On Wednesday, Travis Sawchik wrote about why there are still reasons for optimism surrounding Byung-ho Park, despite a rough first year in the major leagues. The piece was titled “Don’t Quit on Byung-ho Park”, but two days later, the Twins have done exactly that, designating him for assignment in order to clear a roster spot for Matt Belisle.

This is a bit of a surprising decision because, a year ago, the Twins paid a $13 million posting fee to acquire Park’s rights. But that was a different front office with different evaluators, and the new management team in Minnesota apparently decided that Park wasn’t worth keeping on the 40-man roster, so they’ll either trade him or expose him to waivers, where any team who wants to take a shot on the bounce back would be on the hook for the roughly $9 million in guaranteed money he has coming over the next three years.

Given they minimal salary commitment, I can’t imagine Park is actually going to clear waivers. $3 million per year is nothing in this day and age, and with a multi-year deal, there’s some upside with Park that doesn’t exist if you sign, say, Chris Carter, to a one year contract. And as Sawchik noted in his piece, anyone who was thinking about signing Carter to a cut-rate deal should probably be interested in Park too.

Borrowing a couple of tables from Sawchik’s piece.

And this one.

Like Carter, Park hits the crap out of the baseball when he makes contact. And, like Carter, he doesn’t make enough contact. But if you’re okay with the swing-for-the-fences-and-whiff-a-lot approach, well, Park actually made more contact than Carter did last year.

Of course, having a lot of similarities to a free agent who can’t find a home isn’t really an argument in favor of Park having a lot of value. Perhaps the Twins decided to DFA Park in part because of the league’s reticence to signing Carter, thinking that perhaps with Carter still willing to sign a one year contract, that maybe Park will slip through waivers. Or, more interestingly, maybe they DFA’d Park because they want to sign Carter themselves; that would be a fun twist to this story.

Of course, that’s pretty unlikely. The reality is that, while Park remains interesting on his own merits, there might not have been much playing time for him in Minnesota. With Joe Mauer and Kennys Vargas ahead of him on the 1B/DH depth chart, Park was probably ticketed for a platoon role, and maybe even a limited platoon role given that Vargas is a switch-hitter who hits lefties better than righties, so Park was only likely to play when Mauer wasn’t in the line-up. Neither Mauer nor Vargas are great players, but Mauer has some franchise icon appeal, and Vargas is both probably better and definitely younger, so giving him the bulk of the DH time is likely a better long-term investment.

Park probably fits better on a team that doesn’t already have a Kennys Vargas to DH, or a local hero making $23 million a year at first base. The power makes him worth another shot, and given the state of several teams 1B/DH positions, I’m pretty sure the Twins will find someone to take the rest of Park’s contract off their hands.

For instance, the Rangers seem to want to give Joey Gallo more time in Triple-A this year, but if they send him back to the minors, they would be penciled in to start Ryan Rua and Jurickson Profar as their 1B and DH options. Sure, everyone still expects them to sign Mike Napoli to play one of those two spots, but Park would still be an upgrade over Rua/Profar at the other position, and give them a cheap source of power while they figure out what Gallo might be.

Alternately, the A’s might also be interested, given that they were hunting for right-handed DHs earlier this winter, and currently have some combination of Yonder Alonso and Ryon Healy at their 1B/DH spots. In a year that is unlikely to result in a playoff berth, taking a shot on Park’s power is probably worth some playing time. Or, if we’re looking for a rebuilding team who needs a DH, the White Sox currently project to have Matt Davidson as their starting DH, and Steamer is forecasting him for a 73 wRC+ and -1 WAR. I would imagine the Twins would rather not trade Park to the White Sox, but if it comes down to waivers, there’s no way Chicago should let him get past them.

Park’s upside is probably something like an average player, so he’s worth the $9 million gamble to see if he can make enough contact to hold down a roster spot. For $9 million with a potential three year payout, there’s just not much risk here, and enough upside for another team to take a low-risk flyer on a guy with serious power. One could reasonably argue that the Twins should have kept him around and hoped to find enough playing time to be the team that got some value out of a potential improvement, but since they just had to have Matt Belisle pitching the seventh inning in a non-contention year, some other franchise will now get to make a bet on Park’s cheap upside.

In November 2014, we ran an interview with Mike Elias, who was then Houston’s director of amateur scouting. Two-plus years later, he has a new title and more responsibilities. The 34-year-old Yale University product now has the title of Assistant General Manager, Scouting and Player Development.

Elias addressed several subjects in the earlier interview, but very little of the conversation was about pitching. This time around, we talked exclusively about pitching. The scouting process — including injury-risk assessments and offspeed deliveries — was the primary focus, but we also delved heavily into last year’s first-round pick. With the 17th selection of the 2016 draft, the Astros took 6-foot-7 right-hander Forrest Whitley out of a San Antonio, Texas high school.

