How Are MLB Offseason Winners and Losers Faring So Far?
Moves made during Major League Baseball's offseason can make or break a team for years at a time, but "winning" the offseason is only half the battle.
In early March, both ESPN and The Athletic published offseason report card grades for all 30 teams. Five teams—Diamondbacks, Red Sox, Dodgers, Mets and Yankees—received an A-minus or better from each source, while five others—Rockies, Twins, Padres, Mariners and Cardinals—were given a D or worse.
As we near the halfway point of the regular season, though, how are things actually going for those winners and losers?
Teams are presented in alphabetical order by location.
Offseason Winner: Arizona Diamondbacks
1 of 10
Gained: Corbin Burnes, Josh Naylor, Kendall Graveman, Shelby Miller, Jalen Beeks
Lost: Christian Walker, Joc Pederson, Kevin Newman, Paul Sewald, Slade Cecconi
Re-signed/Extended: Randal Grichuk (re-signed), Geraldo Perdomo (extended)
Why Were They Deemed a Winner?
Arizona stunned everyone with its six-year, $210M signing of Corbin Burnes, desperate to make up for last year's debacle of narrowly missing the playoffs despite leading the majors in scoring by a wide margin.
And even though it was something of a one-year band-aid solution, trading for Josh Naylor's final season of arbitration eligibility also felt like a key win for a team that needed to replace Christian Walker at first base.
Status Report: Oh Dear...
The additions have been mostly solid. Naylor is batting north of .300 and swatted a walk-off grand slam a few days ago. Burnes gave the Snakes a 2.66 ERA through 11 starts. And that Shelby Miller signing ended up being a bigger deal than anyone could have guessed at the time, as he has a 1.57 ERA and a team-leading seven saves.
But Burnes' start on June 1 was possibly his last until 2027, undergoing Tommy John surgery on Wednesday. And with the exception of Burnes, Miller and Merrill Kelly, Arizona's pitching staff has been—past few days of success notwithstanding—simply dreadful, on pace to allow about 35 more runs than last season.
Arizona was supposed to be one of the 10 best teams this year, with top two feeling attainable. However, it has all gone wrong for a team that is hovering right around .500 and unlikely to turn things around sans Burnes.
The silver lining is that the Diamondbacks are well-positioned for one heck of a fire sale, should they admit defeat and throw in the towel. Naylor, Kelly, Miller, Eugenio Suárez and Zac Gallen are all impending free agents and would be five of the most coveted two-month rentals on the trade block.
Offseason Winner: Boston Red Sox
2 of 10
Gained: Alex Bregman, Garrett Crochet, Walker Buehler, Aroldis Chapman, Carlos Narváez, Patrick Sandoval
Lost: Tyler O'Neill, Kenley Jansen, Nick Pivetta, Chris Martin, many prospects in the Crochet trade
Re-signed/Extended: N/A
Why Were They Deemed a Winner?
Notably, Carlos Narváez wasn't even part of why Boston was considered a big winner. Trading Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz and some international bonus pool cap space to the Yankees to acquire Narváez seemed like one of those great big nothing swaps that happen on a near-daily basis throughout the offseason, but he has blossomed into Boston's No. 1 catcher and probably the top challenger to Jacob Wilson for AL ROY.
Rather, everyone viewed Boston as a winner because of the acquisitions of Garrett Crochet and Alex Bregman, even though the Red Sox gave up a ton of prospect capital for the former and didn't seem to care how Rafael Devers felt about the latter. Adding Walker Buehler to the rotation also felt like a nice cherry on the offseason sundae.
Status Report: Business as usual, much to their chagrin
After three consecutive years with a winning percentage in the .481-.500 range, all that offseason winning has changed...nothing. Boston is sitting one game below .500.
Oh, most of the individual pieces added have been great. Crochet is leading the majors in strikeouts and will be in the mix for AL Cy Young if Tarik Skubal ever cools off. Bregman has been out for a few weeks with a significant quad strain, but he and Devers were neck-and-neck for team MVP. We already mentioned Narváez's success. And how about Aroldis Chapman (1.55 ERA, 12 saves) pitching like it's 2016 all over again?
Boston would probably be a complete train wreck right now were it not for that quartet of offseason acquisitions.
But the non-Bregman portion of the infield has been a hot mess, as has the non-Crochet portion of the rotation—including Buehler's 5.01 ERA through 11 starts.
Boston does have a positive run differential, but going 6-19 in their first 25 games decided either by one run or in extra innings has been their constant undoing.
