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Throughout the offseason the CBS Sports MLB experts will bring you a weekly Batting Around roundtable breaking down pretty much anything. The latest news, a historical question, thoughts about the future of baseball, all sorts of stuff. Last week we discussed Corbin Burnes’ future. This week we’re going to tackle a bunch of questions covering the next half-decade of baseball as we begin the final five years of the 2020s.
Who will be MLB’s best player over the next five years?
R.J. Anderson: We didn’t put any restrictions on this answer, meaning one of us could answer Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Judge or Mookie Betts or Juan Soto or whomever. I’ll go with someone who, to the best of my knowledge, has not yet been described as the best player in baseball: Gunnar Henderson. He’s already had a few massive seasons, but he’s only now entering his age-24 campaign, suggesting that the best may be yet to come. Even if this is his peak, it’s a mighty one; put another way, anytime a shortstop can deliver 35-plus home runs a year, they’re bound to be involved in the “best player” convo.
Dayn Perry: The usual suspects are tempting, of course, and it’s entirely possible that the best player over the back half of the decade will turn out to be someone who isn’t presently in the majors. All that said, I’ll go with Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. He’s just 24 years of age, he’s a former No. 2 overall pick, and he’s coming off a 2024 season in which he put up an outstanding WAR of 9.4. Witt Jr. has every tool a ballplayer can have, and his skillset is such that he figures to age very well. I think he’s the guy over the next five years.
Matt Snyder: I’m gonna hold out hope that Ronald Acuña Jr. has suffered his final major injury, or at least his last one for the 2020s. He’s still only 27 years old and what we saw in 2023 is a good glimpse at the upside he has. I’m not saying he’s gonna post 8.2 WAR every single season, but he’s absolutely good enough to do so through ages 27-31. He’s my pick here.
Mike Axisa: Dayn beat me to it. Witt is my pick. He’s only 24 and he’s about as close to a perfect player as there is in the game today. Great hitting ability, great power, great defense, great speed, great durability. If there’s a flaw in his game, I don’t know what it is. I will submit Jackson Chourio as a candidate as well, I love that kid’s bat and pure hitting acumen, and it kinda feels like everyone has forgotten how good Fernando Tatis Jr. is. He turns only 26 later this month and has done nothing but rattle off above-average season after above-average season. The 2025-30 seasons will be what should be his peak years too. Witt is my pick. I also love Chourio and Henderson. And it would not shock me at all if Tatis leads baseball in WAR over the next five years.
What will be the best team over the next half-decade?
R.J. Anderson: I have to stick with the Dodgers. It’s not just that they’re the current champions, or that they have a plethora of stars in place. They also have, for my money, the best front office in pro sports, as well as an ownership group willing to pony up when asked. It’s really, really tough to remain competitive year in and year out in MLB. The Dodgers have shown they have the capacity to do it for more than a decade already — I fully expect that they can keep up their winning ways for another few years.
Dayn Perry: Part of me wants to go unconventional and say the Red Sox, what with their strong farm system and spending capacity. However, owner John Henry hasn’t done his job in quite a long time. Instead, I’ll go with the obvious answer and say the Dodgers. They have elite talent in place, vast revenues, a strong crop of young players in L.A. or on the way, a heady front office, and a motivated ownership group. Why get cute with my answer when the Dodgers are right there in front of me.
Matt Snyder: I hate that it seems too easy and obvious, but we’re trying to be right here, not make people outside Dodger Nation feel good. The Dodgers are absolutely the correct answer here. They have so much financial might in addition to one of the smartest — if not the smartest — front offices in all of baseball. There is so much organizational depth year in, year out due to their ability to build an outstanding farm system. They can use that to trade for talent or they can just sign nearly any player they so choose. It’s also a free-agent destination for reasons outside of money, so it’s such an easy sell. The only thing that can save us from them winning the World Series every single year is the funkiness of a small-sample playoff format. They’ll make the postseason all five years.
Mike Axisa: It has to be the Dodgers, right? They’re excellent at everything. Drafting, player development, trades, free agents, etc. They have the best front office in baseball supported by some of the deepest pockets in the game. The path to the Dodgers not being the baseball’s best team from 2025-30 likely involves their core players getting old quick (Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, etc.) and them being unable to keep their pitchers healthy. The Orioles should be in this conversation but aren’t because they haven’t given us any reason to think they will spend money to support their homegrown core. Also, the Yankees are good every year. Would it be a shock if they win the most games from 2025-30?
