MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- The Miami Dolphins released wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. on Friday, ending the veteran's tenure with the team four weeks before the end of the regular season.

The release was mutual, a source confirmed.

Beckham missed both practices this week for what was described as "personal reasons."

Beckham signed a one-year, $3 million deal with the Dolphins in May that was worth up to $8.25 million with incentives. However, he had knee surgery earlier in the offseason and started the season on the physically unable to perform list. The Dolphins were aware Beckham would likely not be ready for the start of the season when they agreed to the deal.

He made his practice debut in the first week of October and played his first game against the New England Patriots in Week 5. In nine games this season, Beckham finished with nine catches for 55 yards.

After signing with Miami to presumably be the third receiving option behind Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, Beckham never assumed the role as tight end Jonnu Smith emerged as the team's third option.

The signing is a microcosm of a season of unmet expectations for the Dolphins. The team sputtered to a 2-6 record to start the season, with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa missing four games with a concussion. Miami has won four of its past five games entering its Week 15 game against the Houston Texans but, at 6-7, likely needs outside help to make a third straight postseason.

Champ Bailey always keeps a keen eye out for "the Georgia guys," players who grew up in the state or played at the University of Georgia. After all, Bailey played high-school ball in the small Georgia town of Folkston and was an All-American for the Bulldogs before his Hall-of-Fame NFL career.

This season, one of those "Georgia guys" is the Heisman Trophy favorite and a top prospect for the 2025 NFL draft -- and a common comp to Bailey.

Colorado wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter -- a native of Suwanee, Georgia -- has captivated the college football landscape by dominating on both sides of the ball. On offense, Hunter has 92 catches for 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns. On defense, he has 33 tackles, four interceptions, 10 pass breakups and a forced fumble. In Colorado's regular-season finale against Oklahoma State, Hunter became the only FBS player over the past 25 seasons with three scrimmage touchdowns and a defensive INT in a single game, per ESPN Research.

"He's doing things you probably won't see again," Bailey said.

Few can relate to what Hunter has done and will likely try to do in the NFL better than Bailey. In his final season at UGA in 1998, Bailey won the Bronko Nagurski Award as the nation's best defensive player, picking off three passes at cornerback. But he also caught 47 passes for 744 yards and five touchdowns as a receiver in the Bulldogs' offense. He topped 1,000 snaps that season and finished seventh in Heisman voting. But Bailey would play almost exclusively cornerback in the NFL after being drafted seventh overall by Washington in 1999, seeing nine targets at receiver over a 15-year career.

Because of his unique perspective, we asked Bailey to weigh in on what makes Hunter so special, why playing both sides of the ball is so difficult and what lies ahead for the Buffaloes' star in the pre-draft process. Can Hunter -- who could be awarded the Heisman Trophy on Saturday (8 p.m. ET on ESPN) -- do something that Bailey didn't in his NFL career and play both offense and defense at the next level? Here's Bailey's take, in his own words.

Jump to Bailey on:
Hunter's immense talent
Difficulties of playing two ways
What could happen in the pros

What does Bailey see in Hunter?

The scouting reports for Hunter and Bailey read similarly, albeit 26 years apart. Hunter is listed at 6-foot-1 and 185 pounds, while Bailey measured 6-foot, 184 pounds at the 1999 combine. The two also share great speed, explosive traits and ball skills. Bailey has spent time watching Hunter play and sees a future star.

Bailey: He just loves football. You can see it by the way he plays -- he's the ultimate competitor. No player is going to last very long at one position, let alone two, if he doesn't love the game.

Travis is probably more refined in coverage than I was at that age. He has been schooled better at this point -- I mean, his coach is Deion Sanders, one of the best to ever play corner. His hands are in the right place, his eyes are in the right place, and he understands route concepts and where the ball is going. His interceptions are often because he's going to the spot he knows where the ball is going.

