Back in the day, before the nerds came along and introduced FIP, barrel rate and BABIP, every slow start might have been enough to induce some level of panic. To be clear, that hasn’t gone away totally. Failure is never fun. But with better tools comes better understanding, and while some early-season slumps might indeed be a signal of larger issues ahead, others are more likely the product of crummy luck. The numbers back it up. So thanks for that, nerds.
The Athletic’s baseball staff has designated one resident underperformer for every team. Some of these players have been cursed by the BABIP goblins. Others have been sidetracked by injuries. Offense is down across the board and that reality is represented on this list. As is another reality, that relievers can be “fungible,” as the nerds like to say.
Others have struggled under the weight of expectations. Of the players on our early all-underachiever team, three of them emerged from the offseason with nine-figure megadeals.
Arizona Diamondbacks: Carson Kelly
While Merrill Kelly has taken his performance to another level this year, the other Kelly came out of the gate ice cold — see his .105 average and negative-19 OPS+ — and now he’s on the injured list for the next several weeks. The Diamondbacks have thought about him as a potential frontline catcher, but with Daulton Varsho playing well behind the plate and Arizona’s young outfielders patrolling Varsho’s old outfield stomping grounds, it’s getting harder to see how Kelly fits into this puzzle. -Zach Buchanan
Atlanta Braves: Adam Duvall
He’s hitting .202 with two home runs, 15 RBIs, nine walks, 42 strikeouts and a .568 OPS in 132 plate appearances, after hitting a career-high 38 homers and leading the NL with 113 RBIs in 2021 when he posted a .772 OPS, including .800 after being traded back to the Braves at the deadline. He was handed the everyday center-field job to begin the season and continues to get the chance to play every day and work through his struggles. -David O’Brien
Baltimore Orioles: John Means
This isn’t his fault, of course. And it has nothing to do with his performance; Means had a 3.38 ERA in eight innings this year. But he left his second start of the year on April 13 with an elbow injury that later was determined to be a nearly fully torn UCL. He had to have Tommy John surgery and is out for at least a year. A tough blow for Means and for the Orioles to lose their unquestioned ace this early in the season. -Dan Connolly
Boston Red Sox: Trevor Story
The Red Sox biggest problem is their lack of offense, and no one captures that offensive letdown quite like their big offseason addition. Put simply: Story hasn’t hit. Too many strikeouts, only one home run, and a batting average struggling to reach .200. Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers and J.D. Martinez have done their part, but the team’s newest superstar hasn’t kept pace. He signed last, missed most of spring training and had an early season stomach illness, but the time for excuses long ago expired. -Chad Jennings
Story only had five spring training games after signing with the team, missed time for the birth of his first child and then dealt with food poisoning, so it’s hard to read too much into his first season with a new team. Nevertheless, he’s left a lot to be desired. -Jen McCaffrey
Chicago Cubs: Nick Madrigal
The Cubs have several candidates in this category. You could pick a pitcher from one of the worst starting rotations in the game or an unproven hitter who didn’t take this major-league opportunity and run with it. Madrigal, however, is supposed to be more than a lottery ticket or a reclamation project, given that the White Sox selected him with the No. 4 pick in the 2018 draft. Maybe Madrigal, 25, will be a player the Cubs can someday build around, but his contact skills haven’t translated into production yet (.203 batting average), and so far those swing adjustments haven’t generated more power (.491 OPS). He recently went on the injured list with a low back strain. To be fair, some of these struggles could be attributed to a young hitter learning at the major-league level and getting his timing back after season-ending hamstring surgery limited him to only 54 games with the White Sox last year. -Patrick Mooney
Chicago White Sox: Yasmani Grandal
With the White Sox offense scuffling as much as it has, singling out any struggling member of a group that was vaunted and respected coming into the season feels unfair. But since it seemed like Grandal figured out last season how to remain productive offensively even during stretches of not hitting anything, it’s been surprising to see such a battle to push his on-base and slugging percentages north of .300. His approach is built around crushing mistakes or not swinging at all, so to see one of his lowest strikeout rates and just three extra-base hits has been bizarre both because he’s always been a good hitter but also because this doesn’t resemble what you’d expect his decline phase to look like. -James Fegan
