Checking in on the Good, Bad and Ugly of MLB's Preseason Storylines so Far
It's still early, but not so early that the storylines that dominated the run-up to the 2023 Major League Baseball season haven't had a chance to age.
So, cue the Ennio Morricone music, because we're about to assess the good, the bad and the ugly of those so far.
The first thing to know is that we'll be discussing three of each. As to the second, here's how we're applying those three terms:
- The Good: Storylines that could have gone either way once the season began, but which are so far trending positive.
- The Bad: Storylines that seemed like sure things, but which have since devolved into uncertainties riddled with question marks.
- The Ugly: Storylines we were led to believe would go one way, but which have since gone in the complete opposite direction.
Now then, let's get to it.
The Good: Jordan Walker Is Ready for the Big Leagues
1 of 9
How It Started
Jordan Walker came into 2023 ranked as one of the very best prospects in MLB, but by all rights he should have been a long shot to crack the St. Louis Cardinals' Opening Day roster.
Or so it seemed, anyway. Certainly less and less so as Walker hit .277 with a .492 slugging percentage in spring training to force the Cardinals' hand. Rather than send him down to gain further experience in the minors, they skipped him right to The Show.
Expectations for Walker shifted accordingly, as he went from being basically off the radar in the National League Rookie of the Year race to a leading contender for it. Pretty high stakes for a 20-year-old who had never played above Double-A before.
How It's Going
You can look at Walker's stat line and see that he's only batting .254, but that would be to blatantly ignore the history that he made with his 12-game hitting streak out of the gate:
Given how sturdily he's built at 6'6", 245 pounds, it's also not surprising to see Walker putting up such strong contact quality metrics, including a 97th-percentile mark for his max exit velocity. Factoring in that he's also impressed with his sprint speed and arm strength, it sure seems like the Cardinals really do have a special rookie on their hands.
The Good: Here Comes Jarred Kelenic's Breakout
2 of 9
How It Started
Speaking of top prospects, Jarred Kelenic was also one of those once upon a time. You just never would have known it from how thoroughly he was outclassed in his first two seasons with the Seattle Mariners, in which he hit just .168 and slugged .338.
But then he spent the offseason changing his swing, and the next thing he did after that was show it off in spring training as he clubbed four home runs to go with a 1.095 OPS.
Thus did the 23-year-old generate quite a bit of breakout hype, and not just around these parts. But as it always is with springtime stars, the catch was always that Kelenic's spring training breakout hardly guaranteed that he would finally find his footing in the majors.
How It's Going
Kelenic has not only found his footing, but seemingly planted his flag as a genuine major league star. He's hitting .333/.393/.667 with a 219 OPS+ that ties him for second in MLB. One of his four home runs went 482 danged feet.
That home run is emblematic of the biggest difference for Kelenic so far in 2023. His average exit velocity is up from 86.0 to 92.0 mph and his hard-hit rate has gone from 35.0 to 55.6 percent. Once a pushover, now he does the pushing.
The Good: The New Rules Will Make Everything Better
3 of 9
How It Started
"It's really not about changing the game. It's about making sure that we put the very best form of baseball on the field."
Those were MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred's remarks to the press in February on the big changes that were about to debut in spring training. The pitch timer above all, as well as bigger bases and limitations on defensive shifts.
Such things were designed to bring more excitement to games, with a less-than-subtle secondary goal to claw back fans that had become reluctant to go out the ol' ballgame. The only question, of course, was whether there would be unintended consequences.
How It's Going
Unintended consequences? What unintended consequences?
There have been some awkward violations here and there, but the positives outweigh the negatives by a ratio of something like a bajillion to one. Down is average time of game and up are stolen bases and batting average, for which it helps that left-handed batters can pull ground balls for base hits again.
Meanwhile, the average attendance is even higher than it was for the last pre-pandemic season in 2019. The "correlation doesn't equal" causation caveat applies, but, well, it's just not surprising that fans are showing back up just when baseball has become more watchable than it had been in years.
The Bad: Juan Soto Will Be Juan Soto Again
4 of 9
How It's Going
By his standards, Juan Soto had a rough go of things in 2022 as he set new career lows for batting average, slugging percentage and OPS.
All that seemed to be behind him by the time he was back on the field this year. He dominated the spring, both by way of a 1.500 OPS for the Dominican Republic at the World Baseball Classic and by that of a 1.600 OPS with the San Diego Padres at spring training.
It all served to underscore the projections that pegged Soto to be the best hitter of 2023, as well as inspire confidence that he would even win the NL MVP. Per the betting market, he was even the favorite to do so.
How It's Going
Alas, the Juan Soto Revolution has not been realized. His league-leading 17 walks are nice and all, but he's otherwise batting just .164 and slugging .361.
Some of this is bad luck that's bound to turn around eventually, but what's under the hood nonetheless raises concerns. At 21.8 percent, Soto's strikeout rate is the highest it's ever been. And while 90.3 mph is hardly a bad figure, it does mark the second year in a row that his average exit velocity has been outside the top 10 percent of the league.
The Bad: Padres-Dodgers Will Be an Epic Showdown
5 of 9
How It Started
It wasn't just Soto who was supposed to have a big year in 2023. That general expectation also extended to the rest of the Padres.
