Five Major MLB Spring Training Storylines to Watch

As pitchers and catchers arrive in Florida and Arizona to begin spring training, here are baseball’s biggest narratives to keep an eye on.

The New York Mets and shortstop Francisco Lindor will be looking to incorporate a number of new pieces this spring. | Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images

After a long winter, spring training is finally here, and this season should be an interesting one for Major League Baseball.

The two-time defending champion Dodgers kept spending this offseason in pursuit of baseball’s first three-peat since the Yankees pulled it off in 2000. The ABS challenge system is going into effect in 2026, promising to reshape ball-strike umpiring across the sport. And the World Baseball Classic returns with what should be the most competitive field in the event’s history.

You’ll hear plenty about all of that before Opening Day, but those aren’t the five issues that will matter the most this spring. Here are the five storylines worth watching during spring training.

Blue Jays chasing title they narrowly missed

The Blue Jays came within two outs of taking down the Dodgers and winning the 2025 World Series. Toronto has spent the intervening months since that disappointment proving it is not messing around in its pursuit of a championship.

The Blue Jays spent big this winter, leading all of MLB by splashing out nearly $337 million. The biggest investment was a seven-year, $210 million deal handed to starter Dylan Cease, but they also gave Japanese third baseman Kazuma Okamoto $60 million over four years, reliever Tyler Rogers received $37 million over three years, and starter Cody Ponce got $30 million over three. In addition to that, Shane Bieber picked up the $16 million option on his contract.

While players were coming in, there were key departures as well. Bo Bichette took a three-year, $126 million deal with the Mets, while reliable reliever Seranthony Dominguez landed with the White Sox and utility man Isiah Kiner-Falefa signed with the Red Sox.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays are the reigning AL champions, but their 2025 season ended in heartbreak in Game 7 of the World Series. | Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images

Cease struggled in 2025 for the Padres, going 8–12 with a 4.55 ERA and 1.33 WHIP, but did have 215 strikeouts in 168 innings. That was a far cry from his ’24 form, when he went 14–11, with a 3.47 ERA and 224 strikeouts in 189 1/3 innings and finished fourth in NL Cy Young voting. Toronto placed a heavy bet on him being the guy he was in ’24.

If Cease can live up to his ace-level stuff and Okamoto can be the guy who belted 41 home runs in Japan back in 2023, the Blue Jays will be a better team on paper than in ’25. That spending will all have been worth it.

Spring training will tell us a lot about the team’s mentality coming off the disappointment from last season.

Mets’ new pieces fitting in

The Mets will look like a wildly different team this year.

Longtime cornerstones Pete Alonso, Edwin Díaz, Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil and Starling Marte are gone, while a wave of new additions have arrived in an attempt to avoid the kind of embarrassing end to a disappointing season New York dealt with in 2025. After the Mets collapsed down the stretch to miss the playoffs last year, president of baseball operations David Stearns worked to clear the deck and give the team a refresh.

The big ticket signings were Bichette, Devin Williams, Jorge Polanco, and Luke Weaver. Bichette should give the lineup some punch, while Williams and Weaver are both candidates to close. Stearns also got creative with trades to land three huge pieces. First was second baseman Marcus Semien, who should help improve the team’s infield defense. Luis Robert Jr. is another defense-first addition, though both have offensive upside.

The biggest addition of the Mets’ offseason was Freddy Peralta, whom they landed in a blockbuster with the Brewers. The righty starter is coming off a 2025 campaign in which he went 17–6 with a 2.70 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and 204 strikeouts in 176 2/3 innings. The impending free agent should have a lot to prove this season and will front a rotation that features top youngster Nolan McLean, David Peterson, Clay Holmes and Sean Manaea, with Kodai Senga possibly fitting in as well.

It’s a new-look team, and after putting a terrible defensive product on the field in 2025, Stearns clearly wanted to add pitching and defense. Losing Alonso and Díaz will certainly hurt, and it remains to be seen how the new pieces will fit. Bichette will be a full-time third baseman for the first time in his career, while Semien and Robert have seen their offensive numbers drop significantly over the past few years. Meanwhile, Weaver and Williams are coming off a season in which they both lost the Yankees’ closer job.

We will have no indication how this will all work out until the team is on the field in spring training. It will be a story worth monitoring.

Orioles invest for a bounce back

Like the Mets, the Orioles were a massive disappointment in 2025. Baltimore won 91 games and reached the playoffs in ’24, and garnered World Series buzz going into last season. Despite an exciting roster filled with a ton of young talent, Baltimore flopped its way to a 75–87 finish. This offseason, the franchise set about changing things.

