It’s not that there’s nothing left to be done. Eventually, someone’s going to sign Yoan Moncada. Eventually, someone’s going to sign Hector Olivera. There’s no telling when a team might make a strong enough offer to grab a pitcher like Jordan Zimmermann, Stephen Strasburg, or Cole Hamels. It’s still the offseason — it’s still the middle of January. But for the most part, people are looking ahead, with the start of spring training a month away. With the Max Scherzer contract complete, all the big fish are accounted for. All the big fish, that is, but James Shields, who very much remains a free agent, with a very much unclear future destination.

The free-agent market at this point is terrible. As you’d expect it to be. Just yesterday, I was reading a rumor connecting the Astros to Ryan Vogelsong, even though the two parties involved were the Astros and Ryan Vogelsong, and that tells you a little bit about who remains out there. Shields is the exception, since, no matter how worried you are about the mileage on his arm, he appears a good-enough bet to contribute next year. The guy just needs to find a home. How might we be able to help him find a home?

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I don’t think one should require much convincing that the Houston Astros are taking a worthwhile shot in signing Colby Rasmus. Most simply, it’s a one-year contract for a 28-year-old, and it’s worth just $8 million. Rasmus has had a volatile career — last year he finished with a .287 OBP — but he was still overall an average hitter. The season before, he was a lot better than that. The Astros had a role for Rasmus, after dealing Dexter Fowler. If he’s good, he’ll help. If he’s really good, he’ll be worth a qualifying offer. If he’s bad, well, lots of Astros have been bad, and Rasmus alone won’t stop the Astros from getting where they’re trying to go. At the end of the day, 2015 is just a season the Astros have to play out before the seasons they want to play out.

So I don’t think the contract is necessarily that interesting. Rasmus is talented, and he’s trying to bounce back. The Astros, as a team, aren’t as good as the Mariners, Angels or A’s, so it seems like they’ll be fighting the Rangers for fourth in the American League West. A year from now, I doubt we’ll be thinking much about this. But there is one interesting note we can discuss in more detail: Rasmus strikes out a lot. Several Astros strike out a lot. It seems like the Astros are going to strike out a lot.

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At first glance, Monday’s Yovani Gallardo trade probably seems more significant than it really is. Gallardo is a recognizable name, someone who’s pitched important innings, but he is no longer what he once looked like, and he’s a year away from free agency. Luis Sardinas is a real prospect, recently ranked No. 7 in the Rangers’ system by Baseball America, and he has big-league experience, yet his offensive ceiling is very low. Corey Knebel is another real prospect, with his own big-league experience, yet he’s a reliever with control issues and an elbow injury. And while Marcos Diplan has what they call a live arm, he almost couldn’t possibly be further from the bigs, for a baseball-ing professional. This feels like the Rangers just made a major upgrade to a middling staff, but in reality, Gallardo is something around league-average, and he could be gone by November.

So in that sense, it’s a bit underwhelming. The Rangers did need rotation help, and they got it, but they presumably still aren’t going to the playoffs. And the Brewers have made room in the rotation for Jimmy Nelson, but now they have weaker depth, unless they turn around and make a play for, say, James Shields or Jordan Zimmermann. But there is one part of this that I find particularly fascinating. Yovani Gallardo is changing teams, and Yovani Gallardo is changing leagues, but maybe most importantly, Yovani Gallardo is changing catchers.

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It’s no secret the Nationals have been having a lot of conversations behind the scenes. For much of the offseason, there’ve been rumors the team was open to moving guys like Ian Desmond and Jordan Zimmermann. As hard as it was before to see the Nationals deliberately making themselves worse in the short-term to get better in the future, now the situation has changed — with Max Scherzer on board, the Nationals could subtract and still come out ahead. And with a new ace in the rotation for a while, it’s possible to see a different name on the move: Stephen Strasburg.

No, nothing is on the verge of happening. No, the Nationals don’t need to trade Strasburg, or anybody. They might well elect to go ahead and steamroll through the NL East, preparing for a deep postseason run with an October roster that’s absolutely stacked. On the other hand, there are things like this:

Hearing #Nats RHP Stephen Strasburg is very much available and both sides believe it is time to move on. #MLB

— John Perrotto (@JPerrotto) January 19, 2015

Odds are, Strasburg won’t get moved. But the odds he does get moved aren’t 0%, or even close to that low. So it’s worth wondering: just how high is Stephen Strasburg’s trade value?

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Here’s maybe the simplest way to put this: a season ago, by his peripherals, Tanner Roark was about a three-win pitcher. By his actual runs allowed, he was about a five-win pitcher. He actually finished with a higher RA9-WAR than Jordan Zimmermann and Doug Fister and a lot of other guys too. At present, the Nationals will have to pitch Roark out of the bullpen, because the rotation doesn’t have space.

We knew the Max Scherzer negotiations were going to go on for a while. We knew that, eventually, Scherzer would sign somewhere, for a whole lot of years and something vaguely in the neighborhood of $200 million. He wasn’t going to wait until after the start of spring training, so it stood to reason Scherzer was nearing a decision even several days ago. The only question, really, was where he’d end up. People talked about the Tigers. People talked about the Cardinals. The actual team is the Nationals. And from the looks of things, that Nationals team might be a super-team.

