The 2022 MLB campaign has been rolling along for 2 months now, and we've had some time to see the teams round out into form. It's been nice watching America's past time, but the dead balls are killing me. My Padres haven't been doing too shabby, hopefully we can avoid a second half implosion like last year. We're now at a point in the season where we have a general idea of the contenders, pretenders, MVPs, and nobodies. Granted, it's still fairly early in the season, and anything can change, but as of right now, here's some hot takes for y'all from what I've seen so far.
The Mets will beat out the Dodgers and earn the top seed in the NL.
The Mets have started out the season with the best record in the National League and second in the MLB, with only the Yankees ahead of them. Despite Scherzer, DeGrom, and Megill all currently on the IL, the Mets own the 7th best ERA in baseball. One can only imagine just how lights out their pitching rotation will be once healthy. New York's offense has been absolutely on fire, ranking 1st in batting average, RBIs, and on base percentage. They are also top 3 in OPS, R/G, and WOBA. The deadly duo of Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor are mashing the baseball right now, ranking 1st and 4th in the league in RBIs, respectively. Alonso is also 2nd in HR on the season and is having himself what looks to be a year rivaling his 53-dinger rookie campaign. The Mets appear to be solid on both sides of the field and for them to be rivaling the Dodgers not even at full strength, I could see the Mets sneaking by LA to take the No. 1 seed in the National League when October rolls around.
Julio Rodriguez will win AL ROY.
This kid is something special, folks. After starting off the season cold, he's heated up nicely and is honestly the best bat for the Mariners right now. He's currently slashing .274 with 6 HRs and a league leading 17 stolen bases. Yep, 17 SBs. His Hard Hit % is within the top 15th percentile in the MLB, and with his speed, a routine groundout to 3rd can be a tough play. Julio can see the fastball well, as he hits .333 against heaters with an average exit velocity of 97 mph. There's a lot to like about Rodriguez's combination of power and speed and I'm excited to see if he will blossom in his future years. With his skill set and current production, should he stay healthy and keep at this pace, he would easily earn him my ROY of the vote. If he can cut down his Ks, this kid will be one of the sport's superstars on the level of Soto and Judge.
Joe Musgrove will win the NL Cy Young.
Mr. No-no Joe, what a year he's been having so far. It seems like Musgrove is destined for his best season yet, compiling a miniscule 1.64 ERA (leads NL) and 0.92 WHIP over his first 66.0 IP. The San Diego native continues to provide the Padres with consistent solid pitching, he goes at least 6 innings into games and turns in quality starts like clockwork. His baseball savant page is just beautiful, red everywhere as he doesn't rank below the 60th percentile in anything besides fastball velocity. His xWOBA is the lowest in his career and he has immense control over his pitches, sporting a BB% in the 83rd percentile. Essentially, this man is doing everything you want out of an ace, he limits traffic on the basepaths, strikes out batters at a decent rate, and pitches efficient enough to get you 6+ innings. There will be some regression, as his 2.62 xERA suggests, but it won't be enough to knock Musgrove out of Cy Young consideration.
The Twins will win the AL Central.
The Minnesota offense currently is only 14th in R/G, yet their offense should be expected to contend with the powerhouses as they rank top 3 in xSLG, xWOBA, Exit Velocity, and Hard Hit %. If their offense can only go up from here, then they should have no problem beating out the Guardians and White Sox for the division title. Luis Arraez is having his best season of his young career, leading the league in BA with a line of .358. Buxton's Hard Hit/EV numbers tell us it's only a matter of time before he starts to pick up his batting average to complement his power. While Minnesota's pitching does leave more to be desired, the Twins still outrank the rest of the division in the Statcast categories. Their pitching staff isn't completely incompetent and should tread water just enough to keep their games close enough for their offense.
Javier Baez will hit under .250 this season.
Yikes, Baez in his first season as a Tiger has not panned out as well as Detroit envisioned it. The newly acquired shortstop is batting a measly .198 with just 3 long balls and 15 RBI. Usually, with experienced and formerly successful players you can confidently say, "Oh, he's just having some bad luck, he'll heat up." Not with El Mago this year. His xWOBA stands in the terrible 4th percentile and his Hard Hit %, xSLG, and BB% are all in the bottom 20th percentile. Baez's 111 RBI, 34 HR effort in 2018 seems to be a mere dream right now. His xBA currently lies at a dissatisfactory .209, and it seems he'll continue to strike out a lot and prove to be a subpar batter for the Tigers this year.
And there it is. A few takes I think we could reasonably deduce from the data we have of this early season. It’ll be hilarious to revisit these at the end of the year to see just how off I was, hopefully I’ll get a couple right. Over the summer I’ll continue to watch some baseball and fill you guys in on the latest stories. That’ll be all for now, thanks for reading and have a wonderful rest of the week.
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