Approaching Memorial Day, it’s becoming increasingly less ‘early’ in the 2025 Major League Baseball season.
Three managers have already been fired, the Colorado Rockies are on pace for the worst in record in history and the kind of discourse normally reserved for New York sports talk radio broke containment, making Juan Soto’s daily stats a topic of national conversation.
Here’s a look at two of the biggest disappointing storylines from the first two months of the season:
Baltimore Orioles
Manager Brandon Hyde was fired, paying the price for the 2023 AL East champions’ inexplicable winter inactivity, falling further out of the division race just about every single day, bottoming out at 15-32. The team’s 5.45 ERA is the worst mark in the AL and the offense hasn’t been much better, ranking near the bottom of baseball in OPS.
Everybody is still (relatively) young, but after tailing off down the stretch in 2024, does this group need a shakeup?
‘You go back to last June, we were on top of the sport in almost every facet of the sport, including majors and minors,’ GM Mike Elias told reporters three days after Hyde was fired, his first time facing the media after the move. ‘Now we find ourselves where we find ourselves. This has been hitting us all very hard, but it’s unusual for that to be so sudden.’
Charlie Morton, 41, is 0-7 with a 7.68 ERA in 41 innings and was demoted to the bullpen. Kyle Gibson was released after giving up 23 earned runs in four starts, good for a 16.78 ERA.
‘I think I’ve been pretty clear that our pitching staff, our starting pitching staff, has been a huge problem,’ Elias said. ‘I put that on myself and the front office in terms of roster construction.’
There’s also concern over catcher Adley Rutschman, the All-Star and former No. 1 overall pick who is hitting .221 with a .646 OPS over his last 150 games dating back to last year.
‘The position player group, again, we haven’t had perfect health, but this is a universally lauded group and (has) had a lot of success,’ Elias said. ‘There’s underperformance happening there, and that’s something we need to address via player development, via coaching.’
Juan Soto
To be clear, Soto has played well. The $765 million man has an adjusted OPS that’s 34% better than the league average and the Mets are battling for first place.
‘He’s human,’ Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. ‘He’s gonna be fine. He’s Juan Soto.’
But Soto is yet to really get going, currently with career-low marks in OBP (.374) and slugging (.429) through his first 49 games with the Mets. And his hustle – or lack thereof – has already been called into question after a pair of perceived lapses in recent days.
Even with about 14 ⅔ seasons left on Soto’s deal, there’s no reason for anybody to panic. The 26-year-old will find his footing in Queens and be every bit the hitter that earned himself the largest deal in sports history. And Soto’s early-season struggles have personal precedent, with March/April historically the worst months of his career (.258 average, .848 OPS in 156 games).
‘When you sign that type of contract, there’s going to be more eyes on you and he knows that and he embraces that,’ Mendoza said.