When April ended last year, 11 of the 12 eventual playoff teams were either in postseason slots or tied for one.
So, yes, it is early. Maybe all we have is a snapshot. After all, the realities of the long season were revealed by the one team last year in a playoff spot when April concluded who did not actually make the playoffs. That was the Pirates, who at 20-9, had the second-best record in the majors, and followed that with a 56-77, the second-worst record in the majors.
Thus, we have seen too little to etch anything in marble beyond the fact the Dodgers are going to run away with the NL West. But we have seen enough not to ignore. And if the first five weeks of this year are an indicator as last year was, we have potential for a season of upheaval.
Going into this weekend, for example, the only AL playoff team from 2023 in postseason position this year was the Orioles — though the Twins and defending champion Rangers were lurking close enough to change the picture quickly.
If this is going to be a chaos campaign, part of it is that the long-dormant Central divisions in both leagues are showing life, because it is not like the Yankees potentially returning to the playoffs would be a stunner. But it is mainly because of a combination of pitching injuries and yet the continued dominance of the pitchers who remain.
Is it possible the Astros, Rangers and Rays are just trying to navigate through too many rotation injuries. Houston has not had a pitch thrown yet this season by Luis Garcia, Lance McCullers Jr. or Jose Urquidy. Justin Verlander missed 22 days on the IL, Framber Valdez 21, and Cristian Javier is approaching three weeks and counting.
For Texas, Jacob deGrom, Tyler Mahle and Max Scherzer have yet to start, and Scherzer was on a rehab assignment from surgery for a herniated disc when he had to be shut down again by a thumb injury. Michael Lorenezen was on the IL for 18 days. Cody Bradford, who was doing so well in helping to cover up injury, has missed three weeks already with a lower back ailment, and current ace Nathan Eovaldi left his Thursday start with groin tightness.
For the Rays, they know they will be without ace Shane McClanahan all season after Tommy John surgery, and Shane Baz, Taj Bradley, Drew Rasmussen and Jeffrey Springs have yet to pitch — Baz and Bradley are due back soon, Rasmussen and Springs not until later in the season, at best.
Now, in some cases — like Garcia and McCullers, and deGrom, Mahle and Scherzer — teams knew that they would be without starters for long stretches. But it is add-ons now who begin to push organizations toward the tipping point.
Poor starting pitching almost always results in overtaxing bullpens. The Rays were eighth in overall ERA last season and the Astros eighth. This year (all stats heading into the weekend), they were 25th and 26th. The top five in team ERA were the Red Sox, Mariners, Yankees, Royals and Tigers. Those were four of the five new AL playoff teams plus the surprising Red Sox. The other new current entrant who would join the Orioles was the Guardians, who were eighth overall in ERA and sixth in the AL behind the MLB top five.
Beyond the starters already listed with the Astros, Rangers and Rays, here is a not complete list of pitchers yet to throw a pitch in 2024: Sandy Alcantara, Daniel Bard, Felix Bautista, Matt Brash, Walker Buehler, Alex Cobb, Gerritt Cole, Braxton Garrett, Lucas Giolito, Tony Gonsolin, Clayton Kershaw, German Marquez, Dustin May, Eury Perez, Robbie Ray, Eduardo Rodriguez, Kodai Senga, Devin Williams and Brandon Woodruff. And Shane Bieber, Kyle Bradish, Jhoan Duran and Justin Steele have hardly pitched.
Into-the-void recent relievers Jordan Hicks, Reynaldo Lopez and Seth Lugo are top-seven in ERA. And the only pitchers in the top 20 of ERA to receive even a single Cy Young vote in their careers were Jose Berrios, Luis Severino and Zack Wheeler.
You would think with so many big arms missing in action and so many having to fill in from the chorus to replace them that offense would go up. Instead, the league batting average of .239 was the second lowest of the Live Ball Era (since 1920). The .695 OPS was the lowest since 1989.
How do you get disturbance in the force field?
Here is a partial list of players who are down a minimum of 250 OPS points from last season: Ronald Acuna Jr., Randy Arozarena, Bo Bichette, Alex Bregman, Corbin Carroll, Yandy Diaz, Aaron Judge, Matt Olson and Corey Seager. The Braves’ lineup is still powerful enough to be leading the majors in scoring (5.41 runs per game) despite the slides of Acuna and Olson, who finished first and fourth for NL MVP last year. The Rays’ lineup (3.75, 23rd in MLB) is not, with Arozarena and Diaz this far off.
Now, again, it is early. Do you really believe in the Tigers, who are tied with the Angels for the longest playoff doubt (since 2014), or the Royals, who are tied with the Pirates (since 2015) for the next longest? Kansas City lost 106 games last year.
In the Live Ball Era, the 2023 A’s (112 losses) and Royals became the 45th and 46th teams to lose at least 106 times. Of those, just four followed with a winning record. The best was the 87-75 Orioles of 1989, whose 1988 predecessor lost its first 21 games and 107 times in all. The most famous (or infamous) was the 83-79 A’s of 1980, whose manager Billy Martin had five starters all work at least 211 innings and produce 93 complete games.
We can forget about that kind of disturbance this year, considering that there were just 35 complete games league-wide last season and just six so far this year.
Yet, with all the arm protection, pitching injuries continue to be staggering. But so is the pitching that fills in — often throwing it so hard and with so much spin as to court the next wave of injuries.
It is a long season. Maybe we have just a small sample size. Or maybe we have the conditions in place for a chaotic season in which many of the best pitchers never throw, yet many of the best hitters never hit well, and it all leads to a bunch of postseason surprises.
