Knee-Jerk MLB Reactions on the Good, Bad and Sad So Far
The 2025 MLB season is underway, but there's a long way to go before it bids adieu to small-sample-size territory. So, let's all try to calm down.
Actually, here's a more fun idea: Let the knee-jerk reactions flow!
We have eight takes on the defining storylines of the 2025 season so far, and they run the gamut all the way from "This thing is very bad" to "This other thing is very good." Basically, the usual drill that must be run this time of year.
Let's get into it, starting with some unlikely walk-off warriors in South Beach.
All Aboard the Magical Marlins Hype Train
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Last year, the Miami Marlins didn't get their third win until their 15th game. It was an ill omen that more or less came true, as the team ended up with a nice, even 100 in the loss column.
So, go figure that they were one of the more exciting stories of MLB's opening weekend.
Indeed, that they got to three wins before March even turned to April isn't even the headline here. No, that would be that all three of their wins over the Pittsburgh Pirates over the weekend were walk-offs.
For anyone who's wondering, the Marlins are the first team to get their first three wins via walk-off since the '01 Detroit Tigers. And we're not talking the 2001 Tigers. This is the 1901 Tigers, friend.
Weirdly, this is actually not out of character for the Marlins. Though they only won 62 games in 2024, 10 of those were walk-offs. It was a feather in the cap of an otherwise anonymous team that cycled through a MLB-record 70 different players.
As for their 2025 outlook, the odds of them making the playoffs at FanGraphs skyrocketed over the weekend...from 1.5 percent to 1.9 percent.
Needling aside, Marlins fans will surely take whatever fun they get this season. This is a good start in this regard, and it may portend Miami being a spoiler-y team in a National League loaded with contenders.
The Braves Don't Look Like a World Series Contender
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Elsewhere in the NL East, the Atlanta Braves are simultaneously crumbling and exploding in real time.
They opened their season on the bad end of a four-game sweep at the hands of the San Diego Padres, hitting just .148 and scoring seven runs throughout. They were the victims of a one-hit shutout in the finale, a first for the franchise since June 5, 2024.
The silver lining at the time was that the Braves also started 0-4 in 2021, which obviously ended up going pretty well. But even that team didn't slip to 0-6, which this year's Braves subsequently has with two more losses to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Mind you, Atlanta's fifth loss on Monday happened after the team suffered Ls of other kinds.
Starting left fielder Jurickson Profar—who only just began a three-year, $42 million contract—got hit with a 80-game suspension for using a banned substance. He can return in June, but he will be ineligible for the playoffs. Also on Monday, the Braves placed starter Reynaldo López on the injured list with shoulder inflammation.
It's early yet, but these things matter. Per FanGraphs, Atlanta's chances of winning the NL East have gone from 61.9 percent on Opening Day to 35.0 percent now.
The Brewers Are Possibly the Worst Team Ever
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The Braves are off to a rough start, but at least they haven't been getting utterly pantsed as much as the Milwaukee Brewers.
They opened the season with four straight losses, which is never good. It's even worse when you do so while allowing 17 home runs and 47 runs, though. These are record-setting and record-tying marks, respectively.
The Brewers did get a W on Tuesday, and it is only fair to note that the team they are now is not the same team they'll be all season. They're missing a ton of key players to injuries, including what feels like all of their projected pitching staff.
This said, one could have hoped the Brewers would weather the storm better than [waves hands] this.
Nobody can say this is a bad-luck thing, or even a torpedo bats thing. The Brewers are primarily suffering from a shortage of stuff, as their pitchers rank 29th in MLB in average fastball velocity and dead-last in overall whiff rate.
They were already a relative underdog to win the NL Central. And now, even more so. FanGraphs gives them just a 15.0 percent chance of finishing first.
Oh No, Rafael Devers is Broken
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The Boston Red Sox have lost four in a row since winning on Opening Day, but that's the least of their worries.
Rafael Devers is ostensibly their best hitter, but to say he's cold right now would be like saying the ocean is slightly damp. He's 0-for-19 with 15 strikeouts, a new MLB record for a player in his team's first five games.
It would seem Devers does not understand the assignment of his new position. He's Boston's designated hitter after (presumably reluctantly) ceding third base to Alex Bregman, and he's...well, just not hitting.
"It's a small sample size," manager Alex Cora told reporters Monday. "You know, this happens in July or August, we'd not even be talking about it. But it's early in the season, and of course everybody is paying attention to it."
A fair point, but nothing seems right with the 28-year-old. His average bat speed is down by 1.9 mph relative to 2024, and he's swung and missed at 10 more fastballs than any other hitter.
