10 Biggest Disappointments of the 2025 MLB Season After 5 Months
Heading into the 2025 Major League Baseball season, both Dylan Cease and Zac Gallen were top 10-ish candidates for NL Cy Young in their final season before hitting free agency, the Dodgers bullpen was going to be an impenetrable force, Devin Williams was going to save the Yankees and an Atlanta-Baltimore World Series felt like a very real possibility.
Whoops.
Predictions and expectations go haywire all the time, but some disappointments are much larger than others. Ahead, we've ranked the top 10 as we slowly but surely approach the finish line of this MLB campaign.
Before we dive into the rankings, though, we need to touch on 10 'honorable' mentions in order for this list to feel complete.
'Honorable' Mentions
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Sandy Alcantara, Miami Marlins—Would have been a lock for the top five a month ago, but has the worm finally turned here? The 2022 NL Cy Young winner has a 3.16 ERA in his last six starts, including a season-high 114 pitches in his last outing.
Jac Caglianone, Kansas City Royals—By no means are we dubbing him a bust after a rough first 41 games in the big leagues, but he was routinely annihilating balls in the minors before posting a .485 OPS in the big leagues. We thought he could be the savior for Kansas City's offense, but he instead became one of the biggest problems of it.
Jordan Hicks, San Francisco Giants/Boston Red Sox—As part of the Rafael Devers trade, Hicks seized the opportunity to disappoint not one but two teams, giving the Giants a 6.47 ERA before giving the Red Sox a mark of 6.60.
Shane McClanahan, Tampa Bay Rays—It has now been more than 750 days since McClanahan last pitched in the majors. He was supposed to be back from Tommy John surgery in time for Opening Day, but he suffered a triceps injury in his third start of spring training and never made it back, undergoing another season-ending operation earlier this month. A different kind of disappointment than most on this list, but a real bummer, nonetheless.
Aaron Nola, Philadelphia Phillies—After eight straight years of quality pitching and almost never missing a single turn through the rotation, Nola has a 6.92 ERA and missed more than three months on the IL. Amazingly, the Phillies have had an elite starting rotation, even with what has been a dud of a year from their $172M man.
Yordan Alvarez and Christian Walker, Houston Astros—Over the past three seasons, Walker was worth 11.3 bWAR in Arizona, while Alvarez was worth 16.7 bWAR to the Astros. But they've both amounted to negative bWAR thus far this season, Alvarez just now nearing a return from nearly four months on the IL. Can they still become the one-two punch in the heart of the order they were supposed to be?
Kristian Campbell, Walker Buehler and Tanner Houck, Boston Red Sox—Between the Devers saga, Triston Casas' injury and the complete lack of anything good that the Red Sox got this season from what were their second baseman and the Nos. 2 and 3 starters in the rotation to open the season, it's a small miracle that this team is firmly in the mix for a playoff spot.
10. Baltimore Orioles
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The O's opened the season at +1600 to win the World Series, good for the seventh-best odds. For them to be 10 games below .500 and practically drawing dead on their postseason odds is, without a doubt, a colossal disappointment.
Not having Baltimore on this list would be impossible to justify.
But given how well they've been playing since those horrific first two months, it's also kind of impossible to justify placing the Orioles any higher than this.
At 17-34 through May 24, they were almost level with the Chicago White Sox (17-35).
Since then, they've gone 42-35, virtually tied with the Chicago Cubs (43-34).
Just a complete 180 degree turn that happened to begin when Trevor Rogers made his season debut in Game No. 51, going 6.1 scoreless innings against the Red Sox. That unexpected ace now has a 1.41 ERA through 12 starts as the O's try to claw their way out of what really should have been an inescapable hole, dug by the likes of Charlie Morton, Kyle Gibson, Zach Eflin, Ryan Mountcastle, Tyler O'Neill and Heston Kjerstad doing way more harm than good during those first 50 games.
9. Mark Vientos, New York Mets
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Last year, Mark Vientos was arguably the biggest catalyst of New York turning its season around.
