Morning Mound Visit: The offseason has been historically slow

Jeff Passan | ESPN $: Slow offseasons have been the norm as of late, but this winter has been especially glacial. By New Year’s Day of 2020, teams had committed nine times as much to signed free agents than what has been spent until now. Plus, Tomoyuki Sugano has until Thursday to sign with a MLB team, but he may choose to stay in Japan.

Rob Mains | Baseball Prospectus $: Cubs chair Tom Ricketts claimed MLB suffered biblical losses in 2020 due to the pandemic. The Cubs have since cut payroll anywhere they can from laying off staff to trading Yu Darvish which might lend credence to his claim, but the numbers don’t add up to anything resembling “biblical.”

Ben Clemens | FanGraphs: Though MLB’s profit-driven, noncompetitive climate continues to be a bummer, Juan Soto continues to spark joy. Soto had another brilliant year that went somewhat unnoticed because of Washington’s irrelevance, and Soto did it by being more aggressive without striking out more often.