Three Disappointing Seasons
Three Disappointing Seasons
This trio of players did not meet expectations, and didn't get close...
I, as much as the next baseball fan, love a good breakout. Sam covered those last week, and didn’t give me any credit for mentioning my Lord and Savior Brenton Doyle. This is the opposite of his, players that I, and much of the baseball community were high on, and simply didn’t get it done.
Spencer Torkelson
This one hurts to write. I’ve always been a big Tork guy since his days at ASU. After a solid 2023 (the second half was really good), I anticipated the Tiger’s first baseman to take a big step into 2024 and lead the charge in the power department for a team I thought had a serious chance at winning the AL Central. Unfortunately, he’s reverted to 2022 form, including being sent down for a few weeks earlier this season.
With a 29.5 K% (career-worst), a slash line of .225/.288/.373, with a pitiful 8 HR for a guy that notoriously hit tanks at Arizona St., I’m airing on the side of bust at this point. Especially with his comeback from the minors not lighting the world on fire, I think the Rally Cats give Tork a short leash in 2025, but we may see the slugger out of baseball in the next calendar year.
Zack Gelof
It’s known I was high on the A’s this year, the young core is extremely fun and they’re going to knock on the door of 70 wins this season. I figured Gelof would be a big piece of that success after his cup of tea in 2023 where he accumulated 14 HR and a .841 OPS in just 69 games (nice).
Fast forward to 2024, a sophomore slump would be putting it lightly. With just 17 HR and a .656 OPS (bottom 10 of all MLB-qualified hitters), Gelof is feeling every bit of growing pains in year two. The concern? His K% has gone up over 7% from 2023-2024, and now sits at 37.2%.
Let’s look at the silver lining before rounding out the list. Gelof has been putrid, to say the least, and he’s knocking on the door of 20/20 with 17 HR and 23 SB. I feel comfortable saying he’ll be a 30/30 guy in his career. Hopefully, 2025 is the bounce back.
Julio Rodríguez
Shout out, Sam, for this one, but the holy cow, has J-Rod has been bad? Sums up the Mariners season as a whole, but for the guy who is supposed to be the one constant, he’s hardly been that. His production has been way down, and somewhat explainable. Despite posting a career-worst 65 wRC+ and a pitiful .705 OPS, the savior of Seattle is certainly in a rut.
The most concerning piece to me is his average exit velo is down over 2mph from 2023-2024, along with his barrel rate (11.9% - 10%) and hard hit rate (52% - 45.7%) taking MASSIVE hits in the last year. All to say at this point, he looks like an average to below avergae hitter instead of the superstar caliber player we’re used to seeing. Connecting the dots, it makes sense it HR and RBI numbers have been nearly cut in half.
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