THE GOAL GOING into December was to spend $5 million.

That was the price tag that Cody Campbell, Texas Tech‘s billionaire booster and the leader of The Matador Club NIL collective, initially anticipated for the Red Raiders’ transfer portal haul. In college football’s constantly evolving world of transfer recruiting, that’s still considered a lot of money.

In late November, Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire told reporters he was bringing in approximately 10 transfers for next season. McGuire, Campbell and general manager James Blanchard had spent months preparing for the Dec. 9 start of portal season. They had an ambitious plan. And then the plan worked a little too well.

The quality of players hitting the market — proven starters, potential all-conference performers, real NFL prospects — who were willing to listen to Texas Tech’s pitch exceeded expectations. So, why stop at 10? This trio wholeheartedly believed the Red Raiders had just come up a few plays — and players — short of the first Big 12 championship game in school history, finishing one game behind the teams tied for first place. This was their moment to take a big swing.

“I talked with Cody and Coach McGuire,” Blanchard said, “and Coach was like, ‘Man, if they can help us win the Big 12, let’s just go ahead and go all-in. Let’s do it.'”

Texas Tech brought in 17 new players in December, including seven of the top 75 players in ESPN’s transfers rankings, good enough for the No. 2 ranked portal class in early January. And nobody outside of Lubbock, Texas, saw it coming.

The total cost of the splurge? More than $10 million.

Texas Tech didn’t pull off its stunning portal shopping spree purely by outspending its competition. It’s never that simple. Five months of careful planning and 10 days of relentless recruiting went into putting it all together. And once the portal opened, they went on a hot streak.

“We started hitting home run after home run,” McGuire said.

Texas Tech’s portal class was impressive enough that Notre Dame, fresh off playing for a national championship, tried to hire Blanchard as its next general manager. He’s staying in Lubbock because he knows this upcoming season could be special.

Internally, everyone at Texas Tech agrees on what this haul means: The Red Raiders have acquired enough talent to become a genuine College Football Playoff contender in 2025. They’re not just hoping to secure the program’s first outright conference title in 70 years — they’re expecting it.

“We’re pushing all our chips in,” McGuire said.

IF YOU’RE LOOKING for Blanchard, McGuire says, you probably won’t find him in his office. He’s usually in the war room.

The office of Texas Tech’s director of scouting, Sean Kenney, has turned into the space where the recruiting staff gathers. The whiteboard is covered with the names of all their players and prospects on magnets. Together, they spent the 2024 season knocking out film evaluations and grades on pretty much everyone who had remaining eligibility and fit their needs.

The Red Raiders had to replace departing senior starters at running back, wide receiver and tight end. They needed to upgrade at offensive tackle and defensive tackle. An impact edge rusher was a must. And they had to get better in the secondary after finishing with the worst pass defense in FBS this season.

Blanchard says 90% of the work is collecting information. He puts a big emphasis on feedback from pro football scouting contacts and closely monitors every player who has NFL draft grades going into the season.

“You might watch tape and be like, ‘The NFL likes this guy? I don’t really like him.’ Listen, they got way more information than we do,” Blanchard said. “So, take the ego out of it. If the NFL is saying this guy is a sixth- or seventh-round draft pick … let’s lean towards the guys who do this all the time and let’s have an advantage.”

In an effort to identify veteran players who might slip through the cracks, the staff kept a spreadsheet of senior prospects and crossed off names as each player surpassed four games played (the threshold for burning or saving a year of eligibility). Two of the top five players left on their FCS list were Illinois State offensive lineman Hunter Zambrano and North Dakota State safety Cole Wisniewski. Both were preseason All-Americans who went down with season-ending injuries. Now they’re both Red Raiders.

Sometimes, the sleepers don’t stay quiet. Blanchard had two favorites at the top of his list of edge rushers: Georgia Tech’s Romello Height and Marshall’s Mike Green. When Green put together a breakout season and led FBS with 17 sacks, Blanchard took him off the board. There was no way he was hitting the portal. Now, Green is a potential NFL first-rounder.

McGuire chuckles as he recalls turning on tape of Miami (Ohio) offensive tackle Will Jados and watching him roll his hips and pancake a Notre Dame defensive linemen. “I literally paused it after the first play and went down to [offensive line coach] Clay McGuire and said, ‘Dude, I’m gonna love this guy!'” Blanchard felt the same way when he turned on Zambrano’s tape against Iowa and Northern Illinois defensive tackle Skyler Gill-Howard‘s tape against Notre Dame. There was still more homework to be done, but it didn’t take much film to develop strong feelings.

They spent plenty of time, too, identifying Texas natives who could potentially look to come home. North Carolina offensive tackle Howard Sampson, Louisiana tight end Terrance Carter and USC running back Quinten Joyner quickly climbed their board as priority targets if those players entered the portal.

