide open NL Central, so anything is possible, but it certainly seems like this season is being treated as a stepping stone to the team’s next competitive window.

After a couple of big splashy offseasons, the Mets were fairly quiet, making some targeted additions to their depleted pitching staff and opportunistically signing DH J.D. Martinez a week ago. There’s enough talent in the lineup for them to make a surprise run at the NL Wild Card if the health of the pitching staff holds up, but that feels like a longshot at this point. The reality is that this is an evaluation year for new president of baseball operations David Stearns as he begins to put his stamp on the organization.

It was just a couple of years ago that the Guardians won the division with the youngest roster in the majors. With the core of that team still around, Cleveland hopes that a few more prospect graduations will help push it back to the top of the AL Central after falling short of the postseason last season. There’s still too little power in this lineup — sending Kyle Manzardo to the minors to start the season isn’t helping in that arena — which makes the Guardians a little too reliant on their batted ball results swinging their way. That’s a volatile blueprint for building an offense, and the projections reflect that reality.

The two teams in this tier feel a little lost, stuck in that limbo of not yet rebuilding but not being good enough to compete this year. Boston’s chances of making some noise in the AL Wild Card race took a hit when Lucas Giolito was lost for the season with an elbow injury. The Red Sox signed Brayan Bello to an aspirational six-year extension, and they’re hoping the early returns are promising. They’re also expecting the adjustments Nick Pivetta made late last year carry over, and maybe Tanner Houck and Kutter Crawford take a step forward. That’s a lot riding on a bunch of hypotheticals. Boston won’t be bad, but it doesn’t seem to be good enough where it counts, either.

The same could be said for the Angels. With Shohei Ohtani out of the picture, the Angels decided to invest heavily in their … relief corps? There were so many other areas on their roster they could have bolstered that their commitment to spending on so many relievers was a bit comical. Of course, the success of their season will hinge on whether Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon, and Taylor Ward are healthy and contributing. But even if they are, and the lineup is scoring runs, the pitching staff is weak enough that it probably won’t matter.

The infield logjam the Reds were expected to have has suddenly disappeared after Noelvi Marte was suspended for PEDs and Matt McLain underwent shoulder surgery. While the playing time picture is a little more clear without so many players needing to get at-bats, I’m sure the Reds would rather navigate that headache than have two of their most promising youngsters sidelined for months. The rest of the roster has a number of health issues as well — TJ Friedl, Nick Lodolo, and Brandon Williamson are all starting the year on the IL — which makes Cincinnati’s ascendancy a little less likely.

The Tigers’ starting rotation was the talk of spring training. Tarik Skubal looks like a legitimate Cy Young candidate, a number of their pitchers have added velocity to their fastballs, and Jackson Jobe’s mouth-watering stuff has a lot of people asking how soon he’ll make his major league debut. An elite rotation would give Detroit a solid foundation, but the development of its offense appears to be lagging behind. Spencer Torkelson, Riley Greene, and Kerry Carpenter still need to prove they can produce over an entire season, and the supporting cast is still merely OK.

After missing almost all of last season with an ankle injury, Oneil Cruz looked fantastic during spring training, and his return has given the Pirates some much needed optimism as they head into the season. There’s a universe where Cruz leads the offense, pitching prospects Paul Skenes and Jared Jones solidify the starting rotation, and Pittsburgh makes some noise in the race for the NL Central. The reality is that the Bucs are probably a season or two from truly making the leap, but there’s clear forward momentum for the franchise for the first time in a long time.

There’s plenty of hype surrounding Cole Ragans after his tremendous late season run last year, and Maikel Garcia is getting in on the excitement too after a strong showing in Winter Ball and spring training. Developing some additional high-end talent to support franchise cornerstone Bobby Witt Jr. is a critical piece of the puzzle for the Royals. There isn’t much coming through the minor league system, though, so they’ll need to get creative to try and speed up this rebuild.

The seemingly never-ending relocation saga will loom large over the A’s this season, and their play on the field won’t provide much, if any, relief. A few youngsters are worth watching to see if they can develop into franchise mainstays, but by the time this team ends up in Las Vegas (if that ever comes to pass), the likelihood they’re still in the organization is pretty slim.

After trading away Dylan Cease, Luis Robert Jr. remains the lone piece that could bring back a sizable haul of prospects to jumpstart the White Sox rebuild. He’s young enough and under team control for long enough that it’s possible they’d want to hold onto him as a bridge to the next competitive window. His contract situation is favorable enough that he’d fetch plenty of prospects if ever they do decide to trade him.

The Nationals have filled their roster with veteran bounce-back candidates to surround the few youngsters who have already made their major league debuts. It’s not a bad idea to see if Jesse Winker, Joey Gallo, Eddie Rosario, and Nick Senzel can rediscover their swings so that Washington can flip them at the trade deadline. And the show that top prospect James Wood put on this spring gives the Nats a promising glimpse into their future, even if that’s still a year or two away.

