MLB’s best hitter? Mariners contenders? Rays done? Trade Verlander? 5 burning questions
Baseball continues to be impossible to predict.
The Astros and Rays, the two winningest teams in the American League over the past five years, are both in last place. The Mariners are in first, despite their anemic offense. The Mets are in third, despite nearly all of their stars struggling.
As the four aforementioned teams square off this weekend, including on FOX Saturday Baseball at 7:15 p.m. ET (Mariners-Astros; Mets-Rays), FOX Sports MLB experts Rowan Kavner and Deesha Thosar tackle these topics and more in this week’s roundtable.
1. The Mariners’ rotation is coming off of a historical run, but how serious of a contender is this club? What would you like to see Seattle do between now and the trade deadline?
Thosar: The Mariners will go as far as their pitching (and Julio Rodríguez‘s bat) takes them. And so far, that rotation is making the M’s look like the real deal. Seattle leads all of MLB with 19 quality starts, which is nothing to sneeze at in today’s game, where the innings eaters and workhorses are going the way of the dinosaurs. The Mariners need their pitching to remain dependable and continue their strong, unflappable run between now and the trade deadline. But it’s quite the delicate balance. You don’t want arms to be overworked and overtaxed in the long season, and you also want consistency every fifth day from every starter.
The Mariners’ strength is a bit too centralized for my liking, because they can’t afford to lose any of their top players without decent depth. But there is also no replacing a Luis Castillo or a Logan Gilbert. So Seattle just has to like what it’s seeing right now, and proceed with caution regarding injury scares. Pitching wins October, and the Mariners just need their starters to be healthy and effective to get them there. Then they can let their stingy arms do the talking.
Kavner: Their starting pitching makes them a legit contender. I thought before the season the Mariners rotation would be the best in baseball, and for that reason also picked Seattle as my dark horse American League team. Even if the Mariners aren’t hitting, their bevy of elite arms should keep them in every game. Still, this team could use more offensive firepower (which we all said in the offseason, too).
After finishing with the second-most strikeouts and the ninth-worst batting average in baseball last year, the Mariners moved on from Eugenio Suárez and Teoscar Hernández and added Jorge Polanco and Mitch Garver to try to fix some of those issues and … have struck out more than any team in baseball and compiled the third-worst batting average in the sport. The offensive issues have gotten worse. They’re not slugging, either, which makes their 17-14 record all the more remarkable — and a testament to the work their incredible pitching has done.
Taking into account the inevitable second-half Julio Rodríguez surge, they still probably need to add another offensive force at the deadline to make a deep run, whether it’s a corner infielder or outfielder.
2. Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez are back, and Cristian Javier is on track to return soon. Do you expect the Astros to climb back into playoff contention or is this already a lost season? (How soon) would you shop Verlander?
Kavner: At some point they have to actually start playing a decent brand of baseball, but I (gulp) still wouldn’t count them out yet. As bad as it’s been — and it has been horrendous — a 6.5-game hole is hardly insurmountable. Getting healthy in the rotation is huge, considering the Astros’ depth struggles there, but those pitchers can’t fix the shocking issues in a bullpen that is currently 3-10 with a 4.77 ERA.
Still, Josh Hader’s expected stats are much better than the actual results he has produced, and Bryan Abreu and Ryan Pressly have started to right the ship. If those three guys at the back end pitch even close to the way most expected, and if those returning starters can provide more length, and if Alex Bregman can get right offensively (I’m not holding my breath on a José Abreu turnaround), Houston still has time to turn things around. I wouldn’t start looking to sell unless we’re still having these same conversations at the deadline.
Thosar: The Astros should slowly but surely get their groove back with all of those familiar faces returning. Verlander, Valdez and Javier, in particular, supply the type of cut-throat competitive attitude Houston has so far lacked this season. I’m expecting the rest of the roster to begin feeding off that energy — as long as they keep putting up good numbers. A lot has to go right for the Astros to clamber out of the AL West basement, but it is telling that if the season ended today, their seven-year ALCS streak would come to a crashing halt.
Good thing for Houston, then, that it still has plenty of season left and all the track record in the world to continue convincing us that it will find its way back to the top of the division. I’m not writing off the Astros from being in playoff contention until/if they drop more than 10 games behind the division leader. Check back on the position of the club in six weeks or so before any talks about trading Verlander have serious momentum.
3. Roughly 30 games into the season, the Mets (16-15) are at about where most expected. The surprise has been how much the pitching has overachieved — and how much the offense has underachieved. Is that a good or bad sign for their 2024 prospects?
Kavner: I would say good. Francisco Lindor won’t hit .195 all year and has started to turn things around, Brandon Nimmo should have better days ahead, and J.D. Martinez’s injection into the lineup should ideally provide a boost to a team that has struggled to slug to this point. The bigger concern is losing Francisco Álvarez, so for now it’s just a matter of staying in contention until Álvarez and Kodai Senga return roughly a month from now. If Luis Severino, Sean Manaea and José Buttó are still performing this way once those guys return, the Mets have to feel pretty decent about staying in contention.
