One goal for every MLB team in 2024

All 30 MLB teams have the same goal (winning a World Series, duh), but are armed with different ways to get there, or even different context as to what that win would mean.

So, goal-oriented people that we are, let’s identify a goal for each club going into 2024.

Jump to: AL East | AL Central | AL West | NL East | NL Central | NL West

AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST

Blue Jays: Figure out Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Guerrero arrived with enormous expectations that largely haven’t been met, and the Blue Jays’ inability to land Shohei Ohtani only increases the importance of getting Guerrero back to an MVP-caliber level. He had a strange 2023, turning in a sub-.800 OPS despite excellent hard-hit and strikeout rates. With two seasons left before he hits free agency, the Blue Jays are nearing a pivotal point of determining what the future holds with their face of the franchise.

Orioles: Maximize the Corbin Burnes era
The O’s are so young and have so much potential, both in what they can do in future trade markets with a still-ripe farm system, and what they could potentially do in terms of extensions or signings under new ownership. But there’s no denying that Burnes’ arrival as a rental puts an awful lot of emphasis on what this club can accomplish in 2024. This is the most accomplished pitcher Baltimore has had in a generation, and the Kyle Bradish injury only underscored the importance of getting the most out of him.

Rays: Keep the starting staff healthy
The Rays had finally assembled a traditional starting five going into 2023. Alas, they lost Shane McClanahan, Jeffrey Springs and Drew Rasmussen over the course of the year, and now Tyler Glasnow has been dealt. The Rays have had great success but also a glaring number of prominent elbow and shoulder issues in recent years. In this division, they can’t survive another run of injuries to a group that includes Zach Eflin, Aaron Civale, Ryan Pepiot, Zack Littell, Shane Baz and Taj Bradley (who won't be ready for Opening Day).

Red Sox: Find starting stability
A modest winter and a season-ending right UCL injury for Lucas Giolito sure won’t help the Red Sox reach this goal. But 2024 contention is likely not possible without someone (more specifically, multiple someones) from the group of Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford, Tanner Houck, Garrett Whitlock and Josh Winckowski proving to be a reliable rotation force.

Yankees: Fix Carlos Rodón
Gerrit Cole missing the start of the season (at minimum) only augments the importance of getting Rodón right. With their pitching depth further eroded by the Juan Soto trade, the Yankees are going to need a lot of positive developments in their rotation. But it’s hard to imagine them shaking off last season and getting back into October if the version of Rodón that appears is the same guy who put up a 6.85 ERA in an injury-plagued first year in pinstripes, rather than the guy they invested in.

AL CENTRAL

Guardians: Improve the outfield production
The good news is it can’t possibly get worse. The Guardians got -- and this is not a misprint -- 18 home runs from their outfielders last season (no other team had fewer than 46). This club hasn’t had an outfielder hit 20 homers since 2014. Perhaps No. 1 prospect Chase DeLauter, who made a strong impression in the Cactus League, will pop for them this year.

Royals: Seize the moment in the AL Central
The only team in history to lose 100 games one year and make the playoffs in a full season the next was the 2016-17 Twins. With the additions of Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo, Will Smith, Chris Stratton, Garrett Hampson, Nick Anderson and Hunter Renfroe, the 106-loss Royals were surprisingly aggressive in trying to be the second club to achieve the feat. That’s an awfully tall order, but, hey, this division might prove enabling enough for the Royals to actually pull it off.

Tigers: Figure out Jack Flaherty
Detroit signed Flaherty to a one-year, $14 million pillow contract that could turn into the best bargain in baseball if he’s somehow able to reclaim his Cy Young-worthy form from 2019. This Tigers team that took some strides in its lineup last year will look a lot different if it can fix Flaherty, who had a 4.99 ERA and 66 walks in 144 1/3 innings last year. This will be a great test of the pitching instruction system assembled under president of baseball operations Scott Harris.

Twins: Get another batch of internal boosts
The Twins won the Central in 2023 with the help of some contributions that would have been difficult to forecast, such as an overwhelmingly successful return from ACL surgery for Royce Lewis and impact from raw players like Matt Wallner, Edouard Julien and Louie Varland. With the payroll pared, the Twins will need more organizational success stories in 2024, with prospects such as shortstop Brooks Lee, utilityman Austin Martin, right-handers David Festa and Simeon Woods-Richardson among those likely to get opportunities.

