MLB Season Preview: Ohtani headlines Dodgers' $1.2BILLION spending spree, Gerrit Cole and Aaron Judge are vital for the Yankees and the Angels' Mike Trout is chasing home run history

The starting gun is ready to fire in the race for the 120th World Series.

For the ninth time in MLB history, that hunt begins overseas, with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres kicking off the 2024 season with two games at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, South Korea. 

With new rules, new faces and new frontiers to be breached, here are Mail Sport’s 10 things to watch in 2024:

 1. The Sho-time Dodgers

The Los Angeles Dodgers have lifted 10 of the last 11 NL West titles, barreled along at a 104-win pace for the last seven seasons, and own a roster bulging with MVPs and All-Stars.

Shohei Ohtani signed a massive $700m, 10-year contract with the Dodgers in free agency

So, naturally, they decided they were $1.2billion worth of talent short, and embarked on the most astonishing off-season spending spree in living memory. Shohei Ohtani is in town, and because he’s as selfless as he is freakishly talented, he deferred $680m of his world-record $700m, 10-year contract. 

That allowed the Dodgers to hand a record deal for a pitcher to a man who has never thrown a baseball in MLB - Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who will become $325m richer over the next 12 years.

Throw in Tyler Glasnow, Teoscar Hernandez, and a fit-again Walker Buehler and Blake Treinen, and a 104-win pace might start to look a tad sluggish before too long.

2. Are the Yankees back? Or broken? 

This should have been the year the Evil Empire struck back after 15 years without nothing to show for it. 

Juan Soto, still the best young hitter in baseball, is here and perhaps for one season only, with the motivation of playing for a $500m contract when he reaches free agency at season’s end. 

Marcus Stroman was a strong pick-up for the rotation, while in Gerrit Cole and Aaron Judge, they have the most fearsome players on each side of the ball. Or they did until last week, when both suffered injury scares. 

Yankees Ace Gerrit Cole doesn't need Tommy John surgery but will still miss time

Cole will leave a Cy Young Award-shaped hole in the starting staff for a couple of months, and while Judge may make it back for Opening Day, he still cannot shrug off fears about whether his 6ft 7in frame is built to last a full season.

With Cole and Judge in the team, this is a World Series contender. Without them, and their shot at title No28 is close to none.

3. Farewell to Oakland 

The franchise with the third-most championships in MLB history does not have a home for next season. The franchise of Rickie and Reggie, Jose and Big Mac, Eck, Rollie and Brad Pitt.

It’s also, thanks to a committed teardown despite 11 playoff appearances in 24 seasons this century, the franchise of complete unknowns, including the majority of the major-league roster. 

Athletics manager Mark Kotsay, left, walks toward the dugout after making a pitching change

The only things guaranteed for next season are manager Mark Kotsay’s contract, and that they will leave the Oakland Coliseum, their home of 56 years. Before they gamble on Vegas, 2024 is one long swansong for a fanbase that deserves a whole lot more.

Last season, a ‘reverse boycott’ drew by far the highest crowd of the season - 27,759 - chanting for owner John Fisher to sell the team, and one of just 50 wins. What about making it an every game occurrence? A’s fans have every right to stay at home all season after their team joined the Warriors and Raiders in walking out on Oakland, but what a glorious goodbye it would be for the green and gold.

4. Even shorter games

After being introduced with a certain degree of trepidation last season, the pitch clock can already measure up for its place in a Hall of Fame exhibit of baseball’s most revolutionary changes, alongside livening the ball in 1920, lowering the mound in 1969 and the introduction of the designated hitter four years later.

Major League Baseball implemented a pitch clock last season to reduce the length of games

The average MLB game in 2023 lasted two hours, 42 minutes - 20 minutes shorter than the year before and to widespread acclaim from fans and players. The crackdown tightens this year, with the clock cut from 20 seconds with runners on base to 18 in the hope of breaking the two-and-a-half-hour mark.

5. Playing for their future

It’s not just Soto entering who can walk free this winter - All-Stars Pete Alonso, Paul Goldschmidt, Max Fried, Corbin Burnes, Gleyber Torres, Alex Bregman, Walker Buehler, Shane Bieber and Freddy Peralta lead a stacked class all out of contract after this season and looking to earn a payday that will set them and their families up for life. 

And that’s not to mention Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman and Justin Verlander, who can go round again if they exercise opt-outs. 

