MLB Mailbag: Cardinals, Mets, Red Sox, Phillies, Mize
This week's mailbag gets into the Cardinals' strong start, the Mets' terrible offense, what a Mets, Red Sox, or Phillies sell-off might look like, Casey Mize's contract year, and more.
Andrew asks:
I came into the year with low expectations for the Cardinals, but we still have a decent record. How long would the Cardinals need to maintain a winning record before I get any hopes up about making the playoffs?
FanGraphs is much more optimistic than PECOTA on this team, so we'll go with their 13.5% playoff odds. The Cardinals have played .552 ball through 17.9% of their season, but FG calls for .462 from here on out. If the Cards instead play .500 ball for their final 129, they'll win 82-83 games, which might put them firmly in the mix for a wild card spot until the end.
At 4.83 runs scored per game, the Cardinals' offense ranks sixth in the NL. If they actually get into the neighborhood of 800 runs, it'd be impressive for any team, not just one that entered the season with low expectations.
Nine Cardinals players have 60+ PA and account for 85% of the team's total:
- Ivan Herrera - 138 wRC+. The Statcast metrics are strong, and even if Herrera can't maintain a 17% walk rate, his .278 xBA and .471 xSLG suggest this is mostly real. If so, the Cardinals have a lineup cornerstone at DH/catcher through 2029.
- JJ Wetherholt - 132 wRC+. The highly-regarded rookie is getting on base and exceeding expectations. He'll slump at some point, but with a 70 hit grade and 55 power, one can make the case for strong production to continue even if it looks different (such as a higher batting average).
- Alec Burleson - 115 wRC+. He has a track record at this level, so this is reasonable.
- Jordan Walker - 153 wRC+. If this holds up, Walker is a top ten hitter in baseball. Maybe that's optimistic, but the breakout is backed by Statcast.
- Nolan Gorman - 81 wRC+. He hasn't really hit since 2023, though he's OK against righties and looks fine at third base this year. If the Astros fall further, could the Cardinals make a trade for Isaac Paredes?
- Masyn Winn - 103 wRC+. He's hitting to expectations.
- Victor Scott II - 39 wRC+. Scott isn't in there for his bat, but seems best-suited for a fourth outfielder role.
- Nathan Church - 106 wRC+. The speedy 25-year-old came into the year as just a 40-grade prospect and may also lack the bat to be a starter, but he hit well in the upper minors. I'm not sure I'd want Scott and Church in the same lineup, but they are a strong defensive pair. Thomas Saggese is in this mix, and prospect Joshua Baez could join it if he cuts down on strikeouts.
- Pedro Pages - 106 wRC+. Pages does have a little bit of pop, but he probably can't keep this up.
Lars Nootbaar underwent surgery in October to address deformities in his heels, and could be a great June addition capable of a 115-120 wRC+. If Nootbaar has a setback, a trade for the aforementioned Duran or Marsh could be interesting. You can't help but wonder how good this offense would look had the Cardinals retained Contreras and Brendan Donovan, though.
Bottom line, though: there's something here with this offense, especially if Nootbaar can provide a boost. And this also seems to be one of the better defenses in the NL. What about the pitching side?
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The Reds’ Confusing April
The Reds are out to an early lead in the NL Central. Their 19-10 record is tied with San Diego's for third-best in the Senior Circuit, narrowly behind the Braves and Dodgers. They're on track for their best record in a month since June 2023.
It doesn't necessarily come as a surprise that the Reds have been competitive. They were a playoff team a year ago, and the division is one of the more wide open in MLB. Yet the way they've gotten to this start is more perplexing. Their two best starters haven't thrown a pitch. The back of their rotation has been knocked around. Their bullpen is walking more hitters than any other in MLB. They've had arguably the NL's least productive catching tandem and outfield.
How have they overcome all of that? The lineup has been carried by two players: one established star and a rookie who already looks like an impact slugger. Let's dig in beyond the scorching starts from Elly De La Cruz and Sal Stewart to gauge what the front office might prioritize when they start sketching out deadline plans 6-8 weeks from now.
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Trade Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript
Steve Adams
- Good afternoon! We'll get going at 2:30 CT, but feel free to begin sending in questions ahead of time!
- Greetings! Let's get going
MartiansArrival?
- Waiting to outmaneuver others in my league. When will the transaction to bring The Martian up happen?
