Only one team can win the trophy that really matters, seven and a half months away in the World Series.
But since Josh Sborz knocked out Ketel Marte to seal the Texas Rangers’ first championship on Nov. 1, there’s been another prize on offer: winning the offseason.
There were colossal contracts, blockbuster transactions and eight new managers in the winter of 2023-2024, but now it’s spring and the season is about to start.
Here, Mailsport Check out the five biggest winners and losers…
WINNERS
1) Los Angeles Evaders
What do you get from the team that has everything? How about a unicorn? And the record-breaking, mystery pitcher everyone wanted? And a six-foot flamethrower? And a bat for 25 home runs? And a few shutdown relievers? Oh and the franchise icon is thrown in, but only when he’s ready.
The Dodgers, like almost all of the previous 50, won this winter with their voracious $1.2 billion acquisitions, headlined by Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Any team would have been transformed by either.
The Dodgers – thanks to Ohtani’s selfless reprieve – got both. Add in Tyler Glasnow, Teoscar Hernandez, Ryan Brasier, Joe Kelly and finally Clayton Kershaw, and we need a phrase a few levels above “championship or bust.”
But not everything is perfect in Dodgertown. Ohtani’s longtime friend and interpreter was fired by the team this week after a suspicious transfer from the player’s bank account to an illegal gambling operation that is reportedly under criminal investigation.
And while his spokespeople deny Ohtani had any involvement, there was more bad news for fellow American Yamamoto, who surrendered five runs in just one inning of work in his Dodger debut Thursday in Seoul.
Shohei Ohtani #17 and Yoshinobu Yamamoto #18 of the Los Angeles Dodgers in Seoul
The Dodgers added pitcher Tyler Glasnow (left), while the Giants acquired Blake Snell (right)
2) San Francisco giants
The Blake Snell deal completes a full set of the Giants’ offseason wish list.
They have an ace (Snell), strength (Jorge Soler), defense (Matt Chapman), speed and contact (Jung-Hoo Lee), rotation depth (Jordan Hicks, Ross Stripling and Robbie Ray as he recovers from injury) and an old wise hand to tie it all together (new manager Bob Melvin).
Any individual move won’t be enough to slay the Dodger dragon, but this team is now ready for the playoffs.
3)Baltimore Orioles
Remember when we were all worried about the Orioles? How they had lost their chance to build on a glorious young core while classic thrifty Baltimore scraped by, and how they would never win anything again?
Well, that’s all a distant memory now, fading into a Corbin Burnes-shaped shadow when they finally gave their rotation an ace.
Burnes, the 2021 Cy Young Award winner with Milwaukee, is pitching to impress not only his new team, but all 29 others as his contract expires this winter.
The cast of young stars – led by Adley Rutschman, Grayson Rodriguez and last year’s Rookie of the Year Gunnar Henderson – is rounded out by former No. 1 overall pick Jackson Holliday and outfielder Colton Cowser, whose bat is making all the noise in Spring Training.
Baltimore’s Jackson Holliday watches from the dugout during a 2024 Grapefruit League game
4) Chicago Cubs
Yes, they could have done more. Shota Imanaga, Hector Neris and Michael Busch were all promising additions who, should everything come up, Cubs will likely have as favorites to win the NL Central.
Cody Bellinger could win another MVP. But the key is new manager Craig Counsell, and that’s why the Cubs kicked out David Ross, went to their division rivals in Wisconsin and paid the best skipper in the game twice as much as any of his peers to get.
The Cubs missed the postseason by one game last year. The addition of Counsell alone should make them over the top.
5) New York Yankees
Aaron Judge is the most intimidating hitter in the American League, and parking a machine on base for him in Juan Soto will make the nightmare all the more terrifying. Keep these two in the lineup and New York will pile up points and wins, with Soto’s discipline driving pitchers crazy and Judge’s power driving him inside.
But they need to keep them on the field, and Judge’s vulnerability in addition to a two-month absence for reigning Cy Young Award winner Gerrit Cole is the reason the Yankees aren’t higher on this list.
Juan Soto #22 and Aaron Judge #99 of the New York Yankees talk during spring training
LOSERS
1) Milwaukee Brewers
Life in the MLB’s smallest media market has become significantly more difficult as bigger fish entered the Brewers’ waters.
Counsell was snatched by the Cubs, while Burnes’ talent always put a contract extension out of Milwaukee’s reach – so he left for Baltimore. Now closer Devin Williams is out for three months, and that could be the final straw that triggers a complete teardown: the Dodgers’ ties to Willy Adames won’t go away.
It’s still a winnable division, and top talent Jackson Chourio has skills that any fan can dream of, but this seems like a step back when they should be taking a leap forward.
2)Boston Red Sox
The top brass of the Red Sox makes it very easy to forget that they are the most successful team of the 21st century, including ending an 86-year title drought.
Since their fourth championship in 2018, it has been one long series of disappointments and blows for their fanbase, summed up by another winter of doing very little.
Lucas Giolito was the biggest signing on a two-year, $38.5 million contract before blowing out his elbow and won’t pitch for half of his contract. In baseball’s toughest division, the Red Sox have missed another offseason.
Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora is already dealing with injuries in his 2024 pitching rotation
3) Angels from Los Angeles
The only light at the end of the tunnel for the Halos is when the universe-altering revelation comes that Ohtani was actually a bad player to have on your team. It seems unlikely though, doesn’t it?
And it’s extremely unlikely the Angels will end their decade-long postseason drought by replacing their two-way global star with the small cast of veterans who handle their offseason spending.
Snell was connected, Dylan Cease was connected, Chapman was connected, and even a reunion with Ohtani was connected. But nothing came to fruition, and Mike Trout is now virtually a one-man band.
4) Colorado Rocky Mountains
The Dodgers spent $1.2 billion, the Giants spent $400 million, the Padres got Cease to soften the blow of losing Soto and even the Diamondbacks added a few names as reigning National League champions.
The Rockies, the “other” team in the NL West, are coming off a career-worst 59-103 record last season and still decided to leave things as they are.
It’s very hard to even see a way back to respect.
5) Chicago White Sox
It wasn’t that long ago that the White Sox had an exciting, young core of talent. Even last year, they were favorites among many to win the AL Central.
But then they managed to finish with their worst record in 53 years, and the bottom has now fallen out of the squad completely.
With Cease now in San Diego, there’s Luis Robert Jr., and there’s not much else. In their division, it wouldn’t have taken much to build around Robert over the last four seasons left on his contract, but instead this will be another long, painful slog on the South Side.