March is the Time for Hope!

It’s March! Baseball is happening! Shohei’s already blasting baseballs into the stratosphere! Kris Bryant mashed the kind of home run that makes you think he might be back! Jacob deGrom looks like Jacob deGrom! Corbin Carroll is looking awful good! Cory Lewis is offering some hope that a knuckleballer might matter again!

Ah, baseball looks so hopeful in March.

Well, OK, maybe not for everybody. A few thousand of you filled out a little survey for JoeBlogs over the last few weeks, and you wrote in your favorite teams plus your optimism level for 2025. With a little calculation — not my strong suit but what can you do — I managed to give all 30 teams a fan optimism score from 1 to 100.

So this week, to kick off our month-long baseball preview, we’re going to rank the optimism level of fans for all 30 teams, starting today with the 10 least optimistic fan groups.

Here we go!

No. 30: Miami Marlins (Optimism score: 2.3)

Um, well, um, OK, look, Sandy Alcántara looks healthy. Also, you know, Sandy Alcántara looks really healthy. Also, well, Sandy Alcántara …

Years and years ago, I wrote a column in The Kansas City Star about how every team’s fan base deserves hope in March. I still believe that, sort of, but what’s kind of funny is that column became a rallying cry for Commissioner Bud Selig, who began using it to talk a lot about hope, and how he wanted to give every organization a chance to compete. I guess I should have been honored.

Trouble is, he and I had different viewpoints of what sparks hope. He believed hope came down to expanding the playoffs and deflating player salaries and flattening the payrolls so that the Yankees and Red Sox and other baseball titans didn’t just outspend the little guys to oblivion.

And I thought it came down more to teams being smarter, spending more, trying harder to win. I believe it’s the MARLINS’ responsibility to provide hope to Florida fans, not the Dodgers’ responsibility, not the Mets’ responsibility, not the Cubs’ responsibility. You can cry poor all you want, you can complain about the unfairness of competition, you can gripe that the fans aren’t coming out to the goofy new stadium that they paid for. All of those things, including the Marlins’ 20-or-so-year losing spell, are a failure of the team, in my view. The fans deserve hope. This organization, as currently run, does not.

To be honest, I’m even worried about Alcántara — why in the heck is he throwing 100 mph at the beginning of spring training after missing all of 2024 while recovering from Tommy John surgery? Maybe it will be OK, but, whew, I don’t get it at all. It’s also unlikely that if Alcántara DOES stay healthy, he will even be on the Marlins at the season’s end.

So where to find hope? Jesús Sánchez might hit a little bit? Mr. Marlin’s kid, Griffin Conine, might bring back some memories? Edward Cabrera looks good sometimes (and awful other times)? The truth is this team isn’t providing hope and it stinks.

No. 29: Chicago White Sox (Optimism Score: 4.9)

Look, I’m not a miracle worker. I can’t just create hope. It speaks to the resilience of South Side Chicago Baseball fans that the optimism score is THIS high. They lost a record 121 games in 2024, and in the last few months, they traded away their two best starters, and they tried to trade away their best player, Luis Robert Jr., only to find there weren’t really any takers. They hope Robert gets off to a good start so they can deal him.

The hope is the future, right? The team has five of Keith Law’s top 53 prospects in their system, led by 6-foot-9 left Noah Schultz, whose nasty slider has been compared to that of Chris Sale and Randy Johnson. He will probably pitch in the big leagues this year. Promising Kyle Teel might be their catcher. Their longtime top prospect Colson Montgomery, who I did see struggle a lot in Charlotte last year, looks like their everyday shortstop.

It’s going to be bleak, let’s not kid anybody. But at least they’re not the Marlins.

No. 28: Sacramento Athletics (Optimism Score: 16.5)

Here’s the dirty and unfortunate secret about the worst owner in American sports, John Fisher: His team isn’t that bad. It should be the joke of all jokes. They deserve the fate that befell the Browns under the Haslams, the Washington Football Team under Dan Snyder, the Carolina Panthers under David Tepper and the California Angels under Arte Moreno.

But somehow, some way, because of David Forst and whatever role Billy Beane plays and some shrewd moves, the A’s outperformed their circumstances in 2024, and they’ll probably do the same in 2025. You take a big league team, put them in a minor league park in Sacramento, overpay a few random free agents just so that you can collect revenue sharing, and you should be a 120-loss team. But they won’t be. I doubt they’ll lose 100. They might not even lose 90.

This team has some good players. Catcher Shea Langeliers is a good player. Their double-play combo of Zack Gelof and Jacob Wilson is pretty darn good. JJ Bleday in center is a good player. Brent Rooker finished 10th in the MVP balloting last year despite playing for a nowhere team. Mason Miller is, I think, the best closer in baseball. If you put this collection of players in, say, Kansas City with a motivated owner, they might have improved enough in the offseason to actually contend for a wildcard spot.

