The Braves are in last place, the Angels are in first and lead the majors in homers, the Marlins have a winning record, and the Dodgers have suddenly dropped three straight series after a historic start for a reigning champion.
As we get to our second week of power rankings, which feature a bevy of National League teams at the top, here are more early surprises for all 30 teams to start the 2025 season.
Let’s look at a surprising positive: The pitching staff has a 3.55 ERA, and top Rule 5 pick Shane Smith is holding opponents to a .150 batting average. Smith and veteran Martín Pérez (.158) each rank in the top 10 among qualified MLB starters in batting average against.
It should come as little surprise that the Pirates have the worst batting average in MLB (though .184 is…troublingly low). It’s more surprising that their starting pitchers have a 5.06 ERA, the third-worst mark in the majors. The Pirates have lost two of Paul Skenes‘ first three starts.
The offense ranks in the bottom five in MLB batting average, on-base percentage and OPS.
Tyler Soderstrom leads all MLB first basemen in homers, and don’t sleep on Jacob Wilson as a Rookie of the Year contender. Playing at Sutter Health Park will boost the offensive numbers…and make life rather miserable for their pitchers, who have a 3.63 ERA on the road and an MLB-worst 5.89 ERA at home.
Mitchell Parker has a 1.96 ERA in three starts, Mackenzie Gore has a 3.52 ERA in four starts and closer Kyle Finnegan is 5-for-5 in save chances with only one run allowed this year…and yet the Nationals rank last in the majors with a 5.15 team ERA. The rest of the bullpen is a mess.
Not long ago, it looked like Matt Mervis might be the Cubs‘ future at first base. When it didn’t work out for the highly-regarded prospect in Chicago, the Marlins took a flier. He has five homers in 34 at-bats.
Where to start? The offense ranks 29th in runs scored, 21st in slugging and OPS and is hitting .180 with runners in scoring position. The pitching staff ranks 22nd in ERA. Reigning Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale is 0-2 with a 6.63 ERA in four starts, and Spencer Schwellenbach — who looks like an early Cy Young contender with only one run allowed in 20 innings — has the only win by a Braves starting pitcher this year.
The Rays’ offense ranks eighth in OPS, and their pitching staff ranks eighth in ERA; but they’ve hit 14 homers and allowed 24.
The Cardinals’ offense ranks first in on-base percentage, second in batting average and third in OPS. Twelve different Cardinals players have already homered.
There are six qualified MLB starters with an ERA under 1.00; two of them (Hunter Greene: 0.98, Nick Lodolo: 0.96) are Reds pitchers. Overall, the Cincinnati rotation ranks second in ERA.
Look, we know about the suspect starting pitching, and a litany of injuries in the rotation aren’t helping. But the offense ranks 18th in OPS. That can’t continue if they want to contend.
Kris Bubic, a 2018 first-round pick of the Royals, went 3-13 with a 5.58 ERA in 2022. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2023 and returned exclusively out of the bullpen last year. In three starts this year, he has a 0.96 ERA.
Emmanuel Clase has a 7.71 ERA and has allowed 14 hits in seven innings, yet the Cleveland bullpen is 5-1 with a 2.25 ERA. The other members of the elite unit have combined for a 1.47 ERA.
The Astros’ pitching staff has the highest strikeout rate and best strikeout-to-walk ratio in MLB and is performing better than its 3.74 ERA might suggest. The offense, which has the fourth-lowest slugging percentage in MLB, is not. But the arrow’s pointing up lately for the acquisitions in the Kyle Tucker trade. Isaac Paredes and Cam Smith each have an OPS over 1.000 over the last week while Hayden Wesneski struck out 10 his last time out.
Jorge Polanco, who hit below league average last year and has only played in 11 games, is the team leader in hits, RBIs and every slash line category.
The Brewers have already needed eight different pitchers to start a game, their bullpen ranks 28th in ERA, and their offense ranks 17th in OPS…and yet they’re still .500. It’s kind of amazing. Having Jackson Chourio helps.
