In an up for grabs AL West, none of the contenders went all in this offseason
The owners of the AL West contenders prioritized profits over parades this offseason. It has led to a division battle that is less a race to win, than a brisk walk to 90 wins.
The major theme in the American League West this offseason—saving money.
For the defending division champions, owner Jim Crane teased the possibility of high spending by saying “we have the wherewithal” to go over the luxury tax as the Astros did in 2024, but in the end, the caveats that Crane applied—”it just depends on what players are avaiable” and “we run it like a business”—mattered the most. The Astros are projected to be $4 million below the luxury tax.
Just like the in-state rivals, the Texas Rangers. Early in the offseason, Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning-News wrote that “one of owner Ray Davis’ top priorities this winter — perhaps even his No. 1 priority — is to duck under the $241MM luxury threshold.” Let me congratulation Mr. Davis on achieving his goal this offseason—the Rangers are $7 million under the luxury tax.
The Mariners brought good news to their fans—as owner John Stanton authorized an increase in payroll for this season. But not an increase that would allow for “a major free agent splash.” And that was correct. The only major league free agent the Mariners signed was Jorge Polanco, not only not a major free agent free agent splash, but one who was a Mariner in 2024.
Heck, even the Sacramento Athletics were trying to save money this offseason. They did so by spending, adding Luis Severino as a free agent. But A’s ownership only did so to avoid forfeiting revenue sharing funds, which would be greater than Severino’s salary.
An Up For Grabs Division
What is surprising about the lack of financial ambition from the AL West’s top teams is that it comes at a time when the division is completely up for grabs.
The Astros won the division with only 88 wins in 2024. Rather than try to go for it in 2025, the Astros chose to trade one of their best players in Kyle Tucker for Isaac Paredes, a fifth starter, and a prospect. That trade will likely cost the Astrso 2 to 3 wins in 2025.
The Mariners, who have won between 85 and 90 wins over each of the last four seasons, decided to stay the course. Even when the market for long term contracts for Pete Alonso and Alex Bregman collapsed, the Mariners decided not to bid for a player who could improve their atrocious offense.
The Rangers regressed hard in 2024 as they basically had a team wide offensive slump. But the combination of expected bounce backs, improved health, and an emerging young core mean they are as likely to win the division as anybody. And yet, management traded away Nathaniel Lowe and have left the closer spot open.
Often, around the trade deadline, you see fans clamoring for their team to make a big trade by dismissing the costs of such a trade: “parades over prospects” is the mantra. For the owners of the Astros, Mariners, and Rangers (and frankly lots of other MLB teams), “profits over parades” seems to be the motto.
No Clear Favorite
The lack of ambition from the owners of the AL West sets up a race to 90 wins. Actually, can you race to only 90 wins? Maybe more of a brisk walk to 90 wins.
None of the teams in the AL West seem to be candidates to run off a big win total and run away with the division. One can see that in the various pre-season standings projections. The Pecota projections at Baseball Prospectus have the Rangers favored, but only with a 41% chance of winning the division. The official Fangraphs projections have the Mariners favored, but only with a 35% chance of taking the AL West crown. Dan Szymborski does a standings projections based on his ZiPS projection system, and that is the most optimistic for us Astros fans; he gives House a 48% chance of winning the AL West.
Fans of the top three teams in the AL West can choose their favorite projection system based on which one puts their team on top. But the most important takeaway from these different projection is that each one has its favorite as an underdog to the field in the division. Each individual team is more likely to lose the AL West title than to win it.
Upside Scenarios and Their Liklihood
But someone has to win the division, even if it is with a mere 88 wins like the Astros did last season. That represents one scenario we might see in the AL West. Each team underperforms its expectations and one team limps to an uninspriring division crown.
Another possibility is that one team overperforms projections and expectations and thus wins the AL West. Again, each of the three contenders has reasons to think that it will be the one to do that.
For the Mariners, its scenario for romping to a division title is that its excellent starting rotation remains excellent, which is to say that it remains healthy. But that is what happened for them in 2024 and it was not enough. A Mariners romp to 95+ requires a bounce back season from Julio Rodriguez, who slumped in 2024 and the unexpected addition of an extra power source. This is where adding Pete Alonso would have helped, but the Mariners will have to hope that they get playoff Randy Arozarena in a regular season, Luke Raley finds a gear he has never found, or that they unearth a gem somewhere unexpected. The Mariners are projected to start Rowdy Tellez as their Opening Day DH, so unexpected is indeed the watchword here.
The Mariners seem the team with the highest floor of the three contenders due to their excellent rotation, but they seem the one least likely to actually exceed expectations.
The Astros have traditionally won the AL West not by having its single best player (that has usually been Mike Trout or Rodriguez), but by having the largest collection of star level talent.
Due to aging and free agency losses, the Astros have less star level talent in 2025 than in any recent season, but they may have the most above average talent in the division. The additions of Christian Walker and Isaac Paredes probably won’t match the contributions of the departed Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman, but they should still put up value to back stars such as Yordan Alvarez and Framber Valdez.
The upside case for the Astros is that their starting rotation performs like it did after June 2024 and skips entirely its disastrous start from the 2024 season. Hunter Brown pitched like an emerging star in that period and he needs to continue it. I also highlighted Spencer Arrighetti in a recent article as a potential breakout. He needs to do that for the Astros to reach their upside scenario.
The Rangers suffered through an inexplicably bad 2024, which saw them finish below .500. While injuries played a part in the Rangers disappointing year, the bigger culprit was underperformance from key lineup contributors. There are lots of reasons to think that the Marcus Semien and Adolis Garica will bounce back and thus the Rangers will be a contender.
Their upside scenario relies on the team’s young core taking a step forward in 2025. Some of that could come from improved health, as Evan Carter and Josh Jung spent more time on the IL in 2024 than in the lineup. Wyatt Langford did not meet expectations in 2024, but they were unreasonably high. He did establish himself as a major league player and improvement in 2025 would make him an All Star.
The Rangers thus have the most upside of any of the AL West teams, but they also have the most vulnerability. They already have two rotation options (Jon Gray and Cody Bradford) scheduled to start the season on the IL and two of their other rotation pieces (Jacob de Grom and Tyler Mahle) are coming off of arm surgeries.
Backing up these rotation arms are two prospects that are more famous that productive so far in their career—Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker. The scenario where a majority of these pitchers have good and healthy years for the Rangers is a happy one in South Oklahoma, but it is also not the likeliest scenario.
None of the upside scenarios described here seem to be likely, which makes sense. If they were likely, they would be baked into the preseason projections.
But the lack of upside makes the lack of financial ambition shown the owners of the AL West more notable. A move to add 2 to 3 wins to the baseline expectation for each team would produce big increases in each team’s likelihood of winning the division.
Of course, there are no guarantees that an increase in payroll will lead to division title and a playoff berth. What is guaranteed from keeping spending down? Increased profits.
That’s great for Crane, Davis, and Stanton’s wallets and heirs, but is less good for those of us hoping our team gets to the playoffs this season.
I love your stuff. But we have seen many many examples of big spending leaving teams with no championships and hamstrung by excessive payrolls for years that make it even less likely to win future championships. The Astros bucket that trend and wound up with the best stretch of baseball, or int sport, in Houston history. We don't want to go back to the late 2000s approach of going after free agents that led to the 2011-14 teams. Not spending money doesn't mean that an "owner is putting profits over parades." They could be using common sense in building a team to win for the future.
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