2023-24 MLB free agency and trade grades: Montgomery to D-backs, Martinez joins Mets

The 2023-24 MLB offseason has begun, and we have you covered with grades and analysis for every major signing and trade this winter.

Whether it's a nine-figure free agent deal that changes the course of your team's future or a blockbuster trade that has all of baseball buzzing, we'll weigh in with what it all means, for next season and beyond.

Follow along as our experts evaluate each move. This article will continue to be updated, so check back in for the freshest analysis from the beginning of the hot stove season through the start of spring training.

Key links: MLB free agency tracker

Diamondbacks agree to deal with LHP Jordan Montgomery

The deal: 1 year, $25 million (vesting option up to $25 million for a second year)
Grade: A

The last big free agent is finally off the board and it's to a surprise landing spot, as Montgomery is joining the Diamondbacks. Like fellow Scott Boras clients Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman, Montgomery did not land a long-term deal. Still, it's a nice deal for the 31-year-old lefty who has averaged 3.1 WAR over the past three seasons: The second season vests at $20 million after just 10 starts (with incentives for an additional $5 million), so it's a close to guaranteed $45 million unless he gets injured.

Indeed, it was an injury to Eduardo Rodriguez, who Arizona had signed to a four-year, $80 million contract in December, that may have ultimately opened the door for this deal. Signed to be the team's No. 3 starter behind Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly, Rodriguez will start the season on the IL with a lat strain. If that proves to be a relatively short stay -- there is no timetable for his return -- the Diamondbacks could end up with one of the best rotations in the majors with Brandon Pfaadt as the fifth starter and Ryne Nelson next in line. FanGraphs' updated rotation projects put the Diamondbacks at No. 7 overall.

Montgomery's value over the past three seasons has been his durability and consistency. He's one of just 11 starters to make at least 30 starts each of those years and he posted an ERA under 4.00 all three seasons, including a career-best 3.20 in 2023, a season split between the Cardinals and Rangers. He also added three wins in the postseason for Texas, including scoreless starts against the Rays in the wild-card series and Astros in the ALCS (and 2.1 scoreless innings in relief to win Game 7 against Houston). Montgomery is viewed more as a pitcher with a high floor than a high ceiling, but his 2023 ceiling was pretty valuable at 4.1 bWAR.

There are a couple reasons to love this deal for Arizona, besides the novel idea of a small- to midsize-market franchise actually spending some money to raise the payroll and improve the team. First, the Diamondbacks project to be in the thick of a crowded NL wild-card race. An additional two to four wins could easily be the difference between making the playoffs or falling short. I give the Diamondbacks credit for putting value in that possibility because even with Montgomery, the odds of beating the Dodgers to win the division remain small.

The other is that, while the Diamondbacks have some exciting young players like Corbin Carroll and Gabriel Moreno with Jordan Lawlar on the way, they're not as young a team as you might think. Christian Walker will be in his age-33 season, Eugenio Suarez turns 33 in July, Joc Pederson will be 32 in a couple weeks and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. is 30. Kelly is 35 and Gallen is eligible for free agency after the 2025 season. The D-backs' window is absolutely right now, so pushing their chips all-in makes a lot of sense.

This winds up a wild offseason of free agency and our offseason grades -- heck, there are still some potentially useful players unsigned like Mike Clevinger, Tommy Pham and Brandon Belt. It wasn't a strong free agent class and that was ultimately reflected in the lack of long-term deals. Still, it's a little surprising Montgomery couldn't secure a three- or four-year deal from the likes of the Giants or Red Sox, two teams that could definitely use a starter and are well under the luxury tax (or even the Yankees, who already at the highest level, so Montgomery's salary would have been taxed at 110%). If he pitches well the next two seasons, he'll still be young enough to get another big deal.

For those who have made their playoff predictions ahead of Opening Day, a few revisions may be in order. I had the Giants winning a wild card, but I would now move the Diamondbacks ahead of them. And as Arizona showed last year: Get in and anything can happen. -- David Schoenfield

Mets agree to deal with DH J.D. Martinez

The deal: One year, $12 million
Grade: B

J.D. Martinez has had a remarkable career for a player the Houston Astros once gave up on. Last season, his lone year with the Los Angeles Dodgers, he belted 33 home runs in just 113 games and slugged .572 as he passed 300 career home runs and 1,000 RBIs. His ability to barrel up a baseball and hit it hard remained near the very top of the game; he ranked in the 98th percentile in hard-hit rate, average exit velocity and barrel rate. Martinez is now 36, and he's at a precarious age, even for a guy who has been one of the game's best hitters for a decade -- but it's hard not to love this deal for the Mets, given the one-year term with a large percentage of the salary in deferred money.

With the Dodgers, Martinez reunited with hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc, who had originally helped Martinez revamp his swing years ago, changing him from washed-out Astro to six-time All-Star. Van Scoyoc said Martinez had fallen into some bad habits his final season with the Boston Red Sox, sapping his power (he had just 16 home runs in 2022). Sure enough, with a new power stroke, Martinez posted his best slugging percentage since his monster season with the Red Sox in 2018.

It did come with a ton of strikeouts and swing-and-miss, as Martinez ranked below the 10th percentile in both categories. But when he connected, the ball went far. Before the move, the New York Mets' DH options appeared to be some combination of DJ Stewart, Starling Marte and Mark Vientos. Stewart performed well in limited action with the Mets last season, slugging .506, but that kind of production wasn't likely given his track record, and he struck out 30% of the time. Marte is coming off a poor season and Vientos looked overmatched in 233 PAs as a rookie, posting a meager OPS+ of 69. Martinez projects as a nice upgrade here.

Interestingly, FanGraphs still projects the Mets with just the 20th-best DH value in the majors, even though their projection has Martinez taking the vast majority of the at-bats. Given his age and strikeout rate, their system sees a risky older player and forecasts a big decline from .271/.321/.572 to .247/.312/.455. I can see the concern, but given his hard-hit rates from 2023, I don't think the drop-off will be that severe unless his strikeout rate absolutely craters. For one thing, there was a clear explanation for the improvement last season; second, David Stearns almost always wins when his projections differ from the public information.

I'll soften the grade just a bit because there's only so much value a DH can add and we have to factor in that potential decline, but Martinez fills what could have been a big hole in the lineup and with a salary that is a mere rounding error in Steve Cohen's bank account. -- Schoenfield

Rangers agree to deal with RHP Michael Lorenzen

The deal: One year, $4.5 million (with $2.5 million in performance bonuses)
Grade: B+

This is a solid pickup for the Rangers at a steep discount, considering our initial projection of a two-year, $28 million deal for Lorenzen. The Rangers were rightfully concerned about their rotation depth as they await the returns of Jacob deGrom and Tyler Mahle from Tommy John surgeries and Max Scherzer from surgery to repair a herniated disc in his back. While all three are projected to make it back sometime in the second half of the season, there are of course no guarantees, so signing Lorenzen makes sense.

The veteran right-hander transitioned into a full-time starting role for the first time in his career in 2023 and actually represented the Detroit Tigers at the All-Star Game (although he was just 3-6 with a 4.03 ERA at the break, which said more about the Tigers than Lorenzen pitching at an All-Star level). He had a nice stretch of starts coming out of the break, culminating with his no-hitter for the Philadelphia Phillies in his second start with them following a trade.

After the no-hitter, in which he threw 124 pitches, he fell apart, with an 8.01 ERA over his final 30 1/3 innings. He was even moved to the bullpen for the stretch run and postseason. I wouldn't necessarily blame the no-hitter: The Phillies gave him eight days of rest before his next outing and plenty of rest between other starts after that. It was more likely fatigue from throwing a career-high 153 innings, a 56-inning increase from 2022.

Overall, Lorenzen finished with a 4.18 ERA/4.46 FIP, although he doesn't generate a lot of swing-and-miss for a starter, averaging just 6.5 strikeouts per nine. Out of 127 pitchers with at least 100 innings, he ranked 111th in strikeout rate. His walk rate with Detroit was 2.3 per nine, but that jumped up to 3.8 with the Phillies. As long as he minimizes the walks as he did with the Tigers, he should be fine.

With the aforementioned three rehabbing starters, the Rangers had five viable options in their rotation: Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Dane Dunning, Andrew Heaney and Cody Bradford. Lorenzen gives them a sixth choice or pushes Bradford to the bullpen. Either way, it's good to have options and manager Bruce Bochy may go with a six-man rotation at times to save on the workload for a guy like Eovaldi, who pitched an additional 36⅔ innings in October. Lorenzen also shouldn't take long to get ready, as he's been throwing on his own and reportedly threw a 70-pitch simulated outing earlier this week. If deGrom, Scherzer and Mahle make it back, Lorenzen probably slides back to the bullpen, but he can be a useful element there as well. -- David Schoenfield

Snell signs two-year deal with Giants

The deal: Two years, $62 million (player opt out after first year)
Grade: B+

Blake Snell to the San Francisco Giants! This wouldn't have been a surprise back in November ... or December ... or January ... or, well, you get the idea. The only surprise here is the timing: March 18, just 10 days before the Giants open their season in San Diego against Snell's former team. Given where we are in spring training and the time necessary for Snell to ramp up and get ready for the season, he's unlikely to be pitch in that opening four-game series. (Maybe the next one -- when the Giants head up I-5 to play the Los Angeles Dodgers.)

It's certainly not the deal Snell and agent Scott Boras envisioned in November, with Snell coming off his second Cy Young Award after a season in which he went 14-9 with a 2.25 ERA, including a 1.20 ERA over his final 23 starts. Among pitchers with at least 100 innings, only Spencer Strider and Tyler Glasnow had a higher strikeout rate than Snell's 31.5%. Batters hit just .181 against him.

Compare Snell's deal to those other free agent pitchers received coming off Cy Young or near-Cy Young seasons in recent years:

• Justin Verlander (2022 Cy Young winner): 2 years, $86.6 million

• Carlos Rodon (sixth in 2022 Cy Young voting): 6 years, $162 million

• Max Scherzer (third in 2021 Cy Young voting): 3 years, $130 million

• Robbie Ray (2021 Cy Young winner): 5 years, $115 million

• Gerrit Cole (2019 Cy Young runner-up): 9 years, $324 million

• Stephen Strasburg (fifth in 2019 Cy Young voting): 7 years, $245 million

Heck, Aaron Nola, coming off a 4.46 ERA in 2023, re-signed with the Phillies in November on a seven-year, $172 million contract. Of course, some of those pitchers had a more consistent track record than Snell, who pitched 128 innings each in 2021 and 2022 with a 3.79 ERA. Snell has pitched more than 130 innings just twice in his career -- his two Cy Young seasons. Even in 2023, Snell walked 5.0 batters per nine innings -- the highest rate ever for a Cy Young winner and certainly a red flag for team evaluators.

Still, Snell could have reasonably compared himself to Rodon, who hadn't been the most durable of pitchers when the New York Yankees gave him a big deal last offseason, or Ray, who was kind of a one-year fluke in his Cy Young season with the Toronto Blue Jays before the Seattle Mariners signed him.

And maybe that money was there for Snell earlier in the offseason. There were reports the Yankees had offered him $150 million. This late in spring training, though, teams had drawn the line, even as injuries popped up to the likes of Cole, Kodai Senga and Lucas Giolito. The Yankees and Mets are already over the highest tax level, meaning Snell's salary would be taxed at a 110% rate.

The Giants remained well under the first tax level and desperately needed another starter to go alongside Logan Webb. This is why Snell to San Francisco always made a lot of sense -- his new batterymate, Webb, by the way? He was second to Snell in the Cy Young voting. If rookie southpaw Kyle Harrison is ready -- there's no doubt about swing-and-miss stuff -- the Giants could suddenly have one of the top trios in the majors. Indeed, FanGraphs has added Snell to their roster projects and has the Giants with the sixth-best rotation in the majors. (To be fair, it comes with a lot of questions: not just Snell's durability but Jordan Hicks' viability of a starter and Alex Cobb's return to health, along with Ray being ready to return from Tommy John surgery in the second half).

In the end, the Giants' patience paid off in free agency: First with Matt Chapman and Jorge Soler and now with Snell. Throw in their earlier deals for Jung Hoo Lee and Hicks and that's a heck of an offseason. (So much for the theory that players wouldn't sign with San Francisco.) Sure, Chapman and Snell can both opt out after 2024 -- but if they do, that means they had good seasons and provided excellent value on a one-year deal.

As for the other teams: The reluctance to give Snell/Boras the big nine-figure deal is understandable with too much risk built in for a pitcher who hasn't been durable and doesn't pitch deep into games. It didn't help comparisons that Ray blew out his elbow in his second season with Seattle and Rodon had injury issues with the Yankees.

Still, given the final price and minimal commitment, it's a little surprising another team didn't jump in with a third-year guarantee. There were Astros rumors over the weekend, but they were apparently concerned about going after the luxury. Snell would have loved to play for his hometown Mariners, but they never showed interest (they have a good rotation without him). The Texas Rangers will roll the dice on Scherzer and Jacob deGrom getting healthy in the second half. The Yankees? They better hope Cole isn't out long and that Rodon bounces.

I'm giving this a B-plus, only because of the risks with Snell, but I love this deal for the Giants and think there's a good chance it pushes them into the postseason -- and a playoff rotation with Webb and Snell could do some damage in October. -- Schoenfield

Cease traded! Padres land White Sox ace

The deal: Padres acquire RHP Dylan Cease from the White Sox for RHP Drew Thorpe, RHP Jairo Iriarte, OF Samuel Zavala, RHP Steven Wilson

Padres grade: B+
White Sox grade: B

The last trade between these two clubs? When the San Diego Padres acquired a little-known prospect named Fernando Tatis Jr. for James Shields in 2016. A.J. Preller might not get that kind of value in Cease - he's under team control for just two more seasons, after all -- but this deal dramatically changes the Padres' playoff odds just as they prepare for the long flight to Korea for the opening two-game series against the Dodgers. What does this deal mean for them -- or the Chicago White Sox? Read full analysis of Padres-White Sox trade

Wheeler lands record extension with the Phillies

The deal: three years, $126 million extension
Grade: A-

The Philadelphia Phillies didn't make any major new additions to the roster this offseason, but they have made two significant transactions: First, they signed Aaron Nola to a seven-year, $172 million contract as a free agent, and now they've agreed to terms with an extension for Wheeler, who was headed to free agency after the 2024 season. The $42 million average annual salary for Wheeler is the highest ever for a contract extension and locks in the Phillies' top two starters through the 2027 season (Nola is signed through 2030). The Phillies are known for a good clubhouse vibe and clearly both pitchers wanted to remain in an organization that has made back-to-back deep runs in the playoffs.

Wheeler's original deal with the Phillies -- five years, $110 million -- has proved to be one of the best free agent investments in recent years. With the New York Mets, Wheeler flashed a big fastball but inconsistent results around a Tommy John surgery that cost him the 2015 and 2016 seasons. His 3.96 ERA in his walk season was a little misleading as his peripherals were much better. (Stephen Strasburg signed for $245 million that offseason and Madison Bumgarner for $85 million, further proof of Wheeler's relative bargain contract.)

The Phillies got him to throw his four-seamer more often, and in his first four seasons in Philly, he's led all pitchers in both bWAR (19.6, ahead of Gerrit Cole, who signed a $324 million contract the same offseason) and fWAR (19.3, ahead of Corbin Burnes). Wheeler has also posted a 2.42 ERA in 11 postseason appearances, rightfully earning the reputation as one of the starters you most want out there in a big game.

Of course, all that is in the past; the Phillies will be paying him large sums of money for what he does in the future. The extension will cover Wheeler's age-35 to age-37 seasons and while he's been durable (at least since 2018), that doesn't always reflect what's to come: Justin Verlander didn't break down until his age-37 season; Roy Halladay averaged 241 innings per season from ages 32 to 34 and then made just 38 more starts in his career; Bumgarner exceeded 200 innings seven times in his 20s but was completely ineffective in his 30s.

Over the past three seasons, the highest inning total from a pitcher 35 or older is Charlie Morton's 521, an average of 174 per season. That's followed by Adam Wainwright (499) and Max Scherzer (477). The Phillies would certainly like to pencil in 180 per season from Wheeler for the next four years, but the simple fact is no pitcher that age has done it over the past three seasons. The last pitcher to average 180 from ages 35 to 37 was John Lackey, who did it from 2014 to 2016 -- already almost a different era for pitcher workload.

One possible plus for Wheeler: The early injury means he didn't throw a lot of innings as a young pitcher and still has just 1,378 career innings. More importantly: He's obviously really, really good and has become one of the most efficient strike-throwers in the game. While early in his career his walk rate was over 10%, he's been under 6% all four seasons with the Phillies. His 5.0% walk rate in 2023 ranked 10th-best among pitchers with at least 100 innings and allows him to pitcher deeper into games without running up egregious pitch counts. His fastball still averages 95.8 mph and he commands it with precision: His fastball had the most run value of any in the majors, via Sports Info Solutions (+30 runs).

From a payroll perspective, it's a plus the Phillies were able to limit the extension to three years -- if Wheeler does get hurt, there won't be as much long-term pain inflicted, as is currently the case with the Nationals and Strasburg. And that urgency is real: While the Phillies have kept their talented core intact -- Wheeler, Nola, Bryce Harper and Trea Turner are all signed well into the future, with J.T. Realmuto and Kyle Schwarber signed for two more seasons -- that group is only going to get older. Harper, Turner, Nola and Schwarber are all entering their age-31 seasons while Realmuto is 33. None of them are past their primes yet, but it does suggest an imperative to win over the next two seasons. Even if Wheeler and Nola remain healthy and effective into their mid-30s, it's less likely the position player group will be as strong.

While many other teams come up with a million reasons they can't spend, Philly just throws around $100 million-plus deals like they're leftover donuts from your meeting at the office. They're now paying seven players at least $20 million in 2024, plus $18 million for Taijuan Walker. But this is what Dave Dombrowski does: He tries to win now, perhaps an initiative a few other front offices should consider. -- Schoenfield

Giants land big-name free agent with short-term Chapman deal

The deal: three years, $54 million, opt-outs after each of the first two seasons
Grade: B+

And then there were two -- and none. After Matt Chapman's long offseason finally ended when he reached an agreement with the Giants on Friday night, the list of dangling elite free agents is down to pitchers Jordan Montgomery and Blake Snell. Among Kiley McDaniel's top 20 free agents, Chapman is the last position player off the board. Finally, less than three weeks before the Dodgers and Padres kick off the MLB regular season in Korea, the hot stove portion of the calendar seems to finally be drawing to a close.

Because of the two opt-outs, Chapman's three-year deal is a structural twin of the pact that late-signing Cody Bellinger inked with the Cubs last week, though the total value of Bellinger's deal ($80 million) is higher. This kind of deal is always player-friendly, as it provides a chance to revisit free agency if they have a strong year and want to explore the market. If the player struggles, on the other hand, or simply likes the situation in which they've landed, they have the security of the options seasons.

The deals aren't as sweet for the teams, though in this case, Chapman upgrades the San Francisco roster and if he does stay for only a year, it's a per-year value ($20 million for the first season, then scales down from there) that is a bargain compared to pre-free-agency projections. Chapman has settled into a 3.5 to 4.5 bWAR performer at this phase of his career, though he had back-to-back seasons of 7.6 and 7.8 early in his career.

While neither the Giants nor anyone else should expect that MVP-level production now that it's five years in the rearview mirror and Chapman is 31, those elite seasons do represent a certain kind of upside for this deal, especially because Chapman figures to be highly motivated. He's not likely to get back to that seven-win player range but even the version of Chapman we've seen over the past three years is a solid value at this contract amount.

The ballpark fit is a concern though as Oracle Park is the fourth-worst home run park for righty hitters, per Statcast's three-year rolling averages. However, Oakland Coliseum is one of the three parks below it and Chapman did just fine there. You just never know how a player will transition to a new place. One of the best parks for righties is the one he's leaving -- Rogers Centre -- and Chapman struggled terribly there in 2023 while putting up much better results on the road. Also, the shape of Chapman's approach changed in 2023 -- more line drives, more opposite-field hitting -- and that swing, if maintained, will play better at Oracle than his 2021-2022 ball-in-play distribution.

All in all, it's a nice get for the Giants. Chapman isn't just a significant upgrade from whatever combination of Wilmer Flores, Casey Schmitt and J.D. Davis the Giants planned to use at third base, he might now be San Francisco's best position player. The roster is a little heavy on righty-hitting infielders, so it'll be interesting to see if there is some maneuvering left to be done, not just to balance the roster but perhaps free up a little more room under the CBT threshold for more hot stove pursuits.