Cincinnati Reds: Tyler Mahle
There are plenty to pick from, but Mahle’s perhaps been the biggest disappointment. The 27-year-old right-hander was supposed to help pick up the slack from the departed Sonny Gray and Wade Miley, not to mention the injured Luis Castillo and Mike Minor, but instead he’s crumpled under the weight of expectations. Mahle was a popular trade target, but unless he turns it around, he’s not even productive trade bait. -C. Trent Rosecrans
Cleveland Guardians: Franmil Reyes
The Guardians can live with his strikeouts (though a K rate north of 40 percent is a bit exorbitant) as long as they’re accompanied by his customary power. That’s been lacking this season, though. As of this writing, his slugging percentage is .293, lower than the slugging percentage of homer-less teammate Myles Straw. Reyes endured a brutal stretch in late April in which he went 0-for-26 with 18 strikeouts. -Zack Meisel
Kris Bryant (Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)
Colorado Rockies: Kris Bryant
Fresh off a seven-year, $182 million deal with the Rockies, and now five weeks into the season, Bryant still has not hit a home run at Coors Field. Or anywhere, for that matter. Worse still, he has been largely irrelevant on his new team, with 16 hits in 65 plate appearances, and a lot of soft contact. A back injury put him on the injured list on April 26, and Bryant has played in fewer than half of the Rockies’ games. He flew to Salt Lake City for a rehab assignment with the Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes, and when he returns, the face of the Rockies will start anew with his new team. -Nick Groke
Detroit Tigers: Jonathan Schoop
Schoop earned a contract extension after a summer hot stretch last year. But so far in 2022, he is hitting only .159 with a wRC+ of 30 — so 70 percent below league average. -Cody Stavenhagen
Houston Astros: Yuli Gurriel
Never a big barrel rate player, Gurriel has used an elite hit tool and an improving eye at the plate to produce value in the past. Right now, his free-swinging ways have cost him with the worst strikeout rate of his career and a four-year low walk rate. His value is often driven by batting average, and he’s 37 years old, so any time he starts a season with more strikeouts, it’s worrisome. But he has a long track record of making more contact, and should settle down — it’s maybe more amazing that a hitter this good is the biggest disappointment so far. -Eno Sarris
Kansas City Royals: Salvador Perez
The Royals’ seven-time All-Star is batting .203 in 139 plate appearances. Per wRC+, he’s also been 18 percent worse than a league-average hitter. This follows two career seasons at the plate, including last year in which he hit 48 home runs. His issue is a lack of contact on pitches in the strike zone (72 percent), which is by far the lowest of his career and well below league average. -Alec Lewis
Los Angeles Angels: Jo Adell
Adell really struggled offensively and defensively when he was with the Major League team this season. It was a small sample size, but his swing looked long and his decision-making defensively was not MLB caliber. The Angels have a conundrum with him because Adell is now raking in Triple-A. The question is what he needs to show at that level to make the Majors. And then, more importantly, where he fits on the MLB roster and how he stays sharp if and when he gets another shot. -Sam Blum
Los Angeles Dodgers: Max Muncy
I could have gone with Muncy or Justin Turner here, but the latter has started to turn things around a little of late. Muncy’s batting line is the better of the two largely due to the fact that his extremely high walk rate has kept things afloat. But Muncy isn’t hitting for power less than a year removed from a collision that led to a tear in his ulnar collateral ligament. While his defensive utility has been a help, he just hasn’t been the middle-of-the-order bat the Dodgers have come to expect. -Fabian Ardaya
Miami Marlins: Avisaíl Garcia
The two free agent signings in the outfield, Jorge Soler and Garcia, have both been having tough times so far in Miami, but Garcia has had it worse. The 30-year-old is making less contact than ever, and he’s always been a free-swinger, but he’s swinging at nearly half the balls he sees outside the zone right now — second-worst in the big leagues. That’s probably why Garcia is striking out so much, and maybe also why he’s hitting everything on the ground instead of lifting, separating and celebrating. -Eno Sarris
