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Poll: National League Playoff Outlook

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We’re now a little over a quarter of the way through the 2025 regular season. With Memorial Day fast approaching, it’s hard for struggling teams to continue arguing that it’s still early. That isn’t to say playoff positions are set in stone, of course; on this day last year, the Cubs were firmly in playoff position while the Mets club that eventually made it all the way to the NLCS was still three games under .500. If the season ended today, the Dodgers, Cubs, Mets, Padres, Phillies, and Giants would be your playoff teams in the National League this year.

With four-and-a-half months left in the baseball calendar, which team currently outside of that group has the best chance of breaking their way into the mix? Yesterday’s poll covering the American League was won by the Red Sox (25%), who narrowly bested both the Rangers (20%) and Astros (20%) in a tight contest. Here’s a look at a few of NL’s the options, listed in order of record entering play today:

St. Louis Cardinals (24-20)

The Cardinals essentially left their roster untouched outside of the departure of veterans like Paul Goldschmidt and Kyle Gibson over the offseason. Right-hander Phil Maton was the club’s only major league free agent signing. Running back last year’s 83-win team without its former MVP first baseman didn’t do much for the Cardinals’ projections, but a recent nine-game win streak has allowed St. Louis to change the narrative. Willson Contreras has started hitting again, Masyn Winn could be breaking out, and Matthew Liberatore is making the decision to move him to the rotation look wise. If the Cards can keep playing anything close to this well, thoughts of selling Ryan Helsley at the deadline are likely to vanish before the calendar flips to July.

Arizona Diamondbacks (23-21)

The fourth team in a crowded four-team NL West race, the Diamondbacks have held their own this year despite injuries plaguing superstar Ketel Marte and the loss of A.J. Puk from an already-leaky bullpen. Corbin Burnes has delivered a sub-3.00 ERA despite shaky peripherals, Merrill Kelly and Brandon Pfaadt look like solid mid-rotation pieces, and Corbin Carroll is a superstar. If Zac Gallen (4.59 ERA) and Eduardo Rodriguez (7.07 ERA) can even pitch close to their respective 3.91 FIP and 4.30 FIP marks, Arizona should be a real threat to reach the postseason.

Atlanta Braves (22-22)

That Atlanta finds itself even in this conversation after going 0-7 to start the year is an impressive feat. The tandem of Sean Murphy and Drake Baldwin behind the plate has been a sensational one, and AJ Smith-Shawver is turning into a potential front-of-the-rotation surprise alongside Chris Sale and Spencer Schwellenbach. With a .500 record despite getting just one start from Spencer Strider and zero plate appearances from Ronald Acuna Jr. so far, it’s not hard to imagine the Braves fighting their way into the playoffs by season’s end. For that to happen, players like Matt Olson and Ozzie Albies will need to start hitting while closer Raisel Iglesias (5.71 ERA) will need to turn things around or be replaced by someone who can more consistently nail down save opportunities.

Milwaukee Brewers (21-23)

Disappointing performances from Christian Yelich, William Contreras, and Jackson Chourio to this point in the year have limited the Brewers’ performance so far. (Contreras is playing through a broken middle finger, which can’t help.) Thankfully, players like Rhys Hoskins and Brice Turang have both looked excellent so far and the Brewers have proved they can win mostly on the strength of their pitching before. Freddy Peralta and rookie Chad Patrick have been excellent, Brandon Woodruff is nearing a return, and top prospect Jacob Misiorowski is throwing 103 mph with dazzling results at Triple-A. If the star hitters can perform at a higher level going forward, perhaps that would be enough to get them back into the mix.

Cincinnati Reds (21-24)

It’s been a frustrating season for the Reds so far. The rotation, led by Hunter Greene and Andrew Abbott, has been strong, but those contributions have been dampened by a frustrating lineup that has failed to get consistent quality production out of anyone but Jose Trevino and Gavin Lux. Even Elly De La Cruz has been a roughly average hitter overall, while key pieces like Matt McLain and Spencer Steer have been bitterly disappointing. Fortunately, Noelvi Marte seems to be coming around after a disastrous 2024. There’s still enough time that if the club’s young lineup can go on a heater, it’s easy to imagine a strong pitching staff carrying them back into the postseason conversation.

The Rest Of The Field

The five teams mentioned above are all within five games of a Wild Card spot. The rest of the league would have a lot more work to do. The Nationals have an exciting young core featuring James Wood, CJ Abrams and MacKenzie Gore but lack the pitching depth to capitalize on it. The Marlins have gotten a big performance from Kyle Stowers, but a disappointing pitching staff that includes an 8.10 ERA from Sandy Alcantara is keeping the playoffs out of reach. The inverse is true in Pittsburgh, where Paul Skenes leads an impressive rotation but Bryan Reynolds has a wRC+ of just 55. Meanwhile, the Rockies are the team that can be most decisively counted out of the playoff picture in a season where they’re poised to contend for the modern loss record.

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Which of the teams outside of the NL playoff picture entering play today do MLBTR readers think stands the best chance of making it into the postseason? Have your say in the poll below:

The Orioles’ Pair Of Rental Bats

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The Orioles dropped both games of a doubleheader against Minnesota yesterday, falling 11 games under .500. They kept the bad times rolling with another loss this afternoon, getting to 12 games under. It’s the nadir of their season so far, one from which they’ll have a difficult time coming back.

