Big MLB surprises so far, plus José Ramirez's elite club membership

New York Times

02-05-2025

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What if there was a fundamental change to baseball, and none of the players knew about it?
Plus: José Ramirez joins elite company, the Rangers reverse course on a big offseason move and we look at some surprises from the season's first month. I'm Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal. Welcome to The Windup!
We love a round-number benchmark: 3,000 hits, 500 home runs, 300 wins, etc. Well, Cleveland's José Ramirez (who I personally believe is this generation's most underrated star) reached one last night: 250 home runs and 250 steals.
It happened in quite dramatic fashion, too. In the 10th inning, with the score tied and one out, Ramirez stole second to get into scoring position. He later scored the winning run in a walk-off victory against the Twins.
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Only 23 other players have ever hit the 250/250 mark in their careers. To do it with one team is even more rare — Ramirez is just the seventh. Here's a list of the other six:
Willie Mays (Giants)
Robin Yount (Brewers)
Ryne Sandberg (Cubs)
Craig Biggio (Astros)
Barry Bonds (Giants)
Derek Jeter (Yankees)
It's not the sort of number that we point at as an instant Hall of Fame marker, but it's still super impressive.
From my latest column with Jayson Stark and Eno Sarris:
Last winter, Major League Baseball negotiated a seemingly simple change in how home-plate umpires are graded and evaluated. But now, a month into the season, its impact on balls and strikes has players asking questions about what they believe is a tightened strike zone — and searching for ways to adjust to a new wrinkle they say caught them by surprise.
That change, which was part of a new labor agreement with the Major League Umpires Association, significantly decreased the margin of error for umpires in their evaluations — and has resulted in fewer called strikes off the edges of the plate through the same point as last season.
'Everybody's zone has shrunk,' Angels catcher Travis d'Arnaud told The Athletic. 'Every (umpire) across the league.'
The actual number of pitches affected is relatively small. But the reaction — from pitchers, catchers, pitching coaches and analytics-driven front offices — has been anything but. They say the shift in how balls and strikes are now called is already having an impact on game-planning, pitch sequencing, pitch framing techniques, evaluation models and even roster construction.
For the past two decades, umpires were working with a 'buffer zone' that gave them 2 inches of leeway — on all sides of the plate, inside and outside the strike zone — when they were graded on how accurately they called balls and strikes.
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Now, however, that buffer zone has shrunk, from 2 inches on all sides to just three-quarters of an inch on all sides, inside and outside the strike zone, according to league sources briefed on the change but not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. An MLB official confirmed that the buffer zone had decreased in size.
The intent of the buffer zone change is simple: to call the rulebook strike zone more accurately. But the real-life impact seems to have caught pitchers and catchers in particular off guard, even though the definition of the actual strike zone remains the same.
'I was unaware of that,' Phillies reliever Matt Strahm said of the change. 'I thought everything was going to be normal after spring (training, when MLB tested an electronic ball-strike challenge system). Go back to what we've been doing. I guess I wasn't aware that the (buffer zone) has shrunk.'
More here.
In today's edition of The Pulse newsletter, Chris Branch has a section on the biggest surprises in baseball so far. I sent a couple of sentences about the Giants (good surprise) and the Orioles (bad surprise), but it got me thinking: What are some other surprises from April 2025? Here are a few that stick out:
GOOD: Aaron Judge (and Paul Goldschmidt): Whoa, Judge is good? Big surprise, right? But this season has defied even the loftiest of expectations for one of the league's best hitters. We're in May, and he's hitting .427/.521/.761 (1.282 OPS). Those are video game numbers. While we're at it, his teammate Paul Goldschmidt looked pretty washed last year — at least by the standards of a guy who won NL MVP in 2022 — but ranks second in batting average at .356.
BAD: Texas Rangers' offense: Sure, they scored 15 runs on Tuesday night. But that meant they scored a total of 18 runs in the four-game series against the A's. With names like Adolis García, Marcus Semien, Langford, Corey Seager (currently injured) and Jake Burger (more on that later), you'd expect this to be a team of mashers. Thus far … no.
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On the bright side for Texas, I could just as easily have put the Rangers' starting pitching on this list under 'good.' Led by Tyler Mahle — 3-1, 1.19 ERA — they've been among the best rotations in the league.
GOOD: Youngster comebacks in the Central divisions: Somehow, both the AL and NL Central have gluts of not-quite-rookies who had rough starts to their MLB careers, but have come back to thrive this year. Consider this list: Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Cubs, Noelvi Marte of the Reds, and Sppencer Torkelson and Casey Mize of the Tigers. Kyle Manzardo is only hitting .223, but his eight home runs have boosted him to an .859 OPS.
Also, while Ben Rice of the Yankees is not in the Central, we'd be remiss not to mention his .958 OPS in his second year.
BAD: Just so many closers. We've written about it recently already, but here's more evidence: Alexis Díaz, who was an All-Star for the Reds in 2023, has been demoted to Triple A. Speaking of demotions:
The idea was — given their struggles against velo last year — that the Rangers would bring in a couple of fastball-mashers to boost the offense. They brought in Joc Pederson and traded incumbent first baseman Nathaniel Lowe to the Nats, bringing in Jake Burger in a separate trade with the Marlins.
Here's where we stand on May 2:
Lowe: .246/.321/.449 (.770 OPS)
Burger: .190/.231/.330 (.561 OPS)
Pederson: .108/.205/.176 (.380 OPS)
So, after the team's 3-0 loss to the A's yesterday, they sent Burger to Triple A, calling up Blaine Crim ('The Independent') to make his big-league debut at some point in the near future.
Full transparency: As a former Rangers beat writer, I'm happy to see Crim finally get a shot in the big leagues. The 27-year-old 19th-rounder (2019) has a career line of .296/.372/.507 (.879 OPS) in six minor-league seasons. He's a 5-10 first baseman, so it's not like there's an easy fit on a big-league roster for him. But he has hit at every level, and it's good to see him get a chance.
But in a less 'relevant to me, but not to most of you' angle, it's not like it can hurt. The Rangers offense was one of today's bad surprises, after all.
You gotta read this one: Today, it's no big deal to think of Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki and maybe-the-best-player-of-all-time Shohei Ohtani being from Japan. But the guy who made that all possible was Hideo Nomo. Evan Drellich has an oral history of his journey from Japan to the States.
It's Friday, so that means 'Sliders' from Tyler Kepner — this week focuses on Eugenio Suárez.
Mike Trout is headed back to the IL after all; this time, it's just a bone bruise. 'Just.'
Jim Bowden puts together All-Star lineups for both the AL and NL from the season's first full month.
As recently as 2020, Kenta Maeda finished second in AL Cy Young voting. Yesterday, the Tigers designated him for assignment.
After calling up Nick Kurtz last week, the A's are promoting another prospect: starting pitcher and first-ballot Hall of Name candidate Gunnar Hoglund.
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Melissa Lockard checks in on Keith Law's top 10 prospects to see how they did in April.
More a horse racing story than baseball, but Flying Mohawk, who will run in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, has an owner whose name you'll recognize: former MLB outfielder Jayson Werth.
Dennis Lin tells us about Padres rookie David Morgan, whose path to majors was paved by John Altobelli, the legendary coach who was also on that fateful helicopter crash with Kobe Bryant.
Most-clicked in our last newsletter: RIP to Seymour Weiner, age 97.
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