In 2009, at the precocious age of 22, Kyle Blanks stormed into the Show and promptly swatted 10 big flies, and his .372 wOBA — in a limited sample — was third-best on the Padres. In other words, he had arrived, and the Friars happily installed him as their cleanup hitter for the 2010 campaign. But after a slow start, Blanks was felled by Tommy John surgery, and has seemingly been an afterthought since. Is the big man still capable of pulverizing pitches, and if so, does he need to be traded in order to do so?

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Remember that show Cougar Town? Yeah, uh, me neither. I mean, I might have watched it once, and it was awful. Just awful. I mean, it was the Houston Astros of television programs. They canceled it, right? No? Great, what will the titans of the television industry think of next? A show starring Chelsea Handler’s mom and Laura “So In-Demand I Had To Stay On That 70s Show Until the Bitter End With Seth Meyers’ Even Less Talented Brother As My Love Interest” Prepon with her hair dyed blonde?

Okay, I apologize, that is just cruel… to the Astros. Don’t get me wrong — the Astros are in a bad place. But at least they have the prospect of getting out of it… eventually. But just when you thought things could not get worse for Houston, catcher Jason Castro, who missed the entire 2011 season with knee surgery, had to have surgery to repair damage done to his foot during the Arizona Fall League.

That is likely why the Astros have signed former Arizona and Pittsburgh catcher Chris Snyder to a one-year deal (with a mutual option — they must really admire the Kansas City model). Did you know that Snyder went to the University of Houston, whose mascot is a Cougar? What a coincidence, it fits right in with this clever introduction!

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When Carlos Pena had his breakout season for Tampa Bay in 2007, it wasn’t as a member of the Rays. Pena was instead just another of the hapless Devil Rays, slogging along in soulless Tropicana Field. Friday, Carlos Pena signed a one-year, $7.25 million contract to return to Tampa Bay and Tropicana Field, where the Rays couldn’t possibly be a more different team than when he first arrived.

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The end of the 2011 season does not seem to have ended the Red Sox spell of misfortune as two-thirds of their projected everyday lineup outfield is now out with injury. It was reported earlier this offseason that rightfielder Ryan Kalish would be out until at least June as he recovers from shoulder surgery. This week came that Carl Crawford will likely miss the start of the regular season due to wrist surgery. Crawford is not expected to miss a lot of playing time, but wrist injuries can linger and sap a player’s bat control for an extended period of time. That leaves the Red Sox with exactly 3 outfielders who (a) are on the 40-man roster, (b) have played an inning in MLB, and (c) project to be healthy on opening day.

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Rebuilding a 99-loss team is never easy, especially when an already tight budget is reduced by more than 10 percent. However, that’s the exact thing Twins GM Terry Ryan was tasked with when he returned to the post following Bill Smith’s dismissal in November.

Ryan has done a nice job of mixing in low-cost free agent options with a few buy-low candidates to rebuild the club on pretty much every level, but today let’s focus on how the nearly completely revamped bullpen should be more of an asset than a liability in 2012, especially in light of the signing of the quintessential buy-low option, Joel Zumaya, which became official Thursday.

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Yesterday, Enrique Rojas broke the news that Fausto Carmona’s real name is actually Roberto Heredia, and he’s three years older than his listed age of 28. Additionally, because he was using a false identity, Carmona’s Heredia’s chances of securing a work visa seem to be less than stellar. Previous players who have gotten caught using a false name and birthdate have ended up getting stuck in their home country, and it’s an open question whether or not Heredia will make it to the U.S. this year. The Indians are likely best off preparing as if he’s not going to be a member of their rotation in 2012.

Replacing a guy who posted a 130 ERA- last year doesn’t seem like that big of a challenge. In fact, the Tribe could run out pretty much any random Triple-A arm they wanted and expect to get similar or better results than what Heredia gave them a year ago. Of course, since you’re reading FanGraphs, you’re likely aware that past year ERA isn’t a great predictor of next season ERA, especially in cases where the results don’t line up with the underlying peripherals. In Heredia’s case, his xFIP- of 103 suggests that he was more likely to post an ERA closer to league average this year than he was to be lousy once again, and a starter who can throw 200 league average-ish innings has some real value. The Indians realized this as well, which is why they picked up his $7 million option rather than letting him hit the free agent market.

Unfortunately for Cleveland, Heredia’s in-flux status means that they can’t really count on being able to void his contract and reallocate those funds to another pitcher. There’s still a chance he could get his visa and join the team, in which case the club would still be on the hook for his salary – trying to get the contract completely voided on the basis of fraud isn’t easy and the case wouldn’t be settled any time soon.

So, with potentially limited funds to spend (after all, they still need a first baseman as well), Chris Antonetti will likely have to turn to the trade market if he wants to find a replacement for what the team was expecting Heredia to provide. And, luckily for the Indians, they might have a chance to make a deal that could allow them to bring in a pretty similar pitcher that they’re already very familiar with – Jake Westbrook.

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Some footage of Alex Cobb versus a Triple-A offense.

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

1. A Single Headline Concerning Alex Cobb
2. Results: For or Against: Phillies First Basemen
3. Third Thing: Video of Angel prospect Johnny Hellweg

A Single Headline Concerning Alex Cobb
Cobb Confident He Can Compete in Majors
Young Tampa Bay right-hander Alex Cobb has “the confidence now to know that [he] can compete” in the majors, MLB.com’s Bill Chastain reports. Basically every projection system suggests agrees with Alex Cobb.