Is Kyren Paris going to finish the year with an OPS over 1.000? I’ll take the under, but there are reasons to believe the breakout is real for the 23-year-old 2019 second-round pick, who is absolutely mashing the baseball after posting a .110 batting average and one home run in 36 career games entering the season. He already has five home runs to go with his five stolen bases and has the highest slugging percentage (.852) of any big-leaguer with at least 30 at-bats this year.
Wilyer Abreu ranks top five in the majors in position player WAR, yet the offense — which added Alex Bregman and has seen rookie Kristian Campbell tally a .900 OPS — is averaging just two runs per game over the last seven games since going wild in the home-opening series. Their 55 strikeouts with runners in scoring position are the most in baseball.
On a team with Vlad, Bo Bichette and Anthony Santander, the Blue Jays’ home run leader right now is … Andrés Giménez? They have a winning record despite ranking last in the majors in the category. Guerrero and Bichette are each still looking for their first dinger of the year.
The Rangers have the lowest on-base percentage and chase rate in MLB and rank 24th overall in OPS. With all the attention being paid to their returning members of the rotation and the health of their pitching staff, it’s just as important that the offense starts to find its 2023 form again.
The only qualified player with a lower strikeout rate than Geraldo Perdomo this year is Luis Arraez. The D-backs shortstop, whose whiff rate has gone down every year of his career, is also tied for the league lead defensively in outs above average.
The Spencer Torkelson revival is upon us. Sure, the .400 BABIP is unsustainable, but the promising underlying numbers suggest his early success (.309/.409/.673) could continue. He looks more powerful, more patient and more impactful for a Tigers lineup that needs the pop from somewhere in the infield.
The highest hard-hit rate in baseball? It doesn’t belong to Shohei Ohtani, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Juan Soto or Kyle Schwarber. It’s a Yankee, but it’s not the reigning MVP. No, no, the honor of course belongs to 2021 12th-round pick Ben Rice. I mean, look at this Statcast page.
Hoo Lee Gans, unite! Jung Hoo Lee’s contact skills were never a question, but he’s barreling the baseball in a way he didn’t in his debut year (which, to be fair, was cut short by injury) and leads the majors in doubles in the early going. Healthy now, he is slugging over .700 and — in about a third of the at-bats — already has more homers and twice as many doubles as he did last year.
Brandon Marsh, Alec Bohm and J.T. Realmuto have combined for four extra-base hits all year. That has played a considerable role in the Phillies ranking in the bottom half of MLB in slugging. Perhaps even more surprising, Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola are a combined 1-4 with a 4.65 ERA; Taijuan Walker, meanwhile, hasn’t allowed a run through his first two starts.
It was reasonable to expect the Cubs’ offense to look better once Kyle Tucker joined the group, but I’m not sure anyone expected them to be leading the National League in OPS through the first couple weeks with by far the best run differential in the sport — and that’s with Dansby Swanson (.656 OPS) and Ian Happ (.589) yet to get going. Tucker’s difference-making power is real, and he looks like an early MVP contender.
There were concerns about the Mets’ pitching staff, particularly with a rotation that lost Luis Severino in free agency and saw Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas hit the injured list early. None of it seems to matter. The Mets’ 2.30 team ERA is the lowest mark in the majors, and, led by Tylor Megill (0.63 ERA) and Kodai Senga (1.06 ERA), their starters have produced an MLB-best 2.55 ERA.
They’re still probably the best team in baseball, but they haven’t played like it. Even when they were rolling early, they often had to claw back from behind. Now, their offense is sputtering, their defense looks flawed, and they’ve dropped three straight series to drop out of the top spot here. One positive surprise: No player in baseball has more home runs than Tommy Edman. The diminutive slugger’s career high for a season is 13, and he’s already almost halfway there.
It’ll be tougher for the Padres to keep this going after injuries to Jackson Merrill and Jake Cronenworth and with the schedule getting a lot more perilous, but so far, so good. All they can do is win the games in front of them, and they’re doing that better than any team in baseball. Even with Yu Darvish down to start the season, their pitching staff already has six shutout wins — twice as many as any other team in MLB. The bullpen has been lights out.
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on X at @RowanKavner.
Get more from Major League Baseball Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
This article was originally published at www.foxsports.com