The Orioles landed Alonso in free agency with a massive five-year, $155 million deal. They outbid several contenders to land the Polar Bear, hoping that his big right-handed bat will add a powerful anchor to the middle of their lineup. Since Alonso’s debut in 2019, only Aaron Judge (285) and Kyle Schwarber (268) have more home runs than his 264. The 31-year-old is coming off a strong season in which he slashed .272/.347/.524 with 38 home runs, 126 RBIs and a 141 wRC+.

Baltimore also signed closer Ryan Helsley, re-signed righty Zach Eflin and swung trades to land starter Shane Baz from the Rays, reliever Andrew Kittredge from the Cubs and outfielder Taylor Ward from the Angels. The franchise also resisted the temptation to trade catcher Adley Rutschman after a really down year offensively.

After hitting 37 home runs en route to a fourth-place MVP finish in 2024, Gunnar Henderson only hit 17 homers last year. | Daniel Kucin Jr.-Imagn Images

Despite the additions, the Orioles will still have Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holiday and Jordan Westburg at the heart of their lineup. Guys like Alonso and Ward are nice additions, but if the other four don’t perform, the team isn’t going anywhere.

Can Baltimore bounce back in 2026? It will be worth watching how new manager Craig Albernaz balances the old and new guys to create a cohesive roster. The Orioles are now spending and trading like a contender, but to truly put 2025 behind them, the core of young players must play like it is capable.

Padres sale coming to a head

Few franchises have made more headlines than the Padres over the past five years, for good and bad reasons. Now, more than two years after owner Peter Seidler’s death, they’re in the news once again because of an impending sale.

The Seidler family is set to take bids in the coming month on a deal for what could be the most expensive MLB sale of all time. San Diego has seen its franchise value increase exponentially since the last time it sold, and the franchise features one of the league’s best ballparks and a rabid fan base that has been packing the stadium for years. In 2025, the Padres sold out 72 of their 81 home games en route to finishing second league-wide in attendance with more than 3.4 million fans coming through the gates.

Reports suggest there are several interested parties, which isn’t surprising given the franchise’s location and the fan support. Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob is interested and has been active in talks with the current ownership group, while Premier League owners Dan Friedkin and José E. Feliciano are also among the potential bidders. Friedkin is a San Diego native and already owns Everton and Serie A club AS Roma. He was among the bidders for the Boston Celtics last spring. Meanwhile, Clearlake Capital, Feliciano’s private equity firm, is the majority owner of Chelsea.

The Seidler family is reportedly seeking a sale price in the $3 billion range. The previous high for an MLB team was the $2.42 billion Steve Cohen spent when he purchased the Mets in 2020.

The Padres have been one of the most aggressive small-to-medium market MLB teams over the past decade, setting a standard for spending among that group. San Diego has spent aggressively in an attempt to take down the Dodgers as MLB’s West Coast power. The results have been mixed at best, but it has succeeded in creating the best rivalry in the sport.

A new ownership group could opt to flip that pattern or, possibly, expand it in pursuit of the franchise’s first World Series title. Either way, it will be an enormously consequential sale that could alter the balance of power in the West.

It’s a story worth following closely over the next few weeks.

Lockout looms over everything

While everyone is focused on the upcoming 2026, there are dark clouds gathering in the distance.

MLB’s collective bargaining agreement will expire on Dec. 1, and as that hard-won deal winds down, it’s hard to be optimistic about labor peace continuing. The financial inequity in baseball has wildly expanded since the last agreement was reached in March 2022.

Owners are expected to push for a hard salary cap, while the MLBPA will probably never accept one. On top of that, the league needs to transform its revenue-sharing system to make it equitable for all involved, and that is likely to mean pooling all TV revenue—local and national—into one pot and distributing it evenly. Smaller market teams have been hammered by the regional sports network model collapsing, and lag far behind revenue-wise.

Another issue that may come to a head is the development of an international draft to replace the current signing pool system. The current format wildly favors teams with deep pockets.

Both sides are solidly dug in, hoping to wait the other out. It’s unlikely anyone gives on these core issues, which is why most expect a lengthy lockout that could cost games, if not the entire season in 2027.

With that in mind, the vibe surrounding the 2026 campaign feels different, almost as if it will be the last before massive changes envelop the sport. Teams spent lavishly this offseason for one more run before a chapter closes.

Expect a lot of CBA and lockout talk this spring before the focus turns to the 2026 season.

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