Ranking the Top 25 MLB Stars Playing in 2023 Playoffs
You never quite know where Major League Baseball's October stars are going to come from. Case in point: Prior to being named MVP of both the ALCS and the World Series in 2022, Houston's Jeremy Peña wasn't even mentioned in MLB.com's ranking of the top 50 players in last year's postseason field.
But based on what we've seen over the past six months, we know who the stars should be this October, right?
This ranking of the top 25 players in the postseason is based on one thing and one thing only: Baseball Reference Wins Above Replacement in 2023.
It's not based on career (regular or postseason) statistics, perceived clutch genes, second-half-of-the-season success, rooting interest or anything of the sort.
Just bWAR.
We've got all postseason to argue about rankings, hot takes and predictions, so if you've got a problem with the ranking for this list, too bad.
That said, for each player in the top 25, we will include career postseason stats (if applicable), as well as what we're calling their "liquid-hot magma stretch" of the season, as a sort of gauge for what it could look like if they were to catch fire in October.
It does bear mentioning that bWAR didn't much care for pitchers this year. Two decades ago, there were 12 pitchers worth at least 6.0 bWAR. This year, only presumed Cy Young winners Gerrit Cole and Blake Snell hit that mark, and only four pitchers got to 5.0 bWAR. So get ready for a list loaded with hitters.
25 Rapid-Fire Honorable Mentions
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In addition to the ranked top 25, here are 25 other noteworthy players to keep an eye on this postseason, broken into one of three buckets.
9 players whose 2023 bWAR was almost enough to make the cut:
- Zack Wheeler, RHP, Philadelphia Phillies (4.2)
- Adolis García, RF, Texas Rangers (4.2)
- Jordan Montgomery, LHP, Texas Rangers (4.1)
- Will Smith, C, Los Angeles Dodgers (4.1)
- Jesús Luzardo, LHP, Miami Marlins (4.0)
- Merrill Kelly, RHP, Arizona Diamondbacks (3.9)
- Sean Murphy, C, Atlanta Braves (3.9)
- Kevin Kiermaier, CF, Toronto Blue Jays (3.9)
- Justin Verlander, RHP, Houston Astros (3.5)
One player from each team who didn't play well enough (or enough games) in 2023 to qualify, but who we know darn well is talented enough to potentially put on a postseason show:
- Arizona Diamondbacks: 1B Christian Walker
- Atlanta Braves: RHP Spencer Strider
- Baltimore Orioles: RHP Grayson Rodriguez
- Houston Astros: 2B Jose Altuve
- Los Angeles Dodgers: LHP Clayton Kershaw
- Miami Marlins: CF Jazz Chisholm Jr.
- Milwaukee Brewers: RHP Corbin Burnes
- Minnesota Twins: SS Carlos Correa
- Philadelphia Phillies: 1B/DH Bryce Harper
- Tampa Bay Rays: RHP Zach Eflin
- Texas Rangers: RHP Max Scherzer (if he pitches in the postseason)
- Toronto Blue Jays: 1B Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Four key relief pitchers who had no hope of making the list because it's almost impossible for a reliever to amass more than 4.0 bWAR in a season:
- José Alvarado, Philadelphia Phillies
- Yennier Cano, Baltimore Orioles
- Tanner Scott, Miami Marlins
- Devin Williams, Milwaukee Brewers
23. (tie) Adley Rutschman, C, Baltimore Orioles
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2023 Stats: .277/.374/.435, 20 HR, 80 RBI, 84 R, 4.3 bWAR
Postseason Career: N/A
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: September 17-27 (nine games), .429/.500/.800, 2 HR, 8 RBI
Adley Rutschman's year-to-date numbers don't stand out quite like most of the other hitters on this list, nor was there any sort of prolonged stretch this season where it looked like he was making the proverbial leap to superstar. His longest hitting streak was just eight games, and he only had one three-game, multi-hit streak, which was immediately book-ended by hitless performances.
But he sure has delivered in the clutch.
With two outs and runners in scoring position this season, Rutschman went 23-for-68 (.338) with 18 walks, three home runs and a .991 OPS. And when there's a runner on third with two outs, he's 13-for-34 (.382) with 18 runs batted in.
Will he continue to have that David Ortiz-like flair for the dramatic in his first trip to the postseason?
