Panic Meter: Which MLB Contenders Should Be Worried About Becoming Pretenders?
Zachary D. RymerApril 18, 2024Panic Meter: Which MLB Contenders Should Be Worried About Becoming Pretenders?0 of 8
Richard Rodriguez/Getty Images
The 2024 MLB season is barely more than 10 percent complete, but it’s not too early to wonder which teams might look back and give voice to their inner Marlon Brando.
Let’s break out the Panic Meter and apply it to eight teams who certainly aimed to contend coming into 2024, but who have since run into some snags. None of them entered Wednesday’s action with better than a .500 record and, unlike the Texas Rangers, could not boast of being in first place.
Just how serious are these snags? Are they going to doom the contender in question? If so, that’s a 5/5 on the Panic Meter. If not, that’s a 1/5 on the Panic Meter. If the true answer is somewhere between yes and no, then so is the Panic Meter.
Let’s check these teams off in ascending order of their records from last season.
Note: Playoff percentages are according to FanGraphs.
St. Louis Cardinals1 of 8
Paul GoldschmidtChristian Petersen/Getty Images
2023 Record: 71-91, 5th in NL Central
2024 Record: 9-10, 5th in NL Central
Playoff Percentage Change: Minus-10.7
It was a rough one the Cardinals had in 2023, alright, but FanGraphs nonetheless had them tabbed as the favorites to win the National League Central coming into this season.
So why are they back in the cellar? A couple of reasons.
The division is stronger than expected, as the other four teams in the NL Central all entered Wednesday with winning records. The Cardinals are also just plain struggling to keep up offensively. They’re batting .226 with an NL-low 13 home runs.
2022: .937 OPS, 0.6 BB/K2023: .793 OPS, 0.5 BB/K2024: .627 OPS, 0.3 BB/KA three-year pattern like this would be alarming under any set of circumstances, and this set includes some advanced ages. Arenado just turned 33 on Tuesday. Goldschmidt is 36. The notion that both have lost a step is far from outrageous.
The prospect of the offense taking a quantum leap forward seems…dubious, at best. And if that doesn’t happen, the Cardinals will remain liable to get tripped up by mound-born stragglers Miles Mikolas, Kyle Gibson and Zack Thompson, who have a combined 5.80 ERA.
Panic Meter: 5
Los Angeles Angels2 of 8
Mike TroutOmar Rawlings/Getty Images
2023 Record: 73-89, 4th in AL Central
2024 Record: 9-9, 2nd in AL West
Playoff Percentage Change: Plus-0.4
To be fair, the Angels have moved up in the American League West since last season.
This largely has to do with slow starts on the parts of (and we’ll talk more about both later) the Seattle Mariners and Houston Astros, but let’s give the Angels their due credit. They have some early-season stars carrying them, most notably Mike Trout and Taylor Ward in the batter’s box and Reid Detmers and Tyler Anderson on the mound.
Underneath these stars, however, are mostly scrubs. Take, for example, how the team’s offensive production splits up:
That’s not great, and nor is how Angels starters not named Detmers or Anderson have a 6.33 ERA. Angels relievers have likewise been hittable, with only one other bullpen posting a lower rate of strikeouts per nine innings.
If there’s an odor of familiarity about all this, it’s that having a stars-and-scrubs arrangement is nothing new for the Angels. It didn’t work for them as they missed the playoffs annually from 2015 to 2023. It’s doubtful that things will ultimately prove to be different this year.
Panic Meter: 4
Boston Red Sox3 of 8
Trevor Story (C)Brandon Sloter/Getty Images
2023 Record: 78-84, 5th in AL East
2024 Record: 10-9, 5th in AL East
Playoff Percentage Change: Minus-2.0
After a promising 7-3 start, the pendulum is already swinging back on the Red Sox.
They’ve lost six out of their last nine games, and every day that passes seems to bring more injuries. In particular, the loss of Trevor Story (shoulder surgery) for the rest of the season really hurts.
Sans Story at shortstop, it’s hard to even feign hope for this Red Sox defense. They’re averaging about an error per game, and the cost so far has been an MLB-high 23 unearned runs.
Tyler Milliken ⚾️ @tylermilliken_This is the worst defense I’ve ever seen over a 3 inning span in a big league game.
Red Sox now lead MLB in errors. Nothing short of embarrassing. pic.twitter.com/pncyrGMTL4
Such defensive ineptitude would be unsustainable even if Boston had a formidable offense, but it does not. Triston Casas and Tyler O’Neill have been early surprises, and Rafael Devers will hit in the long run. Yet the Red Sox are still below average in scoring, with no especially substantial help on the horizon.
The shame of all this is that what the Red Sox do very well is pitch. New methods championed by chief baseball officer Craig Breslow and pitching coach Andrew Bailey have the team’s ERA down to 2.79 from 4.52 last season. It’s a remarkable turnaround.
Alas, good arms can only do so much when paired with bad bats and bad arms. And this, of course, is to say nothing of how strong the AL East is around the Red Sox.
Panic Meter: 5
San Francisco Giants4 of 8
Matt Chapman (L) and Bob Melvin (R)Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images
2023 Record: 79-83, 4th in NL West
2024 Record: 8-11, 4th in NL West
Playoff Percentage Change: Minus-10.4
Only the Los Angeles Dodgers spent more in free agency than the Giants over the winter. The directions the two clubs have gone in since then aren’t quite the same.
Whereas the Dodgers are exactly where they want to be atop the NL West, the last thing the Giants wanted was to be looking up at not only them, but also the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks. And make no mistake: It’s all on the Giants to catch up.
Just don’t make the mistake of thinking this isn’t doable.
