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Well, here we go; the hot stove is starting to fire up.

Optimism growing in Mets camp they can get a deal done with Cespedes, sources say…

— Tim Brown (@TBrownYahoo) November 29, 2016

Sources: Cespedes back to #Mets.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 29, 2016

Sources: Cespedes deal expected to be four year, $110M.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 29, 2016

The Mets had been pretty interested in retaining Cespedes, and he seemed interested in sticking around, and it looks like both parties found a way to make it work even without waiting for the new terms of the CBA to be agreed upon.

At 4/$110M, Cespedes ends up effectively getting close to the deal everyone expected him to get last winter, when you factor in that he got $27.5 million for 2016 on his one-year deal. This is a little bit less than what our expected price was headed into the winter, as Cespedes settled on four years at a slightly higher AAV rather than pushing for a fifth year and getting the total guarantee up slightly. Here’s the blurb we included in our Top 50 free agent write-up, where Cespedes ranked #1 overall.

A year after getting rejected by the league, Cespedes is considered by most to be the best player on the market this winter. He followed up his 2015 offensive breakout with another strong year in Queens, and while his defensive performance took a dive while playing through a quad injury, his recent power spike shouldn’t be viewed with as much skepticism as it was last year. Of course, he’s still built like a linebacker and lower-half injuries are the kinds of things you don’t want to see from a guy who relies on athleticism for a good chunk of his value. So there’s still risk here, which is why we all seem to agree that a five-year deal is the best fit here, even for the top player available.

Criag Edwards went through Cespedes’ comparisons a few weeks back and found him to be worth something in the range of $100 million or so, so this seems like a perfectly reasonable investment for the Mets. He’s a good player, and this is what good players go for these days.

The question, of course, is what the Mets do now with an overcrowded outfield. With Curtis Granderson and Jay Bruce under contract for significant money as corner outfield options, Michael Conforto around as a young player who should fit into a corner spot as well, and now Cespedes, the team is overflowing with left and right fielders. One or even two of those guys are probably leaving Queens now, so with Cespedes back in the fold, the Mets can figure out how to make their roster work again.

It’s no secret that position players are the big prize in this winter’s relatively weak free-agent class. Available top-tier starting pitching is essentially non-existent, but there are a few hitters who will be expected to be a big boon to their new teams. Even then, though, it’s not as if the ranks of available hitters are dripping with star-level talent. I keep going back to free-agent rankings ordered according to 2017 projection systems – here’s our free-agent depth chart and here are MLB.com’s projections – and grappling with the name atop the projections: Justin Turner. Is it actually possible that a 32-year-old infielder coming off his first major-league season as a full-fledged starter is the game’s best available free agent?

The most popular name to cite as this year’s “best” free agent is Yoenis Cespedes. He appears atop Dave Cameron’s top-50 free-agent rankings and all indications are that he’s the most likely player to lock-down a nine-figure contract before next year. Edwin Encarnacion is also available, and all he’s done is hit more homers over the last five seasons (193) than every player in the game except Chris Davis (197). But then there’s Justin Turner. As Cameron said when he listed Turner as the best potential free-agent bargain this winter: “Turner looks like this year’s Ben Zobrist: a good player who will get underpriced because he doesn’t feel as good as he actually is.”

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the Cleveland Indians farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from my own observations. The KATOH statistical projections, probable-outcome graphs, and (further down) Mahalanobis comps have been provided by Chris Mitchell. For more information on thes 20-80 scouting scale by which all of my prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this. -Eric Longenhagen

The KATOH projection system uses minor-league data and Baseball America prospect rankings to forecast future performance in the major leagues. For each player, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for his first six years in the major leagues. There are drawbacks to scouting the stat line, so take these projections with a grain of salt. Due to their purely objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated. Due to sample-size concerns, only players with at least 200 minor-league plate appearances or batters faced last season have received projections. -Chris Mitchell

Other Lists
NL West (ARI, COL, LAD, SD, SF)
AL Central (CHW, CLE, DET, KC, MIN)
NL Central (CHC, CIN, PIT, MIL, StL)
NL East (ATL, MIA, NYM, PHI, WAS)
AL East (BAL, BOS, NYY, TB, TOR)

55 FV Prospects

Relevant/Interesting Metrics
Slashed .333/.379/.500 as a left-hander in 2016, .359/.390/.542 as right-hander.

