Every day, Pinstripe Alley offers updates on what the Yankees’ top American League opponents are up to through the Rivalry Roundup. The AL East is well-trodden ground there, but with the month of May coming to a close, we’re going to take a peek around MLB as a whole and check in with each of the other five divisions. Who’s surprising? Who’s underwhelming? Who’s simply mediocre at the moment? Read on and find out.
Note: Since this is an end-of-month review, win/loss record displayed reflects how the division looked at the end of play on May 31st.
Esteemed baseball writer Sam Miller recently declared that there are only six good teams in MLB and by my count, only one resides in the NL West. What some thought could be a four-team scrap has turned into what many others expected: a stacked Dodgers squad that sits a tier above their chasers, with the Padres, Giants, and Diamondbacks duking it out for at least one Wild Card spot, and the Rockies doing exactly what everyone expected languishing in the basem*nt of the NL.
First Place: Los Angeles Dodgers (36-23)
Top Position Player: Mookie Betts (3.3 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Tyler Glasnow (2.1 fWAR)
The Dodgers are learning that $2 billion does not buy you an unblemished road to a championship. This may sound like crying for the poor — not to mention doubly ironic coming from a Yankees site — but even with their extraordinary payroll outlay the last few years and in particular last winter, the Dodgers have had a tumultuous journey through the first two months. They started off 12-11 after dropping two in a row to the Mets, though with no one else in the division intent on doing more than follow their lead. Then came the nearly unbeatable streak that a team with that depth of superstar talent can threaten at any time, LA ripping off a 14-2 hot stretch. However, they followed that up with a 7-9 spell including dropping five in a row, all of this up and down resulting in what’s still a comfortable five-game lead atop the division at 36-23.
Shohei Ohtani has hit the ground running following his record-breaking move to Dodger Blue and appears to have put the Ippei Mizuhara gambling scandal behind him. Playing exclusively as a DH while he recovers from Tommy John surgery, Ohtani is enjoying the best offensive start to a season of his career, slashing .326/.393/.607 with 14 home runs, 38 RBIs, 13 stolen bases, and a 184 wRC+. His TJS rehab is progressing, though the target remains a 2025 return to the mound.
He’d be the best player on his own team if not for Mookie Betts, who has followed up his MVP-worthy campaign of 2023 with an even better start to 2024, slashing .326/.419/.517 with eight home runs, 31 RBIs, and a 172 wRC+ just months into transitioning into the team’s starting shortstop a year after converting himself from an outfielder to a second baseman. He is one of just two hitters to walk more than he strikes out alongside Kyle Tucker and recently wrapped up Player of the Month honors for April, a distinction his teammate Ohtani is likely to earn for May. We rhapsodize over the feats from Juan Soto and Aaron Judge atop the Yankees lineup but Betts and Ohtani are right up there with them.
Just those two alone have carried much of the load for the Dodgers, and it’s scary to think of how dominant they can be with all their stars firing on all cylinders. Yoshinobu Yamamoto has rebounded from a shaky MLB debut to post a 3.51 ERA (114 ERA+), 2.83 FIP and 69 strikeouts in 59 innings, and it’s fair to say he’s still adjusting to the league. Freddie Freeman has been relatively quiet if you can call a 142 wRC+ quiet and none of us would be surprised to look up at the end of the year and find him among the game’s most productive hitters.
The pitching side is where the Dodgers have cost themselves wins and it wouldn’t surprise in the least to see a major upgrade or two by the deadline. Tyler Glasnow leads the way with a 3.04 ERA (131 ERA+), 2.64 FIP, and 95 strikeouts in 74 innings, his 33.2-percent strikeout rate placing third and 2.1 fWAR tied for sixth among qualified starters. It’s been a jumble behind him and Yamamoto as they wait for Clayton Kershaw to get healthy and Walker Buehler to rediscover his form.
Second Place: San Diego Padres (31-29)
Top Position Player: Jurickson Profar (2.5 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Dylan Cease (2.0 fWAR)
It’s amazing that a year ago, we were talking about the Padres as the new offensive juggernaut ready to unseat the Dodgers from the NL West throne. An offense that boasted the likes of Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, and Xander Bogaerts finished 82-80 — now Soto’s gone and it speaks volumes that their two best offensive contributors have been Jurickson Profar and Luis Arraez, who has only been with the team for four weeks.
