There are a few signposts that let us know winter has arrived – the leaves change, the grocery stores try to sell us pumpkin everything, and the Florida Marlins begin trading off arbitration eligible players. This year, the annual fire sale has already claimed Jeremy Hermida, and the expectation is that Dan Uggla will be the next to go.

I wonder, though – did the Marlins wait too long to deal him?

There was significant interest in Uggla a year ago, when he was coming off a +5 win season and was still quite the bargin; he made just $5.35 million in 2010. However, given another year of service time, Uggla is going to be looking at a ~$9 million arbitration award. That salary makes him a little pricey for small payroll clubs.

He also turns 30 in May, and his defense is considered poor enough that he’s likely to be moved off of second base by whoever acquires him. So, the Marlins are essentially marketing a third baseman who is going to get a one year salary about equal to what they would have to pay to sign a comparable free agent – in this case, Adrian Beltre or Chone Figgins.

The upside is that Uggla doesn’t require a long term commitment, but given the rate of raises in arbitration, he’s a non-tender candidate next winter. The Marlins are really only selling one year of value, and as a 30-year-old third baseman in this economy, he’s not that much of a bargain.

A year ago, Uggla would have brought a solid return of prospects from a team looking for a power hitting second baseman. Now, though, I think the Marlins will have to settle for a mediocre package just to get him off the books. Was keeping Uggla in Florida for 2009 really worth the reduction in his trade value to the Marlins?

It sure doesn’t seem like it to me. This appears to be a case of selling a year too late.

As we discussed this afternoon, Scott Boras has taken to comparing his star free agent of this winter to his star free agent of last winter, as he aims to get Matt Holliday a contract similar to what the Yankees gave Mark Teixeira a year ago. In the comments, the question was raised why I placed Holliday in a lower tier than Teixeira, despite the fact that Holliday has the superior WAR rating.

Before we get into the specifics of Holliday versus Teixeira, let me say something about WAR. Obviously, we’re big proponents of it has an evaluation tool. We think it’s the best single value metric out there for players. We do not think its perfect and infallible, however. There are portions of the game that are currently not measured (non-steal base running, catcher defense, and league differences being the most notable), and we’ve discussed the limitations of UZR ad nauseam (I believe that Teixeira is probably a bit better than his UZR has shown). There is room for discussion when two players are within the same general range.

As it pertains to Holliday and Teixeira, the key here is league differences. For various reasons, we don’t incorporate those into the WAR ratings, but they have been fairly significant for the last five or six years. The AL is just a better group of talent than the NL, and as such, when two players who post equal numbers in the different leagues, the AL player has to be presumed to be better. He’s facing better competition and creating the same results, which is inherently more valuable.

The best estimates for the differences between the AL and NL range between +0.25 and +0.5 wins per season. When comparing players across leagues, this is not an insignificant factor. That Holliday has had the bulk of his success come in the NL requires a downward adjustment to the value of that performance. Likewise, Teixeira’s ability to perform in the AL enhances his value.

Now, that doesn’t mean that Holliday’s going to turn into a pumpkin upon arrival in the AL. After all, he gave the A’s +3 wins of value in 400 PA, which was still quite valauble. However, we just can’t translate his Colorado and St. Louis performances over to the AL without an adjustment, and those are the places where Holliday has performed like a superstar.

Even after the league adjustment, though, Holliday and Teixeira come out as similar in value. They’re essentially the same age. Why would I prefer Teixeira going forward?

All types of past performance are not equally predictive of future performance. One of the driving forces of Holliday’s offensive value is his strong batting average on balls in play. Over the last three years, his .363 BABIP is tied with Chone Figgins for the third highest in baseball, behind only Ichiro Suzuki and Matt Kemp.