Milwaukee Brewers: Brandon Woodruff
The numbers aren’t all that bad. But a 5.35 ERA through Woodruff’s first seven starts is not what anyone would predict from someone who is usually as reliable as it gets. The guess here is that Woodruff will soon turn things around, if he hasn’t already; he’s coming off a decent start in Miami. His FIP is 3.73 and the large discrepancy between that and his ERA indicates that some poor luck may be a part of his struggles. He’s still generating strikeouts like he usually does. The command just hasn’t been what it usually is, and he hasn’t put together a string of good starts. Others like Lorenzo Cain could make for a good answer here, but the expectations for Woodruff are high, and deservedly so. Milwaukee is built on pitching and they are going to need more consistency from Woodruff. -Will Sammon
Minnesota Twins: Miguel Sanó
The work was there this offseason. He lost 22-25 pounds and hit at Cressey Performance throughout the winter. None of that helped Sanó hitting early. Working on a center, right-center approach, Sanó slumped again out of the gate. When he finally did get a big hit, he injured his knee during the celebration, which has required surgery and a trip to the 60-day IL. -Dan Hayes
Eduardo Escobar (Eric Hartline / USA Today Sports)
New York Mets: Eduardo Escobar
We could ease up on Escobar and give this honor to Robinson Cano, who hit .195 in 12 games before being jettisoned. But there was reason to believe that Cano would struggle. Escobar, who was signed in the offseason for two years and $20 million, entered Tuesday hitting .205 with one homer and a wRC+ below league average. Escobar, 33, has still been a slightly above average player, according to wins above replacement, but he’s on the wrong side of the aging curve, and the Mets have to hope that this slump is just that — a slump — and not indicative of an erosion in his bat-to-ball skills. -Rustin Dodd
New York Yankees: Jonathan Loaisiga
Loaisiga was one of the top-five relievers in MLB last year, but he’s struggled so far this season, registering a 5.2 ERA over 14 2/3 innings through 15 appearances in 2022. Loaisiga pitched 70 2/3 innings last season for a 2.17 ERA, allowing three home runs and 16 walks total on the season. Already in 2022, he’s allowed three home runs and eight walks. The Yankees have the bullpen depth to protect him as he works out his issues, but so far the results have been markedly different from last year’s campaign. -Lindsey Adler
Oakland Athletics: Lou Trivino
This is probably a little unfair to Trivino, who spent two weeks on the COVID-19 list, but he hasn’t looked sharp this season and lost the closer job to Dany Jiménez. If Trivino’s worst outing (five runs allowed, four earned over 2/3 of an inning in a loss to Tampa) is removed, his numbers don’t look nearly as bad. But Trivino was expected to close more often than not and the A’s probably hoped he’d retain or even boost his value leading up to the trade deadline. There’s still time for that to happen, but he’ll need to put together a much better stretch over the next two-plus months. -Steve Berman
Philadelphia Phillies: Shortstop (Didi Gregorius/Bryson Stott)
Both Gregorius and his heir apparent, Stott, were on the Opening Day roster, so the Phillies thought they had this position covered. It hasn’t turned out that way. Gregorius, coming off a health-challenged, career-worst season (minus-0.8 WAR), has no homers and no barrels through his first 65 plate appearances. He also has played in only two games this month because of a sprained knee. Stott has hit just .135/.196/.154 in 56 plate appearances, and had to be sent back to Triple A for a minor-league reset. So despite excellent cameo work by super sub Johan Camargo, Phillies shortstops rank 27th in MLB in WAR (minus-0.1), 27th in OPS (.570) and are in a four-way tie for fourth-worst in Defensive Runs Saved (minus-4). This team needs to be better up the middle, period, but especially at short. -Jayson Stark
Pittsburgh Pirates: Yoshi Tsutsugo
There are lots of candidates, including center fielder Bryan Reynolds (1 for 25 with runners in scoring position), right-hander Mitch Keller (0-5, 6.61 ERA), right-hander Bryse Wilson (0-2, 5.82 ERA) and reliever Chris Stratton (1.80 WHIP, 6.17 ERA, two blown saves). The Pirates last winter re-signed Tsutsugo for $4 million, making him their fourth-highest-paid player. They were willing to overlook his lack of position versatility and mediocre glove if he could show the kind of power he flashed for them last season (eight homers in 43 games). Instead, Tsutsugo has flopped at the plate (.188/.303/.250 with one home run) and has scuffled in the field. -Rob Biertempfel
