Baseball

After managing the Kansas City Royals to their first American League pennant in nearly three decades, Ned Yost has been rewarded with a one-year contract extension.    

The team announced the news on Twitter:

This offseason has been one of the more interesting ones in recent memory for the Atlanta Braves.

It started with the firing of general manager Frank Wren, as John Hart stepped in with a clear goal of changing the direction of the organization.

Hart has went to work on building depth in the farm system and has especially focused on stockpiling young arms.

The once-stocked Cardinals system isn’t as strong as previous years, though that was to be expected after the team graduated Kolten Wong and Carlos Martinez to the major leagues last season and tragically lost a future star in Oscar Taveras.

The Cincinnati Reds' top prospects can be broken down into two groups: outfielders and pitchers.

As you might have guessed, the Reds don’t have a particularly balanced system due to a lack of infield prospects. However, that shouldn’t detract from the fact that they have several players with bright futures in the major leagues.

The Boston Red Sox enter 2015 with a number of fresh faces and many returning veterans.  The end results of a variety of winter dealings so far are favorable to some Red Sox players and not so kind to others.  With spring training lurking around the corner, here are the biggest winners and losers of Boston's offseason so far, categorized by position players and pitchers.

Position Players

Winner: Hanley Ramirez

Andre Ethier was once a pillar of the storied Los Angeles Dodgers organization, so stable a contributor that the previous ownership/front-office regime gave him a heavy eight-figure contract.

Already blessed with a future that looks plenty bright, there's a chance the Pittsburgh Pirates' future will look even brighter before long. It depends on what will become of their newest acquisition.

If you're just now joining us, that's Jung-ho Kang. 

Major League Baseball's offseason is undeniably the most exciting in sports.

Once the winter meetings get going in early December, players begin signing contracts and switching uniforms at a rapid pace. Teams are making trades, bringing in free agents and bidding against one another in the name of improving their own ballclub.

There's less than three months remaining until Opening Day, and the Los Angeles Dodgers look decidedly different than they did at the beginning of the offseason.

For starters, the front office was stripped down and replaced with a new regime headed by president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and general manager Farhan Zaidi.

Anyone who is in love with sports can appreciate the experience of meeting a favorite athlete: the excitement, the joy—and hopefully, the picture.

Sadly, this fan only got the last part—and he didn't even notice.

Roy Halladay saw a fan wearing his jersey, stood behind him and took a photo.