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MLB Mailbag: Braves, Twins, Torkelson, Sutter Health Park

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MLBTR is going deep into the bench for this week's mailbag. With Tim Dierkes and Steve Adams each on vacation, I'll step in to answer questions on the Braves' poor start, whether the Twins are a playoff-caliber team, this year's most improved rosters, Sutter Health Park, situational hitting, and much more!

Abner asks:

Even when the biggest concern with the NY Mets has always been their starting rotation, so far the starters have looked pretty good in general and the bullpen has performed almost perfectly. With the problems that have experienced the Atlanta Braves in the opening week (Reynaldo López injury, Jurickson Profar suspended, Ronald Acuña out at least until May, Spencer Strider is out for a couple of weeks at the beginning of the season) do you think that we are about to see a battle between Mets and Phillies the rest of the way?

I had the Phillies and Mets a little ahead of the Braves to begin the season. The past week certainly hasn't increased Atlanta's odds of winning the division. It's way too early to start digging their grave, though. Last year's Astros dropped five of their first six games and seven of nine. They bottomed out at 12 games below .500 in the second week of May; they ended up winning the AL West by 3.5 games. Most teams that dig themselves that big a hole will not make the playoffs, of course, but they also usually don't have as much talent as the Braves do.

Atlanta has started the season against arguably the two best teams in the National League. They're without their best player, one of the league's best pitchers, and their starting catcher. Even if you don't expect much out of Sean Murphy at this point, getting Acuña and Strider back within the next few weeks is massive. They've got 96% of the season remaining to put this behind them.

Losing Profar and López obviously hurts, largely because they're stressing areas where the roster already looked weak. The Jarred Kelenic left field experiment didn't work out in year one. Alex Verdugo could push Kelenic into a fourth outfield role once Acuña comes back, but he was unsigned deep into Spring Training for a reason. The rotation depth behind the top four or five is spotty. Strider, Chris Sale, Spencer Schwellenbach and some combination of AJ Smith-Shawver, Grant Holmes, Bryce Elder and prospect Hurston Waldrep is probably workable. If they lose any of their top three to injury before López is able to return, it's teetering.

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Offseason In Review: Detroit Tigers

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After Detroit surprised the baseball world by sneaking into the playoffs off the back of a late-season surge and wound up making it within a game of the ALCS, the club entered the offseason looking to assert itself as a contender but fell short in many of its most significant pursuits.

Major League Signings

2025 spending: $67.8MM
Total spending: $77.8MM

Option Decisions

Trades and Waiver Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

  • None

Notable Losses

Fans in Detroit and many around the game believed that 2024's surprise success would spur the Tigers to act more aggressively this winter than they had during president of baseball operations Scott Harris's previous seasons at the helm. Those expectations made plenty of sense on paper. After all, Detroit had just made the postseason for the first time since 2014 amid a season where they enjoyed a breakout from superstar southpaw Tarik Skubal. He asserted himself as one of the best pitchers in baseball, winning both the Cy Young award and the Triple Crown in the American League, but now has just two seasons remaining before he's scheduled to reach free agency.

When the final years of team control over a breakout superstar were combined with an excellent season from Riley Greene, positive signs from other foundational youngsters like Colt Keith and Reese Olson, and a barren payroll that featured less than $40MM in guaranteed salary commitments for 2025, it seemed clear that this offseason was as good of an opportunity as the Tigers could expect to push their chips in and build a World Series contender. That's not how the 2024-25 offseason panned out for the club, however. While the Tigers were involved on at least some level with a number of potentially impactful players on the market, the vast majority of those efforts to acquire impact talent did not pan out.

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Offseason In Review: Tampa Bay Rays

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The Rays made some notable trades and signings this offseason but so much focus was on the stadium drama, as hurricanes blew in and threw the entire trajectory of the franchise off course.

Major League Signings

2025 spending: $21.5MM
Total spending: $37.5MM

Option Decisions

Trades and Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

Notable Losses

The Rays played their final game of the 2024 season on September 29. A 3-1 loss to the Red Sox sealed a losing record of 80-82. It was a relative disappointment, the club's first time under .500 since 2017. In typical Rays fashion, they made the most of it. At the deadline, they traded away some players who were getting more expensive and closer to free agency, such as Zach Eflin, Randy Arozarena, Isaac Paredes and Jason Adam.

Going into the winter, there was some decent stuff in place for the future. The long-term payroll was fairly clean and the farm system was in healthy shape. The big league roster seemed to be in decent position to bounce back in 2025, thanks in large part to the return of several pitchers who were injured in 2024.

