You could even say the Braves!
The Orioles getting blasted out of existence, firing manager Brandon Hyde, and then continuing to get blasted out of existence (by the Nationals, of all teams) has brought to the forefront the notion that 2025 has been weird so far. Before the season, I figured two things, broadly:
- The AL would be a morass of mediocrity; and
- The NL would be kind of boring, with a specific set of good teams (Braves, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Mets, Phillies) and everyone else struggling.
Well, that’s been anything but true… sorta. Let’s start with the AL, where my priors haven’t been completely blown out of the water. The Tigers have been amazing, and sure, the Yankees, Mariners, and Twins have been good, but not like, wildly so. Eight of the league’s 15 teams have a winning percentage between .450 and .550, with the aforementioned Orioles sticking out as a “weren’t you supposed to be in the morass?” exception.
The NL, though, has been a complete turnaround from “five good teams, everyone else meh.” Instead, it’s “Six or seven good teams and three tire fires” without all too much mediocrity. There are only four teams between .450 and .550, and two of the teams I expected to be great, the Diamondbacks and Braves, are right in that range. On the flip side, the Padres have made stars-and-scrubs work exceptionally for them so far, the Giants have come out of nowhere again, and the Cardinals have used a long winning streak to turn what was supposed to be a tread water season into something more interesting. Meanwhile, the Dodgers, Mets, and Phillies have been good as expected, and the Cubs are scoring tons of runs.
Also, the Yankees are somehow -7 in terms of record relative BaseRuns so far, which seems insane because they’ve only played 46 games, and that’s the sort of total that leads a season, not six weeks.
If you go purely mathematically, the biggest surprises so far have been the Tigers (really good), Orioles (really bad), and Rockies (somehow far, far worse than anyone’s already rock-bottom expectations). The Tigers and Yankees have changed their playoff odds the most, with the latter coming at the expense of the Orioles and the Red Sox. And I guess I’ll throw a nod here to the Braves, who have, so far, experienced the greatest erosion of their championship odds, for what are hopefully obvious reasons at this point.
Anyway, what do you think?
(A small note about the Tigers before I go — as of May 19, they look like the platonic ideal of a good baseball team. Nine position players playing at an average or better pace, with a mix of good and better-than-good bats, solid defense, their fWAR leader is a utility guy who’s started in four different positions already, two great starters, and the only roster weakness being the rotation and bullpen depth chart, which is something no team deliberately over-invests in anyway. It’ll be interesting to see how long they can keep this going; no team coasts through a season without a sucker punch from life or the baseball gods.)
Daily Notes
Record: 24-23
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA: .456 / .475 (season-high xwOBA) (Season rank: 14th | 12th)
Yesterday’s wOBA and xwOBA allowed: .279/ .310 (Season rank: 14th | 12th)
Yesterday’s homers: 1
Yesterday’s homers allowed: 1
Record when out-xwOBAing: 15-10 (League: 504-186)
Record when out-xwOBAed: 9-13 (League: 186-504)
Record when out-wOBAing: 20-3 (League: 586-107)
Record when out-wOBAed: 4-20 (League: 107-586)
Record when outhomering: 10-4 (League: 359-104)
Record when outhomered: 5-12 (League: 104-359)