The Major League Baseball (MLB) offseason has been very active, with lots of big moves made and lots of shocking announcements. Teams such as the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s have suffered great losses, and teams such as the New York Mets have made some big moves.

   The Giants and A’s, one of the biggest rivalries in the MLB, can both relate to taking big hits over the offseason so far. The Giants 12 year catcher, Buster Posey, officially announced his retirement last month. This is a huge hit to the Giants, considering that Posey is a 7 time all star, meaning he only missed 5 all star games in his 12 seasons, and considering the fact that he led the team to 3 world series wins in 5 years.

   “The Giants will suffer in the beginning of the season due to the long history of only having one catcher but it will be better in the end to have new players and be able to experiment with the position more,” said Avery Marie (10) when asked about how the loss of Buster Posey will affect the team.

   Buster Posey was the starting catcher for the Giants for most of the past 12 seasons, so it is understandable that the Giants are expected to have a slow start to the season.

   Also a team that is dealing with lots of struggles this offseason, the A’s  started with the shocking announcement that the longtime A’s manager, Bob Melvin, who led the team to multiple AL West pennants and 853 wins, second most by a manager in A’s history, was signing a contract to manage for the San Diego Padres. The A’s also lost key players such as Mark Cahna and Starling Marte, two key pieces in the A’s outfield last season.

  “Losing Bob Melvin to the Padres is probably the biggest blow from any team this offseason and one of the biggest blows in Oakland’s history,” said Nick Keneally (12).

   This is understandable knowing the fact that Bob Melvin has the second most wins in A’s history and almost 2,000 wins in his career as a manager.

   A team that made a lot of big moves this offseason so far would be the New York Mets. The Mets have signed star outfielders Mark Cahna and Starling Marte from free agency, who both averaged above a .230 batting average last season. They also signed star pitcher Max Scherzer, who had a 2.46 era last season with the Nationals and Dodgers.

   “The normal answer would be yes, these are key acquisitions to anybodies roster, but knowing the Mets history, they won’t take advantage of this and will end the season a couple spots out of wild card contention,” said Julian Hernandez (12) when asked if he thinks the Mets will be contenders with these big pickups.

   Over time, the Mets have always been known to ruin big players’ careers due to their history of having bad management, so while the big moves made look very promising on paper, their isn’t lots of hope for the future.

   As the offseason proceeds, teams are still taking big hits such as the A’s and Giants, and teams such as the Mets will continue to make big moves to help boost their chances of greatness in the regular season.