The club also had a deal in place with local government agencies to fund a new stadium. The plan was to play at Tropicana Field through 2027, with the Trop to be knocked down and replaced by a new ballpark/commercial real estate complex by 2028.

But barely a week later, the whole stadium situation plan was altered. In late September and early October, Hurricanes Helene and Milton both passed through the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. The Trop sustained significant damage, particularly from Milton on October 9. Most notably, the roof was essentially gone. This was a big problem because the Trop had no drainage system in place, making it suddenly unusable.

At that time, it wasn't known exactly what would happen next. But in the following months, the club's short-term and long-term stadium plans would be shifted dramatically. They are going to play their 2025 homes games in a minor league park. They could be back in the Trop next year, but that's not clear. The deal for the new stadium is now dead and relocation talk has retaken a seat at the table.

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Offseason In Review: Boston Red Sox

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After finishing 2024 with an 81-81 record, the Red Sox rose from their lengthy slumber to once again assert themselves as a force in the offseason market with substantial upgrades all around the roster. Will it be enough to get back to the postseason?

Major League Signings

2025 spending: $79.55MM
Total spending: $172.3MM

Option Decisions

Trades and Waiver Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

  • None

Notable Losses

After four straight seasons without a playoff berth, the Red Sox entered the winter with plenty of positive signs. Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford, and Richard Fitts looked like an enviable nucleus of young rotation talent under team control, while Jarren Duran and Wilyer Abreu enjoyed breakout seasons in the outfield. With the best young talent, including baseball's #1 prospect Roman Anthony, and three other top-50 talents in Marcelo Mayer, Kristian Campbell, and Kyle Teel knocking on the door, it seemed clear that the time was now for the club to push its chips in and force open a new competitive window.

While there was some skepticism about the club's intentions at the outset of the offseason, particularly after last winter's "full-throttle" comments led to a quiet offseason that brought little new talent into the fold, the club quickly showed itself to be a legitimate threat to spend when it emerged as a surprise finalist for the services of Juan Soto alongside expected contenders like the Mets, Yankees, Dodgers, and Blue Jays. The Red Sox ultimately fell short of that pursuit, finishing alongside Toronto ahead of L.A. but behind the two New York teams. Even as Soto landed in Queens, however, Boston's apparent willingness to give out a contract in the range of $700MM made clear they were serious about improving this winter.

In the aftermath of Soto signing elsewhere, the Red Sox had two main priorities to address: adding a big right-handed bat to the lineup, and bringing in an ace (preferably one that throws left-handed) to lead their young but talented pitching staff. Initial attempts to bring in players like Max Fried (who eventually signed in the Bronx) and Teoscar Hernandez (who eventually returned to the Dodgers) fell apart, but the Red Sox didn't let the league's biggest spenders nabbing their top targets stop them from addressing their needs in a big way. During the Winter Meetings, the Red Sox echoed the Chris Sale trade by swinging a blockbuster with the White Sox that saw them surrender a bevy of talented prospects in exchange for an extremely talented southpaw.

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Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript

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MLBTR's Steve Adams hosted a live chat at noon CT today, exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers.

 

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Offseason In Review: Colorado Rockies

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The Rockies are one of the few teams in the majors will no real shot at contending this year, so their offseason was understandably very quiet.

Major League Signings

2025 spending: $13MM
Total spending: $13MM

Option Decisions

Trades and Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

  • None

Notable Losses

There wasn't a lot of momentum for the Rockies going into the winter. 2024 was their sixth straight losing season. It was their second in a row getting to triple-digit losses. In the age of the expanded playoffs, most clubs are at least theoretical contenders, but the Rockies are one of a few that are clearly on the outside.

Such a team could perhaps find itself in plenty of offseason rumors anyway. The White Sox were coming off an atrocious 2024 season but still had notable trade candidates to talk about in Garrett Crochet and Luis Robert Jr. The Rockies have been reluctant to make such moves, however. Ryan McMahon could have been an exciting offseason trade candidate if there was any indication the Rockies were open to moving him, but that has never seemed likely.

There were some reports early in the offseason with a bit of smoke, to a degree. The Rockies were reportedly looking to lower payroll, not surprising given their circumstances. They had some openness to trading Brendan Rodgers, Cal Quantrill and Justin Lawrence. They clearly didn't find much interest. Rodgers and Quantrill were later non-tendered. Lawrence was put on waivers and claimed by the Pirates.

