Katie Stratman-USA TODAY Sports
Roughly a month’s worth of the 2024 season is now in the books. The American League East looks great. The Brewers and Guardians are standing up for the Central divisions. The White Sox can only beat the Rays, and the Astros somehow can’t beat anyone. Enough time has passed that I feel confident saying all of those things. On the other hand, it still feels too early to be certain about which players are over- or under-performing. But that doesn’t mean our opinions can’t change a bit. There’s enough data to make some educated guesses, so let’s put on our speculation caps. Here are four players — two hitters and two pitchers — who have risen in my estimation over the last few weeks. Tomorrow, I’ll follow up with four players who have gone the other way.
Elly De La Cruz, SS, Cincinnati Reds
I already thought De La Cruz had the potential to be one of the best players in baseball before the season started. Quite reasonably, though, I was worried about the downsides. A guy who struck out 33.7% of the time last year is always risky, and that’s particularly true given how he did it. He swung more often than league average at balls and less often than average at strikes; he also made less contact than average. You can have one of those three things be true, or maybe even two of three if you make up for it elsewhere, but three of three? Yikes. These issues haven’t been fixed overnight, but De La Cruz is clearly learning as he goes. He’s made a huge improvement in his chase rate from 2023 to 2024, swinging at only 28.9% of pitches that miss the strike zone as compared to 35.3% in 2023. Meanwhile, he’s offering at pitches in the zone at the same rate, 61.1% (61.0% in 2023). If you sharpen your view of the zone, things look even better. De La Cruz’s swing rate for pitches in the heart of the strike zone has increased from 66% to 68% (the league average is 73%). He’s getting better at attacking the pitches he can demolish. Meanwhile, he’s swinging at only 22% of chase zone pitches, down from 28% last year (the league average is 22%). That mostly represents breaking balls designed to finish outside of the zone but draw a swing. His swing rate on waste zone pitches – those so far out of the zone that most batters don’t swing – has declined from 11% to a league-average 6%. Simply put, De La Cruz is commanding the strike zone much better in 2024 than he did last year. That changes his outlook considerably. He’ll still probably strike out a lot, but less than he did before. And he’ll likely walk more often – his 14.9% walk rate so far this year isn’t particularly surprising when you consider how rarely he sees strikes and how much he’s improved at laying off bad pitches. His batting average on balls in play isn’t sustainable, and I don’t think he’s going to keep barreling up 18% of his batted balls either. But the question with De La Cruz has never been about what happens after he makes contact. It’s about getting to that point, and chasing less while maintaining in-zone aggression is a perfect way to do so. Sometimes young players take leaps. This feels like one of those times to me. Before the season, De La Cruz’s projections rightly included a chance that he’d just never be able to make this adjustment. Now that he has, the future is inarguably brighter.
CJ Abrams, SS, Washington Nationals
Abrams is only a year and change older than De La Cruz, but his major league career already feels much longer. He broke into the majors as a 21-year-old out of necessity, and truth be told, he didn’t look ready. But he’s made steady improvements in every facet of his game every year since then, and while I don’t think he’s likely to finish with a line anywhere near what he’s putting up right now, I think that his base case has shifted meaningfully higher. Esteban Rivera detailed the mechanical changes that have gone into Abrams’ hot start, but the shortstop has always had the power to punish mistakes. He’s just doing it more frequently now and putting the ball in the air when he makes contact. His raw power numbers don’t jump off the page, but they’re above average. With his swing now producing more fly balls and line drives, I expect the doubles, triples, and homers to keep on coming. Projection systems agree with me on this one. Before the season, our Depth Chart projections pegged Abrams for a 93 wRC+; they’re now forecasting a 106 wRC+ for the rest of the season, a marked increase. We have him down for 4.0 WAR at year’s end, as compared to a preseason projection of 2.5 WAR in a similar amount of playing time. In other words, he looks more like an All-Star than an above-average regular now. There are undoubtedly warning signs to be concerned with here. Unlike De La Cruz, Abrams’ plate discipline has regressed this year. He’s chasing much more in this season than he did in 2023, and he’s not swinging more at meatballs to make up for it. I think that his strikeout rate is due for an increase; despite excellent bat-to-ball skills, he’s just swinging at too much junk to maintain both his power and his contact. I’m also getting concerned about Abrams’ defense – this is the third straight year that Statcast thinks he’s one of the worst defensive shortstops in baseball. While the eye test still says “wow, this guy can do everything,” there’s mounting evidence to the contrary. The form Abrams has displayed early in the year obviously isn’t going to continue. I don’t imagine he’s going to approach 40 homers, or post an isolated power that would have been in the top three in baseball last year, but he doesn’t have to do that to be a star. I think he’s going to hit for enough power to make up for his aggressive approach, and that the combination will make for an above-average hitter with good speed, which is meaningfully higher than my expectation for him coming into the season.
Jared Jones, SP, Pittsburgh Pirates
This is kind of cheating, because I’ve already written a lot about Jones, but if we’re talking about players with changed expectations, Jones has to be number one on the list. He came into the year as a relative unknown, a Top 100 prospect with enticing stuff and trouble commanding it. But that appears to be a thing of the past. After consistently struggling with command as a minor leaguer, he’s filling up the zone with aplomb and daring people to hit his plus fastball and slider. That tradeoff has worked quite well so far. The combination of Jones’ modest height (for a pitcher) and long stride result in the best imaginable fastball shape: low release point, flat approach angle, and explosive action high in the strike zone as a result. His bullet slider was already a great pitch, but it looks downright unhittable when he’s commanding it this well and pairing it with precision fastballs. It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Jones. He’s been extremely homer-prone this year, and while I don’t think he’ll continue giving up round trippers on 22% of his fly balls, high fastballs and high zone rates mean that the hitters who do make contact will often hit the ball hard and in the air. His velocity also dips significantly late in starts; the Pirates are still figuring out how to get a full season out of Jones, and I think he’ll continue to have growing pains on that front. In his most recent outing, the Giants only struck out three times, and without a pile of strikeouts, the homer problems stood out. That’s all nitpicking, though. Before the season, the broader baseball public had never heard of Jones. Now he looks like he’s knocking on the door of…