“I’d say 85% of it was a waste of time,” Blanchard said, “because most of ’em stayed or some went to the draft. But that 15% that wasn’t a waste of time? Man, we executed on it. We were proactive. We already had grades on guys and already had everything we needed done.

“There’s maybe a surprise here or there, but come December, we’ve been talking about these guys for what felt like five to six months.”

Blanchard admits there were some nerves and jitters as December neared and it was time to compete. But he felt fully prepared for what he calls the “beautiful chaos” of sorting through thousands of available players, making calls and offers, scheduling official visits and negotiating with agents.

“It’s chaotic, but I’m a psychopath for it,” he added. “To me, it’s becoming the most exciting event of the college football season for personnel people. National Signing Day used to be our Super Bowl. Not anymore. The portal window is now, and I love it.”

At the start, Campbell said he’d be disappointed if Texas Tech didn’t end up with a top-five portal class. Blanchard was focused on No. 1.

“I don’t think they understood how aggressive we were going to be,” Maguire said.

CAMPBELL SAW THE upcoming opportunity as far back as last summer.

The NCAA and the Power 5 conferences agreed in May to the $2.8 billion House settlement, bringing on the era of revenue sharing in college athletics. Campbell began consulting with countless attorneys and general counsel in July to fully understand the short- and long-term legal circumstances of the imminent shift to schools directly paying players.

“A few people caught on later,” Campbell said, “but nobody was ahead of the curve like we were in terms of planning for it.”

The settlement, which still requires final approval, will allow schools to distribute up to $20.5 million to athletes for the 2025-26 school year starting on July 1. Campbell knew The Matador Club, Texas Tech’s NIL collective since 2022, would still be on the hook for funding the football roster from January through June before the athletic department took on that responsibility — and, more importantly, before the new cap was established.

While schools spent the fall semester scrambling to figure out the unprecedented changes to their financial model, Campbell saw a way for his alma mater to capitalize on the uncertainty. He recognized all the way back in August that Texas Tech should be aggressive in the December portal market and offer front-loaded deals that paid big bucks in the spring and summer before the cap kicked in.

“We had a meeting early in the football season,” McGuire said, “and he said, ‘Look, there’s a part here that we can really take advantage of.'”

Finding an edge in recruiting has historically been a challenge for Texas Tech. The program has a 94-93 record in the post-Mike Leach era since 2010 and hasn’t achieved a top-25 finish in the AP poll since the legendary coach’s firing. But Texas Tech has dramatically upgraded its athletic facilities over the past three years, investing more than $240 million into renovating Jones AT&T Stadium and its football training center.

Four of Texas Tech’s five All-Big 12 performers in 2024 had joined the program as transfers. By the end of the season, they knew they needed more. They’d made solid progress in McGuire’s third year, winning six Big 12 games for the first time since 2008. Texas Tech was the only team in the conference that defeated Arizona State and Iowa State, the two teams that met in Arlington for the Big 12 title. While Baylor delivered a humbling 59-35 blowout, every other league game was within reach. The two losses that knocked them out of the Big 12 race were both one-score games in the final minute.

On his private jet back to Fort Worth following a 41-27 loss to Colorado on Nov. 9, Campbell posted on X about his frustration with “awful” officiating. He received a trolling response telling him to “buy us an O-line.”

His reply: “I will.”

An 8-5 finish was far from awful, but McGuire said he felt like a “complete failure” by season’s end.

“I felt guilty coming into this office, like I’m not doing my job,” McGuire said. “So you want it so bad to get over the hump.

“How do you do that? You get better players.”

WHEN MIAMI (OHIO) transfer wide receiver Reggie Virgil arrived for his official visit to Texas Tech, he’d already lined up his next visits to Oklahoma, Florida and Florida State.

Coaches were calling non-stop during his time in Lubbock and urgently texting promises of $700,000, then $900,000, then Lamborghinis and Corvettes. Virgil was wowed at first but said the offers ultimately didn’t sway him. He’d seen enough to shut down his recruitment. Texas Tech had the No. 1 wideout on their board.

“I went to Tech and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m not going anywhere else,'” Virgil said. “It was literally too perfect.”

Blanchard, McGuire and their staff developed a clear objective: If they could get a guy on campus, don’t let him leave without committing.

UCF transfer Lee Hunter, their top priority at defensive tackle, was supposed to go see Texas next. No way Blanchard was going to let that happen.

“When we get this guy on campus and we believe he’s the best at this or that, we’re not letting him leave,” Blanchard said.

“James knows what he wants,” an agent who represented a Texas Tech signee told ESPN. “His sights were set. The number reflected that. They’re willing to roll the dice for what they want.”

Virgil was one of eight commits on board after the first week of portal recruiting. And then Texas Tech got everybody’s attention when Hunter, Terrance Carter, Howard Sampson, Romello Height and Quinten Joyner all committed within a span of three days.

