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When I wrote on Monday about the changing policies and confusion surrounding MLB, OFAC, U.S.-Cuba relations and the unblocking process for Cuban ballplayers, this situation seemed like a muddled mess. After my first article on the topic, Yahoo’s Jeff Passan and Baseball America’s Ben Badler added further details throughout the week and reported statements from OFAC and MLB as both sides were looking to clarify their stances. There was some urgency to conclude the negative PR whirlwind, with high-ranking MLB officials upset about not being able to sign three notable Cuban players left in limbo by this delay, with the total value of their potential contracts easily in excess of $100 million.

I was first turned onto this story by Cuban phenom Yoan Moncada’s agent David Hastings, who has taken some flack in the industry for being a first-time agent and representing such a high profile player, but it appears this situation has shaken out after a one week long media cycle. OFAC sent Hastings a letter within the last hour further clarifying their stance from previous statements earlier this week. According to Hastings, the letter stated that OFAC will not grant a specific license to Cuban nationals who are already unblocked via the general license. This applies to Moncada and the other two notable Cuban nationals waiting to be unblocked, second basemen Hector Olivera and Andy Ibanez.

OFAC’s earlier statements left an opening that they could be held responsible for the delay, as they said granting both general and specific licenses to certain Cubans would be handled on a “case-by-case basis.” This suggested that OFAC could hand out the specific license and end the delay by meeting MLB’s standard for unblocking a player. At the same time, OFAC said only the general license is necessary to clear a Cuban national to sign with a team, but MLB asked for more from the Cuban players, an MLB-only policy that changed at some point in the last few years.

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Understand that I’m not a pitching coach. I’ve never played one on TV, and if I were asked to serve as one for an actual team, I’d be wildly out of my element. Pitching is complicated, and pitchers in the major leagues are impossibly good, and pitchers in the major leagues also have reasons for doing what they do however they do it. I don’t know if what follows is good advice for Kevin Gausman and James Paxton, or garbage. It’s just, there’s at least enough here that we can have a conversation.

Thursday, I wrote about the Rays and collecting and encouraging high fastballs. I’m interested in this high-fastball thing — it’s an intuitively sensible way to attack hitters who are increasingly prepared to hit down low. The Rays have talked about this idea. The Astros have talked about this idea. Brandon McCarthy has talked about this idea, during an interview for the Hardball Times Annual. It’s a trend, seemingly, to counter a different trend. But it’s worth noting, not just any fastball should be thrown high. You need to have some command, and you need to be able to generate the right kind of spin. You want to have a fastball — a four-seamer — with a high PITCHf/x vertical-movement reading. That’s not the way pitchers themselves think about it, but that’s how we can understand it.

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

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Los Angeles AL / Los Angeles NL / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York NL / Oakland / San Diego / San Francisco / St. Louis / Seattle / Tampa Bay / Washington.

Batters
Manny Machado returned in May after completing rehab on his horribly ruptured left-knee ligament and the surgery to repair it. His slash stats were poor during that first month back (.220/.271/.284 in 119 PA), but by the beginning of August he possessed roughly the same park-adjusted offensive mark he’d recorded the season before (111 wRC+, as opposed to 102 wRC+ in 2013). His 2014 campaign ended in August when we underwent surgery to repair a partially torn ligament in his other knee. ZiPS doesn’t specifically “know” about the injuries — just the playing time lost to them. In any case, Machado is expected to replicate his slightly above-average batting line once again — with a little bit more in the way of isolated power than either of the past two seasons.

The breakout age-31 season isn’t a particularly common occurrence in baseball, but that’s what Steve Pearce produced in 2014, recording a 161 wRC+ and 4.9 WAR in 383 plate appearances. Characteristically, ZiPS is conservative. After hitting homers at a rate of 33 per 600 plate appearances, Pearce is projected for 26 every 600 plate appearances in 2015 — plus also a markedly more average defensive figure.

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Earlier in the week, Rob Manfred laid out some ideas that the sport could consider to both increase run scoring and improve the pace of play. While those seem like competing priorities, there is some evidence that both can be obtained simultaneously, though it seems unlikely that either restricting the shift or implementing a pitch clock would move the game in both directions. Instead, if MLB wants to make changes that serve both interests, they should probably pick a different approach.

If there’s been one significant change to the game over the last 30 years that has both extended the amount of standing-around-doing-nothing time during games and tipped the balance in favor of run prevention, it has been the expansion of the modern-day bullpen. Jonah Keri and Neil Paine covered this well in a piece at FiveThirtyEight last August, and because I like the graph they used in their piece, I’m going to steal it and embed it below.

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Evaluating the Prospects: Rangers, Rockies, D’Backs, Twins, Astros, Cubs, Reds, Phillies, Rays, Mets, Padres, Marlins, Nationals, Red Sox, White Sox, Orioles, Yankees, Braves & Athletics

Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

Amateur Coverage: 2015 Draft Rankings, November Update, 2015 July 2 Top Prospects & Latest on Yoan Moncada

The Braves’ off-season reload has been well-documented, trading veterans Jason Heyward, Justin Upton and Evan Gattis, along with some smaller deals. 8 of the top 13 prospects on this list have been acquired this off-season, along with their 4th best young big league asset. This targeting of high upside pitching turned a below average system into my 6th ranked system.

It’s a confident bet on the organization’s ability to develop young arms, some with specific issues that the team thinks Roger McDowell can fix along with a bet that the Braves’ pro scouting is better than the competition. Judging from the success the club has had in waiver claims and in the minor league portion of trades, that belief appears to be well-founded. We’ll likely see one or two years of the Braves not being playoff contenders, but the 2017 team is being set up to possible start another long run of success, just as the club’s new stadium is set to open.

