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A couple of days ago, the Oakland A’s signed Nick Punto to a one year contract that will pay him $2.75 million in 2014 and then either pay him $250,000 to go away or an additional $2.75 million in 2015, so the deal is either $3 million for one year or $5.5 million for two. The A’s are not looking at Punto as a regular player, as they already have Jed Lowrie, Eric Sogard, and Alberto Callaspo as middle infield options, but Punto gives them additional depth and reinforces their bench. He’s a good reserve, capable of playing high level defense and getting on base enough to not be a complete zero as a hitter, but the A’s ideal plan for him likely involves him getting roughly 250 plate appearances next year. If he gets more than that, something probably went wrong.

So, $3 million for a quality bench guy seems reasonable. It’s about what you’d expect given how reserve position players have generally been priced in the free agent market. Last year, similar deals were given to Ty Wigginton, Eric Chavez, Raul Ibanez, Jack Hannahan, Placido Polanco, and Geovany Soto. This is, essentially, the market rate for an aging bench guy. Even if teams value their contributions, they don’t play enough to really command much more than a few million dollars on a one year deal.

A Major League can expect to send a hitter to the plate about 6,200 times in a season. A bench player who hits 250 times will comprise about 4% of the team’s total number of plate appearances. $3 million for that kind of marginal role seems perfectly fair.

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I wrote about my feelings on the MVP award earlier today, and I’d say at this point, I’d consider myself somewhat apathetic towards the actual result. People are going to define Most Valuable however they want, and in general, there’s little desire for a consistent, logical approach to coming up with an answer. For many, part of the appeal of the award is its ambiguity. I don’t really like ambiguity all that much, so that part of the process doesn’t appeal to me. And that’s okay. This award doesn’t have to appeal to me. I can sit at home and celebrate Mike Trout tonight whether anyone else is or not.

That said, before I bow out of the conversation entirely, I do want to ask one additional question of those who prefer their MVPs to come from winning teams: why are you simultaneously in favor of Mike Trout finishing second?

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Today, the Baseball Writers Assocation of America — an organization to which I belong — will wrap up their awards announcements by handing out the MVPs for both the AL and NL. Andrew McCutchen is very likely to win the award for the NL, and Miguel Cabrera is going to get his second consecutive trophy for the AL. The only drama surrounds how much of a landslide each will win by; it’s probably not going to be close in either case.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t other worthy candidates. Clayton Kershaw had an excellent season, as did Yadier Molina, Matt Carpenter, and Carlos Gomez, and you could make a case for any of those four. In the AL, obviously, there’s Mike Trout, who was the best player in baseball this year and would win this thing in a landslide if voters saw it as the Best Player award. But, as you’re going to hear numerous times today, this is not the Best Player award; it’s the Most Valuable Player award.

So, we’re going to sit through another day of explanations for why best and most valuable aren’t the same thing. To be honest, I have no real interest in those explanations, or in arguing about them, because the discussion is almost entirely removed from the game of baseball. Few of the people who cast their votes for Miguel Cabrera actually think he had a better year than Trout this season; they just believe they’re answering a question that deals with more than how a baseball player performed for his team over the last year.

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Here at FanGraphs, we have two different models of pitcher WAR: one based on FIP, and one based on runs allowed. These represent the extreme opposite ends of the viewpoints on how much credit or blame a pitcher should receive for events in which his teammates have some significant influence. If you go with strictly a FIP-based model, a pitcher is only judged on his walks, strikeouts, and home runs, and the events of hits on balls in play and the sequencing of when events happen are not considered as part of the evaluation.

If you go with the RA9-based model, then everything that happens while the pitcher is on the mound — and in some cases, what happens after they are removed for a relief pitcher — is considered the pitcher’s responsibility, and he’s given full credit or blame for what his teammates do while he’s pitching.

Both of these models are wrong. It is evidently clear that pitchers have some influence over the rate of which their balls in play are turned into hits, and the order in which the events they give up occur, but it also evident that they are not solely responsible for those two things. The quality of defensive support behind a pitcher, and the timing of when the defense either bails out or screws over their teammate, has an impact on a pitcher’s runs allowed total. The truth of nearly every pitcher’s performance lies somewhere in between his FIP-based WAR and his RA9-based WAR.

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At around 11 pm eastern time last night, Philadelphia television and radio host Howard Eskin reported the following on Twitter:

#phillies GM Ruben Amaro deep in serious talks w #bluejays to acquire OF Jose Batista. Can also play 3rd. Phils would deal OF Dom Brown plus

— Howard Eskin (@howardeskin) November 13, 2013

As I write this several hours later, no other media entity has followed up on the report, either confirming or debunking, so as I get write this before I go to bed, I am unaware of whether this is a rumor to be taken seriously or something that is more conjecture than reality. So, consider this post less of an analysis of a potential Jose Bautista/Domonic Brown trade and more a collection of thoughts that I’ve had since reading the reactions to the rumor. I will note that these thoughts are mostly directed towards Phillies fans who find abhorrent the idea of acquiring one of the game’s best players.

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With all due respect to Geovany Soto and Brayan Pena, I think it’s fair to say that we now have our first notable free agent signing of the off-season, as the Phillies have reportedly agreed to a two year contract with outfielder Marlon Byrd. The Phillies were known to be looking for a right-handed hitting outfielder, and Byrd provided a lower cost alternative to the likes of Nelson Cruz. Signing Byrd is a win in that it is not signing Cruz, who I labeled as the #1 “land mine” of this free agent class, so at the very least, Phillies fans should be excited that Byrd will keep them from punting a draft pick for the right to overpay for Cruz’s decline.

But, apart from not-Cruz, what do we expect from Marlon Byrd in the future, and is a two year deal for a guy with his inconsistent history a risk worth taking?

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The St. Louis Cardinals need a shortstop and have a surplus of talent with no obvious places to fit onto their roster. The Colorado Rockies have a superstar shortstop but need more good players than they currently have. These facts have people — including noted scribe Ken Rosenthal — speculating about what a Tulowitzki-to-STL deal might look like. In fact, it is probably now the most interesting trade rumor of the off-season.

For their part, the Rockies say that they aren’t interested in trading Tulowitzki. When you have one of the best players in the game signed to one of the most team-friendly contracts in the game, there shouldn’t be a huge sense of urgency to unload said player and contract. Over the summer, I rated Tulowitzki as the 13th most valuable trade chip in baseball, sliding in between Miguel Cabrera and Stephen Strasburg. For the Rockies to move Tulowitzki, the offer would have to be substantial.

The Cardinals have substantial talent though. Matt Adams looks like a nice player, but he’s blocked by Allen Craig at first base. Trevor Rosenthal wants to start, but there isn’t an obvious spot for him in the rotation at the moment. If Jaime Garcia is healthy by next spring, the Cardinals won’t even have room for all the starters they already have, not even counting the potential for Rosenthal or Carlos Martinez to transition back out of the bullpen. The team also has Kolten Wong now blocked by Matt Carpenter at second base, and if they end up re-signing Carlos Beltran, they’ll probably have to trade Jon Jay whenever Oscar Taveras proves ready for the big leagues.

So, yeah, the Cardinals have expendable talent that is basically the envy of every team in the sport. They have enough depth that they can probably target any player they want and make a serious offer that at least forces the other club to listen. The real question, though, is should they?

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