What we have learned 1 month into the MLB season

The MLB season is fully underway, and there have been plenty of headlines to kick off the year. If you haven’t been paying attention so far, this will be an article that will get you all caught up on the teams and storylines.

Contender or Pretender?

These are some teams that have gotten off to pretty solid starts. Here I will look over these teams and try to determine if they are contenders or just teams that have gotten off to hot starts.

San Diego Padres

The Padres, as of now, have one of the best records in baseball at 17-11. They have displayed many elite traits this season, from having the best BA in the league to having a top 5 WHIP in the league. The Padres, in my opinion, are going to be the Dodgers biggest threat as we get closer to the postseason. If this team can stay healthy, it 100% can beat the Dodgers and even win a championship.

San Diego Padres Contenders

Chicago Cubs

The Cubs sit at 17-12 and atop the NL Central. They have played the Dodgers in 3 series so far, so a good thing is they are getting those games out of the way, which will be able to help their record and playoff position as well as get into the fall. Justin Steele, one of the best-starting pitchers on the team, went down for the season, which may be a concern if they can’t establish a good long-term replacement for him. The hitting for the Cubs has been the main reason why the Cubs are off to a solid start. They are sitting with the 3rd best BA in the league right now at .260 and have 38 home runs. The batting has been great, but through the season the bullpen will determine how far this team can go come October. Right now I would put the Cubs as pretenders because they sit with plenty of questions, like whether they can get a good Justin Steele replacement/the whole bullpen and if the hitting will be able to keep up as the year goes on.

Cubs Pretenders

Photo Via Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

Cleveland Guardians

The Guardians have been playing solid baseball so far to start this season. They are sitting in the middle for multiple stat categories, but the thing that has them with a solid record to start this year is they have just been grinding out games. Going right back to last year, they just have a solid ability to win close games, and it probably won’t let up anytime soon. I don’t think the Guardians are a horrible team and will fall off; I just can’t see them as actually being title contenders.

Cleveland Guardians Pretenders

Detroit Tigers

The Tigers are a team people aren’t talking about. They got off to a rocky start by getting swept by the Dodgers, but since then they have not lost a series. They have an elite bullpen, and players like Spencer Torkelson and Kerry Carpenter are having very solid starts this year. With a very young lineup, expect these hitters to grow as the year goes on and for this team to only get better.

Detroit Tigers Contenders

Photo Via Nick Cammett/Diamond Images via Getty Images

San Francisco Giants

The Giants are in a similar position as the Tigers. They have a very good pitching staff, but the hitting is what will determine how good they are. San Francisco got off to a very hot start but fell off a little bit. It doesn’t help either that they are in the hardest division in baseball. The Giants are a team that had a championship ceiling and potentially also a floor of missing the playoffs. I don’t know where they are at right now. I would like to wait another month or two and see how that squad pans out into the summer.

San Francisco Giants Undetermined

(The Mets, Yankees, Phillies, and Dodgers are all also contenders)

The Disasters

There are plenty of teams at this point in the season that have yet to meet expectations by a large margin. Some of those teams didn’t have high expectations; others did.

Atlanta Braves

The Braves got off to the worst start in the MLB and have slowly started to turn it around. The first couple of series they played nothing went right and they started the year 1-8. They sit at 13-15 and have slowly gotten much better. The Braves have a lot of work to still do and cannot go through another slump like they did to start the year if they want to make the playoffs.

Colorado Rockies

The Rockies didn’t really have high expectations whatsoever to begin with, but somehow they still are not meeting them. They have been a mess from ownership to the players on the field; nothing has seemed right. It seems that Bud Black can lose as many games as he wants and still keep a job. The bullpen is also the worst in baseball. Major changes need to happen, and the Rockies are going to need to go through a full-scale rebuild if they want to fix this mess.

Photo Via AP Photo/David Zalubowski

Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pirates have been a team that has gotten off to some hot starts in recent years. That has not been the case this year whatsoever, and it is looking like another very disappointing season in Pittsburgh. Like the Rockies, poor ownership and management have completely ruined that franchise, and they still need a lot of pieces before being competitive.

Photo Via AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar

Baltimore Orioles

The Orioles are also another team that has been disappointing to start the year. The batting has been inconsistent, and the pitching is at the bottom of the league. From being a team that has made the playoffs in back-to-back seasons, making it 3 in a row is in jeopardy. It is still early, and they have time, but also being in a tough division never helps.

(Yes, the White Sox are still a disaster; there's just no need to explain them.)

The Players

A large number of MLB players are off to great starts this season. 

Let’s go over some of the offensive linemen players that are having elite play so far.

Aaron Judge (Yankees) (1.247 OPS .415 BA 7 HR)

Pavin Smith Diamondbacks (.383 BA 1.233 OPS)

Brice Turang (Brewers) (.350 BA 14 RBI)

Pete Alonso (Mets) (1.121 OPS .341 BA)

Corbin Carroll (Diamondbacks) (9 Home Runs 1.097 OPS)

Cal Raleigh (Mariners) (9 Home Runs)

Spencer Torkelson (Tigers) (21 RBI 7 HR)

Kyle Tucker (Cubs) (7 HR 1.060 OPS)

Tyler Soderstrom (Athletics) (9 HR .959 OPS 19 RBI)

Wilmer Flores (Giants) (27 RBI 7 HR)

Some Pitchers having solid starts so far.

Tyler Mahle (Rangers) (0.68 ERA 3 Wins .112 BA Against)

Hunter Brown (Astros) (.163 BA Against 1.16 ERA 3 Wins)

Max Fried (Yankees) (4 Wins 1.42 ERA 1.01 WHIP)

Tarik Skubal (Tigers) (2.83 ERA 29 K 1.12 WHIP)

Nick Pivetta (Padres) (4 Wins 1.20 ERA 1.13 WHIP)

(Stats are of 4/24)

Conclusion

The MLB is a long season, and don’t expect some of these teams and players to stay the way they are. There are some players on here who you wouldn’t expect to be doing so well, and it will be interesting to see if they can put it together for a whole season. The biggest thing in baseball is consistency, and we’ll see what players and teams will be able to sustain consistency throughout this season.

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Eli Saari

@ThatManChe on X