For what felt like quite a while, the chatter last offseason was dominated by the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes. Yusei Kikuchi isn’t Shohei Ohtani. For one thing, Kikuchi is a few years older. For a second thing, Kikuchi doesn’t routinely throw his fastball in the upper 90s. And for a third thing, no one has ever referred to Kikuchi as the Japanese Babe Ruth. I don’t know much about Kikuchi as a hitter, but I can assume that he is a bad hitter, because he is a pitcher who hasn’t made waves with his hitting. Kikuchi appears to have three career hits, now that I check. One of them was a double.

Shohei Ohtani was, and is, a sensation. The Kikuchi hype couldn’t possibly get close to that level, because Kikuchi won’t be trying to do something no one else has done in a lifetime. But somewhere in the next week or two, Kikuchi will be posted by the Seibu Lions, as the 27-year-old southpaw wants to make his mark in the bigs. He’ll be free to negotiate with any and every team, and he’s been rather heavily scouted. It’s time we talk about who Kikuchi is as a pitcher. It just so happens we’ve been given two fairly reasonable comps.

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The free-agent market includes names like Patrick Corbin and Dallas Keuchel. There’s been chatter the Mets might be willing to trade Noah Syndergaard. There’s been chatter the Indians might be willing to trade Carlos Carrasco or Corey Kluber. But when the Mariners signaled their intent to take a step back this offseason, James Paxton became an obvious trade candidate, and quite possibly the best pitcher available. At least, the best pitcher available under realistic circumstances, since I don’t even know what it would take to pry Kluber away. Paxton rumors circulated for a couple of weeks, and now we’ve arrived at a conclusion, since Jerry Dipoto is hardly opposed to making moves in November. Paxton will be on his way to New York, where he’ll share a rotation with Luis Severino.

Yankees get:

• James Paxton

Mariners get:

• Justus Sheffield
• Erik Swanson
• Dom Thompson-Williams

Before too long, Paxton’s presence will be taken for granted, and attention will turn to the Yankees’ pursuit of still another starter in free agency. We’re seemingly always focused on what’s just in front of us, and what might be in front of Yankees fans soon is Corbin, or Keuchel, or somebody else. They seem likely to make another impact move to bolster the starting rotation. But for this moment, getting Paxton is a move to be celebrated. For a variety of reasons, Paxton has flown somewhat under the radar, but he’s a No. 1 starter, added to a team with a No. 1 starter.

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From everything I’ve read, and from everyone I’ve talked to, just about every single baseball team is interested in free-agent Nathan Eovaldi. Very good teams are interested in Eovaldi. Very mediocre teams are interested in Eovaldi. Very bad teams are interested in Eovaldi. There are degrees of interest, sure, and before too long, certain would-be suitors are going to be removed from the hunt. As always, it’ll come down to a limited pool of finalists. But, why is Eovaldi so popular? I guess you don’t have to think back very far.

Eovaldi pitched six times for the Red Sox in the playoffs. He started, he relieved, and one time he relieved with a starter’s workload. Eovaldi wound up getting tagged with the loss in that game, but I want to quickly revisit the final out Eovaldi recorded. With two down in the bottom of the 17th inning of Game 3 of the World Series, Eovaldi struck out Justin Turner on three pitches. They were his 88th, 89th, and 90th pitches of the evening. He had already pitched in Game 1 and Game 2.

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I submitted my American League Cy Young Award ballot at the very beginning of October. The results were just released yesterday, almost smack in the middle of November. A funny thing happens between the beginning of October and the middle of November: A lot of time passes, time that includes the entirety of the MLB playoffs. As I focused on other events, I mostly forgot about my selections. I was reminded yesterday that my own ballot read:

1. Justin Verlander
2. Blake Snell
3. Gerrit Cole
4. Blake Treinen
5. Corey Kluber

I was one of 13 voters to put Verlander in first. The other 17 voters, though, put Snell in first, and as such, Snell won, and Verlander was, once again, the runner-up. Clearly, it was a close race, and I think it should have been a close race. I don’t think that Verlander got robbed, and I don’t think that Snell is an undeserving winner or anything. But one of the perks of being an award voter is that voting grants you automatic editorial content. So on the off chance you care about my own thought process, allow me to quickly explain why Verlander was my first-place pick.

