MLB 2026: Why busy winters don't always mean winning summers - ESPN

Is New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman a sage, a bad messenger or something else entirely?

The context for the question dates to a news conference from late January, which you probably heard about, especially if you're a Yankees devotee. That was when Cashman said the words that caused something of a maelstrom in New York.

«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?

Finally, what do these observations say about the Yankees' offseason… and that of the other 29 teams?

Below, we've broken up baseball into three tiers — teams who were good, mid or bad last season. For each tier, we've listed six types of offseasons, based on level of aggression in free agency and trades. Here's what history tell us about what we can expect in 2026. (Click here for the full methodology.)

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,