Clayton Kershaw has been one of the most hyped up young pitchers in the league since he made his debut as a 20-year-old in 2008. In 2011, he made that next step toward becoming one of the league’s true aces. With 21 victories, 248 strikeouts, a stellar 62 ERA-, a 2.47 FIP, 6.8 WAR — whichever way you slice it, Kershaw was an elite pitcher in 2011 and truly deserving of recognition, regardless of age. The fact that he has accomplished so much by age 23 is phenomenal.

At age 23, Roy Halladay was setting the MLB record for the highest ERA in a season, posting a 10.64 ERA in 67.2 innings with the Toronto Blue Jays. So much has changed since then, of course, with Halladay bringing in two Cy Young Awards over the past 10 years. This season marks Halladay’s second runner-up finish. If not for Kershaw taking home the pitching Triple Crown (leading in wins, strikeouts, and ERA), one could have imagined a closer vote.

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The Colorado Rockies have been active in the hot stove league although they have yet to make a trade or sign a free agent. They have holes to fill, particularly at second base, having lost Mark Ellis to the Los Angeles Dodgers, and on the mound. The Rockies made a run at Jamey Carroll — who played at Coors Field in 2006 and 2007 —  to fill the hole at second but Carroll signed with the Minnesota Twins to play shortstop.

Reports out of Denver have the Rockies aggressively pursuing a trade for Martin Prado of the Atlanta Braves to be their everyday second baseman. So far, the Rockies have offered outfielder Seth Smith for Prado but the Braves apparently want more. Two names floated to be included in a Prado-to-Rockies deal are rookie outfielder Charlie Blackmon or minor league outfielder Tim Wheeler but the Rockies have said no, so far. The Rockies are also one of eight teams who’ve expressed interest in former Cleveland Indians center fielder Grady Sizemore. The Rockies would move Sizemore to left field, to make it easier on his oft-injured knees. Although reports have not been specific on this, I assume a Sizemore-to-left move would then shift Gold Glove outfielder Carlos Gonzalez to right.

Through all of these rumors, the Rockies have made it clear that center fielder Dexter Fowler is off-limits. Not available. Ring a different doorbell. Why? Why would the Rockies refuse to trade Fowler if it meant getting Prado or another necessary piece?

I don’t know why.

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The Dodgers have somewhat surprisingly been the most active team so far this offseason, signing Juan Rivera and Mark Ellis as free agents while shelling out huge bucks to retain Matt Kemp long-term. They added another free agent earlier this week, signing catcher Matt Treanor to a one-year contract worth a guaranteed $1 million. There’s also a club option for 2013.

The 35-year-old backstop spent last season with the Royals and Rangers, mustering an 82 wRC+ in 242 plate appearances, both numbers representing the second highest totals of his career. Treanor did shatter his previous career highs in walks and walk rate, drawing 34 free passes (none intentional) for a 14.0% rate. From 2004-2010, the first seven years of his career, he walked in just 8.9% of his plate appearances. Treanor nearly doubled his career walk rate in 2011 by simply not swinging the bat; he went from offering at 50.9% of the pitches he saw in 2009 to just 40.9% this year. Part of that may be explained by batting eighth ahead of the punchless Alcides Escobar for most of the season, but Treanor may have decided he just wasn’t a good hitter, so he wasn’t going to swing unless he absolutely had too.

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If over a beer and a ball game, a buddy said, “Paul Goldschmidt will outhit Jason Heyward in 2012″, I would have assumed he had had one too many. With the release of Bill James‘ 2012 projections, the SABR legend said just that as the Diamondbacks first baseman is projected to produce a wOBA of .382.

Having scouted Goldschmidt in July, I came away believing he would take advantage of lesser pitching, but struggle with top flight velocity. If Goldschmidt hits to his wOBA projection, then I greatly undersold his overall hitting ability and he’s on the cusp of becoming one of the top-25 hitters in terms of wOBA in all of baseball based on final 2011 leaderboards.

Goldschmidt video after the jump

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When Carson Cistulli asked the collective crowd of FanGraphs readers what they thought Heath Bell would receive as a free agent this winter, they picked out 2.8 years and an annual average value of $9.6 million. Rounding up, we’d get an expected contract of three years and just shy of $30 million, and yesterday, Dan Hayes reported that’s almost exactly what he’s looking for.