As of last week, general manager Mike Elias wasn’t interested in contemplating the possibility that they’ll be deadline sellers. “We’ve got a record that’s not reflective of who we believe our team is, that I don’t think anyone thought our team was, and we’re digging a hole out of the standings right now because of that,” the GM told Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman of The New York Post on their podcast last Tuesday. “Hopefully, we claw back a lot of real estate in the standings and we get back in the mode that we fully expected to be. That is my focus right now. If it somehow evolves otherwise, I’ll address it then.”

The team has dropped six of eight games since those comments. Even with Zach Eflin returning from the injured list over the weekend, the starting rotation looks untenable. Colton Cowser and Jordan Westburg face uncertain timelines to make it back from their own IL stints. The odds are very much not in their favor. FanGraphs has the O’s playoff chances down to a season-low 4.4%. The front office certainly didn’t anticipate being deadline sellers, but it’s increasingly difficult to see them avoiding that fate.

It would be surprising if the Orioles dealt any controllable core pieces like Westburg, Adley Rutschman or Jackson Holliday. It’d be tough to find a taker on Tyler O’Neill given his annual $16.5MM salaries and opt-out clause. Tomoyuki Sugano has had solid results in his first big league season, but he probably has modest trade value on a $13MM salary given his below-average velocity and 14.2% strikeout rate.

That leaves a pair of rental bats as Baltimore’s top trade candidates: Ryan O’Hearn and Cedric Mullins. The former has systematically improved over his two and a half seasons at Camden Yards. O’Hearn was a career .219/.293/.390 hitter when the Orioles acquired him from the Royals over the 2022-23 offseason. He turned in what was then a personal-best .289/.322/.480 slash during his first season in Baltimore. Last year’s batting line seems superficially like a step back — he hit .264/.334/.427 in 494 plate appearances — but it came with a dramatically superior strikeout and walk profile than he showed in 2023.

O’Hearn has maintained those impressive plate discipline metrics while hitting for more power early this year. He carries a .287/.374/.519 mark with seven longballs across 123 plate appearances. O’Hearn isn’t chasing pitches outside the strike zone. His 15.4% strikeout rate is well below the 22.1% league average. He’s making hard contact (a 95+ MPH exit velocity) on half his batted balls, well up from last season’s 40% clip.

The rate stats are slightly inflated by the O’s tendency to shield O’Hearn from unfavorable platoon matchups. They’ve mostly kept him away from left-handed pitching, giving him just 94 plate appearances against southpaws over the past three seasons. He’s more of a strong-side platoon bat than a true everyday player, but O’Hearn is thriving in that role. He is up to a .280/.339/.465 slash in nearly 900 plate appearances against righty pitching as a member of the Orioles.

That kind of production is a bargain for a player making an $8MM salary. O’Hearn will be a first-time free agent next year, as he enters his age-32 season. It’s tough to see the Orioles making him a qualifying offer that’d likely be north of $21MM. He has a good shot at a multi-year contract, but the O’s would probably be better served letting him walk to open first base/DH playing time for Coby Mayo. That all points to a trade.

Baltimore won’t pull the trigger on that kind of move two and a half months from the deadline, but he seems likely to be available in July. The Giants and Red Sox are the most obvious potential suitors for a rental first baseman. Boston will be without Triston Casas all season. San Francisco has gotten nothing out of LaMonte Wade Jr. this year. They won’t want to block top prospect Bryce Eldridge in 2026 but should make a short-term add at the position. The Rangers and Mariners would also make sense as landing spots.

The Orioles would need a stronger return on Mullins, who may end up being one of the best all-around position players available. The lefty-hitting center fielder takes a .230/.335/.446 line with eight homers into today’s game against Minnesota. Most of that production came early in the season. Mullins carried a .278/.412/.515 slash through the end of April. He’s hitting .119/.119/.286 thus far in May. He’s clearly amidst a skid at the plate, but he still ranks among the sport’s most productive center fielders overall. He is tied for fourth at the position in homers and ranks eighth in on-base percentage (minimum 100 plate appearances).

Even if Mullins was punching above his weight through the season’s first few weeks, he’s a quality player. He has been an average or better hitter in five consecutive seasons. He has topped 30 stolen bases in three of the last four years. The public metrics are split on his glove — he rates more highly by Statcast’s Outs Above Average than he does in the estimation of Defensive Runs Saved — but there’s no doubt that he can play center field. There’s a dearth of talent at the position on the trade market, especially if Luis Robert Jr. continues to underperform offensively.

Mullins is making $8.725MM in his final season of arbitration control. There’s a decent chance the O’s would make him the qualifying offer if he’s not traded, but a multiple-prospect package could be superior to one compensatory draft pick. The Guardians, Phillies, Mets, Rangers and A’s are just a handful of contenders that could look for an upgrade in center field.

Respective images courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas and Gregory Fisher, Imagn Images

Poll: American League Playoff Outlook

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We’re now a little over a quarter of the way through the 2025 regular season. With Memorial Day fast approaching, it’s hard for struggling teams to continue arguing that it’s still early. That isn’t to say playoff positions are set in stone, of course; on this day last year, the Mariners and Twins were firmly in playoff position while the eventual AL West champion Astros were in fourth place in the division and seven games under .500.

If the season ended today, the Tigers, Yankees, Mariners, Guardians, Royals, and Twins would be your playoff teams in the American League this year. With four-and-a-half months left in the baseball calendar, which team currently outside of that group has the best chance of breaking their way into the mix?

