The awards season will wrap up when the National League Most Valuable Player is announced a little later this afternoon, and I think this race is a little more open than its AL counterpart. The Brewers have a pair of candidates, the Phillies have a pair of candidates, and the Dodgers have a pair of candidates as well. Clayton Kershaw already took home the Cy Young Award and doesn’t have the same kind of MVP buzz that Justin Verlander did, but he’s not even the best MVP candidate on his own club. That’s the new $160 million man, Matt Kemp.

In terms of our version of WAR, the trademark stat here at FanGraphs, Kemp was the most valuable player in the National League this season and by a not small margin either. His performance was worth 8.7 wins, a half-win ahead of Roy Halladay (8.2) and nearly a full win ahead of Ryan Braun (7.8). No other players in the Senior Circuit eclipsed the seven-win plateau. WAR is far from perfect and it’s not designed to end arguments; in fact it’s much more effective at starting them. So even though Kemp was pretty well separated from the pack in terms of wins over replacement, let’s further reinforce his candidacy for the MVP Award.

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At some point today, Major League Baseball is expected to announce the details of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement that was negotiated with the player’s association. While there are some pretty major changes to several areas of the game, perhaps the most influential move is the addition of a second wild card team in each league. While qualifying to participate in a one-game play-in isn’t quite the same as being awarded a spot in the Division Series round, the new rule does essentially give two extra opportunities to play in October, and while it may not seem like a drastic change, I do think we’re going to see significant repercussions in how and when teams acquire talent.

An additional playoff spot has the obvious effect of increasing every team’s chances of making the playoffs, and as a byproduct of that result, the value of short-term wins just increased. Under the old system, a team needed to win at least 90 games to have a legitimate chance at winning the Wild Card. Of the 32 teams to get into the playoffs via the extra playoff spot since 1997, only three had finished with 89 wins or fewer – in fact, in the American League, the 91-win 2011 Rays had the lowest win total of any AL Wild Card team since the 2000 Seattle Mariners. The average wild card team has won 93.3 games per season, so the non-division-winning playoff team has still been quite excellent in most years.

The new system lowers the barrier to entry by a significant amount, however. Back in April, our own Wendy Thurm looked at how interleague play would have affected a hypothetical second wild card team for the National League had it been in place since 1998. As you can see, more often than not, the runner up in the NL Wild Card race finished with a win total in the 80s, and the average win total was just 89.2 wins. There has historically been a pretty significant drop-off in quality between the wild card team and the runner-up, but now that runner up will also get a chance to continue their quest for the World Series.

The result will be a shift in the curve that measures the value of a win. Right now, the value of a win is fairly linear up until about win #85, at which point each additional win (up until about win #98) becomes significantly more valuable, as those wins have the greatest impact on a team’s odds of making the playoffs. The new wild card is going to dramatically increase the value of wins starting at around #82, while also flattening the win curve a bit sooner, as the second wild card will all but ensure that a team with 95+ wins will make the playoffs, and the value of each additional win beyond that will diminish slightly.

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Obviously it is the horse talking.

News broke Monday night that the Texas Rangers signed once-great, maybe even possibly still-great, reliever Joe Nathan to a 2-year contract for $7M a year, plus a $9M option.

FUN FACT: Over the last two years, Joe Nathan and I have the exact same WAR — we both have been worth precisely 0.0 wins! Which makes us ask: Why did the Rangers choose Nathan?

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This past weekend reports surfaced that the current CBA had been amended, specifically with regard to draft pick compensation. According to Ken Rosenthal’s tweets, teams will no longer have to forfeit picks for signing type A Relievers. The amazing thing is that it only took us two posts and less than 100 comments to fix this problem. Okay, maybe we can’t take all the credit for changing the new CBA, but the owners and players clearly read your comments, because not only will there be no more compensation for type A relievers, but the Elias Ranking will be gone as well (starting as soon as next year). Good job, influential FanGraphs commenter!

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This grainy image reveals the secret to Peter Bourjos’ defensive range.

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Offseason Notes.

