Welcome to This Month in Baseball, your recap of the first 30 days of the 2021 MLB season, covering the good, the bad, the highs, the lows and everything in between.
1. For a decade, Mike Trout has been the best baseball player on the planet. And at 29 years old, he clearly has no intentions on ceding the title anytime soon.
Trout turned in arguably the greatest month of his career in April. It was almost certainly the best hitting month of the 54 in which he has played. It took a little bit of luck and a lot of skill. And in the end, it was unlike anything we've seen from Trout, which is no surprise, because among the things that make him great, perhaps his best quality is an ability to evolve in the moment, to seek out different pieces of his vast skill set and apply them to great reward.
Flash back to 2017. A new version of Trout emerged. As batters started to embrace hitting the ball in the air more, Trout embodied it. His average launch angle jumped from 13.7 degrees to 18 -- then 18.5, 22.2 and, last season, 23.1. This year, Trout is hitting the ball harder than he ever has (average exit velocity: 94.4 mph) and at a higher rate (58.5% hard-hit rate, well above his career 45% average). But his average launch angle has plummeted to 10.5 degrees. Trout's line-drive rate is exactly what it was last year: 24.5%. His fly ball rate has dropped from 50.3% to 34%, while his ground ball rate has risen from 25.3% to 41.5%.
To what effect? Trout is hitting .413, getting on base at a .515 clip and slugging .775. It's worth noting that a batting average on balls in play of .531 is buttressing this performance. That's almost twice the leaguewide BABIP of .283. Regardless of how hard Trout is hitting the ball, it is finding dirt and grass with unsustainable efficacy.
Launch angle tends to be among the earliest metrics to stabilize, which would mean an entirely new Mike Trout has arrived -- one even better than the one who has won three MVPs and finished second four times. One potential explanation, as MLB.com's Mike Petriello pointed out: Trout is pulling the ball significantly more than he has in the past. Fewer than 10% of his batted balls are going to the opposite field. And Trout, like most batters, hits the ball at a higher velocity when he pulls it. Defenses have changed accordingly. They are shifting Trout in nearly 60% of his plate appearances. And he's essentially saying: Shift away, fools. I'll just hit it past you.
This is what he does. Opponents adjust, Trout adjusts better. Nobody sees more fastballs than the 62.8% Trout faced in the season's first month, and yet pitchers are unwilling to throw him more off-speed pitches because he has punished them with even greater proficiency than heaters.
Perhaps it's easiest to wrap it up like this: Early in his career, when Mike Trout illustrated that he had otherworldly talent, the refrain was that if he keeps it up, he has a chance to be the best player ever. He isn't just keeping it up. He's exceeding his own stratospheric standards.
2. Somehow, Trout hasn't been the most valuable player in baseball this season. That title belongs to Minnesota center fielder Byron Buxton, who, when he arrived in 2015, was expected to join Trout among the game's best players in quick fashion. He struggled that year. And the next. In 2017, Buxton showed flashes of greatness ... before playing more in the minor leagues in 2018 than in the big leagues. The next two seasons were more of the same: Excellent center-field glovework, a scary-good arm, unfathomable speed, sneaky power for someone so sinewy and the feeling that he still could be one of the game's finest players.
Here he is, at 27 years old, finally fulfilling that. Buxton's greatness hasn't just been on display at the plate, where he's hitting .408/.444/.842. Just as good has been the glove and arm, which together have made Buxton the best defensive center fielder in baseball. And all of this has come in just 20 games.
Which is why it's understandable should one want to pump the brakes. The biggest issue with Buxton has been his inability to stay healthy. In 2015, he hurt his left thumb. In 2016, it was his back and in 2017 his groin. Migraines vexed him. A broken toe sidelined him in 2018, and a torn labrum in his shoulder limited him in 2019. Even in the shortened 2020 season he played just 39 of 60 games.
