1. BEST: High-flying teams The star-studded Los Angeles Dodgers were expected to emerge as the most powerful team in the big leagues this year, and they haven’t disappointed. The Dodgers didn’t boast the best win-loss record after seven weeks of play, a period that ended on May 15. The Philadelphia Phillies held that distinction with an imposing 31-13 mark. But Los Angeles (29-16) did top the majors in overall base value (OBV), a key measure of offensive and defensive efficiency. Teams are credited with positive base values in either of these instances: Their batters reached more bases than ..read more

1. BEST: Hottest paces We’re about a quarter of the way into the 2024 baseball season, which is deep enough to discern trends that may (or, yes, may not) hold up through the remaining three-quarters of the schedule. Big-league clubs played anywhere from 34 (Braves) to 40 (Padres) games over the opening six weeks. I’ve taken the statistics from that period and extrapolated them across a full slate of 162 games. Don’t make too much of these stats. Slumps and injuries will inevitably intervene, and some trends (notably the eight pitchers on track for 20-win seasons) will be almost impossible to m ..read more

1. BEST: Early MVP frontrunners Overall base value (OBV) is a well-tuned forecasting tool for Most Valuable Player Awards. Consider the past couple of seasons. Aaron Judge and Paul Goldschmidt respectively led the American and National League in OBV in 2022. They also took home the leagues’ MVP trophies. The 2023 OBV champs were Shohei Ohtani in the AL and Ronald Acuna Jr. in the NL. They, too, won the year’s Most Valuable Player honors. It’s too early to handicap the 2024 MVP races with much accuracy. But we do have one month in the books, so let’s take a look at the early frontrunners. If yo ..read more

1. BEST: Power and control The Philadelphia Phillies entered the past winter with an emphatic goal. “At the outset of this offseason, we made signing Aaron Nola our top priority,” said Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski. The team accomplished its mission in November, when Nola signed a seven-year, $172 million contract. The 30-year-old pitcher has been a Phil ever since the club drafted him in 2014. He made his big-league debut a year later and is now playing his 10th season in Philadelphia. His career record (through the first four weeks of the 2024 schedule) is 94-72 ..read more

1. BEST: Sustained quality Paul Goldschmidt has been consistently excellent throughout his 14-year career. Nine seasons with a batting average of .290 or better, peaking at .321 in 2015. Seven years with more than 30 homers, topping out at a league-leading total of 36 in 2013. Four times reaching triple digits for runs batted in. And, of course, the winner of the National League’s Most Valuable Player Award in 2022. The case could be made, in fact, that Goldschmidt is the most consistently excellent hitter in the majors today. I established these four standards: 140 games played, 20 homers, 80 ..read more

1. BEST: Getting a jump The New York Yankees edged the Miami Marlins, 3-2, on April 9. The Los Angeles Dodgers wrapped up their 6-3 win over the Minnesota Twins about an hour later. The two victors thereby became the first teams in their respective leagues to reach double digits in the win column: the American League Yanks at 10-2, the National League Dodgers at 10-4. Recent history suggests that they should start getting ready for the playoffs. These were the first teams to get to 10 wins in the three previous post-pandemic seasons: 2021: AL Boston Red Sox on April 17 (with a 10-4 record ..read more

1. BEST: All-contact team Luis Arraez proves the value of contact, even in this free-swinging era of big-league baseball. Arraez, the second baseman for the Miami Marlins, posted the highest batting average in the majors last year, .354, winning the National League’s hitting crown. He earned the American League’s title the previous year as a member of the Minnesota Twins, hitting .316. So what’s his secret? It’s simple, really. He puts the bat on the ball. Arraez also led the majors last year with a contact rate (CT) of .941. CT is the percentage of at-bats in which the hitter put the ball in ..read more

Welcome to my new (and still evolving) format for Baseball’s Best (and Worst). This is the 452nd installment of my newsletter, which dates back to September 2020. I have generally followed a twice-weekly schedule — Tuesday and Friday — though I did deviate into an every-weekday plan during 2023’s regular season (April through September). Another season is upon us, so I’m once again trying something new. I’ll be releasing a new edition once a week, covering several topics in a single post. So let’s get to it. 1. BEST: Easiest teams to root for It’s very, very easy to root for the Los Angeles Do ..read more

There has been a certain monotony to my National League predictions in recent years. I picked the Los Angeles Dodgers to defeat the Chicago Cubs in the 2021 NL Championship Series, then lose to the Chicago White Sox in the World Series. Incorrect on both counts. The actual NL champions were the Atlanta Braves, who went on to defeat the Houston Astros for the world title. I chose the Dodgers again in 2022, predicting that they would subdue the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS and the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series. Another strikeout. The real-life finalists were the Philadelphia Phillies fro ..read more

Spring training is not yet over, but it’s already time for the postseason. I devoted the past few weeks to my forecasts for baseball’s 2024 regular season, using a system that matched each club’s record over the span of 2021-2023 against the corresponding three-year marks for 1,288 teams since free agency began in 1976. You can follow these links to see the resulting predictions for all six divisions: American League East American League Central American League West National League East National League Central National League West There’s only one thing left to do — extending my ..read more