MLB trends: Sandy Alcantara’s struggles, Astros’ platoon problems and how pitchers deal with Chandler Simpson

The first 30% of the 2025 MLB regular season is in the books and things are beginning to look normal, for lack of a better term. Only one qualified hitter (Aaron Judge) is flirting with .400 and just a handful of qualified starters have a sub-2.00 ERA. Contenders that started poorly are getting hot and pretenders that started well are coming back to Earth. Here now are three trends worth keeping an eye on as we get closer to the calendar flipping to June.

Alcantara’s rough return from Tommy John surgery

It was not long ago that Marlins righty Sandy Alcantara was in the “best pitcher in baseball” conversation. The 2022 NL Cy Young winner was the game’s premier workhorse before his elbow blew out — his 858 ⅓ innings from 2019-23 were second most in baseball behind Gerrit Cole (876 ⅓) — and, well, those things are related. Alcantara pitched a ton, then he got hurt. So it goes.

Alcantara missed the entire 2024 season with Tommy John surgery, and although he looked electric in spring training, his return this year has been rough: 7.99 ERA and 1.61 WHIP in nine starts and 41 ⅔ innings. The underlying numbers are ghastly (5.38 FIP, 5.33 xERA, etc.) and he’s averaging only 4.6 innings per start. That would’ve been unthinkable for 2019-23 Alcantara.

“It feels good, trusting the process, but I don’t know, I’m just getting tired, you know, just being out there and don’t have that success that I’m looking for,” Alcantara said after giving up four runs in five innings in his last start against the Rays (via MLB.com). “I know the hard work, the dedication, the patience, everything that I put into the start, to have this type of result today, I don’t like that.”

Alcantara is getting hit hard by all hitters this season, and especially lefties. Hitters on the opposite side of the plate have just battered him. Here are the numbers:

Lefties may have a lower batting average than righties against Alcantara, but it’s more walks than strikeouts, and a ton of home runs and slug in general. Alcantara has always had a bit of a platoon split, though we’re talking elite against righties and above-average against lefties from 2019-23. Now he’s bad against righties and flat-out terrible against lefties.

It is not at all uncommon for pitchers to struggle after returning from Tommy John surgery, especially with their control, and it can be difficult to untangle what is rust and what’s a decline in skill. In Alcantara’s case, he is throwing more fastballs to lefties than he did during his Cy Young season, and the location of those fastballs has not been good:

In 2022, the four-seamer was a pitch Alcantara used at the top of the zone for swings and misses against lefties. This year it’s scattershot all over the zone, with too many landing middle-middle. Lefties are hitting the pitch harder this year (duh), plus they are swinging and missing less against his slider and curveball. It’s bad all around. He lacks a reliable weapon against lefties right now.

Alcantara is just coming back from a major arm surgery, plus he’s working with an entirely new front office and coaching staff than the one he had before his elbow gave out. His start to the season has been terrible, for sure, but patience is required. We have to give Alcantara a chance to get back into the groove of a season after surgery, and fully knock off any rust.

For the Marlins, the downside is Alcantara’s trade value is taking a hit. They’re in the middle of a scorched earth rebuild and Alcantara figured to be the top starting pitcher available at the deadline. He still might be — the track record is elite and his contract is so affordable — but interested teams will try to use his poor start to knock the asking price down. It’s inevitable.

Alcantara is still only 29. We’re not talking about a guy in his mid-30s losing something. Impact starters are always in demand and few actually become available. There will be a market for him at the deadline. The Marlins hope he can turn his season around before then to maximize the return, but there will be a market. Solving lefties is the No. 1 priority for Alcantara and the Marlins.

Astros at the platoon disadvantage

Entering Tuesday, the defending AL West champion Astros were 25-22 with a plus-21 run differential, though they were averaging only 4.02 runs scored per game. That was below the 4.35 runs per game league average and ranked 20th in baseball, tied with the Angels. Not exactly the company you want to keep offensively. Or with anything, really.

Yordan Alvarez has not played since May 2 because of a hand injury and wasn’t exactly Yordan-like before going on the injured list: .210/.306/.340 with only three home runs in 29 games. Alvarez’s absence has created a hole in Houston’s lineup in more ways than one. The team misses his usual production, and they also miss the balance his lefty bat brings to the lineup.

