Pitchers and catchers have reported, the stragglers on the free-agent market are starting to sign, and fantasy drafts are off and running. Yep, baseball is back.

Here at MLB.com, we spend every day of the offseason writing stories, making videos, analyzing stats; this is our life, after all. It’s what we do.

But we know that’s not the case for everyone. So, if you did not happen to be thinking about baseball every day for the past four months -- since Josh Sborz struck out Ketel Marte to win the Rangers their first World Series title -- here are 10 big things that happened during this offseason.

• Breaking down every team's impact offseason moves

1) Shohei Ohtani plays for the Dodgers now!

All right, even if you actively, studiously vowed not to learn any new baseball news since Nov. 1 -- and I have no idea why anyone would want to do that -- you know about this. Ohtani, after a vigorous pursuit from the Angels, Giants and, especially, the Blue Jays, signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers for $700 million. $700 million! Now, there are significant deferrals in that deal, which will be paid out through 2043, but $700 million is $700 million.

• 1 key Spring Training storyline for each team

Ohtani is of course more than just a great baseball player; he’s a global icon who instantly makes the Dodgers (who were not exactly obscure in the first place) one of the most recognizable brands on the planet. He also makes them the obvious favorites to win the World Series, something they haven’t done in a full season since six years before Ohtani was born. He’s going to open the season playing in South Korea, and every game he plays all year -- and for this year, he’ll only be doing it at the plate, not on the mound -- automatically becomes the must-watch game of the day. The Dodgers signed the best, most famous, most electric baseball player on Earth. How exhausting! They must have taken a long, well-earned nap after that, right? Well …

• The clubs that made sneaky-great offseason moves

2) The Dodgers actually signed everybody

OK, not everybody. But for a while -- especially as the rest of the league was in many ways sitting on its proverbial hands -- it seemed like the Dodgers were the only team allowed to make new additions. There was Ohtani, of course. But the Dodgers also signed the top pitcher on the market, fellow Japanese superstar Yoshinobu Yamamoto, that one for a mere $325 million over 12 years.

• 10 pitchers with huge Spring Training hype

Yamamoto was obviously brought in to help fix the Dodgers’ pitching, which was their major (only?) flaw in 2023, but he wasn’t alone: The Dodgers also traded for Tyler Glasnow and signed James Paxton, in addition to bringing back Clayton Kershaw. Oh, also Manuel Margot is here, and they re-signed Jason Heyward and Joe Kelly, and oh yeah, they also signed Teoscar Hernández, who would have been the showcase free agent for almost any other team in baseball. They also, you may remember, still have Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman and Will Smith and Max Muncy and plenty of other excellent players. There is being aggressive, and there is what the Dodgers did this offseason. For a team that won 100 games last year!

3) Juan Soto is at the center of a pivotal Yankees season

The Juan Soto in San Diego experiment did not exactly work out, though they’ll always have that NL Division Series win over the Dodgers in 2022. Now that Soto is one year away from free agency, he’s heading to play for a team that has just about as much on the line as he does: the Yankees.

The Yankees missed the playoffs entirely last year, they have a manager on the last year of his contract and a front office with which many fans have lost patience. They have to win this year, just like Soto has to have the sort of rocket-ship season that will launch his impending free agent contract even further into the stratosphere. Soto’s going to be a perfect fit on this team, but will that be enough … for both the Yankees and him? Because the Yankees still aren’t the obvious favorites in this division. The defending AL East champion Orioles are going to be excellent again and, oh yes, now Corbin Burnes -- in the exact same free agency scenario as Soto -- is their ace. It’s going to be very intense in the Bronx this year.

4) Some big-time free agents introduced themselves

This was one of the more eventful offseasons we’ve seen for international free agent talent. While some of the established big leaguers to hit free agency have been taking their time signing -- more on that below -- the international stars have been the headliners. Yamamoto was the biggest one.

But if you haven’t been watching the KBO, then you might not know about the new Giants center fielder Jung Hoo Lee (who has the truly incredible nickname “Grandson of the Wind,” or the new Padres reliever Woo-Suk Go (who is in fact Lee’s brother-in-law!). There’s also Cubs starter Shota Imanaga, who already knows his Cubs songs, and Blue Jays right-hander Yariel Rodríguez, who is Cuban but played in Japan with Imanaga. Right now you might not know these names too well. But by May, you’ll know all of them by heart.

