MLB contenders' weak spots: The 15 biggest roster holes and what can be done to fill them

There’s still time left before it’s “pencils down” on the offseason, and the best teams are still trying to figure out how to massage their roster into its best shape before spring training begins. While they could always make one of their strengths stronger, it’s natural for front offices to look at the weakest spots in the roster and try to shore up those instead. It seems you’d get the best mileage on any investment that brought your worst position up to league average (or better), anyway.

So, what moves might we see from the better squads as they try to smooth out the edges? For this enterprise, a “contender” is a team projected to be in the top half of the league by FanGraphs’ depth charts. Among those 15 teams, if you go through and sort through each position by FanGraphs’ WAR projections, you can make this list (the average projected fWAR is listed for positions that include more than one player).

In the world of WAR, a league-average player is worth two wins. These depth charts are an amalgam of all the players that play at each position, but it’s still fair to say that each of these positions counts as a weakness on these team’s rosters.

With the dwindling supply of free agents, some organizations will have to consider trades. They could also improve their depth at a weaker position with a prospect or back-end pickup, or just be at peace with one spot that isn’t their best. No team can be perfect.

That said, let’s examine these teams and see what they could still do about their problem spots before Opening Day.

The Phillies may have already made their move when they decided to sign Max Kepler to a one-year deal. That gives them three capable offensive corner outfielders in Kepler, Brandon Marsh and Nick Castellanos.

The problem is defense. Over the past three years, Castellanos has been one of the worst three defenders in the outfield no matter which defensive metric you use to appraise him. But with Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber at first base and designated hitter, respectively, there just might not be enough roster spots to clean up this tiny bit of mess on a top-of-the-league contender. On a four-man bench, they’ll have space for backups at catcher, shortstop and center field, leaving one precious place where the Phillies could maybe have a player who can play both the infield and a corner outfield spot well defensively.

That spot might currently go to 30-year-old Weston Wilson, as he played all over the diamond last year. But would a player like Kiké Hernández make more sense? He’s more of a sure thing offensively and rated as a positive defensively at all of his positions. He could come into games late to spell Castellanos and keep the outfield defense above water, and he’d generally be available at any position should the need arise. The only problem would be that any dollar they spend on Hernández will cost them double due to their luxury tax situation. Might be worth it, though, to round out that bench.

The Red Sox are next with a double whammy up the middle. The aging Trevor Story and the green Connor Wong don’t impress the projection systems much, leaving the Sawx behind at crucial spots. With Ceddanne Rafaela slated for mostly center-field duty after poor defensive numbers were attached to his play at shortstop, the “right now” answer at the keystone is probably Story and David Hamilton. Wong’s only 285 games into his career, so there’s both hope that he could improve his poor defensive and framing numbers to date, as well as the idea that he’s cheap and a decent offensive catcher and maybe that’s just fine for this team.

The answer at shortstop might come within: Marcelo Mayer tore up Double A last year and if his back is healthy, it might not take him much time to push his way onto the roster to show off his even skill set and advanced approach. Unfortunately, that won’t be true at catcher, since Boston sent top prospect Kyle Teel to Chicago in the Garrett Crochet deal. If defensive value is of concern to the Sox at the position, perhaps they could go sign Yasmani Grandal to share time with Wong? He’s the best framer in free agency, a skill that has hung on even as his bat has aged.

FanGraphs projects only four bullpens to be worse than the Cubs’ pen in 2025. Young Porter Hodge and Nate Pearson have the stuff to dominate, and public projection systems may be missing that point. Jordan Rosenblum’s Stuff-driven projections have them a quarter-run better than the Steamer projections on FanGraphs do, at least. That said, they don’t come with much of a major-league track record and have 12 career saves between them. They both also throw right-handed.

With Eli Morgan’s changeup in that pen, and Caleb Thielbar throwing lefty sweepers, maybe they’ll be OK against left-handed hitters. And maybe Julian Merryweather can come back and be more like he was in 2023 and less like he was in 2024. But Chicago cleared some payroll in the Cody Bellinger deal and isn’t anywhere near the luxury tax or even its final 2024 payroll. Instead of relying on the maybes, the Cubs should go get the best stuff left on the market and sign Tanner Scott to a three-year deal — even if that isn’t how they’ve done business in the bullpen recently. They’ve been a bottom-third bullpen over the past three years, time to change it up and spend on a reliever. Heck, why not sign Jack Flaherty and solve two problems with money?

The outfield is generally a sore spot in Kansas City, as the Royals show up twice on our list. Last year, their entire contingent ranked 27th on the grass by WAR, and it’s hard to find any stat that liked them much better. Kyle Isbel is a plus defender, and that’ll keep him playing in center, but the corners are on notice after that work last year. MJ Melendez is 26 and was better in the second half, but even that “better” was below league average with the stick, and at some point, you are your results more than a sum of your exciting process numbers. Though Jonathan India hasn’t played in the outfield in the major leagues, he or Michael Massey may push Melendez from his spot if he starts slow again. They don’t want to end up on this end of the outfield leaderboard again next year:

Right field is where the upgrade needs to be. With payroll already where it was to end last season, do they have enough to try and lure Santander into the mix? He’s the best remaining outfielder by projections, and his switch hitting power with a good strikeout rate attached would be a huge boon to a team that struggled to score runs at times last year. Jurickson Profar’s power is less assured, but he might be cheaper and add a couple of wins to the Royals’ projection (which would vault them to just outside the top 10 in the league). If the solution needs to be cheaper than those, maybe the Marlins would pick up the phone for Jesús Sánchez. Taylor Ward in Anaheim would also be interesting, depending on the prospect cost. There has to be a way for Kansas City to improve that outfield further.

