Which MLB contenders should hit panic button?

Two weeks into the MLB season, there are several big contenders who may want to restart the season.

Slow starts for Major League Baseball teams in April have to be taken with a grain of salt. Every team, even the eventual World Series champions, will have a stretch of games at some point in the season where they look like the worst team in the league. The Chicago Cubs endured a 1-9 stretch at one point last season. It just looks much worse when only two week’s worth of games have been played.

Through roughly a dozen games, the MLB standings do appear to have been turned upside down in some divisions. An expected playoff contender is in last place in five of the six divisions, and the Toronto Blue Jays have the worst record in baseball and have scored the fewest runs. These standings will not hold up through all 162 games, but a few of the last-place teams need to be hitting the panic button.

*All stats as of April 18, 2017*

Toronto Blue Jays

• Record (As of 4/18): 2-10
• Culprit: The offense

No one expected the 2017 Blue Jays to put up runs at a dizzying pace like the 2015 offense. Losing Edwin Encarnacion was expected to be a blow, but not this big. Through 12 games, Toronto has scored only 34 runs with a .212/.280/.312 slash line. They are last in baseball in runs scored, slugging percentage, OPS, and have struck out 105 times.

It’s been nothing short of ugly in Toronto.

Jose Bautista’s decline was expected to continue, but he has hit just .136/.264/.182 with 15 strikeouts. In the past, Bautista has been able to channel his anger over perceived slights into monster seasons, but that has not been the case so far this year. He is playing for his financial future, and may simply be trying to do too much at the plate. That has certainly been the case early in the year as he has chased pitches out of the zone in hitter’s counts.

As one of the more disciplined hitters in baseball, being over aggressive at the plate is out of character for Bautista.

Still stellar defensively, Russell Martin and Troy Tulowitzki have been disasters at the plate. Martin is a 34-year-old catcher who has batted .231/.331/.417 since coming to Toronto with an OPS+ barely above the league average of 100. Tulowitzki was expected to experience some offensive decline after leaving Coors Field, but nothing like this.

Since landing in Toronto at the 2015 trade deadline, the All-Star shortstop is a .250/.315/.426 hitter with an OPS+ of 98. If things continue to go south for the Blue Jays, both players will be untradeable due to their advancing age and hefty contracts.

The Blue Jays attempted to address their offensive needs after the loss of Encarnacion by signing Steve Pearce and Kendrys Morales. While both are solid hitters, especially when used properly in a platoon, they do not strike the same type of fear into opposing pitchers. In the outfield, Ezequiel Carrera and Kevin Pillar are solid defensive players, but offer little on offense. The most puzzling slow start for the Jays belongs to Devon Travis, who is batting .105. The second baseman was a dynamic weapon at the top of the lineup last year when he was finally healthy. If he can turn things around, it will help the rest of the lineup considerably.

Josh Donaldson had been continuing to put up MVP-type numbers, but is already on the DL with a calf strain. His hip bothered him for months at a time last season, and the calf has been acting up since early in Spring Training. Donaldson must be healthy if the Blue Jays are going to turn things around.

The one constant through the ups and downs for the Blue Jays last season was the starting rotation. Marcus Stroman has built on his star turn in the World Baseball Classic, but the rest of the starters have been inconsistent.

Level of Panic

The Blue Jays are one of the oldest teams in the league, and they look it. Expecting Bautista, Martin, and Tulowitzki to live up to their career averages seems like a stretch at this point. Toronto will be battling for fourth place in the AL East this year, and could be major sellers at the trade deadline.