Thosar: It is definitely a nice surprise for the Mets that their pitching staff as a whole ranked eighth in ERA in MLB entering Thursday, but take a closer look and their starting pitching has been in the bottom third of the league without rotation ace Kodai Senga. Another concerning trend for the rotation is their lack of punchouts. Mets starters rank 26th in strikeouts per nine innings. Senga is expected to return from injury by the end of the month, so these numbers should absolutely improve by the All-Star break, perhaps giving David Stearns a better idea of what to do at the trade deadline (answer: get another starter).
As for the Mets’ offense, it’s the same group as last year — with the exception of J.D. Martinez. So far, those bats are performing the same way they did last year, which is to say they’re league average. The difference is Eric Chavez is back to handling hitting coach duties this year, and he created a tight group with outstanding results in the 2022 season. That year, the Mets finished with a top four offense in MLB on the way to their first playoff appearance in six years.
The Mets have shown flashes of that 2022 team, particularly during their series win against the Dodgers, so as long as they’re hanging around in the tough NL East, that tells me they have a chance for a special, if unexpected, run this year.
4. This is the worst baseball we’ve seen from the Rays in several years, yet they’re not buried in the gauntlet that is the AL East. Is this more likely a case of a bad month or a bad team?
Thosar: I don’t know if it was getting swept by the — gasp! — White Sox, or losing eight of their past 10 games, or playing the weakest schedule in the major leagues, or a combination of all three, but those are the makings of a bad team, not just a bad month. The Rays have fallen four games below .500 for the first time since June 2018.
Most concerning is the Rays’ offense and the power outage the bats are suffering from. Their abysmal .358 slugging percentage has fallen to 25th in the league. They’re even struggling to generate runs, having scored just two runs (or fewer) in six of their past nine games. Adding to the many offensive woes, Tampa Bay has the sixth-highest strikeout rate in MLB. The longer this continues, the harder it will be for the Rays to dig out of their hole and make the necessary in-season, team-wide adjustments.
Kavner: A couple of weeks ago, I thought it was too early to be worried about them. I’m considerably more concerned now. Their best hitters aren’t hitting, the bullpen remains a concern and injuries continue piling up. The only American League team with a worse run differential than the Rays is the White Sox, who last weekend swept Tampa Bay and doubled their win total for the season in the process. That shouldn’t happen to good teams, regardless of what they’re going through.
There’s no way Yandy Díaz and Randy Arozarena continue hitting this poorly (although Arozarena’s numbers in particular are extremely concerning), but I don’t see them chasing down the Orioles or Yankees, and I don’t foresee a playoff berth, which would make this year their first time missing the dance since 2018. Sweet new City Connects, though.
5. Zooming out beyond this early part of the season, who deserves the title as the best hitter in baseball?
Thosar: A highly acceptable response would be Mookie Betts, but the real answer is Juan Soto. No, it’s not because Soto has a couple more home runs than Betts. It’s not because Soto’s walk rate is higher than the Dodgers’ leadoff batter. It’s also not because Soto has more RBIs than Betts. In reality, most of Betts’ offensive metrics are better than Soto’s to start the year. If we’re looking at numbers alone, sure, Betts deserves the title as the best hitter in baseball. However, among the top five hitters in MLB right now by OPS+, Soto is the only member of that group playing for a new team (Ohtani is sixth).
If you recall, Soto did not enjoy even close to the same hot start with his former new team in the Padres. It’s difficult to bring the same elite approach at the plate all while figuring out where he’s even going to live in New York, but Soto has done just that. The off-field concerns typically associated with switching to a new organization in a new city have not impacted Soto’s performance at the plate in the slightest. It’s a powerful strength that goes beyond the numbers.
Kavner: If I had to pick one player I’d want taking an important at-bat, my answer would probably be Yordan Álvarez. But if we’re strictly talking about who deserves the title as best hitter in baseball, it’s Aaron Judge. While there are other worthy competitors here (Álvarez, Judge’s teammate Juan Soto, Mike Trout and the entire trio atop the Dodgers’ lineup, to name a few), Judge has pretty clearly been the best hitter in the game over the past few years. Even last year dealing with injury, he still finished with 37 homers in 106 games and an OPS over 1.000.
You’ll DEFINITELY want to avert your eyes from his rough start to the 2024 season, but even if you include his mediocre first month, he still ranks first in OPS and wRC+ in MLB dating back to 2020, 2021 and 2022, and he entered this year with an absurd 178 OPS+ and 138 homers in 411 games over the past three seasons. No one else has approached that level of greatness.
Deesha Thosar is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on Twitter at @RowanKavner.
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