On the pitching side, Yu Darvish and Dylan Cease are still two of the game’s best starters even after getting roughed up by the Yankees. Darvish sports a 3.20 ERA (120 ERA+) and 3.49 FIP in 11 starts while Cease places eighth in MLB in fWAR (2.0) and strikeout rate (30.9-percent) and tenth in FIP (2.71). Michael King has been serviceable—if not very up and down—since his inclusion in the Soto swap. The bullpen has some shutdown arms but hasn’t been given many leads to protect.
Technically, this would probably belong in the End-of-June check-in, but it’s worth noting that both Darvish and the struggling Joe Musgrove hit the IL yesterday. That’s a tough blow.
Third Place: San Francisco Giants (29-29)
Top Position Player: LaMonte Wade Jr. (1.9 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Logan Webb (1.8 fWAR)
The Giants seized upon the league-wide reticence to pay Scott Boras’ clients the figures they were asking, snapping up Blake Snell and Matt Chapman for well-below-market-value, short-term bargains. Snell certainly looks rusty without the benefit of a full spring training, with a 10.42 ERA and 4.55 FIP in five starts. Chapman continues to have one of the fastest bats in the league, as affirmed by Statcast’s new bat tracking data, but also continues to be held back by his chase and whiff tendencies.
Patrick Bailey has established himself as one of the rising star catchers in the league and has provided San Francisco a much more seamless transition from Buster Posey than it appeared even this time last year. His 1.8 fWAR and 143 wRC+ are sixth and eighth, respectively, among backstops while his +2 framing runs are good for seventh. Outside of an unfathomable 169 wRC+ from LaMonte Wade Jr., the offensive production drops off precipitously, and it certainly hurts that they are without their big-money center field signing Jung Hoo Lee, now out for the season with a torn labrum.
As a starting rotation, the Giants don’t strike out nearly enough hitters, none of Logan Webb, Jordan Hicks, Kyle Harrison, nor Keaton Winn scratching a 22-percent strikeout rate. Webb has followed up his second place finish in NL Cy Young balloting with a similarly-styled performance, his 0.25 home run per nine rate placing third and 56.9-percent groundball rate placing fourth among qualified starters.
Fourth Place: Arizona Diamondbacks (25-32)
Top Position Player: Christian Walker (1.9 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Brandon Pfaadt (1.5 fWAR)
The first two months of 2024 have been a painfully disappointing follow up to making the World Series, though it is worth noting they were mediocre for long stretches in 2023 and barely snuck into the postseason. Corbin Carroll has been dreadful after winning NL Rookie of the Year in unanimous fashion, with just nine stolen bases and a 68 wRC+. Joc Pederson has been a pleasant surprise and both Ketel Marte and Christian Walker have been consistent to their career norms, but Eugenio Suárez hasn’t done anything since being acquired from Seattle.
In the rotation, it’s second-year player Brandon Pfaadt and not staff ace Zac Gallen who leads the way with his 4.16 ERA. Many of Gallen’s rate stats are right in line with last season’s third-place Cy Young finish, but he’s on pace to throw 60 fewer innings and just went down a hamstring strain. Merrill Kelly has been absent with injury and Jordan Montgomery is still adjusting like Snell following his last-minute move and subsequent firing of Boras, the southpaw sporting a 5.48 ERA in eight starts.
Everything about the Diamondbacks screams bang-average, but that was enough to get them all the way to the Fall Classic and it perhaps explains why the team avoided splashier additions over the offseason.
Last Place: Colorado Rockies (21-35)
Top Position Player: Ezequiel Tovar (1.9 fWAR)
Top Pitcher: Ryan Feltner (0.8 fWAR)
I like to think of the Rockies as the Denny’s of MLB. They churn out a mediocre product year after year with no care toward improving in the future. Owner Dick Monfort almost wears the mess he has created as a badge of honor. You usually know what you’re going to get when you sit down, but there’s always a chance you could see some crazy sh*t happen.
They appear set on building the future around Ezequiel Tovar, signed to a seven-year extension in spring and emerging as one of the bright young shortstops around the league with a 114 wRC+ and tied for the sixth best DRS (+5) and OAA (+4) at the position. Ryan McMahon meanwhile has emerged as the team’s foremost trade chip, under contract for multiple years at a team-friendly price and having produced a 125 wRC+. The notoriously insular Rockies are unsurprisingly reluctant to deal him, though.
If it weren’t for those two and the burning dumpster fire that is the Chicago White Sox, the Rockies would surely find themselves dead-last in the league by team wRC+.