As it is, for all the concern we've had about the Giants' inability to land the top free agents, this offseason they've now signed four of McDaniel's top 20: Chapman, Jordan Hicks, Jorge Soler and Jung Hoo Lee. The winter hasn't turned out so cold in San Francisco after all. -- Doolittle

Dodgers deal Margot, sign Hernandez

The deals: Dodgers trade OF Manuel Margot, IF Rayne Doncon and cash to Twins for IF Noah Miller; Dodgers sign IF/OF Enrique Hernandez to one-year, $4 million contract

Dodgers grade: B
Twins grade: B

For the Dodgers, this is a luxurious bit of roster fine-tuning, and their grade here reflects both moves: the trade and the subsequent signing of Hernandez. After a winter spending spree that is measured in billions, every addition they make to this year's club is going to have to be considered through the prism of luxury tax consequences. L.A. is reportedly sending enough cash to the Twins to offset all but $4 million of Margot's remaining contract. Well, what do you know: That's just how much the Dodgers will be paying to re-up with familiar face Hernandez.

Hernandez will give L.A. another year as the ideal embodiment of roster glue. In essence, Hernandez offers all of Margot's qualities with the added benefit of more positional versatility. Thus the Dodgers improve their roster without making their tax situation worse. Not a bad afternoon. That said, the fact that they had to clear a $4 million slot just to bring back a player who probably really wanted to stay put just tells you how little wriggle room L.A. has to work with right now.

Over the past three years, Hernandez's OPS (.695) is a dead ringer for that of Margot (.694), though Margot gets a little extra boost from playing in lesser run environments. He's a different kind of hitter than Hernandez -- more average, fewer walks -- but their platoon usage and performance against lefties are roughly the same. Thus, money considerations aside, it comes down to roster fit. Both players would have taken some at-bats against lefties from the outfield slots held by James Outman and Jason Heyward. But Hernandez does that and provides an extra layer of depth at shortstop behind Gavin Lux, who is coming off a missed 2023 season due to an ACL tear.

The prospects in the Twins-Dodgers trade are both infielders in the lower minors who rate as 40 FV hopefuls by ESPN's Kiley McDaniel. Miller was a first-round pick in 2021 (No. 36 overall) by Minnesota. His first three pro seasons have seen lots of walks, some steals, too many whiffs and minuscule batting averages. He also won a minor league Gold Glove for his defensive work a year ago. Doncon appears to be more of a corner prospect than a middle infielder, though he has moved around. He has struggled after spending a little more than a season at the low-A level. For now, we can consider the prospect part of this a wash, and we'll see if we hear anything from these guys in a couple of years.

The grade for Minnesota says two things. First, the Twins probably win the valuation aspect of the deal -- similar prospect value and they get Margot at a reduced payroll obligation, though that will depend on the eventual outcomes of the prospects. The grade isn't higher because maybe they could have just spent a few million and ably filled the role Margot will play without rolling the dice by trading Miller. Minnesota certainly needed a righty hitter given an outfield mix that includes lefty-swinging Max Kepler, Matt Wallner, Alex Kirilloff and Trevor Larnach. Only oft-injured Byron Buxton is around as a righty, while utility player Willi Castro provides a switch-hitting option.

Thus, Margot will fill a specific role on a healthy version of the Twins' roster. But there are some decent options left on the market to do that job, including Michael A. Taylor, who played for Minnesota last year. Also available are Adam Duvall, Tommy Pham and Kyle Lewis. (They might have also signed Hernandez for the job, if he was amenable.) It feels like the Twins might have plucked one of those players for what they will be on the hook for with Margot while getting similar production. Plus, if the Dodgers work their magic with Miller, this deal will look lopsided. But maybe the Twins will turn the development tables and make L.A. fans rue losing Doncon. -- Doolittle

Bellinger returns to Cubs on short-term deal

The deal: Three years, $80 million (opt-outs after first two seasons)
Grade: C+

It became apparent several weeks ago that there just wasn't a robust market for Cody Bellinger, at least not at the prices he and agent Scott Boras were asking for, and that he'd end up taking this kind of contract. It's not the worst deal for him: If he plays as well in 2024 as he did in 2023, he can reenter free agency for his age-29 season, and his marketability will look much different than it did this winter: back-to-back good seasons as opposed to one good season following two poor seasons, when he hit a combined .193.

But we grade these from the team perspective, and it's not necessarily the best deal for the Cubs, either. If Bellinger does play well, they'll have him for just one season at $30 million. If he struggles again at the plate, he's not going to opt out, and the Cubs will be on the hook for $30 million again in 2025 and possibly $20 million in 2026.

Of course, the Cubs will be happy to take another good season at his 2023 level of play (.307/.365/.525, 26 home runs, 4.4 WAR in 130 games). The Cubs finished third in the National League in runs, and Bellinger was the team's best hitter, but the only significant offensive player they had added was infielder Michael Busch in a trade with the Dodgers. With Bellinger back in the lineup and Busch projecting as a solid contributor -- he hit .323/.431/.618 in Triple-A -- the Cubs could once again have the third-best offense in the NL (although it was a distant third behind the Braves and Dodgers last season).

The unknown, and why there was so much hesitancy from teams in giving Bellinger a longer-term deal, is whether Bellinger can match that production again. His hard-hit rate in 2023 ranked in just the 10th percentile, and players with that rate don't usually hit .307 with 26 home runs. His expected batting average via Statcast measurements was .268. His walk rate, in the 95th percentile when he won the MVP in 2019, was in the 36th percentile last year. He was a different type of hitter than his first three seasons with the Dodgers, and while he did a nice job of putting the ball in play with two strikes, teams were rightfully skeptical he could match those numbers again.

Still, a .265 hitter with a .434 slugging percentage and good defense is a valuable player. Let's see ... that's kind of like Cubs teammate Ian Happ, and Happ was worth 3.0 WAR last season. That's not necessarily somebody you want to spend $30 million on, but at least the Cubs won't be tied up in some seven- or eight-year deal.

Re-signing Bellinger also improves the Cubs' versatility and depth. They can play Bellinger in center and avoid rushing top prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong if he needs a little more time in the minors. If Crow-Armstrong is ready to play every day, Bellinger can play first base, pushing Busch into more of a DH role, perhaps with a little third base and first mixed in (depending on where Christopher Morel, another guy without a position, ends up playing).

With the Brewers looking like they're taking a step back after trading Corbin Burnes, the Cubs will now become the consensus favorite in the NL Central. There are legitimate concerns about the ultimate upside of Chicago's starting rotation, but the Cubs have one of the best farm systems in the sport, so they could make a deal during the season if needed (how about a crosstown trade for Dylan Cease?). No matter what, this is shaping up to be the best Cubs team since 2018. -- Schoenfield

Marlins agree to terms with SS/2B Anderson

The deal: One year, $5 million
Grade: C-

It's been a quiet offseason for the Marlins, most notably in that Peter Bendix, the new president of baseball operations, has kept all his starting pitchers despite trade rumors and has made just a few minor moves around the edges.

"It was quiet in terms of meaningful, impactful moves," Bendix told me last week. "It was very busy in terms of conversations and trying to do a lot of different things. I felt like we had a position of leverage with the depth of pitching that we have. And when you have leverage, the worst thing you can do is to try to force something and if we ended up not making any trades from our pitching, great, nobody can ever have too much pitching."

Now comes their biggest move of the offseason -- at least big in name recognition -- adding Tim Anderson to a crowded middle-infield situation that also includes reigning batting champ Luis Arraez, utility players Jon Berti and Xavier Edwards and shortstop prospect Jacob Amaya. The Marlins also have Vidal Brujan and Nick Gordon on the 40-man roster, players with infield experience although they list them as outfielders.

Anderson, to put it bluntly, was arguably the worst regular in the majors in 2023, hitting .245/.286/.296 with one home run in 493 at-bats and poor defensive metrics at shortstop that suggest he's barely a viable option there at this point in his career. His minus-2.0 WAR ranked last among all position players. The White Sox bought out his 2024 option for $1 million rather than pay him $14 million.

So why would the Marlins give him $5 million? Well, he's just one season removed from hitting .301 and making the All-Star team -- the fourth of four straight .300 seasons. No, he never walks and his power has declined the past two seasons, but from 2019 to 2022 he did average 4.3 WAR per 130 games (although just 2.1 in 2022). He turns 31 in June, so in theory he's young enough to bounce back. Still, there seemed a clear decline in his athleticism: His top sprint speed dropped from the 79th percentile to the 46th; his isolated power dropped from the 36th percentile to the third; his outs above average metric on defense dropped from the 76th percentile in 2021 to the 31st percentile (defensive runs saved was even harsher on his play at shortstop with minus-16 DRS, worst in the majors).

I'm skeptical of a rebound, but it's not like the Marlins are going to guarantee playing time; Anderson will have to earn that. I wonder if that is more likely to come at second base. I could see Arraez playing a lot at first base and Josh Bell ending up with a lot of DH time. Arraez and Bell are both subpar defenders, so the Marlins could end being better on defense at second with Anderson and better at first with Arraez. It will probably be a lot of game-to-game maneuvering for manager Skip Schumacher. I certainly don't love the deal -- I much prefer the Rays' signing of Amed Rosario for $1.5 million -- but if Anderson finds his bat again, it could be a nice little bargain for the Marlins. -- Schoenfield

Giants add slugger in Soler

The deal: Three years, $42 million
Grade: C-

At times, the San Francisco Giants of recent vintage have been maddeningly difficult to understand. There is much that they do well, particularly when it comes to extracting untapped value out of undervalued players from other organizations. They've built deep clubs in which everyone on the 40-man roster seems to have a specific role. These are good things but they're also qualities that small-market contenders have to emphasize because they can't build foundations comprised of high-dollar free agents.

But the Giants can. That's not to say they should eschew these good qualities and try to spend their way to the level of the Los Angeles Dodgers, but they certainly ought to be leveraging their economic might a lot better than they have been. Yes, some bad luck has been involved in the form of failed high-profile pursuits, but to end up in the second week of February having to scoop up what's left on the free agent market to plug an obvious power shortfall on the roster, that's passivity in its most insidious form.

Jorge Soler was probably the best power hitter left on the market. In terms of projected isolated power, he rates ahead of other still-available players like J.D. Martinez, Adam Duvall, Matt Chapman and even Cody Bellinger, whose projections are still dragged down by his pre-2023 slump. But the marginal power upgrade you might get from the inconsistent, oft-injured Soler hardly seems worth it when you consider the limited ways he contributes to a roster even when he does manage to stay in the lineup.

Soler is a pure thumper, someone who can carry a club for a couple of weeks at a time when he's on a heater. Over the past three years, he's averaged 34 home runs per 162 games played but just 81 RBIs and the kind of low batting average the Giants need to get away from. He's a natural-born DH who is less than two weeks from his 32nd birthday. You can slip him into the outfield now and again, but every time you do, it's at your own peril.

None of this is to say that Soler doesn't have a role on a good team. It wasn't that long ago that he was mashing a game-turning homer in a decisive World Series win for the Atlanta Braves. On the Giants, however, he slots in as the everyday cleanup hitter for manager Bob Melvin as a DH, which saps away some of the lineup flexibility that has been one of the strong points for the Giants in recent years. Even worse, while Soler has the raw power to hit home runs in any venue, few parks would undermine that power more than Oracle Park is likely to do.

Maybe the Giants made the best choice for the moment when you factor in who's left, production-for-pay valuations and roster need. Really though, it should never have come down to this. -- Doolittle

Astros extend Jose Altuve for five years -- and rest of his career

The deal: Five years, $125 million
Grade: A

We usually reserve this space to grade significant free agent signings and trades, but we'll make an exception for Altuve, who had been set to enter free agency after the 2024 season. Altuve is one of the more remarkable success stories in modern baseball -- maybe the most remarkable, given his size. Listed at 5-foot-6, which is generous by an inch or so, and signed out of an Astros tryout camp in Venezuela -- only after he had initially been told to go home because he was too short -- Altuve reached the majors at 21 and has hit his way to eight All-Star Games, an MVP award and one of the more impressive postseason batting records of the expanded playoff era (only Manny Ramirez has more postseason home runs).

Entering his age-34 season, Altuve remains as productive as ever, hitting .311/.393/.522 in 2023 with 17 home runs in 90 games. Over the past two seasons, the only players with a higher wRC+ are Aaron Judge and Yordan Alvarez (Altuve is tied with Freddie Freeman and Shohei Ohtani at 160). Very little has changed in Altuve's approach and results over the years. He remains a dead-pull, fastball hitter; with his short levers, it still is nearly impossible to throw a fastball past him and he can turn on any inside pitch. His exit velocity and hard-hit metrics aren't going to impress the Statcast analysts, but Altuve manages to barrel up enough balls at the appropriate launch angle that he now has passed 200 home runs and remains a long-shot candidate for 3,000 hits (he's at 2,047, so he'd have to continue playing beyond the terms of this contract).

Of course, the issue in evaluating this deal isn't so much what Altuve has done, but what he'll do. While Altuve has remained effective at the plate, we've seen his game slip in other areas: a lack of range in the field and declining speed that is now below average (although he still managed to steal 14 bases). I think there's a strong argument here to DH him more often -- in part to keep him healthy, in part to get a better defender at second base (although that would mean playing Alvarez, who has his own health concerns, more often in left field). In the five full seasons since 2018, Altuve has averaged 128 games per season, so a big key to this contract will simply be how many games he plays.

There aren't really any direct similarities to Altuve -- going back to Wee Willie Keeler, who last played in 1910, doesn't really help -- so we'll stick to the statistically similar players at Baseball-Reference. Altuve's top six comps at Baseball-Reference are Ryne Sandberg, Hanley Ramirez, Dustin Pedroia, Craig Biggio, Michael Young and Robinson Cano. That list includes two Hall of Famers, but it's not an encouraging group to be lumped into. Sandberg was worth 18.2 WAR in his age 31-33 seasons, just 5.0 after; Ramirez had his last good season at 32; Pedroia got hurt; Biggio played until he was 41, but his last 5-WAR season came at 33 and he topped 3.0 WAR just once after that; Young was worth negative WAR from age 34 on; and Cano started slipping at 34, which would contribute to multiple PED suspensions. Bottom line: None of them remained elite players after turning 34 -- and this deal will run through Altuve's age-39 season.

In the end, though, if you're an Astros fan, you love this deal and you love not having his contract status hang over the season -- plus, there's good reason to remain optimistic about Altuve's continued value with the bat for at least a few more seasons. As the club posted on social media: "Jose Altuve will be an Astro for life." I like to believe there's value in that idea, which means Altuve doesn't have to remain a star at 39 for this deal to work out for Houston. Even with the clear risk involved, I'll bet on the future Hall of Famer. -- Schoenfield

Dodgers agree to terms with Clayton Kershaw

The deal: One year, with a player option for 2025
Grade: Incomplete

The best thing about this signing: It's with the Los Angeles Dodgers and not the Texas Rangers, the other rumored destination for the future Hall of Famer. Kershaw, of course, has earned the privilege to pitch wherever he desires, but I'm sure 96.3% of baseball fans can envision him in only a Dodgers uniform, with the other 3.7% being either Rangers fans or people who play pickleball on tennis courts.

The last time we saw Kershaw was a sad sight indeed -- when he didn't even get out of the first inning after allowing six runs while recording just one out against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the first game of the division series. That set the stage for an unlikely Arizona sweep, and we soon found out that Kershaw was pitching with a bum shoulder that required offseason surgery. That leads to the incomplete grade here: We simply don't know when Kershaw will return or how effective he'll be when he does. Best estimates suggest an August timetable, and I do think Dodgers fans can take solace in the idea that Kershaw obviously believes he can come back and pitch well -- as he has for the past 16 seasons.

Even last year, pitching with a fastball that averaged just 90.7 mph, Kershaw was essentially as effective as ever, going 13-5 with a 2.46 ERA in 24 regular-season starts. Batters hit .167 against his slider and .213 against his curveball and his overall strikeout and swing-and-miss rates were comfortably above average. No, he's not peak Kershaw anymore and hasn't been for a long time. Early Kershaw now feels like a pitcher from a different generation: He topped 225 innings four times from ages 23 to 27 while winning four consecutive ERA titles (and a fifth a couple of years later).

This Kershaw, who turns 36 years old in March, needs to be handled with extreme care, and the Dodgers have done that in recent years: fewer innings per start (5.5 last season) and more rest between starts (he made just four starts last season on four days of rest, all in April or May). Assuming Kershaw does make it back, that won't be a problem for the Dodgers considering they've spent this offseason adding a ridiculous amount of depth to the rotation.

After entering last year's playoffs with a broken-down, thinned-out group of starters, they now have Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Bobby Miller, James Paxton, Emmet Sheehan, Gavin Stone and Ryan Yarbrough as possibilities for the Opening Day rotation. Manager Dave Roberts has already said that Walker Buehler will be on a slow timeline and will start the season on the injured list as he returns from 2022 Tommy John surgery. They have prospects Nick Frasso, Landon Knack, Kyle Hurt and River Ryan all likely headed to Triple-A as potential reinforcements. For 2025, they'll add Shohei Ohtani, Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin to the mix. No, it doesn't seem fair.

But this signing just feels right. With Yamamoto, Glasnow and Miller, that might leave a healthy Kershaw as merely the fourth starter in a playoff rotation. That's OK, as long as he's out there, a fixture on our TV screens like he has been for the past 11 Octobers (except 2021, when he was injured). -- Schoenfield

Orioles get their ace in deal for Burnes

The deal: Orioles acquire RHP Corbin Burnes from the Brewers for SS Joey Ortiz, LHP DL Hall and the 34th pick in the 2024 draft

Orioles grade: A++
Brewers grade: C

Hey, Orioles fans, how do you like your new owners so far?

At the outset of the offseason, when everyone analyzed what teams might do and made their predictions, all the experts agreed: Burnes to the Orioles made perfect sense. Burnes had just one year left until free agency and there was little chance he was going to sign an extension to stay in Milwaukee. The Orioles needed a top-of-the-rotation starter and, even after graduating Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson the past two seasons, had a farm system still loaded with talent (ESPN's Kiley McDaniel just named Jackson Holliday the No. 1 prospect in baseball).

Then ... crickets. The Orioles signed Craig Kimbrel and went silent. The Brewers dumped a couple salaries on the Mets (Adrian Houser and Tyrone Taylor), but when they signed Rhys Hoskins, it appeared to signify they would just keep Burnes and make a run of it in 2024. Then comes this early February blockbuster, just two days after news broke that the Angelos family would be selling the Orioles to a group led by billionaire investor -- and Baltimore native -- David Rubenstein.

The initial response to this trade: Shock. This is all the Orioles gave up in acquiring one of the game's best starting pitchers?

Among pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched in 2023, Burnes ranked eighth in lowest OBP allowed and third in lowest OPS allowed. He did that while throwing 193 innings, 10th-most in the majors and 26 more than he threw in his Cy Young season in 2021. Run the data over the past three seasons, and Burnes is even more impressive. In looking at 2024 projections, Burnes is comfortably in the top 10 among pitchers, right up there with Gerrit Cole, Zack Wheeler and Spencer Strider for best-in-the-game status.

The Orioles will now roll out a top three of Burnes, Kyle Bradish and Grayson Rodriguez, the highly touted rookie last season who struggled early on before posting a 2.26 ERA over his final 12 starts. Bradish came out of nowhere to finish fourth in Cy Young voting, and while some might chalk up his season as a fluke, his pitch metrics are strong and suggest we can expect more of the same. I'd rank those three right up there with any trio in the majors -- maybe the Dodgers are better, depending on the health of Tyler Glasnow and Walker Buehler to go with Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and the Mariners are pretty good as well - but these three are going to win a lot of games with Baltimore's offense and defense supporting them.

To be fair here, Burnes hasn't been quite as dominant as he was in that 2021 season. His strikeout-to-walk ratio has dipped from 6.88 to 4.76 to 3.03. After allowing just seven home runs in 2021, he allowed 22 in 2023. His sinker (he doesn't throw a four-seamer) has become more hittable as its velocity has dropped from 96.9 mph to 95.3. My first thought, with the new owners taking over and a low payroll, maybe the Orioles immediately attempt to sign Burnes to a mega-extension, but with some of the above numbers in mind, maybe they wait and see what they get in 2024. And I'm not sure giving a pitcher a huge deal is in Mike Elias' game plan either. Still, for 2024, the Orioles are getting one of the top starters in baseball.

