How 5 contenders have defied preseason expectations

The Brewers, entering Monday with the largest divisional lead of any team in the Majors, weren’t expected to be here. After all, the heroes of their recent success – pitchers Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, and previously Josh Hader, as well as long-time manager Craig Counsell – have all either moved on or been lost to injury. Relief ace Devin Williams remained, but arrived at Spring Training with a back injury that kept him out until late July.

Needless to say, they’ve proven everyone wrong, both the computers – who gave the Brew Crew projections of 80 wins (FanGraphs) and 79 (Baseball Prospectus) projections – and the humans, who thought little of the club’s chances in a crowded NL Central.

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But they’re not alone, are they? In a year without a single great team – we’re on track for the first season since 2014 without a 100-win club – there are several teams that have outperformed projections, all the way to what look to be unexpected playoff berths. After all, if the Braves, Dodgers, Phillies, Yankees, and Orioles all aren’t winning 100, and teams like the Rangers, Rays, Mariners, and Blue Jays have underperformed, those extra wins have to go somewhere.

Right now, we have seven teams who have beaten preseason projections by at least six games between the start of the season and Monday. We'll note the Orioles and Phillies and move on, since they were roundly expected to be playoff teams in the first place, but as for the other five? Where did we miss – and/or what did they do so successfully that maybe wasn’t quite so clear back in March? Let’s find out.

Royals (on pace for: +12 wins over projected)
The biggest reason: starting pitching

This is a good place to start, because we didn’t miss, not really. We went into this in detail in early June while breaking down KC’s hot start, which served as a reminder that absolutely everyone expected this club to be something like 20 wins better than last year’s 56-106 disaster. Between a pair of major award candidates in Bobby Witt Jr. and Cole Ragans, as well as a number of veteran additions over the winter, this was clearly a team on the rise; remember that back in March, an MLB.com player poll included at least one pitcher saying this team would win the division.

Still, the Royals are going to end up winning something like a dozen games beyond even the most rosy projections, which will put them among the largest year-to-year improvements ever – and it’s almost entirely because of their starting pitching. Remember, we’re not comparing the 2024 Royals to the ‘23 Royals, here; we’re comparing the 2024 Royals to the projected ‘24 Royals as of Opening Day, so all of last winter’s roster changes were already known.

The offense has performed basically as well (4.73 r/g) as expected (4.64), because a lineup reliant on Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino, and Salvador Perez – with a lot of uncertainty beyond that – is more or less what you’d have thought in March. But the pitching?

Royals, pitching runs allowed / game

• 2023 Royals: 5.30
• 2024 projected: 4.95
• 2024 actual: 4.06

Kansas City’s pitching was expected to be improved from last year’s, but this is nearly a full run per game less beyond that, and it’s not because of one of baseball’s thinnest bullpens. It’s because Seth Lugo arrived and put up a career year; it’s because Ragans proved his 12-start cameo last year was the real deal; it’s because Brady Singer regained his four-seamer and cut his ERA by more than 2 runs; it’s because Michael Wacha, on his sixth team in six seasons, put up his third consecutive nearly identical solid year. Witt gets the headlines, sure. But he was great last year, too. It's the rotation that deserves the recognition.

Guardians (on pace for: +11 wins over projected)
The biggest reason: the bullpen

Projections don’t really take into account who a team’s manager is, but if they did, you wouldn’t fault them for wondering how first-time skipper Stephen Vogt would do in replacing likely Hall of Famer Terry Francona. Either way, the 76-86 Guardians of 2023 were projected to be in the 78-80 win range this year for some pretty clear reasons: First, the same questions they face every year about where the offense would come from were largely unaddressed last winter, and second, there were concerns about whether starters Shane Bieber (who missed four months of 2023 with elbow trouble) and Triston McKenzie (only four starts in 2023 due to elbow issues of his own) would be able to hold up.

For the most part, those concerns were valid. Bieber made only two starts before being lost to Tommy John surgery, and McKenzie struggled to a 5.11 ERA before being demoted. The rotation is something largely unfamiliar in recent Cleveland memory, which is to say, weak (29th in WAR, and one of the weakest in franchise history).

The offense has performed exactly as expected, as 4.48 runs/game are precisely what FanGraphs’ preseason projections had put on them. That hardly tells the story of the season, of course; Steven Kwan and David Fry got off to tremendous starts before falling back; Josh Naylor has had a breakout season; José Ramírez keeps doing José Ramírez things; they continue to be unable to find any offense up the middle at all, with that group ranking 27th this year after being 26th last year.

But the bullpen? There’s a reason the Guardians are far outperforming their run prevention projections, allowing 3.99 runs per game (4th best in baseball) as compared to their 4.60 runs per game allowed projections. It’s in part because Emmanuel Clase may be the best reliever alive today. But it’s also because none of Cade Smith, Hunter Gaddis, or Tim Herrin were expected to be key contributors – and why not, as Smith is a rookie, and Gaddis and Herrin had combined for a 6.19 ERA over the last two years – and so far this year, the trio has combined to post 189 innings of 1.90 ERA ball. Bullpens are notoriously hard to project. The Guardians have ridden theirs to the playoffs.

Brewers (on pace for: +11 wins over projected)
The biggest reason: Turning no-name pitching into value – and also, Jackson Chourio.

As we said above: It was very, very easy to write off the Brewers, and both the eye test and the fancy models mostly agreed. It’s also easy to try to paint this as a gritty speed-and-defense story, and while that’s not wrong, necessarily, Milwaukee’s defense was also plenty good last year, too. Instead, it’s a little more of an all-around tale, because while plenty of teams here can hit better than you’d expect, or prevent runs better than you’d think, the Brewers are the rare team doing both.

