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2024-25 MLB Free Agent Power Rankings

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The season is underway, which makes this a good time to look ahead to next winter with the first installment of the 2024-25 MLB Free Agent Power Rankings! It’s an annual series here at MLBTR, wherein we try to rank the upcoming class of free agents by measure of their estimated earning power.

MLBTR will take periodic looks at the top of the class from now through the remainder of the season. Season performance will start to influence these rankings, but two to three weeks into the season, it’s not a huge factor. By the end time the season draws to a close, however, 2024 results will weigh heavily into the rankings. A strong platform year can elevate any player’s status in free agency, just as a poor walk year can tank their stock.

Our power rankings are compiled collaboratively. I worked with colleagues Anthony Franco and Darragh McDonald as well as MLBTR founder and owner Tim Dierkes for the first installment of this year’s rankings. Players with opt-out clauses and player options are included, even if they’ve previously given indications they may forgo the opportunity to return to the market.

Statistics are up-to-date through April 12.

* denotes players who are ineligible for a qualifying offer

1. Juan Soto, OF, Yankees

Were it not for Shohei Ohtani reaching the open market a year sooner, Soto might have a claim to the most coveted free agent ever. Because he skyrocketed through the minor leagues and took MLB by storm beginning at age 19, Soto’s final year of arbitration eligibility comes in just his age-25 campaign. He’ll play the entirety of his first free agent season at 26 years of age. For some context, Aaron Judge — who re-signed on a nine-year, $360MM contract with the Yankees upon reaching free agency — debuted at 24 and had 773 big league plate appearances heading into his own age-26 season.

Soto is a freak of nature who was one of MLB’s best hitters at an age when most top prospects are still in college or just entering the low minors. He hit .292/.406/.517 as a teenage rookie in 2018, and his preternatural plate discipline, bat-to-ball skills and raw power have only improved since. Through more than 3400 career plate appearances, Soto has walked at a staggering 18.9% clip and struck out in just 17% of his plate appearances. He entered the current season with 160 home runs, and while he’s never had a 40-homer campaign before, a move to Yankee Stadium and its notorious short porch in right field could help him get to 200 long balls before he turns 26.

Since his 2018 debut, Soto leads qualified big leaguers with a mammoth .422 on-base percentage. Mike Trout’s .415 mark ranks second, and Freddie Freeman (.402) is the only other hitter north of .400. Soto is “only” 16th in home runs in that time, but his 154 wRC+ — which indicates he’s been 54% better than an average hitter after weighting for home park and league run-scoring environment — is tied with Mookie Betts for fourth-best in baseball, trailing only Trout, Yordan Alvarez and Judge.

If there’s one wart to Soto’s game, it’s that he’s limited to the outfield corners and isn’t regarded as an especially strong defender. He’s had seasons with positive grades from both Defensive Runs Saved and Outs Above Average, but on the whole he has negative marks from both in his career — both in left field and in right field. That said, he’s also only had two truly *bad* seasons per both of those metrics, and taken in totality, he sits around -2 DRS and -4 OAA per season. Obviously, that’s not great, but it’s also not exactly egregious. And given the otherworldly contributions he makes at the plate, playing a slightly below-average left or right field is more than an even trade-off.

Soto famously rejected a 14-year, $440MM extension offer from the Nationals before being traded to the Padres. Rejecting an offer of that magnitude led to plenty of jaws dropping, but when considering that it included his three final arbitration seasons and 11 free agent years, it’s not as jarring as it seems at first blush. Soto wound up earning $71.1MM over those three seasons, meaning he really “only” needs to earn $370MM or so in free agency to come out ahead. There’s already talk of a potential $500MM free-agent deal for Soto. Barring a catastrophic injury, he’ll likely come out ahead in that bet on himself. He’s the clear No. 1 free agent on next year’s market and will be one of the most sought-after free agents not only in baseball history but in all of professional sports.

2. Corbin Burnes, RHP, Orioles

Since his 2020 breakout, Burnes ranks fifth in the majors in innings pitched, eighth in strikeout rate, fourth in K-BB%, second in opponents’ batting average, fifth in ERA, second in FIP and third in SIERA. Put another way — regardless of which metric you prefer to judge pitchers, Burnes ranks in the top-eight in just about any metric. He’s a bona fide No. 1 starter — very arguably one of the five best pitchers the sport has to offer at the moment.

Detractors might point to Burnes’ 2023 numbers as the potential beginning of a decline. His 3.39 ERA, 25.5% strikeout rate and 8.4% walk rate were all more “very good” than elite. Through three starts in Baltimore, he’s trending back in the other direction. Small sample caveats obviously apply, but Burnes has opened his first season with his new club on a tear, tossing 18 2/3 innings of 1.93 ERA ball with a 28.6% strikeout rate and superlative 2.9% walk rate. His velocity is as strong as ever; his devastating cutter is averaging 95.1 mph — an exact match for his career-best mark, set back in 2021 when he won the National League Cy Young Award.

Burnes won’t turn 30 until October. He’s never been on the injured list due to an arm issue. His only IL stints were due to an oblique strain and Covid. Burnes might not be quite as dominant as he was when he was striking out more than 35% of his opponents from 2020-21, but he’s a workhorse ace and former Cy Young winner who still ranks among the game’s elite arms. Gerrit Cole’s nine-year deal with the Yankees began in his age-29 season. Teams have generally been wary of committing to long-term deals for pitchers that span beyond their age-37 season (though there are exceptions, as evidenced by Jacob deGrom’s current five-year deal).

Burnes is dominant enough that he could prove to be an exception, but even if he’s limited to eight-year terms, he’ll have a chance at surpassing a $250MM guarantee. With a big enough year, nine years and/or $300MM+ could be on the table.

3. Alex Bregman, 3B, Astros

Bregman would’ve hit free agency in the 2022-23 offseason were it not for a five-year, $100MM extension he signed upon first reaching arbitration. That locked in his first — but very likely not his last — nine-figure contract and still allowed him to hit the open market at a fairly standard point, heading into his age-31 season.

There’s perhaps a perception that Bregman is declining or trending in the wrong direction, as his production has dipped from the MVP-caliber levels he displayed in 2018-19. He also doesn’t have the most appealing batted-ball profile, which we saw work to Cody Bellinger’s detriment in free agency this offseason. Bregman’s 88.6 mph average exit velocity and 38.2% hard-hit rate in 2023 were both pretty pedestrian marks.

One key difference between Bregman and Bellinger, however, is that Bregman has never had gaudy Statcast numbers — even when he was putting up the type of numbers that led to consecutive All-Star nods and top-five MVP finishes in 2018-19. Bellinger, on the other hand, previously had top-of-the-scale exit velo and hard-hit numbers, leading to more questions about whether his resurgent 2023 showing was truly sustainable.

Bregman has always possessed sensational contact skills. He’s never fanned at higher than a 15.5% clip in a full season. The former No. 2 overall draft pick legitimately possesses one of the best hit tools in all of baseball. He couples that with elite plate discipline, too; Bregman has walked at a 12.6% clip in his career and a 13.7% rate dating back to 2018. He’s walked more than he’s struck out in four individual seasons and in the aggregate from 2018-24. His 41-homer campaign from 2019 looks like a clear outlier in what’s now known as the juiced-ball season, but Bregman still popped 48 homers from 2022-23.

Some may question how much power he can manufacture following a potential change of scenery. Minute Maid Park’s short porch in left field — the Crawford Boxes — seems practically tailor-made for Bregman’s fly-ball heavy, pull-side approach. (Or, perhaps alternatively, he reworked his swing to take advantage of that quirk in his home park.)

There’s little doubting that he’s had some home runs that are Crawford Box specials over the years, but a look at Bregman’s career splits don’t paint the picture of someone who is a product of his hitter-friendly home environment. Bregman’s a career .273/.377/.473 hitter in Houston and a .275/.368/.498 hitter on the road. He’s actually hit nine more homers on the road in his career despite having only 64 more plate appearances away from Minute Maid Park than at home.

Defensively, Bregman isn’t an elite third baseman, but he’s posted average or better marks in DRS and OAA nearly every season of his career. There’s no reason to expect a position change in the near future, but if he does need to move off the hot corner at some point, a shift to second base, left field or first base seems feasible for the former shortstop. And as someone who’s been 36% better than average at the plate in his career — and 25% better dating back to 2020 — he has more than enough bat to profile as a regular anywhere on the diamond.

A seven- or eight-year deal seems plausible in free agency, and there’s always the chance that a luxury-paying team will gauge his interest in a longer-term deal with a non-premium AAV in order to tamp down the CBT hit. A deal north of $200MM seems plausible for Bregman. The Astros have said at multiple points in the past they’ll make an extension offer at some point, but there haven’t been serious talks on that front yet and Bregman can justifiably seek the type of long-term pact that owner Jim Crane has completely avoided over the years.

4. Pete Alonso, 1B, Mets

The Polar Bear is raw personified, bashing 40-plus homers on the regular since his 2019 debut. Alonso has not only established himself as one of baseball’s premier sluggers — he’s done so while maintaining a strikeout rate that’s lower than the league average. At a time when many prodigious sluggers are comfortable selling out for power, Alonso has the type of easy, plus-plus power that doesn’t require him to do so. He’s fanned in just 20.7% of his plate appearances dating back to 2021 and popped the fifth-most long balls in baseball along the way. He trails only Aaron Judge, Matt Olson, Kyle Schwarber and Shohei Ohtani in that span. All four of those sluggers have whiffed at higher rates than Alonso.

Alonso’s extreme fly-ball approach does lead to a glut of pop-ups and some low BABIPs — though last year’s bottom-of-the-barrel .205 average on balls in play (and .217 average overall) were likely outliers. He’s a career .250 hitter who walks at around a 10% clip — enough to boost his OBP into the .340 range most seasons. Paired with his prodigious power, that’s plenty to make Alonso one of the most feared hitters in the National League.

After debuting as a 24-year-old back in 2019, Alonso is on pace to hit the open market heading into his age-30 season. He’s not unusually young like Soto but is reaching free agency at the same point that’s seen plenty of sluggers get paid. He’ll be two years younger than Freddie Freeman and Paul Goldschmidt were when signing their current contracts (Freeman’s in free agency, Goldschmidt’s as an extension). That pair of contracts pays those star first basemen $26-27MM annually.

Alonso isn’t as good a pure hitter as either Freeman or Goldschmidt, nor is he the same defensively. He’s consistently graded out as a sub-par defender, per OAA, and a roughly average first baseman by measure of DRS. But Alonso is younger, has more power than either of those two former MVPs, and has the benefit of Mets owner Steve Cohen likely being extra-motivated to keep his franchise slugger. It wouldn’t be at all surprising to see Alonso follow a similar path to Judge. That’s not to say he’ll sign a $360MM deal — he won’t — but he could reject a qualifying offer, explore what the market has to offer, and then take the top offer back to the Mets and effectively ask that they match it.

A six-year deal would run through Alonso’s age-35 season. Seven years would take him through age-36. Either of those terms feels plausible, as does an AAV in the vicinity of — or even slightly in excess of — the Freeman and Goldschmidt deals.

5. Blake Snell, LHP, Giants*

Will the second time prove to be a charm for Snell? The $200MM+ contract he sought in free agency this past winter never materialized, likely due to a confluence of factors. Beyond the sheer scope of his ask, Snell hit free agency at a time when roughly half the league was experiencing uncertainty regarding its long-term television status. We’re also slated for a record number of CBT payors, including several big spenders — Yankees, Dodgers, Mets — currently paying a 110% tax that made a long-term deal for Snell wholly unpalatable. Further yet, recent high-profile spenders like the Padres, Rangers, Red Sox, Blue Jays and Mets all took steps back in terms of their aggression.

None of that even touches on Snell’s command troubles, though his penchant for issuing free passes hasn’t stopped him from dominating opposing lineups over the past several seasons. Snell is now a two-time Cy Young winner — one of just 22 in MLB history — who’ll spend the 2024 season pitching in an even more spacious home park than he enjoyed in San Diego.

Snell will turn 32 in the coming offseason, so he won’t have age on his side. But he already rejected a qualifying offer from the Padres, meaning he’s ineligible to receive another one at any point in his career. That lack of draft pick compensation will be a bonus, and it’s possible next offseason’s market will bear more favorable circumstances. If the Mets, Red Sox, Rangers or Padres begin spending again and if even a couple of CBT payors are suddenly in position to dip back under the threshold, Snell could find more suitors this time around.

He’s not a lock to hit the market, of course. Snell’s two-year $62MM deal with the Giants allows him to opt out at season’s end, leaving a $30MM player option on the table. So long as he remains healthy and effective, he’ll be a lock to do so. The left-hander ranks 11th in ERA (3.05) and seventh in strikeout rate (31.7%) among qualified big league starters dating back to the 2018 season. He’s had a couple rough seasons along the way, but the broader body of work is genuinely excellent.

As previously mentioned, teams are typically wary of committing beyond a starting pitcher’s age-37 season. For Snell, hitting the market at 32, that’d make it tough to secure a contract lengthier than six years. A six-year deal checking in at $28MM or more would allow Snell to still claim that he topped $200MM in free agent earnings (when combined with his current $32MM in earnings). That type of offer seemingly wasn’t there this time around, but if Snell turns in a third straight dominant season — he had a 2.72 ERA and 31.7% strikeout rate in 2022-23 — someone’s likely going to pony up with a big offer.

