After securing a mini-sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Chicago Cubs have actually won the season series against "baseball's best team" 4-3. Considering they lost both games in Tokyo that officially kicked on the 2025 season, it's a testament to the North Siders' talent that they won four of their last five against the defending World Series champions.
At 16-10, the Cubs are comfortably in first place in the NL Central, which is where they expected to be when the season began.
Considering that top prospect Matt Shaw was quickly demoted after a disappointing debut month and staff ace Justin Steele is done for the season following elbow surgery, it's impressive just how good the Cubs have been despite playing baseball's hardest schedule in April.
Carson Kelly carrying Cubs with historically great start at the plate
A lot of players are worth crediting for this torrid start. Pete Crow-Armstrong and Kyle Tucker are baseball's best outfield tandem, combining for a whopping 3.5 fWAR through 26 games. Colin Rea (1.32 ERA) and Matthew Boyd (2.54 ERA) deserve a lot of adulation for propping up a rotation that has been let down by everyone not named Shota Imanaga. And for all the talk about the calamitous bullpen, Porter Hodge and Julian Merryweather have emerged as darn fine set-up men.
However, there's no doubt who the story of the 2025 Chicago Cubs is. After years of fumbling around with Yan Gomes, Tucker Barnhart, Luis Torrens, and others, the team has finally found a partner for catcher Miguel Amaya.
You may have missed when Carson Kelly signed a two-year, $10 million deal with the Cubs considering it took place on the same day the team traded for Tucker. You certainly aren't missing what he's doing now.
Through 54 plate appearances, Kelly is slashing — are you ready for this? — .342/.519/.895 — good for a 264 wRC+. By at least that latter metric, the Cubs' second starting backstop has been 164 percent better than the average hitter in the MLB this season.
Now, Kelly doesn't have enough at-bats to qualify yet, but let's have some fun while we're here. The MLB leader in wRC+ is Aaron Judge (at a preposterous 258). Kelly has been six points better than that. Judge also leads the league in OPS at 1.247. The gap between that and Kelly's 1.413 mark is as large as the gap between Judge and fifth-place Kyle Tucker.
Still not convinced that Kelly is having one of the greatest months in baseball history? How about this: Kelly has struck out four times in his 54 plate appearances, compared to 14 (!) walks. His Baseball Savant page is redder than blood, and if he had enough at-bats to qualify, he'd rank in the 90th percentile or higher in the following categories: xwOBA, xBA, xSLG, exit velocity, barrel%, hard-hit%, chase%, strikeout rate, and walk rate. Yes, that's basically all of them.
Throw your small sample size caveats out the window and just enjoy what this 30-year-old catcher is doing. Even the best players in the world rarely ever get this hot.
But even the best players in the world aren't Carson Kelly.