David SchoenfieldMar 30, 2026, 07:00 AM ETCloseCovers MLB for ESPN.com Former deputy editor of Page 2 Been with ESPN.com since 1995Multiple Authors
Cam Schlittler makes the Yankees the team to beat in the AL East
The NL Cy Young race is wide open after the Pirates collapse
We’ll have all season to dig into what might be a historic group of rookies given the immediate returns we’ve seen from Chase DeLauter, Kevin McGonigle, JJ Wetherholt, Sal Stewart and Carson Benge. Remember as well that others who debuted last season, including Nolan McLean, Bubba Chandler, Connelly Early, Samuel Basallo, Trey Yesavage, Carter Jensen, Dylan Beavers and Moises Ballesteros, remain rookies. This class looks as if it has star talent and lots of depth.
Let’s give the 2026 class a little more time to marinate before making these all-time comparisons. But what a great start to the season for this year’s rookies.
We’ve also already learned that players are guessing at close pitches just as much as umpires. The overturn rate has been 53.8%, which mirrors the 53% rate from spring training. The lack of challenges has been the surprising aspect. The Colorado Rockies made just two challenges in three games. Four other teams made just three challenges across three games. It certainly doesn’t make sense to leave challenges on the table; better to use them than leave them for a situation that never arises.
Those are just some early thoughts. It’s going to be fun to break this down more as the season progresses and teams adapt their challenge approach.
Kazuma Okamoto and Munetaka Murakami are technically rookies, as well, although they arrive from Nippon Professional Baseball as established stars.
Teams will probably continue to go after Murakami with hard stuff until he disproves the scouting reports. Like Gallo, Murakami has a good eye and will take his walks; Murakami has also shown that if it’s not premium velocity, he’ll turn on it. He has immediately turned into one of the most interesting players to watch.
Heading into the season, it felt like an important key for the New York Yankees in a dominant-looking American League East was to stay close in April until they got Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole back in the rotation. But the rotation might be just fine in the meantime, thank you very much. The Yankees swept the San Francisco Giants, allowing just one run in three games, with Schlittler delivering a dominant outing, giving up just one hit in 5⅓ innings with eight strikeouts and no walks.
New Giants manager Vitello, making the leap from coaching the University of Tennessee’s baseball team, had a forgettable first three games. His team went 13-for-91 (.143), getting shut out in the first two games of a season for the first time in the 144-season history of the franchise. While that’s obviously on the offense rather than Vitello, his comment after the second outing raised some eyebrows.
He said he might have gone a little too “fire and brimstone” in a speech to the team earlier in the week, adding, “I think some good words were shared, but I also think, as of right now, it’s a little emotional in there, and there’s definitely a lot of try-hards.”
This isn’t college football — or college baseball. In the majors, rah-rah speeches are rarely deployed and rarely effective. The Giants didn’t lose because of a fire-and-brimstone speech — and they weren’t going to win because of a fire-and-brimstone speech.
The players themselves grasp the situation. As Robbie Ray said, “We’re all major league players.” Heliot Ramos pointed out that it was two games. The sooner Vitello learns that his impact and role in the majors will be different than it was in college, the better for the Giants.
The thinking revolves around two ideas: Get your best hitters (1) the most overall at-bats, especially that fifth plate appearance, and (2) to reach the third time through the order, when starters generally get hit harder. The average starter faced 21.9 hitters per game last year. So, if you have a tiring starter out there for his 19th, 20th and 21st hitters, you might as well make them your three best.
Paul Skenes’ Opening Day disaster was more on outfielder Oneil Cruz — he lost two routine fly balls in the sun — than on the Pittsburgh Pirates’ pitcher. But after allowing five runs while recording just two outs, Skenes’ ERA sits at an ugly 67.50. It will take 22 consecutive scoreless innings from him to get his ERA back in the familiar sub-2.00 territory. Though, come to think of it, that doesn’t seem all that unrealistic.
Meanwhile, fellow National League Cy Young contenders Cristopher Sanchez and Yoshinobu Yamamoto found better success in their Opening Day starts. The Phillies’ ace kept the Texas Rangers hitless and racked up a whopping 10 strikeouts, while the Los Angeles Dodgers’ World Series MVP got the win over the Arizona Diamondbacks with six innings of five-hit ball.
The biggest closer concern, however, is Carlos Estevez of the Kansas City Royals, who led the majors with 42 saves last season but had an all-time stinker Saturday. He came in against the Atlanta Braves with a 2-0 lead and this is what followed: walk, single, pop fly, single, walk, single, walk-off grand slam to Dominic Smith.
