R.A. Dickey was just recently announced as a finalist for the 2012 National League Cy Young Award. Depending on who you ask, he might well be the favorite to win. R.A. Dickey was just earlier Thursday reported to be the subject of trade conversations. Joel Sherman talked about it, Ken Rosenthal talked about it, and others have talked about it. Right now team executives are all hanging out in the same place, and the Mets are gauging the trade value of maybe the league’s best starting pitcher. It probably goes without saying that this is an unusual situation.

For those who haven’t been following, what makes this more unusual is that there were just reports that the Mets and Dickey had made progress in contract extension negotiations. Dickey’s locked up for just one more year, and he’s interested in returning, while the Mets are interested in having him return. It’s all just a matter of price, as it pretty much always is. At present, Dickey wants more than the Mets are willing to give, which is obviously why they haven’t reached an agreement.

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Earlier Wednesday, it was announced that Padres catcher Yasmani Grandal would be suspended 50 games for testing positive for testosterone. In the event that you don’t believe me for some reason, here’s Ken Rosenthal, and you probably believe Ken Rosenthal:

#Padres’ Grandal gets 50-game suspension for testing positive for testosterone. Not good for a team that needs all offense it can get.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 7, 2012

See? Literally the exact same thing. Previously the day had belonged to Jason Bay and Mark McGwire, but Grandal grabbed headlines like few Padres ever do.

The direct consequences are clear. The most direct consequence is that Grandal will be suspended for 50 games, instead of serving as the Padres’ regular catcher right out of the gate. That’s a full third of a season, for an important young player, and that could have a meaningful impact on the Padres’ final totals of wins and losses. Additionally, the Padres now have to wonder about what they might have in Grandal. Though he batted .297 last year in his first exposure to the majors with an .863 OPS, this positive test introduces question marks. Just as Melky Cabrera will have to prove himself all over again, Grandal will have to prove himself all over again.

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Bully for the 2012 Detroit Tigers. While the Tigers fell a little shy of winning the World Series, they did manage to accomplish more than 28 other teams, and they got as far as they did in large part by riding their superstars. Justin Verlander, obviously, was the star of the pitching staff, and Max Scherzer and Doug Fister did more to get noticed as well. In the middle of the lineup were Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder, and in Year 1 of that arrangement, there’s no room for complaints. It was the fault of neither Cabrera nor Fielder that the Tigers finished four games short.

From the beginning, Cabrera and Fielder were regarded as the toughest back-to-back hitters in baseball. On 161 occasions, Miguel Cabrera batted third, and on all 162 occasions, Prince Fielder batted fourth. Cabrera finished tied for tops in baseball in wRC+. Fielder finished sixth, between Andrew McCutchen and Edwin Encarnacion. The 2012 Tigers had two of the top six hitters in baseball. The Brewers had a good tandem, and the Blue Jays had a good tandem until Jose Bautista got hurt, but the Tigers’ tandem was incredible.

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Extreme performances are exceptional performances, so it stands to reason that there are relatively few extreme performers. Granted, there are a lot of different ways in which one can be extreme or exceptional, but still, most players fall somewhere in the middle. It doesn’t make those players uninteresting on its own, but it also definitely doesn’t make those players more interesting. Extremes are interesting.

There are two Chris Youngs in baseball, and they’re independent of one another, linked only by profession and coincidence. Still, it’s fun to compare them on account of their names, and one notes that Outfielder Chris Young has a career 16.3 WAR, while Pitcher Chris Young has a career 16.3 RA9 WAR. It’s never been a secret that Pitcher Chris Young occupies an extreme. Two of them, in fact. Not only is Pitcher Chris Young extremely tall; he’s also extremely fly ball-prone. Since 2002, Young has posted the lowest groundball rate in baseball. I suppose one could argue Young is also extremely fragile.

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Very late last week, another quality starting pitcher in Hisashi Iwakuma nearly entered the free-agent market. But very late last week, the Seattle Mariners decided “hey we need quality players on our team” and re-signed Iwakuma to a multi-year contract. It was a predictable move, and a sensible move; the Mariners needed a good starting pitcher, and Iwakuma had previously expressed a fondness for Seattle. The two sides reached an agreement right at the end of the exclusive negotiating window, and Iwakuma will end up with either $14 million over two years or $20 million over three years. For the Mariners, it’s a potential bargain, and for Iwakuma, it’s security and still a small fortune.

