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While the early off-season has mostly been driven by trades — with Jerry Dipoto seemingly involved in about 80% of them — we’re reaching the point of the winter where we should expect to start seeing some free agents come off the board. Teams have had a few weeks to negotiate with various options, narrow down who might actually be a viable acquisition, and pick a direction in which to head. While there’s often a lot of activity at the winter meetings, a number of significant free agents likely won’t wait three more weeks before they pick their next home, and so I’d expect a few big dominos to start falling into place relatively soon.

So, with that background, it’s time for my annual list of free agent recommendations. For the last few years I’ve picked through the crop of free agents and selected a handful of players I think would be good values at the prices that we expect players to sign for, and as you’d expect, looking back at those recommendations is a pretty mixed bag. Teams following my suggestions maybe would have landed some bargains in Francisco Liriano, Scott Kazmir, and Russell Martin, but they also would have been stuck with Omar Infante, Nick Swisher, and Melvin Upton. Picking free agents is fraught with risk, and it’s not like we have it all figured out over here.

But as is the case every year, there are some guys that I think would be worth pursuing, as my perception of their value is higher than what we think the market is going to give them. In some cases, MLB teams might agree with me and drive up the bidding to a reasonable point — Brian McCann a few years ago, for instance, when the crowd’s estimate proved way too low — but some of these guys will likely sign a diminished price due to some flaws that teams discount more heavily than I do. In my view, these are the guys who are present the best opportunity for upside value in this free agent class.

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The Reds rumors are coming in hot and fast, or at least hot and fast for the weeks right before Thanksgiving, when most of baseball seems to be watching football. Mostly, it’s the obvious scuttlebutt: Aroldis Chapman and Brandon Phillips are available, for packages of varying quality, and mostly for players close to the major leagues.

Depending on what you think of the Reds and their current competitiveness, you’ll read “listening to any and all offers” differently. If you like the Reds’ young starting rotation, you think you might sell anything that’s not nailed down for 2017, meaning the focus is on jettisoning Jay Bruce and getting a haul for the Cuban closer. If you think there’s no hope and the division is too awesome for the Reds, you think they should probably trade Todd Frazier, and maybe even Joey Votto.

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Early in this year’s postseason, the excellent Jessica Mendoza made several references in the broadcast booth to the idea of the “non-competitive pitch.” We know that pitchers, most often, are trying to throw strikes. We know that, other times, a pitcher will intentionally locate a ball outside of the strike zone, attempting to coax a batter into a misguided swing. For these pitches to be effective, they need to be reasonably close to the edges of the zone. Otherwise, the batter won’t swing. When located well, even if the batters don’t swing, you’ll hear these referred to as “good misses.”

What a pitcher is rarely, if ever, trying to do is locate dramatically outside of the strike zone. I’m talking several feet. These pitches happen, but for all intents and purposes, they’re unintentional and serve no use. They’re an extra tally on your pitch count and they almost exclusively go for a ball without any real chance of a swing. This was something upon which I briefly touched in my review of Gerrit Cole’s rough Wild Card start, in which he threw three of these non-competitive pitches consecutively to Kris Bryant to issue a walk after getting ahead in the count, 1-2.

When I wrote that post, I knew I’d revisit the topic in the offseason. The thing about a data set is, there’s always a most extreme something. Someone threw more non-competitive pitches than anyone else. One ball may not seem like a huge deal, but the difference between a ball and a strike changes the nature of an at-bat. After a first-pitch strike this season, batters had a .609 OPS. That’s Alexi Amarista. After a first-pitch ball, batters had an .815 OPS. That’s J.D. Martinez. The average run value of the difference between a ball and a strike is typically worth between one- and two-tenths of an entire run! Throw a lot of non-competitive pitches — automatic balls — and it will add up. We just need to define non-competitive, and then find them.

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John Coppolella has a plan. He also has a goal, which is to help return the Atlanta Braves to prominence. Last week, the 37-year-old general manager – along with president of baseball operations John Hart – made a bold move toward that end. Andrelton Simmons, a gifted and popular shortstop, was traded to Anaheim in exchange for Erick Aybar and a pair of pitching prospects.

The deal wasn’t particularly popular, but that’s not Coppolella’s biggest concern. The Braves are coming off a pair of losing campaigns, and they’ll be moving into a new stadium for the 2017 season. The fan base expects a winner, and that is what Coppolella and Company are working to build.

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Coppolella on trading Andrelton Simmons: “It was a talent-based deal for us. Using scouting and analytics we simply felt the talent level we were getting back in this deal was too good to pass up. We have high hopes, in the short- and long-term, for all three of the players we acquired.

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Last night, the Braves traded Andrelton Simmons to the Angels for Erick Aybar and a couple of pitching prospects. While it’s likely that Atlanta’s staff made this deal primarily to acquire Sean Newcomb, a big left-hander with high-end stuff and strikeout rates to match, I think it’s fair to categorize this return as surprisingly light. Newcomb is brimming with upside, but he’s still a pitching prospect who hasn’t yet figured out how to throw strikes on a regular basis, and has made all of seven starts above A-ball. He could figure things out and become an ace, or he could go the Archie Bradley path, where the stuff declines before the command gets better, and the Braves could end up with little to show for trading away the best defensive player on the planet.

But therein lies the rub. While everyone agrees that Simmons is a great defensive player, the Braves don’t appear particularly interested in betting on elite defenders aging particularly well. They balked at Jason Heyward’s salary requests in long-term negotiations, then traded him last winter, rather than keeping a 25 year old star outfielder around as a core building block. Now, for the second time in as many years, the Braves have traded elite defense in a young player for pitching potential, seemingly believing that it is easier to find a good defender with offensive question marks than a power arm who racks up strikeouts.