Buxton's flaws beyond his brittleness haven't entirely vanished. He has walked three times in 81 plate appearances. Excellence with that sort of walk rate is possible. It just requires brilliance in every other facet. The Twins have struggled to a 10-16 start, but if Buxton and Josh Donaldson can remain healthy, a lineup with them, Nelson Cruz, slugging rookie Alex Kirilloff and others is frightening.
3. Third in WAR is Ronald Acuña Jr., who is far and away the brightest spot for an Atlanta team that got swept by the Toronto Blue Jays and whose bullpen has been a complete mess. Acuña's phenomenal first month placed him into illustrious company. According to research by ESPN content producer Paul Hembekides, Acuña became only the second player in major league history to hit at least 50 home runs and steal at least 40 bases over his previous 162 games. The other? Pittsburgh-era Barry Bonds.
4. Speaking of Juniors with gaudy numbers: The breakout star of April might have been Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who arrived in the major leagues with the same magnitude of hype as Buxton and flailed in similar fashion. Two evaluators who have tracked Guerrero from his ascent through the minor leagues to this year noted that the 40 pounds he shed this offseason allowed him to regain the explosiveness that he regularly showcased while tearing up the minor leagues.
Guerrero is barely 22, and what is most impressive isn't the .337 batting average or the three-homer game. It's that he's marrying his herculean power with some Juan Soto-caliber plate discipline. In his first 26 games, Guerrero already has eclipsed his walk total from last season -- and it's higher than his strikeout total, too.
The list of those with more walks than strikeouts is short: Guerrero, Acuña, Max Muncy, Freddie Freeman, Jose Ramirez, Francisco Lindor, Anthony Rizzo, Carlos Santana, Jesus Aguilar, Luis Arraez, Yuli Gurriel, Nicky Lopez, Asdrubal Cabrera, Yandy Diaz and, of course, the Chicago White Sox's Nick Madrigal, who after the first month of the season still has not swung and missed at a pitch in the strike zone.
5. The first four spots in this column went to hitters because the rest could conceivably go to pitchers. That's the kind of imbalance that exists in baseball circa 2021. And nobody has personified it quite like the two best pitchers in the big leagues -- and a third who's doing his best to hang with them.
Jacob deGrom solidified his place atop the mountain with an otherworldly April. He faced 123 batters, struck out 59 of them and walked four. Over five starts, opponents are hitting .136/.163/.271 against him with a 48% strikeout rate and 3.3% walk rate. Throughout the major leagues this season, pitchers are batting .102/.129/.131 with a 47.7% strikeout rate and 2.7% walk rate. In other words, deGrom has turned the Philadelphia Phillies, Miami Marlins, Colorado Rockies, Washington Nationals and Boston Red Sox into a lineup full of pitchers. Oh, and his record, despite a 0.51 ERA, is 2-2, because the Mets are the Mets.
Across the East River is the 1b to deGrom's 1a, Gerrit Cole. His strikeout rate is slightly below deGrom's. His walk and home run rates are superior. The stuff isn't quite as good, but that's like saying Cole's Murcielago just doesn't quite stack up to deGrom's Chiron. As valuable as deGrom is to the Mets -- as much as he makes a flawed team a contender -- consider this nugget from Hembekides: Over the past two seasons, the Yankees are 12-6 in games Cole starts -- and 35-35 in games he doesn't.
The upstart stayed under the radar last season but really can't anymore, not as long as he's striking out as many batters per inning as deGrom and Cole and literally not walking anybody. Corbin Burnes, a 26-year-old right-hander who two years ago was the worst pitcher in baseball (1-5 with an 8.82 ERA in 2019), cannot yet stake his claim as the best, not with the pitchers ahead of him and Shane Bieber, Trevor Bauer and others in that class. But with 49 strikeouts and no walks over 29⅓ April innings, Burnes illustrated that his 2020 season was more harbinger than fluke and that the Brewers, who at 17-11 shared the best record in the National League, are to be reckoned with.