After a very quiet offseason, the Rockies finally woke up and signed Ezequiel Tovar to a long-term extension earlier this week. It doesn’t raise the talent level of the roster, which is projected to be among the worst in the majors, but it’s a solid move to lock up a promising piece of their infield. Tovar isn’t the second coming of Troy Tulowitzki, but he’s one of the best defenders in baseball and his bat still has some room to grow. Beyond that, Colorado is hoping for a healthy season from Kris Bryant and for Nolan Jones to hold onto the gains he enjoyed last year.

If you were searching for evidence of the changing of the guard in the major leagues — or of the occupational hazards faced by starting pitchers — look no further than this year’s slate of Opening Day hurlers. As the 2024 season launches with what was supposed to be a full schedule on Thursday — the Brewers-Mets and Braves-Phillies games have both been postponed until Friday — the absences of so many of the game’s most renowned pitchers due to injuries and other issues loom large. If there’s good news, it’s that we still have plenty of top arms on tap.

Consider, for example, the fact that neither of last year’s two Cy Young Award winners, Gerrit Cole and Blake Snell, will be taking the hill on Thursday. After being diagnosed with nerve inflammation and edema earlier this month, Cole — one of just two pitchers to throw at least 200 innings in both 2022 and ’23 — will start the year on the injured list and won’t even begin throwing again until early or mid-April. A best-case scenario has him returning around the start of June; in his place, the Yankees will start Nestor Cortes. Snell, who reached free agency after winning his second Cy Young last year with the Padres, didn’t even sign with the Giants until March 19 and isn’t built up enough to be on the Opening Day roster, let alone take his turn. Instead, Logan Webb will get the call for San Francisco for the third straight season, though that might have been the case even if Snell had signed in a timely fashion.

This is more or less a once-every-couple-of-decades occurrence. According to ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian, the last time neither Cy Young winner started the following Opening Day was in 2005. That year, despite their hardware, both the Astros’ Roger Clemens and the Twins’ Johan Santana yielded to teammates with longer tenures with their respective clubs, namely Roy Oswalt and Brad Radke. Before that, you have to go back to 1982, when neither the Dodgers’ Fernando Valenzuela nor the Brewers’ Rollie Fingers (a reliever) started. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not a bold predictions kind of guy. Maybe it comes with the territory of writing so much: On average, my views are pretty down the middle because I just have so many views. There’s so much baseball bouncing around in my brain all the time that it tends toward the mean. Or maybe that’s just a cop out, a way to pre-excuse my lack of boldness. Because it’s time for my annual attempt at it. Here are five things I think will occur that hopefully will shock you a little – but not too much, because I’m hoping that at least two or three of these actually will transpire.

1. The Mets Will Lead Baseball in DH WAR
Our projections hate J.D. Martinez, and there’s a reason why: He’s 36 and squarely in the back half of his career. Over the past four years, he’s posted a 120 wRC+, which is great but not otherworldly, and he struck out 31.1% of the time in 2023. This kind of general trajectory is what projections feast on; they recognize early and commonly shared signs of decline and then extrapolate from there.

Doubting those projections wouldn’t really count as a bold claim in my book, though, because Martinez is a very good hitter. Also, the way that projections work means that he’ll exceed those numbers roughly 50% of the time even if they’re a good approximation of his true talent. We need to be much bolder than that. So let’s kick it up a notch and imagine how good Martinez could feasibly be.
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Earlier today, we looked at the teams in the bottom half of the league’s rotations. Now to close out the positional power rankings, we look at the game’s best.

The ever-changing landscape of pitching is present throughout the upper tier of the rotation rankings. With fewer workhorses across the league, rotations are often relying on upwards of eight guys to make a significant impact, as teams now understand that the six-month grind will churn their staff and could leave their April and October iterations looking very different. The margins are tiny, with the top three teams separated by fractions of a win and the next 11 split by a mere 1.6 WAR. Six of the teams ranked 16-30 last year have graduated into the upper class, but a key injury or an overperforming prospect from one of clubs in this year’s bottom tier could be enough to flip things drastically. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, we ranked baseball’s bullpens. Today, we turn our attention to the starters, beginning with the rotations that project in the bottom half of the league.

It’s not every day that you get to quote Tolstoy in an article that primarily consists of short descriptions of fifth starters, but trust me, I have a good reason for doing so. You know which quote I’m going for, presumably. “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” It’s trite, but it does such a good job of describing major league rotations that I couldn’t resist. I’m sure you’ll love the top 15 rotations when they get released. There’s a shiny ace at the top. He’s accompanied by a fairly good second banana, maybe even someone you could call a borderline number one starter. The guys behind them? They’re a mix of interesting young pitchers and accomplished veterans. If the team is lucky, they might even be a super-rotation, health permitting. Read the rest of this entry »