With the arrival of pitchers and catchers, one of the coldest and miserly baseball offseasons in memory is nearing conclusion, and it can’t be understated that, other than the Dodgers, Yankees and Mets (on one player), hardly any team spent any money.
Something strange is definitely going on when (1) 22 of 30 teams have cut payroll, (2) only five free agents — Juan Soto, Willy Adames, Corbin Burnes, Max Fried and Anthony Santander — received contracts of five or more years, and, as of Friday, there were still 44 unsigned free agents, including Jose Iglesias, J.D. Martinez, Jose Quintana, Alex Verdugo, Justin Turner and Jose Urena. One would have to agree the behavior of many teams has been mystifying.
You start with the NL Central and the defending champion Brewers, who lost Adames, their 32-homer, 112-RBI shortstop, to the Giants and traded their closer Devin Williams to the Yankees and didn’t replace either of them. Likewise, the Brewers’ NL Central rivals, the Cardinals, who lost 400,000 fans last year but didn’t spend a dime in free agency, reduced their payroll by 19%, and spent the entire winter vainly trying to trade Nolan Arenado. And what does it say about the Pirates, who did almost nothing to improve their lineup for Paul Skenes and have not signed a free agent to a multi-year contract since pitcher Ivan Nova back in 2016?
The Mariners, who desperately needed a big bat, took a pass on Pete Alonso and settled by signing utility infielder Donovan Solano and re-signing Jorge Polanco — both to one-year deals. Even the Giants, after signing Adames to the biggest contract in their history (seven years, $182 million) right out of the gate on Dec. 10 — did nothing afterward other than signing 42-year-old Justin Verlander. Could it be, after watching the Dodgers sign almost every player in sight (including their own Blake Snell) the Giants just concluded the NL West was a lost cause and not worth investing any more money on ’25? In that respect, the NL West runners-up in ’24, the Padres, signed only one free agent, catcher Elias Diaz, before adding a needed starter Nick Pivetta on a four-year, $55 million deal last week.
After engaging in a futile effort from the start in the Soto sweepstakes, the Red Sox seemed content to have their trade for White Sox ace Garrett Crochet account for their offseason until last week when Alex Bregman, who’d been holding out all winter for a $200 million contract that never came, agreed to an opts-out three-year deal with them for $120 million.
Of the teams that raised their payrolls, only three — the Orioles (56%), Tigers (37%) and Padres (24%) — did so by more than 20%. On the other hand, the pathetic White Sox lopped their payroll by 47% and the Marlins, who have been a continuing embarrassment to baseball under the ownership of Bruce Sherman, cut theirs by 37%, to earn the dubious title of lowest 2025 payroll at $43 million — or significantly less than what the Mets will be paying one player in Soto.
There have been many theories floated as to why so many teams chose not to spend this winter, one of which, with an eye on a new collective bargaining negotiation coming up in 2026, they are gearing up for another battle for a salary cap. “That’s rich,” one agent told me, “they’ve already proven by what they haven’t done this winter, they can get a salary cap on their own!” Another related theory is that so many middle and small market clubs have taken major hits on their local TV RSNs, they can’t compete with the Dodgers, Yankees, Blue Jays, Red Sox, et al., for big ticket free agents.
And it can’t be dismissed the growing number of analytically driven GMs whose credo is no contracts of more than three years, especially for players in their 30s, and building clubs through the draft and international signings. Finally, as one NL exec told me: “This also wasn’t exactly a stellar free agent class this year — a big drop-off after Soto.”
IT’S A MADD, MADD WORLD
Strangely, there does not appear to be a whole lot of optimism for the Blue Jays signing Vlad Guerrero Jr. to a long-term extension by his stated deadline of Tuesday when the full squad reports to camp in Dunedin. While using Juan Soto’s 15-year, $765 million deal with the Mets as a measuring stick is unrealistic, given that it was achieved in a perfect storm with four of the richest teams in baseball, including the Yankees and Mets, all bidding for him, Guerrero is only 25 and coming off one of his best seasons. And as it’s been speculated, if he’s seeking a deal in the $500 million range, that’s not unrealistic — especially since the Blue Jays were one of the teams that bid over $700 million for Soto. That the Blue Jays have waited this long to lock Guerrero up tells me that, for whatever reason, they have never considered him a “franchise-type” player. But they are going to have to now in order to keep him out of the free agent market next winter where both the Red Sox and Yankees will be looking for long-term solutions at first base. “Everything needs to be factored in, but it needs to be factored in historically and not reactively. “Being disciplined to our valuations, being disciplined to how we think about building our best possible roster, there’s so many variables,” Blue Jays GM Ross Atkins said last week — which didn’t sound like a whole lot of urgency on the team’s part to get a deal done. … In case you missed it, Anthony Rendon will not be reporting to the Angels camp because he is having hip surgery and will be missing a significant amount of time this season. Rendon is the gift that keeps on taking — as in games away from the playing field. This will be the 13th time he’s been on the injured list since 2021, including three times last year. He has not played in more than 58 games in a season since signing a seven-year, $245 million contract with the Angels in 2020. Over the last four years, Rendon has appeared in only 205 games out of a possible 648 — 32%. Ironically, Rendon’s latest absence opens up an opportunity at first base for Yoan Moncada, in camp as a non-roster free agent, who himself missed 208 out of a possible 486 games for the White Sox the last three years.