Here’s a look at a few of the options, listed in order of record entering play today:

Houston Astros (22-20)

Houston’s first season in a post-Kyle Tucker, Alex Bregman world has been an uneven one. Jose Altuve does not look like the difference-maker he once was in his age-35 season. He’s hitting .256/.302/.369 (90 wRC+) and has effectively played at replacement level. His batted-ball profile suggests he may even be a bit fortunate to have the modest rate stats he currently possesses. Yordan Alvarez is injured, Yainer Diaz is well-below average at the plate, and neither Christian Walker nor Cam Smith is producing the way Houston hoped.

On the positive side, Isaac Paredes (141 wRC+) and Jeremy Pena (139 wRC+) have both been excellent at the plate. Hunter Brown is looking like an early Cy Young candidate, and the late-inning duo of Josh Hader and Bryan Abreu is one of the best 1-2 punches in baseball. If Alvarez can get healthy and the team can find some outfield help this summer, it wouldn’t be a shock to see Houston make its tenth consecutive postseason.

Texas Rangers (23-21)

Entering the season, the Rangers looked like they had an excellent offense that would be held down by questions about the pitching staff. The reality they’ve faced this year is the opposite: Marcus Semien, Adolis Garcia, Jake Burger, and Joc Pederson have all been somewhere between disappointing and terrible. Corey Seager has been injured, and Evan Carter started the year in the minors. Josh Jung, Josh Smith, and Wyatt Langford have been the only standout performers in the lineup so far this year.

That’s been offset by phenomenal performances in the rotation despite injuries to Jon Gray, Cody Bradford, and Kumar Rocker. Jacob deGrom is back and striking out a third of batters like it’s 2019, but he’s arguably the #3 starter in a rotation where Nathan Eovaldi and Tyler Mahle have sub-2.00 ERAs. Even emergency addition Patrick Corbin is turning back the clock with a 3.35 ERA across seven starts. If the Rangers’ vaunted offense can wake up a bit, it’s easy to imagine the 2023 World Series champs making a run.

The Athletics (22-21)

John Fisher’s aggressive offseason after abandoning Oakland for West Sacramento is paying off in the standings, though it’s mostly been due to young players breaking out. Jacob Wilson is looking like a unicorn in the mold of Luis Arraez. Tyler Soderstrom has emerged as a breakout slugger. Shea Langeliers is in the midst of a career year at the dish.

The pitching is cause for concern, but Gunnar Hoglund has looked good in his first taste of big league action, while both Luis Severino and Mason Miller have peripherals that suggest their results should improve with time. Three of last year’s most productive players — Lawrence Butler, JJ Bleday, and Brent Rooker — have taken steps backward, however. That will limit the club’s potential if they can’t get back on track.

Toronto Blue Jays (22-22)

With Vladimir Guerrero Jr. now in the fold for life, now all the Blue Jays have to do is win with him. The returns on that front are mixed. Veterans like George Springer, Kevin Gausman and Chris Bassitt are doing their best to make everyone forget about their age, but the performances of longer-term pieces like Anthony Santander, Bowden Francis and Jose Berrios are deeply concerning. Jeff Hoffman has been among baseball’s best closers so far and Bo Bichette is an above-average hitter again, but Alejandro Kirk has been pedestrian at the plate and Guerrero’s 131 wRC+, while terrific relative to the rest of the league, represents a major step back from last year’s 165. A healthy and effective return from future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer would go a long way to stabilizing the rotation, but players like Santander and Berrios will need to get going if playoff baseball is to return to Canada this year.

Boston Red Sox (22-23)

After pushing in by adding Garrett Crochet and Bregman this winter, the Red Sox entered the year looking like one of the AL’s best teams. While they haven’t exactly been bad, the season certainly hasn’t worked out that way so far. Crochet and Bregman are both as-advertised or better, and Wilyer Abreu is looking like a bona fide lefty slugger to pair with Rafael Devers.

Kristian Campbell has begun to cool off after a torrid start, however, and the rotation injuries have begun to pile up. It’s anyone’s guess who will be playing first base on any given day. Triston Casas is out for the year. Romy Gonzalez is on the injured list. Devers doesn’t sound keen on another position change. Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer are knocking on the door in the minors, and perhaps their eventual debuts will be the spark this team needs to get back into the playoff mix.

The Rest Of The Field

The five teams mentioned above are all within two games of a Wild Card spot, but the rest of the AL can’t be counted out. The Rays will benefit from the eventual returns of players like Ha-Seong Kim and Shane McClanahan, but they need more offense from key pieces like Yandy Diaz, Brandon Lowe, and Junior Caminero. The Orioles should have the lineup to compete, but they have some key bats struggling and will need to figure out their disastrous pitching staff to get back into the race. The Angels have faded after a hot start, but players like Luis Rengifo and Taylor Ward should start hitting eventually. The White Sox still have an abysmal offense, but the rotation has been surprisingly solid with Rule 5 pick Shane Smith in particular looking like a steal.

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Which of the teams outside of the AL playoff picture entering play today do MLBTR readers think stands the best chance of making it into the postseason? Have your say in the poll below:

Poll: Is Javier Baez Back?

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During the 2021-22 offseason, the Tigers felt they were close enough to competing that it was time to start spending. Then-GM Al Avila signed two major free agents that winter: southpaw Eduardo Rodriguez and shortstop Javier Baez. Those offseason moves did not work out, generally speaking. The Tigers lost 96 games in 2022 as Rodriguez posted below-average numbers in an injury-marred season while Baez put up the worst full season by wRC+ of his career with a figure of 89. Avila was fired that August, giving way to a new regime under president of baseball operations Scott Harris.

