Major League Baseball's 2024-25 offseason is almost a thing of the past. Now that Alex Bregman has inked a three-year, $120-million pact with the Boston Red Sox, the major free agents are all off the board. Yes, it's possible a blockbuster or quasi-blockbuster trade could still happen before Opening Day -- Nolan Arenado, perhaps -- but the expectation as spring training looms is that most of the headline-grabbing activity is behind us.
The winter has of course been peppered with major transactions – Juan Soto's record $765 million deal with the New York Mets, for obvious example. A number of teams, however, have done very little to improve their fortunes this offseason, and a number of those teams are certifiable or aspiring contenders. That is, they're the kinds of squads who should be working to fortify the roster. Alas and alack, some clubs who have real designs on October baseball have taken the winter off.
This does not include teams like, say, the Miami Marlins, whose lack of relevance or effort is quite established and thus isn't particularly noteworthy. Rather, these are clubs who are undeniably in contending mode in the here and now. Now, though, they'll have to manage contention without even the bare minimum of effort on the part of their respective ownership groups. In particular, we're talking about three teams who should be adding talent and increasing payroll but instead haven't done winter work to that end, at least by the precious standards of this space. Furthermore, these are teams who aren't obvious locks like, say, the Los Angeles Dodgers. These are contenders on somewhat unsure footing, teams for whom every little win they buy on the market or trade for will probably matter a great deal. Yet they're not going out and getting those wins.
Assume the position, layabouts.
Milwaukee Brewers
One should probably not doubt the Brewers when it comes to overcoming seeming roster holes and a fairly stagnant payroll trend. As such, it won't be a great shock if the Brewers in 2025 return to the top of the National League Central. Their offseason work, however, hasn't helped the cause. Most notably, shortstop Willy Adames, who finished 10th in the NL MVP vote last year, is gone via a nine-figure contract with the San Francisco Giants. As well, what was once enviable rotation depth has been thinned out, and that's the case even with the addition of Nestor Cortes (a trade that cost them Devin Williams, perhaps the best reliever in baseball right now) and the presumed return to action of Brandon Woodruff. The left side of the infield is also a worry.
The Brewers have done effectively nothing on the free-agent market, and that's happened at the same time the Chicago Cubs have been active, at least by the standards of NL Central teams. Yes, almost no team incubates young talent like the Brewers, but you won't find many informed observers who will pick the Brewers to repeat in the division. That reflects the Cubs' improvements, but it also reflects the Brewers' losses and their failures to replace them. Given the strength of the NL, it's hard to imagine that a wild-card team comes out of the Central, so it may be a division title or bust for Milwaukee. They've got a chance to win their third straight division title for the first time ever, but they haven't helped their odds of doing so.
San Diego Padres
Coming off a 2024 campaign in which they won 93 games – the second-highest win total in franchise history – and a postseason berth, the Padres haven't done enough to improve or even maintain their lot. The big move is the signing of starting pitcher Nick Pivetta to a four-year, $55 million contract. More on that in a moment. They've added Jason Heyward and Connor Joe on one-year deals to serve as the team's left-field platoon (this is their "effort" to replace All-Star Jurickson Profar, who inked with the Atlanta Braves), catcher Elias Díaz and Kyle Hart in his first year back from Korea.
There's real talent in place but in a division that also houses the Los Angeles Dodgers, Arizona Diamondbacks, and San Francisco Giants. That's to say nothing of the tough National League East, the second- and third-place teams of which figure to be in the meat of the wild-card chase. The Padres of course have precious little chance of prevailing in their division. While their odds of snaring a wild-card spot are stronger, their lack of activity is compounded by an already highly competitive fray for those berths. This is to say nothing of the fact that San Diego last season outplayed their expected record (based on run differential) by three games, which means they may be in line for a correction.
As for Pivetta, he's a reasonable back-end addition, but If recent buzz is any guide then there's a real chance that Michael King or Dylan Cease will be moved before the regular season starts. Parting with either, to say the least, would do great harm to the Padres' chances in the coming season, and the working assumption is that one of those two trades is in the offing. If both are retained, then San Diego's offseason is elevated to being merely uninspiring as opposed to derelict.
The Padres have been in disinvestment mode since the death of Peter Seidler, who was truly among the very best owners in the sport. That trend has been exacerbated by a power struggle and dueling lawsuits between Seidler's family and heirs. As a consequence, the Padres' decision-makers right now seem to be prioritizing things other than, you know, winning baseball games.
Seattle Mariners
The Mariners play in a winnable division, and that's especially the case given that the Houston Astros have shed Bregman and Kyle Tucker, among others. The Texas Rangers are bounce-back candidates in 2025, but no AL West club looks, acts, and smells like a 90-win team. That brings us to the M's. It's been a while since the Mariners have spent in line with their market resources, and that doesn't figure to be changing anytime soon. Lead decision-maker Jerry Dipoto remains quite adept at caping for team ownership and their unwillingness to invest:
Dipoto: "It's been a pretty quiet offseason, and I think that's reflective of a team that didn't have a whole lot of holes to fill. And you know we we feel great about our farm system, we feel great about the stability in our team, and we feel like our offense doesn't get enough…
— Ryan Divish (@RyanDivish) February 3, 2025
While it's true that the run-suppressing qualities of T-Mobile Park make the Seattle offense look worse than it is (and the pitching staff look better than it is), this is still not a good lineup. In 2025, the M's are on the wrong side of age 30 at a number of key spots in the lineup, and the infield is a particular concern. There was power to be found on the free-agent market this winter, and the Mariners needed some of it. Once again, though, they were unwilling to invest in rounding out what's a contending roster. This isn't acceptable behavior from a team that's missed the playoffs by a single game in each of the past two seasons.
