11 biggest offseason surprises, ranked

Clayton Kershaw is back with the Dodgers.

OK, thus concludes our discussion of Hot Stove deals that DID NOT surprise us.

Now, let’s talk about some of the stuff that did.

We publish a list like this every winter. The fact that we’re publishing this year’s list in the second half of March is obviously indicative of what an unusual “winter” it has been in Major League Baseball.

But even before the lockout, we were already knee-deep in the strangest offseason in recent memory. And things have only gotten stranger since the free-agent and trade markets opened back up for business.

Let’s attempt to sort through all that’s happened and pick the absolute most surprising developments (so far, at least).

1. Kris Bryant’s Rockies pact

As good a player as Bryant is, he was not forecast to receive the second-highest total value ($182 million over seven years) of any player in this loaded free-agent class. (Only Corey Seager’s 10-year, $325 million deal with the Rangers was richer.)

• Bryant looks to bring veteran presence to upstart Rox

And Bryant certainly wasn’t expected to wind up in Colorado. None of the prominent free agents were. After all, it was only 13 months ago that the Rockies swallowed $51 million in dealing their homegrown franchise face, Nolan Arenado, to the Cardinals. And coming off their fourth straight fourth-place finish in a division featuring the Dodgers, Giants and Padres, the Rox seem to be a team with holes that Bryant alone can’t fill.

But hey, it’s the goal of teams to get better, and it’s the goal of stars to get paid. Both the Rockies and Bryant accomplished that. So let’s applaud them ... just as soon as we wipe our jaws off the floor.

2. Carlos Correa’s short-term deal with the Twins

The industry was basically split as to whether Seager or Correa was the top free agent in this class, but it was pretty much assumed that those two generational shortstops were 1-2 in some order. Francisco Lindor’s Mets extension (10 years, $341 million) from a year ago had set the bar for what Seager and Correa could shoot for. Seager perhaps bettered that deal by signing with a team in a state with no income tax.

Correa, on the other hand, signed a very different deal than what anybody expected for him going into the offseason. After the lockout and his mid-winter agent switch, his best option turned out to be a three-year, $105.3 million deal with a Minnesota team absolutely nobody thought would be in the market for one of the premier shortstops. And it could be a short-term engagement, because Correa has opt-outs after this season and next. So when all is said and done, Correa might still make more money than any shortstop in history. But for now, someone get this man a winter coat!

3. The Rangers really went for it

It didn’t affect the standings much for a team that finished fifth in three of the last four seasons, but the Rangers had quietly fared pretty well in the free-agent bargain bin in recent winters, landing the likes of Mike Minor, Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson and Hunter Pence on what turned out to be wily deals.

Going into this winter, however, the Rangers’ brass had told us they were ready to play in the deeper end of the free-agent pool to accelerate their rebuild.

They weren’t kidding.

• Seager, Semien ready to lead Rangers

Combined, Texas’ 10-year pact with Seager and seven-year deal with Marcus Semien are worth half a billion dollars. The Rangers also landed one of the market’s more enticing starters in Jon Gray and rounded out their roster with Brad Miller, Kole Calhoun and Martín Pérez. We’ll see if that’s enough to turn a 102-loss team into an instant contender. But either way, the next time Rangers president of baseball operations Jon Daniels and general manager Chris Young say they have money to spend, let’s take them seriously.

4. Freddie Freeman and Kenley Jansen swapped teams

When Freeman went deep in the seventh inning in Game 6 of the World Series last fall, it would have surprised no one if he were handed an extension offer as he rounded third base. Or surely, that bus speeding through Atlanta’s championship parade must have been racing Freddie to the surprise news conference announcing him as a Brave for life, right?

Nope.

Turns out, contract talks between the Braves and Freeman’s camp had been at an impasse for quite a while. The club’s stunning swap for Matt Olson on March 14 caught everybody -- Freeman included -- off-guard.

And just when we were beginning to wrap our minds around the image of Freeman in a Dodgers uniform, we got word -- from the Braves themselves (a rare instance of a team scooping reporters) -- that they had signed the Dodgers’ all-time saves leader. Unfortunately, “California Love” isn’t gonna cut it as Jansen’s intro song anymore. (“Georgia On My Mind” isn’t quite as much of a banger but might have to do.)

5. Max Scherzer’s average annual value with the Mets

It was a foregone conclusion that Mad Max would get a relatively short-term deal worth a staggering amount of money.

But $43.33 million per year?

That blew past Gerrit Cole’s record AAV of $36 million. But to put Scherzer’s number in hilarious perspective, less than two weeks before he reached his pact with the Mets, an anonymous bidder paid $43.2 million at auction for a rare first printing of the U.S. Constitution.

Of course, Scherzer had a better 2021 ERA than James Madison.