BABIP is simply more subject to variance than Teixeira’s preferred method of production – hitting the ball really far. Even though Holliday has been able to sustain a high BABIP, we still have to regress his projcted BABIP further towards the mean than we do Teixeira’s ISO, as the latter has simply shown to be more stable historically. Even though their results over the last few years have produced similar value, Teixeira’s taking the safer path to those results. Holliday’s dependence on a high BABIP for his offensive value makes him a greater risk, and increases in risk drive down value.

I expect that we’ll see these concerns manifest themselves in the marketplace as well. My guess is that Holliday will end up signing for 10 to 15 percent less than what Teixeira got, because teams are also a bit skeptical of unadjusted National League numbers and don’t see him as the same kind of power hitter.

Holliday is a very good player, and certainly the best free agent on the market. But when comparing him to Teixeira, it’s important to not stop at a simple WAR analysis.

Scott Boras says a lot of crazy things – perhaps none quite as absurd as when he compared Oliver Perez to Sandy Koufax last winter – when he’s out stumping for a big contract for his clients. So, we shouldn’t be overly surprised that Boras was willing to espouse platitudes about Matt Holliday to Jerry Crasnick, calling him a “franchise player” and comparing him to Mark Teixeira. In that comment, though, Boras claimed that there were “less than 30” franchise players, as he sought to put Holliday in that select company.

Setting aside that the phrase “franchise player” is vague and could mean different things to different people, I was curious to find out how many I thought there were in the game. So, let’s take a look.

First off, there’s the no argument tier. Regardless of what you think a franchise player is, pretty much everyone will agree that Albert Pujols, Joe Mauer, Chase Utley, Hanley Ramirez, Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, Grady Sizemore, Evan Longoria, David Wright, Roy Halladay, CC Sabathia, Tim Lincecum, Dan Haren, and Zack Greinke qualify. Those 14 just shouldn’t really elicit much debate, I don’t think. They’re franchise players by pretty much any definition.

Beyond those guys, though, there are some players who I could imagine will invoke some dissent. They all have a wart of some kind, making them great but not perfect. This group includes Derek Jeter, Dustin Pedroia, Prince Fielder, Kevin Youkilis, Carlos Beltran, Ichiro Suzuki, Josh Beckett, Justin Verlander, Felix Hernandez, and Cliff Lee. I’d vote yes for all 11 of these guys, but there’s a nit to pick with each that could lead one to disagree.

We’re already up to 25 names that I’d be comfortable slapping the franchise player tag on. And there’s still another group that I think you could make a case for – the talented-with-a-sketchy-track-record crowd. These guys have shown franchise player abilities, but may not have sustained that ability over the last few years. This group would include Jose Reyes, Adrian Gonzalez, Troy Tulowitzki, Ryan Zimmerman, Matt Kemp, Ryan Braun, Justin Upton, Miguel Cabrera, Jon Lester, Javier Vazquez, Ubaldo Jimenez, Clayton Kershaw, and Johan Santana.

That’s 13 more guys that I could see making a case for. We’ve already listed 38 names without mentioning Holliday. There’s a lot of trimming to do to get down to Boras’ “less than 30” estimate. I think I’d probably end up around 32 or 33.

This, obviously, is not particularly objective. Reasonable people can disagree on pretty much everyone in the last two groups, meaning that your number could probably be anywhere from 15 to 40 without being too controversial. But I did find the exercise interesting, and my final count was quite a bit higher than I thought it would be. I suspected I’d end up in the 20 range, but there’s a really good crop of high end talent in the major leagues right now.

Oh, and as for Holliday, I think he fits in well with group two. I’d call him a franchise player too. This bit of propaganda from Boras is actually reasonable.

As the off-season begins to warm up, we thought it would be helpful to provide you with a handy schedule of important dates to circle, and how they affect the timing of how the winter will play out.

November 9-11: GM Meetings

These are going on right now, which is why there are more rumors than usual going on. These are more procedural than substantive, as the GMs will also talk about instantly replay and other non-roster issues. You probably won’t see Roy Halladay traded tomorrow, for instance, but a few teams may leave Chicago with an understanding that they can make a run at him if they want to.

