The people who say that history repeats itself usually aren’t referring to baseball trade rumors, but here we are, with an offseason that’s already feeling a lot like last July. Around the most recent trade deadline, teams were in the hunt for starting pitching, and at the top of the market were some potentially available, cost-controlled aces. Now teams have resumed the same hunt, with rumors around many of the same targets, and maybe foremost among them are Chris Sale and Chris Archer. Sale’s an ace on a team that might elect to rebuild. Archer’s an ace on a team that can’t afford loyalty.

Just so we’re all on the same page, odds are Sale and Archer don’t both get traded. For all I know, could be that odds are neither gets traded. But let’s explore the situation anyway. Sale’s been a great starter since 2012. He’ll turn 28 in March. Archer became a quality starter in 2013, and he turned 28 in September. Sale’s long been considered perhaps the best starting pitcher in the American League. Archer this season very narrowly avoided 20 losses. If I polled you, almost all of you would rather have Sale than Archer for a must-win game tomorrow. Yet as trade negotiations go, I bet Archer has the higher price tag.

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Gary Sanchez may or may not be named American League Rookie of the Year tonight. Either way, the New York Yankees catcher made a huge splash in his truncated campaign. In 53 games, he slashed .299/.376/.657 and clubbed a whopping 20 home runs.

Sanchez’s season has drawn comparisons to 1959, when San Francisco’s Willie McCovey copped National League honors. The erstwhile Giants slugger played in just 52 games, but he was every bit as brilliant in that short time. After being called up on July 30, McCovey slashed .354/.429/.656 and hit 13 round-trippers. With no other strong candidates on the ballot, he was a unanimous selection as top rookie.

He wouldn’t have won the award under today’s rules. The accolades almost certainly would have gone to Vada Pinson.

Since 1971, rookie status has been defined as having had fewer than 130 at-bats, or fewer than 50 innings pitched, in previous seasons. A player must also not have been on an active roster for more than 45 days prior to September 1.

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In baseball, it may not be possible to have too much of a good thing when it comes to quantity of elite-level players. The sport is, almost by definition, at its best when great players face off against one another. If there’s a problem with a strong collection of elite talent, though, it’s that truly great players can get overlooked. It’s hard to distinguish oneself when surrounded by an array of other distinguished performances.

A look at the WAR leaderboard from the American League this past season reveals that four second basemen finished among the top 11 overall performers in the league by this metric.

We know MVP finalist Jose Altuve was outstanding and we know Robinson Cano had an absolutely tremendous season in Seattle. Slightly less heralded was the overall performance of the Twins’ Brian Dozier, although his 28 homers in the second half still garnered him plenty of attention. But what about the fourth second baseman on the list? Did we pay enough attention to Ian Kinsler this year?

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On Friday, we rolled out our list of the top 50 free agents available this winter, with the crowdsourced contract estimates gathered over the last month, along with my guesses as what players will sign for. In the blurbs on each player, I noted a few guys I thought could be good values this year, but it’s always helpful to get it on the record; that way you can see whether I’m worth listening to.

For instance, last year, I identified Rich Hill, Ben Zobrist, and Steve Pearce as bargains based on the contracts we were expecting them to get, and all performed quite well, justifying my faith in their skills. My other two picks? Wei-Yin Chen and Jason Heyward. Yeah.

To some degree, this is the nature of playing in the free agent pool. Even the guys who look like values come with risk, and many times, the reason I think they may be underpriced is because they have some identifiable flaw. When you’re shopping in this kind of environment, you just have to hope your hits are bigger than your misses, and accept that a fairly high percentage of players you sign will end up not being worth the money. But if you get a Hill or a Zobrist, you can get enough value to make up for some of the signings that don’t work out so well.

So let’s try to find some guys who might be undervalued in this class. As other years, I’ll try to sort them by the magnitude of impact, so an undervalued high-end player will rank higher than a similarly underpriced role player; you’re better off landing a Zobrist than a Pearce, for instance. And I’ve included my contract and the crowdsourced projections, along with their 2017 Steamer forecast, as a reminder of what we think the market might pay them this winter.

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One year ago, Yoenis Cespedes was coming off an MVP-like season, having just turned 30 years old. It seemed inevitable he’d sign a large contract. Nevertheless, his market failed to develop. Instead, Cespedes opted to settle with the Mets on a three-year deal for $75 million, an agreement that also included an opt-out clause.

Now, entering the offseason, Cespedes isn’t merely a year older but he’s also coming off a season in which he produced roughly half the wins of his 2015 campaign. Given his age and performance in 2016, it would be reasonable to think his market and future would be less certain than a year ago. In a different market and a different level of certainty regarding his future, though, Cespedes is set to receive the contract most thought he would sign last season.

