Reproducing the Unexpected

 

There's a colleague of mine who's had a whirlwind 6 months. His baseball team is the Blue Jays, and he got to see them make a World Series this year. And his football team is the Seahawks, and he got to watch them defy the odds and win a Super Bowl. That's a lot of good stuff in a small period of time, especially after the Jays' last WS appearance was over 30 years ago and the Seahawks' last Super Bowl appearance was over 10 years ago. A decade of nothing and then everything at once sure is a nice change of pace.

I think that one of those two teams has built enough to engineer playoff pushes and potential championship campaigns for the next few years. Unfortunately it's not the Blue Jays. 

The Blue Jays' 2025 season, as triumphant as it was, happened because of so many other factors. The momentum the Jays found was sustained even as the Yankees, Mariners and Tigers failed to expand on their strong regular seasons. The approach the Jays entered the season with was altered, and once the team fully favored the contact platooning and bare-bones battery, nobody could really outclobber that. Any power perk the team thought they'd get by signing Anthony Santander was less important than the contact perks of giving Ernie Clement, Myles Straw, Addison Barger, Nathan Lukes and Davis Schneider more playing time. Lukes accomplished more at DH than Tony Taters did, which was a reality the Jays were not really thinking of last February. 

The 2025 Jays worked because nobody was quite prepared for them, and nobody could handle a full-season momentum like they could. But with every runaway surprise team comes the possibility of diminishing returns. There's two ways this team goes forward. Either it's the pie in the sky way, where this IS sustainable, Trey Yesavage is exactly who they think he is, nobody gets injured and everything falls in line exactly how it did in 2025...or the cynical view, where the lack of Bo Bichette, the overpaying for Dylan Cease and thereby losing out on Kyle Tucker, the steepening competition in the AL East and the inevitable atrophy of the deliberate recreation of success keep the team from making much of a dent in the overall picture of 2026. Both are possible. One more than the other.

Eyes are going to be on Ernie Clement to have a bigger season this year. There's no Bo, I'm guessing this'll be a down Springer year, and the team needs Clement to step up and continue his multi-tool contact work. It's just not clear if Clement is going to be that guy or not. He'll be 30 this year, he's still an ace defender, but he's never been the full package at the plate. Last year he had 151 hits, a career high, in addition to highs in the runs and doubles categories. He'll likely be starting at second due to Kazuma Omamoto taking third, meaning Andres Gimenez will be moving to short. It might not click immediately for any of them. Either Clement steps up and takes a larger stake in this team, or he continues on as a 'good piece' without much further use. That's gonna be the big takeaway from this coming season, whether the carousel of 'good pieces' that got the team so far into the playoffs have staying power beyond the 2025 season. I'd love for Addison Barger to cement himself, but will he? Same with Lukes. 

The rotation, at the very least, is less of a worry because there's already so many contingency plans. It's gonna be Cease-Gausman-Yesavage-Berrios-Ponce, Bieber will come back eventually, Scherzer will surface when he's ready and Lauer is the longman who can take starts if need be. That's a very good plan. There's also enough guys in their prime that there's not an extreme atrophy worry [though Gausman coooould take a step back]. If anything, the pitching will keep them competitive. But if what worked in 2025 stalls in 2026, they might need to crumple and toss again at some point.

With the talent they have on that roster, and the potential they've showed in the playoffs, the Blue Jays are still a formidable team. Clearly. They kept Vlad Jr. for a reason. I'm just not sure if the AL East is theirs right now, let alone the AL title. But we'll see I suppose.

The Art of Running it Back

 

Spring Training is one of those times of extreme optimism. Everything's good, everything's promising, cause no games have been played yet. It could be anybody's year, and that includes us. Right now, there are 30 valid storylines being concocted towards a championship outcome, and since it's still February there's really no ruling out any of them. And you can make the joke of 'well, we can rule out the Rockies', and yeah, probably. But the Pirates, A's and White Sox are usually counted out and even they have more going on this year. 

