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Yankees' Max Fried, the Red Sox and Winners and Losers of 2024 MLB Winter Meetings

Joel Reuter

The biggest story of the MLB offseason broke just as the baseball world was converging on the annual winter meetings, with Juan Soto agreeing to a record-setting 15-year, $765 million deal with the New York Mets.

However, that is far from the only story worth discussing in what is always one of the busiest times on the baseball calendar.

Ahead we've highlighted the biggest winners and losers of the winter meetings so far, and we will be adding to this as the signings and trades continue to roll in.

Signing the largest contract in professional sports history made Soto a clear winner, but it's not as cut and dried to simply name the Mets winners and the other contenders for his services as losers.

Let's dive right in.

Winner: Juan Soto

Cole Burston/Getty Images

There are 765 million reasons to call Juan Soto the biggest winner of the 2024 winter meetings.

In the coming years, there will be plenty of time to debate whether the New York Mets were the right choice for his free-agency destination, but even if he never sniffs the playoffs again for the rest of his career, it's hard to spin things in a negative light for him personally when he just signed the largest contract in professional sports history.

The fact that he can opt out after five years and either chase another historic contract or force the Mets to increase his salary by $4 million annually over the final 10 years of his contract to bring the total value of the deal to $805 million is almost laughable.

Another $4 million? Sure, just toss it on the pile over there.

Still only 26 years old, Soto is on a Hall of Fame trajectory, and it was clear the impact he can have on a team when he helped lead a flawed New York Yankees roster to the World Series in 2024.

Now he has cashed in with the largest contract any athlete has ever seen.

Winner: Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Paul Rutherford/Getty Images

The fact that he just turned 26 years old a few months ago is one of the biggest reasons Juan Soto was able to land such a massive contract in free agency.

While most players hit the open market for the first time when they are roughly 30 years old and several years into their prime, Soto is just entering what is generally considered to be a player's prime years.

Since he debuted when he was only 19 years old, his arbitration clock was set in motion earlier than the average player, and he was able to cash in as a result.

Do you know who else got their arbitration clock rolling early?

Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

The Toronto Blue Jays star was a little over a month removed from is 20th birthday when he made his MLB debut back in 2019, and in the years since he has established himself as a bona fide offensive superstar.

He had one of the best seasons of his career in 2024, hitting .323/.396/.544 for a 166 OPS+ with 44 doubles, 30 home runs and 103 RBI, and he has racked up 21.5 WAR over six seasons heading into a contract year.

Back in October, I took a shot at predicting the next round of players who would sign $100 million deals, and posited a 10-year, $320 million deal for Guerrero while drawing a comparison to the 10-year, $315 million extension that Rafael Devers signed with the Boston Red Sox.

In the wake of the Soto signing, it feels like that figure might have climbed by $100 million or more.

Loser: Boston Red Sox (Getting Better Though...)

Triston Casas Photo By Winslow Townson/Getty Images

The Boston Red Sox looked like clear losers when this first published on Wednesday morning, but in the wake of the Garrett Crochet trade, it's time to reassess.

They paid a steep price to acquire the Chicago White Sox breakout ace, sending 2023 first-round pick Kyle Teel (No. 32 on B/R Top 100) and 2024 first-round pick Braden Montgomery (No. 52 on B/R Top 100) the other way as part of the return package.

It is a step toward addressing a starting rotation that was by far the biggest weakness on the roster, but there is still significant work to be done. Crochet, Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford and whoever wins the No. 5 starter job is still a bottom-tier rotation.

As dominos continue to fall, their options for adding another quality arm are dwindling.

There was also the report that surfaced earlier this week that first baseman Triston Casas was offered up in a deal to try to acquire one of the Seattle Mariners' controllable young starting pitchers.

Casas, 24, has long been viewed as a future offensive star and a potential cornerstone player for the Red Sox. Now he knows the organization views him as expendable in the right deal.

The Crochet trade is a nice first step, but I'm still not ready to call the Red Sox winners.

They just mortgaged two of their best prospects for a talented, controllable starter, but also one with zero track record of success beyond last season who was a complete non-factor after the All-Star break.

This can't be all they do, or they will be looking up at the rest of the AL East contenders once again in 2025.

Winner: San Francisco Giants

Willy Adames John Fisher/Getty Images

The San Francisco Giants have spent the past several years trying their hardest to dive into the deep end of the free-agency pool, only to be rejected time and again when their top targets landed elsewhere.