6. Max Fried, LHP, Braves

Few starters in baseball have been as consistent as Fried on a year-to-year basis. The former No. 7 overall draft pick has turned in a sub-3.00 ERA in three of the past four seasons, with the lone exception being a 3.04 mark in 2021. Fried’s strikeout rate has fallen between 22.3% and 25.7% for five straight seasons. His walk rates in that time have landed between 4.4% and 8.5% (though that 8.5% came in 2020’s short season and is something of an outlier, he’s been under 7% in every other full season). His ground-ball rate sits between 51.2% and 57.7% each year.

Fried isn’t an overpowering ace in the sense that he hits triple digits with his heater and strikes out a third of his opponents. He has above-average but not elite velocity, leading to average or slightly better strikeout rates. However, Fried has plus command and ground-ball tendencies, and he dodges hard contact at consistently excellent levels.

Prior to the 2023 season, Fried was also quite durable, ranking 19th in the majors in innings pitched and 21st in games started. That doesn’t include his 10 postseason starts (and four relief outings) — a total of 58 2/3 additional innings. A forearm strain suffered in early May last year, however, knocked Fried out of action for about three months. Though he was characteristically excellent when health — 2.55 ERA, 3.14 FIP, 3.38 SIERA — Fried was limited to 14 starts and 77 2/3 innings.

Proving that forearm strain is behind him will be paramount to his free agent platform. Another 30-plus starts won’t completely eliminate any trepidation stemming from last year’s injury, but another season with considerable missed time — particularly due to an arm injury of any nature — would create cause for clear concern.

Fried has been more durable than Carlos Rodon (six years, $162MM with the Yankees) and has a far lengthier track record of success. He and his reps will likely take aim at toppling that mark in free agency. Braves fans would surely like to see an extension, but it hasn’t happened in the past, and Fried is plenty justified in asking for the type of long-term deal and semi-premium AAV that the Braves have steered clear of in recent years. He seems likelier to follow Freddie Freeman and Dansby Swanson out the door than he does to receive an extension offer that’s commensurate with his market value.

7. Cody Bellinger, OF/1B, Cubs*

Bellinger didn’t get the mega-deal he sought this past offseason. Excellent as his 2023 campaign was, there were surely teams wary of his woeful 2021-22 showing on the heels of shoulder surgery. Beyond that, his exit velocity, hard-hit rate and other batted-ball metrics were decidedly pedestrian.

Agent Scott Boras has pointed to Bellinger’s massive decline in strikeout rate as a factor, painting his client as a hitter who adopted a two-strike approach more focused on putting the ball in play than on doing massive damage. There’s surely a blend of truth and garden-variety agent spin woven into that defense.

A repeat of his 2023 production — or anything close to it — would strengthen Bellinger’s case immensely. It’d further distance him from that awful 2021-22 showing, lending further credence to the notion that injuries played a significant role in his perceived decline. And whether Bellinger replicates his numbers by returning to his maximum-damage approach or simply proves that his newer brand of more well-rounded, low-strikeout offense is sustainable, either approach should prove lucrative.

Even though an opt-out would trigger Bellinger’s third trip to free agency, he’ll still be heading into just his age-29 season next year. He can still play a fine center field (or corner outfield, presumably) and remains a good option at first base as well. There’s plenty of defensive and baserunning value to supplement his bat.

Bellinger will pocket $30MM in the first season of his three-year, $80MM deal with the Cubs, meaning he’ll be opting out from two years and $50MM. That seems likely, barring a 2021-22-esque collapse or a massive injury. Because of his age, that immense long-term deal that eluded him this past offseason still feels plausible. That he can no longer be saddled with a qualifying offer — players can only receive one in their career, and he rejected one last offseason — only strengthens his case.

8. Willy Adames, SS, Brewers

Adames joins Javier Baez, Trevor Story and Dansby Swanson as the latest in a line of high-end shortstops to reach free agency heading into his age-29 season. That trio signed for respective guarantees of $140MM (Tigers), $140MM (Red Sox) and $177MM (Cubs). Adames doesn’t have the individual accolades that group possesses. He’s never been an All-Star like each of that trio has. He hasn’t won Gold Gloves like Swanson and Baez. He hasn’t won the Silver Sluggers that Story has.

Yet despite the lack of hardware, Adames has a strong claim to be valued in similar fashion. It’s true that he had a down year at the plate in 2023, but that was in part driven by a career-low .250 average on balls in play. Since 2020, Adames is a .240/.316/.450 hitter. He’s been 8% better than average overall, by measure of wRC+, and he peaked with a 121 wRC+ (21% better than average) from 2020-21. Adames fanned at a sky-high 36.1% back in 2020 but has reduced that mark considerably; over his past 1300 plate appearances he’s punched out at a worse-than-average but far more manageable 26.2% rate. He struggled badly against lefties early in his career (despite being a right-handed hitter) but has improved against them in recent seasons.

From 2021-23, Adames averaged 26.67 homers per season — topping out at 31 round-trippers in 2022. He’s walked at an above-average but not elite 9.4% rate in his career — including a personal-best 11.1% in 2023. Adames has long been touted as having plus defensive tools, but his execution and consistency were lackluster early on, leading to some middling grades. Over the past two seasons he’s been outstanding, tallying 17 DRS and a flat-out elite 26 OAA.

If Adames can bounce back from last year’s .217/.310/.407 line and turn in something closer to the .251/.319/.471 slash he logged from 2020-22, he’ll have an easy case to be paid comparably to Story, Baez and Swanson. He’s likely to hit the market on the heels of four straight 20-homer campaigns. He’s a plus defender. He’s relatively young. He’s not the most consistent hitter on a year-over-year basis, but that was true of Baez, Story and Swanson. They all got paid. Adames will also draw bonus points for his gregarious personality and leadership skills. Both the Rays and Brewers have lauded him in that regard, and the primary reason Tampa Bay traded him — Wander Franco’s looming emergence — now looks regrettable (even if getting Drew Rasmussen in return for him has yielded plenty of value).

9. Ha-Seong Kim, SS/2B, Padres

Kim came to MLB with great fanfare as a 25-year-old KBO superstar who’d been posted by the Kiwoom Heroes. He signed a four-year, $28MM deal with San Diego that contains a mutual option for a fifth season. Mutual options are generally accounting measures and are almost never exercised by both parties. In Kim’s instance, it’s a no-brainer to decline his end of the option and hit free agency in search of a deal that could pay him three to four times his original MLB guarantee.

While Kim’s rookie season didn’t live up to the hype, he’s since acclimated to MLB quite nicely. Now 28, he posted a .256/.338/.391 batting line (109 wRC+) from 2022-23. His power has increased in each MLB season, resulting in a career-high 17 homers last year, and he swiped a hefty 38 bases in 47 tries for the Friars last season. Kim’s walk rate has climbed every MLB season as well, topping out at a robust 12% in 2023, and after fanning in 23.8% of his plate appearances as a rookie he’s dropped that mark to 18.5% in 2022-23.

Decent power, strong on-base skills and plus speed give Kim plenty of appeal, but his glove is perhaps his greatest selling point. Kim is an elite defensive infielder capable of handling any of second base, shortstop or third base. He won his first Gold Glove for his play at second base last season, though that’s unlikely to be his last. (He also won a Gold Glove in his final three seasons of KBO play.)

There’s no defensive metric that pegs Kim below average at any of those three positions. He’s logged more than 1000 innings at second base, nearly 600 at third base and more than 1600 at shortstop. Defensive Runs Saved, Outs Above Average and Ultimate Zone Rating agree that he’s excellent at all three. The Padres signed Xander Bogaerts to an 11-year contract and moved him to second base just one year later despite Bogaerts posting decent numbers at short in 2023. Kim has racked up 23 DRS and 10 OAA in his 1600+ innings at shortstop. He has fluid infield actions, sure hands and is a regular source of highlight-reel defense.

Kim doesn’t have a strong batted-ball profile, but it’s not out of the question that he could crack 20 homers, walk in more than 10% of his plate appearances, swipe 40 bags and play Gold Glove defense this season. He’ll play all of the 2025 season at 29 years old. A nine-figure contract isn’t out of the question.

10. Jordan Montgomery, LHP, Diamondbacks

As the old adage goes, if at first you don’t succeed — hire a new agent and try again. Montgomery languished in free agency all winter, never landing the six- or seven-year contract he was seeking. He took a one-year, $25MM deal with the D-backs that’ll afford him a player option at $20-25MM basically just for staying healthy. The contract wasn’t finalized before Opening Day, meaning Montgomery can’t receive a qualifying offer this winter. Barring a major injury, he’ll likely decline that player option and return to the market.

Montgomery, 31, has made at least 30 starts in each of the past three seasons. In that time, he’s pitched 524 1/3 innings of 3.48 ERA ball with a 22.5% strikeout rate, a 6.2% walk rate, a 44.5% ground-ball rate and just 1.00 HR/9. His 2023 campaign was the finest of his career, featuring a personal-best 188 2/3 innings of 3.20 ERA ball, plus another 31 innings of 2.90 ERA ball in the postseason — a strong performance that helped push the Rangers to their first-ever World Series title.

Though he doesn’t miss bats at an elite level, Montgomery is better than average in just about every meaningful category for starting pitchers and has been a workhorse since his 2020 return from Tommy John surgery. We at MLBTR erred in thinking a six-year deal was attainable heading into the 2023-24 offseason. Another typical Montgomery season could put him in position for a strong four-year or perhaps a five-year deal at a lighter AAV than we predicted last offseason. He should be able to top teammate Eduardo Rodriguez’s four-year, $80MM contract — and a deal in the $100-110MM range over five years doesn’t feel out of reach if Monty continues at his recent trajectory.

Honorable Mentions (listed alphabetically): Walker Buehler, Matt Chapman*, Gerrit Cole^, Jack Flaherty, Paul Goldschmidt, Teoscar Hernandez, Rhys Hoskins, Frankie Montas, Tyler O’Neill, Luis Severino, Max Scherzer*, Gleyber Torres, Justin Verlander*, Christian Walker

^=Cole is currently on the 60-day IL and expected to be out into June. He can opt out of the remaining four years and $144MM on his contract at season’s end, though if he signals his intent to do so, the Yankees can override his opt-out by tacking on a tenth year at another $36MM. Because Cole is currently injured and because the Yankees can effectively veto his opt-out, we’re not including him on the initial version of our rankings. If, as the season wears on, he’s pitching well enough to trigger that opt-out and there’s talk of the Yankees allowing him to walk, he could land on future installments of the list.

Francisco Lindor’s Slow Start Is Not Abnormal

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This post is brought to you by Stathead.  We use Stathead, powered by Baseball Reference, to find interesting stats in our articles. Stathead has easy-to-use discovery tools to take you inside the BR database. Try it for free today!

The 2024 season is now rolling along, which means it’s time to wildly overreact to small samples of data. Previously unremarkable players are suddenly looking like Hall-of-Famers while reliably good players now seem to be washed.

A midseason slump is easy to dismiss when you look up and the full season stats still seem good. Maybe a slumping hitter is still hitting .265 or a pitcher that just got lit up still has an earned run average around 4.00. But early on, a batting average that starts with a zero or an ERA that has two digits before the decimal place can be a cause for concern.

Thankfully, Stathead has an amazing tool to help put this all into proper context. Using the Span Finder, we can search a player’s entire career to see if they have ever had a previous slump that compares to what’s currently happening. Let’s use Francisco Lindor as an example.

It’s no secret that Lindor hasn’t exactly been his best self so far this year. His struggles became such a talking point amid fans of the Mets that some of them got together on social media and decided to support Lindor with a standing ovation, mirroring how Phillies’ fans responded when Trea Turner was struggling last year.

Through 15 games, Lindor has just eight hits in 62 at-bats for a .129 batting average. Just two of those eight hits have been for extra bases, one double and one home run. His batting line is just  .129/.236/.194 and his on-base plus slugging is just .430, well below his career mark of .810.

Now that Lindor is 30 years old, it might be tempting to consider this the start of some age-based decline, but Span Finder shows us that he has been here before. Doing a custom search for every 15-game stretch of Lindor’s career and sorting by ascending OPS, we get this…

  • September 10 to September 26 of 2016: .309 OPS
  • September 11 to September 28 of 2016: .337 OPS
  • September 9 to September 24 of 2016: .340 OPS
  • April 17 to May 5 of 2021: .388 OPS
  • October 1 of 2023 to April 13 of 2024: .392 OPS
  • September 8 to September 23 of 2016: .404 OPS
  • April 17 of 2021 to May 3 of 2021: .414 OPS
  • September 29 of 2017 to April 11 of 2018: .429 OPS
  • March 29 to April 14 of 2024: .430 OPS

Lindor is clearly in one of the worst stretches of his career right now, but it’s not totally without precedent. He slumped real bad at the end of the 2016 season when he was 22 years old. Despite that awful finish, he still hit .301/.358/.435 on the year overall for a 106 OPS+. Cleveland made the playoffs that year and Lindor immediately put that slump behind him, hitting .310/.355/.466 in the postseason as the club went all the way to Game 7 of the World Series, even going to extra innings in that classic game.

