Friday Bird Droppings: The incredible ace sweepstakes was won by the…..

The hot stove was in a deep freeze until late last night, when the Dodgers landed the prized righty for $325 million.

Good morning, Camden Chatters.

Well, as of late last night, the hot stove has kicked into high gear. And the rich have gotten richer.

The Los Angeles Dodgers — who had already landed the biggest free agent prize on the market, Shohei Ohtani — continued their eye-popping offseason by landing the second-biggest as well. Japanese right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto will join his countryman with the Dodgers, agreeing to a 12-year, $325 million contract, as first reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

Between Yamamoto’s new deal and Ohtani’s $700 million contract (albeit mostly deferred), the Dodgers have handed out over a billion dollars to two players this winter. Wowza. But hey, better them than the Yankees, or another O’s division rival. If anybody is going to create a super-team, I’m glad it’s in the NL West, where the the O’s won’t have to worry about them until the World Series (aside from a three-game series in L.A. at the end of August).

Full disclosure: I had already written a version of today’s Bird Droppings complaining about how nothing much was happening in baseball right now, until this news broke just as I was about to go to sleep. I’m awake now, and hopefully, so is the hot stove. With Yamamoto now off the board, the free agent and trade markets can start to heat up, as the teams that missed out on their top choice will pursue other options more aggressively.

The other prominent MLB news yesterday was the announcement of some rules changes for the 2024 season, including knocking a couple seconds off the pitch clock (from 20 to 18) with runners on base. All of the changes look good to me, especially the widening of the runner’s lane between home plate and first base. This should hopefully eliminate those frustrating instances in which a batter is running in a straight line from home to first but

gets called out for interference when a throw hits him, because he wasn’t technically between the white lines. It always seemed weird to me that the runner’s lane wasn’t the most direct path between the two bases, so this is a welcome fix.