White Sox: Keep replenishing the farm system
The South Siders’ system rose from a 2021 rank at the bottom of the barrel by MLB Pipeline to No. 20 after a strong 2023 Draft showing and some midseason trades. The Sox should be extracting as much trade value as possible out of Eloy Jiménez this summer, after getting the ball rolling by trading Dylan Cease to the Padres. And if Luis Robert is staying put, then the Sox need to strengthen the upper end of their system to ensure they can be competitive within his four remaining years of control.

AL WEST

Angels: Keep Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon on the field
A LOT is going to have to go right for this club to contend in the post-Shohei Ohtani era, but first and foremost for the Angels is getting value out of their two biggest investments. Trout and Rendon have combined for 385 games played over the last three seasons. That’s an average of about 64 games per guy per year. Rendon has already dealt with a groin issue this spring.

Astros: Get Cristian Javier on track
A full(ish) season of Justin Verlander (who will begin the season on the injured list but should be back soon) and Framber Valdez can take this team a long way yet again. But to go all the way, the Astros are likely going to need to get Javier back to his breakout 2022 form. His subpar showing in his first full season as a starter in 2023 (below-average mark of 92 ERA+) made the division title race more difficult, and his Game 7 struggles in the ALCS brought the back-to-back title bid to an abrupt ending.

A's: Make the best of a difficult situation
The approved move to Las Vegas, the expiring lease at the Oakland Coliseum and the uncertainty over where home games will be played from 2025 hang heavy in the air. There’s no getting around the strangeness of it all -- or the fact that this roster has holes aplenty. The A’s must extract as much value out of this club as possible in trade and development. Getting Tyler Soderstrom more comfortable and productive at the big-league level is perhaps most important.

Mariners: Support Julio Rodríguez
Even in an inconsistent 2023, J-Rod finished fourth in the AL MVP race. He just needs a little help from his friends. The additions of Mitch Garver, Jorge Polanco and Luke Raley and the return of Mitch Haniger constitute the M’s bid to improve offensively, support possibly the best starting staff in MLB and keep pace with the Rangers and Astros.

Rangers: Avoid the pitfalls of the repeat bid
Bruce Bochy is back on the mountaintop, and he also knows how temporary the view can be from here. Each of Bochy’s three World Series victories with the Giants were followed by seasons in which San Francisco failed to make the playoffs. The Rangers’ primary challenge in avoiding a similar fate will be keeping the rotation warm for Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer and the newly signed Tyler Mahle, none of whom will be available until at least midseason.

NATIONAL LEAGUE EAST

Braves: Stop losing to the Phillies in the playoffs
The format fault-finders need to cool it. Whine is bad for you. As staff ace Spencer Strider said, “If having five days [off] means you can’t make the adjustment, you have nobody to blame but yourself.” This Braves roster is certainly good enough to win a playoff series. But for whatever reason, their division foes have proved a postseason predicament that must be overcome (if not avoided).

Marlins: Score more runs
Reaching the playoffs in 2023 was wild and wonderful, but the Marlins can’t expect to repeat the same formula of making it to October while being outscored by 57 runs on the year (especially with Sandy Alcantara on the shelf). Having Josh Bell and Jake Burger for a full season should help, but the Marlins have to account for the free-agent departure of Jorge Soler, with their best offensive prospects still working their way towards the big leagues.

Mets: Build it up the right way
The 2023 Mets now stand as the most glaring example of the difficulty in throwing money at every problem and succeeding in MLB. You’ve got to have an infrastructure and developmental pipeline in place, and new president of baseball operations David Stearns is on that task. The Mets will try to field a competitive club while trying to improve the organizational depth. It’s also a pivotal season for Brett Baty and Mark Vientos to prove their worth, and for Francisco Alvarez to seize the moment as the full-time starter behind the dish.

Nationals: Usher in the next wave
The continued development at the big-league level of CJ Abrams, Josiah Gray, Keibert Ruiz and MacKenzie Gore is paramount this year. But 2024 is also likely to be about getting top prospects Dylan Crews, Cade Cavalli, James Wood and Brady House acclimated to the Majors at one point or another. The Nats’ path back to contention revolves around these names.

Phillies: Stay hungry
Though running it back with essentially the same club that let the NL Championship Series get away could be construed as risky, the 2024 installment of this club could be even better, given that Bryce Harper enters the year healthy, the defense is improved with Harper’s move to first base, Trea Turner will be settled in and young players like Bryson Stott, Alec Bohm, Brandon Marsh and Orion Kerkering still have upside to offer. If the Phils got ahead of themselves when they took 2-0 and 3-2 leads on the D-backs, they ought to know better now.

