Yesterday, the Arizona Diamondbacks got an offer for Justin Upton that they would say yes to, as the Seattle Mariners reportedly agreed to ship Taijuan Walker, Nick Franklin, Charlie Furbush, and Stephen Pryor to the D’Backs in exchange for their young right fielder. Today, Justin Upton is still a Diamondback, because he used his limited no-trade clause to block the deal, as Seattle is one of four teams he can’t be traded to without his consent.

In the aftermath of the news, sentiment seemed to coalesce around the idea that the Mariners were significantly overpaying for Upton. For instance:

Upton rejected deal, and by doing so, one source said, “saved Jack Z’s job.” Package from #Mariners to #DBacks first reported by @scottmcbs.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) January 11, 2013

One executive says #mariners were “clearly overpaying” for Upton and are “fortunate” trade with #dbacks fell through.

— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) January 11, 2013

A front office friend of mine shared a similar sentiment, suggesting that giving up Walker and Franklin was too much for Upton. Arizona clearly preferred this deal to the other offers that they have received, going forward with this negotiation even though they knew Upton had the right to veto the deal. If the offers were similar from other clubs, then logic suggests that they would have taken the path of least resistance, and simply picked a deal that Upton couldn’t have scuttled. So, were the Mariners overpaying for Upton, or is Arizona now likely to have to settle for a discounted deal from a team that isn’t on Upton’s no-trade list?

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This year, in addition to participating in some of the aspects of the SABR Analytics Conference, we’re helping our friends over at SABR recognize some of the best works in baseball from 2012. SABR is going to be giving out three awards at the conference, recognizing high quality work in three categories:

Contemporary Baseball Analysis: Honoring the best analysis focusing on a subject related to the modern game(s), team(s) or player(s).

Contemporary Baseball Commentary: Honoring the best commentary focusing on a subject related to the modern game(s), team(s) or player(s).

Historical Baseball Analysis/Commentary: Honoring the best original analysis or commentary focusing on a subject related to a game(s), team(s) or player(s) throughout baseball history.

Works of “Analysis” will be judged on the following criteria: thorough examination of the subject matter; originality of research; factual accuracy; significance in advancing our understanding of baseball.

Works of “Commentary” will be judged on the following criteria: distinguished writing; profound insight; factual accuracy; significance in advancing our understanding of baseball.

A work can be in any format except books, including but not limited to articles, columns, blog posts, television, film, websites, spreadsheets or databases, but it must have been first published in the preceding calendar year. No unpublished work will be considered. No work published, in part or in whole, prior to the preceding calendar year will be considered.

No work will be considered in more than one category.

For the next few weeks, we’ll be looking back at pieces we enjoyed last year, and then we’ll submit a list of works to be nominated for public voting, which will open up in a few weeks. That voting will take place here, on The Hardball Times, at Baseball Prospectus, and at SABR’s own site, with you guys eventually selecting the winners in each categories. Those awards will be handed out during the Analytics Conference in Phoenix between March 7th-9th.

I have a few pieces in my mind that I really enjoyed last year, but the web is so vast that there’s no way for us to be aware of everything that was published last year. So, we’re looking for your input as well. What was the best thing you read, watched, or listened to last year that fits into one of the three above categories? Whether it be something that was published on a team specific blog or here on FanGraphs, we’re interested in nominating the best works, and we want to help shine a light on things that may not have gotten as much attention as they deserved.

So, in the comments, leave your nominations, and we will make sure they are considered in the process. Let’s give recognition where its due, and reward those who worked hard to contribute to the community at large in 2012.

No one gets elected to Cooperstown this summer, despite the deepest ballot of worthy candidates in years. Maybe ever.

What a debacle. At least now we can move on to talking about things that aren’t totally broken. Hopefully, by the time we have to do this again next year, better processes will be in place. Hopefully.