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It’s probably the Canadian in me talking, but I have always been a Jeff Francis fan. The University of British Columbia product was selected 9th overall by the Colorado Rockies in the famed Moneyball draft, and rewarded the team with 11.8 WAR in his first five big league seasons before succumbing to the injury bug. Now, the 31 year old finds himself without a job a month before spring training despite posting 4.6 WAR over the last two seasons.

Why is he unemployed? Well, the 85 MPH fastball has something to do with it, but so does the fact that he’s traditionally been a guy whose results haven’t matched his peripherals. Other than his 36.2 inning cup of coffee in 2004, only once in his career has his ERA been lower than his FIP. For his career, his FIP is a respectful 4.40, but his ERA is 4.78, a 38 point gap that helps shed light on the perception of Francis as a guy you only want on the hill if you have no other options. The last two seasons have been especially brutal, with an ERA almost a full run higher than his FIP – the main culprit being, as usual, a .317 BABIP. His inflated hit rate has been fueled in part by a significant drop in his infield fly rate, which has hovered at close to 6% over the last two years after being over 10% early in his career.

There is nothing overly unusual about a pitcher posting back-to-back seasons with BABIP’s of .320 and .316, or having a career mark of .310. These numbers are well within the expected random variation of our sample of major league pitchers. However, Francis has changed quite a bit since his early days in Colorado when he was throwing 89-92 MPH. He is now down in the 85 MPH range, and is now a full-blown pitch to contact guy. Last season, only 16.20% of Francis’ plate appearances ended in a walk or strikeout, ranking him 93rd out of 94 qualified pitchers. I decided to do some digging to see if just maybe these two factors might be related.

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Episode 128
It goes without saying that, if nothing else, sports fans are hungry for more chatter about late Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Fortunately, FanGraphs contributor and today’s guest Matt Klaassen is a PhD candidate in philosophy. He delivers several dramatic soliloquies on Wittgenstein’s life and work. Also discussed: Josh Hamilton, Prince Fielder, and the Texas Rangers.

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 37 min. play time.)

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As The Common Man noted on Notgraphs earlier today, O-Cab is hanging up his spikes. The journeyman shortstop announced his retirement after a 15-year career, including eight years in Montreal, three years in Anaheim, and a series of one-off stints in Minnesota, San Francisco, Oakland, Boston, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and the South Side of Chicago. But though he spent more than half his career in French Canada, and only 72 games in Boston (regular season and playoffs), Orlando Cabrera will forever be remembered for his time in Beantown. In that way, his career is a cruel synecdoche for the Expo experience.

As a low-OBP, glove-first shortstop with a bit of pop, Cabrera’s career value was somewhere in between the Alex Gonzalezes (retired Alex S. and still-active Alex S.) and Jose Valentin. But Cabrera was forever compared to — and always in the shadow of — Edgar Renteria, his smooth countryman. The two are the greatest players in the history of Colombian baseball, and they both happened to play the same position at the same time. In a situation like that, frayed nerves were bound to occur, as Jorge Arangure, Jr. wrote on ESPN in 2008.

I won’t accept dealing with him. I think he’s disrespected so many baseball people in Colombia who have been working to improve the sport.
— Edgar Renteria

These are ignorant comments from an ignorant person… I’ve always respected Edgar as one of the smartest people on the field, who, because of his intelligence, has excelled beyond his abilities. For him to make comments like that is disappointing.
— Orlando Cabrera

Source: FanGraphs — Orlando Cabrera, Edgar Renteria

Renteria immediately made a splash, getting the World Series-winning hit for the Marlins in 1997 as a 20-year old second-year player. Cabrera, two years older, had been called up for his first big league cup of coffee that season and went 4-for-18 with the Expos. Renteria had actually been discovered by Cabrera’s father, a Marlins scout who had trouble interesting the team in the undersized Orlando but had no trouble selling them on the smooth, tall, projectable Edgar.

Orlando’s great moment came seven years later, as the Red Sox swept Edgar Renteria’s St. Louis Cardinals for their first World Championship in 86 years, but Cabrera’s heroics weren’t about what he did — he went 0-5 in Game Four and 4-for-17 in the World Series — but who he was, a slick-fielding, high-energy shortstop who helped overhaul the moribund clubhouse as rookie GM Theo Epstein dumped Nomar Garciaparra for a defense-first infield of Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mientkiewicz. (Mientkiewicz retired last year.) Cabrera wasn’t a great hitter, but his energy nonetheless helped spark the team.

Cabrera wasn’t much of a hitter, with a career wOBA of .312, but he sure could pick it. Over the years of his career, 1997 to 2011, he had 29 WAR, the 12th-highest WAR among shortstops. (And many of them, including Alex Rodriguez, Miguel Tejada, Nomar Garciaparra, and Michael Young, accumulated a number of those wins at another position.) He played 1985 games in 15 seasons, including his 1997 cup of coffee; in other words, he played the equivalent of 13.2 150-game seasons, and averaged 2.2 wins a season each year. Orlando Cabrera was an above-average shortstop for a really long time.

And he’s retiring on his terms: MLB Trade Rumors reported that he actually turned down a one-year offer from the Braves earlier this offseason. So he didn’t have to choose retirement as a default after a winter’s worth of the phone not ringing.

He made his retirement announcement on a Colombian radio station, but I can’t speak Spanish. Can anyone listen to this and let me know what he said?