5 Bold MLB Offseason Predictions

One of the 12 highest-paid MLB players will be traded, National League pitchers will look mostly helpless at the plate for at least one more year and the New York Yankees will become the preseason favorites to win it all.

That last one doesn't seem like a stretch, but stick with us and we'll explain why it's a bold prediction for Major League Baseball's 2021-22 offseason, as well as why it will come true.

Between one of the most loaded free-agent classes in recent history and the need to sign a new collective bargaining agreement, a lot of major, unpredictable changes will occur this offseason. We'll begin this five-month journey to Opening Day by taking a stab at predicting a few of those major changes (or non-changes, in one case).

Be sure to drop your bold predictions too.

Where will Max Scherzer pitch in 2022? Which sub-.500 team makes a big signing/trade to emerge as a top candidate to reach the postseason? And while it's not an offseason prediction, do you think we'll get a World Series rematch for the first time since 1977-78?

Let us know in the comments.

The list of viable candidates to make this a reality is a short one.

Twelve players are owed at least $30 million next season, most of whom aren't going anywhere. The Angels are keeping Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon. The Mets won't move Jacob deGrom or Francisco Lindor. Trevor Bauer is effectively untradeable. Stephen Strasburg probably is too because of the unknown of his injury and the length of his contract. And the odds that the Yankees shop Gerrit Cole are slim to none.

Let's cross off Miguel Cabrera too. Even if the universal DH goes into effect for next season and some NL team is desperate to add a formerly elite bat, the Tigers would have to eat so much of the $64 million remaining on Cabrera's deal that they'd be better off keeping him around for his 3,000th career hit.

That leaves Nolan Arenado, Manny Machado, David Price and Chris Sale as the four unlikely but feasible options.

For both third basemen, the impending opt-out clause(s) make things interesting for the Cardinals and the Padres. Arenado could opt out either this offseason or next offseason, while Machado has an opt-out available after the 2023 campaign. If another team offers an arm and a leg for a guy who might leave in the next year or two, you have to listen.

Machado has a limited no-trade clause, while Arenado has a full one, but all that means is they would need to be on board with the trade. Same goes for Sale, who has a full no-trade clause and has the option to opt out after 2022. If Sale is willing to relocate, Boston could fetch a pretty penny from the downtrodden runners-up in the Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw bidding wars.

But if you told me that only one of these 12 very rich guys would get traded this offseason, Price would be the favorite.

The Dodgers owe Price $32 million, but they would love to restructure that to have more free-agency budget and owe less luxury tax. In exchange for a halfway decent prospect, maybe they agree to eat $30 million of that salary, broken up into $6 million chunks each year from 2022 to 2026. It's far from ideal, but they also don't have anyone signed beyond 2023 except for Mookie Betts. They desperately want to win now, and not spending $32 million for one season of a middle reliever/break-in-case-of-emergency starter would help a lot.

It's fun to speculate on offseason trades and free agency, but the biggest thing happening in the next five months is the expiration of the collective bargaining agreement at 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 1.

For the last few years—and especially since the universal designated hitter was implemented for the truncated 2020 season—it has been assumed the DH will come to the National League as part of the new CBA.

But will the players and the owners find the time to make it happen while working through all the other issues that have arisen since the last CBA was ratified in December 2016?

This is certain to be a challenging negotiation and is likely to result in a labor stoppage.

If you'll recall, the 2020 season almost didn't happen because the two sides couldn't agree on a revenue split for a 60-game schedule played in empty stadiums. Granted, it was an extraordinary situation, but it gave a vivid glimpse into the divide between the players and the owners. After both sides made drastically less money in 2020 than was expected before COVID-19 entered our lexicon, they'll both want a bigger piece of the pie to make up for it.

There will also be a lot of discussion about raising the league's minimum salary (beyond a normal "cost of living" increase), service-time thresholds for arbitration/free agency, how to dissuade teams from tanking, an international draft and probably a dozen other things more important than keeping NL pitchers from swinging the bat.

The universal DH is coming eventually, maybe even in 2023. But this offseason will be spent making sure baseball happens in April 2022, rather than worrying about adding a DH to the NL or eliminating defensive shifts.

The Los Angeles Dodgers signed Trevor Bauer to a three-year, $102 million deal last offseason. But for a team that had a $267 million payroll in 2021, they surprisingly don't often sign big-name free agents.

Aside from Bauer in 2020, the only player in the last five years they have brought in at an average salary north of $10 million was A.J. Pollock, signed to a five-year, $60 million contract in 2018.

This winter, however, expect a bunch of substantial pickups for the Dodgers, especially if they don't need to pay the remainder of Bauer's contract as a result of the ongoing sexual assault investigation.

Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Corey Seager, Kenley Jansen and Danny Duffy are all hitting free agency, and the Dodgers have reportedly already opted to pay $4 million to buy out Joe Kelly as opposed to bringing him back for $12 million.