Determining a player’s value in a vacuum can be a different thing than determining the contract he’s actually likely to receive. For the most part, players in free agency receive more than they’re actually worth; the bidding process rewards/punishes the highest bidder, which is presumably the team with the highest valuation of the player. Cespedes was ranked as the top free agent by Dave Cameron this offseason, and both Cameron and the crowd have estimated that Cespedes will receive a five-year contract worth about $120 million. Now, let’s figure out how much Cespedes will actually be worth over the course of that contract.

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Every winter, hundreds of nondescript minor leaguers become minor-league free agents. Players are granted minor-league free agency when they’re omitted from a club’s 40-man roster and have also spent at least six years in the minor leagues. In other words, they’re players who weren’t good enough to merit a call-up after several years in the minors, and their organizations suspect they lack the potential to be worthy of a 40-man spot.

Some of these players latch on with new organizations; some of them don’t. But regardless, the overwhelming majority never have much big league success. A couple of years ago, Carson Cistulli found that only about 1% of minor-league free agents produce at least 0.5 WAR the following season. Minor-league free agents are the absolute bottom of the barrel when it comes to player transactions. But there’s an occasional gem at the bottom of that barrel. It’s not unheard of, at all, for a minor-league free agent to make a major-league impact. Here, in no particular order, are some notable examples from the past few years: Gregor Blanco, Jesus Guzman, Donovan Solano, Yangervis Solarte, Jake Smolinski, Jose Quintana and Al Alburquerque. Each left his original organization via minor-league free agency, but achieved some level of big-league success with his new team.

Using my KATOH projection system, I identified the hitters from this year’s minor-league free-agent class who showed glimmers of promise in the minors. Based on their minor-league numbers, there’s reason to believe they might be able to help at the big-league level sometime soon. This analysis only considers players who logged at least 200 minor-league plate appearances in 2016. For reference, here’s a similar article I wrote last year. Tomorrow, I’ll repeat this exercise for pitchers.

*****

1) Todd Glaesmann, OF, 2.2 WAR

For the second year in a row, Glaesmann hit respectably in the upper levels of the minor leagues. He spent 2016 at the Diamondbacks’ Double-A and Triple-A affiliates, where he turned in a .272/.312/.462 performance. Glaesmann’s numbers aren’t flashy, but he’s hit for a healthy amount of power while simultaneously not striking out terribly often.

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Criticizing awards voting is a yearly ritual. It shouldn’t have to be. The problem — as far as I can glean — isn’t lack of intelligence. It’s apathy. If more of the people casting ballots bothered to do their homework, fewer choices with flunk LOGIC-101.

Case in point: Coaches and players I’ve spoken to have admitted that Gold Glove voting isn’t taken as seriously as it should be. More than one has owned up to offense having entered into the picture in previous seasons.

Thursday’s Silver Slugger announcements included a handful of offensive results. Among them was Anthony Rizzo — .292//.385/.544 with 32 home runs — and not Joey Votto — .326/.434/.550 with 29 home runs — at first base in the National League. And those are mainstream stats. Votto also has a clear edge in wRC+ (158 to 145) and wOBA (.413 to .391).

Just like the Gold Gloves, the Silver Slugger selections are made by managers and coaches. Are we to believe that the majority of them would have preferred Rizzo’s performance over Votto’s on their own team? I have a hard time believing that to be the case. Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday, news broke that the Blue Jays signed Kendrys Morales for three years and $33 million. Morales is clearly a quality hitter, but he can’t really do anything else, so Dave thought it was a bit of an overpay. Okay! Keep that in mind.

On Saturday, the Mariners traded for Danny Valencia. Kendrys Morales is 33. Danny Valencia is 32. Valencia is projected for a salary of $5.3 million in his last year of arbitration. This past year, Valencia was a better hitter than Morales was. Over the past two years, Valencia has been the better hitter. Over the past three years, Valencia has been the better hitter. Over the past four years, Valencia has been the better hitter. The evidence would suggest that Valencia is at least as good as Morales at the plate, and Valencia isn’t limited to being a DH. He’s also a slightly better runner. It would seem to make him the better player, even though he’s going to cost so much less.

From the Blue Jays’ perspective, there’s some value in having Morales locked in for a while. They have a DH for the foreseeable future. And there’s another aspect to this — Valencia, in the past, has been somewhat polarizing. It’s not that all of his teammates have hated him, but some of his teammates have hated him, and Morales is an easier fit into a clubhouse. It’s not a coincidence that Valencia is so well-traveled. But the Mariners are betting on production, figuring that any other issues can be dealt with later, and as a part of betting on production, they’re betting on Valencia’s recent transformation. It used to be, Valencia was a platoon guy, who brutalized southpaws. A couple years ago, it looks like he figured things out.

