From the arrival of Zack Greinke at Chase Field to the landing of David Price at Fenway Park, it has been an ambitious offseason for big spenders like the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Boston Red Sox.
The question now becomes whether that offseason ambition will transform into wins on the field in 2016. As we get set for the latest round of “contender” or “pretender,” let’s begin by laying out the ground rules.
Only teams that weren’t in contention in 2015 were eligible for the list. That means there’s no room for the likes of the Chicago Cubs and New York Yankees, who have been doing plenty of business but who were both already established in the contender conversation before the offseason began.
In the process of labeling the following five teams, we took two key factors into consideration:
- How successfully each team addressed its most glaring weakness(es)
- The landscape of each team’s division/league
Squads like the D-backs and Red Sox, which have imported prominent players such as Greinke and Price, dominate the list, but there’s also a spot for one team’s whose most consequential additions have been to the coaching staff.