MLB Real or Fake Starts: As Told by Mario Kart

Fresh off of making over a billion dollars in 2023, basically every person you know that is under the age of 15 or has any relation to anyone in that age group will be going to see the sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.

It’ll make another billion dollars as a cash cow, trailing only its predecessor.

No matter if you think it’s a cash grab or not, we all still love and adore that world and have had a relationship of some kind to that little plumber- most commonly through Mario Kart, both racing and raging against your friends that become foes as you navigate your way through treacherous landscapes and hope that a potentially rough start isn’t enough for you to fall out of the top three.

The overlap between the various power-ups and obstacles of a Mario Kart track has many parallels to the MLB season, because what makes it both beautiful and dangerous is its length and the snapshots and overreactions we get when we have to play the same team in a series.

It may “just be April,” but are teams getting permanent power-ups based on their start? Are they getting a minor banana peel and can easily bounce back? Are they blue-shelled into oblivion?

Let’s group some of the stars we’ve seen into Mario Kart buckets to tell the stories so far.

The Star Power Teams // Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers, New York Yankees

These teams are what we thought they were and more, and it looks like they’re gonna ride that star of invincibility all year long unless some unfathomable collapse happens as of now.

Los Angeles

The Dodgers were on a tier above everyone else this offseason after the back-to-back World champs added Kyle Tucker and Edwin Diaz. Freddie Freeman looks healthy as a horse with every 100 mph double, but the reason they’re winning the games hasn’t been because of their unsung heroes like Andy Pages. Wait until Tucker and Shohei actually start playing like the stars they are, and Mookie gets back, and they’re miles ahead of everyone else in the NL West again.

Milwaukee

For Milwaukee, we continue to doubt them, and they’re a football team that is a beatdown to play. They have an unbeatable best bullpen in baseball, they steal the most bases, they score the most runs off of the bullpens later in the games, and they’ve still got a guy named Jackson Chourio on the shelf in their holster when he gets back.

New York

The Yankees have a pitching staff that has overperformed expectations, with Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole set to come back, and Bellinger, Rice, and Stanton are the ones providing the offensive plate discipline. At the same time, Judge has just been the thunder so far. The Yanks never left.

Bullet Bill Teams // Miami Marlins, Atlanta Braves

The NL East has been a conundrum, with these teams out of nowhere flying like a bullet bill all the way to the front.

Atlanta

The Braves weren’t exactly a surprise in terms of betting- the organizational pedigree and names made them one of the Vegas favorites in the NL to start the year. But the bad vibes and bad luck they’ve had the last several seasons were there with Strider and Schwellenbach on the IL, Ha-Seong Kim getting a freak injury slipping on ice, and Jurickson Profar getting essentially banned from baseball.

Matt Olson looks back, Drake Baldwin looks like the best catcher in baseball, Bryce Elder has yet to allow a run, Mauricio Dubon is red hot, and the two worst hitters in the lineup so far are some guys named Ronald Acuna Jr. and Austin Riley. Those bats will come.

Miami

The Marlins, meanwhile, turned back the clock to their only correct uniforms, the teals, and have arguably the best pitching 1-2 right now in Sandy Alcantara and Eury Perez, with their trade for Owen Cassie paying off in dividends as the prospects are finally looking like they’ve arrived. They lost the series to the Yankees, but held their own and could potentially have enough serviceable talent top-to-bottom, figuring things out where they’ve come out of nowhere to put themselves in the NL conversation firmly.

The Triple Mushroom Teams // Texas Rangers, Cleveland Guardians, Cincinnati Reds

The triple mushroom- a new addition to give you a much-needed spurt! The Rangers, Guards, and Reds have all made additions that have leveled up what we think of them heading into the year.

Texas

For the Rangers, it’s almost addition by subtraction, getting rid of the bad vibes from the Marcus Semien Corey Seager drama and inserting feel-good fan favorite Brandon Nimmo, who is in the top 15 in average.

Cleveland

The Guards have played “Guardians ball” in the small ball, hit all over the field for Jo Ram to knock it in, until the arrival of a 24-year-old Barry Bonds in Chase Delauter.

Cincinnati

And in Cincinnati, they’ve got the reincarnation of on-base king Joey Votto in Sal Stewart, combining power and on-base for a team that’s been a pitching factory. These teams could change the trajectory of their outlook going forward with these guys as the +3.