As it is, they’ll probably be subpar but not nearly as lousy as that owner deserves.

No. 27: California Angels (Optimism Score: 17.2)

Mike Trout. That’s all. There’s your reason to hope. You hope that this is the year that Mike Trout stays healthy. He’s moving to right field so he can stay healthy. He says he’s feeling great. He still considers himself the best player on the field. You hope that Mike Trout can be Mike Trout.

As for the rest … well, yeah, you hope for Mike Trout.

No. 26: Colorado Rockies (Optimism score: 17.2)

I wasn’t kidding above about the Kris Byrant home run. He mashed a 462-foot home run in the first week of spring training games; it was his longest home run in four years, and his bat speed — which was glacial in 2024 — was shockingly elite. Bryant has never had great bat speed, not even in his MVP days, but the last couple of seasons it was down below 70 mph, among the worst in baseball. In his spring training blast, his bat speed was 77.5 — that’s like Kyle Schwarber, Ronald Acuña Jr., Aaron Judge territory.

Sure, it’s just one swing … but when you’re looking for hope with the Rockies you have to look deep. The Rockies have a chance to be a good defensive team because of Gold Glove shortstop Ezequiel Tovar, Gold Glove centerfielder Brenton Doyle and excellent third baseman Ryan McMahon. Let’s offer a special mention to McMahon because even though the bat has never quite come around — it’s fair to say that McMahon wasn’t in the movie “Contact” — he was an All-Star in 2024, and he specifically asked the Rockies NOT to trade him because he wants to be a part of this team’s future. Players like that are easy to root for.

There are some glimmers of hope for the Rockies’ future, starting with pitcher Chase Dollander, but yeah, this road looks rough in 2025 and I still don’t think the Rockies have any idea how to win at mile-high elevation.

No. 25: Pittsburgh Pirates (Optimism Score: 22.7)

Pirates fans know a lot more about their team than I do. They’ve been burned and burned again. Other than three galvanizing years in the mid-2010s, they’ve had losing records every single season for more than 30 years. They have a bajillionaire owner in Robert Nutting, who sees the Pirates as an ATM machine. I get that it’s been pretty bleak.

But… I kind of think that Pirates fans could actually ratchet up the optimism for 2025. I can make an almost plausible five-pronged case for them as a legit contender.

1. The National League Central is utterly winnable.

2. Paul Skenes is the most exciting young pitcher in a long time, and together with Jared Jones, Mitch Keller and Andrew Heaney, the Pirates pitching staff has a 1969 Miracle Mets vibe.

3. I kind of think the Oneil Cruz to centerfield thing is going to work.

4. I kind of think David Bednar will return to form — and it’s just very cool to have a Pittsburgh guy closing out Pittsburgh Pirates games.

5. If things start clicking, PNC Park — quite possibly the best stadium in all of baseball — will be absolutely rocking.

Admittedly, all of that is pretty speculative. It’s shameful that Nutting — given the gift of Paul Skenes and Jared Jones, who will make bubkis in 2025 — didn’t spend some money and try to give this team a real chance to win this year. And I imagine that’s why the Optimism Score is so low; everybody knows that Bottom Line Bob is unwilling to shave profits even a little bit in order to win. But the Pirates lucked into Skenes, and maybe guessed right on Jones and Oneil Cruz, and hope is made up of such things. And feathers.

No. 24: St. Louis Cardinals (Optimism Score: 35.3)

In some ways, it’s so very strange to see Cardinals fans’ optimism level way down here with the Pirates, Rockies and Athletics. It’s wild that over just two seasons, the Cardinals managed to drain the confidence and swagger of their fans. I don’t think it’s the losing — heck, the Cardinals had a winning record last season (one year after their first 90-loss season in 33 years).

No. I think it’s the sameness. The Cardinals did absolutely nothing in the offseason. Nothing. The things they actually want to do — such as trade Nolan Arenado and, presumably, Sonny Gray — they cannot do because neither of them want to go. The Cardinals have long been considered one of the best places in baseball to play, a point of pride for Cardinals fans. It’s kind of funny, in a twisted way, that this is now coming back to haunt the team in their efforts to tear things down and rebuild.

The Cardinals are the exact same team they were last year, and yet, they are kind of a blurry picture. They have a couple of top-notch defenders in shortstop Masyn Winn and (for now) Arenado. They have a top-level starter in Gray and a dominant closer in Ryan Helsley. They might get some slugging out of Willson Contreras, you know, maybe and Jordan Walker might come on and …

I think the big issue with this team right now — and the reason Cardinals fans are sluggishly pessimistic — is that they aren’t anything right now. They’re stuck in place. They have no personality, no identity, no persona. They’re not really a contender. They’re also not really rebuilding. They’re just a team with some good players, a lot of holes, a few prospects, and a lame-duck general manager. They won 83 games last year and could do the same this year, or they could win 86 and be a playoff contender, or they could lose 90, and whatever happens, Cardinals fans seem to long for a team that makes sense to them again.

