Texas Rangers Are MLB's Best and 7 More Unpopular Opinions on 2023 Season
Memorial Day weekend is traditionally when Major League Baseball's fans and analysts collectively revisit and revise our preseason opinions and beliefs, as we are now approximately 33 percent of the way through the regular season.
As we embark upon the season of amended predictions, there's no time like the present to toss a few unpopular/controversial opinions your way.
Most tend to think that one of Atlanta, Houston, Tampa Bay or the Los Angeles Dodgers is the best team in baseball, but what about the Texas Rangers?
While we're in the AL West, has Oakland's disaster of a season actually been a success?
Should the NL Central's first-place Brewers consider something drastic in order to avoid finding itself in Oakland's shoes two years from now?
Unless otherwise noted, statistics and records are current through the start of play Thursday.
Texas Rangers Are the Best Team in Baseball
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The oddsmakers certainly don't agree with this one.
At +2000, Texas is in a three-way tie for the eighth-best odds of winning the World Series, per DraftKings. And as of Friday morning, the 31-18 Rangers are barely even expected to play beyond October 1, given a "Yes to make the postseason" line of -160 by DraftKings. (Even the 22-27 San Diego Padres had a "Yes to make the postseason" line of -125.)
But in the six weeks since Tampa Bay's 13-0 start came to an end, the Rangers have been the team to beat.
From April 14-May 24, they posted a run differential of +98. The next-best differential during that time was Atlanta at +45.
As a result, Texas entered play Thursday leading the majors in both runs scored and run differential.
And while the pitching (mostly sans Jacob deGrom) has been good, the hitting (mostly sans Corey Seager) has been out of this world.
Adolis García is mashing home runs. Marcus Semien is putting up MVP-caliber numbers. Josh Jung is slugging his way to what will be serious AL ROY consideration. Ezequiel Durán is having one heck of a breakout year of his own. Two other regulars (Nathaniel Lowe and Leody Taveras) are batting at least .290. And with Seager (hamstring) recently re-joining the party—and immediately hitting quite well—it's almost impossible to find a weak point in the lineup.
Meanwhile, the starting rotation is where Texas spent boatloads of money this offseason, which has worked out nicely—even with deGrom still on the mend from his latest injury. Nathan Eovaldi has been stellar, Dane Dunning is right up there with Duran on the list of 2023's breakout stars and the collection of Jon Gray, Andrew Heaney and Martín Pérez has done a more-than-acceptable job for the most part.
They absolutely need to address the bullpen ahead of the trade deadline, but there are always good relievers available in July. And by the time the Rangers address that weakness, those +2000 World Series odds will be a distant memory. (FWIW, they were +2500 just 48 hours ago and have been steadily climbing for a while.)
Fans Need to Stop Booing Their Own Star Players
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This probably isn't actually an unpopular opinion, but let's address something that has happened multiple times already this season.
The Philadelphia Phillies invested $300 years for 11 years' worth of Trea Turner this past offseason, but the battery-throwing, Santa Claus-booing fans in Philly have already seen enough of Turner after about a month and a half. Both on Sunday against the Cubs and Monday against the Diamondbacks, he led off the game with a strikeout and was later greeted by a chorus of boos from the hometown crowd.
Similar story in Minnesota earlier this month, when Carlos Correa—recently inked to a six-year, $200 million contract—was greeted with boos throughout an awful 0-for-5 night at the dish that brought his batting average for the year down to .185.
Neither high-priced shortstop seemed to take umbrage with the fans' displeasure.
"I'd boo myself, too, with the amount of money I'm making, if I'm playing like that," said Correa.
"I'm honest with myself, I've sucked," said Turner.
Can we stop, though?
Listen, I'm not saying to never utter a boo at an MLB stadium. Heckle the umpires all you want. Jeer players on the other team. Or if someone on your team lollygags their way down to first base on a groundout, go ahead and let them know that you didn't spend your hard-earned money to come out to the stadium and watch them not even try.
But quit booing players who are in a slump.