They'll probably try like mad to re-sign Seager to a long-term deal, but they'll likely be content to let the pitchers go in favor of more cost-effective options—a near-must for a team on the hook for more than $67 million between Bauer and David Price.

Who will they get?

They could do worse than focusing their efforts on the AL East. Boston's Eduardo Rodriguez, Toronto's Robbie Ray and Steven Matz, New York's Corey Kluber and Tampa Bay's Collin McHugh would look good in Dodger blue. And they could probably get all five of those guys for what it would cost to keep Scherzer and Jansen.

With Walker Buehler, Julio Urias, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May under contract for at least two more years, they don't need all five and wouldn't sign all five. But they're surely in the market for a starter or two and at least one reliable reliever.

If they care about keeping their star players and their fans happy, the Los Angeles Angels will make a major move for an ace-caliber starting pitcher in free agency.

Two of the top targets in that quest come from 30 miles across town in the form of Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer.

To make sure it qualifies as a bold prediction, let's hone in on Kershaw as the Dodger they can sign.

The AL fans in L.A. have spent the past 14 years hearing about Kershaw's greatness while forced to watch their team trot out a rotation seemingly made up of No. 4 starters. Shohei Ohtani is an exception to that rule—and in just 35 career starts, Ohtani ranks 10th in FanGraphs WAR (tied with Joe Saunders) among Angels pitchers who have taken the mound since Kershaw's career began.

If the 33-year-old southpaw has enough magic left in that left arm to give the Angels two solid seasons, what a colossal difference that would make heading into the post-2023 offseason when Ohtani hits free agency.

The Angels have more than enough hitting to be a World Series contender if paired with a one-two punch of a healthy Ohtani and a healthy Kershaw in the rotation.

The Angels led the AL West in scoring in 2020. Considering they paid Mike Trout, Anthony Rendon and Justin Upton $88.2 million to play a combined 183 games in 2021, averaging 4.5 runs per game this season wasn't too shabby either. If those guys get healthy and Ohtani comes close to hitting as well as he did this season, this should be one of the three highest-scoring teams in the majors.

Ideally, Kershaw will be merely the biggest of several pitching splashes for the Angels, who are committing highway robbery in owing Ohtani $5.5 million in 2022. Even if Kershaw comes at a $35 million price tag, they have plenty of wiggle room before approaching a $200 million payroll.

Predicting the New York Yankees to become the preseason betting favorite to win the World Series doesn't feel bold. They're almost always among the championship contenders.

But on Oct. 21, Caesars Sportsbook gave the Yankees the fourth-best way-too-early 2022 World Series odds at 10-1, behind Atlanta (9-1), Houston (7-1) and the Dodgers (11-2). Jumping from fourth to first won't be easy.

Getting up to third shouldn't be hard, though. The Atlanta line will fade when the allure of making it to the 2021 World Series wears off and when people are reminded the franchise tends to keep its payroll close to the league average. If they bring back free agent Freddie Freeman, it probably means not striking deals with fellow free agents Eddie Rosario, Joc Pederson, Adam Duvall, Jorge Soler and Drew Smyly. Atlanta might not even be the NL East favorite, let alone the third-most likely World Series winner.

The Dodgers will also probably fade because of their talent that will hit free agency. They haven't been shy about spending money, and I've predicted they'll be active for the next few months, but if and when they lose both Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer, they'll lose their standing as the preseason favorite.

The real hurdle for the Yankees is Houston, which will benefit greatly from free agency by no longer needing to allocate 35 percent of its payroll to Justin Verlander ($33 million in 2021) and Zach Greinke ($35 million). The Astros will need to pay up if they want to bring back Carlos Correa, but giving their two-time All-Star shortstop a raise of $15-20 million won't seem so bad with all that money freed up. They could give Correa a big contract, sign one of the top 10 free-agent starting pitchers and still have a 2022 payroll $15 million below what they spent this year.

But the Yankees and their gargantuan payroll will be too much to ignore.

They probably can't re-sign Anthony Rizzo, but we'll all talk ourselves into Luke Voit returning to 2020 form. Ditto Gleyber Torres, except it'll be 2019 form. Also, Luis Severino, even though he has only pitched 18 innings in the past three years. Once you start believing those three guys will provide serious value in 2022, does this team ever become scary, even if the Yankees bring in nobody new and lose all their free agents.

They'll have Voit, Torres, DJ LeMahieu and Gio Urshela as the starting infield with Rougned Odor as a valuable reserve. Joey Gallo, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton will lock down DH and the two corner outfield spots. A starting rotation of Gerrit Cole, Severino, Jameson Taillon, Jordan Montgomery and Domingo German should be rock solid. And a bullpen that ranked third in FanGraphs WAR in 2021 will return almost intact. The only question mark is Aaron Hicks in center, although you're doing OK when your most likely Achilles' heel is a guy in the middle of a seven-year, $70 million contract.

If New York ends up as a co-favorite with either the Astros or the Dodgers, this counts as a win.