A year ago, it was the Dodgers signing Shohei Ohtani to a $700 million contract and then signing Yoshinobu Yamamoto for $325 million. But you know what happened to the Dodgers on their way to winning a World Series with both players? They were one loss away from going home against the Padres in the National League Division Series. Then, it wasn¡¯t the billion dollars they spent on free agents that saved them in Game 4 of that series. It was a bullpen game. Why? Because it¡¯s baseball, that¡¯s why.

Did the Yankees just lose Juan Soto, and lose him to the Mets, at a price that might end up being $100 million more than what the Dodgers paid for Ohtani? They sure did. They placed a big bet on Soto when they traded for him a year ago -- even knowing they might only have him for a season -- and at the same time placed a big bet on themselves and their brand. Now, the Yanks have lost him. But that doesn¡¯t mean they lost any chance they had of going back to the World Series. It just doesn¡¯t work that way, as important as Ohtani and Yamamoto were to the Dodgers winning it all in the end.

The Nationals had Bryce Harper and then they lost him to free agency in 2019, and you know what happened to Washington that year? It won the World Series. Alex Rodriguez was about the same age as Soto -- with a resume every bit as dazzling, and perhaps even more -- when he became a free agent and left the Mariners in 2000. Rodriguez was the one who broke a contract record at the time, signing with the Rangers for $252 million.

You know what happened to Seattle in 2001 after A-Rod was gone? It won 116 games, on the cusp of breaking a different kind of record: victories in a single season.

And there is even more to Rodriguez¡¯s story. A lot more, actually. It was in February of 2004, with the Yankees coming off a rather shocking World Series loss to the Marlins, that they swung the trade to get Rodriguez from the Rangers and have him come play third base next to Derek Jeter, putting the two best shortstops in the sport side by side.

I happened to be in Boston that weekend, and from the reaction there, you would have thought it was the end of everything, particularly after the Red Sox had tried and failed to swing a trade for Rodriguez themselves. It was as if the Yankees had just punched their ticket to the Canyon of Heroes for the rest of the decade, at least.

Again: February of 2004. Since then, the Yankees have played in just two World Series, winning one of them, back in 2009. But you know who¡¯s won four World Series in the past two decades? The Red Sox, the team that didn¡¯t get Alex Rodriguez because the Yankees did.

Sometimes the team that wins the winter in baseball does go on to win the season. It just happened to be the Dodgers last year. But they really were that close to being knocked out of the playoffs before getting anywhere near the Fall Classic again. And the way that NL Division Series looked across its first three games, nobody would have been surprised if that had happened.

Except -- because it¡¯s baseball -- the Padres not only got shut out in the bullpen game in Game 4, they got shut out in Game 5, too. After coming one win from knocking off the Dodgers, they never scored another run. Los Angeles won Game 4 at Petco Park, 8-0, by the way. Ohtani only drove in one of those runs. After all that money spent last winter, here were the Dodger relievers who saved the team¡¯s season:

Ryan Brasier.
Anthony Banda.
Michael Kopech.
Alex Vesia.
Evan Phillips.
Daniel Hudson.
Blake Treinen.
Landon Knack.

The Mets absolutely played the Dodgers tougher in the National League Championship Series than the Yankees did in the World Series, taking them to six games when the Yanks didn¡¯t get past Game 5. But does Soto put his new club over the top, with all the holes it still has to fill in its starting rotation? He does not. And his arrival at Citi Field doesn¡¯t change the fact that the Mets aren¡¯t just playing in a tougher division than the Yankees, they¡¯re playing in a tougher league.

Does Yankees general manager Brian Cashman have his work cut out for him just to help New York hold its position at the top of the American League East? He does. He has holes to fill in the infield and outfield and in his bullpen. But Cashman also has money with which to work that he wouldn¡¯t have had if he had signed Soto.

Of course the Yankees didn¡¯t want to lose Soto, and they certainly didn¡¯t want to lose him to the Mets. But they didn¡¯t lose their season, either. Remember one more thing: The Padres won more games last season without Soto (93) than they did with him the year before (82).