Offseason Loser: Colorado Rockies
3 of 10
Gained: Thairo Estrada, Kyle Farmer, Tyler Freeman, Mickey Moniak
Lost: Nolan Jones, Charlie Blackmon, Cal Quantrill, Brendan Rodgers, Jake Cave
Re-signed/Extended: Jacob Stallings
Why Were They Deemed a Loser?
On the one hand, the Rockies did slash their Opening Day payroll by about 15 percent compared to last season and are now down about $50M from where they started 2023. It's little consolation for the fans, but at least they're no longer spending like a middling team while performing like a basement dweller.
However, they've made no effort to actually dig themselves out of rock bottom, targeting reclamation projects and veterans well past their prime with the few moves they did make.
It's hard to say what a successful offseason would have even looked like for Colorado, but this wasn't it.
Status Report: Blowing right past last year's White Sox for all-time futility
Even after a recent spurt of non-terribleness in a sweep of the also-not-good Marlins, the Rockies remain on pace to suffer at least 130 losses.
Granted, the Athletics were also 12-50 two years ago and they at least rallied a little bit to "only" suffer 112 losses. But these Rockies look even more helpless than those A's did, allowing nearly twice as many runs as they score and on track to join the 1996 Tigers and 1999 Rockies as the only teams since 1940 to allow at least 1,000 runs in a season.
Colorado finished 19 games out of fourth place in the NL West last year and is already further back this year, even with Arizona sputtering around .500. The Rockies may well end up with 25 more losses than the next-worst team in all of baseball this season.
Offseason Winner: Los Angeles Dodgers
4 of 10
Gained: Blake Snell, Tanner Scott, Roki Sasaki, Hyeseong Kim, Kirby Yates, Michael Conforto
Lost: Jack Flaherty, Walker Buehler, Gavin Lux, Ryan Brasier
Re-signed/Extended: Teoscar Hernández, Blake Treinen, Clayton Kershaw, Kiké Hernández, Tommy Edman (extended)
Why Were They Deemed a Winner?
The World Series champions added a two-time Cy Young winner, a budding ace out of Japan, two of the best closers from the 2024 campaign and a pair of bats that they hoped would upgrade the only two spots in last year's lineup that possibly could have been deemed weak points—all while losing what comparatively looks like next to nothing.
One of the reasons we haven't seen a repeat champion since the 1998-2000 Yankees is that the majority of champs inevitably lose more than they gain in the ensuing offseason. That couldn't have been farther from the truth with the Dodgers, who upgraded from "best team" to "new evil empire that seems to be cheating the system somehow with all these deferred salaries."
Status Report: Disappointing, but still the World Series favorites
After all that offseason winning, the Dodgers really should have gone from a 98-win force to something more like a 115-win juggernaut.
Instead, they are tied for the fifth-best winning percentage and for first place in an NL West they were supposed to dominate, on pace for around 95 wins, thanks in large part to those marquee additions simply not living up to the hype.
Well, one of them has. Hyeseong Kim is making one heck of a charge for NL Rookie of the Year, batting .391 since his call-up in early May. But the other five players added—Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki, Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates and Michael Conforto—have cumulatively amounted to a slightly negative WAR.
Conforto has been the biggest individual negative, but that quartet of pitchers amounting to a whole lot of nothing has really hamstrung what is now the highest scoring offense in the majors. Aside from Yoshinobu Yamamoto and some fine middle relief work from rookies Ben Casparius and Jack Dreyer, the Dodgers pitching staff has been a nightmare, overflowing with both injuries and ineffectiveness.
The Dodgers are still the betting favorite to win the World Series, but it hasn't much felt like it lately, with a slightly sub-.500 record dating back to May 4.
Offseason Loser: Minnesota Twins
5 of 10
Gained: Harrison Bader, Ty France, Danny Coulombe
Lost: Max Kepler, Carlos Santana, Kyle Farmer, Alex Kiriloff (retired)
Re-signed/Extended: N/A
Why Were They Deemed a Loser?
Minnesota finished fourth in a crowded AL Central race last season, going 7-18 down the stretch to finish at 82-80. Although, if you take out the 12-1 record against the 121-loss White Sox, the Twins went 70-79 with a minus-33 run differential.
But rather than make any effort to improve its lot in what always feels like a winnable division in the offseason, the Pohlad family put the team up for sale in October, pretty well neglected the roster for five months and never did find a buyer.
Replacing Max Kepler and Carlos Santana with Harrison Bader and Ty France, respectively, sure felt like downgrades. And that's pretty much all they managed to do.
Status Report: Treading water in the wild card conversation
After losing 15 of its first 22 games, Minnesota won 19 of the next 24 and has been holding steady at around five games over .500 for the better part of a month.