Baez, meanwhile, went on to have a pair of disastrous seasons marred by injury and ineffectiveness in 2023 and ’24, hitting a combined .208/.251/.315 (56 wRC+) while being limited to just 216 games by hip and back issues. Those injuries eventually required season-ending hip surgery last year, leaving Baez on the sidelines while his team went on a miracle run last September that led them to Game 5 of the ALDS. Entering 2025, there were heightened expectations for the Tigers following that September surge.

For Baez personally, however, expectations had never been lower. The 32-year-old had multiple All-Star appearances and Gold Glove awards under his belt, but he entered 2025 without a specified role in Detroit despite the three years and $73MM remaining on his contract. Injuries during Spring Training paved the way for Baez to have a clearer role in Detroit, but even on Opening Day he was limited to a utility role where he would mostly face left-handed pitching.

Things changed once the season began, however. Baez took quite well to both center field and third base despite having virtually no experience in the outfield and only sparing appearances at the hot corner. In more recent weeks, his role has moved from a part-time utility role to being the club’s go-to option in center field, where he’s started 16 of the club’s last 20 games. Baez has always been an impressive defender anywhere he plays when healthy, so perhaps the veteran taking to new defensive positions isn’t exactly surprising. More shocking than his glove work this year has been his impressive offensive production: he’s hit a whopping .319/.357/.513 with a wRC+ of 148 across 126 plate appearances.

Even when Baez was at his best, he was a somewhat fickle hitter. While some seasons saw Baez hit extremely well, such as his 2021 (117 wRC+) and 2018 (131 wRC+) campaigns, he was actually below average at the dish in three of his six seasons as an everyday player for the Cubs. Given that unevenness, Baez’s 89 wRC+, two-win performance during his first season with Detroit wasn’t incredibly shocking. And when the injuries began to pile up in 2023 and ’24 and his offensive numbers began to rapidly decline, few expected him to ever return to the above-average form he showed during his days on the north side of Chicago.

Is 126 plate appearances of strong production enough to change that narrative? The underlying numbers offer mixed reviews. Baez’s 24.6% strikeout rate and 4.0% walk rate this year are virtually identical to his 23.9% strikeout rate and 4.3% walk rate across his first three seasons in Detroit. That strikeout rate is actually five points lower than his strikeout rate with the Cubs, but the main red flag in Baez’s performance with the Tigers wasn’t his free-swinging approach. After being a consistent power threat during his days in the National League, where his ISO is an impressive .212, Baez saw his power evaporate over his first three seasons in Detroit as his ISO plummeted to just .126.

Going from 2024 Elly De La Cruz to 2024 Alex Verdugo in the power department is a drastic downturn in performance, and while Baez’s .193 ISO this year hasn’t gotten all the way back to his previous heights, it’s a big step in the right direction. That renewed power might not be entirely sustainable, however. Baez is posting his lowest hard-hit rate since 2017, his 6.8% barrel rate is actually lower than last year, and he’s hitting more grounders (51.6%) than ever before. That suggests his current power output (five homers and eight doubles) may not be entirely sustainable, and his massive .398 BABIP surely isn’t either for a player who routinely posted BABIPs in the .340 to .350 range at his peak.

Perhaps that means Baez’s return to form this year is nothing more than a mirage, but there are some positive signs in his underlying data. Baez is swinging outside the strike zone less than ever before in his career, and his in-zone contact rate is also the best of his career. That improved plate discipline may not be showing up in his walk rate at this point, but better pitch selection could be allowing him to avoid making the worst types of contact; his 3.4% infield fly ball rate is tied with 2019 for the best figure of his career, and his 12.5% soft-contact rate would be 40th best in the sport if he had enough plate appearances to qualify.

Those subtle improvements don’t support his star-level production so far, but his .291 xwOBA is a perfect match for the wOBA he posted for Detroit back in 2022. Perhaps that means offensive production on the low-end of what was expected of him at his peak, in line with the 2016, ’17, and ’22 seasons, could be sustainable for the veteran. Given that Baez was a potential DFA candidate just a few months ago, the Tigers would surely take that sort of solid, two-to-three win production from their $140MM man very happily.

How much do MLBTR readers buy into Baez’s resurgence? Will he be able to continue tapping into his power enough to float above-average offensive numbers despite shaky peripherals? Will he fall back to Earth and be a replacement level player going forward, as he was the past two years? Or will he find a middle ground as an average to slightly-below average hitter who remains valuable thanks to strong defense? Have your say in the poll below:

Poll: Will The Rockies Break The Modern Loss Record?

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To say the Rockies have had a rough start to the season would be a major understatement. The club’s 7-34 record speaks for itself, and their struggles appeared to reach a crescendo late last week, when they lost four games in three days by a combined score of 55-12. That includes a demoralizing 21-0 loss to the Padres on Saturday. Longtime manager Bud Black was fired the next day.

It’s pretty much impossible to argue that Black, a well-respected manager with 18 years of experience between the Rockies and Padres, is at particular fault for the state of the team. The Rockies have issues that run far deeper than the manager’s office. Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts suggested as much in the wake of Black’s firing on Sunday, telling reporters (as relayed by Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register) that he didn’t believe Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel “could change the outcome” of the Rockies’ season.

It’s difficult to argue with that point. The Rockies, after all, lost 101 games last year. They had the National League’s worst offense (82 wRC+), struck out more than any other team, and were middle of the pack in homers despite calling Coors Field home. The pitching was even worse, as Colorado had the league’s worst ERA (5.48), FIP (4.94), and SIERA (4.62). Even when adjusted for the park factors of Coors Field, it was a league-worst showing in virtually every category. Their best pitcher to make even one start last year was Ryan Feltner, whose pedestrian 4.49 ERA was three points better than average (103 ERA+) after adjusting for park factors. The back of the bullpen was no better, as saves leader Tyler Kinley ended the season with a 6.19 ERA.

