10 Ice Cold MLB Starts That Are Sure to Turn Around
Ice-cold starts don't discriminate. They don't care if a player is a high-priced free agent looking to make his mark in a new city, an up-and-coming youngster looking to build on a successful rookie campaign or a seasoned veteran with years of production under his belt.
The deep freeze can hit anyone at anytime, including at the start of the regular season.
It's far too early to panic and freak out over the lack of production that some of baseball's biggest stars have displayed in the early part of April, for it only takes a few swings—or a few games—for a player's bat to melt the ice.
Just ask Miami's Giancarlo Stanton and Philadelphia's Chase Utley, both of whom delivered big performances Tuesday to get themselves moving in the right direction.
For a variety of reasons that we'll touch on, the players on this list are poised to follow their lead.
3B Adrian Beltre, Texas Rangers
1 of 10
The Frigid Start
A miserable spring training that saw him hit .146 (6-for-41) with only one home run has carried over into the regular season. Despite hitting in front of a red-hot Prince Fielder and picking up four extra-base hits (two doubles, a triple and a home run), Beltre has gone just 7-for-41 (.141) with a .512 OPS.
Why He'll Warm Up Soon
Beltre couldn't care less about how he performed this spring. “I’m exactly where I want to be," he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Jeff Wilson at the end of camp. "You see me worried? I’m not worried. It’s spring training.”
Were you to ask Beltre if he was concerned over his sluggish start to the season, chances are you'd get a similar response. "I have always been a slow starter," he explained to MLB.com's T.R. Sullivan in 2013. "I think in 16 years I've only had four or five seasons where I started off with a hot streak."
As is the case with some of the other players on this list, Beltre's bat doesn't really get going until the warm weather arrives. A .295 hitter from June through August, the veteran's average drops more than 20 points to a still-respectable .273 in the season's other three months (April, May and September).
He's simply hitting the ball right at the defense, evidenced by his .188 BABIP (batting average on balls in play)—more than 100 points below his career mark of .299. There's simply no evidence to suggest that something's gone awry in his swing that would lead to a prolonged, season-long funk.
OF Curtis Granderson, New York Mets
2 of 10
The Frigid Start
You couldn't blame fans of the New York Mets for freaking out a bit over Curtis Granderson, who has gone 3-for-22 (.136) to start his second season in Flushing. Lest we forget, the veteran outfielder got off to an equally inauspicious start a year ago, hitting only .136 (12-for-88) in April.
Why He'll Warm Up Soon
Granderson is batting leadoff, which has found him adopting a new approach at the plate, one that's not necessarily going to result in a flurry of hits to boost his average.
“It’s just baseball being baseball. None of the at-bats I’ve gone up there have I said, ‘Hey, let me get a walk,” Granderson told the New York Post's Fred Kerber. “I’m aggressive. I’m ready to hit, but at the same time if you don’t get what you want, hopefully you lay off it.”
It's paying off, as Granderson leads baseball with 10 walks in eight games. When he does make contact, he's hitting it right to the defense. Even when he does lace one down the line or into an outfield gap, a defender always seems to show up and ruin the moment.
Like this sprawling, diving snag by Philadelphia's Ben Revere that robbed him of at least a double, if not more, given his speed and athleticism.
Additionally, Granderson has a track record of playing his best baseball between the beginning of May and the end of July, a three-month stretch that sees his average jump above .270 and his OPS rise to above .830.
OF Torii Hunter, Minnesota Twins
3 of 10
The Frigid Start
A 3-for-23 start (.130) was the last thing that Torii Hunter—or anyone, for that matter—envisioned when the 39-year-old signed a one-year, $10.5 million deal to return to where his career began, Minnesota.
Why He'll Warm Up Soon
After nearly two decades in the majors, Hunter knows better than most that slumps come and go without warning—and that panicking doesn't solve anything.
"In my 20 at-bats that I've gotten in this young season, it's not fun," he told Fox Sports North's Tyler Mason. "It's not fun when you can't get a hit or you're not hitting the ball hard. But I've been there. I'm frustrated. I hate it. But I've also been around and I've been through some struggles before. Twenty at-bats is too early (to panic)."
While his strikeout rate has gone up some, he's still making consistent contact, But the ball is finding the defense nearly every time that he does, evidenced by a .158 BABIP, which is light-years away from his career mark of .310.
Closing in on his 40th birthday, Hunter isn't the same player that he once way. But the huge difference between his current BABIP and career numbers suggests that, eventually, Hunter's going to begin finding the holes in the defense rather than their gloves.
