It’s hard to know which numbers are real so early in the season, but every year, some early stats are predictive of a breakout season or the emergence of an unexpected contender.
Put all of those elements together and it’s a recipe for more walks. And more walks, plus the time it takes for challenges, means longer games. After bottoming out at an average game time of 2:36 in the 2024 season, the first month of MLB games this year is averaging 2:42 — and that’s before the expected addition of offense accompanying the weather warming.
Houston’s streak of seven consecutive appearances in the American League Championship Series was snapped in 2024. The following year, the team’s playoff run ended. And if this problem persists in 2026, a string of 11 consecutive winning seasons might be in jeopardy.
All this to go along with closer Josh Hader still working his way back from biceps tendinitis and setup man Bryan Abreu reeling. It could spell disaster for the 2026 Astros.
Problem 1: We still have too few balls put into play. Strikeouts, which count against batting average, are at peak levels, but so, too, are the walks — and we’ve seen record levels of hit by pitches. These are good outcomes for offense but they do nothing for batting average, and while a walk can be dramatic, it’s not the kind of action that sells tickets.
Problem 2: The balls put into play aren’t turning into hits at their former levels. The statistical term for this is BABIP and the .289 mark this season would be the lowest since 1992, though, like average, it will go up some over the course of the season. But it isn’t going to approach the “healthy” benchmark of .300. I had hoped that the ban of extreme defensive shifting would get us back to that level. It simply has not happened.
Jeff Passan: 9.9%. The walk rate in MLB is hovering around 10%, a historically high figure that represents a 16% spike in bases on balls since last season. It’s a staggering number, higher than every season but three — 1948, 1949, 1950 — in MLB’s century-and-a-half history. So what’s happening? Certainly the automated ball-strike system, which has standardized the strike zone and taken away pitches previously called strikes, has something to do with it. Beyond the challenges themselves, everyone — pitchers, hitters, umpires — is adjusting to a new zone, and that’s the sort of thing that changes behaviors.
How? Well, start with swing rate: It’s down by 1.4 percentage points from last year. Zone rate — the percentage of pitches in the rulebook zone — is even more pronounced: 47.2% after being at 50.7% last year. And then consider the individual elements. Pitchers are throwing more changeups and splitters, typically designed to land out of the strike zone for a swing-and-miss. Their breaking balls are moving more than ever. Their sinkers, a pitch on the upswing in usage, are running horizontally out of the zone.
David Schoenfield: 71.1%. That’s Mason Miller’s strikeout rate. Is it too early to start thinking of a reliever as a potential Cy Young winner? It hasn’t happened since Eric Gagne in 2003, but in Miller’s case it’s not out of the realm of possibility. It’s only 11 appearances and 11⅓ innings, but Miller is in the midst of one of the most unhittable stretches we’ve seen, striking out 27 of the 38 batters he has faced while allowing just two hits. And this isn’t just a three-weeks-in-April hot streak. Miller finished last season with 21⅓ scoreless innings, allowing just four hits. That’s six hits in 32⅔ innings. Sounds pretty good. With Miller and the rest of their dominant bullpen, the San Diego Padres are off to a great start.
Hunter Brown, the Astros’ ace, has a shoulder strain they hope is not serious. Cristian Javier is dealing with a similar issue. Tatsuya Imai, signed largely to help fill the void of Framber Valdez, struggled mightily upon coming over from Japan and has been diagnosed with arm fatigue. Those three help make up an injured list composed of seven starting pitchers. The next layer of depth is not what it used to be. Their other additions — Mike Burrows, Ryan Weiss and Peter Lambert — have combined for a 6.80 ERA.
Bradford Doolittle: .239. The league batting average will go up as the weather warms but the low average problem isn’t going away. The average may or may not be down from the past few years by the end of the season — but, more importantly, this reaffirms there’s no sign of batting averages returning to the levels of 10 to 15 years ago. This current style of play is aesthetic, to be sure, but it’s consequential nonetheless because the corollary to action is inaction, not something that is healthy for any sport.
Buster Olney: 30. That’s the ranking of the Mets’ offensive production against fastballs. During New York’s winless road trip through Dodger Stadium and Wrigley Field, what was so striking was how aggressive opposing pitchers were against the Mets — competitively disrespectful might be a better way to put it — by just pounding them with fastballs. So far this season, the Mets have a .640 OPS vs. fastballs (four-seamers, two-seamers, cutters), which ranks last in the majors. They have a minus-6 run value on pitches thrown at 97 mph-plus. That also ranks 30th.
Four weeks in, the MLB landscape looks quite a bit different than we thought it would heading into the 2026 season. The Cincinnati Reds are tied for the third-best record in all of baseball, with the Pittsburgh Pirates not far behind; the New York Mets are the basement dwellers of the NL East, riding a 12-game losing streak; the Philadelphia Phillies have the worst run differential in the majors; the Athletics sit atop the AL West, with the Houston Astros at the bottom; and the Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays have struggled to get going on offense.