There’s something strangely fitting about the fact that both Russ Canzler and Dan Johnson have found new homes in the last 24 hours. Canzler was traded yesterday from the Rays to the Indians for cash considerations, and Johnson signed a minor-league deal with the White Sox this afternoon. This is despite the fact that the Rays — those masters of market inefficiencies; those buy-low deal hounds — were recently searching for a first baseman, but decided to sign an aging Carlos Pena for $7 million rather than take a cheap gamble on either player.

On the surface, it looks odd that the Rays let Canzler go without giving him a try at first. After all, Canzler was named the International League (Triple-A) MVP last season after hitting 18 home runs and posting a .410 wOBA. He may have been slightly old for the league, but it’s not like he was pushing 30; Canzler was 25-years-old last season. So what gives? Did the Rays miss out on some cheap, high upside talent? Free Russ Canzler!

This discussion touches upon a larger debate, though: do Quad-A players exist? Can a player mash in Triple-A, but not be able to make the adjustments to be a successful player in the majors?

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Has it ever happened to you where one number — just one measly stat — throws your mind on a complete tangent, and results in you wasting a half hour of your life? This happens to me more often than I should admit. For instance, I was taking a stroll this morning through the FanGraphs leaderboards when one stat jumped out and lodged itself in my brain. Oh look, Brandon Morrow’s swinging strike rate (11.5%) was the second highest in the majors last season. That’s not even a surprising statistics; I know Morrow is a strikeout ace, and that his ability to get hitters to swing and miss is among the best in the game. But for some reason, the stat wouldn’t leave me alone.

Me: Didn’t Morrow just sign a new contract extension?

Other Me: Yes, that’s right — 3 years, $20 million.

Me: So the Blue Jays must think his ERA will eventually fall in line with his peripherals, right? You don’t make that sort of a commitment to a 4.50 ERA pitcher, and the Blue Jays are smarter than that. Morrow did post a 3.31 SIERA these past two seasons…

Other Me: They must. But Morrow’s problems have largely stemmed from an inability to strand runners on base (<70% LOB% over past two years).  Could this possibly be a pitch selection problem? Or maybe Morrow isn’t able to go to his best whiff pitch when runners are on base, for whatever reason?

Me: For that matter, what is Morrow’s best swing-and-miss pitch?

Other Me: Uhhh…

Just like that, one simple statistic turned into a full-blown investigation.

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—The Orange County Register

In case you missed this news earlier in the week, David Eckstein is leaning toward retirement. He hasn’t officially declared yet, but considering Eckstein didn’t play at all last season — and he doesn’t seem too excited about the offers he has received — it appears that it’s only a matter of time.

Sooooo… does David Eckstein belong in the Hall of Fame? Don’t make me laugh. But if I were constructing a Hall of People-Who-Were-Important-To-Sabermetrics, Eckstein would be one of the first players I’d add.

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While there are still some intriguing pitchers left on the free agent market — Roy Oswalt chief among them — the free agent pool for hitters is rapidly drying up. Prince Fielder is still on the market, but outside of him, there is little offense to be found outside of a trade. Casey Kotchman, Derrek Lee, Johnny Damon, Vladimir Guerrero, Brad Hawpe — all these guys have some sort of offensive upside, but not much.

As a result of this dearth of offense, one player is beginning to get some attention on the rumor mill: Carlos Pena. Pena looks like the best remaining free agent option for teams looking to add offense (again, in the non-Prince-Fielder crowd), as he hit 28 home runs and posted a .354 wOBA last season with the Cubs. He may be getting older, but there’s still plenty of pop in his bat.

There was wide speculation that the Yankees could sign Pena to fill their hole at DH, but according to a recent report from Jon Heyman, it seems as though they may not have the payroll space to sign him. But there is still a wide number of teams interested in Pena: the Blue Jays, Brewers, Indians, Mariners, Nationals, Orioles, Pirates, Rangers, and Rays (according to MLBTR, at least).

Despite Pena being the best remaining hitter on the market, though, there are some reasons teams should be wary about guaranteeing him too much money: his BABIP, power production, and platoon splits.

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We all knew that Ozzie Guillen was nuts. That Logan Morrison has been known to say some crazy things. That Carlos Zambrano has thrown out his share of zingers in the day. But none of them can hold a torch to Marlins team president David Samson:

 “Aggressive right to the point of stupidity, but not quite there,” said Samson, characterizing the club’s planned pursuit [of Cuban ballplayer Yoenis Cespedes]. “We think he’s a perfect fit for us, but it has to be sane. [We’ve] expressing interest, going to visit, making it very clear to his representatives and to him and his family that we think he should not be anywhere other than Miami. As a Cuban and someone in the DR, it makes perfect sense. We have a perfect position for him to play. It would be great.” (Juan Rodriguez, Sun Sentinel)

When I first read that quote, my immediate thought was that it’s a perfect way to summarize the Marlins’ entire off-season: aggressive to the point of stupidity, but not quiiite there.

I don’t trust my memory, though, so is that true? Have the Marlins generally stopped themselves this year before crossing the line into poor decision making, or are have they been “aggressively stupid”? Let’s check it out, deal by deal.

