It won't be easy replacing Jansen, Martin, Pivetta and O'Neill's production at the same cost they were in 2024, but it should not take a lot more money to do so. Of course, with the bad luck/skills our GMs have had on spending, it's no sure bet we can spend double those 4 cost and even break even.
One of the best parts about our upcoming budget is the lack of major arb raises in 2025. Many of our best players are still pre-arb, thanks to the significant farm infusion over the past 3 years (thanks DD and Bloom.) Nothing is for certain on these kids continuing to do well or the expected infusion of more top prospects onto the 26 and 40, but it sure looks better than it did in 2020, or even last year.
IMO, JH is going to have to spend, and likely large and long on one or two players in the next 1-2 years, if we are going to have a real chance at being a top 3-4 team, again. If not, we will have to count on Brez being a genius to get us over the hump.
We can't look at our roster and future roster and assume 100% health and continued growth for a big chunk of our players. It seems natural to expect some step backs, next year from some of these kids doing very well, this year.
To me, our everyday players look set. We have depth at just about every position, except 1B. In some cases, counting top prospects in the mix, we go 3-4 deep. I do not think we can assume our pitching staff can keep this up without some major additions, and there don't seem to be a lot of top pitching prospects banging on the 26 man door. (Perales is out for over a year, and maybe Fitts is our best hope.) Losing Pivetta, Jansen and Martin will hurt. I'm not sure Pivetta has gotten the credit he deserves for being the most reliable and durable pitchers this team has had since we traded for him in 2020. He has not been great, and even was not very good for some stretches, but he took the ball every 5 days and gave the team a chance to win in a big chunk of his starts.
While the team has mostly sucked, since Pivetta joined, the teams W-L record is 47-45 in his starts.