Steve Adams
- A bit late now! The Yankees made it official 45 minutes ago, or thereabouts. As I noted this morning though, it could be a quick turnaround. He's a candidate to be optioned later this week when Volpe comes off the IL, especially since the Yankees haven't announced an IL placement for Stanton, which at least suggests they might ride it out in hopes of avoiding an IL stint for him entirely
Beano
- closer question - is A Santazela a potential closer in Denver? E Miller in SF? G Varland in DC? All of these guys are on our waiver wire and I wonder if they might be sneaky good grabs.
Steve Adams
- I did not have "Antonio Senzatela bullpen breakout" on my 2026 bingo card, and yet 18 innings into the season, I'm cautiously buying it. The Colorado bullpen is a mess, and he's probably the best guy they have right now, so yeah I can see him taking over the ninth. He already has two saves.I'm bigger on Keaton Winn in San Francisco than I am Miller, whose command is still pretty wobbly.Varland's durability has been nonexistent in recent years, so while I'm intrigued by the showing thus far, I don't have faith that he'll hold up.
Bradke Hrbek
- Time for Sim W-R to move to the bullpen? He's pretty decent the first time through the lineup, but it's awfully shaky after that...
Steve Adams
- He hasn't even been that great the first trip through the order this year, but yeah, I think that move has to be made eventually. He had a nice finish last season -- 3.00 ERA over his final 14 starts -- but needed a .203 BABIP to get there.His velocity has kind of oscillated throughout his career as a starter. I'd be a little curious to just see him letting loose for an inning or two at a time.Twins haven't had the rotation health to make that move, but if Abel comes back in short order, I could see them going Ryan-Bradley-Ober-Abel-Prielipp, with Rojas the next guy up (or maybe piggybacking with Prielipp).
They've given SWR plenty of chances in the rotation over the years, and it still seems hard to count on him as more than a pretty mercurial fifth starter.
Snoozy
- Tatis. Tell me it's April and this too shall pass.
Steve Adams
- It's April, and this too shall pass. :)I do genuinely think he's fine. Contact rate in the zone is actually up. Bat speed's good. He's hitting too many grounders, so maybe there's something off in his swing mechanics; maybe he's chasing below the zone too much (his case rate is up a bit, although not egregiously so)I'd be more concerned if there were some giant drop in bat speed or if he were chasing at a crazy high level or seeing major contact losses (especially in the strike zone). None of that's happening.
Red Sox
- True or False - Last year in Milwaukee will be the best year of Durbin's career. Follow up. true or false - we got WORKED in that deal.
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Can Any Expected Contenders Escape The Early Holes They’ve Dug?
It's commonplace for at least one postseason hopeful to run into unexpected struggles early in the season. In the past, we've seen World Series aspirants and Wild Card hopefuls alike shoot themselves in the foot with sloppy April sequences that jeopardize their visions of October baseball. In some instances -- the 2022 Phillies, the 2024 Mets and, most notably, the 2019 Nationals -- teams are able to rally and make good on those playoff goals. For those 2019 Nats, they went so far as to win the whole thing. Nary a baseball fan in D.C. will ever forget the significance of the 19-31 record they faced roughly one-third of the way through the season.
More commonly, however, a disappointing April can prove to be a backbreaker. Fans need only look as far back as the 2025 Orioles to see a would-be contender whose awful early performance sunk their season before it ever had a chance to get going in earnest. The Orioles wrapped up April with a 12-18 record. By the midway mark of May, they were 15-27 -- buried by nine and a half games in the American League East and with their postseason hopes all but dashed.
There have been plenty of oddities so far in the 2026 season. Munetaka Murakami and Colson Montgomery are the first pair of teammates in MLB history with active streaks of homers in four or more consecutive games. (Oh, and Miguel Vargas has gone deep in three straight.) We're about one-sixth of the way through the season and Mason Miller has fanned a superhuman 71% of his opponents through 11 1/3 innings. Tigers phenom Kevin McGonigle, who skipped Triple-A entirely and broke camp as a 21-year-old, ranks fourth in the majors in Baseball-Reference WAR or fifth in FanGraphs WAR, if you prefer.
But the strangest development of the 2026 doesn't focus on any one player's individual efforts. To see the most bizarre facet of the season's first month requires a step back and a more macro look at the league as a whole.