Given that there were also some notable struggles early on in 2018 and 2021 mixed in there, it seems fair to conclude that Lindor is performing within the range of previous outcomes. It’s clearly not ideal for him or the Mets that he’s started the season in this hole, but it’s one he has climbed out of before. Throughout the ups and downs of his career, he has hit .272/.340/.470 for a 116 OPS+.

That bat, along with Lindor’s speed and defense, are why the Mets gave him a ten-year, $341MM extension a few years ago. That deal pays Lindor $32MM annually through the 2031 season, so it’s good for the Mets that his current slump isn’t totally unprecedented.

Offseason In Review: Milwaukee Brewers

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The Brewers lost their manager and traded their ace. They also focused on big league talent in their trade returns and added several win-now veterans as they look to stay relevant in a wide-open National League Central division.

Major League Signings

2024 Spending: $39.75MM
Total Spending: $72.75MM

Option Decisions

Trades and Waiver Claims

Extensions

Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

The manager’s chair hasn’t been a question for the Brewers in nearly a decade. Craig Counsell helmed the Brew Crew from 2015-23, guiding the club to a 707-625 record (.531) and five postseason appearances in nine seasons. His status as a managerial free agent was a major storyline early in the offseason not only for the Brewers but for several clubs around the sport. The Mets, Astros and Guardians were all connected to Counsell after his contract expired on Nov. 1, but the Cubs made a surprise push to bring in their longtime division foe, dismissing David Ross and signing Counsell to a record-setting five-year deal that’s worth a reported $40MM.

The Brewers not only lost their longtime skipper but also their longtime president of baseball operations. David Stearns stepped down following the 2022 season but stuck with Milwaukee in an advisory role for the 2023 season. After his own contract expired, perhaps baseball’s worst-kept secret quickly came to fruition; Stearns accepted the job as president of baseball operations for his hometown Mets, departing the Milwaukee organization entirely one year after ceding baseball operations autonomy to current GM Matt Arnold.

Arnold’s presence gave the Brewers’ front office some continuity even as Stearns departed, and Milwaukee opted for continuity in the dugout as well. Although they were tied to a host of external candidates (e.g. Toronto’s Don Mattingly, Houston’s Joe Espada, L.A.’s Clayton McCullough), the Brewers stayed in-house and elevated bench coach Pat Murphy to the skipper’s chair. Murphy, who previously coached Counsell in his college days at Notre Dame, had served as Counsell’s bench coach since 2015. He lacks big league managing experience but has two decades of NCAA experience and is quite familiar with the Brewers organization, their current talent and the upcoming wave of prospects.

As for the roster itself, starting pitching has been the hallmark of the Brewers for several years, with co-aces Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff atop the rotation and the underrated Freddy Peralta standing as an overqualified “third” starter. That all changed in a back-and-forth offseason that at times left fans wondering whether the Brewers were rebuilding or whether they were fully committed to winning in 2024. Toeing that line is nothing new for the Brewers, who regularly make hard roster decisions and trade players with dwindling control for MLB-ready prospects.

Setting aside the turnover with regard to some of the team’s key decision-making personnel, the offseason was in many was bookended by a pair of seismic transactions regarding their longtime one-two punch. Woodruff was non-tendered in November after undergoing shoulder surgery that’s expected to wipe out the majority of his 2024 season. And while it took Arnold & Co. most of the offseason to make it happen, they traded Burnes for a pair of immediate, controllable big leaguers and the Orioles’ Competitive Balance pick (No. 34) in this summer’s draft.

Joey Ortiz stepped right into the Brewers’ infield, and they’ll hope he can hold down a role there for six or more years. He’s controllable through at least the 2029 season and is a premium defensive player with modest power, above-average speed and a plus hit tool that gives him a chance to hit for average. He’ll play second base and third base in 2024, but if impending free agent Willy Adames departs either at the trade deadline or in free agency this winter, Ortiz has the defensive chops to step right in at shortstop.

Left-hander DL Hall, the other player to come over from the O’s in the Burnes swap, jumped right into the rotation spot vacated by the former NL Cy Young winner. Like Ortiz, he’s a touted prospect who’s drawn his share of top-100 fanfare in recent years. Scouts question whether the 2017 first-rounder (No. 21 overall) has the command to stick in a big league rotation, but even if he doesn’t, Hall’s velocity and quality secondary pitches give him a good chance at being a high-end leverage reliever.

Burnes was one of four notable veterans whom the Brewers traded away this offseason — and the returns on the others weren’t as impactful. Mark Canha was flipped to the Tigers in exchange for minor league righty Blake Holub — a 25-year-old relief prospect who’d yet to pitch in Triple-A at the time of the swap.

Right-hander Adrian Houser and outfielder Tyrone Taylor were both targets of Stearns with the Mets. He acquired his two former players in exchange for an upside play for the Brewers’ development staff: righty Coleman Crow. The former 28th-round pick signed for fifth-round money with the Angels back in 2021. He’s now twice been traded and made only four starts last year before requiring Tommy John surgery.

Mark Chiarelli wrote for Baseball America at the time of the trade why some of Crow’s fastball traits and his curveball movement made him a favorite of analytically inclined clubs. Unlike Ortiz, Hall and Holub, he’s further from MLB readiness. But Houser is a back-end starter entering his final season of club control and Taylor is a fourth outfielder coming off a down year at the plate. Adding some legitimate upside, even if it comes with significant injury concern, surely held appeal.

Subtracting Burnes, Houser, Woodruff, Canha and Taylor was a notable hit for the Brewers — particularly with veterans Carlos Santana, Victor Caratini and Andrew Chafin all hitting free agency. However, the Brewers never seemed interested in any sort of protracted rebuild. That was never Stearns’ M.O. and doesn’t seem to be Arnold’s, either. The Brewers could’ve traded Peralta (signed through 2026), Devin Williams (signed through 2025) and Adames (controlled for this season only), kept payroll in the gutter and made the 2024 season one focused primarily on development.

Instead, they made a slew of short-term free agent investments that helped backfill some rotation depth and add some punch to the lineup. No free agent pickup was larger — either in pure financial terms or in terms of potential 2024 impact — than Rhys Hoskins, who inked a two-year, $34MM deal to step an everyday role between first base and designated hitter. Hoskins is playing his first season since 2022, as a spring ACL tear cost him all of 2023. He can opt out of his contract at season’s end and quite likely will, if he performs anywhere close to his prior standards in Philadelphia. He gives the Brewers a legitimate middle-of-the-order threat at first base — something they’ve lacked in recent years. As a bonus, he didn’t receive a qualifying offer from the Phillies, meaning he’s eligible to receive one at season’s end if he indeed takes that opt-out.

In addition to first base, Milwaukee stocked up on catcher depth and brought in some low-cost bench help. Eric Haase signed a one-year, split big league deal and was set to be the backup catcher — until he very suddenly wasn’t. Gary Sanchez’s price tag dropped to the point where the Brewers opportunistically snagged him as well, inking him to a one-year deal worth $3MM in guaranteed money (restructured from his original $7MM guarantee after some concerns arose on his physical). That pushed the out-of-options Haase, who had a mammoth spring showing, off the 40-man roster. The Brewers succeeded in passing him through waivers, and Haase opened the year in Triple-A to serve as a very nice piece of depth behind the dish.

Other bench pickups included journeyman first baseman/outfielder Jake Bauers and unheralded infield prospect Oliver Dunn, acquired from the Phillies. Bauers hasn’t hit in the big leagues but showed enough power and plate discipline with the Yankees last year that the Brewers traded some low-level prospects for him. Dunn was a squeezed out of the Phillies’ 40-man picture thanks to a crowded infield mix, but he posted huge Triple-A numbers last year and won a roster spot in Milwaukee with a big showing in camp. He’s been excellent so far in his brief MLB debut. Veteran Christian Arroyo joins that bench depth as a minor league signee who opened the year on the Triple-A injured list.

As those bench pieces filtered in, others familiar faces moved out. Abraham Toro and Taylor were traded. Rowdy Tellez was non-tendered. Santana, Caratini and Jesse Winker reached free agency. Fringe 40-man arms Ethan Small and Clayton Andrews were traded for modest returns. Bullpen fliers Taylor Clarke and Bryan Hudson were added via trades that sent a series of low-profile prospects to Kansas City and Los Angeles, respectively.

Perhaps the biggest area in need of an overhaul was the rotation. With Woodruff injured and non-tendered and Burnes (eventually) traded, things would’ve looked unsettled, to say the least, without some form of reinforcements. Milwaukee didn’t break the bank but brokered affordable one-year deals with a returning Wade Miley, a returning Colin Rea, swingman Jakob Junis (who’s pitching in a starting role) and former Nats righty Joe Ross, who’s returning from several injury-ruined years.

Milwaukee also surprised some by ultimately retaining Woodruff on a two-year, $17.5MM deal that’ll pay him just $2.5MM in 2024 and $5MM in 2025. There’s a $10MM buyout on a $20MM mutual option for the 2026 season that is highly unlikely to be exercised but helps Milwaukee kick some of the payments down the road a bit. That move won’t make a big impact for ’24, unless Woodruff returns for a theoretical playoff push, but it’s a big boost to their 2025 outlook when Woodruff can rejoin Peralta and some combination of Hall, Rea, Aaron Ashby, top prospect Robert Gasser and any other external additions in the rotation mix.

Miley and Rea were both with the Brewers last year. Rea technically never reached free agency before signing a new one-year deal with a club option. He can max out at two years and $10MM on the contract and should at the very least eat up some innings near the back of the rotation. Miley, currently nursing a minor shoulder issue, has had a late-career renaissance in the NL Central. Over the past three seasons he’s pitched with the Cubs, Reds and Brewers — combining for a 3.26 ERA in 320 1/3 innings. After signing, he was open about how his priority had been to return to Milwaukee. Ross has shown solid strikeout capabilities and good command at his best, but he’s been beset by injuries. His Brewers debut was his first MLB appearance since the 2021 season.

While the Rea deal technically counts as an extension, given the timing of the deal, that clearly wasn’t the team’s big extension move of the offseason. That came in the form of a record-setting eight-year, $82MM deal for 20-year-old Jackson Chourio, who entered the season as a consensus top-five prospect in the sport. Chourio spent the 2023 season as one of the youngest players in Double-A, though you wouldn’t have known he was 19 by looking at his numbers. The uber-talented Venezuelan outfielder hit .280/.336/.467 with 22 homers, 44 steals, plus defense and just an 18.4% strikeout rate against much older competition. He cracked the Brewers’ Opening Day roster, and the hope is that he can be a foundational piece for the better part of a decade.

There’s clear risk when signing a player who’s never taken a single big league at-bat to this type of contract. The Brewers invested just $2MM more in a then-19-year-old Chourio than they did in Lorenzo Cain when he was one of the market’s top free agents. Milwaukee already controlled Chourio for six, if not seven seasons (depending on when they’d have chosen to call him up sans extension). They’re buying three or four extra years of control with this deal, which would be worth 10 years and $130MM if both options are exercised (with the potential for more based on MVP voting).

It’s a steep bet for a team that tends to operate with a mid-range payroll, but it’s a necessary one of they were to have any real hope at keeping Chourio beyond his initial window of club control. Extensions for young stars like Seattle’s Julio Rodriguez (12 years, $209MM) and Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. (11 years, $288.7MM) show just how expensive a star player can get after even a year or two of MLB service. Milwaukee, already with Christian Yelich’s nine-year, $215MM contract on the books, surely was none too keen on the notion of dishing out a second $200MM+ contract down the road. The Brewers clearly believe Chourio has star potential, and even if he settles in as “only” an average regular, the contract would hardly be an egregious overpay.

The 2024 Brewers scarcely resemble the 2023 unit — particularly with Williams on the shelf for the next several months due to stress fractures in his back — but there’s a nice crop of young talent bubbling up. If they’re not contending when the deadline rolls around, expect veterans like Adames, Williams (if healthy), Junis, Sanchez and others to hit the trade block. But the NL Central also lacks a clear favorite, and there’s enough promising young talent on the Milwaukee roster (e.g. Ortiz, Hall, Chourio, Sal Frelick) and enough established contributors (e.g. Peralta, Adames, Yelich, Hoskins, William Contreras) that this club could very well be right back in the mix even after subtracting a series of high-profile names.

Offseason In Review: Boston Red Sox

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The Red Sox had a very quiet offseason, as their big moves were trading away one starting pitcher and signing another, though the latter of the two eventually required season-ending surgery.

Major League Signings

2024 spending: $23.25MM
Total spending: $50.75MM

Option Decisions

Trades and Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

Notable Losses

The Red Sox franchise has seemingly decided that it does not want to be a powerhouse anymore. For the first two decades of this millennium, they were incredibly aggressive, running top five payrolls for most of that time. That aggression paid off handsomely, as the Sox broke their 86-year curse and won the World Series four times from 2004 to 2018.

But since then, their top priority has seemingly been to cut the budget. After the fourth title in 2018, they seemingly wanted to trim the payroll but president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski wouldn’t do it, so they let him go. That led the club to bring in Chaim Bloom from the Rays, hoping that he could bring some small-market tactics to their large-market club. Shortly after he was hired in October of 2019, he traded Mookie Betts and David Price to the Dodgers in what was largely a cost-cutting move.