“Once people saw us committing,” Virgil said, “I’m pretty sure they were like, ‘Wait, man. What’s going on in Lubbock? Why are all these kids trying to go to Tech?'”

Virgil said it wasn’t the dollar figure. The All-MAC wide receiver went in knowing next to nothing about Texas Tech but liked the coaches and offensive fit. When he showed up, he was immediately blown away by the Red Raiders’ resources.

McGuire showed off their recently completed, state-of-the-art Womble Football Center, a $242 million training facility that he proudly calls the best in the country. For a player from a Group of 5 school eager to level up his development ahead of his final season, the amenities were eye-opening.

“I couldn’t even wrap my mind around it,” Virgil said. “They’ve got everything I need for the NFL. I’m coming here to play football. I ain’t coming here to be a diva and request all this money. I’m coming here for my dream, and I think these guys can help me with my dream. That was good enough for me.”

“All these kids, all they’ve heard is, ‘Don’t go to Lubbock. It’s just tumbleweeds and cactus out there,'” Campbell said. “And then they show up and they’re like, ‘Oh my god, this place is actually really nice.'”

McGuire said he didn’t speak with a single agent during the process, leaving the financial discussions to Blanchard and The Matador Club. His assistant coaches stay out of them, too. He knows getting involved can change the relationship between coach and player. He focused his energy on selling the program, the facilities, the staff, and the experience.

Sampson, a massive 6-foot-8, 325-pound tackle from Houston with early-round draft pick potential, was the one who made the staff sweat the most. McGuire got an assist from a close friend in former North Carolina coach Mack Brown, with whom he got on a FaceTime call while he was with Sampson and his family. Texas Tech beat LSU, Alabama and Missouri for his signature.

“From an old-school recruiting standpoint, there’s nobody that’s better than Joey,” Campbell said. “He’s just phenomenal. And if he’s competing on a level playing field, he’s unstoppable.”

In the end, Sampson was their No. 1 offensive tackle. Hunter was their No. 1 defensive tackle. Height was their No. 1 edge defender. All three were top-50 players in ESPN’s transfer rankings. Campbell declined to disclose contract terms, but sources told ESPN that all three signed deals exceeding $1 million for 2025.

Campbell expected a steep price tag for proven players at premium positions. What really surprised him? How many players at the top of their board are now heading to Lubbock.

“We are going to have the most talented roster in the conference, and I don’t think it’s going to even be close,” Campbell said. “We have never, ever been in that position.”

AS BLANCHARD EXPLAINS the strategy behind the big spend, he pauses to bring up a program that tried this a year ago: Ole Miss.

Lane Kiffin and the Rebels loaded up to make a run in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff. They surrounded returning QB Jaxson Dart with new playmakers, veteran offensive linemen and some of the best defensive talent on the market. After an 11-2 season, they shoved in their chips. And they went 10-3.

“They did a heck of a job getting their D-line last year,” Blanchard said. “I think they probably had the best D-line in college football. The issue is, they’re still playing in the SEC. That D-line they assembled isn’t anything different than what that conference sees on a week-to-week basis.”

He references the Rebels not to throw any shade, but rather to point out the difference in what he’s attempting in Lubbock.

“I’m excited to see how a portal class at this level works out in the Big 12,” Blanchard said.

Red Raider football has never enjoyed a period of dominance in this conference. Leach achieved a 10-year run of sustained success, peaking with 11 wins and a No. 12 finish in 2008. But since 2010, Texas Tech has compiled a 52-82 record in Big 12 play.

McGuire knows making moves like Tech did in December means a new level of urgency about winning big. Any pressure he’s feeling, he vowed, is internally driven. “You can’t feel any worse than I feel after a loss,” McGuire said. He couldn’t be more fired up about what he’s working with in 2025. But it’s going to take an awful lot of work to achieve something special.

The challenge begins with installing two new coordinators and playbooks. McGuire hired defensive coordinator Shiel Wood from Houston in early December by nearly doubling his salary to $1.2 million. He won the recruiting battle for coveted Texas State offensive coordinator Mack Leftwich, beating Utah, Arizona and Houston and almost tripling his pay to $1 million.

“They seem to have a little bit more resources than us right now,” Houston coach Willie Fritz told reporters after losing Wood.

Texas Tech stepped up to keep Blanchard, too, after he was heavily pursued by Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame. He’ll continue to be one of the highest-paid GMs in the country after agreeing to a new three-year deal worth more than $1.5 million.

New coordinators and schemes means there will be lots of learning this offseason and competition in spring ball. The incoming transfers have combined for 215 career starts and more than 16,000 career snaps in college. It’s a class loaded with seniors who have one season left and should be highly motivated to play their best football and boost their draft stock.

They’re joining a team with 13 returning starters and 15 more who have starting experience. Texas Tech endured minimal offseason portal attrition despite all the talent they’ve added.

