- Ohtani had the most Total Bases in all of Major League Baseball. Love him or not, he’s otherworldly.
- 380 for Shohei, with Judge #2 at 372, Raleigh at 351, Schwarber 340, Alonso 327, Caminero 322, Witt 312, Rodriguez (SEA) and Suarez with 309, and Carroll of Arizona with 305 TB.
- The two biggest RBI guys came from the NL East: Schwarber and Alonso. Like him or hate him, Pete Alonso might get real paid this offseason. Raleigh joined the only 3 players were at least 125 RBI (125).
- The most feared hitter, or most walked intentionally that is, was Judge… and no one else was even close to his 36 IBB.
- Arozarena was HBP more than anyone else in 2025, with Willson Contreras probably getting hit more if he played more of the season. Herrera also was HBP a lot and was in MLB’s top 10 as well!
- Herrera hit into a lot of GIDP though, in the top 10 of that as well despite missing significant playing time. Hopefully this means he’s more like Albert Pujols than we think! i kid, i kid.
- The guy who was almost impossible to strike out was… no surprise maybe, Arraez.
- Lindor, Devers, Ohtani, Olson, and Schwarber saw the most plate appearances.
- Victor Scott II was fifth in all of MLB in sacrifice hits! PCA had the most sac flies.
- Judge produced a 1.144 OPS! the only other two players above 1.000 were Ohtani and Kurtz.
- Judge was on base 310 times!
- Dylan Cease lead all of MLB in K/9 at 11.518. Crochet had the most strikeouts.
- Skenes was the only pitcher with a sub-2.0 ERA. Skubal, Brown (HOU), and Yamamoto were the only other pitchers with an ERA under 2.50.
- Yamamoto was the only pitcher to give up less than 5 hits per 9 IP.
- Only 3 players had more than one complete game: Valdez, Lodolo, and Bibbee all had 2.
- Only 10 pitchers in MLB had a shutout and Sonny Gray was one of them!
- Pallante was tied with four other pitchers for the top in wild pitches with 12!
- The Red Sox, Cardinals, Cubs, and Royals were the only teams with more than 1 player with 11+ Fielding Run Value. KC had a third player if you want to make it 10+. The midwest seems to like its elite defenders!
So I am on a big Soundgarden kick lately. I really got into their last album King Animal more than I had when it was released. It’s actually a really good album! So today I have been revisiting the entire
Soundgarden discography. In my opinion the two best rock vocalists of all time are Chris Cornell. Honorable mentions to Mark Lanegan and John Garcia (of Kyuss). You also cannot go wrong with the vocal harmonies of Layne Staley and guitarist Jerry Cantrell.
Anywho, here’s a completely unsolicited discography ranking from a huge Soundgarden fan who got to see them live back in high school.
#1 Badmotorfinger
Their best sounding and most stacked, exhilarating album. It shows all of what they can do and they were at their peak at this time. It has most of my favorite Soundgarden songs on it. And it was what made me a fan. Often I don’t end up liking the first album I hear from a band the best, but in this case, it just never got old. The video for “Jesus Christ Pose” is still a prime example of the 1990s, and also the video for “Rusty Cage” is just exemplary of the times and of alt-rock music. This album is a capsule in time and always brings me back to another place. And it just flat out ROCKS.
#2 Louder Than Love
I was not one of the cool kids to be into this album in the 1990’s. I was just unaware of it. For whatever reason, despite Soundgarden becoming very famous, this album just didn’t get much exposure. It however freakin’ rocks just as much as Badmotorfinger and is also quite stacked with tracks. I just love it, what can I say. The album starts with a trifecta: “Ugly Truth”, “Hands All Over”, and “Gun” are just perfect songs. And the album never relents after this crazy good opening. One of the classic albums of the rock n roll genre. A must hear.
#3 King Animal
Why yes I still have not ranked their big album… it’s just that ‘King Animal’ is really damned good. And it’s my 2nd favorite production job in their discography. It’s very underrated, even forgotten. There are no bad songs here. It’s just sad that there is another album after this, that may never see the light of day, because of Chris Cornell’s widow and the use of his final vocal recordings. Well wait, there’s actually good news! The band won the rights to finish the last album back in 2023 and the final garden of sounds’ plot is over halfway finished now. Do yourself a favor, discover the Animal King if you haven’t already. I wish I would have given it more of a chance when it was released, but it has brought a light to some rough times, in retrospect. Be sure to check it out if you’re a Soundgarden fan.