In 2023, the payroll had fallen to middle of the pack as they started the season 12th out of 30, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts. In September of 2023, the fourth season with Bloom in charge, the Sox were about to finish last in the American League East for the second time in a row and for the third time in the four Bloom years. This was apparently enough for the franchise to make another change, as they let Bloom go before last year’s season was up.

This meant Boston started the offseason looking for a new person to head up the baseball operations department, but it was a tough pitch, with many candidates quickly withdrawing their names or declining to be interviewed. After all, who would want to work for a club that’s going to provide you with few resources and then put your head under the axe when things don’t go well? But in the end, they settled on Craig Breslow, a former player and Yale graduate who had been an assistant GM in the Cubs’ front office. They also brought back old friend Theo Epstein, but he’ll be in a part ownership and advisory role, seemingly not active in the baseball decisions on a day-to-day basis.

Some wondered if the move from Bloom to Breslow would lead ownership to sign off on a bigger budget, in order to convince fans they were moving away from nickel-and-diming and returning to their aggressive ways. Chairman Tom Werner seemed to fan these flames in November when he declared that the club was going to “be full-throttle in every possible way.” Breslow did promise to be aggressive, particularly in targeting starting pitching, but the offseason ended up being mostly about shuffling deck chairs. They sniffed around the markets for Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto but never seemed to be the favorites in those markets.

In the rotation, where the club was reportedly looking to shop at the top of the market, their big splash was to sign Lucas Giolito. It was a sensible buy-low move, since he had previously looked like a borderline ace but hit a rough patch before free agency. If he could get back to his form from a few years ago, it would be a steal.

Around the same time, they also subtracted from their rotation by sending Chris Sale to Atlanta for Vaughn Grissom. The young Grissom came up as a shortstop prospect, with great offensive skills but questions about his defense. Atlanta decided to roll with Orlando Arcia at short last year, but moving Grissom to second wasn’t an option for them with Ozzie Albies there, which made Grissom more useful as a trade chip.

The two moves together looked like a fine bit of business for Boston. In the rotation, they swapped in Giolito for Sale, arguably a wash depending on your opinions of those pitchers. Alongside that, they added a potential everyday second baseman, a position that’s been a bit of a carousel for Boston since the Dustin Pedroia days.

Unfortunately, Giolito was later diagnosed with a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament and a flexor strain. He required internal brace surgery and will miss the entire 2024 season. The Sox didn’t pivot and add another starter, so the rotation that was a clear priority all winter is essentially the same as last year but minus Sale. Grissom still hasn’t made his debut with the Sox thanks to a groin strain, though he should be with the club in a few weeks.

Although that bad news about Giolito didn’t drop until early March, the Sox still had a chance to pivot. Thanks to a surprisingly slow offseason, pitchers like Jordan Montgomery and Blake Snell were still available in the later stages of the winter. The fit with Montgomery and the Sox had been speculated upon all winter, especially since he was spending some time in the area as his wife was doing a residency at a Boston hospital. But the Sox decided not to rush out to the market to replace Giolito, letting Montgomery go to the Diamondbacks on a one-year deal and even letting a back-of-the-rotation guy like Michael Lorenzen sign with the Rangers for a mere $4.5MM.

In addition to Montgomery, the club had plenty of interest in other free agents, including Yariel Rodríguez, Seth Lugo, Teoscar Hernández, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Robert Stephenson, Shota Imanaga and many others. Ultimately, their other most significant moves were somewhat similar to the Giolito/Sale swap. They traded outfielder Alex Verdugo to the Yankees for a collection of arms, while also flipping a couple of other pitchers to St. Louis for Tyler O’Neill.

Both outfielders are impending free agents, so the two moves don’t make a huge difference to the franchise right away, but it’s a sensible enough swap for them to make. Verdugo has seemingly established what he is at this point, a solid defender with an average-ish bat, a good but not excellent player. His value wasn’t going to get much higher, as even a hot couple of months early in 2024 would come with some skepticism.

O’Neill, on the other hand, has borderline MVP upside. He finished eighth in National League MVP voting after hitting 34 home runs, stealing 15 bases and providing excellent defense that year. He’s been hampered by injuries in the two seasons since, but it makes sense for the Sox to give him regular playing time and see what happens. If he can get back in good form by the end of July, he could have more trade value than when they acquired him. He’s also making $5.85MM this year compared to Verdugo’s $8.7MM.

The Sox also considered some further teardown moves, with Kenley Jansen, Chris Martin and Masataka Yoshida’s names all floated in rumors throughout the winter. None of that trio ended up leaving Boston, though the Sox did trade reliever John Schreiber to the Royals for pitching prospect David Sandlin.

Ultimately, it seems the franchise is focused more on the future than the present. None of the free agents they signed added any money beyond 2025 and their second-largest free agent deal was for reliever Liam Hendriks. He’s recovering from Tommy John surgery and won’t pitch until around the trade deadline, at the earliest, but he could give the club a future closer with Jansen and Martin set to become free agents after 2024.

Their most significant contract was an extension for right-hander Brayan Bello, who they inked to a six-year, $55MM pact. It’s a bit of a risk since his major league work has been more decent than great so far, relying on a ground ball approach without many punchouts. But he had more strikeout stuff in the minors and could take a step forward in the years to come.

Extending other young players was also discussed, though without anything getting done so far. Right-hander Tanner Houck and first baseman Triston Casas were frequently mentioned as candidates for such a deal but nothing was finalized before the 2024 season started.

For the time being, it seems the club is content to roll with their internal options and see how things go. The 2024 season will involve a lot of playing time going to young guys like Grissom, Houck, Casas, Bello, Garrett Whitlock, Jarren Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela, Wilyer Abreu and Kutter Crawford. At the same time, the club will surely be keeping a close eye on prospects like Marcelo Mayer, Kyle Teel,  Nick Yorke, Wikelman Gonzalez and Roman Anthony, who are all starting this year at Double-A and could be pushing for big league debuts throughout the year.

The performance of those players will likely dictate how the club decides to proceed next winter and beyond. Whether that will even see them returning to a top-five payroll remains to be seen. Like last year, they came into 2024 with their payroll 12th in the league, per Cot’s. If that is your definition of “full throttle,” raise your hand.

While that plays out, there’s another unanswered question surrounding the club, as manager Álex Cora is now in a lame duck position as 2024 is the final year of his contract. He’s been coy about his future plans, with some suggesting he wants to move into a front office position while others believe he wants to take the Craig Counsell route and max out his next contract as a manager. Whether either of those paths lead to him staying in Boston is something that will have to be revealed in time.

Offseason In Review: Los Angeles Angels

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As Shohei Ohtani reached free agency, the Angels declared that they would not rebuild. But after Ohtani moved across town to the Dodgers, the Angels kept things pretty quiet, ignoring the pleas of Mike Trout.

Major League Signings

2024 spending: $29.55MM
Total spending: $51.55MM

Option Decisions

Trades and Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

  • None.

Notable Losses

Many people in the baseball world have been looking forward to this offseason for a long time. Shohei Ohtani has spent the past few years achieving things that were never achieved before nor even considered possible. But despite his best efforts, the Angels never made the postseason or even posted a winning record during his time with the club. As the Halos continually disappointed, eyes turned toward the calendar and his impending free agency, with fans dreaming of bringing Ohtani to their own club or perhaps just the idea of watching him playing meaningful games for anyone.

It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that Ohtani would leave, but they were certainly not the favorite. That led to questions about how the club would proceed if Ohtani did end up changing jerseys. As many argued, if the Angels weren’t good enough to win with Ohtani, they certainly wouldn’t be good enough without him. That led to speculation that the club would have to consider blowing up the entire roster and kicking off a massive rebuild.

But that line of thinking was quickly dispelled when general manager Perry Minasian came right out and made it clear. Just a couple of weeks after the World Series ended, he stated that the club would not be rebuilding and would in fact have an “aggressive” offseason.

Before getting to the roster moves, the club had to look for a new manager. Skipper Phil Nevin was sort of a placeholder, as he took over when Joe Maddon was fired in the middle of the 2022 season. Nevin was given a one-year deal to stick around for 2023 but never made it beyond lame duck status. The Halos settled on veteran manager and coach Ron Washington as their new bench boss, and it was at his introductory press conference that Minasian made his aforementioned comments about the club’s plans.

For the early parts of the offseason, a lot of attention was focused on Ohtani, not just from Angels’ fans but from all around the world. Though it played out in somewhat interesting fashion, with Ohtani and his reps seeming to prefer secrecy over any kind of public relations dance, the result ended up being fairly predictable. He took the I-5 from Anaheim to Los Angeles and will be playing with the Dodgers for the next decade.

Although that end result wasn’t surprising, it was a bit eyebrow-raising when it was reported that the Angels had a chance to match the Dodgers’ offer but chose not to. The $700MM price tag is obviously massive but the deal is heavily deferred, with Ohtani only making $2MM per year during the deal and $68MM annually in deferred payments for the following decade. That sort of structure was clearly appealing to clubs, who could bank profits of the marketability of Ohtani and collect interest on it until paying him down the line. The Giants and Blue Jays were reportedly willing to match the same deal that Ohtani signed with the Dodgers, but the Angels said no thanks. Perhaps they got the sense they were just being used to drive up the bidding, but that’s just a guess. Owner Arte Moreno later confirmed that the club did not match Ohtani’s deal but didn’t go into detail about why.

While losing Ohtani cast a shadow over the franchise, there was one small silver lining. Ohtani had rejected a qualifying offer from the Angels, meaning they will receive compensation for him signing elsewhere. The kind of compensation they would receive was up in the air for a while, given the club’s uncertain luxury tax status. They had gone over the competitive balance tax line in 2023 but tried to duck under after falling out of contention and placing several players on waivers in late August. It was eventually reported in early December that the club was successfully in avoiding the tax, which means their compensation pick for Ohtani’s departure will be after the second round of the upcoming draft as opposed to after the fourth.

With Ohtani officially gone and the club planning to be aggressive, as Minasian said, they seemed to cast a wide net in their search for upgrades. They were connected to an eclectic group of free agents including Jeimer Candelario, Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery, Shota Imanaga, Jordan Hicks, Teoscar Hernandez, J.D. Martinez, Kevin Kiermaier, Harrison Bader, Michael A. Taylor, Tim Anderson, Martin Maldonado and others, as well as trade candidates like Shane Bieber, Corbin Burnes and Tyler Glasnow.

In the end, they didn’t get anything done with anyone from that group, which raises the question of how serious the interest was and of how “aggressive” the Angels truly were. Some of those players lingered on the open market for months and eventually signed deals well below the expectations from the outset of the winter. The Halos had plenty of chances to swoop in and snag a player at a bargain price but didn’t.

The later parts of the offseason were highlighted by the so-called “Boras Four:” Snell, Montgomery, Matt Chapman and Cody Bellinger. Trout was lobbying the club to take advantage of the soft market and was open to the media about his efforts, but the Halos didn’t grant his wishes, even as those players all pivoted to short-term deals with opt-outs.

The Angels certainly could have done so, even without incurring tax penalties. RosterResource currently estimates their CBT number to be $189MM, or $48MM below the lowest CBT threshold. That means the club could have given out a deal with an average annual value of $30MM and still had wiggle room for midseason trade additions, but Moreno said that the club was planning to lower the budget for the start of the post-Ohtani era and that seems to have prevented them from making any big splashes.

In the end, despite the claims that the club would be aggressive, their offseason amounted to making a few bullpen additions. The most notable of those was signing Robert Stephenson to a three-year, $33MM deal. It’s a bit of a risk since he’s been inconsistent in his career, but there’s also a chance he becomes one of the most dominant pitchers in the league.

He certainly looked to be on that path late last year, as he posted a 2.35 earned run average in 42 appearances with the Rays, striking out 42.9% of batters faced while walking just 5.7% of them. But his overall body of work is less impressive, as his career ERA currently sits at 4.64. He’s also dealt with a number of injuries over the years and is on the IL right now, not yet having made his debut as an Angel.

In addition to Stephenson, the Halos also brought back Matt Moore and signed Luis Garcia, Jose Cisnero and Adam Cimber on one-year deals. No one in that group is super exciting as an individual, but they collectively improve the depth in a bullpen that has been a problem for the Halos in the past.

On the position player side of things, the most significant additions came with no real cost at all. Aaron Hicks is still being paid by the Yankees as part of the extension he signed with that club many years ago, since they released him last year. That means the Angels will only have to pay him the prorated league minimum for any time he spends on the roster. He seemed to bounce back in a part-time role with the Orioles last year, so he’s a fine pickup for the Angels. If he’s productive at all, it’s a big win, and he can be jettisoned for no real cost if he struggles.

The same is largely true for Miguel Sano, who settled for a minor league deal over the winter. He spent an up-and-down seven years as a middle-of-the-order presence in Minnesota, but knee injuries wiped out most of his 2022 season and he didn’t play anywhere last year. He lost a bunch of weight and is now healthy enough to have cracked the Opening Day roster for the Angels, so he will also be a nice pickup for the club if he can carve out any kind of useful role this year.

