With the Dodgers and Padres taking part in the two-game Seoul Sequence in South Korea on March 20-21, the 2024 MLB common season will likely be upon us earlier than we all know it. (Full Opening Day motion is ready for March 28). So at the moment, we proceed our weekly sequence of season previews, breaking down main storylines from the angle of all six divisions.
At present: The must-watch participant in every division.
The Dodgers are one of the crucial well-known sports activities groups on the planet, and probably the greatest. They’ve made the playoffs yearly for greater than a decade, in spite of everything. However while you hear the Dodgers are coming to your city, you recognize the celebrities are going to be out. You need to see Shohei. You need to see Mookie. You need to see Freddie. You need to see that electrical expertise.
At present, in our 2024 MLB Season Preview sequence, we take a look at the participant in every division who’s essentially the most must-watch star. This doesn’t essentially imply the perfect participant; Paul Goldschmidt gained the NL MVP Award two years in the past, however few would describe the low-key, humble Goldschmidt as essentially the most electrical participant within the sport. We’re speaking in regards to the participant — normally a younger participant — who you completely can not take your eyes off. Sure guys seem like they have been born to play this recreation. Right here’s the perfect model of that man in every division.
Hey, no stress child, however this can be a division that options:
And but, I’ve chosen you, Jackson Holliday, because the must-see participant. I want you luck along with your profession.
However nonetheless: I’m undecided baseball’s fairly prepared for Holliday. MLB Pipeline’s No. 1 prospect has all the things. He’s huge and powerful, like his dad, but in addition lithe and agile, in a position to play shortstop from Day One for a staff that’s seeking to enhance upon a 101-win season. He has light-tower energy and a constant hit software. He has the batting eye of a grizzled vet, regardless that he simply turned 20. The Orioles are stacked with younger expertise, extra younger expertise than they even fairly know what to do with, however the basic consensus is that Holliday could be higher than all of them. The Orioles are loaded. However they haven’t had anyone like this since … properly, one other son of a well-known father who broke into the bigs with the Orioles and by no means regarded again. The one actual distinction could find yourself being that they offer this man just a few extra days off.
Main as much as his historic contract extension earlier this month, Witt’s ascension to the highest shelf of MLB gamers could have snuck up on some folks. The No. 2 general decide within the 2019 Draft didn’t put up huge numbers in Rookie ball that summer season, then misplaced the 2020 season to the pandemic. So he had just one full 12 months within the Minors — albeit a superb one — earlier than reaching Kansas Metropolis in 2022.
However his rookie 12 months, regardless that he completed fourth in AL Rookie of the Yr voting, felt like a average step ahead quite than an enormous one. He had stable numbers, however nothing that blew your hair again, and his defensive points have been well-documented. That’s the factor about superstars, although: Simply give them time, and the expertise will at all times win out. Witt shored up his protection final 12 months as his offensive numbers soared throughout the board. Even then, it was a gradual climb, month by month. By the top of the 12 months, he regarded like he was simply getting began.
He’s solely 23 and appears like an All-Star, however that’s the factor about Witt: He simply now’s beginning to look totally snug. So watch what occurs when he explodes. The Royals are about to turn out to be a recreation that each residence staff’s followers circle on their calendars.
You might vaguely keep in mind that, for greater than 20 years, the Mariners didn’t make the playoffs. It was a complete factor! However you recognize the minute all of us knew, collectively, in a approach that was kind of unstated, that that drought was about to finish? When Julio Rodríguez was within the beginning lineup on Opening Day in 2022. You might simply see it, in the best way he carried himself, in the best way he gave the impression to be floating above the grass slightly bit, in the best way he regarded like he’d been manning heart area for this staff for many years … you might inform that no staff with a participant like that was going to remain down for very lengthy.
He introduced them again to the postseason that very 12 months, and whereas the Mariners fell quick final 12 months, it definitely wasn’t due to Julio, who darned close to carried them throughout the end line by himself. You construct entire franchises round guys like this for a motive, and the Mariners get to say they’ve acquired Julio on their roster by a minimum of 2029. Julio is simply simply beginning to scratch the floor of what he’s able to, which is especially spectacular contemplating for about two months final 12 months he was probably the greatest gamers in baseball. The one approach you may decelerate Julio is by making a statue out of him … which the Mariners will completely do, sometime.
There are some pleasant gamers to observe on this division — each time I see Bryce Harper I need to go flying across the bases as my helmet flies off behind me — however let’s not overcomplicate this. Acuña turned the primary participant in MLB historical past to hit greater than 40 homers and steal greater than 70 bases in a season final 12 months.
With the doable exception of a triple within the hole (and the occasional hit-and-run), there are not any extra thrilling offensive performs in baseball than a house run and a stolen base, and Acuña is the perfect within the sport at each. A leadoff man who steals bases like Tim Raines and hits homers like Mike Schmidt? What might probably be extra thrilling than that? Oh, additionally, he led the Majors in runs and hits and OBP and whole bases as properly final 12 months. Wherever you look on a baseball area, you’ll discover Acuña doing one thing spectacular.
Certainly one of my favourite moments of the 2023 season was when, with Shohei Ohtani standing on second base after a double, De La Cruz touched Ohtani’s arm, as if to say, “Are you actual? How will you be actual?” It was unhappy as a result of the very subsequent day we discovered Ohtani wouldn’t be pitching once more, but it surely was additionally exceptional as a result of generally while you watch De La Cruz, you ask your self the identical factor: How is that this man actual? De La Cruz seems like a baseball participant you’d create in a online game, one who’s simply nice at all the things, who has the kind of bodily instruments that actually tower over everybody else’s.
However one of many causes De La Cruz is so must-watch in 2024 is that, within the macro sense, he didn’t actually put all of it collectively in 2023. He truly had a below-average OPS+ for the 12 months (89), and in some way smacked solely 13 homers regardless of a capability to hit the ball to the moon. His strikeout-to-walk ratio was an enormous motive for that — 144 to 35, yikes — however that’s the kind of factor a man with Elly’s expertise figures out as he will get older and will get extra reps. He’s a participant who seems not like anybody else within the sport. Watching him rework that into manufacturing, with out shedding what makes Elly Elly, will likely be a riveting nightly occasion.
Even with Ohtani restricted to being a DH in 2024, it’s a must to decide him, sure? How might you not? Focusing solely on hitting, doesn’t it appear doable he’s going to hit 50 homers? He had 44 final 12 months in solely 135 video games. Are we 60? Is he going to go 30-30? In that lineup, what number of RBIs is he going to get?
It has been superb, transformative, actually, to observe him be an excellent pitcher and an excellent hitter the final three seasons, and we’ll get to see him try this once more in 2025. However simply doing one factor? Doesn’t it make that ceiling even greater? I don’t know a single one who can wait to seek out out.