Pete Alonso will look to have a big season for the New York Mets in a contract year

The Hot Stove froze over this off-season as teams point to uncertainty over local TV contracts, but expect it to blaze again this winter.

6. Chasing records

Imagine telling someone five years ago that Clayton Kershaw would be in a race against time to record a mere 56 strikeouts in a season.

But thanks to a cruel left shoulder injury, a return date almost certain to be after the All-Star Break and the high chance the Dodgers go with a six-man rotation, the greatest pitcher of his generation has a job on his hands if he wants to become the 20th member of the 3,000 strikeout club in 2024. 

Mike Trout needs 32 homers this season to reach 400 total. He hit 18 last year in just 82 games.

His fellow 2014 MVP Mike Trout is 32 home runs away from 400 for his career, while Andrew McCutchen needs just one more round-tripper to make it to 300. Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo is five home runs away from 300 and 70 RBIs from 1,000. Monster seasons from Soto (160 career HR) and Ronald Acuna Jnr (161) could vault them into the 200 club.

7. International Series

South Korea will become the seventh country to host MLB games when the Dodgers and Padres roll into Seoul this week, joining the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom. 

Mexico City, which hosted games for the first time last season, will again welcome MLB with the Houston Astros and Colorado Rockies in town next month, while the highest attendance anywhere in baseball this year will again be in London, where almost 60,000 fans will watch the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies in early June.

The Padres' Manny Machado (left) attends a practice session at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul

8. New skippers

The Chicago Cubs were so desperate to steal Craig Counsell away from the Milwaukee Brewers that they fired David Ross, a hero of the 2016 curse-breakers, and gave Counsell a record $40m, five-year contract. 

The 53-year-old has long been revered as the finest mind in any dugout, and his $8m annual salary reflects that - it’s near-enough double what any other manager will make in 2024. But the Cubs haven’t won a postseason series since the 2017 NLDS, so that money comes with pressure.

Elsewhere, Mets players are raving about their first-time manager Carlos Mendoza’s elite communication skills, and Pat Murphy has the giant task of following Counsell in a Burnes-less Milwaukee. 

The Cubs poached manager Craig Counsell from the Brewers with a $40m, five-year contract

Two future Hall of Famers, Terry Francona and Dusty Baker, have been replaced by rookie skippers Stephen Vogt and Joe Espada in Cleveland and Houston respectively. And two more, Ron Washington and Bob Melvin, have new jobs in California as the top men in Anaheim and San Francisco. 

Mike Shildt, fired in St Louis for clashing with the new-age style, has been given another shot, replacing Melvin in San Diego.

9. Rookie revelations 

Baltimore’s young core led them to their first 100-win season for 43 years in 2023, and after an abrupt first-round sweep by the eventual-champion Texas Rangers in the play-offs, they’re even younger and even more talented this year, fronted by consensus best prospect in baseball Jackson Holliday at shortstop. 

The Rangers, looking to become the first team to go back-to-back since the 1998-2000 Yankees, have a pair of rookie of the year contenders in outfielders Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford.

In the National League it’s all about Milwaukee’s Jackson Chourio, 2022 No. 1 overall pick Paul Skenes of the Pirates and overseas imports in Yamamoto, Shota Imanaga of the Cubs and Giants spark plug Jung-Hoo Lee.

Jackson Holliday of the Baltimore Orioles is widely considered baseball's top prospect

10. Last chance to see

Miguel Cabrera, Adam Wainwright, Nelson Cruz and their combined 22 All-Star appearances hung up their cleats after the 2023 season, and were followed by the likes of Josh Donaldson and Eric Hosmer just before this campaign got underway. 

This year may well be the end of the road for more Hall of Fame contenders, led by the larger-than-life Joey Votto, who has a minor-league deal with his hometown Toronto Blue Jays at the age of 40 after 17 imperious seasons in Cincinnati. 

Zack Greinke, a month younger than Votto and another of the game’s unique personalities, is yet to find a club and his options are shrinking fast with the Kansas City Royals turning away from a reunion as the six-time All-Star and 2009 Cy Young Award winner sits 21 strikeouts from 3,000.

Then there’s Kershaw, Verlander and Max Scherzer, all trending towards the end. The lone consolation of so many greats saying goodbye? Just picture the scene in Cooperstown 2030 as they all cruise into the Hall together on their first ballot.