They know they're struggling.
They know the fans know they're struggling.
And especially in the cases of Turner and Correa, y'all know you're, like, two percent of the way into a long-term relationship with these guys, right? Do you really want an Ivan Drago "I fight to win! For me!" situation?
Oakland's Tank Job Is Working as Designed
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The thing about steering head-long into a half-decade rebuilding process is that we won't really know if it's working until near the end of said rebuilding process.
In the final season of Houston's three-year tank job from 2011-13, Chris Carter, Matt Dominguez and Brandon Barnes ranked top five on the team in plate appearances, while rookie L.J. Hoes looked like a promising up-and-comer. Not only did none of those guys amount to anything in the long run, but Houston cut J.D. Martinez during 2014 spring training, right before he blossomed into a star for Detroit.
Basically, the only players from that roster who played any part in winning the AL West four years later were Jose Altuve and Dallas Keuchel. And it's not like that duo was great in 2013. The former posted a 1.1 bWAR that season while the latter ended that campaign with a career ERA of 5.20 in two seasons.
With that in mind, trying to judge the efficacy of Oakland's tank job by the long-term promise shown by players on the current MLB roster is probably a waste of time.
But there is definitely potential in what is shaping up to be the worst season in modern MLB history.
Mason Miller looked great in four starts before landing on the IL with forearm tightness. JP Sears has struggled to keep the ball in the yard, but it's hard to argue with 51 strikeouts against just 10 walks. Esteury Ruiz batting .280 with an MLB-best 26 stolen bases is at least one heck of a building block that came from the Sean Murphy trade. And former first-round draft pick Brent Rooker is having an incredible breakout season at the age of 28.
The downside is that it's looking like the franchise will be in Las Vegas by the time the strategy bears any real fruit.
It's also unfortunate that the A's aren't even guaranteed the top pick in the 2024 draft at the end of this disastrous season. Houston picked No. 1 overall in each of 2012-14 for repeatedly posting the worst record, but with the draft lottery that was added in the latest CBA, the team with the worst record could end up picking as low as seventh in the first round.
Then again, Houston took Mark Appel and Brady Aiken first overall in 2013 and 2014, respectively, neither of whom came anywhere close to panning out, as tanking for draft position in baseball is nowhere near the sure thing that it is in the NBA or NFL. (However, Houston getting Carlos Correa at No. 1 in 2012 and Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker at Nos. 2 and 5, respectively, in 2015 sure was nice.)
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The Pitch Clock Is Saving Baseball...While Also Destroying It
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From a pace of play perspective, I've loved the implementation of the pitch clock. Granted, the real test will come June 9-11 when the Red Sox and Yankees square off for the first time in 2023, but Boston just played a game Monday against the Angels that ended in a crisp two hours and five minutes.
Is that the ideal length of a Major League Baseball game? Hard to say. But something had to be done before we got to the point where the average regular-season baseball game was lasting longer than your average Big 12 college football game.
No one wants that for 162 games.
Here's the problem, though: the injured reserve list is almost as long as Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, and it is disproportionately pitchers getting hurt.
Per Spotrac, there were 117 starting pitchers who spent time on the IL in 2018, followed by 115 in 2019.
Well, we've already hit triple digits in 2023, and it sure feels like there's another ace hitting the shelf every couple of days.
Just among the four betting favorites to win the World Series—Braves, Dodgers, Rays and Astros—Max Fried, Kyle Wright, Luis Garcia, José Urquidy, Dustin May, Julio Urías, Jeffrey Springs and Drew Rasmussen have all landed on the IL since the beginning of the regular season. For Urías, it's just a hamstring and he'll probably be back next week, but we're talking fairly serious arm/elbow/shoulder injuries for the other seven.
There's no proof that the pitch clock is to blame. Could just be a weird year with a lot of early injuries. But it's not difficult to argue the uptick in pitching injuries could be a direct product of forcing these guys to throw every 15-20 seconds while on the mound.