“We’ve had some guys coming up and saying, ‘Blanch, you wasted your money on that one. I’m gonna beat ’em out.'” Blanchard said. “Man, I would love it if you do. Go do it. That’s how I want you to think. I don’t want you to tuck tail and run. Go compete.”

Getting the chemistry and camaraderie right between returning team leaders and the touted free agents is essential. Virgil trusts that his fellow newcomers will arrive with the right mentality and recognizes it will require full buy-in from everyone to make this team unstoppable.

“On paper we look crazy,” Virgil said. “There shouldn’t be anybody that’s able to run through us.”

One thing McGuire says he’s never going to do, in recruiting or retention, is guarantee anybody a starting position. The new guys must compete for everything they get regardless of their compensation. Campbell is confident they can retain their transfers during the April transfer window, too, and said deals were structured so players receive the bulk of their payments after the portal closes.

The head coach acknowledges Arizona State, BYU, Baylor and several more teams in their league are in good shape for 2025. The first year of 12-team CFP proved that a 9-3 record won’t cut it unless, as Clemson did, you win your conference. McGuire insists he’s going to expect to be in the Big 12 title game every year. That’s how much he believes in their people and their plan.

“Man, I came here to win championships,” McGuire said. “I wanna be in that game so bad.”

After the portal haul he pulled off, Blanchard doesn’t mince words about Texas Tech’s ambitions.

“This place has never gone to the Big 12 championship or won one,” Blanchard said. “Everybody from the top down is wanting one in Lubbock, Texas. I can’t imagine. It’ll be a dream.

“But it’s gonna be a dream come true, because it’s about to happen.”

What is the most “Tkachuk” thing about Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk?

“You mean what’s the rattiest thing about him?” asked his teammate Shane Pinto.

Is that an official synonym for Brady’s surname in hockey circles?

“I guess so,” Pinto said with a laugh. “He’s just always stirring the pot on the ice against the other team. But off the ice, he’s a nice kid. I mean, it’s completely different. He’s chill.”

Being a Tkachuk means having a moniker that has defined a certain kind of NHL player: highly skilled with blunt physicality and a win-at-all-costs attitude. Father Keith Tkachuk personified it for 18 seasons, scoring 538 goals and totaling more than 1,000 penalty minutes. Older brother Matthew, 27, swaggered his way to postseason heroism, leading the Florida Panthers to the Stanley Cup last season.

Is it finally time for Brady Tkachuk, 25, to have his definitive moment?

He captains the Senators, one of the NHL’s hottest teams recently and a franchise desperately seeking its first playoff berth since 2017.

“He’s everything you’d want in a hockey player,” said Travis Green, in his first season as Senators head coach. “He’s a bit of a throwback where he can make plays, he can score, he can set up plays, he’s tough, he fights. He’s ultracompetitive. Hard to play against and loves to win.”

Tkachuk will bring those attributes to Team USA in the upcoming 4 Nations Face-Off, as part of a generation of American players getting their first chance to represent their nation in a best-on-best tournament.

“There’s just so much room and opportunity for us to grow in here before then, so I’m still focused on that,” Tkachuk told ESPN recently, standing in the Ottawa dressing room. “But it’s hard not to think about the fact that I’ll be playing for Team USA and playing with my brother. It’s hard not to get excited for it.”

About a month before the tournament, Tkachuk said there hasn’t been a ton of discussion among his national teammates — no Team USA group chat yet. “Everyone’s focused on their own teams right now,” he said.

That’s one of the unique things about the 4 Nations Face-Off, a round-robin tournament in which the U.S. battles NHL stars from Canada, Sweden and Finland. It’s a midseason tournament, with players taking a break from intense playoff races to battle for international bragging rights. Tkachuk believes that the 4 Nations players will be able to focus on the task at hand before getting back to the NHL grind.

He also believes that unlike the 2016 World Cup of Hockey — played before the 2016-17 season, when players were in preseason condition and games at times reflected that — the level of competition will be high for 4 Nations.

“It’s honestly perfect because you’re already in the groove of the season,” he said. “You’re already in the groove of your individual season, and you’re not shaking out any rust at the start of the year. You’re in your tip-top shape. That’s going to be the best quality hockey that you can have in the middle of the season.”

The Senators will have 26 games left when the season resumes on Feb. 22. As of Tuesday, Ottawa had a 90% chance of making the playoffs.

“Right now we’re in a position that I’ve never really been in before,” Tkachuk said. “It’s just so much fun to come to the rink every day. Every game is at the utmost importance.”

Pinto credited Tkachuk, who has been captain since the 2021-22 season, with powering Ottawa into the playoff race. Through 56 games, he led the team with 21 goals and was third (behind Tim Stutzle and Drake Batherson) in points. Three of those goals were overtime winners.

“I think every night he drags himself into the battle,” Pinto said. “He gets the boys going. We’re lucky to have him.”

Other teams would be lucky to have him, too. Such as the New York Rangers, for example.

