Memorial Day MLB standings check: Which teams are the biggest surprises and letdowns so far?
It’s Memorial Day, so you know what that means, MLB fans — you are officially free to look at the MLB standings!
Among baseball fans, the saying goes that you should avoid checking the standings until Memorial Day, which gives teams time to play enough games through two months to add meaning to what we’re seeing happen in every division.
While your team’s position in the standings today might not guarantee it will end the season there, there is some truth to the concept: According to Elias Sports Bureau data, 58% of teams (94 of 161) that were in sole possession of first place on the morning of June 1 have gone on to win their division in the wild-card era (since 1995 and excluding 2020).
We asked ESPN MLB experts Jorge Castillo, Bradford Doolittle, Buster Olney and David Schoenfield to take a look at the standings and weigh in on what stands out most to them so far.
What’s the first thing that jumps out to you when you look at the standings?
Castillo: The Houston Astros sitting in third place in the American League West with a record under .500. Yes, they’re playing significantly better in May after a dreadful April. But these are the Astros, ALCS participants in each of the past seven seasons. Seeing them in third place this late in the calendar produces a double take every time. It’s strange. Lucky for them, the Seattle Mariners and Texas Rangers haven’t played well enough to bury them after their poor start. They’re getting older and their farm system isn’t as abundant with potential reinforcements, but the Astros are too talented — and have been given too much life — to stay in third place for long.
Doolittle: There are a whole lot of teams clustered around the .500 mark who are vying for playoff positioning. The Mariners lead the AL West at just two games over .500. Right now in the National League, getting one or two games over .500 gets you the fifth seed. There is a whole lot of mediocrity in the majors right now, and some of it is going to be rewarded with berths in the October bracket. This very well might be the season we get a sub-.500 playoff team. Given what we saw last year, that losing team could maybe go deep in the postseason. None of this strikes me as particularly exciting.
Olney: This Memorial Day, the team with the best record in the AL is not the Baltimore Orioles, who had the league’s best record last year. Not the Rangers, the defending champions. Not the AL East-leading New York Yankees. Not the Astros. Not the Boston Red Sox or Tampa Bay Rays or Toronto Blue Jays. It’s the Cleveland Guardians. And right behind the Guardians, Yankees and Orioles with the fourth-best record: the Kansas City Royals. Before this season, a lot of projections had the Royals winning 70-74 games, or about a 15-win improvement over last year. Instead, Kansas City is on trajectory to flirt with 100 wins and has a top-three MVP finisher in Bobby Witt Jr.
Schoenfield: The AL Central, with the Guardians and Royals off to terrific starts and the Minnesota Twins over .500 as well. Not including 2020, the AL Central hasn’t had two teams make the playoffs since 2017 (when Cleveland and Minnesota made it), hasn’t had two teams finish over .500 since 2019 and hasn’t seen three teams finish over .500 since 2014. It’s not just that it has three winning teams, but it’s how impressive Cleveland and Kansas City have been. The Guardians have scored more runs than expected with a lockdown bullpen to close out leads, and the Royals have ridden a red-hot rotation with Seth Lugo dominating (plus Witt and Salvador Perez).
Which team is the biggest disappointment?
Castillo: The Miami Marlins were never expected to contend for a championship this season. A second consecutive postseason berth — after their first playoff appearance in a full season since 2003 — would’ve been a victory. But they were, at least, projected to be in the summer mix. Instead, injuries decimated their pitching staff over the first month of the season, digging a hole so deep that the organization punted on 2024 four days into May by trading Luis Arraez, the team’s best hitter, for four minor leaguers. The Marlins now reside in the run-differential company of dumpster fires in the Chicago White Sox and Colorado Rockies.
Maybe we should’ve seen this coming. Sandy Alcantara, the 2022 NL Cy Young Award winner, was shelved for 2024 after undergoing Tommy John surgery in October. Miami’s biggest offseason addition was Tim Anderson, who was coming off the worst season of his career. And things got ugly in the front office when general manager Kim Ng chose to leave after a de facto demotion. But it was never supposed to be this ugly this soon in Miami again.
