A few hours after my free agency projections go up at the start of the MLB offseason, I generally want to move at least a few names or change a few predictions. Sometimes it's just me waffling or splitting hairs on a close call, but often it's from feedback from my industry friends letting me know what stood out to them.
While I could adjust these predictions almost nonstop all winter, that's just not healthy behavior. That said, chatter from the winter meetings and the deals that have already been done have helped reveal what might be substantively different than what I forecasted roughly a month ago. So, here is a look at what I know now that we did not at the start of the offseason -- and what it means for the rest of the winter.
The Dodgers and Yankees are being bold and that likely won't stop
The blue bloods are acting like big market teams and going for it. The Los Angeles Dodgers acted as we expected them to last winter, taking a step back payroll-wise and letting some young players emerge during 2023 before hitting the gas once again and jumping into this offseason with Shohei Ohtani as a toppriority. Now that they landed Ohtani, they need to add pitching and there are plenty of options available -- Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in free agency or Corbin Burnes, Tyler Glasnow and Dylan Cease in the trade market -- to address the area. There could be some super-team buzz growing around the Dodgers, where the positive vibes in L.A. act as a tiebreaker for free agents with similar offers or role players looking for the best spot.
I wouldn't quite go to that extreme with the New York Yankees yet, but adding Juan Soto, Alex Verdugo and Trent Grisham helps make the rest of this offseason more palatable while Yankees fans wait for pitching reinforcements. Like the Dodgers, the Yankees will need some starting pitching depth and Yamamoto will be the name at the top of both clubs' lists. The Yankees might need another starter after Yamamoto and an additional setup man is also needed.
Here's how the approach of these teams impacts my read on the free agent market as a whole: With giant revenue and disappointing ends to 2023, these behemoths look focused on fixing their shortcomings, rather than waiting for the market to play out and hoping some bargains remain -- and that could push the price tag at the top of this winter's market even higher than we could have predicted going into the offseason.
We will now see if the teams that missed out on Ohtani will continue to take big swings this winter. Will the Toronto Blue Jays still try to add big names without Ohtani as was expected of them if they'd been able to add him? To a lesser degree, this question exists for other teams rumored to be in the Ohtani mix at various points, including the Chicago Cubs, San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels.
Ohtani's deal set a new precedent for deferrals
One other element of how Ohtani's free agency played out that probably shouldn't have surprised me was the deferrals in his deal. The uncertainty around TV revenue for many teams means the appetite for long-term mega contracts could be dampened a bit. However, the Dodgers are among the safest teams in terms of revenue and TV deals, everyone thought that was where Ohtani wanted to sign and they made notable deferrals in Mookie Betts' deal.
Still, it's hard not to be surprised by just how much money was deferred in Ohtani's contract, and how we choose to define that makes projecting a deal like this even more difficult. There's no way I would have projected 10 years, $700 million going into the offseason, but at the same time, you can make the case that my 10 year, $520 million projection ended up overshooting the actual present day value of Ohtani's contract. We still don't know if a team offered a lightly- or non-deferred deal for $500-plus million, either.
Ohtani's camp wanted to set precedents in this deal, so landing in his preferred spot with a precedent-setting deal while also getting to play the "more payroll space to sign more players" card works for everyone. Oh, and Ohtani's eight-figure annual endorsement haul makes it easier to stomach the lesser short-term cash flow.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shota Imanaga are going to get more than I expected
I noted in my free agency blurb that Yamamoto's contract projection seemed to go up every time I talked to another source or time passed. Clubs are enamored with him as a pitcher, but more specifically at the chance to get a 25-year-old front-line starter without having to lose prospects or draft picks in the process. Industry buzz now has him easily clearing $200 million and I wouldn't count out him blowing past my seven-year, $212 million projection by getting $250 million before posting -- and there is some chance this is still underselling what the final number could become.
