Who Has Made a Great First Impression With Their New Teams?

The 2025 MLB season is still under 10 games in, but it’s so good to be back.

The San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, and San Diego Padres have shot out of the gate and each only have one loss and at least six wins. On the opposite side of that, the Atlanta Braves, Seattle Mariners, and Cincinnati Reds top the list of playoff hopefuls whose years haven’t gotten off to a great start.

Since so few games have been played, we’re still firmly in the middle of overreaction season. Hot or cold streaks can only be taken with a grain of salt, but there have already been some heroes emerging around the league.

Today, we’re going to put a spotlight on a handful of players who are dominating the opposition on their new teams. Again, the sample sizes are still pretty dang small, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be standouts in the earlygoings.

Since most relief pitchers don’t have any more than four or five innings under their belts yet, they are not going to be featured on our list. Position players lead the way, but a few starters snuck on due to the fact that they’ve made multiple starts in which they performed at a high level.

Let’s dive in.

Players Who Are Performing Well on Their New Teams

Alex Bregman

Eight games into his tenure on the Boston Red Sox, Bregman has come as advertised. He leads the American League in hits (11) and has four extra-base hits, four runs driven in, and four of his own runs scored.

Bregman has a 140 OPS+ and .837 OPS through his first 35 at-bats. He’s made exactly zero appearances at second base after he was supposedly signed to be the Red Sox second baseman, but he’s got an MLB-leading 24 assists over at the hot corner and has been performing well on both sides of the ball so far.

Max Fried

Just two starts into his stint in the Bronx, Fried has allowed three earned runs through 10.1 innings, resulting in a 2.61 ERA and 3.69 FIP. The left-hander will never be much of a strikeout artist, but he’s got 10 punchouts through just about as many innings while walking three.

Fried has been tasked with being the Yankees’ ace now that Gerrit Cole is out for the year after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Over the course of his nine-year career, he’s got quite a bit of experience leading pitching staffs, so this is going to be a role that he thrives in. Sure, his second start went quite a bit better than his first, but he’s going to be money for his new team.

Andres Gimenez

Nobody expected Gimenez to turn into Babe Ruth once he joined the Blue Jays, but so far he’s basically done nothing but rake. He’s shown some pop in the past, but last year was rough in the power department for him. Through eight games, he’s already got three home runs and six RBI, while getting the majority of his at-bats out of the cleanup spot.

Gimenez is not a prototypical power hitter, but he’s taken to working with the Blue Jays’ new hitting coach David Popkins well. Popkins encouraged him to reintroduce a leg kick he utilized while with the Guardians and the move has started paying off instantly.

Jesus Luzardo

Over the years we’ve seen time and time again that when Luzardo is healthy, he’s filthy. The left-hander has made 32 starts just one time since he debuted back in 2019 but his only full season of starts resulted in his best-ever performance in 2023.

After coming over to the Phillies via inter-division trade with the Marlins this past winter, Luzardo has been incredible. He’s made just two starts, but he’s got 12 innings under his belt and just two earned runs in that time, which equates to a 1.50 ERA. He also leads the major leagues with 19 strikeouts and has a sparkling 1.84 FIP. That’ll play.

Josh Naylor

Another major offseason trade acquisition, Naylor has been playing a brand of baseball that’s a bit unique to him. He’s typically a slugger, but through eight games he has yet to hit a single ball over the fence.

Even still, the 2024 All-Star is hitting .310 with an .826 OPS. He’s also walked five times while striking out only twice, showing off a sense of patience and pitch-recognition that hasn’t really been seen much out of him over the years.

Naylor’s been quietly emerging as one of the game’s best power-hitting first basemen, so this tiny “power outage” is not here to stay. However, it’s been encouraging to see him performing so well in other facets of the game when the home runs aren’t aplenty.

Kyle Tucker

Tucker has a (strong) case for being baseball’s most underrated superstar. It’s far from a surprise to see him lighting it up on his new team, but he’s performing at a rate we haven’t seen from him before (be nice, I know it’s only been 10 games).

To kick off his stint on the Cubs, Tucker’s already leading the NL in RBI and runs (11 each) and total bases (29). For good measure, he’s also leading the majors in doubles with five.

Like Naylor, Tucker’s walked (10) more than he’s struck out (six) and his OPS has soared up to 1.193. Last year, he was on a similar pace to this but he only wound up making it into 78 games. It seems that so far, he’s been picking up right where he left off, and the Cubs are reaping the benefits.