Last year was the worst year for shopping in the non-tender market since 2007. No player that was non-tendered after the 2014 season was worth even a win in 2015, which hasn’t happened since MLBTradeRumors started tracking non-tenders with their handy tool.

Before we consider it a trend, remember that the year before was the best year for non-tender shopping over the same time frame. Infielder Justin Turner netted the Dodgers three wins, oufielder Sam Fuld nearly did the same for the Rays, now-Cub Chris Coghlan was worth two wins, and catcher Michael McKenry was also nearly average.

In any case, looking over the past non-tender values, a few truths emerge. The best non-tender pickups were above replacement level the year before, for one. And, like Kelly Johnson, Willie Harris, Aaron Miles, and Jeff Keppinger before, they usually had some positional flexibility. Or at least positional value, in the case of the center fielders and catchers.

In that way, maybe last year did buck the trend to some extent. Kyle Blanks (0.8 WAR) and Justin Smoak (0.6 WAR) led the way, and they don’t offer much in positional flexibility or value. Still, last year’s above-replacement non-tenders also included Slade Heathcott (0.5) and Gordon Beckham (0.3).

So who will lead this year’s non-tender market?

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On the day of baseball’s non-tender trade deadline, the San Diego Padres traded first baseman Yonder Alonso and lefty reliever Marc Rzepczynski to Oakland in exchange for left-hander Drew Pomeranz and minor-leaguer Jose Torres. For those interested, Craig Edwards examined the trade in a general way earlier this morning. The point of this post is to look more closely at one part of the trade: Drew Pomeranz.

If Pomeranz is just a good reliever, then the deal amounts mostly to this: three years of control for a good reliever in exchange for two years of a first baseman who can be league average two-thirds of the time. Maybe, to make a trade like that even, you’d have to add a piece or two to get Alonso, but that’s when the deal makes the most sense for the Athletics.

The deal makes better sense for the Padres if Pomeranz is a starter. And it looks like the team is considering him a starting pitcher for the time being.

The question of whether or not Pomeranz can be a good starting pitcher for the Padres hinges on three things, most likely: his health, his changeup, and his curveball. Earlier this season, I talked to the pitcher about all three.

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David Price can opt out of his seven-year, $217 million contract in three years? That’s either terrible for the Red Sox or a boon for the Red Sox, depending on how you think about it.

It’s terrible for the Red Sox!

It’s power in the hands of the player, since it’s a player option. If Price plays well, and the market continues to grow, they’ll have paid $30 million a year for three years and will have to get right back into negotiating with their ace, along with every other team.

If he gets hurt or plays poorly or the market doesn’t perform the same way going forward, they suddenly have to pay yesterday’s going rate for an overpriced, possibly hurt, aging ace… for another four years.

And before you say that it’s great for the Sox to be able to walk away if they feel the market will overvalue their pitcher… they could trade him if the market valued their under-contract ace more than they did. They would have a way to react other than just walking away, and they’d presumably get some sort of return for their asset.

It’s great for the Red Sox!

The opt-out makes it more likely that they get three good years from their investment and move on. It has to make it more likely than it would if the team gave him a seven-year confirmed deal, at least. That might be a matter of semantics, but it’s a fact. And teams prefer fewer years and higher average annual salaries, since it allows them to avoid larger commitments and work with greater flexibility.

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Johnny Cueto didn’t want the Jordan Zimmermann deal with an extra year attached, or so the rumors go. That’s interesting, because the two 29-year-old righties are comparable players:

Johnny Cueto vs Jordan Zimmermann, Since 2011

Name	IP	K%	BB%	xFIP	FIP	ERA
Cueto	889.1	20.7%	6.3%	3.58	3.41	2.71
Zimmermann	971.2	19.8%	4.6%	3.58	3.30	3.14

At least by strikeouts and walks, these two are in the same class. Zimmermann’s strikeout minus walk rate is a little better than Cueto’s, even if the dreadlocked one has a better strikeout rate.