The big difference between me and Travis? People could see him coming more. A lot of guys play both ways in high school, return kicks and punts, play in the band at halftime. And they get to college and the coaches who recruited them -- who said they loved the versatility -- now tell them the second day of camp, 'You're here, you're here,' and that's it. But people could see Travis coming. He did it at Jackson State before transferring in 2023, and Prime said he was going to let him do it at Colorado. So there wasn't even a question from his coach.

I kind of built up, though. I showed I could do it, played some offense my first year, some more my second year and did the whole thing my last year.

Why is playing both ways so difficult?

Hunter has played 1,380 snaps in 12 games this season, including 670 on offense, 686 on defense and 24 on special teams. That's 382 more snaps than the next-most active player in the FBS, and he topped 100 snaps in 10 of those 12 games. It's an incredible workload, especially when you consider Hunter had 1,007 snaps in the previous season.

The most active NFL players routinely crack 1,000 snaps in a healthy season playing on just one side of the ball, though. The two-way workload in the pros would be significantly larger, even before factoring in the off-field preparation.

Bailey: In my last season at Georgia, I returned kickoffs and punts, played corner and played wide receiver -- they didn't hold me out of anything. If the ball was out there, I was out there.

I wanted to play both sides of the ball when I got to the league, too, and had some chances to line up and play some offense. But I think the difficulty of really doing it is hard to comprehend.

As you go from high school to college, and college to the NFL, the preparation becomes a big thing for the coaches. You start playing all the snaps on one side of the ball and a lot of snaps on the other and maybe some special teams, but coaches don't really know what you're going through. They haven't done it because not many have. So you're trying to show them you're prepared enough to be out there and that you can hold up. That takes convincing.

There isn't enough said about the accountability that comes with what Hunter is doing, too. Playing both ways means putting extra stuff on your plate, and people are counting on you to do it, so it can't just be something you want to try. That mental pressure will take the biggest toll unless you really love what you're doing and go all in. And beyond the physical aspect -- which is an immense challenge in itself -- you also have to be proficient in two different playbooks. Other guys might have had the talent to do what he's doing, but we never find out because they don't have the mentality to really commit to doing it.

I spent most of my time on defense in practice and meetings, and I would get into the offense for specific things. I think my coaches looked at me as the corner who was good enough to put out there at wide receiver, and I studied enough to do it. Offense was more about study time than getting reps on the field or being in all the meetings. I mean, everybody meets at the same time in position groups before team meetings, so you can't be in everything. Some of it falls on faith you'll do the work.

You have to be extremely athletic to do what he's doing and keep focus in his preparation. But aside from all of that is the snap count. The extreme number of snaps he's playing, the wear and tear and what it takes for him to sustain that -- to train for what his body is about to go through.

One thing I dealt with a lot was cramping -- there's a lot of humidity in the SEC. I'd get an IV at halftime of every game, and that became a thing. But I don't think I actually sat on the bench, even for a second, more than three times all season because I was also on special teams. You have moments where you're just so tired. But I didn't even take my helmet off very often.

However, I look at Travis, and guys are so much more informed about offseason prep and the recovery game to game, season to season. It's way beyond where we were 20-some years ago.

What comes next for Hunter?

When Washington drafted Bailey, he believed there would be at least some two-way play in his NFL future. But he ultimately played corner -- both in Washington and later in Denver -- seeing six career offensive touches (four catches, two rushes). Can Hunter play both sides in the NFL?

Bailey: My conversations with people before the draft were basically, "You're a corner, and we'll find some things on offense for you." And that's kind of how I saw it early on. Based on the structure of the meetings and the level of trust a coach needs to see to put you out there, it just wasn't going to be full-time on both sides for me, no matter what.

In my second year, coach Norv Turner got fired midway through the season. I think if Norv was the coach longer, I would have played offense more in my early years. I believe that. So for Travis, it's all about who his coach is in the NFL and how much they think is possible. No matter what you can do on the field, the head coach controls the schedule and how you practice. But I say all that, and it's really not far-fetched that he'll at least get a shot to try playing both ways.

