With big expectations entering the season, the New York Mets got off to a reasonably solid start; through their first 11 games, they had a 7-4 record and a half-game lead in the NL East. Since then, though, things have gone… less well. And after getting swept by the Chicago Cubs over the weekend, the team is now sitting on an 11-game losing streak, a skid that has dropped them into last place in the NL East, a full 8 1/2 games behind the Atlanta Braves. So, just how doomed are the Mets?

While you can’t win a pennant in April, you can certainly lose one. As my colleague Jay Jaffe noted last week, when the Mets’ losing streak stood at a mere eight games, the offense bears a large share of the blame. They’ve scored just 19 runs since the streak began, and have managed even three runs in just two of those games. The Royals, the next-worst offense over their last 11 games, have scored more than 50% more runs than the Mets (31 to 19), and considering they’re 2-9 over that stretch, it’s not like they’re cruising either. The loss of Juan Soto to a strained calf muscle is significant, but it’s hard to pin the team’s offensive woes solely on that. Their 1.7 runs per game is about three runs off both the 4.7 they scored last year and what ZiPS projected for this year, and no hitter in history has made that big of a difference. Read the rest of this entry »

The other night, I was lying around, looking at my phone, trying to fry as many neurons as possible without using hard drugs or listening to Angine de Poitrine, and I saw something that bugged me a little. It was a highlight reel from a series of interviews with Padres closer Mason Miller and Kait Maniscalco, which started off as follows:

Maniscalco: Do you think closers have to have a couple screws loose to want to pitch in the highest-pressure situation in the game?

Miller: Quietly, yes. Outwardly, I think you can keep it together and be a fairly normal dude… I wouldn’t say anybody would say I have a screw loose quite yet.

There are two ways to read this question. First: Does it take an unusual personality type to thrive in a high-pressure environment like closing out a big league baseball game? Probably, to some extent. The ability not only to thrive under pressure but also to shake off failure when it comes is a special thing, one baseball people have tried and struggled to identify since the closer role was invented. Read the rest of this entry »

The book on Munetaka Murakami was pretty straightforward when he hit the market this winter. Phenomenal cosmic power – itty bitty contact rate. While acknowledging recent injuries, our writeup noted his contact rates against good velocity (63%) and secondary pitches (50%) as red flags in his profile. And these weren’t little red flags, either. As Eric and James put it, “…if Murakami is only ever the quality of contact hitter we’ve seen the last three years, with no changes or improvements, he basically can’t be a good MLB hitter.”

Through a month of play, Murakami has been a very good MLB hitter, with a 153 wRC+ driven by a 21.5% walk rate and eight homers. But he’s struggled with contact, and that’s putting it mildly. He’s striking out a third of the time so far, with the fourth-lowest contact rate in baseball through Sunday’s action. So what can we say about that? One answer is that it’s too soon to say – either his contact rate will go up or his production will go down. But that’s pretty unsatisfying. To be fair, it’s probably right, but that doesn’t make it satisfying. So let’s break his game down more granularly to see where the whiffs are coming from, where the power is coming from, and how the two are related.

We’ll start with the “can’t hit secondaries” part of the scouting report. In the early going, that has been abundantly clear. Sixty-six batters have swung at 25 or more sliders this season. Murakami’s 59.3% whiff rate is the third highest, behind Max Muncy The Younger and James Wood. If you broaden that out to all secondaries, 201 batters have offered at 50 or more secondary pitches this year. Murakami’s 53.3% whiff rate is the third highest of that group, behind only Matt Wallner and Daniel Schneemann. Read the rest of this entry »

These are not good times for the Astros. The team has stumbled to an 8-15 start, and while slow starts themselves are nothing new for Houston, this Astros’ roster has been particularly depleted by injuries. Including All-Stars Hunter Brown, Josh Hader, and Jeremy Peña, they currently have a major league-high 14 players on the injured list. In the grand scheme, one of the few thing going right for the club is the return of Yordan Alvarez, who’s back to being healthy and unstoppable. Limited to just 48 games by injures last year, the 28-year-old slugger has not only played every game, but has hit a major league-high 10 homers.

