Pitching, defense and a budding star: Why the red-hot Royals might actually be for real
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Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Staff Writer
As the 2024 season nears its one-month mark, the Kansas City Royals — the team that matched a franchise record with 106 losses last year — are not only on the right side of .500, but feature one of the best run differentials in baseball.
To better understand where they are, let’s try to understand where they were — merely a few months ago, at the end of a disastrous 2023 season. If Kansas City were in the early stages of a rebuild, it might not be fair to label that as a disaster. But the current rebuild can be traced to at least 2018, as the back-to-back pennant winners of the last decade were gradually dissolved. Six years down the line, you expect a team in rebuild mode to be emerging, not bottoming out. So, yes, that’s a disaster.
Even worse: In ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel’s preseason farm system rankings over the past three years, the Royals have finished 12th, 28th and 26th, respectively. And in McDaniel’s prospect rankings for 2024, they failed to land a single prospect in the top 100.
None of this reads like the resume of a breakout team, but check out the current standings — the Royals have a winning percentage in the top 10 of the majors.
The obvious conclusion is that it’s a fluke. This happens almost every season. Some team emerges from the ether, inspiring a spate of “are they for real” analysis. (Like this one.) At the end of April last year, the Pirates had the best record in the National League with a run differential that justified that mark. They finished 10 games under .500.
The Royals have occupied an early spring “if the season ended today” playoff slot for most of the schedule to date. It’s been a surprising run and an enjoyable run. The question is whether it’s going to be a long run.
If the Royals’ strong start turns into a season-long push for the playoffs, the beginning of that quest will be traced to the organization’s decision to actually try this past winter. That might seem like a no-brainer, but when you look at the team-by-team behavior in the recent hot stove marketplace, it’s not something that fans can take for granted.
According to Spotrac, the Royals ranked sixth in free agent spending this offseason, committing more than $110 million to eight free agents: pitchers Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha, Chris Stratton and Will Smith, and hitters Adam Frazier, Hunter Renfroe, Garrett Hampson and Austin Nola.
It’s not a group of stars but, highlighted by veteran starters Lugo and Wacha, it’s a group of eight players with recognizable names and a good amount of big league success behind them.
“Everything in this game starts and ends with starting pitching,” Royals general manager J.J. Picollo said. “That was clearly the No. 1 objective, trying to secure two starting pitchers.”
Many were surprised to see a team like the Royals, one of four that lost more than 100 games in 2023, go on a spending spree during an offseason in which a number of not just winning clubs, but playoff clubs — most notably the reigning World Series champion Rangers — didn’t.
However, one thing to understand is that the Royals, as bad as they were in 2023, probably weren’t 106-loss bad in terms of true talent level. According to their run differential, they were more of a 98-loss team. Coming into last season, their consensus over/under was around 70 wins, marking them as 92-loss bad.
As miserable as last season was, they did post a .423 winning percentage during the second half (a 68-win pace), as they went 15-12 after Sept. 1 and finished on a 12-5 sprint.
These are not exactly shining beacons of hope, but they are data points that improve the baseline from which the Royals were building entering 2024, allowing the team to reframe the way it viewed itself. Statistically, even without change, they would have projected to be better. That in itself justifies a measure of offseason aggression, but it was bolstered by the state of their division and some general payroll retrenchment in their economic tier, which created opportunities that multiplied as the Royals’ interest to add circulated in free agent circles.
“I thought we were going to end up trading for a starting pitcher and it just didn’t evolve. The opportunity wasn’t there,” Picollo said. “But we had done our work from early in June and knew who the free agents would be and how we could put together a rotation that would be competitive again.”
A 70-win baseline, considered in the context of an American League Central landscape that might not yield a 90-win team, is a glimmer of hope. It’s scalable. It allows a GM to go to ownership with a plan to shore up the roster with targeted additions, rather than a plan to blow up everything and begin again from scratch.
Luckily for Picollo, owner John Sherman was on board with the patching approach even though the Royals were one of the teams affected by the ongoing RSN crisis around the game.
“He wasn’t overly concerned about where he feels like the long-term prognosis of where this may go,” Picollo said. “In short term, he said go ahead and do what you got to do. Which was nice to hear. This is his fifth season as the owner, and we haven’t had good seasons. I think his desire to win was very evident, very supportive.”
The key to the Royals’ start has been pitching, especially from what arguably has been baseball’s most consistent rotation. Kansas City ranks third in quality starts, fifth in overall ERA and fourth in rotation ERA.
The quintet of Wacha, Lugo, Brady Singer, Alec Marsh and Cole Ragans rank second in MLB in innings per start. And yet the Royals are one of just three teams without a single hurler who has thrown at least 100 pitches in a game — showing that their efficiency has come as a group, not just from one or two sudden spikes.
The driving force for the unit has been a renewed focus on throwing strikes while keeping the ball down in the zone. The Kansas City rotation ranks 10th in strike percentage — up from 17th last season — and third in pitches classified as low, according to TruMedia.