San Diego Padres: Trent Grisham
Grisham looked like a future star in the shortened 2020, providing leadoff-caliber offense and Gold Glove defense as a 23-year-old. Then, in 2021, he struggled with injuries and inconsistency. This season, he’s off to the slowest start of any hitter in a middling offense, and he’s slid toward the bottom of the lineup. Grisham hasn’t hit much of anything, but fastballs, in particular, have caused him trouble. He’s still young and still equipped with an exceptional eye at the plate, but that 2020 season feels like a long time ago. -Dennis Lin
San Francisco Giants: Jake McGee
McGee was supposed to be a part of the two-headed monster that closed out ninth innings, but his magic fastball didn’t get nearly as many swings and misses as it has in previous years, and he allowed runs by the bucketful. The Giants’ bullpen has been one of the steadiest in baseball for over a year, but McGee’s struggles have limited their late-inning effectiveness. He’s on the IL with a back injury, so maybe the problem was that he wasn’t 100 percent. But he was supposed to be a key contributor this season, so he’ll be missed until he returns to form. -Grant Brisbee
Seattle Mariners: Jesse Winker
The Mariners traded for Winker and Eugenio Suárez in March to bolster their lineup. Suárez has been fine, but Winker continues to struggle — even though he’s been terribly unlucky on balls in play. The walk rate is good, but he’s not driving the fastball like he did with the Reds. The Mariners need this guy to get hot. -Corey Brock
St. Louis Cardinals: Tyler O’Neill
A top-10 finisher in National League MVP voting last year, O’Neill expected to pick up where he left off after his breakout season in 2021. Instead, he’s faltered considerably, hitting a mere .193 with a .561 OPS with 36 strikeouts in 30 games. The Cardinals would benefit from O’Neill’s power stroke, and he worked hard last season to become less of a two-true outcome hitter, but so far this season he’s looked perplexingly lost at the plate. -Katie Woo
Tampa Bay Rays: Randy Arozarena
Maybe Arozarena was always going to regress coming off a great rookie season and one of the better postseason runs of all time, but nobody expected the complete collapse in his power numbers that he’s had so far. The right-hander is actually striking out less, but he’s being more aggressive at the plate, and it’s resulted in a ground ball nearly 60 percent of the time. He’s still hitting the ball hard, but it seems like he’s trying to hit home runs on ground balls. The team and its fans are just waiting for their star outfielder to make the adjustment he so desperately needs to make right now. -Eno Sarris
Marcus Semien (Bill Streicher / USA Today Sports)
Texas Rangers: Marcus Semien
Semien has had slow starts before, but after signing a seven-year deal worth $175 million, he has come out of the gates very cold, hitting .157/.216/.213 (.428 OPS) with no home runs in his first 32 games. Semien’s track record suggests this shouldn’t be a season-long freeze-out, but it has been exceptionally frustrating for the 31-year-old. -Levi Weaver
Toronto Blue Jays: Matt Chapman
When the Blue Jays traded for Chapman, he was expected to lift their infield defense and there is no doubt he has. But, at the plate, he’s gotten off to a slow start — along with most of the team’s hitters — hitting below his career norms. Through 35 games, he has a 77 wRC+, below league average and well below his career average of 117 wRC+. He is striking out less (27.4 percent) than he did a year ago and he’s among the few Blue Jays walking at an above-average clip (9.6 percent). If there is a silver lining, it’s that Chapman has been making a lot of good contact and his hard-hit rate (52.9 percent) is in the top five percent of the league. (He’s noticeably hit quite a few balls that died at the warning track, perhaps because of the new ball). There’s a decent gap between his batting stats and his expected stats, suggesting with a little more batted ball luck, things could turn around for him. -Kaitlyn McGrath
Washington Nationals: Patrick Corbin
It can’t possibly be easy to pitch through what is now a three-year slump, especially not after starting the season optimistic that mechanical tweaks made at the end of 2021 (that provided encouraging results at the time) would spark a turnaround in 2022. There are other players underperforming in the nation’s capital, but without Stephen Strasburg around (again) and no other distinguished veterans filling the rotation, the Nationals really needed to see Corbin lead the rotation with a performance worthy of the $23 million he is owed this season. -Maria Torres
(Top photo of Trevor Story: Cooper Neill / MLB Photos via Getty Images)