2 weeks Ago By Kerry Miller
Major League Baseball's offseason won't officially begin until this Dodgers-Yankees gem of a World Series comes to an end, but it's never too early to venture some guesses at what this winter's biggest stunners will be. You know a few major surprises are coming. Maybe there won't be anything quite as out of left field as recent offseasons featuring Kris Bryant to the Rockies, Jacob deGrom to the Rangers and Shohei Ohtani getting $700 million.
But there are always a few eyebrow-raisers that even the boldest of predictions didn't see coming. Still got to try, though. We won't bore you with a faux 'bold' prediction as to which New York team will sign Juan Soto.
At this point, it's just about assumed he'll be staying in the Bronx. But how about the Yankees letting Gerrit Cole leave as a free agent? Or the Mets setting a record for the most nine-figure contracts given to free agents in a single winter—with Cole as potentially one of those acquisitions? Maybe Mike Trout on the move? Wouldn't that be something? We've got a total of eight bold offseason predictions here, one for each of MLB's six divisions, plus a bonus one in each league. In case you haven't already heard, there is an opt-out clause coming up this offseason in Gerrit Cole's nine-year, $324 million contract.
He has four years remaining on his deal at a total sum of $144M ($36M per year), which he can choose to decline within the first five days after the World Series ends. If he does decline it (which we've long assumed he will do), the Yankees can add an additional $36M season onto the contract, which would make it a five-year, $180M deal from here on out. Alternatively, the Yankees could thank him for his time and wish him the best of luck in free agency.
Incredibly, Cole's market value ( per Spotrac ) if he does opt out is almost identical to the decision the Yankees would need to make: five years, $178.9M. However, our two-pronged bold prediction is that the Yankees do let him walk, and that he signs for even more than that elsewhere.
His projected market value is a whole heck of a lot of money, but it also feels low. Cole is a few months younger (with much less of an injury history) than Jacob deGrom was two years ago when he signed his five-year, $185M deal with the Rangers. Max Scherzer was two years older than Cole when he got $43.
3M per year on a three-year deal. Justin Verlander was four years older than Cole when he got the same $43.3M salary on a two-year contract.
If Cole hits the open market, he should get five years for $200M, if not slightly more than that. And while the New York Mets would be the most likely candidate to make that happen, it would be quite the stoking of the rivalry flames if the Boston Red Sox make Cole their ace. Kansas City out-spent the rest of the division last offseason, but not by a 3x multiplier.
In the Royals' case, they invested $110.475M into Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha and a half-dozen other free agents, while Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Minnesota checked enough couch cushions and winter coat pockets to scrounge together $91.5M in contracts for free agents.
(If you include signing Bobby Witt Jr. to a $288.8M extension, though, the Royals laughably outspent the rest of the division en route to their surprising postseason appearance.
) Well, this winter, it'll be the Tigers leaving the other four AL Central teams in the dust as far as free-agent spending goes. Looking to build on what was an incredible final two months of the season and knowing it needs at least one more quality pitcher to pair with Tarik Skubal, Detroit figures to make a huge offer to one of the ace-level pitchers on the market. Whether that's something close to $200M for Corbin Burnes, Max Fried or Gerrit Cole or a more modest $100M offer to bring Jack Flaherty back to where he started the 2024 campaign remains to be seen.
But they should be pretty aggressive in pursuit of what could be the best 1-2 SP punch in baseball. Detroit will presumably also be on the prowl for a slugger after only having one player (Riley Greene) hit 20 home runs this season. Meanwhile, do we think the White Sox, Guardians and Twins will even spend $20M combined this winter? There's absolutely no reason for Chicago to spend anything right now.
Cleveland spent $4.75M on free agents last winter and has never been an offseason spender. Minnesota barely eclipsed Cleveland at $6.
2M and might be even more reluctant than usual amid more Regional Sports Network uncertainty and talks of selling the team. The wild card is Kansas City, and to some extent whether Michael Wacha exercises his $16M player option. If he does, they might just more or less let it ride with what is already looking like a $105M-$110M Opening Day payroll, probably adding a relatively inexpensive reliever or two and not much else.
But if they decide to invest in upgrading what was a woeful outfield situation by taking a sizable flyer on Tyler O'Neill, that could sink this prediction in a hurry. The other potential fly in the ointment here is Detroit simply re-investing in what it already has. Skubal only has two years remaining before hitting free agency, while Greene has four years left.
Locking up that duo long-term while making more modest moves in free agency could be the play for the Tigers. We think they spend big on a couple of new toys, though. Mike Trout has a full no-trade clause on a contract that at this point has six years and $212.
7M remaining, and he said this past February that he wants to remain loyal to the Angels and win a championship there, viewing a trade request as "the easy way out." But that was before a 2024 campaign in which he set a personal record for fewest games played (29) in a single season while the Angels set a franchise record for losses in a single season (99). Maybe nothing has changed and Trout—enjoying both his Octobers off and a medical staff that cannot do anything to keep him or Anthony Rendon healthy—remains more than happy to spend the next six years with the Halos.
