It seems like only yesterday that some of us were wielding our largest snow shovels to burrow a path from the front door back to what passes for winter civilization in those unfortunate states with no palm trees in sight. Oh, wait. That was yesterday.
But at the very moment those shovels were scraping the concrete, somewhere over the snowflake-filled horizon, we could have sworn we heard a sound that warmed our hearts … if not our noses.
Crrrrack … crrrrack … or was it more like thwaaack … thwaaack?
Aw, whatever. It was the most inspirational sound in the universe: The sound of bat meeting baseball. The sound of spring training roaring back to life. The sound of baseball returning to our lives, reminding us that it’s time to look ahead, to days filled with long balls, not snow squalls.
It’s that time when we begin answering the most important questions in the world: Why does Juan Soto prefer the Queensboro Bridge to the Bronx River Parkway? … Is this the year Shohei Ohtani wins the Cy Young Award, the MVP and the Nobel Peace Prize, possibly all in the same week? … Now that the whole crab cake scene is behind him, how much is Corbin Burnes truly driven by the quest for the perfect Arizona chile relleno? … And will J.D. Martinez and Justin Turner find a new team before Tee Higgins and Cooper Kupp?
We can thank the miracle of spring training for helping us learn those things. And who among us isn’t in favor of that?
So here, to help us break down the most important storylines of another magical spring, is a tremendous panel made up of 32 baseball executives, former executives, coaches and scouts. They volunteered to take our annual spring preview survey — and wow, they passed along a lot of wisdom.
Are you ready for the results? Cool. Put down those snow shovels … and here we go.
Can anyone else play Dodgeball?
Shohei Ohtani and company got even more intimidating this offseason. (Joe Camporeale / Imagn Images)
We’ve been writing this column for many years now. But something happened this year that had never happened before.
When the votes were counted in the Most Improved Team competition, the team that got the most votes was … that team that won the last World Series!
That team was Tokyo’s favorite juggernaut (at least on this side of the Pacific), those Los Angeles Dodgers. And if you weren’t familiar with their work, you might be tempted to think: How is it even possible for a team that was already scary-great to go out and make itself even scarier and greater?
Ha. Just ask the people who voted in our survey. The Dodgers didn’t merely reel in the most votes in the Most Improved Team-National League portion of this survey. They got named on every single stinking ballot — all 32 of them.
MOST IMPROVED TEAMS (NL)
Dodgers — 32
Mets — 30
Cubs — 17
Diamondbacks — 15
Reds — 5
It isn’t every year when our voters sound as if they’re almost in awe of another team. But it’s hard to think of any other word that describes it. Here are just a couple of samples for your awestruck pleasure:
• “The Dodgers. Wow. Maybe the best team ever?”
• “The Dodgers just did their thing. They did whatever the hell they wanted to do.”
What they actually did, though, was grab their shopping cart and clean out every aisle of the supermarket — because they could.
Need any fresh new starters? We’ll take one international rock star (Roki Sasaki) and a two-time Cy Young winner (Blake Snell), please. And we’ll bring back our local living legend (Clayton Kershaw), just in case we want to roll out a 12-man rotation some week.
Any dominating back-end bullpen monsters in the house? Cool, we’ll order two dudes with sub-2.00 ERAs (Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates) — and re-sign our almost unhittable reliever, Blake Treinen, while we’re at it.
And since there’s still room in the cart, how about two outfielders (Teoscar Hernández and Michael Conforto), a brand new second baseman (Hyeseong Kim) and the best super-utilityman in town (Kiké Hernández). That’s 10 free agents, for slightly more than a third of a billion dollars. And does that seem like a lot? Let’s go with yes.
“Are there 32-man rosters now?” one American League executive asked, chuckling heartily. “Like, did I miss something? What are they going to do with all these guys?”
Um, maybe win 125 games? Something like that? OK, obviously, it never works out that way. But if ever a team seemed built to do that, it’s this team. As another AL exec put it, “the Dodgers are just in a different world. Dodger World. They are literally in a completely different category.”