But it's easier to look like a new team when you've made substantial moves towards a championship. The Pirates got some genuine big pieces this year, for once. The White Sox got Murakami plus a TON of solid options at multiple positions. The A's actually put money into the roster and have a team for the next few years. If your plan is just to 'run it back', then you're gonna get people saying 'they don't want to win'. And running it back can still be a valid way forward, the Dodgers mostly ran it back last year and it did well for them. But certain fanbases demand some effort. The Phillies fans by me are somewhat infuriated that the plan to fix an aging core is to simply run it back, forgetting that A.) the team strengthened its bullpen and has at least three organizational cornerstones hitting the majors this year, B.) they got to keep Schwarber's offense and Realmuto's defense, and C.) they don't have to be stuck with either Bo Bichette's defense or Nick Castellanos's anything. The general plan is 'run it back' but they still fixed what killed the team. 

However, not everyone is so lucky. Some teams just decide to run it back and insist they're still moving forward.

The Arizona Diamondbacks want the big takeaway from this offseason to be, 'see, we kept Ketel Marte, Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen'. Forgetting that literally all three were highly sought after by other teams. The D-Backs were actively shopping Marte, even coming close to a deal with Seattle that backfired when the M's refused to part with Cole Young. Perhaps knowing that trading their young, upstart 2nd baseman to Arizona for a veteran rounding a top tier year didn't work well for them in the past, so there was no use getting Ketel Marte if they'd be giving up another, younger Ketel Marte. Kelly returning to AZ was a surprise, and Gallen came back only after several teams, including the Cubs and Orioles, balked at the suggested number he had in mind. There is a universe where the D-Backs lose all three players, and possibly even Perdomo as well [he was reportedly shopped too] and still have to play the 'we're still running it back' game. 

In addition to the three players the D-Backs kept that they almost didn't, the only real players the team brought on were 'let's see what they have left' guys. Mike Soroka keeps being brought onto teams with the belief that what was glimpsed in 2018 could return, but we're still waiting for that. Carlos Santana will be 40 this year, and he's almost completely lost his ability to hit for power. And Nolan Arenado...no one is quite sure what he has left. He wasn't *terrible* for the Cardinals last season, but it was the most human year of his career, and the most injury-plagued one too. His defense is still above average, but that bat isn't what it was, and unless the soon-to-be-35-year-old has something else up his sleeve, he'll be a high priced defensive upgrade that will exist to keep Jordan Lawlar from starting [again]. Arenado is no longer the boost that he was, and he may have more in common with Evan Longoria in 2023...though Longo had a better team around him then.

The D-Backs running it [diamond]back in a year where the Dodgers are still expected to win the division and the Padres and Giants are still expected to compete is an odd move. It's better than fully giving up, and I think they know they've been right there the past few years and could boost over, but I'm not sure if it'll work this time.

The Astros, meanwhile, have a similar 'run it back' strategy even if some substantial changes have been made. Jesus Sanchez, a crucial deadline pickup from last year, was dealt for Joey Loperfido, and Tatsuya Imai was brought in as a starting option. However, the issue with running it back from 2025 is that this year, the majority of the contingency plans are in camp together with the people they subbed in for with injuries. Which means Brandon Walter, Spencer Arrighetti and Cristian Javier are competing with Jason Alexander, A.J. Blubaugh and Colton Gordon for rotation spots, in addition to newcomers Tatsuya Imai and Mike Burrows, plus preexisting locks Hunter Brown, Lance McCullers and...wait, what? How...that's like 10 people fighting for 5 spots. 

Like, I get the idea of preparing for injuries by putting in contingency starters, but you're now ensuring like 5 other people who are MLB-ready will either be doing long relief work or starting in Triple-A. Mike Burrows was doing fairly well in Pittsburgh, he gets traded to Houston and now we're not even sure if he's gonna make the team. I actually think he's got a nice shot to make the rotation, but then who doesn't? Is Jason Alexander getting cut? This was supposed to be the summer of George!

More confusing still is what the Astros plan on doing with their lineup. Last year at the deadline they traded for Carlos Correa, opting for a 2016 reunion in the wake of Isaac Paredes's injury. Paredes eventually came back and they traded off for the postseason push...of a postseason that didn't actually happen for this team. This year, the plan seems to be starting Correa at third...which, again was only due to convenience last year, then starting Paredes at DH, and...for some reason getting Yordan Alvarez to play left field everyday. I don't think that's sustainable. You're saying you'd rather have Alvarez's defense than Paredes's, which I don't completely agree with. If anything, Paredes should get more reps at first, as Christian Walker may be on the downslope.