For the Brewers, they didn't come away empty-handed, but the return feels a little light for a pitcher of Burnes' stature. It tells you that even an ace with just one year of team control isn't going to net a massive return. All that undersells Ortiz and Hall a bit as both could end up being really nice players.

Ortiz is a major league-ready shortstop who reached the majors for a few games in 2023 after hitting .321/.378/.507 with nine home runs in 88 games in Triple-A. He's No. 91 on the top 100 list, with Kiley writing, "Projections have him as a .260s hitter with 10-12 homers, a few stolen bases and real defensive value, which is also about what I have, but it could be a tick better if he was a little more selective." He's also 25 years old, so there isn't much projection left in his game. The Brewers could conceivably play him at second base, but it could also lead to a follow-up trade of shortstop Willy Adames, who is also eligible for free agency after 2024.

Hall has the potential to make this deal a big positive for the Brewers -- if he can make it as a starter, but that has become less and less likely. He's 25, has never thrown 100 innings in a season as a professional and has walked 32 batters in 52 innings in the minors in 2023. The Orioles did call him up and used him as a reliever, where he had better control and fanned 23 batters in 19.1 innings. The Brewers certainly should give him a chance to start, but unless the command takes a big step forward, he looks like a reliever, although at least one who has the stuff to pitch in high-leverage situations. The Brewers obviously prioritized proximity to the majors over upside here. There will no doubt be a debate whether that was the right call.

Throw in the draft pick, and maybe the Brewers "win" this trade over the long haul. But it's also a discouraging trade from this view: The NL Central is a winnable division. Maybe the Brewers still find a way to win it although those odds drop sharply without Burnes, so where is the value in winning NOW? With Burnes and Freddy Peralta, you could at least dream on a playoff run, similar to Arizona making one last postseason with just Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly as proven starters. At some point, I'd love to see a team like the Brewers throw in all their chips for a change.

Bottom line: The Orioles have seemingly done everything right in making this massive improvement the past two seasons - from drafting to player development and now to this trade and to new owners with perhaps a little more cash flow on hand to boost the payroll. With Holliday, Coby Mayo (No. 19 prospect), Samuel Basallo (No. 27) and Heston Kjerstad (No. 48) all on the horizon, the present is bright and the future unlimited. It's a good time to be an Orioles fan. -- Schoenfield

Blue Jays sign DH/IF Turner

The deal: One year, $13 million (plus $1.5 million in incentives)
Grade: A-

Justin Turner has had one of the more remarkable careers of the past decade. Through age 28, he was a utility infielder with little power and 0.6 career WAR. The Mets non-tendered him, he signed with the Dodgers, revamped his swing (which he had started doing late in his Mets tenure) and became one of the leading proponents of the launch-angle revolution. In his 10 seasons since turning 29, he has hit .293/.371/.486 while producing 35.9 WAR.

He's 39 now and starting to slow up in minor increments -- posting a 150 OPS+ from 2017 to 2018, with a drop to 131 for 2019-20, then down to 120 in 2021-22 and 114 last season with the Red Sox -- but he still projects as a productive hitter for 2024, coming off a overall slash line of .276/.345/.455 with 23 home runs in Boston. While there is obviously risk of decline given his age, his Statcast measurements remained solid last year: 91st percentile in swing-and-miss rate, 71st-percentile chase rate and 50th-percentile average exit velocity. He opted out of a $13.5 million player option and now signs for a similar amount with a team that has a better chance of winning.

The Blue Jays needed to add another hitter to a lineup that finished in the middle of the pack in runs scored last season and was already without free agents Brandon Belt and Matt Chapman, two of their better hitters last season. The Jays' only offseason lineup moves had involved a pair of glove-first players: re-signing Kevin Kiermaier and signing Isiah Kiner-Falefa. A left-handed bat such as Belt might have been a slightly better fit, but he was hardly a sure thing to repeat his 2023 performance -- plus he has been injury prone, while Turner has averaged 142 games the past three seasons.

Turner can also fill in at first base and third base, although his days as a third baseman are probably limited (he played just 57 innings there for the Red Sox, although they obviously had Rafael Devers in front of him). The signing also means George Springer will have to play as many games as possible in the outfield since there will likely be fewer DH games available (he started 20 games at DH in 2023 and 40 in 2022). Given the one-year price tag and Turner's reliability, a nice addition for the Blue Jays. -- Schoenfield

Twins trade Polanco to Mariners for pitching depth

The deal: Seattle Mariners acquire 2B/3B Jorge Polanco from the Minnesota Twins for RHP Anthony DeSclafani, RHP Justin Topa and minor league OF Gabriel Gonzalez and RHP Darren Bowen

Mariners grade: C
Twins grade: A-

What, you thought the Mariners were done with transactions this offseason? No way, dear readers, as Jerry Dipoto always has a plan to make another move or four. In this case, they needed an upgrade on either Josh Rojas or Luis Urias, the projected starters at second and third base -- a pair not to be confused with Marcus Semien and Josh Jung or Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman.

Polanco has been a steady performer for years now, averaging 4.0 WAR per 150 games since 2019. He hit .255/.335/.454 in 2023, although he played just 80 games due to ankle, knee and hamstring injuries. The switch-hitter produces below-average exit velocity metrics but above-average barrel and walk rates, so it's a solid offensive profile. He's just 30 years old and signed for $10.5 million with a $12 million club option for 2025, so in theory should retain those skills. I see two potential red flags here: (1) He's not only coming off that series of injuries last season, but also missed the final 37 games of 2022 with a knee injury; (2) he has seen his strikeout rate rise from 18.3% in 2021 -- when he hit 33 home runs -- to 25.7% in 2023. There are hints here of a player on the downside of things.

While Polanco came up as a shortstop, where he had below-average range, he has moved to second base the past two seasons ... where he has still exhibited below-average range. It's possible the Mariners slide him over to third, but the trio is interchangeable as Rojas and Urias can handle both positions as well. It's three guys for two spots, which at least gives the Mariners depth, assuming Urias bounces back from a lost 2023 season when he hit .194 for the Brewers and Red Sox.

Polanco projects as 1- to 2-win upgrade if he stays healthy -- but he comes at the expense of bullpen depth. Topa was a major contributor last season for a bullpen that finished with the fourth-best ERA in the majors, posting a 2.61 ERA over 75 appearances. The Mariners have been able to conjure bullpens out of thin air in recent seasons, but there are clear concerns here once you get past Andres Munoz and Matt Brash.

The Mariners also lose starting pitching depth in DeSclafani, who isn't anything great, but Seattle is pretty thin past its top five starters now. Maybe Dipoto has another move or two coming on the pitching side of things. But there's another reason this trade could end up haunting the Mariners: Gonzalez is a prospect of some note.

For the Twins, it feels like they're trading Polanco at the right time, mostly because they simply didn't need him with the development of Royce Lewis and Edouard Julien to handle second and third base (and they still have Kyle Farmer as a backup). Yes, the Twins wanted to dump Polanco's salary, but they did very well here not just to get a couple of potential useful pitchers for the big league staff but an intriguing prospect in Gonzalez.

DeSclafani pencils into a Twins rotation that has seen them lose Sonny Gray and Kenta Maeda in free agency. Given their publicly stated desire to cut payroll, they hadn't replaced either of those two, so right now DeSclafani might be the No. 4 or 5 starter alongside Pablo Lopez, Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober and Chris Paddack. The 33-year-old DeSclafani doesn't bring a lot of swing and miss, and he has made just 23 starts over the past two seasons with the Giants after a stellar 2021 campaign, but you never know, sometimes these guys bounce back. He's essentially a salary exchange for Polanco, so the Twins didn't have to spend any money here. Topa came out of nowhere last season, but he was legit with a sinker/slider/cutter combo that made him effective against both lefties and righties.

Gonzalez played in Class A last year at age 19 and hit a respectable .298/.361/.476 with 18 home runs, tearing up the California League at Modesto (.348/.403/.530) before struggling in high-A, hitting .216/.290/.387 in 43 games. He's a shorter, thickly built right fielder with below-average speed and whose conditioning could be a long-term issue, but he has power and bat-to-ball skills to build upon. Baseball America ranked him as the No. 5 prospect in the Seattle system. Look, he's a long shot: There's a chance he never even reaches the majors. He'll have to improve his plate discipline, and the lack of a defensive upside means his bat absolutely has to carry him, but I like him as a roll of the dice for a player everyone knew the Twins were trying to trade. -- Schoenfield

Rangers add vet Robertson to bullpen mix

The deal: One year, $11-12 million
Grade: C

Let's frame this grade like this: The morning after the news emerged that the Rangers had signed David Robertson, the Cardinals added Josh James on a minor-league deal, presumably with a non-roster invite to spring training. James hasn't pitched in the majors since 2021 and didn't pitch anywhere last season after he underwent surgery in 2022. For his career and despite health and command problems, James has a 4.37 career FIP and a strikeout rate of 34.3%.

Robertson, a 15-year veteran with 175 career saves, is obviously way more established. Over the past three years, he has a 3.57 FIP and 30% strikeout rate. He's been a much, much better pitcher than James. But over those three seasons, he's played for five different teams, suggesting a certain amount of replaceability. He'll be 39 years old on April 5 and did not perform well last season after being dealt from the Mets to the Marlins.

A betting person would not likely wager that James will have a better 2024 than Robertson. The bettor might not even be willing to bet that James will pitch in the majors at all. And I'm certainly not trying to pit the two signings against each other. At the same time, I'd say there is a nontrivial possibility that James (or one of a number of similar options on the market right now) produces more big league value than Robertson in 2024. The larger point is more about bullpen-building strategy. For me, we've seen way too much guaranteed money going to veteran relievers whose collective levels of certainty (in the context of the high-variable performance of relievers in general) is too low.

Yes, it's only a one-season deal, but the Rangers already have a lot of committed money on their pitching staff, much of it going to ailing hurlers who might not help until the second half of the season and beyond. So you can understand the impulse of wanting to acquire a certain surety of innings for at least the first few months of the season. Maybe Robertson will provide that.

In lieu of acquiring a true impact reliever (like Josh Hader), I still would rather collect as many bounce-back, buy-low, second-chance, post-surgery relievers as I can -- like James -- and bring them to spring training and see how they are throwing. It doesn't feel like the marginal gain from Robertson should be that much over what you should be able to glean from the lower rungs of the marketplace. And even if you struggle to fill out leverage roles early in the season, the money you've spent on Robertson now would be more than enough to fill that void later, when you see how various relievers are actually throwing.

The Rangers certainly deserve the benefit of the doubt after winning the World Series and this tepid grade is probably more a philosophically based peeve of the grader than anything. We will know if these concerns were valid in October, when Robertson is or is not still holding down a key role in the Texas bullpen. -- Doolittle 

Diamondbacks agree to terms with DH/OF Pederson

The deal: One year, $12.5 million (mutual option for 2025)
Grade: C+

Have bat, will travel for one-year contract -- that's going to be Joc Pederson's story for the next half-decade as the two-time All-Star morphs into a platoon DH. His contract with Arizona features a $9.5 million base salary for 2024 with a $3 million buyout or $14 million mutual option for 2025, but unless he performs better than he did in 2023, when he hit .235/.348/.416 for the Giants, one season in the desert is the more likely scenario.

The Diamondbacks will hope Pederson produces like he did in 2022 when he -- and you're forgiven if you don't remember this -- started the All-Star Game. He hit .274/.353/.521 that year, including 17 first-half home runs, good for an excellent 146 OPS+. Really, however, that has been his only reasonably valuable season in the past four, and even then he was worth only 1.3 WAR because of his poor defense in the outfield. He started 72 games at DH and 23 in the outfield last season, posting just 0.6 WAR.

Still, that would make Pederson an improvement over the meager numbers Arizona received from its revolving door of DHs in 2023 as they hit just .218/.286/.390, ranking 28th in the majors in OPS (Lourdes Gurriel Jr. started 50 games there, the most on the team, but hit just .221 with a .260 OBP). Tommy Pham was acquired down the stretch and picked up most of the DH at-bats during the team's postseason run.

The Diamondbacks would be happy if Pederson can deliver something close to a .350 OBP again. Pederson needs a platoon partner, although the Diamondbacks don't have a logical right-handed bench bat -- I guess backup third baseman Emmanuel Rivera might be the best option there. That's why I thought J.D. Martinez or Justin Turner might be the better play here as a full-time DH, but at some point you can't keep waiting and have to make a move, so the Diamondbacks wanted to make sure they signed somebody -- even if it wasn't necessarily the player at the top of their list.

All in all, this closes out what has been a nice offseason for Arizona, as the front office understood that the playoff run was a little fortuitous and not reflective of the actual strength of the roster (they were outscored in the regular season, after all). They re-signed Gurriel as a free agent, added Eduardo Rodriguez as a No. 3 starter behind Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly, traded for Eugenio Suarez to plug a hole at third base and now get their DH, all moves to surround that younger core of Corbin Carroll, Gabriel Moreno and Jordan Lawlar. They've been one of the few teams aggressively increasing their payroll, and that should make them a strong wild-card contender behind the Dodgers. -- Schoenfield

Brewers agree to deal with 1B/DH Hoskins

The deal: Two years, $34 million (with opt-out after 2024)
Grade: B+

The Brewers and Rhys Hoskins always felt like a potential fit, with the only question being whether the Brewers would find the money in their budget. Hoskins' options diminished when the Cubs traded for Michael Busch from the Dodgers, perhaps creating the path to land in Milwaukee.

The Brewers certainly needed a first baseman, as their first basemen in 2023 hit a collective .231/.292/.389, ranking 28th in the majors. They could use a DH, too, as their DHs hit a collective .219/.317/.340 -- worst in the majors. They didn't offer a contract to Rowdy Tellez, who struggled in 2023 after he hit 35 home runs in 2022, and their only offseason move to address either position had been acquiring Jake Bauers, a player who spent 2022 in the minors before resurfacing with the Yankees and hitting .202/.279/.413 last season.

Hoskins, of course, missed all of 2023 after tearing the ACL in his left knee late in spring training. With the Phillies moving Bryce Harper to first base full time and Kyle Schwarber locked into the DH role, there just wasn't room for Hoskins in Philadelphia even though he had been popular both in the clubhouse and with the fans.

In his four full seasons, Hoskins has been a solid power-plus-walks contributor, averaging 30 home runs with his lowest OBP of .332 coming in 2022. His value is all in his bat as he's a below-average defender at first and was already well below average on the bases before the knee injury. He's probably a little overrated because of his name recognition as his career-high WAR is the 2.9 he posted in 2022 and he's averaged 2.7 WAR per 162 games  -- but given that Willy Adames was the Brewers' top home run hitter with 24, Hoskins looks like a cleanup hitter in this lineup.

Indeed, it's interesting to note that the Brewers declined from 219 home runs in 2022 (second in the NL) to 165 (12th) -- but actually scored three more runs. That increase, however, was primarily from hitting well with runners in scoring position and it is hard to know if that will continue. They needed to improve the offense and Hoskins does that -- even if he's only a 2-WAR player, that's about a three-win improvement over what they had on the roster. For $17 million, that projects to be money well spent. It also suggests the Brewers are all-in for 2024, setting up an interesting offseason next year when Corbin Burnes, Adames and Hoskins would all be eligible for free agency. If the Brewers falter, all three could turn into trade candidates this summer. -- Schoenfield

Astros land market's best closer in Hader

The deal: Five years, $95 million (deal reportedly contains a full no-trade clause and no option seasons)
Grade: B

The Houston Astros paid handsomely to fix a position group that wasn't particularly broken. In Josh Hader, they've certainly landed one of the premier relievers in baseball, an unquestioned close-out pitcher who you can easily envision recording the last out of a World Series win. There are a few other teams that needed such a presence -- the Baltimore Orioles, Texas Rangers, maybe even the Los Angeles Dodgers -- but that is not really of concern to Houston.

What is of concern in the short term for the Astros is that Hader deepens the back of a bullpen that is now, once again, four closer-quality relievers deep. Hader joins incumbent closer Ryan Pressly, Rafael Montero and the filthy Bryan Abreu. In terms of collective, raw stuff, this is a vicious group that recalls past power pens like the Cincinnati Reds' "Nasty Boys" and some of the recent New York Yankees' relief staffs.

It's a full circle signing: Hader is a one-time Astros prospect who was dealt away before he reached the majors. He was in fact dealt to Milwaukee in a trade that brought back pitcher Mike Fiers, who ended up becoming the whistleblower in the Astros' sign-stealing scandal. Small world.

Did Houston need a new closer? Pressly's traditional numbers were down last season, though the metrics behind his arsenal look stable. In the playoffs, Pressly threw six scoreless innings. But he's down to the last guaranteed season on his deal, with a mutual option on the table after 2024. A right-now closer didn't seem like the most glaring need on the talented Astros but in Hader, they have one of the best. And Houston is now set after 2024, regardless of what happens with Pressly.

The signing comes on the heels of news that reliever Kendall Graveman will miss the 2024 season after undergoing surgery, but this doesn't feel like a cause-and-effect situation, if only because Graveman is nowhere near Hader's class in terms of consistent dominance. You don't commit $95 million to replace Kendall Graveman.

Five years is a long contract for a relief pitcher, even a great one. And Hader has been great during his career more often than not. He was as good as ever last season, when he posted a 1.28 ERA -- and in terms of Statcast's expected ERA, only the Detroit Tigers' Tarik Skubal had a better mark among hurlers with more than 100 balls in play.

Yet, for closers in the non-Mariano Rivera class -- and he's a class of one -- the decline can be hard and fast. Craig Kimbrel had a 1.80 career ERA through age 29. (Hader is at 2.50 through the same age.) He seemed infallible, one of the few sure things among short relievers. While Kimbrel has remained a viable high-leverage reliever, he has been up and down since that early dominance, bouncing from team to team and in and out of the closer role. Kenley Jansen's story has been similar, with his lapse in dominance coming a year after he signed one of those rare five-year reliever deals.

The Astros are paying Hader to be one of the best two or three closers in baseball for the next five years. He stands a good chance of being that this season. Next season? It'd be hard to bet against him. After that? It's anybody's guess. There's nothing on Hader's dossier to raise doubt, except for one thing: He's a soon-to-be-30-year-old relief pitcher and five years is a long time to be paying out that much money to someone like that.

Those are perhaps worries for another day. The Astros are aging in some key areas, with both Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve and Justin Verlander all possible free agents after the coming season. For now, the focus in Houston is entirely on 2024 -- and there is no doubt that Hader boosts their chances to advance deep into the postseason yet again.

If the Astros win the 2024 World Series, with Hader blowing away someone with a last-strike four-seamer, no one in Houston will be wringing their hands about two or three future seasons of an underwater contract. -- Doolittle

Blue Jays in agreement with RHP Yariel Rodriguez

The deal: Four years, $32 million
Grade: B

The Toronto Blue Jays entered the offseason with one grand design: sign Shohei Ohtani. But he decided not to get on that plane and take his talents to Canada, and it seems the Jays had two budgets in play: one for Ohtani and one for the backup plan (although they reportedly had interest in Yoshinobu Yamamoto). So far the backup plan has merely featured re-signing Kevin Kiermaier, signing utility man Isiah Kiner-Falefa (who essentially replaces Whit Merrifield, although with the ability to play shortstop) and now agreeing to terms with Rodriguez, a 26-year-old from Cuba who last pitched in Japan in 2022, when he had a 1.15 ERA in 54 innings as a reliever.

According to Kiley McDaniel's scouting report, Rodriguez has a mid-90s fastball and two good breaking balls. He started for Cuba in the World Baseball Classic but didn't return to Japan, instead holding showcases for clubs. The stuff is good enough to warrant a No. 24 ranking for Rodriguez on McDaniel's list of the top 50 free agents entering the offseason, and the four-year, $32 million contract is right around what McDaniel predicted he would receive. Rodriguez has the mix of pitches to start, and the Jays could certainly put him in a spring training battle with Alek Manoah and perhaps top prospect Ricky Tiedemann for the final spot in the rotation, with a potential high-leverage role in the bullpen as a fallback option. At that, the deal is reasonable -- and if Rodriguez does surface as a solid starter during these four seasons, the contract could be a bargain.

In the big picture, however, it has been a letdown of an offseason for the Jays. Kiermaier, Kiner-Falefa and Rodriguez will make a combined $26 million, and the Jays haven't done anything to improve what was a mediocre offense in 2023. Indeed, they're currently without free agents Brandon Belt and Matt Chapman, who ranked first and fourth on the team in OPS among the regulars. That leaves the light-hitting Kiner-Falefa as the likely starting third baseman and makes DH a revolving door. Given the payroll is now about $14 million higher than last year, there is no guarantee the Jays still have a big move in the works (such as re-signing Chapman, although returning to Toronto still feels like the best fit out there for him).