And how much of a factor will he be behind the plate, having thrown out 7-of-22 (31.8 percent) stolen-base attempts since the beginning of July? Opponents ran all over Rutschman in the first three months of the season with 42 stolen bases (in 51 tries) in his first 61 games at catcher, but that certainly hasn't been the case lately.
23. (tie) Isaac Paredes, 3B, Tampa Bay Rays
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2023 Stats: .250/.352/.488, 31 HR, 98 RBI, 4.3 bWAR
Postseason Career: Two games, 2-for-3 with a walk
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: July 1-31 (20 games), .246/.343/.672, 8 HR, 12 RBI
Isaac Paredes broke out in a big way last season.
After homering just twice in 193 plate appearances with Detroit between 2020 and 2021, he mashed 20 round-trippers in 381 trips to the plate last year.
And this year, he kicked it up another notch, going from a .205 hitter to a much more respectable .250 batting average while leading the Rays in both home runs and RBI.
Meanwhile, third base became something of a permanent home for Paredes' glove. He bounced from first to second to third and back again in 2022, but he spent the majority of this season at the hot corner and manned it reasonably well. That isn't to say he'll be a Gold Glove finalist, but at least he wasn't a liability there.
The postseason sample size is unusably small, but he did have a big two-out pinch hit off Shane Bieber in his postseason debut last year.
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23. (tie) Gabriel Moreno, C, Arizona Diamondbacks
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2023 Stats: .284/.339/.408, 7 HR, 50 RBI, 6 SB, 4.3 bWAR
Postseason Career: N/A
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: Aug. 17-Sept. 2 (13 games), .362/.412/.723, 4 HR, 12 RBI
Had it not been for teammate Corbin Carroll completely running away with NL Rookie of the Year, Gabriel Moreno would have been quite the solid candidate for that hardware.
Whether the D-backs felt he was ready for the gig or not, Moreno was thrust into the role of primary catcher by Carson Kelly missing the first two-plus months with a broken arm. And he was sensational early on, batting .320 and throwing out 10-of-18 stolen-base attempts (plus a successful pickoff at first base) through May 14.
Those numbers waned for a bit in the middle of the season as he dealt with shoulder inflammation that eventually necessitated an IL stint. But after returning in mid-August, Moreno hit .311/.382/.496 the rest of the way.
On the stolen-bases front, he ended up at 22-of-57 for a 39 percent caught stealing rate, which led all MLB catchers who logged at least 100 innings behind the plate.
Because he's not much of a slugger, he doesn't get as much national attention as he deserves. But a .284 hitting catcher who also leads the majors in caught stealing percentage is one heck of an asset.
20. (tie) Zac Gallen, RHP, Arizona Diamondbacks
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2023 Stats: 210.0 IP, 17-9, 3.47 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, 9.4 K/9, 4.4 bWAR
Postseason Career: N/A
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: April 10-26 (four starts), 27.0 IP, 4-0, 0.00 ERA, 0.44 WHIP, 13.7 K/9
Zac Gallen had a scoreless streak of 44.1 innings last season, and he was even more dominant than that back in the first month of this season, quickly emerging alongside Spencer Strider as the two best early candidates for NL Cy Young with the four-start stretch noted above.
Gallen did drop off a bit from there while Blake Snell went on a preposterous 23-start stretch with a 1.20 ERA, so he is likely going to come up just a bit short of a Cy Young trophy for the third time in the past four years.
Still, if Arizona is going to make any sort of run this October, you've got to assume he'll be a huge, 2014 Madison Bumgarner-ish part of it.
Even though he struggled to the tune of a 4.93 ERA over the final five weeks of the regular season, Gallen delivered an absolutely massive complete-game shutout of the Cubs on Sept. 8 and tossed six scoreless innings in a virtual must-win game at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 24.
20. (tie) Matt Chapman, 3B, Toronto Blue Jays
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2023 Stats: .240/.330/424, 17 HR, 54 RBI, 4.4 bWAR
Postseason Career: Four games, .333/.389/.400, at least one hit in each game
Liquid Hot Magma Stretch: March 30-April 12 (12 games), .489/.539/.851, 3 HR, 15 RBI
Save for Miami's Luis Arraez, Matt Chapman got out to maybe the hottest 2023 start of any player in the majors, batting .489 in his first dozen games. Even after cooling off over the next two weeks, he posted a 1.152 OPS in that first month of action.
Things went downhill in a hurry from there, though, as he batted .202 in May, .200 in June, .197 in August and .167 in September.