Honorable mention on April pitching excellence: Tampa Bay's Tyler Glasnow, who is finally harnessing his incredible stuff; Kansas City's Danny Duffy, who is back to throwing 97 mph and has a deGrom-like 0.60 ERA; and Miami's Trevor Rogers, who has helped the Marlins overcome the injury to Sixto Sanchez and remain the only team in the NL East with a positive run differential despite being in last place.
6. The real story of the season so far is something that will not go away.
These are the 10 lowest batting averages in baseball right now: .200, .205, .211, .214, .215, .218, .222, .223., .224, .227.
Who do they belong to? Entire teams.
Which teams? Detroit, Cleveland, Seattle, Oakland, Milwaukee, Chicago Cubs, San Francisco, Tampa Bay, New York Yankees, Baltimore.
Those are the two teams with the best record in the NL, the first- and second-place teams in the AL West, the AL representative in the World Series last year and the New York freaking Yankees.
Across baseball, teams batted .232/.309/.389. It's the lowest April average since -- you guessed it -- 1968, after which MLB lowered the mound from 15 inches to 10 inches because offense was so putrid. And here's the thing: It's not just batting average. The last time a season ended with a leaguewide on-base percentage of .309 or worse was, yup, 1968.
The culprit is the strikeout. In April, there were 6,924 punchouts and 5,832 hits, a difference of 1,092. The previous high in a month: 705 in September 2019. The second largest: 496 in September 2020.
How out of hand have strikeouts gotten? Sandy Koufax, one of the greatest strikeout artists of all time, retired with a career rate of 9.28 punchouts per nine innings. In 2021, the average strikeout rate across the sport is 9.29 per nine.
7. Let's do some more real or not real.
Are the Giants real? They are not better than the Dodgers or the Padres. Let's get that out of the way. But have they done a phenomenal job of building a rotation essentially from scratch? Yup. Have their hitters underperformed, leaving them room to improve? Indeed. Have they got a phenomenally deep farm system the industry believes might be among the game's five best? Yes. Are they a place where pitchers want to go, not just to take advantage of Oracle Park's dimensions but to work with Andrew Bailey, Brian Bannister, Justin Lehr, J.P. Martinez and the phenomenal infrastructure the team has put into place? Absolutely. So while the Giants might be outplaying their talent level and won't end up winning the NL West, are they a burgeoning monster, with excellent management, development and a boatload of money to spend? Oh yeah.
Are the Red Sox real? Considering all it seems to take in the AL to be good is a few solid hitters, some reasonable starting pitching and a good bullpen -- that's the Royals' formula after all -- then, yeah, they're real enough. J.D. Martinez being J.D. Martinez certainly helps. Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts remain the most underappreciated left side of the infield in baseball. Alex Verdugo has taken some of the sting out of the Mookie Betts trade. The fear, a warranted one, is that the bullpen's performance is unsustainable. It is. It crumbled Sunday. If Boston finds itself in contention come late June and Chris Sale's return is imminent, perhaps the timeline moves up and the Red Sox are buyers. For now, it's a wait-and-see-but-enjoy-it-while-it's-happening kind of team.
Are the Yankees not real? The Yankees are fine. They've got flaws. They are a bad defensive team. Their starting pitching is not deep. Their lineup is prone to slumps. But they have power. And they have Aaron Judge healthy and looking like his MVP-type self. And they have Cole. So ... chill. No one needs to be fired. No one needs to panic. Anyway, this week affords Yankees fans all they've wanted for a couple years anyway: a chance to berate the Houston Astros when they come to the Bronx. Enjoy that, and the May series against Baltimore, Texas and Detroit.
Are the Mets not real? I'm not going to go there yet, not when an offense that rated as the best in the major leagues last season looks this year like such a complete mess. Not when Francisco Lindor, whose consistency has been one of his hallmarks, spends the first month of his $341 million contract looking like someone who should've gotten $3.41 million. Not when they've got as much pitching as they do. Not when the NL East has looked like what most inside baseball thought the NL Central was going to be: a hot mess riding aboard a train wreck. Even though Acuña and Bryce Harper and J.T. Realmuto and Trea Turner and Max Scherzer are doing their part to remind that the East is loaded with talent, the records don't lie.