That was last year’s ball club, and things have only gotten worse. The Rockies essentially stood pat over the winter, with outfielders Mickey Moniak and Nick Martini joining infielders Kyle Farmer, Tyler Freeman, and Thairo Estrada as the club’s primary additions. Estrada has yet to appear in a regular season game for the Rockies. The other four are all below replacement level according to both bWAR and fWAR.

Disastrous as the Rockies season has been, breaking the modern loss record just one year after the 2024 White Sox set a new one with their 41-121 season may seem far-fetched. Even a 101-loss club that didn’t add much over the winter shouldn’t usually be assumed to regress by more than 20 games.

That’s where the injuries come in. Colorado was able to stay in some of its games last year thanks to standout performances from Ezequiel Tovar and Brenton Doyle, who paired league average offense with Gold Glove-caliber defense at shortstop and center field. This year, Tovar played poorly across 16 games before going on the injured list. Doyle has remained healthy, but his 60 wRC+ is deeply disappointing and defensive metrics haven’t been nearly as impressed with his work in the outfield as in previous seasons. Feltner is also currently on the injured list alongside Tovar, and $182MM man Kris Bryant remains out indefinitely amid nearly half a decade’s worth of injury woes that have knocked him so far from his MVP status that he no longer plays every day even when healthy.

Typically, even the combination of a low-quality roster and frustrating injury issues wouldn’t be enough to make a team a contender for worst of all time. But Colorado plays in the NL West, which this year has not only has the reigning World Series champion Dodgers but a trio of strong contenders. The Padres and Giants are both in playoff position. The Diamondbacks, who went to the World Series as recently as 2023, are just a few games behind San Diego and San Francisco.

The other four teams in the Rockies’ division are a combined 98-67, good for a .594 winning percentage that translates to a 96-win pace over a 162-game season. If the Rockies were to double their current win percentage over their final 121 games this year, they’d finish the season with a record of 48-114, just seven games ahead of the White Sox’s 2024 record. Perhaps the only saving grace for the Rockies in this conversation is that the middle of May leaves ample time to turn things and get ahead of the .253 winning percentage from last year’s South Siders.

Where do MLBTR readers fall on this issue? Will the Rockies continue on this pace and wipe the White Sox’s 2024 campaign from the history books just one year after the fact? Or will they be able to turn things around enough to avoid that embarrassing fate? Have your say in the poll below:

The Biggest Trade In Nationals History Looks Better Every Day

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The 2022 Nationals found themselves at a crossroads. Washington had sold at the prior year's trade deadline, shipping Max Scherzer and Trea Turner to the Dodgers, sending Kyle Schwarber to the Red Sox, dealing Daniel Hudson to the Padres and trading Jon Lester to the Cardinals. The organization's steadfast hope had been that even while rebuilding, Juan Soto would be at the heart of those efforts to build back up. Longtime general manager Mike Rizzo acknowledged as much in June, plainly stating on the record that he had no intention of trading Soto.

The Nats offered Soto an extension reportedly worth $440MM in guaranteed money. It would've been the largest deal in MLB history at the time. Only after Soto turned that offer down -- drawing plenty of criticism for doing so -- did Washington begin to seriously explore the possibility of trading him. Moving the game's best young hitter when he had two and a half seasons of club control remaining was no small undertaking. It'd require a seismic haul of young talent -- the type of prospect package that several interested parties simply didn't have the inventory to assemble. Most other clubs simply couldn't stomach the asking price.

A limited market of suitors for Soto emerged. To no one's surprise, the hyper-aggressive Padres entered the bidding and made a strong push. San Diego president of baseball operations A.J. Preller throws his hat in the ring when nearly any star-caliber player is available. From the moment Soto hit the market, the Padres -- then armed with one of baseball's best farm systems -- were among the most logical landing spots.

San Diego indeed wound up reeling in their big fish, and it took the type of trade haul we might not see again for years to come. Soto and Josh Bell went from the Nats to the Padres in exchange for shortstop CJ Abrams, left-hander MacKenzie Gore, outfielder James Wood, outfielder Robert Hassell III and right-hander Jarlin Susana. The Padres also sent first baseman Luke Voit to the Nats as something of a financial counterweight, and in a separate deal they shipped Eric Hosmer -- who'd invoked his no-trade rights to block his inclusion in the Soto trade -- to the Red Sox.

It was a jaw-dropping haul. Abrams, Gore and Hassell had all been top-10 draft picks within the past five seasons. Abrams was a consensus top-10 prospect in the sport at the time. Gore had struggled through some mechanical issues in the upper minors but was only a few years removed from being one of the consensus top pitching prospects in the game. Wood was a 19-year-old who was just a year removed from being a second-round pick, and his stock was firmly on the rise at the time of the swap as he ripped through A-ball. Hassell entered the 2022 season as a top-40 prospect in the game. Susana was only 18 at the time of the trade and was in his first season of pro ball after signing out of his native Dominican Republic; Baseball America likened his upside to that of a high schooler who might go in the first round of the MLB draft.

While not every blockbuster trade pans out -- Washington hasn't gotten a ton of value from that Scherzer/Turner stunner, for instance -- the Soto trade has produced a bumper crop that seems likely to form the nucleus of the next contending Nationals club.