Or maybe he's finally fed up with rehabbing through losing seasons and is ready for a fresh start with a team that might actually win a ring before he retires. In addition to a salary north of $35M that he hasn't even remotely lived up to in three of the past four seasons, a complicating factor here is that the Angels would be reluctant to send him to most of the teams who would actually want him. Division rival Houston needs a center fielder, and that crosstown rival who signed Shohei Ohtani could use one, too.
They won't want to help either of those teams. What about the Phillies, though? The Angels would need to eat a lot of Trout's remaining contract in any trade negotiation, and especially in one with Philadelphia, which is already staring down the barrel of a roughly $275M payroll in 2025. If, however, Los Angeles retains the entirety of Trout's 2025 salary before letting Philly begin to pay its share in 2026 once JT Realmuto and Kyle Schwarber come off the books, the Phillies would be quite interested in adding the 11-time All-Star in hopes of addressing the fact that they pinch-hit for an outfielder six times in a postseason run that lasted just four games.
As things currently stand, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is going to be the headliner of next winter's class of free agents, set to follow in the footsteps of Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto as the single biggest domino that will determine how everything else falls into place. Unless Toronto does something about it first, of course.
The Blue Jays' refusal to even consider trading away Guerrero ahead of this past summer's deadline was rooted in the hope/belief that it would be able to sign him to a long-term deal before he reaches free agency. And though they have yet to make that dream a reality, they are surely hard at work trying to make it happen this winter. If an extension is coming, the big question is whether Guerrero wants to leave the door open for another big contract a few years down the road, or whether he wants to commit the rest of his career to the Blue Jays on some sort of 12-year extravaganza.
He's certainly young enough for a gigantic one. Guerrero doesn't turn 26 until March, making him a few months younger than Soto, who is expected to get something in the vicinity of a 14-year contract. Mike Trout was 27 when he got his 12-year deal.
Mookie Betts was 28. Both Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts were already 30 when they got 11-year contracts from the Padres. Guerrero is a toddler compared to those.
If it is an absolute monster of an extension, there will probably be some sort of option(s) after five or six years, similar to the Bobby Witt Jr., Julio Rodríguez and Yoshinobu Yamamoto deals in recent years. But here's an official guess to make this a bit bolder: Six years, $210M ($35M AAV) plus a five-year, $140M ($27M AAV) player option after 2030 for an all-in contract of 11 years, $350M.
(Maybe there's also an escalator clause whereby the total value of the option increases by $10M for every top-3 MVP finish within the first six years of the deal, which could bring it up to as much as $410M.) The New York Mets aren't going to match the more than $1 billion in contracts for free agents that the Los Angeles Dodgers agreed to last offseason. Becoming the first team to sign at least three free agents to nine-figure contracts in one year, however, is well within the realm of possibility.
The Mets did sign four players for at least $75M each just two years ago—Brandon Nimmo ($162M), Edwin Díaz ($102M), Justin Verlander ($86.7M) and Kodai Senga ($75M)—and they did have the highest payroll in baseball this season. But they have been setting themselves up to do some serious spending this offseason ever since the 2023 trade deadline.
The goal was to sign Juan Soto, but the main rationale behind our 'Yanks let Cole walk' prediction is the assumption that they'll be re-signing Soto for the $500M-$600M that the Mets will also be trying to throw his way. If it becomes clear that Soto isn't happening for the Mets, though, Steve Cohen isn't going to just pack it in and embrace heading into 2025 with a modest payroll. He's going to re-sign Pete Alonso for around $200M.
He's going to get at least one, possibly two of Corbin Burnes, Max Fried, Blake Snell and Gerrit Cole to address the fact that all three of this season's team leaders in innings pitched are now free agents. (All four of those pitchers figure to sign for at least $100M.) And he's going to add one more of the top OF/DH bats available, as Harrison Bader and JD Martinez were one-year stopgap solutions and Starling Marte isn't getting any younger or better.
Whether that's Teoscar Hernández, Anthony Santander or maybe Cody Bellinger if he declines his player option with the Cubs, nine figures on a five-year deal could be in play for any member of that trio. The Mets could also go the route of giving Gleyber Torres a huge contract, putting him at second base and banking on Jeff McNeil as a corner outfielder. However, Torres getting $100M might be a stretch.
Long story short, the Mets will be very busy, and they won't be sneaking up on anyone as an "underdog" in 2025. This is a distinction typically reserved for the AL East, but the NL Central is looking like the most wide-open division heading into the offseason. As far as the early 2025 World Series odds are concerned, Chicago is on top within the division at +2800 with Pittsburgh bringing up the rear at +10000.
