Biggest Surprises in Baseball To Date
The MLB Trade Deadline has come and gone. Now, the focus is on the final weeks of the regular season as teams prepare for the postseason. Although the sample size still isn’t that big, every team besides the St. Louis Cardinals and Miami Marlins have played at least 35 games. That means that there is a more adequate sample of what is true and what isn’t necessarily an anomaly around baseball.
Therefore, now might be a more reasonable time to look at some of the true surprises around baseball. The first month of the season is over, the postseason hunt is on, and position players along with pitchers have mostly reached their peak performance.
With that being said, here are five of the biggest surprises around baseball so far.
1. New York Mets Lineup
Heading into this season, the New York Mets lineup certainly looked like it had a lot of potential on paper. After all, the team has reigning National League Rookie of the Year Award winner Pete Alonso at first base and the DH spot along with Dominic Smith and outfielder Michael Conforto. Those three are the main heart and core of the Mets lineup. Entering play on Saturday, the team was batting .271/.350/.445 collectively over a sample of 1,477 plate appearances. Among the rest of baseball, that gives the Mets the highest on-base percentage of all 30 teams, and they are seventh overall in slugging percentage. Additionally, the Mets have are tied for third in Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+) with the Los Angeles Dodgers (118) and have the fourth-highest Offensive ranking (30.2) in baseball according to FanGraphs. For all that has gone wrong off the field from a Public Relations standpoint for the Mets, this is some very good news.
2. The Minnesota Twins Pitching Staff
On paper, the Minnesota Twins didn’t necessarily enter this season with a pitching staff that looked like it would be among baseball’s best. However, heading into play Saturday, Minnesota’s pitching staff has a 3.54 ERA as a unit which puts them third in the MLB. There have been a number of contributors in their group that has made it so successful. One of those is right-hander Matt Wisler who currently leads the team relievers with a 0.96 ERA over 18 and two-thirds innings. Additionally, you can’t overlook the 11.2 K/9 rate that Tyler Duffey has racked up or the amazing comeback story of Caleb Thielbar. In the starting rotation, there have been a number of key contributors including offseason acquisition Kenta Maeda and right-hander Randy Dobnak. The Twins are going to have their work cut out for them given the success of the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox. However, having an effective pitching staff is a step toward winning the division.
3. The Success of the Toronto Blue Jays Bullpen
If the postseason started today, the Toronto Blue Jays would have the second Wild Card spot or the eighth seed in the American League. In addition, going into play Saturday, the team is tied with the New York Yankees with a 21-17 record. Keep in mind that both the Blue Jays and Yankees meet ten more times before the regular season concludes! Now, one of the reasons why Toronto has been so successful is because of their bullpen. The Blue Jays currently have the fourth-best bullpen ERA (3.08) in baseball. Beyond that, Toronto’s relievers have combined for the lowest Home Runs-Per-9 rate in the MLB (0.63). Easily, the most effective reliever of the bunch has been right-hander A.J. Cole who has a 1.02 ERA over 17 and two-thirds innings. Rafael Dolis has also been effective with a 1.45 ERA over 18 appearances and you can’t forget about Ryan Borucki. Borucki has a 13.9 K/9 rate entering play Saturday.
4. Defense of the St. Louis Cardinals
Rewind back to the 2018 regular season for a moment. That’s when Mookie Betts and Christian Yelich were MVP, the Milwaukee Brewers won the National League Central, and the aforementioned St. Louis Cardinals defense was among the worst in baseball. Now, fast forward to last season when the Cardinals finished with 91 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) and accumulated a Defensive rating of 39.8 according to FanGraphs. The success of that defense has carried over to this season. Entering Saturday, the Cardinals rank third in all of baseball with a 7.7 Defensive rating. Additionally, the team has accumulated 21 DRS and has the sixth-highest Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) at 6.7. Shortstop Tommy Edman has been a major factor in the team’s overall defensive success with 3 DRS along with left fielder Tyler O’Neill who has accumulated 4 DRS along with a UZR rating of 1.7. As they say, pitching and defense win baseball games. Now, if only that success could carry over to the offensive side of the equation for St. Louis.
5. The Miami Marlins
When looking back on this season, the best story that might end up coming out of it is the success of the aforementioned Miami Marlins. Going into play Saturday, the team currently holds the first National League Wild Card spot or the seventh overall seed. That means they would end up making the postseason for the first time since 2003 when they won the World Series against the New York Yankees. Fluke season or not, that is certainly something to celebrate if you’re a Marlins fan. Additionally, what makes it even more remarkable is the fact that the team experienced a Covid-19 related outbreak earlier this season. That derailed their play for seven consecutive days and has led to plenty of doubleheaders. Speaking of defense, the Marlins defense hasn’t been shabby either with 10 DRS and a UZR of 6.9 which ranks fifth in all of baseball. The starting pitching has been very effective as well. As a unit, Miami’s rotation has posted a 3.97 ERA over 145 innings with a 23.3% strikeout percentage.
Final Thoughts
In the end, everyone knew that a 60-game season was going to bring surprises. We can look at every team on paper and try to make predictions about what’s going to happen. At the end of the day though, players and teams end up surpassing those expectations and proving many of us wrong. That’s exactly what has happened to this point and the aforementioned five examples are clear illustrations of just that.
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