What’s gotten into the Central divisions? Often an afterthought behind the big market clubs on either coast, it’s the Central teams in both leagues that are providing the most surprising starts, and most entertaining baseball, so far this season.

This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance 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 since March. That’s why 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 coin flip 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 the exercise will remain reactive to hot streaks or cold snaps. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been an eventful start to the regular season and not all of it good. A rash of injuries to some of the game’s biggest stars has marred the first week and half of play, and a number of teams now have to face the rest of the spring and summer without some of their best players. The conversation around these injuries, particularly those to pitchers, and their root causes has drowned out a lot of the exciting action we’re seeing on the field.

This season, we’ve revamped our power rankings. The old model wasn’t very reactive to the ups and downs of any given team’s performance 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 since March. That’s why 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 now defunct sports section, you’ll know that Elo is an elegant solution, one 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 coin flip playoff odds (specifically, we regress the playoff odds by 50% and weigh those against the raw Elo ranking, increasing the 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 the exercise will remain 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 with comments on a handful of clubs. You’ll notice that the official ordinal rankings don’t always match the tiers — I’ve taken some editorial liberties when grouping teams together — but generally, the ordering is consistent. One thing to note: The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the coin flip odds that are used in the ranking formula.

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The Braves’ strong start has been overshadowed by the news about Spencer Strider’s elbow. After experiencing discomfort on Friday, the right-hander underwent an MRI over the weekend that revealed damage to his UCL; he was placed on the 15-day IL. A course of treatment has yet to be determined, and there’s no specific timeline for his return, but Atlanta should be prepared to play on without him for the foreseeable future. Thankfully, the Braves offense is already firing on all cylinders; they’ve scored nine runs or more in half of their games so far and had a couple of dramatic come-from-behind wins against the Diamondbacks this past weekend.

The Yankees started off the season with a four-game sweep of the Astros in Houston and a pair of series wins against the Diamondbacks and Blue Jays. Juan Soto was sensational during that opening series, and the powerful bats of Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton have provided plenty of pop behind him. So far, the Yankees haven’t missed Gerrit Cole. Luis Gil has done a commendable job filling in for their injured ace, striking out more than a third of the batters he’s faced in two solid starts.

The Astros have gotten off to a pretty lousy start. Their vaunted bullpen has blown leads in half of their games played so far and their offense is still in startup mode. Luckily, they’ve had a few brilliant moments sprinkled in through their misery. In their three wins this season, they’ve allowed a total of four hits, including a no-hitter spun by Ronel Blanco, who followed that performance with another 5.2 innings of no-hit ball on Sunday night.

No matter how good their offense is, the Rangers were always going to face a tough uphill battle during the first half of the season while they waited for their injured starting pitchers to return. At least they’ve gotten off to a hot start, with a pair of series wins over the Cubs and Rays. Unfortunately, they’ll have to keep things going without Josh Jung in the lineup; he broke his wrist a week ago and could be out until the All-Star break. With their two rookie outfielders, Wyatt Langford and Evan Carter, still getting up to speed this season, Texas’ margin for error in the competitive American League West is even slimmer now.

The Guardians have also seen their excellent start to the season marred by terrible injury news. After making two brilliant starts, Shane Bieber tore his UCL and will undergo Tommy John surgery, forcing him to miss the rest of the season. After graduating three of their top pitching prospects to the majors last year, there isn’t really an in-house option ready to step into Bieber’s shoes. The Guardians will have to make do as they try and keep their momentum going in a wide open AL Central race.

It’s hard to argue with the Pirates’ 8-2 start, especially when it was capped off by a pair of walk-off wins against the Orioles this weekend. Their youngsters are having fun, their veterans are producing, and things are looking up in Pittsburgh. And even if the good times come to an end in the near future, the exciting debut of Jared Jones is another reason for optimism. Along with Paul Skenes, Jones should give the Pirates two fantastic starters to anchor their rotation.

The Twins have gotten off to a rough start, one made all the worse by the injury to Royce Lewis on Opening Day. Their lineup just hasn’t been able to hit consistently — Lewis hit one of their three home runs on the season — with Carlos Correa essentially the only batter enjoying any kind of sustained success thus far. That’s a good sign for their star shortstop, but he’ll need help from the rest of the lineup soon.

