Baseball

The Kansas City Royals made a big splash in 2012 when they traded away top-rated prospect Wil Myers, Jake Odorizzi, Mike Montgomery and Patrick Leonard to the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for James Shields and Wade Davis.

Changes are everywhere on the North Side of Chicago this baseball season. The bleachers—which won't be fully constructed until May—are undergoing renovations, a big board is going up in left-center field, and the product on the field is changing drastically.

Obviously, any change from the past five miserable years of Chicago Cubs baseball is welcomed by a fanbase hungry for a World Series title that has eluded them for over a decade.

In the modern age of baseball, there are two types of teams when it comes to the offseason. Those looking to make an immediate run to the World Series, and those willing to offload talent to get a jump-start on a rebuild.

Ichiro Suzuki isn't done with Major League Baseball just yet.

The 41-year-old outfielder reportedly signed with the Miami Marlins, according to Craig Mish of MLB Network Radio, via Jon Heyman of CBS Sports:

Ryan Vogelsong's performance regressed in his past two years with the San Francisco Giants, but that didn't stop the reigning World Series champions from bringing the veteran starting pitcher back on a one-year deal.

Alex Pavlovic of the San Jose Mercury News reported the deal is official:

Major League Baseball's offseason has been bananas, right? Perhaps the wildest and most active in recent memory—or maybe ever. At least, that's how it feels while we're right in the middle of it.

But how does this offseason stack up with hot stoves past?

Let's start with a quick table that ranks the past nine offseasons in terms of total spending on free-agent contracts, according to ESPN.com:

If case you haven’t been paying attention, the San Diego Padres and first-time general manager A.J. Preller have been busy this offseason.

Since the beginning of December, the Padres have added some of baseball’s premier right-handed power hitters through trades in outfielders Justin Upton, Matt Kemp and Wil Myers, as well as catcher Derek Norris.

Here's a contrarian point of view: The New York Mets should be glad the National League East-rival Washington Nationals just splurged $210 million on Max Scherzer. But we'll get to that in a bit.