As we reach the quarter mark of the 2024 MLB season, three teams -- all playoff contenders in recent years -- are off to miserable starts.
Since 2017, the Houston Astros have won two World Series (and reached two others), made seven straight American League Championship Series and topped 100 wins four times. The St. Louis Cardinals had a winning record every season from 2008 to 2022; since 2000, they have made the playoffs 16 times and reached four World Series. The Toronto Blue Jays don't have that long track record of success, but they made the playoffs the past two seasons and three of the past four.
However, so far in 2024: The Astros can't pitch, the Cardinals can't hit and the Blue Jays aren't clicking.
For Houston and Toronto, the weakness raises questions about an ability to return to the playoffs. For St. Louis, it means more of what we saw last year, when that streak of winning seasons ended. Let's check in with an edition of Real or Not, focusing on these three clubs and their ugly starts.
Houston Astros
Record: 15-25
Dynasties -- yes, I call the Astros a dynasty -- crumble for a variety of reasons, but the primary one: The stars age out and there isn't new talent to replace them. That's what makes the Astros' situation a little odd: This isn't really an old team.
The oldest of the core offensive players is Jose Altuve, who is in his age-34 season but remains as productive as ever. There's also first baseman Jose Abreu at 37, but he got off to such a bad start in 2024 (7-for-77, no home runs) that he agreed to be optioned to the minors (although he has yet to play there). Beyond that, Alex Bregman is 30, Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker are 27, Jeremy Pena 26 and Yainer Diaz 25. Bregman is off to an awful start and Alvarez is below the big numbers we expect from him, but the offense has still been respectable, ranking first in the AL in batting average, second in on-base percentage and third in slugging (although just seventh in runs per game).
Of course, pitching has been the primary problem. In 2022, when the Astros won 106 games and the World Series, they relied on six starters: Justin Verlander, Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, Jose Urquidy, Luis Garcia and Lance McCullers Jr. That group accounted for 91% of the team's starts and combined for a sterling 2.90 ERA. All six remain under contract for Houston -- with Verlander taking a short vacation to the New York Mets before returning -- but they've made just 36% of the team's starts in 2024.
Injuries have racked the rotation this year: McCullers hasn't pitched since the 2022 World Series, Urquidy and Garcia have been out all season, and Verlander, Valdez and Javier have missed time. Hunter Brown has stumbled in his sophomore campaign, and he, J.P. France and Spencer Arrighetti have combined for an 0-11 record and 8.27 ERA in 17 starts, with the Astros winning just two of those games. Verlander, at 41, has made four starts, but age and various injuries might finally be catching up to him as he has the worst strikeout and walk rates of his career.
The bullpen has also been a mess. The Astros signed Josh Hader to a five-year, $95 million contract with the hopes of creating a brick wall back end of Hader, Bryan Abreu and Ryan Pressly. Instead, the Astros rank 27th in the majors in bullpen win probability added as Hader has struggled out of the gate with one blown save and three losses while Abreu and Pressly have also been more hittable than in recent seasons. The Astros are 2-9 in one-run games and 1-4 in extra-inning contests.
Can the Astros escape this hole? Javier returned Saturday, so for the first time all season they have Verlander, Valdez and Javier all healthy at the same time -- except the Tigers, hardly an offensive juggernaut, pounded Javier for seven runs in 1⅓ innings (he walked four batters and threw just 21 strikes in 50 pitches). This isn't the same pitcher who threw scoreless starts in the 2022 ALCS and World Series, including six hitless innings against the Phillies in Game 4.
Saturday's loss put the Astros at 14-25. I checked the past 25 teams to start a season 13-26, 14-25 or 15-24 (not including 2020). These were bad teams. Their average record was 68-94. Only one, the 2022 Baltimore Orioles, finished with a winning record, at 83-79.
On the other hand, it's not unusual for a team to have a 14-25 stretch at any point in the season and still make the playoffs -- the Tampa Bay Rays, Arizona Diamondbacks and Miami Marlins each did it last season. OK, Arizona and Miami won only 84 games and that probably won't make the playoffs in the AL this season, but the Rays won 99 games. The New York Yankees and Seattle Mariners did it in 2022, the St. Louis Cardinals in 2021, the Washington Nationals in 2019 and the Los Angeles Dodgers in both 2018 and 2017.
