When Jerry Dipoto met with the Mariners, and when they decided to hire him, they discussed a plan that would have the team avoid any kind of major rebuild. Retooling is a different process, and currently the Mariners’ process, but the goal is for the team to be competitive. So Dipoto has been busy modifying the roster, with 2016 in mind, and now we have another pair of transactions, the latest finalized just earlier Wednesday. From the A’s, the Mariners added Evan Scribner, which cost them Trey Cochran-Gill. From the Brewers, the Mariners added Adam Lind, which cost them Daniel Missaki, Carlos Herrera, and Freddy Peralta.

Unless you’re unusually knowledgeable about the minor leagues, you don’t know those names. They aren’t the names of high-level prospects, but then, that’s been among the issues — Dipoto hasn’t had a strong system from which to draw. Trading for Wade Miley cost him an arm out of the major-league bullpen. Dipoto is limited, by money, and by the various failures of the preceding administration. So here we are now, with the Mariners adding another two players of moderate interest, each with obvious flaws.

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Just yesterday, we thought the Wade Miley trade might’ve been lopsided. And, you know, maybe. But now we’re on another level. Forget the Wade Miley trade. Now we have the Shelby Miller trade. Kudos to the Diamondbacks — they got Miller, who they wanted. They also got Gabe Speier, who is a player. But Miller didn’t come for free. In exchange, the Braves got Ender Inciarte. Also, the Braves got Dansby Swanson. Also, the Braves got Aaron Blair. Inciarte being a quality, cost-controlled outfielder. Swanson being last year’s first overall pick. Blair being possibly or probably a top-100 starter prospect who’s close to the majors. Don’t get me wrong, Miller is plenty interesting. He ought to help Arizona. Yet the trade looks like a clear, obvious mistake.

You always want to let the first impression settle. You always want to think these things through, to try to make sense from both sides if you can. Sometimes, though, you remain feeling how you initially felt. There’s a parallel you can draw here — the last time I felt like this about a trade, the Royals picked up James Shields. At this point, the Royals don’t regret what they did. There was a way for that to work out for them, just as there’s a way for this to work out for Arizona. But the Shields trade went almost as well for Kansas City as possible. And there’s no Wade Davis in this move. Inciarte might play the part of Wil Myers. Swanson might play the part of Wil Myers. There are two options, with Blair more or less playing the part of Jake Odorizzi. This could easily be a bigger haul, for very probably a lesser return. Occasionally there are bad trades. This is among the worst of them.

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Dig around enough and you can make any transaction kind of interesting. Everybody in the upper ranks of professional baseball, after all, is only there because they possess extraordinary talent. Everyone has promise, so everyone can make a difference, so everyone deserves a certain amount of attention. Yet moves are considered relative to one another, and I’m not going to lie to you — Tuesday’s trade between the Padres and the Cardinals isn’t one you’ll think about very much. This is a move that’ll get lost in all the thoughts about dealing for Jose Fernandez.

From the Padres, the Cardinals are getting Jedd Gyorko and a bit over $7 million. From the Cardinals, the Padres are getting Jon Jay. Gyorko lines up to be a utility infielder, perhaps a platoon partner for Kolten Wong. The hope is that he does a little more than Pete Kozma or, earlier, Daniel Descalso. The Padres wanted out from under Gyorko’s long-term contract. Jay lines up to be a semi-regular outfielder, perhaps a platoon partner for Melvin Upton. He’s a free agent in a year, and the Padres seem unlikely to contend, and the Cardinals included Jay to offset some more money. Based on the intent of this deal, it’s forgettable. It’s an exchange of money and role players.

The shame, if you want to call it that, is both Gyorko and Jay are interesting. And I mean beyond just being professional ballplayers. Neither will be treated as much, but there are points of significance here. Jay has an interesting background. Gyorko might still have an interesting future.

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Most of the time, when you hear about a transaction, you think “yeah, that makes sense.” Free-agent contract terms are seldom surprising. And trades between teams are also seldom surprising, in terms of how much each side seems to be worth. Every so often, though, a move will give you pause. There was a trade between the Red Sox and the Mariners, Monday, and it arrived a little differently than usual. It didn’t make immediate sense for both sides.

After having lost out on Hisashi Iwakuma, the Mariners turned around and picked up Wade Miley, along with Jonathan Aro. They wanted a starter, and they recognized that the Red Sox had some excess depth. Nothing surprising there. Nor was it surprising that the Mariners were willing to include Roenis Elias. The part that engaged the eyebrows was the final piece, that being Carson Smith. What this is, today, is the Wade Miley trade. What this very well might end up looking like is the Carson Smith trade. The Red Sox did well to add a reliever with many years left.

From time to time, you’ll see a move and you’ll think it favors one side. Some moves do favor one side. You can express yourself and stop there, or you can try to think about why the one team might’ve been a willing participant, given that every team has so much information. What it looks like is that either the Mariners are quite fond of Miley, or they’re a little down on Smith. It’s smart to at least try to understand from both perspectives.

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It’s different when you’re an executive for a smaller-budget organization. It’s not bad, and it might even be fun, but the circumstances force you to be a little more imaginative. You don’t ever really get to splurge, not unless you get lucky. More often, you have to be creative — you have to try to see things where other people don’t. You’re forever hunting for bargains, looking for upside where others might see downside. So much is about accepting flaws and reclamation projects. It can be a rewarding challenge, but only the challenge part is certain.

