It’s time for the annual refresh of FanGraphs+!

Let’s call it a refresh, because if you pay $5.99 for FanGraphs+, you get access to our articles for ESPN Insider for a full calendar year. And buying now also gives you access to all the FG+ research and pieces from past years.

But it’s also a big moment, because we’ve worked on 1200+ player caps for you, to help you prepare for the upcoming season. And yes, with that many player caps, there are plenty of fun ones, full of snark and celebration, just waiting for that random day you decide to look up Cody Ransom’s stats.

And, thanks to the hard work of our in-house analysts, we have the stable of long research pieces that form the ‘annual’ portion of FanGraphs+. Take a look at the table of contents:

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Kevin Towers is a confident, talkative man. He’ll tell you what he’s thinking about, and he’ll tell you what he’s doing. There aren’t many anonymous leaks that come out of the Diamondbacks organization because Towers doesn’t exactly keep many secrets — even when he’s actively negotiating. Towers has spent much of this offseason talking about how badly he wanted to acquire a No. 1-type starting pitcher. He was in on Masahiro Tanaka; he’s been in on David Price. He admitted he wanted to make a significant splash. Just the other day Arizona signed Bronson Arroyo for two years and $23.5 million. Or three years and $30 million. The bigger point is that Arizona signed Bronson Arroyo, and now they’re finished.

Arroyo, of course, is no one’s idea of an ace. Most simply, the best pitchers get strikeouts, limit walks and limit dingers. Arroyo does one of those things. He’s 37 in a couple of weeks, meaning he’s basically 37 now. There’s little sexiness with this acquisition, and Towers would tell you he knows he didn’t get a No. 1. Still, Arroyo does have something going in his favor. It’s just a matter of how much you believe in it.

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A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Dodgers rotation from a fantasy perspective for RotoGraphs. At that time, the Dodgers had a pool of starters than went 10 deep. Now they have 11 potential starters. Most teams would be satisfied with 10 starters. They might look to add some minor league depth, like a Rodrigo Lopez type, but they probably wouldn’t give out any more major league contracts.

However, the Dodgers have reason to worry about their depth. Chad Billingsley is currently rehabbing from injury. Prospects Zach Lee and Ross Stripling might not be ready in 2014, or the Dodgers may prefer not to rush either pitcher. Stephen Fife is a decent swing man, but the Dodgers would probably prefer to avoid turning to Matt Magill. Josh Beckett and Dan Haren are penciled into the rotation, although both pitchers were less than stable in recent seasons. Beckett in particular is coming off a nerve impingement surgery that limited him to eight starts last season.

So what have the Dodgers done to combat the flakiness of their rotation depth? Why they’ve hired yet another pitcher who fits into the back of the rotation and comes with health concerns.

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Ben and Sam preview the Twins’ season with Aaron Gleeman, and Nick talks to Star Tribune Twins beat writer Phil Miller (at 23:22).

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Episode 422
Known for his work both as owner-operator of Dodger Thoughts and as writer/editor at Variety, Jon Weisman is now the director of digital and print content for the actual Los Angeles Dodgers themselves. He’s also the guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.

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 42 min play time.)

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The last few weeks before pitchers and catchers report is mostly a time of great anticipation for players and fans. However, it is often serves as a time when veteran free agents without teams decide that the available offers are not attractive enough to be worth it and retire. This seems to have been the case with Michael Young, who announced his retirement last week. He retired as as a member of the Texas Rangers, and he and the team seem to have been able to put aside whatever differences they had over the last few years of Young’s time with Texas.

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The Houston Astros have done some unspeakable things to their fans. The primary defense for watching bad baseball is that bad baseball is better than no baseball, but at times the Astros have caused people to question whether what they’re watching is even baseball at all, or some kind of deliberately unwatchable performance art. The good news is that there’s good news. Psychologically, this experience has made Astros fans stronger, more tolerant of adversity and less prone to hysterics. And on the field, the Astros as a ballclub are making forward progress. They’re still not good, but they’re getting closer to good, and they shouldn’t be as dreadful as they have been for a long long time. With a wave of young talent on the way, Astros fans can begin to envision a most majestic, formidable crest.

