Winners and losers from MLB's punchless 2020 winter meetings

Major League Baseball's annual winter meetings concluded Thursday evening with a whimper. Perhaps the lack of action stemmed from the fact executives, agents, players, and media weren't all buzzing around the same hotel lobby for 72 consecutive hours or more. Or maybe it was a continued effort by teams to cut costs and manage payroll made worse by the ongoing pandemic.

While headline moves were scarce, there was still some activity to parse. Let's take a look at some winners and losers from the week.

Winner: Rangers

For actually treating the winter meetings like an opportunity to get some work done, the Texas Rangers get kudos.

It started last week with the hiring of a new general manager in Chris Young; the Philadelphia Phillies, by comparison, had been unable to pull off such a move until the final day of the meetings when they reportedly agreed to hire Dave Dombrowski as their new president of baseball operations. Heck, even the New York Mets - the buzziest team in baseball - opened the offseason wanting a GM and have seemingly changed course.

Young and Co. wasted no time, trading Lance Lynn to the Chicago White Sox in a deal that felt a few months late but still earned the Rangers a solid return. At 25, Dane Dunning is old for a prospect, but his service-time clock just started ticking. He's also coming off a pretty nice year in the majors after authoring a 3.97 ERA and 3.99 FIP in seven starts. The former first-round pick might actually be a mid-rotation starter, and a rebuilding Rangers club could use about four more of those.

To cap it off, Texas also acquired Nate Lowe in a six-player swap with the Tampa Bay Rays. The slugger has hitherto been underutilized by the Rays but has absolutely mashed in the minors, hitting 43 homers in 223 games across three minor-league levels from 2018-19.

Loser: Phillies

Speaking of the Phillies, let's explore what they accomplished. It's not that hiring Dombrowski is a bad move - he's an underappreciated executive who will stop at nothing to get his club to a World Series. The problem is the teams he's previously helmed have all fit a certain mold, and his acumen simply might not work in Philadelphia.

A Dombrowski-led team would typically be on the cusp of juggernaut status and looking to add a player like J.T. Realmuto to push it over the hump. Instead, the Phillies seem resigned to not only let Realmuto walk this winter but to operate on a strict budget - words Dombrowski doesn't seem to have in his vocabulary.

And while Dombrowski will get you a title, it often comes at the expense of a team's farm system. That's a trade every single club should want to make; flags fly forever and prospects are for poor people. The Boston Red Sox are currently in shambles as a result of past moves, but they'll always be 2018 World Series champions.

The Phillies, though, have almost no farm system to deal from, let alone demolish. Matt Klentak already did his worst by drafting Mickey Moniak first overall, trading Sixto Sanchez to the Miami Marlins, and sending J.P. Crawford to the Seattle Mariners. Despite the inclusions of Spencer Howard and Alec Bohm, Baseball America ranks the Phillies' system 26th in baseball. For what it's worth, the Red Sox rank 23rd.

Dombrowski succeeds when the reins are off and the keys to the franchise are given entirely to the baseball operations department. It's far from certain that the Phillies are ready for that.

Winner: Adam Eaton

The market was immediately flooded with roughly league-average corner outfielders following the carnage of last week's non-tender deadline. So it's honestly astounding that one of the most lucrative deals signed during the winter meetings was given to a veteran corner outfielder like Eaton. Here's how Eaton, who landed a $7-million deal with the White Sox, performed last year compared to younger players who are still available:

Maybe Eaton's deal is good news for all those other players since every single one - including Dahl, who's nearly six years younger than Eaton - should be able to earn more.

Loser: All of us

No, everyone reading this isn't a loser. But if you were looking for entertainment this week, yikes, you were out of luck. MLB fans have been dealing with dwindling offseason action over the past couple of years, but this was a Sahara-level drought.

Even fans of smaller-market teams have something to watch for most years. Charlie Morton signed with the Rays during the 2018 event. And when those types of clubs aren't making surprise signings, they're at least routinely involved in trade rumors. The winter meetings have become baseball's marquee offseason event and prime fodder for water-cooler chatter regardless of team affiliation. This year, those chats will consist entirely of, "Now baseball is a slow sport in the offseason as well." Get used to it.