The Chicago Cubs have had two sets of negotiations involving Jeff Samardzija. The two sides have talked about a long-term extension — so far nothing’s been agreed to — and the sides seem pretty far apart. The front office also has fielded some trade offers, and while you can never be entirely certain about rumors, certain reports have painted the asking price as astronomical. From the Toronto Blue Jays, the Cubs supposedly wanted Aaron Sanchez, Marcus Stroman and more. From the Braves, the Cubs supposedly wanted Justin Upton or Jason Heyward. Even if the names are off, the message is clear: the Cubs are looking for a massive haul. Last year, Samardzija posted a worse ERA than Kevin Correia and Jeremy Hefner.

It’s been suggested the Cubs want more for Samardzija than the Rays have been looking for in return for David Price. Samardzija, of course, isn’t as good as Price. On the other hand, he’s considerably cheaper, and Samardzija isn’t coming off a season with an arm injury. His big-league health history is clean. So it’s not an outlandish position, but nothing’s been agreed to yet, because no one’s been willing to give up what the Cubs have wanted. More recent reports have suggested the Cubs intend to revisit the Samardzija trade market in the middle of the season. At first, it seems like this could only deflate Samardzija’s value. It would, after all, leave him with less time to make a contribution to a new employer. But there are good reasons for the Cubs to stick to their guns. Come June or July, they could still turn Samardzija into a blockbuster.

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It’s pretty convenient and informative to have two different and legitimate versions of something. For example, there are a bunch of different baseball stat projection systems. Most of the time, they’re going to agree with one another, because they’re founded on more or less the same information and in the end all projection systems project based on recent performance. But it can be fascinating to identify players or teams where projection systems don’t see figurative eye to figurative eye. For example, for this coming season, Steamer doesn’t love the Reds’ starting rotation. ZiPS, meanwhile, is considerably more optimistic. It’s of interest to examine the reasons why that might be.

Along the same lines, we can turn our attention to player defense. FanGraphs keeps track of both UZR and Defensive Runs Saved, and those are two different methodologies, yielding two different sets of results. On several occasions, people have compared and contrasted the two. But FanGraphs also keeps track of the results of the annual Fan Scouting Reports. To my knowledge, less has been attempted with that data, and I thought it could be fun to see how fan opinion compares to stat opinion.

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The other day, Buster Olney tweeted that some executives see regression in the Pirates’ immediate future. Projection systems seem to be in agreement, and Dave talked about this very thing as soon as the Pirates were eliminated from last year’s playoffs. Nobody thinks the Pirates are going to go back to being terrible — there’s way too much talent there — but people see them more as fringe contenders than NL Central favorites, and it’s not like they’ve had the most constructive offseason, with the biggest move to date being the loss of A.J. Burnett.

Of course, the offseason isn’t over. The Pirates might still be able to get Burnett re-signed, which would be a significant improvement. They’re another one of those teams in a high-leverage position on the win curve, so any kind of improvement should be pursued. And with that in mind, right now the situation at first base involves Gaby Sanchez and unknown others. You probably know that Gaby Sanchez is a real player, but he’s never done much to draw attention to himself, and he’s not a regular. It seems like the Pirates are ripe for a first-base upgrade. But then, what’s really available to them?

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Kevin Towers is a confident, talkative man. He’ll tell you what he’s thinking about, and he’ll tell you what he’s doing. There aren’t many anonymous leaks that come out of the Diamondbacks organization because Towers doesn’t exactly keep many secrets — even when he’s actively negotiating. Towers has spent much of this offseason talking about how badly he wanted to acquire a No. 1-type starting pitcher. He was in on Masahiro Tanaka; he’s been in on David Price. He admitted he wanted to make a significant splash. Just the other day Arizona signed Bronson Arroyo for two years and $23.5 million. Or three years and $30 million. The bigger point is that Arizona signed Bronson Arroyo, and now they’re finished.

Arroyo, of course, is no one’s idea of an ace. Most simply, the best pitchers get strikeouts, limit walks and limit dingers. Arroyo does one of those things. He’s 37 in a couple of weeks, meaning he’s basically 37 now. There’s little sexiness with this acquisition, and Towers would tell you he knows he didn’t get a No. 1. Still, Arroyo does have something going in his favor. It’s just a matter of how much you believe in it.

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The Houston Astros have done some unspeakable things to their fans. The primary defense for watching bad baseball is that bad baseball is better than no baseball, but at times the Astros have caused people to question whether what they’re watching is even baseball at all, or some kind of deliberately unwatchable performance art. The good news is that there’s good news. Psychologically, this experience has made Astros fans stronger, more tolerant of adversity and less prone to hysterics. And on the field, the Astros as a ballclub are making forward progress. They’re still not good, but they’re getting closer to good, and they shouldn’t be as dreadful as they have been for a long long time. With a wave of young talent on the way, Astros fans can begin to envision a most majestic, formidable crest.

