Life isn't a zero-sum game, but baseball certainly is. We mostly focus on teams getting better in the form of big signings and giant trades, but for any team to improve, another team has to get worse. There are 2,430 wins out there on the schedule, and if your team gets better, you have to get those additional wins from someone.
Whether through poor evaluation of players, lack of willingness to invest in the team or simply downright self-sabotage, bad moves have been made. Here are our picks for baseball's most disappointing offseason moves, in terms of winning games in 2020.
The Mookie Betts trade
You can make a reasonable case that acquiring Alex Verdugo and Jeter Downs, dumping David Price's contract (or at least half of it) and pushing the reset button on the luxury-tax penalty was a fair valuation for one season of Mookie Betts at $27 million. You can also make a reasonable case that it was far healthier to eat steamed vegetables at your Super Bowl party than buffalo wings.
If the Red Sox were one of the league doormats, this trade wouldn't really matter. But Boston is a team that, while coming off a disappointing 2019 season, still has enough of a foundation to get 88-92 wins in 2020. Win totals in the 80s are most valuable in that they boost a team's playoff chances the most. Similarly, letting wins in the 80s get away is most damaging, and the Red Sox just dropped themselves into significant underdog status in the American League East and well down the ranks of wild-card contenders.
Colorado's "can't-do" attitude
After playoff appearances in 2017 and 2018, the only consecutive playoff appearances in franchise history, the Rockies decided to address their depth issues by doing, well, almost nothing. After dropping to 71-91 in 2019, the Rockies felt an urgent need to change course and do ... totally nothing.
With stars such as Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story already on board, and Jon Gray having a breakout season, the Rockies addressed their need for help in the outfield, rotation and bullpen -- by announcing they were suddenly out of money. Of course, the payroll figure was known a year ago -- Colorado didn't make any significant additions during the season -- and Arenado apparently was assured that the team would remain competitive. Co-owner Charlie Monfort's odd use of sabermetrics aside, Colorado's roster is no better than the one that lost 90 games last year, and now the team's best player is extremely unhappy.
Reds fail to fill their biggest hole
There are many teams for whom Nick Castellanos would have been a major upgrade -- we'll get to two of them next -- but by the time the Reds signed him, the outfield wasn't the team's biggest problem. Castellanos is a fine hitter, but a dreadful defensive player, and with Jesse Winker, Nick Senzel, Aristides Aquino, Shogo Akiyama and Phillip Ervin, the outfield was just fine. Now, Betts would have been a significant upgrade, of course, but Castellanos is merely above average, not an MVP candidate.
While Castellanos is an improvement, the Reds didn't fill their largest hole, the shortstop position. Both the ZiPS and Steamer projection systems peg Cincinnati as the league's weakest team at shortstop. Maybe Didi Gregorius didn't want to sign with the Reds, but Gregorius getting only $14 million for a one-year contract indicates they didn't do much to drive up the bidding. Before Gregorius' injury-shortened 2019, he was the better player than Castellanos each of the previous four seasons, and signing Gregorius would have addressed a team need.
The Reds are a much improved team overall, but they've hurt themselves by not addressing shortstop.
Cubs, Indians short an outfielder
The Cubs are totally out of money, scout's honor, playing in that tiny market of Chicago. Last season, the outfield of Kyle Schwarber, Albert Almora Jr. and Jason Heyward was a drag on the team's offense, necessitating a July trade for Castellanos. Chicago didn't re-sign Castellanos or do much to address the outfield situation, bringing in only Steven Souza Jr. With a lone 2-WAR season in his career, Souza is hardly the savior the outfield needs. Nor is Ian Happ, whose .242/.364/.432 line in Triple-A was rather lackluster in a season when the league was using the MLB crazy ball. It's hard to justify a large-market team that had the benefit of monetizing the franchise's first World Series victory in more than a century letting itself fall back to the pack like this.
While the Indians have a better claim than the Cubs to be short on cash, their need for help in the outfield is even greater. The team blundered by letting Michael Brantley walk without even making a qualifying offer, and after the outfield performed as miserably as projected in 2019, the Indians again pinched pennies in the outfield, settling for signing Domingo Santana. Against that, the Twins added Josh Donaldson this offseason. The White Sox signed Yasmani Grandal, Dallas Keuchel, Gio Gonzalez and Edwin Encarnacion. Cesar Hernandez at second is a nice enough pickup, and Santana will have to do for outfield reinforcements, but the Indians are in danger of watching their AL Central rivals close their contending window for them.
Angels miss out on adding pitching
Anthony Rendon was a massive addition to the lineup and a better signing than Albert Pujols was at the time of his deal, by far. The Angels acquired Dylan Bundy from the Orioles and signed Julio Teheran, but fell short in the race for every other available starting pitcher. Shohei Ohtani could be that ace, but he's also a young pitcher coming off Tommy John surgery and won't return to the mound until mid-May. The Angels need more help than even an Ohtani breakout would provide. The ZiPS and Steamer projections agree; both systems have the Angels with the worst rotation of any likely 2020 contender. A team that has more or less wasted much of Mike Trout's prime has to do better than this.
Orioles dump their best player from 2019
The Orioles were destined for the AL East basement no matter what they did, but was there a more cynical move than the team threatening to non-tender a 4-WAR player in an attempt to force a last-minute trade? Jonathan Villar compiled a slash line of .274/.339/.453, hit 24 homers, stole 40 bases and scored 111 runs on the second-worst offense in the American League. Yet Baltimore treated Villar as a pure salary dump.