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1B/DH Adam LaRoche, Chicago White Sox
4 of 10
The Frigid Start
Adam LaRoche looks more like the man he was signed to replace, Adam Dunn (minus the walks) than the slugger Chicago signed to a two-year, $25 million deal this past November.
What's most troubling isn't even the fact that he's started his White Sox career by going 5-for-24 (.208 BA)—it's that he's struck out 12 times, a rate that is fourth-worst in MLB, per FanGraphs.
Why He'll Warm Up Soon
LaRoche has been through this before. He knows his way out of the funk.
"I've had a lot of years where it has taken me a minute to get going," he recently told MLB.com's Scott Merkin. "The bright side there is I've been through it before. A younger me would get really frustrated, but I know that doesn't help accomplish anything."
While there's always been plenty of swing-and-miss in LaRoche's game, it's never been like this. His career high for strikeouts—172 with Arizona in 2010—was accompanied by a career-high 28 percent strikeout rate, nearly 20 percent lower than his current pace.
That disparity certainly intimates that a drop in whiffs is coming and with it more contact.
SP Jon Lester, Chicago Cubs
5 of 10
The Frigid Start
Two starts into the six-year, $155 million contract that he signed with the Chicago Cubs, Jon Lester has given up nine runs and 18 hits over 10.1 innings of work. Opponents are hitting a robust .383/.408/.532 against him and have no fear of being picked off when they do reach base safely.
Why He'll Warm Up Soon
Lester's best pitch has long been his cutter, and per ESPN Chicago's Jesse Rogers, the pitch has not cooperated with Chicago's new ace thus far in 2015.
"According to ESPN Stats and Information, the opposition is hitting .478 off his cutter this season as opposed to .234 last season. His strikeout percentage using the cutter is down from 26.6 percent last season to 17.4. There’s simply way too much hard contact," Rogers wrote.
It certainly doesn't help matters that, according to Brooks Baseball, Lester has gone to his cutter more often in 2015 (nearly 34 percent of the time) than he ever has before. “He was executing some pitches (cutters) but he wasn’t as sharp as he would like it,” catcher David Ross told Rogers after Lester's most recent start, when Cincinnati put six runs on the board.
But as Bleacher Report's Zachary D. Rymer notes, there were some positive signs to take from that start. Lester's velocity is back up to where it was a year ago, and he was consistently getting ahead of batters, throwing more first-pitch strikes than he did in his first ineffective outing.
That uptick in velocity puts to rest any thoughts that he's dealing with an arm injury, so health isn't an issue.
"It might take him a little while to get into a good routine yet, but I have no doubts he will," team president Theo Epstein told the Chicago Tribune's Paul Sullivan.
Given some of the encouraging signs that we've seen, there's no reason to believe that Epstein's wrong.
3B Manny Machado, Baltimore Orioles
6 of 10
The Frigid Start
Manny Machado's start to the season couldn't have gone much worse than the 1-for-19 (.053) that he put up at the plate. While he's picked up three hits in his last nine at-bats, the 22-year-old sits with a miserable .148/.226/.185 triple-slash line through eight games.
Why He'll Warm Up Soon
Machado's outs haven't been of the weak variety. He's not popping up to the infield or hitting a lazy fly ball that an outfielder can take his time settling under. As The Baltimore Sun's Jon Meoli writes, Machado's been driving the ball with conviction:
"Machado’s hardest hit ball, according to data collected at Baseball Savant, was over 109 mph, the sixth-hardest hit ball all year. His average of 104.19 mph ranks 10th, and no ball off his bat has been slower than 100 mph at peak velocity.
Why does this matter? Because hard-hit balls have a much better chance of falling than ones that a fielder can settle under and get a glove on. If Machado keeps smoking balls the way he has through the first week of the season, they’re going to find gaps in the outfield and probably go for extra bases.
"
We've begun to see signs of life in Machado's bat, with three hits in his last nine at-bats (.333). With a BABIP (.158) that's roughly half of his career mark (.313), the numbers suggest that it's only a matter of time before Machado's solid contact begins to pay off.
1B/DH/OF Brandon Moss, Cleveland Indians
7 of 10
The Frigid Start
After averaging 25 home runs, 73 RBI and a .254/.340/.504 triple-slash line over the past three seasons in Oakland, Brandon Moss was expected to add some extra punch to Cleveland's lineup. Instead, he started his Indians career 0-for-12 and sits with a .100 batting average (2-for-20) in seven games.
