A historic rookie class? Is Trout back? 10 things we learned from opening weekend

We’re off and running with the first weekend of 2026 Major League Baseball games in the books.

The first few days of the season had plenty: what looks like a star-studded rookie class showing off its talent, opportunities to see how the automated ball-strike system will impact the game, Tony Vitello’s MLB managerial debut, a sweep by the reigning back-to-back World Series champions, exciting debuts from Japanese players and more.

What have we learned so far? Here are 10 initial takeaways from the opening weekend.

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This rookie class is going to be special

We’ll have all season to dig into what might be a historic group of rookies given the immediate returns we’ve seen from Chase DeLauter, Kevin McGonigle, JJ Wetherholt, Sal Stewart and Carson Benge. Remember as well that others who debuted last season, including Nolan McLean, Bubba Chandler, Connelly Early, Samuel Basallo, Trey Yesavage, Carter Jensen, Dylan Beavers and Moises Ballesteros, remain rookies. This class looks as if it has star talent and lots of depth.

One of the best highlights from this group was McGonigle’s 10-pitch at-bat against the San Diego Padres on Friday. Facing tough southpaw Wandy Peralta in a left-on-left battle with two outs in the eighth and the bases loaded in a tie game, McGonigle fouled off six pitches before finally lining a two-run single into right-center field. After the eighth or ninth pitch, the camera flashed to Detroit Tigers starter Justin Verlander leaning on the dugout railing, a little smile on his face as he watched the young player.

The last great rookie class we had was in 2022, when Julio Rodriguez, Steven Kwan, Adley Rutschman, Michael Harris II and Jeremy Pena each cracked 5.0 WAR, the most rookie position players ever with 5 WAR in one season (in fact, only two other seasons even had three). That rookie class also included Bobby Witt Jr., Geraldo Perdomo, Riley Greene, CJ Abrams, Vinnie Pasquantino, Seiya Suzuki, Gabriel Moreno and Brendan Donovan, plus pitchers Spencer Strider, George Kirby, Hunter Greene, Joe Ryan, Nick Lodolo, MacKenzie Gore and Jhoan Duran.

That’s an impressive group, although players such as Rutschman and Harris have regressed.

Let’s give the 2026 class a little more time to marinate before making these all-time comparisons. But what a great start to the season for this year’s rookies.

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The ABS system is here

While it’s easy to make early assumptions about the new automated ball-strike system, I think it’s going to take time to analyze the results of it. One thing I heard from local announcers more than once as I watched games this past weekend was, “Save your challenges for when you need them late in games.”

My theory: We don’t know if that will be the right approach. You might save them and the game turns into a blowout. If a hitter saves his challenges for a close game late, it might not matter if a call gets overturned against an elite closer such as Aroldis Chapman or Mason Miller — because they’ll probably get the hitter out anyway. Most games are more likely to be won or lost in the early or middle innings than in the eighth or ninth, so it might make more sense to use challenges earlier in a high-leverage situation, even if there’s a risk of using up both of them.

We’ve also already learned that players are guessing at close pitches just as much as umpires. The overturn rate has been 53.8%, which mirrors the 53% rate from spring training. The lack of challenges has been the surprising aspect. The Colorado Rockies made just two challenges in three games. Four other teams made just three challenges across three games. It certainly doesn’t make sense to leave challenges on the table; better to use them than leave them for a situation that never arises.

Those are just some early thoughts. It’s going to be fun to break this down more as the season progresses and teams adapt their challenge approach. For more on ABS, check out Jeff Passan’s deeper look at the first few days of the challenge system.

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Players from Japan’s NPB come out swinging

Kazuma Okamoto and Munetaka Murakami are technically rookies, as well, although they arrive from Nippon Professional Baseball as established stars.

Okamoto looks as if he’s going to fit in nicely in the middle of the Toronto Blue Jays‘ lineup, going 4-for-12 with a home run and two walks in a three-game sweep of the Athletics. He has shown the ability to shorten his swing with two strikes and hit to the opposite field — such as his single to right on Friday that started the game-winning rally — and to exhibit plus power, with his 420-foot, 110 mph home run on Sunday. Bo Bichette hit .311/.357/.483 for Toronto last season, and Okamoto should come close to replacing that offense, maybe with a lower average but more walks and power to make up the difference.

Murakami, meanwhile, homered in his first three games for the Chicago White Sox — joining the Cleveland Guardians‘ DeLauter as only the third and fourth rookies in history to hit home runs in each of their first three major league games.

Concerns that Murakami’s contact rates in Japan might make him a Joey Gallo-type slugger in MLB dropped his final signing price to two years and $34 million, which could turn into a bargain for the White Sox. All three of his home runs came against fastballs — one four-seamer and two cutters — although, notably, none of those pitches had high-end velocity readings, coming in at speeds of 90.5, 91.8 and 93.2 mph. The belief he would struggle against velocity also cooled the interest in him. He has seen 26 pitches of 95-plus mph and swung at eight of them, hitting three foul balls, grounding out once and missing four times.

