Baseball

After being disappointing for most of the offseason by missing out on a couple coveted free agents, the Chicago Cubs made their first major free-agent splash in five years. That splash, of course, was the six-year, $155 million contract they signed ace Jon Lester to at the winter meetings.

The 2014 MLB winter meetings saw many big splashes, but the Atlanta Braves were not a part of one of them.

Despite rumors of the Braves being involved in trade talks, nothing materialized on that front.

The two main trade targets the Braves are shopping are Justin Upton and Evan Gattis, and things remained quiet on that front throughout the week, according to MLB.com's Mark Bowman:

The Cincinnati Reds made headlines Thursday with two big trades in which they parted with two of their five starting pitchers from the 2014 season.

In the early a.m. on Thursday, I gave Walt Jocketty a C- for his participation in the winter meetings. This was clearly before Mr. Jocketty's phone went nitro and things started to move.

The Oakland Athletics have had an interesting offseason to say the least—one extremely difficult to grade.

If you look at it from the perspective that the A's were contenders and are retooling to remain as contenders in 2015, then the grade is an F. They downgraded at third base, traded their starting first baseman and one of their top starting pitchers and did not sign a proven shortstop.

The 2014 MLB winter meetings have come and gone, with the Boston Red Sox as one of the event's most active participants.

Now that the dust has settled in San Diego, it's time to evaluate Boston's offseason to this point.  Below are individual grades for each move the Red Sox have made, as well as an overall assessment of their performance.

The 2014 MLB winter meetings in San Diego arrived. Rumors flew. Teams signed players and dealt others. Plenty of action went down.

Then, the winter meetings went, just as quickly as they arrived.

A+

No, seriously. A+. Catcher has been upgraded, shortstop has been upgraded, second base has been upgraded, depth has been added, and essentially all it cost was Matt Kemp and a left-handed pitching prospect named Tom Windle.

Shoot for Jon Lester—even if you miss, you'll land Rick Porcello, Wade Miley and Justin Masterson.

OK, so that's not exactly how the saying goes. But it is the reality for the Boston Red Sox, who whiffed on a chance to bring back Lester at the MLB winter meetings but did manage to revamp their starting corps, which posted an unsightly 4.36 ERA in 2014.

All remains fairly quiet for the Texas Rangers this offseason, as the 2014 winter meetings have now come and gone.