Biggest Regrets MLB Teams Will Have from the 2022-23 Offseason
As we put a bow on the World Baseball Classic and prepare to embrace the 162-game marathon of the 2023 MLB season, what will teams likely regret doing (or not doing) this offseason?
For starters, both the Giants and the Orioles should have done more to improve upon .500-ish 2022 campaigns. Those teams were close to a playoff spot last season, but it doesn't look like either one is any closer to getting over that hump.
Both Cleveland and St. Louis made the playoffs in 2022 but didn't take the necessary offseason steps to make the leap from "won a bad division" to "top-five candidate to win the AL/NL."
While those teams did next to nothing, did the Rays, Phillies and Padres spend too much money (or give out too many years) amid the nearly $4 billion free-agency extravaganza?
And what of Minnesota trading the reigning AL batting champ? Or Milwaukee going out of its way to enrage its 2021 Cy Young winner?
We'll touch on all of that and more in summing up some of the offseason decisions likely to end in regret.
San Francisco Giants Not Making Big Enough Moves
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The Giants tried to land a big fish.
Got to at least give them an "A" for effort.
They made a huge offer to Aaron Judge, but he opted to remain with the Bronx Bombers. They signed Carlos Correa to a massive deal but backed out of it because of medical concerns.
So while the Dodgers prepare to make Shohei Ohtani an offer he can't refuse next offseason, and while the Padres loaded up for the long haul by signing Xander Bogaerts and extending both Manny Machado and Yu Darvish, San Francisco's offseason moves left something to be desired.
Instead of a big splash or two, the Giants made a bunch of slight ripples, bringing in six new faces on two-year or three-year deals.
Mitch Haniger and Michael Conforto should be nice additions to the outfield/DH slot, but it rings a bit hollow after whiffing on Judge. (Also, if Conforto shines after missing all of 2022, he can leave for a bigger contract elsewhere, as the second year of his deal is a player option.)
Ross Stripling and Sean Manaea might be useful starters, but the former has never logged 135 innings in a season, the latter had a 4.96 ERA last year and neither one is likely to make Giants fans forget about the ace they lost to the Yankees, Carlos Rodón.
Taylor Rogers could be a solid addition to the bullpen, though signing both Rogers and Luke Jackson (fresh off a season lost to Tommy John surgery) when they've got a fine closer in Camilo Doval was a strange pair of decisions.
In the end, they're back where they started, likely to have a second consecutive season around the .500 mark and miss the postseason by several games.
Baltimore Doing Next to Nothing
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The Baltimore Orioles exceeded expectations in 2022, winning 83 games after being projected to have the worst record in all of MLB. After five consecutive seasons of coming nowhere close to contention, their long rebuild yielded some crops.
But instead of cultivating those plants with a noteworthy free agent or two in hopes of a big harvest in 2023, Baltimore's upper management opted to rest on its laurels and embrace another season as one of the stingiest franchises in professional sports.
O's fans recognize this as business as usual, but it's more frustrating than usual after general manager Mike Elias was talking a big game about offseason plans.
"We plan to explore free agency much more aggressively," Elias told MLB Network Radio last August. "We plan to maybe make some buy trades for some guys that are either on contracts or kind of in the tail end of their arbitration."
To their credit, the O's made one nice trade, turning middle-infield prospect Darell Hernaiz into former A's lefty Cole Irvin in January. Irvin will be a key cog in the starting rotation and has four seasons until he hits free agency. That was a nice long-term move.
They also got veteran catcher James McCann from the Mets and convinced Steve Cohen to pay most of McCann's salary for the remaining two years on his contract.
But that's basically it, and neither is a splashy, "look out, New York, Tampa Bay and Toronto, because we're coming for you" move.
Maybe next year, though? The only players on the roster who'll hit free agency after the 2023 season are the three free agents they signed to one-year deals—Kyle Gibson, Adam Frazier and Mychal Givens. (Givens has a mutual option for 2024.) Still, it feels like a wasted opportunity to not make a push for a pennant the year after finally arriving.
The Length of the Trea Turner and Xander Bogaerts Contracts
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This won't be an immediate regret. Both of these shortstops should be outstanding in season No. 1 of their shiny new 11-year deals.
Heck, it probably won't be a regret at any point in the next half-decade. Both the Padres and the Phillies hope Xander Bogaerts and Trea Turner will help lead them to at least one World Series title by 2030.
But the final four or five years of those contracts will likely be painful.
With the exceptions of Omar Vizquel, who still won Gold Gloves in his late 30s, and Derek Jeter, who flirted with an AL MVP at 38, shortstops who provided significant value after turning 35 have been almost unheard of over the past two decades. And these teams have Bogaerts and Turner signed through their age-40 seasons.
