Season’s (still) over. Let’s look back and ahead.
To continue the observations from Part 1:
- Perhaps no team will have as brutal an off-season as the New York Yankees. They finally get to a World Series, only to self-destruct at the worst times. Boone and Cashman will remain, but that they didn’t take advantage of all of the breaks they got will haunt them (and no Cashman, you can’t blame this on 2017). In particular, Aaron Judge is becoming the next Clayton Kershaw/Lamar Jackson…racking up regular season accolades, but suffering severe post-season letdowns. This will be an especially painful off-season if the Yankees can’t bring back…
- Juan Soto. After one of the best contract years in all of sports, Juan Soto is primed to cash in big-time. It will take teams a $500M offer just to get a phone call, and $600M is not out of the question. Setting aside the stupidity of the sporting salary market, Soto has done everything to prove he can be a perennial MVP/team centerpiece. The Yankees needed him so much on their run. Without him, if the Yankees want to bet on an aging Stanton and playoff Judge…the rest of the league will be ok with that.
- Brandon Hyde at the top of the manager hot seat list? Staying in the pressure cooker of the AL East, Baltimore suffered a letdown of a 2024. After busting out to 101 wins and the division crown in 2023, the team only managed 91 wins and another playoff sweep. They’ve lost 10 straight playoff games, and back-to-back playoff sweeps in this current run can make people question the true direction of this franchise. Hyde guided the team from the depths to contention, but now, Baltimore has to advance in the playoffs. With new ownership indicating it might spend and a top-tier farm system, Baltimore should have little trouble upgrading. However, if the O’s late 2024 struggles continue in 2025, Hyde won’t make it to 2026.
- The A’s have a more stable home field situation than the Rays. Before mid-October, those were words no one would type. However, after Hurricane Milton wrecked Tropicana Field, the Rays face a major conundrum. The Rays expect to remain in Florida. However, where will they play their home games? Not that they drew all that many fans at home to begin with and a new ballpark is already planned, but for the 2025 squad, what home field advantage looks like might be one of the unexpected adventures of the season.
- Can Detroit and Kansas City build on their successes? It didn’t hurt that both got to play 13 games against the historically bad White Sox, but their respective Wild Card wins over Baltimore and Houston validated their playoff berths. Detroit rode a major hot streak and its Cy Young ace to a playoff run, but this came after they made a bunch of seller moves at the trade deadline. Do they try to load up this off-season? For Kansas City, they have a rising MVP candidate in Bobby Witt, Jr. However, can they also continue their upward trajectory. You don’t figure on Chicago being THAT bad again, especially if Reinsdorf finally sells the team.
- The blessing and the curse of the playoff bye. This season saw teams with a Wild Card bye win three out of four Division series. For one, this allowed baseball to get its dream World Series. However, the Wild Card bye struggles seemed to open the door for baseball to consider expanding the playoffs to get rid of the bye, bring in more playoff money, but at the possible expense of focus (read, player salaries) for the post-season. No doubt the owners will try to expand the playoffs during the next CBA. However, they lost a potential selling data point.
- This season, post-season home field disadvantage wasn’t as pronounced. Sure, the Wild Card round saw the home teams go 3-6, but overall, home teams went 22-20. That is up from the nightmarish 15-26 from 2023. Additionally, the Dodgers’ clinching Game 5 win saw the road team celebrate the title on adversary turf for the 9th time in the last 10 years (The Dodgers were the “home” team in 2020, but at Globe Life Field). Results are results, but it might help baseball if more teams could clinch championships in front their home fans.
- The little things like fielding and base-running aren’t as sexy as slash-lines, spin rate and WAR, but do they matter. Expect teams to continue to reinforce that this coming off-season, especially Houston and New York (Yankees).
- Baseball actually beat out the NFL on TV. The ratings for Game 3 of the World Series (13.6M viewers) exceeded the Monday Night Football (13.4M viewers) (Pittsburgh @ New York/New Jersey Giants). Granted, the NFL game was a dog matchup and baseball got its best-case scenario. Still, it does show that perhaps baseball may yet still have a place in the fall sports calendar. The overall TV ratings for the World Series saw an average of around 15-16M viewers, the best seen since 2017.
- When Hall of Fame voting comes around, watch the fate of Carlos Beltran. Last year, he saw a 12% jump in votes (57.1%). While it is not likely he will get in this year, if more voters add to the total (i.e. the virtual signaling of vote withholding made its point), then this might offer some more clues as to how they will treat players like Altuve when their time comes for Hall of Fame voting. Altuve already has a HoF resume and should be a shoe-in, but you know baseball writers…
- While the Astros offseason figures to be one of intense interest, other teams face their own crossroads/decision points. What does Toronto do, as their underachieving core of players face free agency? Can Milwaukee ever get to a point where they can go beyond just winning a division? What of Atlanta and Philadelphia, who figure to contend for the World Series now but might be running low on chances? Can or will teams like Minnesota and Cleveland make the gambles to become actual title contenders?
- A major talking point this year focused on the myriad of arm injuries for MLB pitchers. Yet, the playoffs continued to highlight the need for teams to have arms that can throw pitches with speed and spin. Perhaps some of the proposals for starters and limits may eventually help, but the game will need a seismic shift in philosophy. Can baseball get there? Stay tuned.
- Contracts, trades and all the off-field business will dominate headlines before we get back to Spring Training in February. Among the business of baseball, it might be nice if the MLBPA and the Owners can also start working on a new CBA framework/deal. Given the upward swing baseball is on, it would be very dumb (but all-too-on-brand for MLB), to let labor issues screw it up yet again. They have until December 2026 to get it done.
With that, we turn the page on 2024, and gear up for the offseason, when teams all try to set themselves up for the dream of winning it all. Won’t be boring, that is for sure.