This time, they got their guy.

Shortstop Willy Adames looked like the Giants' top target from the jump this offseason, and despite interest from a long list of other clubs—including the deep-pocketed Dodgers—they inked him to a seven-year, $182 million deal as an appetizer to the Juan Soto news at the onset of the winter meetings.

The Giants now have an enviable left side of the infield with Matt Chapman also inked to a nine-figure extension in September to negate the potential of him opting out of his previous contract, and those two will be the centerpiece of what the club is building.

The front office still needs to find a suitable replacement for Blake Snell to slot alongside Logan Webb at the top of the rotation, but after suffering one disappointment after another in years past, the Giants have already made a major splash this winter.

Losers: Houston Astros

Kyle Tucker Logan Riely/Getty Images

The winter meetings are a time for hope, as rumors swirl and teams across baseball envision the top available stars potentially donning their uniform during the upcoming season.

The Houston Astros are projecting a very different message.

General manager Dana Brown told reporters he "would listen on all players" when asked about the potential availability of outfielder Kyle Tucker and left-hander Framber Valdez who are both set to enter contract years.

Meanwhile, no movement has been made toward nailing down a new deal with third baseman Alex Bregman, and it's starting to feel like if it were going to happen, it would have happened already.

Could we be witnessing the beginning of the end for this current Astros core?

The fact that they are viewing Tucker as a trade chip and not instead working on trying to hammer out a long-term extension speaks volumes. The 27-year-old has a 139 OPS+ and 23.0 WAR in seven seasons, and while he missed time to injury in 2024, his 181 OPS+ in 339 plate appearances made him one of the best offensive players in the sport when he was on the field.

Despite winning their seventh division title in the last eight years in 2024, the Astros seem to be heading for a roster reset.

Winner: 'Old' Relief Pitchers

Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

If the contracts given to Aroldis Chapman, Blake Treinen and Yimi García are any indication, it's a good time to be an aging late-inning reliever:

Chapman will turn 37 years old before the start of next season.

Treinen will also turn 37 years old next June.

García is the youngest of that trio at 34 years old.

That is great news for the likes of David Robertson (39), Adam Ottavino (39), Chris Martin (38), Kirby Yates (37), Kenley Jansen (37), Tommy Kahnle (35), Danny Coulombe (35), Andrew Kittredge (34) and Paul Sewald (34).

Loser: Teams With a Still Unaddressed Rotation Need

Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

The starting pitching market is moving quickly.

There were 15 starting pitchers ranked among our Top 100 free agents at the start of the offseason, but that list is being quickly whittled down:

2. Corbin Burnes
4. Blake Snell
5. Max Fried
10. Jack Flaherty
11. Sean Manaea
16. Nathan Eovaldi
17. Tomoyuki Sugano
22. Yusei Kikuchi
27. Shane Bieber
29. Nick Martinez
30. Walker Buehler
32. Luis Severino
33. Nick Pivetta
34. Andrew Heaney
38. Frankie Montas

Outside of that group, Matthew Boyd and Alex Cobb have also found new homes. And for teams looking to bolster their starting staff with impact arms, the list of potential targets is rapidly shrinking.

Winner: Max Fried...and Eventually Corbin Burnes

Corbin Burnes G Fiume/Getty Images

MLB Trade Rumors predicted a six-year, $156 million contract for Max Fried at the start of the offseason.

Earlier this week in the aftermath of the Juan Soto signing, I suggested the Yankees could pivot to signing Fried as part of a multi-point plan to shore up the roster, hypothetically pitching a six-year, $150 million deal to get the job done.

The Yankees did indeed add the 30-year-old to the roster on Tuesday, but it came at a price point well beyond expectations: eight years. $218 million.

The $27.25 million AAV is roughly in line with what Fried was expected to make, but the length of the deal was a surprise and gives him the fourth-most guaranteed money ever given to a pitcher behind Yoshinobu Yamamoto ($325 million), Gerrit Cole ($324 million) and Stephen Strasburg ($245 million).

That final figure was no doubt of great interest to fellow free agent Corbin Burnes, who is widely regarded as the best starting pitcher on the market this winter, and almost certain to command a bigger payday than Fried.

With Fried and Blake Snell now off the market, Burnes should see his market start to take shape in the coming days, and the drop off from him to the rest of the pitching market could drive a sense of urgency.

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