MLB Offseason Wish List: American League

The 2024 World Series is over, which means after a respectful period of rest and reflection, we will turn our eyes toward the 2025 MLB season and the offseason moves that will get us there.

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OK, that’s long enough.

Baseball’s offseason doesn’t have the down time of other sports. Free agents are now free agents, and while they can’t sign with a new team until early next week, they can already re-up with their former team, and players can be traded immediately. There might have been a trade made while you read that sentence. It might make something that follows look dumb. That would stink!

So, as our minds turn to next season, yesterday and today I’m running a little exercise. We know the free agents. We know the potential opt-outs. We can guess at the players who might be on the trading block. Let’s try to do a jigsaw puzzle! It’s the MLB offseason wish list, projecting a player or two (or three, I get greedy) for each team to target this offseason. (And every choice has to be unique, because I could write “They should sign Juan Soto” for all 30 teams and just be done.)

I’ll get a lot of this wrong. If I get more than a handful right, y’all can go ahead and lionize me. But in addition to giving me something to do to sate my nervous energy, it’s also a useful exercise to consider which teams have which needs and how they might address them. So let’s go — National League Thursday, American League today.

2024-2025 MLB Offseason Wish List: American League

Baltimore Orioles

Sign Juan Soto

The New York teams are the ones most connected to Soto, and not without reason. But the Orioles are sprinting into their window, and they have a clear opening at right field/DH with Anthony Santander heading into free agency. Soto is going to be a full-time DH sooner or later, and he can hit near the top of the Baltimore lineup for a generation around a team that has a lot of cheap options. Picture it, I dare you.

Sign Jeff Hoffman

Coming off a career year in Philadelphia (and not by a little; he had a career 6.40 ERA in Colorado and 4.28 in Cincinnati), Hoffman could line up to be the closer if Félix Bautista can’t come back strong or at least anchor a bullpen that will be called on for a lot of innings.

Boston Red Sox

Sign Max Fried

Could the Red Sox sign a third baseman, trade Triston Casas and move Rafael Devers to first base? Yes, but there’s only one Alex Bregman out there, and if it’s not him it’s probably not worth the effort (yet). And with guys like Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell and/or Marcelo Mayer due to be a part of the lineup in 2025 (maybe even to start the season), the team should instead look to bolster its flagging rotation. Fried is probably the second-best pitcher on the market (at least among the non-Japanese options) and could front this rotation for five years or more.

Sign Tanner Scott

Scott was elite in 2024, but he ended the year on a Padres team that has a lot of relievers already in the fold for 2025. Liam Hendriks is due back next season, but building up this pen would be good for the rotation, Max Fried or no Max Fried.

Chicago White Sox

Trade Away Garrett Crochet and Luis Robert Jr.

This offseason isn’t about who the White Sox should add, it’s about capitalizing on the assets they have. Crochet’s value will never be higher, and they should deal him while he’s still a healthy guy coming off a borderline Cy Young performance. Meanwhile, yes, Robert is coming off a terrible season, but he’ll still have believers. I have teams in mind for both in this exercise, but ultimately, the White Sox should try to jump-start their rebuild by getting the best offers they can find.

Cleveland Guardians

Sign Willy Adames

The Guardians aren’t likely to do this, because they spend money about as willingly as Scrooge McDuck, but oh what a move it would be. The team is finally putting some pieces around Jose Ramirez, but Adames, with 87 homers the last three years, would be the biggest piece yet.

Sign Luis Severino

I’m just never going to be convinced Severino’s body will stay healthy over the long haul, but that’s why he makes sense for Cleveland, the team with the best bullpen in the game. No team would call for fewer innings from a starter, so it’s the best chance for Severino’s body to keep up.

Stick Chase DeLauter in Right Field and Do Nothing

DeLauter would have been up by now if not for injury and should debut early in 2025, if not right away. But one of the problems with teams in recent years has been a reluctance to stick with a prospect through early struggles. DeLauter might hit right away and render this moot, but if he does scuffle … don’t worry about it. The lineup is finally good enough to support him figuring it out, so let him.