• Offense: 4.83 r/g is +.24 r/g better than projected (2nd best)
• Defense: 3.9 r/g is -.75 r/g better than projected (2nd best)

What that’s saying is that only the D-backs have outdone offensive projections more than Milwaukee has, and only Kansas City has outdone run prevention projections more, and neither team has done both as well – which is quite a thing to say about a roster which had 12 players making their first Opening Day roster.

Consider the rotation, which went into the season relying on underrated ace Freddy Peralta and a whole lot of questions, particularly when the highly touted DL Hall, a part of the Burnes trade, was injured after six starts. Instead, they’ve managed to get 335 innings of 3.44 ball out of a trio of Joe Ross, Colin Rea, and Tobias Myers, who were, to put it lightly, not expected to do much of anything. (Ross hadn’t appeared in the Majors in 2022 or ‘23; Rea had a 4.74 ERA in parts of five seasons spread out over nine years; Myers had posted a 1-15, 7.82 baseball card two years ago. In Triple-A.) They’ve since been reinforced by veteran additions Frankie Montas and Aaron Civale, and they’ve felt the magic, too – Montas’ fastball has jumped by 1.1 mph since he arrived from Cincinnati.

That extends to the bullpen – no, you didn’t expect big things from Bryan Hudson (a 7.27 ERA in six games for the 2023 Dodgers) or Jared Koenig (a 5.72 ERA in 10 games for the 2022 A’s, and a ‘23 spent in San Diego’s minors) – though we did, at least, expect big things from Trevor Megill. Credit is due here to the Milwaukee pitching machine, which has made this work tremendously.

The lineup isn’t quite finding that level of extra success, but the second-most runs scored over projections isn’t nothing, either. That’s a lot about the team’s second-best-in-baseball performance with runners in scoring position; it’s a lot about Christian Yelich’s resurgence before season-ending back surgery; it’s a lot about Chourio, who shook off a slow start to perform like a top-15 hitter in the game since June 1. Only three teams in the Majors have added more slugging percentage than Milwaukee, which has gained 21 points of bash.

Padres (on pace for: +8 wins over projected)
The biggest reason: Big trades, and out of nowhere surprises.

Trade away Juan Soto, get better: Just like we all expected. Right? You probably can’t win a Soto trade, but the Padres are at least not clearly losing it – interesting to think that the Nationals might say the same – though in this case, San Diego out-performing preseason projections is probably a little more about ensuing roster moves than for most of the other clubs here. After all, on Opening Day, the projections did know the Padres would have Dylan Cease, Michael King, and Jackson Merrill. They of course couldn’t know that Luis Arraez, Tanner Scott, Bryan Hoeing, and Jason Adam would be acquired later on, and they’ve all been useful additions.

But really, this may be the home of the most unexpected performances of the year. Did you expect Jurickson Profar, cut free by the Rockies last summer, owner of a 92 OPS+ over more than 3,600 plate appearances, to start the All-Star Game this year? Stop it; no you didn’t. Did you expect Jeremiah Estrada, claimed off waivers from the Cubs in November, to strike out 13 consecutive batters (and 38% overall)? Nuh-uh. Or, most prominently, that Merrill would not only hold down the center-field job but excel at it, to the point that he might actually win Rookie of the Year over Paul Skenes, of all people? Probably not.

Last year’s Padres infamously could not buy an extra-innings win or perform with runners in scoring position, where they have gone from ninth-worst to ninth-best. They’re allowing .2 runs/game less than projected, and scoring .2 runs/game more than projected. Those might not sound like large margins, but they add up over a season, and only the Brewers can say they’ve exceeded expectations on both sides of the ball by as much.

D-backs (on pace for: +6 wins over projected)
The biggest reason: the offense, clearly.

Look, this one’s easy, because the Arizona pitching was projected to be just-OK (4.6 runs allowed per game, 16th-best), and it’s been considerably less than that (4.83, 27th-best), as the heroes of last year’s playoff run have struggled to repeat their performance, and newcomers Jordan Montgomery and Eduardo Rodriguez have added little. There’s enough talent in here for another lightning-in-a-bottle run in October, but it won’t be the pitching that gets them there.

The offense, however, is another story, and that’s even with Corbin Carroll’s two-month slump to start the season. The 2024 D-backs offense was projected to be decent (4.73 runs/game, tied for 10th-best); it has instead been spectacular, leading all of baseball by scoring 5.43 runs/game. We’ll help with that math: They are beating their offensive projections by .7 run/game, in a sport where no one else is even up to +.25 run/game.

It starts with depth. Arizona has a MLB-best dozen different hitters who have taken at least 100 plate appearances and have been average or better, by OPS+, including Sunday’s three-homer hero Pavin Smith. Not that anyone thought Ketel Marte and Joc Pederson would be bad, but having both of them with OPS+ marks north of 150 is something else entirely.

That kind of number accounts for depth, not timing, but the D-backs have both – they lead the bigs in performance with runners in scoring position, as well, which is just a tremendous way to drive in more runs than you’d expect, even if decades of study have shown that’s a difficult skill to maintain over long periods. It helps, too, that they cause havoc on the bases; even though they’re just league average at stealing bases, they’re elite at gaining value in running on batted balls. Even if (when) that RISP number drops, Carroll looks, again, like the all-world superstar he appeared to be last year.