10 Biggest Disappointments of the MLB Season After 5 Months
With barely more than a month left in the 2024 MLB season, let's play a little game of "How It Started vs. How It's Going."
But with a twist: It can be any kind of story, so long as it's a sad one.
We're indeed going to be discussing the biggest disappointments of the season, with a special emphasis on...well, nothing in particular.
Players and teams who have let us down are on the table, but so are a couple of leaguewide trends that aren't exactly welcome. The specifics of what makes each a disappointment contain multitudes.
We have 10 to get to. They aren't technically ranked, but we are going to get more and more big-picture as we proceed.
This Season Undercut, and Then Underlined Mike Trout's Decline
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It was never any secret that Mike Trout was coming into 2024 off a run of not-great seasons. But spring is a time for hope, and apparently for chips on shoulders.
"I think a lot of people are writing me off. I just use it as motivation," the Los Angeles Angels center fielder told Sam Blum of The Athletic in March.
On cue, the chip on Trout's shoulder was there in plain sight in the first month of the season. He homered 10 times! It was his first 10-homer month since June 2022, and it gave him a share of the MLB lead.
But then there was the first knee injury, which, lest anyone forget, resulted in the three-time MVP giving one of the saddest athlete interviews you'll ever see:
The 33-year-old was meant to return from surgery in August. Instead, the same meniscus got torn again and he needed a second surgery. This one, of course, ended his season.
One bright side remains that Trout still has numbers worthy of the Hall of Fame, including more career WAR than Ken Griffey Jr. But right now, the number that really matters is that by the end of 2024, he'll have played in only 41 percent of the Angels' games across the last four seasons.
Trout's prime was fun while it lasted, alright. But now more than ever, it feels like a distant memory.
Manny Machado's Contract Continues to Age Poorly
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Contrary to the Angels, the San Diego Padres are doing just fine, thank you.
With their record at 73-58, the Friars would be the National League's second wild-card team if the season ended today. And like in 2022, they have the goods to make a deep run into October.
Still, one would feel better about those chances if Manny Machado was still, well, Manny Machado.
He's been better lately, ripping off a .305 average with seven homers since July 27. On the whole, though, this is the second straight year that he's merely been 12-13 percent better than the average hitter. He's also likely to break the club's record for double plays grounded into.
It's not a great look for a guy who was 32 percent better than the average hitter with a norm of 31 homers between 2015 and 2022. And then there's the contract element.
Though there technically wasn't any rush for the Padres to extend Machado in the spring of 2023, they did so anyway in the form of an 11-year deal worth $350 million. It was (and still is) the third-largest contract extension in MLB history.
That money was naturally meant to go toward a great player, not a mid player. Yet the latter is the 32-year-old's reality right now, so it's a good thing his deal only has...[checks notes]...nine years left on it.
The White Sox Were Never Going to Be Good, But...
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If Machado can be grateful for anything, it's that he's not on the Chicago White Sox.
No, really. This is a thing that could have happened. The White Sox were interested in the superstar third baseman when he was a free agent during the 2018-19 offseason, reportedly offering him an eight-year contract at one point.
For Machado, this is a bullet dodged. But for the White Sox, it's not even close to the saddest story in the South Side air right now.
I mean, the White Sox are literally 31-99 and mired in a 5-35 stretch. They have the second-worst winning percentage of MLB's modern era, and no team has ever been this bad relative to its contemporaries.
It all feels like a logical endpoint. And I'm not even referring to last year's 101 losses, or to the firings of coaches or executives. It's been out there for a while now that the White Sox organization has a serious culture problem and a bad reputation within the industry.
Apropos of all this, there's a rather obvious caveat in labeling the White Sox as a "disappointment." They were always going to be bad in 2024. It was only ever a question of to what degree.
But, seriously, did anyone have them becoming one of the worst things to ever hit Major League Baseball?
It Sure Looks Like the Blue Jays Missed Their Shot
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What's for sure is that whatever shot the White Sox had after going to the playoffs in 2020 and 2021 is well and truly wide of the mark.
Is it too soon to wonder if the Toronto Blue Jays are in the same boat?