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Poll: In-Season Managerial Changes

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The Pirates fired manager Derek Shelton yesterday, bringing his five-plus year tenure as the organization’s manager to an end. That tenure didn’t exactly have many highlights, as the Pirates never won more than 76 games in a season under his guidance and he leaves the manager’s chair with a 306-440 record overall. For a job as nebulous and difficult to evaluate from the outside as that of a big league manager, there are few options other than viewing a club’s record as a reflection of the manager’s job performance.

All of that is to say that replacing Shelton with Don Kelly in the dugout is not necessarily a shocking or controversial decision for the Pirates. After years of failure including a disappointing 2024 season where they finished with an identical record to 2023 despite adding Paul Skenes and Jared Jones to the rotation, Pittsburgh was surely hoping for a big year in 2025. It’s a long season, but things haven’t worked out that way so far: the club has gone 12-26 so far and is currently riding a seven-game losing streak with just three series wins total this year.

With that being said, it’s difficult to argue that even a Hall of Fame-caliber manager would be able to turn this club around. The Pirates had an extremely quiet offseason that saw them enter the season having spread just $22MM in spending across seven free agents this winter. Perhaps if Skenes was being complemented with above average regulars like Teoscar Hernandez and Gleyber Torres instead of role players Tommy Pham and Adam Frazier, the team would be in a better position and Shelton would still be employed.

Zooming out from Shelton’s specific situation, in-season firings for managers have become increasingly rare over the years. Rather famously, the 2022 season saw four managers get fired with more than a month of baseball left to play. The Rangers fired Chris Woodward in mid-August. The Blue Jays fired Charlie Montoyo in mid-July. The Phillies and Angels both fired their managers (Joe Girardi and Joe Maddon, respectively) by the end of the first week of June. Two of those four teams went on to make the postseason, although it should be noted that Toronto had a winning record and was in playoff position when Montoyo was dismissed.

For every firing like that of Girardi, which occurred when the Phils were just 10-18 before they eventually turned things around and made it to the World Series under Rob Thomson, there’s several that do not change the outcome of the season. Prior to the successes of Thomson and John Schneider in 2022, the last team to make the playoffs after firing their manager was the 2009 Rockies. On the other hand, the Orioles and Royals in 2010 both improved significantly after hiring Ned Yost and Buck Showalter midseason. Though neither of those teams made the playoffs, Showalter led Baltimore to the postseason in his second year as manager while Yost eventually led the Royals to back-to-back World Series appearances in 2014 and ’15. The Mariners’ season turned around last year following Scott Servais’ dismissal in favor of Dan Wilson, and Seattle currently holds the second-best record in the American League.

Perhaps, then, the argument for making an in-season managerial change is that it offers your new manager an opportunity to get comfortable in the role in a season that’s already had its expectations diminished by a poor start under the previous manager. There could certainly be value in that, as well as the opportunity to give an internal candidate a sort of trial run in the dugout before weighing external candidates during the offseason.

On the other hand, one could argue that if a club lacks the confidence in their manager to stick with them for more than a month of poor performance from the team, then that club should have simply made a managerial change the prior offseason so that the team would be led by the organization’s ideal person for the job from the very start of the season.

Where do MLBTR readers fall when it comes to this debate? Are in-season managerial changes a good practice that brings about positive change within the organization and can spur teams to success, or are they largely meaningless moves meant to demonstrate urgency that would have been better demonstrated during the previous offseason? Have your say in the poll below:

Poll: Jacob Wilson’s Hot Start

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When the Athletics began to properly invest in the franchise for the first time in years this offseason, putting together their largest Opening Day payroll since 2021 and highest payroll for luxury tax purposes in franchise history, it came with an understanding that the additions of players like Luis Severino and Jeffrey Springs would not be enough to propel the club to contention in a crowded AL West division without substantial steps forward from young talent already within the organization.

Fortunately for the A’s, that’s exactly what has happened. The club’s first season in West Sacramento is going quite well, with a 20-18 record that places them second in the AL West even after they dropped their latest series to the division-leading Mariners. With the division’s recent top dogs in Houston and Arlington now both struggling to stay above .500, the A’s have been able to fight their way into contention thanks in large part to excellent performances from recent first-round picks Jacob Wilson and Tyler Soderstrom. Wilson, in particular, is an interesting player to consider after he rattled off a 15-game hit streak to open the season. During that time, he hit .368/.368/.544 across 57 plate appearances.

It’s an impressive slash line, to be sure, but his .358 BABIP during that time did not exactly appear sustainable, especially when he had not drawn a single walk during that stretch. Of course, looking at sample sizes of less than 60 plate appearances comes with far too much noise to be all that valuable when discussing balls in play. Wilson took the 150th plate appearance of the season yesterday, providing a slightly larger body of work to examine. Overall, he’s hitting .357/.383/.476 with a wRC+ of 148. He’s walking just 4.0% of the time, and hardly striking out more than that (4.7%). His .361 BABIP is well outside of the typically expected range, and his 2.2% barrel rate shows that he won’t be hitting for much power any time soon; if anything, he’s hitting for more power now (.119 ISO) than expected based on his batted ball results.

All of that suggests that Wilson is extremely unlikely to keep up his current level of production, but that shouldn’t be taken as a suggestion that he’s guaranteed to revert to the 86 wRC+ he posted in 28 games last year. There are two notable hitters who have found great success in the majors in recent years with a similar approach to Wilson at the plate: Luis Arraez and Steven Kwan. Of course, there’s also plenty of players like Nick Madrigal and Billy Hamilton who fail to find success in the majors due to their lack of power. The question remains: has Wilson shown enough similarities to players like Kwan and Arraez that he can be counted on for sustained success as an above-average MLB hitter?