It illuminates the problem with running it back, because if you're running it back with everyone who was there last time, without, like...letting people go and standing down the roster to an actual manageable unit, then it's gonna be chaos! Then deserving people aren't gonna be able to start, they're gonna ask to be traded and the league opinion of the organization is gonna go down further, even after the cheating. It just makes no sense to me, at least at this stage of the spring. I do know the Astros have a way of working things out, even if it doesn't look possible on paper. So even with all this they could still compete this year. 

This is why I'm not a GM. I'm way too pragmatic about it. There's so many moves that don't make sense to me because I only see it from the outside perspective. So maybe running it back works for one of these teams, or maybe both. Or, y'know...I'm right, and then some team can hire me to be assistant GM. 

2026: Mind the Elephant Dung

 

It's not as if the MLB hasn't done a 'let's pretend everything's normal' season before. You saw it in 1995. You saw it in 2020 and 2021, after the pandemic. You saw it after free agency began in the 70s. There is always going to be an effort, whenever there is something that, in a just world, would lead to work stoppage or a deliberation, for the people who lie and die by the revenue to go 'okay, from the top, just like the last time'. 

More than even 2023, the league seems headed for not just a players' strike, but a complete lockout. The wealth disparity between owners has become ridiculous, with teams like the Dodgers able to routinely buy championships, and teams like the Guardians [who, keep in mind, also have CEOs with plenty of money] not at all able to compete. The players are gonna go towards the best offers to sustain their lifestyles, and the guys with the bigger pockets are gonna have those, so they're gonna keep winning. Kyle Tucker, Dylan Cease and Tyler Soderstrom will be making Shohei Ohtani money for their solid but not overly spectacular gameplay. And so the owners' immediate response is, 'okay, let's pay everyone less and do a salary cap'. Not to actually put more money into the team and try as much as the top guys are. No, bring them down and justify their lack of spending. 

It's 100% true that every MLB player, and MiLB player, deserves the right to earn enough to make a living. But if there's a pay disparity, the workers should not be blamed or penalized, the owners and CEOs should. Without players, there is no product, as the owners will likely find out in a year's time. If you want to bring in revenue, you need to pay your star players, or any players, what they are worth. We know what happens when an owner doesn't do this, and it leads to a mass talent exodus that makes John Fisher only the SECOND-worst owner in A's history. Now, it's also an issue when the lack of talent on the field, and the lack of ticket sales, doesn't provide an incentive for owners to spend because they own 3 or 4 other things with more immediate revenue. 

Regardless, something needs to be done. I'm of the opinion that a salary floor should be implemented above all else, to incentivize the Bob Nuttings and Pohlads of this world to actually build teams. Some cap might need to be in there as well None of the players' union people want a salary cap, even with Tony Clark conveniently leaving his position ahead of the union a year or so before deliberations begin [it's still bad what he did, I just think the timing of it coming out is really suspicious]. You have two stubborn camps, one with money and one without, and like in 2023, and 1994, you can kind of guess who's gonna cave first. Whether or not the solution will actually help anyone, that's another thing entirely.

But with all this a year away, and with the tensions between the owners and players still relatively high [remember, Bryce Harper nearly beat the shit out of Rob Manfred last year], there's still a season of baseball that needs to be played. Which means everyone needs to act like there isn't gonna be a work stoppage next year and deliver an exciting season. Easy, right?

There's obviously a lot of great storylines to follow this season. The Cubs are certainly one of them. Yes, they lost Kyle Tucker, but they gained Alex Bregman, still an elite third baseman and an upgrade from Matt Shaw in several ways. Bregman-Swanson-Hoerner-Busch may be one of the best infields in the league, on a count of how much can be produced, and how much value you're getting. The Cubs have reportedly tried to trade Nico Hoerner, but I wouldn't dream of it considering how valuable he's been for them, and how consistent he's been since 2022. With the Brewers looking to continue their sleeper-hit status and the Reds looking to compete without overdoing it, the Cubs are the favorite for 1st in the NL Central. Y'know, like last year. Is this the team that actually gets over the hump?

A lot of really cool stuff could happen in this season. Konnor Griffin might be ready in Pittsburgh, and that team might have enough to sneak into the conversation. The Athletics might be a playoff team this year, and have the contracts to last them through the Vegas premiere. Murakami might be the piece that gets the White Sox out of 'laughable' status. Andrew Painter might FINALLY get to start MLB games. Ohtani and Judge might chase 50 again. There's all sorts of promise and excitement, and I really hope this year can deliver, even if it's looking pretty likely that we might not get a full season next year.