Detroit Tigers

Sign Teoscar Hernández

Hernández earned a World Series ring in his lone season in Los Angeles, hitting a career-high 33 homers. That lets him go into free agency as a potential lineup anchor, and he could do that for a Tigers team that could use a bopper, especially if Spencer Torkelson doesn’t right the ship. There would be some finagling with Riley Greene, Parker Meadows, Matt Vierling and Kerry Carpenter, but that’s a small hurdle for a team that’s ready to start moving forward.

Sign Kenley Jansen

The Tigers couldn’t nail the bullpen thing in 2024, and while Kenley Jansen is on the back half of his career, he’s still never had an ERA of 4.00 or higher for any of his 15 seasons, something no one else in the 300-save club can say. Give him one more shot to be the primary closer for a playoff team.

Houston Astros

Sign Yusei Kikuchi

Kikuchi with:

• Seattle Mariners: 3 years, 15-24, 4.97 ERA, 1.9 bWAR
• Toronto Blue Jays: 2.5 years, 21-22, 4.48 ERA, 0.8 bWAR
• Houston Astros: 10 games, 5-1, 2.70 ERA, 1.3 bWAR

It’s not that easy, of course, but the Astros unlocked something in Kikuchi, and they’d do well to keep that around (and I believe they will).

Trade for Yandy Díaz 

I’m a little surprised Díaz even finished the year in Tampa given his age and contract status, but he’s a career .288 hitter who is only a year removed from leading the AL in batting average. He’s played at least 134 games in each of the last four years. He has plenty of experience at third base (290 games, including 102 there as recently as 2022), so while you wouldn’t want to turn the position completely over to him (he’d be better served replacing Jon Singleton at first), the versatility would come in handy for a team heading into a new age of itself.

Kansas City Royals

Sign Jurickson Profar

The Royals overperformed in 2024 and would do very well (a) not to stand pat, but also (b) not to overcommit to pieces like they are one step from superteamdom. Profar was in the NL MVP conversation for a big part of the 2024 season, and of course that’s not his reality going forward, he would immediately become the team’s best left fielder since Alex Gordon. (And if there’s a team out there that still thinks MJ Melendez can be a catcher, this frees him up as a trade chip.)

Trade for Brett Baty

For everything that unexpectedly went right for the Mets last year, Baty’s failure to launch has rendered him expendable for the team. He seems like a prime change-of-scenery candidate after a .215/.282/.325 slash line in 169 games for the Mets over three years. In Kansas City, he can immediately take over for Maikel Garcia and ply his trade out of the spotlight without having to be a cornerstone of the lineup.

Sign Clay Holmes

Holmes’ collapse in 2024 was wildly overstated — yes, his ERA went from 2.54 to 2.86 to 3.14 the last three years, but his FIP went from 2.85 to 2.65 to 3.02, and his xFIP went 2.90 to 2.97 to 3.01. The biggest thing that changed was his timing, as more than half of his career 25 blown saves came with last year’s 13. He’s still a good reliever and can (and maybe should) still be a closer. You know who really needs a good closer? This Royals team.

Los Angeles Angels

Sign Blake Snell

After a disastrous first couple months of 2024, Snell righted the ship in a big way in the second half and set himself up to opt out. Snell is exactly the type of pitcher the Angels have gone for in the past (and in fact they were one of the last teams in on him last offseason before he landed in San Francisco). For an Angels team that needs a splash, Snell’s risk/reward profile is a clear fit.

Sign David Robertson

“Player goes to Texas, rebuilds his value, and then lands with the Angels where things take a big turn for the worse” is a tale about as old as those two teams. Here’s the latest entry.

Minnesota Twins

Sign Christian Walker

The Twins have plenty of weapons. What they need is reliability. And yes, Walker missed a small chunk of last year, but he played 317 of a possible 324 games in 2022-2023, and he’s put up a .481 slugging percentage across the last three years. He can be the everyday piece that the oft-injured guys like Carlos Correa, Royce Lewis and Byron Buxton orbit around.

Sign Tyler O’Neill

Matt Wallner and Trevor Larnach are left-handed hitters who can’t really hit lefties. O’Neill is a righty hitter who makes southpaws wish they could go hide somewhere. And while he’s probably not cut out to be an everyday center fielder, he’s capable enough of spelling Buxton there on occasion. Adding O’Neill would require more mixing and matching of lineups on a daily basis, but it could make the Twins have one of the best composite outfields in the game.