“You’re constantly watching and see how guys are attacking hitters and what sequences they are using,” Lugo said. “You know what happens when you make quality pitches in the strike zone. It kind of feeds along the whole staff.”
This approach runs counter to the strategy of some teams, like the ever-progressive Tampa Bay Rays, who attack the top of the zone with high-spin fastballs. But even if the Royals’ collective approach doesn’t exactly ride the wave of current trends, it is a classic formula: Pound the zone, work quickly, let your athletes shine on defense.
So far, it’s paid off. Royals pitchers rank just 24th in strikeout rate but are 10th in walk rate and fifth in home run rate. Meanwhile, the defense behind them that rates among the best in MLB in defensive runs saved and the infield leads all teams in out percentage on groundballs.
“Pitching and defense, right, the old adage,” manager Matt Quatraro said. “If you’re throwing a lot of strikes, your defense is on their toes. And especially the closer the games are, the more heightened your awareness is. And I think that’s definitely something that’s building.”
The ability to capitalize on overlooked talent from other teams through analytics-based optimization might be a burgeoning trait in the Royals’ organization. We would need to see more of this to place Kansas City in the same category as the Los Angeles Dodgers, Rays and a handful of other teams. But there have been a couple of key recent success stories.
Last year, Picollo was able to turn a low-risk flier on veteran reliever Aroldis Chapman into the in-season trade that brought back Cole Ragans from Texas. Ragans has been a different, more dominant pitcher for the Royals since being acquired, an emerging ace with stuff so fierce that he’s been likened to Jacob deGrom.
Ragans isn’t the only positive development in the second-chance marketplace. A year ago, reliever James McArthur was a nondescript, former 12th-round pick of the Phillies. He was acquired in a low-level trade last May after Philadelphia designated him for assignment. At that point, McArthur was 26 years old and had just 16 innings above Double-A, during which he posted a 7.31 ERA.
Now, McArthur is the Royals’ closer. He’s saved nine games, including five this season, and has a 35:4 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
“The process to acquire [McArthur] was great,” Quatraro said. “A lot of input from a lot of different people in the pitching department, the front office, the collaboration to see what they thought he could become. And then once we acquired him, the tweaks to the usage and the grips, and the things in pitch design.
“That part of it is really exciting because that shows a lot of work within different departments to find a diamond in the rough.”
Quatraro, who was hired as manager following the 2022 season, has played a key role in the Royals’ big league development, adding perspective that he and pitching coach Brian Sweeney internalized from their previous stops in Tampa Bay and Cleveland, respectively. It was a needed element of progressiveness for the Royals, who have typically been run along traditional scouting-and-development lines.
“They represented something different than I had been around in the past,” Picollo said. “(There are) more objective decisions being made, more reliant on data. It was really evident to us in spring training that we were going to have to really beef up our [analytical] department to keep up with what their demands were. And it was somewhat uncomfortable at times, but the way Q works and the way he communicates made it easier to digest.”
This bodes well for the Royals as they wade into the roster churn that always happens around MLB as the schedule progresses. All it takes is two or three of these success stories per season to bolster the depth of an organization, helping fill gaps while the minor league system ramps back up to speed.
“This is a good group of young guys that are really good at baseball,” said reliever Will Smith, who has been a member of MLB’s past three World Series champions and broke into the majors with the Royals in 2012. “J.J. and the front office did a great job of bringing in some vets that have had success in the big leagues before, just trying to teach these young guys how to be winners. It’s been fun so far.”
The Royals’ individual leader in defensive runs saved is Bobby Witt Jr. This greatly enhanced aspect of his game can sometimes be overshadowed by his offensive prowess, which went to another level during the second half of 2023 — and stayed there.
“Bobby is really driven and wants to learn. He’s very coachable,” Picollo said. “I think he’s just scratching the surface what he’s going to do.”
From Witt’s debut in 2022 through July 27 of last season, his .724 OPS ranked 145th among 263 hitters with at least 500 plate appearances. Since then, his .956 OPS ranks 11th and he’s in the top 20 in hits, runs, RBIs, average, slugging and stolen bases. And he’s still only 23 years old.
“(The improvement) was just becoming prepared as much as possible each and every day,” Witt said. “Knowing that there’s more than just being ready at game time. You’ve got to make sure your body is right for each and every game. You’ve got to make sure your preparation is right.”
If it sounds simple, that’s no accident. Witt, whose natural, eye-popping gifts are apparent in almost every game he plays, nevertheless had an early tendency to try to do too much — at the plate, in the field and on the bases. Now he operates by a mantra he’s famously sketched onto the equipment he uses in games: simple.
“I feel like I’m at that point where I just really try to control what I can control,” Witt said. “Just go out to the field and take things pitch by pitch and not worry about the results.”
Witt’s stunning transmogrification from potential superstar to actual superstar is what sets this current Royals feel-good start into one where you can’t help but stroke your chin plaintively as you ponder the possibilities. That’s what the impact of one transcendent star can do.