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Elias on how scouting pitchers has, and hasn’t, changed: “It has definitely evolved, but it is still, and I believe it always will be, most reliant on the opinions of the scouts who have seen the players in person, and know the players personally. Our scouts still spend much of their time getting a good seat behind home plate and evaluating the pitcher’s stuff, command, and delivery. They look for future improvement in those areas. Another big part of what they do is learn about the player off the field, through conversations with coaches and acquaintances, and getting to know the player himself.

“The thing that changed is the amount of information outside of the scouting report we receive. That extends from the player’s performance stats — that’s if he’s a college kid — to video analysis of his delivery. Every team does that, although every team does it a little differently. And a lot of radar technology has become available over the last few years. It has spread from just being in major-league parks to trickling down through the minor leagues and even into most college environments. Even high-school fields, throughout the major tournaments with Perfect Game.

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After having typically appeared in the very famous pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past few years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Cincinnati Reds. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles AL / Los Angeles NL / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York AL / Oakland / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Tampa Bay / Texas / Toronto / Washington.

Batters
Cincinnati produced the worst BaseRuns record in the majors last year, tied with a very rebuilding Philadelphia team. The club’s field players weren’t really the problem, however, recording just a few wins less than a league-average unit.

The projections here reflect the general competence of the club’s position players. After Joey Votto (592 PA, 4.6 zWAR), who unsuprisingly receives the top wins forecast in the organization, there exists a collection of reasonably useful pieces. The front office probably deserves credit, in fact, for some of its discoveries. Adam Duvall (549, 1.9), Scott Schebler (564, 1.7), and Eugenio Suarez (608, 2.3) all profile as roughly league-average types, for example, despite having appeared on zero top-100 lists collectively as prospects.

This isn’t to suggest that there’s no room for improvement among the batting types here, but rather that “average” is probably not an unreasonable outcome for this group.

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One of the most interesting aspects of the Rich Hill story was his decision to break from convention and make his curveball – one of the game’s most effective pitches – his primary offering, a decision about which I wrote earlier this week.

That decision was one of a number of factors that has led to Hill’s late-career resurgence. As you’re probably aware, Hill led all major-league pitchers in curveball usage (49.7%) last season, throwing it more often than his fastball (47.2%). By this standard, Hill is an outlier. Conventional wisdom in baseball stipulates that the fastball should be the primary pitch for just about every arm. Rejecting that wisdom allowed Hill to become one of the most productive per-inning pitchers last season — and to receive a three-year, $48-million contract this offseason despite a limited track record of success.

The only regret Hill might have is that he didn’t change things earlier. What would Hill wish he had told a younger version of himself?

It’s that question which brings me to talented young Phillies starting pitcher Aaron Nola. Nola isn’t left-handed like Hill. His curveball doesn’t have quite the same shape. It is, perhaps, the next best thing to Hill’s curveball among major-league starters, however, depending upon how you judge performance and aesthetic beauty. It’s certainly part of a small group and a candidate in the discussion.

The curve tracks so well horizontally it made Jose Bautista flinch:

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Kevin Kiermaier is underrated. How do I know? I guess I don’t know, but by and large, Kiermaier is not considered one of the best players in baseball. This despite having performed like one of the best players in baseball. The last three years, by WAR, Kiermaier has been as valuable as Robinson Cano, Andrew McCutchen, and Yoenis Cespedes, all while collecting far fewer plate appearances. Kiermaier is projected to be as valuable as Carlos Correa and Giancarlo Stanton. The numbers are in love, and they paint a certain picture. Kiermaier is presently the most important player on his team.

Being a FanGraphs reader, you at least kind of know what Kiermaier is about. He’s underrated because his standout skill is outfield defense, and he swings a roughly average bat. I’ll say this: Although Kiermaier’s UZRs are extreme, DRS loves him even more. He has a career outfield UZR of +60. He has a career outfield DRS of +81. That would be another two wins, more or less.

So, the major reason Kiermaier’s underrated: His strongest skill is underrated. Beyond that, it doesn’t help him that he’s played for a nationally invisible ballclub. Let me add a third reason. For this part, I’m going to call in Jorge Soler.

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If you haven’t heard the news, the St. Louis Cardinals received their punishment from Major League Baseball this week in response to the actions of former director of amateur scouting, Chris Correa. Correa hacked the database of the Houston Astros using some variation of the password Eckstein. As Jeff Sullivan explained, the Cardinals are expected both to pay the Astros $2 million and give them two draft picks, numbers 56 and 75. The consensus seems to be that the Cardinals got off light.

As Grant Brisbee noted, the second of the Cardinals’ picks has actually been given to them in the form of a competitive-balance pick, which provides convenient timing to discuss whether the Cardinals should even have that extra pick to begin with.

Per the recently established CBA, 14 teams will receive competitive-balance picks every year. Teams qualify for these picks by placing among the bottom 10 of major-league teams either by (a) revenue or (b) market size. According to Forbes, the Cardinals actually place among the top 10 of all clubs when it comes to revenue. They rank 24th, however, by market size. Therefore, they qualify for an extra pick.

