The top 5 underachieving teams in MLB, so far

It’s about the quarter mark of the MLB season, with most teams surpassing 40 games played. There’s still a looooooong way to go this season and the trade deadline is still two months away so a lot can change, but now seems like an apt time to compare teams’ records to their preseason expectations.

This team would’ve been higher on the list were it not for a recent six-game winning streak. Even with that streak they’re still three games under .500. Their big offseason acquisition of Trevor Story hadn’t done much before that streak but was dominant during, hitting three home runs in one game with his season total now at eight. Ace Nathan Eovaldi has been meh with an ERA+ of 108. Chris Sale may give this team a boost when he returns but it’s impossible to say if he’ll be the pre-injury Sale.

On paper, this was the most formidable lineup in the majors, enough to make opposing pitchers wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. They’d get up, walk to the bathroom sink, tell themselves it was all a dream. They’d splash some water in their face, look up at the mirror, and see Vlad Guerrero Jr. staring back at them. But really they’ve been pedestrian at best with the 24th most RBI in baseball and the 12th most home runs.

The defending World Series champions notably weren’t above .500 until August of last year so they still have every chance of having a similar run, but I don’t grade on a curve. This team returned pretty much every piece of last year’s championship team except for Freddie Freeman who was preemptively replaced by Matt Olson, Jorge Soler, and Joc Pederson. They’ve had some bad luck with postseason hero Eddie Rosario literally not seeing the ball and needing eye surgery. Now that Ronald Acuña Jr. has returned from injury, this team should be headed in a better direction.

No one’s gotten bitten by the injury bug as badly as the White Sox, but still, this was one of the biggest World Series favorites that are now treading water around .500. Who knows what their record would look like if they weren’t in the worst division in baseball?

One would think that a team that hasn’t made the playoffs in 20 years wouldn’t be in a position to disappoint anyone, but life finds a way. After narrowly missing out on the postseason last season, the front office went against its nature and actually tried to improve. Off-season acquisitions of Adam Frazier, Eugenio Suárez, Jesse Winker, and AL Cy Young winner Robbie Ray, along with having baseball’s third best prospect, Julio Rodríguez, on their opening day roster made me believe they wouldn’t just make it to the postseason, but win the division as well. Now, 45 games in, this team that spent the off-season acquiring players is trailing the Oakland A’s who spent the off-season offloading payroll. Again, they have time to turn it around, which I still think they will, but it’s going to be tough to catch the Astros and Angels at the top of the division.