Determining offseason winners and losers can be a futile task of sorts. We’ve all heard the cliches about playing the games, right?
There’s a paper champion and then the real champion. Very rarely do they match. Who is to say whether a contract is good or bad until we actually watch a player during the season?
It’s difficult to determine the overpaid, the underpaid and the teams that adeptly spent their money. But in attempting to sort through the MLB offseason’s winners and losers, it was apparent that every loser spawned a winner.
There were players, managers and teams that won and lost this offseason. But some winners and losers were more loosely defined: groups of players, as defined by their statistics and style of play, won and lost. A rivalry was reinvigorated. There was a shocking twist in one team’s managerial hire. And for now, the baseball purists will get their way.
Here’s how it all went down…