BACK IN DECEMBER, Larry Brooks of the New York Post reported that the Rangers had made Tkachuk their “primary target” in trade discussions, seeking to import the 25-year-old star to change their culture like brother Matthew did with the Panthers. Brooks claimed to have three sources all saying the Rangers were after the Ottawa captain.

Pinto said that Senators players were aware of the report. “With social media now, it’s hard to kind of stay away from all that,” he said.

Tkachuk was obviously aware of it, too.

“It’s just nothing I can control, right? There’s always going to be rumors, there’s always going to be rumblings,” he said. “I think it would be on me if I let that stuff control my emotions and affect me in what I’m trying to do here.”

But Senators owner Michael Andlauer couldn’t ignore the rumors. In fact, he was absolutely fuming about what Brooks had written.

In an interview with The Athletic, the Ottawa owner said “100 percent there’s never actually been an ounce of discussion” about trading Tkachuk, who is signed through 2027-28 ($8,205,714 average annual value).

Andlauer accused Brooks of being a vessel for “soft tampering,” which immediately entered the NHL lexicon.

“If indeed he’s being fed false information, or people are giving this information from another NHL organization, I don’t know — we just had a big memo about tampering from the NHL. I might consider that soft tampering,” Andlauer said.

The Rangers responded in a statement at the time: “This is an irresponsible accusation and we defer to the Commissioner’s office.”

What was it like for Tkachuk to have his owner step up and basically tell the Rangers, “Stay away from him, he’s ours”?

“I was really appreciative for that,” Tkachuk said. “Not many people do that. I think it just speaks to the character that we have in this organization and the leadership we have in Mr. Andlauer. It felt really good to have that kind of support.”

Tkachuk signed a seven-year contract in October 2021 after a difficult negotiation, not unlike the ones his father and brother had fought through in their careers.

“He’s starting to become more of a Tkachuk the later this goes,” Matthew Tkachuk joked at the time.

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Igor Shesterkin charges at Brady Tkachuk during scrum

Igor Shesterkin is shaken up after Brady Tkachuk collides with him in the crease, then the Rangers goalie goes after Tkachuk while the two teams scrap.

That contract was seen by many as an endorsement of Ottawa management’s vision for the future. The following three seasons were good for Brady Tkachuk, who scored more than 30 goals in each of them, but the mediocrity continued for the Senators, who missed the postseason cut and finished no better than sixth in the Atlantic Division.

Over that span, owner Eugene Melnyk passed away, with Andlauer buying the team from the Melnyk family in September 2023. GM Pierre Dorion, who drafted Tkachuk fourth in 2018 and signed him to that extension, was fired in November 2023. Green is the fifth coach Tkachuk has had in seven seasons with Ottawa.

This season, Tkachuk has experienced another change, and it’s a positive one: He’s captaining a team that’s in playoff contention deep into the season.

“I think the key is not looking too far ahead, just focusing on the here and now. As time has gone on this year, I think I’ve gotten better at that, but still need to improve a little bit more,” he said. “Not get too high, not get too low, just focus on what I can do and what I control.”

A LOT OF PLAYERS claim to stay in the “here and now” by not focusing on the daily NHL standings. Tkachuk admits that with the Eastern Conference playoff race basically changing by the hour, that’s an impossibility. He wants to know where the Senators are around the bubble. He just can’t have it weigh on him or his team too much.

“I never want to get consumed in it, where that’s all I care about. That’s going to be detrimental versus being a positive thing,” he said.

That includes imagining potential playoff matchups. There’s one of particular interest to Senators fans: the possibility of facing their archrival Toronto Maple Leafs in the Eastern Conference postseason. Ottawa has lost all four “Battle of Ontario” playoff series against the Leafs, the last one occurring in 2004.

“I did see that. I think it’d be fun and awesome. But for us, we can’t really look too far ahead yet. That’d be exciting. But I think we got to just put our full sole focus and effort into today,” Tkachuk said. “It doesn’t really matter who you play; it’s just about getting there and it’s about the process of getting there.”

Tkachuk’s profile will get a further boost courtesy of Amazon Prime’s “Faceoff: Inside the NHL,” which has been renewed for a second season. Tkachuk was featured in the premiere season of the show during some segments featuring Matthew and Keith.

Brady Tkachuk was the only player named as part of the cast when the show’s renewal was announced in December.

“It’s probably going to be a little weird to start, just with cameras kind of around. When there’s a camera or a mic around, sometimes you can just go into a shell. It’s important to not really change who I am,” he said. “I’m actually really excited to showcase the city of Ottawa and the amazing people that are in that city.”

The Amazon show will chronicle the first time Tkachuk will captain the Senators through a playoff race. It’s also the first time his own teammates are seeing him in that mode, too.

“Brady’s Brady. He’s going to wear his heart on his sleeve every day and he has done a great job so far,” forward Josh Norris said. “I think sometimes he just gets some momentum during the game where you can tell that he’s pissed off or he knows that we need to play better.”

