The final week of the 2024 MLB regular season has arrived and the various postseason races (and awards races) are coming down to the wire. All the races will be decided come Sunday. The marathon that is the regular season has become a last-minute sprint to the finish. Here are three MLB trends worth knowing as we near the finish line.
Edman quickly becoming a force for LA
The Dodgers have one of the most productive power/speed threats in the game, and also Shohei Ohtani. OK, that's an exaggeration, but as Ohtani continues adding to his historic 50-50 season, trade-deadline pickup Tommy Edman has quietly made an impact these last few weeks as well, hitting six homers and stealing three bases in his last 15 games entering Tuesday.
Edman, 29, was on the injured list when he came over from the Cardinals in the three-team Erick Fedde trade with the White Sox. He hadn't played at all this year following offseason wrist surgery and rolling his ankle during his rehab assignment. The Dodgers were of course aware of that. They wanted Edman though, and were willing to wait for him to get healthy.
Going into Tuesday, the switch-hitting Edman owned a .265/.310/.470 line in 31 games with the Dodgers, including a .284/.333/.523 line in his last 23 games. He needed a few games to get his legs under him and get his timing back, and once he did, he's become one of the team's most productive players. Also, check out Edman's defensive work:
- 20 starts (22 games) in CF
- 9 starts (13 games) at SS
- 1 game at 2B
Edman is performing at the plate while playing two crucial up-the-middle positions, sometimes even in the same game. He's started games in every lineup spot from 4-9, or the spots not occupied by Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman. Edman's provided defensive versatility and lineup versatility, plus surprising power and not-so-surprising speed. In 31 games, he's a 1.0 WAR player.
"Really surprised with the power," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said about Edman last week (via MLB.com). "I know that he has an apt to put the barrel on the ball. Certainly versatile defensively. But in the batter's box, he just really takes good at-bats ... He's hit six or seven homers for us already in a short period of time and they all seem like they were big. He's gotten a lot of big hits for us."
The Dodgers landed Michael Kopech, now their ace reliever, in the same three-team trade as Edman. They got the reliever they badly needed and also a versatile piece of lineup depth in one of the deadline's most impactful moves. Will Edman slug .523 through October? No, probably not, but his Dodgers debut has gone better than the team could have reasonably hoped.
Mullins turning season around for O's
Lost in the extended stretch of mediocre play that has cost the Orioles a shot at their second straight AL East title is one of the greatest in-season turnarounds in baseball. Center fielder Cedric Mullins, who became the franchise's first 30-30 player in 2021, was so bad earlier this year that I thought he was playing through an injury. He'd begun to losing playing time too.
Mullins, 29, bottomed out at .170/.221/.301 on June 8. He sat four of the next eight games as the team searched for answers. Since then, Mullins has performed at a level not quite on par with this 2021 effort, but pretty close. It's a tale of two seasons:
| PA | AVG/OBP/SLG | 2B | HR | SB-CS | K% | BB% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
First 57 games | 191 | .171/.221/.301 | 3 | 6 | 12-2 | 26.2% | 5.8% |
Last 85 games | 288 | .268/.351/.476 | 12 | 12 | 18-4 | 15.6% | 9.7% |
It adds up to a .228/.299/.404 slash line that is more or less league average in the current offensive environment. The 18 home runs are his second most in a season and they give him a shot at his second career 20-20 season. In his first 57 games, Mullins was a minus-0.4 WAR, and it wasn't worse only because his center field defense is so good. In his last 85 games, he's at plus-2.4 WAR.
"I think the biggest part was for me to stop chasing that season (30-30 in 2021)," Mullins said about his in-season turnaround earlier this month (via the Baltimore Sun). "That season was awesome, but at the same time, I think the reason I'm putting up numbers that are similar to it is because I'm no longer chasing that guy. I'm just being who I am."
Mullins' season has followed the opposite path of the team's. When the O's played well earlier this year, he wasn't performing. When Mullins loosened up and started hitting, the team hit the skids. That is nothing but a coincidence, of course. The Orioles might be fighting for a wild-card spot right now had Mullins not gotten his season on the rails.
Baltimore is limping to the end of the regular season, though everything starts over in October, and there is an awful lot of talent on that team. For Mullins, the reset came in June. He's been one of the team's best players the last three months and one of the most productive center fielders in the league. Few players go from that bad to this good within a single season.
Sweeney a subtle upgrade for Detroit
The scorching hot Tigers have played their way into, at minimum, meaningful games during the season's final week. They have their eyes set much higher than important September games though. Detroit is positioned to earn a wild-card spot and their first playoff berth since 2014. That is tied with the hapless Angels for the longest postseason drought in baseball.
The Tigers have surged with a makeshift rotation -- it's Tarik Skubal, Keider Montero, and a series of openers and bullpen games -- and also a lot of youth. Six of the nine position players in Tuesday's starting lineup were 24 or younger. Among them: Trey Sweeney, who came over in the Jack Flaherty trade with the Dodgers and is now Detroit's starting shortstop.
Sweeney, 24, was a first-round pick by the Yankees in 2021, though he's never been ranked as a top-100 prospect, nor was he ever considered one of his team's best prospects. Still, a no-doubt shortstop who slashes .267/.345/.450 with 15 homers and 20 steals in 107 Triple-A games like Sweeney did this year has a chance to be a useful player, and useful Sweeney has been.
And in Detroit's case, useful equals a massive upgrade at shortstop. Javier Báez was simply one of the worst players in baseball before a hip injury ended his season on Aug. 22. He started 76 of the team's first 128 games at short, with utility man Zach McKinstry drawing most of the other starts. Since Báez last played, Sweeney has started 29 of 32 games at short. The numbers:
| PA | AVG/OBP/SLG | HR | WAR | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Sweeney | 100 | .247/.290/.430 | 4 | 1.0 |
All other SS | 475 | .185/.232/.304 | 10 | -1.1 |
By no means has Sweeney been great. But compared to the other guys Detroit has run out there at shortstop this year (primarily Báez), he looks like an All-Star. I mean, a .232 on-base percentage is unacceptably bad. There is no level of shortstop defense that makes that OK. Even with his modest production, Sweeney has an enormous late-season upgrade for the Tigers.
Earlier this week Detroit summoned top prospect Jackson Jobe, arguably the top pitching prospect in the game, and he could find himself in a high-leverage situation or two this week. He's a top prospect and the big name. Sweeney is a much less heralded prospect, but for a Tigers team that was getting sub-replacement level at shortstop, he's given the team a huge lift.
