The Super Bowl is currently over a week in the rearview mirror. For Eagles fans like me, I'm not finished yet Re-watch the highlights Chiefs beatdown. It's not even nearby.
However, this week, full-team spring training workouts begin around major league baseball, with grapefruit and cactus league games beginning this weekend. Yes, friends, it's officially a baseball season and there's a lot to discuss.
When players filter into camp and the fake game begins, my top 10 storylines are here!
How good is the Dodgers?
Last year's Dodger Steam? Boy, what a bunch of underachives. What they did was win the NL's best 98 games since the 2020 pandemic short season and their first World Series, and their first full season title since 1988.
It was clearly motivated by his inability to win over 100 games in at least 15 games at NL West, or to surpass the 93-win Padres. They won the Roki Sasaki Derby, signed outfielders Tecker Hernandez and Blake Trainin, two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell, and bailers Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates. Saving, gave them a super team that was an overwhelming favorite to bring another World Series home. Oh, and Shohei ohtani could also return to the mound.
The final team to be repeated as World Series champions was the 2000 New York Yankees, held a quarter century ago. Certainly, the Dodgers are absolutely loaded. They win the offseason and don't seem to have any weaknesses. But if history is our guide, it doesn't matter whether LA will break Seattle's single-season victory record (116) or win NL West in 25 games. Once the postseason tournament begins, all your opponents have to do is to score three out of five or four outs seven to find a way to end the Dodgers' repetitive dreams.
Still, it should be a runaway regular season for Los Angeles.
Bryce Harper's elusive first title
This will be Harper's seventh season in the Phillies Pinstripes. Currently 32, he is still an elite bat and has become a caliber first bass man in Gold Gloves, but has yet to win the World Series, which looks like a Hall of Fame career. He and the Phillies are really close to 2022, winning two wins against the Houston Astros. With each year, Philadelphia has been a step shorter.
The franchise had to win the title at some point during Harper's six-year run. Not only that, the whole core is aging.
Zack Wheeler is 35, JT Realmuto is 34, Nick Castellanos is 33, Aaron Nola, Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber are all 32 years old. Leads will help these players open their competition windows as they age, but there is no guarantee that. It's hard not to help but feel that the 2025 season is the last best shot of this particular core.
There is no team in baseball under the pressure of winning the World Series as much as this Phillies team.
The future of Vladimir Guerrero JR
One of the prizes in the free agent class next year appears to be Toronto's Vladimir Gerard Jr.
There was speculation that Vlad might extend his contract to stay with the Jays this spring, but at a press conference on Tuesday Guerrero said He and Toronto “never approach” the extension.
“I want to be Blue Jay for the rest of my career. But it's a free agency. It's a business. You need to listen to 29 more teams, but they have to compete. Not there.”
The 2025 season will also be an all-or-nothing effort for the Blue Jays. They signed Anthony Sanander a large winter free agent contract, inkling Max Shelzer, and Beau Bichette, catcher Alejandro Kirk, with defenders Ernie Clement, Dorton Barsho, and Kevin Gaussmann, Jose Returns the rotation led by Barrios, Jose Barrios and Jose Barrios. Not to mention landing Chris Bassitt, Jeff Hoffman's best right-handed reliever on the market.
It's difficult to pick the Yankees and perhaps the Al-East Red Sox, but for Toronto, they're not with now or with Vlad.
Juan Soto meets Mets
If there was any doubt about how shocking a player would be to the team, then it should not be as far as Soto's impact on the Yankees last season. They wouldn't have made it to the World Series without him. He is a generational offensive star and a solid Hall of Fame, and this year he has been crossing town in Flushing for the Mets, who are seeking his first World Series title since Mookie Wilson. 765 million dollar contract begins. In 1986 he knocked a dribbler through Bill Buckner's foot.
New York is off the surprise postseason run that landed them in the National League Championship Series, riding a ridiculously busy offseason with its momentum waves. By re-signing Pete Alonso, Jesse Winker and Sean Mania, owner Steve Cohen kept most of his roster from last season. The bullpen is a smart addition to Clay Holmes, AJ Minter and Lynn Stanek, and the Mets pitching brain hopes to fix Franky Montas in a way that remakes Louis Severino and Montas before the season. Masu.
However, these additions will be pale compared to landing the biggest fish of the winter in Soto, and hopefully helping to overtake the Philly and Braves in the 2025 regular season.
The life of the Yankees without Soto
Meanwhile, in the Bronx, the Yankees have moved away from their divorce from Soto and spread money around the roster.
They signed Max an eight-year deal (which is a really long time for the starting pitcher, by the way) and concluded with a one-year deal, Paul Goldschmidt, and exchanged two notable deals. Devin Williams is closer to the Milwaukee Cubs. The roster can argue that it might be better to spread money and improve the pitching staff than to throw everything away at Juan Soto's feet.