Green was impressed with Tkachuk’s leadership from the moment the coach arrived in Ottawa.

“He’s a great captain now, but he’s still a young captain in the league. He’s learning as he goes,” Green said. “He’s going to be even a better captain the longer he plays in the league.”

Pinto said being this confident as a young captain is one of the most impressive things about Tkachuk.

“As a young guy, it’s never easy to be a leader,” he said. “I think he’s still a year older than me and he’s a captain of a team, so I can’t imagine the pressure he gets put on every night. But I thought he’s done a great job.”

Pinto arrived in the 2020-21 season. He watched as players like Tkachuk and defenseman Thomas Chabot, who started playing for Ottawa in 2016-17, committed to the team contractually and gave it their all through some lean times.

As the Senators push for the playoffs, Pinto said seeing those players get their due is part of the thrill.

“They’ve been through a lot of tough times. It’s made them stronger as people and as players. Obviously there comes a time where you want to start winning. Thankfully, we started to do that, and those guys are probably the happiest out of everyone,” he said. “When the team’s winning, people will start to realize how good they are. I’m just happy for them.”

After a wild baseball winter, spring training is in the air.

The Mets inked Juan Soto to the largest contract in MLB history — and also brought back fan favorite Pete Alonso this week. The Dodgers had another busy offseason, including the addition of prized Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki. And the Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Houston Astros and New York Yankees were among the most active teams in a scorching hot trade market.

Now, with pitchers and catchers reporting across Arizona and Florida this week, we’ll start seeing how those moves translate to the diamond. We’ve asked our ESPN MLB experts to get us ready for spring training with the stars and storylines they’re most excited to see as baseball returns for the 2025 season.

What is the one thing you are most excited about as spring training begins?

Buster Olney: The Mets are a must-see stop in spring training, and will be must-watch all year. The Dodgers are baseball’s Evil Empire in many fans’ eyes and will be aiming to be the majors’ first back-to-back champion since the 1998-2000 Yankees. But in many ways, the Mets will be the team under the most pressure this year, given their success last October, the record-setting signing of Juan Soto and that they have such a difficult challenge in the loaded National League East.

The major competitive question the Mets face is this: In the face of another rotation makeover, can they replicate the starters’ production of 2024, when they ranked fifth in innings and 12th in ERA?

Jorge Castillo: Can the Mets reproduce some of their magic? The lineup is undoubtedly better than a year ago with the addition of Juan Soto, Mark Vientos coming off a breakout season and Pete Alonso back after a long winter for the slugger. The bullpen has been upgraded. The rotation has questions but so did last year’s.

Beyond the talent, however, the 2024 Mets ran on vibes en route from a 22-33 start to reaching the National League Championship Series. Jose Iglesias, the infielder and part-time singer who helped establish the good energy upon joining the team in late May, is not around anymore. A few other key cogs in the vibes machine are gone, too. Asking the 2025 Mets to replicate the 2024 OMG, Grimace-powered Mets is unrealistic. Teams like that are rare. But vibes matter, and the Mets will need to generate some good ones as they head into a season with higher expectations.

Jeff Passan: Trying to figure out who in the American League is good. The Yankees lost Juan Soto – and gained Max Fried, Cody Bellinger, Devin Williams and Paul Goldschmidt. Their predecessor as AL champion, Texas, added Joc Pederson and Jake Burger, re-signed Nathan Eovaldi, refashioned its bullpen and has a healthy Jacob deGrom. Other playoff teams from last year – Cleveland, Houston, Kansas City, Baltimore, Detroit – still have playoff aspirations. As do the other four AL East teams, Seattle and Minnesota. It’s a wide-open league — again — and spring training often gives little clues that when the standings have sorted themselves out make more sense.

Alden Gonzalez: Getting an up-close look at Roki Sasaki. We’ve been hearing so much about him for years, and he is finally in the major leagues, getting set to face the best hitters in the world. Though they’ll monitor him closely, the Los Angeles Dodgers won’t place any restrictions on Sasaki in his first season in the U.S. I want to see how one of the most lauded pitching development programs goes about extracting the greatness Sasaki clearly possesses. And I want to see how major league hitters react to his absurd splitter.

Jesse Rogers: Excited might be too strong, but I’m definitely interested in the use of automatic balls and strikes this spring. Barring a major breakdown in the system, we’re probably a year away from robot umps — at least for some calls — becoming a permanent part of the game.

On the field, it’s cool to see some of the sport’s most well-known grizzled veterans changing teams while trying to drink from the fountain of youth. Can Justin Verlander help lead the Giants out of .500 hell? Same goes for Max Scherzer in Toronto. Their Hall of Fame-worthy stories are down to the final chapters. And please don’t ask me for Dodgers spring training tickets. That’s going to be a scene all spring.

Other than Juan Soto, which player who changed teams this winter are you most interested in seeing in his new uniform?

