Bradford DoolittleMar 12, 2026, 07:00 AM ETCloseMLB writer and analyst for ESPN.com Former NBA writer and analyst for ESPN.com Been with ESPN since 2013Multiple Authors
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Is New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman a sage, a bad messenger or something else entirely?
“I’m excited to run it back with those guys,” Cashman said, defending his club’s offseason approach.
The “run it back” part of the discussion rankled many who were uneasy with the Yankees’ late-starting offseason which, in the end, left them with a very similar team to the one that finished last season.
In the objective realm, there are many questions related to what you might call the “run it back” strategy. What does it look like? Can it work? Does it work? What does work even mean in this regard?
Let’s look at the 2025-26 MLB hot stove season through the rubric that Cashman’s words suggest. How do we classify a team’s offseason approach? And what strategies work best, given a team’s spot on the contention cycle?
Description: We’re a contender and we like our team up and down the roster. But we would not thumb our nose at an elite free agent, whether it’s someone from a competitor or one of our own whom we want to keep in the fold. We’re good. Let’s run it back.
2026 teams: Chicago Cubs, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies
The Yankees indeed ended up with a passive classification based on their continuity score. But a lot of Cashman’s rhetoric is spot on. His team does still project to be very good even though most of the activity over the winter was to lock down a similar roster.
New York’s overall continuity score (76%) ranked ninth in MLB. So it’s a similar group, but the carryover isn’t extreme. But the continuity score comprises two measurements: one from the beginning of last season and one from the end. The Yankees rank second (85%) in the measure from the end of season, behind the Dodgers. That’s the passivity that irks some fans.
Still, the Yankees’ continuity score from the beginning of last season (69%) ranks 16th, indicating a healthy amount of turnover, especially for a contending team. So Cashman is right to point out that his team has evolved and that process will continue even after the hot stove season ends. No team had a larger disparity between its continuity scores from the beginning of last season compared with the end.
(Note: There is no good way to account for players who sit out entire seasons because of injury, so in this system they register as de facto acquisitions in the data. Thus the Yankees register as passive even though Gerrit Cole counts as a new player, which is kind of how many see it anyway.)
The Phillies and Yankees had similar offseasons. Both were solid contenders who have a lot of retention from the end-of-season rosters and committed much of their offseason work (and spending) in keeping the same group mostly together.
All teams have differences, but as a group, this is a good one in which to be. Those that “run it back” but do so while being willing to go big for the right free agent have been the most successful at mitigating the regression that plagues the good tier as a whole. And championship teams do come out of this bucket.
The numbers say: As a general rule of thumb, bad teams tend to get a little better the following season. Conversely, good teams tend to get a little worse. Teams in the middle tend to say in the middle. This is what Bill James referred to as the Plexiglass Principle, and statisticians call regression to the mean. What we’re looking at here is how various roster strategies affect how well they tend to work in the context of a team’s performance tier.
In the free agent era, 4% of teams end up in this bucket, averaging a loss of 2.4 wins the next season. This is the smallest regression of the six classifications in the good teams tier. Six have won titles, including three Yankees clubs (1978, 1999, 2000). The last was the 2018 Red Sox. When you’re already good, more often than not, passivity is a feature, not a bug.
Description: This is the stand-pat group. Good and counting on more of the same from a similar roster.
What it means: These were the three teams closest to the 2025 title without winning it. All of them are attempting to take that last step on the strength of minor tweaks.
The Brewers, who traded starter Freddy Peralta, were the most active of the three but will nevertheless mostly be running it back in 2026. The Blue Jays don’t get credit for a splash signing for landing Kazuma Okamoto, who doesn’t have an MLB track record yet, and Dylan Cease doesn’t qualify, but the Blue Jays aren’t that different overall. Same for the usually aggressive Mariners, who were very targeted in their offseason work.
No team is exactly the same from one season to the next, but these clubs will all look familiar. Can it work?
Well, the 10 World Series-winning teams from this bucket are by far the most of any of the 18 classifications. The 2022 Astros are the most recent example; another is the 2020 Dodgers. But seven of the 10 champs in the group won titles before 2000 — and five of them came before 1990.
