Chris Sale, Willy Adames and MLB's Biggest Busts of 1st Month of 2025

In just about every season in MLB history, you can find examples of players who got out to a terrible start in April before flipping a switch and thriving the rest of the way.

However, there are countless more examples of former All-Stars who woefully underachieved for the first month of the season and simply never recovered. And while we're not necessarily throwing in the towel on any of the names on this list, we are deep enough into the 2025 campaign that it's fair to legitimately question whether they'll be able to turn things around.

Biggest busts are listed in alphabetical order.

Statistics current through the start of play on Sunday, April 27.

2025 Stats: .205/.272/.268, 1 HR, 14 RBI

At 18-10 and battling for first place in the NL West, the San Francisco Giants have drastically exceeded expectations thus far. They had a preseason win total line of 80.5, and even that felt a bit optimistic for what was supposed to be the buffer of sorts between the lowly Rockies and the division's trio of legitimate contenders.

The truly baffling part is that they've done it without getting anything out of the shortstop they made the highest-paid player in franchise history this winter.

After a 2024 campaign with 32 home runs, 112 RBI and 21 stolen bases landed him a 10th-place finish in the NL MVP vote, Willy Adames is on pace for roughly six, 81 and six, respectively, in the first year of his $182 million contract.

The glass half-full perspective is that slow starts are nothing new for the 29-year-old. In both 2021 and 2022, he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn for the first few weeks, yet he still ended up with at least 120 hits and 24 home runs in each of the past four seasons.

But he is whiffing at non-fastballs at an alarming rate, while his barrel percentage on batted balls is barely even half of what it had been with the Brewers. Add to that his woeful defensive metrics, and let's just say this isn't the start San Francisco had in mind when it made Adames the face of the franchise.

2025 Stats: .200/.298/.306, 2 HR, 13 RBI

In each of the past three seasons, Yordan Alvarez was an All-Star and a recipient of at least some AL MVP votes, hitting a combined total of 103 home runs with a .988 OPS.

Only Aaron Judge (1.107) and—by a very slim margin—Shohei Ohtani (.990) fared better in the OPS department, and Alvarez entered 2025 as one of the top candidates for AL MVP because of that sustained success at the dish.

That slugging superstar has yet to make his arrival this season, though, with just five extra base hits through his first 25 games played.

As we did for Willy Adames, let's be sure to offer up an optimistic spin here: Alvarez also started relatively slow last year. He did have a pair of multi-HR games last April, but he had just a .743 OPS through 36 games before heating up to the tune of a 1.031 mark the rest of the way.

Hard to imagine anyone would be surprised if the 27-year-old turned a similar corner any day now. With his still elite average exit velocity, Statcast puts his expected slugging percentage at 166 points higher than what he has actually slugged thus far. It should just be a matter of time before he starts hitting some lasers into the gaps and over the fences.

All the same, he is off to a brutal start and has plummeted from one of the top candidates for AL MVP down into the stockpile of intriguing buy-low options—if you honestly believe Judge isn't winning again and are looking for such a flyer.

2025 Stats: .195/.258/.317, 2 HR, 12 RBI, 3 SB

We know at this point in his career that trying to forecast how productive Cody Bellinger will be in any given season is a fool's errand.

In each of the past seven years, his OPS either increased or decreased by at least 112 points compared to the previous season.

Keeping with that trend after putting up a .751 mark in 2024, the unknown was whether he'd be north of .863 or south of .639 in his debut with the Yankees.

Unfortunately for the Bronx Bombers, it has been the latter thus far, with the 2017 NL Rookie of the Year posting a .575 OPS while primarily batting directly behind the 2017 AL Rookie of the Year (Aaron Judge), who is sitting at 1.223.

The good news is the 29-year-old is hitting the ball much harder than he had been with the Cubs. His average exit velocity is nearly 3 mph higher than it was in 2023 and 2024, and his hard-hit percentage is up more than 10 percent, from 32.2 to 42.9.

Even so, both his expected batting average and expecting slugging percentage are as bad or almost as bad as they've ever been in his career, with no indication that he's about to turn the corner.

With Trent Grisham out to a great start and Jasson Dominguez finally entrenched as the regular left fielder, Bellinger could be out of a job if this slow start does continue.