Are the Royals real? Real-ish. The White Sox are still a much more talented team than Kansas City, but the Royals have a reservoir of untapped talent. Left-hander Daniel Lynch, who's up to 99 mph with his fastball, debuts Monday. Shortstop Adalberto Mondesi will return from the injured list at some point. Bobby Witt Jr. almost certainly will debut this season. Even if the Royals don't make a trade, they will get more talented. And that's saying something, because at 16-10, they have the best record in the major leagues today.
8. The White Sox should be in first. Even with Luis Robert's scary-looking hip-flexor injury suffered Sunday, and with Eloy Jimenez on the shelf for a couple more months, and with Yasmani Grandal and Jose Abreu struggling, they are still an incredible array of talent. And one that warrants better managing than it has gotten.
One can forgive Tony La Russa for a difficult transition back into the dugout. He was away for 10 years. And yet at some point, that excuse gets tired, and with some of La Russa's maneuvering, one can understand why the patience in some parts of the White Sox's clubhouse is growing thin.
The latest came last week, when, trailing by three, with runners on first and second and one out in the eighth, La Russa allowed Billy Hamilton and Leury Garcia to hit, even though Robert was available on the bench. La Russa's explanation after the game was that he was "looking for a single there."
It wasn't the only mistake he made that game. After an awful start in which La Russa let his best pitcher, Lucas Giolito, languish for seven runs in one-plus innings, Giolito had bounced back with a solid six innings. La Russa sent him back out for the seventh. Giolito wasn't going to ask out of the game. That responsibility fell on La Russa, who after the game said he didn't realize Giolito was gassed.
He'd made the same error three weeks earlier with reliever Matt Foster and admitted "that's lousy managing." Perhaps this is a sign that La Russa would be best to cede some of the responsibility for pitchers to Ethan Katz, whom the White Sox brought in from San Francisco's aforementioned pitching machine to handle the staff.
La Russa is a Hall of Famer because of his strategic acumen, and it's ostensibly the reason White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf brought him out of retirement. So to see him bungle things so badly -- pinch-hitting Garcia for Andrew Vaughn, the hard-hitting rookie, later in the week was another flub -- leaves the White Sox in a perilous place: with a manager who isn't optimizing the phenomenal talent he has been given.
9. It's a scary time to be a batter. Not only are pitchers throwing harder than ever, they aren't exactly in control of where the ball is going, either. Bryce Harper taking a 97 mph fastball to the face was the gory illustration of something that has been evolving for years toward this: Batters are getting hit by pitches more than ever.
The last time there was anything close to this -- a HBP every 77.8 plate appearances -- was in '98 and '99. As in 1898 and 1899. Some could argue that MLB cracking down on the use of foreign substances, which pitchers say they use to help keep control of the ball, is the culprit. But after stabilizing at somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.3 to 0.39 hit-by-pitches per game for more than two decades after the 1994 strike, the number jumped to 0.4 in 2018, 0.41 in 2019 and 0.46 last year. For anyone watching, this was inevitable.
10. Things I enjoyed in April.
Shohei Ohtani: Nobody in baseball barreled more balls in April than Ohtani. Only Giancarlo Stanton hit a ball harder than Ohtani, blistering a 119 mph rocket. Ohtani throws 100 mph and started and batted in the same game. He ranks third in the AL with six stolen bases. He's just the best to watch.
Joey Votto hitting his 300th home run: His Hall of Fame case is going to be fascinating, but in the meantime, he is doing his best to age gracefully with a slightly less disciplined, slightly more powerful approach for a Reds team that will take whatever it can get.
The Oakland A's: Started the season 1-7. Won 13 straight. Lost five of their next seven. Streaky teams are fun. And in the wide-open AL West, it won't necessarily be a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race situation.