Chapman is still one of the most valuable defenders in the majors, winning two Platinum Gloves for his work at the hot corner. And he can still crush a baseball on occasion, as evidenced by his 415-foot solo shot last week against Tampa Bay.
Can he deliver in the clutch at the dish, though?
Chapman officially hits free agency next month, so there will be quite a few general managers hoping to get an answer to that question.
20. (tie) Bryson Stott, 2B, Philadelphia Phillies
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2023 Stats: .280/.329/.419, 15 HR, 62 RBI, 31 SB, 164 H, 4.4 bWAR
Postseason Career: 16 games, .136/.255/.227, went 0-for-14 in last year's World Series
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: March 30-April 18 (17 games), .382/.390/.500, 1 HR, 3 SB, 17-game hitting streak
The Philadelphia Phillies have eight players who made at least $16 million this season, but their lone representative in this top 25 is the second baseman who is making peanuts, still more than two years away from being eligible for arbitration for the first time.
By no means do Bryson Stott's numbers jump off the page. Both Baseball Reference's OPS+ (104) and FanGraphs' wRC+ (101) put him at barely better than average as a hitter.
That said, he is solid across the board at the plate and is a clear plus both on defense and on the basepaths—similar to Ha-Seong Kim, who has been perhaps San Diego's most valuable asset over the past two seasons combined.
And say this much for Stott: If you give him something to hit early in the count, watch out. He only puts the first pitch in play once for every 14.5 trips to the plate, but he is batting .487 in those scenarios. He also has a 1.310 OPS on 1-0 counts and a 1.168 OPS on 0-1 counts. He loves to pounce on any "get me over" fastballs.
19. Yordan Alvarez, DH/LF, Houston Astros
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2023 Stats: .293/.407/.583, 31 HR, 97 RBI, 4.5 bWAR
Postseason Career: 47 games, .250/.364/.445, 6 HR, 26 RBI
Liquid Hot Magma Stretch: Aug. 26-Sept. 10 (14 games), .451/.580/.824, 5 HR, 17 RBI
Yordan Alvarez really should rank comfortably in the top 10 as opposed to barely cracking the top 20. But he missed a month and a half in the middle of the season with an oblique injury, and his WAR is negatively impacted by poor defensive metrics.
(To that latter point, if we solely cared about offense rating, FanGraphs has Alvarez at 10th overall among players who made at least 400 plate appearances; seventh among players who made the postseason.)
But despite playing in just 114 games, at least he made the cut by virtue of posting an OPS of .990 this season, landing right between Matt Olson (.993) and Mookie Betts (.987) on that leaderboard.
And for what it's worth, Alvarez hit slightly better after the injury, triple-slashing .308/.425/.577 from July 26 onward, including three home runs in Houston's final seven games while clinging to postseason hopes.
There are a bunch of guys who could hit tape-measure home runs this October, but it almost feels inevitable that Alvarez will have at least one mammoth blast.
18. Ozzie Albies, 2B, Atlanta Braves
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2023 Stats: .280/.336/.513, 33 HR, 109 RBI, 96 R, 13 SB, 4.7 bWAR
Postseason Career: 37 games, .255/.308/.352, 3 HR, 9 RBI
Liquid Hot Magma Stretch: Sept. 13-Oct. 1 (17 games), .400/.446/.693, 4 HR, 16 RBI
Who needs the even-year Giants from a decade ago when you can have odd-year Ozzie Albies instead?
Atlanta's second baseman led the NL with 189 hits in 2019, finished 13th in the NL MVP vote in 2021 with 30 home runs and put forth a career-best effort in 2023 with a .513 slugging percentage fueled by those 33 home runs.
And despite missing 12 games in August with a hamstring injury, Albies was especially potent over the latter two months of the season, triple-slashing .330/.370/.562 dating back to August 1.
Over the past three weeks, he has been as hot as any hitter in baseball.
Moreover, Albies has tallied multiple hits in each of the eight postseason series of his career.
He's nowhere near the most oft-mentioned member of this World Series favorite, but he will be key to Atlanta's October.
17. Bo Bichette, SS, Toronto Blue Jays
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2023 Stats: .306/.339/.475, 20 HR, 73 RBI, 175 H, 4.8 bWAR
Postseason Career: Four games, .143/.235/.214, three total bases in 14 at-bats
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: May 18-28 (11 games), .429/.440/.674, 3 HR, 9 RBI
Prior to getting hurt (patellar tendinitis) on July 31—and later missing time with a quad strain—Bo Bichette was making a serious run at "most valuable American League player not named Shohei Ohtani."
