This time of year, everyone’s a contender. So everyone’s talking about the things they can do in 2016, and the A’s are no different, highlighting their improved bullpen and increased power. Just last week they picked up Khris Davis, and when I was reading about that move, team officials noted that Davis will provide critical right-handed pop, along with Danny Valencia. Just from reading that sentence, you know two things: (1) the A’s won’t be anyone’s AL West favorites, and (2) Valencia has won himself some organizational fans.

It’s not as if Valencia has been hurting for chances, as teams have long recognized his ability to punish left-handed pitchers who dare enter the strike zone. Valencia has been treated as one of those useful players good enough to have but not good enough to keep. He debuted in 2010, and Oakland is his sixth major-league team, having been claimed off waivers from the Blue Jays in August. The Blue Jays had themselves a roster crunch, and they weren’t buying the initial evidence that Valencia had made himself more whole. You can understand why Toronto wound up doing what they did, but Oakland seized the opportunity and now they seem to have themselves an asset. The A’s could afford to see how real Valencia really was. All he did was conquer his biggest problem.

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Khris Davis has four career outfield assists. Have you ever been curious about how he got them? Of course you haven’t. You’re a grown person, with responsibilities. A person trying to answer the big questions, a person who reads books, a person wondering what a gravitational wave is. This has never really crossed your mind, but, now you’re here. Now you’re curious. This is obviously a setup and human nature will force you to see this all the way through. You’re not as in control of you as you think.

Davis is relevant right now because he was just traded. He debuted in 2013 and, since then, on a rate basis, he ranks fifth-worst among outfielders in the DRS version of the arm-value statistic. He ranks seventh-worst in the UZR version of the arm-value statistic. According to the Fan Scouting Report, he ranks fifth-worst in release. He ranks fourth-worst by arm strength, and he ranks eighth-worst by arm accuracy, and if you put all three components together, he ranks second-worst by arm overall. Khris Davis has a bad arm. It’s been that way for as long as you’ve known about him. We don’t get to say this kind of thing very often, but there might genuinely be some of you capable of out-throwing Khris Davis, who is a major-league baseball player.

And he’s a player with four assists. Bad arm, four assists. Which means he’s been involved in throwing people out. Time to walk through the assists, like we did with Ben Revere back whenever that was. For some reason, in this moment, it’s important to know what’s happened.

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Not long ago, we made available the results of the 2015 Fan Scouting Report. August already made use of them last week, and everything is right up there for your easy perusal. The measure obviously isn’t without its flaws, but no defensive measure is without its flaws, and as you’ve probably come to understand by how often I poll the FanGraphs community, I love to see what you people think about things. Even when the public might be wrong, there’s the opportunity to learn from its perception. The Fan Scouting Report is all about perceptions.

If you don’t know quite how it works, people submit ballots, evaluating player defense based on seven categories: instincts, first step, speed, hands, release, arm strength, and arm accuracy. Everything gets combined into an overall rating, and last year’s top rating was a four-way tie between Jackie Bradley Jr., Brandon Crawford, Jason Heyward, and Andrelton Simmons. According to the fans, those were the best defenders in the game, and each of them is recognized as being outstanding. This is one fun way to sort the leaderboards — see who the fans think was awesome, either overall, or within a particular category.

You can also do the opposite of that. Every leaderboard that has a top has a bottom.

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With so much analysis and similar thinking taking over the game, it’s easy to imagine a reality where, down the road, every player in every organization is assigned a number that reflects his total value, and trades are made based on nothing more than balancing value numbers until they match. Even if that’s an exaggeration, you can see how things could come to feel that way, like trades are just the results of equations being run. In this hypothetical future, we’d see trades a lot like the one that’s just gone down between the A’s and the Brewers. Needs have been met on both sides. Everything makes very obvious sense.

I know the A’s and Brewers just finished with the same record, but the A’s don’t do the whole rebuilding thing, while the Brewers are in deep. Oakland wanted to add power from the right side and they were seeking help in the outfield, so that’s where Khris Davis fits. From Milwaukee’s side, if anything they had too many outfielders, and they didn’t have any catching depth behind Jonathan Lucroy, so that’s where Jacob Nottingham fits. Lucroy’s basically a goner anyhow, and Nottingham might not be that far away. And Bowdien Derby, known as Bubba? Live arm. Lottery ticket. More talent for the system. The A’s win the trade for the certainty; the Brewers win the trade for the upside. The A’s wanted certainty. The Brewers wanted upside.