Bader and France have quite unexpectedly become two of the Twins' better assets among position players—the former with quality defense in the outfield and the best on-base percentage of his career; the latter rallying a bit from back-to-back rough years. And though he just returned from four weeks on the IL, Danny Coulombe had gone 17 innings before allowing a single run.
In other words, the seemingly minor moves that they made have panned out nicely.
Try as he might, though, Royce Lewis just cannot get it going this season. And losing Pablo López to the 60-day IL about a week ago may have been a mortal wound for this small-market team that desperately needs its five stars to stay healthy and productive.
But at least they have a winning record, and could be a buyer at the trade deadline—in a make believe world where they find some money to spend.
Offseason Winner: New York Mets
6 of 10
Gained: Juan Soto, Clay Holmes, Frankie Montas, Griffin Canning, A.J. Minter, Jose Siri
Lost: Luis Severino, Jose Quintana, Jose Iglesias, J.D. Martinez, Harrison Bader, Phil Maton
Re-signed/Extended: Pete Alonso, Sean Manaea, Jesse Winker, Ryne Stanek
Why Were They Deemed a Winner?
Plain and simple, they won the Juan Soto sweepstakes. Even if the rest of their offseason had been a nothing burger, the Mets would have been one of the bigger winners of the winter.
But they didn't stop there, of course, signing three new starting pitchers, re-signing arguably the best starter they were slated to lose in free agency and capping it all off by making sure Pete Alonso didn't go anywhere.
Status Report: Hard to argue with best record in the National League
Soto started slow and the Mets are still waiting on both Frankie Montas and Sean Manaea to make their 2025 debuts.
However, the pitching staff has been masterful from top to bottom without those two expensive starters—most notably with Clay Holmes' transition from closer to starter a colossal success thus far—and "slow" by Soto's standards is still damn good, as he, Alonso and Francisco Lindor have been quite the trio of offensive production.
The Mets had fallen as far as three games behind the Phillies in the NL East in late May, but getting three games against the White Sox, three against the Nationals and six against the Rockies in the span of about two weeks was just what the doctor ordered for what is now the divisional frontrunner by a considerable margin.
After a mediocre first 55 games, Soto went off for a .386/.542/.818 triple slash with five home runs in his next 13 contests, now living up to his $765M mega contract.
Offseason Winner: New York Yankees
7 of 10
Gained: Max Fried, Devin Williams, Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt, Alex Jackson, Fernando Cruz
Lost: Juan Soto, Gleyber Torres, Nestor Cortes, Clay Holmes, Tommy Kahnle, Anthony Rizzo, Jose Trevino
Re-signed/Extended: Tim Hill
Why Were They Deemed a Winner?
Whether the Yankees won or lost the offseason was kind of a bell curve.
It certainly didn't feel like a win for the Bronx Bombers in mid-December when Juan Soto signed with the Mets, nor did it feel like a win in mid-March when they lost Gerrit Cole to Tommy John surgery. But right before the Cole announcement, it sure felt like they did about as well as they could have done while losing the bidding war for a generational star.
What exactly they would get from 37-year-old Paul Goldschmidt was a significant unknown, but Max Fried was a top five option in the 2024-25 free agency class while the trades for Cody Bellinger and Devin Williams both looked like wins for the Yanks.
Status Report: Great success, fueled by Aaron Judge
Judge's season-long rampage against anyone unfortunate enough to pitch against him has been the inescapable story for the Yankees.
Aside from that beater of worlds, though, three of the most valuable players on this roster have been Fried, Goldschmidt and Bellinger—with Williams faring drastically better dating back to May 7 (1.98 ERA, 8.5 K/BB) than he did in the first six weeks (10.04 ERA, 1.3 K/BB).
Bellinger also had to rally from a brutal start, improving from a .574 OPS through 29 team games to a .934 OPS in his next 35 games—perhaps just in the nick of time, too, as teams were starting to get comfortable with intentionally walking Judge to instead pitch to Bellinger.
All told, they aren't much missing Soto, and could be one trade deadline starting pitcher away from becoming this season's team to beat.
Offseason Loser: San Diego Padres
8 of 10
Gained: Nick Pivetta, Jason Heyward, Gavin Sheets, Connor Joe, Martin Maldonado, Elias Díaz
Lost: Jurickson Profar, Ha-Seong Kim, Tanner Scott, Kyle Higashioka, David Peralta, Martín Pérez, Donovan Solano
Re-signed/Extended: Jackson Merrill (extended)
Why Were They Deemed a Loser?
By the time San Diego finally landed Nick Pivetta in mid-February, the ink was already mostly dry on an offseason in which they just never picked a lane.