While each move the Angels made may seem fairly sensible in a vacuum, the sum total of the moves is something of a confusing muddle. The club has spent decade in a middling zone of not being good enough to win but also having too much talent to rebuild. The loss of Ohtani arguably could have pushed them towards the latter. They clearly did not want to lean that way, but they also didn’t really push themselves in the other direction either.

It seems they are now in a sort of wait-and-see season. Instead of going outside the organization for star players, they will give playing time to younger players like Reid Detmers, Nolan Schanuel, Logan O’Hoppe, Zach Neto, Mickey Moniak, Jo Adell, Chase Silseth and others as they see what they have. Sam Blum of The Athletic recently interviewed Minasian and the GM said that the reason they didn’t end up signing notable free agents was that they didn’t want to block some of these young players from opportunities. When asked if Moreno would ever want to sign a big free agent again, “That would be a question for him” was Minasian’s reply.

There’s some logic to giving playing time to younger players but it’s a bit hard to see a bright future in Anaheim. Of the farm system rankings at Baseball America, FanGraphs, ESPN, MLB Pipeline and The Athletic, none of them have the Angels higher than 28th out of 30.

Back in February, Trout said that he has not asked to be traded since that would be “the easy way out.” While his commitment to the franchise is admirable, it’s getting harder to see how he’ll get back to the playoffs as an Angel. The major league club hasn’t been good enough, just subtracted the best player in the world and added little. Based on the assessments of the farm system, there’s not a lot of help on the way in the future either.

Trout is off to a blazing hot start here in 2024 but he’s had notable injury problems in each of the past three years and will move past his 33rd birthday this year. With an unclear future, the club perhaps would have been wise to try to build a winning club around him while they still have time but didn’t really make much of an effort to do so this winter.

Offseason In Review: Minnesota Twins

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The Twins idled their way through much of the offseason as the front office navigated payroll limitations before eventually making a characteristic late strike on the trade market.

Major League Contracts

2024 spend: $7.7MM
Total spend: $7.7MM

Option Decisions

Trades and Waiver Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

The Twins won the American League Central and ended their historic postseason losing streak in 2023, sweeping the Blue Jays out of the American League Wild Card round before falling 3-1 to the Astros in an ALDS defeat. Fans hoped that a taste of postseason success would spur ownership to further invest in the roster, but the Twins were one of several clubs who spent the offseason in limbo with no clear picture of what would happen regarding their television broadcasts amid Diamond Sports Group’s bankruptcy filings.

It became clear early in the offseason that the Twins planned to cut payroll. Front office leadership was direct in suggesting as much, and The Athletic’s Dan Hayes reported that the goal was to scale payroll back from last year’s $155MM mark to somewhere in the $125-140MM range. It was a frustrating development for a fanbase that had recently seen the Twins emerge as major players in free agency, signing Carlos Correa in back-to-back offseasons.

Not only did the looming payroll reduction prevent the Twins from bringing in new talent, it also likely sealed the fate of starters Sonny Gray and Kenta Maeda before the offseason began in earnest. Gray, the 2023 AL Cy Young runner-up, made the no-brainer decision to reject a qualifying offer and unsurprisingly landed a contract north of $50MM: a three-year, $75MM pact in St. Louis. Topping the $50MM mark was key for the Twins, as that ensures they’ll receive a comp pick at the end of the first round for losing Gray. Minnesota reportedly had interest in keeping Maeda, but only on a one-year deal. He inked a reasonable two-year, $24MM pact with the Tigers that perhaps the Twins would’ve been more comfortable matching under normal circumstances, but he departed with the team receiving no compensation.

The Twins’ needs entering the offseason were well known. The rotation was losing a pair of notable arms — three, really, if you count Tyler Mahle, who missed most of the season due to Tommy John surgery — and they’d be on the lookout for ways to fill those innings. President of baseball operations Derek Falvey said in early November that the club might also keep an eye out for first base options, and the Twins were also known to be looking for a right-handed-hitting outfield bat to provide insurance for oft-injured Byron Buxton in center field with Michael A. Taylor reaching free agency.

Even though their to-do list was hardly shrouded in secrecy, the Twins idled throughout the first several months of the offseason. Free agents who’d fit the team’s needs — both expensive and reasonably priced — came off the board with minimal interest reported from Minnesota. Frustration among the fanbase understandably built.

The Twins have a knack for late-offseason trades/signings of significance, though, and they once again waited until that stage of the winter to make any real moves of note. The first and most significant transaction of the entire offseason came when the Twins, after months of exploring the trade market, found a deal to their liking for stalwart infielder Jorge Polanco. The 30-year-old second baseman had been in the organization since he was 16 years old and had been a staple in the Twins’ infield since 2016.

Infield was perhaps the Twins’ greatest organizational area of depth, though. Beyond Polanco, they were set with Correa at shortstop, Royce Lewis at third base and 2023 breakout rookie Edouard Julien at second base. Utility players Kyle Farmer and Willi Castro can play any of those three spots. The Twins had former top prospects Alex Kirilloff and Jose Miranda in the mix at first base, with Miranda also capable of playing third base. Knocking on the door to the majors were the club’s No. 2 prospect, Brooks Lee, whom they selected with the No. 8 pick in 2022, and Austin Martin — a former No. 5 overall pick acquired in the trade that sent Jose Berrios to Toronto.

Over in Seattle, infield depth was far thinner. The Mariners had targeted Polanco in the past, but the Twins weren’t keen on moving him with less MLB-caliber infield depth and with so many affordable, prime-aged years remaining on Polanco’s extension. The 2023-24 offseason was clearly a different story. Polanco’s down to two years of control on his contract. Minnesota’s infield depth is arguably at an all-time high. They were also looking to scale back payroll.

The Twins could’ve tried to structure a deal sending Polanco and prospect depth to another club for controllable young pitching, but that hasn’t been this front office’s M.O. in past trades. The Twins always seem to focus on backfilling the system even if they’re trading for a major league player, and that was the case with the Polanco swap. Reliever Justin Topa, fresh off a breakout season, gave the Twins an immediate bullpen upgrade to a setup corps already including quality relievers like Griffin Jax, Caleb Thielbar and Brock Stewart.

Also headed to Minnesota in that deal were veteran righty Anthony DeSclafani, top outfield prospect Gabriel Gonzalez, and minor league righty Darren Bowen. DeSclafani checked the Twins’ desire to add a low-cost option to compete for the fifth starter’s job in spring training. The Mariners had acquired him from the Giants earlier in the offseason, with San Francisco kicking in $6MM to help cover the right-hander’s $12MM salary. The Mariners redirected that $6MM to Minnesota and added another $2MM, leaving DeSclafani as a $4MM flier for the back of Minnesota’s rotation. (More on that in a bit.)

Prospect-wise, Gonzalez adds another well-regarded name to a deep list of Twins outfield hopefuls. Bowen is further off but gives the Twins a prospect who’s increased his stock since being selected in the 13th round of the 2020 draft. Gonzalez generally ranks within Minnesota’s top six prospects; Bowen is near the back end of their top 30. Coupled with a controllable setup man and low-cost roll of the dice in the rotation, it was a nice return for the Twins and a big upgrade to the Seattle infield. The move generally looked justifiable for both parties.

The other aspect of the trade, for the Twins, was shedding some salary. The swap was a net gain of $5.25MM in payroll space, and the Twins used that exact sum to bring longtime division foe Carlos Santana to Target Field. What initially looked like a part-time role increasingly looks like a regular job for Santana. He’ll be the primary first baseman, providing a massive defensive upgrade over former top prospect Alex Kirilloff. While Kirilloff is still on the roster, he’ll see more time at DH and perhaps in left field. He’ll still see occasional reps at first base, but the Polanco trade/Santana signing in rapid succession signaled a shift to focus on run prevention in the form of defense and bullpen arms, as the Twins likely began to accept that a more significant rotation move wasn’t going to come together.

That line of thought likely informed the remainder of the Twins’ decisions this winter, too. Righties Jay Jackson and Josh Staumont both inked one-year deals. Jackson has been an underrated arm over the past several seasons and made his first Opening Day roster at 36 years of age. Staumont looked like a potential bullpen powerhouse for the Royals at times, but his high-octane arsenal was often undercut by poor command and, more recently, injury. The Twins are hoping to get him back on track after thoracic outlet surgery. Meanwhile, out-of-options utilityman Nick Gordon was swapped out for lefty Steven Okert, who posted a 3.51 ERA, 28.9% strikeout rate and 10.7% walk rate in 146 innings from 2021-23. Both Topa and Okert are arb-eligible through 2026. Staumont is controlled through 2025, as is Jackson, whose deal includes an affordable $3MM club option.

Sticking with the themes of low-cost moves and run prevention, the Twins’ other primary focus was finding a right-handed hitting outfielder who could spell Byron Buxton in center and complement lefty-swinging corner outfielders Max Kepler and Matt Wallner. A reunion with Michael A. Taylor was of interest to the team, but he spent the offseason seeking either a two-year deal or a one-year pact commensurate with the $10.5MM deals signed by fellow defensive standouts Kevin Kiermaier and Harrison Bader.

The Twins at one point looked to be a finalist for Enrique Hernandez to fill this role, but the Dodgers jumped into the mix late in his free agency, bringing the fan favorite back to Chavez Ravine in a move that made Manuel Margot redundant. The Dodgers committed $4MM to Hernandez and swung a trade with the Twins that would see Minnesota cover $4MM of Margot’s remaining $12MM. It was a cash-neutral move for the Dodgers and one that filled an immediate need for the Twins. It cost Minnesota former first-round pick Noah Miller, but Miller at this point looks the part of an all-glove infield prospect whose bat has yet to develop. Infield talent is an area of strength in Minnesota’s system, and Miller didn’t have a path to a prominent role on the team in the long run.

In retrospect, the Twins could’ve perhaps held onto Miller and re-signed Taylor, who wound up agreeing to a modest $4MM deal with the Pirates once camp was already underway. Taylor was seeking more money at the time the Twins acquired Margot, however. It’s possible, even, that the Twins’ pivot to an alternative solution dinged Taylor’s market enough that he dropped his price.

It’s a similar story in the rotation. At the time the Twins acquired DeSclafani, a $4MM price point for a decent bit of rotation depth was reasonable enough. DeSclafani had clear injury risk but as recently as 2021 had pitched 167 2/3 innings of 3.17 ERA ball. Even if that level of performance couldn’t be expected, he’s a career 4.20 ERA pitcher with good command, average ground-ball tendencies and only a slightly below-average strikeout rate.

Of course, we now know that DeSclafani won’t pitch for the Twins this season. He underwent flexor surgery that’ll wipe out his ’24 campaign before it begins. It’s a continuation of a maddening trend for Twins fans that have seen trade acquisitions like Sam Dyson, Chris Paddack and Tyler Mahle all injured almost immediately upon joining the Twins. Dyson had hidden his injury from the Giants prior to being dealt, but the remaining arms were all bets on talented arms with very recent injury issues that made the risk in acquiring them quite clear. While higher-profile pickups of names like Pablo Lopez and Sonny Gray have borne more fruit, the DeSclafani injury only further adds to that list.

It’s all the more frustrating when two months later, the stagnant free agent market resulted in the likes of Michael Lorenzen ($4.5MM) and Mike Clevinger ($3MM) signing vastly smaller guarantees than expected. There’s no way the Twins or other clubs could’ve foreseen the market for those two — Lorenzen in particular — dipping to this point. But, if the Twins were indeed working on this tight a budget, it appears all the more questionable to make their primary depth acquisition someone who’d pitched just 118 2/3 innings in the two prior seasons and ended the ’23 campaign on the IL with a flexor strain.

With DeSclafani shelved, right-hander Louie Varland steps squarely into the rotation alongside Lopez, Paddack, Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober. It’s a talented group, but the depth behind it isn’t as strong. The Twins have Simeon Woods Richardson and Brent Headrick on the 40-man roster, plus top prospect David Festa not far from MLB readiness. Still, Paddack will likely be on an innings cap of some sort after throwing just 27 1/3 MLB frames from 2022-23 due to his second career Tommy John surgery. There’s a clear lack of experience at the back of the group with Varland, Woods Richardson, Headrick and Festa. Adding some some depth by way of a veteran who was released late in camp (e.g. Julio Teheran) or via adding a recent DFA casualty (e.g. Jackson Wolf, Vladimir Gutierrez, Adrian Martinez) could be prudent in the early going.

The Twins’ rotation clearly looks worse this season than last, but the club’s hope has been that healthier seasons from Byron Buxton and Royce Lewis, plus full seasons of Julien and Wallner could help to offset some of that downturn. Lewis’ early quad injury has already dashed some of those hopes, but there’s still ample time for him to top last year’s 239 plate appearances.

Minnesota’s front office isn’t necessarily shy about attempting to upgrade at the trade deadline, either, and so long as they remain in the hunt for the AL Central crown, they’ll likely be active in late July. It’d be a surprise to see the Twins fall out of the race early. While the quiet offseason showing wasn’t the follow-up fans wanted, this club still looks well-positioned to contend.

Offseason In Review: Chicago Cubs

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The Cubs retained Cody Bellinger at a bargain price, replaced Marcus Stroman, found a potential first base solution, and supplemented their bullpen – all while staying below the first competitive balance tax threshold.

