MLB trends: Southpaw supremacy, James Wood's strikeouts and one small tweak that has the Marlins winning

The final week of the 2025 regular season has arrived. We have heated races for the AL Central title and wild card spots in both leagues, plus awards races coming down to the wire. At this time next week, we'll already be one day into postseason play. Here are three trends worth keeping an eye on as the regular season winds down.

The year of the lefty

Look at just about any pitching leaderboard this season and you'll see notice a theme. Great pitchers, obviously, and also lefties. Lots and lots of lefties. Here are a select few pitching leaderboards heading into Tuesday night's action:

Abbott, Crochet, Rogers, Sánchez, and Skubal are all left-handers. So too are Matthew Boyd, Max Fried, Jesús Luzardo, Carlos Rodón, Ranger Suárez, Framber Valdez, and a handful of others. Their names would have popped up had we stretched those leaderboards out to 10 players.

Obviously the lefty aces are the headliners here, but it's not just them. Left-handers have thoroughly outperformed their right-handed counterparts this season. Here are the league-wide numbers:

It is not uncommon for lefties to have a lower ERA than righties. It happened in 2023 and 2024, and 10 times in 11 seasons from 2008-18. This big of a gap though -- 0.47 runs! -- is the largest since ERA became an official stat in 1913. Lefties also have the advantage in underlying metrics like FIP (fielding independent pitching) and whatnot.

There is no one single reason for this year's lefty dominance. We're in a period with so many high-end lefties, which is one of those things that just happens from time to time throughout history. Pitcher development and pitch design are so good now. Guys who may have been relegated to the bullpen in the past are starters now. Soft-tossing lefties are hard-throwers these days. On and on we could go.

Almost everything in baseball is cyclical. Give it a few years and it's likely righties will be back to populating the top of the pitching leaderboards. Right now though, this game is dominated by southpaws at an unprecedented level. At least in terms of ERA, never before have lefties outperformed righties as much as they are in 2025.

Wood approaching strikeout record

By most measures, Nationals outfielder James Wood is one of the best young hitters in baseball. He took a .253/.348/.457 batting line and 27 home runs into Tuesday's game, and his 127 OPS+ ranked 13th among NL hitters. Wood is one of only 10 players to put up a 125 OPS+ in his age-22 season in the last five years, joining Corbin Carroll and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., among others.

Wood is not a perfect player because perfect players don't exist. For him, his left field defense leaves something to be desired, and so too does his contact ability. Wood has struck out in 32.2% of his plate appearances this year, the highest rate among qualified hitters, and, because he plays every single day, he is approaching the single-season strikeout record.

Here are the most strikeouts in a single season in baseball history:

1. Mark Reynolds, 2009: 223
2. Adam Dunn, 2012: 222
3. Chris Davis, 2016: 219
4. Elly De La Cruz, 2024: 214
5. Yoán Moncada, 2018: 217
6. James Wood, 2025: 215 and counting

It's sort of remarkable that Reynolds and Dunn remain atop that leaderboard given how much strikeout creep we've seen the last few years. The last eight seasons are the eight highest strikeout rates in baseball history and there are many reasons for that, including pitchers being nastier than ever, yet Reynolds and Dunn remain 1-2 on the single-season strikeout list. Huh.

Anyway, nine strikeouts in Washington's final five games would give Wood the all-time strikeout record, which is a) a lot of strikeouts in a five-game span, and b) something Wood has done already this season. He's struck out as many as 15 times (!) in a five-game span this year (July 25-30). He had 10 strikeouts in his last five games going into Tuesday's action.

This is not a record Wood or the Nationals want to set, so don't be surprised if the Nationals sit him Saturday and/or Sunday should he get to, say, 220 strikeouts between now and them. Washington finishes the season with the White Sox. Those games will be completely meaningless. Sitting Wood to avoid the strikeout record wouldn't compromise a postseason race.

You can strike out a lot and still be a very good player. Frankly, you have to be to a good player to strike out this much, otherwise you won't be in the lineup (Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, Mr. October, is still the career leader in strikeouts). Wood is very good and very talented. Give him time, and he'll tighten up the strikeouts. Right now though, he's closing in on a record no one wants.

Marlins coaches take over pitch-calling

Unless they win out, the Marlins will soon clinch their second straight losing season and their 14th in the last 15 162-game seasons, though this is not a lost season. Sandy Alcantara has been much better these last few weeks as he's gotten further away from Tommy John surgery. Others like Jakob Marsee, Eury Pérez, and Kyle Stowers look like long-term building blocks.

The Marlins have been one of the sport's most innovative teams in their two years under POBO Peter Bendix, and, last week, they began to do something they had been doing in the minors all year: their pitching coaches called pitches from the dugout.

"We kept coming back to, we think our pitchers, over time, will perform better if that's the delivery system we use coming from the dugout," manager Clayton McCullough told reporters, including MLB.com, recently. "And we kept saying the answer was yes, and I felt like this was the right time to do it. We have some season left, we feel like this is the time that I'm comfortable for us to do it."

Right-hander Janson Junk allowed one run in seven innings in his first start with pitching coaches Daniel Moskos and Alon Leichman calling pitches from the dugout. Junk told MLB.com it was a "good learning moment of just kind of reading the game, rather than just going off (a) little card or whatever."

The Marlins have called pitches from the dugout in the minors all season and they've gotten tremendous results, including ranking among the very best organizations at getting strikeouts and limiting hard contact. Pitches coming from the dugout better allows the pitcher and catcher to stick with the game plan and not veer off course based on feel, etc.

Miami traded away veteran catcher Nick Fortes at the deadline and has leaned on rookies Liam Hicks and Agustín Ramírez behind the plate since. It's fair to ask how the two young catchers will learn if pitches are being called for them, but they are receiving real-time instruction now. They're seeing what to throw in certain situations. You can learn that way too. This isn't permanent either. The Marlins can always go back to letting their young catchers call pitches at some point.

Three games into the "coaches calling pitches" era, the Marlins went 3-0 and allowed nine runs in the three games. Two of the nine runs were the automatic runner in extra innings too. A tiny sample, of course, but the minor-league results are proof of concept. If the Marlins continue calling pitches from the dugout next year and it works (or appears to work), expect other clubs to follow suit.

"Anticipate that this is how we do it going forward, but like anything else, to completely close the door on anything is probably not a great way to go about it, right?" McCullough told MLB.com. "... Our catchers need to be able to spend their bandwidth and their time and other aspects of things than the preparation part of it on that side."