It’s hard to come up with a more straightforward comp for Wilson than Arraez. After all, one need look no further than Arraez’s 2023 season with the Marlins to find a nearly mirror image of what Wilson has done so far in 2025. In 147 games with the Marlins that year, Arraez hit an excellent .354/.393/.469 with a wRC+ of 130. He struck out in 5.5% of his at-bats while walking 5.7% of the time, and his ISO sat at just .115 while he floated a .362 BABIP. Arraez accomplished this feat thanks primarily to his line drive rate, which sat at an MLB-best 28.5%. Hitting the ball on a line that often is a nearly surefire way to rack up a lot of hits. Another key factor is Arraez’s relatively small amount of fly balls; just 28.7% of his batted balls were hit in the air that year, a bottom-ten figure in the sport. That puts obvious limitations on a player’s home run power, but it’s great news for a player’s batting average.

Of course, it should be remembered that Arraez is something of a unicorn. Attempting to replicate his approach leaves a player very prone to year-to-year swings in productivity, as seen by the fact that Arraez himself has stuck with that approach in 2024 and ’25 but seen his wRC+ drop to just 109 in that time due to a 48-point drop in BABIP. Some of that can be explained by a small dip in line drive rate (26.3%), but much of it comes down to the randomness involved with batted balls that aren’t hit especially hard. Perhaps Kwan’s approach, which involves more patience (39.4% career swing rate) than either Arraez (46.0%) or Wilson (51.8%), could be an option for Wilson if replicating Arraez doesn’t work out. But for now, Wilson’s Arraez-esque approach does seem to be working for him. His 23.7% line-drive rate is hardly the best in the league right now, but it’s still a well above-average figure. And his ability to limit soft contact is very similar to Arraez; 16.8% of Wilson’s batted balls have been hit softly this year, as compared to 15.2% of Arraez’s last season.

How do MLBTR readers view Wilson’s future? Will he be able to emerge as a rare unicorn able to get by on pure contact like Arraez, or will he need to make adjustments to be more patient at the plate like Kwan in order to be an above-average hitter? Have your say in the poll below:

The Royals’ Rotation Looks Stronger Than Ever

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The Royals had one of baseball’s best rotations in 2024. Kansas City starters posted a 3.55 earned run average that trailed only the 3.38 mark of Seattle’s star-studded staff. They logged 911 innings, again second-best in MLB behind the Mariners. Seth Lugo and Cole Ragans placed among the top four in AL Cy Young balloting. Michael Wacha and Brady Singer weren’t at that level, but they each topped 160 innings with a mid-3.00s ERA.

Kansas City’s offense wasn’t nearly as productive. Bobby Witt Jr. and Salvador Perez (to a much lesser extent) carried an otherwise well below-average position player group. The Royals tried to balance things with one of the bigger trades of last offseason — swapping Singer to Cincinnati for Jonathan India and former well-regarded outfield prospect Joey Wiemer.

There’s risk any time a team trades a productive starting pitcher. The “no such thing as too much pitching” cliche exists for a reason. Still, the Royals felt comfortable moving on from Singer in large part because of Kris Bubic. He had undergone Tommy John surgery in April 2023. He returned in a relief role for the second half of last season. They decided early in the offseason that Bubic would return to his old rotation job.

Bubic is running with the opportunity. He has worked to a 1.98 ERA over his first seven starts. The 27-year-old southpaw is working nearly six innings per start and has only once surrendered more than three runs. He has rattled off quality starts in four of those appearances, ranking second on the team behind Lugo. Bubic is one of seven pitchers who has topped 30 innings with a sub-2.00 ERA through the season’s first six weeks. He has punched out an above-average 23.7% of opponents against a solid 7.7% walk rate.

While the strikeout rate is more good than exceptional, there’s probably some untapped upside in that regard. Bubic fanned 32.2% of opposing hitters en route to a 2.67 ERA in 30 1/3 innings last year. It wouldn’t be fair to expect him to fully repeat that as a starter — it’s easier to miss bats when you only face a hitter one time and can throw harder in short stints — but his per-pitch metrics are more impressive than this year’s strikeout rate would suggest. His 13.2% swinging strike rate ranks 20th in MLB (among 124 pitchers with 30+ innings). He’s 16th in whiff rate on pitches within the strike zone. While he’s never going to rival Ragans in terms of overpowering hitters, Bubic’s stuff plays.

Scouting reports have raved about his command dating back to his college days at Stanford. He has always had a fantastic changeup that makes him particularly tough on right-handed hitters. His breaking ball works more for weak contact than whiffs, but he’s able to miss bats with his fastball despite pedestrian 92-93 MPH velocity. The pitch plays above its speed at the top of the zone, where it gets good life that makes it difficult to differentiate from the changeup.

Bubic isn’t likely to maintain a sub-2.00 ERA all season, of course. He’s gotten some fortunate results on balls in play that should even out. Even if he ends up with an ERA in the low-3.00s rather than keeping up at a Cy Young pace, he should compensate for whatever production they lost by dealing Singer. Ragans, Lugo and Wacha remain an excellent top three. Michael Lorenzen is a fine if unexciting fifth starter, while Kyle Wright provides an interesting wild card as he finally nears his return from the shoulder surgery that wiped out his ’24 season.

The Royals may find themselves with an even better rotation than the one they rolled out a year ago. They’re leading MLB with 217 1/3 innings. Only the Mets (2.71) have a superior ERA than Kansas City’s 3.02 mark. The Royals are also eighth in strikeout/walk rate differential. Every pitching staff is dependent on health, but Kansas City may end up with baseball’s best rotation if their top four arms continue taking the ball.