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While fans of large market teams get to look forward to the Winter Meetings, us small-market fans have a different, less heralded offseason event to look forward to each year: the Mid-January Bargain Bin Shopping Spree! At this point of the offseason, players that haven’t yet signed with a team start to feel pressure to sign — Spring Training begins in around a month, after all — and there are normally some good bargains that can be found on the market. Ryan Madson appears to be this year’s first victim, although I’m sure there will be many more cheap deals signed in the coming weeks.

One of the most intriguing potential buy-low signings available in this year’s Bargain Bin is Luke Scott. After hitting 27 homeruns in 2010 and posting a .387 wOBA, Scott suffered through a number of injuries last season and eventually had season-ending shoulder surgery in July. He was non-tendered by the Orioles earlier this offseason, and due to his age (turning 34 in June) and injury history, he seems like a good candidate for a cheap one-year deal with incentives.

Dan Connolly from the Baltimore Sun has just confirmed that the Tampa Bay Rays have signed Scott to a one year deal with an option for a second (pending a physical), which would seem to confirm our brief surface analysis: he’s a good buy low candidate, and could provide some cheap power at DH. But on digging into his profile more, there is one reason we might want to temper our expectations for Luke Scott: Tropicana Field.

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So a day after I write up a treatise on the Nationals and Prince Fielder, it turns out there’s even more to say about the oversized first baseman.

Navigating the offseason can be a tricky process for agents and for teams. As an agent, if you rush to get your players signed too quickly, you risk leaving money on the table. Long negotiations give more teams a chance to get in on the bidding, and players certainly don’t want to sign the first offer they receive. But if an agent waits too long to get his player signed, the agent face the danger of watching his player’s market evaporate. It’s a delicate balance, and being a successful agent requires being able to judge a player’s market and know when it’s the optimal time to sign.

There’s nobody better at judging markets and knowing when to make a deal than Scott Boras. With that said, I’m beginning to wonder if he’s going to have a tough time drumming up a large price tag for Prince Fielder.

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One offseason removed from signing Jayson Werth to a 7 year, $126 million contract, the Washington Nationals are looking poised to make another splash. They are going strong in the bidding for Prince Fielder, and considering that they are reworking their television contract to get at least double the amount of money they are currently receiving ($26 million/year), they certainly seem to have the money to do it.

So to answer the title of this post, if money isn’t an issue, why shouldn’t the Nationals pursue Fielder? He’s the best player left on the free agent market, and the free agent class of 2013 is relatively barren at first base. Fielder is young, powerful, and a star — surely he’d be a good investment?

As we all know, though, teams need to put more thought into their decisions than that. In particular, there are two important questions to answer before we can properly evaluate if pursuing Fielder is in the Nats’ best interests: how close are they to contention, and how would Fielder’s signing impact the rest of their roster?

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As pointed out on Twitter today, there’s some good news for baseball fans today: the wait until Spring Training is officially half over. The middle of February is looking closer and closer now that January is a few days away, so before we know it, pitchers and catchers will begin their yearly migration down to the warmer climes. Our long, dark teatime of the soul is all but over.

But this is bittersweet news. Yes, the wait until Spring Training is almost over, but the coming month and a half is typically the slowest, most painful time of the offseason. The Winter Meetings have passed and baseball news has slowed down to a crawl, so there isn’t much to keep us baseball-philes content. This January promises to be more eventful than most, considering Prince Fielder is still on the market and there are multiple potential trades that may happen, but I’m not about to set my expectations too high.

Since things can get so slow this month, this is typically the time of the year when I update and re-edit the Sabermetric Library — a mid-winter cleaning, if you will. I haven’t begun dusting out the cobwebs yet, though, as I’d love to get input on what people would like to see this time around. And so…

• Are these any pages in the Library you think badly need an edit? Is there anything you’d like to see added to any particular page?
• Are there any new pages or articles you’d like to see added to the Library?
• Any new links that I should be sure to include in the Library?

In short, if you have any ideas on how to improve the glossary here at FanGraphs and to make it more useful, please share! I’ll be spending the next month or so making edits and changes, and I welcome any ideas.

Fungible (adj.) – being of such nature or kind as to be freely exchangeable or replaceable, in whole or in part, for another of like nature or kind.

One of the key tenants of sabermetrics is that relief pitchers are, by and large, overrated. That’s not to say they’re not important to a team’s success — merely that teams don’t need to go out and spend copious amounts of money on a closer or set-up man in order to have an effective bullpen. It can be difficult to find a true offensive star on the scrap heap, but it’s possible to build an effective bullpen through scraping and saving.

Relief pitchers tend to be less talented than starting pitchers — relievers can get by with only one or two pitches, while starters need three to five — which means there are a heck of a lot of relievers available on the market each season. There are only so many major league bullpen spots, so there are a handful of relievers that simply get forgotten or overlooked. Sometimes these relievers can turn out to have impressive rebound seasons (see: Joaquin Benoit), so teams should never rule out digging through the bargain bin for bullpen help.

There are still a number of intriguing bullpen arms on the market, but I’m interested in the overlooked and underrated relievers.

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