The 2023-24 Major League Baseball offseason saw the movement of plenty of All-Star players, including the signing of the best player of this generation, two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani, to the most lucrative MLB contract to date. The extreme roster shakeup in the MLB has created a flurry of excitement for the upcoming season and created fascinating storylines to follow in 2024.
The LA Dodgers spent over $1.2 billion this offseason. Will the team live up to the price tag?
Between Ohtani’s $700 million contract, starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s $325 million contract and starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow’s $136.5 million contract, the Dodgers were crowned as the top spenders of the offseason. The Dodgers added these impact players to a roster that won 100 games in 2023. But championships aren’t won by building flashy depth charts.
Three former MVP winners sit atop the Dodgers lineup, with outfielder Mookie Betts, Ohtani and first baseman Freddie Freeman slotting in the top three lineup spots. This Dodgers team will pulverize baseballs; the worries come with the pitching staff.
Ohtani is sidelined from the mound in 2024 with Tommy John surgery, Glasnow has an extensive injury history and Yamamoto, who came from the Japanese Nippon Professional Baseball league, is debuting in MLB. The pitching staff has the ceiling to be dominant, but health will be key for the Dodgers.
Juan Soto teamed up with Aaron Judge on the Yankees. Will this push the Yankees to October baseball?
On Dec. 6, 2023, the New York Yankees made one of the premier moves of the offseason by acquiring outfielder Juan Soto from the San Diego Padres. Soto, one of the most fearsome hitters in the MLB, was an All-Star, led the MLB in walks and hit 35 home runs last season. Soto is one of the most disciplined hitters in the MLB and is a threat from the left-handed batter’s box. Yankee Stadium, Soto’s new home, is one of the most hitter-friendly MLB ballparks for lefties with its 314-foot distanced right field wall. Soto will likely be an MVP candidate for New York and combine with 2022 American League MVP outfielder Aaron Judge to form one of the top one-two punches in baseball.
The danger for the Yankees is their pitching. Gerrit Cole, the reigning AL Cy Young winner, is on the 60-day injured list. The Yankees also shipped off starting pitcher Michael King to San Diego for Soto. The Yankees will have to rely on starters Nestor Cortes, Carlos Rodon and Marcus Stroman to lock down the rotation until Cole’s return. All three pitchers have the potential to stymie opposing offenses but are also volatile. Soto and Judge will be fun to watch, but the pitching could cause turmoil for this squad.
Are the Orioles youth legit?
The Baltimore Orioles won 101 games in 2023, an 18-game improvement from 2022. The team was carried by a youth movement led by catcher Adley Rutschman, infielder Gunnar Henderson and starting pitcher Kyle Bradish. The Orioles sustained all of this success with a $60 million payroll to begin the season, which was 29th out of 30 teams in the MLB.
The offseason saw the selling of the team and the dawn of a new ownership era in Baltimore, and the Orioles’ new owners immediately improved the roster. The Orioles dipped into their talent-rich farm system to acquire 2021 National League Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes from the Milwaukee Brewers. Burnes will headline the Orioles rotation in 2024, with Bradish hoping to return from a strained elbow and hurl behind Burnes in the rotation. The Orioles team looks like a serious World Series contender, but watch out for the sophomore slump. Baseball can be wildly unpredictable, for better or for worse.
The Cardinals lost 90 games in 2023. How will they respond in 2024?
For the first time since 1990, the St. Louis Cardinals lost 90 games in a season. The team won 93 games in 2022 and retained most of the team’s impact players last offseason, yet they collapsed and had their worst season in 33 years in 2023. St. Louis responded to the disaster by signing starting pitchers Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson. The Cardinals revamped their starting rotation, which was a source of misery in 2023.
The Cardinals must also rely on the young bats to produce. Jordan Walker, Nolan Gorman, Masyn Winn and Brendan Donovan will all start for the team, and each has two or fewer years of MLB experience. The veterans must remain steady on the mound and the youth must explode for the Cardinals to win games. Otherwise, the team may be in store for another disaster in 2024.
The Giants signed everybody?
The San Francisco Giants have hovered around 80 wins for the past two seasons and decided they wanted to change their fortunes in 2024. After missing out on high-profile free agents in previous offseasons, the Giants finally found free agents to take their money this offseason. They took full advantage of the market breakdowns of starting pitcher Blake Snell and third baseman Matt Chapman and signed the two former All-Stars to short-term deals. The Giants also signed Jung Hoo Lee — an outfielder from the Korean Baseball Organization League — to a six-year contract, outfielder Jorge Soler to a three-year deal and pitcher Jordan Hicks to a four-year deal.
Five new faces from free agency will be debuting in San Francisco this season, but success is not guaranteed. The new signings come with red flags: the Giants plan to use Hicks — a premier relief pitcher — as a starting pitcher, Lee never had eye-popping power numbers in the KBO and Soler’s productivity has fluctuated between seasons. It will be intriguing to see how the Giants’ newcomers perform, especially in an NL West division with playoff contender Dodgers, the Padres and the Arizona Diamondbacks.
There are plenty of other fun storylines that will play out and more mind-boggling questions that beg for answers, but these five are ones to keep in mind as the season progresses.