Likewise, the Rays have struggled in the early going, though it’s their pitching staff that bears the brunt of the blame. The Rays have the third-worst team ERA in the majors thus far, though series against the Rangers and the Rockies in Colorado didn’t help in that regard.

The Mariners have already used a position player to pitch twice if that gives you any indication of how their season has started. It feels like they’re pretty lucky to be 4-6. As a team, they’re striking out at the second-highest rate in the majors, while their ISO is the second lowest. That’s a bad combination, and they’ll need their lineup to wake up soon if they want to keep pace in the AL West.

The Padres wound up losing a dramatic three-game set against the Giants over the weekend thanks to two bullpen meltdowns. Dylan Cease has been great in his first two starts for San Diego and Yu Darvish has been solid, but the rest of the pitching staff looks a little shaky. The lineup looks good, however, with plenty of contributions from both their stars and role players. Fernando Tatis Jr. seems to have put his injury issues behind him and looks like he’s back on the ascendant path he was on a few years ago.

The starting rotation with the second-best park- and league-adjusted ERA and FIP in baseball is none other than the Royals. (Let’s also pause here for a moment and recognize just how good the Red Sox pitching staff has been so far.) Cole Ragans looks like an ace, Brady Singer has spun two brilliant starts, and Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha, signed as free agents this offseason, have looked good as well. After losing their first two series by razor thin margins, the Royals swept the White Sox in four games over the weekend.

The Marlins finally got into the win column on Sunday, snapping an 0-9 skid to start the season. Of course, they’re more worried about the health of Eury Pérez; he’s slated to undergo Tommy John surgery and will be sidelined for the season. It’s a brutal blow to a pitching staff that was already missing Sandy Alcantara and two other starters, Edward Cabrera and Braxton Garrett. With reports that manager Skip Schumaker is now a lame duck after his contract option for 2025 was voided this offseason, it’s pretty apparent that this season is already considered lost by the brass in Miami.

Another shoe finally dropped in the ongoing relocation saga in Oakland. While there hasn’t been much progress towards constructing a new stadium in Las Vegas, the Athletics announced that this will be the final year they’ll call Oakland home. The team will be moving to Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park, currently the home of the San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A affiliate, for the next three years (or possibly longer if their new stadium isn’t finished in time). It’s an ugly end to the franchise’s long and storied tenure in the East Bay.

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.

Every team heads into spring training with The Plan for their roster. February is a time to dream about what could be, as new offseason acquisitions mix with the holdovers in camp. Then the reality of March settles in, spring injuries start to mount and The Plan is suddenly compromised or needs to be thrown completely out the window. For the Mariners, The Plan for their bullpen included some combination of Andrés Muñoz, Matt Brash, and Gregory Santos locking down the final few innings of any game they were leading. Unfortunately, the latter two of those three relievers are now dealing with injury issues that will keep them from being ready come Opening Day.

Brash had been dealing with elbow inflammation this spring after making more appearances (78) than any other reliever in baseball last year. Thankfully, surgery isn’t on the table yet, but the M’s are taking an understandably cautious approach to a key member of their ‘pen. Santos ended last season on the injured list due to an elbow issue and showed up in Arizona this spring with a sore shoulder. He had just started to ramp up his throwing program when he strained his lat on Tuesday. It doesn’t appear to be a serious issue, but it’s another setback for a pitcher who appeared to be a key offseason acquisition. In addition to losing Brash and Santos to start the season, Seattle’s bullpen depth took a hit when Jackson Kowar was diagnosed with a UCL tear last week; he will undergo Tommy John surgery, sidelining him until 2025.

To provide some insurance for their sudden lack of high-leverage options, Seattle signed Ryne Stanek to a one-year, $4 million deal on Friday. A setup man for the Astros over the last three years, Stanek compiled a solid 2.90 ERA during that time, though his 3.91 FIP wasn’t as pretty thanks to a very high walk rate. Still, his 27% strikeout rate and elite stuff allow him to be effective despite all the traffic on the basepaths. Read the rest of this entry »

A funny thing happened in Detroit towards the end of the 2023 season: In September, the Tigers were tied with the Minnesota Twins for the best record in the American League. Tarik Skubal’s breakout and Spencer Torkelson’s second-half rampage helped them finish second in the AL Central, albeit nine games behind Minnesota. You may remember the excitement surrounding the team after their hot finish to the 2021 season and subsequent spending spree in free agency. With that false start in mind, it’s wise not to read too much into the final month of the 2023 season, but it does seem like the organization has actually progressed towards breaking out of their rebuilding phase. Read the rest of this entry »