During Sunday’s game against the Cardinals at Daikin Park, the Astros trailed 4-1 with two outs and nobody on when Alvarez stepped in against lefty JoJo Romero in the eighth inning. In running the count to 2-2, he fouled off three pitches, including a sweeper that was well off the plate. Romero then threw him a changeup that sank below the bottom edge of the zone, and Alvarez went down and got it, hitting a towering solo homer to right field:

The Astros then added two more runs in the inning as Jose Altuve and Isaac Paredes sandwiched singles around a Christian Walker walk and a wild pitch from incoming reliever Riley O’Brien. That tied the game, which went to extra innings, where the Astros couldn’t do enough to counter the three runs the Cardinals scored against reliever Bryan King; they lost 7-5. Read the rest of this entry »

Arjun Nimmala has a high ceiling that he is still far away from reaching. No. 2 on our Toronto Blue Jays Top Prospects list, and No. 48 on our Top 100, the 20-year-old shortstop is presently slashing .163/.308/.372 with two home runs and a 94 wRC+ in 52 plate appearances with High-A Vancouver. Last season, he left the yard 13 times while putting up a 92 wRC+ over a full course of games at the same affiliate. But while the production hasn’t been anything to write home about, the potential is clearly there. As Brendan Gawlowski explained in his scouting profile, “We really like the athlete and tools here, and we’re betting the results will follow in time.”

Nimmala’s right-handed stroke projects to produce plus power once he fully matures, and I asked him about it during spring training

“It’s a swing that’s built to do damage,” replied Nimmala, whom the Blue Jays drafted 20th overall in 2023 out of Dover, Florida’s Strawberry Crest High School. “I pride myself in taking good swings. When things are going well, I have a really good idea of the zone and am doing damage to all parts of the field.”

Asked to elaborate, Nimmala said he considers his bat path a plus — “I think it’s been good since high school” — adding that his adjustments since reaching pro ball have mostly been about putting himself in better launch positions. He further explained that he has tweaked his posture and how he lands.

As for reports saying that his swing is a little on the long side, but also quick, he agrees — but only to a point. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mets’ 2026 season began with such promise. With a remade roster after last year’s disappointing 83-79 finish — new looks in the infield and outfield, a new Opening Day starter to lead their staff, and infusions of youth both in the lineup and in the rotation — they kicked things off by beating up reigning NL Cy Young winner Paul Skenes and won three out of their first four games. Though April 7, they were 7-4, including a pair of walk-off wins. They haven’t won since, and already owner Steve Cohen is pleading with fans to stay the course.

First, the Mets dropped the final five games of their second homestand against the Diamondbacks and Athletics, getting shut out twice and scoring more than two runs just once; meanwhile, they gave up seven or more runs three times. Then they flew to Los Angeles to face the two-time defending champion Dodgers, and while they did get a seven-inning, one-run gem from rookie Nolan McLean opposite Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Tuesday night, they lost all three games by a combined score of (gulp) 14-3.

At 7-12, the Mets are tied with the Giants and Rockies for the National League’s worst record. They’re last in the NL East, five games behind the Braves, who have bolted from the gate by winning 12 of 19 despite injuries to a full rotation’s worth of starters, including Spencer Strider and Spencer Schwellenbach, as well as catcher Sean Murphy and shortstop Ha-Seong Kim. If there’s good news, it’s that the rest of the division has started sluggishly as well, with every team besides the Braves below .500. The Mets are only two games out of second place, not that that adds wins to their ledger. Read the rest of this entry »