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There’s glory, always, in winning the World Series, but it doesn’t take long to start wondering about the season ahead. Pablo Sandoval went away, and many wondered how the Giants might replace his ability and power. Michael Morse also went away, and many wondered how the Giants might replace his ability and power. As far as the former is concerned, Brian Sabean brought in Casey McGehee, who last year hit as many home runs as Madison Bumgarner. And as far as the latter is concerned, Sabean has now brought in Nori Aoki, who last year hit as many home runs as Gio Gonzalez. In case you’re very new to baseball, Bumgarner and Gonzalez are both pitchers, and pitchers don’t bat very often, and they certainly don’t hit many home runs. (Home runs are good.)

Yet there’s so much more to baseball than home runs. Sabean, at least, is betting on that being true. Dave already wrote some time back that Aoki compares very well to Nick Markakis, who signed with the Braves for $44 million. Aoki has signed for a minimum of $4.7 million and one year, and he’s signed for a maximum of $12.5 million and two years. Aoki apparently turned down a bigger offer or three because of San Francisco’s comfort and track record, but I think he’s been pretty clearly undervalued, which makes this a good get for a team whose success somehow always seems sneaky.

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Let’s begin with what I hope will be uncontroversial statements. The Phillies, at present, are a bad baseball team. Arguably the worst baseball team, as long as we’re only talking about 2015. The farm system’s improving, but the big-league roster’s declining, and while every year there are teams that surprise, I’d be surprised if the Phillies won 75 games. It’s not going to be pretty, and even the most optimistic fans are wondering if contention might be feasible three years from now. Rebuilds suck. Just how they are.

And the Phillies have Cole Hamels, who is good. He’s actually been very good, for a very long time, and he’s not old. His remaining contract terms are reasonable, in that, if Hamels were available for just his contract, every team that could afford him would place a call. A trade market for Cole Hamels does exist. Just because nothing has happened doesn’t mean there aren’t teams who would like for something to happen.

Yet, increasingly, it looks like the Phillies won’t be moving Hamels this winter. One point of evidence: the Phillies haven’t yet moved Hamels this winter. Another point of evidence: the Phillies, reportedly, are sticking to their high demands, leading to this quote in a post by Rob Bradford:

According to a source familiar with the Phillies’ thinking on the matter, Philadelphia GM Ruben Amaro and his club have been “unrealistic in their expectations” in regard to a return on Hamels.

As they say, situations are fluid. Hamels could, in theory, get dealt any minute. Some team might become unusually desperate. Maybe a team that feels like it’s on the outside with Max Scherzer and James Shields. Amaro, certainly, is selling Hamels as a rare ace you could get today. But, there would be a lot of ground to make up if Hamels were to get traded before spring training. Negotiations with different teams have been described as a staredown. It’s becoming increasingly likely that the Phillies will hang on to Hamels, putting him back on the market in July. After all, there’s no deadline by which the Phillies have to bid Hamels farewell. They could even potentially keep him through the end of his career, given his status, talent, and popularity. The Phillies never have to trade Cole Hamels, which is allowing them to be patient.

That patience has upsides and downsides. For the sake of this article, I would like to set aside matters of marketing and fan morale. I simply want to talk about Cole Hamels’ trade value. The Phillies have determined, so far, no one has offered enough for their ace. So they disagree with where Hamels’ trade value has been in the offseason. But what would happen to Hamels’ value if he were to be available in July? Might the Phillies then be better able to recover the haul they’ve been seeking?

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Earlier, the Cardinals signed Lance Lynn to a three-year contract, buying out his three years of arbitration eligibility. There’s nothing too remarkable about the deal — it’s good for the team and it’s good for the player, and Lynn’s still all lined up for free agency at the same time if that’s what he wants. Over the past three years, Lynn has been about a nine-win pitcher by actual runs allowed, and he’s been about a nine-win pitcher by his peripherals. He’s thrown more than 600 innings if you include his work in the playoffs. He’s been pretty good, basically, so the Cardinals figure he’ll remain pretty good, and that’s as much as there is to say about that.

The interesting thing about Lynn isn’t his newest contract, or any of his previous contracts. Rather, it’s about his pitching style, and, beyond that, how his pitching style lets him fit in his own particular situation. The stars have aligned for Lynn in the recent past, and based on current indications, 2015 is also going to be favorable. There might not be a better place for Lynn to be pitching than St. Louis.

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I’m going to let you in on a little secret that might not actually really be much of a secret. The most difficult part of this job isn’t the writing or the analysis. At least, as far as I’m concerned, the most difficult part of this job is finding ideas, and finding them consistently. Once you have an idea, everything else can follow, but the thing about ideas is you’d like them to be original and, if you’re lucky, good. And interesting! Interesting is a big one. Maybe interesting and good ought to be categorized together.

For a while, I’ve personally been interested in Tyler Clippard. I’ve considered on several occasions writing about him, and about him specifically, but on every one of those occasions, I’ve talked myself out of it, because it just never seemed relevant enough. Generally, people haven’t woken up and thought, today I’d like to read in depth about Tyler Clippard. So I’ve had this idea on the back-burner for ages. But now? Now is the time to strike, since Clippard just got dealt from the Nationals to the A’s for Yunel Escobar. Tyler Clippard, to me, has always been interesting, but now he’s both interesting and topical, so, here goes nothing. Let me try to explain to you why Clippard is such a weird reliever.

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