Table of Contents
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1. Live from the Winter Meetings, Day 1
2. Sightings at the Winter Meetings
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Venezuelan Winter League

Live from the Winter Meetings, Day 1
Baseball’s Winter Meetings begin in earnest today from Nashville’s giant Opryland Resort, at which Resort the author — along with several other members of Team FanGraphs — will be embedded to better network with people who might eventually help their careers cover the big, breaking stories as they happen.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Baseball Event: Tender Deadline, Tonight
2. GIF: Mark Reynolds Bat Toss
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Australian Baseball League

Baseball Event: Tender Deadline, Tonight
The deadline by which teams must tender contracts to their arbitration-eligible players is tonight (Friday) at 11:59pm ET. Players to whom contact offers are extended then have the opportunity to negotiate with their respective teams until January 18th, when arbitration figures are due for exchange. Players to whom contracts are not tendered become free agents and are free to negotiate with all 30 teams.

Using some combination of a slide rule, abacus, and cheat codes from early and beloved Nintendo game Contra, Matt Swartz has projected salaries for all arbitration-eligible players and published the results at MLB Trade Rumors.

Here are three notable players who might become free agents tonight:

Player: Mark Reynolds, CIF, BAL
Proj. Salary: $8.9 million
Notes: Reynolds has been worth less than a win in over 1100 plate appearances as an Oriole. Owing to his power, he’d certainly receive attention as a free agent, but likely not $9-million-annually of attention.

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Table of Contents
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1. Three Moves That Just Happened, Mostly
2. GIF: Cory Burns’s Actual Real Changeup
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Mexican Pacific League

Three Moves That Just Happened, Mostly
Here are three moves that happened yesterday (Wednesday), so far as the author can tell.

Pittsburgh Acquires Clint Robinson in Trade
Clint Robinson will turn 28 before the 2013 season begins and has slashed .308/.382/.520 over 2,875 minor-league plate appearances. Despite this — and certainly owing to the presence of other first-baseman Eric Hosmer — he received only four plate appearances total from Kansas City, ever. On Wednesday, he was traded to Pittsburgh.

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Table of Contents
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1. Assorted Headlines
2. Windy Footage of Hitter Chris Nowak
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Puerto Rican League

Assorted Headlines
Every Team Buying Players from Independent American Association
Six players from the independent American Association have been sold to major-league clubs over the last five days, reports the league’s official site. Right-handed reliever James Hoyt, who recently turned 26, is the latest to enter affiliated ball, signing a minor-league deal with the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday. Per Baseball Reference, Hoyt has posted a 104:46 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 78.1 innings with unaffiliated teams over the last two seasons. Hoyt was ranked ninth among all independent league prospects by Baseball America last month.

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Table of Contents
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1. In Appreciation of Oscar Taveras, Briefly
2. Video: Oscar Taveras Doing Whatever He Wants
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Dominican Winter League

In Appreciation of Oscar Taveras, Briefly
It is not the case that the SCOUT batting and pitching leaderboards for the Dominican Winter League (below) ought to be regarded as entirely prophetic so far the respective futures of the players on those leaderboards are concerned. That said, they (i.e. those same leaderboards we’re talking about) do have some value insofar — and perhaps for other reasons — but insofar as they might help organize or reify our thoughts on certain players whose names appear within them.

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Table of Contents
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1. Darwin Perez Status Update: Perez Signs with Oakland
2. Five Notable 40-Man Roster Additions
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Venezuelan Winter League

Darwin Perez Status Update: Perez Signs with Oakland
Baseball America’s Matt Eddy, famous for having never told a lie, reports that middle infielder Darwin Perez — recently of the Angels and, even more recently, a person of some interest in these Notes — has signed with the Oakland Athletics.

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Table of Contents
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1. Assorted Headlines
2. SCOUT Leaderboards: Venezuelan Winter League
3. Largely Unhelpful Videos: Free Agent Infielder Darwin Perez

Assorted Headlines
Frazier Likely to Become Third-Base Starter for Cincinnati in 2013
Scott Rolen‘s status for the 2013 season is still unclear, MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon reports. Todd Frazier’s is less so, it seems. “Right now,” Reds general manager Walt Jocketty appears to have declared somewhere in the vicinity of Sheldon, “Frazier would be penciled in as our third baseman next year.” Frazier posted a 120 wRC+ (.316 BABIP) and 2.8 WAR in 465 plate appearances this past season.

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Table of Contents
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1. Final SCOUT Leaderboards: Arizona Fall League
2. Video: St. Louis Prospect Boone Whiting’s Whole Repertoire
3. Audio: Polish People Pronouncing Szczur

Final SCOUT Leaderboards: Arizona Fall League
The Arizona Fall League ended this past weekend. Below are the final SCOUT leaderboards for said League’s 2012 season. (Ages as of July 1st, 2012. Players listed with most recent team. Click here for more on what is SCOUT.)

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Table of Contents
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1. World Baseball Classic: Qualifying Games This Weekend
2. Video: Brazil Upsets Panama
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Arizona Fall League

World Baseball Classic: Qualifying Games This Weekend
The third ever World Baseball Classic takes place this March. Unlike its predecessors, which featured just four pools of four teams each, this iteration of the Classic has an expanded qualifying round of 16 teams designed to produce four total qualifiers — which four clubs will be added to 12 automatically qualified teams.

Qualifying Rounds 1 and 2 were played in September. Rounds 3 and 4, however, are currently in progress and available for real watching on your computer. Owing to the double-elimination format, the precise schedule is undetermined. A reader could hypothetically click this hyperlinked text, though, with a view to finding updated box scores and links to the relevant live feeds.

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Table of Contents
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1. Hector Santiago Coverage, Featuring Hector Santiago
2. Action GIFs: Hector Santiago’s Changeup vs. His Screwball
3. Premature SCOUT Leaderboards: Puerto Rican League

Hector Santiago Coverage, Featuring Hector Santiago
The Puerto Rican League is approximately a week old, and, as the (very premature) leaderboards below reveal, White Sox left-hander Hector Santiago has been quite effective in his first two appearances (both starts), posting a 13:3 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 11.0 innings.

Despite some difficulties at the beginning — difficulties which got him removed from the closer role rather early on — Santiago’s 2012 season was entirely adequate (70.1 IP, 106 xFIP-). Notably, he made four starts in September and October, with surprisingly proficient results. To wit: 19.1 IP, 26 K, 11 BB, 55.8 GB%, 3.41 xFIP.

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