Think of it like this: Let’s say that Picollo’s offseason overhaul of the team’s personnel and the developing strategy on the run-prevention side brings the non-Witt portion of the Kansas City roster to .500. A player putting up numbers like Witt on both sides of the ball is an MVP candidate, one worth anywhere from five to six wins above average in the bWAR framework. (Witt currently leads all AL position players in bWAR).
A player at six wins above average pushes the profile of an 81-81 team to 87-75. In the AL Central, that’s contention. And that’s the approach in K.C. — shore up the holes on the dossier to stabilize the baseline, and hope the upside is provided by Witt and the roster’s other most talented youngsters like Vinnie Pasquantino, M.J. Melendez, Maikel Garcia and Ragans.
All of this is a little cold, though, because Witt’s rise is so much more to the Royals than a WAR total. He is the face of pretty much everything the franchise is trying to do, whether it’s returning to contention or the field or stabilizing the franchise’s future with the downtown ballpark the Royals still hope to get built within the next few years. That’s saying something given the ongoing presence and production of (possible) future Hall of Famer Salvador Perez, the last remaining link to the Royals’ 2015 champions.
“[Witt’s] really special,” Picollo said. “His tools, his ability to take in information and make adjustments along the way just stood out for us. He’s going to continue to get better and better. I don’t think he’s going to hit his prime until he’s 27, 28 — and he’s really, really good right now.”
And Witt will be with the Royals for those peak years, as he agreed to a complicated 11-year, $288.8 million extension over the winter. While the deal has opt-outs that could shorten it or extend it to as long as 14 years, even in its most basic form it ensures he will remain with the Royals for the foreseeable future and into his free agent window. Witt is the cornerstone player the Royals hoped he would be and he seems intent on becoming to the Royals what Patrick Mahomes has become to the Chiefs on the other end of the Truman Sports Complex.
“He wanted to know from us that we were committed financially to putting a good team on the field,” Picollo said. “Now we’re still small market, we’ve still got to be dependent on draft and player development and all those things. But I think in the future, because Bobby’s on the team that’s going to help us secure some players.”
When you are looking for clues about how sustainable the Royals’ early-season play might be, Witt is where you start. He’s really this good, and he’s not going anywhere. It all makes what the Royals are doing now feel more solid.
As for other hints of sustainability, the picture is less clear.
If you’ve watched the Royals on a regular basis this season, there are lots of reasons to be encouraged. They’ve won more than they’ve lost. They’ve often played well in their losses, which is one reason why their run differential actually marks them as unlucky in the win-loss column.
Through it all, there’s one thought that you can’t escape: This team lost 106 games last season, a .346 winning percentage.
During the modern era (since 1900), there have been 103 teams with winning percentages that low, not including the Royals and the Athletics last season. Only eight finished .500 or better the following season: Phillies (1904-05), Cardinals (1913-14), Pirates (1917-18), Athletics (1946-47), Phillies (again, 1961-62), Athletics (again, 1979-80), Orioles (1988-89) and, most recently, the Orioles again (2021-22). The high-water mark for those teams was 87 wins by the ’89 Orioles.
So, yeah, we’re saying there’s a chance the Royals have a winning season in 2024, but the history against that scale of improvement is daunting. If they are to overcome that history, a few things have to happen.
This trick of holding down opponents without an elite strikeout rate is going to have to hold up, at least to some extent. Can it?
According to Fangraphs, the Royals’ team strikeout rate is 87% of the MLB average, ranking 28th. Since 2015, there have been just 22 teams with relative strikeout rates that low. Just four of those 22 finished with park-adjusted staff ERAs better than league average: the Cardinals (2021 and 2022), 2017 Rangers and 2015 Twins. Those four teams were a combined 2.2% better than league average. The Royals’ current park-adjusted ERA is 18% better than average.
That’s not very likely to hold up, especially as the weather warms and home run rates rise. The Royals have allowed homers on just 6.8% of their fly balls so far (third lowest in baseball); the MLB average is 7.9. That’s another number that just won’t hold up for them, but that doesn’t mean it has to collapse, especially if Kauffman Stadium plays big as it often does.
In both areas — walks allowed and dingers — the Royals will need to support the staff with top-of-the-charts defense, which the infield has provided but the outfield will need to match that over the long haul. Of course, that’s the way the team is designed — elite defense has been the backbone of every contending team Kansas City has had.
Finally, the Royals will need exceedingly good health. It’s not a deep organization at the upper minor league levels and, so far, the depth has not been tested. They did not change their Opening Day roster until last week, when they needed a 27th man for a doubleheader against the White Sox.
The good early health has been a boon but no one gets through a season unscathed. The Royals won’t go through the schedule with that core five-man rotation. They will also need way more relievers than the nine who have played so far.
That’s a lot of things that need to keep working in their favor. Still, focusing on that is really beside the point. The real point is that who would have thought, given where last season ended, that we’d even be doing this kind of deep dive into this franchise a mere few months later.