If I was that coach making the decision, I'd ask Travis to play full-time corner first because it is far more difficult to find a player like him at CB with all he brings to the position. He is a gifted receiver, no question -- a superior receiver. But to find him at corner is so, so rare. He has ball skills, speed, flexibility, quickness, intelligence and tackling ability, and he's competitive every down.

Corner is also less dependent on the structure around you. You are a part of a defense, but there is a solitude to some of the job in the assignments. His work at receiver will be so dependent on the offensive structure, the quarterback and the O-line; it's a little more connected. More things have to line up at receiver for him to show all of his skills. And in the meetings, I think it would be more efficient for him to primarily work on defense and get into the offensive meetings he needs to for certain things.

I think his greatest arc for finding success while trying to play both offense and defense is going full-time 100 percent at corner, and then getting some situational work at receiver. I hope he gets a chance to do whatever he wants.

The advantage he has is, whatever he plays, he's going to be one of the best in the league.

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. -- There are massive concrete barriers blocking what were once entrances to the Metro Extended Stay hotel. The empty and cracked parking lot has patches of overgrown weeds sprouting from the asphalt, and the ditches surrounding the property are covered in overgrown brush and littered with trash.

The hotel is gone, but a single black mailbox still stands on the large lot not far from Georgia Route 316, a lone, somber reminder of the three-story building that once housed numerous families and residents.

In high school, University of Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter lived at the hotel with his mother, stepfather and three siblings in a single room. There were two beds, a bathroom and little privacy for schoolwork or anything else.

Hunter's coaches at nearby Collins Hill High weren't aware of his circumstances when he showed up unannounced during the summer before his freshman year in 2018. They only knew that Hunter, who had moved to the Atlanta suburb with his family from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was different.

"His dad said he was a day one starter on varsity," said Collins Hill High coach Drew Swick, who was the team's outside linebackers coach when Hunter enrolled. "We all kind of chuckled and laughed. We hear that all the time.

"When we saw him for the first time in practice, we're like, 'Damn, he isn't lying. This kid is legit.'"

Hunter has been different from nearly everyone else at each stop of his football career. It's why the 21-year-old receiver and cornerback -- a rare two-way player -- is a massive betting favorite to win the Heisman Trophy on Saturday (-2250 on ESPN BET) and might be a top-five pick in next year's NFL draft.

Hunter said winning the Heisman Trophy was his dream as a kid, but the idea of hoisting the stiff-armed trophy as the best college football player in the land seemed attainable only in video games. Hunter played EA Sports NCAA Football with his cousin, filling his roster with players with 99 grades and "trying to make them win the Heisman and all the good trophies," he said. Now Hunter is tied for the highest rating in the current version of the game.

"I never envisioned this would happen for me, but I'm so happy to be sitting right here," Hunter said in a news conference last month.

Hunter's path to the Heisman Trophy ceremony in New York was anything but orthodox. After becoming one of the country's most coveted recruits at Collins Hill, he shunned college football blue bloods Alabama, Florida State, Georgia and others to sign with Jackson State, becoming the first five-star recruit to choose an HBCU program.

After one season with the Tigers, Hunter followed his coach, Deion Sanders, to Colorado, where he became one of the sport's most electrifying players.

This season, Hunter has 92 receptions for 1,152 yards with 14 touchdowns (No. 2 in the FBS) on offense, while allowing just 22 catches, 1 touchdown and 6 first downs on defense. He logged 1,356 snaps on offense and defense in 12 games -- 434 more than any other FBS player.

Hunter has already collected the Walter Camp Award as the top overall player in the FBS, along with the Chuck Bednarik Award as the top defensive player and the Biletnikoff Award for the best wide receiver.

It's a workload that would leave most players gasping for air. "There hasn't been a game this year or last year where I felt like I'm too tired, I need to take a break, or I'm taking two minutes now to cool out," Hunter said. "I don't ever feel that way."