Four months into the season, Bichette was batting .321 and was absolutely running away with what should have been a third consecutive season leading the AL in hits. (He was at 144 and his closest challenger was Marcus Semien at 121.) But he hit just .254 the rest of the way and missed 26 of Toronto's final 55 games.
He got back into a groove to end the season, though, batting .346 over his final 12 games.
Maybe he'll carry that momentum into the postseason.
(Though, hitting .406 over the final 32 games of last season didn't stop him from going 2-for-8 while the Blue Jays got swept at home by the Mariners.)
13. (tie) Alex Bregman, 3B, Houston Astros
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2023 Stats: .262/.363/.441, 25 HR, 98 RBI, 103 R, 4.9 bWAR
Postseason Career: 86 games, .237/.345/.427, 15 HR, 47 RBI
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: Aug. 8-Sept. 4 (26 games), 385/.480/.615, 4 HR, 22 RBI
The year-to-date numbers are a far cry from "vintage Alex Bregman," but that's largely because he got out to such a rough start to the season.
After hitting .204 and slugging .322 through his first 40 games, he was substantially better for the rest of the season, hitting .281 and slugging .479 after May 14.
Not exactly the 1.015 OPS he put up while almost winning AL MVP in 2019, but a strong 4.5-month run nonetheless.
And in the regular-season finale with a first-round bye hanging in the balance, Bregman hit a two-run home run in the first inning, followed by a triple in the second inning as the Astros ran away from the Diamondbacks and got the No. 2 seed.
Now he'll play a huge role in determining Houston's postseason fate for the seventh consecutive year.
In the four series that the Astros have lost during that time, Bregman hit 14-for-93 (.151). In the 2020 ALCS loss to Tampa Bay, he had neither an extra-base hit nor an RBI in any of those seven games. But with 15 career postseason home runs under his belt, he could make a major difference.
13. (tie) Luis Arraez, 2B, Miami Marlins
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2023 Stats: .354/.393/.469, 10 HR, 69 RBI, 203 H, 4.9 bWAR
Postseason Career: Five games, .294/.368/.529, 4 2B
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: March 30-April 11 (12 games), .537/.596/.732, hit for cycle on April 11
By a few weeks into the season, it was no longer a question of whether Luis Arraez would win a batting title for a second consecutive year, but rather whether he would make MLB history in the process.
In addition to that absurd 12-game stretch to start the season, there was also a 10-game arc from May 28-June 7 in which he hit .553 with eight multi-hit performances.
Really, you could call his entire 72-game start to the year his liquid-hot magma stretch, as he was batting .400 into the final week of June and even finished July at .381 before a frigid run through August.
And after that slump, Arraez picked right back up where he left off, hitting .385 over his final 20 games.
For most of the season, he was just about Miami's entire offense, doing everything in his power to carry what otherwise might have been the lowest-scoring team in baseball.
With runners in scoring position, he hit .434.
With two outs and RISP? .463.
Let's see if he can contribute to a few more one-run wins for the Marlins.
13. (tie) Kyle Bradish, RHP, Baltimore Orioles
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2023 Stats: 168.2 IP, 12-7, 2.83 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 9.0 K/9, 4.9 bWAR
Postseason Career: N/A
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: Aug. 6-Sept. 26 (nine starts), 55.2 IP, 5-1, 1.94 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 9.9 K/9
After spending much of the regular season questioning whether Baltimore has the pitching prowess necessary to make a deep postseason run, lo and behold, Kyle Bradish is the second-highest pitcher on this list—while teammate Grayson Rodriguez has been one of the most dominant pitchers since the All-Star Break.
Bradish lasted just five outs into his season debut before landing on the IL with a foot contusion. And after a six-inning gem against the Nationals in his first start back, he struggled for a little while, saddled with a 5.95 ERA after five starts.
From May 7 onward, though, he had a 2.42 ERA, good for second-best among the 113 pitchers who logged at least 90 innings.
Whereas Snell did some sort of voodoo to keep his ERA that low, allowing three times as many walks (78) as earned runs (26), the only unusual thing about Bradish's success is that most baseball fans had probably never heard of him before this season.
