“I don’t like it, because it hates me.”

That was Dodger catcher A.J. Ellis‘ half-joking reply to me last weekend in Arizona, before the team left for Australia, when I asked him whether he was aware of the recent work on pitch framing or put any stock into it whatsoever. Ellis has a reputation as a particularly thoughtful player, so I didn’t really expect him to say that he had no idea what I was talking about, but then, I’m sure we’ve all read Eno Sarris’ recent Hardball Times piece about the language of the clubhouse, and how bringing up things even as relatively straightforward as FIP and walk rate can very quickly get you on the wrong side of the room if asked in the wrong way or to the wrong player.

Pitch framing, of course, is what passes for the new hot thing in sabermetrics these days, and we’ve written about it extensively here; Jeff Sullivan has made something of a cottage industry of the topic, as have other sites, and for good reason. It’s new. It’s exciting. It’s gotten people hired. It significantly changes how we value — or at least how we should value — catchers. We don’t have to necessarily buy into the exact ranges that some studies have come out with, because some of those extremes would indicate that the best framers are providing something like MVP-quality value to their teams, but the effects are real. It’s one of those very unique skills that only a catcher can offer, and we’re finally beginning to properly understand and measure it.

So what interested me was how much, if any, real-world application this work was having. You’d think that players and teams would jump at the chance to learn more about their performances and how to improve them, but you’d also think that in 2014, major league teams wouldn’t employ managers who actively avoid any strategic viewpoint created in the last four decades.

That being the case, do catchers buy into this? If so, is there a capacity to improve?

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Maybe you’ve seen the commercials and are tired of them. Maybe you didn’t like the gimp interview. Maybe you think the hair is ridiculous. That’s fine with Brian Wilson. There might be some ancillary benefits to the way he portrays himself on and off the field, but this is more about his work on the mound. Because, to him, the most important facet of pitching is confidence.

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If it seems like we’ve written about the Dodgers second base competition a lot this offseason, it’s because we have. Two months ago, I looked into the questionable depth the team had at the position; a few weeks ago, Eno Sarris revisited the situation to see whether it would present a problem. Now, barely more than a week before the team kicks off the season in Australia, there appears to be a winner, at least if you believe this beat writer or that one or that one, and it’s not $28 million Cuban import Alexander Guerrero: it’s former shortstop Dee Gordon, who has 3.2 career innings at the position.

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Earlier today, polite and Canadian and polite Marc Hulet published his 2014 organizational prospect list for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It goes without saying that, in composing such a list, Hulet has considered the overall future value those prospects might be expected to provide either to the Dodgers or whatever other organizations to which they might someday belong.

What this brief post concerns isn’t overall future value, at all, but rather such value as the prospects from Hulet’s list might provide were they to play, more or less, a full major-league season in 2014.

Other prospect projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles AL / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Oakland / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Tampa Bay / Texas / Toronto.

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Baseball, without question, is going to be a worse game without Mariano Rivera. It wasn’t just that Rivera was consistently excellent. It’s that he was also unwaveringly humble and gracious, being the rare sort of Yankee you could like even if you rooted for a team of non-Yankees. But Rivera’s retirement does, at least, open up some questions that previously wouldn’t have been up for debate. When it comes to picking the best at something, Rivera’s absence gives a chance to somebody else.

I was asked in my Tuesday chat to identify the new most dominant pitch in baseball. Before, the answer was automatic: Mariano Rivera’s cutter. It was that way for nearly two decades, as Rivera rode one masterful pitch to glory and a certain place in the Hall of Fame. Rivera never really declined, and his cutter topped the list because of his command, his results and his longevity. But now we’re able to entertain the idea of other pitchers and other pitches. With Rivera out of the picture, choosing another pitch isn’t blasphemous. The way I see it, there are two contenders.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers signed Cuban emigre and infielder Alexander Guerrero this offseason, with a view (it would seem) towards installing him at second base for the 2014 season. Because Guerrero didn’t participate in the most recent World Baseball Classic and because there’s little in the way of other extant footage of him and because there’s only so much his Cuban league stats can tell us — regardless of how responsibly they’re translated — there’s naturally an air of mystery surrounding him. Indeed, Guerrero’s two plate appearances during the Dodgers’ spring-training opener on Wednesday against Arizona were the first which offered competitive footage of him in any sort of broadly available way.

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The Dodgers have a problem at second base. The Dodgers don’t really have a problem. This’ll make sense soon, I promise.

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A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Dodgers rotation from a fantasy perspective for RotoGraphs. At that time, the Dodgers had a pool of starters than went 10 deep. Now they have 11 potential starters. Most teams would be satisfied with 10 starters. They might look to add some minor league depth, like a Rodrigo Lopez type, but they probably wouldn’t give out any more major league contracts.

However, the Dodgers have reason to worry about their depth. Chad Billingsley is currently rehabbing from injury. Prospects Zach Lee and Ross Stripling might not be ready in 2014, or the Dodgers may prefer not to rush either pitcher. Stephen Fife is a decent swing man, but the Dodgers would probably prefer to avoid turning to Matt Magill. Josh Beckett and Dan Haren are penciled into the rotation, although both pitchers were less than stable in recent seasons. Beckett in particular is coming off a nerve impingement surgery that limited him to eight starts last season.

So what have the Dodgers done to combat the flakiness of their rotation depth? Why they’ve hired yet another pitcher who fits into the back of the rotation and comes with health concerns.

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Clayton Kershaw signed the largest contract for any pitcher in baseball history on Wednesday. In doing so, he became the first player in MLB to agree to a long term deal for an annual average value of more than $30 million, so on a per season basis, he’s also the highest paid player in baseball history. And he got that deal a year before he was eligible to hit free agency, so this price reflects a discount over what the Dodgers believe he would have gotten with competitive bidding. Given these facts, it’s easy to look at this deal as a harbinger of escalating prices and further proof of significant inflation in Major League Baseball.

Interestingly, however, it’s really not that at all. I walked through Kershaw’s expected value about a half hour before the contract was announced on Wednesday, and my guess for the total price came out to $230 million over seven years, a little less than what he actually signed for, but also didn’t include the value to Kershaw of getting to opt-out after year five. Including that offsetting value, I think my guess was pretty decent.

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Yesterday, the Dodgers signed Clayton Kershaw to a seven year, $215 million contract, or, if you prefer, a six year, $195 million extension, as they already owned his rights for 2014 at an arbitration price of around $20 million. That’s the amount that the Dodgers have guaranteed to pay Kershaw anyway, but I don’t know that it’s really all that accurate to describe it in that way, because there’s a pretty good chance the deal is actually going to end up as a five year, $150 million contract (or an extension of 4/$130M) when all is said and done. That’s because Clayton Kershaw is the latest to join the recent trend and get an opt-out clause negotiated into his deal; he can choose to void the final two years of the deal after the 2018 season if he so chooses and become a free agent again heading into his age-31 season.

Kershaw joins teammates Zack Greinke and Hyun-Jin Ryu in having received opt-out clauses from the Dodgers, so this is clearly something LA is comfortable negotiating into their deals in an attempt to outbid other suitors. Texas also gave two opt-outs to Elvis Andrus in his long term extension signed last year, so Kershaw is the fourth player in the last year to receive a guaranteed paycheck but also the right to reset the terms if he stays healthy and performs at a high level over the next few years.

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