Entering play Thursday, the four worst teams in baseball weren't the Rockies, Nationals, Twins or any other widely expected cellar dweller. Instead, the bottom-four records belong to the Royals, Phillies, Mets and Red Sox -- four clubs that entered the season with clear designs on contending. Fifth-worst are the White Sox -- not terribly surprising -- followed by the sixth-worst Astros. One game up in the standings are the Blue Jays and Mariners, last year's ALCS opponents.
In any given year, seeing one or two of these clubs faceplant out of the gate wouldn't be all that remarkable. Teams fall short of expectations all the time -- often well short. But to see seven clubs who entered 2026 as win-now teams populate bottom-10 spots in the leaguewide standings with more than four weeks of the season in the books is fairly incredible.
Is the season lost for any of these clubs? Not quite yet, but the margin for error has all but eroded. For most of these clubs -- especially the bottom four -- it's going to take something close to .600 ball the rest of the way to end up in contention. Let's take a look at this year's most disappointing clubs at the season's one-month mark to see if there's a chance of a rebound and, if not, who they might have to begrudgingly listen on at this year's Aug. 3 trade deadline.
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Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript
Anthony Franco
- Good afternoon, hope all is well!
- Looking forward to another of these, let's get it going
M
- Which under .500 teams do you think are most likely to make the post season, and which above .500 teams do you think are most likely to regress and miss out?
Anthony Franco
- Seattle on the positive side. There are a handful of teams a little above .500 that I doubt are playoff teams (A's, Tampa Bay, St. Louis) but most of the teams at the top of the league feel about right
- Cincinnati's the exception, I guess, but they're a viable NL Central threat or Wild Card team even if they're punching above their weight right now
JimJam
- Realistic expectations for Giolito in SD?
Anthony Franco
- Better than Matt Waldron, Germán Márquez and Walker Buehler
- Would guess he's a true talent mid-4.00s ERA pitcher at this point but a fine fifth starter. More intrigued by what they'll get out of Canning once he comes back though
Guest
- How much longer are the Brewers going to let the left side of the infield not hit before making a change?
Anthony Franco
- Just don't have alternatives right now. Jett Williams and Cooper Pratt aren't hitting in Triple-A and they clearly don't trust Tyler Black there defensively
- Calling up 18-year-old Jesús Made straight from Double-A (where he has 23 games played) is too aggressive. Maybe by late season he forces his way into the picture but just have to ride it out for now
Dave Dombrowski
- It's July 15 and the Phillies are 15 games out of a playoff spot. Zach Wheeler, who has promised to retire after the possibly unplayed 2027 season, is pitching reasonably well and improving with each start. Do I trade him for the best available return, or hope '26 is a blip and '27 is actually played?
Anthony Franco
- Can't see any way that Wheeler's getting traded. They have to assume the '27 season is getting played -- would put the odds less than 2% that the entire season gets banged -- and they'll still be all-in even if this year is a complete disaster
Cat_Herder
- All of the off-season talk was Skubal and Framber. Thoughts on Casey Mize? He's looking like a solid mid-rotation starter right now. Especially with Jack not looking reliable and Verlander still rehabbing.
Anthony Franco
- I don't feel much differently about him than I did entering the season. Splitter has gotten much better results than it did last year but that's kind of always been the one plus pitch
- Solid mid-rotation starter seems right. Good player, agree he's their third-best arm with Reese Olson out
RAGBRAI
- Is Curtis Mead anything to be excited about this year or next for Washington?
Anthony Franco
- Probably not given the career production but I don't have a great explanation for why he hasn't at least been a slightly above-average hitter
- He hit throughout his minor league career and the pitch recognition, contact skills and bat speed are all serviceable
- Still not a great overall player given the lack of athleticism and defensive value but I'm not completely out on him being able to carve out a career as a bench bat
- I know I can’t keep THIS up, but can I continue to be REALLY good? Maybe go for the Cy Young?
Arrer Prone
- MLBTR has been saying Soriano is a really good pitcher, but after last year I was beginning to wonder. Clearly I was wrong, but does it surprise you at just how dominant he's been this season so far? And does this put him as the clear Cy Young candidate, or at least in the running, or is it still too early?
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Will Braves Add Drake Baldwin To List Of Early-Career Extensions?