The Giants haven’t gotten going offensively yet, but they can rightfully expect more from Jorge Soler, Matt Chapman and Jung Hoo Lee, who’ve combined for a .702 OPS. Notably, Statcast’s early returns on Lee include an elite whiff rate and strong exit velocity.
Otherwise, the 4.56 ERA that the Giants have gotten from their starters is bound to come down. Logan Webb, Kyle Harrison and Jordan Hicks are already pitching well, and Blake Snell won’t have a 12.86 ERA forever.
Likewise, the 5.05 ERA that San Francisco’s relievers have posted should come down. Even with Camilo Doval’s fastball velocity down 1 mph from last year, there’s good stuff in the Giants’ bullpen.
Panic Meter: 2
Miami Marlins5 of 8
Jesús LuzardoRich Storry/Getty Images
2023 Record: 84-78, 3rd in NL East
2024 Record: 4-15, 5th in NL East
Playoff Percentage Change: Minus-25.6
This is where some might be thinking, “Huh, the Marlins must be some kind of courtesy inclusion or something.” And that is exactly the case.
Though the Marlins did make the playoffs in 2023, they had to overperform to do so and they then proceeded to treat the offseason as an excuse only to subtract. Tim Anderson was the only free agent they signed to a major league deal.
Which is to say that nobody ever expected the Marlins to actually be good in 2024. If anything, it’s not the biggest shock that they’re this bad.
The Marlins weren’t a powerful team even with Soler in 2023, so go figure that they now rank last in the NL in slugging without him. More from Anderson and Luis Arraez would help, but we must be real that “more” in this context can only mean “more singles.”
It was pitching that allowed Miami to withstand last year’s poor offensive effort, but that’s highly unlikely to be the case again. Not with Sandy Alcantara and Eury Pérez needing the year to recover from Tommy John surgery, much less with Jesús Luzardo rocking a 7.65 ERA.
Panic Meter: 5
Minnesota Twins6 of 8
Byron BuxtonMatt Krohn/Getty Images
2023 Record: 87-75, 1st in AL Central
2024 Record: 6-11, 4th in AL Central
Playoff Percentage Change: Minus-27.0
Unlike in 2023, the Twins don’t have the luxury of running unopposed in the AL Central. They’re already looking up at three winning teams in the Cleveland Guardians, Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers.
If the Twins catch them, it’ll be because the home runs start coming again.
They hit plenty of them in 2023, ultimately co-leading the AL with the Rangers. They’ve hit only 15 so far in 2024, but they have excuses. Bad weather, for one. Injuries to Royce Lewis and Carlos Correa, for two. A whiff-prone start for Byron Buxton, for three.
That none of these things will last and, as such, the home runs will eventually be there is a reasonable enough belief to hold. But will the pitching also be there?
Twins hurlers have thus far surrendered the third-most homers in the league, and a good chunk of the blame for that falls on the three starters behind Pablo López and Joe Ryan. Between them, Louie Varland, Chris Paddack and Bailey Ober account for half of Minnesota’s 24 home runs and a 7.81 ERA.
Basically, the propulsion they’re providing is falling woefully short of keeping the Twins from being sucked into the black hole created by Sonny Gray’s absence.
Panic Meter: 3
Seattle Mariners7 of 8
Julio RodríguezJohn Fisher/Getty Images
2023 Record: 88-74, 3rd in AL West
2024 Record: 9-10, 3rd in AL West
Playoff Percentage Change: Minus-12.7
After the Mariners fell just short of making the playoffs in 2023, president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto was clear-eyed about the offense’s role in that.
“If there was a reason why we were sitting home in the postseason,” he said, “we felt like it was probably the inability to consistently make contact.”
He wasn’t wrong, but the problem unfortunately isn’t fixed. Mariners hitters are striking out 28.5 percent of the time, the highest such rate of any offense. It’s a key factor for why they’re only scoring 3.5 runs per game.
Another key factor, however, is that Julio Rodríguez, Mitch Garver and J.P. Crawford have been ice-cold to the tune of a combined .536 OPS. That number only figures to go up, and likely by a lot.
Seattle Mariners @MarinersRT if you love Mitch Haniger. pic.twitter.com/C7rUCfcKTK
In the meantime, it’s a positive for Seattle that a similarly slow start on the mound has already dissipated. After coughing up a 5.21 ERA in the team’s first 12 games, Mariners hurlers have a 1.83 ERA in six games since then. Given the sheer strength of this staff, the latter is more indicative than the former.
Also in the meantime, the Rangers and Astros are also off to slow starts. As slumps go, this one is well-timed.
Panic Meter: 1
Houston Astros8 of 8
Josh HaderTim Warner/Getty Images
2023 Record: 90-72, 1st in AL West
2024 Record: 6-14, 5th in AL West
Playoff Percentage Change: Minus-26.0
Like the Mariners, the Astros can breathe easier knowing that the AL West race hasn’t gotten away from them despite their cold start.
Plus, the Astros almost certainly aren’t going to have a .000 winning percentage in one-run games all year. They’ve also been victimized by a ton of cheap hits, which really came through on the home call of Luis Guillorme’s ground-rule double on Tuesday.
The big positive amid all the weirdness has been Houston’s offense. José Abreu and Alex Bregman aren’t hitting, but the Astros are nonetheless second in the AL for OPS and tied for second in the home runs.
As for the pitching…OK, the pitching has problems.
Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez should be back together in the rotation soon, but they can only do so much to boost what’s currently the lowest strikeout rate in the American League. And Josh Hader’s 8.31 ERA hints at very real problems, including another step down for his fastball velocity and his lowest ever whiff rate.
Because of this, the Astros could still be vulnerable even if the hits keep coming and their luck evens out.
Panic Meter: 2