Doolittle: I’m not ready to write off the Rangers or Astros just yet, so I’ll go with a team that I don’t see turning things around: Toronto. There was so much young offensive talent there and rather than last year’s backslide on offense regressing to the mean in a positive sense, things have gotten worse. Only the White Sox have a worse park-adjusted scoring rate than the Blue Jays.
Olney: There are lots of candidates here — the Marlins, after making the playoffs in 2023, and of course, the Rangers and Astros. But nobody has taken control yet of the AL West and it’s reasonable to expect a surge from both Texas and Houston (the Astros have already been playing better). On the other hand, the New York Mets — a team that won 100 games two years ago — are already 15 games out of first place in the NL East and nine games behind the second-place Atlanta Braves. It seemed like that they would at least hang in there and contend for a wild-card spot this year, but over the last month or so, they’ve lost 22 of 32 games — playing at a 111-loss pace during that stretch. That is nuts, and it’ll free up president of baseball operations David Stearns to be aggressive swapping for prospects at the trade deadline.
Schoenfield: Everyone expected the defending champion Rangers to be better in the second half, when they will hopefully be adding Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer and Tyler Mahle to the rotation, but the rotation hasn’t been their biggest problem. Bullpen depth is a big issue. Kirby Yates and David Robertson have been fine at the back end, but the middle relievers are coughing up runs in the middle of games. The offense hasn’t been as high-powered as we saw last season as Josh Jung has been injured, rookies Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford haven’t hit like projected and Corey Seager only recently found his power stroke. Luckily for the Rangers, the Mariners haven’t hit and the Astros haven’t pitched, so the AL West remains wide open.
How many teams will win 100 games this season — and who will finish with the most wins?
Castillo: I’ll roll with three, in this order: Los Angeles Dodgers (104 wins), Philadelphia Phillies (103), and New York Yankees (102). The Dodgers are on a 97-win pace despite having three holes in their lineup and being without several important pitchers for at least part of the season thus far. I see them improving their roster — with internal and external options — this summer and overwhelming clubs over the second half en route to 104 wins.
Doolittle: I think the Yankees, Phillies and Dodgers will get there, with the Yankees taking the overall MLB flag with, let’s say, 104 wins. It’s a very well-balanced team in New York, one that has displayed stifling run prevention even though Gerrit Cole’s season hasn’t yet started. The Braves have enough issues on the pitching side that I think they’ll come up just short — and they lost Ronald Acuna Jr. for the season on Sunday — but they remain a prime title contender.
Olney: Despite their win pace, the funny thing is that the Dodgers haven’t really gotten hot yet — they have only recently got their pitching sorted out, and eventually, it seems inevitable that they’ll get more production from the bottom five spots in their lineup. Look at where their No. 6 to 9 hitters rank in wRC+:
No. 6: 79 wRC+ (20th)
No. 7: 54 (26th)
No. 8: 55 (29th)
No. 9: 75 (15th)
That’s going to get better — so the Dodgers’ offense will get better. They’ll wind up with the best record and go into the postseason under enormous pressure, which is what happens with any star-laden team. The Yankees, Phillies and Braves will also finish with 100 wins.
Schoenfield: I’m going to go with four: the Yankees, Phillies, Braves and Dodgers, with the Orioles falling just short at 98. The Braves haven’t played like a 100-win team, but I’m betting on that offense clicking at some point, kicking the Braves into a 20-4 run or something that will have them back challenging the Phillies for the division title. Most wins? The Yankees have a great rotation (Luis Gil!) even without Cole, a great bullpen and maybe the two best hitters in the AL in Juan Soto and Aaron Judge. Put them down for 106 wins — their most since the historic 1998 team.
