Faced with a $22 million team option for 2013 or paying Jake Peavy a $4 million buyout and letting him hit free agency, the White Sox went with Door #3; re-sign him to an extension that lowers his annual payout but keeps him in Chicago through 2014 and gives them a team option for 2015.

The new deal is worth $29 million guaranteed, with a few million of that likely being a buyout of the 2015 option, so Peavy’s salary each year is probably going to be $13 or $14 million. Given his performance history, that’s a bargain if he stays healthy. Of course, with Peavy, that’s a bigger if than with most.

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Hello there, friends. If you are a fan of the San Francisco Giants, congratulations on your recent world championship. If you are a fan of the Detroit Tigers, the opposite of that. If you are a fan of any other team, then for at least the last week or so you’ve probably been looking forward to the start of the offseason. The offseason is when baseball teams are most able to change themselves, and a changed baseball team is a better baseball team. Or at least that’s the hope, if only sometimes the reality.

The offseason means trades, but the offseason also means rumors and the offseason means free agency. Thanks to the new CBA that before long we’ll be able to stop referring to as the “new CBA”, free agency is going to look a little bit different from how it used to. I’m referring specifically to free-agent compensation, and at the core here is the concept of the “qualifying offer”. That’s a term you’re going to see thrown around — that’s a term you’ve already seen thrown around — and we should discuss it. It’s not that complicated, so if you’re unclear about qualifying offers and if you have a few minutes, lend me those few minutes.

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With the World Series behind us and free agency officially kicking off on Saturday, the Hot Stove season is now upon us. While it’s unlikely that you’ll see anyone change teams immediately, there are always some free agents that sign pretty quickly, setting the market for others to follow. Before we get too far into evaluating the moves and the contracts of the winter, though, I thought it would be useful to walk through some of the changes that the new CBA has brought on that have a direct impact on free agency and will likely have a trickle down effect on trade evaluations.

Obviously, the biggest change is the overhaul of the free agent compensation system. Gone are the ridiculous Elias ratings that separated players into Type A or B free agents, taking with it the necessary component of offering arbitration to a pending free agent in order to collect that compensation. Instead of offering arbitration, teams must now submit a qualifying offer equal to the average salary of the 125 highest paid players in the game – this year, that works out to $13.3 million. In essence, a team that wants to be compensated for losing a free agent has to be willing to bring that player back for $13 million in 2013, which will greatly reduce the amount of players who get tagged with a compensation requirement.

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

1. Contract Crowdsourcing: Starting Pitchers (2 of 3)
2. SCOUT Leaderboard: Arizona Fall League Pitchers
3. Assorted Remarks Concerning Arizona Prospect Chase Anderson

Contract Crowdsourcing: Starting Pitchers (2 of 3)
Free agency begins this coming Saturday. FanGraphs is asking readers to estimate the years and average annual dollar values likely to be received by certain notable free agents. We continue today with the second third of this free-agent class’s notable starting pitchers. (Click here for more on the contract crowdsourcing project.)

Other positions: Catchers / First Basemen / Second Basemen / Third Basemen / Shortstops / Corner Outfielders / Center Fielders / Designated Hitters / Right-Handed Relievers / Left-Handed Relievers / Starting Pitchers (Part 1).

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Last week, Jorge Arangure wrote a nice piece on the lack of plate patience among Domican hitters. The article was helpful in illustrating the conditions that reinforce the oft-cited Dominican baseball adage that “you can’t walk off of the island.” It also inspired me to take a little look at the historical numbers among Dominican-born players to see if there’s been any change in walk rates over the years.

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Ben and Sam discuss the decisions the Angels are about to make concerning Dan Haren and Ervin Santana and talk about what their 2013 rotation will look like, then predict 2013’s division/World Series winners and last-place teams.

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Sunday night, when last there was baseball, Miguel Cabrera stood in against Matt Cain in the bottom of the third with a runner on base. In a 1-and-1 count, Cabrera lifted an offspeed pitch into right field, and off the bat it looked like a fairly routine fly ball. But on this night in Detroit, no fly ball was a routine fly ball, and Cabrera’s just continued to carry and carry. It kept on carrying until finally it carried over the fence and gave the Tigers their first lead of the whole World Series. Gusts of wind turned a probable out into a two-run dinger. According to the Home Run Tracker, Cabrera’s fly lost seven feet of distance due to the low temperature, but it gained an incredible 44 feet of distance due to the wind. Under standard conditions, it’s calculated that the fly ball would have been a home run in zero ballparks.

On a chilly night, Miguel Cabrera batted under hitter-friendly conditions, and he took advantage of them. It wouldn’t be enough for the Tigers, of course, and that isn’t what this is about. Rather, this is about the rarity of hitter-friendly conditions over the course of the 2012 playoffs. Or if you prefer, this is about the rarity of hitters taking advantage of what hitter-friendly conditions there might have been during October.

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Episode 266
FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron analyzes all baseball — and, in particular, the part of baseball concerning Gregor Blanco, Marco Scutaro, and the Giants’ particularly able roster construction. Also: Tim Lincecum, future reliever (in the tradition of Willie Hernandez)? And, finally: free agency, which starts soon.

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 40 min. play time.)

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There’s a new positional option for the leaderboards labeled NP (Non-Pitchers). This will exclude all players that qualify as pitchers from any of the batting leaderboards.

This works at both the team and league levels as well, making it easier to compare teams across leagues.