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By the time this gets published, Yovani Gallardo might have agreed to a multiyear contract with the Orioles. Maybe that hasn’t happened yet, because I don’t know the future, but this is one of those situations where you think you do know the future, because Gallardo landing with Baltimore feels inevitable. I’m going to guess Gallardo knows it, and I’m going to guess the Orioles know it. It’s like a smaller-scale version of the Chris Davis talks, where both parties are about tired of tugging the rope. If there’s not yet an agreement, it stands to reason there will be soon.

If and when Gallardo signs with the Orioles, it’ll be underwhelming. It’ll feel like an overpay, like a lot of other pitcher contracts, and though that right there is a reason to believe our scale of expectations is just off, Gallardo doesn’t feel like the most excellent bet. Some people will be able to talk themselves into it, pointing to Gallardo’s experience, and saying he’s seen as a bulldog. The deal won’t single-handedly cripple the Orioles, and Gallardo might just prevent enough runs to make it work. There’s just that one trend, though. Gallardo comes off as an insufficient talent for an insufficient roster.

Let’s talk for a few minutes about that trend. You know the one.

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It shouldn’t take a lot to understand why the Rays went and picked up Corey Dickerson. In general, it was a pretty classic Tampa Bay move: they dealt more expensive and conspicuous talent for under-appreciated talent and team control. Jake McGee is very obviously good, but Dickerson is his own brand of productive, and he ought to remain affordable for years. The Rays have been doing things like this for the better part of a decade.

That’s what’s most important: Dickerson should remain a quality hitter, and he fits within Tampa Bay’s budget, whereas McGee was pricing himself out. Yet you can find even more appeal in the specifics. Dickerson’s also a good match for an organizational trend, a trend that’s being mirrored by the rest of the league.

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A week ago, I thought we’d try something fun. Not everything I think is going to be fun actually turns out to be fun, but this one generated some pretty good feedback. Starting from the position that it’s impossible to arrive at a consensus definition of “ace,” given that it’s a subjective term applied to different pitchers by different people, I tried to gather some information from the community so we could see what you all seem to believe. I gave you the names of 20 current starting pitchers, and for each I asked a simple yes-or-no question — is the pitcher an ace? Thousands of you took the time to participate in the project, for almost literally no payoff.

Whatever payoff there is is to follow. I’ve collected all the voting results, and I think there’s a good amount to be learned. The data is always the best part, and though we still don’t have a word-by-word definition for an ace, it appears that there are some rules, of varying importance. Spoiler alert: the community agrees that Clayton Kershaw is an ace, as he got a “yes” vote in 99.3% of polls. He was included mostly as a test, because I’m always curious how many people are actively trolling any polling project I try to run. They’re always out there. And while 0.7% of voters is a small percentage, in this case that’s 44 people. That’s 44 original thinkers! I’m glad you guys found a means to brighten your day.

So, never trust a small fraction of the community. Trust the entirety of the community! I think that’s how this is supposed to work.

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The news: Yulieski Gurriel, said to be Cuba’s best baseball player, has left Cuba, with every intention of pursuing a career in the majors. The necessary and additional information: Gurriel will turn 32 in June, and he’s mostly a third baseman, though he’s also played second. He’s free of any international spending restrictions, but teams can’t try to spend their money on him yet, and there’s some chance we won’t see Gurriel until 2017. So this is an exciting turn of events that’ll require some patience — Gurriel is virtually certain to become available, but these things have a way of taking their time.

Gurriel has been on the radar for well over a decade. He’s part of what’s been a powerful baseball family in Cuba, and he’s starred on the national team. He also played half a year in Japan, and while he was excellent there, he’s been at his best at home, and in the past Ben Badler compared him offensively to Hanley Ramirez and David Wright. When you talk about performance abroad, I know people don’t always quite trust the statistics, at least in terms of how well they’ll translate, but here’s the latest info I can find: 38 walks and three strikeouts. That’s Gurriel this season. Also, a league-leading .500 batting average, slugging .873. You don’t need to know anything about Cuban baseball to know that Gurriel has been dominant, and the belief is he could help a major-league lineup tomorrow.

There’s not an MLB front office that won’t have some Gurriel conversations. I’m sure hundreds have already taken place. Players like this don’t become available very often, but then it’s not like this is pure upside. Gurriel is probably going to sign after he turns 32, and his best baseball is almost definitely behind him. So he’s more of a short-term player than a long-term player, and then he’s also going to cost a fortune, as a free agent. Hector Olivera signed at a younger age than Gurriel, but he was 30, and Olivera is thought to be worse than Gurriel, and Olivera cleared $60 million. Gurriel might end up getting nine figures, for all I know. That would be steep, but this is a big opportunity.

So let’s try to figure out a market. Yulieski Gurriel isn’t available today. But he should be available before too long, so based on what we know at the moment, what seem like the most likely destinations?

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