Today in the 1898-1899 offseason, a remarkable thing happened: as the ownership groups in Baltimore and Brooklyn swapped part shares in each other’s clubs, the Orioles effectively merged with the Dodgers, with the class of the two ballclubs going to Brooklyn and the dregs staying in Baltimore — with the exception of star Baltimore third baseman John McGraw, who refused to leave. (Imagine if Jeffrey Loria traded a stake in the Marlins to Rogers Communications to obtain a stake in the Blue Jays, and you begin to get the idea.) The super-team in Brooklyn, formerly called the Trolley Dodgers, became known as the “Superbas.”

Up to that point, the Orioles had been arguably the best team in the National League for much of the decade, which is to say, the best team in baseball, because the National League was the only major league at the time. The Orioles finished first out of 12 teams from 1894-1896, and second in 1897-1898. The majority of their starting lineup — catcher Wilbert Robinson, shortstop Hughie Jennings, third baseman John McGraw, and outfielders Joe Kelley and Wee Willie Keeler, not to mention manager Ned Hanlon — went to the Hall of Fame. (Hanlon, Robinson, and McGraw largely made the Hall on their reputations as managers, though McGraw was also a superb player.) Then their team was eviscerated, and the Orioles disappeared through contraction the following year.
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James Shields was traded this off season from the Rays to the Royals. He has been known for his durability over the years. Spanning the last two seasons, he is first in complete games with 14. Also, he is second to Justin Verlander in innings thrown. The durability and consistency he is known for may be coming to an end. At the end of the last season, he showed signs of breaking down because he was not able to throw strikes and wasn’t able to maintain a consistent release point.

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Play the player-profile game again tomorrow — in this case, at the scheduled time of 1:00pm ET. We’re giving away a free annual subscription to FanGraphs+ to the first reader who guesses correctly the identity of that day’s mystery player. (Limit one copy per customer).

As Eno Sarris announced recently, FanGraphs+ is once again available to the sexy, teeming masses.

In celebration — and to the end of nearly relentless promotion — we’re playing the player-profile game I introduced in these pages a few offseasons ago.

The game is easy: one person (me, in this case) offers the text of single player profile, being careful to omit any proper names that might reveal the identity of the player in question. The other person (you, the reader) attempts to identify the player using only the details provided in the profile.

First reader to guess correctly (in the comments section below) gets a free annual subscription to FanGraphs+ — approximately a $1000 value!

Today’s entry comes to us courtesy of Mr. Patrick Dubuque.

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The off-season isn’t technically over yet, as there are still a few free agents to be signed, and there’s a chance we could see another significant trade before spring training opens. However, most teams have essentially finished their off-season shopping at this point, and now we can look back and see which teams did the best in terms of adding talent to their organizations, or made a good move that pushes them closer towards serious contention without doing long term damage to their franchise.

Keep in mind, just because a trade is listed here as a win for one franchise doesn’t mean that I think the decision was necessarily a poor one for the other side. There are several deals below that I think served both teams interest, and in fact, one deal is listed twice, because I think both teams got exactly what they needed in the transaction. There are win-win deals, so the support for one side of a transaction should not be read as condemnation of the other side. We’ll look at the worst transactions of the winter tomorrow, and it won’t simply be the flip side of the trades listed below.

Final disclaimer: only transactions made after free agency began were considered. While Jake Peavy and David Ortiz re-signed to team friendly deals, we’re excluding them from the discussion, as they came before the off-season began.

If you’re interested in such things, here’s the list of moves I liked from last off-season. The teams listed below are probably hoping that their moves turn out more like the Carlos Beltran signing and less like the Michael Pineda acquisition. On to this year’s recap.

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If you are a casual baseball fan, you probably haven’t heard of Brad Boxberger. If you are a casual baseball fan, though, you probably aren’t hanging out at FanGraphs, clicking on posts about Brad Boxberger. Boxberger is a player of some interest and mild fame. He was, in 2009, drafted 43rd overall by the Cincinnati Reds. He was, in 2011, traded to the San Diego Padres as part of the package for Mat Latos. He did, in 2012, make his major-league debut, working out of the San Diego bullpen. Over 24 appearances, Boxberger yielded just eight earned runs. Things could’ve gone worse for Brad Boxberger.

As this was Boxberger’s debut major-league season, he experienced a lot of firsts. He threw his first pitch on June 10, to Rickie Weeks. It was a strike. Weeks subsequently drew what would be Boxberger’s first major-league walk. Boxberger’s first major-league strikeout was next, a swinging strikeout of Martin Maldonado. On June 20, Boxberger allowed his first major-league run. On August 12, Boxberger yielded his first major-league dinger. On September 5, Boxberger recorded his first major-league hold.

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

Caribbean Series Title Game
The Caribbean Series — featuring the champion from each of the Dominican Winter, Mexican Pacific, Puerto Rican, and Venezuelan Winter Leagues — began last Friday in Hermosillo, Mexico. The first six days of the Series were played in a double round-robin format, with each team playing every other one twice.

Championship Game: Escogido vs. Obregon, 9pm ET
Dominican club Leones de Escogido and Mexican club Yaquis de Obregon finished first and second during the round-robin portion and meet in the first-ever actual title game of a Caribbean Series, the champion of which has historically been whichever club recorded the most wins from the round-robin tournament.

With regard to tonight’s game, here are points of interest for the reader:

• Right-handers Angel Castro and Rodrigo Lopez pitch for Escogido and Obregon, respectively. Castro was impressive in the club’s opening game against Venezuela, striking out seven while walking none in seven innings. Lopez was less so, posting a 2:1 K:BB in six innings — also against Venezuela — but allowing just a single run anyway, somehow.

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Predicting the ability to steal bases is not something you think you need to do. You did not say to yourself over breakfast, “I wonder if Michael Bourn can steal bases?” You already knew he could. And maybe that’s what made breakfast so delicious.

But if we want to push the frontier of base running, if we want to see the end of the home run era become the beginning of the efficient base running era, we have to do this thing we thought we did not need to do. We have to be able to predict stolen bases.
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Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, are being released at FanGraphs this year. Below are the projections for the Minnesota Twins. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other 2013 Projections: Angels / Astros / Athletics / Blue Jays / Brewers / Cardinals / Cubs / Diamondbacks / Dodgers / Giants / Mariners / Marlins / Mets / Nationals / Padres / Phillies / Pirates / Rangers / Rays / Reds / Rockies / Royals / Tigers / White Sox / Yankees.

Batters
The Twins probably don’t have the least impressive set of offensive projections among the now-26 teams considered so far, but they probably do have the least impressive set of offensive projections for a club that also includes a player as good as Joe Mauer. Ben Revere and Denard Span, now both a part of the NL East, combined for seven-plus wins in 2012, and are projected for ca. five wins this season. Their replacements for the moment, Darin Mastroianni and Chris Parmelee — in center and right field, respectively — are projected to be worth only a fifth of that.

The reader will note that Ron Gardenhire’s actual deployment of Ryan Doumit, Joe Mauer, and Justin Morneau will likely be more nuanced than it’s represented in the depth-chart graphic below. The triumvirate made 48, 42, and 34 starts, respectively, at DH in 2012. Plus, Mauer made 30 starts at first base. Plus, Doumit made 56 at catcher. It’s not unreasonable to assume that they’ll be used similarly in 2013.

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Ben and Sam preview the Indians’ season with Matthew Kory and Paul Sporer, and Pete talks to MLB.com Indians reporter Jordan Bastian (at 19:57).

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