7 of our favorite fun early season stats

We're more than a week into the 2026 season and there have been plenty of storylines, stats and developments that have caught our attention.

Sure, there are small sample sizes this early in the season, but that doesn't mean there aren't interesting trends that have taken place. With that in mind, we asked seven of our writers about their favorite fun early season stats.

Here’s what they had to say.

The following numbers are through Friday's games.

Yankees pitching has been outstanding

The Yankees' pitching staff is off to one of the best starts we’ve ever seen -- and that’s not recency bias or hyperbole. Through Friday, they had allowed just eight runs on the season. Eight runs total in seven games played. That tied the 2002 Giants and 1993 Braves for the fewest runs allowed by a team in its first seven games of a season in MLB history. That’s 150 years of baseball history, and the Yankees tied a record.

The most remarkable part of this is the fact that the rotation isn’t even at full strength yet. Few teams have the luxury of being down pitchers like Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón, yet still have pitchers like Max Fried and Cam Schlittler. Imagine what this staff will do when they’re back, too.

-- Sarah Langs

The catchers are MASHING

A year after Cal Raleigh slugged 60 home runs and Drake Baldwin won NL Rookie of the Year, a handful of catchers are off to scorching-hot starts. The aforementioned Baldwin looks like he’s leveling up this season, as he’s running a .955 OPS through eight games with as many home runs (three) as strikeouts.

The best catcher so far, though, has been Shea Langeliers, who crushed five home runs in his first seven games of the season. Langeliers is doing his best Raleigh impression and is on a staggering home run pace to begin the season. Langeliers’ new level extends back to last season, too -- his 3.9 Wins Above Replacement (FanGraphs) since last year’s All-Star Break are tied with Geraldo Perdomo for the top mark in baseball.

Baldwin and Langeliers aren’t alone -- Liam Hicks (1.330 OPS and three home runs) and Francisco Alvarez (1.137 OPS and three home runs) have also been fantastic. On the whole, catchers have collectively hit 31 home runs, which only trails 34 home runs among right fielders.

-- Brent Maguire

The rookies are, too

It began on Opening Day and has only gained steam from there. From top prospects like Kevin McGonigle, Sal Stewart and Chase DeLauter to highly touted Japanese stars such as Munetaka Murakami and Kazuma Okamoto, rookie hitters are producing at a historic level to begin the 2026 season.

Rookies recorded 22 homers and an .851 OPS through every team’s first six games this season. That tied 2023 for the most home runs by rookies through every team’s first six since at least 1901 and set the outright mark for OPS by rookies in that same span.

And MLB Pipeline’s No. 1 overall prospect, 19-year-old Konnor Griffin, has only just entered the mix.

-- Thomas Harrigan

Just in case you forgot: Shohei Ohtani is still out of this world

Every day, it feels as if there’s a new statistic about Shohei Ohtani that boggles the mind. This one might be the best yet.

After firing six scoreless innings in his first start of the season on Tuesday, the two-way superstar extended his scoreless innings streak to 22 2/3 innings, dating back to last season. Ohtani also reached base three times, pushing his on-base streak to 36 consecutive games. At the end of the night, the four-time MVP owned MLB’s longest active scoreless innings streak among starting pitchers and the league’s longest active on-base streak.

This is simply what we’ve come to expect from Ohtani, who is carrying out his full two-way duties again this season. He’s since stretched his on-base streak to 38 games, though Padres closer Mason Miller now holds the longest active scoreless innings streak at 23 2/3 consecutive scoreless frames. But Shohei will have a chance to leapfrog Miller come his next start, which is slated for Wednesday against the Blue Jays in a World Series rematch.

-- Jared Greenspan

Drake Baldwin’s run production

There's been no sophomore slump for Baldwin so far. If anything, he's experienced the opposite -- a sophomore ... surge? The 2025 NL Rookie of the Year has been one of Atlanta's most consistent hitters in the early going (he led the team in homers and RBIs entering Saturday), even making history along the way.

Baldwin scored a run in the Braves' first seven games, the first Braves player to do that since Hank Aaron in 1957. Talk about being in good company. Not only that, but entering Saturday he was tied for the MLB lead in runs scored, with nine. And, oh yeah, he also led all primary catchers through Friday with 14 batted balls of 95 mph or higher.

It’s obviously still really early, but if Baldwin continues with this type of run production, he’ll be in line for his first All-Star berth -- and maybe even some bigger hardware at season’s end.

-- Jason Foster

The NL East has been elite

This season’s National League East became the first division in MLB history to have all five teams start 1-0. Apparently, that was only an appetizer. Entering Saturday, four of the division’s clubs were at .500 or better, led by the 6-2 Braves and the 5-2 Marlins, while the last-place Nationals weren’t too far out at 3-4. By combined run differential, the NL East (+42) -- not the loaded AL East (-6) or crowded NL West (-35) -- has been the best division in the Majors so far. (The NL Central is second at +25.)

In fact, the only NL East team with a negative run differential is actually the 4-3 Phillies (-4), who claimed the division crown the past two seasons. The first-place Braves are at an MLB-best +29, thanks in large part to their 17-2 rout of the D-backs on Thursday. The division’s clubs have benefited from a bit of a soft schedule -- the Marlins got to face the Rockies and White Sox at home to start the season, for instance -- but there could be some signal amid the early-season noise.

-- Theo DeRosa

Griffin joins Soto, Harper, Trout and other teen phenoms

Even for the very best prospects, reaching the big leagues as a teenager is rare. Griffin just did it. The Pirates' shortstop of the future, ranked MLB's No. 1 overall prospect, was just 19 years and 344 days old when he made his Major League debut on Friday.

That puts Griffin in the company of giants. He's the first teenage hitter to play in an MLB game since Juan Soto in 2018. He's the youngest starting shortstop to debut since Alex Rodriguez in 1994. And when he ripped an RBI double in his first career at-bat, he became the youngest Pirates player to record a hit in his MLB debut since the legendary Bill Mazeroski.

Only eight teenage hitters besides Griffin have reached the big leagues this century -- a list that includes Soto, Bryce Harper (2012) and Mike Trout (2011). Before that, there were famous teen phenoms like Adrián Beltré, Andruw Jones, A-Rod and Ken Griffey Jr. And before that, there were earlier legends going back to the likes of Mickey Mantle, Mel Ott and Ty Cobb. The point is: Griffin is following in the footsteps of a whole bunch of the game's greats, past and present.

-- David Adler