NL CENTRAL

Brewers: Get another boost from youth
Things are changing in a big way in Milwaukee with Craig Counsell’s departure, the Corbin Burnes trade and Brandon Woodruff’s unavailability for all or most of 2024. But the Brewers won the NL Central while exposing important young players Brice Turang, Joey Wiemer and Sal Frelick to the Majors in 2023, and the return from injury for 25-year-old center fielder Garrett Mitchell and potential contributions from prospects like Jackson Chourio, Tyler Black and Robert Gasser offer excitement in 2024.

Cardinals: Play better defense
Perhaps no team was more negatively affected by the defensive shift restrictions than this one. The Cardinals went from fifth in MLB in defensive runs saved (41) in 2022 to dead last (-66). The pitching staff has more strikeout stuff now after the additions of Sonny Gray, Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn, but the Cards are still going to have to catch it behind them if they’re going to climb back in 2024.

Cubs: Make Craig Counsell a repeat NL Central champion
Counsell’s move from Milwaukee to the North Side is definitely an upgrade in organizational resources, Cody Bellinger is back, Michael Busch and Shota Imanaga are intriguing and Héctor Neris solidifies the bullpen. But it’s hard to know if the Cubs are definitively better than last year until we see how their younger players develop.

Pirates: Bring Paul Skenes up to a competitive team
The developmental timetable for your average top prospect has been accelerated in recent years, and, while putting him on the Opening Day roster after only 6 2/3 innings of professional baseball would have been super aggressive, there might not be much sense in wasting too many of Skenes’ bullets in the Minor Leagues. Hopefully the No. 1 overall pick out of Louisiana State University in the 2023 Draft will debut in the not-too-distant future, and hopefully he’ll do so on a team that’s as fun and frisky as the Pirates were early last season.

• Pumping triple digits, Skenes strikes out Holliday in battle of No. 1 picks

Reds: Improve the run prevention
The 2023 season was fun, and the future looks bright after Elly De La Cruz, Matt McLain, Christian Encarnacion-Strand and others brought a whole new dimension to the lineup. But only seven teams in MLB allowed more runs than the Reds, who had a 5.43 rotation ERA and a minus-36 outs above average mark. Cincinnati spent on Frankie Montas, Nick Martinez, Emilio Pagán and Brent Suter this offseason to boost the pitching personnel, but it’s also important for Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo to shake off last season’s injuries and struggles.

NL WEST

D-backs: Don’t just be a cute 2023 story
We were charmed by the Snakes and their unexpected run to the World Series last season. But the fact remains that they reside in a division with the Dodgers and the percentage odds could be stacked against them once again should they return to October. That’s why it was so nice to see Arizona get after it this offseason as aggressively as Corbin Carroll runs the bases, with Eduardo Rodriguez, Eugenio Suárez and Joc Pederson among their additions.

Dodgers: Don’t be another “super team” that comes up super short
The Dodgers enter 2024 with higher expectations than ever after the signing of Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. They’ve won 10 of the last 11 NL West titles and a World Series in a shortened season, but know too well that’s not enough. And we all know too well what can happen to big-spending, ballyhooed ballclubs in this sport (especially in October). The Dodgers will need to thrive amid the extra attention with better pitching health and their stars playing like stars in the biggest games.

Giants: Have a more stable lineup
Platoons are fine when they work, but over the last two seasons, the Giants’ platoon-heavy approach didn’t resonate in the run total or the stands. San Francisco was a bottom-10 team in runs per game and OPS from 2022-23, and attendance fell to 17th in MLB this past year. The hope is that the acquisitions of Korean star Jung Hoo Lee, Matt Chapman and Jorge Soler provide a more consistent lineup that fans can rally around and that can propel the Giants up the NL West standings.

Padres: Win more close games
San Diego had one of the most puzzling seasons in recent history in 2023, ranking in the upper third in the NL in pretty much every major offensive and pitching category yet missing the expanded playoffs because of a damning performance (primarily offensively) in close-and-late situations. They went 9-23 in one-run games and had a “this-should-not-be-possible” 2-12 mark in extra-innings games. They’re going to look a lot different without Juan Soto, but some regression to the mean in clutch situations would make a big difference.

Rockies: Get a healthy season from Kris Bryant
After a 2022 drought, Bryant finally has home runs to his name as a home player at Coors Field, but he still only has seven of them. He’s managed to suit up just 122 times over the first two seasons of a seven-year, $182 million contract. In that time, the Rox have had two of the three worst runs-per-game averages in franchise history. If Bryant can return to health and productivity and pair with burgeoning star Nolan Jones, Colorado can hit the road to respectability.