The 2024 MLB Preseason Power Rankings

Out in Left's first team-by-team assessment

Photo by Dez Hester @DezHester on Unsplash

I found myself the other night looking out the window wondering what the void is in my life. It is baseball. I pulled up Elly De La Cruz highlight and I felt more alive than I had in months. But with spring training starting next week, I became nervous that I wasn’t in baseball shape, so I took it upon myself to write cheeky blurbs on all 30 MLB teams.

30. Oakland Athletics

A’s owner John Fisher is a nepo baby exploiting a government-sanctioned monopoly and is more focused on getting Nevada taxpayers to pay for his team’s possible relocation to Las Vegas than on investing in the team he has in Oakland. Thanks to Fisher’s negligence, the A’s roster is overwhelmed in the major leagues. It is sad to watch.

29. Chicago White Sox

Since their team won the 2021 AL Central, White Sox fans have suffered the following, in chronological order:

• The Sox lost an uncompetitive American League Division Series to the Houston Astros.

• During the 2022 season, then-manager Tony La Russa called for his team to intentionally walk the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Trea Turner, who was at the plate with a 1-2 count. The next batter hit a homer to take the lead, and the Dodgers would go on to win the game.

• La Russa took a medical leave for a heart ailment in the middle of the year, then retired for the second time after the White Sox missed the playoffs with a .500 record.

• The team started the 2023 season 7-21.

• Star shortstop Tim Anderson ignited a brawl, then quickly departed that brawl.

• The team dismantled a core that once featured Anderson and prime Carlos Rodon, Lucas Giolito, Jose Abreu, Liam Hendricks, Eloy Jiminez, Luis Robert Jr., Lance Lynn, and Yasmani Grandal.

• Former Chicago reliever Keynan Middleton told the media that White Sox players slept through games in the bullpen and missed meetings and practice with impunity. Then-general manager Rick Hahn didn’t exactly refute the claims and was fired a couple of weeks later.

• The team finished the 2023 season with 101 losses.

The White Sox are going nowhere, except maybe to Nashville.

28. Colorado Rockies

Despite Kris Bryant being the best player in the minor leagues for a season-and-a-half, the Chicago Cubs denied his promotion to the bigs until April 17, 2015, a date that delayed his eventual free agency by an entire year. After Rookie of the Year and MVP campaigns, a World Series championship, and a trade to the San Francisco Giants, Bryant finally earned his free agency, and ahead of the 2022 season he signed a much-deserved seven-year, $182 million contract with the Colorado Rockies. He’s been hurt ever since and the Rockies have been irrelevant. A solid season from both Bryant and the Rockies would take the edge off of what at this point is sports business lore: Bryant got so screwed by MLB’s arbitration system, they changed the rules because of him.

Kris Bryant (AP Photo)

27. Washington Nationals

Almost half of the Nats’ payroll goes to Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin. The latter has been a below average pitcher since 2019. The former has pitched just 30.4 innings since signing a $245 million deal after the Nats won the 2019 World Series and appears finished with the game. The 2024 Washington Nationals will not be good at baseball. That’s not because of Strasburg and Corbin. That’s because Nats management won’t spend on anyone else.

26. Los Angeles Angels

You know that feeling when you make fun of something for so long you start to sympathize with it? For example, I had been mock-singing Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” for years, but now you’ll have to pry the iPod playing that underappreciated arena rock masterpiece from my cold, dead hands. That’s the Los Angeles Angels. I didn’t actually want Mike Trout to not win a World Series. I didn’t actually want two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani and the greatest individual seasons ever to go to waste. After Ohtani left for the team actually in L.A., the one able to pay him $700 million and surround him with other stars, the Angels are teetering dangerously close to a rebuild in this, Trout’s age-32 season. Why can’t the Angels just be good for once???

Arte Moreno, that’s why. The team’s owner since 2003, Moreno is responsible for all the failed free agent signings that span Before Trout and After Trout, and he’s responsible for a farm system that never supplied Trout or Ohtani with reinforcements. Moreno was even a part of an Angels Stadium redevelopment deal that devolved into a federal corruption case. After the deal collapsed, he explored a sale of the team, but ultimately decided to maintain ownership. Too bad for the Angels.

25. Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pirates’ third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes wears a Shop-Vac for a glove and 6’7” shortstop Oneil Cruz fires SM-6 missiles from his right hand, but a team needs more than defensive highlights from two positions. The Pirates are probably a year away from contending for a playoff spot, which is to say they are probably a year away from all-world pitching prospect Paul Skenes joining the rotation full-time.