Get to know him, though, because his breaking balls (slider and curveball) have been plain lethal in 2023. Per Baseball Savant, when Bradish throws a breaking ball on a two-strike count, opponents are batting .107, striking out in 122 of those 230 plate appearances that end on a breaking ball.
13. (tie) Ketel Marte, 2B, Arizona Diamondbacks
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2023 Stats: .276/.358/.485, 25 HR, 82 RBI, 94 R, 8 SB, 4.9 bWAR
Postseason Career: Four games, .412/.412/.824, 1 HR, 2 3B
Liquid Hot Magma Stretch: June 12-27 (13 games), .404/.509/.830, 6 HR, 17 RBI
For a couple of weeks in August, Ketel Marte was as cold as ice.
We're definitely not talking about "ice in his veins" clutch, either. He hit .119 with just one extra-base hit over a 16-game stretch in which Arizona lost 8.5 games on the Dodgers in the NL west standings.
But he was great up until then, and both he and the Diamondbacks recovered just in time from that swoon to make the postseason for the first time since 2017.
In 101 games before that awful stretch, Marte was batting .294 with an .888 OPS. And in the first 33 games after that awful stretch, he hit .294 with a .924 OPS. So we should probably expect something in that vicinity for however long the Diamondbacks last in October.
Or perhaps if he reverts to some previous state of the season, it will be that red-hot .404 hitting, .830 slugging run in June instead of that miserable drought in August.
12. Yandy Díaz, 1B, Tampa Bay Rays
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2023 Stats: .330/.410/.522, 22 HR, 78 RBI, 95 R, 5.2 bWAR
Postseason Career: 24 games, .182/.292/.299, 2 HR, 5 RBI
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: August 6-23 (15 games), .427/.466/.559, 1 HR, 12 RBI
Yandy Díaz has quietly been a solid hitter throughout his career.
It's been quiet because A) he has only played for Cleveland and Tampa Bay, B) he wasn't anything close to a full-time player until 2021 and C) he only homered once in every 50-ish trips to the plate before this season.
But he was a .278 hitter with a .372 OBP from 2017-22—numbers almost identical to those of Ronald Acuña Jr. (.277 and .370) during that same time.
This year, however, Díaz evolved from a solid hitter to a great one, not only winning the AL's batting title with an average 52 points north of his previous career norm but also slugging a whole heck of a lot more than before.
Díaz hit 22 home runs in 1,099 plate appearances between the previous two seasons.
He hit 22 home runs in 600 plate appearances this year.
The postseason career is at least a bit troubling, though, especially when pointing out that both of the home runs came in the second game of his postseason career. Since then, Díaz is batting .143 with one extra-base hit in 22 games.
9. (tie) Sonny Gray, RHP, Minnesota Twins
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2023 Stats: 184.0 IP, 8-8, 2.79 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 9.0 K/9, 5.4 bWAR
Postseason Career: Four games, 21.1 IP, 0-2, 2.95 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, 7.6 K/9
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: April 1-30 (six starts), 35.0 IP, 4-0, 0.77 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 10.5 K/9
Step aside, Jacob deGrom.
Sonny Gray is the new poster boy for the "Kill the Win" campaign.
Among pitchers, only Gerrit Cole (7.4), Blake Snell (6.1) and Logan Webb (5.6)—none of whom play for teams who made the playoffs—had a higher bWAR this season. Gray also led all qualified pitchers in both FIP (2.83) and HR/9 (0.4), going at least five innings and allowing three or fewer runs in 25 of his 32 starts.
Seven times he went at least five innings without allowing a single run. Seven other times, he allowed just one run in at least five innings of work.
Yet, all he has to show for it is eight wins.
Minnesota actually went 14-18 in his starts—9-17 after winning five of his six impressive starts in April.
But he routinely puts the Twins in a position to win games, and they could make a run if they give him some run support for a change.
9. (tie) Corbin Carroll, OF, Arizona Diamondbacks
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2023 Stats: .285/.362/.506, 25 HR, 76 RBI, 116 R, 54 SB, 30 2B, 10 3B, 5.4 bWAR
Postseason Career: N/A
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: May 28-June 13 (15 games), .414/.485/.914, 7 HR, 18 RBI, 5 SB
Corbin Carroll was already on the fast track to NL Rookie of the Year after Arizona's first 50 games. But he hit a whole new gear in late May, going from "should win NL ROY" to "might join Fred Lynn and Ichiro Suzuki as the only rookie MVPs in MLB history."