Estevez’s velocity was down in spring training, and his fastball averaged just 91.2 mph against the Braves, down from 95.9 mph last year. That’s a significant velocity drop. Lucas Erceg is presumably the backup option, but the bullpen was built around the idea of Erceg, Matt Strahm and John Schreiber serving as the top setup guys in front of Estevez. Now, that plan could get thrown into disarray early in the campaign.
In case you were wondering: Yes, Edwin Diaz brought “Narco” with him from New York — and this time with a live trumpet player in Tatiana Tate. Diaz’s entrance thrilled Dodgers fans just as it did Mets fans. More thrilling, however, was Diaz recording two saves in his first two appearances as the Dodgers swept the D-backs.
And if that’s the case, they will easily win 100 games, which no team has done the past two seasons.
One of the best highlights from this group was McGonigle’s 10-pitch at-bat against the San Diego Padres on Friday. Facing tough southpaw Wandy Peralta in a left-on-left battle with two outs in the eighth and the bases loaded in a tie game, McGonigle fouled off six pitches before finally lining a two-run single into right-center field. After the eighth or ninth pitch, the camera flashed to Detroit Tigers starter Justin Verlander leaning on the dugout railing, a little smile on his face as he watched the young player.
The last great rookie class we had was in 2022, when Julio Rodriguez, Steven Kwan, Adley Rutschman, Michael Harris II and Jeremy Pena each cracked 5.0 WAR, the most rookie position players ever with 5 WAR in one season (in fact, only two other seasons even had three). That rookie class also included Bobby Witt Jr., Geraldo Perdomo, Riley Greene, CJ Abrams, Vinnie Pasquantino, Seiya Suzuki, Gabriel Moreno and Brendan Donovan, plus pitchers Spencer Strider, George Kirby, Hunter Greene, Joe Ryan, Nick Lodolo, MacKenzie Gore and Jhoan Duran.
My theory: We don’t know if that will be the right approach. You might save them and the game turns into a blowout. If a hitter saves his challenges for a close game late, it might not matter if a call gets overturned against an elite closer such as Aroldis Chapman or Mason Miller — because they’ll probably get the hitter out anyway. Most games are more likely to be won or lost in the early or middle innings than in the eighth or ninth, so it might make more sense to use challenges earlier in a high-leverage situation, even if there’s a risk of using up both of them.
Schlittler threw 68 pitches — and 60 of them were fastball variants (22 four-seamers, 22 cutters, 16 two-seamers). He mixed in seven curveballs and one slider. It’s unusual to throw a fastball 88% of the time in 2026, but Schlittler makes it work because he tunnels all three pitches so well that the batter’s brain can’t differentiate them, which leads to a lot of foul balls (19 in Friday’s game) due to the late movement. Of course, it helps when the fastball averages 98 mph and the cutter averages 95 (notably up 3 mph from 2025).
As long as he throws enough strikes, he’s going to be a powerhouse, even with minimal usage of his off-speed pitches. Schlittler had a 2.96 ERA in 14 starts last season, so it’s not like this is coming out of nowhere. Schlittler came up with Toronto’s Yesavage last season, with both players in the same division and making big starts in the postseason. Yesavage entered 2026 with more hype based off the Blue Jays’ World Series run and his own postseason performance, but I had Schlittler ranked a little higher on my hypothetical list of starters. Yesavage began the season on injured list with a shoulder impingement, so the early nod goes to Schlittler — and the Yankees.
The plan to play him regularly in center field has been widely criticized, but maybe it is the best idea. I think back to when Joe Maddon managed the Los Angeles Angels in 2021 and he basically said, “Let’s turn Shohei loose.” No sitting him the day before he starts. When Ohtani pitched, he was in the lineup. He’s a baseball player. Let him be a baseball player. Maybe the same logic will apply to Trout. Keeping him out of center field and letting him DH hasn’t kept him in the lineup in recent seasons anyway. He still has excellent bat speed, elite plate discipline and plenty of raw power. Let him play and see what happens. (And it’s not like the Angels have a better option for center field anyway.)
After Los Angeles’ bullpen struggled last season, it started 2026 with 11⅔ scoreless innings. The secret weapon here might be World Series star Will Klein. Despite his 72-pitch, four-inning outing to win Game 3, Klein was hardly a lock to make the roster this year. But he had a strong spring training and, combined with several Dodgers pitchers still being on the IL, he cracked the Opening Day roster. Klein throws 98 mph, so the arm strength has never been in doubt. If he can pitch strikes, he could emerge as a key guy in a much-improved Dodgers pen.