Teams will probably continue to go after Murakami with hard stuff until he disproves the scouting reports. Like Gallo, Murakami has a good eye and will take his walks; Murakami has also shown that if it’s not premium velocity, he’ll turn on it. He has immediately turned into one of the most interesting players to watch.

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Cam Schlittler makes the Yankees the team to beat in the AL East

Heading into the season, it felt like an important key for the New York Yankees in a dominant-looking American League East was to stay close in April until they got Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole back in the rotation. But the rotation might be just fine in the meantime, thank you very much. The Yankees swept the San Francisco Giants, allowing just one run in three games, with Schlittler delivering a dominant outing, giving up just one hit in 5⅓ innings with eight strikeouts and no walks.

Schlittler threw 68 pitches — and 60 of them were fastball variants (22 four-seamers, 22 cutters, 16 two-seamers). He mixed in seven curveballs and one slider. It’s unusual to throw a fastball 88% of the time in 2026, but Schlittler makes it work because he tunnels all three pitches so well that the batter’s brain can’t differentiate them, which leads to a lot of foul balls (19 in Friday’s game) due to the late movement. Of course, it helps when the fastball averages 98 mph and the cutter averages 95 (notably up 3 mph from 2025).

As long as he throws enough strikes, he’s going to be a powerhouse, even with minimal usage of his off-speed pitches. Schlittler had a 2.96 ERA in 14 starts last season, so it’s not like this is coming out of nowhere. Schlittler came up with Toronto’s Yesavage last season, with both players in the same division and making big starts in the postseason. Yesavage entered 2026 with more hype based off the Blue Jays’ World Series run and his own postseason performance, but I had Schlittler ranked a little higher on my hypothetical list of starters. Yesavage began the season on injured list with a shoulder impingement, so the early nod goes to Schlittler — and the Yankees.

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Welcome to the Show, skip

New Giants manager Vitello, making the leap from coaching the University of Tennessee’s baseball team, had a forgettable first three games. His team went 13-for-91 (.143), getting shut out in the first two games of a season for the first time in the 144-season history of the franchise. While that’s obviously on the offense rather than Vitello, his comment after the second outing raised some eyebrows.

He said he might have gone a little too “fire and brimstone” in a speech to the team earlier in the week, adding, “I think some good words were shared, but I also think, as of right now, it’s a little emotional in there, and there’s definitely a lot of try-hards.”

This isn’t college football — or college baseball. In the majors, rah-rah speeches are rarely deployed and rarely effective. The Giants didn’t lose because of a fire-and-brimstone speech — and they weren’t going to win because of a fire-and-brimstone speech.

The players themselves grasp the situation. As Robbie Ray said, “We’re all major league players.” Heliot Ramos pointed out that it was two games. The sooner Vitello learns that his impact and role in the majors will be different than it was in college, the better for the Giants.

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Is the cleanup hitter dead?

It seems as if more and more teams are simply top-loading their lineups, with their three best hitters batting 1-2-3 in some order. Certainly, the traditional lineup — speedy guy hitting leadoff, contact hitter batting second, your best hitter for average batting third then your top slugging batting cleanup — is long out of fashion. Last season, there wasn’t much difference in productivity from the top four spots in the lineup:

No. 1: .257/.333/.420, .753 OPS, 688 HR
No. 2: .257.334/.432, .766 OPS, 775 HR
No. 3: .258/.335/.445, .780 OPS, 805 HR
No. 4: .250/.321/.432, .753 OPS, 792 HR

Cleanup hitters did hit more home runs than leadoff hitters, but both produced the same OPS. Check out some of the players hitting leadoff so far in 2026 though: Nick Kurtz, Michael Busch, Francisco Lindor, George Springer, Taylor Ward, Yandy Diaz, Ketel Marte, Roman Anthony, James Wood, Kerry Carpenter, Ronald Acuna Jr. — and, of course, Shohei Ohtani. These are all power hitters, all players who would have hit third or fourth or fifth back when the “traditional” lineup was deployed more. Speed seems to be irrelevant; it’s all about power and getting on base. When the A’s moved Kurtz down to second on Sunday with a lefty starting, power-hitting catcher Shea Langeliers was bumped to the leadoff spot.

Meanwhile, we’re seeing cleanup hitters ranging from Masyn Winn (nine home runs last year) to Pete Crow-Armstrong (31 home runs but a .285 OBP) to Alec Bohm (11 home runs) to Ryan Mountcastle (.653 OPS) and Rutschman (.673 OPS). Indeed, the Baltimore Orioles are a good example of the new modern lineup: They’ve gone Ward, Gunnar Henderson and Pete Alonso as their 1-2-3 hitters, hoping to blast their way to an early lead. The Philadelphia Phillies have Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper, before a big drop-off to Bohm and Adolis Garcia.