Olney: Alex Bregman, who seemingly is likely to land with the Red Sox, Cubs or Tigers soon, with sources in the Astros organization skeptical he’ll return to Houston. If he goes to Fenway Park, he could pepper the Green Monster while relearning the nuances of playing in the middle infield. If he goes to Chicago — likely on a short-term, Cody Bellinger-type deal — he will have pressure to produce. And if he signs with the Tigers, it would be Detroit’s de facto announcement that with Tarik Skubal two years from free agency, the team’s window to win is now, and the expensive signing of Bregman would be an all-in move.

Passan: Corbin Burnes, who was the Diamondbacks’ rejoinder to everything the Dodgers are trying to do. Arizona is a dangerous, dangerous team. It’s easy to forget they swept Los Angeles in the postseason two years ago and reached the World Series without Burnes, who has the best ERA in baseball over the last five seasons. He joins Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Eduardo Rodriguez and Brandon Pfaadt in one of baseball’s best rotations — one that complements an offense that scored the most runs in baseball last year. The offseason after the signing of Jordan Montgomery went bad, Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick didn’t allow the sour taste to keep him from trying to win, which is more than can be said for many of his contemporaries. If Burnes is his normal self, the Diamondbacks will be the best competition for the Dodgers in the cutthroat NL West.

Castillo: Four years ago, Walker Buehler, who signed a one-year, $21.5 million deal with Boston this offseason, was one of the best pitchers in the majors. The brash right-hander went 16-4 with a 2.47 ERA in 33 starts, tossing over 200 innings, for the Dodgers. Then, he got hurt, underwent a second Tommy John surgery, missed the 2023 season and struggled upon returning in 2024 before giving a gutsy postseason effort culminating with recording the final three outs of the World Series.

Buehler is talented, confident and a proven big-game performer. A return to his previous form could be the difference in the Red Sox vaulting from missing the playoffs to becoming a legitimate contender — and result in Buehler receiving the payday expected during his peak next winter.

Gonzalez: Kyle Tucker, because I still don’t think enough people realize how good he is. Only 14 players accumulated more FanGraphs wins above replacement from 2021 to 2023 than Tucker. He was on track to be even better — much better — in his age-27 season in 2024, He had an OPS of 1.175 by June 3 before suffering a shin fracture that kept him out for three months. Tucker has since been traded from the Houston Astros to the Chicago Cubs. Free agency is nine months away with a massive payday approaching. And Tucker might be my pick for NL MVP.

Rogers: It’s a tie between Max Fried and Tucker. The former got paid, the latter is hoping for the same. Fried is venturing out from a comfortable situation in Atlanta where players aren’t subjected to the same East Coast intensity that New York, Boston or Philadelphia brings. He’ll feel that with the Yankees. Will he thrive under the bright lights?

Meanwhile, Tucker is leaving the only league, team and city he has known in his big league career — just in time for his platform year in a place that is notoriously volatile for left-handed hitters because of weather patterns that vary from season to season. Wrigley Field is due for a good summer, which could turn Tucker into the next $300 million (or more) man next offseason.

Other than Roki Sasaki, who is one player from our top 100 prospects list you are most looking forward to seeing this spring?

Olney: After being dormant for a few years, the Red Sox appear to be on the verge of a breakout, fueled by some high-end prospects — maybe none better than Roman Anthony, who will presumably make his debut this year. Folks in the Boston organization rave about his work ethic and focus, and for all the talk in recent seasons about fellow prospect Marcelo Mayer, Anthony could have an immediate impact once he lands in the big leagues. His slash line in the minors last year: .291/.396/.498. And he dominated in Triple-A after a second-half promotion, accumulating as many walks (31) as strikeouts (31).

Passan: Even before he reaches the big leagues, Chandler Simpson is already one of the most exciting players in baseball. A 5-foot-11, 170-pound outfielder chosen by the Tampa Bay Rays in the competitive-balance round of the 2022 draft out of Georgia Tech, Simpson is the best base-stealing prospect since Billy Hamilton. In his first full minor league season in 2023, Simpson stole 94 bases in 109 attempts. Last year, at High-A and Double-A, Simpson stole 104 bases in 121 attempts over 110 games. Most interesting is how Simpson hit last year. He very rarely strikes out, his left-handed swing devised for contact. At High-A, he batted .364 in nearly 150 plate appearances. He continued in Double-A, batting .351/.401/.407 and walking 29 times against 27 strikeouts in 358 plate appearances. It’s a lot of singles. But it’s also a lot of times on base that are near-automatic to wind up at second. Hitting to a .377 wOBA and 141 wRC+ means you’re very good. And so while Simpson isn’t nearly as lauded as some of the others here, he is a throwback, the sort who’s impossibly fun to watch. Baseball will take all of that it can get.

