The Official MLB Season Preview
featuring Cristopher Vargas Martes’s “Power Rankings” for the 2024 MLB Season
The MLB season for 2024 has just begun. This is a critical point of the season because everyone is seeing how different teams are playing. We get to see the players that have been newly signed and have joined new clubs. This is something that we have from November to March every year and we get our baseball season sometimes from late march or early april. We get to see changes and things that have happened over the offseason in play.
The MLB season is at its best point for everyone because the season just started and we are seeing offseason acquisitions pay off, like the Yankees getting a top 5 player in the league Juan Soto. Soto has a 154 OPS+ which means he’s hitting 54% better than league average. This is the same team that last year had their worst season in more than 7 years, but this year is looking bright for the Yankees as they have one of the best records in the league (24-13 at the time of this writing).
We have already seen a very controversial topic, one being the biggest signing in the history of the MLB – Shohei Othani, who received a 700 million contract just this offseason. Ohtani had a slow start to the season and it took him until his 8th game to hit his first homerun. The home run has been very controversial because, since it was his first Dodger homer, Ohtani wanted the ball back, and the person that caught it was forced to give up the ball. Although they gave her a signed ball, and bat it does not make up for it, since it is a ball that could go on to cost from anywhere from 200k to a million dollars when Ohtani's career is all set and done. Ohtani has blown up ever since and is on fire right now; he is one of the best hitters in the league, and to think he just had Tommy John over the winter is kind of crazy.
On a more positive side, we got to see Ronel Blanco throw the first no-hitter of the season against the Blue Jays. Ronel Blanco had made his debut in the 2022 season, and played in 8 games last year but only pitched 58.1 innings in 2 years while posting a 4+ ERA. Ronel Blanco signed at the age of 22 for a bonus of $20,000 in 2016, a rare case. Blanco had to work multiple jobs aside from baseball in the Minor to be able to sustain himself. Blanco pitched 15 innings before giving up a hit to start the 2024 season, having a historic start to his season. Blanco is the definition of why you never give up on your dreams, because with hard work he was able to make the show and even had to do other jobs as he played baseball.
We have seen teams play better than we expected, although we have to take this with a grain of salt because the season has just started. We have seen the Red Sox, Angels, Guardians, Yankees, Pirates, and Cubs. We have seen the Cubs put up a great series against a great team like the Dodgers that they were able to beat in 2 out of 3 games. They played the Rangers and lost 2 out of 3, but on opening day the final score was Cubs 3 andRangers 4 in the 10th inning, showing how they were able to put up a great fight.
The Red Sox, Angels, and Guardians have had great start to the season although they have not played great teams, but the Red Sox signing of Andrew Bailey is looking to pay off after we have seen the Red Sox lead the league in ERA as we go into play today. The year is looking great and it has been a great start, but on the bad news aspect we have seen many injuries amongst pitchers, the main ones being Gerit Cole, Eury Perez, Framber Valdez, Walker Buheler, Spencer Strider, Justin Verlander, Shane Bieber, and more. These are not all of them, there are way more, but may not be as notable. This goes to show how the MLB needs to make changes urgently because our top pitchers are getting hurt and the reasons are not known. But we know for sure that the velocity that these pitchers are throwing are not normal for the human body, and the speed chasing that is going on in the MLB has something to do with this. You may wonder how can the MLB control this and it is simple, we are seeing pitchers that throw 88 to 91 and get the job done not be signed. But the one that throws 100 and doesn't get out is the one signed. We need to normalize that throwing fast is not a requirement, if a pitcher could get the job done throwing 89 we don't need him to throw harder. This is why kids are chasing speed because if your dream is to be in the MLB and you're throwing 88 at the age of 19 you're not on track and might not even make a college team.
Perez and Bieber are out for the year now that they have been confirmed to need Tommy John surgery. Perez was expected to have a great sophomore season as he just had a great rookie season and finished 7th for rookie of the year, even though he only played for half of the season. He is not the only one the list just keeps going everyday and we see teams are losing all their players, and now it is not just pitching, even hitters like Cody Bellinger are going down. This has never been seen and some wonder if it is the pitch clock or if it is the velocity increase that has happened over the past 10 years in the majors. The pitch clock was just introduced last year and some believe it might be showing its effects this year. Many teams have suffered hugely from this injury bug going around the league like the Boston Red Sox, who have lost 3 out of 5 of their top starting pitchers, and are still having a historic start for the starting rotation.
