“There’s an excitement in the air about Cubs baseball,” said their new $175 million third baseman Alex Bregman after signing with the team last week.

What a week, right? Just like that, three of the more luminous members of this winter’s free agency class found new homes for varying dollars.

The usual suspects scream blue murder. A few unusual suspects pick up Dodger manager Dave Roberts’s expressed equal adoration for a salary cap and a salary floor. So, who’s coming out how, where, and why? Let’s look with sober eyes.

Da Bear Market Dept.—Think about it: On the same evening the NFL’s Chicago Bears shoved the Green Bay Packers to one side and out of the race for the Super Bowl, in Soldier Field, the Cubs made erstwhile Astro/Red Sox third baseman Alex Bregman a rather wealthy man.

With the Red Sox thought to be pushing a bit extra to bring Bregman back, the Cubs pushed enough to land Bregman on a five-year, $175 million that includes a mutually agreed-upon $70 million worth of deferred money.

You think Bregman’s new teammates weren’t enthused about the deal and their new mate? “I texted him when the news broke: ‘Dude, let’s freaking go’,” said pitcher Jameson Taillon, an Arizona neighbour of Bregman’s according to The Athletic. “He FaceTimed me. He was like, ‘Hey, we’re just finishing up dinner. Can I come over?’”

He wasn’t alone, wrote the journal’s Patrick Mooney: “Pete Crow-Armstrong, the All-Star center fielder, was in attendance at Soldier Field when he found out that Bregman would be a new teammate. Immediately after seeing the reports, Gold Glove shortstop Dansby Swanson called Bregman from a friend’s wedding.”

The Cubs made a run for the postseason last year. After a few years behaving like the big city kid who seemed to be seduced by the outskirts of Four Corners, Nowhere in Particular, they started behaving like the bigger market team they’re supposed to be once the postseason run ended.

“There’s an excitement in the air about Cubs baseball,” said Bregman while he made a bit of a whirl-around Chicago tour last week. “I can’t wait to get after it.” Pause. “After it” means “pennant race” and “World Series trip” for a man who now picked uniform number 3 to indicate he’d like a third World Series ring as well as stability for his family.

He’s known as a student of the game, a disciplined hitter, a sharp-fielding third baseman, and a clubhouse godsend. All Bregman has to do is live up to all that as best a 31-year-old with more than a few miles on him can, as he did when his body allowed in Boston last year. Da Cubs will make sure his appreciation is far, wide, and deep.

Tucker, the Man and His Team Dept.—Meanwhile, an erstwhile Cub lit the fuse on fresh screaming over the big, bad, behemoth Dodgers and their big, bad, behemoth platinum vault. The erstwhile Cub is Kyle Tucker, considered the number one free agent in the winter class by those who thought Bregman was the class’s second banana.

Tucker signed up for four years, $240 million, and opt-outs after years two and three. The deal also includes $30 million in deferred dollars. If Tucker helps the Dodgers to a third straight World Series title, Dodger City will consider it all very wisely spent. If he doesn’t or can’t, well . . .

That screaming won’t be limited to denunciations of the Dodgers as the new Evil Empire. It’ll include audible-in-the-Klingon-Empire demands for explanations as to why a no-doubt talent but with 27.3 wins above replacement-level in eight season is pulling down $17 million a year more than Aaron Judge, Yankee bombardier first class, who earned about 3.0 more WAR just over three of the past four years.

The Dodgers are betting on Tucker’s future coming somewhere near Judge’s present, of course. Aside from the dollars, the Dodgers could offer something far deeper to the low-keyed Tucker. He can do Tucker things without the floodlights baking him too heavily compared to the rest of the Dodgers’ star power.

He might have been the star of this free agency market, when Bregman and Bo Bichette weren’t, but that’s about as far as Tucker seems to care to go when it comes to attracting attention with anything beyond his still-growing bat and his virtuosity playing right field.

What’s Bo Know Dept.—Bo Bichette is a Met. Roll the rhyme around awhile, Metsropolitan New York. Savour the possibilities to come with a healthy Bichette helping the Mets ride all the way to a postseason. (Remember: He came off the injured list to be one of the shining time Blue Jays in last year’s World Series.)

Now, be afraid. Be very afraid. Because the Mets plan for their new $126 million infield toy is to move him from his normal shortstop to third base. Every Met fan since the day they were born will warn you. The Mets don’t have a sterling history of third base conversions. (Mets legend David Wright was born to the position, you may remember.)

Ask what happened when they traded a talented but still-erratic arm named Nolan Ryan to the Angels for a veteran elite shortstop named Jim Fregosi . . . and decided to turn that veteran elite shortstop into a third baseman. Case closed.

Bichette can hit. The only population that doesn’t know that might be a colony of Arctic walruses. But with the glove? He’s 36 defensive zone runs below his league average as a shortstop, and his range factors per game are below the average, too. He played a little second base in the minors but not a lick of third base in the Show.

The Mets turned toward Bichette more seriously (they’d been talking previously) when Tucker went California bound the night before. The Phillies saw the Mets embrace Bichette and elected to reunite with veteran catcher J.T. Realmuto after all.

Now all the Mets have to do is get a read on whether Bichette will be the second coming of poor Jim Fregosi or the first coming of Bo Bichette, third base maven. Not to mention whether Brett Baty, the incumbent third base Met, will have a reasonable future moving to the corner outfield, as some reports speculate.

Well, the Mets have been many things over the decades. Boring has rarely been one of them.