It happens every year. Under-the-radar players emerge to help lead their teams head toward October. We’ve picked out three of the most interesting candidates this season.
A seven-game losing streak in early May dropped the St. Louis Cardinals’ record to an unsightly 15-24.
At that point, the only real question seemed to be when manager Oli Marmol would get fired (on the heels of a disastrous 2023 season, no way he could he have survived another debacle) and how many players would be traded away at the midseason trade deadline.
But a funny thing happened on the way to worst-case scenario: The club started winning and hasn’t really stopped.
The Cardinals’ record since ending that skid on May 11 is 35-22, the best mark in the National League. And the guy who helped hit the club back into playoff contention — the Cardinals are in the second NL wild-card spot coming out of the break — wasn’t even guaranteed a spot in the big leagues after an offseason of roster maneuvering.
Alec Burleson, St. Louis Cardinals
“Looking back on it,” Alec Burleson told Opta Analyst, “in spring training I probably didn’t have a spot on this team.”
A spot opened up with injury issues, though, as is often the case in baseball. In the dozen games after the seven-game skid, Burleson hit .422 with a 1.057 OPS, and the Cardinals went 10-2. Wasn’t long after that, Burleson was moved into the No. 2 spot in the St. Louis batting order, and he won’t be moving anytime soon.
After popping seven homers in June, Burleson has hit .340 with a 1.041 OPS, five homers and 15 RBIs in July. On the season, he rates as above average in making contact (107 contact+), doing damage upon contact (107 BIP+). He also has an impressive 116 raw value+, a metric that incorporates discipline, contact and damage done to measure performance on a pitch-by-pitch level as opposed to the final result of the at-bat (100 is league average).
“He’s been taking the same at-bats for a while now,” Marmol said. “He’s tough with two strikes, and the better he controls the strike zone and swings when he can do damage early in counts, the production’s through the roof.”
That’s not an exaggeration. Let’s take a look at what Burleson’s done when he puts the ball in play on different counts early in an at-bat.
Very impressive. And he’s hit six of his 17 homers with two strikes this year, after hitting just one in similar situations in a similar number of plate appearances last year.
Part of that improvement is just natural maturation as a big-league hitter, but it’s also part of his new role, batting second behind new leadoff hitter Masyn Winn.
“Hitting in the 2-hole comes with a lot of responsibility, it’s a little bit different role, with those guys behind me to drive me in,” Burleson said. “I want to be on base but also, I want to bang the ball out a little bit, too.
“Personally, I feed off Masyn. Whenever he goes, I go. We talk about that all the time. Feels like when he gets a hit, I’m right behind him getting a hit.”
Burleson leads the Cardinals with 53 RBIs, and he’s tied with Nolan Gorman for the team lead in home runs with 17. Marmol said at least part of that production is a result of Burleson focusing on what he does best, keeping the ball up the middle.
“He’s good when he’s using the big part of the field, gap-to-gap, and not trying to get pull-happy or just slap stuff to left,” Marmol said. “That is his strength, being able to do that.”
Burleson isn’t the only often-overlooked player who has emerged to help lead his team toward October. Let’s take a look at two others in the NL:
Orion Kerkering, Philadelphia Phillies
The Phillies, who own baseball’s best record, sent eight players to the All-Star festivities in Texas this week — including two relievers — so it’s admittedly pretty easy to get overlooked on a roster like that.
But don’t be fooled: Kerkering, a rookie right-hander, has been as effective as any reliever in baseball, and the Phillies need him to continue to produce if they’re going to secure the NL’s top seed in October.
Through 35 appearances and 35.2 innings, he has a 1.26 ERA and 1.76 FIP. He’s walked just six batters and he’s yet to allow a home run this season. And actually, he’s yet to allow a home run in the big leagues. The last home run he gave up was in August 2023, back in Double-A.
Kerkering, you’ll remember, burst onto the scene last year, rolling all the way from Single-A at the start of the 2023 season to a role of prominence in Philadelphia’s October bullpen. He threw just 3.0 innings in the regular season, then tossed 5.1 in the playoffs. He didn’t allow a home run to any of the 40 big-league batters he faced last year, either.
Know what else he does well? Using three primary pitches — his bread-and-butter sweeper 54.0% of the time and a 4-seamer 33.2% of the time, with the sinker mixed in at 12.8% — he doesn’t walk many batters, at just 1.5 per nine in the first half. Only 10 full-time relievers have thrown more innings this season with an equal or better BB/9 ratio.
And that — don’t allow home runs, don’t allow walks — is a pretty good combo. Here’s a good look at that sweeper:
His pitch usage stays pretty consistent, whether he’s behind in the count or ahead in the count, with the exception of full counts, when he basically flops the sweeper and 4-seamer, which has an average velocity a shade under 98 mph.
So how’s he doing it? What stands out with his numbers?
That, folks, is an excellent question. In the world of Opta’s advanced metrics, where 100 is league average, Kerkering checks right around there in whiff+ (106), strike+ (107), discipline+ (100), command+ (103) and contact+ (98). There is certainly something to be said for being exceptional at many things, no doubt.
Maybe this is expected, but he’s only given up five barrels — when the batter hits the ball squarely on the proverbial nose — all season. And his ground-ball percentage is high (55.1%), though that’s not typically a trait of pitchers who throw a bunch of sweepers.
Whatever the reason, it’s impossible to argue with the results. He’s made 45 appearances in the majors — 38 in the regular season and seven in the postseason — and he’s only allowed runs in eight games. He’s yet to allow more than one run in an outing in the majors. He only allowed more than one earned run four times in 59 minor-league appearances, too.
With runners in scoring position, opposing batters have just a .563 OPS against Kerkering.
Francisco Alvarez, New York Mets
As much fun as it is to credit Grimace for turning around the Mets’ spiraling season, maybe it’s time to shine a little of that spotlight on the club’s young catcher.
Alvarez is not the only reason for the revival, of course, but his impact seems pretty evident.
The Mets are 32-18 when he’s on the active roster this year — and 30-14 when he actually plays — but they went just 17-28 when he was on the injured list with a thumb injury that kept him out from April 20 through June 10.
The Mets’ record breakdown:
- 11-8 when Alvarez was healthy to start the season
- 17-28 when Alvarez was on the IL
- 21-10 after Alvarez returned from the IL
Alvarez, by the way, returned on June 11. Grimace threw out his now-revered first pitch the next day. Grimace has more headlines since then, but Alvarez has more production at the plate with a .330/.410/.552 slash line eight doubles, three homers and 15 RBIs.
That slash line especially catches the eye. Nobody’s ever doubted his power, and he hit 25 homers in 123 games as a 21-year-old catcher in New York, which is really impressive. But the accompanying numbers, like his 97 OPS+ and .310 wOBA to go with a .209 average and .288 on-base percentage, were not great.
If he can keep up the on-base percentage and his other metrics — his OPS+ this year is 142 and his wOBA is .365 — there’s a good chance the Mets will continue to play good baseball when he’s healthy.
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