Major League Signings

  • Cody Bellinger, CF/1B: three years, $80MM.  2025 and ’26 seasons are player options.
  • Shota Imanaga, SP: four years, $53MM.  2026 is a player option that triggers additional options.
  • Hector Neris, RP: one year, $9MM.  Includes $9MM club option for 2025

Options Exercised

Trades and Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

  • None

Notable Losses

The Cubs’ offseason kicked off with an important choice by starting pitcher Marcus Stroman on November 4th: he decided to opt out of the remaining one year and $21MM left on his contract.  This created financial flexibility and a vacant rotation spot, making some sort of starting pitching addition feel inevitable.

The following day, the Cubs locked in a rotation spot by making the expected decision to exercise Kyle Hendricks’ $16.5MM club option.  They also picked up the $6MM option on catcher Yan Gomes.

Then the Cubs made a move few people saw coming: they brought in Craig Counsell as manager, which required the largest contract in MLB history for that job both in terms of total and average annual value.  David Ross was fired in the process.  Counsell had managed the Brewers for nearly nine years, taking them to the playoffs in five of the last six seasons.  Counsell is regarded as one of the game’s better managers, and he often succeeded despite below-average payrolls in Milwaukee.

The stunning Counsell-for-Ross move conjured memories of Theo Epstein’s opportunistic switch nine years prior from Rick Renteria to Joe Maddon.  The Cubs’ signature player acquisition that offseason was the signing of Jon Lester, ranked second on MLBTR’s top 50 free agents list.  After the Counsell hiring, it was natural to wonder if Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer would deliver an additional offseason prize such as Shohei Ohtani or Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

The Cubs did show interest in some of the offseason’s biggest names.  Reports suggest they made a real effort to sign Ohtani before he landed with the Dodgers on a heavily-deferred ten-year, $700MM deal, though the Cubs weren’t seemingly a finalist.  According to ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez and Jeff Passan, as Ohtani’s free agency drew to a close, agent Nez Balelo “proposed the same deal to at least three other teams,” the Giants, Blue Jays, and Angels.  As late as December 5th, Hoyer shot down a report that the Cubs’ optimism on Ohtani had waned, but it probably should have been waning around then.  The Cubs are not mentioned in that Gonzalez/Passan insider account of the signing.  Whether the Cubs dropped out due to an unwillingness to meet Ohtani’s asking price or due to his preference to play elsewhere remains unknown.

Though Hoyer saw Yamamoto on a September scouting trip to Japan, the Cubs were largely absent from reports about his offseason free agent pursuit.  The reporting on Yamamoto’s free agency provided no indication that the Cubs met with Yamamoto or made an offer.  It is known that both New York teams made strong offers to Yamamoto, who of course wound up joining Ohtani on the Dodgers.  There isn’t much indication that the Cubs could have reasonably won the bidding for Yamamoto, nor that they tried to.

Likewise, the Cubs may have had interest in then-Padres outfielder Juan Soto, but if so they kept it quiet in the rumor mill.  Soto differed from Ohtani and Yamamoto in that it wasn’t up to the player – that prize went to the team that made the best offer.  Soto was a bit of a tough fit for a Cubs team with Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki locked in at the outfield corners.

One major trade target that made ample sense was Tyler Glasnow of the Rays.  According to Ken Rosenthal and Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic, “the Cubs remained in the Glasnow talks until the end, but were not willing to make a comparable offer” to the Dodgers’ proposal of Ryan Pepiot and Jonny DeLuca.  Glasnow’s preferences also mattered.  As Rosenthal and Ardaya put it, “He effectively could rule out certain teams by telling [Rays president of baseball operations Erik] Neander he would only stay with them for one season before entering free agency.”  The Cubs probably could’ve offered enough to land Glasnow for 2024, but they would not necessarily have been able to sign him to an extension.

Korean outfielder Jung Hoo Lee was quietly on the Cubs’ radar as well, according to Patrick Mooney of The Athletic.  Like so many of this offseason’s big names, Lee wound up in the NL West.

As 2023 drew to a close, Cubs fans’ dreams of Ohtani, Yamamoto, Soto, or Glasnow had been dashed.  The team had added a managerial star, but nothing else.

A pair of key moves came within a three-day span in January.  First, the Cubs signed 30-year-old southpaw Shota Imanaga to a four-year, $53MM deal.  The team also owes a posting fee of at least $9.825MM to his former team, the Yokohama DeNA BayStars.  Imanaga will earn $23MM for his first two seasons with the Cubs, after which the team must decide whether to exercise a three-year, $57MM option covering his age 32-34 seasons.  If they do so, it’d bring Imanaga’s total to five years and $80MM, similar to preseason contract projections.  If the Cubs decline, Imanaga will have a $15MM player option for ’26.  If exercised, the Cubs will have to decide on two years and $42MM for 2027-28.  If the Cubs decline their first option, Imanaga exercises his ’26 player option, and the Cubs decline their 2027-28 option, the pitcher has another $15MM option for ’27.

It’s a fairly complicated structure that offers the Cubs some measure of protection as opposed to the $80MM guarantee a starter like Eduardo Rodriguez received.  Early returns on Imanaga suggest he can perform as a mid-rotation starter, in which case his contract represents a solid deal for the Cubs.  I don’t blame the Cubs for preferring Imanaga on his contract to Stroman at $21MM for one year or $37MM for two.

First base was a clear need for the Cubs, and they reportedly entertained a traditional solution in Rhys Hoskins as well as an interesting one in Josh Naylor.  Eventually, though, Hoyer made an addition no one saw coming by trading prospects for the Dodgers’ Michael Busch, as well as reliever Yency Almonte.  Busch, an MLB-ready 26-year-old rookie, comes with six years of control remaining.  He won’t even be paid an arbitration salary until 2027, and he’s under team control for a total of six more years.  If Busch develops into the above average hitter his scouting reports and Triple-A work suggest, this will become an inspired pickup by the Cubs.

The Cubs inked Hector Neris to a one-year deal in late January, at a $9MM salary a bit beyond Hoyer’s typical comfort zone for relievers.  At that point, the Cubs could have considered their offseason done.  They’d replaced Stroman, found a first base solution, and supplemented the bullpen.

Cody Bellinger has been conspicuously absent from this post thus far, and that’s because Bellinger reportedly sought $200MM or more on a long-term deal.  Back in November, I thought he’d get it, and not from the Cubs.  I also felt that the Cubs’ motivation on Bellinger would be limited, given the presence of slick-fielding center field prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong.  There were signs the Cubs lacked full confidence in running PCA out to begin the season, however.  Two, specifically: their interest in Jung Hoo Lee and Kevin Kiermaier.

So the Cubs hung back and remained opportunistic on Bellinger.  As late as February 19th, owner Tom Ricketts said, “There has been some discussions but it hasn’t become a negotiation yet,” calling out agent Scott Boras to get serious.  About a week later, Bellinger’s deal with the Cubs was done, at a mere $80MM guarantee over three years.  Yes, there’s downside risk in that Bellinger will only forgo his two opt-outs if he performs poorly.  But if he plays well again this year and opts out, the Cubs will have only committed $30MM.  The Bellinger signing lengthens the Cubs’ lineup and pushes Crow-Armstrong back to Triple-A.  Bellinger can also slide over to first base should circumstances warrant it.

Ricketts made his position on payroll clear in that February 19th interview: “We’re right there at CBT (Competitive Balance Tax) levels.  It’s kind of our natural place for us. That should be enough to win our division and be consistent every year.”  That was before the Bellinger signing; with him, the Cubs are estimated at about $234MM, only $3MM below the first CBT threshold to which Ricketts referred.

As the calendar turned to March, the Cubs were presented with a slew of opportunities to jump on further Boras surprise bargains and push the team from “should be enough to win our division” to “likely to win our division.”  Likely because of Ricketts’ unwillingness to push payroll past its current point (an estimated 10th in MLB), the Cubs passed on several big name free agents they very much could have used.

Matt Chapman was next off the board, signing a three-year, $54MM deal with the Giants that included a pair of opt-outs.  Chapman would have been a “nice-to-have” for the Cubs, plugging in at third base and pushing Christopher Morel mostly to the DH spot.  It’s possible Chapman’s comfort in the Bay Area meant the Cubs would have had to go higher than the Giants, however.  The Cubs’ current plan seems to be mixing and matching at third base with Morel, Nick Madrigal, and Patrick Wisdom.

The Giants also seized the opportunity to sign Blake Snell at two years and $62MM with an opt out.  Snell made a lot of sense at this price for the Cubs, though both he and Chapman would’ve required the Cubs to forfeit their second-round draft pick.  Jordan Montgomery remained on the market, however, and he would not require draft pick forfeiture.

The Cubs’ rotation, when everyone is healthy, will feature Justin Steele, Kyle Hendricks, Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon, and Jordan Wicks.  There is reason to believe this is not a collection of five 180-inning pitchers.  Javier Assad, Ben Brown, and Drew Smyly are additional options to cover the inevitable injuries, such as the current ones to Steele and Taillon.  Signing Montgomery to a one-year, $25MM deal and pushing everyone down a spot was an opportunity the Cubs should’ve jumped on.   Instead Montgomery landed with the Diamondbacks, a team Ricketts would like to emulate, because, “You don’t have to have the highest payroll or the biggest stars. If you’re playing well, anybody can beat anybody. I was happy for the Diamondbacks.”

If the Cubs face any kind of starting pitching depth problem this year, and Snell and Montgomery are useful pitchers, it will be pretty easy to point to their availability in March.  To be fair, the same can be said of many teams.

Once everyone is healthy, the Cubs’ rotation looks decent, and their offense looks fairly deep.  The club also features strong defense up the middle.  They’re right in the middle of an NL Central that currently has all five teams projecting for 80-82 wins.  For a lot of teams, that’s good enough.

Pitchers Approaching Career Milestones In 2024

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The 2024 season is just days away. It’s a time of renewed hope for at least the vast majority of teams. It also opens the opportunity for a few veteran players to continue building on what have already been very accomplished careers, some of which should happen early in the year.

Wins

There’s no pitcher who’s particularly close to a magic round number — unless we drop all the way down to 100, which is notable but not especially illustrious. However, Justin Verlander’s win total will still be worth tracking. The Houston ace will begin the season on the injured list but is hopeful of a quick return. The three-time Cy Young winner is at 257 wins in his career and will pass Ted Lyons for 41st all-time if he records even four victories this year. Eight wins will push Verlander into the top 40, surpassing Gus Weyhing. With nine wins, he’ll leapfrog Jim McCormick. Ten victories will be enough to overtake both Eppa Rixey and Bob Feller. With a dozen wins, Verlander will move past Jim Palmer. Recording 13 wins will eclipse Jamie Moyer, while 14 will pass Mike Mussina and Burleigh Grimes. Perhaps 17 is a long shot, but if Verlander can get to that point, he’ll pass Red Ruffing and move into 32nd place all-time. Each of Lyons, Rixey, Feller, Palmer, Mussina, Grimes and Ruffing is a Hall of Famer — a distinction that surely awaits Verlander in the future.

As an aside, Verlander would also become just the fifth pitcher to ever record 200-plus strikeouts in 10 seasons of his career. Again, starting out on the injured list doesn’t help his chances. He hasn’t topped 200 in a season since fanning 300 back in 2019, but there’s always a slim chance. Only Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens and Tom Seaver have recorded 10 or more seasons of 200 punchouts.

Saves

Heading into the 2024 season, the current No. 7 and 8 names on the all-time saves list will have active closer’s jobs: Kenley Jansen (Red Sox) and Craig Kimbrel (Orioles). Jansen currently boasts 420 saves. Kimbrel is at 417. Jansen and Kimbrel not only have a chance to finish the season in MLB’s top five all-time saves leaders — it seems quite likely both will get there with good health. Jansen needs three saves to pass Billy Wagner, five to pass John Franco and 18 to pass Francisco Rodriguez, who’s currently fourth all-time. Kimbrel is only three saves behind him, so he needs just six, eight and 21 to wind up in the top five right behind Jansen. It’s also possible the two will flip spots, given the proximity on the current leaderboards.

Way down the list, Braves closer Raisel Iglesias enters the season with 190 career saves. That puts him 58th all-time. He has a strong chance to become the 54th pitcher to ever reach 200 saves in a career. Iglesias saved 33 games for the Braves in 2023, and if he repeats that he’ll jump to 45th all-time. He’ll pitch this season at 34, and if he can remain a serviceable closer into his mid- and late-30s, he has a decent chance at passing Jason Isringhausen and Bruce Sutter — both at exactly 300 saves — and becoming just the 32nd pitcher to ever reach that milestone, though clearly that’ll take another few years.

Other possibilities to reach 200 saves this season include David Robertson, who currently sits at 175 saves in his career, and Josh Hader, who’s sitting on 165. Jose Leclerc might get first crack at the ninth inning over Robertson, but he’s been inconsistent and had his share of injuries. Hader is the clear favorite for saves in Houston, but he’s only reached 35 saves in a single season twice before. Both pitchers could get to that nice round number given their presence as late-inning options on contending clubs.