Bell is hoping that his resume will earn him three guaranteed seasons, and given what Jonathan Papelbon just got from Philadelphia, it seems like the market for relief pitchers is still going very strong. Given Bell’s success in the ninth inning, 3/30 might strike some as a relative bargain compared to what Papelbon signed for and Ryan Madson is reportedly seeking.

However, before any team ponies up for Bell’s services, I’d hope that they’d ask themselves just how much of Bell’s success will follow him if he leaves San Diego.

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Devin Mesoraco can’t bring himself to look at Jason Pridie.

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

1. Assorted Headlines
2. SCOUT Leaderboards: Dominican Winter League
3. Prospecting: Baseball America’s Top-10 List for Cincinnati

Assorted Headlines
News for nerds.

Blue Jays Acquire Reliever Kimball
The Blue Jays claimed right-hander Cole Kimball off waivers from Washington on Wednesday afternoon, MLB.com’s Gregor Chisholm reports. Kimball, 26, was shifted to relief by the Nats in 2009 and has posted high strikeout and walk rates over the course of his minor-league career. Kimball underwent rotator cuff surgery in July, so likely won’t be available to pitch at the start of the season.

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Clint Barmes might be the new “Most Interesting Man in the World.” According to many analysts at the GM Meetings, Barmes’ agent was out in full force Wednesday. Perhaps surprisingly, Barmes is drawing a lot of interest from multiple teams. While Barmes isn’t the sexiest name on the shortstop market, he might actually be one of the better bargains at the position this off-season.

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Episode 100
FanGraphs Founder and CEO David Appelman discusses the early days both of the site and his own personal life, some features he’ll be adding this offseason, and whether or not he’ll still be in charge of FanGraphs in 2042. Also discussed: more on the gym and more on Zooey Deschanel vehicle The New Girl.

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 on the flip-flop. (Approximately 26 min. play time.)

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It’s official: Kirk Gibson has won the National League Manager of the Year award. He beat out third-place three-time winner Tony LaRussa, who earned a more exciting piece of hardware anyway, and second-place Ron Roenicke, a fellow freshman skipper who piloted the former Pilots to the post season. What narrative should we choose to enter into the annals of history alongside Gibson’s first full season of managing?

The obvious storyline comes from the Diamondbacks worst-to-first move under his stewardship. But upper management had a lot to do with the resurgence as well. Zach Duke, Juan Miranda, Henry Blanco, Melvin Mora, Joe Paterson, Russell Branyan, David Hernandez were brought on board, and really only Mark Reynolds and Adam LaRoche left town. Well, looking at that list, maybe the manager did have a lot to do with the turnaround?

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Last year, two of the most notable free agent signings of the winter were inexplicably terrible. Carl Crawford went from being an All-Star to a replacement level scrub, while Adam Dunn went from productive slugger to the worst hitter in baseball – well, almost – Orlando Cabrera just barely edged him out. Obviously, Crawford and Dunn are about as different as any two players in baseball, as Crawford is a speed-based gap hitter who produces a lot of value with his glove, while Dunn is a walks-and-homers guy who rightfully spent the year as a DH.

Neither player had shown any real sign that their skills were regressing, and while Dunn’s struggles could have just been a guy with old-player-skills getting old early, Crawford was 29 and in his athletic prime. It’s possible that either or both could bounce back and resume their previous levels of production, but their struggles got me wondering about whether there are certain player types that are more prone to this kind of out-of-nowhere collapse of production.

In order to look at this a little closer, I polled our FanGraphs staff looking for guys who were quality players for multiple years and then just turned into a pumpkin overnight. Because I was looking for guys whose decline wasn’t easily explainable, we’re omitting players who had significant injuries or were too far on the wrong side of 30 – this isn’t so much a question about aging curves or the effects of a body breaking down as it is a question of whether players who derive value from a certain type of performance are more likely to just see that value dry up overnight. We’re also only looking at position players, because pitchers are their own complicated story with a totally different mix of problems.

Here’s the list of guys that we came up with last night – it’s not a comprehensive list, and I’m hopeful you guys will add more names to the pile, but it’s a decent start.

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