5) Speaking of fresh faces …

One of the many nice things about baseball these days is that top prospects are debuting earlier than ever. It feels like we spent the first week of last season talking exclusively about Anthony Volpe and Jordan Walker, while MLB Pipeline’s top two prospects, Gunnar Henderson and Corbin Carroll, went on to Rookie of the Year honors.

Well, this year MLB Pipeline’s top two are both explosive prospects who have a good chance to be on their team’s Opening Day roster: No. 1 Jackson Holliday of the Orioles and No. 2 Jackson Chourio of the Brewers. The Jackson Two highlight the next generation of superstars, but they’re not the only ones we’re likely to see for the first time this year, with that list also including the Pirates’ Paul Skenes (No. 3), the Rangers’ Wyatt Langford (No. 6) and the Nationals’ Dylan Crews (No. 7). Also, that Evan Carter guy you saw helping the Rangers win the World Series last year? Well, he’s still officially a rookie.

• Here are 30 prospects to watch in big league camp -- one from each team

6) Some big names said farewell

This is the flip side of the previous item -- the baseball circle of life. Every MLB offseason brings with it retirements, when players you’ve gotten used to seeing every day for the last decade instead become “Let’s Remember Some Guys” guys -- tricky squares on Immaculate Grid. We saw some real stars for the last time in 2023, most notably Miguel Cabrera, who finished off his slam-dunk Hall of Fame career.

Other goodbyes? Adam Wainwright (though you’ll be seeing him regularly on MLB Network all year and, surely, for years to come), Corey Kluber, Andrelton Simmons, Michael Brantley, Zack Britton, Joe Smith and, alas, Nelson Cruz, who we all thought might be hitting 30 homers when he was 90 years old. Oh, and Dusty Baker, two years after finally winning that elusive World Series, retired from the dugout as well. Fare thee well, gentlemen.

7) We have some new immortals

In five years, you’re almost certainly going to be able to see Cabrera again when he’s inducted into Cooperstown. He’ll join the new Hall of Fame players voted in this offseason by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Three of them, in fact.

Two players made it in their first year on the ballot: Lovable third baseman Adrián Beltré and Twins franchise legend Joe Mauer. And, after six years of waiting, the Rockies’ Todd Helton got the call in as well. They’ll join Contemporary Baseball Era Non-Players Committee selection Jim Leyland (and his mustache) in the Hall officially this July.

8) There are new people in charge everywhere

You can’t fire the players, they say, but when things don’t go well, you gotta fire somebody. Thus, we have a slew of new managers and front-office figures throughout baseball. Actually, half of the eight new managers in baseball will preside over teams that had winning records in 2023: Joe Espada takes over for Baker in Houston, Craig Counsell moved in-division from Milwaukee to Chicago, bench coach Pat Murphy replaces Counsell and former Cardinals manager Mike Shildt is now in charge in San Diego.

The other four jobs came open after losing seasons: the Angels (Ron Washington is back!), the Guardians (Stephen Vogt is a manager now; everybody loves that guy!), the Giants (Bob Melvin moves over from San Diego) and the Mets (former Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza). The even more impactful moves might have been made in the front office, most notably with former Milwaukee exec David Stearns now in charge of the Mets, and Craig Breslow with the very high-profile job of running the Red Sox. (Miami now has Peter Bendix in charge, with Gabe Kapler joining as assistant general manager.) So now we have a whole new set of people to second-guess.

9) Four top free agents remain available

All right, so there are some things you have not really missed. You might have reasonably expected that the top two non-Ohtani free-agent position players, the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner and a postseason pitching hero would have found teams by now.

Not so. It’s the middle of February, and Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery still have not signed, even as pitchers and catchers are reporting to Spring Training. That leaves the door open for some opportunistic clubs to swoop in for a big, late addition.

10) Don’t worry: The bases are the same size, and the clock is still there

It’s remarkable how much time we spent talking about those rules changes heading into last year, and how little we thought about them once the games started, despite how much more quickly they made the games go. There are a couple minor changes this year -- the clock dropped from 20 to 18 seconds with runners on base, and the runner’s lane to first base is a little wider -- but otherwise, it’s the same thing as last year. So don’t sweat that one: You didn’t miss anything there.

And with that, you’re all caught up. Now we get to watch actual players on actual fields … when everything will immediately change again.