There has been a dizzying level of money and term in free agency

Baseball’s 2022-23 offseason has come with an onomatopoeic motto: “Cha-ching!”

It’s been a head-spinning time for the business of baseball, with megadeals consummated at every turn of a scope and duration that seemed almost unimaginable a few years ago. The Yankees will pay Aaron Judge $360 million over the next nine years — the largest guarantee made to a free agent. Carlos Correa will earn $350 million over the next 13 years from the Giants. Trea Turner (11 years, $300 million) and Xander Bogaerts (11 years, $280 million) aren’t far behind. Four more freeagent deals have registered at more than $100 million this winter.

What on earth is going on? Why has the restraint of recent offseasons — when nine-figure deals came in drips, and usually only in January or February, after most or all of an entire offseason had lapsed — given way to frenzy?

One postseason moment might have captured what’s transpiring across the industry. In the joyful chaos following the Phillies’ clinching NLCS Game 5 victory to advance to the World Series, Philadelphia owner John Middleton approached Bryce Harper, who became the face of the franchise when he signed a 13-year, $330 million deal prior to the 2019 season.

Harper — the NL MVP in 2021 — had just hit an epic game-winning homer that unleashed an emotional frenzy in Philadelphia. Middleton put his hands on the star’s shoulders.

“I’m not sure you can underpay somebody when you give them $330 million, but I’m pretty sure I underpaid you,” Middleton told Harper.

A growing number of owners — with Steven Cohen of the Mets (Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Brandon Nimmo, Edwin Díaz, and more), Middleton (Harper, Turner, J.T. Realmuto), San Diego’s Peter Seidler (Bogaerts, Manny Machado), and Ray Davis of the Rangers (Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Jacob deGrom) particularly notable among them — has entered into the star-signing business, hoping to capture the imaginations of fanbases that had or have endured years of losing teams. Their entry into big-ticket free agency has added to competition at the top of the market with higher-payroll teams.

“I think you’re seeing a group of very competitive teams, owners that are doing the very best they can to try and bring a World Series championship to their market,” said Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy. “You’re seeing these very competitive owners and general managers pushing really hard.”

Atop the evident motivation of the owners, there’s also money coursing through the game and a restored sense of stability in the sport’s economic climate. Teams are benefiting from new national media deals, new sources of revenue (gambling, advertising on uniforms, etc.), and just enjoyed a $30 million-per-team windfall from the sale to Disney of MLB’s video streaming company, BAMTech.

At the same time, after five years of labor agitation during the 2017-21 Collective Bargaining Agreement, the new CBA negotiated this spring made clear the financial rules of the road for teams — including a significantly raised luxury tax threshold (from $210 million in 2021 to $230 million in 2022 and now $233 million in 2023).

New Collective Bargaining Agreements tend to come with a whoosh of spending once teams recognize the new rules under which they’re operating. That’s certainly been the case this offseason.

Red Sox, Giants took similar path — until Correa

Over the last few years, the Red Sox and Giants — the two teams with the most titles in the 21st century, and two of the teams with the most loyal fanbases in beloved ballparks — followed similar trajectories.

After years of championship contention, both had gutted their farm systems and decided they needed to turn over the title-winning cores of their rosters. They made front office changes to lead that process, with both franchises turning to first-time heads of baseball operations. The Giants hired Farhan Zaidi from the Dodgers after the 2018 season (with Chaim Bloom as the runner-up), and Boston hired Bloom from Tampa Bay after 2019.

The last four years have been similar for the franchises: Third-place finishes in 2019, losing records and no playoffs in the COVID-compressed 2020 campaign, unexpected success that delighted and re-energized their fanbases in 2021, then painful regression in 2022 that was accompanied by huge attendance drops.

The Red Sox had 2.6 million attend games at Fenway, the lowest turnout in a non-COVID year in the 21-year history of the current ownership group. The Giants — in their first season following the retirement of franchise icon Buster Posey — had 2.5 million fans, their worst attendance in a full-capacity year in the history of Oracle Park.

For San Francisco, the sight of sparsely attended late-season games was alarming and framed the offseason. As much as the team is focused on contending in a dogged NL West, the Giants also worried about fan apathy in the absence of a recognizable star.

“Whose jersey are they going to wear at our games?” wondered one Giants official.

The Giants made a concerted effort to answer that question this offseason, pursuing a star to upgrade their roster and capture the imaginations of their fans. They made a hard run at Bay Area native Judge and then, after he re-signed with the Yankees, pivoted to Correa with a 13-year, $350 million deal.

(The Yankees’ motivation to sign Judge similarly included very real marketing concerns. “We had to bring him back. He makes so much [money] for us,” said one team source. “We couldn’t have replaced him by adding two or three guys.”)

With Correa headed to San Francisco, what had been similar team-building paths for the Giants and Red Sox forked. Boston, rather than adding a marquee name, lost another franchise icon when Xander Bogaertssigned with the Padres. (Perhaps obvious but related: major league sources said the Sox were never meaningfully involved in the bidding for Correa.)

Vazquez tried, but Red Sox weren’t interested

Christian Vázquez — who signed a three-year, $30 million deal with the Twins last week — never made any secret of his desire to remain with the Red Sox. But the only time the sides discussed an extension on top of the three-year deal (with an option) that he signed in the spring of 2019, talks went nowhere.

Before the Sox picked up Vázquez’s $7 million option for 2022, they proposed tacking on a year but at a lower average salary for 2022-23 than the option. Vázquez declined the proposed pay cut, and the sides never re-engaged.

Still, Vázquez loved Boston and wanted to explore every avenue for a return — even after the team traded him to Houston. He made that clear to the Sox this offseason, going so far as to reach out to the team before giving the Twins his final answer, but Boston never showed interest in bringing back the player who is tied for the fifth-most games caught (651) in franchise history.