Who knows, though?
We're one year removed from seeing Tom Brady nearly win NFL MVP at age 44. LeBron James is still pretty darn good at 38 years old in his 20th season in the NBA. With proper diet and conditioning, star athletes can compete at a high level later into life than they did a decade ago, and that trend might continue for another decade.
Moreover, there's inflation to consider. The average MLB payroll 11 years ago was $98 million. Now, it's over $147 million. That's a 50 percent increase, and maybe it goes up another 50 percent in the next 11 years, at which point $25-27 million for an aging, many-time All-Star shortstop might be considered a bargain.
For now, though, the latter stages of those contracts look like problems that will need to be figured out down the road.
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Minnesota Twins Trading a Batting Champ
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In a vacuum, the January trade that saw the Miami Marlins send left-hander Pablo López and a pair of prospects to the Minnesota Twins in exchange for 1B/2B Luis Arraez was...fine. The Twins needed an arm. The Marlins had several arms to spare and needed a bat. It didn't feel like either side got fleeced.
But the Twins will miss Arraez's bat in the lineup.
Like, a lot.
Arraez had 21 more hits and 18 more runs than the next-closest Twin. He led the American League with a .316 batting average, which only marginally increased his career (four-year) batting average to .314.
He's not a power hitter, and he has a replacement-level glove, if that. But there's a lot of value in a hitter who can get on base with regularity. (See: Jeff McNeil with the Mets.)
Not only did they trade Arraez and another one of their more reliable 2022 hitters (Gio Urshela), but the Twins also signed Joey Gallo and traded for Michael A. Taylor—two outfielders who strike out about as often as they get on base.
They've got Carlos Correa and potentially nobody else who'll have an on-base percentage north of .320. While it'll be nice when Gallo or Byron Buxton cranks a home run, it'd be nice if guys were occasionally on base for those moonshots.
Maybe the improved pitching makes up for it. Not only did they add López, but they're getting Kenta Maeda back too after he missed all of last season. It could be a sneaky great rotation if Joe Ryan comes close to replicating his breakout 2022 campaign.
But Minnesota had a middling offense in 2022 and could be downright anemic in 2023.
Colorado Rockies Refusing to Embrace a Rebuild
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The good news is the Rockies didn't throw much more money down the drain. They signed Jurickson Profar to a one-year, $7.75 million deal a few days ago, but that was their biggest financial commitment of the offseason.
But what's the endgame?
Between the terrible Nolan Arenado trade, botching Trevor Story's exit, throwing a whole bunch of money at Kris Bryant last offseason and being stuck in ballooning contracts with Kyle Freeland, Antonio Senzatela and Ryan McMahon, the Rockies are entrenched in no-man's land.
Their 2023 payroll is above the MLB average, but they're tied with the A's and the Nationals for the worst World Series odds, per DraftKings Sportsbook.
Their farm system is good, but it could certainly be better.
So why not hit the reset button, expediting the rebuilding process in hopes of actually making it to a postseason during Bryant's seven-year deal?
For a team with almost no hope of making the postseason this year or next, the Rockies have some intriguing, tradeable assets.
Impending free agents C.J. Cron and Randal Grichuk would generate a ton of interest if they landed on the trade block. Someone would take a flyer on Charlie Blackmon too.
They extended Daniel Bard through 2024 at last year's trade deadline, but they could sell high on the 37-year-old's stellar 2022 campaign.
They have other options, but those are the low-hanging fruit for a franchise that needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror to figure out when and how it thinks it can contend with the Dodgers, Padres and Giants again. Spending $165 million to finish in last place in the NL West isn't fun for anyone involved.
Tampa Bay Rays Loosening the Purse Strings for...Zach Eflin?
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The Tampa Bay Rays are notoriously frugal, almost always ranking bottom-six in the majors in payroll. It works for them, though, as they've made the postseason in each of the past four years and in eight of the last 15 seasons.
On the one hand, it was a breath of fresh air to see them make a sizable investment in a free agent, giving former Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Zach Eflin a three-year, $40 million deal.
But on the other hand, it was an eyebrow-raising move for all the wrong reasons.
Why did they choose this spot to start spending money?
On a pitcher with a career 4.49 ERA who's probably their No. 5 starter if everyone's healthy?
A pitcher who hasn't been healthy in his own right, making 20 or fewer appearances in each of the past two seasons?
When the Rays are committed to paying Tyler Glasnow $25 million next season?
Just a baffling move to make Eflin both the highest-paid player on the 2023 roster (by $4 million) and the highest-paid player on the 2025 roster (by at least $6 million).
Far be it from us to question the wisdom of the Rays front office, but this doesn't make sense.
