This is footage of Houston right-hander Bud Norris’s second overall pitch — against Alejandro De Aza — from the Astros’ Tuesday night exhibition game against the White Sox. Said footage captures Norris throwing a pitch (a) that, owing to the velocity (91 mph) and arm-side run (about 5.8 inches, according to the game data) looks very much like a two-seam fastball and (b) to which the Astros broadcast team referred as a two-seam fastball.

Why that’s (potentially) notable is because, according to the PITCHf/x data at the site, Norris had no pitches classified as two-seamers in 2011. Brooks Baseball has 7% of Norris’s pitches from 2011 classified as sinkers — i.e. a close relative of the two-seamer — but only four of the 207 (1.9%) he was recorded as throwing induced a swing and miss.

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It’s been 27 months since the Reds signed Aroldis Chapman to that six-year, $30.25 million contract, but he still has yet to make a start for them. That’s not entirely his fault however, as the club decided to use him out of the bullpen last season. Despite a strong showing in Spring Training — 2.12 ERA with an 18/2 K/BB ratio in 17 IP — Chapman is once again headed back to the bullpen to start this season.

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It appears as though, after a spring’s worth of uncertainty, the Atlanta Braves have decided on an Opening Day shortstop, with the news this afternoon (courtesy David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal Constitution) that the club has assigned defensive wunderkind Andrelton Simmons to minor-league camp, leaving Tyler Pastornicky with the job.

To which level, precisely, Simmons has been sent remains to be seen, but there are options available to the Braves: given his age (22) and previous high level (High-A Lynchburg), an assigment to Double-A wouldn’t (nor should it) be regarded as a slight to Simmons’ skill level or potential. There’s certainly reason to believe that — aside from whatever he showed the coaching staff and front office this spring — that Pastornicky’s experience in the high minors (672 plate appearances between Double- and Triple-A) was instrumental in helping him to secure the starting spot to break camp. There’s also reason to believe that exposure to more advanced pitching would help Simmons’ refine his offensive game.

So, even if Simmons were to spend the entirety of 2012 in the minors, it likely wouldn’t represent any kind of misstep on the part of the Braves.

That said, with Simmons, there are three points always to consider:

1. Defense is his primary skill.

2. His defensive skill — even if coupled with merely replacement-level offense — probably makes him an average major leaguer right now.

3. Defense peaks earlier than other skills — probably around 25 or so.

In light of the facts, it’s probably fair to say that the window on Andrelton Simmons’ major-league career is a slightly different one than we see for many prospects, with the beginning of his peak set to arrive as soon as now. Because a lot of his value is derived from defensive play — that, coupled with the fact that his offensive ceiling is probably limited by a lack of power upside — Simmons will likely never be much more valuable than he will by, say, the middle or end of the 2012 season.

One year after having to trade away impending free agent Adrian Gonzalez, the Padres have started to sign their top young players long-term. Cameron Maybin got a five-year contract earlier this month, and Cory Luebke landed a big payday of his own over the weekend. The left-hander agreed to a four-year deal worth at least $12 million on Friday, and two club options could put another $15.75 million in his pocket down the road. Tom Krasovic and Corey Brock both deserve credit for breaking the news.

Luebke, 27, enjoyed tremendous success in 2011, his first full season as a big leaguer. He opened the year with 29 excellent relief appearances before shifting to the rotation in late-June and finishing the season with 17 equally excellent starts…

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In perhaps the fasteset set of transactions I’ve ever seen, the Astros announced that they were releasing Livan Hernandez at 12:07 pm eastern time, and then Jon Heyman reported that Livan was signing with the Braves at 2:02 pm eastern. Livan wasn’t even unemployed for two hours.

Livan’s a pretty fascinating guy. While his xFIPs are crazy consistent over the last four years (xFIP- of 112, 111, 114, 111), his results have swung wildly from awful in 2008-2009 (ERA- of 138 and 133) to pretty good in 2010 (ERA- of 91) back to not great (ERA- of 118) last year. On one hand, you know exactly what you’re getting with Livan – a durable innings eater who won’t miss bats. On the other hand, you have no idea what you’re going to get from Livan, as his BABIP and HR/FB rates have fluctuated wildly over the last five years.

This series of moves perfectly illustrates how a player can have value to one team but not another. The Braves needed to reduce their exposure to disaster performances, and signing Hernandez gives them some rotation depth and the ability to let Julio Teheran and Randall Delgado start the year in the minors. While he doesn’t do anything to help raise their upside in win total, he probably helps raise the downside slightly, as they now have a decent enough fifth starter to keep the team from imploding if the kids aren’t quite ready on Opening Day.

The Astros, though, have little need to reduce their volatility. The marginal value of a win to a team in their position is quite small, and as a pure rebuilding organization, they’re better off figuring out what they have in a guy like Kyle Weiland instead. The innings Livan would have pitched for Houston would have just reduced the number of chances the team would have had to evaluate their young arms, and so the value of having a veteran stop-gap in place simply wasn’t there.

It’s weird to see a contender pick up a guy that the worst team in baseball just decided they didn’t want, but in this case, it makes sense for both sides. Perhaps that’s why it all happened so fast.