The Braves have had a fantastic start to the 2026 season. They've outscored opponents by 62 runs, the best mark in MLB. Their 18-8 record has them atop the National League.
That's before considering the dismal starts of their two biggest threats in the division. The Mets are eight games under .500 and the Phillies nine. Atlanta has already built a 5.5 game lead in the NL East and is nine games clear of the two other teams that most observers would have considered realistic candidates to win the East. Teams cannot lock up a division in April, of course, but the Braves couldn't have drawn up a better first month.
There are myriad reasons for the hot start. The back of the rotation, easily the biggest weakness on paper given all their injuries, has performed admirably. They've been one of the best defensive teams in the league. No team has scored more runs. While some of that is driven by Mauricio Dubón and Dominic Smith hitting well above previous levels, any regression from those hitters should be offset by Ronald Acuña Jr. shaking off a middling start.
Although Acuña is still the face of the lineup, Drake Baldwin is making a strong case that he's their second-best position player. Last year's NL Rookie of the Year has come out on fire. He's tied with Matt Olson for the team lead with seven home runs while batting .318/.392/.551 over 120 plate appearances. The former third-round pick is up to a .283/.351/.488 slash over his first 561 career trips to the dish.
Baldwin already looks like one of the three to five best catchers in MLB -- no small accomplishment in a time with a lot of excellent young backstops. One would imagine the front office would love to keep him in Atlanta long term. The Braves are notably diligent about keeping their contract talks close to the vest, so there hasn't been any substantive reporting about extension conversations with Baldwin. It seems fair to assume they've at least quietly broached the possibility.
President of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos has been extremely aggressive on the extension front. What kind of money might it take to add Baldwin to the likes of Acuña, Austin Riley, Spencer Strider, Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II as homegrown talents whom the Braves have extended?
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MLB Mailbag: Devin Williams, Braves, Blue Jays, Prospects
This week's mailbag gets into the rough start to Devin Williams' Mets career, the Braves' apparent rotation depth, the Blue Jays' playoff chances, whether Konnor Griffin had a shot at a billion-dollar free agency, and which prospects who have yet to reach MLB may have an impact at the highest level this year.
Charles asks:
As a Yankee fan, I thought Devin Williams was going to have to take a one year show me deal in the 12-15 range, the Mets foolishly gave more than that.
He was having problems locating his fastball, especially up in the zone. This allowed batters to sit on his change up. If the changeup was too far up in the zone or was his flatter B- Change, he became more hittable. As well as giving up walks. Several broadcasters commented on just that..... Surprise surprise......the same thing is happening this year. Yet I kept reading the pundits, based off sabremetrics, say he would be fine and his contract was fine. Are there more advanced stats people were ignoring? What gives?
Before the MLBTR team begins deliberations for our Top 50 Free Agents list, we come up with our own contract projections individually. For Williams, I initially had two years and $24MM with an opt-out, in the range of the contract the Orioles eventually gave Ryan Helsley.
My colleagues rightfully convinced me that Williams was still considered one of the better relievers in the game during the offseason, and I was relatively on board with our four-year, $68MM prediction. Accounting for deferrals, Williams got a deal resembling three years and $45MM. We may have considered three years the least likely outcome, as Williams wouldn't want to be tied down to a less-than-elite contract if he expected to return to elite performance. But it looks like Williams chose to secure the maximum possible guarantee in lieu of returning to the market earlier.
I don't think sabermetrics were required to look at Williams' entire body of work and suggest that 2025 was something of a blip. I believe enough MLB teams mostly agreed with that in their evaluation of him last winter.
Nor is it all that complicated to note that a pitcher typically strands around 72% of his baserunners (Williams entered 2025 around 82%), so Williams stranding only 55.2% of his baserunners with the Yankees was an aberration. With relievers, we're dealing in very small samples, in this case 62 innings. For example, Emmanuel Clase stranded only 60.5% of his baserunners in 2023, and that didn't represent any kind of meaningful trend. Still, there's a lot more to unpack regarding Williams' time in New York.
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6 Potential Breakout Arms To Watch In 2026
The early stages of any major league season are rife with unexpected performances -- be they unexpectedly good or unexpectedly bad -- that leave many fans and onlookers wondering whether an April change in production is the beginning of a trend or simply some small-sample noise that'll even out over a larger slate of plate appearances or innings pitched. Sifting through what's real and what's likelier to be smoke and mirrors is both one of the most exciting and also most frustrating elements of the season's first couple months.