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James Paxton is going to be traded, and he might well be traded very soon. You can never really know for sure what’s going on behind the scenes, now that front offices are increasingly leak-proof, but Paxton rumors have been bubbling to the surface with frequency, and we know Jerry Dipoto isn’t afraid of making a deal in November. The free-agent market is probably going to take its time to develop. The trade market has already opened. Dipoto moved his best catcher. Before too long, he’s going to move his best pitcher.

The Mariners, of course, were just in the playoff hunt for a while. And if there’s something they need, it’s more pitching, not less. More than anything, the Mariners would love to bring an end to their extended playoff drought, and Paxton has developed into something they should be proud of. The Mariners could use James Paxton. The Mariners could use a few James Paxtons. Yet, the big-league roster? It’s not great. And the minor-league system? It’s arguably the worst. Paxton’s looking at two remaining years of club control. The Mariners need to be honest about their timeline. It seems they’ve decided to turn Paxton’s two years into many more years of promising youngsters.

I’m not telling you much of anything you don’t already know. And I already talked about Paxton a little bit the other week. But ahead of any trade, I wanted to write this reminder of just how good Paxton really is. It’s going to be a big-time move, whenever it happens. Give me a few minutes to explain to you why.

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It’s time to do this all again. A few days ago, I ran an annual polling project, asking how you felt about the season that was, on a team-by-team basis. It might seem like a silly question, or it might seem like the results would be obvious, but tradition is tradition, and I always get a kick out of the data analysis. This is the data-analysis post. I suppose I’m under no obligation to share the results with the voting public, and I could just keep all the numbers to myself, but then I don’t know what the point of any of this would be. I already struggle enough to understand what the point of any of this is. Don’t need to make the problem worse.

To refresh your memories, that polling project included 30 polls, with one for each club. Here is an example of what the polls looked like:

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This past season, the Mariners and Rays were separated by exactly one win in the standings. Of the two teams, the Mariners have the larger operating budget, and although the Mariners’ division includes the Astros, the Rays’ division includes the Red Sox and the Yankees. And yet these are two teams that seem to be going in different directions, with the Rays being the club on the rise. The Mariners will have to try desperately to stay afloat while getting next to no reinforcements from an empty farm system. The Rays are young and good and cost-controlled, and their farm is in the upper tier. The differing circumstances have led to a trade — an as-yet unofficial five-player swap, just the latest in a series of agreements between the two teams.

Rays get:

• Mike Zunino
• Guillermo Heredia
• Michael Plassmeyer

Mariners get:

• Mallex Smith
• Jake Fraley

It’s an entertaining trade for all the stat nerds out there, on account of the various extremes. Zunino seldom hits the ball, but when he does, it goes a mile. Heredia and Smith hit the ball far more often, but when they do, it doesn’t go anywhere. Even Plassmeyer and Fraley are coming off eye-opening minor-league seasons. There’s something to dig into, for everybody. Plenty of numbers to be studied.

But the take-home: The Rays are trying to win, and they’ve addressed a position of need. The Mariners are apparently trying to reload, without losing too much, and they’re banking on 2018 results while adding a longer-term player. You can see an argument favoring either side of this, but I find the Rays’ to be more convincing.

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Bryce Harper is a (nearly) unrestricted free agent. He is newly 26 years old. He is projected, by Steamer, to be baseball’s second-best hitter next season. According to reports, he’s already turned down a contract offer worth $300 million. According to MLB Trade Rumors, he might end up with a contract worth more than $400 million. We’ve been anticipating this offseason for a while. Harper has been a household name for longer than I can remember, and as the cherry on top here, he’s represented by Scott Boras. Boras will push for some kind of contract record. I expect he’s going to be successful. Harper’s a core player in the prime of his life, and there’s more money in baseball than ever before.

Earlier this morning, almost by accident, I noticed that Harper was worse than Mitch Haniger in 2018, by 1.1 wins above replacement.

The point is not that Haniger is better than Harper is. Age is on Harper’s side. Talent is on Harper’s side. Track record is on Harper’s side. While I don’t know how much of a believer I am in the concept of measurable ceilings, we sort of know what Harper’s ceiling is, because we saw it in 2015. He was unbelievable. He hasn’t become as consistent as one would like, but Harper hits for power and he draws a boatload of walks. He just played in a career-high 159 games.

The Haniger thing got me looking closer, though. And in Harper’s otherwise good-enough contract season, he raised some questions about his defense. We still don’t focus that much on defense when we’re talking about sluggers. But teams don’t ignore it. Teams interested in Harper will have to figure out what happened.

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