With his blazing speed and playmaking ability as a receiver and lockdown cover skills as a cornerback, Hunter is considered a generational talent who wants to play on both sides of the ball in the NFL.

"I'm super confident, and I believe that I can do it at the next level," Hunter said. "I'm not going to let anyone tell me that I can't do something that I already done. They said I couldn't do it in college, and I ended up doing it in college.

"A lot of people tell me I can't do it in the NFL, but I'm going to still do it in the NFL. You know, a lot of people just let other people get in their ear, so they don't let them do it, and some people don't have the body type to be able to go both ways full time."

When Hunter was asked about being described as a unicorn by a reporter, he said, "A unicorn is just different, different from everybody else. It's just hard to do what the unicorn can do."

SHIRLEY HUNTER, HIS paternal grandmother, who lives in Boynton Beach, Florida, isn't surprised by her grandson's success. She would tell anyone who would listen that "he was going to be the one" when he was 4 years old. She remembers Hunter throwing a football with both hands when he was 5; he says he can throw one 70 yards now.

"Everything about him was different," said Shirley Hunter, who will be in New York to watch the Heisman Trophy ceremony. "His demeanor was different. When he was playing little league football and they'd take him off the field, he'd get upset. He wasn't like the other kids. He wanted to play all the time."

Hunter didn't start on the Collins Hill varsity team as a freshman, but he played quite a bit in the secondary. As a sophomore, he had seven interceptions and 49 catches for 919 yards with 12 touchdowns.

The next season, Hunter exploded as a star player on both sides of the ball, finishing with eight interceptions and 51 tackles on defense and a whopping 137 catches for 1,746 yards with 24 scores on offense. He helped lead the Eagles to the 2020 Class 7A state title game.

By then, Hunter was living with Collins Hill secondary coach Frontia Fountain and his wife and daughter, Mitoya and Peyton. One weekend while Hunter's mother was out of town, he asked Fountain if he could stay with him. Hunter lived in the Fountains' home for more than a year until shortly before leaving for college.

Hunter's mother, Ferrante Harris, told ESPN that she left behind a three-bedroom house in Florida in hopes of obtaining a better life for herself and her family when they moved to Georgia. For a while, they slept on the floor of a friend's house before moving to the hotel.

"In order for you to have something, you got to actually see it," Harris said. "So I knew that this was just us passing through, and that was something that we had to go through. We went through it. We endured it, but it also made us stronger. Not just one of us, but all of us. Sometimes the tests and the trials that you go through can make you stronger, make you wiser, and make you that much hungrier."

Fountain, who played cornerback at Savannah State, had two rules in his house: Hunter had to wake himself up for school, and he had to finish his homework before playing video games or going fishing.

There was one drawback while living with Fountain: He was one of the first employees to arrive at Collins Hill, at around 5:20 a.m. each school day. Hunter curled up in a blanket in Fountain's office until classes started at 7:20 a.m. He kicked off school days by hugging the administrative assistant and secretary in the front office.

"He was not only special on the football field, he was a special kid," Fountain said. "Travis never had any discipline [problems]. He was never in trouble. The worst thing he did was watching film in class."

Hunter could be seen walking the halls at Collins Hill with a stuffed wolf draped over his shoulders to stay warm. His diet in high school included hot (and extra wet) chicken wings, Chipotle and tons of candy. He skipped pregame meals and consumed a bag of gummy bears instead.

"The personality that you see, from the celebration dances to the onesies on his social media, I can't think of him and not smile," said Heather Childs, an assistant principal at Collins Hill. "Because to be around him, it was just joy."

AFTER HUNTER INITIALLY committed to play football at Florida State in March 2020, the Seminoles asked him to graduate from high school a semester early.

Childs took on the task of helping Hunter try to do it. As a junior, Hunter took a block course, completing an entire year of language arts in one semester. He enrolled in summer school courses before his senior year, and then tackled block classes in math, science and language arts and three extra online courses that fall. Childs helped Hunter with study strategies and pacing plans.