As bad as the Astros have looked, that list is a reminder that good teams can have awful 40-game stretches. So maybe the rotation stabilizes. Verlander pitched seven innings of two-hit ball in Sunday's win. Ronel Blanco has also pitched well, Urquidy made his first rehab start Sunday and Garcia is slated to return in the second half as he recovers from Tommy John surgery. The bullpen should be better. Bregman and Alvarez should pick it up. Despite the terrible start, the AL West remains in play as neither the Texas Rangers nor Mariners are tearing it up. FanGraphs still gives the Astros a 22% chance of winning the division.
That's my feeling: I'm not brave enough to call this the end of a dynasty after one-fourth of a season.
Verdict: Not real
St. Louis Cardinals
Record: 16-24
The Cardinals have been undone by a variety of factors the past couple of seasons, with the rotation falling apart in 2023 and the offense unable to get anything going in 2024 (only the Chicago White Sox are scoring fewer runs per game). Unlike with the Astros, age is an obvious issue here: Paul Goldschmidt is 36 and struggling with a .197 average and .279 slugging percentage (he struck out four times Saturday but had two hits, including a home run, Sunday). Nolan Arenado is 33 and has two home runs. Meanwhile, the rotation, even after Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson joined as free agents, is 24th in the majors in ERA -- and the top five starters are all 33 or older.
It hasn't helped that Nolan Gorman and Lars Nootbaar, who are supposed to fill the meat of the order alongside Goldschmidt and Arenado, are both hitting under .200 as well. Tommy Edman, the projected starting center fielder, has been out all season and the decision to rush Victor Scott II to the majors backfired (he hit .085 before being sent down to the minors). And now Willson Contreras, the most productive hitter in the lineup, is out with a broken arm.
The Cardinals can look back at three key decisions that help explain their struggles the last two seasons:
1. Trading prospects Zac Gallen and Sandy Alcantara for Marcell Ozuna. Looking for offense in 2018, the Cardinals acquired Ozuna, who was coming off a monster season with the Marlins. His OPS+ fell from 149 in 2017 to 107 in his first season with the Cardinals. Ozuna was OK in his two years with St. Louis -- he produced 4.7 WAR -- but Gallen and Alcantara have combined for 37.4 WAR in their major league careers so far, turning this into a disastrous trade in the long run.
2. Trading Randy Arozarena for Matthew Liberatore. Arozarena has outproduced Liberatore, 10.8 to 0.2 WAR. Liberatore is still just 24 years old, so it's too early to call this a bad trade, but he's pitched primarily out of the bullpen this season.
3. Trading Adolis Garcia to the Rangers for cash considerations. Garcia has been a two-time All-Star with 11.4 WAR in his three-plus seasons with Texas.
The early returns on the Tyler O'Neill trade aren't great either, as O'Neill has been tearing it up for the Red Sox. There's no guarantee he would have had the same outcomes in St. Louis, of course, but it's yet another outfielder who has succeeded away from the Cardinals -- while their actual 2024 outfield ranks last in the majors in OPS and home runs.
To be fair, the trades for Goldschmidt and Arenado have worked out, as none of the players the Cardinals gave up on those deals have done much, but their traditional player development pipeline has dried up in recent years -- or, more precisely, some of the highly regarded prospects haven't taken off. Gorman strikes out too much, Jordan Walker is back in the minors again after hitting .155 to start the season, and Dylan Carlson has been injured and seen his bat regress since a good rookie season in 2021. The lack of pitching in their farm system meant St. Louis had to dip into free agency this season just to fill the rotation.
Were some of these players overrated as prospects? Is there a development issue going on at the major league level?
John Mozeliak and Mike Girsch, who run baseball operations in St. Louis, have been in the organization forever (as have most of the other top lieutenants), so it was noteworthy that the Cardinals brought former Red Sox and Rays executive Chaim Bloom into the fold as an adviser prior to this season. Adding a new voice to review processes and provide new ideas makes a lot of sense. Mozeliak is signed through 2025 and he curiously signed manager Ollie Marmol to a two-year extension through 2026 back in March, but you have to wonder if jobs are on the line with another poor season.