Scouting Report
Arguably the best catching prospect in all of baseball, Mejia’s prodigious arm strength and bat-to-ball ability give him the raw physical material to impact the game in a variety of ways. A switch-hitter, Mejia has fantastic bat control from both sides of the plate and tracks pitches well. He has plus bat speed and, except for the occasional rash of overswinging, generates it with little effort. As a right-handed hitter, Mejia hits to all fields. He’s more pull-heavy as a left-handed hitter but is better at creating airborne contact from that side. Mejia’s strikeout rate has fallen as he’s risen up the minor-league ladder. I have a future 70 on the hit tool.

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This post is being republished after appearing at FanGraphs earlier this month — as it seems particularly relevant given the lack of a new CBA ahead of the December 1 expiration of the current one.

In two weeks time, on December 1st, the existing collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association is set to expire. While the two sides have been working for the better part of a year on negotiating a new agreement, to date they have not yet been able to come to terms on a new CBA.

Based on existing media reports, it appears that the hold-up over the new agreement centers around two primary issues: raising the luxury-tax threshold and creating an international draft. Both topics were expected to be among the most important — and thus potentially contentious — issues discussed during the CBA negotiations. So the fact that the parties have not yet reached an agreement on either point is not particularly surprising.

Still, with only two weeks left until the old CBA expires, some are beginning to speculate about whether a potential work stoppage could be looming on the horizon. That, in turn, raises questions regarding the potential legal ramifications of the two sides failing to agree to a new CBA before December 1st.

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While the Hall of Fame ballot is still heavy with deserving candidates, last season did help a bit in terms of making this year’s decision easier for voters. Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza gained entry this past January, Alan Trammell and Mark McGwire exhausted their eligibility, and both Jim Edmonds and Nomar Garciaparra failed to receive the necessary 5% of the vote required to remain on the ballot.

Among the newcomers, only four candidates — Vladimir Guerrero, Jorge Posada, Manny Ramirez, and Ivan Rodriguez — appear worthy of serious consideration. With more voters than ever choosing to fill their ballot with 10 names, several players close to induction — in particular Tim Raines, who enters his final year on the ballot — might stand to benefit.

Last year, Jeff Bagwell fell 15 votes short, while Raines and Trevor Hoffman received 23 and 34 fewer votes, respectively, than the 330 necessary to appear on 75% of the ballots and (in turn) earn a place in the Hall.

The electorate, of course, isn’t composed of a static number. Some voters choose not to cast a ballot and others fail to meet the requirements of voting. Still other members receive their Hall of Fame ballots for the first time. In the end, it’s the 75% figure that’s the relevant one, not 330.

As for this year’s returning candidates, the cases for or against them are pretty clear. For a few borderline cases, meanwhile, this year’s voting represents an opportunity to gain the necessary momentum to receive induction at a later date. Of the 15 returning candidates, there are six pitchers, five outfielders, and four infielders. Let’s start with the outfielders.

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After having typically appeared in the very famous pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past few years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Chicago Cubs. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Washington.

Batters
The present document represents only the second of 30 total installments of these team-by-by ZiPS projections. Despite that, it’s likely that no other club’s hitters will receive such optimistic forecasts as the Cubs’ do here. Nor is that particularly surprising: Chicago’s field players produced the highest collective WAR figure in the league by some distance in 2016 — and only one of that team’s starters (Dexter Fowler) has left by way of free agency.

Kris Bryant (6.9 zWAR) receives basically the best projection possible among players who aren’t also Mike Trout. Anthony Rizzo (5.7) and Addison Russell (4.2) also profile as star-level types, per Dan Szymborski’s computer. ZiPS calls for the remainder of the team’s starters to produce wins at an average rate or better — including Jason Heyward (3.1), whose defensive forecast (+13 runs in right field) compensates for whatever offensive deficiencies he might continue to exhibit.

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Player X should be in the Hall of Fame because Player Y is in the Hall of Fame is a common argument. As often as not, a good counter argument can be made that neither is deserving —Y was a marginal candidate, and enshrining X would further water down what is meant to be a select group. If you’re an advocate of a “small hall.” that would be your view. If you’re in the “big hall” camp, X-and-Y debates are more likely to strike your fancy.

With that in mind, let’s compare Vladimir Guerrero — on the ballot for the first time — with Jim Rice, who is often cited as a marginal Hall of Famer. Outfielders known for their offensive prowess, they had careers of equal duration.

Guerrero had 9.059 plate appearances, 2,590 hits, and 972 extra-base hits. Rice had 9,058 plate appearances, 2,452 hits, and 848 extra-base hits.

Guerrero slashed .318/.379/.553. Rice slashed .298/.352/.502.

Guerrero had an OPS+ of 130-or-better 11 times, and 150-or-better six times. His high-water mark was 162. Rice had an OPS+ of 130-or-better six times, and 150-or-better twice. His high-water mark was 157. Read the rest of this entry »

Apparently Mike Hazen and Jerry Dipoto don’t have anything better to do on Thanksgiving eve than make a big trade that makes those of us with stuff to do have to apologize to our family and start working. Thanks, jerks. Have some pie and take a day off already.

