MLB offseason lessons: Dodgers' spending, Skubal rumors, more - ESPN

With pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training across Arizona and Florida next week and all of Kiley McDaniel's top 10 free agents now signed, there is light at the end of the offseason tunnel for baseball fans.

But before we say goodbye to the 2025-26 MLB offseason, it is a perfect time to make sense of the biggest themes of a wild winter and examine what they mean for the 2026 season — and the future of MLB.

How do the latest spending sprees by the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets impact the mindset of baseball's 28 other teams? What does an offseason of trade rumors mean for next summer's trade deadline? And how should fans of contenders that went big — and others that decided to run it back with the same roster — feel about the season ahead?

We asked ESPN MLB insiders Buster Olney and Jeff Passan to break it all down.

Olney: Financial disparity among teams has long existed, but the Dodgers' payroll will serve to galvanize the effort of other owners to rebuild the sport's financial system through some kind of proposed cap-and-floor design. As one former player said: «It's like we're back in 1994 — you've got some owners looking for the players to solve ownership issues.»

The players went on strike in August of 1994, of course, and that fall's World Series was canceled. But it remains to be seen how far the owners will push to revamp the system, and whether the players' coalition will hold together as strongly as it did three decades ago.

Passan: Let's not forget the Mets, either. Their Opening Day payroll is upward of $50 million more than the Dodgers'. But Buster's points stand regardless: The spending of the top two teams has reinforced to 28 others that change is necessary. They believe that change