Clearly, winning it all with this approach is less common than it once was, and the Brewers, Mariners and Blue Jays will be jockeying for title contention with fellow teams from the elite tier who landed premier free agents. The dynamic between these groups will be interesting to follow in the season to come.
The numbers say: Overall, 12% of teams fall into this bucket, suggesting a tendency for good teams to sit on their laurels. These teams drop an average of 4.8 additional games the subsequent season, the second-smallest amount of regression on the good tier. So teams that want to truly let it ride are often justified in making that call.
Description: We’re good but, what the heck, we’re going to turn over the roster anyway. We don’t need to get into the star level of free agency, but there will be plenty of new faces in our clubhouse.
What it means: Historically, there are a lot of teardown teams in this group. In other words, they register with a low continuity score not because they are going all-in, but because they are waving the white flag, probably for what they say are money reasons.
That makes the overall performance of the group the worst of any of the classifications. And while the tankers might drag down the numbers for everyone, no team from this bucket has won a World Series during the free agent era, either.
Which brings us to the 2026 Red Sox. The no-major-splash part of the descriptor is a just-barely trait — despite the Ranger Suarez signing, Boston comes just under the bar for a splash. The Red Sox were also active in trades, which doesn’t play into the splash classification, though it’s there in the active/passive dichotomy.
So Boston is here, in a bucket of its own, and the rule of thumb for this class is that too much tinkering with a good roster is an often tricky maneuver. Teams that try get burned more often than not if they don’t secure some additional star production, which the Red Sox hope to get from maturing in-house players.
The numbers say: A solid sample of 5% of teams since 1977 are in this leaky bucket. They’ve lost an average of 10.9 wins from one season to the next, by far the most of our 18 buckets. None have won titles.
What it means: The typically manic Padres played it a little cooler this winter, possibly because of budget limitations. Moves were made but none of them were at the star level.
The Rangers are an interesting bunch. Texas has a different look from an offensive style standpoint, and a new manager in Skip Schumaker. But the turnover overall wasn’t that heavy and the Rangers didn’t spend big in free agency.
If the Rangers are closer to that 90-win talent level than the break-even club they were in the standings, this low-key pursuit of marginal wins could pay off big time over the next few months.
The numbers say: 7% of teams end up here and drop an average of 6.7 wins the next season. Five of them have won titles, including the 1977 Yankees. The most recent was the 2021 Braves.
Moderate offseason with a major splash: Five fairly recent title teams have taken this approach, including the last World Series winner from the Bronx, the 2009 Yankees. Also following this path were the 2011 Cardinals, 2016 Cubs, 2019 Nationals and the reigning champs, last year’s Dodgers. The 1993 champion Blue Jays also won from this group, which accounts for 4% of teams in the free agent era and lost an average of 5.3 wins in the subsequent season.
Description: Not great but not bad. The roster has been turned over aggressively, but whether it’s a retool or a reset, we’re avoiding the most expensive tier of free agency.
What it means: Though no one would argue the aggression of the Mets’ approach over the winter, the no-splash part of it is a key distinction. You can quibble with that, as many would see the Bo Bichette signing as splashy, even if his bWAR figures don’t qualify him as such.
The numbers say: 8% of teams in the free agency era land in this group. Those clubs averaged a loss of 2.8 wins by Pythagorean record. Two title teams emerged from this bucket — the 2005 White Sox and 2015 Royals.
Description: We’re on the treadmill of mediocrity. We tweaked the edges trying to raise the floor, but we’re not going big on a free agent.
What it means: The Giants (81-81) and Rays (77-85) both had non-winning seasons despite positive run differentials. Thus, they had reason to attack the roster with the idea that marginal gains would go a long way toward a wild-card slot in 2026.
For the Rays, this is how they operate and it often has worked. For the Giants, any offseason that doesn’t include a splash signing feels like a lost opportunity. And they had nothing approaching a splash signing this winter. It’s a hard team to read.