It wasn't some instantaneous "he got called up and they started winning" situation. But right around when the Mets became comfortable enough with playing him every day at third base to just stop using Brett Baty altogether, they went from a 24-35 mess to the best record in baseball the rest of the way (65-38).
Vientos ended up with 27 home runs (in 111 games played) and an .837 OPS, and with a 3.1 bWAR, he was the most valuable player on the roster not named Francisco Lindor.
Knowing he could play first base for them, Vientos' breakout season surely played at least some part in New York's offseason willingness to let Pete Alonso explore other opportunities before finally re-signing the Polar Bear.
Good thing they did, because Vientos has a minus-0.8 bWAR, as well as a sub-.700 OPS in each month this year, transforming from their hero into their goat. He did have a big home run in the Little League Classic this past Sunday, but he entered that game with one home run—and, if you can believe this, just one walk drawn—in his previous 121 plate appearances.
Curiously enough, Baty seems to be their lucky charm now, New York going 52-31 in games where he is in the starting lineup compared to 16-29 otherwise. (For Vientos, it's 42-40 when starting and 26-20 when he's not.)
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8. Pittsburgh's Offense
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Most of these disappointments are cases where the player/unit/team was supposed to be elite before woefully underachieving.
With Pittsburgh's offense, however, we already weren't expecting anything special, and they've still managed to be a catastrophe.
From 2021-24, the Pirates ranked dead last in home runs (601), slugging percentage (.373) and OPS (.677), and they didn't exactly add reinforcements this offseason. Ranking last in offense was always a possibility here.
But they're on pace for approximately 114 home runs and 575 total runs scored, presently 32 runs and 19 home runs back of 29th place in each department, abysmal both by their low standards and compared to the league in general over the past decade.
From 2016-24 (excluding 2020), the only team to hit fewer than 120 home runs was the 2022 Detroit Tigers (110). And the only ones to score fewer than 580 runs were those same Tigers (557), the deliberately tanking 2022 Athletics (568) and the deliberately tanking 2024 White Sox (507).
For crying out loud, the Pirates are on track to hit fewer home runs than the Dodgers hit in 2020 (118), in, you know, 102 fewer games.
Of course, our biggest source of disappointment here is their eternal struggle to provide run support for Paul Skenes.
From May 6-June 19, Skenes made nine starts with a 1.21 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 9.9 K/9...and had a 1-3 record to show for it. He has gone at least six innings and allowed two or fewer runs 16 times this season, going 7-4 with five no decisions.
7. Joc Pederson (But, Really, the Entire Rangers Offense)
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On the full-team front, Texas has at least been much better over the past two months. After getting shut out by the Orioles on June 23, they were batting .227/.292/.365 and averaging 3.57 runs per game for the year. Since then, they're sitting at .243/.317/.398 and averaging 4.92 runs.
Still a far cry from the way they mashed to the World Series in 2023, but that's roughly league average after almost ranking dead last in OPS through 79 games.
For the most part, though, it has been Corey Seager (12 HR, .966 OPS) doing the heavy lifting, with Wyatt Langford and (when he starts) Kyle Higashioka providing support. Most of the team is still underwhelming, with Adolis García, Jonah Heim, Josh Smith, Josh Jung, Evan Carter, Ezequiel Duran and Joc Pederson all below .700 OPS over the past two months.
However, Pederson remains, hands down, the biggest letdown of them all.
Texas signed him to a two-year, $37M deal this offseason, making him the fifth-highest paid player on the roster for his one-trick pony skill of destroying right-handed pitching.
But he lost his touch.
Though he does have three home runs thus far in August (plus a walk-off double on Friday night), that slight surge has brought his triple-slash to merely .161/.281/.294—a .575 OPS from a guy who slugged .531 vs. RHP last season.
Only Colorado has gotten a worse fWAR than Texas has from its DH spot this season.
6. Dylan Cease, San Diego Padres
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Had Dylan Cease hit free agency this past winter—after receiving votes for both NL Cy Young and NL MVP for the second time in three years—he would have been right up there with Max Fried (8 years, $218M), Corbin Burnes (6 years, $210M) and Blake Snell (5 years, $182M) in terms of overall contract size.