"He worked at home," Fountain said. "He'd come home, get a snack, and then he would sit there and work on his homework. He knew what it was going to take, and Travis is a very smart kid. He needed structure."

As a senior, Hunter missed five games because of an ankle injury. He returned in time for the state playoffs, helping Collins Hill win its first state title with a 24-8 victory against Milton High in December 2021. Hunter had 10 catches for 153 yards and one touchdown and forced a fumble on defense. He tied a state record with 46 career touchdown receptions.

Before the early signing period opened that month, Hunter quietly took an official visit to the Jackson State campus in Mississippi. Tigers quarterback Shedeur Sanders, the head coach's son, had been urging him to come, and they hooked up for brunch during his visit.

"He was trying to make a TikTok," Sanders said last month. "I said, 'Bro, if I make the TikTok, you got to commit, man.'"

One assistant coach whose Power 5 team was involved in Hunter's recruitment until the end remembered walking out of his final visit at Collins Hill and calling his head coach.

"This kid is going to Jackson State," the assistant told the coach.

"No f---ing way," the coach responded.

"He talked about Deion Sanders the entire time," the assistant said. "He knew everything about him. We're wasting our time."

On Dec. 15, 2021, Hunter flipped his commitment from Florida State to Jackson State. Swick didn't know where his star player was going to go until Hunter walked into his signing ceremony wearing Nike Air Force shoes that were navy blue, one of the Tigers' team colors.

"He was trying to kill two birds with one stone," Swick said. "He wanted to make HBCUs popular ... [and] Deion Sanders, the greatest to ever play his position, was going to be his head coach."

During his stunning announcement, Hunter thanked Fountain for believing in him.

"Since day one, Coach Fountain, you have seen something in me that no one else has seen," Hunter said. "Always coming to pick me up and making sure that I had something to eat and a place to stay every night. When I first got up here, we didn't really have any friends. I came up here and it was just football, and I thank my teachers for challenging me and helping me get my grades up."

Fountain and Childs traveled to Miami Gardens, Florida, with their families to watch Hunter play in his first college game, a 59-3 victory against Florida A&M in the Orange Blossom Classic on Sept. 5, 2022. Childs attended a game at Colorado, and Fountain watches his former student play on TV every week.

They're especially proud that he was named an Academic All-American last year with a 3.7 grade-point average.

"When you have a child, it takes a village to help with that child," Harris said. "It doesn't just be the parent. It also takes other people that can reach your child just as well as you can. In some areas that you won't be able to reach your child, there is always someone that God will place in that child's life or your life, they'll be able to reach that child for you. So they did exactly what I was not qualified to do. We all have different roles, and the roles they played with my son were amazing."

Earlier this year, Hunter donated $10,000 from an NIL deal with Cheez-It to Collins Hill High to help teachers purchase supplies for their classrooms.

In July 2021, the Lawrenceville City Council unanimously agreed to purchase the Metro Extended Stay hotel for $7.2 million. It had become a crime-ridden property, and Mayor David Still told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that purchasing the hotel would save taxpayers money in the long run. The city demolished the hotel in 2022.

In March, Hunter and his fiancée, Leanna Lenee, surprised his mother with a five-bedroom home outside Savannah, Georgia, purchased with money he earned from lucrative NIL deals with United Airlines and NerdWallet, among others. He revealed the surprise in a video on his YouTube channel.

"We went through our tests and our trials for a purpose," Harris said. "The purpose was this merry moment. Had we not gone through what we went through, how strong would he actually be? When people come at him and say crazy stuff, it doesn't matter, because he's been through a lot of storms. We've been through a lot of storms, but the outcome is so much greater than the storm that we were in."

Dash Daniels, one of the top international prospects in the NBA's 2026 draft class, has committed to joining Melbourne United as part of the NBL's Next Stars program next season, he told ESPN on Friday.