November 10-18: Various Awards Announced

You may care about these. I don’t.

November 18-19: Owners Meetings

Good ideas will be put forth and then tabled until future years. Nothing will happen, but you’ll have to read stories about that nothing that’s not happening.

November 20: Free Agency Begins

The exclusive negotiating window for teams to retain their own players ends, and players who have filed for free agency become eligible to sign with the Yankees.

November 20: 40-man Rosters Finalized

Teams must also finalize their 40 man rosters by this date in order to keep eligible prospects from being snatched up in the Rule 5 draft.

December 1: Arbitration Offer Deadline

It is the last day for teams to offer arbitration to their free agents. Any player who signs before this date is an automatic offer, granting the former team compensation for signing. As such, you won’t see too many contracts made official until after this date.

December 7-10: Winter Meetings

The annual gathering of front offices, media members, and job seekers for what usually turns out to be 72 hours of rumors and one hour of excitement. Expect Scott Boras to hold a bunch of ridiculous press conferences. Also, the Rule 5 draft takes place.

December 12: Contract Tender Deadline

For players eligible for arbitration (but not free agency), this is the last date to tender an offer and retain their contractual rights for 2010. Players who may receive an arbitration award greater than their value (I’m looking at you, Garrett Atkins) will be non-tendered and made free agents. This secondary pool of potentially available players may also serve to keep teams on the sideline in free agency, as the supply increases after several weeks.

January 5-15: Salary Aribtration Filing.

This is where Felix Hernandez will ask for the deed to the state of Washington in exchange for his services in 2010. The Mariners will counter by offering free dinner at the Space Needle. Arguing will ensue.

With a relatively weak free agent class, at least in terms of star power, there is more chatter than usual about potential trades this winter. And one constant name that surfaces in trade speculation is Adrian Gonzalez, the Padres star first baseman. With two years remaining on an unbelievably team friendly contract (he’s owed just $10.25 million over both years), and coming off a +6.3 win season at age 27, it’s easy to understand why he’d be so highly coveted.

However, I think there are reasons for interested buyers to beware of a potential regression from Gonzalez in 2010 that could eliminate a decent chunk of his value. When you look at his 2009 performance in relation to his prior years, you’ll notice that most of the numbers are fairly stable.

Even though he hit 40 home runs for the first time, his total number of extra base hits didn’t change from 2008 – four doubles just went over the wall, and he ended up squeezing out an extra base from a fifth double that became a triple. That’s not really the definition of a large power surge.

Instead, the huge change came here.

Gonzalez drew 45 more walks than he did in 2008 while striking out 23 fewer times. This naturally caused his on base percentage to shoot up 40 points, which translated into a .402 wOBA, a remarkably impressive figure considering his home park. However, while the willingness to take first base when it was offered was noble, I have to wonder whether it was a case of an improving eye or Gonzalez just being issued a lot of unofficial intentional walks.

After being thrown strikes about 62 percent of the time in the previous three years, that rate plummeted to 56 percent last year. Were pitchers more intimidated by Gonzalez than in previous years, or did the Padres line-up simply lower the cost of issuing Gonzalez a walk to the point where pitchers simply changed their strategy? After all, the two guys who spent most of the season hitting directly behind Gonzalez were Kevin Kouzmanoff (.312 wOBA) and Chase Headley (.328 wOBA). The rest of their line-up was even worse.

With a bad offense around Gonzalez, the value of a walk by their best player was diminished, as San Diego just didn’t have enough good hitters to consistently drive him home. So, pitchers responded by reducing the amount of strikes that Gonzalez saw, and in turn, his walk rate went through the roof.

That does not seem to be a scenario that would likely be repeated if Gonzalez was traded to a better offensive club. While it’s encouraging that Gonzalez was still able to produce while being pitched around, we’d have to expect that he’s going to be thrown more strikes in 2010 if he’s traded to a club that has some real hitters behind him. It’s possible that he’ll take those additional strikes and drive them into the alleys for extra base hits, but that’s projecting him to do something he hasn’t done before.