SURVEY SAID: How many NL teams were even trying this winter? Apparently, that answer would be five — since 103 votes were cast in the NL Most Improved portion of this survey, and those five teams listed above collected 99 of them! (Voters were asked to rank their top three or four.) … The only other teams that even got a mention were the Phillies, Braves, Nationals and Giants — and all four of them also got votes for Least Improved! … You have to feel for the Mets. Imagine spending $1.08 billion on free agents — and not even “winning” this category? That’s a first. But fear not. The name, Juan Soto, will come up again in this column.
Are you sure these Sox fit?
Boston added Garrett Crochet (above) and Walker Buehler to its rotation. (Jeff Curry / Imagn Images)
One of the fun parts of doing this survey every year is that it reminds us fans and baseball people can sometimes see the world as differently as red states and blue states. Can you tell yet that we’re talking about those always enigmatic Boston Red Sox?
How baseball people saw the Red Sox — even before they signed Alex Bregman: Fun young team. Awesome prospects on the way (in Roman Anthony and Kristian Campbell). Just made possibly the Trade of the Year (for rotation dominator Garrett Crochet). Might have hit on the best one-year contract of the winter (in the pitcher who got the last out of the World Series for the Dodgers, Walker Buehler). A team that’s going to surprise some people.
How New Englanders saw the Red Sox before they signed Bregman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But what about Mookie?
Every year, this survey supplies us with lots of whaddayaknow surprises. But the Red Sox emerging as the most improved team in the American League, in a poll that was taken before they promised to Venmo 120 million bucks to that guy who used to play third base in Houston? That might be the all-time shocker. See for yourself. Here’s how the voting went.
MOST IMPROVED TEAMS (AL)
Red Sox — 26
Yankees — 23
Rangers — 13
A’s — 9
Tigers — 8
Blue Jays — 8
According to Spotrac, the Yankees dropped more than $238 million in the free-agent superstore this winter, otherwise known as just another offseason in the life of the Yankees. That was more than four times the amount spent by the Sox on free agents not named Bregman — by spreading out $52.3 million on the likes of Buehler, Aroldis Chapman and a guy who might not even pitch this year following Tommy John surgery, Patrick Sandoval.
But unlike 99 percent of the folks walking around Boylston Street for most of this offseason, our voters saw enough good stuff happening to look past the cash registers. Here’s a sampling of how they viewed the Red Sox, even before they wound up signing Bregman:
• “Are the Red Sox back? I think they are.”
• “(Now) they can finally look in the mirror and say they can compete for real.”
• “Their young guys are legit. They’re about to get into a really fun stretch.”
Amazingly, only once in the last 20 years (in 2018) have the Red Sox and Yankees both won a round in the same postseason. But judging by this survey, perhaps that’s about to change. If this is the year, the AL East could be fantastic theater.
SURVEY SAID: Let’s not zip past the Yankees too fast here. They got outbid for Soto and still almost won the Most Improved voting? That’s amazing, isn’t it? “I thought from the beginning, those guys might not even want to get Soto,” one rival exec said. “Then you can reallocate those funds and be really good. I love what they’ve done.” You never know how Max Fried, Devin Williams, Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt will adapt to New York. But what the heck. They’ll cost half a billion dollars less than Soto!… But other than a handful of teams, our voters couldn’t stop talking about how far the AL has fallen, compared with the NL. One AL exec put Boston, Detroit and Toronto on his Most Improved ballot, then said: “It’s tough to come up with three!”
Is Juan Soto the Worst-Best Free Agent Ever?
“He’s going to be great for five, seven years. But after that, good luck,” one voter said of Juan Soto, who signed a 15-year contract. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Imagn Images)
A sure sign of how fast this survey can go off the rails arrived with one of the first ballots I got back. Here’s how it went:
Three best free-agent signings: Juan Soto, Corbin Burnes, Max Fried.
Three worst free-agent signings: Juan Soto, Corbin Burnes, Max Fried (plus a couple of other names sprinkled in there just for fun).
OK then. Does anything sum up the perils of free agency better than that? The talent of those three guys just inspired the Mets, Diamondbacks and Yankees to guarantee them nearly $1.2 billion combined this winter. So that seems like evidence that they’re pretty good.