Taking a slightly different approach to career save totals, Kimbrel is already one of just four players in MLB history to have five or more seasons of 40-plus saves, joining Mariano Rivera (9), Trevor Hoffman (9) and the previously mentioned K-Rod (6). He hasn’t had a 40-save season since 2018, but if he can turn back the clock he’d tie Rodriguez with his sixth 40-save season. Similarly, Jansen is one of just ten pitchers to ever have four seasons of 40 or more saves. He reached that mark as recently as 2022. A 40-save season would tie him with Kimbrel at five and make him just the fifth pitcher to ever enjoy five such seasons.

Strikeouts

Max Scherzer likely won’t pitch in the season’s first half, but if he takes the ball at all this year he’ll be a virtual lock to move into tenth place on the all-time strikeout list, surpassing Hall of Famer Greg Maddux. Mad Max’s 3367 punchouts are just four behind the Professor. With a full season, Scherzer might’ve had a shot at Walter Johnson’s ninth-place mark (3509), but that’ll likely have to wait for future seasons — assuming Scherzer keeps going after the ’24 campaign.

The aforementioned Verlander is only 25 strikeouts behind Scherzer and thus all but certain to pass his former teammate. Verlander is currently tied with Phil Niekro at 3442, meaning his next strikeout will give him sole possession of 11th place all-time. And if he can return early enough in the 2024 season, Verlander will have a shot at the 168 strikeouts he needs to inch past Johnson on the all-time list. He’d need 193 to pass Gaylord Perry for eighth all-time, which probably won’t happen this year, but Verlander has said he wants to pitch into his mid-40s and has an option on his contract for the 2025 season.

We don’t know when Clayton Kershaw will pitch this year or whether the still-unsigned Zack Greinke will pitch at all, but both are within arm’s reach of 3000 punchouts in their respective careers. Only 19 pitchers have ever done so. Kershaw needs 56 whiffs to get to that point and is hopeful of rejoining the Dodgers’ rotation in the second half after undergoing offseason shoulder surgery. His deal comes with a 2025 option, so even if 3000 doesn’t happen this year, there’s a good chance we’ll see it in ’25. Greinke is just 21 strikeouts away from 3000. A return to the Royals seems unlikely, but if he decides he wants to pitch and chase down that 3000 milestone, he’d surely garner some interest from teams seeking depth.

There are a handful of names chasing down the 2000-strikeout mark as well. As of this writing, 87 pitchers have reached that threshold in MLB history. Yu Darvish, who currently has 1932 strikeouts, needs just 68 more to get there. Darvish, Lance Lynn (1906 strikeouts) and Charlie Morton (1880) are all practically locks to get to 2000 with full, healthy seasons.

Total Appearances

Jansen already ranks 50th all-time with 817 games pitched, but he can jump into the top-40 if he makes it into 32 games this season. He’s already one of only 54 pitchers to ever reach 800 appearances in his career.

Three more names will likely join that 800 club — two of whom I’ve already mentioned: Robertson (793 games) and Kimbrel (780). The third is veteran righty Bryan Shaw, who’s reportedly likely to make the White Sox’ roster. At 791 appearances, he already ranks 59th all-time. With just nine games this season, the rubber-armed Shaw can further his workhorse reputation and perhaps move into the top-50 all time.

Offseason In Review: New York Yankees

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The Yankees’ offseason was highlighted by a blockbuster trade, but some major injury concerns have threatened to undermine New York’s work in upgrading the roster.

Major League Signings

2023 spending: $23.25MM
Total spending: $41.25MM

Trades & Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

Juan Soto and Aaron Judge hitting back-to-back is a pitcher’s worst nightmare, and having Gleyber Torres and a healthy Anthony Rizzo bookend those two elite sluggers in the lineup should also cause a few sleepless evenings.  Between this impressive top of the lineup, and fresh input from newly-hired hitting coach James Rowson and assistant hitting coach Pat Roessler, there is plenty of hope that the Yankees can improve upon their strangely punchless offense from the 2023 season.

Soto is slated to hit free agency next winter as he heads into his age-26 season, and the outfielder and agent Scott Boras surely have an eye towards the biggest non-Shohei Ohtani contract in baseball history.  Since the Yankees are one of the few teams who can afford such an expenditure, it’s certainly possible this won’t be Soto’s only season in the Bronx, but New York paid quite a premium for just one guaranteed year of Soto’s services.

Kyle Higashioka may have been expendable within the Yankees’ catching depth chart, but the real score for the Padres in the Soto trade was four talented and controllable young pitchers.  Michael King emerged as an intriguing starter with New York last year and looks to step right into San Diego’s rotation — at worst, King can be a lockdown reliever for the Padres if he doesn’t stick as a starting pitcher.  Drew Thorpe is a top-100 prospect who the Padres flipped to the White Sox as part of the Dylan Cease trade package.  Jhony Brito and Randy Vasquez are also big league-ready arms and one of them likely would’ve won a rotation job had Cease not been acquired.

Trent Grisham was the other player acquired from San Diego, and though he is only earning $5.5MM via an arbitration-avoiding deal, his inclusion in the trade may have been a bit of a salary dump from a Padres deal that was eager to payroll this winter.  (Obviously Soto was the pricier figure in this equation, as his $31MM salary for 2024 is the highest ever given to a an arbitration player.)  Grisham is an outstanding defender whose hitting has dropped off over the last two seasons, and he seems to be ticketed for at least backup duty within an intriguing Yankees outfield mix.

The first-choice outfield alignment looks to be Soto in right field, Judge in center field, and new acquisition Alex Verdugo as the left field starter at least against right-handed pitching.  When a southpaw is on the mound, the Yankees will probably use Judge in left field and Grisham will step into center field.  Giancarlo Stanton will get most of the DH at-bats and might get some occasional looks in the outfield, though as GM Brian Cashman rather bluntly stated last November, it may simply be unlikely that Stanton can stay healthy for the entire season.  Judge figures to get a good dose of DH usage regardless of Stanton’s availability, since one of the Yankees’ chief priorities this year is keeping Judge healthy amidst the added physical strain of regular center field work.

A rare trade between the Yankees and Red Sox brought Verdugo into the fold, and between Verdugo and Soto, New York now has two legitimate left-handed bats to help balance out a lineup that was overloaded with right-handed hitters.  Verdugo has been exactly a league-average (100 wRC+, 100 OPS+) hitter over the last two seasons, and given the whispers of behind-the-scenes discord with Boston manager Alex Cora, a change of scenery might be just what Verdugo needs to get on track.

An in-form Verdugo, a healthy Stanton, and steps forward from highly-touted youngsters Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells would suddenly make the lineup look a lot more Bronx Bomber-esque, rather than simply “improved.”  A rebound year from DJ LeMahieu would also help, but the infielder’s 2024 season has gotten off to a rough start with a bone bruise that will begin his season on the injured list.

The Yankees had been looking for infield and utility depth even before LeMahieu got hurt, as Oswald Peraza is facing an extended absence while recovering from a shoulder strain.  The need was finally filled just yesterday when Jon Berti was acquired as part of a three-team trade with the Marlins and Rays.  Berti brings a ton of speed and defensive versatility to the roster, and his ability to draw walks and make contact has led to some occasional above-average offensive production over his six MLB seasons.

Landing Berti came at the cost of catcher Ben Rortvedt and minor league outfielder John Cruz, though New York is confident that Wells is ready to take on a larger share of the catching duties with Jose Trevino.  Wells’ defense could be the x-factor in whether or not he can move into a full platoon or even a playing-time edge over Trevino, and gauging by Wells’ minor league numbers, his bat is at least ready for the Show.  In other bench news, waiver claim Jahmai Jones won a spot on the Opening Day roster, and he brings more multi-positional utility to the mix.

The aforementioned search for a utilityman type led the Yankees to explore such free agents as Enrique Hernandez, Tony Kemp, Amed Rosario, and old friends Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Gio Urshela.  In terms of position players, the Yankees made some more high-profile explorations, as the team had interest in the likes of Cody Bellinger, Jung Hoo Lee, Jeimer Candelario, Kevin Kiermaier, and probably several other free agents whose talks with the Bombers weren’t publicized.

Since the Soto trade was completed in early December, it seems as though the Yankees decided relatively early to go with the one-year strike for Soto rather than a longer-term deal with Bellinger or even Lee as their major offensive addition of the winter.  Cashman’s front office couldn’t have known at the time that Bellinger’s market would be limited enough that he would settle for an opt-out laden three-year, $80MM deal with the Cubs, and naturally it makes sense that the Yankees would want to pounce on Soto and solidify the lineup as early as possible.  It’s easy to say this with hindsight being 20-20, but if New York had been comfortable enough to try and wait Bellinger out, the team could’ve landed a big bat at a lower average annual value than Soto, and King and company might still be on the roster.

Or, the Yankees might have flipped King, Thorpe, Brito, or Vasquez in another trade, perhaps for a frontline starter with more big league experience.  There is some irony in Thorpe being a centerpiece of the Padres’ Cease deal given how the Yankees themselves talked at length with the White Sox about Cease, but it seemed like Chicago’s insistence on landing Spencer Jones in any Cease trade package was a deal-breaker for New York.

Even though offense was the team’s larger need heading into the offseason, the Yankees were reportedly involved in the bidding for several starters and relievers, on both the free agent and trade fronts.  Beyond Cease, the long list of pitchers the Yankees at least checked in on included Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Corbin Burnes, Shane Bieber, Jesus Luzardo, Aaron Nola, Shota Imanaga, Josh Hader, Yariel Rodriguez, Michael Lorenzen, Jordan Hicks, Robert Stephenson, Hector Neris, Phil Maton, Ryan Brasier, and two of New York’s own free agents in Wandy Peralta (who signed with the Padres) and Keynan Middleton (with the Cardinals).

Yamamoto was one of the chief targets, and was reportedly offered a ten-year, $300MM deal (with two opt-out clauses) to begin his Major League tenure in the Bronx.  Yamamoto passed on that contract for a 12-year, $325MM deal with the Dodgers, as his decision might’ve been influenced by such factors as a big $50MM signing bonus, the flexibility offered by the six-man Los Angeles rotation, and of course the chance to play with a Japanese baseball icon like Ohtani.

Jordan Montgomery was another former Yankee who drew attention from his old club, as the Bombers were said to be in on the left-hander up until the moment Montgomery finally landed with the Diamondbacks for a one-year deal with a vesting player option for 2025.  Blake Snell was on the Yankees’ radar for much of the offseason, and the team’s reported six-year, $150MM offer to Snell in January stands as the largest offer known to have been on the table throughout Snell’s own extended stay in free agency.  The reigning NL Cy Young Award winner ended up signing a two-year, $62MM deal with the Giants that includes an opt-out next winter, as the Bombers didn’t revisit their six-year offer after moving onto Marcus Stroman as a rotation alternative.

Stroman inked a two-year deal worth $37MM in guaranteed money, and another $18MM could become available via a vesting player option for the 2026 season.  With two All-Star nods and a history of success in the AL East on his resume, Stroman is a nice get for the Yankees, and his grounder-heavy approach should play well with New York’s solid infield defense.  Injuries marred the back half of what was looking like a great 2023 campaign for Stroman with the Cubs, however, and adding to the list of health issues facing the Yankees rotation.

Nestor Cortes and Carlos Rodon combined for only 127 2/3 innings last year, leaving both starters in pursuit of bounce-backs.  Clarke Schmidt pitched decently well in his first full MLB season, and Luis Gil pitched well enough in Spring Training that New York will use Gil as the fifth starter, though Gil himself has only 33 1/3 career innings in the majors and missed all of 2023 recovering from Tommy John surgery.

The biggest question mark of all, however, is one of the Yankees’ most indispensable players.  Gerrit Cole will open the season on the 60-day injured list, meaning he won’t be an option until at least late May as he recovers from nerve inflammation and edema in his throwing elbow.  Missing at least two months is naturally still an infinitely preferable scenario to the initial worry that Cole might need some kind of season-ending surgery, yet the Yankees still have to navigate a big chunk of the season without arguably the sport’s best pitcher.  It isn’t a coincidence that the team’s interest in Snell and Montgomery seemed to spark back up after the news broke of Cole’s injury, but it looks like the Yankees will rely on Gil and their internal arms to hold the fort until Cole is able to return.

Even a late strike for Snell or Montgomery at a relative discount price would have had serious financial implications.  RosterResource’s projections put the Yankees’ payroll at $299.7MM, and their luxury tax number at just over $310.5MM.  The latter figure puts New York well over the highest tax threshold of $297MM, after the team just barely stayed under the $297MM number in 2023.  Since 2024 will be the Yankees’ third consecutive year of surpassing the luxury tax, it all adds up a whopping 110% tax added to any further payroll additions the Yankees might make.

It’s perhaps a reach to say that a team with such a gigantic payroll is hugely concerned with an even larger tax bill, as there’s certainly more pressure for the Yankees to get back into contention.  Yet, the Bombers did keep their free agent spending relatively in check, and the $30MM average annual values offered to Yamamoto and Snell seemed to represent something of a limit to how much New York was willing to offer.  Soto, Torres, Verdugo, Clay Holmes, and (pending a club option) Rizzo are all free agents next winter, representing some significant money coming off the books for the Yankees as they decide how to reload for 2025.