It might be years before we come to any sort of definitive conclusion on the correlation between the pitch clock and pitching injuries, but let's just say we're not off to a great start in that currently unscientific study.
No Need to Panic in San Diego or Philadelphia
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Both the Padres and the Phillies spent a preposterous amount of money this offseason, each hoping to make it back to the NLCS for a second consecutive year.
Neither squad came anywhere close to matching the New York Mets' gargantuan $347 million payroll, but they do rank third and fourth in the majors in spending at $246 million and $243.6 million, respectively.
Thus far, however, it has not worked out in the slightest. Both teams are floundering below .500, each potential one bad series away from slipping into dead last in the National League.
But this should be a two-part case where patience is a virtue.
San Diego has had some dreadful luck in the BABIP department on offense.
Not only do the Padres currently rank next-to-last in the majors in BABIP, but each member of their Big Four—Manny Machado, Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Xander Bogaerts—is either below or well below his career BABIP heading into this season. They'll need to wait on Machado to recover from his broken hand, but you've got to believe all four will improve. Jake Cronenworth is also currently hitting at career-worst marks.
The Padres have also been dreadful in "need-to-score" situations. Per Baseball-Reference, they entered Thursday dead last in the majors at driving in runners who reach third base with less than two outs, doing so just 35.6 percent of the time. They're also batting an atrocious .184 with runners in scoring position. That's bound to change, at least to some extent.
For Philadelphia, it has been tough luck on the mound.
At the start of play Tuesday, there were 19 teams with a FIP below 4.50, 18 of which also had an ERA below 4.40. The exception was the Phillies with a 4.55 ERA and a FIP of 3.87.
Some of that "bad luck" is really just a product of having Kyle Schwarber in left field and Nick Castellanos in right field while Alec Bohm is still adjusting to first base as Rhys Hoskins' replacement. Not exactly defensive wizardry out there. But Zach Wheeler's luck is bound to improve, Aaron Nola is starting to look more like his usual ace-self after a rough start to the year and Ranger Suárez is still getting up to speed after missing the first six weeks of the season.
Winning their division might be just about out of the question at this point, but at least one of them—if not both—will still make the playoffs. (Both will make it if Arizona eventually fades, however, I'm still a believer in the Diamondbacks—which maybe deserved its own "unpopular opinion" section, but I digress.)
The Sticky Stuff Policing/Penalty Needs to Change
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Already this season, starting pitchers Max Scherzer and Domingo Germán have been forced to serve 10-game suspensions after being ejected for the presence of a foreign, sticky substance.
In Scherzer's case, he was told to wash his hands with rubbing alcohol when sticky stuff was discovered during the routine check at the end of the second inning of the April 19 game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was told to switch gloves after the third inning and then ejected on his way back to the mound for the fourth inning.
(A few days later, ESPN's David Cone illustrated how the rubbing alcohol may have exacerbated the problem rather than solving it.)
Germán was suspended less than a month later, nine batters into what was at that point a perfect game against the Blue Jays. In an April 15 start, Germán was caught with a sticky substance and permitted to remain in the game after washing his hands. This time, he wasn't so lucky.
After Germán was allowed to remain in that April 15 game, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli was ejected for understandably being unhappy with the umpiring crew's decision. The same thing happened to Reds manager David Bell on May 19 when Yankees pitcher Clarke Schmidt was caught with sticky stuff in the fifth inning and allowed to remain in the game after washing his hands.
It's all frustrating because, as SI's Tom Verducci put it after Scherzer's suspension, "there is no equivalent of a posted speed limit."
You're allowed to use rosin to help your grip. But use a combination of rosin and sweat (and maybe other foreign substances) to improve your grip too much and...well, you might get ejected or the opposing manager might get ejected, who knows?
Here's where the unpopular opinion comes in:
The problem is that the penalty isn't stiff enough.
If a player gets caught taking a performance-enhancing drug, boom, 80-game suspension with no pay for a first-time offender.