Among the brightest of potential stars is 24-year-old George Springer. The former first-round pick ought to debut somewhere in 2014, and Springer is nearly the perfect prospect. He has plenty of power, as evidenced by last year’s 37 home runs. He has plenty of discipline, as evidenced by last year’s 83 walks. He has plenty of speed, as evidenced by last year’s 45 stolen bases. Defensively, he’s a center fielder who could stick there. He has range and he has an arm, and though he’s not unusually young for his level, he’s right on track to be a core asset. There’s just one thing that Springer is missing, and he’s missing it in spades.

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Look, there’s no way to begin this except with a little story. I don’t know how else I could get to the meat and keep you guys with me. From time to time, I like to play around with pitcher numbers when they’re facing other pitchers. It’s not super meaningful — little of my research is ever super meaningful — but it’s interesting to me, and it’s interesting that pitchers, at least some of the time, get to face hitters who are so tremendously worse than the rest of the guys in the lineup. It only makes sense to me to occasionally split those numbers apart.

Usually, I look at strikeouts. Strikeouts are the best indicator of dominance, at least over the smaller samples I generally encounter. I’ve written here before about how Gio Gonzalez one year put up some crazy strikeout numbers against pitchers in the National League. But something else that’s caught my eye a bunch of times is that I keep seeing the name ‘Wandy Rodriguez‘. As in, it seems like Rodriguez has been a strikeout machine against pitchers. Rodriguez has been a perfectly adequate starter, but I’ve never really thought of him as being unhittable, so his name stood out to me as slightly out of place. Eventually, this was something I knew I’d have to pursue.

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The Mariners lost Tom Wilhelmsen last year, not to injury, but to whatever it is that capriciously claims the effectiveness of relievers with otherwise quality stuff. In stepped Danny Farquhar, one of two guys the Mariners got for Ichiro in a deal interpreted as nothing other than a dump and a favor. At the time, the Mariners said they liked Farquhar’s new cutter he’d shown in the minors. He proved to be, you could say, up to the task. There were 125 relievers last year who threw at least 50 innings. Farquhar ranked sixth in strikeout rate, between Kenley Jansen and Trevor Rosenthal. He ranked fourth in FIP-, between Mark Melancon and Craig Kimbrel. He ranked sixth in xFIP-, between Aroldis Chapman and Rosenthal. As closer he had a 2.38 ERA. In no time, Farquhar established himself as perhaps one of the better relievers in the major leagues.

On Thursday the Mariners replaced Farquhar with free-agent Fernando Rodney. It had been rumored for months that the Mariners were interested in a veteran closer, and they got the last good one for two years and $14 million, with another possible million in incentives. The Orioles were a possibility, but it seems they’ll stay internal. For the Mariners, on the surface, it’s a strange move. Below the surface, it’s a perfectly reasonable move, that fits within the current market.

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Laser eye surgery has become a pretty routine procedure. Nothing’s yet been perfected, and fear comes from a machine slicing your eyes open, but patients are in and out in practically no time at all, and the risk of complications is incredibly low. And many of those complications are minor and/or temporary. It’s a safe and accepted part of contemporary living. Given that it involves removing tissue from one body part and weaving it into another, it’s something of a miracle that Tommy John surgery these days has a success rate even within sniffing distance of laser eye surgery. Of course, it’s not that automatic, and of course, there’s still the year-long rehab, but Tommy John surgery isn’t feared the way it used to be, and the results tend to speak for themselves. Certainly, among fans, it seems like the operation is simply seen as a year-long delay. Less devastating, more annoying.

To an extent, that’s justified. Surgeons know what they’re doing, the rehab track has been tested a million times over, and most pitchers are able to make it back and make it back effectively within the usual timetable. Sometimes they even feel stronger, perhaps because other parts of their bodies are able to heal while the pitcher isn’t throwing. But it’s important to understand that there can be speed bumps. Sometimes there can be even bigger obstacles. Recovery from Tommy John shouldn’t be taken for granted, and you could just ask Cory Luebke.

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A lot of things happen when you’re guaranteed a hundred thirty-five million dollars. That’s a guess on my part, since I’ve never been in that particular situation, and I can’t speak to what many of those things might be. I presume an overwhelming number of old acquaintances try to re-establish contact. One thing I know for sure is that people talk about you a lot. Lots of people out there talking about Freddie Freeman at the moment, on the heels of his contract extension and also on the heels of literally nothing else happening. Freeman’s eight years are the subject of much dialogue.

Some of the talk is new, and some of the talk is old. There’s just a whole lot of talk, in sum, because even with baseball’s rampant inflation, people are still getting used to the idea of nine-figure contracts and especially nine-figure contracts to non-superstars. People want to know how good Freeman actually is. People want to know how good Freeman will become. And, relatedly, people want to talk about Freeman’s power upside, since he’s a first baseman and first basemen are supposed to hit for more power than Freeman has to date.

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