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By MLB.com

The first 10 days of the 2024 season — not counting the two Seoul Series games — are in the books. So much is still to be written, and anyone who follows baseball knows there is little sense drawing sweeping conclusions based upon such a small sample.

That doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun with some of the more eye-catching early-season numbers.

We gathered a group of MLB.com writers and researchers together to do just that. Their task was not necessarily to predict which stats will stick and which will fade into the background of a marathon season. Rather, we simply asked them each to identify one number that has caught their attention and tickled their fancy over these first couple of weeks.

Here are the results:

Imanaga’s splitter shines in MLB debut

Although it came on a chilly day at Wrigley Field against a Rockies lineup that isn’t exactly a juggernaut, Shota Imanaga’s debut was still mighty impressive. The left-hander, who signed a four-year, $53 million deal with the Cubs in the offseason after a stellar career in his native Japan, carried a no-hitter through 5 2/3 innings and finished with nine K’s and no walks over six scoreless frames. Including Spring Training, Imanaga has struck out 34 of the 81 batters he has faced (42%) in a Cubs uniform, which is a great indication that he has the stuff to excel at the Major League level.

Imanaga leaned heavily on his four-seamer during his dominant debut, throwing it 60.9% of the time and holding Colorado hitters hitless with four strikeouts in 13 at-bats ending on the pitch. The southpaw’s splitter, though, was the true star of the show.

Imanaga consistently threw his splitter down and out of the strike zone, but Rox batters had trouble laying off of it. Of the 15 swings they took against Imanaga’s splitter on the day, 12 came up empty, good for an 80% whiff rate. That included the final pitch in a 13-pitch battle with Ryan McMahon. Given how similar Imanaga’s four-seamer and splitter look coming out of his hand, the two pitches could prove to be a devastating combo all year long.

— Thomas Harrigan

Breaking down Shota Imanaga’s Major League debut

Soto provides X-factor for Yankees comebacks

Juan Soto’s first four regular-season games as a Yankee couldn’t have gone much better, as the team pulled off a sweep in Houston with his energy a key part of each win. The Yankees became just the seventh team to open a season with four or more straight wins after being tied or trailing in the sixth inning or later in each game, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Soto was at the center of those rallies, with a go-ahead bases loaded walk in the seventh on Friday, a go-ahead solo homer in the seventh on Saturday and a go-ahead single in the ninth on Sunday. Soto is the first player in the expansion era (since 1961) to record a go-ahead RBI in the seventh inning or later in three of his first four games with a team, and the first to do so in three of his first four with the Yankees, specifically, since RBI became official in 1920.

That’s the Soto effect on full display.

— Sarah Langs

Juan Soto is named the AL Player of the Week

Mookie’s ridiculous start to the season

It’s certainly no surprise that Mookie Betts is off to a great start this season. He is, after all, a great baseball player. But this kind of start is impressive even for someone with Betts’ accolades.

Through his first 10 games, Betts is rocking a .415/.538/.902 line and is leading the Majors with a 1.440 OPS, five home runs and 15 runs scored. Betts is nearly impossible to pitch to right now with prodigious quality of contact and bat-to-ball skills. Over half of his batted balls have been hard-hit (95-plus mph exit velocity) or on the sweet spot of the bat, while Betts is walking more (11 times) than he’s striking out (seven).

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That Betts is doing this while transitioning into a full-time shortstop is nothing short of incredible. It’s hard to find new ways to describe Betts’ excellence on a baseball field. Yet here we are again trying to make sense of Betts finding an even higher level while learning a tougher position on the fly and batting leadoff for arguably the top team in the sport.

— Brent Maguire