This, as with most everything in baseball, is an inexact science. Teams spend millions to build out data and analytics departments that can develop predictive models in an effort to more accurately quantify these things. Sites like FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus, PitcherList, Baseball America and countless others offer heaps of publicly available data that allow those of us on the outside looking in to throw our own hats into the ring as we attempt to decipher whose ostensible breakouts are going to hold up ... and who'll come back down to Earth.
MLBTR's Darragh McDonald took a look last week at Jose Soriano's in-progress breakout in Anaheim -- a huge development for the Halos that could have a broad range of implications. Readers are encouraged to check that out in full, but here are six more arms (plus a couple "honorable mentions," of sorts) whose 2026 strides have piqued my interest. Obviously, this isn't a comprehensive list of every possible breakout arm in the sport, but the arrows here are pointing up. (Players are listed alphabetically, not ranked.)
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Trade Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript
Steve Adams
- Good afternoon! We'll get going at 2pm CT today, but feel free to submit questions ahead of time, as always.
- Greetings! Let's get underway
Still an A
- Is Cam Schlittler the real deal or does he regress? Hard to believe he's this dominant all season
Steve Adams
- I don't consider these two things mutually exclusive. Yes, I would say he's a genuine high-end starting pitcher. I'd also say he's still going to regress. I don't think it's realistic to expect any pitcher to post a sub-3% walk rate for a full season, nor will he go the entire season without one of his fly-balls clearing the outfield fence. He's going to regress; there's no question about it.But even regression for him might mean something like a low-3.00s ERA for the remainder of the season -- or upper 2.00s. The velo is great. He's missing bats and inducing chases off the plate at elite levels.Even if his walk rate doubles the rest of the way and he allows homers at a league-average rate from here on out, he'd still be an easy playoff-caliber starter. Schlittler looks awesome.
Bradley Jax
- Which side won the trade?
Steve Adams
- I don't think there's any real point in trying to assess that right now, since it's going to change frequently. You'd probably take the Taj Bradley end right now, but he's one injury or rough patch away from things swinging the other direction.It takes so long to see these things with any sort of clarity, and even when you think you have a real grasp, you never really know until years down the road.The Cristopher Sanchez-for-Curtis Mead swap was labeled a heist for the Rays for several years because Mead was a top-100 prospect and Sanchez looked wholly unremarkable.I think it's safe to say the Phillies won that one, but back in 2022 -- three full years after the trade -- people would've looked at you like were nuts if you opined as much.
Mets Man
- Mets are cooked right? Everyone besides Nolan McLean is bad at baseball. Do you think there is a way for the mets to turn it around or should start hoping for 27?
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Trade Rumors Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript
Steve Adams
- Good afternoon. We'll get going at 3pm CT, but feel free to start asking questions ahead of time!
- Hello! Let's get underway
Jose Feliciano
- what can I expect to pay to keep Ramon Laureanu for my new team?
Steve Adams
- Laureano's resurgence early last year first felt fluky to me, but we're up to 564 plate appearances with a .282/.344/.518 output. That's 40% better than average production, by measure of wRC+. Which is to say ... he just looks like he's pretty good again.
- At the same time, he'll turn 32 this July. He's past the age where this sort of breakout could net him a truly massive contract.
- You can look at MLBTR's Contract Tracker -- included with your subscription! -- and set it to free-agent outfielders signing multi-year deals beginning in their age-32 season. It paints a pretty decent idea of where he might land...
- Comparably aged veterans like Mitch Haniger, Jurickson Profar and Jorge Soler all signed three-year deals at right about $42MM
- Ryan O'Hearn got a similar AAV ($14.5MM) over two years.
- If Laureano can sustain this type of output for the remainder of the season, I think he could realistically command a bit better. He's a superior defender to Profar, Soler and ROH. He doesn't have anywhere close to Haniger's injury history. He'll be coming off two strong seasons as opposed to Profar's one.
- I'm skeptical he'd get a fourth year, but something in the $40-50MM range over three seasons would feel about right to me.
- Link to that report from our Contract database here:
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/contracttracker?name=&team=0&position=O...
Brewer Fan
- I am very much hoping that the Brewers sign Jesus Made to an extension next. Do you think the possible lockout will effect that decision?
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