There was speculation that—after losing Joe Musgrove for all of 2025 due to elbow surgery last fall—the Padres might just wave the white flag and trade away Dylan Cease, Luis Arraez and/or Michael King in advance of their final year before free agency.
However, they opted to let it ride, only sort of addressing their significant losses. All seven of the players listed above (and Musgrove) ranked top 24 on the team in 2024 in bWAR, and for 35-year-old Jason Heyward to be their second most noteworthy addition amid all those departures was a recipe for possible disaster.
Status Report: Red hot early; sub-.500 since mid-April
Out of the gates, the offseason reports of San Diego's impending demise seemed to be horribly inaccurate. The Padres were 14-3 through 17 games, with Fernando Tatis Jr. looking like the frontrunner for NL MVP while Pivetta was staking quite the claim to the NL Cy Young 10 percent of the way through the season.
In the two months since then, however, the Dads haven't been anything special, going 24-27 in their next 51 games, even with Manny Machado batting well north of .300.
Tatis has come crashing back to earth. Xander Bogaerts is once again not even remotely living up to his massive contract. San Diego's left field situation ranks among the worst at any position in the majors. And the starting rotation simply is not delivering like it was in those first few weeks.
They're still in good shape for a playoff spot, but that less-than-half-hearted approach to the offseason seems to have caught up with a team pinning an uncomfortable amount of its hopes and dreams on Gavin Sheets and Stephen Kolek.
Offseason Loser: Seattle Mariners
9 of 10
Gained: Donovan Solano, Rowdy Tellez, Miles Mastrobuoni
Lost: Josh Rojas, Justin Turner, Austin Voth, Mitch Haniger
Re-signed/Extended: Jorge Polanco
Why Were They Deemed a Loser?
In allowing the fewest runs in the majors and failing to make the postseason, the 2024 Seattle Mariners became the first team to suffer that fate since...the 2014 Seattle Mariners.
We all rather thought/hoped that would spark some offseason aggression for a change, with talk of Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso, Christian Walker, Gleyber Torres or Hyeseong Kim being bats they could go get in free agency.
Instead, they opted to run it back with more or less the exact same lineup, save for a Rowdy Tellez / Donovan Solano platoon as the "solution" to what has long been a first base problem in Seattle.
Status Report: Lineup still has holes, and the pitching has regressed for a .500 ball club
Though Cal Raleigh has been nothing short of awesome, the overall state of Seattle's offense has been every bit as uninspired as last season.
Things looked good early when Jorge Polanco was enjoying an April for the ages, but the Mariners scored just 106 runs in 31 games played from May 7 through June 12, during which time Polanco had a .434 OPS, looking more like the Polanco who was almost unplayable for the Mariners last season.
Julio Rodríguez has his shining moments, as does J.P. Crawford. But take Raleigh's numbers out of the equation and Seattle has a team-wide OPS that ranks around 24th in the majors.
Will they be aggressive at the deadline like they were last year in adding Randy Arozarena, Justin Turner and more? Or are they going to take the same hands-off approach as they did over the offseason, hoping the status quo finds a way to turn things around?
Offseason Loser: St. Louis Cardinals
10 of 10
Gained: Phil Maton
Lost: Paul Goldschmidt, Kyle Gibson, Lance Lynn, Andrew Kittredge, Keynan Middleton
Re-signed/Extended: N/A
Why Were They Deemed a Loser?
There's nothing inherently wrong with a mostly inactive offseason. But what made the Cardinals feel like a loser is that they outright said at the beginning of the offseason that they wanted to unload their expensive veterans, spent much of the winter trying to trade away Nolan Arenado and ended up doing a whole lot of nothing.
After failing their stated mission, St. Louis entered the season neck-and-neck with the Pittsburgh Pirates, tied for the seventh-worst odds of making the postseason (+360), stuck somewhere between no-man's land and a rebuilding situation.
Status Report: Better than expected, yet still in no-man's land
Since starting out 14-19, St. Louis has had one of the best records in baseball, spending much of the past month within shouting distance of the Cubs in the NL Central and in decent shape for a wild card spot.
Even with both Arizona and Atlanta woefully underachieving, though, are the Cardinals really a contender?
They don't need to decide today whether they will be buying or selling at the trade deadline, but it'd be an impossibly tough call right now, possibly landing on a deadline approach that is every bit as inactive as their offseason approach was.
And, who knows, maybe it works out for them? They don't have any surefire All-Stars, but they also don't have any glaring holes. They're just kind of average to above-average across the board, liable to be this year's team that treads water, sneaks into the postseason and peaks in October.
If they don't sell at the deadline and they don't make the postseason, though, they're just going to be another year behind schedule in their rebuild heading into this winter.
