Word came out over the weekend that the Royals have signed Brandon Moss to a two-year contract, pending a physical. There’s nothing too strange about it, and Moss should have little trouble finding himself regular plate appearances. He won’t cost the Royals too much, and he will bring a power bat. You can think of him as being pretty similar, overall, to Chris Carter. Decent eye, lots of power, lots of fly balls. Moss is a little more versatile, while Carter is a little bit younger. It’s a fine player signed to a fine contract by a team with an opening. Most people wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.

And — look, team profiles don’t mean very much. Every team just wants to win, and it doesn’t matter how it happens. Front offices wouldn’t often refer to themselves as having one particular style. Value is value. And as far as the Royals are concerned, transition was inevitable. Everyone knew about their impending free-agent situation coming into the winter. At some point, the Royals were going to look different. Teams go through phases.

I’d just like to point something out about how the Royals look today. We’ve spent so much time in the past discussing the Royals’ style of baseball. From the looks of things, these Royals aren’t those Royals. It’s just a team with a few familiar faces.

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It wouldn’t be fair to refer to MLB’s disciplinary record as toothless. There exists a relatively tough PED policy, and as of not all that long ago, there also exists a relatively tough policy on domestic violence. And last summer, the Red Sox were dealt a decently severe penalty for international signing violations, even though their behavior wasn’t exactly unique to them. The Red Sox were hit hard. Individual players have been hit hard when they’ve crossed the line. There’s not a consistent history of the commissioner being too light.

What we have now, though, are two penalties that have drawn similar reactions within the league. Many teams and team-people thought the Padres got off way too easy when A.J. Preller was suspended a month for withholding medical information in trade talks. And now, there’s a similar consensus belief about the penalty dealt to the Cardinals for Chris Correa’s repeated hacks of the Astros. Everyone had been waiting for a while to see how baseball would deal with an unprecedented conduct violation. In the end, the Cardinals are out a couple draft picks.

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There was much focus, understandably, on the Dodgers’ addition of Logan Forsythe to their club. He’s a valuable player who fills a large-market NL contender’s most glaring need.

There was less attention on the small-market Rays and where they go in 2017 after trading Forsythe, who projected to be their third most valuable position player this coming season. They are a team that projects to be in the postseason picture in 2017.

The Rays continue to be opportunistic, as they have to be, and continue to trade some of today for more of tomorrow. They didn’t really need Mallex Smith, at least not immediately, but they acquired him as the headline piece in the Drew Smyly deal. Smith adds controllable years and surplus value. They don’t really need Jose De Leon, not immediately, but he offers more future surplus value and controllable years. And it’s possible he’s one of the Rays’ top-five starting options in 2017. According to Steamer, he will be just that.

Dave Cameron wrote last week that the Rays did well in the trade. When a team can land a pitcher who has six years of control — and who’s projected by Steamer to record 2.4 WAR as a starter — for a second baseman who’s more of a useful short-term asset (Forsythe has a club option for 2018) than a franchise building block, it’s generally a value-adding transaction.

But my purpose in writing this piece is not to argue the logic or rationale of those transactions, rather to look at the remaining opportunity for the Rays in regard to 2017.

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Are you overshadowed by a rock-star colleague? Maybe you’re great at your job, but this person occupies a similar role and is amazing at theirs. This super-you exceeds expectations on every project, perpetually radiates serenity, and never burns popcorn in the office microwave. In actual talent level you’re not far behind this person, but in management’s eyes you don’t measure up. You’re employed, sure, but constantly feeling overlooked.

Shawn Kelley knows how you feel. For years, his managers overlooked him when they called for a closer. After spending four years in Seattle behind David Aardsma, Brandon League, and Tom Wilhelmsen, Kelley landed with the Yankees in 2013. Would he close games? Well, Mariano Rivera was not only the Yankees’ closer, but also their legend riding off into the sunset. And in 2014 it was David Robertson’s turn in the ninth.

After the Yankees traded Kelley to the Padres, Eno Sarris argued that he could close games. But A.J. Preller disagreed. One day before the season started, he acquired Craig Kimbrel. When Kelley signed with the Nationals prior to 2016, Jonathan Papelbon was the closer. When he wore out his welcome, Mark Melancon filled the role.