24. Kansas City Royals

Kansas City hasn't developed a pitching prospect since George W. Bush declared mission accomplished in the Iraq War, and they’re always in the bottom-third in team payroll, but I so badly want to compare this year’s Royals team to the 1980s Chicago Bulls—two middling franchises about to be led to Midwestern immortality by a generational talent. Shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. is that good.

Michael Jordan never missed the playoffs, though, and by winning percentage he never had a season as bad as last year’s 106-loss Royals. As much as I want them to, the Royals won’t be good in 2024, and they might not be for a long time. MLB.com rated their farm system as the second-worst in the game, and they don’t have a single top-100 prospect in the minors. It’s what forced them this offseason to sign free agent pitchers Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo, and Will Smith, along with outfielder Hunter Renfroe and utilityman Adam Frazier. At least the Royals were smart enough to sign Witt Jr. to a contract that could last until 2037, when President Eric Trump will declare mission accomplished on climate change. God help us.  

23. Miami Marlins

Luis Arraez, the Marlins’ second baseman and best player, swings at everything, never walks, doesn’t hit the ball hard, and he can’t field, throw, or run. The one thing he’s good at, putting the bat on the ball, he does better than anyone on the planet. He’s won back-to-back batting titles, and according to Baseball Savant he’s in the 100th-percentile in expected batting average, strikeout rate, and whiff rate. To me, it’s the weirdest skill set in the game, which matches the Marlins having the weirdest roster: a battalion of good, young starters paired with a battalion of utility players. Their -57 run differential last season was the lowest ever for a playoff team, and after making zero notable moves this offseason it seems they’re trying to repeat such an oddity.

22. Cleveland Guardians

The Guardians don’t love light-hitting defensive specialists. They love no-hitting defensive specialists. What else explains catcher Austin Hedges, second baseman Andrés Giménez, and outfielder Myles Straw comprising one-third of their starting lineup? It doesn’t matter, though, when they can develop pitching prospects on demand and have The Most Underrated Player in Baseball™ in third baseman José Ramírez. The Guards did lose legendary manager Terry Francona to retirement, but they play in the AL Central. They’ll be fine.

21. San Francisco Giants

People hype the Even Year Giants, with their World Series wins in 2010, 2012, and 2014, but the most insane season in the Giants’ long history is the 107-win 2021 team. The Giants had won 100 games just twice in the preceding century, in 1962 and 2003. The latter team had Barry Bonds, the former had Willie Mays. The 2021 team had Brandon Crawford, who is not in any way Barry Bonds or Willie Mays.

It was probably the worst thing for the franchise to pull 107 wins out of a hat; it convinced them that Gabe Kapler was a good manager and that their player development and scouting departments were up to snuff. Over the next two seasons, they whiffed on Aaron Judge then Carlos Correra in free agency and had approximately 1.5 reliable starting pitchers. I would say that signing outfield Jung Hoo Lee from his native South Korea and manager Bob Melvin from the San Diego Padres are meant to get them back on track, but their track record isn’t 2021. It’s the two years after that and the sixteen full seasons before it, when the Giants averaged 81 wins as a.500 ball club. That’s what they’ll be in 2024.

20. Detroit Tigers

Squint at the Detroit Tigers, and you’ll see an interestingly constructed and underrated roster ready to build on last season's 78-84 record. Then tilt your head to the left, and you’ll see washed veterans and a bunch of young guys who can never quite figure it out. This Tigers team is going to cannonball into the ALCS and become America’s postseason sweethearts or they’re going to be eliminated from the playoffs by July and abandon their entire rebuilding project. There is no in between.

19. Milwaukee Brewers

The good: the Brewers have a lineup featuring Christian Yelich, Rhys Hoskins, William Contreras, Willy Adames, and Gary Sanchez, and the pitching staff is led by Freddy Peralta and Devin Williams’ changeup.

The bad: the Brewers traded ace Corbin “I stole the 2021 NL Cy Young Award from Zack Wheeler” Burnes to the Baltimore Orioles, and Craig Counsell, arguably the best manager in the game, left for the archrival Chicago Cubs. 

The ugly: Ownership threatened relocation for months and ultimately secured $500 million of the public’s money this offseason to renovate American Family Field. 

The stadium deal requires the Brewers to kick in $150 million, which makes it feels like their recent roster moves are rearranging the deck chairs before their next cost-slashing rebuild. Trading away your best player is not a sign of a team doing all it can to win. And if they’re not willing to keep Burnes at the market rate, then why would they keep their second-best player in Williams before he hits free agency after next season? It’s a shame because the next class of homegrown players—outfielder Jackson Chourio and second baseman Bruce Turang and their minor league comrades—are talented enough to help Milwaukee win its first championship.