Castillo: The Martian has landed in left field at George M. Steinbrenner Field. Jasson Dominguez, one of the most hyped prospects in recent memory, is slated to make the Yankees’ Opening Day roster for the first time as the team’s everyday left fielder. You’re probably thinking, “It’s about time!” But know this: Dominguez turned 22 on Friday. The shine might have dimmed from when he signed as a 16-year-old marvel out of the Dominican Republic, but he’s younger than Travis Bazzana, last year’s No. 1 pick. Last season, despite dealing with injuries, Dominguez slashed .314/.376/.504 with 11 home runs and 16 stolen bases in 58 games across three minor league levels before getting called up to the Bronx in September. He looked uncomfortable in the outfield and didn’t produce enough at the plate for the Yankees to give him playing time in October, but his power-speed combo and getting leeway to find his rhythm should give New York an upgrade in left field over Alex Verdugo.

Gonzalez: Jackson Jobe, a 22-year-old right-hander who debuted with the Detroit Tigers late last season, got a taste of playoff baseball and might lock down a rotation spot this year. He’s a great athlete who can easily access velocity, displays an excellent changeup and flashes a cool-looking sweeper. If Jobe makes the proper adjustments, he and Tarik Skubal in the same rotation could win the Tigers the American League Central.

Rogers: I’ll go with Matt Shaw of the Cubs. How many teams rid themselves of every player who played a position during the previous season? That’s what the Cubs did at third base this winter when they jettisoned seven players who saw time at the hot corner. Barring an Alex Bregman sighting, this has left the door open for Shaw to win the job. That’s some serious faith in a guy who has shot up ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel’s prospect rankings, landing at No. 23 to begin the season, but has only 35 Triple-A games under his belt.

Which team are you far more interested in today than you were a year ago at this time?

Olney: The Reds. The oddsmakers have set the early over/under for Cincinnati’s team win total at 78.5, just above the team’s 77-85 record last season and that makes no sense. The Reds had easily the worst record in one-run decisions last year (15-29) meaning that if they played last season again with the same group, they’d probably improve by four or five wins — and they should be better this season after bolstering their rotation and lineup. And new manager Terry Francona has demonstrated over and over in his Hall of Fame-caliber career that he is difference-making. In his first year as the Guardians’ manager, Cleveland improved from 68-94 to 92-70.

Passan: The A’s. As eye roll-inducing as it was to see A’s owner John Fisher named to the league’s executive committee (inviting the person most responsible for killing baseball in Oakland to the most powerful group in the game said all it needed to about the lack of regret for that decision) the team spending this season in Sacramento is better than the one that made a 19-game improvement to 69-93 last year. The A’s spent $67 million on Luis Severino and traded for Jeffrey Springs to shore up their rotation. They added Jose Leclerc to their bullpen and Gio Urshela to their infield. They locked up slugger Brent Rooker long-term. A full year of Lawrence Butler and Jacob Wilson, a bounce back from Zack Gelof, improvement from JJ Bleday, the arrival of Nick Kurtz — squint and you can see a pretty good core and a team that if everything breaks right could have October aspirations.

Castillo: The Red Sox. Fans in Boston aren’t satisfied with the organization’s offseason, but the Red Sox upgraded their biggest weakness (pitching) and might not be done. Acquiring Nolan Arenado or signing Alex Bregman would be quite the finish for a club that will have three top-25 prospects, including the consensus No. 2 prospect behind Roki Sasaki (Roman Anthony), waiting in Triple-A Worcester.

Garrett Crochet looked like an ace in 2024. Walker Buehler was one before his second Tommy John surgery. Patrick Sandoval might help down the stretch. The Red Sox finished 81-81 with a plus-four run differential last season despite a slew of injuries and a pitching dropoff in the second half. Triston Casas is healthy after playing in just 63 games. Trevor Story is healthy after playing in 26 games last season. Rafael Devers, plagued by shoulder injuries last year, should be healthier. Jarren Duran registered a breakout All-Star 2024 season. Wilyer Abreu had a great rookie year. The Red Sox have the talent to return to contention.

Gonzalez: The Giants. I don’t know if they’ll make the playoffs — I see three National League East teams as near-locks, so it will be tough — but Buster Posey has at least made them seem more exciting in his first year running baseball operations. I don’t know how Willy Adames will age, but pairing him at the top of the order with a healthy Jung Hoo Lee should be fun. I don’t know how much Justin Verlander has left, but inserting him in a group headlined by Logan Webb and Robbie Ray, who is expected to pitch his first full season in three years, is intriguing.

Rogers: Year-to-year, definitely the Mets. We knew nothing of what they would become last season when they opened camp in 2024. Carlos Mendoza was a first-time manager who proved his worth throughout a magical run in New York. After adding Juan Soto and re-signing fan favorite Pete Alonso, the sky seems the limit. But this time, they won’t be just a fun story — they’ll have tons of added pressure. If they can keep it fun and loose like they did last year, the Mets will be a force again. That lineup could be scary.