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Offseason In Review: St. Louis Cardinals

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The Cardinals began their offseason by announcing major changes to the baseball operations staff and pledging to refocus on player development. Their efforts to free up playing time for younger players came up empty, however, and they'll run it back with nearly an identical roster.

Major League Signings

Option Decisions

Trades and Waiver Claims

Extensions

  • None

Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

"The message is, 'we're going young,'" Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. said at the conclusion of the regular season. DeWitt's comments came on the heels of a press conference wherein longtime president of baseball operations John Mozeliak announced the 2025 season would be his last running baseball operations in St. Louis. Former Red Sox chief baseball officer and Rays senior vice president Chaim Bloom, hired as an advisor the prior offseason, would take the reins in 2026. He'd already agreed to a five-year contract.

It was a jarring change in tone for a Cardinals club that had perennially sought to compete in the National League Central. Mozeliak candidly acknowledged that the team's primary focus would not necessarily be on building the best roster for 2025, but rather on bolstering the organization's player development practice and building out the type of modern baseball operations systems and infrastructure that the Cardinals no longer possessed.

"Yes, this is a reset," Mozeliak said at the time. "Yes, this is going to be where we’re not focusing on necessarily building the best possible roster we can."

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Offseason In Review: Texas Rangers

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After a disappointing follow-up season to their first-ever World Series championship, the Rangers were the busiest team in the AL West over the offseason. Did they do enough to put themselves in the driver’s seat of the division?

Major League Signings

2025 spending: $56.225MM (not including Curvelo)
Total spending: $139.475MM (not including Curvelo)

Option Decisions

Trades & Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

While the Rangers significantly increased payroll during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 offseasons, they weren’t nearly as active the winter after their World Series victory, despite the extra cash their success surely brought in. The reason? Declining television revenue and an unknown future for their TV broadcasts. Texas was one of many teams affected when the company then known as Diamond Sports Group filed for bankruptcy in 2023. The Rangers negotiated a new agreement with DSG for 2024, but it was only a one-year deal, and it paid them significantly less than they had received under their previous contract.

The Rangers did not re-up with DSG (now called Main Street Sports Group) for 2025, nor did they follow the path of teams like the Guardians and Twins, who will have their TV broadcasts distributed by MLB this season. Instead, the Rangers announced the brand new Rangers Sports Network in late January. RSN will partner with several TV providers to distribute games. Presumably, the team decided this would be a more lucrative option than signing away their exclusive TV rights to another broadcast company or MLB. Still, the whole ordeal meant the Rangers were facing quite a bit of financial uncertainty for the second consecutive winter. For the first time in four years, they did not increase their payroll. Indeed, the team made it a goal to drop below the luxury tax threshold in 2025. According to the estimates from RosterResource, those efforts were successful. The Rangers' payroll sits about $4MM lower than where it was at the end of last season, while their CBT payroll is $14.5MM lower – and $4.7MM below the first tax threshold.

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Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript

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MLBTR’s Anthony Franco held a live chat today, exclusively for Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers!

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Offseason In Review: Athletics

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Motivated by their temporary move to Sacramento and the fear of an MLBPA grievance that could have cut into their revenue sharing money, the A's were busy. The result: three of the four largest contracts in franchise history, and a realistic (if long shot) hope of competing for a playoff spot.

Free Agent Signings

2025 spending: $40.05MM
Total spending: $82.05MM

Option Decisions

  • None

Trades and Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

Notable Losses

The A's played around .500 ball in the second half. While their rotation remained largely uninspiring, things were starting to fall into place in the lineup. As the team officially closed the book on their 57 years in Oakland, fans who are sticking with the club in Sacramento and Las Vegas could start to dream on the team pulling out of a three-year rebuild.

There were a few clear areas to address. They needed multiple starting pitchers and a third baseman, at least. The A's rarely plug holes in free agency. They'd spent less than $55MM over the previous three offseasons combined. Owner John Fisher has suggested he'd raise payroll with expected revenue increases once they get to Las Vegas in 2028. It's hard to argue the A's deserved the benefit of the doubt after years of bottom-tier spending. There were no promises about the next three seasons anyhow, as those will be played at a Triple-A park in Sacramento.

At the beginning of the offseason, general manager David Forst firmly stated that designated hitter Brent Rooker wouldn't be available. It was fair to assume the same of star closer Mason Miller. They were no longer in the "tear it down" section of the rebuild, but it wasn't clear how aggressively they'd supplement their developing lineup.

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