All this could also just be the natural cycle of things: It's hard to stay on top like the Cardinals have done for more than two decades -- or arguably, all the way back to the early 1980s. Like the Astros, when you win year after year, you're not drafting high. The Cardinals haven't had a top-15 selection in the draft since 2008 and a top-10 pick since 1998. No matter how good your scouting and player development departments are, it's difficult to keep hitting on those late first-round draft picks. Factor in that they have never been a big player in free agency, which means they have to nail everything else. And the Cardinals simply haven't done that in recent years.
This does feel like the end of an era. Unlike the Astros, the Cardinals weren't good last year, so it's harder to be optimistic about a turnaround. Perhaps their fans sense this: Boos have been heard regularly at Busch Stadium. It's not a fan base used to losing.
Verdict: Real
Toronto Blue Jays
Record: 18-22
The morning after Tuesday's 10-1 loss to the Phillies, the Blue Jays, mired in last place in a tough AL East, held a team meeting -- in a sport where team meetings are usually held only in the most desperate of circumstances. The subject matter was kept private, although local reporters described it as "productive," and sure enough, the Blue Jays came out and beat the Phillies 5-3 on Wednesday.
After a day off, they lost to the Twins on Friday but then rallied from a 7-1 deficit to win 10-8 on Saturday before dropping Sunday's game -- meaning the Jays have now lost six consecutive series. Did the team meeting help? Is this the start of a turnaround? As with all things regarding Toronto: It's hard to tell.
As is the case with the Cardinals, the Blue Jays' stars haven't done enough. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., even with a four-hit night on Saturday, is at .273/.364/.390 with just four home runs. He still hits the ball with better-than-average contact rates, but as we get further away from his MVP-caliber 2021 season, that's starting to look like one of the all-time great fluke seasons.
Bo Bichette, hitting .203/.258/.294, was demoted to sixth in the lineup after the team meeting. He did hit his second home run Saturday, so maybe he'll get going. He just hasn't been squaring anything up, ranking in the 8 percentile of barrel rate compared to the 60th to 64th percentile each of the past three seasons. Bichette has always been an aggressive hitter and he's not whiffing more often or hitting into bad luck, but he simply hasn't been putting good balls in play. He's been too consistent in his career to suddenly think he's lost it, but there is a non-zero possibility of a Javier Baez-like career arc, where the willingness to chase pitches out of the zone eats away at everything else.
Aside from those two, the Jays are relying on three older hitters: Justin Turner (39 years old), George Springer (34) and Kevin Kiermaier (34). Remember, this wasn't a great offensive team last season, finishing eighth in the AL in runs. Springer is hitting .200/.273/.290 while Kiermaier is at .224/.278/.299, so the Jays have been playing Davis Schneider more in left field and Daulton Varsho in center, with Kiermaier on the bench.
The pitching also hasn't been nearly as good as it was last season. Jose Berrios and Yusei Kikuchi have been good, but Kevin Gausman (4.95 ERA) and Chris Bassitt (5.06 ERA) have been hit hard. The bullpen ranked third in the majors in win probability added in 2023 but just 19th so far in 2024.
Manager John Schneider continues to receive criticism from Blue Jays fans as well. Case in point: The Jays called up Addison Barger for his major league debut on April 24 and played him in left field -- a position he had played one game at in the minors. He had played some right field, but you're still putting a young player in a position to fail. Barger ended up making an error that led to a run in a game the Blue Jays lost 3-2.
Add it all up, and you get the last-place team in a challenging division sitting on a minus-47 run differential -- second worst in the AL ahead of only the White Sox. With the Orioles and Yankees off to great starts, it's hard to see the Blue Jays as factors in the division race. Indeed, FanGraphs gives them odds of just 3% to win the division (although 27% to make the playoffs).
Still, I don't like the vibe so far: underperforming stars, team meetings, a front office that didn't really do much to enhance the roster after its failed pursuit to sign Shohei Ohtani. In 2021, the Blue Jays had a powerhouse lineup built around Guerrero and Bichette -- but Marcus Semien, Teoscar Hernandez and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. are gone from that team and it's now a mediocre lineup with, so far, a mediocre rotation and bullpen. Back in 2021, it looked like a window of success was opening for the Jays and, yes, they made the playoffs in 2022 and '23, but the window may already be closing. This looks like a .500 team.