If a starting pitcher gets caught using sticky stuff, "Hey buddy, you need to go wash your hands and maybe change your glove. And if I catch you again, guess what? You'll have to skip one whole turn through the rotation and pay an undisclosed fine."
Doesn't seem like much of a deterrent, does it? More like an invitation to get as close as possible to the arbitrary "too sticky" threshold without going over. Both Scherzer and Germán were livid in the moment, but didn't even bother trying to appeal their suspensions.
If MLB does increase the penalty, though, it also needs to set more rigid guidelines for the whole checking and policing process.
Milwaukee Should Still Be Contemplating a Trade Deadline Fire Sale
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The Milwaukee Brewers have a fast-approaching crisis on their hands.
Of the seven pitchers who have made multiple starts this season, five will hit free agency after the 2024 campaign. And of the 12 Brewers who have made at least 63 plate appearances this season, three will hit free agency this November and three more will do so next November.
They do have a few intriguing young players under team control well beyond 2024, including red-hot Owen Miller and rookie infielder Brice Turang. But they are hurtling headlong toward a massive rebuild during the 2024-25 offseason—during which time, Christian Yelich will celebrate his 33rd birthday with four years and $110.5 million remaining on his contract.
It's a problem which led many of us to wonder if Milwaukee would have been best suited to trade away Corbin Burnes and/or Brandon Woodruff during this past offseason with two years remaining until they hit free agency.
It is highly unlikely the small-market franchise will have the funds to re-sign either multiple-time All-Star, and the longer they wait to trade those pitchers away, the less they'll get in return for them.
Deal them this summer for the types of return that Cincinnati got for trading away Luis Castillo and Tyler Mahle with 1.5 years remaining on their contracts last year and maybe Milwaukee can avoid going through the bottomless pit of a tank job which Oakland is presently enduring.
It would be a fairly obvious decision if Milwaukee was struggling and already effectively out of the postseason picture.
It's a much tougher sell with the Brew Crew currently sitting in first place (albeit with a negative run differential) in an extremely winnable NL Central.
But unless they end July reasonably confident they will win the division and reasonably hopeful they can win the World Series, it's worth considering a fire sale. Because it's only going to get a lot harder to salvage this rebuild if they put it off until six months from now.
Both the Chicago Cubs and the Washington Nationals hit the reset button in the summer of 2021 when they were just a few games below .500. We'll see where Milwaukee sits in the standings in two months' time.
Tampa Bay Won't Win the AL East
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This is nowhere near as outlandish a proclamation as it would have been a couple of weeks ago—back when the Rays were 29-7 with a 6.5-game lead in the AL East while the Yankees were barely treading water above .500.
But it might still ruffle some feathers, considering Tampa Bay started out 13-0 and has spent most of the year in relatively firm control atop maybe the best division in MLB history.
Are we sure the Rays are that good, though?
During their 19-3 start to the season, they took advantage of five of the worst teams in baseball (Detroit, Washington, Oakland, Cincinnati and the Chicago White Sox), lost a series in Toronto and caught Boston early in the year when its entire pitching staff was a disaster. And since then, the Rays have been good-not-great (17-12) as they adjust to their injury-depleted* starting rotation.
Nine of the 12 regulars in the lineup entered play Wednesday slugging at least 60 points above their career norms, seven more than 115 points better.
Is that sustainable?
If not, can they possibly stave off the unstoppable-as-of-late-even-though-still-nowhere-near-full-strength Yankees and/or the way-better-than-anyone-seems-willing-to-acknowledge Orioles?
For as good as they've been through the first third of this season, the Rays could be a two-week slump away from flirting with last place in the division. And with a rough upcoming schedule—vs. Dodgers, at Cubs, at Red Sox, vs. Twins, vs. Rangers—said slump may have begun with Tuesday's 20-1 loss to the Blue Jays.
*Both Shane Baz and Jeffrey Springs are out for the year. Drew Rasmussen is out until at least mid-July, possibly the entire season. Tyler Glasnow will make his season debut Saturday, but he has never made more than 14 MLB starts in a season, so we'll see how well he holds up.
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