MLB's Biggest Winners and Losers from Free-Agent, Trade Season So Far
Let the record show that the 2023-24 Major League Baseball offseason isn't over yet. And that's true whether we're talking about how much time is left or how much business must still be conducted.
But now that this obligatory disclaimer is out of the way, let's anoint the biggest winners and wag a finger at the biggest losers of the winter so far.
This is naturally about teams that have and haven't made out well, but also about players. There's only two on the list, and you can almost certainly guess who they are, but that doesn't make them any less worthy of discussion.
In any case, let's start with some honorable mentions for winners and then get to discussing the teams and players who made the cut in proper depth.
Honorable Mentions
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Arizona Diamondbacks
Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick hinted in November that the club's World Series run would be followed by a payroll increase, and he's made good on that through $122 million worth of deals for Eduardo Rodriguez and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and a trade for Eugenio Suárez.
Are the D-backs now favorites to repeat as National League champs in 2024? Well, no. But the chances of that have surely gone up since the start of the winter, and that'll do for a W.
Kansas City Royals
OK, let's be clear here. After losing 106 games last season, the Royals are still a bad team. WAR-wise, FanGraphs projects them ahead of only five other teams in 2024.
But if nothing else, the Royals have succeeded in getting better with a flurry of signings highlighted by $77 million in deals with Michael Wacha and Seth Lugo. They've also succeeded in making Patrick Mahomes excited, which is nice.
Philadelphia Phillies
Remember when the Phillies struck for the first big deal of the offseason by re-signing Aaron Nola on a seven-year, $175 million contract? Or am I the only one who feels like that was forever ago?
Either way, that was the Phillies checking off the biggest item on their to-do list. And since the remaining items are relatively small, there's no reason not to expect them to remain among MLB's elite in 2024.
Jung Hoo Lee
Though Nola's contract beat MLB Trade Rumors' projection by $25 million, he has nothing on Lee. Whereas he was pegged for "only" $50 million, the San Francisco Giants more than doubled that in signing him to a six-year $113 million deal.
The deal could eventually prove to be too rich based on Lee's production, but maybe not on his sheer entertainment value. The guy can hit, even if it's against pitches that are trying to hit him.
Winner: St. Louis Cardinals
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As their journey toward a last-place finish in the NL Central neared its conclusion, St. Louis Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak did everyone a solid and specified exactly how many starting pitchers he would be shopping for in the winter:
Cut to now and, hey, what do you know? The Cardinals have three new starting pitchers in Sonny Gray, Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn.
Though Gray has creds as an ace after placing second in the American League Cy Young Award voting, whether this is the best trio the Cardinals could have bought with $99 million is debatable. Gibson did eat 192 innings last season, but to the tune of a 4.73 ERA. Lynn ate 183.2 innings in his own right, but also coughed up a league-leading 44 home runs.
But need I remind anyone just how bad St. Louis' rotation was? It was such an abomination that Gray, Gibson and Lynn had more RA-9 WAR on their own (7.4) than the Cardinals got from all the starters they used (5.0).
Things should be better in 2024, both for the Cardinals' rotation and for the Cardinals in general. As of now, they project as the best team in the NL Central.
Loser: Texas Rangers
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Like New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers teams of yore, the World Series champion Texas Rangers are this winter's entry into the file marked "Oh Crud, We Suddenly Have an Unexpected Need."
Max Scherzer was slated for the top of the club's 2024 rotation alongside Nathan Eovaldi, but that's no longer the case after the three-time Cy Young Award winner had surgery to repair a herniated disk. He'll be sidelined through the middle of next season.
With Jacob deGrom and the newly signed Tyler Mahle on basically the same recovery timeline after both had Tommy John surgery this year, that's $88.8 million worth of starting pitching that will be on Texas' injured list for half of 2024.
The good news, such as it is, is that the Rangers still have time to add arms. They might, for example, re-sign Jordan Montgomery. The left-hander is still out there, presumably waiting for Scott Boras to tell him that a certain team wants to give him a nine-figure deal.