But the magic word there was “guarantee,” no matter what’s ahead. So what are the odds that those three teams will get their $1.2 billion’s worth? Let’s just plaster photos of Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon and Kris Bryant here — and then submit your answers.
So how’d the voting go in the Best and Worst Free-Agent Signings portion of this survey? We just gave you a sneak preview. It’s something, all right.
BEST FREE-AGENT SIGNING
Roki Sasaki (Dodgers) — 16
Corbin Burnes (Diamondbacks) — 15
Pete Alonso (Mets) — 10
Juan Soto (Mets) — 9
WORST FREE-AGENT SIGNING
Juan Soto (Mets) — 10
Max Fried (Yankees) — 9
Luis Severino (A’s) — 7
Max Scherzer (Blue Jays) — 6
Matthew Boyd (Cubs) — 6
It isn’t all that rare for the same player to get votes for best and worst signing. But other than the perpetually radioactive Trevor Bauer (in 2021), we couldn’t find any player in our records who did what Soto did — got that many votes for best free agent and also won the voting for worst free agent.
If you’re thinking that might be because no other player in our records just finished enticing his new owner to hand him a cool $765 million, over a staggering 15-year deal, we think you’re onto something. Let’s have the voters explain it.
• “He is a great sign for the first half of his contract, and a terrible sign for his last five years.”
• “I think the length and the amount of dollars that (the Mets) spent on him are just … insane. He’s going to be a one-dimensional player, and he’s close to a one-dimensional player now. Great hitter. And he’s going to be great for five, seven years. But after that, good luck.”
• “I just think that 700 big ones for a guy who’s going to be a DH (soon) — that blows me away. When Shohei got his 700 (million), that made perfect sense to me, even independent of the value he creates in Japan. He’s a $35-million-a-year hitter and a $35-million-a-year pitcher. So it’s easy. There’s your $70 million. But Soto is going to be, in no time at all, a very, very expensive DH. And that just shocks me. I’m not downplaying any of his significant offensive gifts. But for me, there’s no way I’m going to do that deal for a guy who only helps me win games in one way.”
SURVEY SAID: But here’s some news that will make Soto feel better. He was one of 21 players who received at least one vote for best and worst signing. … Fried, who got $218 million over eight years from the Yankees, was the next-most-divisive figure. He got four best-signing votes and nine worst-signing votes: “The (eight) years in that deal is terrifying,” one voter said. … But one mid-market exec had a totally different take: “It’s not my money — so my three best free agents are the three best players (Soto, Burnes and Bregman). And anybody who has Juan Soto as one of the worst, that’s just freaking jealousy. We can all say the back end of the contract is going to be a nightmare, and it is. But if your owner doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter. It’s not our money.”
The Chicago Board of Trade
Was the Cubs’ acquisition of Kyle Tucker the offseason’s best trade? (Rick Osentoski / Imagn Images)
We can tell you definitively that a team from Chicago made the most important trade of this offseason. But here’s a fun question: Which one?
One of the highlights of this survey is the portion that asks our voters: Who made the best trade of the winter? Here’s how that voting went:
BEST TRADES OF THE OFFSEASON
Kyle Tucker to the Cubs — 11
Garrett Crochet to the Red Sox — 10
Loved both ends of the Crochet trade — 7
Devin Williams to the Yankees — 5
Jesús Luzardo to the Phillies — 4
Cody Bellinger to the Yankees — 2
Loved both ends of the Tucker trade — 2
So when the Astros traded Tucker to the Cubs, was that the trade that shook baseball? Or was it the blockbuster that erupted on the South Side of Chicago, when the White Sox reenacted the Chris Sale deal by shipping Crochet to Boston for four minor leaguers?
Let’s go with yes! One voter actually preferred the Astros’ end of the Tucker trade (Isaac Paredes, Hayden Wesneski and Cam Smith). But however the long game turns out in Houston, no hitter who was traded this winter is going to rattle the Richter scale this season more than Tucker, a well-rounded 28-year-old masher coming off a year in which he posted a 181 OPS+.
