The 2024-25 MLB offseason is here, and it doesn't take much in the way of deep-dive analysis to identify which teams will make noise. The reigning World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers? That's a gimme. Both the New York Mets and the New York Yankees? Well, obviously.
The San Diego Padres? A.J. Preller is still in charge, so.
..probably, yeah.
But what about teams that could go either way? Let's focus on eight that are especially hard to predict. Be it money or trade assets, they would seem to have the resources to throw their weight around on the offseason market. Yet for varying reasons, it's hard to take it for granted that they will.
Let's check them off in alphabetical order by city. Note: All 2025 payroll projections are courtesy of FanGraphs . 2024 Record: 91-71, 2nd in AL East Projected 2025 Payroll: $96 million What They Could Do See that projected payroll? It's almost $70 million short of what the Orioles spent in 2017, when they opened at a club-record $164.
3 million. That, mind you, was before the Angelos family sold the team to David Rubenstein. Forbes estimates his net worth at $4 billion , which is more than twice what it cost for him to buy the Orioles earlier this year.
When you take pieces like these and put them together with the Orioles' rise as a contender over the last three years, you come away hoping that they could be big spenders this winter. They could, for example, go for broke and re-sign ace right-hander Corbin Burnes and slugging right fielder.