Kelley has been toiling in obscurity for his whole career, but 2017 may finally represent his first opportunity to shine. He’s the leading candidate to close games in D.C. I’m here to tell these folks and Nationals fans: it’s okay to get excited at the prospect of Shawn Kelley, Nationals closer.

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Former front-office analyst and now stats professor at Smith College Ben Baumer has a paper out, with cowriters Michael J. Lopez of Skidmore College and Gregory J. Matthews of Loyola University Chicago, that hopes to answer a question we’ve all thought about when our favorite team loses: how often does the best team win in a given sport? How much of our pain can we explain away with luck? The answers contain multitudes.

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Burke Badenhop is on to phase two of his baseball career. Twelve years after being drafted out of Bowling Green State University, the 33-year-old right-hander has moved from the playing field to the front office. He was recently hired as a baseball operations analyst by the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The move doesn’t come as a surprise. Badenhop has been featured here at FanGraphs multiple times, and he’s always supplied thoughtful, analytically savvy quotes. His contributions to MLB Trade Rumors have likewise been insightful. It is easy to see why the a forward-thinking organization would want to bring him on board.

It is also not surprising that it’s the Diamondbacks giving him this opportunity. Arizona’s new brain trust is anything but backward, and some of them, including GM Mike Hazen, had become acquainted with Badenhop when he pitched for the Red Sox in 2014. A few short years later, he’ll be using his brain, as opposed to his sinker, to help them win baseball games.

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Badenhop on getting his new job: “The guy whose eye I caught was Jared Porter, who is now an assistant GM with the Diamondbacks. Luckily, I was at the right place at the right time when he was the pro scouting director in Boston. He sat in on a few of our pitchers meetings and the fact that I looked at, and understood, the pitch data stuck in his brain a little bit.

“He moved on to the Cubs, under Theo, and about a month after I got released by the Rangers [in late April, 2016], he reached out to my agent. He asked if I was interested in moving forward in a non-playing role. I went up to Chicago, and we had some conversations, but they were busy being the best team in baseball, so hiring wasn’t at the forefront of their minds.

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You probably are already aware last season was a good one for shortstops but here are a few refreshers …

Not bad …

That’s a shortstop?

Now you’re just showing off …

It was a good year for shortstops. Actually, it was a great year. In fact, according to FanGraphs WAR leaderboards, it was the best year ever for major-league shortstops. Shortstops combined for 81.7 WAR, the first time the group has crossed the 80-win threshold.

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Edgar Olmos had a tumultuous offseason a year ago. From November 2015 to March 2016, he went from the Mariners to the Cubs to the Orioles to the Cubs to the Orioles. It was waiver claim yo-yo, although the 26-year-old southpaw equates the experience to a table game.

“It was like a ping pong ball,” said Olmos. “It just went back and forth, back and forth. I’m married — I have a beautiful wife and two beautiful daughters — so it was a difference of us renting a spring training place in Arizona or in Florida. It was, ‘We need to look rent there, no, we need to look rent there, no, wait, we need to go back to looking there, no, not again.”

Olmos originally changed organizations in November 2014. Prior to being selected off waivers by Seattle, he spent seven years in the Marlins system. He made his big league debut wth the Fish in 2013, and the outing was especially memorable. The lefty entered a game with two outs and the bases loaded, and Ryan Howard at the plate. Read the rest of this entry »

A humorous anecdote from the Pirates’ offseason CARE-a-van tour to share with you by way of Stephen Nesbitt from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Recently, the Pirates’ top pitching prospect, Tyler Glasnow, heard something pretty funny. He was at a bowling event for Pirates Charities, and one fan piped up with this wisecrack, something about how it would be cool if Glasnow could throw strikes on the baseball field, too.

“Touche,” Glasnow said, laughing, as he retold [last month]. “It’s all right.”

Whether or not Glasnow is able to consistently repeat his delivery and throw strikes, challenging given his 6-foot-8 frame, is of great interest and importance to the Pirates.

It could determine whether he ultimately resides in a major-league rotation or bullpen. It will determine whether he is a successful major-league pitcher. After having been rated as a consensus top-50 prospect for three straight years since he burst on the scene with a plus-plus fastball at Low-A West Virginia in 2013, Glasnow experienced a rocky start to his major-league career last season. He walked 12% of batters faced – in line with his minor-league rate – and allowed quite a bit of solid contact during his small-sample debut of 23 innings.

