Ben Nicholson-Smith is a staff member of MLBTradeRumors.com. This is the second in a series of guests posts he will be writing for FanGraphs, which will appear on Mondays.

It won’t surprise anyone if Albert Pujols and Adrian Gonzalez join baseball’s $100 million club within the next two months. If and when the two first basemen sign extensions, it will become harder to predict which players will be the next to sign nine-figure contracts.

This much is certain: team owners will continue making baseball’s best players wealthy. As a group, owners have averaged two $100 million contracts per year since Kevin Brown signed baseball’s first $100 million deal in 1998. Six of the total 26 nine-figure contracts in baseball history were finalized in the last calendar year, so owners are still willing to spend.

Last month, Rangers owner Chuck Greenberg signed Adrian Beltre to a deal that could be worth $96 million. The next player to benefit from Texas’ aggressive new ownership could be the reigning AL MVP Josh Hamilton, who is arbitration eligible for the second time, and could sign a deal that buys out his two remaining arbitration years and some of his free agent seasons.

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We’re pleased to welcome Tommy Rancel as the newest member of the FanGraphs staff. His debut post is below.

Last week, Mark Kotsay signed a one-year deal with the Milwaukee Brewers worth $800,000 with incentives that could push it closer to $1.2 million. Kotsay receives a guaranteed major league contract despite coming off a season in which he hit .239/.306/.379 in just under 360 plate appearances for the Chicago White Sox. His .297 wOBA and 77 wRC+ last season were well below average, following a trend for Kotsay over the past few years.  If you’re looking for a silver lining on defense, look elsewhere – he hasn’t been a good defender for most of the past decade.

Brewers assistant GM Gord Ash said Kotsay will fill the role that Jim Edmonds held last year. He will serve as the team’s primary bat off the bench as well as the fourth or fifth outfielder with the ability to fill in at first base if needed. Just a few days after his name was mentioned by Ash when speaking of Kotsay, Edmonds returned to the St. Louis Cardinals, potentially to fill a similar role.

Edmonds missed all of 2009, but made a surprise return to the big leagues last year playing for the Brewers and later the Cincinnati Reds. In 272 plate appearances, the 40-year-old hit .277/.342/.507. He joined Matt Joyce as the only players in the majors with at least 10 home runs and 15 doubles despite logging less than 275 plate appearances. As a defender, he did an admirable job in the field earning positive marks in a limited role. In total, he was worth nearly 3 WAR. Not bad for a non-roster invitee.

Naturally, Edmonds received a minor-league deal from St. Louis while Kotsay is guaranteed major league money. What?

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I’ve added the RotoChamp.com’s fantasy baseball projections to the projections pages and they’re also available in the usual sortable format.

For those interested, you can read the full FAQ on the projection system here.

RotoChamp’s projections are a new entrant (queued) in Tangotiger’s Forecasters Challenge this year.

Full Disclosure: RotoChamp.com is a paying advertiser in the form of banner ads on FanGraphs.com

Episode Sixty-One
In which the guest is really moving up in the world.

Headlines
Neyer’s New Job
The Art of Blogging (Whatever That Is)
NBC’s Thursday Night Lineup
… and other amusing tangents!

Featuring
Rob Neyer, National Baseball Editor

Finally, you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio on the flip-flop. (Approximately 45 min play time.)

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Ever since the season ended, I’ve had a post on the back burner about the worst 40+ home run seasons of all-time. It was inspired by the 2010 efforts of the Toronto Blue Jays’ Aaron Hill and Adam Lind (each of whom managed a wRC+ below 90 while hitting more than 20 homers). Earlier this week, I decided Friday would be the day… then yesterday, the dastardly Daniel Moroz posted on the Worst 30 Home Runs Seasons of All-Time at Beyond the Box Score. After a struggle to sublimate my fury, I decided that I would throw all my best-laid plans to the wind and, instead, compile a short list of the best offensive seasons with zero home runs of recent times.