Daniels, a 6-foot-6, 16-year-old playmaker, will sign a multi-year contract but will be draft-eligible in June 2026, making him potentially one of the youngest selected in the one-and-done era with his Dec. 18 birthday.

"I am joining one of the toughest leagues in the world," Daniels told ESPN. "Playing against grown men at a young age will only help me develop. The Next Stars Program has proven to help lots of young stars achieve their dream of playing in the NBA, which is mine also. "

He follows lottery picks Alex Sarr, Josh Giddey, LaMelo Ball and Ousmane Dieng, into the Australian league's Next Stars program, which now has two potential 2026 lottery picks, along with Mexican wing Karim Lopez of the New Zealand Breakers.

Dash's brother, Dyson Daniels, is a rising star with the Atlanta Hawks, selected No. 8 in the 2022 Draft out of now-defunct Ignite of the G League. Dyson has emerged as one of the NBA's premier defenders, averaging 13.7 points, 4.9 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and a league-best 3.2 steals per game. He was named the NBA's Eastern Conference Defensive Player of the Month in December and is a candidate to be the youngest player ever to win NBA Defensive Player of the Year.

"It's been great to watch all the success he is having," Dash told ESPN. "I always knew he had it in him. It was just a matter of time before he started putting himself on the map. He is finally being recognized for all the little things he does to help his team win."

Like his brother, Dash is considered an elite defender with a plus-four wingspan and tremendous versatility, instincts and anticipation skills. He posted a tournament-high 3.6 steals per game at the FIBA U17 World Cup this past summer in Istanbul. Despite his height, he sees time at point guard, and will likely continue to grow in stature.

"We do have our similarities and differences," Dash said about his brother. "We both love playing defense, getting steals, reading what the offense is doing, being able to jump the lanes, and being in the right help positions. We both get out in transition, get to the midrange floater game, and are aggressive getting on the rim. I play a little bit more with the ball in my hands, create for teammates, use more on-ball screens, and beat my defender off of a quick first step."

Dash spent the past several years in with the NBA Global Academy in Canberra, garnering considerable experience with the Australian junior national teams at the FIBA level and in camps and tournaments in the United States.

The Daniels brothers are the sons of American expatriate Ricky Daniels, who went to college at North Carolina State and played professionally in Australia before settling down in Bendigo in the state of Victoria, two hours north of Melbourne.

Dash was heavily recruited to play college basketball, spurning interest from the likes of Louisville, LSU, Florida and SMU, as well as other teams in the Australian NBL.

"I joined the Next Stars program for a number of reasons, but the main one being, I will be able to start my pro journey a year earlier in the NBL than If I was to go to college, as I wouldn't be eligible until next year."

The New York Yankees are acquiring closer Devin Williams from the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for left-hander Nestor Cortes, infield prospect Caleb Durbin and cash considerations, sources told ESPN's Jeff Passan.

A two-time All-Star, Williams has established himself as one of the top relievers in baseball over the past five seasons behind an elite changeup known as the "Airbender." He will slide into the back end of a Yankees bullpen that lost Clay Holmes to free agency and could also lose free agent Tommy Kahnle.

Since making his major league debut in 2019, Williams has a 1.83 ERA in 97 relief appearances with 68 saves. He won the National League Rookie of the Year Award in 2020 after allowing one earned run in 22 games in the COVID-shortened season.

The right-hander missed the first four months of the 2024 season with a stress fracture in his back before returning in late July in his usual dominant form, posting a 1.25 ERA with 14 saves in 22 games.

But his season, and ultimately his Brewers career, ended on a low note when he surrendered four runs in two-thirds of an inning in Game 3 of the NL Wild Card Series against the New York Mets, including a go-ahead three-run home run to Pete Alonso in the ninth inning.