Right now, catchers Victor Caratini and César Salazar are the only left-handed hitters on Houston’s active roster, and Caratini is a switch-hitter. He’s been getting regular turns at DH lately with Salazar as the third catcher on the bench behind starter Yainer Diaz. Almost every game, the Astros start a lineup with eight right-handed hitters. There is little diversity there.

On one hand, Daikin Park and the Crawford Boxes are very friendly to right-handed hitters. The Astros tailored their offense well for their home ballpark. On the other hand, the Astros have no lineup balance, and are constantly at the platoon disadvantage. Here are the percentage of plate appearances with the platoon advantage this year:

30. Astros: 23.8%
29. Angels: 34.4%
28. Athletics: 43.1%
27. Royals: 49.7%
26. Padres: 50.3%
(MLB average: 53.7%)

No team has had a full season platoon advantage rate as low as 30% over the last 50 years, and only a handful were as low as 35%. The Astros are well south of that and will continue to be even after Alvarez returns. Right-handed pitchers throw roughly 75% of innings. Managers talk about “lanes” for their relievers and Houston’s lineup is one giant lane for righty relievers.

It’s surprising the Astros haven’t performed better against lefties given all their righty bats, though I suppose it’s possible that’s a small sample size issue. It’s only 247 plate appearances against lefties spread out across 47 games, after all. The Angels have had only 253 plate appearances against lefties. Every other team has at least 330, and 25 other teams have at least 400.

All things considered, the Astros are holding their own against righty pitchers despite their righty-heavy lineup. This is something that can be improved though, even after Alvarez returns. The Astros are locked into righty bats at catcher (Diaz), first base (Christian Walker), shortstop (Jeremy Peña), third base (Isaac Paredes), and second base/left field (Jose Altuve). They aren’t going anywhere.

That leaves center and right fields as places to add a lefty bat, and also second base/left field depending where Altuve plays. Jake Meyers is having a great season. It would be hard to take him out of center. Rookie Cam Smith is holding his own and getting a long look in right, but perhaps a trip to the minors would be the best thing for his development and the team’s lineup construction.

I’m not sure how the Astros will address their lineup imbalance or even if they will address it. They could ride it out with Alvarez and eight righties the rest of the season. For now though, their lineup makes matching up very easy for the opposing manager. Houston’s offense invites righty relievers and righty pitchers in general. They lack even a modicum of lineup diversity.

Pitchers not afraid to challenge Simpson

One month into his big-league career, Rays prospect and fastest man in baseball Chandler Simpson is holding his own. He took a .301/.327/.344 slash line into Tuesday’s game and he’s 11 for 13 stealing bases. That’s after stealing 104 bases in the minors last year. It was the first 100-steal season in the minors since Billy Hamilton (155) and Delino DeShields Jr. (101) in 2012.

Simpson is not much of a threat at the plate. The 2022 second-round pick hit one home run in three years of college ball and has one home run in more than 1,200 professional plate appearances, and that was an inside-the-parker in Double-A. His exit velocity (83.4 mph) and hard-hit rate (14.3%) are at the bottom of the league. Simpson is a slash-and-dash, run like hell type.

Because he lacks hard-hit ability and because you don’t want to walk him (he’s only recorded four so far), pitchers have not been shy about pounding the zone against Simpson since his major-league debut. More than 250 players have at least 100 plate appearances this season and no one has seen more pitches in the zone than Simpson. It’s not close either:

1. Chandler Simpson: 64.3% in-zone rate
2. Alex Verdugo: 60.0%
3. Jacob Young: 58.5%
4. Caleb Durbin: 58.4%
5. Kyle Isbel: 58.1%
(MLB average: 52.0%)

The next two names on that leaderboard are Taylor Walls (57.7%) and Eli White (57.5%), so you can see the pattern. These are not guys who are going to drive the ball for extra bases, and most of them are stolen base threats, so you don’t want to walk them. They are exactly the type of hitters pitchers should want to/be comfortable with challenging.

Pitch-tracking goes back to 2008 and the highest zone single-season rate for a qualified hitter was 58.6% for Elvis Andrus in 2009. Only a handful of others are above 58% and only 144 were at even 55%. That’s out of 2,570 individual qualified hitter seasons in the pitch-tracking era. Simply put, when you see 55% of pitches in the zone, pitchers are unafraid of you.

Simpson only has a month in the big leagues and we’ll see where he finishes the season, but, right now, pitchers are telling him they are not afraid of him, and they don’t want to walk him. He’s not the type of hitter who will put a ball over the fence and teams are comfortable letting their defense making plays on him, even with Simpson’s speed.