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If you’ve ever been on Twitter, Ervin Santana probably follows you. Or at least, whoever’s in charge of Ervin Santana’s Twitter account. That account seems dead set on making some kind of impact. The same can’t be said to the same extent of Ervin Santana’s agent, Jay Alou, whose account is decidedly less active, but just the other day Alou happened to tweet out something of particular interest, that caught the attention of many:

Can’t wait for the world to see the NEW and IMPROVED @ErvinSantana_54. Showcasing new devastating pitch! #hardworkpaysoff #Nasty #cantwait

— Jay Alou (@JAloujr) December 23, 2013

Santana’s currently a free agent without a home, and as far as we can tell there hasn’t even been much in the way of negotiating progress. Everybody has been waiting on Masahiro Tanaka, because everybody likes Tanaka better than the domestic starting pitchers on the market. Now that Tanaka’s been posted, the rest of the pitcher market should move forward, meaning soon Santana can start really talking money. In part to help entice suitors, Santana seems to be working on a new pitch. The idea is self-improvement, and it’s never a bad idea to improve.

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After having typically appeared in the entirely venerable pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections were released at FanGraphs last year. 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: Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Cleveland / Los Angeles NL / Miami / Minnesota / New York AL / Philadelphia / San Diego / St. Louis.

Batters
ZiPS projects Robinson Cano, Brad Miller, and Kyle Seager to produce the most wins among all of Seattle’s field players this next season. The latter two differ from the first insofar as they’ll make entire truck loads less of American currency in 2014. The triumvirate all share a common trait, however, insofar as none of the three ever appeared on a Baseball America top-100 prospect list — a statement intended not as a comment on the great work done by BA, but merely on the unique paths shared by each.

By all appearances, Corey Hart and Logan Morrison will actually share left-field and DH duties in 2014, an arrangement which the author hasn’t depicted on the very attractive depth-chart graphic below not because he was unaware of it (i.e. the arrangement), but because it would have been tedious and largely unnecessary extra work.

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On Saturday, the Rangers agreed to sign Shin-Soo Choo to a seven year, $130 million contract. With Nelson Cruz and David Murphy departing via free agency and Craig Gentry traded to Oakland, they had a gaping hole in atheir outfield, and they signed the best outfielder left on the market. Given their position on the win curve, maximizing their 2014 roster potential is an understandable strategy, even though Choo is likely to be completely dead weight by the end of this deal. As I wrote at the beginning of the off-season, nearly every long term free agent contract will be a poor investment for the team by the end, as they are designed to be a value to the team in the first few years and a value to the player in the last few.

That said, even with the Rangers having ample revenues — thanks to their television contract — and being in a prime position on the win curve, this still looks like a pretty significant overpay to me, and a contract I think Texas will regret sooner than later. In fact, depending on how much money Nelson Cruz suckers someone into paying him, this might actually end up as my least favorite contract of the entire winter. And I think this deal looks particularly mediocre when you see what the Yankees did with the same resources.

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Conor Glassey spent five years working at Baseball America, covering the draft and contributing to their annual Top 100 prospect list. He now writes at his own blog and tweets from @conorglassey. This article was published on his own site last week, and is being re-published here with his permission.

After the surprising news of Robinson Cano signing a 10-year contract with the Seattle Mariners worth $240 million, it got me thinking: Did you know that Robinson Cano never cracked Baseball America’s Top 100 prospect list? You probably did because Larry Stone wrote an excellent article about Cano that mentioned it. After realizing that fact about Cano, I decided to take a look, position-by-position, at who else can make that claim.

By no means is this me being critical of BA’s rankings (in some of which I was lucky enough to participate). Dating back to 1990, Baseball America’s Top 100 list is the cornerstone of the industry, with the clout to back it up. Player rankings of any type aren’t easy to put together, but I have always felt (before, during and after my employment there) that Baseball America has the best process for their rankings. In many ways, BA’s annual Top 100 list is the culmination of the entire season of work—an exclamation point on another great year of covering amateur baseball and the minor leagues better than anyone else. But everyone can always improve and I’ve always felt that you learn more from mistakes than you do from success. This is an article I wanted to do during my time at BA, but never had the time.

Of course hindsight is 20/20 and this list isn’t about pointing out individual players that didn’t make any of the lists. Rather, I’m just trying to determine if certain player profiles are slipping through the cracks . . .

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After having typically appeared in the entirely venerable pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections were released at FanGraphs last year. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Cleveland / Miami / Minnesota / New York AL / Philadelphia / San Diego / St. Louis.