2025 Stats: 26.0 IP, 2-2, 5.19 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 6.9 K/9

Less than a week before the Guardians' regular season began, they signed Tanner Bibee to an extension that will keep him in Cleveland through at least 2029, likely 2030 if they exercise the club option for an additional year.

But after posting a 3.25 ERA through the first 56 starts of his big league career, the 26-year-old has been substantially less impressive early in the current campaign.

In a loss at Baltimore, Bibee allowed three home runs and six earned runs overall. Two starts prior to that one, it was four home runs and a career-worst seven earned runs allowed against the Angels. Even in the start in between, it took him 96 pitches to log 4.2 scoreless innings against the Royals, failing to even qualify for the win in what was one of his better starts.

As has been to blame for teammate Emmanuel Clase's rough start, the cutter just isn't working like it used to.

In 2024, opponents hit .144 and slugged .235 against Bibee's second-most heavily used pitch. But this season? .455 and 1.000, respectively. Quite the spike. (FWIW, Clase's cutter has gone from .150 batting average against and .209 slugging against to .351 and .568, respectively.)

All told, his walk rate is more than double what it was last year, his home run rate is nearly triple what it used to be, and he's only striking out 18 percent of batters faced, compared to 26.3 in 2024. That has resulted in a 7.23 FIP that ranks dead-last among the 135 pitchers who have logged at least 20 IP.

2025 Stats: 24.1 IP, 0-6, 10.36 ERA, 2.22 WHIP, 8.9 K/9

In the eternally unwinnable battle against Father Time, "Uncle Charlie" is looking more like "Grandpa Chuck" through the first month of his age-41 campaign.

Charlie Morton made 12 starts last year for Atlanta in which he logged at least six innings while allowing two or fewer runs, two of those coming in September as he put the finishing touches on a fourth consecutive season with enough innings pitched to qualify for an ERA title.

Even though he was unquestionably less effective over the final three months of 2024 (4.52 ERA, 5.16 FIP) than the first three (3.89 ERA, 3.81 FIP), Baltimore's $15 million bet on the veteran having one more solid year left in the tank was an understandable gamble.

To put it lightly, that bet hasn't panned out.

Morton allowed at least four earned runs in each of his first five starts with the Orioles. His walk rate (7.4 BB/9) has never been higher, and the velocity on his four seamer and sinker—though impressively still in the 93.5 mph range—continues to decrease with age.

The O's tried to shake things up by deploying Morton after using Keegan Akin as an opener on Saturday, but it didn't help. Morton walked five batters in less than four innings of work, taking yet another loss. (Though, lowered his ERA from 10.89 to 10.36, if that's of interest to you.)

The other recent pitcher commonly referred to as Uncle Charlie, Adam Wainwright, had a similar fall from grace in his age-41 season two years ago. And if Morton is headed for more of the same for the next five months, it's liable to be a disastrous year for Baltimore.

2025 Stats: .167/.283/.231, 0 HR, 4 RBI

To be clear, the batting average isn't the concerning part here. Max Muncy was a .210 hitter over the past three seasons combined and is sitting at .226 for his career. Racking up base hits has never been part of his game.

But no home runs in more than 90 plate appearances?

His worst walk rate since his rookie season?

And his worst strikeout rate ever?

This isn't the Muncy of yore, and the Dodgers might need to make a tough decision about their third base situation sooner rather than later if this continues.

The silver lining on the slow start is that the 34-year-old's hard-hit percentage (50.0) is higher than it has ever been, and his expected weighted on-base average on contact (xwOBAcon) is .454, ranking among the best in the majors. He's simply had the misfortune of hitting rockets into gloves, or finding the biggest part of the ballpark with his four batted balls that have traveled over 380 feet in the air. (Statcast suggests he has hit three balls that would have been home runs at Dodger Stadium, but they each came on the road.)

His launch angle is off, though, and he isn't teeing off on fastballs like normal.

Worse yet, those issues at the plate are following him into the field, where he has already committed four errors and has one of the worst fielding percentages in the majors.