With their pitching depth, the Blue Jays will remain competitive in 2024, but the window that opened up four years ago has yet to produce a single playoff victory -- and they don't look any better than last season. -- Schoenfield

Giants sign Jordan Hicks -- as a starter!

The deal: Four years, $44 million
Grade: B-

It seems like we've been waiting forever for Hicks to break out in a bigger way -- or at least since he burst onto the scene with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2018 with that 100 mph sinker. Since then, however, it has been a series of injuries and inconsistent performance, although he was healthy in 2023, pitching 65 games in relief with the Cardinals and Toronto Blue Jays with a 3.29 ERA and 12 saves. This deal matched the expected contract for Hicks, more or less the going rate for a midlevel veteran reliever.

This is where it gets interesting: The San Francisco Giants are going to try him as a starter. The Cardinals tried it for a few weeks early in the 2022 season, but they eventually moved Hicks back to the bullpen after he posted a 5.84 ERA because of control issues (17 walks in 24⅔ innings). Still, I like the thinking here. In general, teams develop a lot of these pitchers as starters, and if they end up in the pen in the majors and have success, they never get stretched out again. Hicks was rushed to the majors from High-A because that power sinker worked in relief, but it's worth seeing what he can do in the rotation.

The Giants have certainly had some success at identifying pitchers they think they can help, and it's notable that Hicks had his best season in 2023 after unveiling a new sweeper that helped him to a career-high 28.4% strikeout rate. With the sweeper moving in the opposite direction of his sinker, it created a nice two-pitch combo. He still maintained his usual high ground ball rate, allowing just four home runs -- he has allowed just 13 home runs in 243 career innings. I could see Hicks putting up some impressive stats at Oracle Park, where it's already difficult to hit it over the fence.

Obviously, there are a lot of unknowns here: Can Hicks cut his walk rate (career 4.9 walks per 9 innings)? Can he survive as a starter on basically two pitches? Can he be efficient enough to pitch into the sixth inning? Maybe the Giants work with him on the changeup that he rarely throws. Maybe he can be more effective by not trying to throw every pitch through the back screen all the time. Maybe the Giants are just hoping he can work as a five-and-dive guy. Worst-case scenario: They just move him back to the bullpen, where he can complement Camilo Doval and form one of the hardest-throwing bullpen duos in the majors. -- Schoenfield

Yankees ink Marcus Stroman

The deal: Two years, $37 million with vesting option for 2026
Grade: C+

Sometimes, it almost seems like all of the tools we have for evaluating the quality of individual pitches has become so fine-tuned that it has clouded our judgment of the overall worth of a pitcher, particularly a starter. Increasingly, this myopic lens that focuses on pitch performance, expected stats and rate measures seems to have side-stepped the very basic question of just how often a pitcher can execute what he does well. The Yankees, in particular, seem to cling to this pro-rata perspective while seeming dumbfounded why, once the games actually start, most of their rotation is on the IL.

For Stroman, in 2022, it was a shoulder issue that limited him to 138⅔ innings. Last season, it was a hip, then a rib, that knocked that total down by two innings. In neither campaign did Stroman come within sniffing distance of the ERA title even though he was a top-of-the-rotation veteran (over 30 years old) for a team that need length from him.

Stroman has had healthy seasons. He has topped 200 innings a couple of times, qualified for the ERA crown four times. But in his recent track record, built over two seasons, he has been really good when he has pitched but he has also missed around 16 starts during that span. He has been consistent -- per inning. Over nine big league seasons, his FIP has existed in a narrow (and solid) range between 2.84 and 3.91.

For many teams, getting that kind of efficiency for 130 to 140 innings is good enough. And indeed, maybe it will be for the Yankees. But when you're talking about a core rotation that already has major injury question marks in Carlos Rodon and Nestor Cortes, it seems like a team with the heft of the Yankees need not have to pick between quantity or quality but could simply pay for both.

Jordan Montgomery, in particular, would have been a great option. Maybe he still will be. Maybe there is a trade that can work, for someone like Dylan Cease of the White Sox. Until then, I'm looking at a rotation that's carrying a lot more injury risk than is comfortable. For another team, perhaps I would dismiss it as simply the state of pitching in the majors. But the Yankees just seem to keep doing this again and again and again. -- Doolittle

Cubs bolster rotation with LHP Shota Imanaga

The deal: Four years, $53 million with option to extend to five years, $80 million
Grade: B

You might remember Imanaga from the championship game of the World Baseball Classic: The 5-foot-10 left-hander was the surprise starter, drawing the assignment and pitching the first two innings over the likes of Yu Darvish and Shohei Ohtani in Japan's 3-2 victory over the United States (Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki, the top two pitchers in Japan, had both pitched in the semifinal win over Mexico).

Indeed, it wasn't Yamamoto, of the new $325 contract with the Dodgers, or the youngster Sasaki, of the 100-mph fastball, who would lead the NPB strikeouts in 2023 but the diminutive Imanaga. The 30-year-old fanned 188 batters in 159 innings while posting a 2.66 ERA and not only had more total strikeouts than Yamamoto, but a higher strikeout rate (an impressive 29.2%) and a better strikeout-to-walk ratio, with just 24. If you're comparing Imanaga's deal to Yamamoto's, it might appear the Cubs are getting a relative bargain, even at this price point.

Maybe Imanaga's raw stuff isn't quite as impressive -- his fastball sits in the low 90s, and while he has a good splitter, his other offspeed offerings aren't regarded as in the same class as Yamamoto's -- but he clearly knows how to set up batters, commands his pitches and his fastball generates swings and misses up in the zone despite not having elite velocity.

At least it did in Japan. But aside from Yamamoto being five years younger, there's an obvious difference between their performances in the NPB: Yamamoto allowed just two home runs in 171 innings (and has a history of being stingy with the long ball) while Imanaga allowed 18 in those 159 innings (and has a history of similar home run rates). Japan's parks are a little smaller in their dimensions, but the home run rates and overall levels of offense in 2023 were much lower than MLB. The Japan Central League averaged a home run every 44.5 at-bats and teams scored just 3.51 runs per game; MLB averaged a home run every 28.0 at-bats and teams scored 4.62 runs per game. Given Imanaga's higher than average home run rate in Japan, I think he's going to have some significant issues with home runs.

That makes me lower on Imanaga than most evaluators. Clearly the Cubs weren't the only team interested in him at this level, but I see more of a back-end starter -- albeit at least one who should give the Cubs 150 innings or so. If his control holds up, at least he won't beat himself with walks, and the Cubs do project as an above-average defensive team with Dansby Swanson, Nico Hoerner and Pete Crow-Armstrong up the middle.

Needless to say, at least the Cubs finally did something: They had been the only team not to sign a major league free agent or trade for a player on the 40-man roster. Imanaga essentially replaces Marcus Stroman in the rotation -- and Stroman went 10-9 with a 3.95 ERA in 25 starts (despite a second-half fade due to injury). If Imanaga does that well, that means the Cubs are essentially treading water. Cubs fans will certainly expect something else this offseason. -- Schoenfield

Dodgers sign OF Teoscar Hernandez

The deal: One year, $23.5 million
Grade: B-

From the category of "We saw this coming all along but still can't believe it, and does it kind of feel like the Dodgers are just collecting infinity stones at this point?" the Los Angeles Dodgers make the latest addition to their star-studded roster. They've been linked to Hernandez since the beginning of free agency, after the Mariners surprisingly didn't give him a qualifying offer and thus made Hernandez a more appealing free agent, with no draft-pick penalty attached.

It might be a little surprising that Hernandez took a one-year deal, but at this point, who wouldn't want to join the Dodgers and chase a World Series ring? Plus, that salary for 2024 will work just fine, thank you very much, and at this point, and the Dodgers' actual outlay for their 2024 payroll was already lowered by Shohei Ohtani's deferred money and Yoshinobu Yamamoto making just $9.2 million in his first season (L.A.'s luxury tax payroll will be higher, because it factors in the annual average value for those contracts).

Anyway, that's the boring accounting side of the things -- hate the Dodgers for it if you desire. The appeal from the baseball angle for the Dodgers is easy to understand: They did need outfield depth behind Jason Heyward, James Outman, Chris Taylor and Manuel Margot, and they especially needed someone who hit right-handed to help balance their lefty-leaning lineup. Hernandez was clearly the best free agent available who fit both parameters.

Indeed, the best thing Hernandez does is mash left-handers: .287/.307/.511 in 2023 and .317/.349/.628 over the past three seasons. He's also a high-energy guy with a good clubhouse reputation. Not that you would expect players like Mookie Betts or Freddie Freeman to lose their edge, but adding some new blood each season is a good idea.

Given his propensity to crush lefties, it's possible Hernandez even ends up hitting cleanup. I'm not sure I would do that given his high strikeout rate and low on-base percentage -- he ranked third in the majors with 214 strikeouts and posted a below-average .305 OBP -- but it's also worth noting that Hernandez struggled at home at Seattle's T-Mobile Park. On the road, he hit .295/.344/.486. If Dave Roberts lines it up as Betts, Freeman and Ohtani hitting 1-2-3, the Dodgers can expect Freeman and Ohtani to face a lot of lefty relievers in the middle of games. If you follow those two with Hernandez, it creates at least the possibility of that reliever facing Hernandez as his third batter.

Or maybe Hernandez slots sixth to help all the lefties lower in the lineup, something like this:

2B Betts (R)
1B Freeman (L)
DH Ohtani (L)
C Will Smith (R)
3B Max Muncy (L)
LF Hernandez (R)
CF Outman (L)
RF Heyward (L)/Margot (R)
SS Gavin Lux (L)

Offense aside, the outfield depth Hernandez brings is a big factor for the Dodgers as well. The Dodgers re-signed Heyward, who hit .269/.340/.473 in a huge bounce-back season -- but he had hit .211/.280/.326 the previous two seasons, so there is no guarantee he comes close to his 2023 numbers. Outman had a productive rookie season, hitting .248/.353/.437, but he wasn't as good after a .991 OPS in April, and he's hardly a lock to match his numbers as well. With Hernandez on board, Taylor can return to a utility role, backing up Betts and Lux in the infield and all three outfield positions.

While all this is a glowing report so far, those strikeouts raise a red flag, so I'm dropping the grade a bit. There's no doubt the Dodgers will score a ton of runs in the regular season -- the top three guys alone ensure that -- and the lineup now looks a little deeper. But it's all about October for the Dodgers. How will Hernandez's game play in the postseason? With Hernandez, Outman and Muncy, there's a lot of strikeouts in the middle of the lineup -- and if Betts, Freeman and Ohtani go cold at the wrong time, that will put pressure on those guys to make enough quality contact when it most matters. I'm not sure Hernandez's high-chase approach will be optimal in October. -- Schoenfield

Mets land lefty Manaea

The deal: Two years, $28 million with opt-out after 2024
Grade: B

"How has he been throwing lately?" This question seems to have loomed larger and larger when it comes to explaining transactions involving veteran pitchers. That question seems more important now than statistical track record, or performance metrics. The answer can be more precisely measured now than ever before and that, more than anything else, is why the Mets gave Sean Manaea a two-year deal at a salary level that simply cannot be explained by his recent aggregate performance.

Manaea spent his first six seasons as a big league pitcher building a solid résumé as a mid-rotation starter. Through 2021, his age-29 season, Manaea had made 128 of his 129 appearances as a member of the Athletics' rotation. He owned a 107 ERA+ with a strikeout rate just below league average but propped up by plus figures in the walks and homers allowed categories. The last two seasons, first in San Diego, then in San Francisco, have not been nearly as successful. Over 275⅔ innings, his ERA+ has been a paltry 84 and his composite bWAR sits at minus-0.5. Those are results of a minor league invite, not a $14-million-per-season roster fixture.

Yet this signing is neither out of the blue nor out of line with industry expectations. ESPN's Kiley McDaniel rated Manaea as the No. 26 free agent available, with a contract projection precisely along these lines.

If you had been given this glimpse of the future during the middle of last May, you would have thought the bearer of the news has taken leave of their senses. Manaea allowed at least one run in each of his first nine appearances with the Giants, posting a 7.81 ERA during that span. He allowed at least one homer in seven of those nine outings, six of them pitching as part of the San Francisco rotation.

The Giants shipped Manaea to the bullpen around that time, from there he made his next 24 appearances as a long reliever. He put up a 3.82 ERA with a 2.98 FIP during that stint as a reliever, then returned to the rotation for four season-closing starts. His ERA in those outings was 2.25.

If Manaea's late surge wasn't undergirded by something other than traditional pitching lines, he still might not merit a contract like this. But it very much was. He first unveiled a sweeper in an outing on May 30, against Pittsburgh, when he threw 14 of them, per TruMedia. By the end of the season, he threw 214 of them, yielding a .140/.161/.163 slash line and zero home runs. In addition to the dazzling new offering, Manaea's average four-seamer -- a pitch he hardly used during his last season for Oakland -- ticked up from 91.3 MPH to 93.6.

And -- voila -- a generous new contract.

Lefty hitters were helpless against Manaea's sweeper, making his consistently outstanding results against the same-siders even more extreme. But righties hit just .190 against it, making his often-shaky numbers against them look more palatable when predicting him forward.

Manaea figures to slot into an overhauled Mets rotation behind Kodai Senga, Jose Quintana and bounce-back candidate Luis Severino, with newcomer Adrian Houser or veteran Tylor Megill at the back end. However, if the Mets deepen the mix at some point, Manaea's newfound flexibility as a recent reliever and his same-side dominance give him a lot of utility on both a regular-season roster and for a targeted role in the playoffs.

The wild card in all of this is how the Mets' new pitching program sets up with a new lead exec (David Stearns), a new manager (Carlos Mendoza) and a holdover pitching coach (Jeremy Hefner). When Stearns was in Milwaukee, the Brewers got more than their share of mileage by finding overlooked pitchers and optimizing their arsenals and roles, while synergizing the connections between the front office, manager and the pitching staff. The Giants have been really good on these fronts as well, and that's why San Francisco was a good place for Manaea to rediscover himself. But can the Mets find even more?

Manaea has qualified for the ERA title just once in his career, topping out at 179⅐ innings in 2021. While he had some shoulder issues early in his career, he's had a good run of health since. Just shy of 32, he may just be entering that veteran zone where you can push his innings a little if needed. Even if Manaea ends up in a two-times-through-the-order, 150-160 innings role, he seems well-positioned to justify this payout.

That's because the answer to our opening question is this: Lately, Sean Manaea has been throwing the ball pretty darned well. -- Doolittle

Giants acquire former Cy Young-winning lefty Ray from Mariners

The deal: Giants LHP Robbie Ray acquired from the Mariners for OF Mitch Haniger, RHP Anthony DeSclafani and $6 million cash.

Giants grade: B+
Mariners grade: C+

After the Giants signed Korean star Jung Hoo Lee to take over as their center fielder, Mitch Haniger really didn't make much sense for this roster. But with the frontline outfield consisting of Lee, Michael Conforto and Mike Yastrzemski -- all lefty hitters -- you could argue that Haniger provided some right-handed balance.

With Austin Slater and Heliot Ramos among those around to do the same thing, Haniger's $20 million in 2024 salary, plus $15 million in 2025, didn't really fit for that kind of role. Assuming he can bounce back after an injury-plagued down season in 2023, he could do the job just fine, but that's money that could be put to better use.

The better use for the money turns out to be a recent Cy Young-winning starter in Ray, who spent last season dealing with injuries a lot more severe than Haniger's. Ray has been one of the game's more dominant pitchers at his best, but his career has also been marked by inconsistency.

After undergoing Tommy John surgery in May 2023, Ray isn't expected to be ready for action until the second half of the 2024 season. Even after he returns, there may be a ramp-up period for a pitcher who has struggled with command throughout his time in the majors. When that command has been sharp -- as it was when he won the Cy Young Award while with Toronto in 2021 -- he's as good as anyone.

Alas, as often happens with pitchers returning from Tommy John, sometimes it's not the velocity and/or stuff that is slow to come back but the command. Ray, who has sported walk rates well above the MLB average in several seasons, feels susceptible to that issue. Command isn't just about walks but about avoiding the hot zones of opposing hitters and that, too, has been a problem, as he's allowed 30 or more homers in each of his last three healthy, non-pandemic seasons.

And still, I like the deal for the Giants because of the upside. Pessimistic as I am about Ray making a quick return to dominance, that's different than saying he won't get there. He has two more years on his deal beyond 2024 but also owns an opt-out after the coming season. For the Giants, it's a win-win situation. If Ray comes back and falls into a groove right away, he could be a real difference-maker for a team that might be a fringe wild-card contender.

In that scenario, in which the Giants squeak into the playoff as, say, a six seed, they'd enter the postseason with Ray, ace Logan Webb and young lefty Kyle Harrison fronting the rotation. That's pretty solid and a lot more imposing than the look they'd get with DeSclafani still on board.

Maybe Ray opts out in that scenario, but at least you've gotten a postseason run. If Ray doesn't opt out, then you've got a veteran with Cy Young upside for two more years. And you really haven't given up much except a little more cash over the next couple of seasons, cash the Giants have to spend.

As for the Mariners, figuring out what's happening with them is often a mind-bending exercise and while you can see the motivation for this specific trade, the holistic (and blurry) picture of what Jerry Dipoto is doing drags their grade down.

Some of this is driven by rhetoric. Dipoto has told reporters that he expects the M's to have a higher opening day payroll in 2024 than 2023. He's said that when letting go of 2023 lineup fixtures like Jarred Kelenic, Teoscar Hernandez and Eugenio Suarez, it's in part an effort to cut down on the team's chronically poor strikeout rate, while also maintaining flexibility going forward.

The problem is that when you look at the roster from an offensive perspective, it's really not very exciting, and the end product increasingly makes some of those early offseason decisions look more like salary dumps than anything else.

The Mariners aren't waving the white flag, by any stretch. If the Giants get credit for turning Haniger's salary slot into a player or players who might offer more utility down the line, Dipoto can make similar claims about dealing Ray.

Seattle's rotation emerged as a strong unit in 2023, even after Ray went down. (Ray made one ineffective start early in the season.) With a number of young pitchers as part of that performance, spending $23 million next season, and potentially $73 million over the next three, seemed like a misallocation of resources for a franchise swimming well below the luxury tax threshold.

Now Seattle is out from under the Ray obligation. It has some veteran stability at the end of its rotation in DeSclafani -- who will occupy a role not unlike Marco Gonzales did the last couple of years -- and has a more MLB-legit outfield rotation.

On the latter front, Seattle made a second move on Friday, sending infielder Jose Caballero to the Rays for lefty-hitting outfielder Luke Raley. Caballero, one of those late-blooming types who might well have debuted in the majors at his performance peak, won't be particularly missed. But Raley, also in the pre-arbitration phase of his service time, figures to hold down the heavy side of a left-field platoon, possibly with holdover Sam Haggerty as his partner.

Meanwhile, Haniger, an old friend in Seattle, will look quite familiar positioned most days in right field next to franchise cornerstone Julio Rodriguez. An outfield depth chart of Rodriguez, Haniger, a Raley/Haggerty platoon and Taylor Trammell works.

And, still, you look at the end product of this latest bout of Dipoto shuffling and you can't help but wonder. Just using back-of-the-envelope comparisons from last season's lineup to this one, it really doesn't look any different at the bottom line -- even in the strikeout rate category. (Raley struck out over 30 percent of the time in 2023.) The one significant upgrade was the signing of Mitch Garver to take over as primary DH, replacing the motley crew that combined last season to hit .207 with a 30% strikeout rate.

These grades are always issued by trying to appreciate the context in which the moves are made. Here, we're talking about a franchise that has never won a pennant and yet seems to be in a position where the right moves might give them an avenue to ending that drought.

Perhaps something meatier is in the offing, but for now, it just does not feel like the Mariners have put together a pennant-worthy lineup and, quite possibly, they have gone in the wrong direction in that regard since last season ended. -- Doolittle

Mets add center fielder Harrison Bader

The deal: One year, $10.5 million
Grade: C+

The obvious factor that separates a big-market team with an owner willing to spend on payroll is the ability to pursue big-ticket free agents. Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto weren't going to end up with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Oakland Athletics (although you could easily make the argument that both teams could afford either player, given their otherwise meager payrolls). The other aspect is contracts like this one. It rarely makes sense for a team with a more limited budget to spend $10 million on a player who is only a marginal upgrade or even, as might be the case with the New York Mets and Bader, a platoon player.

