With three weeks to go in the baseball season, there appears to be little suspense left as to which teams will be participants in the October tournament. The Yankees, Mets, Blue Jays, Red Sox, Tigers, Astros, Phillies, Dodgers, Padres, Brewers and Cubs can all feel secure about being part of the postseason.
That does not mean, however, there aren’t still some burning questions in the September stretch that will gain more clarity as the month wears down. Here are three of them:
WILL YANKS HOMER WAY TO SERIES?
Can we all agree this latest version of the Yankees is about the sloppiest, most discipline-challenged Yankee team ever to make the postseason? What they do though, is hit home runs — a major league-leading (by a lot) 242 entering the weekend which has already eclipsed the 240 hit by the 1961 Mantle-Maris Bombers. Offensively, they don’t do a whole lot else — they ranked 21st in hits and 22nd in stolen bases — but when they hit homers they are much more likely to win — 67-40 as of Friday compared to 11-21 when they do not. They are also close to joining the 2019 Twins as the only teams in baseball history to have eight players with 20 or more homers.
One of them, Trent Grisham, with 30 after a previously season high 17, nobody saw coming and has posed a real dilemma for Brian Cashman and the front office come this winter — as a previous $5 million free agent will potentially become an $80-$100 million free agent. Ordinarily, being as he’s only 29 in November, the Yankees would not allow themselves to be out-bid for a premier center fielder like Grisham, but Spencer Jones is coming and room must be made for him. The bet here is the Yankees make Grisham a qualifying offer and wait and see how much his market explodes.
Meanwhile, another factor that has been overshadowed by all the homers, but could play well for the Yankees in their effort to advance deep into October, is their starting pitching — minus Gerrit Cole — which has nevertheless posted a major league-leading 3.14 ERA since Aug. 1. Much of the credit there has to go to the Yankees’ scouting and player development department which had previously gone decades without drafting and developing a frontline quality starting pitcher until Clarke Schmidt and now this year Cam Schlittler and Will Warren. The postseason scouting report on the Yankees: “To beat them you have to keep them in the ballpark, although even if you are able to do that there’s a decent chance they might still beat themselves.”
CAN YOUNG ARMS PITCH METS TO SERIES?
In retrospect, we should not be surprised the Mets, even after landing the premier free agent slugger in Juan Soto last winter, are a second-place team in September. For one thing, it took until August for Soto to really get it going and injecting himself into the National League MVP conversation with 10 homers, 22 RBI, 27 runs and 11 stolen bases for the month while reaching 100 runs for the second straight season. But all the while the Mets’ offense maddeningly sputtered off and on, especially when they went 10-19 from June 12-July 19, the starting pitching, problematic from Day 1 because of David Stearns’ decision to patchwork the rotation with converted closer Clay Holmes and fringe free agents Griffin Canning, Frankie Montas, et al., — was innings-challenged all season. And when Kodai Senga went down with a hamstring injury June 13, they had no way to counter the Phillies, who had a wealth of rotation “horses,” and the strain on the Met bullpen was palpable.
But in addition to having a bad trading deadline — much-touted reliever Ryan Helsley has been a disaster, Tyler Rogers (for whom he seemingly grossly overpaid) has been so-so at best and Cedric Mullins has been a total bust in center field — Stearns steadfastly refused to bring up any of his top pitching prospects, Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong or Brandon Sproat until it was too late. In the month of August the Mets lost nine games started by Senga, Sean Manaea or Montas. Before Stearns finally called up McLean on Aug. 16 (who quickly emerged as the team ace) the entire Mets rotation had taken a turn in which none of them lasted five innings. I would call that malfeasance on Stearns’ part, but perhaps the insurgence of youth with the rotation, and a continuation of Soto’s late season heroics, may yet bail him out come October.
ARE THE MARINERS FOREVER DOOMED?
The Mariners remain the only franchise in baseball never to appear in the World Series. In their 49-year history they have finished first in the AL West only three times — all with Lou Piniella as their manager — the last time 2001 when they won a record 116 games. This year, with the emergence of Cal Raleigh and his league-leading 51 homers and 109 RBI it appeared the normally offense-challenged Mariners might finally have the necessary ingredients to make a big play in October. They were in first place from April 26-June 1 but then suddenly hit the skids, losing eight out of nine in early June to fall into second where they have remained ever since.
A couple of times in August it appeared they were ready to climb back into first but then went on the road to the East Coast, going 2-7 against the Orioles, Mets and Phillies (Aug. 12-20) and then a current trip against the Guardians, Ray and Braves in which they’d lost five of six after Friday and sit just a half-game above the Rangers for the third wild card in the AL. “It’s just very hard to win in Seattle,” said Piniella Friday. “No team in baseball has as much travel as they do. All alone in the northwest there, almost every road trip is at least three hours. On top of that, it’s usually cool in Seattle but when they go to the East Coast in the summer it’s usually hot and humid and that takes its toll on the players. I’m not making excuses for them. It’s just a fact.”
IT’S A MADD, MADD WORLD
One of the best players in all of baseball since Aug. 1 is someone the average fan has never heard of. That would be Jakob Marsee, playing center field for the Marlins in relative anonymity in fans-challenged Miami, who was called up to the majors at the beginning of August and was slashing .333/.410/.581 for his first 33 games with four homers, 11 doubles, three triples, 25 RBI and nine out of 11 on stolen bases. What’s been most impressive about Martee has been his plate discipline — his 14.2% chase rate is the lowest among players with at least 120 plate appearances. Where did he come from? The Padres drafted him on the sixth round in 2022 out of that noted baseball factory Central Michigan, but after an excellent ’23 season (.274/16 HR/46 SB) at High-A and Double-A he suddenly became a prospect which with A.J. Preller’s Padres meant he was almost surely going to be traded — which he was May 4, 2024 in the stunning deal with the Matlins for batting champion Luis Arraez. … It will come as no surprise to the Yankee legions but since Aug. 1 the Yankees are 4-9 in games Devin Williams has been called into by Aaron Boone.