• “I think sometimes you can measure trades real simply: Who got the best player? So who was the best player traded? It was Kyle Tucker, hands down.”
• “This is the first time (in years) that the Cubs actually had an impact player like this in the middle of their lineup. Up till now, they had a lot of good players, but not this kind of player.”
The downside is, Tucker is only a one-year rental who would never have been traded if the Astros thought they could count on re-signing him. Crochet, on the other hand, arrives in Boston with two more years of control and a $3.8 million salary in 2025 — which is about what Jacob deGrom earns in Texas every 2 1/2 weeks.
But our voters also heaped so much love on the White Sox end of this trade that it looked, early on, as if the “Both Teams” option might end up with more votes than any of these deals. So write down those names: Kyle Teel, Braden Montgomery, Chase Meidroth and Wikelman Gonzalez. They all look like White Sox of the future.
“I think Teel is going to be like a Jason Kendall-type catcher — a better thrower than Kendall but that type of offensive player and a really good defensive guy,” one voter said. “I like Meidroth, too. I think he’s going to be a real good contributing player. I love the outfielder, Montgomery. So I thought the White Sox really did a nice job, for where they’re going and what they were trying to get rid of.
“And I thought the Red Sox got a guy who can add to what they’re trying to build in the rotation. So I thought it was a good trade for both teams. I thought they both helped themselves.”
SURVEY SAID: Usually, our voters jump on the deals they thought were one-sided. Not this year. Four trades got votes for both sides: Tucker, Crochet, the Royals-Reds Brady Singer-for-Jonathan India swap and the Rays-A’s trade that sent pitcher Jeffrey Springs to West Sacramento. Heartwarming to see all these fair, equitable, baseball-y kind of deals busting out, isn’t it? …
Then there was the trade that sent Luzardo from Miami to Philly. Two years ago, when the Marlins were actually a (gasp) playoff team, he started Game 1 against the Phillies. Now, he’s positioned to be one of the best No. 5 starters in baseball: “I think Luzardo is about to go nuts,” one exec said. “That was a fantastic deal for the Phillies.” …
Most Confusing Trade was not an official category, but it got a vote anyway: “The most confusing trade,” said one NL exec, “is Toronto taking on most of Myles Straw’s contract ($14.75 million over the next two years) to acquire international bonus money before they found out (they weren’t getting) Sasaki.”
Didn’t you used to be the Marlins?
Hey, remember five sentences ago, when we reminded you that as recently as 17 months ago, the Miami Marlins were playing postseason baseball … in a year the Yankees, Mets and Red Sox weren’t? Baseball is wacky like that sometimes.
Since then, Peter Bendix has burst through their revolving door to become the club’s president of baseball operations … and just about everybody who wore a Marlins jersey in those playoff games has spent the last year or so spinning out those doors. You can look this up, but why bother — because we did:
No one who got more than two plate appearances or pitched more than 1 1/3 innings in that Wild Card Series remains on this Marlins roster. Want to guess who won the vote in one of our favorite categories, by which we mean this one …
LEAST RECOGNIZABLE TEAM
Marlins — 21
White Sox — 19
Rockies — 15
Rays — 7
If you’ve read this column in previous years, you know how much we love this particular portion of the survey. And you know why? Because it’s all the excuse we need to play America’s favorite game: Name Three Marlins (position players only).
We had to exclude the pitchers, if only because guys like Sandy Alcantara and Eury Pérez are working back from surgery, so they haven’t gotten traded yet. But if you can go around the field and name three Marlins “regulars” anywhere on the diamond, you should be hired on the spot to work in somebody’s front office — because our voters sure couldn’t.
• HOW MANY MARLINS CAN YOU NAME? “None!”
• TRY TO GO AROUND THE FIELD AND NAME THREE GUYS IN THEIR LINEUP: “I can’t do it!”
• GO AHEAD. NAME THREE MARLINS: “Dontrelle (Willis) … (Jeff) Conine … (Robb) Nen!”
SURVEY SAID: You know it’s been an action-packed offseason when 10 teams get votes in this category. Ten! … Here’s another sign that these are strange times we live in. The Astros got two votes. “No Tucker and Bregman on that team is just weird,” one rival exec said.
