I think we all understand the present circumstances. The Marlins are trying to trade Giancarlo Stanton in order to clear payroll, and they’ve reached general agreements with both the Cardinals and the Giants. From the Cardinals, the Marlins would get talent and salary relief. From the Giants, the Marlins would get talent and salary relief. There are differences, obviously, but right now you’d think there are only these two finalists. Stanton has full no-trade protection, but he doesn’t want to stick around where he is, and so we’re getting to a decision point. Stanton will soon need to pick St. Louis or San Francisco.

Or neither. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but Stanton grew up and played high-school ball around Los Angeles. We’re not familiar with Stanton’s actual thoughts, but the consensus opinion is that Stanton’s ideal outcome would be a trade to the Dodgers. To this point, we haven’t heard much about the Dodgers’ trade interest. Stanton wouldn’t be the type of add they typically make. And yet, here we are. The Dodgers continue to loom over this whole thing.

This can obviously change as it goes, but Giants expect a Stanton decision by the end of the week. I’m hearing they continue to view Dodgers, not Cardinals, as biggest threat.

— Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) December 6, 2017

Giancarlo Stanton? Stanton has plenty of leverage. But so do the Dodgers. The Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes are unusual, but so is this situation, with Stanton effectively able to hold out until he gets what he wants.

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Coming into the offseason, the Rangers needed to add pitching. Just pitching, regular pitching, any kind of pitching. They looked thin in the rotation and they looked thin in the bullpen, and that makes things both complicated and entirely simple. Complicated, in that the Rangers needed plenty of help. Simple, in that there’s a lot of potential help out there. Already, the Rangers have added Doug Fister. Fister will help. The deal looks good.

The Rangers are one of the seven finalists for Shohei Ohtani. Obviously, landing him would be a dream. The team was also interested in Miles Mikolas, but he’s decided to sign with the Cardinals. Matt Bush is attempting a conversion from the bullpen to the rotation. And now, according to reports, the Rangers are signing Mike Minor to a multi-year deal. Minor entered the market as one of the most in-demand available relievers. The Rangers could use him as a reliever — but, apparently, Plan A is to convert him, too. Minor will get a chance to start, and the Rangers might end up with a six-man rotation.

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It’s been two and a half years since the first time I ran this project. A lot can change in two and a half years. Two and a half years ago, some of the best position players in baseball were Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Paul Goldschmidt, and — no, let me try this again. Two and a half years ago, some of the best pitchers in baseball were Max Scherzer, Chris Sale, Clayton Kershaw, and…okay, look, Ubaldo Jimenez had a sub-3 ERA. All right? Is that enough? Ubaldo Jimenez had a sub-3 ERA, and we didn’t yet know anything about the coming league-wide home-run spike. Two and a half years is a long time. Specifically, it’s about two and a half years.

This is a polling project, for which I need your participation. All of you are baseball fans, or else you’ve gotten woefully lost on the internet. The majority of you presumably cheer the most for one or two teams in particular. What I’m looking for: your basic, general opinion of a given team’s front office. I’d prefer you vote only in those polls corresponding to the teams you like. Just like with hopefully all of my polling projects, this should be easy. I mean, knowing the absolute correct answer is hard, if not impossible, but we all already know there are certain undiscoverable truths. It’s still satisfying to figure out perceptions.

Where this gets a little complicated is in how I’d like for you to think about this. I want the focus on the front office, in isolation. Which means, do your best to forget about ownership. Try, if at all possible, to separate the front office from outside influences. Not all front offices have worked with similar budgets, so, imagine each front office were given an average payroll with average resources. Do you think your team’s front office would do a good job of converting that into success? Do you wake up dreading the overnight headlines in case your team’s front office stayed up late making trades? I know I’m asking for the impossible here, but with matters like this, I think it’s almost always better to crowdsource. You’re the people who are most closely tuned in. I don’t know as much about every individual team as you, collectively, do.

When the results are in, I’ll post an analysis, probably later this week. Everybody has their front-office opinions, but it’s only through a project like this we can see how those opinions compare across the whole major-league landscape. I should say, if you’re a fan of the Braves, um, well, I don’t really know. I don’t care anymore about the old front office, so just select what you’re comfortable selecting, based on what you’ve read or previously observed. Or don’t vote. I can’t make you vote. I can’t make any of you vote. But I sure hope you will! Thank you in advance.

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Given how popular the game of baseball is overseas, we do a surprisingly poor job of keeping track of it. That is, the average baseball fan, and the average baseball writer, have little idea of who’s performing very well in Japan or South Korea. Obviously, there are reasons; those leagues aren’t in front of us every day, there can be a language barrier when trying to read about them, and there’s just already so much Major League Baseball to think about. Then you can throw in the fact that MLB is the highest-level league there is. Baseball in Asia is distant, and it’s perceived to be inferior.

It’s hard not to hear about Shohei Ohtani. Everyone’s been talking about Ohtani, because he’s something unusual. He’s like some sort of rare bird, and teams have pursued him for years, so he’s worked his way into public consciousness. He’s too extraordinary to ignore. Yet Dennis Sarfate’s success has taken place off the American radar. Few people know how good he’s become. Sarfate, however, will not be returning to the majors this offseason. Then there’s Miles Mikolas. Mikolas’ success, too, has taken place off the American radar. Unlike Sarfate, though, he’s available. It’s probably time to learn who he is.