By the end of the 15-game run listed above, Carroll was hitting .313 with a .998 OPS, on pace for roughly 35 home runs and 50 stolen bases.
The average and OPS eventually declined a bit as the MVP race turned into a two-horse affair between Ronald Acuña Jr. and Mookie Betts.
But 25 home runs, 50 stolen bases and 10 triples in a single season?
While everyone marveled at Acuña creating his own HR/SB club, Carroll more quietly became the founding member of that HR/SB/3B club. (With Kansas City's Bobby Witt Jr. falling just one stolen base shy of also getting there. What a year for young phenoms.)
Can't wait to see what this guy and a soon-to-be-discussed rookie from Baltimore manage to do in their first trips to the postseason.
9. (tie) Kyle Tucker, RF, Houston Astros
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2023 Stats: .284/.369/.517, 29 HR, 112 RBI, 30 SB, 5.4 bWAR
Postseason Career: 51 games, .257/.321/.427, 8 HR, 27 RBI, 7 SB
Liquid Hot Magma Stretch: June 23-July 3 (10 games), .436/.511/.846, 4 HR, 14 RBI
We're now three years into the era of Kyle Tucker being really good at Major League Baseball while still woefully underappreciated on a national scale.
He is one of just six players in the majors who has been worth at least 5.0 bWAR in each of the past three seasons, along with Shohei Ohtani, Juan Soto, Marcus Semien, Austin Riley and José Ramírez. Yet, he is, at best, the fifth-most well-known Houston Astro, definitely behind Jose Altuve, Justin Verlander, Alex Bregman and Yordan Alvarez, and perhaps even both Framber Valdez and Jeremy Peña.
And it makes no sense, because Tucker got AL MVP votes in each of the past two seasons and should be getting some more this year. He's averaging about 30 home runs, 100 RBI and 20 stolen bases per season.
The 26-year-old even had a two-HR game in last year's World Series, but I suppose between Houston losing that game and tossing a no-hitter a few days later, people just forgot.
You would at least think the fantasy baseball enthusiasts would be screaming his name from the mountaintops, but he just keeps churning out good numbers in surprising anonymity.
Maybe this is the October when that finally changes.
8. Austin Riley, 3B, Atlanta Braves
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2023 Stats: .281/.345/.516, 37 HR, 97 RBI, 117 R, 5.9 bWAR
Postseason Career: 32 games, .216/.263/.328, 3 HR, 13 RBI
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: July 18-August 14 (26 games), .349/.387/.789, 13 HR, 31 RBI
It took a little while for Austin Riley to get into a groove this season. Through 42 games, he was batting .239 and slugging just a tick under .400.
That's pretty much where Carlos Correa finished the year (.230 and .399, respectively), and it was considered a disappointing first season on the Twins shortstop's massive new contract.
But Riley rallied in a big way, batting .297 and slugging .561 with 30 home runs over the course of his next 114 contests.
He was named an All-Star, but it wasn't until after the midsummer classic that he really took off, slugging .789 over the almost month-long stretch highlighted above.
In the end, he put up numbers remarkably similar to where he finished each of the previous two seasons, and he should be headed for a third consecutive top-seven finish in the NL MVP vote.
For Atlanta's sake, though, let's hope the similarities to last year end there, because this injury-riddled pitching staff could be headed to the golf course early if Riley goes 1-for-15 in the NLDS again.
7. Gunnar Henderson, SS/3B, Baltimore Orioles
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2023 Stats: .255/.325/.489, 28 HR, 82 RBI, 10 SB, 29 2B, 9 3B, 6.3 bWAR
Postseason Career: N/A
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: June 2-13 (eight games), .483/.500/1.035, 5 HR, 11 RBI, 2 SB
Two months into the season, the "Gunnar Henderson for AL ROY" hype looked like fake news. At the end of May, he was batting .201/.332/.370, on pace to finish the year with around 14 home runs and just 90 total hits.
But when the calendar flipped to June, he flipped some sort of switch, hitting as many home runs in the span of eight games as he did in his first 50.
In his first 89 games played after May 31, Henderson hit .287 and slugged .559, compiling 22 home runs and 48 total extra-base hits. Extrapolate that slightly more than half of a season to a full 162-game pace and he was on track for 190 hits, 40 home runs, 35 doubles and 13 triples.