But money is no barrier for owner Steve Cohen, so although the Mets failed to land Ohtani or Yamamoto, they're still finding ways to spend. They rolled the dice on a one-year, $13 million contract for Luis Severino, hoping he'll rebound from a terrible season. They acquired Adrian Houser and Tyrone Taylor from the Milwaukee Brewers, not giving up anything but picking up an estimated $7.3 million in salary. Now they sign Bader, who is coming off a difficult season at the plate, hitting just .232/.274/.348 with seven home runs in 319 at-bats. His defense and baserunning add value, but given that Bader has produced just 1.6 WAR over the past two seasons, he's really a luxury item for the Mets. You would prefer to have this type of player coming out of your farm system and making the league minimum, but the Mets' system, while producing Francisco Alvarez and Brett Baty in 2023, remains a work progress.

The odd thing is Bader sort of duplicates the skill set of Taylor: a right-handed batter with a low OBP and good defense. Bader is an elite defender in center, so he becomes the top backup to Brandon Nimmo -- or even allows the team to move Nimmo into left field and play Bader regularly in center. Bader has never really hit right-handers in his career and was useless against them in 2023 (.207/.240/.263), so I still project him as a part-time player.

Two things this signing and the Taylor trade indicate: New president of baseball operations David Stearns is focusing on defense. That was always a strength of his Brewers but has rarely been a positive for the Mets in recent years. Even the 2022 team that won 101 games wasn't especially stellar in that regard. An outfield defense of Nimmo in left, Bader in center and Taylor in right would rank up there as one of the best in the game. It also indicates there's some concern about Starling Marte's ability to bounce back from an injury-plagued 2023 when he also struggled at the plate and hit just .248/.301/.324. Given that he's 35, it's wise to acquire as much outfield depth as possible. (Note that the Mets also signed Joey Wendle, a good infield defender, for $2 million.)

All these moves -- Bader, Taylor, Houser, Severino, Wendle -- hardly match the excitement that signing Yamamoto, who was clearly the top goal for the Mets this offseason, would have brought. Those five will earn nearly $33 million in 2024. For the Mets, it's the price they're paying for depth. Catching the Atlanta Braves wasn't going to be a possibility even with Yamamoto, but the series of small moves is at least pushing the Mets back into the wild-card chase. -- Schoenfield

Reds add Frankie Montas, fill out rotation

The deal: One year, $16 million
Grade: C

The pitching market is getting ... I don't know if out of control is quite the correct description, but it is remarkable how teams suddenly can find money to spend when they're desperate for pitching help. Teams are supposedly better than ever at developing pitchers -- helping them increase velocity and better shape their pitches to create more swing and miss -- and yet no team ever has enough good ones. Which leads to the Cincinnati Reds giving this kind of a deal to a pitcher who has battled shoulder problems since midseason of 2022, leading to a cleanup surgery last March, and who didn't report back to the Yankees until the final weekend of the season for one relief appearance. The operative words here might be "pending physical."

Those health concerns are the biggest red flag: We just don't know what Montas will offer, even if he does pass the physical. He has topped 100 innings just twice in his career: in 2021 when he threw a career-high 187 innings and then in 2022 when he pitched 144 innings before the shoulder issue finally knocked him out. Before that, he had a PED suspension in 2019. Of course, the old cliché is there are no bad one-year contracts; it just feels like the going rate to sign this kind of pitcher, a guy with upside coming off an injury or a bad season, has seemingly doubled in one offseason. Is it the right kind of move for a small-market team like the Reds to gamble on?

Even setting aside Montas' health risks, the Reds' offseason has just been ... confusing. They're spending money, which is a rare concept, but they've now committed to $53 million in 2024 salaries for free agents Montas, Nick Martinez, Jeimer Candelario and Emilio Pagan. Sure, those guys add depth, but the group combined for 5.8 bWAR in 2023 and just 2.4 in 2022. Even a best-case scenario suggests it won't be a great return on investment. I get that it might be difficult to attract star players to Cincinnati, but you can't help but wonder if the team could have spent some of that $53 million on at least one star.

Still, the Reds were looking to add a veteran starter to a young rotation that has a lot of potential, filled with the likes of Hunter Greene, Andrew Abbott, Nick Lodolo, Graham Ashcraft, Brandon Williamson and Connor Phillips. If Montas can find that 2021 form -- 13-9, 3.37 ERA, 207 strikeouts with the A's -- this signing will look like a steal. At the minimum, in signing Montas and swingman Martinez, the Reds can now list eight starters they should feel comfortable rolling out there. That wasn't the case last year, when they went 82-80 with the third-worst rotation ERA in the majors. Luke Weaver, Ben Lively, Luis Cessa, Lyon Richardson, Connor Overton, Levi Stoudt and Carson Spiers combined to make 50 starts with a 7.34 ERA. Those guys are now gone or way down the depth chart. With improvement from some of the younger guys and a healthy Montas, the rotation should be much better, even if it still lacks a clear No. 1 or 2 starter.

In the end, though, the general direction of the Reds remains positive, and the NL Central remains very winnable, especially since the Brewers and Cubs haven't done anything yet. This signing might close out the Reds' offseason as their payroll climbs over $100 million. Will it be good enough? -- Schoenfield

Sale joins Atlanta in swap for Grissom

The deal: Braves acquire LHP Chris Sale from Red Sox for IF Vaughn Grissom, cash.

Braves grade: A-
Red Sox grade: B+

The Atlanta Braves added another dangerous arm to an already formidable rotation. The Boston Red Sox finally filled their hole at second base while ending Sale's injury-riddled stay in Boston. Will the deal pay off for Atlanta and Boston? Read full analysis of Braves-Red Sox trade

Red Sox add Lucas Giolito to rotation

The deal: Two years, $38 million
Grade: C-

The Boston Red Sox and new chief baseball officer Craig Breslow make their first significant free agent signing of the offseason, filling a hole in the rotation with a 29-year-old right-hander who has been durable and, in the not too recent past, one of the top 10 starting pitchers in the game. From 2019 to 2021, Giolito ranked tied for sixth in WAR, a stretch that included down-ballot Cy Young votes in all three seasons. The Red Sox hope with this season they can find that pitcher again.

Key word there is "hope," because Giolito has been hit hard the past two seasons. He went 19-24 with a 4.89 ERA, allowing an AL-leading 41 home runs in 2023. He ended the season with an especially sour string of starts for the Los Angeles Angels (where he was traded from the Chicago White Sox) and the Cleveland Guardians (who claimed him on waivers from the Angels). In 12 starts with those two clubs, Giolito surrendered a shocking 21 home runs and .578 slugging percentage in 63.1 innings even while maintaining a solid 25.4 strikeout rate.

That's the statistic the Red Sox are leaning on: There is still enough swing-and-miss stuff here (70th percentile) for Giolito to at least project as a mid-rotation starter. He also posts every fifth game, which is kind of a new concept for the Red Sox to consider. Since 2018, Giolito is tied for fifth in the majors in games started while ranking eighth in innings. The Red Sox have had just two pitchers in the past three seasons (Nathan Eovaldi in 2021 and Nick Pivetta in 2022) qualify for the ERA title -- Brayan Bello was their only pitcher to top 130 innings last season.

Giolito's four-seam fastball, however, has lost a tick of velocity (from 94.0 mph in 2019 to 93.1 mph in 2023) with a decline in spin rate, leading to a pitch that often gets hammered. The slugging percentage against it since 2019: .364, .306, .427, .449, .546. Unless the Red Sox can help him figure out how to regain some of the spin, he's going to have make some other adjustments -- better command (never a strength for him, as he's been better than average in walk rate only in 2021) or a new pitch like a cutter to get hitters from sitting fastball.

And though the Red Sox clearly hope he can make the needed adjustments, it's not reassuring that Giolito didn't exactly excel when removed from his comfort zone after the trade away from the White Sox. Going to the Red Sox, Fenway Park and the toughest division in baseball is going to be a more difficult adjustment than going to the Angels or Guardians was. Granted, he'll get spring training to make the transition this time, but the local media and fans aren't going to give him much leeway if he struggles early on. From the team perspective, I'm not a big fan of the parameters of the deal either: If Giolito is good, he opts out after one season; if he's bad or gets injured, the Red Sox are stuck with him for a second year. The Red Sox are betting on a comeback, but if that happens, they will only reap the benefits for one season.

With this deal, I like that Giolito can be expected to churn out some innings, but I'm not optimistic that he's going to re-discover his 2019 to 2021 form. It's certainly not an impossibility, and either way, the Red Sox needed to lock in somebody for the rotation, but Giolito's decline in stuff and the issue with home runs are concerning. Even at his best, he wasn't quite the dominant ace with a big heater, the kind of pitcher you're willing to bet on year after year. Sure, the Red Sox aren't paying him to be a No. 1 starter -- but at this point in his career, I'm also not sure if he's a No. 2 or No. 3 or No. 4. -- Schoenfield

Mariners agree to deal with DH/C Mitch Garver

The deal: Two years, $24 million
Grade: B

Who signs players on Christmas Eve? Jerry Dipoto, of course. It's been a tumultuous offseason for Dipoto and the Mariners. They headed into the season in a good place, at least for a team that had just missed the postseason, with a strong rotation that includes still inexpensive starters Logan Gilbert and George Kirby, plus 2023 rookies Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo, on top of Luis Castillo. It felt like the perfect time to strike for a big move or two, before those pitchers start earning bigger salaries -- and besides, they needed to make those moves to keep pace with the Rangers and Astros.

That might have been the plan at one point. Instead, after the controversial trades of Eugenio Suarez and Jarred Kelenic, it eventually became clear the Mariners were using the excuse of potential lower local TV revenue (Xfinity is moving their ROOT Sports a paid subscription tier) to keep payroll at the same level as it was in 2023. The Suarez and Kelenic trades weren't really baseball trades but payroll trades, with the bad contracts of Marco Gonzales and Evan White sent to Atlanta along with Kelenic. And, with the departure of free agent Teoscar Hernandez, the Mariners are losing 59 home runs from the roster (throw in the non-tendered Mike Ford and backup catcher Tom Murphy, who signed with the Giants, and it goes up to 83 down).

Enter Garver to fill some of that power void, in a hole that has long plagued Seattle. While Garver still caught some for the Rangers in 2023, his role with the Mariners will likely exclusively be to DH. Mariners DHs were 25th in OPS in 2023, hitting .211/.290/.398. Over the past three seasons, they're 28th in OPS, hitting just .209. You have to go back to the Nelson Cruz era for the last time the Mariners had a full-time DH, so going from a revolving door of poor production to a regular who can hit is a good move. In 87 games with Texas, Garver hit .270/.370/.500 with 19 home runs, good for a 134 OPS+. If he comes close to that, the Mariners will have a nice upgrade at DH.

While the $12 million salary is certainly reasonable, Garver comes with some risk. He turns 33 in January and has battled injuries each of the past four seasons, including a knee injury that cost him most of last April and May. He's never batted 400 times in a season, so the hope has to be that getting him away from any catching duties will help keep him in the lineup. I can't give this an "A" due to Garver's health history, but I like the fit -- especially if it comes with another offensive move, probably a right-handed hitting outfielder. The Mariners ran a $140 million payroll last season and are expected to end up around there again, which leaves them a mere $12 million to add another bat. There isn't much out there in free agency -- Adam Duvall, Tommy Pham, Robbie Grossman. It's certainly not going to end up as the offseason Mariners fans initially dreamed. -- Schoenfield

Padres sign LHP Yuki Matsui

The deal: Five years, $28 million (with opt-outs after the third and fourth year plus an injury clause for the fifth season)
Grade: B+

With Josh Hader a free agent, the Padres needed to add to a thin bullpen, so signing Matsui, one of the top relievers in Japan in recent years, fills a big need. The 28-year-old is just 5-foot-8 and throws only in the low 90s, but he comes with a wipeout splitter, the pitch that several Japanese relievers have used in the majors to serve as effective closers (a list that includes former Red Sox closer Koji Uehara, who had a lot of success despite a fastball that averaged less than 90 mph). Matsui has been a closer since 2015, when he racked up 33 saves as a 19-year-old; the past three seasons for Rakuten, he had a 1.42 ERA with a 36.4% strikeout rate, allowing just 81 hits in 152 innings. These numbers speak to his ability, and while the velocity would certainly be unusual for an MLB closer, the price tag is a reasonable $5.6 million per season.

Of course, if Matsui does become the team's primary closer over the harder-throwing Robert Suarez, he probably exercises that opt-out clause after his third season -- not a bad scenario for the Padres, who would have had an effective closer at a low salary for three years. Or maybe Suarez gets first dibs at closer, given the Padres are paying him $10 million each of the next two seasons (with potential options for 2026 and 2027). The Suarez contract was a little dubious at the time -- Suarez had pitched just one season for the Padres and had missed time with an injury and, sure enough, got injured again in 2023, pitching just 27.2 innings. Given the bullpen depth issues the Padres had behind Hader last season, they certainly need Matsui and Suarez to turn into a strong late-game duo, hopefully helping them turn around that 9-23 record in one-run games.

The Padres still have holes to fill, especially in the outfield, where they only have Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jose Azocar on the 40-man roster. Frankly, they could still use more bullpen depth, and the rotation is unproven beyond Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove and Michael King (especially with Musgrove coming off an injury and King's time as a starter with the Yankees only spanning a few weeks). Oh, they could use a DH as well. The status of their luxury tax payroll leaves them only an estimated $25 million to spend in order to remain under the threshold. It will be interesting to see how they fill their remaining holes -- I'd have to think adding at least one proven outfielder is the top priority with perhaps signing one of the DHs out there a way to add more offense as well. -- Schoenfield 

Dodgers keep rolling, add Yamamoto

The deal: 12 years, $325 million
Grade: A

The contract that the Los Angeles Dodgers agreed to with Japanese phenom Yoshinobu Yamamoto -- 12 years, $325 million -- eclipses Gerrit Cole's pact on the all-time pitching contract leaderboard by a measly million dollars. The figures above don't include the $50.6 million posting fee the Dodgers will pay for handing out this deal. Regardless, the Dodgers just made the biggest splurge a team has ever made on a pitcher (at least one who isn't also a 40-homer hitter, like Yamamoto's new teammate, Shohei Ohtani). They did this for a 5-foot-10, 176-pound, 25-year-old righty who has never thrown an inning in the major leagues. What's the verdict? Read full analysis of the Yamamoto signing here.

Arizona keeps adding: Lourdes Gurriel Jr. signs with Snakes

The deal: Three years, $42 million (opt-out after the second season; club option in the fourth)
Grade: B+

The Arizona Diamondbacks entered the offseason as National League pennant winners, which might give too much credit to a team that was basically a .500 club: 84-78 with a minus-15 run differential. To their credit, general manager Mike Hazen and ownership recognized that, and they have worked to improve the club rather than just run it back.

They signed Eduardo Rodriguez to give them a much-needed third starter alongside Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly; and if postseason Brandon Pfaadt shows up in the regular season in 2024, that projects as a strong top four in the rotation. They acquired Eugenio Suarez from the Seattle Mariners to upgrade third base, their weakest position in 2023. Suarez wasn't great with Seattle last season, but he is durable (he played all 162 games) and should be at least a league-average performer, even with all his strikeouts.

Now, they have re-signed Gurriel, a key performer last season after coming over along with Gabriel Moreno from the Toronto Blue Jays. After an injury sapped his power in 2022, Gurriel was healthy and rebounded to the best all-around season of his career, hitting .261/.309/.463 with 24 home runs, 35 doubles and 82 RBIs, while playing the best left-field defense he ever has (plus-14 defensive runs, 75th percentile in outs above average). As a hitter, he combines excellent contact ability with dead-pull power (he pulled 23 of his 24 home runs). Entering his age-30 season, it's a combination that can continue working, and if he maintains his 2023 level of play, it's a very good deal for Arizona.

You know there was an "if" coming. Because even with all the positives in 2023, Gurriel was only a little better than average at 3.0 WAR. While he puts the ball in play, he also doesn't walk much, positing a below-average .309 OBP (although his career mark is a little higher, at .324). He had a career-worst .282 BABIP in 2023 -- it had been over .300 in each of his first five seasons -- so it's possible he regains some of his on-base skills simply hitting for a high average. He also has never been near that good in the field before, and given he has below-average speed, I'd expect some defensive regression in 2024 and thus probably more in the range 2.0 to 2.5 WAR.

Still, the contract is reasonable, and together with the contracts of Rodriguez and Suarez, the additions have pushed the Diamondbacks to a club-record payroll of around $140 million. But they might not be stopping there. Jeff Passan has reported the club could still add a designated hitter to the roster, which makes sense, as Arizona's DHs ranked 28th in the majors in OPS. With J.D. Martinez, Justin Turner, Jorge Soler, Rhys Hoskins, Joc Pederson and Brandon Belt in free agency, there is no shortage of options available, and most of any such contracts shouldn't be more than $15 million in average annual value for a short-term deal. Don't forget that top prospect Jordan Lawlar will be pushing for the starting job at shortstop. If the D-backs do add a DH, the lineup will look better and deeper than it was in their playoff run. -- Schoenfield

Royals strike again: Veteran Wacha joins K.C. rotation

The deal: Two years, $32 million, player opt-out after 2024
Grade: B

When the Royals pulled the plug on their last successful era, they moved to rebuild around young starting pitching. That plan kicked into high gear with the 2018 draft, when they drafted four college pitchers -- Brady Singer, Jackson Kowar, Daniel Lynch IV and Kris Bubic -- among the first 40 picks of the draft. If the strategy had paid off, by now those college hurlers would comprise the foundation of a top-flight MLB rotation. The strategy, by and large, has not paid off.

The Royals also drafted starters in the first round in 2020 (Asa Lacy, No. 4 overall pick) and 2021 (Frank Mozzicato, No. 7). Lacy has walked more than a batter an inning as a professional, while it's still early for Mozzicato, who was taken out of high school. Of all these pitchers, as we move toward the 2024 season, only Singer can be penciled into the Royals' core-five rotation -- but even he's coming off a season that can be fairly viewed as a step back. And so the Royals, for the second straight season, have turned to free agency to paper over what they've missed in the scouting and development realm.

Last season it was Jordan Lyles and Ryan Yarbrough. The latter ended up in a swing role and was flipped to the Los Angeles Dodgers at the deadline. Lyles, meanwhile, soldiered through 31 starts, 17 of them losses, and a 6.28 ERA. Add in a miserable season for Zack Greinke, Singer's struggles and the inability of the other young starters to make an impact, and it's no wonder the Royals are back at it again.

The Royals can be optimistic about a Singer bounce-back season. Lyles showed enough late in the season that he should be a source of innings if you push him down into an end-of-rotation role. Cole Ragans was terrific after coming over from the Texas Rangers, and the Royals are now hoping he can replicate that over a full season. But as they continue to try to extract big league value from their current and recent pitching prospects, they have sought to raise the floor of the unit by spending. Earlier this week, it was Seth Lugo. Now it's Michael Wacha, Lugo's rotation mate in San Diego, who made himself some coin with a career resurgence over the past two seasons.

After limping to an 81 ERA+ during the last three years of his 20s, Wacha has gone 25-6 with a 127 ERA+ over 47 starts the past two seasons, the first with the Boston Red Sox and last year for the San Diego Padres. All those numbers are eye-popping, even the last one, because it tells you that a productive starter who hasn't topped more than 24 starts in a season since 2017 is not going to provide you with a surfeit of innings.

This is where the contract Wacha signed with the Royals and the role he's slotting into (No. 1 or 2 starter) don't exactly line up, but that was also the case with Lugo. Both deals are player friendly but not obscenely so, and the fact of the matter is, the Royals weren't going to land either pitcher by simply meeting what the market had yielded. They had to go above and beyond, and so they have. In his projections, ESPN Kiley McDaniel pegged Wacha at two years, $26 million, though Wacha can opt out after next season. It's an overpay, but an understandable one.

The challenge for Kansas City manager Matt Quartaro will be to remain disciplined in his use of Wacha -- whom he saw first hand with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2021 -- and Lugo, valuing per-rata efficiency over sheer bulk of innings. That won't be easy if the staff goes into collapse mode again, but Kansas City has been proactive enough in layering on veteran stability that that shouldn't happen. And besides, Quartaro has seen this handling of a staff executed time and again during his days in St. Petersburg.

