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The last few years, I’ve had a pre-Opening Day tradition of making five bold predictions about the upcoming season. It’s a good way to talk through some of the players and teams where my opinions are different from the crowd. But bold predictions are a boom industry – the entire FanGraphs staff will be making some tomorrow, and I already drafted 10 of my own on Effectively Wild. So Meg and I came up with a great substitute: five big questions about the season. These aren’t the only big questions I have. They aren’t even necessarily the biggest questions in baseball. But they’re five storylines that I think are unresolved, and their answers will have a lot to say about how the 2025 season goes.

1. Are the Rays still the Rays?

The Rays have been doing the same player-swapping roster construction trick for more than a decade now. They operate on a shoestring budget, they consistently find ways to trade their surplus for great value, and their pitching development is some of the best in the game. They’re constantly churning out top prospects, and even after graduating Junior Caminero, they boast one of the best farm systems in baseball.

That prospect pipeline keeps on delivering, but in 2024, the wins didn’t follow. The team finished below .500 for the first time since 2017, and got outscored by 59 runs in the process. The Rays didn’t do much this winter – trading Jeffrey Springs, and signing Danny Jansen and Ha-Seong Kim were their big moves. We’re projecting them to finish last in the AL East – albeit still above .500. What happened to the 90-win perpetual juggernaut?

The short answer is stars – or rather, the lack thereof. The Ray who racked up the most WAR last year was Isaac Paredes, with a cool 3.0. He got traded at the deadline, and no one else could top his mark in a full year. No one popped. The depth players, as always, delivered. The problem was that depth isn’t enough; in a pure mathematical sense, you can’t be a 90-win team without concentrating a ton of value into a few spots on the roster. The genius of the Rays has always been that they draft, sign, or trade for young prospects who turn into stars, then craft a great team around those standouts.

Who are those standouts now? With Wander Franco likely gone for good (and good riddance), the Rays are searching for answers. Shane McClanahan will be part of the solution; his UCL injury last year put the team way behind the eight ball in trying to assemble a playoff pitching staff. But he’s going to be on a reduced workload, particularly given a tricep injury that forced him to the IL for a precautionary stay, and the rest of the rotation isn’t particularly imposing. For the Rays to win, they’re going to need offensive firepower.

Caminero could absolutely be the solution. He’s only 21 and already held his own during a 2024 big league cameo. We project an excellent season for him, with healthy error bars on either side. Maybe Carson Williams will force his way to the majors this year. Maybe Curtis Mead, Chandler Simpson, Jonathan Aranda, or Xavier Isaac will emerge as key players. The farm system has certainly provided the Rays with plenty of possibilities.

But they need some hits in that group. The team’s standard squad of unheralded contributors is looking thin with the departures of Paredes, Springs, and Randy Arozarena. Last year’s crop of trade acquisitions, Jonny DeLuca and Ryan Pepiot most notably, haven’t come on as strong as hoped. This isn’t the deep Rays bench you’re used to, either. Taylor Walls has a career 71 wRC+ and he’s starting the year as the everyday shortstop. Kim should eventually replace him, but he’s returning from a major shoulder injury and the timing is far from certain.

We all know that the Rays do an incredible job adding around the margins. But what if all of that is just window dressing, smoke and mirrors distracting from the fact that the real difference maker is just having good players? Unless Caminero and McClanahan both turn in huge years, we might feel differently about the team’s on-field future after this season. (Where exactly that field will be is anyone’s guess.)

2. How many All-Star middle infielders play in Cincinnati?

The Reds have plenty of question marks on their team. They’re trying to cover first base with a bunch of mediocre options. Their pitching staff is long on potential but short on proven major league results. The outfield isn’t set in stone. In an unsettled NL Central, they’re playoff contenders who could just as easily end up below .500.

But forget all that — those uncertainties aren’t what’s going to determine their long-term trajectory. Instead, it’s how many Reds middle infielders play at an All-Star level. If that number is zero, it’s a big problem. Elly De La Cruz broke out in the first half of last year, actualizing the enormous tools that made him one of the top prospects in all of baseball. He clobbered 25 homers, stole 67 bases, and played much-improved defense at shortstop. He wore down a bit in the second half of the season, and his strikeout rate is still scary despite meaningful improvements at the plate, but we’re talking about a 22-year-old switch-hitter who just posted a six-win season. He’s the best player on the Reds, and for them to keep competing, he’ll have to play like it.

