Welcome to a new year of Rounding the Diamond! This year at The Hoya, we will be experimenting with a new digital scratch-and-sniff technology. Don’t believe me? Try scratching that little photo of me! It should smell like blueberries and a hint of my repressed tears from the New York Mets’ early playoff exit.

Once you’ve had enough fun enjoying this new feature, get ready for some riveting thoughts on what has thus far been an eventful MLB offseason.

This offseason has confirmed what most MLB fans already know: the league has a solidified hierarchical system, with the upper echelon teams being the only ones making moves to field a competitive team.

Let’s start out with an obvious statement that’s been a theme throughout this column’s existence: the rich keep getting richer. Teams like the Mets and the New York Yankees are both exceeding their already-high 2022 team payrolls of over $250 million with their additions of stars Justin Verlander, Kodai Senga and Carlos Rodón.

The next group includes teams that have championship potential — heavy emphasis on potential — but no drive to excel. These teams, such as the Seattle Mariners and the Cleveland Guardians, surround superstar players with mediocrity.

These teams did make moves to add to their already-solid rosters this offseason, but their rosters are still just that: solid. Team owners were unwilling to take risks on big investments in stars, instead acquiring players like Teoscar Hernández, A.J. Pollock and Josh Bell, who will only help marginally. They’re content with their mediocrity.

Whew! Is it just me or is it getting hot in here? Oh, wait. That’s just because we are now in the trenches of MLB. Teams like the Oakland Athletics and Pittsburgh Pirates are going from bad to worse. These teams are not even pretending to be competitive, making barely any major league signings this offseason.

MLB is, perhaps, most similar to the English Premier League in its hierarchy — the same select teams are the only ones with legitimate championship aspirations, while other teams hold on for dear life as they lose their best players to those elite clubs. 

For what it’s worth, my understanding of the Premier League derives mainly from “Ted Lasso,” as it should for any good American who calls soccer “soccer” and not “football.”

But enough about that boring sport.

This rigid structure makes baseball fun, because when teams break the mold, it’s incredibly entertaining. The Baltimore Orioles’ history of poor performance is one of the main reasons their success in 2022 was one of the best stories of the season. Seeing even an ounce of competence was exciting. Going from an abysmal 52-110 record to a legitimately competitive 83-79 record is storybook-worthy, making the Orioles the first team to accomplish such a massive bounce back since the 1899 St. Louis Perfectos. They were able to ascend from baseball’s lowest level to one of mediocrity — from which elite player additions could have lifted them into that upper echelon of MLB teams. Unfortunately for Orioles fans, their offseason was headlined by Adam Frazier, a career 99 OPS+ hitter (literally the embodiment of average). 

There’s something reassuring about the cyclical nature of MLB. It’s comforting to know that the Chicago Cubs will always be the league’s lovable losers, (except 2016 of course) and that the St. Louis Cardinals and Yankees will always be solid. Perhaps that says something about us as humans — we are comfortable with failure because it’s familiar. 

Or perhaps it doesn’t. Who am I to say? I’m only the guy with a very official scratch-and-sniff photo (seriously, try to get a good whiff!) who has the most accurate and correct takes about the MLB.