It’s simpler when you have resources. There’s a lot more pressure, as there are higher expectations, but when you have resources, you don’t always need to overthink. When you have resources, like the Dodgers, you can determine that you have a weakness in the bullpen, and you can just go get Aroldis Chapman to try to fix it. The Dodgers looked somewhat thin behind Kenley Jansen, who’s one of the best relievers in baseball. So word is they’re on the verge of picking up another one of the best relievers in baseball.

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Want to know an easy way to provoke someone into complaining about how all professional athletes are overpaid? Tell this person there was a pitcher last year who led all of baseball in both hits and runs allowed. And I mean “led” in the bad way, not the good way. Let that sink in, then tell the person the pitcher was a free agent, and finally tell the person that pitcher signed for five years and $90 million. More often than not, a rant is going to follow. It’s going to be a weird rant, that misses the point about how much money there is floating around in baseball these days, and the reality is that players are getting less of the league revenue than they used to. But you already knew it would be a weird rant. That’s why you targeted this given individual in the first place.

There are people who like to say that free agency is about rewarding players for what they’ve already done. To some extent it’s true — free agents score when they’ve proven they can be good. But of course, free agency is really about investing in the future, and I’m not sure it gets more clear than it is right here, with the Giants paying pretty big money for a pitcher coming off a conventionally disappointing season. This isn’t about what Jeff Samardzija’s done, certainly not what he’s done most recently. This is about what the Giants think Samardzija is going to be. Heaven knows they weren’t alone.

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Zack Greinke looks to be worth what the Diamondbacks will be paying him. We still don’t have a complete idea of the structure of his contract, so it’s not like everything can be nailed down precisely, but he’s one of the most valuable pitchers in baseball, and he’s going to get paid like it. When you factor in everything he does — pitch, hit, defend — Greinke’s projected contract comes out looking a lot like his actual contract. So, based on our usual estimates, this is a totally acceptable free-agent deal. Good for Greinke, good for Arizona.

Here’s where it gets more complicated: those usual estimates don’t do much to account for team context. Let’s say the going rate for a win in free agency is $8 million. The specific number doesn’t matter. That’s what any team should expect to pay. But you can’t pay everyone free-agent money — that would mean, to expect 40 team WAR, you’d need a payroll of $320 million. $8 million might be the cost of a win in free agency, for every team, but not every team has the same total $/WAR target. As always, the biggest-spending teams have an advantage. Teams like the Diamondbacks need to be more careful.

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Let’s be clear about what’s being said here: The A’s aren’t anyone’s division favorites. Not now, and not in March, I’m going to guess. The Astros are no longer up and coming; they’re up and they’ve come. The Rangers are coming off a huge bounce-back season, the Mariners are surrounding their core with more depth, and the Angels have baseball’s best player. The AL West is going to be tough, and the A’s probably have the most to prove.

But the A’s were supposed to be competitive in 2015. Not great, but competitive. That didn’t work out, and they’ve made some moves I’m sure they’d love to undo. Yet there’s a road to being competitive again in 2016. Understanding it requires some understanding of what, exactly, went wrong in the past season. It’s always complicated, for any team, but for the 2015 A’s, the story might be the least complicated possible.

I started thinking about this after receiving an email Thursday that referred to something I wrote in July. At that point, I called the A’s the unluckiest* team of the millennium. The asterisk serves a purpose — I don’t actually like the word “luck” in baseball. What happens happens. There’s just not a great list of alternative terms. Anyway, this relies upon a metric called BaseRuns. I don’t want to get too math-y, but BaseRuns is intended to calculate an expected team winning percentage, based on performance. What gets stripped away is the element of timing. Timing is critical, of course, but it’s not always predictive. Team records tend to follow team BaseRuns records. Deviations are common over the short term, but they’ll mostly balance out given time.

I’ve got team BaseRuns data stretching back to 2002. Which means I have actual team records, and BaseRuns team records. Below, see the teams with the greatest differences between those records, where the actual record was worse than expected:

Read the rest on Fox Sports.

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Seemingly any minute now, Zack Greinke will make his free-agency decision. I heard a few times yesterday something would almost certainly happen soon, as Greinke doesn’t want this to drag on any longer. Based on pretty much all reports, we’re destined for one of two realities: one in which Greinke returns to the Dodgers for a fortune, or one in which Greinke goes to the Giants for a similar fortune. In the case of the former, the Dodgers will boost the gap between themselves and the next-best division rival. In the case of the latter, the gap would shrink. You know how great players work.

The real impressive thing about Greinke is how well-rounded he is. He’s an incredible pitcher, sure, and that’s what’s most important, but a part of that comes out of his preparation. He’s also just about unparalleled in terms of his focus, and his control over himself. He pairs his pitching stuff with his pitching intelligence. For a pitcher, he’s become a pretty good hitter, doing plenty to help his own case. And Greinke is an outstanding defender. I don’t think this counts as some sort of revelation — Greinke’s won back-to-back Gold Glove awards, and he’s won those for a reason. But we can go a little bit deeper. Greinke’s terrific in the field. It saves him several runs every year.

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