Gonzalez is a very good player, but if a team trades for him and hopes for another 119 walk season, I think they may be in for a bit of a surprise. Gonzalez’s improvement looks like a mixture of improved plate discipline and inferior teammates, and only one of those things will go with him if he’s traded.

With the season over and the clock ticking towards the beginning of free agency, you’re going to see a lot of rankings of the available players. I would imagine that every single one of them will have Jason Bay slotted in as the #2 position player on the market, behind only Matt Holliday. And there’s every reason to expect Bay to pick up the second biggest check of any free agent position player this winter.

However, there’s another right-handing hitting outfielder on the market that is a better player than Bay and yet will still demand a fraction of the price. That player? The chronically underrated Mike Cameron.

Did you know that, since 2002 (the first year we calculate WAR for), Mike Cameron has been worth +29.6 wins, or about the same as David Ortiz, Aramis Ramirez, and Jim Thome? Or that Cameron has posted a WAR of +4.0 or higher in three of the last four seasons? Yet, due to a slew of factors that include accumulating a large portion of value on defense, spending most of his career in extreme pitchers parks, and posting a low average with a lot of strikeouts, Cameron has never gotten the recognition he deserves.

That will continue this winter, when Bay signs a contract that dwarfs what Cameron will receive, despite the fact that there’s really no argument for Bay being a better player.

Bay is a better hitter – that much is clear. Bay’s career wOBA is .384 versus a .347 mark for Cameron. A 40 point gap in wOBA is significant, and is the obvious driving force for the difference in perception between the two. But how much more value does Bay provide with the bat than Cameron in any given year?

Bay has produced +28 runs above average per 600 PA with the bat since 2002, while Cameron is at +13 runs above average per 600 PA over the same time frame. That’s a 15 run per season gap. It’s a real difference, but probably smaller than the perception of their relative offensive abilities.

That’s just the offensive side, of course. On the other side of the ball, Cameron is one of the better defensive center fielders in the game, while Bay is a bad defensive corner outfielder. You don’t have to trust UZR to agree with those assessments. Those aren’t controversial statements.

If we want to look at the numbers, Cameron is +6 UZR/150 over the last eight years, while Bay is -8 UZR/150. But, of course, they aren’t being compared to the same average baseline, since Cameron plays CF and Bay plays LF. Historically, the gap between an average LF and an average CF is about 10 runs, so the gap is actually 24 runs over their careers.

Even if you don’t like UZR, and you want to cut that number in half to account for your uncertainty about defensive value, you’ll still come out with a total value that makes them about equal. And, given the samples we have, you should trust UZR a lot more than that. With a correct amount of regression, the defensive difference comes out larger than the offensive difference, making Cameron the better player overall.

So, if Cameron has been the better player, why are teams going to pay more for Bay? Overvaluing offense is certainly one factor, but there’s also the age issue. Cameron is going to be 37 next year, while Bay just turned 31. That changes the way we project them going forward.

However, the primary factor in any aging curve has to be the starting point of a player’s value. Cameron may be older, but he’s also better, and he has a skill set that ages significantly better. He’s shown little to no erosion in skills over the last few years. At worst, you could use the age gap to make them have fairly similar projections in value for 2010.

Yet Bay is going to get a three to five year deal for something in the neighborhood of $15 million per season, while Cameron is probably going to have to settle for a one year deal for around the $10 million he made last year.

That’s nutty. If you think Cameron’s on the verge of collapse (he’s shown no signs of it) and you don’t trust defensive metrics (in this case, the conclusions are pretty obviously true), then you think that they’re similarly valuable. In reality, the odds are pretty good that Cameron is going to outperform Bay next season, just as he’s done in most every season recently, and he’s going to do it for far less money.

If you want a right-handed hitting outfielder this winter, and you don’t want to pony up for Matt Holliday, Jason Bay is not the alternative. Call Mike Cameron instead.

