10 position players off to surprisingly hot starts in 2024 MLB season
![Apr 14, 2024; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; Baltimore Orioles outfielder Colton Cowser (17) celebrates](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_3600,h_2025,x_0,y_0/c_fill,w_752,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/ImagnImages/mmsport/135/01hvhta7nx0yavwn4hb0.jpg)
Two weeks into the season is too early to reliably project the big surprises for the full course of the 2024 season. Unless you’re a fan. In that case, it’s the nature of what you do.
This is a look at 10 position players whose performances over the season’s first two weeks have been off-the-chart surprising. Each of them came into the season with, at best, modest expectations, but each to date has been a team catalyst.
10 position players who've been surprising catalysts in 2024
Michael Busch, Chicago Cubs first baseman. Although he earned Dodgers’ minor league player of the year honors, Busch’s major league path was blocked by Freddie Freeman, so they gifted him to the Cubs in an offseason deal. It hasn’t taken long for Busch to solidify his status as an offensive centerpiece.
He entered play Monday night with a .327 batting average, a 1.087 OPS and five home runs, four of them in consecutive games. With Seiya Suzuki, he co-leads the team in positional WAR; he also leads all regulars in batting average, on base percentage (.393) and slugging (.694).
Colton Cowser, Baltimore Orioles outfielder. Cowser is a rookie who made the team out of spring training as a bench player, but graduated to something approaching full-time duty last week. In the six games since that promotion, he’s hitting .435 with four homers and a dozen RBI…that’s two per game.
Despite his late start, Cowser leads the team in homers (four), and is tied for the RBI lead (13). His Bondsian 1.444 OPS isn’t sustainable, but for the present, it ranks No. 1 in all of MLB.
Andres Gimenez, Cleveland Guardians second baseman. The word on Gimenez entering 2024 was a nice, polite middle infielder on a nice, polite AL Central lightweight team. The truth on both counts has been anything but.
The Guardians are off to an 11-5 start that has them first in their division, and Gimenez is a big reason why. He’s batting .310 – that’s 50 points above his career average – with an .813 OPS that is 60 points above his career norm.
Ryan McMahon, Colorado Rockies third baseman. The Rockies may be off to a dreadful start, but it could be worse. They could be doing it without McMahon.
Through his team’s first 16 games, McMahon is batting .373 with a 1.016 OPS. Both figures lead the Rockies by imposing amounts. He leads the team in RBI (11), walks (10), hits (22), and slugging (.559).
Josh Naylor, Cleveland Guardians first baseman. In tandem with Gimenez, Naylor has juiced a Cleveland offense that ranks sixth in all of baseball in OPS and eighth in runs per game. He’s the power source, with four home runs on a team that’s only hit 16 of them.
Naylor’s batting .347 with a dozen RBI and a healthy .431 on base average. Combine that with his .673 slugging and you have a 1.116 OPS. In short, Naylor’s doing what Guardians fans always dreamed he might someday do, but which he never has.
Logan O’Hoppe, Los Angeles Angels catcher. If it isn’t putting too much pressure on him, the 24-year-old O’Hoppe has begun 2024 playing like the next Mike Trout. He, not Trout and not Anthony Rendon, is a major reason why the Angels are hanging around .500 and in contention in their division.
O’Hoppe’s .364 batting average is 128 points above his 2023 performance; his on-base percentage and OPS are improved by similarly astronomical amounts. He leads the Angels in average and on base, and if he keeps it up, he would reach 7.0 WAR by season’s end. That won’t happen, but it doesn’t diminish O’Hoppe’s meteoric start.
Tyler O’Neill, Boston Red Sox outfielder. Like Marcell Ozuna, Adolis Garcia and Randy Arozarena before him, O’Neill basically got ejected from St. Louis only to prosper in his landing spot.
Happy in Boston, O’Neill entered play Tuesday on track to produce career highs in batting average (.304), on base (.448), slugging (.761), and OPS (1.209). He’s already hit seven home runs, although due to lack of support they’ve only netted eight RBI.
Jurickson Profar, San Diego Padres left fielder. Once the game’s hottest prospect, Profar at age 31 now profiles as a useful journeyman. Yet his hot start is one of the principal reasons why the Padres, 9-9, remain competitive in the NL West. He showed it again Sunday, delivering the hit that brought down the Dodgers.
Through 18 games, Profar is hitting .321 with a .960 OPS. That leads a team whose lineup includes Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts and Fernando Tatis Jr. Only Tatis leads him in hits, and only Jake Cronenworth leads him in RBI.
Spencer Steer, Cincinnati Reds left fielder. The Reds are a team full of surprises. Journeyman Nick Martini has found a powerful home at DH, Elly De La Cruz is making it at shortstop, and Frankie Montas has blossomed as the staff’s elder statesman. But nobody has made a bigger contribution to the team’s start than Steer.
The second-year outfielder (after a 28-game cameo in 2022) is hitting .346 with an imposing .477 on base average and a .677 slugging rate. In 15 games, he’s already driven in 18 runs. Stretch that over a full season – which Steer won’t – and you’ve got 194 RBI, breaking Hack Wilson’s record of 191. His 18 base hits, more than one per game, includes 10 for extra bases.
Anthony Volpe, New York Yankees shortstop. Coming off his .209 rookie season, the assumption was that Volpe’s defense was good enough to justify a .250 average, if he could produce it. Volpe thus far has blown through that assumption.
Fifteen games into the season, he’s batting .382, not bad in a lineup that also includes Aaron Judge, Juan Soto and a cast of thousands. Volpe also leads the Yanks in on base, slugging and OPS; in other words, every offensive category that counts. He also leads in defensive runs saved.
Jesse Winker, Washington Nationals outfielder. The Nats signed Winker in February as potential midseason trade bait. Two weeks in, the market may never be hotter.
Winker is off to a .341 start for his new team, leading the league in on base average at .482. This from a guy who hit .199 last season in Milwaukee. Winker already has nearly half as many hits as he had all last season with the Brewers, and those have come in just a quarter of his 2023 at bats. On top of that, he’s walked once every six plate appearances, the fuel for that on base average.
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