In most cases, one would assume that a team that just won the World Series would have that kind of money. But as covered by Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the money hose that is the Rangers' local television rights isn't exactly gushing right now.
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Winner: New York Yankees
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Let's have fun with some numbers from the 2023 season, and let's do it in such a way that blatantly rips off Dr. Seuss:
- Thing 1: .690 OPS, 47 HR
- Thing 2: .790 OPS, 61 HR
Anyone who's really in the weeds with Yankees statistics might recognize Thing 1 as the figures posted by the club's left-handed hitters. They weren't great, and that was a great outrage given that Yankee Stadium is kinda-sorta known for catering to lefty hitters.
It's a relief, then, that Thing 2 is what the three new lefty hitters in the Yankee offense did all on their own this past season.
Alex Verdugo and Trent Grisham must at least be name-dropped, but it's no secret that the bulk of that work was done by Juan Soto. He had a standard Juan Soto season, cranking 35 long balls and finishing as one of only seven players with an OBP in the .400s.
This doesn't mean the Yankees have solved all the problems that plagued them during their slog of an 82-win season, but you wouldn't know that from how they project for the second-most WAR of any American League team in 2024. The phrase "on notice" comes to mind.
Loser: San Diego Padres
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The Padres didn't need to trade Soto. Except, they kind of did.
They hypothetically could have kept the three-time All-Star, paid his projected $33 million salary and still been slated to spend way less in 2024 than the $255 million they doled out to players this past season. And if money was no object, they presumably would have done so.
Ah, but money is an object. And for the Padres, it's in the shape of a burden. After the club had to take out a $50 million loan in September just to meet its obligations, Dennis Lin of The Athletic says the team's 2024 payroll could be "more than a little lower than $200 million."
Hence the Soto trade. And the fact that Wacha, Lugo and Nick Martinez are all parts of other teams' rotations right now. Oh, and let's not forget about the apparent unlikelihood of the Padres re-signing Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell or ace closer Josh Hader.
This is where the whole "offseason's not over yet" point should be reiterated, as there's still time for the Padres to get what they need. For now, though, the chances of them improving on this year's 82-80 disappointment are not good at all.
Winner: Juan Soto
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Yes, the Yankees look like the winners in the Juan Soto trade. But do you know who else looks like a winner?
Juan Soto himself.
Next season will be the 25-year-old's walk year and, goodness, is it hard to imagine a better path to free agency. He's already one of the greatest hitters ever at his age, and now he has a chance to prove himself in baseball's biggest market and with its most storied franchise.
Even if it's not quite a fait accompli, Soto should also rake at Yankee Stadium. Powerful left-handed hitters usually do well there, after all, and Soto has indeed already taken a liking to The House That Ruth Built. He has a 1.219 OPS and four homers in seven games there.
As it is, Soto is already a candidate to receive a record-setting contract next winter. This season should serve to make him even more of a candidate to do so, especially if the Yankees are ultimately convinced that he's about as indispensable as Aaron Judge.
Loser: Seattle Mariners
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I feel a bit like Captain Hindsight in saying this, but I'll say it anyway: The Mariners should have been the team to trade for Soto.
It seemed like a real possibility for a hot minute there, specifically the minute in which Soto was still available in the wake of the Mariners' payroll-clearing trades of Suárez and Jarred Kelenic. And because of their wealth of pitching and the Padres' dire need for pitching, the two looked like natural trading partners.
Of course, this didn't happen.
And at least until something does happen, all the Mariners have to show for their offseason is a little bit of extra payroll space and, if you factor in Teoscar Hernández's free agency, the absence of three guys who accounted for 28 percent of the team's home run total for 2023.
Which is pretty much to say that the Mariners should be in the market for Cody Bellinger. Which, in turn, is to say that it's pretty danged frustrating that they're apparently not.
Winner: Los Angeles Dodgers
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That Soto is no longer in the NL West is reason enough for the Dodgers to celebrate. He was a pain in their side with four homers in 13 head-to-head contests this year.
But should we also talk about Shohei Ohtani? We should also talk about Shohei Ohtani.
Ohtani may not be taking the mound in 2024, but he, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman are a potentially historic trio who should take the Dodgers offense to new heights. And if the early signs are any indication, he should take the club's revenue to new heights as well.
So, that's $700 million well spent. And precisely how that money will be spent—i.e., through a whole bunch of deferrals—is already mattering. If Ohtani wasn't making only $2 million per year, it might have been harder for the Dodgers to extend Tyler Glasnow for $136.5 million after acquiring him and Manuel Margot from the Tampa Bay Rays.
The Dodgers almost certainly aren't done adding, but their mission of remaining firmly among the league's top World Series contenders is already pretty well accomplished. At this moment, only Atlanta projects for more WAR in 2024.
Losers: Toronto Blue Jays and San Francisco Giants
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Had things gone differently, Ohtani could be a Giant or a Blue Jay right now.
It is, after all, not for lack of trying that they missed out. According to Jeff Passan of ESPN, both clubs were willing to make the same deal that Ohtani accepted from the Dodgers. His decision, it seems, came down to preference.
Though the Giants did well in quickly pivoting to Lee, he's not going to solve the club's power problem. It may also have an even bigger problem in that San Francisco's reputation for being unsafe—it's statistically safer than Los Angeles, but we all know facts aren't supposed to get in the way of good stories—is repelling free agents.
The Blue Jays, meanwhile, actually seemed to have Ohtani in their clutches before he picked the Dodgers. Between that and their lack of major additions before or since the event, the punch to their gut stings a bit more than the one Ohtani delivered to the Giants' breadbasket.
In a perfect world, the Jays could have pivoted to Soto. But the Yankees were quick to nix that possibility, and Toronto will be reminded of that on at least 13 occasions throughout the 2024 season.
Winner: Shohei Ohtani
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Want to quibble about Ohtani's contract? Alright, we can quibble about Ohtani's contract.
That 97 percent of his $700 million is deferred means the real value of the deal is more like $460 million. An asterisk of that magnitude simply can't be ignored, and then there's the whole debate about whether his contract is good for baseball.
One person who's not complaining, though, is Ohtani himself. The idea for the structure of his contract apparently came from him and applied to all the teams he negotiated with. The Dodgers won the sweepstakes for other reasons, namely because they're really good.
"I think the most important thing is everybody, from ownership all the way to the staff, we all are going to be on the same page," Ohtani said at his introductory press conference. "We're all going to be wanting to win, and I think that's the most important thing, and I think this team has that."
Compared to the team he used to be on, the Dodgers have won 157 more games and made six more trips to the playoffs in the six years Ohtani has been in the league. Once they were willing to sign him on his terms, how the heck was he ever supposed to say no?
Loser: Los Angeles Angels
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Speaking of the team Ohtani used to be on, is there literally anything to say in the Angels' defense right now?
"The Angels had every opportunity," Ohtani's agent, Nez Balelo, told a group of reporters that included Sam Blum of The Athletic. That rings true in all sorts of ways, not least of which is the one concerning the club's refusal to match the Dodgers' offer.
Granted, it would have been a surprise if Ohtani had re-upped with the Angels anyway. Suffice it to say it would have undercut his desire to win, which is purportedly very strong.
In any case, with Ohtani gone the Angels are projected at sixth from the bottom of the league in WAR for 2024. And that's assuming they get productive years from Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon, neither of whom has been very capable of such things of late.
And yet, let's not focus on the Angels' post-Ohtani competitive outlook so hard that we miss what losing him means for the organization's credibility under owner Arte Moreno. It's such that one has no choice but to shake one's head and mumble, "You should have sold, Arte."
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
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