These guys look very similar, until you look at the batted ball stats. Over the last five years, 26.5% of Cueto’s balls in play have been hits, while 29% of Zimmermann’s have been. That’s led to a 2.71 ERA for one and a 3.14 ERA for the other.

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Reports indicate that Japanese righty Kenta Maeda met with the Hiroshima Carp this week and requested to be posted. He hasn’t been posted yet, but when things like this get public, there can be a growing pressure on the team to fulfill their star’s wishes. We’ve already looked for a comp for Maeda, but how can we use that data to answer the next question on the checklist: how much should teams shell out for him?

The way posting now works, there’s a max bid — $20 million — and any team that reaches that max bid is able to negotiate with the player. Those rules make it a worse deal for Japanese teams, who have their income capped, and for the American teams, who have to outbid the other teams with deep pockets and can no longer suppress the yearly salary much beyond the $20 million in posting they had to spend to get to the table.

It’s better for the player, because he can get a deal more like a free agent deal, and because he also gets to choose where he’ll play. And since that’s true, it’s probably less likely that the whole process gets egg on its face the way it did when Hisashi Iwakuma failed to sign with the Athletics that one year.

In any case, we’re talking about $20 million to get to the table, and then a slightly more limited open market. And the teams would probably like to bake in some of the risk they face in signing a player who hasn’t yet played in the major leagues.

When we took a look at comps, we got a Young Kenshin Kawakami or an Older Aaron Nola, and neither pitcher actually exists right now. Projecting Nola out five years based on 77 major league innings in order to price Maeda seems like a bad deal. Zeroing in too much on what a 34-year-old Kawakami did in America also seems like the wrong direction.

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Scan the leaderboard for the best relievers this past season, and sure, there are plenty of homegrown young studs with triple digit fastballs. For clubs in the market for bullpen assistance, however, they’ll take a decent prospect or two to pry loose from their current teams.

But there are also players like Darren O’Day, Hector Rondon, and Luke Gregerson — guys who, in the recent past, have been available at a lesser cost.

One was claimed off of waivers, one was a Rule 5 pickup, and the other took $19 million over three years to snatch up. How can your favorite team find one of those guys?

It’s all a sliding scale, obviously. The signs that point to a good three-year deal have to be stronger than the ones that point to a good camp invite. That said, let’s find the relievers who are most compelling relative to their likely cost.

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The crowd says that a baseball player who doesn’t occupy either center field or shortstop — and who has never hit 30 homers or stolen 30 bases — is about to get a $184 million contract. Our fearless leader thinks that contract is going to be the best value on the market this year. There are plenty of reasons to agree, not the least of which is that past big contracts have been at their best when given to young, athletic players with defensive value. Of course Jason Heyward checks all those boxes.

On the other hand, it’ll be a departure. Carl Crawford is the only other $100 million man who’s played something else besides an up-the-middle defensive position while also recording an isolated slugging percentage under .200. The sport usually gives nine-figure deals to players who slug or play great defense at a premium spot.

And while Heyward might play center field on his new team, there’s still evidence that we don’t value sluggers as much these days. Look at the crowd’s projection for Chris Davis, coming off a 41-homer season — it’s more than $80 million less than the one for Heyward. Mike Trout, Kyle Seager, Evan Longoria, and Elvis Andrus represent more than half of the $100 million contracts that started in 2015. None is your typical Big Bat.

So. Have we gone too far? Are we undervaluing the slow-footed, no-defense slugger? There’s other evidence we are.

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When you come up through the ranks as a young lefty starter, you learn about the importance of the changeup. By breaking away from the right-handed batter, that pitch offers the best way to neutralize the natural platoon advantage those hitters have against you. By the time you get to the big leagues, it’s part of your approach, like it or not. That’s why lefty starters throw changeups 65% more often than righty starters in major league baseball.

If you look at Jon Lester’s career, though, his best years have come when he’s thrown his changeup the least. The flippant reason for that truth might be because his changeup isn’t that great, and his other pitches are better. The long version is much more interesting, though, as it gets to the theory of changeups, and a new concept called tunneling.

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