They’ll need continued excellence from their starters to compete in a deceptively strong AL Central. The Royals have won five straight to push their record to 22-16. It’s the fourth-best mark in the American League but has them in third place in the division behind Detroit and Cleveland. The Central surprisingly produced three playoff teams a year ago. There’s a real chance it’ll do the same in 2025.

As was the case last season, Kansas City will approach the deadline in need of an offensive boost. They enter play Thursday ranked ahead of only the White Sox, Blue Jays, Rangers, Pirates and Rockies in scoring. India hasn’t provided the jolt they were anticipating at the top of the lineup. He’s hitting .228/.331/.299 with one homer through 148 plate appearances. Perez isn’t producing the same way he did last season, and the outfield has again been terrible. Maikel Garcia is out to a strong start, but he and Witt have been the only real sources of offense.

The Royals need to win low-scoring games all year, but they’re well positioned to do so as long as their pitching staff avoids major injuries. Lucas Erceg, Carlos Estévez and Hunter Harvey provide a better bullpen nucleus than they had at this point last season (though Harvey has been sidelined for a month due to a teres major strain). They’ll again be built primarily behind their rotation, which looks as strong as ever despite the offseason trade.

Image courtesy of Gregory Fisher, Imagn Images.

Poll: When Should The White Sox Trade Luis Robert Jr.?

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The White Sox entered the 2025 season having already moved one of their two most notable trade chips when Garrett Crochet was shipped to Boston in exchange for a four-prospect package led by catcher Kyle Teel. Center fielder Luis Robert Jr. is their other asset of note, and he remains in the organization despite talking to multiple clubs about a trade. The Dodgers, Reds, and Giants are all known to have engaged with Chicago about Robert’s services, with L.A. outfielder James Outman and Cincinnati infield prospect Edwin Arroyo among the names known to have been discussed as part of a return package.

Evidently, the White Sox didn’t receive an offer they found compelling enough to move Robert for, seeing as he still remains with the South Siders. Chicago bet on Robert to have a strong enough first half to increase his value ahead of the trade deadline, but the first few weeks of the season made that decision look like a potential mistake. On April 16, Robert was slashing a brutal .143/.234/.214, striking out at a 27.3% clip and hitting for virtually no power. That slow start prompted MLBTR’s Anthony Franco to take a look at Robert in a piece for front office subscribers, in which he noted that Robert was actually walking more often than ever before in his career but that his swing-and-miss profile still needed to be carried by significantly more power than he had shown to that point in the season.

Robert has answered that call. He clobbered a home run in Boston just three days later, and since then he’s hit an impressive .241/.371/.483 with four homers, two doubles, and an even better 17.1% walk rate. The 27-year-old’s overall slash line remains below average (86 wRC+) on the year, but a season-long 13.2% barrel rate, 14.3% walk rate, and .331 xwOBA all demonstrate that things are clearly moving in the right direction for the White Sox and their mercurial star. That’s not to say everything is going well, however; Robert’s strikeout rate has crept back up above 30% (31.4%), his in-zone contact rate is down relative to the last two years, and he’s making the most soft contact (27.0%) of his career.

The question for the White Sox now becomes how quickly they should look to get a deal done. If Robert’s recent stretch of success proves to be sustainable, it would make plenty of sense for the club to wait until closer to the trade deadline to move him. At that point, his overall season numbers would likely be back above average and teams may be willing to give up more for him. On the other hand, if the organization does not view Robert’s recent power surge and improved patience at the plate as particularly sustainable or they’re concerned about his recent uptick in strikeouts, perhaps there’s an argument to deal him now while he’s performing at an impactful level. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported over the weekend that if Robert’s recent hot streak continues, the club hopes to move him by Memorial Day.

Moving a piece with as much star power as Robert before the calendar even flips to June would be a bold move, but certainly not an unheard of one. After all, it was just last year that the Marlins moved Luis Arraez to the Padres in early May. Few executives in the game are as aggressive as San Diego’s A.J. Preller, but that doesn’t mean a deal is impossible. Perhaps the Giants are intrigued enough by their hot start to be more willing to pay for Robert than they were in the offseason, or recent injuries suffered by Tommy Edman and Teoscar Hernandez convince the Dodgers to swing a deal. The Reds have fallen below .500 after briefly fighting their way into a playoff spot last week in large part because of lackluster production from their outfield, which has an 88 wRC+ tied with Cleveland for the seventh-worst figure in the majors.

All three of those teams with past known interest in Robert have reasons to be more aggressive on him now than they were previously, and that ignores other teams that could have interest. The Rangers recently lost center fielder Leody Taveras on waivers and are looking for ways to snap the team out of an offensive funk, though they’d probably balk at taking on the remaining portion of his $15MM salary. The Mets have found plenty of early season success but can surely do better than Tyrone Taylor as an everyday center fielder. Atlanta and Kansas City are both trying to compete this year but have endured the two least-productive outfield mixes in the sport to this point in the year. If even one of those teams is willing to meet Chicago’s asking price, it’s fair to argue that risking injury or another cold streak isn’t worth the potential reward of a July bidding war. After all, the White Sox saw up close what can happen if you wait too long to trade a player last year, when they got only a token return for Eloy Jimenez, who eventually had his club option declined by the Orioles last winter and ended up in the Rays organization on a minor league deal.

How do MLBTR readers think the White Sox should proceed with Robert? Should they try and make a deal as soon as possible, or wait in hopes that an extended hot streak raises his value? Have your say in the poll below:

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