With Kyle Tucker gone, Yordan Alvarez is the only outfielder who was an above-average stick in Houston last season. Jake Meyers is a plus-plus defender, so he’s fine. That third spot is a sticky wicket for a team projected to be just outside the top five in the game. With manager Joe Espada saying he’d like to cut down on Alvarez’s time on the grass, maybe that’s two sticky wickets. Currently, the top of those depth charts list Taylor Trammell, Mauricio Dubón, Chas McCormick and Pedro León. Last year, that group combined to hit .234/.279/.312 with scratch defense in the major leagues.

McCormick is projected to bounce back and could be useful against right-handers even without a full recovery. León hits the ball super hard — he had a 117.5 MPH max exit velocity in Triple A last year, which would’ve been in the top five in the big leagues, equal to Aaron Judge — and runs well, so he’s a wild card. Dubón profiles as a super utility guy.

This group could use more of a sure thing. Maybe calling the Giants and asking about Mike Yastrzemski would make sense. As a lefty, he could fit into a platoon with one of the righties, reducing the Astros’ dependence on two iffy right-handed bats to step forward and take the job. Of course, that would ensure that the Astros were north of the first luxury tax apron, and if that’s the case … they might as well sign a free agent at that point, right?

If the Padres don’t want to bring Grandal back, or if they can’t afford to, they’re in trouble. They could maybe get the Twins to pay some of Christian Vázquez’s salary in a stopgap move, or maybe they could talk to the Pirates, who are relatively catcher-rich right now after trading for Joey Bart, drafting Henry Davis and developing Endy Rodríguez. Being desperate for catching is a tough thing in this era, when a good catcher can impact the game in so many important ways.

Maybe they just give Luis Campusano another try? His defense has been much-maligned, and rightfully so. Defensive runs saved had him as the worst catcher last year (second to Wong) and he was the fifth-worst framer (Wong was the worst). Statcast’s fielding runs had Campusano worst and Wong second worst. Why not see if a 26-year-old can’t improve at those things, though? On offense, he has some things that speak in his favor, like his ability to hit the ball hard (he hit a ball harder than Patrick Bailey, J.T. Realmuto or Adley Rutschman did in 2024) and making contact (only Keibert Ruiz and Nick Fortes had a lower strikeout rate). He’s cheap, and the Padres may not have other options.

The fact the Mariners are even on this list of contenders is a testament to their excellent situations at catcher, center field and their rotation. Because they are on this list of bad positions twice and the 16th-worst situation — just off the list — is also in Seattle (second base). If we’d done designated hitters, that, too, would have made the list. You get the picture. Offense is the problem.

Once you adjust for the park, the Mariners had an above-average offense according to FanGraphs, but the park adjustment is doing a lot of lifting, since they scored the 21st-most runs last season. Whatever the source of the problem, this front office hasn’t quite unlocked the key to more runs, and this current lineup leaves the team wanting at multiple spots. They’ve got some prospects coming up at those positions who might get a shot, but none of Ryan Bliss, Austin Shenton or Nick Dunn really impressed the scouting community, and even Cole Young’s ability to get on base is a little less exciting if he can’t hit for power or defend at shortstop.

Without knowing how much they’ve got the green light to spend, though, it’s hard to prognosticate. They are nowhere near the first tax apron, but they’re right where they were last year. If that’s any indication, and the move has to have almost no salary attached to it, then things are going to be tricky for the Mariners. From the outside, you’d hope that they could lurk and maybe catch a value on Bregman or Pete Alonso as they remain out there in free agency. With a lot of the bad teams picked clean at this point in the offseason, the trade market has to be a contender in a need-for-need situation. So you’ll continue to hear Luis Castillo rumors, for good reason. The Mets, Red Sox and Orioles may all have what it takes to bridge that gap.

Baltimore Orioles: Starting rotation

The Orioles have done some work on their rotation, true. They’ve signed Tomoyuki Sugano and Charlie Morton to short deals. Very risk averse, very demure. Their reward is showing up as the 25th-best rotation in baseball according to FanGraphs. Now, that’s not quite fair, since Sugano’s projection is not included and he’ll bring non-zero value. But Sugano’s approach of low velocity, large arsenal and great command may not work in MLB — just as an example, he showed around the same strikeout percentage in Japan as JP Sears and Patrick Corbin showed in America last year — so he’s probably not going to move this rotation by itself. They’re still rumored as interested in Flaherty, and Nick Pivetta certainly has interesting stuff that could benefit from a more neutral park, but maybe they should pick up that call from Seattle?

Here’s a look at new Oriole Tomoyuki Sugano’s nasty splitter pic.twitter.com/bPENxZHoun

— Ben Palmer (@benjpalmer) December 17, 2024

Getting Robert Garcia and Shawn Armstrong was a start, but for a team that looks good in most places, this Rangers bullpen is a fright. Ranked 20th by the depth charts, it could use a topper. The team’s about $12 million short of the first tax apron, though, so that might limit them from Scott. Could Carlos Estévez be the guy for them? Along with Estévez, maybe they could try fireballing prospect Emiliano Teodo in the pen. He hasn’t been able to keep his walk rates down, but the stuff is nasty. This pen needs some more work.

(Photo of Kiké Hernández: Elsa / Getty Images)