Real or surreal: Seven early season MLB surprises
The 2021 MLB season has been full of surprises. Who had the Red Sox, Royals, and Mariners leading the three American League divisions? Who had the Yanks in last place in the AL East? And weren’t the Cubs supposed to at least be decent?
About 16 games into a 162-game season, it’s still hard to be sure which storylines are real and which are just surreal. The White Sox, after all, hired a 76-year-old field manager to preside over the coronation of a budding dynasty. That 8-8 record must be surreal, right?
And who gave the Cincinnati Reds, a team virtually devoid of serious pitching, permission to hold first place in the NL Central? Real or surreal?
Which early season MLB surprises will last?
Seasons always provide surprises of this sort, some of which carry forward. Nobody had the Miami Marlins in playoff contention in 2020, yet the Marlins not only got there, they actually won a postseason series. The Nationals were largely dismissed as perennial also-rans in 2019…until they won the World Series.
So which of the surprising MLB stories from the first three weeks of 2021 stack up as potentially real, and which are just surreal? Below we’re looking at seven teams who, whether for better or worse, simply aren’t doing what everybody expected them to be doing this season.
We’ll look at why each of the seven teams is performing out of line with expectations. Then we’ll assess the percentage likelihood that its current performance pattern is “real” – that it will approximately continue through 2021 – or become a surreal mirage.
New York Mets, 7-4
The Mets completed their weekend agenda in first place in the NL East. Even better, they scored some runs – okay, four runs – for Jacob DeGrom and actually got him a victory. A Mets team that can generate four runs for DeGrom has to be taken seriously.
For Mets fans, though, the best news may be the performance of the rest of the rotation. Marcus Stroman is perfect in his first three starts with a 0.90 ERA. Taijuan Walker has allowed just three earned runs in his 10 innings, and the staff 2.93 ERA ranks right where you’d expect it, fourth in the league behind only the Padres, Dodgers, and Giants.
In Flushing, the question marks often revolve around production. So far in 2021, that’s been up and down. Mets hitters are carrying a collective .246 average – fourth best in the NL – but much of that has gone to waste. The team is scoring just 3.36 runs per game – second worst only to the Giants – and ranks last in base hits.
The apparent legitimate strength of the pitching staff makes New York a plausible prospect to hang around the top of the NL East even considering a schedule replete with matchups against the Braves and Phillies. And for the record, New York is already 4-2 against the Phillies.
The prospect that the offense bogs down the team’s hopes are real enough to worry Mets fans. But DeGrom, Stroman, and Walker have all proven they are capable of doing for a full season what they’ve been doing. That’s a solid foundation on which to build a contender.
Odds that New York’s 7-4 record is real: 73 percent.
Boston Red Sox, 11-6
The Red Sox roasted the Chicago White Sox 11-4 in Monday’s Patriots Day Game, probably the exact opposite of the result most people would have anticipated when they considered that meeting during the preseason.
Boston is coming off a nine-game winning streak and a 7-1 road trip.
In Boston, it’s all about the offense. The Red Sox are first in the AL in average (.277), first in OPS (.788), and second in runs per game (5.31.) A revitalized J.D. Martinez is off to a .364, five-homer start with an other-worldly 1.190 OPS. Xander Bogaerts is batting .386.
The pitching has flourished in that lush offensive environment, sometimes despite so-so numbers. Boston’s 3.68 staff ERA and four runs allowed per game are both upper-third. Nathan Eovaldi, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Nick Pivetta have all been respectable – even occasionally excellent – and that has enabled the Sox’ record to survive occasional lapses by Garrett Richards and Martin Perez.
Still, Red Sox fans ought to be uneasy about that 11-6. They might be asking these questions. Which is more likely: that Eovaldi, Pivetta, and Rodriguez all deliver throughout the MLB season, or that as they falter the pitching performance reverts to expectations, which were so-so at best? The answer is the latter.
Which is more likely: that Martinez stratospherically continues to carry the offense, or that his production returns to normal? Not that there’s anything wrong with Martinez’s normal, but it’s not going to carry a team to wins in nearly two-thirds of its games.