Among the brightest of potential stars is 24-year-old George Springer. The former first-round pick ought to debut somewhere in 2014, and Springer is nearly the perfect prospect. He has plenty of power, as evidenced by last year’s 37 home runs. He has plenty of discipline, as evidenced by last year’s 83 walks. He has plenty of speed, as evidenced by last year’s 45 stolen bases. Defensively, he’s a center fielder who could stick there. He has range and he has an arm, and though he’s not unusually young for his level, he’s right on track to be a core asset. There’s just one thing that Springer is missing, and he’s missing it in spades.

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The Super Bowl is over, spring training is nearly upon us, and a whole bunch of potentially valuable free agents remain unsigned. Previously in this space, we already took a look at Ubaldo Jimenez and Ervin Santana from a batted-ball profile perspective; yesterday and today, five others went/are going under the microscope – starting pitchers Bronson Arroyo and A.J. Burnett, and position players Stephen Drew, Kendrys Morales and Nelson Cruz. Today, we’ll look at the pitchers. Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday, the Braves announced that they had signed Freddie Freeman to an eight year, $135 million extension. I’ve already written about the diminishing need for a track record and about whether this deal heralds a coming market correction, but hopefully you’ll indulge some more thoughts about this contract and the changing economic structure of Major League Baseball.

There’s no question that teams are throwing more and more money at players who haven’t reached free agency; this is the 15th extension of $100+ million signed in the last three years by a player who was still under team control for at least another year. Players no longer have to reach the open market in order to obtain nine figure contracts, and as we’ve seen with Joey Votto, Elvis Andrus, and now Freddie Freeman, players don’t even have to get to their walk year to land a monster extension anymore. And while this shift towards big money deals for non-free agents is a new thing in MLB, it might be part of an ongoing trend that is shifting baseball’s payroll distribution back to what it was before “the PED era”.

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11:57

Comment From Perplexed Fantasy Owner Hey Jason. Thanks for doing the chat today. I’m in an 11-team AL-only league, and I need your guidance. I own Brandon Morrow and Scott Kazmir on the cheap this year, but they both terrify me! What do you expect out of each of them in 2014? Should I hang on to them or cut bait before the season starts?     Jason Collette: I have Kazmir myself and not terrified as I really liked what I saw from him as the season progressed. Morrow would terrify me as health is a problem that does not go away and Toronto, for whatever reason, seems to have more injury issues than most teams.

11:58

Comment From jesse pneumonia, that sound like an excuse, man up and rub some dirt on hit!     Jason Collette: I’ll paste what I said last week when someone else asked the same thing – I’ve been writing about fantasy baseball since 1999 where I got started at the old RotoJunkie.coom (now rjbullpen.com). In 2008, Fanball plucked me from there and then I was split between BP and Rotowire in 2011 when Fanball was shut down by Liberty Media. I’m still doing a lot of work at Rotowire and also do monthly contributions to BaseballHQ.com and guest spots on the ESPN Sweetspot blog. Lastly, I’ve been writing about the Rays since 2007 between time spent at DRaysBay, Dock of the Rays (now in the hands of the talented Jason Hanselman) and now write with R.J. Anderson & Tommy Rancel at TheProcessReport.net. I believe in the DH, roofed stadiums, fake grass, and yoga pants.

11:59

Comment From Zach I see this is only your third chat and you’re a fairly new FG contributor. What’s your brief bio? What do you like to chat about?     Jason Collette: well, this is the question I meant to reply to previously. I blame the meds

11:59

Comment From Brad Pitcher keeper: Pick one: Bailey, A. Sanchez or Teheran and why? Thanks.     Jason Collette: I’m a big Homer Bailey guy. You want my non-Kershaw pick for the NL CY, there it is.

12:01

Comment From Brian I just traded for Mike Trout as a 15th round keeper for the rest of his career. I can’t come up with a way to celebrate that lives up to this moment.     Jason Collette: Streaking in the quad while holding a large growler of a Russian River brew would work for me

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