Across baseball, spring training is known as the time when hope springs eternal.
But in some MLB front offices, it also presages ‘put up or shut up’ time. Entering the 2025 season, chief execs of several teams have to feel that their own futures may be at stake if their clubs don’t perform.
From least to most in jeopardy, here’s a look at five front offices that could face a leadership restructuring at season’s end if the season doesn’t go well. This list does not include the St. Louis Cardinals, who have already announced the resignation of team President John Mozeliak effective in October. He will be succeeded by Chaim Bloom.
5 MLB front offices facing "win or bust" expectations in 2025
5. Toronto Blue Jays
By MLB standards, the Jays have had one of the most stable front office setups. Team President Mark Shapiro and GM Ross Atkins have been in charge since the end of the 2015 season. They’ve also been pretty successful. Under Shapiro and Atkins, the Jays have a .554 winning percentage with four postseason appearances.
There are, however, ominous storm clouds overhead. Shapiro and Atkins are both operating on contracts that expire next winter. The Jays are coming off a fifth-place finish in the AL East, and the specter of the team’s failure to get Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s signature on a contract extension has created anxiety across Canada.
If Shapiro and Atkins lose Guerrero, it could add to a growing legacy of inability to snare big-name targets. The Jays have recently and very publicly failed in their pursuits of several high-dollar talents, including Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto.
The record of Shapiro and Atkins is good enough that they will probably get an extension. But if the Jays lose Guerrero and finish at the bottom of the AL East again, Rogers Media (the franchise ownership group) may seize the opportunity to change direction.
4. Pittsburgh Pirates
Ben Cherington has run the Pirates front office as executive vice president and general manager since November 2019.
Cherington is the guy responsible for landing Pittsburgh’s attention-grabbing young talent, namely 2023 No. 1 overall pick Paul Skenes. But entering the sixth season of his tenure, Cherington has yet to produce a postseason team or, for that matter, even a .500 club.
His winning percentage is just .415. Some of that could be attributed to the kind of tear-down that always preoccupies a new GM’s first season or two. But Pittsburgh’s 76-win total of 2023 and 2024, while the best of Cherington’s tenure, isn’t showing sufficient progress.
That makes 2025 a pivotal season for Cherington’s tenure. Skenes is already a star, but other Cherington first round picks — Henry Davis, Nick Gonzalez, Termarr Johnson — haven’t delivered on the hype. If the Pirates don’t show measurable progress this year, Cherington’s tenure could be in trouble.
3. Chicago Cubs
Expectations are high on the North Side, and that means heat on team president Jed Hoyer if the NL Central favorites don’t get the job done.
Hoyer took over from Theo Epstein following the 2020 season, and his actions the past couple of winters have been attention-grabbing. In 2023, he signed manager Craig Counsell to a record contract, and he traded for Kyle Tucker this past winter despite the fact that Tucker can be a free agent at season’s end.
What Hoyer has not yet done is win, at least not to the level expected of a recent North Side club. Four seasons into Hoyer’s tenure, the Cubs have not yet played a postseason game. The last chief executive on the North Side who debuted with four straight non-playoff seasons was Bob Kennedy, who lost his job after his fifth season way back in 1981.
If the Cubs come through as expected in 2025, all will be forgiven for Hoyer and GM Carter Hawkins. But if 2025 is another bust season for the Cubs, Hoyer, whose contract is up at season’s end, could be looking for new opportunities.
2. Los Angeles Angels
Perry Minasian has been the chief executive in L.A. since the end of the 2020 season. He got a contract extension through 2026 just last August, so that fact alone may ensure his survival beyond season’s end.
Still, one has to wonder how much patience owner Arte Moreno will have for a GM who has produced Minasian’s fairly dismal track record. Since 2021, the Angels are 286-372, good for a pitiful .347 winning percentage.
If one chooses to use them, Minasian has excuses aplenty. He inherited Anthony Rendon’s un-productive mega-contract. Mike Trout has done nothing but get hurt, and Shohei Ohtani was lost to the cross-town rival Dodgers on a ludicrous $700 million pact.
But baseball is a game rooted in reality. Minasian’s Angels have lost altitude annually, from 77 wins in 2021 to just 63 last season. They’re not supposed to be much, if any, better in 2025. But at some point, even in Anaheim, performance has to count.
1. Colorado Rockies
The Rockies have a long history of patience with their front office staffs. Since the franchise’s creation more than 30 years ago, current GM Bill Schmidt is only the fourth chief executive, following Bob Gebhard, Dan O’Dowd, and Jeff Bridich.
Schmidt replaced Bridich on an interim basis in the spring of 2021, and got the position on a permanent basis that winter. He is virtually a Rockies lifer, having since 1999 worked his way up through various positions.
The fact that the Monfort Brothers, who own the Rockies, have historically been so reticent to make big changes at the top is the best thing Schmidt has going for him. At the same time, Colorado is 262-385 (.409 winning percentage) under his guidance.
That includes annual last-place finishes, none of them with more than 68 victories.
Few rational analysts think the Rockies will top that win total by very much, if at all, in 2025. But like with Minasian and the Angels, at some point, even in the mountains, results have to matter, which is why the franchise’s patience with Schmidt could be running thin.