Okay, so one is basically table stakes. If Elly isn’t Elly, the Reds probably aren’t contenders. His double play partner, Matt McLain, is a more interesting case. McLain tore through the minors and debuted in 2023 as a slugging shortstop. He immediately looked like a star, possessing power, speed, and defense all in abundance. Then he missed the end of 2023 with an oblique strain, and all of 2024 with a torn labrum in his shoulder that required surgery.

With De La Cruz locked in at shortstop, McLain had already shifted over to second in 2023, and I think he’s a natural fit there. He’s patient and makes a decent amount of contact given his hellacious swing – I expect his strikeout numbers to tick down as he re-acclimates to the majors and sees more big league pitching. McLain’s rookie season was incredibly impressive, and a player capable of a stretch that good certainly has the tools to be a perennial All-Star.

If McLain can hit that high bar, this Reds team looks dangerous. Having two sluggers with plus defense at up-the-middle positions goes a long way towards building an offense. There are enough options in the rotation that a collapse there seems unlikely. Surely they’ll find other offensive contributors given enough experimentation. The division is there for the taking. But the road gets much tougher if McLain’s return from injury doesn’t go smoothly, and it gets nearly impossible if De La Cruz takes a step back.

3. Who is the real Corbin Burnes?

Here’s one way of looking at Corbin Burnes in 2024: He increased his swinging strike rate, threw harder, lowered his ERA, FIP, xFIP, xERA, and SIERA, walked fewer batters, and gave up hard contact less frequently than he had in 2023. Both pitch-level models we host think that he had better stuff and better command in 2024 than in 2023. And to be clear, he came into 2024 as one of the best pitchers in baseball, so all of this improvement is from a high baseline.

Here’s another way of looking at that 2024 season: Burnes posted a career-low strikeout rate and career-high contact rate allowed. His fastball got him in trouble, so he used it less than at any previous point in his time as a starter, accelerating the mid-career slide into being a breaking ball merchant that so many pitchers undergo. He pitched a full season and was worth 3.7 WAR – not bad, of course, but not the level we’d grown to expect from him after his Cy Young award in 2021.

Which of these paragraphs better describes Burnes? My money’s on the first one. To me, he’s passed the great pitcher sniff test for a few years now. I can’t quite describe what makes a pitcher great, but I feel comfortable saying this: Great pitchers adapt as they age, finding new approaches to getting opposing hitters out that keep them ahead of the eight ball even as age dulls their stuff.

That’s not a given, though. Sometimes underlying metrics correctly foretell doom, and Burnes’ stuff seems to be pointing down. It’s hard to succeed in today’s league without strikeouts, because hitters are scary powerful and scary aggressive. Burnes’ vaunted cutter racked up a puny 8.4% swinging strike rate in 2024; how long until he’s just hucking sliders in there and hoping?

Like I said, I’m team Burnes in this debate. But the outcome is up in the air, and it speaks to a larger uncertainty: Who are the best pitchers in the game at the moment? There are the young guns: Tarik Skubal, Paul Skenes, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Cole Ragans, maybe Garrett Crochet. Skubal and Skenes look like the future. Chris Sale and Jacob deGrom are still hanging on. Zack Wheeler, Blake Snell, and Logan Webb are stalwarts at the peak of their powers. The Dodgers famously have some dudes. But the young guns outside of the top two haven’t totally taken over just yet, and the veterans won’t be around forever. Burnes was in that veteran group a year or two ago, and I think he still is today. But if he isn’t, it’ll be bad for the Diamondbacks and interesting for the rest of the league. Good starting pitching is increasingly hard to find, and one of the stars of the past half decade is about to show whether he’s part of the solution or part of the problem on a new team.