DALLAS -- The enormity of Juan Soto's contract -- stretching 15 years and guaranteeing $765 million, not a penny of which is deferred -- brought an initial jolt to Major League Baseball's winter meetings on Sunday night. It was monumental and far-reaching, but it was also an outlier, given the uniqueness of landing one of history's greatest hitters in his mid-20s. As the days passed, subsequent transactions took place and the offseason began to round into form, a more revealing trend emerged at the sprawling Hilton hotel that hosted baseball's annual gathering earlier this week.

A prominent agent expressed it succinctly on Tuesday night, in the middle of an emptying lobby after a dizzying round of transactions.

"Man," he said, "starting pitchers are getting paid."

Hours earlier, Max Fried signed an eight-year, $218 million deal with the New York Yankees, blowing away the most reputable projections. Later, Nathan Eovaldi secured a three-year, $75 million contract to return to the Texas Rangers, more than doubling the guarantee of his prior deal in his mid-30s. And just a day prior, Alex Cobb, a 37-year-old who made three starts while dealing with a litany of injuries last season, cost the Detroit Tigers $15 million on a one-year deal -- a sign that it wasn't just the top starters getting paid, but the innings-eaters and the reclamation projects, too, age be damned.

Fried, Eovaldi and Cobb followed a path that had already been laid out by the likes of Blake Snell (five years, $182 million with the Los Angeles Dodgers), Luis Severino (three years, $67 million with the Athletics) and Matthew Boyd (two years, $29 million with the Chicago Cubs). All of them did better than expected. All of them triggered a fundamental question:

Why, at a time when starting pitchers have never been counted on less, are they more expensive than ever?

Executives, agents and coaches surveyed in the 72 hours that encompassed baseball's winter meetings brought up an assortment of theories.

One general manager noted that starting pitchers who can consistently tackle five to six innings and 160 or so over the course of a six-month season aren't any less important, even in an era of heavy bullpen usage -- they're simply more rare, triggering the type of demand that can escalate prices. Another pointed to the impact of big-market teams chasing top-tier free agents and how that has affected those below them. Another pointed specifically to the New York Mets, who handed Soto a record-breaking contract but might have set a tone in a different way -- by signing Frankie Montas earlier this month to a two-year, $34 million deal that was viewed in some circles as an overpay.

But most of the conversations came back to the rapid rate of arm injuries that have plagued the industry and made teams hyper-paranoid about their starting pitching depth.

These days, even more so than before, enough is never enough.

"Teams used to feel good if they could go into a season with, I'd say, seven or eight guys they can count on to start games at the major league level, at least in some capacity," said one front office executive. "Now that number is like 11."

The approach taken by two of the sport's most successful franchises illustrates that.

The Yankees already boasted a solid fivesome of Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, Luis Gil, Marcus Stroman and Clarke Schmidt -- but Fried was their obvious pivot after missing out on Soto, enough to cross a $200 million threshold few foresaw for the soon-to-be-31-year-old left-hander. The Dodgers, who beat the Yankees in the World Series, were set to return a rotation composed of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Shohei Ohtani, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May, while backed by a pitching pipeline that has become the envy of the sport -- and yet they zeroed in on Snell at the onset of the offseason.

"I know that as a team, we've felt it more acutely," said Dodgers GM Brandon Gomes, whose club suffered through an array of pitching injuries in 2024. "You feel like you have depth coming in, and sometimes it maintains and sometimes it doesn't. It's a little scary of an unknown."

The increase in pitcher injuries has been raising alarm bells for the better part of a decade, but a presentation at this week's winter meetings placed that in a new light. The sport's 30 managers gathered in a conference room on Wednesday morning as MLB officials guided them through key findings from a yearlong study of pitcher injuries that involved input from more than 200 experts in a variety of roles. One of the slides showed that surgeries to repair damaged ulnar collateral ligaments at the minor league level had basically doubled over the past 10 years. Not only are current major league pitchers breaking down, so is the foundation behind them.

Said one manager in attendance: "It was stunning."

