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Notes and observations from Major League Baseball as a very interesting Hot Stove offseason heats up:
The 2023-24 offseason is shaping up as one of the most intriguing in quite awhile, for numerous reasons.
The Dodgers broke the bank, spending over a billion dollars in total so far and signing the plum of this year's free-agent market, pitcher-designated hitter Shohei Ohtani, to a 10-year, $700 million contract in December.
Even though Ohtani had arm surgery and won't be pitching this season, his acquisition is the coup of the offseason and was followed shortly thereafter by L.A. landing the second most sought-after available player, right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, to a 12-year, $325 million contract.
Both Ohtani and Yamamoto are among the top players to ever have competed in Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball circuit.
Toss in a third offseason signing -- the five-year, $136.5 million contact inked by former Pittsburgh Pirates top pitching prospect Tyler Glasnow -- and the Dodgers truly have an embarrassment of riches on their very deep and talented pitching staff.
There are no guarantees in baseball -- the Dodgers, despite all of their free spending over the years, have just one full-season World Championship (1988) to their credit over the last 36 seasons -- but it certainly seems that L.A. is approaching the 2024 season in a World Series or bust mode after last fall's very disappointing first-round National League playoff ouster via a three-game sweep at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
n Speaking of the Diamondbacks, who rode the momentum from the Dodgers sweep all the way into last year's World Series, where they lost in five games to the Texas Rangers, Arizona hasn't stood on its laurels this offseason.
The Diamondbacks went out and fortified their already solid pitching staff by signing free agent left-hander Eduardo Rodriquez, who was an ace with the Detroit Tigers.
The Diamondbacks also strengthened their lineup by trading for veteran infielder Eugenio Suarez, who belted 22 home runs and drove in 96 runs last season with the Seattle Mariners.
n The Pirates have made moves to address needs in both their starting pitching rotation and at first base -- two areas where they were sorely wanting entering this offseason.
Time will tell whether the acquisitions pan out well, though.
The Pirates picked up veteran left-hander Marco Gonzales in exchange for cash considerations from the Atlanta Braves, and veteran lefty Martin Perez from the World Champion Rangers.
Both come with caveats, however.
Gonzales pitched just 50 innings in 10 starts last year for the Seattle Mariners before going on the injured list in June with a forearm strain that led to a flexor strain in his pitching arm that would shut him down for the rest of the season and require surgery.
Gonzales will be 32 in February and has carded a 65-49 career record with a 4.14 earned run average. He was a first-round draft pick by the St. Louis Cardinals back in 2013, but whether he can catch his second wind with the Pirates this season after winning 10 games with the Mariners in both 2021 and 2022 remains to be seen.
Perez also comes with his share of question marks, despite posting a 10-4 record with the Rangers in 2023, when he was relegated to the bullpen late in the regular season and during the playoffs.
Perez, who will be 33 later this year, is two seasons removed from his career-best 2022 season, when he logged a 12-8 record with a 2.89 ERA in 196.1 innings pitched. Perez also underwent Tommy John surgery in 2022, returning to action late last season.
Both Gonzales and Perez project as mid-rotation starters for the Pirates if they are healthy and effective.
The Pirates are also rolling the dice on Rowdy Tellez, who they acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers to get a long look at the first base position, at which several other in-house candidates will be bidding for playing time as well.
Tellez slipped to a .215 batting average with 13 home runs and 47 RBIs in 2023 after an outstanding season in 2022, when he belted 35 home runs and drove in 89 runs.
n Other veteran pitchers who the Pirates were believed to have had a legitimate chance of signing agreed to contracts with other teams. They included right-handers Jack Flaherty (Detroit Tigers), Frankie Montas (Cincinnati Reds), Lucas Giolito (Baltimore Orioles) and left-hander Sean Manaea (New York Mets).
Yariel Rodriquez, a talented right-handed pitcher from Cuba, was also on the Pirates' radar this offseason before he recently signed with the Toronto Blue Jays.
n The St. Louis Cardinals signed two veteran mid to lower-tier rotation right-handed pitchers, Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn, who won 15 and 13 games, respectively, last season for the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox/Los Angeles Dodgers.
Like the Pirates' Gonzales and Perez, Lynn and Gibson come with a combination of upside and question marks.
The Cardinals' biggest get this offseason was coveted veteran right-hander Sonny Gray, who was 8-8 with a very good 2.79 ERA last season in 32 starts with the Minnesota Twins.
Gray will bring stability to a Cardinals' rotation that was one of the National League's worst in 2023, when St. Louis skidded to a 71-91 record and a last-place finish in the NL Central Division.
n With the NFL playoffs in full gear this weekend, there's a neat Pirates angle involved.
Jerry Goff, the father of Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff, was a catcher for the Pirates on their 1993 and 1994 teams. Jerry Goff played sparingly as a backup catcher those two seasons, appearing in a total of only 22 games and collecting 13 hits in 62 at-bats, with two home runs and seven RBIs.
In a seven-year Major League Baseball career that spanned from 1990 to 1996 and included three years of service with the former Montreal Expos (now Washington Nationals), two years with the Pirates, and two with the Houston Astros, Jerry Goff appeared in a total of 90 games and carded a .215 batting average with seven homers and 19 RBIs.
The father of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes -- whose name is also Pat -- was a right-handed pitcher for six Major League teams, including the Pirates, in a 12-year career that spanned from 1992 to 2003.
The older Mahomes made nine appearances, including one start, with the Pirates in the 2003 season -- which was his last in MLB -- recording an 0-1 record with a 4.84 earned run average and 13 strikeouts in 22• innings.
The older Mahomes pitched for six major league teams -- the Minnesota Twins, Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers, New York Mets and Boston Red Sox, as well as the Pirates -- making 308 regular-season appearances (including 63 starts), and carding a 42-39 career record with a 5.47 ERA and 452 strikeouts in 709 innings pitched. He also had 11 hits in 43 at-bats (a .256 average) and four RBIs.
John Hartsock can be reached at jhartsock@altoonamirror.com.