The ceiling isn't tremendously high for any of the offseason signees, but they should at least keep things calm enough that Kansas City can continue trying to coax the potential of some of its ever-developing prospects. Development remains and always will be the key to the Royals going forward. There needs to be progress for the team in 2024, some sense that there is a light at the end of this long dark tunnel. They've extended themselves financially this winter to make that happen. For that much at least, you have to give them credit. -- Bradford Doolittle

Busy Royals sign RF Renfroe

The deal: Two years, $13 million plus incentives, player opt-out after 2024
Grade: C

Hunter Renfroe may well have become the best outfielder in the Kansas City Royals' organization on Friday and could play nearly every day and hit in the middle of the order next season. A contract of this size for a productive player in those roles is an absolute bargain. The grade above reflects two things: the likelihood of that "productive" adjective being realized and the fact that the Royals had to spend this money because their organizational outfield depth chart was just that empty.

Renfroe is a player with clear strengths -- pop off the bat and a huge outfield arm -- but he's also a player with glaring weaknesses -- contact rate, general mobility, plate discipline. With players like him, it's always a matter of determining whether the strengths outweigh the weaknesses. Well, Renfroe is now joining his seventh team in six years. Draw your own conclusions.

The organizational aspects of this are obviously not on Renfroe. In a better organization, you could even make an argument for him landing a regular role as a platoon right fielder who starts against lefties. The Royals can't afford to pay a guy $6 million to $7 million per year to hold down a role like that. And they shouldn't need to -- such players should come from the system, especially in a market like Kansas City.

Renfroe was a demonstrably below-average player last season, performing at replacement level for the Los Angeles Angels before being waived late in August when the Halos unfurled the white flag on their season. He was claimed by the Cincinnati Reds and endured a miserable stretch with them before being designated for assignment. That platform season just earned him a two-year pact in free agency. Baseball is good work, if you can get it.

Renfroe isn't that far removed from having a productive power bat but last season's dip came in his age-31 season and he reaches 32 shortly after the new year. He might be projected to regress in the right direction statistically, but if he does, he'll have to reverse markers that always appear as red flags once a position player passes 30. His sprint speed was down, his range metrics in the field were poor and, most importantly, he suffered dips in exit velocity and hard-hit rate. Since he's always had poor plate discipline, declines in those areas aren't something you can hide in your stat line.

As for the team jumping, Royals manager Matt Quatraro was the bench coach in Tampa Bay when, in 2020, Renfroe was at his nadir, posting a .156 average and 79 OPS+ during the shortened season. He did make the Rays' postseason roster that year and even hit a home run in the World Series. Teams seem to keep finding reasons to let Renfroe go, but there is at least one key member of the Royals organization who has some insight on how he will fit.

So while it's hard to get overly excited for the Royals after a signing like this, it at least fits with their aggressive offseason pursuit of second- and third-tier free agents in hopes of stabilizing the roster so less of a burden falls on their younger, upside players like Bobby Witt Jr. While it's a reasonable strategy, eventually you can sign so many such players that all of a sudden you have a core roster of players who are, in reality, second- and third-tier free agents.

Until such players are filling out a Kansas City roster rather than propping it up, the Royals will remain a second-division fixture. -- Doolittle

Dodgers get their ace, nab Tyler Glasnow

The deal: Los Angeles Dodgers acquire RHP Tyler Glasnow and OF Manuel Margot from the Tampa Bay Rays for RHP Ryan Pepiot and OF Jonny Deluca

Dodgers grade: B+
Rays grade: B-

The Dodgers needed a starting pitcher. The Rays needed to trim payroll. It's no surprise then that the two clubs matched up on a deal for Glasnow, with the Dodgers acquiring one of the most talented and intriguing pitchers in the game -- and his $25 million salary for 2024 -- and the Rays getting a projectable young pitcher in return. How'd each team make out? Read full analysis of the Glasnow deal here.

Flaherty joins Tigers on one-year deal

The deal: One year, $14 million plus incentives
Grade: B-

One of the priorities this offseason for the Detroit Tigers has been to replace the veteran presence and production of lefty Eduardo Rodriguez, who opted out of his deal when the 2023 season ended and ended up signing a rather pricey, four-year contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Rather than replacing Rodriguez with a comparable starter in terms of recent track record and price point, the Tigers have targeted and successfully landed two next-tier righties in Kenta Maeda and, now, Jack Flaherty.

While you could suggest that Maeda and Flaherty were comparable in terms of free agent tiers, they are joining the Tigers at very different places in their careers. Maeda is trying to work back up to a full workload after missing all of 2022. He might be capped in terms of innings at this point of his career but at least, on a per inning basis, he is better than league average.

Flaherty seems to be built up enough to provide innings, but he just hasn't pitched well enough the past two years to justify a mid- or top-of-the-rotation slot, a place he once seemed destined to reside in for years to come.

At some point, we have to let go of our image of Flaherty circa 2019, when he had a 0.93 ERA over his final 16 starts, a .419 OPS allowed and 11 strikeouts per nine innings. He looked like a talented, touted front-line pitcher who had come into his own. As can happen with any pitcher at any time, injuries intervened. He had multiple injured-list visits for oblique and shoulder maladies, never seeming to find his footing. Flaherty's 2019 breakout remains the only season in which he's qualified for an ERA title.

In addition to availability, command has been an issue. His velocities haven't varied much, and his spin rates have actually improved in some ways. Just to cite one example: In that great 2019 season, Flaherty's slider averaged 84.8 mph with a 2381 spin rate, per Statcast. Last season the velo was down to 84.2, not a tragic drop, especially when you consider the spin was a career-best 2464. But in 2019, his slider produced a whiff rate of 49.5%, while in 2023, that figure was 26.6.

Flaherty typified the Cardinals' staff traits, albeit with better strikeout rates, in that his walks were plentiful as he worked the edges of the plate, but at least his homer rate was solid with that approach. However, when he moved to Baltimore, his strikeout rate went up, his walks declined and his homers spiked -- a mix of which translated to a 7.01 ERA as an Oriole. He did not make Baltimore's postseason rotation.

That was not at all the kind of platform season that Flaherty hoped for. This is where the Tigers come in. Detroit acquires a prominent pitcher whose stuff still appears to be largely intact but who has lost himself over the past two years. This is what you call a make-good contract, with a $14 million guarantee that can expand by as much as $1 million if he can get to 30 starts.

If that happens, it'll be because the Tigers have helped Flaherty rediscover himself, which would make this deal a steal and reinvigorate his career. It would also be a nice hat tip for the Tigers' pitching program as it has evolved under the leadership of AJ Hinch, GM Scott Harris and pitching coach Chris Fetter. The Tigers have a clean payroll forecast and at just one year, this isn't an investment that will stand in the way of other objectives

You can look at this as a signing with little downside for Detroit, which has good depth in its rotation in terms of young hurlers. The Tigers are likely going to want to protect a lot of those hurlers, and that list includes the veteran Maeda. So they need Flaherty to come through with innings, but it's not going to break their bank if he does not. The question is: How much does Flaherty really have at this point?

It's an open question, not one posed to suggest that he's totally washed up. But nevertheless, this will be the pivotal season in Flaherty's career, one that determines if he's going to land another multiyear contract or if he's going to become an end-of-the-roster filler from here on. If he becomes that former player, then the Tigers will have someone who could help boost them closer to the .500 level. In the American League Central, that's when playoff pursuits come into play. -- Doolittle

Rangers ink veteran Mahle to deepen rotation

The deal: Two years, $22 million plus incentives
Grade: B

First of all, let's do our best to remember where Tyler Mahle was before he was injured. He was someone who had risen to the status of a solid, midrotation starter. His ERA+ going back to the start of the 2020 season was 117, and he had struck out 10.2 batters per nine innings during that time. His market at the 2022 trade deadline was robust enough that the Minnesota Twins were willing to cough up multiple quality prospects to the Cincinnati Reds for the final 1½ years of team control Mahle had left before reaching free agency. Those prospects (Spencer Steer and Christian Encarnacion-Strand) turned out to be really good for the Reds.

And, as the story too often goes, Mahle then hurt his arm, making just five starts for the Twins last season before undergoing Tommy John surgery.

Mahle had his surgery in late May of last year, which means he could be available for the Texas Rangers by Memorial Day, or at least sometime during the first half of next season. He will join a historically talented staff of rehabbing starters in Texas. He'll be working his way back along with two Cy Young winners in Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer, whose recent back surgery was just reported on Friday. If deGrom returns next season, it's not likely to be until late in the campaign, while initial reports claim Scherzer is out until June or July.

Rangers GM Chris Young seems to have taken a lot of the lessons from the franchise's first-ever title to heart in the way he has approached this offseason. While the Rangers were mentioned as likely leading suitors for Shohei Ohtani, Texas dropped out of the running relatively quickly. The Rangers have instead gone about layering in quality veterans to their pitching staff.

This is the approach they took last offseason in building what became their title rotation, and that continued to be their approach even when key pitchers were injured during the season. This is the lesson that Young, more than anything, seems to have learned: No matter how you sketch it on paper, when it comes to your pitching staff you don't have enough of it. Things are going to happen.

With the acquisition of Mahle, Texas appears to already be proactive in planning for the unknown, two months before we even get to spring training. On paper, the Rangers have a core rotation already in place and it's a pretty good one, with Nathan Eovaldi, Jon Gray, Andrew Heaney and Dane Dunning. But it's not as good as the group Texas will have on its season-opening injured list.

The Rangers still need to add a little bit in terms of depth just because of the uncertainty that comes with rehabbing pitchers and because they very much need innings to get them through the first half of the season. But we almost don't even have to mention that because Young has proved that he is going to keep acquiring pitchers. He is not going to reach a quota and declare he is finished.

The Rangers also made an under-the-radar addition to their bullpen this offseason, adding one-time dominant closer Kirby Yates, who is now a couple of years removed from serious injury problems and was outstanding last season in Atlanta.

While some (OK, me) thought that Texas seemed like the ideal destination for star closer Josh Hader, it seems that the Rangers are fully convinced that the Jose Leclerc that we saw in October -- a pretty dead-on impression of the one-time unhittable Leclerc -- is the guy who can hold down the back of the bullpen in the way that I envisioned Hader could. When you have that guy, slotting in roles for the rest of the bullpen becomes a more straightforward proposition, even if you know that you are going to have to keep layering in options.

If Mahle's recovery stays on track, Scherzer's procedure fixes a back that limited him severely late in the postseason, and deGrom rejoins the crew, the Rangers are setting themselves up for the possibility of having a very star-laden playoff pitching staff. That extends to a bullpen that could zero in on Yates and Josh Sborz setting up Leclerc when it matters most.

The weird thing about winning a championship, especially for a young GM like Young, is that you quickly learn that there is really no time to enjoy the accomplishment. You spend the entire year and lose countless nights of sleep in trying to accomplish that one goal. Every year there is one lead executive whose team actually reaches that finish line. Then the very next day players reach free agency. The work of the winning front office, one trying to repeat what you literally have just done, begins right away. You haven't even had a chance yet to enjoy your own victory parade.

But if Rangers fans were worried that the first title would lead to a passive offseason approach, that clearly is not the case. Indeed, even as Rangers fans are basking in the aftermath of that title, their team is very much in the process of trying to do it all over again. -- Doolittle

Giants land KBO bat-control wizard Lee

The deal: 6 years, $113 million (Lee can opt out after four seasons)
Grade: B+

Maybe the Giants had just grown as weary with their own free agent follies as the rest of us have. That as much as anything might explain why San Francisco just blew away free agent projections to land Jung Hoo Lee, a 25-year-old bat-control wizard out of the KBO. In a nutshell, I love the player, don't love the deal in an actuarial sense -- but I like it just fine because it's the Giants, and dig the fit.

Let's dig a little deeper on all that. The Giants have been so close on the market's top free agents over the past few years with players like Aaron Judge and Carlos Correa. They operate at a revenue status that ought to put them in the running for every marquee free agent -- including Shohei Ohtani -- but every offseason seem to come away without a star.

This signing doesn't change that. I mean, I don't see Lee as a likely MVP candidate. But he was a much-sought-after player in this year's free agency, and the Giants got him. It's a win.

As for the money, ESPN's Kiley McDaniel projected a five-year, $63 million pact for Lee ($12.5 million average annual value) while suggesting an enterprising team might tack on a year to get a deal done. The prediction from MLB Trade Rumors was even more conservative, landing at five years, $50 million. The Giants, at $18.8 million in AAV over six years, blew those projections away.

I really don't care about that. The Giants can afford to extend themselves on a deal like this. Tacking Lee on to their CBT projection at Cot's Contracts, the Giants still look to be $50 million under the tax threshold. This is a franchise that ought to be flirting with that threshold each and every season. The Giants have plenty of room to add more from here.

San Francisco's eagerness to win a free agent pursuit might have been a factor in the scale of this contract, but under Farhan Zaidi, the Giants have been disciplined in their pursuits to a sometimes maddening degree. Even if the strategy this winter was to be more aggressive, it's hard to imagine Zaidi simply chucking his surplus-value model into San Francisco Bay just to land a contact-heavy outfielder who has never played in MLB.

More likely, Lee's decision to come over was perfectly timed. This year's free agent roster for impact hitters is light, and he arrives at a time when a number of clubs have cited the desire to balance their lineups with more bat-on-ball ability. His market might have simply blown up, and the Giants decided they would not be outbid.

Last spring, I was tasked with writing up a brief preview for several clubs in the WBC, which required a bit of research as I stake no claim to being an expert on international baseball. When studying Korea, Lee's profile leaped out at me and I ended up writing, "Jung Hoo Lee is the reigning KBO MVP. He's like a Korean Wade Boggs, having hit .342 so far in his career as a lefty with ridiculous bat control and contact skills. And his power has been developing as well."

This is before he had a down season in 2023 in the KBO, one cut short by an ankle injury. But he still hit .318/.406/.455 over 86 games. In 2022, he was at .349/.421/.575 with a career-high 23 homers. He leaves Korea, for now, with a career .340 average over seven seasons -- he broke in at age 18 -- with 383 walks and just 304 strikeouts.

How will those numbers translate? The Giants, and other teams, clearly believe they will translate nicely, thank you very much. A $113 million contract plus around $19 million in posting fees are a strong vote in favor of that prognostication.

According to Clay Davenport, a longtime analytics guru, Lee's projected 2024 line in the majors translates to .305/.386/.484 over 572 at-bats with 14 homers, 70 walks and 58 strikeouts. The Giants would take that in a heartbeat.

Baseball America graded Lee with a 60 hit tool, 45 power, 55 speed and 50 defense. The last figure might be the most important as the higher up on the defensive spectrum Lee can play, the more valuable he will be to the Giants. In the KBO, Lee played center field most often but spent plenty of time on the outfield corners as well.

The Giants already have a good mix of corner types -- Mike Yastrzemski, Michael Conforto, Austin Slater and Mitch Haniger -- so it sure seems like they are planning to install Lee in center field and watch him go. 

More than anything, Lee gives the Giants the kind of contact ability they needed. Last season, only six teams struck out more often than San Francisco and only two teams posted a worst collective batting average (.235). This kind of offense is becoming less alluring in the majors, and Lee jump starts the Giants' project to move away from that.

Lee would have provided the same kind of salve for other teams that need it and are hunting for it in free agency, like the Mariners, Mets and Padres. But the Giants got him, racking up a much-needed free agent win less than 24 hours after San Francisco watched its arch rival officially announce the acquisition of the biggest star in the sport.

Now, the Giants need to keep going because there is plenty of money left to spend. -- Doolittle

Pirates sign Rowdy Tellez

The deal: One year, $3.2 million
Grade: C-

Needless to say, the Pittsburgh Pirates aren't exactly fishing for Moby Dick here in free agency. Although, you know, they could add $70 million to the payroll -- say, Shohei Ohtani on a non-deferred contract -- and still be at just $128 million, which would have been just a little more than the Brewers and Diamondbacks spent last season. Don't believe your local owner when he says he can't spend more money.

Anyway, Tellez mashed 35 home runs for the Brewers in 2022 -- but even then he wasn't that valuable because he hit .219 with a .306 OBP, putting up just 0.8 WAR. Still, power is power and teams are always looking for it. Trouble is, that power evaporated somewhat last season for Tellez, as he hit .215/.291/.376 with 13 home runs in 311 at-bats. Those numbers don't work for a first baseman/DH. The Pirates, however, don't really have a first baseman on the roster, or a DH for that matter, so Tellez might actually get 500 at-bats to see if he hit 35 home runs again.

I've always thought there was more potential here. Even last season, Tellez ranked in the 69th percentile in swing-and-miss rate and 77th percentile in chase rate, both positive figures, but way down in the 33rd percentile in strikeout rate. Overall, he was very passive compared to 2022. If the Pirates can help him with better swing decisions, maybe the power returns and even the batting average might go up. But he's also almost 2000 plate appearances into his career, so a big improvement at age 29 is unlikely. -- Schoenfield

Spendy Royals nab righty Lugo for rotation

The deal: Three years, $45 million
Grade: C+

The Shohei Ohtani signing became official Monday night, with the Los Angeles Dodgers sending out a news release announcing it at just past 9 p.m. ET. With Ohtani off the table, the Kansas City Royals pivoted quickly, landing Seth Lugo on a three-year pact, with the righty reportedly getting an opt-out clause after the second year. Snarky? Perhaps, but it just underscores the reality that while the Dodgers and Royals wear similar-looking uniforms, their front offices have very different conversations. Just saying.

Kansas City's valuation of Lugo's deal was a little higher than we would have anticipated before the hot stove season began. But the duration is about right and if the Royals overpaid by a million or two in AAV, then maybe that's just the premium they needed to pay to get a legit rotation veteran to join a team that lost 106 games in 2023.

The signing comes one day after they picked up veteran lefty reliever Will Smith (one year, $5 million) and just before another bullpen pickup -- righty Chris Stratton (one year, $3.5 million plus a player option for 2025 worth $4.5 million) -- was reported by MLB.com. Last week, GM J.J. Picollo told reporters that K.C. had "at least $30 million" to spend in free agency, or to put it another way, almost half of one year of Ohtani, if you ignore the deferrals.

If we take all this at face value, the Royals have now committed $23.5 million in free agent salary for 2024, so Picollo's funds are dwindling. Unless the "at least'' equivocation in his statement has a lot of wiggle room behind it, that probably takes the Royals out of the running for the second tier of free agent starters.

Lugo is in the third tier, along with Lucas Giolito, Michael Wacha and Jack Flaherty. Maybe they can still land one of those hurlers on a short-duration deal, or perhaps they have just enough to entice Zack Greinke back for another year. However you look at it though, Lugo is probably Kansas City's big offseason splash.

The deal is fine if Lugo, 34, repeats what he did in San Diego last year, when he posted a 3.57 ERA and 3.83 FIP over a career-high 146⅓ innings. He's swung between the rotation and the bullpen throughout his career and if things go awry, he at least can fill multiple roles if needed.

On this Royals depth chart, he's probably being looked at as a No. 3, at least aspirationally. For that to become reality, Cole Ragans would have to prove his second-half breakout is for real and Brady Singer would need to have a bounce-back season. Neither scenario is far-fetched. If Lugo's performance justifies a midrotation role for 145 to 165 innings, the $15 million in AAV is not a problem. It's also a tradeable salary commitment if Lugo does well and the team does not.

You do have to worry about the performance, however. Lugo's expected ERA in the Statcast framework was 4.42. He allowed career-worst barrel rates and average exit velocities. If we look at that 4.42 xERA as the "real" Lugo, that takes him to the wrong side of league average -- and a bad trend for an older pitcher. Still, the Royals needed someone to take their money and if Lugo was willing to do it, they could have done worse.

The Royals' offseason strategy has been to target these midlevel vets to stabilize a pitching staff that was one of baseball's worst in 2023. There's not much upside in these signings but if the vets can raise the floor, then the Royals can cross their fingers that the youth on their roster can progress as a group to pull them in the right direction toward .500, though even that mark is a long way from 56-106.

In the end though, you have to at least give the Royals credit for doing ... something. It feels meek in the wake of the Ohtani quake, but it's still better than nothing. -- Doolittle

Boston nabs O'Neill for outfield

The deal: Boston Red Sox acquire OF Tyler O'Neill from the St. Louis Cardinals for RHP Nick Robertson and RHP Victor Santos

Red Sox grade: C
Cardinals grade: C+

O'Neill is an incredible athlete. His dad was a professional bodybuilder -- once named Mr. Canada -- and O'Neill has one of the more impressive physiques in MLB. He's also a plus runner (80th percentile in top sprint speed in 2023) with a strong throwing arm (89th percentile). Originally drafted by Seattle, he reached the majors with St. Louis in 2018, but it's all come together for him in only one season -- 2021, when he hit .286/.352/.560 with 34 home runs and won a Gold Glove. He actually finished eighth in the MVP voting, which ties him with Ozzie Smith for career top-10 MVP finishes.

