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Talking to Mets pitching coach Dan Warthen last year, he mentioned something about the strategy of his brand of slider that has stuck with me. We normally think of sliders as hard curveballs, maybe. Loopy but hard pitches. Try figuring out if Craig Kimbrel throws a hard curve or a slider, and you’re down that normal path.

But Warthen said something a little different about the slider: “We don’t want to make it break, we want to think about getting our fingers to the front of the ball and spinning the baseball. Then you take another breaking ball and you separate the speeds, and it doesn’t have to be a great breaking ball, it just has to be a different speed.”

So, in effect, Warthen was talking about changing speeds with the slider. Normally that’s something you talk about with the changeup, which is obvious because of the way the pitch is named. But now we can talk about it with respect to the slider.

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The Giants have signed Johnny Cueto to a six-year deal, with an opt-out clause after two years. The opt-out makes valuing these deals tougher than usual, but six years and $130 million seems like a lot for a guy that has a league-average career strikeout rate and a checkered injury history. And the opt-out favors the player, so those don’t make it look any better for the team.

That’s the negativity. You can still be excited about this deal, but it’s going to take a more nuanced look at the pitcher. You’ll have to look past some basic metrics.

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The Pirates’ ZiPS projections came out today, and it’s generally a rosy picture. If you give Pitching Genius Ray Searage some hope with Jon Niese, Jeff Locke, and Allen Webster in the back end of the pitching rotation, and have a little hope in the Jordy Mercer’s bat, you could see league-average or better production all around the diamond. Even if you don’t believe those arms can do it, the team has Tyler Glasnow and Jameson Taillon this year in the minors, perhaps ready to contribute further.

In any case, it looks like more of the same from the Bucs, except for one glaring situation: first base. Michael Morse is fun, Michael Morse has power, but Michael Morse is projected to be a replacement-level first baseman.

It appears, from recent comments made by general manager Neal Huntington to Rob Biertempfel, that the Pirates don’t have much money. Using arbitration projections for their current roster, they might have as little as $5 or $6 million to spend on first base, if they retain their $10 million closer Mark Melancon. How do they find a platoon partner for the right-handed Morse for that kind of scratch?

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Though baseball’s Winter Meetings seem like the playground of the front office executive, there is one other baseball man who’s ubiquitous: the manager. Semi-required to attend media events and an annual luncheon, most of the sport’s managers descend on the meetings to make their mark.

For the most part, they field questions about next year’s lineup, and try to deflect queries about front-office moves. They’ll do a little reminiscing about last year, and a little looking forward to next year. It’s a bit of a dance, since most of the reporters are looking to find out how the roster is going to look on paper, and the person in front of them is mostly in charge of putting that roster on the field.

Still, it’s a great moment to get access to many managers at once. This past August, I asked a collection of players and writers how Bruce Bochy and Joe Maddon — managers with distinctly different approaches and pasts — could both find great success. I thought it would make sense to ask the managers gathered here about their craft, as well.

What has changed about managing? How are the demands on the modern manager different than they once were?

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12:03

Eno Sarris:

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Check out the MLB Trade Rumors page for Justin Upton, and you find something strange. Since a report on November 13 that the outfielder had been extended a qualifying offer, Upton has been invoked just three times there — in one case, with the Angels, merely to note that “nothing is happening” between Upton and the club. Los Angeles was merely engaged in “ongoing conversations” with Upton’s representatives. Whether those conversations are about a possible contract or fondue, no one knows. They’re having conversations.

Now check out the Ben Zobrist page. Even before signing last night with the Cubs, his name was ubiquitous across the site.

And that’s weird. One is 34 and was worth two wins last year. The other is 28 and was worth almost twice as much. You’d think the rumor count would be reversed.

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Earlier this offseason, the Giants decided to let two veterans go who’ve been valued parts of the team. Both Nori Aoki and Yusmeiro Petit were on reasonable contracts, too. But, as general Bobby Evans explained at the Winter Meetings Monday night, keeping them on the roster may have impeded the team in their efforts to improve. Timing is important.

Petit is projected to produce about half a win as a reliever, and that’s in 65 innings. He’s more of a swing man, so three-quarters of a win, a win, those kinds of projections are reasonable. He was worth almost three wins between 2013 and 2014. And he’s projected to make just over $2 million in arbitration, so he would still be a value.

The Giants had an option on Aoki for this year. They could have had the quirky left fielder for $5.5 million, and he’s been worth at least a win and a half per season in all four seasons of his career. He’s projected for a win. The Mariners signed him for exactly the same contract he had with the Giants.

The team could have easily kept both and been praised for holding on to valuable depth pieces. But they want to improve their left field and starting pitcher production, and holding the two would have made doing those things harder.

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Following Boston’s signing of David Price, reports indicated that the Cardinals were $30 million short of the $217 million contract Price would eventually receive from the Red Sox. The deal certainly indicates that Boston was willing to spend this offseason. Given the Cardinals’ pursuit of the left-hander, however, you’d assume that St. Louis also has some money to throw around.

Except this is weird: their current roster has $126 million of commitments on it right now, and they spent $122 million on last year’s roster, and that was the most they’d ever spent on a roster. So maybe the Cardinals don’t have money to throw around. Maybe they just wanted David Price.

Still, they have losses and need to try to get better to stay atop their improving division. Losing Lance Lynn, John Lackey, and Jason Heyward means losing almost 10 projected wins.

Their uncanny ability to find 27-year-old usable bats in their farm system means that they can move some guys around. They probably won’t have to pay for the full 10 wins on the market. But they probably will have to do something. What?

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On July 7th, 2006, a 23-year-old righty made his major league debut against the Tigers. He entered the game in relief and immediately began putting up 99s on the radar gun. It wasn’t enough, however, to prevent Chris Shelton from singling to shortstop and beating out the throw. Brandon Inge also wasn’t afraid of the velocity, as he hit a ground-rule double to center. The young righty was now flustered. He hit Curtis Granderson to load the bases. He paced around the mound, gathered himself, and then rallied to strike out Placido Polanco, get a weak grounder from Ivan Rodriguez, and strike out Magglio Ordonez to end the threat.

On that day, Mark Lowe began a journey that started with the Mariners and continued on to the Rangers (in the Cliff Lee deal), and then the Dodgers, Angels, Nationals, Rays, Indians, Mariners (again), and Blue Jays. And now, almost ten years later, the Tigers have signed him with a two-year deal to be their setup man. It’s been quite a trip for him.

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