And as I noted yesterday, there might be some logic to that idea, given that there’s evidence that defensive skills peak earlier than offensive skills. The athleticism that allows a player to make plays that his peers can’t make is more vital for defensive value than hitting skills, and it’s possible (and probably even likely) that the Braves saw the potential for Simmons to lose value in the near future, if his defensive value dipped and his offense didn’t improve to offset the decline. So, it’s probably worth exploring how previous elite defenders have aged, and see if we can find support for the idea that the Braves were selling high before a coming decline.

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Editor’s note: Jeff wrote this as an InstaGraphs post when the trade was announced, but when I got around to looking at it, I noticed he wrote almost 900 words. That’s a normal-length FanGraphs post, so I’m moving it to the front page. I’m leaving the IG post up in its original place so that your comments will be retained, however.

UPDATE: Angels also getting catcher Jose Briceno. Briceno is 23, and he spent last year in high-A, but he also posted an OPS of .482, and, yes, that’s a 4, and no, that’s not a mistake. Of course, he’s hit better in the past. He’s been a decent prospect in the past. Right now, his career needs to be rescued.

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The day began with thoughts on a potential Andrelton Simmons blockbuster. As the day ends, half of what was discussed has come true — Simmons has been traded, and even to the general Los Angeles area. He just hasn’t been traded to the Dodgers, or for Yasiel Puig.

Rather, Simmons’ new teammates will be the rest of the Angels. And, headed to the Braves in exchange: Erick Aybar, Sean Newcomb, Chris Ellis, and a bit of money.

#Braves trade Simmons to #Angels for Newcomb, Ellis, Aybar and about $3M

— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) November 12, 2015

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Here’s the difference between now and the trade deadline. At the trade deadline, when the Twins went out and picked up Kevin Jepsen, I shrugged and kept thinking about other, potentially bigger things. I forgot about the move five minutes after I learned about it. Now, this is a whole post about the Mariners going out and picking up Joaquin Benoit from the Padres. Not that Benoit and Jepsen are identical, but they belong in the tier of second- or third-class moves. As such, I’m sure many of you couldn’t care less about this, but before you go away, let me tell you — Benoit remains one interesting reliever. Good relief pitching is en vogue at the moment, and while Benoit will be 39 next July, he doesn’t seem to be on the verge of anything but another strong 65 innings.

Benoit is going to cost $7.5 million. The Mariners got him from San Diego for Enyel De Los Santos and Nelson Ward, and while De Los Santos is a young one with a big arm, there’s a reason those are two unfamiliar names. Neither is likely to do anything at the highest level; Benoit is likely to go another season or three. For the Padres, there’s nothing wrong with shedding salary and adding a live-armed project. But, necessarily, this is more interesting from the Mariners’ side. As long as Benoit has pitched, he still seems capable of keeping opponents off base.

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Last night, Jonah Keri got the baseball world buzzing with a series of tweets.

Source: #Braves deep in talks with NL West team about possible trade.

— Jonah Keri (@jonahkeri) November 12, 2015

Source: #Braves trade talks with NL West team revolve around Andrelton Simmons.

— Jonah Keri (@jonahkeri) November 12, 2015

While we’ve seen a few deals struck already, Andrelton Simmons going west would be qualify as a pretty significant move, and so immediately, other reporters started checking in to see who the unidentified NL West club could be.

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You’re forgiven if you don’t much care about Wednesday’s swap of Aaron Hicks for JR Murphy. Maybe you’re not a fan of the Twins or the Yankees. Maybe you’re not a fan of baseball at all, and you somehow wound up here by accident. Or maybe you are a fan of the Twins or the Yankees, but you recognize this as a trade featuring two players with less than 2 combined WAR over more than 1,200 plate appearances. Hicks has been probably the more hyped of the two, but Murphy is the younger of the two, and he seems like a backup. This isn’t on the level of Brad Miller and Nate Karns, and even that wasn’t on the level of something truly big.

These are the moves we have available to discuss, though, and if you want to speak generally, every professional baseball player has a compelling story. They’re all tremendously talented, and they’ve all dreamed of big-league success. If you want to speak specifically, Hicks is interesting, and I’d rate his level of interest above-average. He’s a former top prospect who’s trying to recover from initial struggles, and the most recent year saw him take a step forward. As far as this trade is concerned, it’s important to understand 2015 Aaron Hicks, and what follows are three keys to fully grasping the Hicks campaign. What he was in 2014, he wasn’t this summer.

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While it’s not going down as any kind of blockbuster, the Twins and Yankees struck a deal today, with Minnesota sending outfielder Aaron Hicks to the Yankees for catcher JR Murphy.

Hicks, a former highly though of prospect, finally showed some signs of life in 2015, putting up +1.5 WAR in 97 games after getting called back up from Triple-A. The improvement primarily came from his ability to avoid strikeouts, which looks to be potentially caused by a new-found willingness to swing at pitches in the strike zone; his in-zone swing rate jumped to 66%, significantly higher than it had been in his first two runs through the big leagues. With enough power to not just be a slap hitter and a good enough eye to draw some walks, Hicks profiles as something like a league average hitter going forward; Steamer projects him for a 99 wRC+ in 2016.

With some baserunning value and decent enough defense in center field, that makes Hicks a potentially interesting piece. In fact, if you look at the Steamer600 projections, where playing time is equalized for all players, you’ll note that Hicks looks like the kind of outfielder the Yankees have shown affinity for.

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