It feels a little weird to hand out the winter hardware when 40 percent of the top 10 free agents are still free — Blake Snell, Cody Bellinger, Jordan Montgomery, Matt Chapman. But we’re less than two weeks to pitchers and catchers, so it’s got to be done. Here are our top 11 winners:
1. Dodgers: It doesn’t take any great metric analysis to know the Dodgers deserve the top spot. Not only did they have the best winter this year, they may have had the best winter ever. They brought the game’s best player, Shohei Ohtani, 45 miles north up I-5 from Anaheim, then imported from Japan top free agent pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto — who’s just 25, who posted a 1.82 career ERA and who’s never allowed a hit in MLB (of course, he hasn’t faced a single batter yet, either). To their ever-improving superteam, they added outfielder Teoscar Hernandez plus pitchers Tyler Glasnow and James Paxton. Take a bow, baseball president Andrew Friedman and club owner Mark Walter.
2. Yoshinobu Yamamoto: The Dodgers are known for star bargains (see Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts), but they gave the talented and poised MLB neophyte Yamamato a record $325 million deal for a pitcher (though Gerrit Cole should move ahead when the Yankees presumably extend him by a year after 2024).
3. Orioles: Their shocking trade for longtime Brewers star Corbin Burnes on Thursday puts them on this list. The O’s should be favored to repeat in the AL East, no matter what Las Vegas says.
4. Jung Hoo Lee: A year after Masataka Yoshida doubled early projections with his $90M deal, Lee exceeded predictions for him by quite a bit with his $113M, six-year Giants deal. San Francisco shouldn’t feel bad as the Padres and Yankees would have been up there, too, had they secured him.
5. Reds: They spread their new-found wealth — adding Frankie Montas for the rotation, Emilio Pagan and Brent Suter for the bullpen, Nick Martinez for the staff and Jeimer Candelario for the lineup — enhancing a young and talented team with enough veteran depth to give them a shot in the wide-open NL Central.
6. Royals: New additions Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha should give the Royals a solid rotation, while Hunter Renfroe and Adam Frazier lengthen the lineup. They may surprise folks.
7. Shohei Ohtani: Of course, he had to make the list. Seven hundred million is nothing to ignore, even if it’s considered $460M or $432M due to unprecedented deferrals that were said to be Ohtani’s idea.
8. Yankees: Any time you add one of the game’s five best hitters, Juan Soto, at a time the hitting market is awfully thin, it makes it a winning winter. Good thing they had so many viable, young starting prospects available to make it happen.
9. Jordan Hicks: With his injury history and lack of starting pedigree, his $44M, four-year Giants deal seems on the high side. The Ballengee Group sports agency had a nice winter — Lugo ($45M, three years), Tom Murphy ($8.25M, two years) and Luke Weaver ($2M) also exceeded expectations.
10. Frankie Montas: No one saw him getting $16M, least of all the Yankees — who are thought to have bid about half that to start things ($7.5M), apparently under the belief that he’d come because he told their coaches he liked it there. Of course, nobody takes half as much no matter how much they like it.
11. Tyler Glasnow: He has No. 1 stuff, sure, but with his injury history, he did well to get a $136.5M, five-year extension in another deal done by Wasserman. Plus, he gets to play for the No. 1 winner.