Instead, it's now the Cy Young-caliber 2024 campaign that looks like the outlier in his rolling three-year window, his current 4.71 ERA on par with the 4.58 mark he posted in 2023.
Notably, his FIP has remained more consistent, ranging from 3.10 to 3.72 over the past half-decade. He's also throwing just as hard, if not harder than ever, on track for around 220 strikeouts for what would be the fifth consecutive season. He just seems to be a victim of poor BABIP luck, as well as a higher HR/FB ratio than usual. Good chance that some teams this winter will lean into the notion that his luck will turn and that he still gets paid quite handsomely in free agency.
Some consolation that is for the Padres, though, as Cease sits at 6-11 overall with a 5.28 ERA in his three starts against the Dodgers in that heated race. He made 16 quality starts last year, including that no-hitter against the Nationals. He only has seven QS this season, and has yet to pitch into the eighth inning of a game.
5. Anthony Santander, Toronto Blue Jays
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For the most part, it has been raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens for the Toronto Blue Jays, who might hit their preseason win total (78.5) before the calendar flips to September and who presently have a decent four-game cushion in the race for a first-round bye.
But Team Canada certainly was expecting more when it invested $92.5M in Anthony Santander this past winter.
Santander hit 44 home runs and drove in 102 runs in his walk year with the Baltimore Orioles, but he was much more than just a one-year wonder. From 2022-24, he hit 105 home runs in total, good for two more than Juan Soto's 103, even though the $765M man had more than 100 more plate appearances than Santander. Only Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Schwarber, Pete Alonso and Matt Olson out-homered Santander during that three-year stretch.
But in 50 games played with Toronto before landing on the IL with what may well at this point be season-ending shoulder inflammation, Santander had hit just six home runs, barely averaging one total base per game played.
He slugged at least .433 in each of the past six seasons, cumulatively sitting at .476 over those 700 games. That has plummeted to .304, as Toronto now just needs to kind of hope he remembers how to mash again for 2026-29.
4. Arizona's Rotation
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Of the nine teams who have scored at least 600 runs this season, eight have a run differential of at least +56 and would be in the playoffs if the season ended today. And then there's Arizona, with a +6 run differential and a six-game deficit in the wild card picture.
We already knew before Opening Day that Jordan Montgomery (Tommy John surgery) wouldn't be pitching for the Diamondbacks, representing a $22.5M sunk cost in the current campaign. But expectations were still quite high for the starting rotation in the desert.
Let's check in on that...
Corbin Burnes: Signed to a six-year, $210M contract this winter; lasted 11 starts with an impressive 2.66 ERA before undergoing Tommy John surgery. Will also miss most, if not all of 2026.
Eduardo Rodríguez: Signed to a four-year, $80M contract in Dec. 2023; has an ERA north of 5.00 for the second straight season.
Zac Gallen: Had a career 3.29 ERA heading into his contract year; has a 5.28 ERA and would be leading the majors in runs allowed (93) were it not for Washington's Mitchell Parker at 94.
Brandon Pfaadt: Former top prospect who broke out during the 2023 postseason; has a 4.95 ERA and a strikeout rate (7.3 K/9) that has dropped off a cliff from last season (9.2).
Ryne Nelson has been respectable, and Merrill Kelly was good enough to get traded last month. However, this is where the Snakes reprehensibly underwhelmed for a second straight year.
3. Devin Williams, New York Yankees
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From 2020-24, there was not a more dominant (regular-season) reliever than Devin Williams.
Among pitchers who logged at least 100 innings during that half-decade, only Edwin Díaz (15.04) had a higher K/9 than Williams' 14.64, only Emmanuel Clase (1.62) had a lower ERA than Williams' 1.70 and not a single pitcher had a lower batting average against than Williams' .144.
