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It’s been two and a half years since the first time I ran this project. A lot can change in two and a half years. Two and a half years ago, some of the best position players in baseball were Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Paul Goldschmidt, and — no, let me try this again. Two and a half years ago, some of the best pitchers in baseball were Max Scherzer, Chris Sale, Clayton Kershaw, and…okay, look, Ubaldo Jimenez had a sub-3 ERA. All right? Is that enough? Ubaldo Jimenez had a sub-3 ERA, and we didn’t yet know anything about the coming league-wide home-run spike. Two and a half years is a long time. Specifically, it’s about two and a half years.

This is a polling project, for which I need your participation. All of you are baseball fans, or else you’ve gotten woefully lost on the internet. The majority of you presumably cheer the most for one or two teams in particular. What I’m looking for: your basic, general opinion of a given team’s front office. I’d prefer you vote only in those polls corresponding to the teams you like. Just like with hopefully all of my polling projects, this should be easy. I mean, knowing the absolute correct answer is hard, if not impossible, but we all already know there are certain undiscoverable truths. It’s still satisfying to figure out perceptions.

Where this gets a little complicated is in how I’d like for you to think about this. I want the focus on the front office, in isolation. Which means, do your best to forget about ownership. Try, if at all possible, to separate the front office from outside influences. Not all front offices have worked with similar budgets, so, imagine each front office were given an average payroll with average resources. Do you think your team’s front office would do a good job of converting that into success? Do you wake up dreading the overnight headlines in case your team’s front office stayed up late making trades? I know I’m asking for the impossible here, but with matters like this, I think it’s almost always better to crowdsource. You’re the people who are most closely tuned in. I don’t know as much about every individual team as you, collectively, do.

When the results are in, I’ll post an analysis, probably later this week. Everybody has their front-office opinions, but it’s only through a project like this we can see how those opinions compare across the whole major-league landscape. I should say, if you’re a fan of the Braves, um, well, I don’t really know. I don’t care anymore about the old front office, so just select what you’re comfortable selecting, based on what you’ve read or previously observed. Or don’t vote. I can’t make you vote. I can’t make any of you vote. But I sure hope you will! Thank you in advance.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the latest Giancarlo Stanton and Shohei Ohtani news, speculate about why some teams reportedly didn’t try to sign Ohtani, and discuss the Yankees’ surprising hiring of Aaron Boone. Then they bring on former (and future?) MLB pitcher and current Fukuoka Softbank Hawks closer Dennis Sarfate, the 36-year-old reigning MVP of Japan’s Pacific League, to talk about his transition from marginal major leaguer to record-setting NPB star, how he adapted to a relief role and learned to blow away batters, his heroics in the Japan Series, Japan’s participatory fan experience, having his request to be posted rejected by his team, pitching to Ohtani and Takuya Nakashima, and more (plus a closing fun fact from Ben).

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Given how popular the game of baseball is overseas, we do a surprisingly poor job of keeping track of it. That is, the average baseball fan, and the average baseball writer, have little idea of who’s performing very well in Japan or South Korea. Obviously, there are reasons; those leagues aren’t in front of us every day, there can be a language barrier when trying to read about them, and there’s just already so much Major League Baseball to think about. Then you can throw in the fact that MLB is the highest-level league there is. Baseball in Asia is distant, and it’s perceived to be inferior.

It’s hard not to hear about Shohei Ohtani. Everyone’s been talking about Ohtani, because he’s something unusual. He’s like some sort of rare bird, and teams have pursued him for years, so he’s worked his way into public consciousness. He’s too extraordinary to ignore. Yet Dennis Sarfate’s success has taken place off the American radar. Few people know how good he’s become. Sarfate, however, will not be returning to the majors this offseason. Then there’s Miles Mikolas. Mikolas’ success, too, has taken place off the American radar. Unlike Sarfate, though, he’s available. It’s probably time to learn who he is.

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We’ve had our first major upset of the offseason: Shohei Ohtani isn’t going to be a Yankee.

Of the seven finalists, three — the Angels, Mariners, and Rangers — reside in the AL West, which this author argued last month represented the ideal landing spot for the interests of Ohtani and MLB.

Many thought that the Yankees were the favorites entering the process and that AL clubs, in general, would have a significant advantage with the DH. Well, Ohtani gave us some surprises, as the Yankees and all large-market East Coast clubs are out. Not only that, but four — the Cubs, Dodgers, Giants, and Padres — of his seven finalists are NL clubs.