That being said, Soto's bats will be heart-wrenched in the middle of its lineup. Giancarlo Stanton has already said,Mysterious Injury“Tennis elbow both elbow. It is unclear how much time he will miss this spring. The Aaron Judge is a machine, but it has proven to be false in the World Series. The addition of Bellinger is great, but he's not a roughly the same kind of sturdy hitter Soto. Can they get them in the middle of an order featuring Jazz Chisholm, Judge, Goldschmidt, Bellinger and Stanton? Do they stay healthy? Can their top four starters – Jerit Cole, Fried, Carlos Rodon and Lewis Gill make up for the difference in the competitive AL East?
A new era in Houston
Since the mid-2010s, the Houston Astros have been synonymous with the American League Championship Series, but this will be a very different Astros team than we've seen in recent seasons.
They put pressure on Kyle Tucker and his bailout Ryan on the Cubs early in the offseason. Alex Bregman signed a free agent deal with the Red Sox last week. Justin Verlander has signed a one-year, $15 million contract with the Giants. Starter Kikuchi is now an angel. And who knows how long Flamber Valdes sticks to? He will become a free agent at the end of this season.
Houston still has decent talent. The cupboard is not naked. Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez are outstanding players, signing free agent deals to third basemen Isaac Paredes and Christian Walker, yet still hanging shortstop Jeremy Pena. Ronel Blanco and Hunter Brown are 2-3 hard in the rotation, with Josh Hader coming back close to the team.
They have holes (have you seen the outfield?) and may be good enough to beat Al West, but it's clear that a new era has begun in Houston.
Braves' health
When you stop and think about it, it's actually the Braves made the postseason in 2024.
Spencer Strider lost the season after taking one healthy start. Ronal Acuna, Jr. tore his right ACL and was lost in the season. Austin Riley broke his hand in August, Sean Murphy missed nearly two months on a tense oblique, and Ozzy Albies came out for two months in July and August with a broken wrist.
The Braves have never been able to repeat ridiculously productive attack numbers since 2023, but last year's regression exceeded the pale, so Atlanta has entered the division that won six times in a row before barely sneaking up. You can understand that you are bullish about your chances of winning. Pre-season playoffs.
The big problem is When can they expect Strider and Acuna Jr. to return?? Neither sounds like they're ready for the opening day. Acuna Jr. doesn't have a specific schedule, but the Braves say he's recovering and planning. Sounds like it's May. Striders have started throwing the bullpen, but will likely not return to spin until the end of April. Can they hang there until their two best players get back to swinging things?
Will the Cubs offseason be added enough?
Milwaukee has won three of the last four NL Central titles and has dominated the division primarily over the past 30 years. The Cubs last won the division was during the 2020 pandemic, and their final playoff victory was in 2017, reaching the NLCS.
Chicago doesn't spend a lot of money, but it has one of Los Angeles' busiest offseasons. They added the second most impactful player to change Kyle Tucker's team. Small additions like catcher Carson Kelly and reliever Ryan Brager help fill in the roster around the edge.
In the year when the Brewers lost Corbin Burns, Willie Adams and Devin Williams, the Cardinal appears to be wandering on .500 lands, with the Reds and Pirates still a year or two away from the competition Although it appears to be there, the Cubs have the best Cubs chance to take the mediocre division in 2025.
Salary cap talk
Much of the winter discourse surrounded the baseball economic system, the flow of wild spending for the Dodgers, the apparent disparity in resources between the so-called “rich” and “poor” teams. The collapse of almost 12 regional sports network deals has thrown some franchises into the hottest ones, but the bigger problem is that they don't want to pay for what they need to put a competitive team on the field It's about having a team. Most fanbases don't want the Dodgers to become dynasty super teams like the Yankees and Red Sox. In the 1990s and 2000s, we believe that pay caps are a way to keep teams like the Dodgers, Mets, Philly, and Yankees. From wrapping the rest of the sport from a pay perspective.
Of course, the conversation was also directed to the salary floor that comes with a potential cap, and the union of players has vowed not to ensure that the salary cap is not implemented in sports. It is reasonable to believe that the owner will either lock out players after the 2026 season or that the player will attack in advance to prevent this.
It's a low rumble right now, but it's definitely a conversation going on this spring.
Ball and Strike Challenge System
At certain spring training ballparks, Major League Baseball will test the automatic ball and strike challenge system that could come to all MLB stadiums from next year. In short, if a pitcher, catcher or batsman doesn't agree to a ball or strike call by a umpire at the home plate, they can challenge that call. The video on the scoreboard shows whether the pitcher's path has crossed the plate in the strike zone.
Each team only gets two challenges per game, and one thing that needs to be resolved this spring is the speed at which the challenge takes place and how reliable the system is. However, except for those going to Haywire, this could be a preview of what comes in 2026.
It's not exactly a robot ampere, but it's the start.