The return of Kris Bryant and Craig Kimbrel: Bryant hit his eighth and ninth home runs Sunday. He looks like his 2016 MVP self, and it's just in time for his free agency this winter, when, if he keeps this up, the prospect of an Anthony Rendon-or-better deal is again a reality. Kimbrel, too, is a free agent this winter, and even though he allowed his first run of the season in extra innings Sunday, he has been vintage Kimbrel: 17 strikeouts in 11 innings with a 0.00 ERA. If the Cubs continue to struggle -- and it's looking more and more like they will -- Bryant and Kimbrel might be the two most sought-after players on the trade market.
Javier Baez: In 101 plate appearances this season, Baez has walked once and struck out 39 times. And yet because of his power, speed and defensive wizardry, he's on pace for a season with three to four Wins Above Replacement. There has never been a full season like Baez's April. Here's to hoping it continues, just to see it in all of its unique magnificence.
Individual awesomeness: Arizona catcher Carson Kelly (.339/.487/.696 with a 15-to-10 walk-to-strikeout ratio), Los Angeles Angels first baseman Jared Walsh (putting up numbers in line with Trout and Ohtani), Texas second baseman Nick Solak (who has more HBP with seven than walks with six), Yermin Mercedes (who's hitting .333 since his 8-for-8 start), Detroit starter Matthew Boyd (one home run allowed in 35⅔ innings and a prime July trade candidate), Milwaukee starter Freddy Peralta (whose 45 strikeouts in 28 innings are up there with Burnes'), Baltimore closer Cesar Valdez (closing at 36 years old and doing so by throwing a 78 mph changeup 82% of the time) and Seattle closer Kendall Graveman (the best of the most surprising bullpen in baseball, with an average fastball that has jumped three ticks to 97 mph).
11. We already talked about Kansas City, Minnesota and Chicago in the AL Central, but here's why nobody should forget Cleveland, even if its offense is putrid and its backend starting pitching is questionable: 11 2 0 0 2 25
That's the line this season for James Karinchak, who is the Corbin Burnes to Josh Hader and Aroldis Chapman's Jacob deGrom and Gerrit Cole. Karinchak this year has faced 40 batters. He has struck out 25, walked two and allowed two hits. Nobody has scored. Emmanuel Clase, his companion at the back end of the Indians' bullpen, has a 0.00 ERA, too. To come back against Cleveland necessitates beating the guy with the best fastball-curveball combination in baseball and a right-hander who throws 100 mph with cut.
A nasty bullpen is what makes St. Louis look like a team that can contend with Milwaukee. Alex Reyes is finally panning out (and unscored upon, too), and Giovanny Gallegos' performance plus Jordan Hicks' stuff gives the Cardinals solid back-end options.
12. For seven glorious games, the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres brought October baseball to April. The two series between them had everything: timely hitting, super pitching, phenomenal defense, stars being stars. They are the two most talented teams in baseball, and even though both trail the Giants in the standings, they are far likelier to end the 162-game marathon atop the NL West.
Baseball's beauty is often seen in its totality -- in the idea that one series, one month, one anything is fleeting, just a part of a whole. But the Dodgers and Padres reminded that baseball can be both, that these single games -- whether in Southern California or New York or the Midwest or the South, all across the country -- can be great by themselves.
As Alden Gonzalez wrote, these seven games ended with the Dodgers outscoring them 32-30 but the Padres taking four of seven, with 68 innings and 61 of them with a lead of two or fewer runs, with "10 ties, five lead changes, two near brawls and one Twitter fight." When Trevor Bauer accused Fernando Tatis Jr. of peeking at signs and Tatis responded with a Photoshopped image of Bauer's face on a baby in Tatis' arms, well, that's when you knew this was a rivalry worthy of 2021.
April brought plenty more than the showers for which it's known. Best of all was the full slate of baseball, of a sport that's finally back in full, ready to play 162, to deliver five more regular-season months that (one can hope) are as enjoyable as the first.