The notion that they were equipped to take down the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West could be found in both writing and in projections. To the latter, FanGraphs even gave the Padres better than a 50 percent chance of winning the division.
Of course, nobody expected that the Dodgers would go quietly after a historic 111-win season in 2022. Non-FanGraphs projections indeed still saw them as a threat to San Diego, hinting at a potential division race for the ages.
How It's Going
After all that, here we are at a moment in time in which neither the Padres nor the Dodgers is in the lead in the NL West and both are under .500 at 8-10 and 8-9 respectively.
This probably won't be the status quo for the whole year. But both clubs have a lot of work to do before they can make good on delivering the battle of NL West super-teams that everyone wanted. San Diego's offense simply can't hit .228 all year, while Los Angeles must figure out a bullpen that's in the bottom 10 of the league in ERA.
The Bad: The Astros Are Still MLB's No. 1 Team
6 of 9
How It Started
What is the one thing that a team is pretty much guaranteed to get after notching its fourth 100-win season and second World Series championship in the last six years?
The answer is the benefit of the doubt. Hence how the Houston Astros came into 2023 as the de facto No. 1 team in baseball. For us. For MLB.com. For ESPN. For, well, everyone.
Projections from FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus weren't as high on the Astros, instead favoring the New York Yankees in the American League. But in defense of the human prognosticators, overcoming the Yankees is nothing the Astros haven't done before.
How It's Going
In defense of the projections, however, the persistent love fest for the Astros always did feel a little odd considering that they had lost their best starting pitcher to free agency during the winter and then one of their best hitters to a broken thumb during the spring.
This is to say it's not the biggest shock that the defending champs are just 8-9 out of the gate. Their plus-14 run differential does portend an eventual turnaround, to be sure, but even that shouldn't completely silence what are fair questions about whether the Astros brought enough depth into 2023.
The Ugly: Gunnar Henderson Is a Shoo-in for AL Rookie of the Year
7 of 9
How It Started
Even if he was "only" No. 2 for us, you didn't have to look far and/or wide to find prospect rankings that had Gunnar Henderson at No. 1 coming into 2023.
Henderson absolutely went off in the minors in 2022, thus earning a cup of coffee with the Orioles in which he lit up the hard contact leaderboard to pave his way to a 123 OPS+. Not bad, considering he had only recently turned 21.
All this begat real hype for Henderson in 2023, with projections rating him as one of the AL's best players and many picking him to win the Rookie of the Year. To wit, 73 percent of executives polled by Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com tabbed him as the favorite.
How It's Going
Is it bad form to pick on a 21-year-old who's only 48 games into his major league career? Probably, yeah.
And yet, it's not unfair to be disappointed. Henderson just hasn't found any kind of groove at the outset of 2023, as he's thus far hitting just .178 with one home run and exactly 0.0 rWAR. With his hard-hit rate also having taken a turn for the worse, his pursuit of the AL Rookie of the Year is basically stalled until further notice.
The Ugly: Chris Sale Is Ready for His Comeback
8 of 9
How It Started
Injuries made good times on the diamond few and far between for Chris Sale between 2020 and 2022. He made only 14 total appearances across those three seasons.
The vibe coming from the Boston Red Sox during spring training was that 2023 would mark a return to normal for the seven-time All-Star. That he was finally healthy was good enough. That he was also in good spirits? Even better.
Maybe this didn't mean Sale was the top candidate for the AL Comeback Player of the Year, but even we must admit that we considered him a top candidate for it.
How It's Going
Cut to now, and there's Sale with an 11.25 ERA through three starts. A bad beginning by any set of standards, and especially his. This is the worst ERA he's ever had in any three-start stretch ever.
In the left-hander's defense, there are angles from which his early struggles look like little more than a mechanical malfunction. But if that sounds like a reach in relation to how he's allowed 18 hits (including five home runs) and seven walks in only 12 innings, well, that's fair. There's indeed a real possibility that the old Sale just isn't coming back.
The Ugly: The Rays Are an AL East Underdog
9 of 9
How It Started
Even if it was widely acknowledged that the AL East would be one of MLB's deeper divisions in 2023, the question of who would win it came down to the Yankees or the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Yanks and Jays had won 99 and 92 games respectively in 2022, and they even ended up in a semi-tight race. Whereas the Yanks led them by as much as 16.5 games in July, the Jays got to within 4.5 games on Sep. 17.
This is about where New York and Toronto were supposed pick up in 2023. FanGraphs, for example, gave the former a 42.7 percent chance and the latter a 29.4 percent chance of winning the division.
How It's Going
Hindsight is 20-20 and all, but the Tampa Bay Rays probably should have loomed larger in the outlook for the AL East in 2023. They were the AL's second-winningest team between 2020 and 2022 after all.
In any case, there's no ignoring them now.
Their historic 13-0 start may be a thing of the past, but they're still atop the AL East at 14-3 and tied for the fifth-best run differential ever for a team through its first 17 games. They would look like the real deal even if they weren't the new favorites not just to win the AL East, but to represent the American League in the Fall Classic.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
.jpg?w=600 "Fans React to Simpson Pick 😱")