A busier early offseason than usual for the Dodgers got the hot stove going.
The winter meetings start in earnest on Monday in Dallas, with baseball folks arriving at the Hilton Anatole hotel by Sunday in anticipation of a busy few days of hot stove action. But the Dodgers have already been quite active in the five weeks since winning the World Series, getting a head start on their offseason.
Blake Snell was the big prize to date, with his five-year, $182 million contract finalized on Saturday. The Dodgers a day before also extended Tommy Edman for five years and $74 million.
It’s important to point out that when transactions happen during the offseason don’t matter, as long as various needs are eventually met. Don’t confuse activity for achievement, as John Wooden used to say.
Last year, the Dodgers committed a whopping $1.4 billion in a whirlwind of an offseason, but the bulk of those additions (Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow) all happened later in December. Prior to the 2023 winter meetings in Tennessee, the Dodgers were relatively quiet. They extended Max Muncy for two years and $24 million, signed Jason Heyward for $9 million, avoided arbitration with Yency Almonte with a $1.9 million deal, and signed Ricky Vanasco to a major league deal.
This year, the Dodgers have already also avoided arbitration with Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May. Coupled with Snell and Edman, that’s a total of $263.5 million in activity before the winter meetings.
That’s more than the first 10 offseasons of the Andrew Friedman-led front office combined, ahead of the winter meetings. From 2014-23, the Dodgers’ pre-meetings activity totaled $196.9 million in payroll additions.
There will surely be more moves made this offseason — maybe even signing an outfielder before the winter meetings even start — but the early Dodgers action has gotten the hot stove off to a nice simmer already.