Elly, Holliday among the Fascinating 5 right now

There’s always something fascinating going on in the world of baseball -- and there’s always something new. Every Friday morning throughout the season, heading into the weekend, inspired by Zach Lowe’s terrific “10 Things I Like” NBA column for ESPN, we present the Five Fascinations, five fun things going on in the baseball world. Also, we’d like to shout out the always excellent Ben Clemens at Fangraphs, another progenitor of a similar format. Submit your personal fascinations to will.leitch@mlb.com.

1) Salvy and the Royals are back, baby
Gauging the relative age of other human beings is obviously a subjective activity, but it is a surprise that Salvador Perez is only 33. He had just turned 21 when he made his debut in August 2011, and he instantly became a mainstay for a Royals team that would end up making two straight World Series, winning one of them. As the Royals started to rebuild in the wake of that 2015 title, Perez was the only guy who stuck around. He was their Gold Glove Award-winning rock -- he played in 161 games in 2021, 124 of them behind the plate -- around whom they would build their next contending team. The problem was that the next contending team never came … and Perez started to show some wear and tear himself, putting up the worst offensive season of his career last year.

But with the Royals off to an excellent start, winning their seventh in a row by completing a sweep of the Astros on Thursday, Perez has been at the center of it. He’s hitting .333 with two homers and slashed a walk-off single on Tuesday night that gave Kauffman Stadium some of its best vibes we’ve seen since Salvy was in his mid-20s. It is rare that any team has one player stick around through the peaks and valleys the way that Perez has, particularly one with as much turnover as the Royals have endured. To see him anchoring a new generation of contending Royals is legitimately exciting. He's going to reach his 1,500th hit and 250th homer soon, by the way. Add that to his five Gold Gloves and his eight All-Star appearances and … are we going to start adding him to Hall of Fame discussions anytime soon?

2) Tyler O’Neill discovers his truest self at the best possible time
In the wake of the Red Sox outfielder’s torrid start -- he currently leads MLB in OPS, just ahead of Mookie Betts and Mike Trout -- you are already hearing the snarky rumblings: Oh, look, the Cardinals traded away another great outfielder. While the Cardinals surely have done some of that in recent years -- Randy Arozarena and Adolis García most notably -- it’s probably not fair to get after them for sending O’Neill to Boston this offseason. It was clear, after a season in which O’Neill hit .231 with nine homers in only 72 games and got in a tiff with manager Oliver Marmol a week into the season, that both sides would benefit from a separation. It's not like the Cardinals never gave O’Neill a chance: He won a Gold Glove Award with them (and finished eighth in NL MVP voting!) in 2021. But his constant injuries, big and small, eventually eroded everyone’s patience. It was time for a clean slate.

It's not like anyone who watched him is that surprised by O’Neill’s explosion at the plate. This is a guy who has homered on five straight Opening Days. At his best, and healthiest (essentially the same thing), O’Neill is a true five-tool player who can produce at an MVP-caliber level, and now the Red Sox are reaping all the benefits in a situation that’s perfect for him. Of course, April and May have never been the problem for O’Neill -- it’s staying on the field the rest of the season. (That huge 2021 was the only time he has played more than 96 games.) This is what O’Neill does when he’s healthy. Red Sox fans are advised to enjoy the show while it lasts. It’s quite a show.

3) The Cubs’ new era is (finally) beginning
You certainly can understand why Cubs fans were so upset to see all the key stars of their 2016 World Series-winning team depart in the years afterward, many via trade. (The Cubs won the World Series! This is something that anyone born before 2000 still can’t believe is a thing that can be said out loud.) Like the 1985 Bears, the city’s other immortal team, those Cubs ended up only winning the one title. There will always be a sense that they should have had more. Cubs fans still love their team, but the only thing that’s truly going to wipe that bad taste out of their mouth is watching the next great Cubs squad.

Now, the Cubs aren’t quite there yet. They’re currently in third place in the NL Central, behind the hot-starting Pirates and Brewers, but they look like the most well-rounded team in the division, one that has an exemplary defense, a deep lineup and an intriguing rotation. (Not to mention one of the most respected managers in the game.) You can clearly see the pieces in place, too, not just for now, but for the future. That’s particularly true with the position players: Dansby Swanson (signed through 2029) is the clear team leader and linchpin of the defense; Seiya Suzuki (2027), Ian Happ (2026), Michael Busch and Christopher Morel (both pre-arb) are off to scorching starts, and Pete Crow-Armstrong may well be up by the All-Star break. (Owen Caissie, Matt Shaw, Kevin Alcántara and James Triantos, MLB Pipeline Top 100 prospects all, aren’t far off themselves.)