The “Gained a Few Coins” Teams // St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Angels, Pittsburgh Pirates

It’s nice to race and get a mystery box and get a few coins, isn’t it? It won’t exactly help you win the race, but sure! It’s nice! We’ve got some teams that have at least done something serviceable here, which is nice to see. Will it mean a ton in the long run? That remains to be seen. 

Los Angeles

The Angels had a Mike Trout renaissance where he was stealing bases before getting injured, Jo Adell single-handedly won a game with DEFENSE, and suddenly have a pitching staff with a top-5 ERA in baseball?

The issue is that we’ve been burned by Angels starting before too many times, even when they had Shohei Ohtani. 

Pittsburgh

For the Pirates, they called up and paid Konnor Griffin, who has played tremendous defense, and with the sweep of the Orioles, have proven that the marginal moves of Lowe and O’Hearn, as well as Oneil Cruz finally hitting lefties, have been serviceable enough of an offense to give Paul Skenes some run support.

The 2023-2024 Pirates stayed in the fight in April before eventually faltering and selling off. They’ve got to stay in the fight in the Central, which is going to look like a dog fight.

St. Louis

If you’re the Cardinals, you thought you were going to be in a complete reboot of a season with the worst pitching staff, and that still might be the case, but how watchable and entertaining have they been? JJ Wetherholt is a stud shortstop! Jordan Walker may be back and is still younger than PCA! And, more importantly, several games they’ve stayed in the fight and even won in some instances when they could have easily bowed down like an NBA tanking team.

The “Hit a Banana Peel” Teams // Chicago Cubs, Toronto Blue Jays

These are all teams that could potentially have just had a minor spin-out on a banana peel to start the year and could recover relative to their expectations and the talent on the team after some unfortunate circumstances.

Chicago

The Cubs are off to a last-place start in the NL Central, Pete Crow-Armstrong is batting 8th due to his struggles, and they just learned that Cade Horton is likely to miss significant time with an injury. This is a team that went all-in to fold with the Bregman contract and the move for Edward Cabrera, and he’s been nails in his two starts.

The offense has been completely anemic, bottom-five in baseball, and there’s no way that trend can continue 1-9 with those names playing in Wrigley, where the ball will eventually carry. The Horton and Boyd injuries are a blow to the rotation, but they’ll get reinforcements back with Justin Steele eventually and could go grab a veteran starter (how is Lucas Giolito still unemployed?) 

Toronto

What’s there to say for the Blue Jays other than it wouldn’t be easy to get back to the American League Championship, given how decimated this roster has been with injuries and apparent illnesses? They’re the third-highest spending team and have 10 key pieces of their team on the Injured List to start the season. They’re at their most vulnerable now, so it’s no wonder the series with the White Sox was a sweep, and the World Series rematch series with the Dodgers had them get shelled in game one. The hope is that they’ll get stronger and healthier when it matters, before it’s too late, with Boston and Baltimore also off to slow starts in the division.

The “Fell off Rainbow Road” Teams // Boston Red Sox, San Francisco Giants

If you fall off Rainbow Road, the will to even finish the fight early on is completely decimated to the point that it’s almost unrecoverable. The aura around these teams could not be worse.

Boston

The Red Sox have had everything from the worst start in baseball, sell the team chants from fans, viral looking awful Fenway Park pizza, war with ABS, Ranger Suarez has an ERA over 8 after being the main acquisition, and Caleb Durbin gets crucified online by Sox fans after the returns for every other trade worked out for the opposing team. They’ve caught all the plagues at once in a pressure-cooker environment.

San Francisco

Meanwhile, the Giants took a big swing with the hiring of Tony Vitello, and the presumption was that it would be either a cool, go-against-the-grain hire that was innovative or a disaster.

It’s been a disaster.

They have a -49 run differential through the first ten games. Vitello has already been ejected, and the dugout at least responded to his fire with some enthusiasm, but the entire baseball world has already made him the sacrificial lamb through their 3-8 start, where the pitching looks even worse than expected, as well as Matt Chapman screaming at his teammate for not catching the ball. This has all the makings of a season where Buster Posey makes a not-so-rational decision since everything is Groundhog Day after the disastrous Netflix broadcast of the opening night 7-0 loss. A shirtless Bert Kreischer isn’t going to appear like Lakitu and fish you off the hot seat, Tony.