As someone who played his career in the free agency era, spent time with eight National League teams and continues to work for the New York Mets as a broadcaster and ambassador, Todd Zeile has been particularly fascinated by the winter baseball spending spree fueled largely by NL teams.
“I’m never really surprised anymore about the escalation of resources,” Zeile said last week at the Mets holiday party, where (avert the eyes of your children) he served as Santa Claus. “I think coming off some COVID struggles and the CBA in question (following the 2021 lockout), those two major factors kind of (being) in the rearview mirror I think has opened up everybody’s willingness to recognize that this game is big and the revenues are big and it’s important to take care of the guys in the game.”
The gas pedal has been floored in especially enthusiastic style in the NL, where a quartet of contenders — the Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants — have combined to spend more than one billion dollars (that’s nine zeroes!) on stars such as Justin Verlander, Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts and Carlos Correa.
The most fascinating segment of the arms race might be in the NL East, where the big signings and splashy trades pulled off by the Mets, Phillies and Atlanta Braves are simply allowing them to tread water with one another following a season in which the Mets and Braves tied for the division crown with 101 wins but watched the 87-win Phillies get hot in October and reach the World Series before falling to the Houston Astros.
“There’s a lot of competition in the NL East, anyway,” said Zeile, who played for every franchise in the division except the Braves. “There’s three very, very good teams last year. I think the Braves have remained good and the other two have continued to try to make themselves a little bit better.
“So it’s going to be an interesting 2023.”
As the new year nears, here are the current World Series-winning odds for NL teams at DraftKings as of Dec. 20, along with their odds as of Nov. 8, shortly after the end of the World Series, and commentary about select teams.
- Dodgers +700 (+550)
- Padres +1000 (+1400)
- Mets +1000 (+1200)
- Braves +1000 (+800)
- Phillies +1300 (+1500)
- Cardinals +2200 (+2200)
- Giants +3500 (+4000)
- Brewers +4000 (+3500)
- Cubs +6000 (+8000)
- Diamondbacks +8000 (+8000)
- Marlins +800 (+7000)
- Rockies +12000 (+10000)
- Reds +15000 (+12000)
- Pirates +20000 (+15000)
- Nationals +30000 (+15000)
The Dodgers probably aren’t responding to their latest October misery — after winning a franchise-record 111 games, they were eliminated by the Padres in four games in an NL Division Series — by pulling a George Costanza and semi-tanking the regular season with an eye on squeaking into the tournament and proving any ol’ team can win the postseason sprint.
The fact is even a quiet off-season — in which the Dodgers lost Trea Turner and Justin Turner and signed Clayton Kershaw, Noah Syndergaard and J.D. Martinez to one-year deals — conducted with one eye on possibly remaining below the $233 million competitive balance tax threshold leaves baseball’s most impressive and longest-running player development machine as the clear favorite to not only win the NL West but also the World Series.
As much as retaining Trea Turner or signing one of the other star shortstops would have made the Dodgers even better, the onus is on the splashy Padres and Giants — who finished 22 and 30 games, respectively, behind the NL West champs in 2022 — to prove they can make the division competitive again and emerge as regular pennant contenders.
There was a certain sense of desperation — albeit represented over different time frames — to the Padres and Giants dipping into the shortstop market with Bogaerts and Correa. With superstar Manny Machado expected to opt out after next season and potential $500 million player Juan Soto headed for free agency following the 2024 campaign, it might really be now or never for the Padres. And the Giants, with money to burn and a rotation lacking an ace-caliber starter following Carlos Rodon’s exit, needed a franchise player around whom to build.
In the NL East, the off-season has been about doubling and tripling down on what happened in October — or buying insurance for the vagaries of the postseason. The Phillies, who showed off their deep lineup in the playoffs but received a .651 regular season OPS from their shortstops, signed Turner to a 13-year deal in hopes of fortifying the position with someone who might especially benefit from rules changes intended to increase the number of base hits and stolen bases.
The Mets, who have spent 290 days in first place the last two seasons but have no division titles and just one playoff win to show for their efforts, invested in known quantities in hopes of finally breaking through. New York re-signed centerfielder Brandon Nimmo and closer Edwin Diaz to deals worth more than $260 million and inked the Hall of Fame-bound Verlander to replace Jacob deGrom, who was the rare NL superstar to jump to the AL.
For the second straight winter, the Braves didn’t re-sign a homegrown franchise icon. Can adding Gold Glover Sean Murphy to an already deep catching corps and the ever-fertile farm system — step right up, Vaughn Grissom — allow Atlanta to thrive as easily post-Dansby Swanson as it did post-Freddie Freeman?
While the Braves, Mets and Phillies are likely to spend most of the season trying to knock the others out and earn a first-round bye, the Cardinals — playing in an NL Central that might be even more in flux than usual — are an intriguing long-ish shot because they’ll likely have the easiest path to the playoffs of any Senior Circuit team. By signing Willson Contreras to replace Yadier Molina behind the plate, St. Louis improved a lineup that last season featured four players — including NL MVP Paul Goldschmidt — with at least 4.0 WAR, per Baseball-Reference.