When Adam Jones compared his former Orix Buffaloes teammate Masataka Yoshida to Juan Soto, he quickly established the lofty expectations that Yoshida would face as he made the transition to the major leagues. The comparison painted a clear picture of the type of batter Yoshida was in Japan. For all of Soto’s success on contact, his truly elite skill is his plate discipline, and the same was true for Yoshida. In five of his seven seasons in Japan, he ran a walk rate higher than his strikeout rate while posting a 176 wRC+ during his career in his home country. In his final year in NPB, he had the second-lowest strikeout rate and second-highest walk rate among qualified batters.

The transition from Asian leagues to the majors has usually been more difficult for batters than for pitchers. High velocity is the greatest concern, but the quality of breaking and offspeed offerings is much higher as well. For Yoshida, his pitch recognition skills seemed like they’d help him overcome these common problems, even if his overall plate discipline suffered a bit. While he wasn’t able to reach the heights of his career in Japan, he did manage to record a 109 wRC+ in his first big league season, though his 0.6 WAR was certainly lower than the Red Sox were expecting when they signed him to a huge five-year deal. His overall value was hurt by some ugly defense in left field; then again, his glove was never his strength. More concerning was that his approach at the plate worsened as the season went on, leading to a dreadful final two months that greatly diminished what otherwise would have been a successful rookie year.

Through the first three months of the season, everything looked like it was working out; he was posting a 129 wRC+ with 8.7% walk rate and an 11.3% strikeout rate. The plate discipline looked like it had made the transition without any fuss, and he was hitting for some power to top it all off. Unfortunately, over the next three months, things took a turn for the worse, dragging his overall line down to where it ended the season. It’s pretty easy to see what the issue was when you look at his rolling strikeout and walk rates during the season.

From July 1 through the end of the season, he took just seven walks total and his strikeout rate jumped to 17.0%. He continued to produce in July, even as he began to lose his plate discipline, but everything crumbled over the final two months, when he slashed .257/.276/.371 and had a 68 wRC+ across 181 plate appearances.

So what happened to his legendary plate discipline skills that drew comparisons to those of Soto during the second half of the season? Looking under the hood, it seems like he started pressing once he started struggling. When you compare his underlying plate discipline metrics from his time in Japan to his rookie season, you can pretty clearly see where things went wrong.

In Japan, Yoshida’s low swing rates were the backbone of his approach. The qualified batter with the lowest swing rate in the majors last year was Yoshida’s World Baseball Classic teammate Lars Nootbaar (35.3%), followed by Soto (35.7%). At his peak in Japan, Yoshida approached that level of selectivity. This, combined with a low chase rate and high contact percentages on pitches in and out of the zone, was Yoshida’s recipe for success.

During the first half of last season when his plate discipline was still intact, his swing and chase rates looked similar to what he had been running in Japan. Everything trended the wrong way during the second half of the season; he became much more aggressive and started chasing pitches out of the zone at a far higher rate than he had in years.

It’s worth noting that fatigue certainly contributed to Yoshida’s struggles. The schedule in the majors is far more grueling than it is in NPB, where all the games are played in the same time zone and the longest flight takes about 3 1/2 hours. Yoshida was gassed by the end of June, right around the time he lost his approach.

When we’re analyzing a hitter’s plate discipline, looking at swing, chase, and contact rates are usually the most commonly cited metrics because they’re publicly available, but they’re a pretty blunt tool when trying to discern a hitter’s swing decisions. Thankfully, Robert Orr of Baseball Prospectus has done some fantastic work to illuminate this problem. Back in November, he introduced his SEAGER metric, which looks at expected swing or take run values and grades a player’s swing decisions based on what they actually did. It has two components: the rate of hittable pitches taken, which measures aggression; and the rate of bad pitches taken, which measures selectivity.

As you’d expect from the name of the metric, Corey Seager’s swing decisions grade out incredibly well. Juan Soto also does well via this methodology, sitting ninth in baseball in SEAGER and first in selectivity. Based on his reputation and his swing, chase, and contact rates in Japan, you’d expect Yoshida to have a high-selectivity, low-aggression SEAGER profile. That’s not exactly what the data bears out.