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

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Los Angeles AL / Los Angeles NL / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York NL / Oakland / San Diego / San Francisco / St. Louis / Tampa Bay / Washington

Batters
In the first year of his 10-year and $240 million contract with the M’s, Robinson Cano served as a one-man illustration of park effects, recording almost precisely the same batting-average and on-base figures as the previous season with the Yankees, but producing only half the home runs. (We’ll ignore for the moment that he actually hit more homers at Safeco than on the road, as that would disturb the narrative.) The result was a park-adjusted offensive line roughly approximating 2013’s. ZiPS calls for another five-win season in 2015 despite a home-run total somewhere below 20.

On the topic of park effects, offseason acquisition Nelson Cruz moves from a home field that inflates right-handed homers by roughly 8% to one that suppresses them by about 6%. That move plus age plus mere regression conspire to produce a forecast of 29 home runs for Cruz in 2015 after last season’s total of 40.

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On Sunday, Commissioner Manfred made some comments about considering the idea of restricting defensive shifts, an idea to which there was a considerable amount of public pushback. In an interview with Ken Rosenthal last night, Manfred clarified his position, and noted that there’s nothing wrong with exploring the idea of making changes even if they aren’t needed, chalking up the comments to nothing more than due diligence. On that point, I fully agree with him, as there’s no harm in asking questions.

There’s an implicit assumption in this particular question, however. The goal of restricting shifts would be to raise the level of offense in the game today, so those in favor of such an idea are tacitly stating that run scoring in Major League Baseball is currently lower than they would prefer. As offense has cratered over the last five years, it feels like the balance has shifted too far in favor of the pitchers, with the increasing size of the strike zone the primary culprit. As the game sets strikeout record after strikeout record, it becomes easy to conclude that changes are necessary, and the current run environment is just too low.

But I guess I’m not entirely sure that’s true. For reference, here is a chart of league average team runs per game for the 20th and 21st centuries.

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The legal controversy surrounding Alex Rodriguez seemingly knows no end. Fresh off a season-long suspension – and a year filled with litigation – Rodriguez is currently preparing to return to the New York Yankees for the 2015 season. In addition to the $61 million the Yankees still owe A-Rod under the 10-year contract he signed back in 2007, Rodriguez can potentially earn another $24 million in bonuses by reaching four different home run milestones in the next three years.

Under the terms of his 2007 contract, the Yankees will pay A-Rod $6 million every time he moves up the all-time home run leaderboard. Rodriguez’s 654 career home runs currently rank fifth all-time, trailing only Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds. If Rodriguez hits six home runs in 2015, he would earn the first $6 million bonus by tying Mays’ career 660 home runs.

According to a recent report in the New York Daily News, however, the Yankees are preparing to contest the bonus provisions in A-Rod’s contract. When the team agreed to the milestone bonus structure back in 2007, it assumed Rodriguez’s march to the all-time home run crown would prove to be quite lucrative. In light of Rodriguez’s subsequent fall from grace, though, the team now understandably thinks A-Rod’s home run milestones will not be nearly as valuable as it initially hoped. As a result, the team is exploring its legal options.

So do the Yankees have any realistic chance of voiding Rodriguez’s bonuses? As is so often the case with the law, the answer is: It depends.

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

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Los Angeles AL / Los Angeles NL / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York NL / Oakland / San Diego / San Francisco / St. Louis / Tampa Bay / Washington

Batters
Despite the considerable investments made by the club both in Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval this offseason — amounting to nearly $200 million collectively, those contracts — the top WAR projection among all Red Sox players belongs to their second-round pick from the 2004 draft. Dustin Pedroia produced the lowest slugging and isolated-power figures (.376 and .098, respectively) of his career last year, while also recording a career-worst strikeout rate (12.3%). ZiPS calls for Pedroia to find some positive regression in all three areas while still retaining his elite second-base defense.

Probably also capable of providing if not elite, then at least above-average, second-base defense is Mookie Betts. Owing to the continued employment by the club of Pedroia, however, Betts will be forced to supply above-average defense elsewhere. In this case, the most likely destination is right field. It would fair to say that Betts doesn’t possess the typical right-field profile, featuring less power and size than most who play the position. He has excellent plate-discipline skills, however, plus speed and non-negligible power on contact. Note that Betts’ defensive projection below (of -1 runs) is for center field. The equivalent in right would be about +6 or +7 runs saved.

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Evaluating the Prospects: Rangers, Rockies, D’Backs, Twins, Astros, Cubs, Reds, Phillies, Rays, Mets, Padres, Marlins, Nationals, Red Sox, White Sox, Orioles, Yankees & Braves

Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

Amateur Coverage: 2015 Draft Rankings, 2015 July 2 Top Prospects & Latest on Yoan Moncada

This is the longest list by a couple thousand words and the 58 videos (most with clips from multiple years) of current Yankee prospects on the FanGraphs YouTube page is the most of any team. Some of this is due to my history with the organization and proximity to their Spring Training home, but mostly due to the depth this once-maligned system has developed.

The big story with the Yankees farm system is their July 2nd spending spree last summer and the harsh critiques ownership gave the player development and scouting departments the summer before that.  One led to the other and now things look to be in a much better shape. It’s still too early to pass judgment on the July 2nd group, but all of the high bonus guys are listed below either on the list or in the others section.

They’re the only names below that are unlinked, since they haven’t played pro games yet, only instructional league; the videos of these players are from the pre-July 2nd showcases in the Dominican and from fall instructional league in Tampa. July 2nd prospects sign contracts for the following year, so the team gets an extra year of control before having to add them to the 40-man roster, rather than starting their clock a year early for just part of a summer of games.

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