The thinking revolves around two ideas: Get your best hitters (1) the most overall at-bats, especially that fifth plate appearance, and (2) to reach the third time through the order, when starters generally get hit harder. The average starter faced 21.9 hitters per game last year. So, if you have a tiring starter out there for his 19th, 20th and 21st hitters, you might as well make them your three best.

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Mike Trout is … maybe … hopefully … ready for a big season

OK, it’s four games. Everyone should take a deep breath — including us. But Trout is hitting .462/.650/.923, with two home runs, seven walks and even a stolen base. He crushed a towering 403-foot go-ahead home run on Opening Day then blasted another 403-foot laser beam the next day, turning on an inside fastball. He also started in center field the first three games before DHing on Sunday.

The plan to play him regularly in center field has been widely criticized, but maybe it is the best idea. I think back to when Joe Maddon managed the Los Angeles Angels in 2021 and he basically said, “Let’s turn Shohei loose.” No sitting him the day before he starts. When Ohtani pitched, he was in the lineup. He’s a baseball player. Let him be a baseball player. Maybe the same logic will apply to Trout. Keeping him out of center field and letting him DH hasn’t kept him in the lineup in recent seasons anyway. He still has excellent bat speed, elite plate discipline and plenty of raw power. Let him play and see what happens. (And it’s not like the Angels have a better option for center field anyway.)

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The NL Cy Young race is wide open after the Pirates collapse

Paul Skenes‘ Opening Day disaster was more on outfielder Oneil Cruz — he lost two routine fly balls in the sun — than on the Pittsburgh Pirates‘ pitcher. But after allowing five runs while recording just two outs, Skenes’ ERA sits at an ugly 67.50. It will take 22 consecutive scoreless innings from him to get his ERA back in the familiar sub-2.00 territory. Though, come to think of it, that doesn’t seem all that unrealistic.

Meanwhile, fellow National League Cy Young contenders Cristopher Sanchez and Yoshinobu Yamamoto found better success in their Opening Day starts. The Phillies’ ace kept the Texas Rangers hitless and racked up a whopping 10 strikeouts, while the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ World Series MVP got the win over the Arizona Diamondbacks with six innings of five-hit ball.

A couple of asides on the Pirates, though:

1. Why can’t those fly balls that Cruz dropped be ruled errors? Silly rulings on the official scoring, even if neither ball touched his glove in center field. Skenes shouldn’t be punished for clear misplays.

2. What do the Pirates do with Cruz? Manager Don Kelly sent a message by benching him in the second game of the season, but Cruz was back in center field Sunday. So much of the Pirates’ hopes depend on Cruz rebounding from a rough 2025 season in which he slashed .200/.298/.378, including a .177 average in the second half. Does Cruz have it in him? He’s 27 now. The time for waiting on his potential is over. He needs to produce.

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Closer concerns? Yes, especially in Kansas City …

Blown saves and blown leads always feel bigger in the first days of the season than they do in the middle of June. There shouldn’t be too much concern about the Phillies’ Duran or the Seattle Mariners‘ Andres Munoz losing games in extra innings with multiple runs allowed. Jeff Hoffman, coming off blowing Game 7 of the World Series, did serve up a tying home run in the ninth on opening night for the Blue Jays, although he rebounded to pick up a save Sunday. So, we’ll see about him. The Diamondbacks and the A’s? Definite bullpen issues.

The biggest closer concern, however, is Carlos Estevez of the Kansas City Royals, who led the majors with 42 saves last season but had an all-time stinker Saturday. He came in against the Atlanta Braves with a 2-0 lead and this is what followed: walk, single, pop fly, single, walk, single, walk-off grand slam to Dominic Smith.

Estevez’s velocity was down in spring training, and his fastball averaged just 91.2 mph against the Braves, down from 95.9 mph last year. That’s a significant velocity drop. Lucas Erceg is presumably the backup option, but the bullpen was built around the idea of Erceg, Matt Strahm and John Schreiber serving as the top setup guys in front of Estevez. Now, that plan could get thrown into disarray early in the campaign.

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… but not in L.A.

In case you were wondering: Yes, Edwin Diaz brought “Narco” with him from New York — and this time with a live trumpet player in Tatiana Tate. Diaz’s entrance thrilled Dodgers fans just as it did Mets fans. More thrilling, however, was Diaz recording two saves in his first two appearances as the Dodgers swept the D-backs.

After Los Angeles’ bullpen struggled last season, it started 2026 with 11⅔ scoreless innings. The secret weapon here might be World Series star Will Klein. Despite his 72-pitch, four-inning outing to win Game 3, Klein was hardly a lock to make the roster this year. But he had a strong spring training and, combined with several Dodgers pitchers still being on the IL, he cracked the Opening Day roster. Klein throws 98 mph, so the arm strength has never been in doubt. If he can pitch strikes, he could emerge as a key guy in a much-improved Dodgers pen.

And if that’s the case, they will easily win 100 games, which no team has done the past two seasons.