When we tell our kids about Randy Johnson, we’re going to start with the height, the hair, and the velocity. In his prime, he regularly threw 100 MPH fastballs with varying amounts of command, making him one of the most intimidating pitchers in the history of the game. At 46, he’s seen his fastball desert him, as the guy who used to throw harder than anyone else now has a fastball that averages below 90 MPH. Here’s a look at how his fastball velocity has decreased since 2002.

There’s a couple of precipitous drops in there, as he’s lost 5 MPH off of his heater in the last eight years. As he’s battled injuries the last few years, the decline has become rapid. Time has caught up with the Big Unit, and his fastball is now a below average pitch.

However, Johnson’s still racking up the strikeouts, because the fastball has never been his out pitch. His slider has been the one that he’s leaned on when he wants to put a hitter away, snapping off a nasty breaking ball that eats lefties alive and even gives problems to right-handed hitters. For whatever reason, that slider just refuses to age.

He lost velocity on it from 2002 to 2003, but since then, it’s been constant at around 84.5 MPH. Even as age has eaten away at his fastball, the slider has held its ground, and could still be described as a power breaking ball. And it’s that pitch that allows him to still put hitters away when he needs to.

Johnson may choose to hang up his spikes and walk away. As a 46-year-old free agent with a long line of health problems, he’s got some incentives to retire. But if he decides to come back for one more year, he’s still got a major league out pitch. For reasons that I certainly can’t explain, his slider just refuses to age as his fastball has.

If there was one guy who was definitely getting traded this winter, it was J.J. Hardy. The Brewers had turned over their starting shortstop job to Alcides Escobar, their infield is crowded, and Hardy wasn’t interested in moving to another position. The only solution was to move him to another team, and that’s what the Brewers did today, sending him to Minnesota for Carlos Gomez.

The Twins seem to be betting on Hardy rebounding to the form he showed in 2007 and 2008, when he was a +4 to +5 win player and one of the best shortstops in baseball. His power disappeared and his BABIP went in the tank in 2009, causing his offensive value to fall apart. However, the Twins don’t need Hardy to go all the way back to what he was to make this a good deal, because even the 2009 version was a decent player, thanks to his defensive value. Hardy can really pick it at shortstop, and was a +1.4 win player in less than a full season in 2009, even with the offensive problems.

Assuming some bounce back, Hardy should project as something like a +3 win player for 2010, making him a significant value at a salary that should come in around $5 million or so. He’s easily worth twice that, and if his offense returns, he could be worth $15 to $20 million to the Twins in each of the next two years.

To acquire Hardy, the Twins gave up Gomez, an outstanding defender in his own right. Milwaukee apparently wanted a premium defender to replace Mike Cameron in center field, but they’re taking a pretty big hit offensively in the swap. Gomez strikes out too often to make the slap hitting gig work, and his inability to bunt himself on base in 2009 caused his average to sink to unacceptable levels.

Even with his elite range in the outfield, Gomez is going to have to improve offensively in order to be worth a starting job. With infields taking away the bunt, he’s going to have to get himself on base in other ways, because it’s nearly impossible to justify starting an outfielder with a .286 career wOBA when you’re trying to make the playoffs.

Gomez is still young and will make the league minimum next year, so the Brewers save some cash, but this still strikes me as a very light return on a quality player. Gomez has some potential, but he’s a work in progress, and the Brewers aren’t really in rebuilding mode. If they go into 2010 with him as their starting CF, they’re going to be taking a pretty significant risk.

Big thumbs up to the Twins here, who got better in a hurry. The Brewers had their hands tied a bit due to the logjam at SS, but it’s still hard to imagine this is the best they could do.

Last year, Bobby Abreu sat around all winter trying to figure out where he was going to play. He apparently didn’t want to do that again, as he re-signed with the Angels on the first day of the off-season.