They’re announcing the Hall of Fame results today, so a lot of people are talking about steroids right now. When people talk about steroids, they talk about home runs. And they talk about the integrity of the game, the disgrace of the “steroid era”, and what the muscle-bound cheaters did to the hallowed history books with their absurd power totals. 1998 is often held up as the pinnacle of the steroid era, where two PED users both broke the 61 home run barrier, and Mark McGwire was the first player to ever hit 70 home runs in a season. It was, obviously, the result of rampant steroid usage, you are going to be told.

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Adam LaRoche finally gave in and took the Nationals two year contract today, after having sat it on it for most of the off-season. He’ll return to Washington and play first base, which means Mike Morse will not be playing much first base, and that means Mike Morse is going to get traded. Two years ago, Morse was really good. Last year, not so much. Teams thinking about acquiring Morse are going to have to figure out whether they think 2011 was a fluke, or whether he’s an impact bat who just had a down year while struggling with some health issues.

Because, let’s be honest, you’re only acquiring Morse for his offensive capability. The Nationals didn’t consider him an outfielder any more, which is why he’s available in the first place. His career UZR/150 in the OF is -15, which is pretty close to the line at which you see teams decide that the lack of range is too much of a problem to continue the experiment. He’s also been a negative baserunner for most of his career, and last year, only David Ortiz, Jesus Montero, Prince Fielder, and Billy Butler were worse at advancing around the bases. Morse is a guy who fits best as a 1B/DH, and if he doesn’t hit, he’s not particularly useful.

So, will he hit well enough at age 31 to justify not only his $7 million salary, but also the talent required to outbid other suitors and strike a deal with the Nationals? To find out, I decided to look at how other hitters have done, focusing on guys who have succeeded in a not too dissimilar way from what Morse has done the last three years.

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Because of all the angst about this year’s Hall of Fame ballot, there have been a lot of words spilled trying to fix the process. I’m one of many who have suggested that, at the bare minimum, they need to expand the ballot to cover more than 10 slots. Others have offered their own suggestions, from changing the electorate to more clearly defining a player’s eligibility.

There are a lot of interesting opinions out there for ways to improve the Hall of Fame, but they generally start with the premise of tweaking the established methodology. Sometimes, though, I think it’s useful to think about changes without considering what is already in place, to ask yourself what you would do if you could just start from scratch. So, let’s do that with the Hall of Fame.

What would the Hall of Fame look like if we were building it anew in 2013? I’m sure it would be different for each of us. Maybe you’d move it to another location, where it could be more easily accessible to the public at large? Or maybe you’d pick a set proportion of each generation to be represented, so that each age of baseball was equally represented? There are a lot of practical changes you could make that would make the Hall of Fame very different than what it is now.

For, me, though, there’s one thing that stands above the rest as a way to make the Hall more interesting, and to settle most of the problems we have with the enshrinement process as it currently stands; a tiered Hall of Fame.

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After watching Josh Hamilton sign with their division rival, the Rangers made a move this weekend to replace his bat in their line-up, signing Lance Berkman to take over as their DH for 2013. Much is being made of the fact that Berkman got $11 million after spending basically the entire 2012 season on the disabled list, but Major League teams have begun to make the correct shift towards paying for future production rather than past performance. That Berkman was injured for essentially all of 2012 only matters to the extent that it informs our understanding of his likely health and performance in 2013, and the reality is that projecting future playing time is still something of a black box.

Healthy guys get hurt. Injury prone guys stay healthy. Some guys are more likely to end up on the DL than others, but there’s still an awful lot of randomness in playing time distributions. It is much easier to project a player’s performance than it is to project his health, and Berkman hasn’t yet established a track record of injuries that should make us view him like we do Travis Hafner. At 37, we shouldn’t expect Berkman to be an everyday player, but as a DH with big platoon splits, he doesn’t need to be. He plays the easiest position on the field to run a platoon at, and with the Rangers depth, they can afford to have Berkman spend a few weeks on the sidelines if the aches and pains start to add up. For their roster, performance is more important than durability.

And if we just look at expected performance for 2013, there’s a decent chance that Berkman will put up offensive numbers that are not too different from what Hamilton would have produced.

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