Yoshida’s SEAGER was quite poor because he wasn’t aggressive enough on hittable pitches to compensate for his lower-than-expected selectivity, which was roughly league average. For comparison’s sake, I included Soto’s SEAGER metrics above just to marvel at how incredible his ability to lay off bad pitches is.

When we look at the rolling graphs of Yoshida’s SEAGER components, we get a much clearer picture of what happened during his season. First his selection tendency:

We can see that Yoshida was extremely selective early in the season, up near the Soto range, but that cratered as the season went on and only barely recovered by the end of the year. His discerning eye at the plate was supposed to be the elite skill that would help him make the transition to the major leagues. That was the case for the first few months before he lost his way.

His rolling rate of hittable pitches taken doesn’t look much better:

As expected, Yoshida was pretty passive to start out the season, but he became more aggressive as he started to slump and never really recovered. Swinging at hittable pitches more often would be a good thing in a vacuum, but when taken into context with all the other things that were trending the wrong way during Yoshida’s second half, I’m not so sure it helped. Plate discipline is a fine balance between identifying bad pitches to take and being aggressive on good pitches to hit. Yoshida’s strengths seem like they’re more focused on the former, and when he became more aggressive, he threw that balance out of whack.

There were plenty of knock-on effects as Yoshida’s plate discipline deteriorated. Early on in the season, he was producing above average contact quality, helping him post a .174 ISO through the end of June. That metric dropped to .138 during the second half of the season as his contact quality collapsed along with his approach.

Despite seeing some decent results on balls in play in July, his contact quality took a steep dive in that month. Only a high BABIP and a couple of lucky home runs were able to buoy his production. His contact quality improved slightly in August, but he was hitting his batted balls at less than ideal angles, which led to far too many outs. Things got really interesting in September. His batted ball quality rebounded significantly with his highest expected wOBA on contact of the season coming during that month. Unfortunately, his actual results on those batted balls lagged well behind his expected stats. On top of that, he made far less contact that month, when he struck out 23.5% of the time. Still, it’s encouraging to see that his contact quality improved during the final month of the season, even if his discipline hadn’t recovered.

With this additional context, we can paint a pretty clear picture of Yoshida’s season. He started the season with his established approach and things were going well for him. In July, that approach started to unravel as he started swinging much more aggressively. His results on balls in play boosted his batting line that month, but everything collapsed once those hits stopped falling in. When he started slumping, he abandoned his extremely selective approach and his plate discipline never recovered. By the end of the year, his approach was completely unrecognizable from what it was in Japan.

With a full year of experience in the majors now under his belt, Yoshida has a better understanding of what to expect moving forward. His offseason training program was designed to better prepare him for the grind of a major league season, and being less fatigued should make it easier for him to return to form the next time he struggles. As he heads into his second year in the majors, he will need to lean on his excellent pitch recognition skills to sustain his success and pull him out of a slump when he goes cold. And when he inevitably scuffles again, he’ll need to remember why those skills are so critical to his success, so he doesn’t lose himself again.

It’s been a long offseason, one that has felt all the more drawn out because a number of high-profile free agents, including three of the top five in our rankings, remain unsigned. But spring training has begun in earnest and the thwack of baseballs hitting gloves has started to punctuate the air in Arizona and Florida. These power rankings give us a snapshot of where each team stands, though a lot could change between now and Opening Day.

A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the most important components of a team — its offense (wRC+) and its pitching (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by starter and reliever IP share) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. I’ve removed defense from the calculations during the offseason since defensive projections aren’t the most reliable. For these offseason power rankings, I’ve used each team’s projected stats based on their Depth Charts projections, which now include both the 2024 ZiPS projections and the 2024 Steamer projections. The result is a power ranking, presented in tiers below.

The Braves spent a lot of effort this offseason solidifying their place atop the NL pecking order. With an already strong roster, they were surprisingly busy this winter, making nine different trades, the majority of which looked more like an accounting ledger than a major league transaction record. In the end, they bolstered their pitching staff by adding Chris Sale and a handful of bullpen arms and filled the lone hole in their lineup with the mercurial Jarred Kelenic. They’re projected to win five more games than the Dodgers and should have no trouble running the table in the NL East again this year.

The Dodgers did all they could this offseason to try and topple the Braves from the top of the projected standings, signing two Japanese superstars, trading for Tyler Glasnow, and re-signing their franchise talisman. Despite all the money they’ve spent on revitalizing their once-depleted starting rotation, there’s still plenty of risk dragging their projection down. Their talent is undeniable, but it’s unclear how much of it will be healthy and available for the entire season.