What will be the biggest change to MLB over the next five years?
R.J. Anderson: Saying that the strike-zone challenge system becomes the new norm would be cheating. I’ll go instead with a big philosophical shift: we’ll see a team attempt to make a clean break from the traditional pitching staff model. That means, rather than fielding five starting pitchers and seven or eight relievers, we’ll see teams mix and match — the way a few have taken to doing during the playoffs. Some of the smartest people I know within the industry have been predicting to me that this is the future. I’m not sure I like it, but I do suspect they’re correct and that it’s coming sooner than later.
Dayn Perry: We know that ABS is headed to MLB in the form of a challenge system in time for the 2026 season, barring the unexpected. I’ll go a step further and say that this “compromise” implementation of an automated strike zone is a sign of more radical things to come. By the end of the decade, a fully automated strike zone, in which every pitch is judged a strike or ball by the relevant technological implements, is in place in MLB. The game will be better for it.
Matt Snyder: Due to the collapse of RSNs (regional sports networks), teams cannot just sit back and count the dollars rolling in without even trying to put a good product on the field. That means the best way to make money is to win games and put butts in the seats, increasing ticket demand and allowing teams to raise ticket prices. It’ll be hard to measure, but we’ll see fewer teams completely tanking and more teams trying to win on an annual basis. I also worry that this will lead to the largest market teams increasing their advantage in spending and a serious discussion regarding a salary cap — of which I’ve long been strongly opposed — might be necessary come 2030.
Mike Axisa: Matt has it right. It’s the changing television landscape. The Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy is only the beginning. MLB has already had to pick up the broadcasts of multiple teams, and although a league-wide subscription service is a wonderful idea, MLB will lose passive subscribers (i.e. people who pay for the channel as part of their cable package but don’t watch) and the big-market teams with their own networks won’t make this easy. They won’t want to give up a chunk of their television revenue to help other teams. Ticket revenue will become a bigger piece of the pie and, in theory, that will push teams to try to win and get people out of the ballpark. This could be a great thing for fans. We could get a blackout-free streaming service and more teams making an effort to be competitive. For the league though, the collapse of RSNs is potentially a nightmare.
How many teams will there be in 2030?
R.J. Anderson: I’ll say 30 teams with announced plans to expand to 32 sometime early next decade. Commissioner Rob Manfred has expressed optimism that he’ll at least get the ball rolling in that direction before the expiration of his term. I don’t know if we’ll see those teams in action before/during the 2030 campaign, but I do think we’ll have some idea of where they’ll play and how MLB will restructure its leagues/divisions by then.
Dayn Perry: I’ll say 30 with a clear pathway to 32 at some point in the early 2030s. Rob Manfred, who’s stepping down as commissioner after his current term ends in January of 2029, is in favor of expansion but has indicated that achieving it while he’s still in charge may be overly ambitious. Given his divided attentions — the RSN complications across the league plus a CBA that expires after the 2026 season — I don’t see expansion happening within the next five years.
Matt Snyder: There will be 30 teams in 2030. The stadium situations of both the Athletics and Rays will need to be fully settled for a few years before MLB considers expanding. The A’s are hoping to start playing in Vegas in 2028. Let’s say there are no issues with that move or the Rays’ new ballpark — which is a huge stretch — MLB still couldn’t start the process of expansion until 2029. That will take a few years before the new teams are ready to launch. As such, for me, it’s hard to see MLB getting to 32 teams until 2032.
Mike Axisa: There will be 30 teams on the field in 2030 but 32 teams in the league. I think the expansion fees will be too great for the owners to push off any longer (we’re talking billions here), especially given the television situation. The owners will want that cash infusion. The Marlins and Rockies exist because the owners needed the cash from the expansion fees to pay off their collusion debt. Why wouldn’t they do something similar again, and use the expansion fees to cover what they’re losing in television? I think MLB will award two new franchises by 2030, and they’ll actually take the field by 2032 or so.
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