FanGraphs Weekly Mailbag: May 16, 2026

Earlier this week, we passed the quarter mark of the season, and while 40 games is hardly a large sample size, the round number makes it easy to reflect on what’s happened so far and consider how that might impact what’s to come. My favorite piece of trivia is that it’s been a month since an NL Central team had a losing record. That team, notably, was the Cubs, who finished below .500 on the morning of April 15 and are now in first place after snapping two separate 10-game hitting streaks. During that time, the Brewers and Cardinals never finished a game below .500. Only three other teams in baseball did not have a losing record this season: the Yankees, Braves, and Dodgers. Note that the quintet includes only one team in the American League, which has been struggling through the first quarter of the season. Entering Friday’s game, only five teams in the AL had winning records. In addition to the Yankees, the other four teams, ironically, are the Rays, Guardians, White Sox, and Athletics. As we all expected.

On each side of things, many of the usual suspects are reaching the top of the offensive leaderboards. There are Aaron Judge, Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Schwarber, and Matt Olson all in the top 10 in wRC+, with Olson, Judge, and Alvarez also in the top 10 when ranked by WAR, along with Bobby Witt Jr., the leader. But there are some unexpected names alongside this collection. Ben Rice (193 wRC+), Shea Langeliers (179), Mickey Moniak (170), Jordan Walker (166), and Brice Turang (166) have rounded out the top 10 hitters so far this season, and while it’s not surprising to see Dodgers guys in the top 10 for position player, WAR, two players Andbo is surprised by. with 2.0 WAR). By his standards, Shohei Ohtani has struggled at the plate — he’s slashing .240/.370/.427 with seven home runs and a 122 wRC+ entering Friday — but he’s made up for that by turning into the best pitcher in baseball, at least by ERA. In seven starts and 44 innings, he has a 0.82 ERA and 1.6 WAR, the latter number ranking seventh among major league hitters. He is the only pitcher with a top-10 WAR who has thrown fewer than 50 innings. Of the six pitchers above him, WAR leader Cam Schlittler (2.4) and Davis Martin (1.9 WAR) stand out as the most surprising.

So the natural question is: How much of what we’ve seen so far should we expect to continue? I’d say at least one NL Central team will finish the year under .500, and so will the White Sox. I said two weeks ago that I don’t buy the Rays and A’s as real villains, and I stand by that. But I think Langeliers and Walker can back up a lot of their production at the plate, and none of us should doubt Ohtani at this point. Otherwise, I prefer not to predict further. We have a mailbag to get to, and that’s more exciting than anything I can say about Mickey Moniak. But first, I’d like to remind you that this post bag is only available to FanGraphs members. If you are not yet a Member and would like to continue learning, you can sign up for Membership here. It’s the best way to experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with tons of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question about a future mailbag, email me at mailbag@fangraphs.com.