The Astros remain the class of the American League despite a pretty quiet offseason. They addressed their biggest pitching need last summer when they reacquired Justin Verlander, though it remains to be seen how long he can fight off Father Time. Houston’s one big addition this offseason was to bring in Josh Hader to strengthen an already elite bullpen and help shorten games even further. The Astros also signed Jose Altuve, the face of their franchise, to a five-year extension that should keep him in Houston through the end of his career. With the rest of the AL playoff picture looking very crowded right now, the Astros stand above the fray as preseason favorites.

This tier really exposes the stark differences between the top teams in the American League versus that same group in the National League, which is not represented here. Even though the Astros are listed in the tier above, all six of the teams in this second tier could wind up being the best team in the AL by the end of the season, and this tier doesn’t even include the reigning World Series champions. It would be hard to imagine any of the next best teams in the NL surpassing the Braves or Dodgers this year. Hopefully that means the AL playoff picture will be crowded and exciting.

The Yankees entered this offseason at a bit of crossroads. Their 2023 season was derailed by injuries to their biggest stars, and they still have far too much money tied up in guys in the decline phase of their careers. They really needed to make a splash to keep up with the rest of the teams in the AL East. And make a splash they did. The one-two punch of Aaron Judge and Juan Soto rivals that of any other team in baseball, and they also managed to add depth in the outfield, with Alex Verdugo and Trent Grisham, and the rotation, with Marcus Stroman. They’ve emerged as the slight favorites in their very competitive division.

The Rays traded Glasnow from their rotation, they won’t have Wander Franco in their lineup, and they’re still projected to finish second in the AL East with 86 wins. Not many other teams in baseball could survive losing two of their top players, much less project to be nearly as competitive. The depth of their roster is unrivaled, giving them plenty of leeway when the inevitable roster attrition begins to take its toll during the season. Unfortunately, their potential ceiling is a little lower without those same top contributors, making their chances of winning the division a little tougher.

The Twins, who cruised to a division title last year, look like they have a clear path to repeat. They still managed to improve their pitching staff and alleviate their infield logjam, even as they cut payroll. Despite the rosy projections, it still feels like the success of their season will hinge on the health of Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa, and Royce Lewis. If that trio is producing regularly, their lineup should be formidable. If not… well, the depth behind those three is rather lackluster.

For a brief moment, it looked like the Blue Jays had pulled off the heist of the offseason — and it involved sushi restaurants, flight trackers, and Canadian billionaires. Hearts across the north were broken when Shohei Ohtani did not step off that private jet in Toronto, and clothes rended asunder when he announced he’d be signing with the Dodgers a few hours later. Anything else the Jays did this offseason had to compete with that disappointment, which is why adding a couple of defense-first players and a 39-year-old designated hitter didn’t exactly generate a ton of excitement.

It was a long and winding road, and some of the individual moves didn’t necessarily make much sense in a vacuum, but the Mariners managed to red paper clip their way into a roster that looks roughly as talented as their squads from the past three seasons. Thanks to a young and talented pitching staff, Seattle is projected to have the best run prevention unit in baseball. That strength alone gives them a shot at toppling the Astros for the top spot in their division. Capping off their revamped lineup with Jorge Polanco gives their offense another middle-of-the-order hitter to help support Julio Rodríguez. They could use one more bat to lengthen their lineup, but that doesn’t seem likely.

After breaking out of their long rebuilding cycle with the AL’s best record last year, the Orioles have had an eventful offseason, though it took a while for the dominos to drop. As the calendar flipped to February, they traded for Corbin Burnes to give them an ace to lead their starting rotation. The very next day, news broke that John Angelos had agreed to sell the team to an investment group led by David Rubenstein. Hopefully, the change brings increased investment to the team, though it’ll probably take a while for those effects to be seen. Meanwhile, the roster looks as good as it did last year and Baltimore still has plenty of young talent on the cusp of making an impact in the big leagues.

The Red Sox don’t have a bad roster — and they were right to bring in Lucas Giolito, Tyler O’Neill, and Vaughn Grissom as complimentary pieces — but they don’t have a great one, either. The problem is that Boston plays in a division with four of the six teams in Tier Two, so it’s not enough to have a roster that is just OK. The Red Sox seem to be trying to straddle that awkward line between building toward the future and maintaining a roster that could luck into a Wild Card spot if enough things break their way.

