I understand that the numbers suggest that this year's offense has performed better thus far, but I really struggle to wrap my head around that based on how I would rate the players:
2023 team has an advantage at: C (Lee > Gill), 3B (Wilken > King), CF (Hawke > Nelson), and LF (Cecere/Costello > Williams). 2024 team has an advantage at RF (Winnay > Bennett), and SS (Soph Houston > Fresh Houston). It's basically even at 2B (Tellier, Johnson), 1B (Kurtz), DH (Reinisch, Corona).
So based on that assessment, this year's team is only obviously better at two positions (RF and SS). Meanwhile this year's team is clearly much worse at three positions (C, CF, and LF), and arguably 4 based on your opinion of 3B. The depth hitters on this year's team (Ballestero, Hawke, Katz) have also largely been terrible. So why is this year's team performing better?