It's not just that clubs seem to be very comfortable with players coming from the NPB and KBO -- Ha-Seong Kim and Kodai Senga are powerful recent examples of successful transitions to MLB -- but these players are also coming at a career point that teams covet. Yamamoto and Lee will start the 2024 season at age 25, and age is the second-most important quality teams look for in free agency, behind only pure ability. Lee showed just how valuable this can be on Tuesday night, signing a six-year, $113 million deal with the Giants that nearly doubled my initial projection for the outfielder.
Imanaga is 30 but comes with a combination of factors that help him rise above the glut of starting pitching: He is left-handed, durable and with enough swing-and-miss stuff to profile in the middle of a rotation. It all adds up to a better version of Sonny Gray, who signed pretty quickly for three years, $75 million as a 34-year-old right-hander. I noted in the Ohtani fallout that an exec mentioned to me (and a few more sources subsequently agreed) that Imanaga will eclipse $80 million guaranteed, before including the posting fee. Erick Fedde also got a second year so some other foreign professionals like Yariel Rodriguez, Yuki Matsui, Woo-suk Goo and Naoyuki Uwasawa could also beat projections.
Blake Snell's market appears softer than expected
There was some speculation that if Aaron Nola had opted for the Atlanta Braves or Dodgers that the Philadelphia Phillies would've replaced him by signing Snell, as that seemed to fit Phillies GM Dave Dombrowski's type of pitcher and approach to free agency.
After Nola re-signed with Philly, sources I spoke with had no idea where Snell would land and started wondering if his contract would fall below expectations. I projected six years, $150 million before free agency and that was on the low side. Some others thought Snell would get Carlos Rodon's deal -- six years, $162 million -- plus inflation.
Without buzz/momentum of a deal progressing or a clear landing spot, it's now looking like the two-time Cy Young Winner could be the high-end arm to suffer (relatively speaking) because of the glut of starting pitching on the free agent market. I could see teams that had merely kicked the tires early circling back around with contract parameters turning into something like a front-loaded three year, $100 million deal, providing a strong AAV and an opt-out or two that would give Snell a chance to jump into a less crowded pitching market.
Teams either can create internal pitching depth -- or they're going to have to pay for it
To be fair, this is a little bit of conventional wisdom mixed with what we've seen play out in the early winter underscoring how true it is. There aren't many teams that can make position players out of scrap heap types, but there are a collection of teams that can create pitching depth with low-cost types reliably.
The Yankees are one of the teams that can reliably turn their international signees and drafted pitchers into generally better prospects than expected. That doesn't have to mean they produce WAR at a higher level if they merely show better traits in the minors, are traded and the team reaps that reward regardless of the pitcher's big league success. The big league team tends to find big league contributors for little-to-no-cost as well, even if fans quibble about the lack of impact pitchers on the staff. This is one reason why the Yankees get raided in the Rule 5 and have 40-man crunches seemingly every winter. Almost every perennial contender can boast a version of this.
The San Diego Padres didn't have this after the majority of their rotation hit free agency -- they targeted it in the Juan Soto deal and the Yankees had it. And one of the players who left San Diego this year is a prime example of what happens when you haven't created organizational pitching depth: Nick Martinez signed with the Cincinnati Reds for two years, $26 million, even though he hasn't eclipsed 112 innings in an MLB season since 2015.
Martinez is far from the only generic innings-eater type to cash in this winter. Fedde got two years, $15 million from the Chicago White Sox -- despite 454⅓ MLB innings of 5.41 ERA pitching -- because of 30 good starts in the KBO in 2023. Luis Severino was bad last year and got $13 million from the New York Mets. Lance Lynn was one of the worst starting pitchers in baseball by some measures and got $11 million from the St. Louis Cardinals, who also gave Kyle Gibson $12 million after two consistent seasons in which he posted a 4.88 ERA in 359⅔ innings with the stuff and peripherals to match.
As we head deeper into the offseason, this could all be good news for available veterans including Michael Wacha, Jack Flaherty and Hyun-Jin Ryu as we've learned the market for these types of potential innings-eaters is bound to materialize.