As they say, if you did it once, you can do it again, although I wouldn't bet on it. O'Neill has battled injuries and so-so performances the past two seasons -- and, mostly, he's battled the strike zone. Even in his monster season in 2021, he struck out 168 times compared to just 38 walks. His strikeout-to-walk ratio has improved since then, but the quality of his contact hasn't, as he's failed to come close to the top-level hard-hit rate and exit velocity he produced in 2021. Still, if you're the Red Sox, why not take a chance? O'Neill is a pull hitter, and so he could be a perfect fit for Fenway. He could also earn a full-time job in the outfield if he's healthy -- or at the minimum, provide a platoon option against left-handed batters.

For the Cardinals, this was mostly about clearing the logjam in the outfield and moving O'Neill's projected $5.5 million salary. Sometimes, too many options creates a problem, and manager Oliver Marmol was never able to properly sort through everyone last season. Now, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak has indicated it will be more of a stable trio with Tommy Edman, Lars Nootbaar and Jordan Walker, with Dylan Carlson serving as the fourth outfielder. Walker was a mess in right field last season, but maybe he simply ends up at first base in a year after Paul Goldschmidt's contract expires after 2024. With Edman in the outfield, that locks Nolan Gorman into second base and Brendan Donovan into a utility role. Still, there's a lot of flexibility there with players rotating through the DH role.

Robertson made his MLB debut last year. He throws 95 with a changeup and slider. He's a big dude at 6-6, 265 pounds, and throws enough strikes to fit into the back of the Cardinals bullpen, although he didn't fool too many hitters in his short sample size in the majors, allowing 30 hits in 22⅓ innings. Santos is more of an organizational arm and missed all of 2023 due to injury. -- Schoenfield

Ohtani to the Dodgers -- for $700 million!

The deal: 10 years, $700 million
Grade: A

There has never been a player like Shohei Ohtani. There has never been a contract like this -- $700 million!?!?. He's a franchise-altering unicorn, a one-of-a-kind miracle. He was so good in 2023 that he won his second unanimous MVP Award -- becoming the first player ever to do that twice -- even though he appeared in just three games in September. 

How can we give this anything but an A grade -- even at that almost unimaginable total dollar amount? Read full analysis of Ohtani's deal here

Reds add to loaded infield with Candelario

The deal: Three years, $45 million
Grade: C

This is a weird one. The Cincinnati Reds rarely spend money in free agency -- they did it once, back in the 2019-20 offseason, when they signed both Mike Moustakas and Nick Castellanos -- so now they finally do it and add another infielder in Jeimer Candelario to a roster already loaded with quality infielders. And in doing so, they hand out the fourth-biggest free agent deal in team history, behind only Moustakas, Castellanos and the $46 million for reliever Francisco Cordero way back in 2008.

Not that Candelario can't help. He's a switch-hitter who has produced above-average offensive numbers in three of the past four seasons, but he also has already turned 30 years old -- which is a red flag. He hit .251/.336/.471 with the Washington Nationals and Chicago Cubs in 2023, with 39 doubles and 22 home runs and similar numbers from both sides of the plate. He's fine at third base and can fill in at first, and he could get some DH time as well. The money comes just above the three-year, $39 million projection, so not a big overpay.

This certainly pushes Spencer Steer to left field -- which isn't the worst thing. Steer was pretty awful in the infield and does possess above-average speed and a decent arm, so he has the athleticism to transition to the outfield. He hadn't played there in college or the pros until the Reds shoehorned him into left field for 36 starts this past season. He wasn't good there either, according to Statcast metrics, but the Reds do need outfielders, especially one who hits right-handed, so Steer will share time with TJ Friedl, Jake Fraley and Will Benson, three lefty swingers.

That still leaves six infielders and probably commits the Reds to Elly De La Cruz at shortstop, Matt McLain at second and Christian Encarnacion-Strand at first, with Jonathan India and Noelvi Marte in DH/backup roles. Too much depth isn't the worst problem to have, and deploying India as more or less a full-time DH is an idea that makes sense given his lack of range at second.

Indeed, that's the biggest issue with this signing. The Reds didn't need Candelario nearly as much as they need a veteran arm for the rotation. The Reds were 28th in the majors in rotation ERA (26th on the road, so don't blame Great American Ball Park) and Graham Ashcraft led the team with just 145 innings (and he missed the final month with a toe injury). They did add swingman Nick Martinez on a one-year deal (with a player option for 2025) and reliever Emilio Pagan.

Maybe there's room to do more. The current payroll is an estimated $86 million, right about where the Reds were last season. The number of pre-arbitration players on the roster means there should be a little more flexibility here (they've gone as high as $126 million in 2019 and would have been higher in 2020). Maybe Marte or India become trade bait: The Tampa Bay Rays don't need infielders so Tyler Glasnow may not work, but maybe there's a match with the Chicago White Sox for Dylan Cease, with one of the young starting pitchers or an infield prospect such as Edwin Arroyo or Cam Collier going back as well. The Reds are interesting and improving.

If Candelario is the prelude to another move, I like it even more than the C grade I'm giving it for now. -- Schoenfield

Yankees land Soto in blockbuster trade with Padres

The deal: New York Yankees acquire OFs Juan Soto and Trent Grisham from the San Diego Padres for RHPs Michael King, Drew Thorpe, Jhony Brito, Randy Vasquez and C Kyle Higashioka.

Yankees grade: B
Padres grade: A-

After a stagnant winter meetings, the biggest trade of the offseason so far has arrived -- as the Yankees add an All-Star slugger to a lineup already featuring Aaron Judge. Read full analysis of the Soto trade here.

Diamondbacks solidify rotation with veteran lefty Rodriguez

The deal: Four years, $80 million
Grade: B+

A few months after Eduardo Rodriguez blocked a deadline deal that would have sent him to the contending Los Angeles Dodgers, he lands with one of L.A.'s prime challengers in the NL West. Just as Rodriguez did when he inked a deal a couple of years ago with the Detroit Tigers, he has selected an up-and-comer. The big difference this time around is that E-Rod is joining a team that has already made the leap, rather than one that he thought (mistakenly, in hindsight) was about to do so.

The addition of the Rodriguez gives the Arizona Diamondbacks a fantastic veteran trio to provide stability and a high floor for Torey Lovullo's rotation, as he joins Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen. Rodriguez will slot into the rotation right after that duo and right before second-year righty Brandon Pfaadt, who played such a big role during the Diamondbacks' postseason run.

The addition of another productive veteran gives Arizona the ability to work through a number of enticing possibilities to fill out the rotation while using that depth to keep the staff from being overtaxed. Arizona can still look to propel the development of young hurlers like Ryne Nelson and Tommy Henry forward -- and can do so knowing that the success of the group won't live or die with the development of those young pitchers.

Rodriguez was terrific for Detroit last season -- only a midseason finger injury kept him from earning some Cy Young support. True, he doesn't throw quite as hard as he used to and his strikeout rate has fallen off from earlier levels. He has qualified for an ERA title just once in his career. There is a little more variance in performance and durability than you'd ideally see in a pitcher getting this kind of commitment.

But Rodriguez's multiyear baseline is solidly above average. He's moving to a good team with an upbeat culture that's on the ascent and joining a rotation in which he's not viewed as the ace. The conditions are favorable for him to flourish.

And this kind of targeted free agent splash is the right strategy for a team in position to put the finishing touches on a well-constructed roster. There could be one or more additions in this vein -- a power-hitting DH type would be a perfect fit -- but the Diamondbacks' offseason is already looking good with this signing.

Rodriguez surely had plenty of suitors in this tight free agent market, and the fact that he has landed at Phoenix might be at least partially related to his emphasis on comfort level. In Arizona, Rodriguez will be reconvening with some familiar faces from his Boston days. D-backs GM Mike Hazen worked in the Red Sox office when Rodriguez joined the organization via a straight-up trade with the Orioles for reliever Andrew Miller, and manager Lovullo was the bench coach during Rodriguez's first few years in the majors.

The deal, four years with a $20 million average annual value, is a little richer than anticipated, but it's not far off, and Arizona has a pristine long-term payroll outlook. The Diamondbacks need Rodriguez to justify his salary, sure, but it's not a make-or-break proposition financially, even if it hinders their flexibility if Rodriguez flops.

But the Diamondbacks needed to be bold to land an impact free agent, and so they were. Veteran starting pitchers can't be signed cheaply. Sonny Gray got $25 million in AAV from the Cardinals, while Aaron Nola got just under that from Philadelphia and on a seven-year commitment. Rodriguez's deal is pretty much the going rate for a veteran one, two or three starter, or at least where the going rate has been headed.

The deal feels like a good match for player, team and situation. Rodriguez did well for himself, justifying his decision to exercise an opt-out of his deal in Detroit. Arizona has solidified its rotation as a contention-worthy unit. There is risk here, as there is with any free agent pitcher, but in this case it feels worth it. -- Doolittle

Verdugo to New York in rare Yankees-Red Sox trade

The deal: New York Yankees acquire OF Alex Verdugo from the Boston Red Sox for right-handed pitchers Richard Fitts, Greg Weissert and Nicholas Judice.

Yankees grade: C
Red Sox grade: C

A Yankees-Red Sox trade? Yes, it happens ... if rarely. This is just the eighth trade between the AL East rivals since the division era began in 1969, and during the peak period of hate they didn't make a single deal between 1997 and 2014. This is hardly a blockbuster but probably ranks as the biggest between the two clubs since they exchanged DHs Don Baylor and Mike Easler late in spring training in 1986.

The Yankees' desire to add a left-handed-hitting outfielder was about the most obvious need for any contending team this offseason, and they get one in Verdugo, who hit .264/.324/.421 last season for a league-average 100 OPS+ that is right in line with what he did the previous two seasons. Last season, Yankees left-handed batters ranked 27th in the majors in OPS (.673), 29th in batting average (.219) and last in OBP (.295). Yankees outfielders, even with Aaron Judge, ranked just 26th in the majors in OPS (.691), sandwiched between the Nationals and Royals.

So, Verdugo will help, especially when you isolate his numbers against right-handed pitchers. Over the past three seasons he hit .294/.347/.459 against righties while struggling to a .238/.301/.314 line against lefties. That makes him more of a platoon bat even though the Red Sox continued to start him against southpaws (he had over 600 plate appearances each of the past three seasons). He lacks power and exit velocity, so his slugging depends largely on hitting doubles the other way -- which worked great at Fenway Park, where he hit 24 of his 37 doubles in 2023, but might not translate quite as well to Yankee Stadium. He does possess premium contact ability, another skill the Yankees were looking to add.

Verdugo played right field in 2023, but his arm is better suited for left, and while he has played center field some in the past, those days appear behind him as he hasn't appeared there since 2021. He's under team control for just one more season, so this is just a short-term addition -- although I wouldn't view this deal as any kind of roadblock to signing Cody Bellinger or acquiring Juan Soto in a trade. The only issue is an outfield of Soto, Verdugo and Judge would push Judge to center field -- or one of Verdugo/Soto to DH with somebody else handling center.

For the Red Sox, let's not use any safe words here: They wanted to get rid of Verdugo -- thus the willingness to trade him even to the Yankees. Alex Cora benched him last June for lack of hustle and then again in August for reportedly showing up two hours before a game instead of the team-mandated four hours. The Red Sox have other corner outfield options in Masataka Yoshida plus rookies Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu, who debuted late in the season and showed potential.

Plus, Verdugo's tenure in Boston was never quite what the Red Sox hoped when he came over in the Mookie Betts trade. Verdugo had a 3.0-bWAR season with the Dodgers in 2019 in a part-time role, and the hope was he could turn into a 4- or 5-win player. Instead, his 2.6 WAR in 2023 was his best season.

The Red Sox do get three pitching prospects in return, although none would be classified as top 10 in the Yankees system. Fitts, a sixth-round pick out of Auburn in 2021, is the one to watch after posting a 3.48 ERA in Double-A with 163 strikeouts and 43 walks in 152⅔ innings. He's a fastball/slider guy who needs to improve his changeup to remain a starter, but he did show nice durability at Double-A and is probably at least a good bullpen arm if he doesn't make it as a starter. Weissert has 31 innings in the majors in 2022 and '23 with a 4.60 ERA, with a 94 mph sinker that he throws from a low slot. He has had plenty of success in Triple-A (2.16 ERA across 125 innings) and could compete for a back-end bullpen job. Judice is an eighth-round pick in 2023 out of Louisiana-Monroe who has yet to make his pro debut.

All in all, the Red Sox got a couple of potential depth pieces for a guy they didn't really want. The Yankees get a left-handed hitter -- just not the one the fans want. -- Schoenfield

White Sox ink righty Fedde

The deal: Two years, $15 million
Grade: B-

If you have been mulling possible strategies to land that much-needed pay raise, here's some advice: Go to Korea for one year, do the same job you've been doing, then come back to the states and watch the marketplace fall over itself to give you multiples of what you were earning before.

Erick Fedde is a right-handed pitcher, 30 years old (but 31 before Opening Day 2024), who has logged six seasons in the majors. During that time, he went 21-33 with a 5.41 ERA and 77 ERA+. He had a two-year stretch in which his MLB ERA translated to roughly league average (2019 and 2020), but his component numbers didn't really support that level of performance.

And so Fedde found himself shopping his services overseas last winter and latched on with the NC Dinos of the KBO. It's a good league, and he flourished in it, going 20-6 with a 2.00 ERA while striking out 10.4 batters per nine innings.

So who is the real Erick Fedde? The guy who spent more than a half decade performing in a decidedly unhelpful way for the Washington Nationals, at least in the aggregate, or the guy who pitched like Walter Johnson for one season in the South Pacific?

Clearly the Chicago White Sox have decided on the latter, but they were not alone in making an aggressive push for Fedde, at least if you want to buy what his agent, Scott Boras, was selling at last month's GM meetings.

And so if you believe in the wisdom of the marketplace, you have to give the White Sox passing grades for this signing. Only in free agency would we use the phrase "well, everyone else wanted him, too" as a rationale for such an evaluation, but here we are.

But ... how is this possible? How can a pitcher pitch himself out of the major leagues and, just one year later, land a $15 million commitment? (What kind of magic is Boras actually practicing?) Clearly Fedde changed some things. The KBO isn't quite MLB caliber, but it's awfully good and you don't just go over and dominate it simply because you were a big leaguer. In a profile in the Washington Post, Fedde cited a full makeover -- better health (he'd had shoulder trouble), better pitch design, the whole works. The results speak for themselves.

Also, the performance of players from overseas is better measured than ever before, cutting down on the uncertainty that surrounds standouts who, in the States, only the most ardent have every heard about. If the performance tracking metrics are there, then teams are willing to dive head first into the deep end of the pool.

And that's what the White Sox did on Tuesday, with a pitcher who, over the course of less than a calendar year, has left his long, unsightly big league performance record in the dust. It kind of makes you wonder why teams just don't hire away the pitching coaches from overseas, but that's a different topic.

The baseline talent is there, even if it had gone long unrealized. Fedde was a first-round pick out of UNLV by Washington back in 2014 and spent multiple years touted as a top-100 prospect, including a No. 52 ranking by Baseball American in 2017. Now, if Fedde can turn his 2023 KBO performance into a similar MLB impact, this deal will be a steal for the White Sox and will score one for those who believe in the idea of the rapid reinvention. And if he's the five-plus ERA guy at heart, well, it's only money. -- Doolittle

Braves acquire Mariners' Kelenic in five-player swap

The deal: Seattle Mariners trade OF Jarred Kelenic, LHP Marco Gonzales, 1B Evan White and cash to the Atlanta Braves for RHPs Cole Phillips and Jackson Kowar.

Braves grade: A-
Mariners grade: C?

The grade "C?" might seem a little inscrutable, so here's an explanation for it: It's hard to say exactly what this is from the Mariners' standpoint.

Phillips is a 20-year-old righty whom the Braves took in the second round of the 2022 draft. A triple-digit fireballer as a prep star in Texas, Phillips underwent Tommy John surgery before he turned professional, and reports since then portray him still searching for the old high-octane stuff. MLB Pipeline compared him to a possible Nathan Eovaldi type (in terms of narrative path, it seems), but as of now, Phillips has no professional stats and is a long way off from the majors.

Kowar has spent parts of three seasons in the majors, but in those stints, he has failed to live up the potential the Kansas City Royals saw when they took him 33rd in the 2018 draft. He has put up a 9.12 ERA over 74 MLB innings, and even if you try to take some of the bloat out of that number based on underlying measures, he still has not been playable. Kowar turned 27 right after last season and was shipped to Atlanta a few weeks later for Kyle Wright. Now Kowar is on the move again.

So for the Mariners, this is yet another trade that on the surface is more about what they are subtracting than what they're adding. Kelenic is the key player in this deal -- for both sides -- as Seattle's Jerry Dipoto continues to shed high-strikeout players, with Teoscar Hernandez and Eugenio Suarez both now ex-Mariners, as well.

Kelenic was the sixth pick of the 2018 draft by the Mets and was sent to Seattle in the Edwin Diaz trade. Kelenic reached the majors with the M's as a lauded prospect then spent two seasons establishing himself as a flop, hitting .168 over 558 plate appearances with off-the-bat power that was almost irrelevant given how infrequently he made contact. Last season was a lot better, though: He leveled out his swing, producing more line drives and fewer long outs. His average climbed to .253 and his OPS+ to 109, though Kelenic's season was undermined by a broken foot suffered when he kicked a water cooler in frustration, knocking him out of action for several weeks.

Kelenic still has major holes in his game, such as incessant struggles against breaking pitches. But he is only 24 years old and has shown a recent penchant for improvement. For the Braves, he slots right in as the heavy side of a left-field platoon, where his production will be looked at as much more of a bonus than as the necessity it was in Seattle.

Also headed back to Atlanta is Gonzales, who when healthy enjoyed a nice run as a league-average-or-better lefty rotation stalwart for Seattle. But he is slated to earn over $12 million next season, and with the Mariners rich in rotation options, he had become somewhat superfluous. The Braves needed end-of-rotation innings, which makes Gonzales more than a throw-in, though folding in most of his salary was surely a must-ask on the part of Dipoto. And there is White, a slick-fielding first baseman who had enough promise to earn an early extension from Dipoto but simply has never developed as a hitter. He has had terrible injury luck on top of that. His career composite slash is .165/.235/.308 over 590 plate appearances.

Because of that extension, White is on the books for $15 million over the next two years. The Braves are more than set at first base, with Matt Olson on board for a long time to come, so this is less a case of the Braves needing White and more that they needed to take him in order to land Kelenic and Gonzalez. Still, this is another first-round talent whom the Braves can try to coax to his potential, so White could either be moved again or at least serve as organizational depth should Olson get hurt. (Note: The Mariners are sending Atlanta "cash considerations" in the deal, though initially the amount was unspecified.)

When you go through the full list of players in this trade, it is almost like Dipoto and his cohort on the deal, Atlanta's Alex Anthopoulos, sought to sweep clean their respective boulevards of broken dreams.

The Mariners save some money and slice their strikeouts a little more; but the uncertainty over what Dipoto plans to do with these roster openings and the payroll flexibility keeps this grade in the realm of uncertainty.

The Braves, on the other hand, landed two regulars who can help them right away, one a mashing young hitter who has flashed the talent that made him such a lofty pick and could blossom in the strong Atlanta attack. Either way, there is almost no downside to this deal for the Braves and a whole lot of upside. -- Doolittle

Mets bet on a Severino bounce-back

The deal: One year, $13 million
Grade: B

Last spring, Luis Severino was a significant factor in why the Yankees figured to have one of baseball's best top-to-bottom rotations. He was also a significant factor in why that did not turn out to be the case once the season began.

Now, of all things, Severino is a Met. This is a value play on the part of new Mets baseball chief David Stearns, a chance to make a short-term commitment to a two-time All-Star at the nadir of his performance arc. And it's a make-good shot for Severino, who doesn't turn 30 until February and could land a much larger and a bit longer deal next offseason if things work out.