1. Assorted Headlines
2. SCOUT Leaderboards: Venezuelan Winter League
3. Projecting: ZiPS for Los Angeles (AL)

Assorted Headlines
Baltimore Nearing Deal with Korean Reliever Chong
The Orioles are closing in on signing right-handed reliever Chong Tae-Hyon out of South Korea, MLB.com’s Brittany Ghiroli reports. Chong, 33, has pitched in the Korea Baseball Organization since 2001 and has made appearances with the South Korean National Team. Chong posted a 39:28 K:BB in 52.2 innings in 2011, but likely generates a number of ground balls by virtue of a submarine delivery. Below is some footage of Chong against China (starting at about the 4:08 mark). Warning: dope beats included.

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Shortstop is one of the deepest positions on the market this winter. The Pittsburgh Pirates made an early splash in the free agent waters and signed shortstop Clint Barmes to a two-year, $10.5M deal.

Pittsburgh chose to explore other shortstop options outside of Ronny Cedeno this winter. While Cedeno was statistically the best defender on the team in 2011 (5.9 UZR), he has historically never produced much at the plate. His paltry .277 career wOBA and .271 wOBA in 2011 are both evidence of that.

Barmes is a natural fit with the Pirates because he replaces the sound defense that Cedeno provided last year, but also increases the production at the plate to a respectable level. The 31-year-old Barmes has double-digit home run power and posted a .308 wOBA — which may not be impressive, but it is just below league average (20 out of 34) amongst shortstops with at least 350 plate appearances in 2011 and is enough due to his glovework.

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As a Mariner fan, I was searching for a distraction yesterday. The terrible news of Greg Halman’s death this morning weighs heavily and I wanted to think about anything else for a little bit. There is no proper transition to the run-of-the-mill machinations of the baseball offseason. Any attempt seems glib and unimportant; because it is. Baseball is just a game and countlessly more important things will happen and be ignored today than a rumor about Andrew Bailey, but it gave me an escape for a moment.

It’s not that the rumor or tweet itself is of much importance. The Athletics are shopping Andrew Bailey around and in a seller’s market for closers, appear likely to trade him. That is hardly a surprise. Andrew Bailey is really good and valuably cost-controlled for the next couple years. Of course teams are interested.

However, the rumor kicked off a thread in my brain and I realized something. Under the new CBA, free agent compensation has changed and a direct consequence is that almost all relief pitchers will fall outside Type A now and in the future. It used to be that if you were a team that believed it to be in need of an outside closer, you could dip into free agency, but have to pay market price and likely surrender a high draft pick. Or you could attempt to trade for a closer, pay less salary, keep your draft picks and even have a chance to add some when said closer went to free agency.

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Episode 102
This edition of the pod contains not only an interview with David Laurila — concerning his process, roots as a baseball writer, etc. — but also two interviews by Laurila, first with Red Sox catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and then with former outfielder Oscar Gamble.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 36 min. play time.)

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While the MVP award announcements are normally used as an opportunity to make snide comments and question the intelligence of writers, I prefer to think of them a different way. We know that we’ll never be able to convert everyone to sabermetrics, and there are always going to be one or two people that make questionable decisions on their ballots. Instead of focusing our attention on them, why not move that focus back to where it’s supposed to be: the players.

The MVP award (and the subsequent conversation surrounding it) is a chance for us to recognize players for having impressive, noteworthy years. Twenty-three players received a vote during this year’s AL MVP voting, but there were still more out there that had seasons worth remembering. These players aren’t necessarily “snubs”, since each player in the MVP voting also deserved recognition for their seasons; it’s simply there are sometimes more players doing exceptional things than can be highlighted.

So even if the BBWAA missed these players, let’s give a few of them the spotlight they deserve.

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For non-prospect fans, I wonder if last Friday was just another ho-hum day in their baseball lives. 40-man protections? Who cares! Why protect players in A-Ball anyway! Call me when they are ready to help the team I root for win a World Series. Maybe the Fangraphs crowd has moved beyond that line of thinking, but has the run-of-the-mill baseball fan who turns on a ballgame after work to unwind down after a busy work day?

Truth is any baseball fan who takes the time to dissect Friday’s moves will potentially learn more about the future of their favorite organization than any other day of the year. Why? Because the reason a player is protected is simple – Their respective organization believes he is a future big leaguer. Truth is, this level of clarity is rare for an organization as the name of the game is protecting the value of assets. Read the rest of this entry »