The Diamondbacks have quietly had a strong offseason to support the squad that surprisingly won the NL pennant last year. They brought in Eduardo Rodriguez to bolster the starting rotation, re-signed Lourdes Gurriel Jr., traded for Eugenio Suárez, and signed Joc Pederson. They’re not splashy moves, but they do fill in some of the cracks that were exposed in the World Series once their good fortune ran out. They won’t challenge the Dodgers for the NL West crown, but they should be right in the thick of the Wild Card race again this season.

You can quibble about who they brought in, but the Cardinals had one job this offseason and they went right after it, signing Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn, and Kyle Gibson to revamp their starting pitching. Those three should be better than the patchwork staff that derailed St. Louis last season. Combined with a strong offensive core and solid bullpen, an improved rotation should be enough for the Cardinals to make last year a one-year blip rather than the start of a long decline.

By re-signing Aaron Nola and calling it an offseason, the Phillies have indicated they’re satisfied with running back the same group that has been so successful over the past two seasons. That’s not a terrible place to be in — back-to-back NLCS appearances is nothing to sneeze at — but it’s also not very aspirational. Of course, it’s hard to have higher aspirations when you have to chase down the Braves in the NL East, so another Wild Card berth will have to do.

It’s weird to see the Rangers this low in the rankings, but they’ve had a relatively quiet offseason for a team that just won a World Series. That said, they can look forward to their lineup continuing to be one of the league’s best, with a full season of Evan Carter and the eventual debut of Wyatt Langford. The problem is their pitching staff. Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, and Tyler Mahle are all expected to return from their respective injuries during the second half of the season. That should give them a formidable playoff rotation should they reach the postseason again, but the onus is on their healthy starters to hold down the fort for the first three months of the season.

There are five NL teams with projections sitting around .500 in this tier, with two more in the tier below, and they’ll all be fighting over one or two Wild Card spots. That should make for a dramatic race, though any one of those teams could begin to separate themselves from the pack by signing any of the free agents still on the market.

The Marlins have been very quiet this offseason — they’re the only remaining team who hasn’t signed a free agent to a major league contract. The moves they have made have been around the margins, bringing in some additional depth and utility types. Once again, they’re going to rely on their young and dynamic pitching staff to carry the load. It worked for them last year, though they benefited from some historic Pythagorean overperformance.

ZiPS actually likes Cleveland’s chances of challenging Minnesota in the AL Central, projecting the two teams to finish with the same record. That’s interesting, considering the Guardians enter this season with mostly the same players as last year’s team that missed the playoffs. But they’ve got a talented pitching staff that could carry them, and they’ll be calling on a couple of their prospects — Brayan Rocchio and Kyle Manzardo — to improve their lineup. It might not be enough, but Cleveland has the potential here to make for an interesting division race if things break right.

Boy, does the Brewers roster look different without Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff leading their rotation. In a wide open division, Milwaukee has opted to try and build toward the future while still hoping for a competitive season in the present. In addition to top prospect Jackson Chourio, the Brewers have a bunch of other exciting youngsters who could make an impact in the big leagues this year. It wouldn’t surprise me to see them right in the thick of the playoff race.

The Cubs stayed competitive until the final week of last season, but they’ve failed to address the big hole on their roster that opened when Cody Bellinger hit free agency. They did sign Shōta Imanaga, which should give them a boost to their starting rotation, and they also picked up Michael Busch from the Dodgers in a savvy little trade. There’s still time to re-sign Bellinger, but until they do, they look like they’re a hair behind the Cardinals in the NL Central.

The Giants finally added some oomph to their lineup by signing Jorge Soler to a three-year deal earlier this week. Along with newcomer Jung Hoo Lee, San Francisco has brought in two solid offensive players to bolster its lineup. The Giants have capable starters across every position, and they have some decent depth, but they still lack the upside to push their projection above .500. They could go out and sign Blake Snell, which would certainly help, but they’re clearly not good enough to challenge the Dodgers for the division. They’ll be stuck fighting with the other high-variance teams in the NL for those last Wild Card spots.