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In naming Lastings Milledge the ninth-best prospect in the game prior the 2006 season, Baseball America said that the precocious outfielder figured to be part of a Queens offensive core including Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes and David Wright. BA also threw out this quirky nugget of information about the would-be stud: Milledge’s family “has followed [his] career throughout the minors in a recreational vehicle affectionately dubbed ‘Milledgeville.’ ”

That rec vehicle was supposed to roll into Queens for good. But half a decade and three teams later, Milledgeville has bald tires, scratched paint and the horse power of a single burro. Rather than becoming a star in baseball’s biggest media market, Milledge is just hoping to avoid a summer spent taking the International League tour through places like Toledo, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Durham. Having washed out of New York, Washington and Pittsburgh, Milledge will try to carve out a bench role with the White Sox after agreeing to a minor league deal with a Spring Training invite. Can Milledgeville get back on track, or is it destined for the scrap yard?

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We’re a couple of weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting, and by now, most free agents have figured out where they’ll be going during spring training. Some may be rolling up in more expensive clothes than they had last year, thanks to a shiny new contract they signed this winter. Today, though, I’m more interested in the guys who will be recycling last year’s digs – the ones who come to camp with non-guaranteed contracts and will spend March fighting for a job on a big league roster. Let’s take a look at what kind of team could have been assembled this winter without handing out a single Major League contract. Essentially, these guys are the NRI All-Stars.

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Baseball Prehistory | Deadball Era | Liveball Era | Post-War
Expansion | Free Agency | Modern Era

I think we’re all familiar with the Modern Era, so I’m not going in to too much detail:

I drew the line wrong though. I should have started it in 1993, with the introduction of two new teams: the Colorado Rockies and the Florida Marlins, and the huge boost in runs scored per game. Instead, I set it to 1995 because I had noted the wrong date for the two expansion franchises. They were joined by the Tampa Bay Rays and the Arizona Diamondbacks in 1998. For the most part, it doesn’t change much, but as I’ve learned doing this series, you guys catch everything, so it’s better to be up-front about it.

Here are the players that move in to the Modern Era if I change the cutoff to 1993:

• Andres Galarraga (35.4)
• Paul O’Neill (43.8)
• Mark McGwire (70.6)
• Barry Larkin (69.8)
• Rafael Palmeiro (75.5)
• Ron Gant (35.3)
• Matt Williams (47.4)
• Jay Bell (40.3)
• Albert Belle (44.2)
• Travis Fryman (33.7)

By strong request of Big Jgke I have updated the images to include these players.
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The Pittsburgh Pirates
2010 MLB Record: 57-105 (sixth place, NL Central)
Minor League Power Ranking: 13th (out of 30)
Click for: Last Year’s Top 10 Prospect List

The Prospects

1. Jameson Taillon, RHP
Acquired: 2010 1st round (Texas HS)
Pro Experience: None
2010 MiLB Level: None
Opening Day Age: 19
Estimated Peak WAR: 5.5

Notes: The Pirates organization had a difficult decision to make with the second overall pick in the 2010 draft: prep hurler Taillon or high school shortstop Manny Machado. The club took the talented arm and it’s hard to argue the decision. Taillon was arguably the most talented arm in the draft with a mid-to-high-90s fastball, a promising curveball and two more pitches (slider, changeup) rounding out his repertoire. Taillon occasionally throws his curveball from a slightly higher arm slot than his other pitches. He appears to have a lot of confidence on the mound but I’d like to see him follow through with his delivery a little more, and he tends to leak out in front of the rubber. It’s all relatively minor stuff that should be corrected with experience and good coaching. He didn’t play after signing, but could potentially open the season in low-A ball, benefiting from some time in extended spring training. Taillon has No. 1 starter potential if he can stay healthy. I have to say, I am really impressed with the new-look Pirates organization and this young hurler is the cream of a nice crop of prospects.

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