Milwaukee Brewers Burning a Bridge with Corbin Burnes
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That's what Milwaukee was trying to save when it took its salary negotiation with Corbin Burnes to arbitration.
Burnes wanted $10.75 million. Milwaukee wanted to pay him $10.01 million. The case went before a judge, and some irreparable things were said.
"There's no denying that the relationship is definitely hurt from what [transpired] over the last couple weeks," Burnes said at the start of spring training. "There's really no way of getting around that."
The writing was on the wall that Milwaukee wouldn't keep Burnes long-term.
This is not a deep-pocketed franchise, and he's a bona fide ace who'll be worth well north of $30 million per year when he hits free agency after 2024. It's why we had been coming up with trade proposals in the first few months of the offseason, in case the Brewers wanted to try to get a nice haul for Burnes rather than playing out his final two seasons before free agency and being stuck in a rebuilding situation when he walks.
But now he's frustrated with the franchise, which could be good for the Brewers. If it's possible for Burnes to be better than he has been over the past three seasons, perhaps setting out to prove them wrong will be the motivation he needs to really dominate.
More likely, though, what they have is a disgruntled employee—a clubhouse distraction. Burnes could be to the Brewers what Bryan Reynolds figures to be for the Pirates: an All-Star talent who spends however much time he has left in a penny-pinching organization openly wanting to be traded to a franchise that is willing to spend money to win a ring.
If they can contend for the NL Central title, maybe it'll be OK. But this could get all sorts of ugly if Milwaukee is nowhere close to edging St. Louis for the division.
All because the Brewers were trying to save an amount of money basically equal to a league-minimum salary in 2023 ($720,000).
New York Yankees Not Adding Any Bats
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Locking up Aaron Judge on a nine-year, $360 million deal was great for the Yankees. And it's hard to argue with adding 2021 and 2022 All-Star Carlos Rodón to the starting rotation.
But doing nothing to improve a lineup that tied for the 19th-best batting average in the majors from July 9 onward—after the 61-23 start, when they went 38-40—was certainly a decision.
They might go with Oswald Peraza at shortstop instead of Isiah-Kiner Falefa. And, at some point—possibly for Opening Day—they'll need to call up top prospect Anthony Volpe to take over that gig.
Aside from that, the Yankees lineup in April 2023 looks an awful lot like it did in October 2022.
Maybe that's fine. Goodness knows Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Anthony Rizzo and Gleyber Torres can homer, and New York's offense was plenty potent during the first half of last season.
But sticking with 37-year-old Josh Donaldson at third base?
Inevitably putting Aaron Hicks in the starting lineup on a regular basis, particularly early in the year with Harrison Bader (oblique) likely to miss some time with yet another injury?
After signing Matt Carpenter and trading for Andrew Benintendi in the middle of last season and then letting those guys walk in free agency, it's bizarre that New York did nothing to address either its problematic left field situation or its lack of left-handed bats (aside from Rizzo) that can take advantage of the short porch in right field.
AL/NL Central Champs Not Being More Aggressive
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Over the latter half of last season, the Cleveland Guardians and St. Louis Cardinals were two of the better teams in baseball. Neither squad led its division at the All-Star Break, but each went on to win by a comfortable margin.
Better yet, neither team lost much of anything to free agency, particularly Cleveland, which merely had to replace a couple of poor-hitting catchers in Austin Hedges and Luke Maile.
But rather than build on last year's strong finish in hopes of making a push for the 2023 World Series, each team signed one hitter in free agency, and that's it.
Granted, those hitters could be difference-makers.
Willson Contreras isn't near the defensive asset at catcher that Yadier Molina was, but he will provide a drastic improvement to what was a black hole in St. Louis' lineup last season. Adding Josh Bell as a 1B/DH to pair with Josh Naylor should be a nice boost for Cleveland, which spent all of 2022 trying to address its lack of a DH after it became clear Franmil Reyes couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.
Neither team did anything about its pitching staff, though.
Cleveland is left to hope and pray that Aaron Civale and Zach Plesac can bounce back from 2022 campaigns that each produced a minus-0.8 bWAR. (Each has an ERA north of 5.50 in spring training, so not off to a great start.) Though the Cardinals have top prospect Matthew Liberatore as an option, they figure to enter the season with 41-year-old Adam Wainwright and Steven "4.62 ERA dating back to 2017" Matz as staples in their starting rotation.
With its limited budget, it's not a surprise Cleveland wasn't part of the Jacob deGrom or Justin Verlander sweepstakes. But a bunch of solid starting pitchers were available this offseason, most of whom could have been obtained for a reasonable price. Both 2022 division champs could live to regret not dipping their toe into those waters.
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