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For the most part, as far as available players care, teams are separated from one another by money, and by available playing time. Available players tend to chase the most money, and/or the opportunities that will allow them to most often see the field. This is part of what’s made the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes so perplexing. Every team in baseball could give him playing time, and he’s given no indication that he cares about money. I mean, he can’t not care about money at all, but it doesn’t seem to be a motivating factor. He’s a baseball player. A great one! If he’s good enough, there’ll be plenty of money there in the end.

So it’s been unclear what, exactly, Ohtani wants. I don’t just mean for us, in public. Even within the industry — the very industry Ohtani’s attempting to join — some people have had to throw up their hands. The entire process has been so shrouded in mystery. Even when Ohtani’s representation recently sent out that questionnaire, teams didn’t know quite how to fill it out. Teams haven’t known how Ohtani is leaning. Teams haven’t known how best to make their cases.

At last, this is all gaining some clarity. As of Sunday, we all know more than we used to. Ohtani’s final decision will necessarily be made within just the next few weeks. And it would appear he’d like to play out west.

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It was easy enough to understand the Ryon Healy trade on its own. Healy is a good hitter but not a great hitter, and he doesn’t come with much defensive value. The A’s wanted to free up the DH spot so they could move Khris Davis out of the outfield. Emilio Pagan is a talented young reliever, and the A’s organization also picked up a 17-year-old prospect. Pretty normal value exchange, even if it’s fairly uncommon to see division rivals swap so many team-control years. Different needs were met.

Now the A’s have also signed free-agent reliever Yusmeiro Petit. It’s a modest two-year deal with a third-year club option, and the deal was announced later Wednesday. Taken on its own, again, it’s unremarkable. The A’s have said they wanted bullpen help, and now they’ve added bullpen help. Petit just had a very good season. Simple. The kind of move you forget about two days later.

But I’d like to quickly connect the dots. There are two dots. Perhaps they’re meant to be unconnected. I’m going to read into this anyway. What does it mean that the A’s have picked up both Pagan and Petit? The two have a specific similarity.

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There are two ways of looking at this. One, the offseason has been so slow that this is a full-length article devoted to a Diamondbacks trade for Brad Boxberger. Baseball needs to get going. Under ordinary circumstances, this might not get much attention at all. Two, thanks to the baseball offseason being so slow, this trade can get the attention it deserves. Every major-league trade is interesting, because every major-league player is talented. And Boxberger in particular could answer the Diamondbacks’ biggest problem.

Both angles have some truth to them. If things were moving faster, this might not be written as it is. But I’m still glad to be able to shed some light on what the Diamondbacks might be thinking. So: the trade!

Diamondbacks get:

• Brad Boxberger

Rays get:

• Curtis Taylor

For the Rays, it’s a matter of cashing in a player running out of team control. You know how they operate. For the Diamondbacks, it’s about trying to upgrade on the cheap. As you don’t need to be told, there’s no such thing as a truly reliable reliever. Everyone comes with a certain amount of risk and unpredictability. Boxberger might be more unreliable than average. Still, the promise is legitimate.

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The Rays need stars. It’s all well and good to come up with a bunch of league-average plugins, but without stars, a team is stuck. A team is trapped, being okay without being good, and there’s a reason people are beginning to wonder whether the Rays should tear it all down. Without enough stars, what chance do they have of getting over the top? What chance do they have of keeping up with the Red Sox and Yankees? There’s a certain amount of appeal in pressing the reset button. And no one could blame the Rays, given the reality of their circumstances.

I’m not sure if the Rays will throw in the towel. They understand the process better than most, and they’re forever thinking about the longer-term, but conceding the present is never easy. It’s a major decision that asks an awful lot of the roster and the fan base. So maybe the Rays will blow it up, or maybe the Rays will tinker. Should they opt to keep trying, that could reflect organizational confidence in the development of Blake Snell.

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Dennis Sarfate is now 36 years old, and he hasn’t thrown a pitch in the majors since 2009. In terms of just the general profile, fans of every team have experience with their own Dennis Sarfates. It’s maybe the most familiar reliever profile there is: hard-throwing righty who doesn’t throw strikes. Most of the time, those pitchers don’t blossom. When they’re in the minors, they’re viewed as future closers, but the strikes never come, and they bounce around on waivers. They get replaced. There are always replacements.

Sarfate blossomed. He didn’t do it in the majors, nor did he do it with a major-league affiliate. You might argue that Sarfate blossomed quietly. But in fact, that would reflect a biased perspective, because Sarfate went and became a dominant reliever in Japan. Sarfate was so good he was just voted as his league’s MVP, and although it’s not often the true MVP works out of a bullpen, the results send a message. Pitching in another league, Sarfate has turned into something overwhelming. He set Japan’s single-season record for saves, and he worked three innings in the decisive game of the championship. I used to make fun of Sarfate, when I was younger and he was bad. Sarfate now has maximized his talent. He might be the best reliever available.

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