Finally, which is more likely: that Boston‘s AL East competition continues to play sub-.500 ball or that some combination of the Jays, Rays, and Yankees find themselves? The prospect that one or more of those teams catches fire has the feel of inevitability to it.
Odds that Boston’s 11-7 record is real: 29 percent.
New York Yankees, 5-10
Gerrit Cole is 2-1 with a 1.82 ERA in four starts. The rest of the Yankee staff is 3-9 with a 6.11 ERA in 10 starts. That’s a real, system-wide concern and it does not appear to be improving.
With Luis Severino shelved until at least midseason – and no guarantee that he will be the same pitcher when he comes back – the Yanks had hoped to fill with veterans Jameson Taillon and Corey Kluber. Both were coming off injuries. Instead, both have been terrible.
Each in their own way is a legitimate concern. For all the hype and expectation about the Yankees’ signing of Kluber this past winter, the reality is that he hasn’t been any good since 2018. Beyond that, he’s now 35, making the prospects of a good comeback even more questionable.
Taillon is returning from Tommy John surgery. Just two starts into that comeback, it’s obviously too soon to make firm judgments. Let’s just say the results haven’t been reassuring to date: He’s given up seven earned runs in eight innings, allowing 1.44 baserunners per inning.
A fourth starter, Domingo German, has looked bad in his first two starts.
The prospects are better that New York’s equally lackluster offense comes around. The Yanks are averaging 3.67 runs per game on a .210 average – both 14th in the AL. Between Giancarlo Stanton (.176), Aaron Judge (.255), Aaron Hicks (.160), and Gleyber Torres (.196), somebody has to start hitting, don’t they?
But even assuming the offense gets on track, the evidence is mounting that any game not started by Cole is problematic. Certainly, the Yanks have the resources to find an effective midseason mound patch. But can they find two or three… four if Severino does not return effectively?
During a five-game losing streak, the Yankees have given up an average of six runs per game. That could be close to reality.
Odds that New York’s 5-10 record is real: 51 percent.
Kansas City Royals, 9-5
Let’s be fair: There were a few folks this winter who wondered whether the Royals might be a pleasant MLB surprise this season. Almost all of them, of course, live in Kansas City.
For almost everybody else, the judgment was that the White Sox, or the Twins, or possibly the Indians – and probably all three – would dominate the AL Central and thus render Kansas City games irrelevant.
There’s obviously a lot we still don’t know about how legit the Royals are likely to be in the AL Central. Their first 14 games have included only four against divisional opponents: they’re 2-2. What they have done is win series from both the Blue Jays and Angels, two clubs widely seen as on the rise this year.
Aside from Whit Merrifield’s knockout .321/.371/.547 slash line, the Royals haven’t done anything especially remarkable. But they have been consistent. They’re sixth in the AL in runs per game, sixth in OPS, fifth in fewest runs allowed per game, and seventh in team ERA.
They’ve also benefitted from the apparent evenness of the AL Central. None of the league’s supposed big brothers has put anything substantial together, contributing to the impression that the division will be a summer-long fight. And if it’s a fight, why couldn’t it be a four team fight?
That doesn’t mean the Royals are likely to keep up their present .642 winning pace. But they don’t need to do that: in the AL Central, even a .520 summer-long pace might be good enough to contend. That they can do.
Odds that KC’s 9-5 record is real: 61 percent.
Cincinnati Reds, 9-6
When the Reds lost Trevor Bauer from a team that barely broke .500 in the abbreviated 2020 season, the prevailing assumption was that this was a club on the downturn. Instead, the Reds are clinging, if tenuously, to first place in the NL Central. How?
Some of it is the afterglow of a strong start. One week into the season the Reds were 6-1, averaging better than nine runs per game against division rivals St. Louis and Pittsburgh. Since then they’re 4-5.
To date, Reds’ fortunes have risen and fallen with the team’s offense. Cincinnati is averaging eight runs per game in the team’s nine victories, just three runs in its six defeats. So much of the club’s prospect for continued success likely hinges on the level at which the team’s production eventually stabilizes.
