A look back at 2024 and ahead to 2025. The current state of the Hot Stove and other news from around MLB.
Here’s to a Cubs World Series Championship in 2025. (If they win, I’m going remind you all I called it. If they don’t, then I was just making New Year’s chit-chat that will have been forgotten by October.)
- Dayn Perry has a reason for every 2024 losing team to be hopeful for 2025. Although in the case of the White Sox, it’s “Can’t be worse, can it?”
- Manny Randhawa lists things he’s looking forward to in the 2025 MLB season.
- Sarah Langs has 24 reasons why “Baseball is the best” in 2024.
- One potential 2025 breakout player for each team. PCA!
- The MLB Pipeline crew make some predictions for 2025.
- Kiley McDaniel ranks the best and worst moves of the offseason so far. (ESPN+ sub. req.)
- Former Cub Lenny Randle died on Sunday at 75. Randle was nicknamed “The Most Interesting Man in Baseball” and the nickname was quite apt.
- You can add Randle to Will Leitch’s list of those whom we lost in 2024.
- On to the Hot Stove. The Nationals re-signed pitcher Trevor Williams to a two-year, $14 million deal.
- The Nats were busy as they also signed Josh Bell to a one-year, $6 million contract.
- R.J. Anderson predicts the new teams for the top remaining free agents.
- Gabe Lacques also looks at the current state of the free agent markets with a special emphasis on where third baseman Alex Bregman might sign. Rumors of a trip to Detroit abound.
- Lacques also looked at the market for the first baseman Pete Alonso. Jordan Schusterman does an in-depth look at Alonso’s difficulties with finding a new team.
- Will Sammon and Katie Woo report what they’re hearing about the market for free agent pitcher Jack Flaherty and Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado. (The Athletic sub. req.)
- Matt Snyder scolds the Orioles and Mariners for not seizing the opportunity to improve their teams this winter.
- Eno Sarris goes back and look at what he got right and what he got wrong about his pitcher rankings for 2024. (The Athletic sub. req.)
- Jay Jaffe’s whole thing is the Hall of Fame. He’s had his own ballot for a few years now, so he revealed his ballot and explained his decisions.
- Matt Snyder ponders the Cooperstown cases for Andy Pettitte and Mark Buehrle and wonders if we need to lower our Hall-of-Fame standards for starting pitchers in the modern age.
- The FBI has warned the major sports leagues about a series of burglaries that are targeting professional athletes.
- The Brewers have announced that they’ve reached an agreement with Diamond Sports to carry their games on FanDuel Sports again next season. The Brewers had been planning to broadcast their games through MLB.
- And finally, Matt Monagan has the best baseball scenes from non-baseball movies. Not a terrible list but again, hasn’t anyone at MLB headquarters seen Experiment in Terror?