Now, as for the headline, in your case the answer might be “literally anything.” Iwakuma last year flew under the radar, because he pitched for a nothing team, and he didn’t actually start pitching regularly for a few months. For me, personally, Wei-Yin Chen is a blind spot. For a lot of other people, Hisashi Iwakuma might be a blind spot. I don’t know. One should first acknowledge that he was pretty good. Then there’s something else, something specific.

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For a very long time, the Boston Red Sox were good. Great, even. Then, beginning around September 2011 or so, the Red Sox turned into a disaster. The Sox followed a poor end to the 2011 season with a poor all of the 2012 season, and it became somewhat conceivable that David Ortiz would look for a change. Ortiz was set to be a free agent after the year, and as hard as it is to imagine the Red Sox without him, maybe Ortiz would’ve been sick of the atmosphere. Just recently, Ken Rosenthal wrote that the Texas Rangers would have interest in Ortiz as a potential free-agent DH. It wasn’t impossible that Ortiz would go somewhere else, is the point.

But that’s not happening, as it turns out. Friday was the end of the exclusive negotiating window for teams and their free agents. Recently there were reports that Ortiz and the Red Sox were close to an agreement, then there were reports that Ortiz and the Red Sox weren’t really close to an agreement. But Friday, word’s out that an agreement is in place. David Ortiz is not hitting the open market — David Ortiz is staying in Boston.

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Baseball players are assigned positions. Specific positions, I mean, and they’re generally assigned well before a player makes the major leagues. A baseball player’s position is a baseball player’s job, and no baseball player’s position is “professional baseball player.” There are relief pitchers, and starting pitchers, and shortstops, and catchers, and everything. There’s specificity, and corresponding specific training. A player who is trained as a shortstop will, over time — in theory — become a better shortstop than a player who is not trained as a shortstop. That other player will be better at whatever he is, probably. There’s a reason pitchers generally aren’t good hitters, and hitters generally aren’t good pitchers. Those activities aren’t their jobs, so they don’t receive training for them.

But sometimes pitchers hit, and sometimes hitters pitch. There’s a whole league where pitchers have to hit and in so doing end up embarrassing themselves, and sometimes a position player will take the mound should desperation or utter indifference set in. These make for some valuable and interesting reference points, because we can get an idea of how players perform without training. National League position players get lots of hitting training. NL pitchers get limited hitting training. AL pitchers get practically zero hitting training. So the differences between their performances are worth it to observe. And it’s always worth observing position players on the mound. This will be our focus today.

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It’s decision time for the Los Angeles Angels. It’s decision time for everybody, but the Angels are a part of everybody, and like everybody else, they’re trying to figure out what their 2013 big-league roster might look like. They just traded Ervin Santana to the Royals. They were going to decline his option, and this way they effectively declined his option and also added a potential reliever. Now the Angels have to figure out what they’re doing with Dan Haren and Torii Hunter. A Haren decision in particular will have to be made quickly.

The Angels have until tomorrow to decide whether to pick up Haren’s $15.5 million 2013 option, or whether to buy it out for $3.5 million. Thus the Angels have until tomorrow to decide whether Dan Haren is worth $12 million over one year. From many reports, the Angels are currently trying to trade Haren, just as they did with Santana. Doing so would free up money for Zack Greinke, who is supposedly the Angels’ top offseason priority.

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Following Sunday’s conclusion of the World Series, there began the relatively brief Quiet Period — a period of time during which teams have exclusive negotiation rights with pending free agents. After the Quiet Period, anybody can reach out to anybody. Any player can sign with any team that he wants. The Los Angeles Dodgers had a pending free agent in Brandon League, and they didn’t want to risk exposing him to the open market, so Tuesday night, word got out that the Dodgers had signed League to a three-year contract.

With a fourth-year vesting option, based on games finished. As is, the three guaranteed years are worth $22.5 million. That is, the Dodgers signed League to a three-year, $22.5 million contract. The contract could end up being bigger than that, when it’s all said and done. We can all agree that paying this sort of money for a non-elite setup man would be ridiculous. And that isn’t what the Dodgers have done, as Ned Colletti says that League will be the team’s closer going forward. Closers make more money. It’s in the very definition of “closing”.

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