Javier Assad and (especially) Shota Imanaga have been incredibly encouraging in the rotation as well, with Jameson Taillon and Justin Steele on the mend. Ironically, the rotation weak link is the one guy still left from that 2016 team: Kyle Hendricks, who has a 12.08 ERA in three starts. That looks for all the world like the foundation of a playoff team for years to come, particularly with a front office that you’d think would have some money to spend. The best way to make your fans forget trading away the core of a World Series championship team is to win another one. The Cubs, in the early going, look well on their way.

4) What’s next for the Elly De La Cruz Show?
There is no more magnetic player in baseball to watch than Elly De La Cruz. There is something otherworldly about him, like he’s one of those custom video game characters -- I tend to create this player on MLB The Show and make him look like me, and give him my name -- who has 99-level attributes in everything. That was never more on display than last week, when he hit two homers in a game, one of them a soaring, majestic launch, and the other an inside-the-parker on which he circled the bases in just under 15 seconds. He can look like a seventh grader playing with third graders.

Of course, he also looked like that when he was first called up last year, and he ended up with below-average offensive numbers. (He somehow got on base at only a .300 clip.) The reason, of course, is that for all his insane talent, De La Cruz hasn’t mastered the strike zone yet. He walked only 36 times last year and struck out 144 -- more than a third of his plate appearances. By September, there was no reason to throw him a strike. And if you’re looking for a buzzkill warning sign around his 2024 start, that problem does not appear to be solved yet. He has only walked three times so far, a 6.3% walk rate that’s actually lower than last year’s 8.2%. He also has an unsustainable .458 BABIP, and he’s hitting the ball in the air less than he did in 2023.

This is all to say: He’s punishing the strikes that pitchers throw him, but we know he can do that. The question is what happens when they stop. We’re going to watch him either way, of course; he’s unmissable. But how he handles the strike zone, whether that has improved at all, will be the difference between him being an incredible but uneven show … or an MVP candidate.

5) Who will be the first pitcher to give up homers to both Hollidays?
Much was made of the fact that Craig Kimbrel finished off the Orioles’ 7-5 win over the Red Sox on Wednesday in the MLB debut of Jackson Holliday, whose dad hit a game-tying homer off Kimbrel as a Yankee back in 2017. Matt Holliday retired after the 2018 season, when he came back and played 25 games for the Rockies … including going 0-for-3 in their most recent playoff game. The notion of the father and the son playing so close to one another -- 2018 wasn’t that long ago -- begs the question: Will there be a pitcher who gives up a homer to Jackson who also gave up one to Matt?

• Hollidays soak in 'surreal' debut for top prospect Jackson

The last pitcher Holliday homered against was the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw on Sept. 7, 2018; Kershaw is on the injured list currently but is likely to return at some point this season, so the younger Holliday could have a shot against him when the Orioles play at Dodger Stadium in late August. Here are the pitchers currently in the Majors whom the elder Holliday took deep: Chris Sale, Marcus Stroman, Kyle Hendricks, Charlie Morton, Wade Miley, Adam Ottavino, Martín Pérez, Colin Rea, Carlos Rodón, Edwin Díaz, Ryne Stanek, Kershaw and Kimbrel (who is Holliday’s teammate, so he’s out). One of them is surely going to give one up to Jackson. So there are your candidates. My pick is Stroman, now with the Yankees. In that division, he’ll give Holliday plenty of opportunities. And hey, if Ottavino can handle Ruth, maybe he can handle young Holliday.

Fun Series of the Weekend: Twins at Tigers
I’m a sucker for a four-game intradivisional series in April, and thanks to a rainout on Thursday, this one will now take place over three days, including a traditional doubleheader on Saturday.

This is also a matchup between two of the most interesting teams in the AL Central, a division that sure looks like it’s going to be awfully tough this year. The Guardians are off to a hot start, the Royals are making their offseason aggression look smart and … uh, also, the White Sox are in this division. The Twins had an easy time of it last year, but there’s a lot more competition now. The Tigers, whose pitching has been excellent enough to give its young hitters time to round into form, are at the forefront of the reasons why. This might be a four-team muddle to 87 wins, but considering only one team finished over .500 last year, that’s a decided improvement. It’s going to be a hot crowd at Comerica this weekend: This is the sort of series that could set the stage for them staying that hot all summer.