Great defense that supports a consistent pitching staff of strike throwers, good health, an MVP run by Witt — these things are all within the realm of reasonable possibility. And given the state of their division and what we’ve seen of the Royals, the stakes of these developments might actually matter.
They have rekindled the enthusiasm of a fan base always ready to explode when given the slightest reason to do so. By adding at a time when it didn’t seem to make sense, Kansas City has laid a platform on which possibility can be given a chance. It’s amazing the message that is sent when a team actually tries.
“It was just huge,” Witt said. “The veteran leadership we have now with the guys that we signed, and the core group of young guys that we have now coming into themselves. We knew we had this talent the whole time. And now we’re putting it all together.”
Hard-throwing rookie Jacob Misiorowski is a National League All-Star replacement, giving the Milwaukee Brewers right-hander a chance to break Paul Skenes‘ record for the fewest big league appearances before playing in the Midsummer Classic.
Misiorowski was named Friday night to replace Chicago Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd, who will be unavailable for the All-Star Game on Tuesday night in Atlanta because he is scheduled to start Saturday at the New York Yankees.
The 23-year-old Misiorowski has made just five starts for the Brewers, going 4-1 with a 2.81 ERA while averaging 99.3 mph on his fastball, with 89 pitches that have reached 100 mph.
If he pitches at Truist Park, Misiorowski will make it consecutive years for a player to set the mark for fewest big league games before an All-Star showing.
Skenes, the Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander getting ready for his second All-Star appearance, had made 11 starts in the majors when he was chosen as the NL starter for last year’s All-Star Game at Texas. He pitched a scoreless inning.
“I’m speechless,” said a teary-eyed Misiorowski, who said he was given the news a few minutes before the Brewers’ 8-3 victory over Washington. “It’s awesome. It’s very unexpected and it’s an honor.”
Misiorowski is the 30th first-time All-Star and 16th replacement this year. There are now 80 total All-Stars.
“He’s impressive. He’s got some of the best stuff in the game right now, even though he’s a young pitcher,” said Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, who is a starting AL outfielder for his seventh All-Star nod. “He’s going to be a special pitcher in this game for a long time so I think he deserved it and it’s going be pretty cool for him and his family.”
Carlos Rodón, Carlos Estévez and Casey Mize were named replacement pitchers on the AL roster.
The New York Yankees‘ Rodón, an All-Star for the third time in five seasons, will replace teammate Max Fried for Tuesday’s game in Atlanta. Fried will be unavailable because he is scheduled to start Saturday against the Chicago Cubs.
In his final start before the All-Star game, Rodón allowed four hits and struck out eight in eight innings in an 11-0 victory over the Cubs.
“This one’s a little special for me,” said Rodón, an All-Star in 2021 and ’22 who was 3-8 in his first season with the Yankees two years ago before rebounding. “I wasn’t good when I first got here, and I just wanted to prove that I wasn’t to going to give up and just put my best foot forward and try to win as many games as I can.”
The Kansas City Royals‘ Estévez replaces Texas’ Jacob deGrom, who is scheduled to start at Houston on Saturday night. Estévez was a 2023 All-Star when he was with the Los Angeles Angels.
Mize takes the spot held by Boston‘s Garrett Crochet, who is scheduled to start Saturday against Tampa Bay. Mize gives the Tigers six All-Stars, most of any team and tied for the franchise record.
Royals third baseman Maikel Garcia will replace Tampa Bay‘s Brandon Lowe, who went on the injured list with left oblique tightness. The additions of Estévez and Garcia give the Royals four All-Stars, matching their 2024 total.
The Seattle Mariners announced center fielder Julio Rodríguez will not participate, and he was replaced by teammate Randy Arozarena. Rodríguez had been voted onto the AL roster via the players’ ballot. The Mariners, who have five All-Stars, said Rodríguez will use the break to “recuperate, rest and prepare for the second half.”
Arozarena is an All-Star for the second time. He started in left field for the AL two years ago, when he was with Tampa Bay. Arozarena was the runner-up to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the 2023 Home Run Derby.
Rays right-hander Drew Rasmussen, a first-time All-Star, is replacing Angels left-hander Yusei Kikuchi, who is scheduled to start Saturday night at Arizona. Rasmussen is 7-5 with a 2.82 ERA in 18 starts.
San Diego added a third NL All-Star reliever in lefty Adrián Morejón, who replaces Philadelphia starter Zack Wheeler. The Phillies’ right-hander is scheduled to start at San Diego on Saturday night. Morejón entered the weekend with a 1.71 ERA in 45 appearances.
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David Schoenfield
We’re past due to hand out some midseason grades, so let’s hand out some midseason grades.
As we pass the 90-game mark in the 2025 MLB season, my team of the first half isn’t the well-rounded Detroit Tigers, who do get our highest grade for owning MLB’s best record, or the explosive Chicago Cubs or Shohei Ohtani‘s Los Angeles Dodgers, but a team most baseball fans love to hate: the Houston Astros. They lost their two best players from last season and their best hitter has been injured — and they’re playing their best baseball since they won the 2022 World Series.