Valencia has looked like an everyday player, and he’s going to be treated like an everyday player. Over the past two seasons, he’s been as good a hitter as Buster Posey, Kyle Seager, and Christian Yelich. The drawbacks are that Valencia won’t be a defensive plus at first base or in the corner outfield, but he certainly fits a hole on the roster, and his 2017 will be affordable.

It hasn’t been hard to see that the A’s were going to move Valencia somewhere. Because of his surplus value, he wasn’t acquired for free. For giving up Valencia, the A’s are receiving Paul Blackburn, a 22-year-old righty who’s not regarded as a top prospect. What Blackburn doesn’t do is miss a ton of bats. What he does do is keep the ball on the ground, and he’s kept his walk rates low. He feels a lot like another Kendall Graveman, a guy who could become an established major leaguer in a hurry. Graveman made just 11 combined starts between Double-A and Triple-A. Blackburn just spent a whole season in Double-A, but he gave up just eight homers. He could be depth as soon as next season, and the A’s are no strangers to needing extra starting pitching. Blackburn could help them in the future more than Valencia ever would.

So it’s a neat little exchange. Depending on how you interpret Valencia’s clubhouse concerns, he might be a genuinely underrated player. Blackburn, also, might be differently underrated, but the Mariners don’t have a lot of shiny prospects to sell. The Blue Jays, I’m sure, are happy to have Morales. Maybe they very much didn’t want Valencia back. It’s enough to make you wonder, though.

Last winter, the Blue Jays found success by avoiding paying a big commitment to re-sign David Price, instead spreading their money around to bring back Marco Estrada and add J.A. Happ to the rotation, each of whom pitched better than Price did in 2016. So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that they may just be deciding to go that route again.

Sources: Kendrys Morales to #BlueJays, three years, $33M, pending physical. First reported: @DfineNrmLC.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 11, 2016

With Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista, the Jays have two DH-type players that they could have signed to much more lucrative long-term deals, but Morales presents a much cheaper option, giving the team the flexibility to spend the extra $40 or $50 million on an outfielder, bullpen upgrades, or both. Instead of putting their money into one better player, the Jays look like they’re again going to bet on depth.

In general, I think that plan can often work out, especially if you have some serious holes on the roster that need addressing, as the Jays do. In practice, though, I’m not sure if I’m as excited about spending $33 million on Kendrys Morales as part of a spread-things-around approach.

For reference, here’s where Morales ranked in our Top 50 free agent rankings, and the write-up I noted when guessing that even at 2/$22M, I wouldn’t be a big fan of the expected price.

If all he really had to do was hit, Morales would still be a useful piece, but since he then has to try and run after he makes contact, Morales remains an overrated player; his lack of ability to move at human speed renders even his one-dimension of value less worthwhile than it seems. Thirty-four-year-old designated hitters who can’t run aren’t worth much, so even these modest contract forecasts are probably overpays.

I know it’s easy to say the Jays are paying for Morales’ bat and not his legs, but the fact that it’s still so difficult to knock him in once he gets on base makes his offensive production less valuable than his batting line looks like. Last year, he was worth just +2.3 runs above average as an offensive player once you include baserunning, and for a DH, being barely above average offensively means you’re barely above replacement level.

So, yeah, $33 million for the age 34-36 seasons of a decent hitter who can’t run seems like not a great use of funds to me. The team could still make this plan worthwhile if they spend the savings on a quality regular or a couple of good role players, but Morales himself just isn’t that good.

I did a presentation in Arizona this weekend for First Pitch Arizona, an event at the Arizona Fall League hosted by BaseballHQ. The presentation served as an introduction to spin rates and exit velocity and so on. I examined the new stat from our friends at Statcast — Barrels — and how Michael Conforto does well by that stat, which attempts to combine exit velocity and launch angles to credit players who make dangerous contact. On the way out, someone asked me, basically: “So if he’s good at barreling the ball, what happened last year? What went wrong on those barrels?” There’s an easy answer and a hard answer.

The easy answer is that even players who are good at barreling the ball don’t barrel it all that often. Conforto is in the top 75 when it comes to barreling, and he barreled only about 11% of his batted balls this year. The elite guys this year — Gary Sanchez, Khris Davis, Nelson Cruz, Chris Carter and Mark Trumbo — barreled the ball around 18% of the time when they put the ball in play. Even among that group, there’s another 80% of batted balls unaccounted for.

That mirrors the difference in home-run rate, sort of. The top two in homers — you might recognize Trumbo and Davis — have a 7% home-run rate, about double that of the 75th guy, Andrew McCutchen (3.5%). But in the gaps between them, you still find interesting players. Conforto, for example, would have been 84th in home-run rate had he qualified, a little worse than (but still comparable to) his barreling rate.

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