The Best is No Longer in the West
Less than a week ago, the San Diego Padre had the best record in baseball, and their 17-8 record is still the second best in the league. However, an 8-2 record the last ten games has allowed the New York Mets to surge to a league best 18-7 record. While the record setting Juan Soto contract was the big story of the offseason, he’s gotten off to a slow start, he’s hitting just .233/.364/.389. Instead, the offense has been powered by the red hot bats of Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso, backed up by an extremely solid starting rotation and bullpen. Lindor has been hitting .309/.364/.505 with 5 HR and a pair of stolen bases, and sports a solid 142 wRC+/146 OPS+ and 1.2 bWAR. His teammate Alonso is hitting .341/.440/.681 with six HR and has a 206 wRC+/216 OPS+. Alonso was forced to sign one year deal with a player option over the offseason, after coming off a season worth only 2.1/2.6 fWAR/bWAR. If he continues to play like he has, he’s in line for a much larger payday and unlikely to pick up the player option. The Mets rotation has had strong performances by Kodai Senga (0.79 ERA, 484 ERA+) and Tyler Megill (1.09 ERA, 351 ERA+), but they’ve also has above average production from David Peterson (3.29 ERA 116 ERA+), Griffin Canning (3.12 ERA 123 ERA+) and Clay Holmes (3.16 ERA 122 ERA+). The weak link on the pitching stuff has been Edwin Diaz, while the rest of the bullpen, with the exception of Danny Young, has been above average.
Aaron Judge is hitting. 415/.513/.734, with a league leading (and mind blowing) 2.5/2.1 fWAR/bWAR in just 25 games, which if extrapolated to a full season (I went with 158, since that’s a healthy season for him) would be 16+ fWAR and 13+ bWAR. Even just looking at that 2.5 WAR figure, that’s more valuable than even a pretty good player’s average season, and better than many player’s entire career. Judge has already had an 11.1 fWAR season in 2022, and then 11.2 fWAR in 2024. (Just reference he had 10.8 bWAR both seasons.) I don’t think it’d be crazy for him to put up a more valuable season, but adding a couple wins to that total probably is. All that said, it shouldnt be surprising to see Judge lead the league in WAR, oWAR, batting average, on base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, adjusted OPS+, and hits. One fact that I found surprising is that Judge’s seven homers doesn’t lead the league.
After yesterday’s two homerun game gave him nine total, Corbin Carroll entered a three way tie for the lead in HRs with Seattle catcher Cal Raleigh and the Athletics 1B/OF Tyler Soderstrom. Carroll is currently second with 1.9 fWAR and fourth with 1.7 bWAR, is hitting .327/.404/.693 with a 195 wRC+ and 200 OPS+. He’s also finally gotten going on the basepaths and now has four steals. Fangraphs recently had an article breaking down the swing changes he made over the offseason and clearly those changes are paying dividends.