Let’s get to the grades. As always, we’re grading off preseason expectations, factoring in win-loss record and quality of performance, while looking at other positive performances and injuries.
Jump to a team:
AL East: BAL | BOS | NYY | TB | TOR
AL Central: CHW | CLE | DET | KC | MIN
AL West: ATH | HOU | LAA | SEA | TEX
NL East: ATL | MIA | NYM | PHI | WSH
NL Central: CHC | CIN | MIL | PIT | STL
NL West: ARI | COL | LAD | SD | SF
Tarik Skubal is obviously the headline act, but the Tigers are winning with impressive depth across the entire roster.
Javier Baez is putting together a remarkable comeback season after a couple of abysmal years and will become the first player to start an All-Star Game at both shortstop and in the outfield. Former No. 1 overall picks Casey Mize and Spencer Torkelson have put together their own comeback stories, while Riley Greene has matured into one of the game’s top power hitters.
Given their deep well of prospects and contributors at the MLB level, no team is better positioned than the Tigers to add significant help at the trade deadline.
I heard someone refer to them as the Zombie Astros, which feels apropos. Alex Bregman left as a free agent, they traded Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez has been injured and has just three home runs, and the Jose Altuve experiment in left field predictably fizzled.
But here they are, fighting for the best record in the majors and holding a comfortable lead in the AL West. They’re getting star turns from Hunter Brown, Framber Valdez and Jeremy Pena, while the risky decision to start Cam Smith in the majors with very little minor league experience has paid off, as he has now become their cleanup hitter.
If we ignore the COVID-19 season, the Astros look on their way to an eighth straight division title.
This could be at least a half-grade higher based on everything that has gone right: Pete Crow-Armstrong‘s attention-grabbing breakout, Tucker doing everything expected after the big trade, Seiya Suzuki‘s monster power numbers and Matthew Boyd‘s All-Star turn in the rotation. The Cubs are on pace for their most wins since their World Series title season in 2016.
There have been a few hiccups, however, especially in the rotation with Justin Steele‘s season-ending injury and Ben Brown‘s inconsistency, plus rookie third baseman Matt Shaw has scuffled, and the bench has been weak aside from their backup catchers.
Still, this is a powerhouse lineup, and the Cubs will seek to improve their rotation at the deadline.
They just keep winning of late, going from 25-27 and seven games behind the Yankees on May 25 to taking over first place from the slumping Bronx Bombers, a remarkable turnaround over just 36 games. They went 27-9 over a 36-game stretch ending with their eighth win in a row on Sunday.
George Springer‘s recent surge has been fun to watch, a reminder of how good he was at his peak, and Addison Barger has been mashing over the past two months.
Some of the stats don’t add up to the Blue Jays being this good — they’ve barely outscored their opponents — but there might be more offense in the tank from the likes of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and a healthy Anthony Santander, and the bullpen, a soft spot, is the easiest area to upgrade.
Their success is best summed up by the fact that Freddy Peralta is their lone All-Star, but they have a whole bunch of players who have contributed between 1 and 2 WAR.
Brandon Woodruff looked good Sunday in his first start in nearly two years, so that could be a huge boost for the second half.
I’m curious to see how Jackson Chourio performs as well. While his counting stats — extra-base hits, RBIs — are fine, his triple-slash line remains below last season, especially his OBP. He had a huge second half in 2024 (.310/.363/.552), and if he does that again, the Brewers could find themselves back in the postseason for the seventh time in eight seasons.
The Rays started off slow, with a losing record through the end of April, but then went 33-22 in May and June to claw back into the AL East race — as the Rays usually do, last year being the recent exception.
Two key performers have been All-Star third baseman Junior Caminero, who has a chance to become just the third player to hit 40 home runs in his age-21 season, and All-Star first baseman Jonathan Aranda.
Due to the league wanting the Rays to play more home games early in the season, the July and August slate will be very road-heavy, so we’ll see how the Rays adapt to a difficult two-month stretch, especially since their pitching isn’t quite as deep as it has been in other seasons.
No, they’re not going to be the greatest team of all time. But they might win 100 games — even though Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki, their huge offseason acquisitions, have combined for just two wins in 10 starts.
The lineup, of course, has been terrific, with Ohtani leading the NL in several categories and Will Smith leading the batting race. By wRC+, it’s been the best offense in Dodgers history.
If they can get some combo of Snell, Sasaki and Tyler Glasnow healthy, plus Ohtani eventually ramped up to a bigger workload on the mound, the Dodgers still loom as World Series favorites.
They are on pace for 95 wins, mainly on the strength of Zack Wheeler, Ranger Suarez and Cristopher Sanchez, who are a combined 23-7 with 11.8 WAR. Jesus Luzardo‘s ERA is bloated due to that two-start stretch when he allowed 20 runs, but he has otherwise been solid as well.
But, overall, it hasn’t always been the smoothest of treks. The bullpen has imploded a few times and the offense has lacked power aside from Kyle Schwarber. Bryce Harper is back after missing three weeks, and they need to get his bat going. Look for some bullpen additions at the trade deadline — and perhaps an outfielder as well.