After the death of owner Peter Seidler and a television contract that was suddenly up-in-the-air, the Padres cut payroll after spending lavishly during recent offseasons. The Juan Soto trade helped solve that issue while also restocking their starting rotation. San Diego still has plenty of talent on the big league roster, and top prospect Jackson Merrill is knocking on the door, but the Padres desperately need another outfielder, even after re-signing Jurickson Profar.

The Tigers have spent this offseason filling in the edges of their roster, with righty starters Kenta Maeda and Jack Flaherty being the standout acquisitions. They also handed out a big extension to top prospect Colt Keith; he’ll join the collection of young hitters already in the big leagues. If enough things break its way, Detroit could surprise in the weak AL Central. However, it’s more likely that the Tigers are another year away from the end of their rebuild.

The Reds have the enviable problem of having too many young infielders for not enough spots, and manager David Bell will have to figure out how to get them all regular at-bats while also juggling their development when the inevitable growing pains come along. Even with all that position player talent and the additions of Frankie Montas and Nick Martinez, the projections peg Cincinnati to be right around where it finished last year. That’s not terrible, considering the Reds were in the playoff conversation right up until the last weekend of the season, but they’ll need to get a lot from their youngsters to rise above their current projections.

The Mets fell the furthest of any team in these rankings over the offseason. You get the sense that this year is being treated as an evaluation year by their new president of baseball operations David Stearns as he begins to put his stamp on the organization. There’s still talent on this roster, though. If some of their veterans return to form and Francisco Alvarez and Brett Baty produce, the Mets could challenge for a Wild Card spot.

If the Mets are stuck in the limbo of not rebuilding yet, the Angels are even further out in the cold. They realized they couldn’t replace the production of a unicorn like Shohei Ohtani, so they didn’t try to do that this offseason. Instead, they brought in a pile of relievers and are hoping for a return to health from all of their key contributors on offense. Even if Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon, and Taylor Ward all play full seasons, that still won’t be enough to compete in the crowded AL Wild Card race, and there aren’t many reinforcements coming up through their farm system, either.

Even though they’ve started to graduate some of their prospects, the Pirates are still a step behind the other teams in their division. Oneil Cruz and Ke’Bryan Hayes look like franchise pillars, but Pittsburgh doesn’t have enough to contend just yet.

After signing Bobby Witt Jr. to a franchise-record extension, the Royals face the difficult task of building a winning roster around him. Signing veteran starters Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo to support a beleaguered pitching staff was a good start, but the Royals needed to do more than make incremental moves, and so far, they haven’t. Considering there isn’t much coming through the minor league system, either, Kansas City would probably be better off trading away Wacha and Lugo for prospects during the season to hopefully speed up this rebuild.

The A’s lost 112 games last year, but it’s hard to care about the product they put on the field because of their impending move to Las Vegas. The best thing you can say about Oakland’s roster right now is that it is not projected to be the worst team in the majors. Unfortunately, there’s a serious lack of upside on the big league roster and little high-end talent down on the farm. It’s possible that when (or, at this point, if) the A’s head to Vegas four years from now, they will still be one of the worst teams in baseball.

You’d think the Rockies would’ve learned a valuable lesson after striking gold with their under-the-radar pickup of Nolan Jones last offseason. But instead of working to find more under-appreciated, talented players who are blocked from getting regular playing time elsewhere, they spent this offseason acting as uninspired as ever. Maybe they expect to see some growth from Ezequiel Tovar and healthy seasons from Kris Bryant and Brendan Rodgers, but there isn’t much else to get excited about on this roster.

It’s a sad state of affairs. The most that White Sox fans can look forward to this season is that their team trades its two best players, Dylan Cease and Luis Robert Jr. for the package of prospects that could form the next great South Siders roster. Until they trade those two, the Sox will likely avoid being the worst team in the majors, but the bottom could fall out very quickly after the deadline.

At the end of this season, the Nationals will be one year closer to seeing the fruits of the Juan Soto trade in the majors. That’s the best that can be said about their roster as it’s currently constructed. Sure, CJ Abrams looks mildly interesting as a breakout candidate, and it isn’t the worst plan to bank on Joey Gallo, Nick Senzel, and Jesse Winker returning to form. But make no mistake, this organization is in a holding pattern until its ownership question is answered.