No. 23: Washington Nationals (Optimism score: 35.7)

I gotta say — this is dramatically higher on the hope scale than I expected. I mean, Nationals fans are still bottom eight in hope, but they’re ahead of the Cardinals and Pirates? When you think about what this team has put them through the last five years, and what this year looks like to most experts, I’m kind of stupefied that this optimism score isn’t down there with the Marlins and White Sox.

I mean: The Nationals won the World Series in 2019. They waved goodbye to their best player, Anthony Rendon, after the season, a move that has obviously worked out — the Angels get to be stuck with that contract and mess — but it wasn’t done out to improve the team. It was done out of cheapness.

The 2020 season was terrible for everyone, but then in 2021 and 2022, the Nationals traded, deep breath, Juan Soto, Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber and Max Scherzer. Stephen Strasburg retired. Ryan Zimmerman retired. The Nationals finished last four straight years after winning a World Series and would have finished last again last year if not for the horror show Marlins. All the while, they kept talking about the prospects on the way. Wait ‘til you see the prospects! Wait ‘til you see CJ Abrams! Wait ‘til you see James Wood! Wait ‘til you see MacKenzie Gore! Wait ‘til you see Dylan Crews!

Those guys might still end up being very good players. I personally am very high on Wood, and I am quite excited to see Dylan Crews play. But a couple of good new players isn’t changing this team’s trajectory in my view. The Nationals are spinning their wheels and the organization seems perfectly content to ride the 2019 vapor trail of glory until nobody else can even pick up the scent. I always trust fans’ instincts more than my own, and if Nationals fans can find hope with this team, that’s a good thing, maybe even the best thing. I’m not seeing it.

No. 22: Toronto Blue Jays (Optimism score: 41.4)

You know who I think about a lot? George Springer. When the Blue Jays signed him in 2021, he was a Top 20 player in the game, right? He did a bit of everything — good defense, he slugged some, he got on base and he was good on the bases, and he’s just one of those charismatic guys everybody likes. But he had also turned 30, and we all know what happens to players after they turn 30. He had a good season in 2022, an OK season in 2023, a meh season in 2024. So it goes.

But here’s what I’m thinking: George Springer could have another terrific season in him. I mean, he’s 35, but he’s stayed in good shape. It could happen.

And Bo Bichette could have a terrific season. He was hurt last year, but the previous three seasons, he received MVP votes.

And newcomer Anthony Santander could have a terrific season. He is limited in some ways, but the guy crushed 44 home runs last year for Baltimore and has averaged 35 homers a year over the last three seasons.

And Andrés Giménez could have a terrific season. He is already the best defensive second baseman in the game, and if he can hit a little bit more like his 2022 self — even his 2023 self — he could get MVP votes this year.

And Alejandro Kirk is a defensive force behind the plate. If he can find his 2022 offensive form, he can be an All-Star.

And Vladimir Guerrero Jr. could win the MVP this year.

And Kevin Gausman finished third in the Cy Young voting in 2023.

And José Berríos is pretty darned good.

And you see what I’m saying? It’s March. It’s a time for dreaming. The Blue Jays are coming off an 88-loss season. But there’s plenty of room for dreaming.

No. 21: San Francisco Giants (Optimism score: 45.6)

You can kind of do the same thing with the Giants that you do with the Blue Jays— that is to say, you can dream of big years from Patrick Bailey, Matt Chapman, Willy Adames, Jung Hoo Lee, Tyler Fitzgerald, another Logan Webb star turn, a rebound from 2021 Cy Young winner Robbie Ray and one last burst of glory from Justin Verlander. All of those things are conceivable.

The trouble with Giants’ optimism, obviously, is that they’re in the same division as the Dodgers… and it’s just not easy to say how the Dodgers lose this division. People ask me all the time: Are the Dodgers a lock? And I always say: They’re a lock to make the playoffs. They’re a lock to win the division. And in October, they will come in as the best team and there’s no predicting where it goes from there.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t help the Giants during the regular season. With the division essentially out of reach, even if all their players have top-end years, the key will be winning enough games to maybe squeeze in as a wildcard and hope for the best. That’s not going to spark a lot of hope. I mean, hey, the Giants do have a nice history of winning 88 or 92 or 94 games and then going on to win it all. But a lot has to go right for that to happen in 2025, and I think Giants fans have tempered their expectations in the decade or so since their last World Series run.