The MLB season has also had some great things happening like the fan attendance, the fans have been loving going to the game and have crushed records. Their record the weekend of 19-21 in 2024 was 1,460,736 across 46 games; this was the highest since April 28-30 of 2017. Which goes to show how good of a start the season has had and how if injuries were not happening at such high rates the season would've had an even better start.
The season has brought a lot of changes to say the least. We are currently seeing the Houston Astros Dynasty for a part as they have fallen 10 games under .500 for the first time since 2016. We can’t say they fall off yet because we must remember in a 162 game season anything can happen when we only see 37 games. But the Astros were a team that everyone feared coming into the season and the acquisition of Josh Hader, a top 3 closer in the game, scared everyone around the league. This is a team that since 2017 has been in the playoffs every year, been in the ALCS (American League Championship Series) in 2018, 2020, 2023 and have appeared in the WS (World Series) 4 different times and won 2 of them. Although the 2017 is debatable they still were able to keep it, even with clear proof that they were cheating.
Below are my official power rankings for the remainder of the season, where I am taking into account all I have mentioned above, but most importantly the rosters, and if they’ll keep it up for an entire season.
15. Astros (12-23): This is a team that is 12-23, but I refuse to give up on this team because even though they are terrible, it is impossible for them to be this bad for a full 162 game season with Altuve playing like an MVP again.
14. Diamondbacks (16-20): Although this team is having a slow start to the season, they are expected to bounce back at any moment because we can’t forget that this is the team that was just in the WS last season.
13. Red Sox (19-17): The Red Sox currently have the best ERA, and it looks like it will be like this for a long time because the team has lost 2 of their best 3 starters, and they have been able to maintain this. If the team keeps pitching like this and the offense wakes up, and if they make 1 or 2 moves at the trade deadline they could definitely make a push for a Wild Card (WC) spot.
12. Reds (16-19): This is a team that is currently struggling, but just because of one bad week they had. They could definitely bounce back next week and make a push for a wild card spot.
11. Padres (19-20): This is a really good team and they have shown it; they could easily be in the top 10 by the end of the season because they hit and can pitch. They could make the playoffs if they keep this up.
10. Guardians (23-13): The Guardians have one of the best records in the league, but this team is not very likely to do this for an entire season. They’re a part of the easiest division in baseball so it is very likely that they win their division and make a playoff spot.
9. Brewers (21-14): This is a team whose pitching is always good, but right now they’re performing really well. This is a team that currently holds the #1 spot in the NL Central, and in this division that is not as difficult as others, it’s expected for them to finish in the #1 or 2 spot.
8. Mariners (20-16): This is a special team and has one of the best rotations in the league. The only reason they're not higher is because the hitting is not quite what you would want for a team that is expected to go to the playoffs, but after J-Rod heats up they’re expected to be in a real good spot.
7. Cubs (22-15): This is a really good team all around and they have just gotten better with additions like Shota Imanaga. They currently have many of their best players who are currently injured so when they are back it is expected that they have a really good year.
6. Rangers (23-13): This is a team that is doing good right now even though their entire rotation is out. This is really good because this means that when they get their pitchers back they could be even better than the teams that are ahead of them currently.
5. Phillies (26-11): The Phillies look to make another deep push into the postseason this year as they currently hold the best record in the league, and all of their players are performing as expected — as well as the breakout of Alec Bohm who is having a MVP type season.
4. Yankees (23-14): This is a team that has become one of the best teams around the league after the addition of Juan Soto who is having an MVP season to start off. It is looking like they can make a deep postseason push.
3. Orioles (23-12): The Orioles have one of the best well rounded teams in the league; they don’t have any position that they lack in. And, with the best catcher in baseball, Adley Rutschman, they’re in for a good chance at winning it all this year
2. Braves (21-12): This is a power team and is a favorite every year because of players like Ronald Acuna and Matt Olson, but they have one of the best looking rosters on paper and they play really well together.
1.Dodgers (25-13): They can win everything this season. The only way they don’t is if they get an injury bug or if a team just has a crazy streak in the playoffs like the 2019 Nationals. If not, it is pretty much impossible to hold them back.