The trade market hadn't reached full tilt by the time most of the industry's agents and executives boarded their flights back home on Wednesday afternoon. But the expectation was that it would soon pick up, particularly as it relates to starting pitchers. Teams seeking alternatives to the higher free agent prices have expressed interest in Dylan Cease, Pablo López, Framber Valdez, Jesús Luzardo and Luis Castillo, names that should gain more traction after Chicago White Sox ace Garrett Crochet was dealt to the Boston Red Sox for an impressive haul of prospects.

Two of the Red Sox's division rivals, the Baltimore Orioles and the Toronto Blue Jays, are still searching for frontline starting pitching. So are the Mets and the San Francisco Giants, two of the offseason's busiest teams. So are many others.

A dozen starting pitchers have signed for a combined $788.5 million through the first five weeks of this offseason, already about 63% of the spending in that department from last year -- with Corbin Burnes still expected to exceed $200 million and Jack Flaherty, Sean Manaea, Nick Pivetta, Walker Buehler, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander among the roughly 75 other starters available. And though the player pool is widely considered to be better than it was a year ago, and many executives will caution that early deals tend to be inflated, setting up the possibility that those who remain don't do so well, one thing is clear:

Starting pitching, famously out of vogue in the modern game, is still at a premium.

Baxter says the next few months will be key for those members of his squad who are out of contract.

Exeter have historically not brought in many first-choice players each summer, although the last few seasons has seen a greater squad turnover as long-serving players have left as the salary cap has been reduced.

"I'm not going to run away from the fact, we're the bottom team in the Premiership and recruitment and retention is a little different," added Baxter.

"The main reason being is you've got to have a look around the squad and you've got to decide who's standing up and who's moving forward who are off contract.

"You want to keep your off-contract guys who look like they're improving players and who are using this period, where we're going through a bit of pain, to get better.

"There's still a positive in keeping those guys moving forward, but at the same time you've also got to go, 'are we a strong enough squad, are there things we need to change and improve?'.

"Outside of the squad we've got now, we do also have eight players in the coming season's Under-20 EPS (Elite Player) squad.

"There's no value in you bringing in somebody just because they're available when next season we might want to pick one of those guys. I'm only really going to recruit guys who I think will improve us from where we are now.

"I'm determined not to get panicked into signing the wrong players, I'm going to spend a lot of time on it and we're only going to approach the correct players to make us better."

Still only 19, the Londoner, who can play as a blindside flanker or second row, has started eight of Racing's 11 league games, establishing himself as a first choice in a squad that also features France pair Cameron Woki and Romain Taofifenua, along with Wales' Will Rowlands.

"At the start of the season, I did not expect to be starting over some of the big names we have at Racing," Kpoku adds.

"But I was working so hard because I was hungry to start."

He is part of an English enclave at the heart of the Racing dressing room.

Owen Farrell, Henry Arundell and ex-Sale centre Sam James have made Paris home. Former England coach Stuart Lancaster is the boss. Paul 'Bobby' Stridgeon oversees fitness and Tom Whitford, a veteran Top 14 team manager who helped Jonny Wilkinson integrate into Toulon's galacticos, organises behind the scenes.

Kpoku has an advantage over them all.

Born in Newham to Congolese parents, he has been fluent in French since he was a boy.

His twin elder brothers Joel and Jonathan already play in France, for Pau and second-tier Albi respectively. One of the motivations for Junior's own move from Exeter to Racing was to be nearer his unwell father.

With Lancaster still learning the language and a stellar squad from different nations, Kpoku is the first-choice on-pitch translator, as well as a back-five wrecker.

He is settling so well, it has unsettled some back in England.

Across the water and therefore ineligible for Steve Borthwick's England team, the prospect of Kpoku representing France remains live.

To play for France, he would have to be registered with a French club for five years. It is a lengthy process, but Kpoku has started early.

He would be 23 when he, in theory, he becomes eligible in autumn 2028.

In practice, Kpoku says it is unlikely.