Batters
It seems possible, given the ZiPS projections below, that Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez and Matt Kemp won’t quite be worth, on a dollar-per-WAR level, the nearly $65 million they’re owed collectively in 2014. That’s not ideal for the Dodgers, probably. The eight wins they’re forecast to produce, however, still count as eight real wins — and appear likely to be supplemented by contributions from players (Hanley Ramirez and Yasiel Puig, most notably) who are creating lots in the way of marginal value.

Of some interest to readers will be the projection for Cuban emigre Alexander Guerrero. ZiPS is optimistic (2.5 WAR in 665 PA); Steamer, less so (0.2 WAR in 630 PA). A street fight between rival systems, is what appears to be unfolding.

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The Houston Astros organization boasts both depth and some high-ceiling talent. The club has compiled its impressive collection of prospects through both solid scouting via the draft and shrewd wheeling-and-dealing via the trade market. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I noted that the historical average set by the Hall of Fame was to induct between 1-2% of the total population of baseball players, and that was fairly consistent throughout history. In response, some commenters noted that expansion and specialization meant that perhaps the inflation of the number of players hasn’t led to a proportional inflation of worthy of Hall of Famers, and wondered what the data looks like if we exclude the legions of middle relievers who bounce around the game but obviously aren’t in consideration for election to Cooperstown.

This was a good point, and a potentially interesting challenge to the idea I put forward yesterday. Perhaps the change in roster construction in the modern games means that we should be electing a lower percentage of players now than we have been before. Maybe the correct model isn’t total percentage of all players, but total percentage of all players who had long sustained careers that would give them at least a fighting chance to end up on the HOF ballot.

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After having typically appeared in the entirely venerable pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections were released at FanGraphs last year. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Miami Marlins. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Cleveland / Minnesota / New York AL / Philadelphia / San Diego / St. Louis.

Batters
Last year’s ZiPS WAR projection for very strong outfielder Giancarlo Stanton was quite high (6.4, precisely) for someone so young. This year’s ZiPS WAR projection is also quite high (4.2, in this case) for someone so young, but also likely to be regarded as a disappointment relative to last year’s figure. The primary reason for the decline — namely, Stanton’s 500 most recent plate appearances — isn’t a mystery. Still, given the choice, one prefers a more, and not less, productive Giancarlo Stanton, probably.

Elsewhere around the diamond, one finds that the Marlins aren’t without talent. In fact, a glut of promising outfielders means that one from the triumvirate of Jake Marisnick, Marcell Ozuna, and Christian Yelich will likely be without a starting job at the beginning of the season. None of that group project to be stars in 2014, but all three are both (a) projected to be worth at least a win and also (b) either 23 years old or younger.

Finally, I’ll note — primarily because he’s a learned gentleman — that Ed Lucas is likely also to play some part in the Marlins infield, even if ZiPS isn’t entirely enthusiastic about what he’ll do there.

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There was a rumor the other day that Shin-Soo Choo turned down a seven-year contract offer from the Yankees worth $140 million. I’m not sure I believe that, but Scott Boras has been aiming high, as Scott Boras does. There are reports out that Boras is seeking Jacoby Ellsbury money, and in his most recent chat, Dave figured that Choo would end up with Jayson Werth money. The message is this: Choo is the impact guy who remains on the free-agent market, and he’s going to get paid. Plenty of teams are after him, and in the end he should get at least six years, and something in the vicinity of $20 million per. While he doesn’t come with Ellsbury’s potential for all-around value, Choo gets on base an awful lot, and what’s more important than getting on base?

A number of teams are interested in Choo, meaning a number of teams are looking for a quality corner outfielder, and have money to spend. Due to the laws of this world and this league, only one of the interested teams will actually get Choo, since there’s only just the one of him. But there is an alternative out there, and it doesn’t take the form of Nelson Cruz. The alternative is almost as good a player, and from all indications he’d be pretty easy to get. All you’d need to do is place a call to the Dodgers.

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With the baseball off-season moving into a little bit of a lull, the next few weeks of baseball writing often take on a decidedly Cooperstown-centric swing. Hall of Fame ballots have been mailed to the 600 or so voters, and they have until December 31st to decide how to fill those ballots out, so those of us with some semblance of a platform usually try to influence the voters while they have the ballot in their hands. For instance, Jay Jaffe penned this excellent piece on Mike Mussina’s candidacy, and anyone who is planning to vote for Tom Glavine but not Mussina should read that and reconsider.

I probably won’t join the lobbying for any specific players this year. From my perspective, there are something like 15 to 19 reasonably justifiable candidates on the ballot, so lobbying for one player out of that bunch is necessarily lobbying against some other viable candidate. So, instead, I’m simply going to try and provide some evidence that will hopefully convince my fellow members of the the BBWAA to stop waffling and start voting in worthy candidates.

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