6. The Red Sox -- not the Yankees -- signed a premier shortstop

After moving Gleyber Torres off the position late last year, the Yankees had a glaring need at shortstop at the outset of the greatest free-agent shortstop market in history. The Red Sox, on the other hand, were seemingly set at short with the great Xander Bogaerts.

Well, you know how baseball goes. But even those of us who have learned to expect the unexpected are surprised to look up here in late March and see Trevor Story with Boston (where he’ll likely slide over to second base), while the Yankees abstained from the shortstop market and went the more low-key route in trading for Isiah Kiner-Falefa, signing utilityman Marwin Gonzalez and expecting Anthony Volpe, the eighth-ranked prospect in baseball per MLB Pipeline, to man the position in the not-too-distant future.

7. Philadelphia signed Kyle Schwarber AND Nick Castellanos

The Phillies were a bad defensive team last year (their minus-20 Outs Above Average mark ranked 24th in MLB), and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski had said that improving at shortstop was a priority.

Ah, so the Phillies would certainly delve into the deep shortstop market, right?

• Phils: 'What a lineup we're about to have'

Nope. They went the beer-league softball route and just brought in a couple dudes who mash.

Schwarber and Castellanos graded out in the first and fourth percentile, respectively, in Outs Above Average last year. But they unquestionably lengthen the lineup anchored by reigning NL MVP Bryce Harper, and perhaps the Phillies can just outslug all their defensive mistakes.

8. Derek Jeter entered free agency

It was an odd sight to see him with anybody but the Yankees, but Jeter was earnest about his opportunity to reshape a franchise when he took over as the Marlins’ CEO in September 2017. Under Jeter, the Marlins hired Kim Ng, the first female general manager in North American men’s professional sports, secured a new naming rights deal for their home park, completed a new regional TV contract, introduced new uniforms and unexpectedly advanced to and won a playoff series in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.

But just when it appeared a team with a bevy of young arms might start to morph into a more sustained winner, Jeter suddenly announced in late February that his vision for the future no longer aligned with that of the team.

We knew there would be a lot of shortstops available this winter. We didn’t think Derek Jeter would be one of them.

9. The first notable signee was ... Andrew Heaney?

Way back in early November, the Dodgers jumped the market by inking Heaney to a one-year contract worth $8.5 million. While that’s not a bank-breaking figure for a team with the Dodgers’ resources, it was still an eye-catching sum for a guy coming off a 5.83 ERA and 76 ERA+ (or 24% worse than league average) in 129 2/3 innings for the Angels and Yankees last year.

Heaney’s deal ranks 20th in average annual value among starters signed this offseason. For the sake of perspective, he got $3 million more than Michael Pineda will receive from the Tigers after posting a 3.62 ERA and 117 ERA+ in 109 1/3 innings.

10. Isiah Kiner-Falefa was traded twice in 24 hours

It was widely assumed that Kiner-Falefa, who had taken over as the Rangers’ regular shortstop in 2021 after winning a Gold Glove at third base in 2020, would be moving back to the hot corner because of the signing of Seager. Prior to the Rangers’ spending spree, Kiner-Falefa, who ranked second in 2021 WAR (per Baseball Reference) among the club’s returning position players, had seemed to be one of Texas’ few building blocks. He was important enough to their plans that he was the first player Rangers manager Chris Woodward called when the lockout was lifted.

So, yes, it was surprising when the Rangers dealt Kiner-Falefa to the Twins for catcher Mitch Garver. And it was downright shocking when the Twins turned right around and flipped him, along with Josh Donaldson, to the Yankees in the deal that landed them Gary Sánchez and Gio Urshela.

Ultimately, Kiner-Falefa wound up with the team he grew up rooting for as a kid in Hawaii. So at least his strange saga had a happy ending.

11. The Blue Jays let Robbie Ray walk … but signed Kevin Gausman

For the second straight year, a reigning Cy Young winner left his team in free agency. But when 2020 NL Cy Young Trevor Bauer left the Reds for the Dodgers, it was pretty straightforward: The Dodgers were willing to fork over big money for Bauer, while the Reds weren’t.

Ray’s departure from Toronto after his 2021 breakout is more nuanced. In late November, he signed a five-year, $115 million contract with the Mariners -- a deal that was almost identical to the five years and $110 million the Blue Jays committed to Kevin Gausman less than a day earlier.

A $5 million difference spread over five years is a relative pittance. So this ultimately came down to the Blue Jays’ desire to land Gausman -- a player they had targeted a couple times previously -- exceeding their desire to retain their first Cy winner since Roy Halladay in 2003 (though it’s worth factoring in that they also received Draft-pick compensation for Ray signing elsewhere). It will be interesting to compare the performances of Ray and Gausman going forward ... and even more interesting if Seattle and Toronto wind up meeting each other in October.