Why He'll Warm Up Soon
Despite a career-best .342 on-base percentage in April, Moss has a track record of getting off to slow starts. His power is still in hibernation—April is home to his career low in home runs (nine) and extra-base hits (19), resulting in a career-worst .738 OPS.
"It felt good," Moss told The Plain Dealer's Paul Hoynes of getting his first hit. "It was definitely a frustrating little thing to go through, but you go through those things. The biggest thing is to remember you've done those kind of things before and that you'll get a hit eventually."
Like the aforementioned Hunter and LaRoche, Moss has been around long enough to understand how to battle through a funk. With history telling us that his bat really doesn't come alive until May—when he's got a career best .842 OPS—this ice-cold start is merely temporary.
1B Mike Napoli, Boston Red Sox
8 of 10
The Frigid Start
After a strong showing in spring training, where he hit .400 (16-for-40) with six home runs, Mike Napoli has mustered a meager .107 batting average (3-for-28) and is without an extra-base hit or RBI.
What makes that even all the more impressive is that he's managed to be a non-factor in the middle of a lineup that has scored 51 runs in eight games, the fourth-highest total in baseball this season.
Why He'll Warm Up Soon
Some players just don't do well coming off the bench, and Napoli is one of them. He started only one of the team's first three games in Philadelphia, where David Ortiz got the bulk of the playing time at first base, something that manager John Farrell believes killed the momentum he had coming out of the spring.
"I can't deny the fact that, coming off the bench for at-bats, which is uncommon for him, [his momentum] may have been interrupted there," Farrell told CSN New England's Sean McAdam. "He's back to where his timing is a little bit off. He'll get regular at-bats. He's a key member of the middle of the order. His timing's off a little bit right now."
It'd be one thing if Napoli was chasing more pitches out of the strike zone than he had in the past or was striking out at a ridiculous pace, but per FanGraphs, he's not. What he is doing is consistently driving the ball into the ground—50 percent of the time—while his line-drive rate (5.6 percent) is way down.
Once he gets his timing at the plate back and begins to drive the ball with some authority again, the hits will come.
3B Aramis Ramirez, Milwaukee Brewers
9 of 10
The Frigid Start
Chances are this isn't how Aramis Ramirez envisioned what is likely to be the final year of his career getting underway. Not only is Milwaukee struggling (2-5), but he's done little to help turn things around, hitting only .174 (4-for-23) with one extra-base hit and a .417 OPS.
Why He'll Warm Up Soon
Slow starts are nothing new for the 36-year-old, who is a career .257 hitter in the season's opening month, which is more than 30 points lower than his combined .290 batting average for the rest of the regular season.
"I would have like, five MVPs in my house right now if I could ever get off to a good start," Ramirez joked to Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel during spring training back in 2013.
That might be a stretch, but it's not one to say that as the weather warms up, so does Ramirez. His most productive months of the season—June, July and August—just so happen to be the warmest of the year and find him sitting with a .298 batting average and 214 of his 369 career home runs.
SP Stephen Strasburg, Washington Nationals
10 of 10
The Frigid Start
Stephen Strasburg has been anything but sharp thus far, giving up eight earned runs and 19 hits over his first two starts of the season, spanning 10.2 innings. Per ESPN Stats and Information, it's the first time in his career that he's given up at least nine hits in consecutive games.
Why He'll Warm Up Soon
His velocity may be down a tick or two, but Strasburg's fastball is still clocking in right around 95 mph, per Brooks Baseball. That's still plenty fast enough for most hitters to have a tough time making solid contact, which was evident in his first start of the year against New York.
As ESPN's David Schoenfield notes, the Mets blooped him to death in that game. Schoenfield also reminds us that this isn't the first time that we've seen Strasburg struggle out of the gate:
"Maybe Strasburg is just a slow starter; he allowed 17 runs in 21 innings through his first four outings a year ago. He ended up with a pretty nice season: 14-11, 3.14 ERA and an NL-leading 242 strikeouts (tied with Johnny Cueto)."
Other teams might be getting on base more frequently against him than they have in the past, but part of that can be attributed to Washington's sleepwalking defense, which has been sketchy at best. The eventual return to action of third baseman Anthony Rendon and center fielder Denard Span will help shore that up.
Unless otherwise noted, all statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs and are current through games of April 14.
Hit me up on Twitter to talk all things baseball: @RickWeinerBR
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