Here's the full list of players in MLB history to actually reach all four of those marks in a single season:
- 1921 Babe Ruth (204 hits, 59 HR, 44 2B, 16 3B)
- 1922 Rogers Hornsby (250 hits, 42 HR, 46 2B, 14 3B)
- 1923 Babe Ruth (205 hits, 41 HR, 45 2B, 13 3B)
- 1927 Lou Gehrig (218 hits, 47 HR, 52 2B, 18 3B)
- 1930 Lou Gehrig (220 hits, 41 HR, 42 2B, 17 3B)
- 1937 Joe DiMaggio (215 hits, 46 HR, 35 2B, 15 3B)
- 1937 Hank Greenberg (200 hits, 40 HR, 49 2B, 14 3B)
So, yeah, pretty decent little 89-game stretch there from the young man who just turned 22 in June. We're excited to see what he has left in store for his first trip to the postseason.
6. Freddie Freeman, 1B, Los Angeles Dodgers
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2023 Stats: .331/.410/.567, 29 HR, 102 RBI, 23 SB, 59 2B, 131 R, 6.6 bWAR
Postseason Career: 46 games, .296/.403/.544, 10 HR, 23 RBI
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: May 10-31 (20 games), .457/.526/.815, 5 HR, 21 RBI, 3 SB, 20-game hitting streak with 14 multi-hit games
Despite turning 34 a few weeks ago, Freddie Freeman just keeps getting better (and somehow faster?) with age.
He and Matt Olson spent most of the year jostling for third place behind Mookie Betts and Ronald Acuña Jr. in the NL MVP race, but Freeman eclipsed 200 hits in a single season for the first time in his career and almost became the first player with 60 doubles in a single season since 1936.
He was also one of the best baserunners in the majors this season, going 23-for-24 on stolen-base attempts while racking up a career-best—and second to only Acuña this season—131 runs scored. Freeman's previous career high for stolen bases was 13 last year.
And while plenty of Hall of Fame-caliber players have been nowhere near as dominant in the postseason portion of their careers, Freeman hits just as well in October as he does in any other month.
Actually, he gets a bit more potent when it matters most with a career OPS of .947 in 46 postseason games, compared to .938 in his favorite regular-season month (July).
5. Corey Seager, SS, Texas Rangers
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2023 Stats: .327/.390/.623, 33 HR, 96 RBI, 42 2B, 6.9 bWAR
Postseason Career: 61 games, .236/.318/.459, 13 HR, 36 RBI, 2020 NLCS MVP, 2020 World Series MVP
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: July 18-August 15 (14 games), .356/.397/.881, 9 HR, 19 RBI
Perhaps the biggest reason Texas was willing to spend $325 million on Corey Seager two offseasons ago was because of his postseason prowess with the Dodgers. He hit five home runs during that epic seven-game NLCS against Atlanta in 2020 and had a 1.171 OPS over the course of that October, and he was named both NLCS and World Series MVP.
Time to find out if he can bring some of that magic to Arlington.
Goodness knows he was magic during the regular season. If he hadn't missed 43 games, there's a good chance he would've been named AL MVP. Because even with all those absences, he fell just shy of winning the AL batting title and incredibly led the league in doubles.
The only qualified hitter in either league with a higher slugging percentage or OPS than Seager was Shohei Ohtani—and, no, we didn't forget about Matt Olson's 54 home runs for Atlanta.
Seager hit .359 in April, .368 in June and .365 in July, but his most ridiculous offensive spurt was mostly in August, when he clubbed nine home runs in the span of 63 plate appearances—good for a 162-game pace of 104 homers.
3. (tie) Marcus Semien, 2B, Texas Rangers
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2023 Stats: .276/.348/.478, 29 HR, 100 RBI, 122 R, 14 SB, 7.4 bWAR
Postseason Career: Nine games, .371/.450/.571, 2 HR, 4 RBI
Liquid Hot Magma Stretch: May 10-June 6 (25 games), .327/.367/.564, 4 HR, 22 RBI, 2 SB, 25-game hitting streak
Marcus Semien finished third in the 2019 AL MVP vote while with Oakland, third in the 2021 AL MVP vote while with Toronto, and might be third in this year's vote for the Texas Rangers.