18. Boston Red Sox

My brain is still broken from the Mookie Betts trade four years ago, so please forgive my not having a coherent opinion on the 2024 Red Sox. All I know is it appears owner John Henry is hurting for cash, since the team’s most notable transaction this offseason is authorizing Netflix to follow them around for a show.

17. New York Mets

I despise the Mets more than any team in sports, but I credit owner Steve Cohen for pushing his chips to the middle of the table last season. It's a rare act in American sports, so it’s worth stating that an owner spending on their team’s roster to try and win games is a good thing.

The subsequent flame out and tear down at the trade deadline obscure the quality still in Queens. Third base is iffy, but every other position is filled by a good or great player. If the Mets disappoint again in 2024, then it’ll be due to their rotation. Kodai Senga looks like a steal after signing a five-year, $75 million contract before last season, but behind him are a bunch of oft-injured dudes on one-year prove-it deals. 

16. Chicago Cubs

The Cubs collapsed last September and management pinned the blame not on the thin and injury-prone pitching staff they constructed or their bad team defense, but on manager David Ross, who was fired in favor of Craig Counsell. For Cubs fans’ mental health, Counsell better be the best manager in baseball. The team doesn’t seem interested in bringing back a resurgent Cody Bellinger and his defensive versatility, and their pitching additions were a mixed bag. They landed prized Japanese free agent starter Shota Imanaga, but let Marcus Stroman walk. In the bullpen, fans will need to be content with Hector Neris, who’s approaching the journeyman stage of his career, and Yancy Almonte, whose season ERAs plotted on a chart would create a sine wave. I don’t think the Cubs got better this offseason.

15. St. Louis Cardinals

In his first year managing the club, Oli Marmol led the Cardinals to 93 wins and a division title. That team was way too good to get swept in the 2022 NL Wild Card series. In Marmol’s second year, the Cardinals lost 91 games. That team was way too good to finish last in the division. They’re running it back in 2024, hoping a third time’s a charm for Nolan Arenado, Paul Goldschmidt, and the gang. The difference is their rotation is downright geriatric. If 80s babies Sonny Gray, Mike Mikolas, Lance Lynn, and Kyle Gibson can eke more competence out of their weathered bones, then the Cardinals could walk away with the NL Central. If they don’t, then Marmol’s seat will be the hottest in baseball.

14. San Diego Padres

The Padres have a depth issue, as I pointed out in San Diego Magazine. It’s not that they have bad players behind starting pitchers Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove, and Michael King and lineup mainstays Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis, and Xander Boegarts. It’s that they have no players behind them. As of this writing, they have two outfielders on the active roster—two! And Tatis isn’t even a real right fielder! The team’s depth chart lists Matt Waldron and Pedro Avila, with their combined 104.3 career innings, as the fourth and fifth starters, respectively, but I suspect that’s because the web admin couldn’t save the page without listing at least five guys. In an attempt to improve the roster, general manager A.J. Preller will make moves before the regular season begins, and I know this because you can’t play baseball with two outfielders.

13. Cincinnati Reds

Elly De La Cruz is the greatest thing to ever happen in sports history.

12. Seattle Mariners

The 2024 Mariners are exactly what a competitive, mid-market team should be: a mix of homegrown talent, value free agents, and savvy trade acquisitions, punctuated by a couple high-priced all-stars, who in this case are center fielder Julio Rodriguez and ace Luis Castillo. Setting aside human aging, it’s a team that would earn or compete for wild card berths until the end of time. That might not placate a fan base desperate for the first World Series championship in franchise history, but you can’t win a ring without first making the playoffs and making the playoffs provides the essential revenue to keep making the playoffs.

11. Minnesota Twins

The Twins were probably the team I heard about and watched the least last season, and since winning a terrible AL Central they let Sonny Gray leave for the Cardinals and traded one of the league’s best second baseman in Jorge Polanco to the Mariners. They also can’t find anyone to put them on TV. So why are the Twins ranked so high? They launch baseballs in orbit at Target Field. The 2019 team set a record with 307 team home runs (since matched by last year’s Atlanta Braves), and in 2023 the Twins hit the third-most home runs with 233. With climate change ensuring Minnesota will never be cold again, the Twins are only going to score more. Oh, and Byron Buxton is back! knocks on wood, crosses fingers, prays to Pedro Cerrano’s Jobu statue

10. Tampa Bay Rays

The Rays’ best pitcher will be a former independent leaguer who bursts onto the scene after flying in on a red eye from Sheboygan to make a spot start. Their cleanup hitter will be a journeyman with a career .213 batting average on whom they sprinkle their player development magic dust. For some batters, manager Kevin Cash will align his defense with eight infielders. He will use a five-inning closer. The Rays will trade away their best player at the deadline. The team will win 90 games. They’ll find themselves in the ALCS.