In other voting news …
Was Pete Alonso, who will make $30 million this year, the best bargain? (Brad Penner / Imagn Images)
BEST FREE AGENT BARGAIN OF THE WINTER
Pete Alonso (Mets) — 9
Roki Sasaki (Dodgers) — 5
Gleyber Torres (Tigers) — 4
Jack Flaherty (Tigers) — 4
Christian Walker (Astros) — 2
Paul Goldschmidt (Yankees) — 2
Walker Buehler (Red Sox) — 2
SURVEY SAID: What would you have wagered, at the start of the offseason, that anyone would be able to describe an Alonso-Mets reunion as a “bargain”? But here we are. Alonso will still make $30 million this year. And it’s almost comical to use the word “bargain” to describe a guy with a $54-million, two-year guarantee (if he doesn’t opt out next winter). Nevertheless, what this vote tells us is that the Mets won the staredown. Said one voter: “Alonso on a two-year guarantee … even if he opts out after one year? Sign me up.” …
If that Alonso deal hadn’t dropped out of the sky, Sasaki would have crushed this competition, after grabbing the Dodgers’ $6.5 million signing bonus. Based on the responses in this survey, he’ll be attracting a ton of subscribers to the Roki Network. “His split-fingered pitch is one of the best pitches in the world,” one AL exec said. “And the stuff that comes with it is enormous.” Imagine Paul Skenes with an unhittable splitter! … It must have been a great winter to go free-agent shopping — because 25 free agents got at least one mention in this bargain bin category.
THE FOUR LEAST IMPROVED NL TEAMS
Padres — 23
Cardinals — 22
Marlins — 20
Rockies — 18
SURVEY SAID: Was this vote close enough for you? The Braves (six votes), Pirates (five) and Brewers (four) were in the next tier. But all you need to know is that 83 of the 103 votes went to these four teams. … On one hand, this voting all took place before the Padres agreed to sign Nick Pivetta. On the other hand, he’s Nick Pivetta, not Gerrit Cole! So several voters looked back on how close last year’s 2024 Padres were to sending the Dodgers home in the NLDS and felt as though they had to single out a team that otherwise did little to build on that. (Their three other major-league signings: Elias Díaz, Connor Joe and Jason Heyward.) “They have all sorts of trophies for ‘Best Offseason’ and ‘Best Trade Deadline,’” one exec said. “But all they have to show for all those years of going for it is one NLCS (appearance).” …
Then there were the Cardinals, a team that signed as many big-league free agents this winter as the Lake Mary, Fla., Little League World Series champs. (Right, that would be none.) Rival execs find all this so head-scratching that one puzzled voter described it with the word, “absurd.” … And once again this year, we got to hear a question that is turning into a tradition in this survey: “What are the Rockies doing?” The correct answer (every year): Making the Least Improved leaderboard. What else?
THE FIVE LEAST IMPROVED AL TEAMS
Mariners — 24
Twins — 21
Guardians — 12
White Sox — 12
Astros — 9
SURVEY SAID: So what do the Mariners, Twins and Guardians have in common? Two things, according to our voters. 1) They had pretty much no money to spend. And 2) All three still could wind up as playoff teams if the stars align. … Seattle’s “haul” for the entire winter: Donovan Solano, the return of Jorge Polanco, a front seat at the Neftalí Feliz comeback tour and adding a second right-handed pitcher named Luis Castillo. In response, our voters had a reasonable question for ownership: “Why not invest in building around this starting pitching?” …
We could keep going here, because the AL was so quiet this winter that only four of the 15 teams didn’t get a Least Improved vote — the Yankees, Red Sox, Rangers and Tigers. “The crazy thing about the American League,” said one voter, “is all the teams, like Minnesota, that didn’t do anything. I could have picked a ton of different teams (for Least Improved). That’s what was crazy to me.”