Jesse Winker has been a pleasant surprise. He’s batting .368 with a.953 OPS. Give Jesse Winker that level of production all season and the Reds breeze home. That; however, isn’t happening.
On the other hand, Eugenio Suarez is off to an almost invisible .173 start reminiscent of his .202 2020 season. At some point, both Suarez’s and Winker’s averages level off at more realistic levels.
Then the question becomes whether Cincinnati has the pitching to stand up to the rigors of a full MLB season. For now, the numbers are mid-pack: eighth in the NL in ERA and runs allowed per game. Jeff Hoffman, Tyler Mahle, and Wade Miley are off to impressive starts, but all have track records that identify them as average talents at best.
When they and all Winker revert to form, the Reds’ record is likely to do so as well. Happily for the Reds, in the NL Central, that doesn’t knock them out of contention.
Odds that Cincinnati’s 9-6 record is real: 36 percent.
Seattle Mariners, 10-6
One-tenth of the way through the season, the Mariners sit atop the AL West. Nobody predicted that.
The Mariners famously have the longest postseason drought of any team in major American professional sports, 20 seasons entering 2021. The wise money viewed the West as a fight between the Astros and Athletics unless the Angels somehow lived up to their latent talent.
How then do we assess Seattle’s league-leading 10-6 start? Largely as a mirage, that’s how.
That the Mariners have been fortunate is reflected in the club’s 8-8 Pythagorean record. That’s what the team ought to be doing if statistical performance governed. The reality is that the Mariners have scored three fewer runs (70) than they’ve allowed (73) so far this year, a neat and unsustainable trick for a 10-6 club.
Six of the team’s 16 games – that’s 38 percent — have been decided by one run and Seattle has won four of the six. Winning a preponderance of close games is rarely sustainable.
DH Ty France has been an interesting element to date. France is batting .305 with a .925 OPS. Chris Flexen and Justin Dunn are a pair of young pitchers whose performances deserve deeper consideration.
Still, the evidence points to the conclusion that Seattle has been more fortunate than persuasive. Given three more weeks, the bet is that the Mariners can be found receding toward the middle ranks of their division while building a case to be seriously considered in some future MLB season. As usual.
Odds that Seattle’s 10-6 record is real: 15 percent.
Chicago Cubs, 6-9
The Cubs ingloriously reside at the bottom of the NL Central, a division not noted for its depth of talent. Given that Chicago was considered by many to be the best of that division what gives?
First and most obviously, we’re finding out that the Cubs can’t hit the ball. Literally. They’re averaging more than 10 strikeouts per game and batting a majors-worst .192. Granted, that can’t continue. But it doesn’t have to in order to be real trouble.
More than a century ago, in 1910, the Chicago White Sox set the MLB record for the worst team batting average. They hit .212, 20 points higher than the Cubs. Through 15 games, those White Sox were batting .197, five points higher than the 2021 Cubs are today.
The Cubs’ problems run virtually throughout the roster. Four of their eight regulars are batting below .200 and three – leadoff man Ian Happ plus outfielders Jason Heyward and Joc Pederson – are carrying sub. 560 OPS’s. In a game where a .750 OPS is viewed as average, that’s disastrous.
Compounding the team’s problem is the depressing state of the pitching staff. The team ERA is 4.93; only St. Louis is worse. Cub pitchers have walked a major league high 75 opponents, basically one every two innings.
Zach Davies was taken aboard from San Diego in exchange for Yu Darvish because he’s a control guy. Yet he’s walked nine in 11 innings. If Davies, with one of the game’s slowest fastballs, can’t spot the pitch, there’s not much else to recommend him.
This all unfolds against the backdrop of expectation that Cubs management will tear up the team’s core if the Cubs don’t get off to a good start, which they thus far haven’t. It’s likely that Kris Bryant’s dance card is already full. The combination of Bryant getting off to a good start and the Cubs flagging creates a worst-case scenario for those wanting to see Bryant stay: he increasingly has more value on the market than on the field.
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Subtract Bryant and possibly Baez and/or Rizzo and 2021 begins to look like a crater season on the North Side.
Odds that Chicago’s 6-9 record is real: 85 percent.