Joc Pederson's 2025 Stats: .077/.189/.108, 1 RBI, 18 K

Marcus Semien's 2025 Stats: .146/.215/.219, 2 HR, 10 RBI, 21 K

You could also put Kumar Rocker (8.10 ERA in five starts before landing on the IL) on this list of Rangers who have been disappointing in the early going, though the rookie pitcher making less than a million dollars is nowhere near the sunk cost that Joc Pederson ($18.5 million salary) and Marcus Semien ($26 million) are.

It is largely because of the disastrously slow starts by both Pederson and Semien that Texas entered Sunday ranked dead-last in the majors in total runs scored, averaging just 3.1 per game.

At least Semien is still hitting the ball hard. In fact, his barrel rate is well above what it had been over the past three seasons, and both his expected slugging and expected weighted on base average are only slightly worse than usual. It mostly seems to be tough luck for the 34-year-old, more so than a case of someone dropping off a cliff toward the end of his career.

Pederson all of a sudden can't hit anything, though.

The 33-year-old mashed five home runs in just 39 at bats in spring training, but he just got his first RBI of the regular season on Friday—on what would have been a routine groundout to second were it not for the infield playing in with a runner at third base.

After four consecutive years with a line drive rate of at least 22.6 percent, he's sitting at just 12.8 percent in the early going, grounding out like never before, if he can make contact at all.

Pederson batted .308 against fastballs last year, but he's slugging .071 against them this year. And they're already platooning him at DH, with 64 of his 65 at-bats coming against right-handed pitchers, which is what he mashed last season.

2025 Stats: 28.1 IP, 1-2, 5.40 ERA, 1.59 WHIP, 11.4 K/9

You never expect a reigning Cy Young winner to have a disappointing season, but it does happen probably more often than you think.

The 2023 winners, Blake Snell and Gerrit Cole, both pitched well when available in 2024, but each spent nearly half the season on the IL. 2022 winners Justin Verlander and Sandy Alcantara each posted an ERA at least 80 percent higher in 2023. Verlander also made just one appearance in 2020 after winning a Cy Young in 2019, with Snell also struggling to defend his 2018 crown due to both injury and ineffectiveness.

So, if Chris Sale doesn't snap out of his early funk, at least he's in good company?

Atlanta's ace still has a lethal slider, already responsible for 25 of his 36 strikeouts with opponents batting .204 against it. But his four seamer is getting pummeled to the tune of a .429 batting average, while the changeup that decimated right-handed hitters last year (.155 AVG, .191 SLG) might as well be sitting on a tee this year (.350 AVG, .600 SLG).

The underlying numbers are respectable, though. The 36-year-old is averaging 4.0 K/BB, and one home run allowed for every seven innings pitched. It also bears mentioning that four of his starts thus far came against the Padres, Dodgers, Phillies and Diamondbacks, which is no joke. And in that most recent start against the D-Backs, he allowed just one run in five innings of work.

Nevertheless, through six starts, Sale's best Game Score is a 55. He did better than that in all but seven starts last season.

2025 Stats: .182/.255/.283, 2 HR, 8 RBI

Last year, there were four players who hit at least 40 home runs: Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Juan Soto and Anthony Santander.

Quite the exclusive club, in which Santander undeniably felt like the odd man out, but also undeniably hit free agency at the best possible time for his bank account, inking a five-year, $92.5M deal with the intent of supplying some lineup support to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

With the exception of a big three-run homer off Spencer Schwellenbach two weeks ago, though, he hasn't delivered in the slightest.

It's not a specific pitch type that he's struggling with, either. After posting an expected slugging percentage of .409 or greater against fastballs, breaking balls and offspeed pitches in each of the past three seasons, Santander entered Sunday with XSLG marks of .306, .316 and .314, respectively.

While I suppose that's better than the alternative of suddenly becoming completely incapable of hitting a curveball, indiscriminately flailing against all pitch types can hardly be painted as a positive sign.

April never has been his favorite month, though. Santander did his best work in June and July last year, and thrived in May and August in 2023. In fact, for his career, he presently has a .640 OPS in March/April, compared to .825 in May, .852 in August and .861 in July.

Perhaps he'll heat up like usual as the temperature does the same. But Toronto had to be hoping he'd at least be hitting north of the Mendoza Line north of the border.