While there seems to be much consternation about the Cardinals’ hacking penalty right now, wait 18 months. If the club loses Lance Lynn to free agency and then receives a better comp in addition to their own normal pick, they’ll possess three picks among the top-40 selections.

Question of the hacking scandal aside, there are questions about whether the Cards deserve any comp picks in the first place. By one definition, they certainly do: they meet the criteria agreed upon by the league.

There are plausible arguments against the characterization of the club as a “small-market” franchise, however. Most of them begin with a discussion of fanbase. Consider: here are the annual attendance averages per team over the last five years, with data collected from Baseball-Reference.

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The St. Louis Cardinals’ former director of amateur scouting, Chris Correa, is serving 46 months in jail for gaining unauthorized access to the Astros’ player information/evaluation database, codenamed Ground Control. A few days ago, MLB announced St. Louis’s penalty: they’d have to send $2 million and their top two draft picks to Houston.

From a network-security perspective, the case is interesting. It illustrates how difficult true network security really is, which raises the strong possibility that another team will attempt this in the future (if indeed one isn’t doing it right now).

Here’s a timeline of the incident up until it was made public:

• March 2013 – April 2014: Correa accesses Ground Control using passwords of various Astros staff. (Source: David Barron and Jake Kaplan of the Houston Chronicle.)
• June 2014: Deadspin posts leaked documents that were retrieved from Ground Control, mostly regarding trades or potential trades during the 2013 season. This action causes the Astros to contact MLB, who contacts the FBI to begin an investigation into the breach. (Source: Derrick Goold and Robert Partrick of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.)
• June 2015: Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Times reports that the Cardinals are the prime suspects in this investigation.

Why didn’t the Astros detect the unauthorized access themselves? I don’t know anything about how they ran their security team, so I can only speculate. But I do have several years of experience in the network-security industry. I’ll use those to provide a perspective.

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It’s easy to look at the overall team projections. Check them out. They’re right over there! (I’m pointing.) More than anything else, you care about wins, and, therefore, also losses. Team record is everything. Just about, anyway. Happiness is strongly correlated to your favorite team’s winning percentage.

It takes more work to dive into projected team components. Earlier this very week, I did that to show that the Royals have moved away from the style they made so famous. I also did that to show that the Astros have suddenly become a contact-oriented offensive ballclub. It takes more work, and it’s also of lesser significance, you could say. Overall value is overall value, and components, by definition, are only a part. It makes perfect sense why most people don’t go beyond just the projected standings.

Yet components are interesting, if only because we care about how teams will play. They can tell you who might win by slugging the crap out of the ball. They can tell you who might have a little advantage on the bases. They can tell you who might have a strikeout problem. And, defense? We can look at the defenses. Let’s do that right now!

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The St. Louis Cardinals lack stars. Sure, Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright are well known and remain solid even as they age. Sure, Matt Carpenter has developed into an important member of the club. In terms of big-time production, though, the Cardinals have few options upon which they can reasonably rely.

Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections for the Cardinals support this observation: per ZiPS, no position player on the St. Louis roster is likely to produce more than 3.1 WAR in 2017; only one pitcher is projected for more than 2.1 wins. That pitcher — and, incidentally, the only player on the Cardinals whom one might reasonably classify as a “star” — is Carlos Martinez.

Yesterday, the Cardinals very wisely locked that star up. Martinez and the club agreed to a five-year extension worth a guaranteed $51 million. The deal includes two options that could keep Martinez in St. Louis through 2023 and buy out four years of free agency, leading to a possible total value of $85.5 million.

A week ago, I suggested that the Wil Myers deal — for six years, $83 million guaranteed — indicated that extensions for players who possessed more than three and less than four years of service time might become a lot more expensive. This contract appears to provide evidence to the contrary.

In that post I noted that, among such position players, only five had recently reached contract extensions — and that those were either upside bets on riskier players like Michael Brantley and Josh Harrison or big-money contracts for big-time players like Freddie Freeman. The one contract in the middle involved Dee Gordon and his five-year deal for $50 million, an agreement that also includes an option. Martinez’s contract is like Gordon’s, except with an additional free-agent year surrendered by the player.

On the pitching side, meanwhile, there’s virtually no precedent for this type of deal.

Martinez’s deal breaks the record for biggest guarantee to a starting pitcher entering arbitration, a distinction which previously belonged to Corey Kluber after he was guaranteed $38.5 million heading into the 2015 season. That deal might also potentially last seven seasons. At the time, however, Kluber was a super-2 player. He was entering arbitration for the first time, but he was still four years from free agency, unlike Martinez’s three. He was also coming off a Cy Young Award and heading into his age-29 season, meaning he was four years older than Martinez is now. Kluber’s deal provided some guaranteed income, but also gave away all of his prime years: he won’t be a free agent until after his age-35 season.

That isn’t the case for Martinez, who enters just his age-25 season. Even if all of the options are exercised, Martinez will still head to free agency after his age-31 season, the same age as Zack Greinke when he signed his $206 million deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

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