The Mets entered the offseason with filling out their rotation depth chart at the top of their hot stove to-do list. With New York paying massive sums to Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer to pitch for other teams -- money that counts against the Mets' CBT calculation -- you have to figure New York's ability to make major splashes in this area is limited. The Mets would surely still spring for Yoshinobu Yamamoto if the opportunity arose, but aside from that, expect to see more moves along the lines of this signing.

For now, the Mets' rotation stacks up as Kodai Senga, Jose Quintana, Severino and Tylor Megill, with more to come. Joey Lucchesi might be a part of the group as well, but Stearns figures to crowdsource this thing. (The joke here goes you can take the exec out of Milwaukee, but you can't take Milwaukee out of the exec.) How you view this group as it stands entirely depends on how you view Severino. 

The righty could hardly have had a worse platform season. He missed the first six weeks of the season because of a lat strain and never really found his footing. Start after start he floundered, with the Yankees even making one ill-fated attempt to jump-start his season by using him after an opener. Poor first innings defined Severino's season, as he posted an 11.50 ERA in those frames and allowed a Bondsian 1.145 OPS.

Mercifully, Severino went down with an oblique strain in early September, ending a season to forget. He finished 4-8 with a 6.65 ERA and 1.65 WHIP over 89⅓ innings, numbers that translated to minus-1.5 bWAR.

And yet ... I like this signing better than the other midlevel rotation signings so far this winter, such as St. Louis acquiring Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson, and Detroit landing Kenta Maeda. Perhaps the 2023 version of Severino showed us that his range of outcomes is much wider than those of the others, but going arm in arm with that assessment is the reality that he also has more upside.

Severino's underlying metrics -- velocity, spin, etc. -- have been consistent over the past couple of years, though they aren't what they were before his 2020 Tommy John surgery. His strikeout rates aren't close to what they were before the injury and hit a career low last season. Nothing went right -- fewer whiffs, more walks and a lot more hard contact.

According to TruMedia, when Severino served up a middle-middle pitch in 2022, he still limited opponents to a .588 OPS. Last season, that number was .952, on roughly the same number of meatball offerings. With the velocity and spin categories still playable, it feels like Severino can still be salvaged with the right tweaks.

Are the Mets the team to do that? That's hard to answer because the new regime just took over. In Milwaukee, the Brewers work wonders with other teams' castoffs, a strength that began under Stearns' leadership. But that kind of process overhaul takes time, and with Severino on a one-year deal, the time to fix him is limited.

This signing will be an early litmus test of the new Stearns-led operation. If Severino comes out dealing, things could get a lot better a lot sooner than most observers figured after last season's debacle. And after a disastrous walk year in 2023, New York has surely landed an attentive pupil motivated to put the other team in New York behind him. -- Doolittle

Cards grab Gray, adding yet another arm to rotation

The deal: Three years, $75 million
Grade: A-

The Cardinals continued their execution of what is for them a rare strategy -- filling out the depth chart via free agent spending -- with their splashiest signing yet. St. Louis landed Sonny Gray, an American League Cy Young Award finalist last season, on a deal that turbocharges an already aggressive approach to the winter. After the uninspired signings last week of veteran journeymen Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson, this is not only much more of a needle-moving deal but, by pushing Lynn and Gibson farther down the rotation pecking order, those moves are in part -- but not entirely -- redeemed.

Gray is a fantastic get for St. Louis in that he's not only a true front-of-the-rotation starter, but he adds what the Cardinals need (strikeouts) while fitting right in with what the staff already does well (limiting homers). In today's game, there are essentially three primary markers you look for in a top starter: innings, whiffs, meatballs. If you can combine lots of the first two with not very many of the third, you've got an All-Star pitcher.

That sounds obvious, but it's hard to find the combination of traits Gray employs. Over the past five years, Gray ranks seventh among pitchers with 17.7 bWAR. Among the 35 pitchers with at least 10 bWAR during that time, he's 11th with a 138 ERA+ and third in home runs per nine innings, yielding just 0.8. While Gray has been plagued by walks periodically during his career, he has refined his command over time, a process that culminated in last season's second-place finish in the Cy Young race. He led the AL in FIP last season.

Gray isn't a true workhorse. He has had injuries over the years and has qualified for the ERA title just five times during his 11 big league seasons. The 184 innings he posted last season marked his most in eight seasons, dating to when he posted back-to-back 200-innings-plus campaigns for Oakland early in his career. As someone who slides right into the top spot in the rotation, it will be interesting to see if the Cardinals allow Gray to work a little deeper more often than he did in Minnesota, where quick hooks are a way of life.

The Twins allowed Gray to go to 100 pitches or more just five times last season, fewer than teammates Joe Ryan and Pablo Lopez. But while the third-time-through-the-order penalty is a real thing, over the course of his career, Gray's splits show little degradation when he faces hitters multiple times, and that was especially true last season. Now that Gray is on top of his game and into his mid-30s, you'd like to see if he can get back to those 200-inning days.

While this kind of free agent activity is unusual for St. Louis, it is possible the Cardinals have been guided by the strategy that undergirded the Texas Rangers' run to the championship this year, which was to target name-brand starting pitchers at every opportunity, and there was no limit to how many the roster could accommodate. You might argue that the Cardinals should have targeted Lynn or Gibson, but not both, because forgoing one might have freed up funds to make a second impact move after landing Gray.

But what if the Cardinals aren't done? It seems like they've pinned down a core-five rotation, with Gray followed by Miles Mikolas, Gibson, Lynn and Steven Matz. That's not enough. One more starter, someone who slots in between Gray and Mikolas, or even pushes Gray down to No. 2, well, then we're getting somewhere. Keep going, Cardinals.

Gray's deal is perfectly valued, if perhaps at the high end of his range. At $25 million per season, he's at the same average annual value Aaron Nola got from the Phillies. The three-year duration is four years shorter than Nola's pact but Gray is four years older.

The big difference is durability: Gray's innings have been up and down over his career, while Nola is one of the most consistent quantity pitchers in baseball. Still, the value comparison works because on a per-inning basis, Gray has been better. Since the start of 2019, Gray has thrown fewer innings (670⅓ to 853), but has a 3.22 ERA and 138 ERA+, while Nola is at 3.97 and 107. Tally it up in WAR, and Gray's 17.7 edges the 16.9 for Nola.

Of course, one of the things that made Nola's deal workable for the Phillies was that he wasn't looked at as their No. 1, even as he's capable of providing ace-like production from time to time. Gray is seen much the same way, which is another reason the Cardinals need to parlay this early success in free agency into a true slam-dunk offseason, whether it's the pricey signing of someone such as former Redbird Jordan Montgomery or prized Japanese righty Yoshinobu Yamamoto, or an impact trade.

After a miserable 2023, the Cardinals have already shown they aren't taking a passive approach to mending their broken wings. That's encouraging. Now keep going. -- Doolittle

Maeda swaps Central squads, joins Tigers

The deal: Two years, $24 million
Grade: C

There are always several prisms through which to view a free agent signing. You can fixate on the duration and total value -- the pay/performance lens. You can view it through the prism of roster need -- the depth chart lens. You also can look at it with the question of opportunity cost, and that's when you puzzle over what moves a team might now not be able to make.

With Kenta Maeda, this move checks out from the pay/performance point of view: There is no real surprise in contract terms, with two years, $22 million to $24 million in total value the expectation heading into the offseason marketplace. And after all, Reynaldo Lopez received $30 million from the Atlanta Braves earlier this month.

So this tepid grade has more to do with roster need and opportunity cost considerations for Detroit. The Tigers will surely target another starter, but now it seems more unlikely that they'd aim for the upper part of the market. Mostly that's for a good reason, as the Tigers have a young group of starters in the upper reaches of their organization that they don't want to block. 

What Detroit was lacking was a veteran presence in the starting group, a void that opened up when Eduardo Rodriguez opted out of his contract and entered free agency. The tangible aspect of "presence" -- as it's used here -- has to do with eating innings at a league-average or better rate to give cover to a lot of young arms that they won't want to overextend. At this point of his career, Maeda doesn't seem to be a likely candidate to log more than 100 to 110 innings, and his composite performance since the beginning of the 2021 season has been below league average.

It's possible the Tigers see Maeda as a candidate for a bump up in both innings and performance now that he is further removed from the Tommy John surgery that cost him the entire 2022 season. They better hope so, because Maeda will turn 36 shortly after Opening Day, and a number of his metrics were trending in the wrong direction in 2023.

Maeda still posted a very good strikeout rate, and his swing-and-miss splitter is still whiff-inducing. But when he allows contact, increasingly it's hard contact, as he landed in the bottom quartile in Statcast-based ratings like exit velocity and hard-hit rate, posted a rock-bottom groundball rate and was well below average in barrels allowed.

Even still, with a different team, this would be a perfectly fine signing. As a No. 5 or No. 6 starter whom you can give plenty of rest and not sweat a low innings total, Maeda still offers you plenty to work with. But Detroit needs someone to carry more of a workload. Targeting someone like Lucas Giolito or Jack Flaherty or even making a run at bringing back Rodriguez might have been a better notion.

Considering the price of Maeda's contract, Detroit could have another move in mind, especially with a payroll outlook that is more or less wide open. If a real rotation splash is still coming, Maeda will look less like what he appears to be at the moment, which is a projected No. 2 starter with a 105-inning, league-average-ish projection. If you view this as a Rodriguez-for-Maeda roster swap, the Tigers are weaker at this slot, and it feels like there were more impactful moves that could have been made with this money.

Even if that yet-to-come splash doesn't happen, the larger outlook for the rotation doesn't change that much. As it was before this signing, hope for the rotation to become contention-worthy is tied to the further development of Tarik Skubal, Matt Manning, Reese Olson, Casey Mize, Wilmer Flores, Sawyer Gipson-Long, Ty Madden, Jackson Jobe and others. Maeda's role is to facilitate that process with veteran stability, displayed over as many innings as possible. If he is able to do that, the Tigers will be satisfied. -- Doolittle

D-backs, Mariners make swap

The deal: Arizona Diamondbacks acquire 3B Eugenio Suarez from the Seattle Mariners for RHP Carlos Vargas and C Seby Zavala.

Diamondbacks grade: B
Mariners grade: C

Coming off their surprising run to the World Series, the Diamondbacks entered the offseason with two major holes to fill: starting pitching depth and third base. Their third basemen -- mostly a mixture of Emmanuel Rivera, Evan Longoria and Josh Rojas -- ranked 27th in the majors in OPS, hitting .234 with 10 home runs. Longoria almost exclusively held the position in the postseason and he hit just .167 with a .456 OPS. Arizona was never going to be in on free agent Matt Chapman to play third base, so it obtains a potential two-year stopgap in Suarez, who will make $11 million in 2024 and has a $15 million club option for 2025.

Suarez brings power, durability (he played all 162 games in 2023), some walks and adequate defense ... and a ton of strikeouts. He's led the American League in that category each of the past two seasons, including 214 whiffs in 2023. Despite the contract issues, he projects as a league-average starter at 32 years old -- and in 2022, when he hit 31 home runs, he was better than that, with a 3.9 WAR season. That year stands out as an aberration out of the last four, however, so the safe guess is something along the lines of 2.0 WAR. There is a chance that he regresses back to where he was with the Reds in 2020 and 2021, when he hit .199 and was essentially a replacement-level player, but if he can hit .230, he's useful. That's an upgrade for the Diamondbacks and they didn't spend any significant resources to get him.

For the Mariners, their early moves of the offseason have been all about eliminating the strikeouts. They struck out the second-most times in the majors with Suarez ranking second and Teoscar Hernandez ranking third. Hernandez was a free agent and they didn't extend him a qualifying offer, concerned that he might accept it, and now Suarez is gone as well. They had earlier acquired Luis Urias from the Red Sox and while he had a miserable injury-plagued 2023, he was a 3-win player with the Brewers in 2021-22. Urias presumably takes over at third with Rojas and Dylan Moore remaining in a platoon at second base.

The return isn't nothing, as Vargas is a 24-year-old reliever who throws 99 mph -- though Zavala is a backup catcher at best. Vargas was awful at Triple-A Reno with a 7.02 ERA in 2023, and while Reno is an impossible place to pitch, a 36-to-32 strikeout-to-walk ratio suggests he has a lot of work to do. The Mariners have excelled in recent seasons in getting good work from previously no-name relievers, so you can see why they are willing to take a chance on Vargas' power arm. The bigger question: Since they're saving about $6 million in salary between Suarez and Urias, are they clearing some payroll space to do something bigger? A Juan Soto trade? A free agent pitcher? For now, this looks like president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto simply reshuffling the deck without really making the team any better ... but we have a long ways to go in the offseason. -- Schoenfield

Cardinals reunite with Lance Lynn

The deal: One-year, $10 million guaranteed
Grade: C+

Cardinals fans can buy into a full-circle acquisition now and again, as they did with Albert Pujols' memorable return/finale with the club two years ago. The return of Lance Lynn, 36, to the team that drafted him way back in 2008 is not going to succeed or fail on that basis. While baseball-related sentiment perhaps holds more sway in St. Louis than elsewhere, fans there are in no mood to be distracted by sentiment, even if Lynn did pitch for them into two long-ago World Series. Not after last season.

The 2023 season can fairly be described as a collapse by the Cardinals as a franchise, one of the sport's most stable entities. The tumble from a division title to a 71-91 finish was startling for the team and its rabid fans alike. St. Louis finished under .500 for the first time in 16 years and landed in the cellar for the first time in more than three decades. If there is one position group most responsible for the crash, it had to be a starting rotation that was one of MLB's worst.

St. Louis offloaded at the deadline, trading away prospective free agent starters in Jordan Montgomery and Jack Flaherty. While there are some promising arms in the minors who eventually should help, the farm system is not exactly brimming with ready-right-now rotation options. Thus, lead exec John Mozeliak embarked on the same quest as every other lead exec in the majors this offseason, which is to add starting pitching. In the Cardinals' case, given their desire to jump right back into contention and a thin rotation depth chart, some offseason aggression should be anticipated.

This signing is not exactly that. This is a depth signing, given Lynn's age and recent track record. If Lynn pitches well enough to hold down a spot in the back of the St. Louis rotation, this is a deft move and the money -- a single year for $10 million guaranteed -- is a nonfactor. If Lynn were to actually regress toward his career peak, then it's a steal, and the Cardinals could capitalize by exercising the team option in the deal.

That latter scenario isn't impossible, but Lynn's struggles have gone on long enough that the more realistic hope is for a healthier version of Lynn's 2022 season. He was a league-average pitcher on a pro-rata basis in that season, but managed just 21 starts and 121⅔ innings. That now looks like the start of a decline rather than a blip, as Lynn was healthy enough last season to make 32 starts between Chicago and Los Angeles. The problem was that he was largely abysmal in too many of those outings.

Lynn's 44 homers allowed were the most in the majors, as he pitched to a 5.73 ERA over 183⅔ outings. Lynn was bitten time and again by slow starts, as he posted a 7.31 first-inning ERA, tied with Washington's Patrick Corbin for the worst in the majors. While Lynn did fare better overall after being dealt to the Dodgers, the long-ball/early-game woes never really got better. He allowed four third-inning homers against Arizona in Game 3 of the NLDS, the game that ended the Dodgers' season.

It has only been two years since Lynn finished third in the AL Cy Young balloting for the White Sox, though. His strikeout rate last season in the Chicago portion of his campaign was the highest it's ever been. That rate crashed after his move to the Dodgers, so it's hard to tell what the status of Lynn's stuff might be.

Still, you cut 15 to 20 long balls off Lynn's season and it looks a whole lot different. And if there is one thing Cardinals pitchers have done right in recent seasons, it has been keeping the ball in the park. Only the Giants have allowed fewer homers over the past three seasons. And while Busch Stadium III is a below-average homer park, St. Louis also ranks second in fewest road homers allowed. Maybe some of that will rub off on Lynn, though the Cardinals likely targeted him to help with their anemic strikeout rate.

The real grade for this signing is incomplete. The Cardinals pledged to aggressively add to their rotation, so you have to assume more moves like this are on the way. They have to be. If Lynn ends up being the fifth or sixth rotation option in a group that includes a couple of front-line yet-to-come acquisitions, holdovers Miles Mikolas and Steven Matz, and younger hurlers Matthew Liberatore and Zack Thompson, then we're getting somewhere.

For now, Lynn slots right into the middle of this rotation depth chart, and for a fan base hoping for a worst-to-first leap, that's not going to cut it. It's up to the Redbirds' brass to make the context of this signing better, and if they make a real dent this winter, perhaps the loyal folks in St. Louis will be willing to indulge in a little Lynn reunion nostalgia after all. -- Doolittle

Braves recruit Reynaldo Lopez

The deal: Three years, $30 million
Grade: C

When the Braves traded seven players and non-tendered seven others to clear $14 million in expected payroll, it looked like they had some big plan in place to sign a starting pitcher. They reportedly made a run for Aaron Nola, but that didn't happen, so Reynaldo Lopez looks like the backup plan, as the Braves will apparently give him a chance to start after he has spent the past two seasons as a solid reliever (3.02 ERA).

Lopez last started regularly with the White Sox from 2018 to 2020, but he struggled with home runs, and even as a reliever hasn't shown the control needed to make it as a starter. It's a worthy experiment to add potential rotation depth, but Lopez is probably more of a sixth or seventh option in a good rotation. Still, at the minimum the Braves have added to their bullpen, where Lopez has been a durable workhorse. The bigger question: Does this preclude the Braves from still going after one of the top starters, such as Sonny Gray or Marcus Stroman? -- Schoenfield

Phillies re-sign Aaron Nola

The deal: Seven years, $172 million
Grade: B

There has been a lot more smoke than fire in the new offseason, with most of the early moves falling under the umbrella of CBA-motivated fine print. On Sunday the first real domino of the free agent landscape fell, and while the Philadelphia Phillies stepping up to retain rotation stalwart Aaron Nola doesn't do much to change the competitive landscape, it keeps the Phillies on the heels of the Braves in the NL East (and since Atlanta was the main competition for Nola's signing, that's no small feat). More importantly, now that Dave Dombrowski doesn't have to worry about plugging a key rotation hole, he can shift his attention to perfecting the roster of a team trying to take that last step or two toward a championship.

Only Gerrit Cole has thrown more innings since the start of the 2018 season. As Nola progresses into his 30s, that's a comforting level of durability. Indeed, over that time the Phillies have always been able to count on Nola taking his turn in the rotation, week after week, season after season. If there were obvious signs of wear and tear and heightened injury risk due to the heavy-ish usage, the Phillies would know better than anyone. That Dombrowski was willing to pony up seven years for Nola suggests they are confident he's going to keep showing up for his 32-33 starts per annum. In today's pitching landscape, that's worth a lot.

In this case, about $24.5 million a year. That average annual value is roughly in line with consensus projections -- really, the only mildly surprising thing about the terms of Nola's deal was its length. Conventional wisdom suggested that Nola, 30, was looking at five or six years. If Nola keeps churning out seasons averaging 3-4 WAR or so, the valuation is solid enough for a few years. You do wonder about the back end of the deal -- but when has Dombrowski ever blanched at the prospect of an upside down contract years down the line?

And there's a lot about his arsenal to like in terms of aging gracefully. He has never relied on top-end velocity and his curveball has been the standout of what has become a five-pitch repertoire thanks to the addition of a cutter a couple of years ago. Nola still gets an elite rate of chases even though his fastball generally sits in the 92-93 mph range. There has been little movement in his velocity or spin rates over the years and what there has been has generally been to the positive. The stuff and pitch mix are more than good enough.

That said, Nola has been more of a quantity pitcher than a per-inning ace in two of the three most recent seasons. In 2022, he posted a 123 ERA+ while finishing fourth in NL Cy Young balloting. But sandwiched around that great campaign were seasons of 90 ERA+ (2021) and 96 (2023). Nola's win-loss record since the beginning of the 2020 season is just 37-36 and while that's no reason to sign him or not sign him, it illustrates the tendency of his performance to vacillate, especially early in games. That game-to-game inconsistency is why he's a No. 2 -- Nola posted a 47% quality start rate in 2023, compared with the 66% rate of Philly ace Zack Wheeler.

Wavering command is the difference between Nola when he's dominant and Nola when he's scuffling, with the valley behind those two modes a little larger than most hurlers of his caliber. Nola led the NL with a 1.3 BB/9 in 2022 and allowed just 0.8 homers per nine innings. In 2023, that walk rate rose to 2.1 and his homers jumped to 1.5. He gave up 11 homers on middle-middle pitches last season, only two off the MLB-high total, per TruMedia. Because his strikeout rate has declined a little each season, it's going to become essential that Nola becomes more consistent with his command.