New York Yankees

Commit to Jasson Domínguez

This is the No. 1 move. The Yankees need to let Domínguez sink or swim, and with Alex Verdugo and Juan Soto both hitting free agency, it’s likely they will.

Trade for Garrett Crochet

The Yankees aren’t actually light on starting pitchers, but then you can never have too many, and Crochet’s presence would be a nice anchor alongside Gerrit Cole. They should be calling the White Sox pretty much every day to see what it would take.

Trade for Edouard Julien

With Gleyber Torres hitting the market, the Yankees need a new second baseman, only there aren’t a lot available and the Steinbrenner boys haven’t shown that much inclination to spend big. Getting a depressed asset like Julien, who fell out of favor in Minnesota but still has the pedigree, could be a nice fix.

Sign Blake Treinen

Treinen pitched a total of 5 games in 2022 and 2023 combined, but he was back to full strength last year, putting up a 1.93 ERA and 1.4 bWAR for the champion Dodgers. He’s not the kind of guy a team signs to be the closer, and the Yankees have Luke Weaver set for that role in 2025, but Weaver doesn’t exactly have a long track record of dominance, so having a nice fallback plan is wise.

Oakland Athletics

Capitalize on Assets

There’s no point in signing any big names, and there’s no real reason to think any big names would choose to go to Vegasamentoakland given the situation and ownership. The A’s are better than you probably think but still not that good, and guys like Brent Rooker (30), Shea Langeliers (almost 27) and Mason Miller (26 and an injury-prone reliever) would command fine returns. Just work on future assets. It’s boring.

Seattle Mariners

Sign Pete Alonso and Gleyber Torres

The Mariners have to get offense help. They have to do it in a big way. That rotation not making the postseason is inexcusable. So splurge. Get a big-name right side of the infield. It won’t give this team an elite offense all at once, but it will take away a lot of the excuses.

Tampa Bay Rays

Sign Ha-Seong Kim

A versatile player who is a good shortstop and has experience around the infield, who walks a lot but doesn’t have eye-popping offense? How has he not been a Ray yet?

Sign Carson Kelly

This is a very bad catchers market, and the Rays have a very big hole at the catcher position. That’s a bad mix! But we aren’t that far removed from Kelly being seen as the possible catcher of the future, first in St. Louis and then in Arizona. The Rays love to rehab those types of guys.

Texas Rangers

Trade for Devin Williams

The Rangers have been adrift at sea in the hunt for a reliable bullpen for a while now, and while Kirby Yates/David Robertson/José Leclerc were … fine last year (Yates was far better than fine), all three are entering free agency. Rather than throwing money after those guys, Texas should call their surprisingly common trade partner in Milwaukee, who has a history of trading valuable pieces before they leave, and add a locked-in closer for at least next year (and then, yes, talk extension).

Sign Mark Canha

Canha isn’t a regular player who will ever (again) qualify for the batting title, but you could saw both his arms off and he’d still be able to draw a handful of walks. For a Rangers team that went from a .337 OBP in 2023 to a .305 last year, and who has question marks in the outfield (Evan Carter’s failure to launch, Adolis García’s regression), at third base (Josh Jung can’t stay healthy) and at DH (was Josh Smith’s 2024 for real?), Canha can fill in at all those positions as needed.

Toronto Blue Jays

Sign Jack Flaherty

The Blue Jays have been hunting for rotation stability for years with guys like José Berríos and Kevin Gausman and (briefly) Robbie Ray, and the hunt continues with Flaherty, who fixed his flagging career in Detroit and Los Angeles in 2024. He went from a guy who had to settle for a one-year prove-it deal last offseason to one who could get a long(-ish)-term deal here.

Sign Seranthony Domínguez 

Can Jordan Romano return healthy? Are Chad Green and Erik Swanson and Génesis Cabrera reliable relievers? The Blue Jays have a bunch of “maybe” relievers, and while Domínguez would be one more, a lot of maybes that lean toward yesses is certainly a viable way to construct a bullpen.