Five Losers of MLB’s Offseason

Pitchers and catchers officially begin their preseason workouts this week, ending an eventful offseason where many teams improved their rosters heading into 2020.

For all the winners of the winters, though, there are the offseason losers. These are the clubs that failed to make the necessary roster upgrades, the free agents who miscalculated their values and the aging players in the twilight of their careers whose services are no longer desired. Below are the five biggest losers this winter.

So, any losers who you’d like to add to the list?

With two Cy Young Awards, Jacob deGrom on Cooperstown path

Maybe, just maybe, we can start taking educated guesses on how this storybook tale of Jacob deGrom’s rise from college shortstop to elite ace will end.

Having won consecutive NL Cy Young awards by claiming 29 of 30 first-place votes, deGrom is now one of 11 pitchers to ever win consecutive Cy Young awards.

Next season he’ll have his chance to become just the third pitcher to ever win three in a row.

He’s already one of the greatest pitchers in Mets history, an organization fueled by great pitching. And these awards cements him as one of his generation’s most dominant pitchers.

Bit of an overbid for someone who has only pitched for six years, isn’t it?

deGrom repeats, JV edges Cole for Cy honors

It was a night for second helpings—a serving long-awaited for one Cooperstown-caliber arm and not-so-long-awaited for the Cy Young’s rare repeat customer.

The Astros’ Justin Verlander and the Mets’ Jacob deGrom are the 2019 winners of the American League and National League Cy Young Awards, as announced on Wednesday night on MLB Network by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. And these two-time winners of baseball’s biggest pitching prize took two very different paths to this point.

For Verlander, who won the 2011 AL Cy Young with the Tigers, this award is well-deserved relief after three second-place finishes in 2012, 2016 and 2018. This time, he had to edge out his own equally deserving teammate, Gerrit Cole, to win one of the more interesting Cy races in recent memory.

“It’s just truly incredible,” Verlander said on the MLB Network announcement show. “2011 was just a magical season. I didn’t have to grind through much at that point in time. A lot has changed since then, personally and professionally. It just makes it that much sweeter. Having come so close a couple other times, all that this means, it’s just such an incredible feeling.”