So the Yankees gave up Nestor Cortes and Caleb Durbin to get Williams on their roster for his last season before hitting free agency for the first time, hoping he would be that "peak Aroldis Chapman" type of overwhelming force that they've been lacking in the ninth inning in recent years.
To put it lightly, the Airbender has not delivered the goods.
After allowing a grand total of 26 earned runs in 141.0 innings pitched over his final three seasons in Milwaukee, Williams is already up to 28 earned runs in 49.1 innings of work this season. And though he has somehow only blown three saves on the year, he has lost his closer role twice.
The maddening part of it all is that Williams has been awesome in the low-leverage, just-get-some-work-in spots. His pitching line this season in the fifth through seventh innings is 5.0 IP, 0 H, 2 BB, 9 K. But shine a bright light on him in the ninth inning and he has a 6.26 ERA.
Considering he already had a reputation for wilting in October (6 ER in 2.1 IP), maybe the pressure of pitching for the Yankees is just too much for Williams compared to life with the small-market Brewers.
2. Dodgers Bullpen
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Throw a dart at Dodgers not named Shohei Ohtani and there's a good chance you're going to hit a factor contributing to them not becoming anything close to the juggernaut we expected them to be.
Mookie Betts is a shell of himself with a sub-.700 OPS. Michael Conforto has been a below-Mendoza-line disaster who continues to play on a regular basis. The starting rotation is loaded now, but injuries absolutely decimated them in the first half—and Roki Sasaki didn't even remotely live up to the hype in the few starts before his injury.
The real travesty, though, has been the bullpen.
Per Spotrac's Positional Spending estimates, the Dodgers are spending $71.48M on relief pitchers this season. If we can agree that Philadelphia's $43.55M mark isn't accurate—as it appears to be counting David Robertson's partial-season salary at the full $16M prorated amount—that is more than $32M more than the next-closest team is spending on relievers. $71.48M is also more than 17 teams are spending on pitchers in general, and it's slightly more than the Nationals and Marlins are spending on their entire rosters.
For all that investment, the Dodgers have gotten an "as RP" ERA of 4.19 that ranks 21st in the majors, and what is presently a colossal unknown as far as who to call upon in save situations in October.
They gave Tanner Scott a four-year, $72M contract to be that guy, but he was thoroughly underwhelming with 19 saves and seven blown saves before missing the past month with an elbow injury. And with him on the shelf, they've had five pitchers combine for seven saves since the All-Star Break, none of them with an ERA below 3.20.
It's just wild that a team with well over 400 career saves on its payroll—eight guys with at least 10; none with more than 100—doesn't have anything close to a sure thing in the eighth or ninth innings. (Maybe think about using Ohtani at closer??)
1. Atlanta Braves
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In 2023, the Atlanta Braves were nothing short of relentless en route to their 104 wins. They tied the single-season MLB record with 307 home runs—58 more than anyone else hit that season—and became the lone case in MLB history of a team slugging percentage of .500 or better.
Two years later, with largely the same cast of characters, they aren't even slugging .400 as a team.
Ozzie Albies alone went from a .513 slugger with 33 home runs in 2023 to a .331 slugger on pace for 13 dingers this year. Fellow everyday player Matt Olson is at least slugging a respectable .452 with 19 home runs, but nothing compared to his NL-best .604 and MLB-best 54 totals from two years ago.
Marcell Ozuna's slugging percentage has also plummeted more than 100 points, and getting zero home runs out of the shortstop spot in the lineup this season has really contributed to this transformation from a team that averaged an MLB-best 5.85 runs per game in 2023 into a not-even-middle-of-the-pack 4.41 runs per game this season.
Even with the struggles of Spencer Strider and Raisel Iglesias and the injuries to all of Chris Sale, Reynaldo López, Spencer Schwellenbach and AJ Smith-Shawver, the pitching has somehow remained roughly on par with what it used to be. Atlanta allowed 716 runs in 2023 and is on pace for 732 this season, even after that 12-7 loss on Friday. But an offense that didn't finally spring to life until about two weeks ago is to blame for this team being on pace to fall about 20 shy of its preseason win total.
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