Glasnow is of interest at the moment for two reasons. For starters, the Pirates’ ZiPS forecasts were published earlier this week and were optimistic about two players who have quite a bit of uncertainty in their 2017 forecasts: Andrew McCutchen and Glasnow. ZiPS calls for Glasnow to produce the second-most wins among Pittsburgh starting pitchers in 2017, more than Jameson Taillon and Ivan Nova, who are locks for the rotation, and Chad Kuhl, who probably has the inside track on another spot entering spring.

As MLB.com’s Adam Berry reported in the fall, Glasnow is not guaranteed a rotation spot.

“The ceiling is so high, but there’s clearly some work that remains,” general manager Neal Huntington said at the General Managers Meetings. “If he pitches the way he’s capable of, that’s a very exciting addition to the rotation. He’s absolutely in the mix.”

Glasnow is one of the great wild cards to watch this spring.

He must tighten up his command and address his issues with the running game. Base-stealers were successful 81% of the time against Glasnow in the minors and stole nine bases in nine attempts at the MLB level last season. If he gets those issues under control, then his history of missing bats could vault him near the top of the rotation. Indeed, ZiPS forecasts an elite 27% strikeout rate and 3.60 ERA. Glasnow struck out 22% percent of batters he faced in 23.1 innings last season.

Glasnow is also interesting because of a mechanical issue, which might help his development.

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Here’s your chance to vote for the 2017 SABR Analytics Conference Research Award winners.

The SABR Analytics Conference Research Awards will recognize baseball researchers who have completed the best work of original analysis or commentary during the preceding calendar year. Nominations were solicited by representatives from SABR, Baseball Prospectus, FanGraphs, The Hardball Times, and Beyond the Box Score.

To read any of the finalists, click on the link below. Scroll down to cast your vote.

Contemporary Baseball Analysis

• August Fagerstrom, “The Game Plan: How the Indians Almost Won It All,” FanGraphs, November 4, 2016.
• Ben Lindbergh and Rob Arthur, “Are Juiced Balls the New Steroids?” FiveThirtyEight, July 20, 2016.
• Kate Morrison and Russell A. Carleton, “The Perils of MLB’s Sorting System,” Baseball Prospectus, June 20-23, 2016. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
• Eno Sarris with Bill Petti, “Are Veterans Better at Slump Busting?” FanGraphs, May 25, 2016.
• Jeff Sullivan, “Pitch Framing Was Doomed From the Start,” The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2017.

Contemporary Baseball Commentary

• R.J. Anderson, “MLB Analytics Guru Who Could Be The Next Nate Silver Has A Revolutionary New Stat,” CBS Sports, December 1, 2016.
• Henry Druschel, “There’s no such thing as a small-market team,” Beyond the Box Score, December 13, 2016.
• Rany Jazayerli, “The Curious Have Won,” The Ringer, November 3, 2016.
• Sam Miller, “Cubs win! Cubs won. Now what do we stay alive for?” ESPN.com, November 5, 2016.
• Meg Rowley, “Let Ballparks Get Old,” Baseball Prospectus, May 26, 2016.

Historical Analysis/Commentary

• Patrick Dubuque, “Byron McLaughlin Avoids the Tag,” The Hardball Times, June 22, 2016.
• Tim Healey, “The Doug Mirabelli Trade: An Oral History,” The Hardball Times, April 29, 2016.
• Wade Kapszukiewicz, “Golden Pitches: The Ultimate Last-at-Bat, Game Seven Scenario,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2016.
• Mina Kimes, “The Art of Letting Go,” ESPN The Magazine, October 4, 2016.
• Gerald Schifman, “How Much Hope and Faith Is in Major League Baseball?” The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2017.

Voting will be open through 11:59 p.m. MST on Monday, February 13, 2017. Details and criteria for each category can be found here. Only one work per author was considered as a finalist.

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Results will be announced and presented at the sixth annual SABR Analytics Conference, March 9-11, 2017, at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix in Phoenix, Arizona. Learn more or register for the conference at SABR.org/analytics.