4. Which version of the Braves will we get?

Two years ago, the Braves looked like a budding dynasty. They combined a voracious approach to extending their own young stars with aggressive trades, opportunistic free agent signings, and a farm system that keep churning out unheralded gems. They had the MVP, a recent Rookie of the Year, and the Cy Young favorite. Everything was coming up Atlanta.

Since then, the Braves traded a role player for the man who won the 2024 Cy Young. And yet! Their star has dimmed considerably, and the path forward is meaningfully less set in stone today. Ronald Acuña Jr. scuffled in his MVP defense before tearing his ACL; he’ll start 2025 on the IL as he rehabs. Spencer Strider blew out his elbow and had internal brace surgery. Michael Harris II missed time and had his worst season as a big leaguer. Sean Murphy turned into a pumpkin. Matt Olson’s power dipped precipitously. Ozzie Albies was hurt and ineffective.

The Braves still won 89 games and made the playoffs amidst all of that bad news. This team is packed with talent; even with many of their best players on the shelf, their lineup and rotation simply overwhelmed many of their opponents. In classic Atlanta fashion, the team’s top two prospects will start the season on the big league roster and some young contributors are looking to break in as well. Acuña has bounced back from an ACL tear and delivered an MVP season before, and our projection systems think that both he and Strider will pick up where they left off, dominating the opposition. Our playoff odds have the Braves as the only team besides the Dodgers forecast to crest 90 wins. But doesn’t it all feel a little more fragile than you’d expect?

Injuries like the ones the Braves’ stars suffered don’t always have happy endings. Declines like those experienced by some of the team’s other contributors can’t be hand-waved away. Maybe Olson and Albies will pick up like nothing ever went wrong; maybe Harris just experienced a bit of poor luck and will bounce back. The potential here is clear: the best team in baseball, awash in stars and with few weaknesses. Would it surprise you if the Braves won 105 games? No! But the downside case is clearer than ever. Atlanta is at an inflection point, one I didn’t expect after the team’s 2023 dominance.

5. Is the AL Central for real?

In 2024, the AL Central was one of the game’s pleasant surprises. Sure, the White Sox were putrid, but the Guardians, Royals, and Tigers all made the playoffs. The Twins, preseason favorites in the division, finished above .500. And it wasn’t just the fact that all these teams made it to October; they did it with flair. Bobby Witt Jr. and Skubal took the leap to superstardom. Ragans, Riley Greene, Steven Kwan, and Tanner Bibee each unlocked something. Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa were both great even in limited time. José Ramírez is still José Ramírez.

The central divisions have developed a reputation for generally being pretty boring. Some of that has to do with the low payrolls and relatively scant win totals that have come out of the region over the past decade. Some of it is cultural stereotypes about the Midwest seeping into sports. Some of it is because if we’re being honest, some of these Central teams have been pretty boring in recent years.

The Royals assembling a stellar rotation around their generational shortstop is a blast. The Tigers persevering even after having a few top draft picks turn out to be busts and managing to find other tentpole stars reminds me of the glory days of Miguel Cabrera and Justin Verlander. The Guardians whipping up wins out of nowhere and leaning on a dominant closer and bullpen to complement their scrappy offense feels very Cleveland. Even the Twins have an identity – it just happens to be centered around having talented yet fragile players.

Last season was a fun story, but will it hold in 2025? We’re projecting all four of those teams to finish between 79 and 84 wins. The White Sox won’t be quite as bad as they were last year (presumably), which means fewer free victories sloshing around. If our odds are close to right and the West and East beat up on this group, the fun could vanish quickly. I described some great players, but with different framing, this could look depressing. The Royals traded away pitching because their offense desperately needed a boost, and it might still need a boost after that. The Guardians traded several of last year’s key contributors and have one of the worst rotations in baseball. The Tigers are about three hitters short. It seems like everyone on the Twins is guaranteed to get hurt eventually. I can make this sound bad if I want to.

The truth is, we just don’t know. The balance of power between the divisions is difficult to predict beforehand. There are too many moving parts to say anything with great certainty. But this much I am certain of: A vibrant AL Central would lead to a ton of fun playoff races. Depending on how you count it, there are as many as 12 AL teams with legitimate playoff aspirations. If that ends up being the case, it’ll be because these four teams backed up last year’s showing.