…

The Mariners and Rays had a busy Friday last week, combining to make three trades involving seven players. Seattle got things started with a three-player swap with the San Francisco Giants, shipping Robbie Ray to the Bay Area in exchange for Mitch Haniger, Anthony DeSclafani, and cash considerations. Then the M’s and the Rays exchanged José Caballero and Luke Raley, before Tampa Bay finished off the day by sending Andrew Kittredge to St. Louis for Richie Palacios. Both the Mariners and Rays dealt from areas of strength to address areas of need, giving both teams greater roster clarity as the offseason moves towards spring training.

Just two years ago, the three players involved in the first trade of the day would have garnered much bigger headlines. In 2021, Ray, Haniger, and DeSclafani combined to accumulate 9.4 WAR, with Ray winning the American League Cy Young award. In the two seasons since then, however, the trio has combined for just 3.3 WAR, largely thanks to a litany of injuries. Ray was completely healthy in 2022, but he wasn’t able to replicate his award-winning performance in his first season in Seattle and then made just a single start in 2023 before needing Tommy John surgery. Haniger has never been a model of health — he’s played just two full seasons in his seven-year career — and missed time with ankle, back, oblique, and forearm injuries the past two seasons. DeSclafani managed just five starts in 2022 thanks to a recurring ankle injury, then wore down towards the end of last year with shoulder fatigue and forearm inflammation. Read the rest of this entry »

The true offseason has yet to begin, as teams have begun their annual housekeeping on their rosters, but the big moves have yet to materialize. That means it’s the perfect time to see how they stack up against each other. Think of these power rankings as a glimpse at which teams are close to being ready for 2023 and which teams might have a lot of work to do before even thinking about next season.

A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), their pitching (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by starter and reliever IP share) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. For these offseason power rankings, I’ve used each team’s projected stats based on their Depth Charts projections which are entirely powered by the 2024 Steamer projections at this point. The result is a power ranking, which is then presented in tiers below.

While these offseason power rankings will continue to emulate the format from the past few years, I am working on a new format to the rankings for the 2024 regular season that will hopefully address many of the concerns voiced about the current methodology. I hope to have more to share about what these new rankings will look like in the months ahead. Anyway, to the rankings!

It’s a good sign when the team with the best regular-season record in 2023 is projected to have the best record again the following season. The Braves’ young core is locked up for years, and they look ready to dominate the National League for years to come. They’ve already addressed some needs in their bullpen by re-signing Pierce Johnson and Joe Jiménez, and they’ll likely continue adding to their pitching staff to cover for the loss of Kyle Wright to shoulder surgery. They’ve also got a need for more depth in the outfield. Still, those are small concerns; this roster as it stands would be an easy World Series favorite if the season started today.

The projections will always favor a deep and flexible team like the Rays because their ability to weather the attrition of a long season is easily accounted for in the data. Our current Depth Charts projections have Wander Franco taking the majority of the playing time at shortstop, but the step down to Junior Caminero’s isn’t that drastic. Their pitching staff looks set, with a full season from Tyler Glasnow and the return of Shane Baz hopefully in the cards. They’ll miss the trio of Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen, and Jeffrey Springs, but bringing in Aaron Civale at the trade deadline this year and the emergence of Zack Littell should give them a formidable rotation.

The version of the Astros we saw in 2023 was a diminished one compared to their dominant championship from the year prior, most of which can be attributed to injury woes that plagued them throughout the season. The majority of the core that drove so much of their success in ‘22 will be back next year, but they’ll need to add a bit of depth to their starting rotation. Justin Verlander will be 41 years old in 2024, and there’s no telling what they can expect from Lance McCullers Jr. Read the rest of this entry »

For 25 outs, the Diamondbacks’ plan had worked to perfection. Zac Gallen had worked through five gritty innings, Corbin Carroll and Ketel Marte had given Arizona a lead to hand to the bullpen, and the relief corps had weathered a relentless Rangers lineup. As Paul Sewald entered in the ninth inning with a two-run lead, it looked like the Diamondbacks were on the verge of stealing a victory in Game 1 of the World Series. Corey Seager had other plans. On the first pitch he saw from Sewald, Seager launched a one-out, two-run bomb into the right field stands to tie the game at five.

With the game sent to extra innings, the momentum suddenly swung toward the Rangers, whose potent lineup could end the game quickly, even without the benefit of the Manfred Man on second base to start each inning. After a minor threat was quelled in the 10th, who else but Adolis García had the final word, blasting an opposite field, walk-off home run in the 11th to send Globe Life Field into a state of jubilation. Read the rest of this entry »