The New York Rangers are in advanced contract talks to make former Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Sullivan their next head coach, sources told ESPN’s Emily Kaplan and Kevin Weekes on Thursday.
The deal is expected to be one of the richest coaching contracts in NHL history, the sources said.
Sullivan would head to New York in a move that is coming together three days after he left his job with Pittsburgh, where he coached for 10 seasons and won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017.
The Penguins have missed the playoffs for the past three seasons amid a retooling of the roster.
David Quinn, Sullivan’s top assistant in Pittsburgh, is not expected to join him in New York. Quinn will be a candidate for other head coaching vacancies, including Pittsburgh’s, according to sources.
John Tortorella is a strong possibility to rejoin the Rangers organization. Sullivan, Quinn and Tortorella were on the coaching staff for Team USA at Four Nations.
In New York, Sullivan would replace Peter Laviolette, who was fired after the Rangers didn’t make the postseason for the first time since 2021.
Sullivan was selected by the Rangers in the 1987 draft but never played for New York, choosing to stay in college at Boston University before going on to an 11-year NHL playing career with four teams.
Sullivan, 57, previously served as a Rangers assistant coach from 2009 to 2013 on Tortorella’s staff. He also was the head coach of the Boston Bruins for the 2003-04 and 2005-06 seasons.
-
Ryan S. Clark
Winnipeg Jets coach Scott Arniel said Thursday that star center Mark Scheifele will not travel with team ahead of Game 6 against the St. Louis Blues.
Scheifele will remain in Winnipeg after he missed the second and third periods of his team’s 5-3 victory Wednesday against the Blues in Game 5 of the Western Conference quarterfinals.
“You’re hoping for the best that maybe he wakes up today and things are better,” Arniel told reporters before the team flight to St. Louis. “But right now, he won’t be making the trip, and we’ll just go day-to-day moving forward.”
With 13:51 remaining in the opening period, the Jets were in the Blues’ zone when Scheifele had just played the puck along the half wall. That’s when he was instantly checked by Blues captain Brayden Schenn. Scheifele appeared to be concentrating on the puck and looked as if he did not see Schenn, who connected with the top half of Scheifele’s chest and knocked him down to the ice.
Schenn was given a two-minute minor for interference and another two-minute minor for roughing.
A little more than 10 minutes later, Scheifele was involved in another physical sequence. He was just about to reach the Blues’ zone when forward Radek Faksa also checked him and appeared to have struck Scheifele in the same area as the previous hit from Schenn.
Scheifele finished the first period, but Arniel spoke to the officials as both teams were entering the dressing room before first intermission. Blues coach Jim Montgomery confirmed with reporters after the game that Arniel spoke to the officials about the Schenn hit before sharing his thoughts.
“Let’s make it clear: Fifty-five got hurt from the Faksa hit,” Montgomery said. “He played six minutes after the Schenn hit. He didn’t come back after he got rocked by Faksa.”
Upon hearing Montgomery’s comments, Arniel had some thoughts of his own.
“I didn’t know Monty got his medical degree and can say how our player got hurt. He’s way off base and should not make that comment,” Arniel told reporters. “There’s some things that have been going on in this series and that was a repeat of what we’ve seen before: A player leaving his feet and then hitting a player in a very unprotected spot. Like hitting him in the sense, almost blindsiding him. Not happy with how the call was made. A two-minute minor. Not even looking at it is what I was upset about.
“It is something we have talked to the league about for five games.”
On Thursday, Arniel was asked if Scheifele was in concussion protocol.
“I’m not going down that road,” Arniel said.
It’s possible that the Jets could once again turn to Vladislav Namestnikov like they did in Game 5 and elevate him to the top line. The second-line center would take Scheifele’s place on the first line alongside Kyle Connor and Gabriel Vilardi.
Namestnikov, who had 11 goals and 38 points in 78 regular-season games, had his strongest game of the postseason in Game 5. He finished with a goal and two points while logging 17:15 of ice time.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway