The Cubs made the first big splash of the offseason by purloining Craig Counsell, widely regarded as one of the top managers in baseball, from the division rival Brewers, under the nose of the voracious, all-consuming Mets. On January 2, the Cubs introduced Counsell’s major league coaching staff. Right-handed pitcher Colten Brewer will also be joining the team in 2024.

But Counsell’s signing was supposed to herald a big and flashy offseason, a statement of intent that the Cubs were set to return to the forward-thinking, all-conquering form that made them such a force in the National League in the middle of the last decade. But the Cubs’ most recent trade was November 6. Their most recent major league free agent signing was Edwin Ríos, on February 17 of last year. That assumes Brewer is on a minor league deal; he’s pitched in the majors in five of the past six seasons, but he broke his own signing on Instagram rather than going through the agent-to-newsbreaker pipeline.

Having a quiet offseason so far is not necessarily a bad thing. There’s plenty of winter left, and plenty of free agents still on the board. Besides, maybe Jed Hoyer is doing a bit based on the fact that the team’s mascot is a bear and bears hibernate. That’d be sick. If there are two things I love, it’s hibernating and overcommitting to a bit. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to college baseball conference realignment. For those of you who missed the first class, here’s a quick summary: The people who run college football are drunk with power, and are tearing up decades of geographical and cultural alignment in order to chase the biggest TV deals they can get. Good for them. Unfortunately the rest of college sports — perhaps the whole of American higher education, less those Ivy League dorks whose personal grievances become national news — is merely a vestigial appendage of the Football Bowl Subdivision.

The realignment of 2023-24 leaves two important questions to be answered, one urgent, the other existentially important. The urgent question: What happens to Oregon State and Washington State, the two schools left without a chair by Pac-12 collapse? This question is arguably more important for baseball than it is any other sport, as Oregon State is a national powerhouse. The important question: Can the ACC hold it together, or is it too bound for a Pac-12-type implosion?

We got some clarity on both of those questions this week, as Oregon State and Washington State found a new partnership with the WCC (though not for baseball), while Florida State is taking its first step toward leaving the ACC. Read the rest of this entry »

Pity the accounting department for the Braves. They’ve had a terrifically busy offseason, which thus far has amounted to not a whole lot of change in terms of roster composition. Since the end of the postseason, they have signed one major league free agent and made no fewer than eight trades involving at least one major league player. They have also already traded or released not one but five players acquired by trade this offseason.

So what does it all amount to? Read the rest of this entry »

TJ Hopkins got traded on Tuesday. For what? Either cash or a player to be named later, we don’t know yet. And it probably doesn’t matter that much. Hopkins was something like the seventh outfielder on a .500 team last year, and he only got into 25 games. The Reds had already DFA’d him last week to make room for Austin Wynns — hardly a stop-the-presses moment in and of itself — so the Giants are sending along either money or a minor leaguer or a tasteful floral arrangement in order to make sure they don’t get jumped in the waiver line.

Cards on the table: I probably would not know who Hopkins was if he had not played four seasons at South Carolina. He was a ninth-round senior sign in 2019, and despite solid minor league numbers (he hit .300/.400/.500 at Triple-A last season), he was 26 before he made the majors. Good for him, to be clear. In a ranking of major league accomplishments of recent Gamecock players I didn’t think had a shot at playing in the big leagues, Hopkins is probably no. 4, behind Whit Merrifield, Taylor Widener, and Jonah Bride.

Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that Hopkins, modest though his major league accomplishments to this point may be, is legitimate major league outfield depth. And the Giants clearly wanted him; they’re giving him a 40-man roster spot, and they’re sending Cincinnati a muffin basket in order to make sure nobody else gets him. The thing is, the Giants already have a ton of outfielders. Read the rest of this entry »

In January 2011, the Rays traded a good young starting pitcher who was about to get into his expensive pre-free agency years. They received a five-player package that included another good young starting pitcher, who himself went on to pitch well for the Rays for several years. In 2018, they traded that pitcher for a package that included another young starting pitcher, who gave the Rays several good seasons of service. And last week, they traded him for a package that included another promising young pitcher.

It’ll probably be a minute before 26-year-old Ryan Pepiot is ready to buy a house. Interest rates being what they are, even the major league minimum salary doesn’t go as far as it used to anymore. It’s just as well, because he should rent until sometime in late 2026, I suspect.

See, this started as a joke about how the Rays always trade their good young players before they hit free agency. Turns out the Rays are so systematic about this sort of thing that they defy parody. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rangers love a free-agent starting pitcher: Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Andrew Heaney, Martín Pérez. And now Tyler Mahle. The 29-year-old righthander, previously of the Reds and Twins, has signed a two-year, $22 million contract with the Rangers. He will make $5.5 million in 2024 and $16.5 million in ’25, plus up to an additional $5 million in incentives depending on how many innings he throws in the latter season.

This news, which was exciting enough to draw approximately zero eyeballs away from the Shohei Ohtani introductory presser that started half an hour later, is a shrewd signing by the reigning world champions. I encourage you to click More and read anyway, but I’ll give away the ending, I don’t care: I really like this deal for the Rangers, as well as Mahle’s fit with the team. Read the rest of this entry »

When Shohei Ohtani signed his record-setting contract on Saturday, the phrase “unprecedented deferrals” was at the forefront of the conversation. Not knowing how much “unprecedented” came out to in dollars and cents, we ran with a projection from Jon Becker based on the assumption that Ohtani would receive $400 million of his $700 million contract in deferred money.

At the time, that seemed like such a huge figure I struggled to believe it, even in the face of credible reports that at least half of Ohtani’s salary would be deferred. Surely it wasn’t possible to defer $400 million. But no, apparently the truth is even more incredible: Ohtani is taking a base salary of just $2 million a year, leaving $68 million to paid out, without interest, in each of the first 10 years after the contract ends. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, Marco Gonzales got traded twice in three days: First from Seattle to Atlanta in the Jarred Kelenic deal, then up the Denny Neagle Highway to Pittsburgh. No one has ever been more traded. You want to know how traded Gonzales is? The only other player he’s ever been traded for, Tyler O’Neill, just got traded too.

The St. Louis Cardinals, sitting on a surfeit of corner outfield types, have sent O’Neill to Boston for pitchers Nick Robertson and Victor Santos. This is not as exciting a trade as it would’ve been two years ago, when O’Neill was coming off a 5.5 WAR season, but it allows the Cardinals to turn a player they probably weren’t going to use into pitching depth. The Red Sox gain some temporary goodwill from the small subset of locals who’ll scan a headline and think that former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill has returned from the dead. Moreover, they’ve added some right-handed power to a pool of outfielders that could use some. Read the rest of this entry »

Shohei Ohtani is not on a plane to Toronto. He’s not hiding in your linen closet or lurking off the coast of Jamaica in a submarine. After years of intrigue, weeks of speculation, and days of looking for signs in flight plans and sushi restaurants, it’s over. After a free agent courtship to fit the player — in other words, unique — Ohtani will be a Los Angeles Dodger.

This is hardly the most interesting outcome. There will be no reset to the competitive order, no validation of an underdog’s creative sales pitch or intriguing roster construction. The Dodgers were already one of the best and most heavily scrutinized teams in baseball, and if Ohtani doesn’t mind a bit of a commute, he won’t even have to move. But if the destination is a bit of an anticlimax, the contract is dramatic enough to pick up the slack.

Ten years, $700 million. Seven. Hundred. Million. Dollars. Read the rest of this entry »

The internet has democratized so much of our society, but nothing more than hating baseball teams. A generation ago, everyone was sick to death of the Yankees, but now it seems like half the league is one obnoxious fan tweet or one ill-timed bat flip or clueless GM comment from becoming the pariah of the week. It can get a little hard to track sometimes.

So in some respects, this week’s Juan Soto trade is a welcome throwback to old times. A no-doubt top-tier superstar has drifted across the great material continuum and found himself, almost by accident, resplendent in pinstripes and razor burn. A trade to make Yankees fans rejoice, and the vast majority of our great, God-fearing nation go, “Ugh, these freakin’ guys.”

Nevertheless, Soto’s arrival in New York offers an opportunity to witness something unusual. Assuming Aaron Boone figures out that Soto should go in front of Aaron Judge in the batting order, we’re about to see the best on-base guy of his generation batting ahead of the best power hitter of his generation. Read the rest of this entry »