I've said I am not going to predict he spends big, this winter. I've said that for 2-3 straight winters and been wrong. Even this past winter's large winter budget was a bit deceiving, since we lost guys like Bogey, JD, Nate, Wacha, Hill and Strahm, along with their salaries.
While dropping in the team budget ranking might be partially due to more teams starting to spend big, and not resetting in 2023, we could have or should have finished higher than we are, now.