Biggest Player Surprises So Far in 2024
Biggest Player Surprises So Far in 2024
Every year Major League Baseball gifts us fans with players and teams who seem to come out of nowhere and outperform expectations. As we are now a fourth of the way through the 2024 season, figured it would be a good time to shout out some players who deserve kudos. Today I want to highlight 6 players, specifically 3x arms & 3x bats who deserve praise for their 2024 season thus far. Let’s dive right in with the arms.
Ranger Suarez
Suarez is quite literally a silent assassin. No one ever talks about this guy and how good he has been. Is it because he doesn’t throw hard? Is it because the numbers aren’t flashy? I don’t know the exact answer, but I can tell you one thing. Every team in baseball should want Ranger Suarez as a part of their rotation. He is leading the majors this year with a 0.72 WHIP! No one is getting on base against Suarez and that checks out given he has posted a 1.50 ERA so far this season.
2024 - 54 IP | 7 W | 55 K | 1.50 ERA | 0.72 WHIP | 7 QS
Seth Lugo
I could not have been more wrong about Lugo. Thought it was just a hot start for a game or two but the fact of the matter is that Lugo is lighting up opposing lineups. Lugo has been in the league since 2016 and owns a career 3.34 ERA. Very respectable but not 1.66 good! Lugo has posted a 245 ERA+ so far in 2024 making him 145% better than the league average. This is quite impressive stuff from Lugo and it will be tough to sustain but I want him to keep slicing and dicing as baseball is more fun when the Royals are competing.
2024 - 59.2 IP | 6 W | 48 K | 1.66 ERA | 0.96 WHIP | 8 QS
Kutter Crawford
The Red Sox have overall done a fantastic job with all of their arms this season but Crawford is sticking out to me like a sore thumb. He entered the season with a career 4.74 ERA after delivering north of 200 career innings. Through nine starts this year he is sitting at a 2.24 and is starting to gather Cy Young Award attention. Plus he has an awesome name and love that about him.
2024 - 52.1 IP | 2 W | 52 K | 2.24 ERA | 1.11 WHIP | 5 QS
Jurickson Profar
Profar is certainly ‘relevant’ in 2024. The Padres outfielder has been outstanding this season and is one of the main reasons San Diego has been able to remain in the hunt in the National League West. Profar is a seasoned veteran of the game who has NEVER hit north of .300 for a season. That being said we are a quarter of the way through the season and he is still sitting .24 points above that .300 number. Very curious to see how he finishes the season as he currently has posted 7 HRs in 2024 and his career-best in a season is 20. Could Profar finish with career-bests in home runs and batting average in year 11? I sure hope so.
2024 - 45 GP | .324 AVG | .936 OPS | 24 R | 7 HR | 29 RBI | 2 SB
Brent Rooker
Rooker was technically an ‘All-Star’ last year but that was due to the A’s needing 1x player to be a part of the team. He was a name I watched last year a bit as well so this is not that surprising but he has been AWESOME at the plate this season while playing for Oakland so he deserves some love. Rooker has not only been hitting but also hitting for power. There are only two players ahead of Rooker in OPS on the year that have played more than 30 games and they are Shohei Ohtani and Marcell Ozuna…not too shabby given the years those two have been having.
2024 - 32 GP | .298 AVG | 1.008 OPS | 21 R | 10 HR | 28 RBI | 2 SB
Ryan Jeffers
Jeffers might be the best-hitting catcher in all of baseball right now, yes I said it. That includes the fantastic seasons being put up by William Contreras and Salvador Perez. No disrespect to those two but Jeffers is just on a mission. Already with 10x bombs which would put him on pace for mid-high thirties for total HRs at the end of season counting stats. In his 5 years of being in the bigs he has yet to clear 14 HRs which given his health should be broken by him any day now. Minnesota just saw a 12-game win streak and everyone in Minnesota can safely say, that Jeffers did his part to help make that happen.
2024 - 36 GP | .290 AVG | .997 OPS | 22 R | 10 HR | 31 RBI | 1 SB