Why fans shouldn't panic about MLB stars' early-season struggles

It did not take long.

We are barely a couple of weeks into the season, and the panic button is already getting mashed across Major League Baseball. Star players are suddenly “lost.” Lineups are “broken.” Fans are talking themselves into problems that did not even exist two weeks ago.

All because of April.

Look around the league and it is easy to see where the noise is coming from. There is a large chunk of MLB standouts who have not exactly had a hot start.

MLB stars off to a slow start

Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, coming off a huge season, has looked completely out of sync. The power has not shown up yet, while his batting average sits at a very low .133.

Raleigh's teammate, center fielder Julio Rodriguez, has not gotten going, either. He's had no real impact on the plate early on, which feels strange for a player who usually makes noise right out of the gate. Currently, Rodriguez has only notched 12 hits in 62 at bats, signaling a very slow start in April.

How about Cleveland Guardians third baseman Jose Ramirez? Same story. Ramirez's numbers in April do not look great. He currently has 11 hits in 61 at bats, a batting average of .180 and an OPS of .603.

And that is just a small sample of the names mentioned.

So naturally, the reaction is predictable. Something must be wrong. A flaw has been exposed. Maybe this is who these players are now.

Or maybe it is April.

April does not provide enough data

Baseball, in its nature, laughs at small sample sizes, but that does not stop people from overreacting to them anyway. A 10-game slump in July does not get much traction that the same 10-game slump in April does. 

It is not just the numbers, either. Everything looks a little bit worse during the first part of the season. A batter's timing might be slightly off, pitchers might just be building up, the air is cold and hitters have not quite found their consistent rhythm yet. They all look uncomfortable at the plate and yet every struggle is treated like an issue with no end in sight.

Then, seemingly on command, they flip. It happens every year.

Aaron Judge silenced April 2024 panic

We watched this play out with Aaron Judge in 2024. By early May, he was hitting under .200, sitting on a .725 OPS, and getting booed after a four-strikeout game. A few weeks later, everything looked different. 

He caught fire, hit over .400 during a stretch and had his OPS knocking on .988, and everyone forgot about his short slump. The MLB fanbase can be very fickle, and it is just a reminder that April numbers have a way of making people look foolish if you treat them like they actually tell the full story.

April tells a story that rarely lasts

A string of good performances can have a hitter back where he belongs and conversations from earlier in the year are all forgotten.

April does not tell us who these teams or players are; it tells us who they are slowly becoming as they try to get into their rhythm. Nobody seems to have the patience for that today, however. Every slump feels critical, and every slow start feels like a warning.

That is not to say that early struggles do not become real issues, but many are usually just noise, and every year, that noise leads the people to believe the story is already being written for the season.

Relax. It is only April.