Even though there are currently snowbanks up to my shoulders outside, spring training is just around the corner. As pitchers and catchers begin to report, and the Dodgers’ hangovers begin to wear off we turn our attention to the upcoming 2021 MLB season. Here are the four biggest storylines heading into the new year:
Can anyone dethrone the Dodgers?
The Dodgers have won the NL West every season going back to 2013. They’ve captured the NL pennant 3 of the last 4 years, and finally ended their 42 year long championship drought this past season, capturing their first World Series title since 1988.
So what did they do with their offseason? Well, following the recurring theme of the pandemic era we find ourselves in, it appears that the rich continue to get richer.
Los Angeles began by getting their house in order, avoiding arbitration with roster mainstays Bellinger, Buehler, Urias, Barnes and Seager. Then they turned their attention to locking up fan favourite Justin Turner to the tune of 2 years and $34M. And the cherry on top, they inked reigning NL Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer to a mammoth 3 year $102M contract. The Dodgers will now boast a starting rotation of Kershaw, Bauer, Buehler, Urias and your choice of Price/May/Gonsolin sprinkled in the 5 spot.
Surely if LA was shipping out that kind of dough this offseason, they must have lost a few pieces from their WS team along the way, right? Well, unfortunately for the rest of the league, that simply isn’t the case. Unless you count any of Enrique Hernandez (BOS), Pedro Baez (HOU), Jake McGee (SF), Joc Pederson (CHC), or Alex Wood (SF) amongst your list of irreplaceable players, then the Dodgers may actually be a better team on paper than they were last year.
Which is why you’re seeing teams around the NL scrambling to keep pace in the arms race this offseason has become. The Padres have been one of the most active teams since the conclusion of the 2020 season. San Diego went out and acquired Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, and Joe Musgrove in 3 separate deals to bolster their rotation. The Mets, not to be outdone, brought in Francisco Lindor & Carlos Carrasco from Cleveland, and avoided arbitration with their young talent as well (Syndergaard, Smith, Nimmo and Conforto). And then you have the Cardinals who went out and acquired possibly the best all round 3rd baseman in the game in Nolan Arenado from Colorado for a bevy of prospects. This is also glossing over the fact that teams like the Blue Jays, White Sox, Yankees, and Braves can all make viable claims to being a better team in 2021 than they were last year as well.
Yet for all the offseason movement, the Dodgers are still the odds on favourites to repeat, both on the media prognosticator side of things and the gambling side as well. Vegas currently has them hovering as +300 favourites to hoist the WS trophy this fall. The Yankees (+600), Padres (+750), Mets (+900) and White Sox (+1000) follow them to round out the top 5. As great as some of the signings have been, for now, it still looks like the road to the World Series runs squarely through LA.
Lack of Minor League seasons and how it affects Rookies
Sports took it on the chin in 2020. Perhaps none more so than the various levels of Minor League Baseball across North America. With many leagues and teams folding during the height of the COVID pandemic, the usual system of promotions, fall leagues, and expanded roster call ups didn’t happen last year. In fact several minor league organizations may struggle to get back on their feet in 2021, or ever.
There are 162 minor league teams affiliated with the MLB from single A through AAA ball. Unlike other small businesses that can operate year round, the MiLB system is a seasonal business with a 70-100 day window each year where they need to accumulate as much money as they can to stay afloat. If the public health authorities deem it unsafe for fans to return in a meaningful capacity, then many of these franchises won’t be able to foot the bills for long without MLB intervention.
Money aside though, the disruption to the talent pipeline will be interesting to watch not only this year, but moving forward as well. Top tier talent like Wander Franco (TB), Spencer Torkelson (DET), or Cristian Pache (ATL) can rely on their otherworldly skill sets to get by unscathed and stay on big league scouts radars for likely promotions. But what’s good for the 23 and under crew might not bode well for the 25-28 year olds who were finally starting to get a sniff of the big leagues before COVID derailed their seasons.
After a full year of uncertainty surrounding the virus and return to play plans, teams will be looking for “safe bets” this year. Who already has big league experience under their belts? Who are the club’s can’t miss prospects? Those will likely be the players you’ll be seeing on opening day rosters and beyond. 2021 may be the year where we see the most roster turnover at the minor league levels as aging “prospects” may have moved on to other career paths out of necessity to support their families, or opt out all together for health concerns. It’s one thing to run testing/contact tracing programs at the major league levels where there’s millions of dollars riding on the league having a successful season. But it’s quite another to expect that same level of care to trickle down to the single-A or AA levels where chartered planes are a distant dream.
The AL East is the most intriguing division in baseball
In a change of pace that has Blue Jays fans buzzing, Toronto dove head first into the free agent market this offseason. George Springer, Kirby Yates, and Marcus Semien join a young Jays team looking to make a deep playoff run after getting a taste of the postseason in 2020.
The Jays rotation is still a 2nd workhorse beyond Ryu away from where the club would like it to be, but this group did take steps forward in the offseason. Bringing in Steven Matz (who can be both brilliant and infuriating in alternating games) adds an arm that can chew up innings, and Robbie Ray & Ross Stripling are serviceable back end starters. The real success or failure in the Blue Jays rotation will probably come down to what kind of improvement top prospect Nate Pearson can show in his 2nd go round the big leagues. If he’s able to solve some of his control issues (6.5BB/9) and become the front of the rotation arm the club hopes he can become then the Jays and their potent offense could make some noise in a wide open AL this year.