THE FIVE MOST IRREPLACEABLE FREE AGENTS
Corbin Burnes (ex-team: Orioles) — 17
Juan Soto (Yankees) — 11
Max Fried (Braves) — 4
Willy Adames (Brewers) — 4
Alex Bregman (Astros) — 3
SURVEY SAID: You don’t find aces like Burnes just strolling around the Inner Harbor. And the Orioles didn’t find any aces anywhere else this winter, either. “That’s just a major, major loss for their team,” one voter said. But even more important, now what? “I just don’t think they have a way to get that ace-level pitching,” a rival AL exec said. …
We actually thought Adames would get more votes. “I think what the game just doesn’t value anymore,” said one Adames fan, “is that player who shows up and plays every single day and is as steady a presence, day in and day out, as there is in the game.” … It felt notable that Bregman made this list even before these voters knew for sure that he was exiting the Astros. “He’s the straw that stirs the drink there,” an AL exec said. “That guy is a presence.”
THE SIX MOST IMPORTANT INJURY COMEBACKS OF THE SPRING
Ronald Acuña Jr. — 13
Jacob deGrom — 10
Spencer Strider — 9
Shohei Ohtani’s arm — 5
Sandy Alcantara — 5
Mike Trout — 5
SURVEY SAID: Apparently, those injured lists and trainers’ rooms were kinda full last year — because 36 players got votes here! … Is deGrom on this list every year? It felt like it to one voter, who cast his vote for “The Annual Jacob deGrom Comeback.” … Speaking of annual injury comebacks, one of the biggest upsets was: Byron Buxton didn’t get a single vote. … And somehow or other, nobody mentioned Mike Trout, until the 15th voter weighed in. When we relayed that to the person who cast that vote, he replied: “Wow. How soon they forget.”
Roman Anthony: “That kid,” one voter said, “is going to be a flat-out star.” (Danielle Parhizkaran / The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
SIX PHENOMS TO WATCH THIS SPRING
Roki Sasaki (Dodgers) — 15
Roman Anthony (Red Sox) — 11
Jackson Jobe (Tigers) — 9
Andrew Painter (Phillies) — 8
Dylan Crews (Nationals) — 8
Kumar Rocker (Rangers) — 6
SURVEY SAID: How many Rookies of the Year are on this list? Skenes got only five votes in last year’s survey, so you never know. … This time, one thing was clear: Nobody who has seen Anthony has even an iota of doubt that he’s the Next Big Thing in Boston. “That kid,” said one voter, “is going to be a flat-out star.” …
Could the Tigers have the Cy Young winner and Rookie of the Year in the same rotation? Nobody would put that rookie trophy past Jobe. “I’ve loved Jobe since high school,” one AL exec said. “That is serious stuff. It’s 100 mph and well shaped.” … Finally, there’s Painter, who was on this list two years ago before his elbow blew up — but is back and pumping up our panelists with the same fervor. One voter’s review after watching him in the Arizona Fall League: “The stuff is freaking jaw-dropping. It’s unbelievable. I don’t know where he fits for them, but damn.”
FIVE STORYLINES TO WATCH THIS SPRING
Sasaki and the Dodgers — best team ever? — 18
“The Soto Show” arrives in Mets camp — 11
The Yankees: No Soto for you! — 7
The Rays and A’s: Have no ballpark, will travel — 7
Robot umps get their big-league tryout — 5
SURVEY SAID: Has it dawned on you yet that two major-league teams will spend this whole season playing in minor-league parks? The Rays have a hole in their roof. The A’s will hang out in West Sacramento, waiting for a ballpark to rise from the rubble in Las Vegas. “When does this end? Ever?” asked one voter. … Another voter asked about the Yankees, only half-kidding: “Will the Yankees ever win another World Series?” … And another voter asked: Could the Mets be so must-see, they could change the baseball culture of New York? …
Three other storylines our voters loved: 1) Can Terry Francona re-enact the Bruce Bochy Story in Cincinnati? 2) Are the Tigers for real — in a division, the AL Central, that somebody has to win? And 3) Is Skenes now just going to become the best pitcher in baseball? We could fire up a poll on this in the comments section — or we could just be thankful there’s an invention like spring training, to start supplying all these answers.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Howard Schnapp / Newsday RM, Chris Coduto / Getty Images / Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press)