According to Ed Price, the deal is for $9 million a year in 2010 and 2011, with a vesting option for 2012 or a $1 million buyout. The deal guarantees Abreu $19 million over his age 36 and 37 seasons. A few weeks ago, when reports of Abreu turning down a $16 million offer over two years surfaced, I suggested he take it. This deal is a very small premium over that offer, so that’s essentially what Abreu did.

The more interesting aspect of this, to me, is to see how aggressive teams and players are about getting deals done before the market officially opens up. Last year, the players who signed quickly ended up escaping the carnage of the collapsing economy – Kyle Lohse and Ryan Dempster came out looking like big winners for taking the money to re-sign rather than shopping themselves around, and Raul Ibanez was the only defensively challenged outfielder to cash in after signing with Philadelphia quickly.

In this scenario, Abreu took an essentially fair offer for the security of not going through another winter freeze out. The Angels have the cash to make deals like this, and Abreu is a good fit for their team, but I wonder how many other teams will be rushing to lock up players before the market has a chance to set prices this winter. Given the events of last winter and the questionable status of the economy, I’d imagine caution will be the strategy of many big league clubs.

Abreu was smart to take this deal and avoid the risk. If this winter is anything like last year, there will be better players settling for lesser contracts once they hit the market.

Dayton Moore has made a lot of bad trades and been roundly criticized for a lot of his decisions as the Kansas City GM. Today, though, we stand and applaud, because he reportedly kicked off the off-season with a fantastic deal for his club, sending 3B/OF Mark Teahen to the White Sox for 2B Chris Getz and DH Josh Fields.

Let’s start with Teahen. He’s been rumored to be trade bait for a couple of years now, as he had been displaced by Alex Gordon at third base and split time between the infield and the outfield looking for a permanent home. A large part of the reason he hasn’t been able to land at any single spot on the diamond is because he just isn’t very good.

Teahen is 28-years-old and has accumulated 2,732 plate appearances in the big leagues. He has a career .269/.331/.419 line that works out to a .327 wOBA, which makes him a slightly below average hitter. He’s just average across the board. He makes some contact, he walks a little bit, he has some gap power, and he runs okay, but he’s not good at any one particular offensive skill.

A league average bat has value if he can help a team out defensively, but Teahen isn’t a great defender. His UZR at third base is downright terrible, which is why it should be no surprise that the White Sox apparently plan on using him as an outfielder. He’s okay in a corner, but he’s nothing special, and the combination of an average bat and average defense in a corner outfield spot makes for a below average player overall.

That’s basically what we see with Teahen. He’s accumulated +5.0 WAR over his career, working out to just over +1 win per full season. He’s a useful major league player, but not one that should be starting regularly on a club that wants to win. When you factor in that he’s a second year arbitration eligible player, likely due for a 2010 salary of around $5 million or so, Teahen is basically a zero value asset. His cost is about the same as his contribution.

That Kenny Williams gave up Getz and Fields for the right to pay Teahen about what he’s worth is kind of crazy. Both of the two players going to KC have flaws – Getz lacks power and Fields can’t play defense – but they’re cheap and have a little upside beyond what they’ve shown in the majors. Fields has serious home run power and could add some value as a slugging 1B/DH type for the league minimum. Getz makes a bunch of contact and can play second base adequately. Both are role players or fringe starters, but they make the league minimum and offer some useful skills.

The two players Moore got back from KC aren’t franchise changers – they’re just useful parts to have around in spring training when putting a roster together. Teahen is just not someone that should be making significant money, and given his arbitration status, he’s basically a non-value asset. The White Sox could have acquired a similar or better player by just spending the $5 million they’ll give him in free agency without sacrificing any talent.

This is the right move for the Royals, clearing payroll and bringing in some younger talent that could help the team in the future. For the White Sox, this is yet another sign of the questionable talent evaluation methods used by Kenny Williams. There was no reason to give up anything of value for Teahen. All he’s done with this move is give himself a right fielder who shouldn’t play everyday and open up a bigger hole at second base.