Man, looking back at the 2022 MLB free agents class is basically like looking at a "before and after" photo of a house that got hit by a tornado and then rebuilt into a mansion. It was chaotic. Stressful. Weirdly quiet for months and then suddenly, insanely loud.
You’ve got to remember the context. We were staring at the first lockout in decades. Owners and players were basically in a cold war, and for a long stretch of winter, the only "baseball news" was a bunch of lawyers in suits walking in and out of hotels in Florida. It felt grim.
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But then? The dam broke.
What followed was a spending spree that didn't just move players around; it fundamentally shifted the power balance of the league. If you want to understand why the Texas Rangers suddenly have a World Series trophy or why the Dodgers look like an All-Star team every single night, you have to look at the mess and the magic of that specific free-agency cycle.
The Shortstop Apocalypse: When Everyone Got Rich
Honestly, the headline of the 2021-2022 offseason was the shortstops. It was a "once-in-a-generation" group, which is a phrase people use way too much, but here, it actually fit. We’re talking about Corey Seager, Marcus Semien (yeah, I know he plays second, but he was a shortstop target), Carlos Correa, Trevor Story, and Javier Báez.
The Texas Rangers decided they were tired of losing 100 games and just... went for it. They spent half a billion dollars on two guys.
- Corey Seager: 10 years, $325 million.
- Marcus Semien: 7 years, $175 million.
People thought they were crazy. "You can't buy a rebuild," they said. Well, fast forward a bit, and Seager is a World Series MVP in a Rangers uniform. Guess the check cleared.
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Then you had the Carlos Correa saga. That was arguably the weirdest part of the whole year. Correa was supposed to be the "big fish," the $300 million man. But the lockout squeezed his market, and he ended up taking a high-AAV "pillow contract" with the Minnesota Twins—three years, $105.3 million with opt-outs. It was a massive gamble on himself that eventually led him through a wild 2023 offseason where he almost signed with the Giants and Mets before ending up back in Minnesota (and later, as of 2025, back in Houston). It was the kind of drama that keeps MLB Twitter alive at 2 a.m.
The Freddie Freeman Heartbreak
If you're a Braves fan, the 2022 MLB free agents list is probably still a bit of a sore spot. Freddie Freeman was the Atlanta Braves. He’d just won them a World Series. It felt like a foregone conclusion that he’d stay.
But baseball is a business, and sometimes a cold one.
Communication broke down. The Braves, not wanting to get left holding the bag, traded for Matt Olson from Oakland. Suddenly, Freddie was a man without a home until the Dodgers swooped in with a six-year, $162 million deal. Seeing him cry during his return to Atlanta later that year? That was real. It reminded everyone that even for guys making $27 million a year, moving across the country after a decade in one place is a gut-punch.
The Pitching Market: Old Guys and Big Bets
It wasn't just about the bats. The arms were moving, too.
Max Scherzer had already set the tone right before the lockout by signing that absurd three-year, $130 million deal with the Mets. $43.3 million a year! At the time, it was the highest AAV (average annual value) in history. Steve Cohen was basically announcing to the world that he was going to treat the luxury tax like a suggestion rather than a rule.
We also saw:
- Kevin Gausman heading to Toronto for $110 million.
- Robbie Ray, fresh off a Cy Young, going to Seattle for $115 million.
- Marcus Stroman taking a shorter, high-value deal with the Cubs.
It's funny looking back now because some of these worked out perfectly (Gausman has been an absolute horse for the Jays) and some... well, let's just say the "return on investment" varied. That's the risk with 2022 MLB free agents. You're often paying for what they did, hoping they'll keep doing it into their mid-30s.
Why 2022 Still Echoes in 2026
We're sitting here in 2026, and the ripples of that 2022 class are everywhere. Look at the Dodgers. They used the flexibility and the momentum of that era to eventually land Shohei Ohtani and, most recently, Kyle Tucker on that massive $240 million deal.
The 2022 cycle proved that the "mid-market" teams like Texas could actually jump-start a championship run if they were willing to outspend the giants for one or two specific offseasons. It also changed how agents look at opt-outs. The "Correa Model"—taking a short deal with multiple opt-outs to re-test the market—became a blueprint for stars who didn't get the "mega-offer" they wanted right away.
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What You Can Learn From This
If you’re following current free agency, the 2022 MLB free agents class offers a few "pro tips" for how to judge these deals:
- Ignore the total "sticker price": The AAV and the length of the deal tell the real story. High AAV usually means a team is trying to win now and doesn't mind the luxury tax hit.
- Watch the "Opt-Outs": These are basically insurance for the player. If they play well, they leave. If they get hurt, the team is stuck. It’s a huge leverage point.
- Shortstops are the currency of the league: If you have a superstar at short, you can build an entire roster around them. Texas proved it.
The 2022 offseason was a fever dream. Between the lockout and the $2 billion spent in a few weeks of March, it was the most concentrated period of "roster reshuffling" we might ever see. Whether you loved the moves or hated them, you can't deny that the league looks the way it does today because of a few frantic weeks four years ago.
Keep an eye on the guys who signed those 10-year deals back then; we're officially in the "middle" years where we find out if those contracts were genius or a massive anchor for the franchises that signed them.
Next Steps for Fans:
- Check the current luxury tax thresholds to see how those 2022 contracts are impacting team payrolls today.
- Compare the WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of the "Big Four" shortstops from 2022 to see who has actually provided the most value per dollar spent.