Personal aspersions at the GMs aside, Arizona and Seattle have pulled off a pretty fascinating trade. The particulars.

Taijuan Walker, SP
Ketel Marte, SS

Jean Segura, SS
Mitch Haniger, OF
Zac Curtis, LHP

Mike Hazen’s first big trade as Arizona’s GM is to sell high on the best player acquired by previous GM Dave Stewart. The Diamondbacks hit the jackpot buying low on Segura last winter, as a player who had racked up +3.6 WAR during his career in Milwaukee put up a +5 WAR season in his one year in the desert. Rather than bet on him coming back and having another career year, Arizona turned Segura into another buy-low guy in Walker, who has long been hailed as a possible frontline starter but hasn’t lived up to the potential yet.

It’s pretty easy to see Hazen’s rationale here; he turns a 27-year-old and a 26-year-old into a 24-year-old and a 23-year-old, picking up extra team control years in the process, and in Walker, he lands a guy who could easily be worth more than Segura long-term, especially if you don’t buy into Segura’s power spike. The Diamondbacks get younger and pick up some extra long-term value, and in reality, they probably don’t make themselves much worse in 2017 either; Haniger didn’t have a role on their team at the moment, and Curtis is mostly a throw-in.

From Seattle’s perspective, this looks reasonable enough if you buy into two things.

1. The team’s long-term future depends mostly on them winning in the short-term, given the age of the guys anchoring the roster, so current wins are worth a lot more to Seattle than future wins.

2. Haniger is a potential above-average regular. While Segura is going to be the guy everyone focuses on, Haniger might just be the guy who makes this deal work for Seattle — if it works for Seattle — by giving them a quality OF they don’t really have at the moment. Eric Longenhagen’s write-up on him from the Arizona Prospect Report is particularly useful now.

While big-league pitchers were able to exploit Haniger’s vulnerability to pitches down and away during his late-season cup of coffee, he’s an above-average runner with plus raw power. Players with that tool combination aren’t exactly easy to come by. Haniger was demoted to High-A as a 24-year old in 2015 after slugging a paltry .379 for Double-A Mobile. It looked like bad news to those of us on the outside who thought the Diamondbacks were souring on him, but in reality Haniger proactively told the D-backs he’d accept a demotion if it meant he could play every day which, with prospects Evan Marzilli, Socrates Brito and Gabriel Guerrero also in Mobile by mid-year, wasn’t going to happen at Double-A. Haniger made a swing change (profiled here and here by excellent D-backs beat writer Nick Piecoro) and took off. You can see the old swing here.

Scouts are a little bit apprehensive about Haniger’s propensity to swing and miss and think there’s a good chance he either ends up as a platoon bat or power-first fourth outfielder who can play center field in a pinch. Given Haniger’s purported makeup and clear ability to make significant adjustments, I think there’s a non-zero chance he’s a late-blooming average regular but it’s more likely he falls just short of that. The Diamondbacks acquired Haniger along with Anthony Banda from Milwaukee in exchange for Gerardo Parra.

If Haniger turns into a fourth OF, I don’t know if Seattle will get the upgrade they were looking for in turning Walker’s upside and whatever Marte might be into Segura’s 2017 and 2018 seasons, but there are reasons to think that maybe Haniger has some remaining value left. Most notably, he played 182 of his 258 innings with Arizona in CF, and D’Backs beat writer Nick Piecoro texted me after the trade was announced to say that he thought Haniger’s defense in center was quite good, and definitely better than just a get-away-with-it glove.

If Haniger is a good enough defender to be a regular CF, then the offense could make him more valuable than Segura, especially if his 2016 improvement was more breakout than fluke. The projections aren’t sold, especially after he didn’t hit that well in the big leagues, but if you’re into speculative buys on late-bloomers, there are some reasons to think that maybe Haniger could be on the late-developing-star track. From a Piecoro story in August.

A year ago, he was getting inconsistent at-bats with Mobile when the organization demoted him to High-A Visalia. While there, he began incorporating a leg kick. Then in the offseason, he continued to tinker with his swing mechanics, adjusting where he holds his hands and altering his swing path.

For Haniger, the changes were borne from a question: Why was it that other hitters who weren’t as big or as strong as he was were able to drive the ball to the opposite field with more authority? He began studying swings of players like Josh Donaldson and A.J. Pollock and read up on the hitting philosophies of Bobby Tewksbary, a coach who helped both of those hitters develop into All-Stars.

