When news broke this morning about Adam Wainwright’s “significant” arm injury, Cardinals fans quickly realized that their odds of winning the 2011 National League Central took a big hit. However, Wainwright’s loss will be felt beyond the standings, and if he is indeed out for the season, this injury could end up costing the Cardinals tens of millions of dollars.

Over at ESPN Insider today, Dan Szymobrski noted that losing Wainwright adjusted the Cardinals ZIPS projection down from 87 wins to 83 wins. That four win swing is enough to cut the Cardinals chances of winning their division from 35 percent down to 20 percent. When you factor in that they’ve also taken a similar hit in their chances of winning the wild card, it becomes clear that St. Louis will lose nearly half of their playoff expectation if Wainwright is indeed shelved for the season.

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Kenny Williams, on whether he would sign Albert Pujols.

“If [Jerry Reinsdorf] gave me $30MM dollars right now, I’m not going to spend it on one guy. Sorry White Sox fans,” the GM said. “But I tell you what, I’m going to take that $30 million and I’m going to distribute it around. My team is going to be better as a whole than it is with one player who might get hurt. Then you’re done. Sorry, that’s just me. And that’s no disrespect to a future Hall of Famer, first ballot, one of the greatest players in history.”

This is an interesting quote, and it sheds light on a subject that comes up quite a bit when we talk about our dollars-to-win salary model. One of the objections that comes up frequently is the linear nature of that model, where we use $5 million per win for a one-win player or for a six-win player, since that is how MLB teams have generally provided contracts. Our model works off of how teams have operated, but to some, this undervalues star players.

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You can say this about the Red Sox front office – they are remarkably creative in their never-ending attempts to find an advantage. Their latest beat-the-system gimmick is perhaps the most unique – I would also accept “sneakiest” – one yet. As first reported by Alex Speier, Boston struck a deal with Andrew Miller that essentially circumvents the waiver process.

Here’s the basics – Miller signed a minor league contract with the Red Sox, with the plan being for him to begin the year in Triple-A. If he is called up at any point, they will have to pass him through waivers before they can re-assign him to Pawtucket, as he is out of options. If Miller had a good showing in his time in the big leagues, there would be a decent chance that another team would have taken a shot at him, and used the waiver process to grab him for themselves. So, to prevent that from happening, the Red Sox gave Miller a $3 million option for 2012 that vests if he’s claimed on waivers by another team.

This essentially guarantees that Miller will slide through waivers unclaimed, giving them the right to assign him to their Triple-A affiliate even though he’s out of options. Effectively, this contract structure gives Miller an extra option year. My initial reaction is that the Sox are gaming the system – much like they attempted to do by signing Felipe Lopez for the final week of the season and then offering him arbitration in order to try and collect a draft pick – but after considering it a bit more, I’m not sure that this falls into the same category.

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We did it last year and found that there wasn’t much in the way of correlation between getting mentioned as being in “the best shape of your life” and actually outperforming the projections, but maybe this year will be different. Maybe this crop of worked-really-hard-and-had-laser-eye-surgery-and-showed-up-to-camp-focused guys will actually show that all that work really does pay off.

In the form below, please put the player’s name who you have seen referenced as making noticeable improvements this winter, and then in the second box, please include a link to the source material so that we can verify which improvement was noted upon their arrival to camp.

By using the form, I’ll have an easier way of collecting the guys to follow throughout the year. You can also leave the nominated player in the comments if you want to help people not repeat a submission that has already been made.

Since Jose Bautista signed his shiny new contract with the Blue Jays on Wednesday, it has been a popular task to look for players who had comparable power spikes out of nowhere and look at how the rest of their careers unfolded. With legitimate reason, Bautista has been compared to Brady Anderson, Luis Gonzalez, Rich Aurilia, and Carlos Pena, and his 2010 season does bear some resemblance to their breakout seasons.

But there is an area where Bautista’s season is remarkably different from those four, and almost every other hitter who had a monster season hitting balls over the wall. That difference leads me to wonder if we’re underestimating the chance that Jose Bautista could actually get better.

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After being forcibly retired against his will, Gary Sheffield made it official today – he’s done playing baseball. And, now that he’s filed his papers, the clock has started ticking on his five year waiting period before he becomes eligible for election to the Hall Of Fame. According to The New York Post, Sheffield certainly feels like he belongs in Cooperstown:

“I am sure it will be mentioned and debated but from my standpoint I know who is in the Hall of Fame,” Sheffield told The Post. “A lot of them don’t belong in the Hall of Fame. If someone wants to debate me, check the stats.”

Checking the stats is something we’re particularly good at, so let’s take him up on his offer. By the numbers, is Sheffield a Hall Of Famer?

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As first reported by Enrique Rojas, the Blue Jays and Jose Bautista have apparently agreed to terms on a five year, $65 million dollar contract. That is a lot of money for a guy who has had one good year, no doubt, and there will be a lot of discussion over whether it is wise to invest significant cash in a player coming off a year that could have been a fluke. That said, I think this deal actually does make some sense.

Let’s start with what the Jays are not paying for – this deal does not pay for the expectation that Bautista will hit like he did in 2010 again. He was a +7 win player last year, and if they were paying for that kind of performance going forward, they would have had to add another $100 million to get a deal done. At $65 million over five years, we essentially come up with the following expectation:

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While I commend the team of Ken Rosenthal and Jon Morosi for thinking outside the box, I’d like to offer one simple image as to why the Cardinals should not swap Albert Pujols for Mark Teixeira.

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