It is notable Devers had a truncated spring training, as he pushed back his debut multiple times as he struggled to get his swing right. Whether it's because his shoulders are still bothering him or something else, it clearly still isn't right.
Mookie Betts Is Fine and the Dodgers Are Terrifying
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As to a former Red Sox star who is likewise in the middle of a $300 million contract, Mookie Betts is just fine, thank you. And so are his Dodgers.
Frankly, it's astonishing Betts did not begin the year on the injured list after losing close to 20 pounds with a mysterious illness during the spring. It is even more astonishing that he's come out hot, going 6-for-16 with three homers in four games.
As for the Dodgers, they're off to a 7-0 start for the first time since 1955. It's more or less what anyone could have expected, just as everything is more or less working as anticipated.
Betts is one of six Dodgers hitters with multiple home runs, with him and Tommy Edman co-leading the way with three long ones. And while Rōki Sasaki's opening act has been a letdown, L.A. has a 2.25 ERA as a team.
There's obviously a lot of season left, but talk of the Dodgers winning 117 games was unavoidable even before they went 7-for-7 in their first seven attempts to get there.
This is not to say the bar should be raised even higher. Just that, in this one specific case, even the most outlandish hype seems to have been justified.
Ah, But the Padres Are Here to Haunt the Dodgers Again
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Even at 7-0, the Dodgers only have a half-game lead in the NL West and are therefore in danger of falling out of first place at a moment's notice.
The Padres are undefeated in their own right, after all, albeit with "just" a 6-0 record in the early goings. This is a first in franchise history, and they even went three whole days without falling behind on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Contrary to the goings-on in Los Angeles, such early hotness wasn't expected in San Diego. The Padres were purportedly one of the big losers of the MLB offseason, whereas the Dodgers were clearly the big winners.
The Friars nonetheless retained a strong core of stars on both sides of the ball, so perhaps it's no wonder both sides have been strong so far.
Padres pitchers have a league-best 1.50 ERA, while the hitters are batting .299 overall. Jackson Merrill and Fernando Tatis Jr. have been a decidedly damaging duo, combining for a .405 average and 11 runs batted in.
Should the Dodgers be scared? Maybe a little. Though the Boys in Blue are still heavy favorites in the NL West, the Padres are but one of three legitimate contenders with whom they share the division.
There Goes Aaron Judge after Home Run History...Again
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It took until April 24 for Aaron Judge to hit his fourth home run of 2024, which had him on a 26-homer pace. Everyone was panicking.
Well, we all know how that turned out. And there has been no such slow start for the 32-year-old in 2025, as he homered three times on Saturday and again on Sunday to bring his total to four just through the New York Yankees' first three games.
This is only the 13th case of a hitter homering four times in his team's first three games. The other 12 don't actually portend much in the way of home run history, but we know from Judge's 62-homer barrage in 2022 that he's capable of making such history anyway.
He's as dangerous as he is because he controls the strike zone as well as any hitter in MLB. And also because, you know, he's 6'7", 282 pounds and ridiculously powerful accordingly.
So it goes, and then some. Judge is averaging 99.5 mph on his batted balls thus far in 2025. Small sample size and all, but it tracks.
The heck of it is that Judge isn't even using a torpedo bat. It's a phrase that would have made no sense as recently as last Friday, but it's now as eye-grabbing as they come.
'Torpedo Bats' Are Here to Change Everything
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For lack of a better word, every MLB season has a thing. Think the sticky stuff crackdown in 2022, the new rules in 2023 and everyone throwing sweepers in 2024.
It's early yet, but it sure looks like torpedo bats are going to be the thing for 2025.
They aren't everywhere yet, but it's a "give it time" situation. Buzz about the bats has been growing since Michael Kay called attention to them during the Yankees' nine-homer rout of the Brewers on Saturday, and the anecdotal evidence in favor of them is becoming overwhelming.
"I just wanted to know if it feels good—and it definitely does," Cincinnati Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz said after using the torpedo bat in a 4-for-5, two-homer game on Wednesday.
We'll see if the data ultimately supports widespread adoption of torpedo bats, but the concept is sound. A bat that is hardest in the spot where hitters are most likely to make contact? Simple, but brilliant.
Perhaps the bigger unknown is whether torpedo bats have a future in MLB. They are technically legal, but one front-office official told R.J. Anderson of CBS Sports that he thinks they'll ultimately be banned.
Perhaps it will come to that. For the meantime, though, this is one of the more exciting things to happen in baseball in a long time.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