Perhaps not, given that it was only last season that they made the playoffs for a third time in four years. And while they did cut their losses at the trade deadline, they did so while keeping their eye on potentially plentiful W's in 2025.
And yet, they're in last place in the American League East at 62-68.
It's a precipitous fall that was, shall we say, less than a fait accompli at the outset of 2024. The Blue Jays weren't projected to win the AL East, but PECOTA and FanGraphs both had them in the broader AL playoff picture.
That Toronto's fate has diverged so dramatically from that path is no fault of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s. This year has seen him resuscitate his superstardom by way of a .946 OPS and 27 home runs.
Apart from him, however, other ostensible team-carrying stars like Bo Bichette, George Springer, Kevin Gausman and Chris Bassitt have all let the Blue Jays down. And looking forward, it doesn't bode well that only Bichette isn't in his mid-30s.
Factoring in that top prospects Orelvis Martinez (suspension) and Ricky Tiedemann (Tommy John surgery) are both sidelined, the Blue Jays don't seem headed away from a good place and toward a place they don't want to be.
So Much for a Cubs Breakout
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Meanwhile in the National League, wasn't this year supposed to be a moment for the Chicago Cubs?
Maybe they were never technically favored to win the NL Central, but their trend in that direction was clear enough. Not just in context of their improvement from 71 wins to 74 wins to 83 wins across the three prior years, but also that of their aggressive offseason spending.
PECOTA gave them a shot at winning the division, and so did FanGraphs. And with the Milwaukee Brewers having seemingly taken a step backward, it felt coming into the year like first place was there for the Cubs' taking.
But here we are five months later, and they're merely .500 at 65-65 and 10.5 games behind those same Brewers.
There's no pointing the finger at the rotation, which has gotten ERAs in the 3.00s from four starters. But an offense that could have been good simply hasn't been, and the problem has only gotten more frustrating as the bullpen has erased itself from the problem board.
An optimist's take is that this is a season the Cubs can bounce back from. Unless Cody Bellinger opts out, they don't stand to lose any key contributors to free agency. And even with Pete Crow-Armstrong having graduated, the farm system is still very strong.
Still, the term "missed opportunity" feels like an appropriate one to deploy. And in this game, you only get so many of those.
The Mariners Are Crumbling in Real Time
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Speaking of teams with high hopes for 2024, it was something of a surprise when the Seattle Mariners fired manager Scott Servais on Thursday.
But then again, [stands up and waves emphatically at ensuing bullet points]:
- On June 18: 10.0 G lead in AL West
- Today: 4.5 G deficit in AL West
We're not talking about the collapse of the Roman Empire here, but this is pretty bad. You can hardly blame Seattle's leadership for wondering whether a Joe Girardi-style canning is just what the team needs.
Oh, and let's not overlook that the Mariners also fired hitting coach Jarret DeHart.
If anything, it's a wonder that he stuck around for as long as he did. This Mariners offense is a calamity, scoring only 3.94 runs per game with a league-worst .216 batting average. Indeed, the highest the team's average ever went was .235...on Opening Day.
Individual hitters who shouldn't be immune to a stern finger-wagging include J.P. Crawford, Jorge Polanco, Mitches Haniger and Garver and especially Julio Rodríguez.
The 23-year-old center fielder was firmly among the game's top superstars in 2022 and 2023. But in 2024, he's a guy with a .678 OPS. It's probably not true, but it feels like I could count the number of times I've written about him on one hand.
The Mariners' playoff hopes aren't dead yet, but only their amazing pitching staff is keeping them alive at this point. It deserves what the good people of Seattle deserve: better.
The Rangers Never Shook off the Hangover
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Elsewhere in the AL West, it was always a good bet that the Texas Rangers would wake up to the ol' World Series hangover in 2024.
But only temporarily. They figured to be fine if they so much as survived until the second half, when they stood to reinsert Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom and Tyler Mahle into their rotation. In the meantime, they could subsist on dingers and other such offensive hors d'oeuvres.
Yet after going 46-50 before the All-Star break, the Rangers are just 14-20 after it.
