The 2024 Major League Baseball (MLB) offseason has been quite eventful, with many different all-stars being traded to different teams and huge salaries being awarded. With Spring Training games coming to an end, there are some clear favorites as we creep closer and closer to the 2024 Opening Day. Although many teams do not showcase their full starting lineups during spring training games these preseason matchups do give a good picture of how each team’s season will most likely pan out.
There were some huge contracts signed during this off-season, including by far the largest of all time. Following the 2023 MLB season, two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani signed a ten-year deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers for a whopping $700 million. This contract is so insane because the next largest MLB contract ever was just a measly $427 million compared to this record-smashing number. The main reason for this massive amount of money going to this single player is because Shohei is a generational talent who can both pitch and hit at the highest level. If you know the game of baseball, you know this is extremely rare. Due to the Dodgers being one of the only teams in the league that can afford to pay a salary of this size, they will have a one-of-a-kind superstar on their roster for the next ten seasons.
Another player who was offered a contract by the Los Angeles Dodgers this offseason is actually a new face, a starting pitcher coming from the Japanese league who goes by the name Yoshinobu Yamamoto. He is a very talented pitcher and another great arm that will be in the Dodgers’ arsenal for the next few years. Just Shohei and Yoshinobu alone made the Dodgers offseason spending more than the rest of the entire MLB (29 other teams).
The final big name to look out for this regular season is the Dominican slugger, Juan Soto. Prior to the trade, Juan was on the San Diego Padres for a short period of time but when his contract ran out, rather than trying to resign with the Padres again, he chose to take his talents across the country to the New York Yankees. Now that he is in New York he will be playing along with some guys like Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole, and Anthony Rizzo. Juan Soto may have been the missing piece of the puzzle that the Yankees have needed these past few seasons in order to make a deep run into the postseason.
Leading up to Opening Day there have been some teams that are looking to be very competitive during the regular season as long as they can stay hot. Obviously, the Dodgers super team led by Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and the newly acquired Ohtani is going to be the team to beat, they are 13-5 so far and are not looking to slow down anytime soon. Another team that is looking to have a great season is the New York Yankees who I talked about earlier in the article. They just picked up one of the best outfielders in the league this off-season, Juan Soto. He along with some of the other Yankees is locked in on taking this team past the first round of the playoffs which is where they have been knocked out the past two seasons. Finally, one last team that is going to be pretty untouchable this season is the Atlanta Braves. They have arguably the best offensive line-up in the entire MLB with sluggers like Matt Olsen, Ronald Acuna Jr., Austin Riley, and the list goes on. On top of this, they have some great arms in the bullpen to round off their team and give them a very strong and well-rounded squad.
Overall, the 2024 MLB season is shaping up to be a good one, with some power-house teams and the shifting around of different franchise talents, many great things are bound to happen from now to September when the best teams in baseball battle it out for a shot at being 2024 World Series champions.
