Ongoing Attempts, April 11, 2024: The good MLB teams so far in 2024
It's still early, but we're approaching the point where we can't just shrug off the results.
A discussion of the good teams so far this season starts with two teams that might be described as evil empires. They might even be called villains, although the players themselves are mostly likeable. Two of the best teams in baseball so far are big market, big money, and generally two teams that fans like to root against.
The New York Yankees are 10-3 with a +15 run differential. They are doing it with lots of question marks in their rotation. If they keep this up and then get Gerrit Cole back, things will be looking good for a team that frankly had a lot of question marks entering the season.
Juan Soto and Aaron Judge form what I believe is the best 2-3 spots of any lineup in baseball. Their bullpen is outstanding again. There’s even a highlight of Giancarlo Stanton hitting a vintage home run if you load their team page on MLB.com. Things are looking good for the Yankees so far.
The Los Angeles Dodgers have an entire good starting rotation on the injured list. They have controversy swirling around their team because of the gambling scandal involving former Shohei Ohtani interpreter Ippei Mizuhara. Their defense is a mediocre hodge podge with guys who either needed a position or needed a new position to get their bats in the lineup.
With all of that, the Dodgers are still 10-5 with a +13 run differential. Of course they are. And Ohtani is still smashing the ball in his new uniform with an OPS north of 1.000, despite the potential for off-field distractions.
Rounding out the good teams we probably saw coming, the Atlanta Braves (7-3, +26 run differential) and Texas Rangers (7-5, +21 run differential) are both good and sitting atop their respective divisions.
After the predictable good teams, there are a couple good teams that entered the season with good talent but a murky outlook. In both cases, that murkiness was a result of ownership that actively makes it harder to build good rosters in order to protect their treasure.
The Cleveland Guardians just keep finding a way to win with a similar model, and it feels like a model that shouldn’t work. They keep coming up with good starting pitchers who hold their own almost immediately upon arriving in the big leagues. And they are winning with a serious lack of power in their lineup.
That lack of power was their undoing last season. They sport a 9-3 record and an MLB best +35 run differential so far this year. If they can keep the offense up, they might hang around the top of that wide open American League Central for most of the season.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are 9-3 with a +19 run differential. Some of that record was padded by beating up on the lowly Miami Marlins to start the season. Even so, it’s easy to get excited about their prospects with Oneil Cruz and Ke’Bryan Hayes on the left side of the infield.
Finally, joining Cleveland atop the AL Central is the Kansas City Royals, aka this year’s “I didn’t know he played for them” team. They are 8-4 with a +29 run differential. Bobby Witt Jr. looks like he’s on a different level, and if he is, my preseason musing about him and the Royals might come true.
After the good teams so far, there is a cluster of interesting teams hanging around .500 that we are still waiting to learn more about. Then there are the predictably bad teams joining the Marlins down in the basement: the Chicago White Sox and your Colorado Rockies.
Elly De La Cruz is absurd. His most recent feat involved hitting a home run and inside-the-park home run in the same game. The excitement he brings could easily win over new fans. And I don’t want to be the one advocating for this kind of thing, but I do wonder what it would look like if he was on a bigger market team in terms of exposure and buzz.
I mentioned Ippei Mizuhara earlier. It looks like he will plead guilty to stealing from Ohtani to cover his gambling debts. Just a wild story.
I’m making peace with the fact that the players when I was a kid now have sons in the big leagues. Like the guys on the Blues or the aforementioned Ke’Bryan Hayes? No problem. But Jackson Holliday is a weird one for me. His dad, Matt Holliday, was an all-time great Rockie. The difference is, I was in college and able to drive and vote and stuff during his glory days.
With Holliday now on the Orioles, they lead the league in guys who look like teenagers. And if more of them grow facial hair, it will be leading the league in guys who look like teenagers in disguises.
A couple fun series this weekend. Two of the good teams noted earlier will face off in the Yankees and the Guardians. The Pirates will take on the Phillies. And if you want to see a team that should be good in a “we better not lose” kind of series, there’s the Blue Jays hosting the Rockies.
That’s it for this week. Let’s end with another fun highlight, this one from Oneil Cruz. Is this going to turn into a newsletter that always has highlights from a tall shortstop named Cruz? Maybe. Would that be a bad thing?
