Here's what LA's president of baseball operations, Andrew Friedman, didn't need to say out loud when Kyle Tucker penned his four-year, $240 million deal in January: they already had Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman, and they went and got the best free agent on the market anyway. The Dodgers' luxury-tax payroll will exceed $400 million in 2026 — with the taxes alone projected to eclipse $149 million, more than the combined tax bills of every other team in baseball. They're not building a dynasty. They're fortifying one, brick by expensive brick, against a sport that theoretically has mechanisms to stop this.

So while every other front office spent this winter playing checkers at the kids' table, the Dodgers played a different game entirely. Already the reigning back-to-back champions, they have underlined their position with online betting sites as the overwhelming favorites to claim a famous three-peat in 2026. The latest odds from the popular Lucky-Rebel list LA as the clear +220 frontrunner for the World Series this year, with their nearest challenger way out at +1000. 

But just because the Dodgers stole the show this offseason, it doesn't make the rest uninteresting — far from it. What makes this winter genuinely fascinating is watching teams like the Mets, Blue Jays, and Tigers answer an impossible question: how do you compete with that?

Tucker To LA 

We may as well start with the blockbuster. Tucker's $240 million deal — $30 million deferred, $57.1 million AAV for luxury-tax purposes, a record eclipsing Juan Soto's — includes opt-outs after 2027 and 2028.  That's the organizational genius buried inside the obscenity: if Tucker explodes, he opts out, and LA re-signs him at market. If he regresses, the Dodgers shed him with premium years still on the roster. 

The Cubs, who surrendered a package from Houston to acquire Tucker before 2024, had him for one injury-shortened season and watched him walk to the team that needed him least. Chicago knows what it's like to lose a player to free agency. This stings differently — you traded for the guy, absorbed his arbitration, and he just joined the franchise with the GDP of a mid-sized nation. What do you even say to your fanbase after that? 

Kyle Tucker is already mentally in October.
pic.twitter.com/JkEjgwX2Nb

— Lucky Rebel (@LuckyRebel__) February 13, 2026

Schwarber Stays

Philadelphia President Dave Dombrowski knew what he was doing when he locked up Kyle Schwarber on December 9 for five years and $150 million. He also knows what the Phillies' roster looks like in 2030: Bryce Harper at 37, J.T. Realmuto at 35, Schwarber at a $30 million DH nearing retirement. The window is now. 

Schwarber averaged 47 home runs over his previous four seasons in red pinstripes — you don't let that walk out of Citizens Bank Park when you genuinely believe 2026 might be your best shot. Philadelphia's payroll approaches $270 million. There's no flexibility left. They're betting their entire roster construction on two or three seasons of urgency. 

Bichette's Pivot

David Stearns failed in his quest to tempt Tucker to Queens on January 15th. Barely 24 hours later, he had Bo Bichette at $42 million AAV for three years — prime years, smart structure, $126 million total. Bichette shifts to third, creates a left-side infield pairing with Francisco Lindor that is genuinely frightening, and gives the Mets the contact bat they'd been missing for years. 

For Toronto, this is devastating. Both Dylan Cease and Bichette are gone in one winter. Bichette spent seven seasons in blue and never won a playoff series. That's the quiet tragedy sitting underneath all of the Mets' ruthless opportunism. 

Peralta's Price 

Three days after Bichette, Stearns reached into his prospect cabinet and paid the full price: Jett Williams (MLB's No. 30 overall prospect), Brandon Sproat, Tobias Myers — all to Milwaukee for Freddy Peralta. The Mets ranked 27th in rotation ERA in the second half of 2025. Peralta went 17-6 with a 2.70 ERA in 33 starts last season. 

The math isn't complicated; the sacrifice is. Stearns decided 2026-27 is worth gutting the farm for. The Mets' CBT payroll now approaches $320 million. Steve Cohen said his goal was to reduce spending toward a more sustainable level. That goal apparently remains aspirational. 

Suarez to Boston 

Five years, $130 million for Ranger Suárez — paired with Sonny Gray, acquired from St. Louis — is Boston's loudest statement since the Chaim Bloom era ended. The Red Sox have been "almost there" since 2018. Suárez and Gray give them a genuine top of the rotation for the first time in years. Whether that's enough in the AL East — with Toronto's rotation, Baltimore's lineup, and the Big Apple’s perennial ambition — is the question that plays out between April and September. 

Arenado to Arizona

The Cardinals traded Nolan Arenado to Arizona on January 13, covering $31 million of his remaining $42 million, and signaled something undeniable: St. Louis is rebuilding.  For a franchise that was a perennial NL Central force, this is an organizational gut punch. For Arizona, Arenado is the championship-pedigree piece alongside Ketel Marte and Corbin Carroll. He's 34. He may have two productive seasons left, or five. The D-backs are betting on the former; the Cardinals are cutting their losses either way. 

Semien-Nimmo: The First Domino

Everything started back on November 23. Stearns traded Brandon Nimmo to Texas, shed $102.5 million through 2030, absorbed $72 million of Semien's deal, and called it a cultural upgrade. He wasn't wrong. Semien's defense is measurably better; his leadership profile is exactly what Stearns was building toward. But more than anything, this trade created the Mets' offseason — it unlocked the payroll space and philosophical clarity that made Bichette, Peralta, and everything else possible.