If he does, he wouldn't be the first player in MLB history to finish top three in an MVP vote with three different teams. At the very least, Alex Rodriguez pulled it off. There might be others, too. But you can probably count on one hand the number of players to have accomplished that strange feat.
Semien wasn't quite as great this year as he was in 2019 or 2021, but he was the constant force that carried Texas to its first postseason appearance since 2016.
Corey Seager, Adolis García and Josh Jung all made trips to the IL. The pitching staff also endured more than its fair share of injuries. But Semien played in all 162 games—as he did in 2019 and 2021.
In addition to the 25-game hitting streak noted above, Semien had a 20-game stretch in September in which he hit .317 with nine home runs. Pair that with his impressive career numbers in the postseason, and he could be gearing up for a magical run.
3. (tie) Matt Olson, 1B, Atlanta Braves
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2023 Stats: .283/.389/.604, 54 HR, 139 RBI, 127 R, 7.4 bWAR
Postseason Career: 13 games, .200/.396/.500, 4 HR, 8 RBI
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: July 28-August 13 (17 games), .393/.506/.967, 11 HR, 27 RBI
Matt Olson was very much the catalyst for wanting to highlight the hottest portions of these stars' seasons.
Because when MLB's 2023 HR and RBI king—no one even came close to matching him in either category—catches fire, it is one heck of an inferno.
With 11 home runs during that 17-game stretch above, he was operating at a 162-game pace of 104.8 dingers.
There was also the 10-game hitting streak from September 3-12 in which he hit eight home runs (a 162-game pace of 129.6) while putting up an OPS of 1.816.
Of course, there's a flip side to that coin.
Immediately after batting .393 with 11 home runs in 17 games, Olson hit .206 over the span of 18 games without a single round-tripper. There was also a 28-game stretch from May 10 to June 10 in which he hit .198 with a .712 OPS.
We've seen this in the postseason from him, too. He had just one hit (a single) in the first five postseason games of his career before hitting four home runs in the next eight games. So we'll see how this Jekyll and Hyde hitter fares this October.
2. Ronald Acuña Jr., RF, Atlanta Braves
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2023 Stats: .337/.416/.596, 41 HR, 106 RBI, 73 SB, 149 R, 217 H, 8.1 bWAR
Postseason Career: 25 games, .274/.378/.484, 3 HR, 9 RBI, 3 SB
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: June 17-July 5 (16 games), .379/.468/.697, 6 HR, 11 SB, 16-game hitting streak
Trying to pinpoint the best prolonged stretch of Ronald Acuña Jr.'s season is like trying to pick the best four-episode arc of Breaking Bad.
It's been just so darn good from start to finish.
In the process of becoming the first player in MLB history with 30 home runs and 60 stolen bases—let alone 41 and 73, respectively—in a single season, Acuña never once had a three-game hitless streak, nor did he once go more than five consecutive games without at least one home run or one stolen base.
And during the liquid-hot magma run listed above, he preposterously had 13 consecutive games with at least one home run or at least one stolen base, including two of the 12 combo meals (at least one of each) that he racked up over the course of the season.
When Atlanta won the World Series in 2021, Acuña was out recovering from his torn ACL. So if the Braves make a deep run, this will be his first time playing in a game on October 19 or later. He does have four three-hit games in his postseason career, though, and he has never been this unstoppably good before.
1. Mookie Betts, 2B/RF, Los Angeles Dodgers
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2023 Stats: .307/.408/.579, 39 HR, 107 RBI, 14 SB, 8.4 bWAR
Postseason Career: 55 games, .264/.345/.395, 4 HR, 18 RBI, 14 SB
Liquid-Hot Magma Stretch: August 11-31 (18 games), .521/.580/.901, 7 HR, 21 RBI, 2 SB
Atlanta's Ronald Acuña Jr. is most likely going to be named NL MVP, but the most indispensable player of the 2023 season was Mookie Betts.
On offense, Betts had easily the second-best season of his career; not quite as absurdly good as when he led the majors in both batting average and slugging percentage en route to winning AL MVP in 2018, but certainly better than any other season of what is shaping up to be a Hall of Fame-bound career.
But it's the versatility on defense—bouncing back and forth between second base and right field with occasional appearances at shortstop—that pushed him over the top in terms of total value added.
We'll see if Betts can carry that success into the postseason, though. After his incredible 2018 campaign, he had merely a .623 OPS in the playoffs. Boston won that World Series almost in spite of him.
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