The 2026 Major League Baseball season is a little more than six weeks old. Here are four surprising numbers as we approach mid-May.
New York Mets’ 15-25 start
The Mets shook things up in the offseason and it has not worked out, at least not yet. They have the least wins in the majors and have the worst offense (81 wRC+).
The club’s biggest offseason acquisitions have not worked out. Bo Bichette is hitting .222/.269/.290. Jorge Polanco, on the injured list since April 18, has a 54 wRC+. Luis Robert Jr. is also injured and has slugged just .329. Marcus Semein has a -0.1 WAR, according to Fangraphs.
On the pitching side of things, New York ranks ninth with a 3.85 team ERA. But Luke Weaver (4.41 ERA) and Devin Williams (5.68 ERA), both signed to multi-year deals to lead the club’s bullpen, have been part of a long list of Mets disappointments.
This year felt critical for the Mets. It still does. And it is not off to a good start, one that will be hard to recover from for a team eyeing the postseason.
Mickey Moniak‘s 163 wRC+
The Colorado Rockies (16-25) sit at the bottom of the NL West. But Moniak sits toward the top of the NL’s wRC+ leaderboard (minimum 100 plate appearances).
Moniak is fifth in the league with his 163 wRC+ and is tied for third with Jordan Walker and James Wood with 11 home runs. The left-handed hitter is batting .303/.349/.655 in 129 plate appearances.
Digging deeper, Moniak’s success has come as a platoon guy, with 81 percent of his plate appearances coming against right-handed pitching. The 2016 first overall pick has a .716 slugging percentage against righties; he’s slugging .417 versus lefties. His success is also a result of where he plays his home games.
At Coors Field, Moniak has a 1.255 OPS. That’s the third-best home OPS in the majors, trailing Ben Rice (1.302) and Cody Bellinger (1.259), both of whom play their home games at Yankee Stadium. Away from Denver, Moniak has a .683 OPS.
Moniak had a similar season in 2025 with the Rockies. He hit right-handed pitching and was a much better producer at home than on the road. But his numbers this year are way better and good enough to have him in the early All-Star conversation.
NL Central’s .577 combined winning percentage
Not expected to be MLB’s best division this year, that’s what the NL Central has been so far. It is the only division with all of its teams above .500 and one of just two divisions (AL East, .522) with a combined winning percentage above .500.
| Team | Record | Run Differential |
| Chicago Cubs | 27-14 | +47 |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 22-16 | +54 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 23-17 | +3 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 22-19 | +31 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 22-19 | -33 |
It’s hard to get a good pulse on the Cardinals and Reds. Their respective run differentials suggest they’re overperforming a bit, especially the Reds, who are 2-8 over their last 10 games and have one of the game’s worst rotations, Chase Burns aside.
The Cubs, Brewers, and Pirates feel like clubs that could be for real.
Chicago’s been one of baseball’s best teams. It’s tied for the third-most runs (215) with the New York Yankees (26-15) and tied for eighth with the Boston Red Sox (17-23) in runs allowed (168).
The Brewers have a top-10 scoring offense, despite being 28th in team slugging percentage (.353), and are pitching very well. They’ve allowed just 141 runs, tied with the Atlanta Braves (28-13) for second-fewest in the majors.
In Pittsburgh, the Pirates are showcasing MLB’s sixth-best team OPS (.727) and seventh-best team ERA (3.73).
It’s still too early to tell who’s going to be a true playoff contender and who’s not, but the NL Central could have three, or four, clubs make the playoffs in a year where the NL looks weak on the whole.
Davis Martin‘s 1.9 WAR
Cam Schlittler and Cristopher Sánchez. Those are the only two pitchers in the majors with a higher WAR, according to Fangraphs, than Martin, who’s tied with Dylan Cease.
In eight starts for the second-place Chicago White Sox (19-21), Martin has a 1.62 ERA and 2.34 FIP. He has a 27.1 percent strikeout rate and 5.2 percent walk rate.
The underlying numbers are not the best for Martin. Opponents have a 90.6 mph average exit velocity against him and a 45.7 hard-hit rate. Also, just one of the teams (Athletics) Martin has toed the rubber against ranks in the top-10 in team OPS. Five of the teams he’s faced are below league average when it comes to that department. But it’s still an impressive start.
It’ll be interesting to see if Martin can continue to be a bright spot for a somewhat surprising White Sox team that’d be in the postseason if it started today.
