10 position players off to surprisingly hot starts in 2024 MLB season

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.