The Cardinals have been a minor surprise — perhaps even to the Cardinals themselves. St. Louis was viewing this as a rebuilding year of sorts — not that the Cardinals ever hit rock bottom and start completely over. They had a hot May, winning 12 of 13 at one point, but the offense has been fading of late, with those three straight shutout losses to Pittsburgh and six shutout losses since June 25.
The starting rotation doesn’t generate a lot of swing and miss, with both Erick Fedde and Miles Mikolas seeing their ERAs starting to climb. Brendan Donovan is the team’s only All-Star rep, and that kind of sums up this team: solid but without any star power. That might foretell a second-half fade.
All-Star starting pitchers Logan Webb and Robbie Ray, plus a dominant bullpen, have led the way, although after starting 12-4, the Giants have basically been a .500 team for close to three months now. Rafael Devers hasn’t yet ignited the offense since coming over from Boston, and the Giants have lost four 1-0 games.
These final three games at home against the Dodgers before the All-Star break will be a crucial series, as Los Angeles has slowly pulled away in the NL West.
This was an “A-plus” through June 12, when the Mets were 45-24 and owned the best record in baseball, even though Juan Soto hadn’t gotten hot. Soto finally got going in June, but the pitching collapsed, and the Mets went through a disastrous 1-10 stretch.
The rotation injuries have piled up, exacerbating the lack of bullpen depth. Recent games have been started by Justin Hagenman (who had a 6.21 ERA in Triple-A), journeyman reliever Chris Devenski, Paul Blackburn (7.71 ERA) and Frankie Montas, who has had to start even though he’s clearly not throwing the ball well. The Mets need to get the rotation healthy, but also could use more offense from Mark Vientos and their catchers (Francisco Alvarez was demoted to Triple-A).
At times it has felt like Cal Raleigh has been a one-man team with his record-breaking first half. But he will be joined on the All-Star squad by starting pitcher Bryan Woo, closer Andres Munoz and center fielder Julio Rodriguez, who made it on the strength of his defense, as his offense has been a disappointment.
The offense has been one of the best in the majors on the road, but the rotation has been nowhere near as effective as the past couple of seasons, with George Kirby, Logan Gilbert and Bryce Miller all missing time with injuries. They just shut out the Pirates three games in a row, so maybe that will get the rotation on a roll.
They’re just out of the wild-card picture while hanging around .500, so we give them a decent grade since that exceeds preseason expectations. It feels like a little bit of a mirage given their run differential — their record in one-run games (good) versus their record in blowout games (not good) — and various holes across the lineup and pitching staff.
But they’ve done two things to keep them in the race. One, they hit a lot of home runs. Two, they’re the only team in the majors to use just five starting pitchers. The rotation hasn’t been stellar, but it’s been stable.
The Padres are probably fortunate to be where they are, given some of their issues. As expected, the offensive depth has been a problem.
Not as expected, Dylan Cease has struggled while Michael King‘s injury after a strong start has left them without last year’s dynamic 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation (although Nick Pivetta has been one of the best signings of the offseason). Yu Darvish just made his season debut Monday, so hopefully he’ll provide a lift.
The Padres haven’t played well against the better teams, including a 2-5 record against the Dodgers, but they did clean up against the Athletics, Rockies and Pirates, going 16-2 against those three teams.
For now, the Reds are stuck in neutral. Leave out 2022, when they lost 100 games, and it’s otherwise been a string of .500-ish seasons: 31-29 in 2020, 83-79 in 2021, 82-80 in 2023, 77-85 in 2024 and now a similar record so far in 2025.
The hope was that Terry Francona would be a difference-maker. Maybe that will play out down the stretch, but the best hope is to get the rotation clicking on all cylinders at the same time. That means Andrew Abbott continuing his breakout performance, plus getting Hunter Greene healthy again and rookie Chase Burns to live up to the hype after a couple of shaky outings following an impressive MLB debut.
Throw in Nick Lodolo and solid Nick Martinez and Brady Singer, and this group can be good enough to pitch the Reds to their first full-season playoff appearance since 2013.
The Yankees have hit their annual midseason swoon — which has been subject to much intense analysis from their disgruntled fans — and that opening weekend sweep of the Brewers, when the Yankees’ torpedo bats were the big story in baseball, now seems long ago.
Going from seven up to three back in such a short time is a disaster — but not disastrous. Nonetheless, the Yankees will have to do some hard-core self-evaluation heading to the trade deadline.
The offense wasn’t going to be as good as it was in April, when Paul Goldschmidt, Trent Grisham and Ben Rice were all playing over their heads. So, do they need a hitter? Or with Clarke Schmidt now likely joining Gerrit Cole as a Tommy John casualty, do they need a starting pitcher? Or both?
From the book of “things we didn’t expect,” page 547: The Marlins are averaging more runs per game than the Orioles, Padres, Braves and Rangers, to name a few teams. They’re averaging almost as many runs per game as the Mets, and last time we checked, the Marlins weren’t the team to give Soto $765 million.