#4 Superunknown
…by this point it probably seems like I am hating on ‘Superunknown’ which is I absolutely admit is a damn fine masterpiece. It might even be their heaviest album overall. But it is also a bit subdued by the production, and by the band rocketing to super stardom. I’m not sure what it is, maybe overall less uptempo than the three I have ranked before it. But a lot of it has to do with the production being a bit more dense, and maybe the recording session not quite capturing the spark of the band as well as the other albums. It feels a bit less magical, but it is still every bit as good as ‘King Animal’ and ‘Louder Than Love’, songs-wise. It is just lacking a little bit in energy and x-factor, in this listener’s opinion. The production was just a bit too subdued for my tastes. If it makes you feel any better, consider it a tie for #3 and #4. This is the fan favorite overall.
#5 Echo of Miles
A superb collection of b-sides, that you can’t find on the other major albums. It has some really awesome songs on it, just had to plug it here… before getting to their other big time album. I actually really enjoy this collection, which it might be less of an album and more of a hodgepodge, but when there are songs like “Heretic”, “Fresh Deadly Roses”, “Cold Bitch”, “Birth Ritual”, and “Black Rain” it’s just something you need to hear. I should also add that I love b-sides collections… It also helps that this is a 3 CD set, so there’s a lot to it!
#6 Down on the Upside
This one probably should be ranked higher shouldn’t it? Well I have to admit, even when it came out, I didn’t listen to it much. I would almost always put on ‘Badmotorfinger’ or ‘Superunknown’ on instead, back in the day. That said this is still an incredible album. Again, like ‘Superunkown’ it’s a bit overproduced for my tastes. And maybe I care more about just exactly how things sound than most people, like at a micro timbre level… but hey, it’s a preference that could be important to some. That said, this album opens fantastically with “Pretty Noose”, “Rhinosaur”, and “Zero Chance”. Their fifth studio album is perhaps their most mature while also reaching for new ways to present their sound. If this band wasn’t so good, it would be ranked higher than this. This one could really use a remaster. This is one of the toughest bands to rank a discography for, because you really cannot go wrong. There are a lot of mostly short songs of various styles here, so it might be their most expansive album, depending on how you look at it. The main thing holding this collection of songs back, for me, is that it sounds even more overproduced and toned down than ‘Superunknown’. Speaking of an album like ‘King Animal’ that I pretty much overlooked at the time, I do not remember the middle of this album at all. I guess I really didn’t listen to it much. It’s their most trippy, groovy album. But also their weirdest, and most searching. Which can really work for some bands, but I feel that Soundgarden are their best at their most laser focused.
#7 Ultramega OK
In some ways I prefer this album to “Down on the Upside” but I also find it impossible to rank higher than a band recording something at the height of their career. Consider this tied for 6th. Especially with songs like “Flower”, “All Your Lies”, “Beyond The Wheel”, “Mood For Trouble”, “Circle of Power”, and “Smokestack Lightning”. I will probably regret ranking this so low, but it is after all their first album before they had reached their full powers.
#8 Screaming Life/Fopp
This is where it all began, a couple of EPs. They’re worth hearing but also, don’t worry about it. This is for the super fans. A good debut, and laid the template of what was to become. Their demo years.
I hope you enjoyed the return of my baseball and music blend, this week mostly music but trying to catch up in a way. Soundgarden were just as good as any of the bands I saw in high school: countdown to extinction era Megadeth, early Stone Temple Pilots, Alice In Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, and many more.
During the 90s I paid attention to baseball less but I was still into it. There were just so many concerts and comic books and video games blossoming that baseball kind of took a back seat back then.
Before becoming a musician more full time (and working a lot less), I was very much into collecting comic books, playing console video games *I was a Nintendo guy, playing table top RPGs (mostly Marvel Superheroes and AD&D), Magic the Gathering, alt films, fine art, underground art, poster art, photography, and much more!
I’m still into all those things plus hiking, biking, and travel, but I’m almost 50 now, so just thinking about stuff. Baseball and music have always been there for me, and I’ll always be into both. It just kind of depends on the times which I’m more into.
Anyways, go Mariners! here I am talking about Seattle grunge music, so go Seattle!!!