Tampa Bay is a strange case where, after making the World Series last year, they elected to trade staff ace Blake Snell, and let Charlie Morton walk. Meaning they now have two gaping holes in their rotation with no obvious candidates to fill them. Chris Archer is back after a few less than stellar seasons in Pittsburgh. At age 32 however, he hasn’t seen a sub 4.00 ERA season since 2015. Michael Wacha has joined the Rays rotation this year looking to recapture some of that magic from 2018. His era has been steadily creeping upwards as well with a 4.76 in 2019, and a disastrous 6.62 in 2020. Meaning that the team will likely be leaning heavily on 6’8” flamethrower Tyler Glasnow, and hoping that his 2019 season wasn’t just an anomaly.
Fans of the Rays have to be getting flashbacks to their 2008 WS trip, where after losing to the Phillies in 5 games, they immediately sold off key pieces rather than trying to run it back. One bright spot however, is we’re likely to see the number 1 prospect in all of baseball (Wander Franco) make his big league debut at some point this season.
Speaking of top prospects, Baltimore has their own Wunderkind in catcher Adley Rutschman (#2 rated MLB prospect) likely to make his big league debut this year. The 6’2” switch hitting catcher has drawn comparisons to Buster Posey and will be one of the few bright spots for an Orioles team destined for a high draft pick this year.
Baltimore’s rotation as it stands is made up of John Means, Felix Hernandez, Wade Leblanc, Dean Kremer, Keegan Akin and Jorge Lopez. Slot them in whatever pecking order you choose, but bottom line: this isn’t a stable of arms destined to shatter records. I’d say you can pencil the O’s in for last in the division but….
Here, comes, Boston! Normally when you can say “the team didn’t lose anyone of real significance” in the offseason, that would be a good thing. But after finishing dead last in the AL east in 2020 (and subsequently suffered through watching Mookie do Mookie things all season long and hoist the WS trophy) maybe that isn’t a positive.
While the rest of the AL east at least has some semblance of a plan moving forward (the Yankees are the Yankees, Blue Jays are looking to compete now, Rays are restocking for another run when Franco hits his prime, Baltimore is in rebuild mode), I’ve yet to hear any kind of strategy for turning things around at Fenway. When you’re the 3rd most valuable franchise in the sport, with a $3.3B valuation, and you’re spending like you’re a small market team, something is rotten in the front office.
If Boston is hanging their hat on the signing of Kike Hernandez as a way to show they’re addressing roster issues then God help them. Red Sox fans can look back fondly on the 2018 outfield corps as one of the most exciting in all of baseball. Benintendi, Betts, and Bradley actually made a spectacle out of playing defense, and were a key reason why the Sox won the World Series that year. Fast forward two seasons later, all 3 are gone, and you’re looking at a likely opening day outfield of Franchy Cordero, Alex Verdugo, and Hunter Renfroe. This is the starting outfield for a team like Pittsburgh, Miami or Cincinnati, not a former juggernaut like the Red Sox, who at one point were tied to every big name free agent on the market.
Chaim Bloom has made a career out of “moneyballing” low budget rosters into playoff contenders with Tampa Bay. But that was out of necessity. When you have access to capital, use it! At least fans can look forward to Alex Cora returning from exile to hopefully turn things around. Although, it will be interesting to see how he connects with this overhauled roster, many of whom weren’t there for the success of 2018.
Which brings us to the Yankees. The Bronx Bombers return an equally terrifying batting order for 2021, so offensively they’ll be just fine. The million dollar question (or in the Yankees case, the tens of millions of dollars question) is how healthy is their pitching going to be?
Gerrit Cole is their locked in number one starter. From there however, New York is placing a HEAVY bet on the rest of their rotation’s ability to bounce back from injury. Corey Kluber threw all of one inning last year due to a shoulder injury. Jameson Taillon spent all of 2020 recovering from Tommy John surgery. Ditto for Luis Severino who had a partially torn UCL and bone chip in his right elbow. Needless to say, the medical staff in New York will have their hands full this year monitoring the pitchers in pinstripes.
That being said, the AL East is still New York’s to lose. While Toronto will likely keep things interesting down the stretch, the Yankees should emerge as AL East champions with the Blue Jays earning a wildcard berth. In terms of storylines however, there aren’t many other divisions in baseball that will have as many to watch over the upcoming season as what’s likely to unfold here in 2021.
CBA implications
When we recently sat down with ESPN’s Jon Pessah he pointed to the ongoing CBA negotiations as one the more intriguing things to keep an eye on, and for good reason. With the current CBA set to expire at the end of the 2021 season, and the players & owners seemingly miles apart on several key issues we may be looking at a work stoppage in the near future.
One need only look as far as the contentious negotiations that took place this past year to get the modified schedule in place for 2020 as an example of this divide. The MLB had a prime opportunity to capture viewers, and get eyes on the sport last year and they simply couldn’t get it done. Infact, by letting the negotiations drag on as long as they did, they likely did more harm to the MLB brand for casual viewers than anything. Both the owners and players came off as greedy, stubborn elites, unworthy of the sympathies of the “regular Joe” sports fan.
The real question however is what will the players union do in response to the owners unwillingness to move off their demands? Many owners around the league view the leadership at the union level as weaker than it has been in years past and will look to capitalize on that at the negotiating table. The players on the other hand, are displeased with some of the free agency negotiations and salary disputes over the past 2-3 years where premier talents have lingered on the open market like never before.
With both sides so far apart, expect to hear CBA talk pop up frequently over the 2021 MLB season and beyond. Until a deal gets hammered out, this will be a major storyline worth monitoring as it could very well lead to players strike or lockout.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @dynessports