But if you put one upper-echelon free agent like Corbin Burnes or Blake Snell on the Pirates, they at least enter the conversation as a favorite to win the division. That ain't the case in any of the other five divisions. Because of that, there might be more of an NL Central spending spree than we have ever seen before.
Here are the current records within this division for most money spent on a free agent: Frankly, all five of those records could be broken. The Cubs probably won't get that carried away, especially if Cody Bellinger returns on his $27.5M player option.
If he leaves, though, they'll be very much in the mix for Pete Alonso at around $200M. The Cardinals haven't gone even to $90M for a free agent since 2010, but they should absolutely be in the market for one of the ace pitchers. Not only do they have at least $26M coming off the books with Paul Goldschmidt hitting free agency, but they are probably going to decline their club options on Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson.
Plus, Miles Mikolas, Steven Matz and Erick Fedde each have just one year left on their deal, so they need several long-term solutions. (Just saying: Corbin Burnes always did pitch well at Busch Stadium, and would probably love to face the Brewers on a regular basis given how acrimonious that relationship got.) Milwaukee might be the least likely of the bunch to break its record, but never say never.
The Brewers, too, could really use another multiyear solution in the starting rotation. Cincinnati certainly figures to make at least one big splash after bringing Terry Francona out of retirement. And Pittsburgh making at least somewhat of an effort to win a World Series with Paul Skenes seems like a safe bet.
Hard to imagine they spend nine figures on one of the studs, but Christian Walker—born and raised on the opposite side of Pennsylvania—on a three-year deal with the Pirates almost makes too much sense. Ah, yes. Blake Snell.
The gift that keeps on giving to the content generation machine. After a 2023 season spent marveling at his preposterous ability to repeatedly strand runners after issuing free passes to them, the two-time Cy Young winner waited until March 18 to finally sign in free agency. And then after a brutal, injury-laden first three months that left him painted as the most disastrous signing of the offseason, he rebounded to better-than-ever form, becoming one of the most discussed trade deadline candidates in advance of becoming one of the biggest option decisions looming in the next two weeks.
Save for Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, we've probably, as an industry, devoted more words to Blake Snell over the past 16 months than any other player in baseball. Well, here we go again, because it is very likely Snell will decline his option to return to the Giants in 2025 and will be easily a top-five free agent. And when that happens, a reunion with the San Diego Padres makes a ton of sense.
They didn't want to do it last winter because they were in cost-cutting mode and felt pretty good about their rotation following the Soto trade. But with Joe Musgrove destined to miss all of 2025 following Tommy John surgery while Dylan Cease and Michael King are in their final year of arbitration eligibility, bringing Snell back home on a semi-long-term deal could be the play. In 43 career starts at Petco Park, Snell has a 2.
87 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and 12.4 K/9.
Another five or so years with that as his home park might net Snell a third Cy Young and get him into the conversation as a possible Hall of Famer. (Though, averaging under 122 innings pitched per season to this point in his career makes immortality in Cooperstown a stretch.) Quite a few teams are going to upgrade their starting rotation via free agency.
Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell and Max Fried are the big ones available. Possibly Gerrit Cole, too. Can't forget Jack Flaherty, Shane Bieber, Luis Severino or Walker Buehler, either.
But we'll potentially also see several National League teams stabilize their long-term rotation outlook by extending pitchers before they can reach free agency. The biggest ones about to enter their final year of arbitration eligibility are in the NL West, where we've already mentioned San Diego's Dylan Cease and Michael King, but where Arizona's Zac Gallen arguably reigns supreme. Despite making 69 of his 143 career starts at hitter-friendly Chase Field, Gallen has a career ERA of 3.
29—and has remarkably pitched better at home than on the road with a sub-3.00 ERA in Arizona. At nearly two years younger than Houston's Framber Valdez, Gallen is looking like the early favorite to sign the biggest pitching contract in free agency next winter.
But after how disastrously the Jordan Montgomery and Eduardo Rodriguez signings went for Arizona this year, they figure to be extra motivated to not let him leave. Couple of big ones in the NL East with Philadelphia's Ranger Suárez entering his final year before free agency, Washington's MacKenzie Gore three years away from that threshold and Atlanta's Spencer Schwellenbach an obvious candidate for an Alex Anthopoulos special following his strong rookie year. In the NL Central, Chicago's Justin Steele is an intriguing extension candidate.
He has three years of arbitration eligibility remaining, but has been one of the more valuable pitchers in all of baseball since the beginning of 2022. The big fish, of course, is Paul Skenes. He is nowhere close to free agency, locked up with Pittsburgh for another five years.
But they've given extensions to Mitch Keller, Bryan Reynolds and Ke'Bryan Hayes in recent years, getting those deals done long before they needed to begin having those conversations. Getting Skenes to agree to something on par with Spencer Strider's six-year, $75M extension sure would be impressive. The prediction here is that there will be a combined total of three NL starting pitchers getting considerably large contract extensions finalized before Opening Day.
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