The MLB offseason is nearly complete and virtually all of the major free agents have found new seats after baseball's annual round of musical chairs. Every hot stove question you had about your team has been answered.

Unfortunately, for some, that answer did not arrive in the form of a new player, one who addressed a blindingly obvious roster gap or personnel need, but in the form of an absence of action. That's how it goes sometimes.

Should you be mad? Should you take out your ire by your own demonstration of non-action, namely refusing to buy tickets or tune into your local baseball stream? Well, maybe, but that's not what we're going to preach today.

Every team has some sort of lingering question about what it has done since the Braves capped off their title run last fall. Including, and perhaps especially, the Braves.

We're going to answer some of those questions but with a small twist: We're going to spin things positive from each team's perspective, even when that spin requires some real public relations gymnastics. Hey, it's almost Opening Day, so if you can't accentuate the positive now, when can you?

 

Arizona Diamondbacks

Why the heck didn't the Diamondbacks get a third baseman?

The soothing response: This was not the time.

It's fine. We're just showing some restraint. This wasn't a great free-agent class for third basemen and the top performer on the market, Kris Bryant, turned out to be awfully expensive. The organization has two infielders in Kiley McDaniel's top-100 prospects list in Jordan Lawler and Gerald Perdomo. While he's a shortstop, Nick Ahmed is still around, and so is Josh Rojas, who is more of a utility player but can play third and might have more to show at the plate than he has so far. Besides, we are in a very tough division and trying to build incrementally. There was no real reason to go heavy in pursuit of a third baseman. Be patient. The level of infield talent in Arizona is on the rise.

 

Atlanta Braves

Why the heck didn't the Braves get Freddie Freeman back?

The soothing response: We tried and anyway we got a younger version of Freeman.

This was rough. Freeman was the face of our franchise. We have a duty to run our franchise by certain parameters so the kind of high-level winning you saw last November can be sustained. When we reached a crossroads in our conversations with Freeman, we did so knowing that we had a chance to acquire Matt Olson, one of the game's top first basemen and a player who is from the Atlanta area. And to prove that we are serious about keeping familiar faces on board with whom fans can identify, we immediately signed Olson to an eight-year contract extension. We'll miss Freeman, but the future remains bright for the Braves.

 

Baltimore Orioles

Why the heck didn't the Orioles get a time portal to 1970?

The soothing response: The process is happening. Now.

We know you're heard about the good old days, when the Orioles were perhaps the best-run franchise in baseball. We know you'd like Baltimore baseball to return to those salad days, especially after we've lost at least 108 games in each of the last three full seasons. It's been hard and, yes, we can confirm we did look into purchasing a time-traveling 1981 DeLorean DMC-12. Unfortunately, the bidding exceeded our present budget. But we've got the best catching prospect in the game (Adley Rutschman) and perhaps the best pitching prospect (Grayson Rodriguez) and they will be in Baltimore before long. We can't take you back to the days of Earl Weaver and Brooks Robinson, and the present admittedly looks bleak. But the future is bright — we swear — and did you notice how pretty our ballpark is?

 

Boston Red Sox

Why the heck didn't the Red Sox get a starting right fielder?

The soothing response: The young bats are coming.

We will be selective when it comes to making significant investments in our club. We want to win, just as we did last season when we fell just short of the World Series, but we want that winning to be sustainable and based on a steady flow of talent identified and developed by the Red Sox organization. We've got high-quality young bats on the way like Triston Casas, Jarren Duran and, after them, Nick Yorke and Marcelo Mayer. We can't block our young talent by over-reaching on veteran players who might impede their opportunity to ascend to Fenway Park. Besides, you never know, we might surprise you, just as we did with Trevor Story.

 

Chicago Cubs

Why the heck didn't the Cubs get the 2016 roster back?

The soothing response: There's lots of new stuff around the ballpark.

Time moves on, and while Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber were all available on the open market, the time just wasn't right for us to meet those kinds of market demands. That doesn't mean we don't value winning each and every season. Every campaign is an opportunity to win, and you will be pleasantly surprised by how competitive our 2022 club is going to be, even if you don't know who any of the players are. We can assure you that they will be wearing Cubs uniforms and the ivy will be green and the beer in the bleachers will be cold. We'll miss our old friends, but there is a nice hotel across the street where there used to be a McDonald's, and in that open plaza across from the Sports Corner, you know, where there used to be statues of Billy Williams and Ron Santo, we're building a gambling house. Cubs baseball: The party never ends.

 

Chicago White Sox

Why the heck didn't the White Sox get an impact right fielder?

The soothing response: We have almost too many good hitters.

The club is built to win now and is a heavy favorite to repeat as champions in the American League Central. We know there are no guarantees, but we also know that success in the postseason is heavily reliant on having a deep, dominating bullpen. We addressed that area by adding proven relievers like Kendall Graveman and Joe Kelly to join Liam Hendriks, Craig Kimbrel, Aaron Bummer and Garrett Crochet. You'll be seeing plenty of those players in October. Meanwhile, we really like our position player depth. Michael Conforto? We don't comment on individual free agents, but we'll just say that while it would be nice to have a right fielder you can pencil in every day, we have a number of capable players who need opportunities. Players like Adam Engel, who will make a nice right-field partner for Adam Haseley, whom we just acquired from the Phillies. We also need to find time for the super-versatile Leury Garcia, Andrew Vaughn, Jake Burger and prospect Micker Adolfo. We are going to score runs.

(Note: This section was updated after the White Sox traded for Phillies outfielder Adam Haseley on Tuesday and designated prospect Blake Rutherford for assignment.)

 

Cincinnati Reds

Why the heck didn't the Reds get their All-Stars back?

The soothing response: It was time to reallocate resources and streamline payroll to achieve synergy and circle back to our target action items.

When we traded Raisel Iglesias before last season, we told you we were endeavoring to reallocate resources. After we narrowly missed a playoff bracket last season that has now grown larger with the addition of another wild card in each league, we told you about our initiative to align our payroll to our previously reallocated resources. Everyone knows that resource management is crucial in today's world, and no one has spent more time in baseball on resource management than the Reds. It doesn't mean we don't want to win.