The plan for this year just hasn't worked, in part because waiting on those pitchers has proven to be an overly optimistic approach. Neither Scherzer nor Mahle has been able to stay off the IL, while deGrom only just began his rehab assignment.
Otherwise, the degree to which Texas' offense has fallen off in 2024 should probably be a bigger story.
After putting on a terrifying power display throughout 2023, they've lost more points off their collective slugging percentage than all but two other teams. Nobody deserves a "What the heck happened?" as much as Adolis García, who's lost 143 points off last year's OPS.
There's always next year for the Rangers, but it's getting frustrating that MLB hasn't had a repeat champion since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees. All sports leagues are better with big bads in need of toppling.
It Wasn't Supposed to Be Like This for Atlanta
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Whereas the Rangers had the potential for goodness in 2024, Atlanta seemed ticketed for nothing short of greatness.
They still had reigning NL MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. and all the core members of a team that won a league-high 104 games in 2023, and they didn't even know that newcomer lefty Chris Sale was due for an all-time turnaround. What could possib-lie go wrong?
Only everything, as it turns out.
It does feel a little wrong to label Atlanta's season as a disappointment, given just how big of a role the injury bug has played. Their injured list seems to contain nothing but stars, including Acuña (knee) and Spencer Strider (elbow) with season-enders and Ozzie Albies (wrist) and Austin Riley (hand) with broken bones.
At the same time, injuries only do so much to explain Atlanta's offensive decline.
From 2023 to 2024, they're the single biggest decliner in average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. Reigning MLB home run champion Matt Olson has had a rough one, and so were Acuña and Riley even before their injuries.
Even a marginally better Atlanta team would still have a shot at first place in the NL East. Whereas the Philadelphia Phillies once led them by as many as 10 games, they've let the lead slip to 5.0 games amid a 17-24 stretch since July 6.
That the Phillies nonetheless seem safe in first place speaks to how much hope has been drained from Atlanta, where a team that was meant to be great is barely hanging on to a wild-card spot at 70-59.
It's Never Been Clearer That Pitching Is an Occupational Hazard
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If you're a young person with dreams of becoming a major league pitcher, it's OK to admit it if you're feeling a little trepidatious.
At no point has pitching been an inherently safe activity, but it's never felt more dangerous than it does now. Injuries were an especially big storyline early on, and even data that is ostensibly encouraging is still depressing.
Per Baseball Prospectus' injured list ledger, there have been fewer elbow injuries in 2024 than at the same point in 2023. Still, hold that "Huzzah!" Both this year and last year have had more elbow injuries than 2021 and 2022.
There's no single reason for this and, for my money, nobody understands that better than Justin Verlander. His take from back in April is still a banger:
What especially rings true is Verlander's observation of how the modern style of pitching consists of everyone "throwing the ball as hard as they possibly can and spinning the ball as hard as they possibly can." It's objectively true, as fastball velocity and spin rate just keep getting higher.
There's a notion within MLB that the problem might be fixed with a mandate requiring starters go at least six innings, but that's a "nah."
There frankly isn't a magic bullet that can fix the situation. The only practical way forward is a holistic one that will require both a lot of effort and even more time.
The New Rules Only Increased Offense Temporarily
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The weird thing about all the pitching injuries is that as much as you'd think hitters would be the beneficiaries, they really haven't been.
In fact, this year has been something of a wakeup call for MLB's batsmen.
The new rules that went into effect in 2023 generally worked as intended, but no benefit was more obvious than the increase in offense. Relative to 2022, runs, home runs, stolen bases and the league-wide marks for batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage all went up.
But in 2024, only the stolen bases haven't gone back down. And even those come with the catch that caught-stealings are more prevalent than they were between 2019 and 2023.
This speaks to how defenses have successfully adjusted to the bigger bases, but that hardly constitutes that change shifting from a success to a failure. The ban on shifts is likewise still working, as the average on ground balls is up slightly in 2024.
The biggest issue is the degree to which hitters have become hooked on fly balls, which have never been more frequent since official tracking began in 2002. It would be a sound strategy if the ball was still flying out at 2019 levels, but it's not.
It's not the same ball, guys, and it's also a golden era for outfield defense. Take a hint.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
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