An eight-game winning streak at the end of June has the Marlins going toe-to-toe with the Braves for third place in the NL East even though the starting rotation has been a mess, with Sandy Alcantara on track to become just the fourth qualified pitcher with an ERA over 7.00.
Heading into the season, I thought that if any team was going to challenge the Dodgers in the NL West, it would be the Diamondbacks. The offense has once again been one of the best in the majors, but the pitching issues have been painful.
After the aggressive move to sign Corbin Burnes, he went down with Tommy John surgery after 11 starts. Meanwhile, Zac Gallen, Eduardo Rodriguez and Brandon Pfaadt each have an ERA on the wrong side of 5.00. Rodriguez was better in June before a shellacking on July 4, while Gallen remains homer-prone, so it’s hard to tell if improvement is on the horizon. Their playoff odds are hovering just under 20%, so there’s a chance, but they need to get red-hot like they did last July and August.
It feels like it has been more soap opera than baseball season in Boston, with the Devers drama finally ending with the shocking trade with the Giants.
If you give added weight that this is the Red Sox, a team that should be operating with the big boys in both budget and aspirations and instead seemed to only want to dump Devers’ contract, then feel free to lower this grade a couple of notches, even if the Red Sox are close in the wild-card standings.
On the field, the heralded rookie trio of Kristian Campbell, Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer hasn’t exactly clicked, with Campbell returning to the minors after posting a .902 OPS in April. A big test will come out of the All-Star break, when they play the Cubs, Phillies, Dodgers, Twins and Astros in a tough 15-game stretch.
After last season’s surprise playoff appearance, it’s been a frustrating 2025 — although I’m not sure this result is necessarily a surprise.
There were concerns about the offense heading into the season and those concerns have proven correct. They were getting no production from their outfield, so they rushed Jac Caglianone to the majors to much hype, but he has struggled and might need a reset back in Triple-A. Even Bobby Witt Jr., as good as he has been (on pace for 7.5 WAR), has seen his OPS drop 140 points.
On the bright side, Kris Bubic emerged as an All-Star starter and Noah Cameron has filled in nicely for the injured Cole Ragans, so maybe they trade a starter for some offense.
Coming off a catastrophic 2024 season, nobody was expecting anything from the White Sox. Indeed, another 121-loss season loomed as a possibility. While they’re on pace to lose 100 again, they’ve at least played more competitive baseball thanks to their pitching.
Rookie starters Shane Smith and Sean Burke have shown promise, while rookie position players Kyle Teel, Edgar Quero and now Colson Montgomery are getting their initial taste of the majors.
There has been the mix of calamity: Luis Robert Jr. has been unproductive and is probably now untradable, and former No. 3 overall pick Andrew Vaughn hit .189 and was traded to the Brewers.
The Twins are one organization that might like a do-over of the past five seasons. It feels like they’ve had the most talent in the division, but all they’ve done is squeeze out one soft division title in 2023. Now, the Tigers have passed them in talent and other factors, such as payroll flexibility.
There’s still time for the Twins to turn things around in 2025, but outside of that wonderful 13-game winning streak, they haven’t played winning baseball.
Overall, it’s been yet another bad season, despite Paul Skenes‘ brilliance. Really, do we talk enough about him? Yes, we do talk about him, but he has a 1.95 ERA through his first 42 career starts. Incredible.
Here’s an amazing thing about baseball. The Pirates are not a good team, but they recently put together one of the best six-game stretches in history. That’s not stretching the description. First, they swept the Mets — a good team — by scores of 9-1, 9-2 and 12-1. Then they swept the Cardinals — a good team — with three shutouts, 7-0, 1-0 and 5-0. They became the first team since at least 1901 to score 43 runs or more and allow four runs or fewer in a six-game stretch. And then they promptly got shut out three games in a row, making them the first to win three straight shutouts and then lose three straight shutouts.
Eighteen of our 28 voters picked them to win the AL West before the season, but it’s looking more and more like the 2023 World Series might be a stone-cold fluke in the middle of a string of losing seasons. That year, nearly everyone in the lineup had a career year at the plate, and the pitching got hot at the right time.
This year’s Rangers, though, have struggled to score runs, and while some have pointed to the offensive environment at Globe Life Field, they’re near the bottom in road OPS as well. It’s been fun seeing Jacob deGrom back at a dominating level, and Nathan Eovaldi should have been an All-Star.
Put it this way: If the Rangers can somehow squeeze into the postseason, you don’t want to face the Rangers in a short series. Indeed, if any team looms as an October upset special, it might be the Rangers.
The Nationals received superlative first-half performances from James Wood and MacKenzie Gore, while CJ Abrams is on the way to his best season. But there remains a lack of overall organizational progress, which finally led to the firings on Sunday of longtime GM Mike Rizzo and longtime manager Dave Martinez. A 7-19 record in June sealed their fate, as the rotation has been bad and the bullpen arguably the worst in baseball.
