The Detroit Tigers offseason really holds only one major question left, and that question is what to do with Tarik Skubal. Whether the front office is waiting to see if a big spender who missed out in free agency coomes calling with a monstrous trade offer, or they\u2019ve decided to run it back in 2026 and take their chances, it\u2019s likely that nothing is happening until the arbitration case is completed in early February.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the 2026 free agent class thinned out quite a bit over the last few days as Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette signed with the Dodgers and Mets, respectively. Cody Bellinger, Framber Valdez, and Eugenio Suarez are now the biggest names left on the board.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s do a quick roundup of the biggest stories after busy news days on Thursday and Friday.<\/p>\n
The Dodgers feeding frenzy continues with Kyle Tucker<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the biggest free agent contract of the offseason hit the news wire as the Los Angeles Dodgers inked outfielder Kyle Tucker to a four year deal worth $240 million. Per Jeff Passan, the deal comes with an $64 million signing bonus, with $30 million deferred. Reportedly there are opt-outs for Tucker after the second and third seasons. So the Dodgers will be paying the soon to be 29-year-old hitter the largest average annual value in major league baseball history, surpassing the Mets $51 million yearly to Juan Soto. This is the kind of contract only a few teams in the game are capable of handing out, once again highlighting the growing divide between a handful of major market teams and the rest of the league.<\/p>\n
The excellent R.J. Anderson at CBS Sports breaks down the winners and losers.<\/a><\/p>\n Jay Jaffe unpacks the Tucker deal<\/a> and its meaning for FanGraphs.<\/p>\n The angles on this story are many. Are the Dodgers anticipating a salary cap in the next CBA and trying to stockpile all the elite talent possible before that happens? Does this make them invincible in their quest to three-peat? Why aren\u2019t other top contenders using deferrals in similar ways? Is this good or bad for baseball?<\/p>\n I wrote about that last item after the World Series. Baseball has a long history of evil empires, and often the game was more popular, at least in the ratings department, when there was a team to hate. The star-studded Dodgers project really well to the growing international market for the game. Still, that probably means little to the majority of teams who are pretty much priced out of winning a title without a miracle. From the competitive balance perspective, this has gotten ridiculous.<\/p>\n And yet, no the Dodgers aren\u2019t invincible. The 2025 Dodgers only won 93 games, and the Toronto Blue Jays were one play going their way from defeating them in the World Series. Of course, the Blue Jays spent $258 million too, but at least among the big spending teams, adding Tucker assures nothing. That contract is just very wild on the surface for a player who hasn\u2019t topped 23 home runs in either of the last two seasons and is basically a 4-5 WAR OBP machine without any other standout traits in his game. Somewhere, Joey Votto weeps. Nah, Joey Votto probably cares less than anyone.<\/p>\n The Atlanta Braves finances, revealed!<\/p>\n As the only publicly held franchise in the game, the yearly unpacking of the Braves financial report is one of the few open looks inside the game\u2019s finances. As a result, there\u2019s always a ton of interest when their yearly numbers come out.<\/p>\n This excellent thread from Daniel Meyer on X unpacks the Braves financial picture for us pretty well.<\/a><\/p>\n The main points to a Tigers fan are that the Braves took in $600 million in revenue, with only a quarter of that coming from revenues inside the ballpark itself in the form of ticket sales, merch, concessions, etc. They turned a profit of $46 million on all that revenue.<\/p>\n