Players choose the services of Scott Boras for a simple reason. The simplest reason, even: he gets money.

But not even Boras can truly command the invisible hand of the market. See Kyle Lohse. Despite many seeing him as one of the best pitchers available in this year’s free agent class, Lohse remains unsigned into march — a far cry from the four-year, $40 million deal or higher many saw him attaining.

Of course, for all of Boras’s success, Lohse isn’t his first high-profile client whose market has dropped out from under him. The safe play given the age of most of these players (over 30) and MLB’s guaranteed contract system would be to take a multi-year contract at a depressed average annual value. Quite often, however, Boras has eschewed the long term deal for the “pillow contract,” a one-year contract so-called because it lets the player land softly from their bottomed-out market and get up and try again next season.

Let’s take a look at some examples.

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The Indians system doesn’t have a ton of depth but both Francisco Lindor and Trevor Bauer offer high ceilings. The club also has some really intriguing sleepers such as Danny Salazar and Anthony Santander. The organization has done an outstanding job of finding value in the Latin market.

#1 Francisco Lindor (SS)

Lindor is one of the more well-rounded offensive prospects in the game. He has plus makeup, which helps his tools play up. He’s a four-tool player whose only questionable tool is his power, which will likely top out around 15 in a full year.  The switch-hitter also walked almost as much as he struck out in 2012. When I asked a contact to tell me what Lindor does well at the plate, he mentioned the prospect’s consistent middle-of-the-field approach from both sides of the plate. 

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Table of Contents
Today’s edition of the Daily Notes has no table of contents, it appears.

A Semi-Adequate Preview of the Weekend’s WBC Games
Pools A and B of this year’s edition of the World Baseball Classic begin this weekend in Japan and Taiwan, respectively. While much of the first weekend’s action will be taking place during that time of the night during which the present author, at least, is “very unconscious,” the prospect of real-live baseball is attractive.

That being the case, he has produced the following, i.e. a Semi-Adequate Preview of the Weekend’s WBC Games.

Participants
As noted above, this weekend’s collection of games includes only teams from Pools A and B — with the competition’s other two groups to commence play on Thursday.

Here are the eight teams scheduled to compete this weekend and those teams’ most notable players (with considerable help from Experts on the Internet).

Pool: A (Fukuoka, Japan)
Nation: Brazil
Notable Players: No fewer than nine member of affiliated baseball, including White Sox right-hander Andre Rienzo (ranked seventh among that team’s prospects by Marc Hulet), 27-year-old Royals outfielder Paulo Orlando (who’s regarded by Steamer as something slightly better than replacement level, actually), and nearly 23-year-old Tampa Bay third baseman Leonardo Reginatto (who posted a 1:1 BB:K in ca. 13 plate appearance during qualifying).

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Major League Baseball announced Tuesday that 13 teams will accept mobile tickets this season via Apple’s Passbook app. Passbook is “designed to store membership cards, tickets, coupons and boarding passes — a bit like a digital wallet.”  Fans who purchase tickets via MLB’s AtBat app can send that ticket information directly to Passbook, which stores the ticket bar code for use at the ballpark gate.

Via GigaOM, here’s what it would look like on your iPhone.

The Giants, Mets, Red Sox and Royals participated in an MLB-Apple pilot program at the end of last season. During that two-week trial period, 12% of single-game tickets purchased through AtBat were stored in Passbook. Apple was criticized for Passbook’s lack of usability when the app was first released last September, so the 12% participation rate was encouraging. The app was updated to increase usability with the release of Apple’s new iOS 6.1 software.

MLB identified seven additional teams that will accept tickets via Passbook this season, including the Twins, Orioles, Brewers, A’s, Pirates, Tigers and Cubs. Two more teams are expected to join before the start of the season on March 31.

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