The Frank McCourt chapter in Dodgers history came to an end Tuesday night. The team announced that it reached an agreement to sell the club to the bidding group led by Magic Johnson, Stan Kasten and the Guggenheim Partners. Give MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick credit for the original scoop. The price is $2.15 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal’s Matt Futterman.

Unsurprisingly, the sale price is the largest ever paid for a North American sports franchise. It is more than double the previous MLB record, which belonged to Tom Ricketts, who paid roughly $845 million for the Cubs in 2009. Previous Dodgers owner Frank McCourt bought the team from NewsCorp for $430 million in 2004. His debt has been estimated at $1.1 billion, so despite running the team into the ground, he’ll still walk away with close to $1 billion in profit.

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This morning, the Boston Red Sox optioned Jose Iglesias to Triple-A. Given that he hit .235/.285/.269 in 387 plate appearances during his time in Pawtucket last year, this seems like a pretty obvious decision. While Iglesias has defensive skills that suggest he can have value even if he doesn’t ever develop into much of a hitter, there’s still a level of minimally acceptable offensive performance to make the big leagues, and it’s not clear that Iglesias currently crosses that level.

Even if we accept that Iglesias is a better hitter than his numbers last year indicate, ZIPS still projects him for just a .268 wOBA as a big leaguer this year, or about the same level of production provided by Alex Rios and Adam Dunn in 2011. Even if he was the best defensive shortstop in the game right now, that level of offense would mean he’d still top out as about a +2 win player. The upside for this skillset is basically Alcides Escobar, who posted a .282 wOBA and +10 UZR last year, and was worth +2.2 WAR in 598 PA. In reality, we’re dealing with a hitter who would need to improve significantly to get to a .282 wOBA, and projecting him as a +10 defender as a rookie is extremely aggressive.

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The Brewers added another to their list of core players under long-term contracts, inking catcher Jonathan Lucroy to a four or five year deal Monday. Lucroy, who broke through to the majors in 2010 and was the starter from day one in 2011, will be covered through at least his arbitration seasons and possibly his first free agent year.

Although Lucroy hit well for a catcher last season at .265/.313/.391 (94 wRC+), he hasn’t developed into the hitter he showed he could be in the minor leagues. Between rookie ball, both levels of A-ball and Double-A, Lucroy posted wRC+ totals above 125 in every one of his minor league stints, showcasing solid contact rates and patience. The patience has left him in the majors, as he’s walked in just 6.2% of his major league plate appearances. His free-swinging ways partially resulted in his 21.2% strikeout rate as well, nearly five percentage points above his previous high at any level.

But any extra offensive production from Lucroy will be gravy at this point. His glovework provides immense value to the Brewers’ pitching staff. According to Mike Fast’s seminal work on catchers framing pitches, only Jose Molina betters Lucroy on a per-game basis. Lucroy’s ability to get umpires to call strikes saves 24 runs per 120 games – similar to the impact of an All-Star level bat.

The Brewers may be able to get similar or better value on Lucroy going year-to-year with his arbitration years, but the monetary risk is minimal here and the Brewers really need some cost certainty with the rest of their core progressing up the payroll ladder yearly. Yovani Gallardo, Ryan Braun, Rickie Weeks, Aramis Ramirez, and Corey Hart will all see raises soon, and the Brewers need to lock in some cheap pieces to be able to maintain this core throughout the next few years.

Jonathan Lucroy isn’t a key part of the Brewers’ core just yet, but he provides some value at the plate and heaps of value behind it. Although we don’t know the exact financial details, it’s hard to imagine this deal breaking the bank – think a bit more expensive than Salvador Perez’s $7 million deal, but not exorbitantly so. As a cost-controlled player over the next five years who can help balance the monetary loads of the Brewers’ stars, he and his contract could be very important in keeping the Brewers competitive over the next half-decade.

March hasn’t been too kind to some big-name relievers. For Ryan Madson and Joakim Soria, there were torn elbow ligaments. For Joba Chamberlain? Well, this one’s a bit rarer: Last week, he suffered an open dislocation of his right ankle while playing with his 5-year-old son on trampoline-like contraption at a children’s gymnastics center. Essentially, bone pierced skin and he’s reported to have had lost “a potentially life-threatening amount of blood.” Sadly, the incident happened while Chamberlain had been preparing for a return following ulnar collateral ligament replacement — aka, Tommy John surgery — last year. Here’s  Bill Madden and Anthony McCarron, of the New York Daily News, with more details:

“When the skin is intact, it’s much easier to heal,” [Dr. Steven] Weinfeld said. “This makes it not only a career-threatening injury, but a limb-threatening injury. There is a small percentage of people who end up with an amputation. There are a small percentage of people, if the skin envelope doesn’t heal, they are susceptible to infection and that can lead to amputation. These days, that’s less likely to happen because we have good antibiotics.”

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Matt Bush screwed up. Again. According to Roger Mooney, the former first overall draft pick was arrested Thursday night for DUI. As if that weren’t bad enough, Bush is also responsible for a hit and run in which he seriously injured a 72-year-old motorist and fled the scene before he was picked up by law enforcement.

Bush had already been trying to rehabilitate his image following a night club brawl in 2004 and an alleged assault in 2009. After washing out with the San Diego Padres, Bush, now 26-years-old, was attempting to comeback as a reliever with the Tampa Bay Rays.

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