“I feel like now I’m able to recognize pitches better,” Haniger said. “I can make up my mind whether to swing or not later than I have in the past because my swing is deeper in the zone. I’m able to stay off close pitches. It’s easier for me to use all fields and to see pitches better.”

Donaldson and Pollock certainly aren’t bad examples to follow, and they aren’t the only guys who have improved dramatically after working with Tewksbury; Eno Sarris wrote about Ryon Healy also making similar adjustments, and he was a revelation for the A’s this year after not really being considered much of a prospect.

There’s a lot of ifs here. If Haniger’s glove really is as good as Piecoro thought — which could make him a very good defensive corner OF in Seattle, since Leonys Martin is still around — and if some of these swing changes were the reason for his 2016 breakout, then he could be an average or better hitter with some real defensive value. And with six years of team control, that would make him the real get in this deal for the Mariners, likely offsetting a lot of the long-term value they may lose with Walker and Marte gone gone.

If Haniger is just an ordinary defensive OF without enough bat to carry him, then I think Arizona will be happy with this deal, getting younger and selling high on a guy whose value didn’t really have anywhere to go but down. But if Haniger turns into a 100 to 110 wRC+ guy with plus defense in a corner or enough glove to play center? Well, all of the sudden, that’s a pretty great piece too, and would fill a hole the Mariners definitely needed to fill.

So, yeah, this is a fascinating trade. I don’t know if I’m sold enough on Haniger, so I’d probably prefer Arizona’s side, but for a win-now Mariners team, you can see the potential for this to make the team a lot better in the near future. And given that Walker is, at this point, more upside than realized value, it’s not that hard to see why the Mariners preferred to push in now, before their old stars stop playing like stars.

And for Arizona, while I might have short-changed them in words here, this is an easy deal to like from their end. If Walker turns into this year’s Segura, and they hit on another buy-low talent, Mike Hazen will be plenty happy with his first deal as the Diamondbacks GM.

Once again, we find ourselves approaching the Hall of Fame debate season. As has been the case over the past few years, a collection of strong candidates returns to the ballot after having received the minimum 5% of votes required to remain. Those holdovers will be fighting against a new class headed by Vladimir Guerrero, Manny Ramirez, and Ivan Rodriguez. As usual, there are a host of other, newer candidates unlikely to see a second vote. Last year, Jim Edmonds fell off the ballot in his first try to reach the minimum threshold. Unlike last year, however, this year’s most deserving candidates are all likely to remain eligible going forward.

This year’s list is awash with hitters; the only newcomers on the ballot who made their living on the mound are Arthur Rhodes and Tim Wakefield. Before getting to the better candidates, let’s take a quick look at the players who failed to reach the 30 WAR mark over the course of their careers. These players aren’t bad by any stretch of the imagination. All of them played at least 10 years in the majors. That said, their careers aren’t worthy of serious consideration for the Hall of Fame. The numbers below include career WAR, HOF points and HOF Rating. An explanation of the latter two metrics can be found here. Briefly put, however, the numbers represent an attempt (like Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system) to account simultaneously for a player’s peak and overall production.

I haven’t bothered to include the Points and Rating scores that generally serve as the thresholds for entry into the Hall of Fame — I’ll do that below. What’s relevant for now is that none of the players listed here approach those thresholds. Again: all great players, just unlikely Hall of Famers.

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Ah, the Twins. So often over the past few offseasons the Twins have been the club whose moves cause a scratching of the head and subdued “Oh, honey” under one’s breath. The franchise has long been stuck in the traditionalist mud. Until this season, at least. In the middle of another poor year, general manager Terry Ryan was finally dismissed, replaced by the dynamic duo of Derek Falvey and Thad Levine, the sort of expensively educated types populating other front offices. The moved marked a time for change… and sweet, sweet analytics!

So, naturally, the Twins’ first move this winter was to sign a light-hitting catcher. Earlier today, the club agreed to a three-year, $24 million deal with Jason Castro. But Castro’s not like the other light-hitting catchers with whom the Twins have burdened themselves in recent years. Whereas Kurt Suzuki and his fellow Minnesota backstops have been bad both on offense and behind the plate, Castro is actually very good at being a catcher. Like, really good. Hence the three-year, $24.5, million contract.

“Nick!” you exclaim, bewildered. “That $24 million is a lot of money for a guy who’s been a below-average hitter for three seasons in a row!” And you have a point, reader. Castro posted a wonderful 129 wRC+ in 2013, and then quickly fell right off the table. Catcher isn’t exactly a premium offensive position, but you’d like to see that 129 again. It’s probably not coming back. That’s more than okay, given how much value Castro provides with his framing.

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