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The deadline for teams to set their 40-man rosters in anticipation of the Rule 5 draft was Tuesday, November 21st. This means that all Rule 5-eligible players who aren’t currently on a 40-man roster will be available in the draft on December 14th at the Winter Meetings in Orlando. Here’s what makes a player Rule 5-eligible, according to MLB.com:

Players who were signed when they were 19 or older and have played in professional baseball for four years are eligible, as are players who were signed at 18 and have played for five years.

For the coming version of the Rule 5 draft, that’s generally any player drafted out of college in 2014 or earlier, drafted out of high school in 2013 or earlier, or signed as an international free agent in August 2013 or earlier. But that’s just a rule of thumb, and since very few things in life are simple, there are exceptions and loopholes.

Most of the players listed below aren’t good prospects. If they were, their teams would have protected them — or traded them to a team interested in stashing them. The baseball industry has effectively deemed each of these players to be a fringe prospect at best. Who cares about these mostly bad baseball players? Probably a very tiny sliver of the world’s population, if I’m being honest. But if you you’re still reading, I’m willing to bet you’re part of that small minority. And besides, several Rule 5 picks from recent memory have enjoyed immediate big-league success, including Joe Biagini, Matt Bowman, and Odubel Herrera.

Below, you’ll find a list of KATOH’s favorite Rule 5-eligible prospects, grouped by position. Due to the aforementioned loopholes, along with the fact that I checked each player’s eligibility manually, it is possible I omitted a noteworthy player along the way. All players with at least 200 professional plate appearances or batters faced in 2016 or 2017 were considered. Since most of these players do not have any sort of prospect pedigree anyway, I utilized the stats-only version of KATOH.

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The Giants want to trade for Giancarlo Stanton. So do the Cardinals. Both teams have reportedly agreed to the “framework” of deals with the Marlins, meaning that if Stanton waived his no-trade clause, a deal could be completed to either team in short order. But as of this point, Giancarlo Stanton is still a Marlin, and the prevailing line of thought is that he’s stalling for time, hoping that his hometown Dodgers decide to get in on the action.

Certainly, Stanton would make the Dodgers better. He produced more WAR by himself (+6.9) than the team got from their entire outfield — Cody Bellinger and Chris Taylor racked up a good chunk of their WAR while playing the infield — and would certainly represent an upgrade over some kind of Joc Pederson/Kiké Hernandez platoon that the team is currently slated to run out in left field. By keeping him away from the Giants, they wouldn’t have to subject their left-handed rotation to facing him 19 times a year. And they’d again be the clear favorites to win the NL West, and probably the NL pennant as well.

But to this point, it doesn’t seem like the Dodgers have gotten involved in a serious way. While things could always change, LA currently seems somewhat content with the possibility of Stanton joining their arch-rivals, preferring to continue their plan of spreading their payroll around rather than concentrating their spending on a few top-tier players. But in looking at their situation, I think there’s actually a case to be made for the Dodgers to swoop in and take Stanton for themselves.

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Jeff Sullivan has found that framing data is going insane. Jeff has also previously written about the rise of the framing floor. And perhaps none of this should comes as a surprise. As the value of pitch-framing has become more apparent, clubs seem to have valued the skill more, emphasizing catcher presentation both in development and in their assessment of players. The narrowing of the advantage for some clubs was probably inevitable.

Still, there remain some players with a consistent year-to-year individual advantage at the position. Players like Yasmani Grandal and Yadier Molina and Buster Posey. And in 2017, there remained a sizeable gap between framing Haves and Have Nots.

After signing Matt Wieters to be their primary catcher last offseason, the Nationals suffered a 30-run decrease in framing runs from 2016 to 2017. Last season, only the Rockies were worse than the Nationals by that measure among postseason teams.

Readers of this site are likely familiar with Wieters’ framing issues. This author alone has addressed them at least three times: prior to last offseason, prior to the trade deadline, and during the postseason. And even though Wieters exercised his $10.5 million option earlier this offseason, the Nationals could still stand to upgrade at the position.

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It’s been a veritable desert for baseball transactions this offseason, and there may not be an oasis on the horizon, as teams dance on the line between spending efficiency and collusion. But we’re starting to get metaphorical trickles of water here and there. One came over the weekend, as catcher Welington Castillo agreed to sign with the White Sox.

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