9. Toronto Blue Jays

There’s more talent in one lock of Bo Bichette’s hair than there is in, say, the entire Marlins lineup, but since 2017 Miami and Toronto have the same number of playoff wins—zero. Such is life in the cutthroat AL East. Toronto will again be a playoff team, but in what feels like the 25th year of the Bichette-Vlad Guerrero core the Jays need to figure out how to get over the wild card hump. They were swept last year by the Twins, the year before that by the Mariners, and in 2020 by the Rays. Otherwise, they’ll be featured in a documentary thirty years from now about the 2020s Blue Jays dynasty that never was.

8. Arizona Diamondbacks

I am still traumatized by last year’s NLCS. Please respect my privacy at this time.

7. Baltimore Orioles

I will smash my face with a can of Natty Boh if I read (or write) one more analysis of the Orioles this offseason. Baseball media’s favorite team will be very good in 2024. 

6. Texas Rangers

The Rangers losing 2023 postseason ace Jordan Montgomery to free agency is a blow, but the team’s active rotation is solid without him and by September the injured Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer should be back on the mound. They also returned their entire World Series-winning lineup, shored up their only weakness by signing bullpen mercenaries David Robertson and Kirby Yates, and are managed by four-time champion Bruce Bochy. There’s really nothing to dislike about the Rangers, besides watching their home games on TV. The open seating in the suites behind home plate make it feel like I’m watching a high school reunion at a bowling alley. 

Who thought this was a good idea?

5. New York Yankees

This time last year, I texted my buddy who’s a Yankees fan and said, “Bill. Baseball is nigh. Yankees will be good.” And he said, “Doubt it.” And I said “You’re an imbecile,” then lectured him about how signing Carlos Rodon gave them the best rotation in baseball and about how DJ LeMahieu is back and about how good Anthony Rizzo would be with the shift banned.

Turns out I’m the imbecile. Aside from Cy Young-winning Gerrit Cole, Rodon and the rest of the starters were either injured or ineffective. LeMahieu was merely fine, and Rizzo missed much of the year with a concussion. The Yankees finished 82-80, a distant fourth in the AL East.

But this, this, is the year the Yankees capitalize on the prime careers of Cole and outfielder Aaron Judge, win a hundred games in a stacked division, and… again get bounced from the playoffs by the Houston Astros. 

4. Houston Astros

Having outfielders Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez in the same lineup is unfair, and so is having Justin Verlander, Framber Valdez, Cristian Javier, Jose Urquidy, Lance McCullers Jr., Luis Garcia, and Hunter Brown in the same rotation. They even signed Josh Hader, probably the best reliever in baseball since his debut in 2017, and locked up second baseman Jose Altuve for the rest of his career. If I didn’t know better, I would think the Astros are gaming the system.

3. Atlanta Braves

I know the Braves are objectively the second-best team in baseball, but I am subjectively clinging to the law of averages. Spencer Strider, Matt Olsen, Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley, Marcell Ozuna, and Ronald Acuña can’t possibly have back-to-back career years, right? Catcher Sean Murphy was on that pace, too, until submitting a brutal second half of the season, and center fielder Michael Harris II would have had a career year if not for a brutal first half of the season.

Top to bottom, the Braves’ roster is probably the best in baseball, and it matches up well against the Dodgers:

The Braves probably have the better pitching staff, too, but that can change if new Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto is as good as advertised and Walker Buehler and former Rays ace Cillian Murphy bounce back from injuries. But this dream NLCS matchup isn’t going to happen, for the Braves will again need to meet the Phillies in the NLDS. 

2. Philadelphia Phillies

Ten reasons why the Phillies are underrated:

1. They will get a full season from Bryce Harper after he missed the first couple months last season with Tommy John surgery and took a couple more months to find his stroke.

2. They will get a full season from Trea Turner, whose brain was lost in space from April to August.

3. Kyle Schwarber’s defense will shine as the team’s permanent DH.

4. Bryson Stott is criminally underrated at second base.

5. Johan Rojas is the best defensive center fielder in baseball and no one knows who he is.

6. They have one of the best rotations in baseball, with two frontline starters in Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola.

7. The bullpen has five guys who can close games.

8. Six-foot-five third baseman Alec Bohm will finally learn how to lift the ball.

9. They may not be done with big acquisitions.

10. Right fielder Nick Castellanos is a sexy beast.

1. Los Angeles Dodgers

Wake me up when the Dodgers win a World Series in a full 162-game season.