The Dodgers have had the "best" offseason of any team, full stop. It would be naive to try to convince anyone to the contrary.

Not only did they add plenty of talent to their roster, they¡¯ve also benefited their franchise in ways on and off the field that could continue to be a windfall for them for years to come ¨C as well as upending the entire conversation around what may or may not be ¡°good for the sport.¡±

We know that. And yet: The Dodgers didn't add the most talent to their 2025 roster of any team. Instead, the Mets did. It may not be the same thing as ¡°won the winter,¡± or ¡°had the best offseason.¡± It¡¯s also not that hard to argue ¨C with, of course, a caveat.

Let¡¯s go back to Nov. 9, the beginning of the offseason. We ranked all 30 teams based on where their projected 2025 rosters started the winter, accounting for the fact that unsigned free agents were no longer part of the picture ¨C Juan Soto wasn¡¯t a Yankee, Walker Buehler wasn¡¯t a Dodger, Corbin Burnes wasn't an Oriole, and so on.

At the time, the 2025 Mets roster was ranked merely No. 19, despite the '24 club having reached the NLCS, because in addition to the obvious drama around whether Pete Alonso would stay, New York had a total of 14 unsigned free agents, including much of its starting rotation. This team had a lot of work to do just to tread water.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, were unsurprisingly ranked No. 1, though in a virtual tie with the Braves. Remember, while the Dodgers had won at least 100 games in each of the previous four full seasons, they won "only" 98 in a very-good-but-not-really-historically-elite season. (In fact, it was the first time in a decade that no team won 100 games in a full season.) After that, Los Angeles saw plenty of its own talent enter free agency, including Buehler, Teoscar Hern¨¢ndez, Jack Flaherty, Enrique Hern¨¢ndez, Blake Treinen, Daniel Hudson and Clayton Kershaw. (Plus, long-time stars like Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts and Max Muncy aren¡¯t exactly getting younger, which matters.) They needed to get better, and they did.

Since we know what the 2025 projections looked like in November, before anyone signed, and we know what they look like now, after most of the free agents have signed, what we can do is compare the two. By looking at the difference between each team¡¯s 2025 current projected WAR totals now as compared to then, as we laid out here, we can see by how much each team improved its 2025 outlook over the last few months.

(If this sounds familiar, we did this exactly one year ago, showing that the Yankees, for all the angst over what they didn¡¯t do in failing to land Shohei Ohtani or Yoshinobu Yamamoto, did actually improve their roster more than anyone in the American League. Lest this open up the door to wondering about New York bias: Do remember that the Yankees did, in fact, reach the World Series last year.)

When we do that, we can see that across the Majors, teams have added an average of 2.2 WAR this winter. It¡¯s not zero, and shouldn¡¯t be, because dozens of free agents weren¡¯t on teams in November, and now they are. Four teams (Marlins, Guardians, White Sox, Royals) lost at least 1 WAR in 2025 projections based on how their winters went. A number of teams held steady, or gained a win or two.

These dozen teams, however, gained at least 3 projected 2025 wins since the offseason began ¨C none more so than the Mets, who added nearly 9 WAR, edging out the Dodgers and their +7.5 added WAR.

For the most part, this group makes sense. After the offseason began in November, this collection of teams did go out and add Garrett Crochet, Kyle Tucker, Max Fried, Devin Williams, Jake Burger, Joc Pederson, Anthony Santander, Willy Adames, Jes¨²s Luzardo, Gleyber Torres, Jack Flaherty and Jurickson Profar, among others. If you're looking for a list of the teams who put the most effort into trying to make moves this winter, this is a good start.

There, at the top, are the Mets.

So: How are we saying the Mets gained more value than the Dodgers did? A quick rundown of the primary moves the Mets made this winter, if you¡¯ve forgotten, with 2025 FanGraphs projections in parentheses.

• Signed Juan Soto (+6.5 WAR), long on track to be one of the greatest hitters in history, and highly likely to reach some all-time marks in a Mets uniform.
• Signed four starting pitchers ¨C Sean Manaea (+2.0 WAR), Clay Holmes (+2.3 WAR), Frankie Montas (+1.4 WAR), Griffin Canning (+0.4 WAR) ¨C adding desperately needed quantity, if not quite ace-level quality.
• Signed a pair of relievers (A.J. Minter, Ryne Stanek) and a pair of veteran position players (Jose Siri, Jesse Winker), combining for +3.4 WAR.

That this doesn¡¯t all add up to exactly +8.8 WAR is owed to changing playing time estimates ¨C as new players arrive, previous ones lose playing time or roster spots ¨C but for all the work the Dodgers did this winter, it¡¯s important to remember that they signed a lot of very good players, and yet no one who is continually referred to as present-day Ted Williams, as Soto often is.

That¡¯s reflected in the projections, too. Los Angeles added more players expected to contribute at least +3 WAR (Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki, with Hern¨¢ndez close enough to count) than the Mets did (Soto). But they didn¡¯t add anyone like Soto, because there is no one like Soto ¨C which is why the Mets gave him 765 million non-deferred dollars.

But wait, what about that caveat we noted at the top? It¡¯s about where these teams started from. It¡¯s true that the Mets added more 2025 projected wins than the Dodgers did. It¡¯s also true that the Mets started from much further back, making those improvements easier to add. Put another way, the Mets right now are projected for about as much 2025 WAR (47) as the Dodgers were back in November (48), after Los Angeles had lost its free agents but before adding anyone. It¡¯s why the Mets are projected to be ¡°strongly in the National League race,¡± with the sixth-best projection in the Majors, and the Dodgers are roundly considered the title favorites again.

On the other hand, when we did this last year, as we said, the Yankees were the second-most improved team, and they faced off in the World Series against the most improved team, the Dodgers. The winter before, we had the Rangers as improving by +9.9 WAR, the most of any team that winter, and they went on to win the World Series. ¡°Winning the offseason¡± guarantees nothing. It doesn¡¯t hurt, either.

There¡¯s another caveat here, though, and that¡¯s that after all these months, Alonso still remains unsigned. He won¡¯t move the needle as much as you might think, given that he's projected for 2.9 WAR, which is quite useful if not a star. (That¡¯s exactly why this negotiation has lingered on for so long.) Yet a return to the Mets still seems like the most likely outcome.

The Mets have added more 2025 talent than any other team this offseason. The offseason, however, is not quite over yet. There may be more still to come.