Until the Nationals figure out how to improve their pitching — or, better yet, find an owner who wants to win — they will be stuck going nowhere.
That fell apart in a hurry. Sunday’s loss was Cleveland’s 10th in a row, a stretch that remarkably included five shutouts. Indeed, the Guardians have now been shut out 11 times; the franchise record in the post-dead-ball-era (since 1920) is 20 shutouts in 1968.
There’s nothing worse than watching a team that can’t score runs, so that tells you how exciting the Guardians have been. Last year, the Guardians hit exceptionally well with runners in scoring position, keeping afloat what was otherwise a mediocre offense. That hasn’t happened in 2025 (trading Josh Naylor didn’t help either). Throw in some predictable regression from the bullpen, and this season looks lost.
We can’t give this a complete failing grade due to the emergence of All-Star shortstop Jacob Wilson (the Athletics’ first All-Star starter since Josh Donaldson in 2014) and slugging first baseman Nick Kurtz, who have a chance to finish 1-2 in the Rookie of the Year voting. Plus, we have Denzel Clarke‘s circus catches in center field.
But otherwise? Ugh. The Sacramento gamble already looks like a disaster, three months into a three-year stay. The team is drawing well below Sutter Health Park’s 14,000-seat capacity, with many recent games drawing under 10,000 fans. Luis Severino bashed the small crowds and the lack of air-conditioning.
The A’s had a groundbreaking ceremony for their new park in Vegas, renting heavy construction equipment as background props. Maybe they should have spent that money on more pitching help.
Based on preseason expectations, the Braves have clearly been the biggest disappointment in the National League — fighting the Orioles for most disappointing overall.
What’s gone wrong? They haven’t scored runs, as the offense continues its remarkable fade from a record-setting performance just two seasons ago. The collapses of Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies lead the way, with lack of production at shortstop and left field playing a big role as well. Closer Raisel Iglesias has struggled, and the team is 11-22 in one-run games. Spencer Strider hasn’t yet reached his pre-injury level and Reynaldo Lopez made just one start before going down.
The Braves haven’t missed the playoffs since 2017, but that run is clearly in jeopardy.
The Orioles have a similar record to the Braves but have played much worse, including losses of 24-2, 19-5, 15-3 and two separate 9-0 shutouts.
They will spend the trade deadline dealing away as many of their impending free agents as possible, and then do a lot of soul-searching heading into the offseason. After making the playoffs in 2023 and 2024, will this season just be a blip? While the pitching struggles aren’t necessarily a big surprise, what has happened to the offense? Are some of their young players prospects or suspects?
After two months of Cleveland Spiders-level baseball, it would be easy to make fun of the Rockies. Especially since they recently announced Walker Monfort — son of the owner — was promoted to executive VP and will replace outgoing president and COO Greg Feasel.
On the other hand, the Rockies are doing something right: They just drew 121,000 for a three-game series against the White Sox.
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Jesse Rogers
CHICAGO — Former White Sox lefty Mark Buehrle was forever immortalized inside Rate Field as the team unveiled a statue in his honor Friday.
Buehrle, 46, played 16 years in the majors, including the first 12 with the White Sox, who he helped win a World Series in 2005. He won 214 games and pitched 200 innings or more in 14 consecutive seasons from 2001 to 2014.
“I can’t put it into words,” Buehrle said after the unveiling. “You don’t play the game for any of this. You never think of number retirements or statues. I can’t even wrap my head around it. It doesn’t make sense.”
The statue is an action shot of him throwing a pitch.
His wife and kids were in attendance and helped pull off the cover to unveil the statue while his 2005 teammates looked on. The event kicked off a weekend reunion for the World Series team which went 11-1 in the postseason, beating the Houston Astros in four games to take home the title.
Buehrle was a five-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove winner, finishing fifth in Cy Young voting in 2005.
“Well-deserved,” former right fielder Jermaine Dye said of the statue. “Great teammate. Great leader. Definitely someone you want on a ballclub to lead a pitching staff.”
The White Sox rotation — led by Buehrle — threw four complete games in the ALCS against the Boston Red Sox in 2005, missing a fifth complete game by two-thirds of an inning. It’s an unheard of accomplishment in today’s game since starters infrequently go the distance.
Besides being an innings-eater on the mound, Buehrle was a fast worker — a favorite trait of his catcher, A.J Pierzynski. And he wasn’t someone who threw a lot of different pitches. He caught it and threw it without much input from behind the plate.
“He was fast,” Pierzynski said. “We had Jermaine Dye calling pitches from right field some games. We did come crazy things you wouldn’t recommend to people to do nowadays.”
Buehrle is a notoriously low-key guy who hates the spotlight but even he was moved by the team’s decision to honor him with a statue, which joins former slugger Harold Baines in the right-field concourse.
“I joked with him when I saw him,” Dye said. “I told him ‘Man it takes you getting a statue to get you out of the house.'”
Buehrle added: “I was literally nervous as can be today. This is not my comfort zone but by no means am I taking it lightly. This is incredible.”
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