Another week, another delightful slate of games, which can only mean one thing: It’s time for another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) In Baseball This Week. One of my favorite parts of the early season is rediscovering the small pleasures of watching baseball that I’ve forgotten over the winter. I don’t mean watching Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge play. That’s obviously very enjoyable, but it’s not something I forget about in the offseason. But the feel of the game, the look on players’ faces when something unexpected happens, the pure happiness I get from seeing a bunch of grown-ups throw a ball around for a job? I only have that experience when the games are on, and the feeling is strongest after a prolonged absence. So no stars today, just stuff I watched that gave me a happy (or, in one case, angry) feeling. As always, a shout out to Zach Lowe of The Ringer, who popularized this article format in his seminal basketball column. And a programming note: Five Things won’t be appearing every week this season, to help balance out my workload and allow me to work on other projects here at the site. I’ll likely be off next week – unless the baseball I watch this weekend is just too enjoyable not to write about.

1. Late-Night Hijinks
I associate West Coast games with wackiness. It’s likely because I grew up out East, and was usually halfway asleep and fully loopy when I turned on late-night baseball (or late-night any sport, really; I have fond memories of silly Pac 10 football games at 1 a.m.). But there’s something thrilling about the last game of the day’s slate going into extra innings, whether you live in Portland, Maine or Portland, Oregon. Last week, the Padres and Rockies did their best to deliver. Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday, the Detroit Tigers signed rookie shortstop Kevin McGonigle to an eight-year, $150 million contract extension, keeping him under team control through 2034. When McGonigle was going through the draft process, quite a few observers — including me — saw a heady, left-handed-hitting second baseman with average size but a polished, punchy bat, noted that he is from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and thought, “Maybe he’ll be the next Chase Utley.”

As big as the hype around McGonigle has become, that’s still a lofty comp. Utley played 16 years in the majors, made six All-Star teams, produced 61.5 WAR (including five straight seven-win seasons), and appeared in three World Series, winning one. If McGonigle ends up doing all that, I think everyone walks away happy. But after just 17 major league games, McGonigle guaranteed that he would out-earn his childhood hero, who pocketed a mere $125.6 million across his decorated career. Read the rest of this entry »

George Klassen’s initial big league outings were clunky. He allowed seven runs in just 4 2/3 innings over a pair of April starts, which, combined with an index fingernail contusion, has him back at Triple-A Salt Lake for more seasoning. That doesn’t mean his future isn’t promising. The 24-year-old right-hander ranks second on our Los Angeles Angels Top Prospects list, and 57th on our Top 100. Moreover, he was described by Brendan Gawlowski as having “some of the best stuff in the [Angels] system.”

An inability to consistently land his plus stuff in the strike zone is currently Klassen’s bugaboo. He issued free passes to 10 of the 32 batters he faced in his two starts in the majors — one against the Reds, another against the Mariners — and while big league jitters were certainly a factor, George Kirby he’s not. As Gawlowski wrote in his scouting report, “Klassen’s command remains below average… [and] there are markers in his delivery that suggest his feel for location will likely remain crude.”

A few years ago, Klassen was Mitch Williams-wild. As Eric Longenhagen pointed out in November 2024, the West Bend, Wisconsin native walked nearly a batter per inning in his 2023 draft year at the University of Minnesota. But as our lead prospect analyst also noted, “his feel for the strike zone improved right away in pro ball.” That was in the Phillies system. The Angels later acquired the erstwhile sixth-round pick from Philadelphia in the July 2024 Carlos Estévez deal. Read the rest of this entry »

First things first, I need you to divorce yourself from the notion of marrying strictly for love. Because that’s not how it worked for Evelyn Hugo.

Oh wait. That’s right, some of you probably don’t know who Evelyn Hugo is. Imagine Elizabeth Taylor, Rita Hayworth, and Ava Gardener all rolled into one, and now, in her twilight years, she’s sitting for a longform, tell-all interview spanning her entire career — every marriage, every movie, every divorce. That’s the premise of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, a novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

None of Hugo’s marriages are fairytale romances. For her, they entail more practical considerations. Sometimes love is a factor, but it’s never the sole focus, and rarely the primary concern. Nevertheless, each marriage plays a distinct role in Hugo’s story, in the creation of her final, self-actualized form. Read the rest of this entry »