Though the relief corps was pretty successful last year, New York heads into Opening Day with some noteworthy changes in the bullpen.  With Peralta, Middleton, and former relief stalwart King all gone, the Yankees will look to make up those innings with Caleb Ferguson and Victor Gonzalez (both acquired in separate trades with the Dodgers) and minor league signing Nick Burdi.  Luke Weaver was re-signed to a low-cost guaranteed deal, and Cody Morris, Cody Poteet, and any number of other pitchers already in the farm system or signed to minor league contracts could emerge as the season progresses.  The Yankees and pitching coach Matt Blake have developed a knack for getting good results out of unheralded bullpen options, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see some other unexpected name or a pitcher not even currently in the organization emerging for some high-leverage work later on in the season.

Between the flurry of additions big and small, it was a busy winter in the Bronx, which isn’t surprising for a Yankees team coming off a rare non-playoff season.  Players and team executives either hinted or outright stated last fall that some changes had to be made to get the club back into contention, extending from both roster moves to more clubhouse-related issues like Judge’s desire to see a difference in both the type of analytical information presented to the players, and in how this info is presented.  These types of alterations aren’t as public as the sight of Soto wearing Yankees pinstripes, of course, and despite all of the roster moves and internal fixes, ultimately a lot of the Yankees’ success in 2024 might simply hinge on Cole’s health.

Offseason In Review: Toronto Blue Jays

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The Blue Jays’ offseason was defined by who they didn’t sign rather than who they did sign, as they came up short in their pursuit of Shohei Ohtani.

Major League Signings

2024 spending: $41MM
Total spending: $70.5MM

Option Decisions

Trades & Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

  • None

Notable Losses

December 8, 2023 will be remembered as one of the most unusual days in Blue Jays history, as reports from J.P. Hoornstra of Dodger Nation and MLB Network’s Jon Morosi indicated that Ohtani had either signed with the Jays, or was on a flight to Toronto to make the deal official.  It led to a few fevered hours of speculation around the baseball world before a lack of confirmation on these early reports eventually acted as a reality check, with Morosi retracting his earlier message on X.  The next day, Ohtani officially announced on his own Instagram page that he had signed with the Dodgers, thus ending the Blue Jays’ chances once and for all.

Subsequent reports indicated that the Jays made a comparable offer to the 10 years and (heavily-deferred) $700MM Ohtani received from Los Angeles.  Even if the Dodgers might’ve been Ohtani’s first choice if all else was equal, it appears as though the Blue Jays and possibly the Giants were viewed as legitimately viable alternative destinations if contract talks with L.A. didn’t go smoothly.

It’s possible that Toronto fans might feel a little better about not landing Ohtani now than they did a week ago, before news broke of the controversial and possibly explosive allegations involving Ohtani’s ex-interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, an illegal gambling operation, and funds allegedly taken from Ohtani’s personal bank accounts to cover Mizuhara’s debts.  However, losing Ohtani was soon followed up by Los Angeles signing another top Jays target in Yoshinobu Yamamoto, even if Toronto wasn’t reportedly one of the true finalists for Yamamoto’s services — and certainly not to the level of the Dodgers’ massive 12-year, $325MM commitment to the Japanese ace.

The one-two punch of missing out on Ohtani and Yamamoto only increased the discord that has existed within the fanbase through much of the 2023 season, and reached a fever pitch when sloppy baserunning, a continued lack of hitting, and an infamous pitching change combined to quickly sweep Toronto out of its wild card series matchup with the Twins.  Jays GM Ross Atkins isn’t going to make an ill-advised splashy move just for the sake of positive headlines, yet just from a baseball perspective, questions have to asked about whether the Toronto roster is better now than it was at the end of last season.

As has been the Blue Jays’ habit over the last few offseasons, the club was linked to a wide range of available players.  Beyond Ohtani and Yamamoto, multiple reports suggested the Jays had some degree of interest in the likes of free agents Cody Bellinger, Aaron Nola, Blake Snell, J.D. Martinez, Jeimer Candelario, Jorge Soler, Joc Pederson, Michael Brantley, Rhys Hoskins, Gio Urshela, Michael A. Taylor, Amed Rosario, Domingo German, and their own incumbent free agent in Matt Chapman.  On the trade front, the Blue Jays reportedly looked into deals involving such players as Juan Soto, Eugenio Suarez, Isaac Paredes, Dylan Carlson, Jonathan India, and Jake Cronenworth, with the first two of those names actually changing teams in other deals.

The slow-moving nature of the free agent market means that the Blue Jays probably didn’t really miss out on many opportunities while focusing primarily on Ohtani for the offseason’s first five weeks.  Hindsight being 20-20, it can be argued that the Jays should’ve or could’ve pushed more to acquire Soto than Ohtani, though there’s no guarantee that the Jays were willing to match or exceed the pitching-centric trade package the Yankees needed to pry Soto away from the Padres.  As much as the fans were begging for a big strike, cleaning out an already thin farm system to land Soto might not have been feasible for the Jays in the long run.

Kevin Kiermaier was a free agent for the second consecutive winter but again ended up signing a one-year deal with Toronto, returning for a $10.5MM salary and a raise on his previous $9MM deal.  Heading into the offseason, the conventional wisdom was that the Blue Jays might let Kiermaier walk, in order to install Daulton Varsho in center field and a bigger bat into Varsho’s old left field spot.  However, the Jays will instead run it back with the outfield of Varsho, Kiermaier, and George Springer, hoping for a repeat of the group’s excellent defense and overall good health, and a notable improvement at the plate from at least Varsho and Springer.  (And if Kiermaier can top his solid 2023 slash line of .265/.322/.419 in 408 plate appearances, all the better.)

As for re-signing Chapman, Toronto monitored his market and made a late two-year offer before the third baseman signed with the Giants.  Chapman’s rather unusually long stint in free agency probably created this eleventh-hour possibility of a reunion, as it otherwise seemed like the Blue Jays somewhat moved on from Chapman when they signed Isiah Kiner-Falefa to a two-year, $15MM contract.

The price tag raised eyebrows, as Kiner-Falefa’s bat has been well below average (81 wRC+) over his six MLB seasons and 2415 career PA.  A Gold Glove winner as the Rangers’ third baseman in 2020, IKF’s defense has generally graded as average to very good at multiple positions, even if he naturally won’t match Chapman’s elite glovework.

Having Kiner-Falefa as a semi-everyday player is probably not an ideal move for an already inconsistent lineup, though the Blue Jays’ rather fluid second base/third base/backup infield collection of IKF, Cavan Biggio, Davis Schneider, and Ernie Clement could see all four players mixing and matching between the two positions.  Kiner-Falefa and Clement can also back up Bo Bichette at shortstop, and the out-of-options Clement performed well enough in Spring Training that the Jays felt comfortable enough to trade Santiago Espinal to the injury-riddled Reds last week.

Of course, Justin Turner also figures to get some time at the hot corner, even if Turner was signed to primarily fill Brandon Belt’s role as a part-time first baseman and DH.  Turner has been on the Jays’ radar for years as a free agent target, and the two sides finally came together on a one-year deal worth $13MM.  Even as he enters his age-39 season, Turner has remained a consistently productive hitter, including 23 homers and a .276/.345/.455 slash line over 626 PA for the Red Sox in 2023.

Turner is expected to play pretty close to every day at either third, first, or DH, while Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will naturally also be a lineup staple as the first baseman or designated hitter.  When a right-hander is on the mound, spring non-roster invite Daniel Vogelbach figures to get some time in the DH spot, as his minor league contract has now been selected to the Opening Day roster.  Vogelbach doesn’t have much utility as a DH-only player who can’t hit left-handed pitching, though his lefty bat does bring some balance to a lineup and bench mix that continues to tilt to the right side.  Re-signing Kiermaier brought at least one left-handed hitter back into the fold, but Kiermaier, Vogelbach, Biggio, and Varsho (none of whom are exactly premium bats) represent the current allotment of lefty swingers on the projected roster.

Joey Votto’s possible inclusion could change this picture in terms of upside if not numbers, as if Votto’s minors deal is selected to the active roster, he would surely just replace Vogelbach.  It would be a storybook ending if Votto could revive his career for at least one more big season with his hometown team, but while the 17-year veteran has been very forthright about his confidence in himself, Votto is also realistic about the challenges he’ll face in getting back to anything close to his old form after two injury-plagued seasons.  Votto will need time to ramp up in the minors, and he’ll also first have to recover from an ankle injury suffered after he homered in his lone Spring Training plate appearance in a Blue Jays uniform.

Between Turner, Vogelbach, and rolling the dice on Votto, the Jays apparently felt ok in moving on from Belt, as there were no public indications that Toronto had interest in re-signing arguably its best hitter from the 2023 season.  Alejandro Kirk also figures to get some DH at-bats over the course of the season, though he’ll be strictly a catcher in the early going while Danny Jansen recovers from a minor wrist fracture.  Offseason waiver claim Brian Serven will now break camp as Kirk’s backup catcher while Jansen heals.

Turning to the pitching staff, the Blue Jays’ priciest signing of the winter wasn’t Ohtani or Yamamoto, but rather another name from Japan….via Cuba.  Yariel Rodriguez posted a 3.30 ERA over 464 1/3 innings and six seasons in Cuba’s Serie Nacional before then delivering a 3.03 ERA in 175 1/3 frames for Nippon Professional Baseball’s Chunichi Dragons from 2020-22.  Rodriguez sat out the 2023 season while trying to arrange his move to MLB, so the year’s layoff is another x-factor on top of the usual questions about how a player’s skills will translate from international baseball to the Show.

Multiple teams scouted and considered Rodriguez this winter, with the Blue Jays among the group who liked him as a starting pitcher rather than as a reliever.  With Bowden Francis winning the fifth starter’s job coming out of Spring Training, it appears as though Rodriguez will begin the season in Triple-A, acting as rotation depth and continuing to acclimate to his new league.  Even with a five-year contract and at least a $32MM investment in Rodriguez, the Blue Jays are willing to be patient in getting Rodriguez fully ready for the bigs before deploying him as a starter, reliever, or swingman.

While the Jays signed Rodriguez and kicked the tires on some other free agent arms, Toronto is largely standing pat with its same pitching staff from 2023.  This isn’t a bad move considering how the rotation and bullpen were both strengths last season, though there is some added risk since the odds are against another year of largely good pitcher health.  Already some cracks have shown since Jordan Romano and Erik Swanson will start the year on the 15-day injured list, and Kevin Gausman had a bout of shoulder fatigue earlier in camp but now seems on pace to be part of the Opening Day roster.

Alek Manoah remains the biggest uncertainty on the roster, as Manoah’s spring work consisted of one rough outing (four earned runs in 1 2/3 innings) before being sidelined with shoulder soreness.  In the wake of Manoah’s disastrous 2023 season, the Blue Jays simply don’t know what to expect from Manoah going forward, making it even more important that Francis, Rodriguez, Mitch White, and perhaps eventually top prospect Ricky Tiedemann can work as depth starter or fifth starter options.  This in turn puts more pressure on Gausman, Jose Berrios, Chris Bassitt, and Yusei Kikuchi to stay healthy and effective so any other leaks don’t spring in the rotation.

Adding clear-cut starters or even lower-level pitchers on inexpensive guaranteed contracts or minor league deals might’ve been tricky for the Blue Jays this winter, as such pitchers probably preferred to join teams with clearer potential rotation or bullpen openings.  In a nutshell, already having a core in place might’ve limited what Toronto was willing or able to do with both its pitching staff and perhaps the roster as a whole.

Breaking the bank for Ohtani or Yamamoto in a special circumstance was one thing, but the Jays were generally conservative in boosting the payroll.  After a $214.5MM payroll and a $246MM luxury tax number in 2023 (putting them over the tax line for the first time ever), the Blue Jays are estimated by RosterResource for a $226MM payroll and a $248.7MM luxury tax figure heading into Opening Day.  While they might not have spent much this winter, this does leave the team with some flexibility to add money at the trade deadline when they have a better sense of their immediate needs.  It isn’t known whether or not the second tax penalty tier of $257MM represents any kind of internal spending limit, but given how this team has been so aggressive in recent years, it would be surprising if the front office suddenly held back if a key upgrade was available.

If the Blue Jays were ultimately content to just tinker with their roster, however, it puts even more pressure on their core group to step up after a curiously lackluster 2023 season.  Atkins said in early January that “We feel like last year was just a blip in terms of run-scoring,” and yet while any of Springer, Varsho, Guerrero, or Kirk could rebound, counting on them all to bounce back is perhaps a little too optimistic since there was no obvious answer as to why the quartet were all so inconsistent last year.

Between this group, Kiner-Falefa’s lack of offense, and the uncertainty within the second base and backup infield mix, it isn’t a stretch to say that Bichette and Turner are the club’s only real reliable bats heading into the year.  Perhaps some coaching changes might do the trick, as bench coach Don Mattingly has a new title of “offensive coordinator” and Matt Hague has joined the staff as an assistant hitting coach.

Even with back-to-back playoff disappointments in the last two seasons, the Jays still think their core group is capable of bigger and better things.  Without a ton of overt upgrades coming this winter, however, the Blue Jays will face a challenge in just getting back to the playoffs, let alone making some postseason noise.

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