16-Game Standings: American League

A way too early look at how teams have performed through the first two-plus weeks of the season.

Happy Tuesday! We’re 16 games into the baseball season, which means it’s time to do our semi-annual series (I’m pretty sure I’ve done this before): What if the baseball season were only 16 games long? We’ll do the American League today!

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The ABS Challenge Scorecard

• Total challenges: 971. Challenges have been successful 530 times (55%).

• Batter challenges have been successful 47% of the time.

• Fielder challenges (almost always catchers) have been successful 61% of the time.

Monday was another crazy accurate day for the catchers — they got 18 of 25 challenges right.

Catchers are just SO much better at calling balls and strikes than umpires.

Even that one seemingly terrible challenge down on the bottom left was actually a really good challenge because of the situation. That came in the ninth inning of the Washington-Pittsburgh game; Pirates reliever Evan Sisk was closing out a 16-5 laugher. He struck out Keibert Ruiz on three pitches. He struck out Joey Wiemer on three pitches. And then he got ahead 0-2 on Luis García Jr.

Pirates catcher Henry Davis challenged that pitch because Sisk was going for an immaculate inning.

I’m sure Davis KNEW it was a ball, but at that point, absolutely, if you have a challenge left, you definitely use it. The pitch was obviously confirmed as a ball. Sisk struck out García on the next pitch.

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American League

Playoff teams: Baltimore, New York, Cleveland, Minnesota, Texas, Tampa Bay.

MVP: Chandler Simpson, Tampa Bay Rays

Close race between Simpson, New York’s Ben Rice (.362/.508/.745), Boston’s Wilyer Abreau (leads league in bWAR because he’s slugging .597 and playing his usual awe-inspiring defense in right), but at this point all races are won by Simpson.

I’m absolutely in love with Chandler Simpson’s Baseball Savant chart:

I mean, seriously, what the heck is that? Simpson has the best square-up percentage in baseball and the lowest hard-hit percentage in the game. He basically never strikes out — three whiffs in 15 games so far — but also has zero barrels all year. He doesn’t have a double or a home run, but he has two triples.

He’s hitting .403.

How does he do it? Right: Chandler Simpson can fly. He’s probably the fastest player in the league — Bobby Witt Jr. will be up there, I’m sure — but he’s DEFINITELY the player who flaunts his speed. He chops, bunts, bloops, and pokes the ball all over the field. Outfielders play him so far in, it’s laughable, but you know what? It doesn’t matter. He has become a reason to tune into random Rays games; every Chandler Simpson at-bat is just this happy adventure.

Cy Young: José Soriano, California Angels

Soriano has made four starts this year, and he has allowed one run — that on a Drake Baldwin home run. He is, at the moment, allowing THREE HITS PER NINE INNINGS. Here’s his Baseball Savant chart:

I show you this for a very specific reason: I have been talking a lot about my next-next book SEASONS, which will come out in 2027 and is a countdown of the 50 individual seasons that echo the loudest. I just finished writing No. 1 on Monday (yay me! I’m going to celebrate tonight!), and while I still have a couple more weeks of work, I’m now definitely closing in. It’s a wonderful feeling for an author when you hit that point where you can actually see the finish line.

Anyway, not to spoil anything, but I was writing a chapter on Dwight Gooden — I imagine it won’t surprise you that his season will be in the book — and it was striking to me how often people wrote that he had a “blazing 90 mph fastball.” Now, the radar guns were different in the mid-1980s, but still, a 90-mph fastball the very peak of our baseball imaginations.

José Soriano throws a 98-mph fastball, and it’s like, meh, so does everybody else.

Soriano’s 98-mph four-seam fastball is actually his third-favorite pitch. He throws his sinking fastball just slightly slower — it averages 97 mph, and nobody can hit it. Then he throws a knuckle curve that batters swing and miss about half the time. He also has a split-fingered fastball as a fourth pitch against lefties in particular, and he throws a slider to righties as a fifth pitch — nobody’s gotten a hit off that pitch yet this year.

I mean, pitchers today are warlocks.

Best team: New York Yankees (probably)

Being honest, no AL team has established any sort of dominance so far — they’re all just kind of meh. The Yankees are a little less meh than the rest. Their starting pitching has been terrific, and if Ben Rice keeps hitting like this, then that lineup with Judge, Rice, Bellinger, and a rejuvenated Giancarlo Stanton is pretty darned scary.

The Yankees are 1-6 in one-run games so far, so you wouldn’t expect that to last — which is why I do think the Yankees are the best team in the league so far — but one-run games are mysterious things.

Worst team: Houston Astros?

The default answer is the Chicago White Sox, and that’s probably the right answer — but, I don’t know, at least there’s a little, um, I wouldn’t call it “buzz,” but I find myself checking in on the White Sox now and again to see how Munetaka Murakami is doing or to watch Luisangel Acuña run — that kid can motor.

I can’t even watch the Astros. It’s like watching a sitcom that stopped being funny or interesting a decade ago. They’ve lost eight in a row — a couple in walkoff fashion — and I imagine they’ll turn things around at least a little bit. But all in all, it might be time to blow things ups there and start anew.

Surprise team: Minnesota Twins

You can’t be too surprised when any team — no matter how good or bad — wins 10 of 17 games. But this is our conceit, and the Twins are currently tied for first in the American League Central at 10-7. I’m not exactly sure what they’re doing right. It starts with Taj Bradley, who has pitched brilliantly in his first four starts. I’ve always liked Taj; maybe this is his coming-out party.

Biggest disappointment: Boston Red Sox

The 6-10 record is disappointing for sure, but what feels worse is that the Red Sox just seem to be flatlining. I thought the Sox would feel young, energetic, exciting — Roman Anthony! Marcelo Mayer! Garrett Crochet! Cedanne Rafaela! Wilyer Abreu! Some of those guys have been good, some have struggled (Crochet got rocked Monday), but the overall vibe is just kind of, well, it has the vibe of a team that has been selling off parts ever since winning the World Series in 2018. It’s early. Things can turn around. But this isn’t the start they wanted.

Fortunately, Boston fans are likely to be very patient and understanding.