At the winter meetings, I asked a small collection of managers about the evolution of the role, and all of them — save perhaps Mike Scioscia — spoke to the importance of communicating with the media and with their players.

But that story had a longer scope, and a more universal one. I also asked them about a smaller more immediate thing — I asked many of them what they had learned this year, on the job. And for those just coming to the job, what they have tried to learn before they first manage a game.

Of particular note was what former position players did to learn about pitching, and vice versa. Managers have to communicate with all sorts of different players, and yet they came from one tradition within the game. And each has spent time developing themselves in their present role.

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Note: this post was published earlier today at FOX Sports, before reports surfaced that Heyward has reached an agreement with the Chicago Cubs.

Look towards the top of any list of free agents available this off-season and you’ll find Jason Heyward’s name. There are good reasons for this. Sure, he’s polite at parties, never leaves the seat up, and always holds the door open for the elderly, but it’s more than that. He’s got perhaps the most well-rounded set of skills the free-agent market has ever seen. He’s got a career wRC+ of 118, so he can hit; he’s got some power in there, as well as on-base ability; he’s an excellent baserunner and a superb fielder. There’s really nothing that Heyward doesn’t do well, and when you add his age into the equation, that’s when things get silly, financially speaking. Ah, his age. That’s really the crux of this whole thing.

Heyward is 26 all year, so unlike most free agents, the team that signs him will get his peak seasons. There are some players who have many of Heyward’s abilities but who won’t approach what he’s expected to get. Ben Zobrist, for instance, is an interesting comparison. He’s a good fielder, a smart baserunner, he has some pop in his bat and he’s exhibited about as much on-base ability as Heyward has. He also plays 70 positions despite baseball not having that many. But Zobrist was born in May, 1981, meaning he’ll be 35 years old next season. Heyward was born in August of 1989, so he’ll be 26. This is why Zobrist just signed with the Cubs for four years, $56 million while Heyward is expected to more than double both the total years as well as the AAV of Zobrist’s contract. Imagine if you could go back in time and sign Ben Zobrist for 10 years beginning at his age-26 season. In today’s market, that would be a bargain.

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As the winter meetings drew to a close yesterday, the market for Jason Heyward heated up, and based on reports from around the game, it appears that the three finalists for his services are the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, and (surprisingly) the Washington Nationals. The Cardinals interest in keeping their star right fielder has been known for a while, while the Cubs have long been a rumored suitor; Heyward is the kind of player that analytically-inclined organizations are more likely to pay for, and teams don’t get a lot more analytically inclined than the Cubs right now. Besides, with a hole in center field — though Heyward could slide to right field if the team traded Jorge Soler and acquired another CF — and a young core of players poised to put the team on the brink of perennial success, Heyward makes plenty of sense for Chicago.

The Nationals weren’t really attached to Heyward much at all until yesterday, when Jon Heyman outed them as the mystery team in this chase. The team apparently jumped in on the outfielder after losing out on Ben Zobrist, and would likely slot Heyward in as their center fielder as well, creating an elite trio along with Bryce Harper and Jayson Werth. The Nationals have been looking to add another left-handed bat to their line-up, and with Michael Taylor maybe best suited for a fourth outfielder role at this point, signing Heyward is perhaps the easiest path to solving that problem while also upgrading perhaps the weakest spot on the team.

But where does he fit the best? Who needs him the most, and should be incentivized to pay the highest price? Let’s look at all three options.

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The Chicago Cubs clearly had two primary areas in need of improvement at the beginning of this offseason: starting pitching and center field. The word was that the Cubs were in on David Price, but we know that didn’t happen, and so instead the Cubs went with a more cost-effective choice in John Lackey.

For the rest of the Cubs offseason, that means two things. For one, the rotation appears to be complete. It’s now deeper than last year’s, still has two aces at the top, and doesn’t have an obvious hole. Of course, if something came up, the Cubs could still improve, but no longer does the need exist for another starter, of any caliber. What the Lackey move means, also, is that the Cubs have some extra money to spend in the outfield. If they were in on Price, that means they were prepared to spend somewhere in the range of $200 million, and on Lackey, they spent just $34 million.

It should come as no surprise that talks have turned to Jason Heyward.

Patrick Mooney of CSNChicago reported that “the Cubs have envisioned Jason Heyward batting leadoff and playing center at Wrigley Field” and that they’ve “had Heyward on their radar for a long time.” Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times asked general manager Jed Hoyer about the financial implications of going after a top outfielder, and Hoyer responded that “We have some available resources. I think that much is clear.” Jesse Rogers of ESPN thinks it’s more likely the Cubs wind up with Heyward than Dexter Fowler. All of this has come out within the last 24 hours.

In addition, the Cubs are bidding against the rival St. Louis Cardinals, and the effects of the Cubs potentially acquiring Heyward would be two-fold, in that it would also mean the Cardinals weren’t acquiring him.

Clearly, the pieces are in place here. Heyward to the Cubs, on the surface, makes a great deal of sense. Theo Epstein stated back in October the desire to improve the team’s outfield defense, and Heyward has rightfully earned a reputation as an excellent defender. The interesting part, though, is that the Cubs are clearly interested in Heyward as a center fielder, given the existence of Kyle Schwarber and Jorge Soler in the corners, and 97% of Heyward’s major league innings have come in right field. He’s started just 30 games in center field, and his price tag is going to be somewhere around $200 million. That’s a significant investment to make when you’re planning to play a guy in unfamiliar territory. It’s a significant investment no matter where you’re planning to play him, but it might be viewed as especially risky given the circumstance.

But should it be?

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Dig around enough and you can make any transaction kind of interesting. Everybody in the upper ranks of professional baseball, after all, is only there because they possess extraordinary talent. Everyone has promise, so everyone can make a difference, so everyone deserves a certain amount of attention. Yet moves are considered relative to one another, and I’m not going to lie to you — Tuesday’s trade between the Padres and the Cardinals isn’t one you’ll think about very much. This is a move that’ll get lost in all the thoughts about dealing for Jose Fernandez.

From the Padres, the Cardinals are getting Jedd Gyorko and a bit over $7 million. From the Cardinals, the Padres are getting Jon Jay. Gyorko lines up to be a utility infielder, perhaps a platoon partner for Kolten Wong. The hope is that he does a little more than Pete Kozma or, earlier, Daniel Descalso. The Padres wanted out from under Gyorko’s long-term contract. Jay lines up to be a semi-regular outfielder, perhaps a platoon partner for Melvin Upton. He’s a free agent in a year, and the Padres seem unlikely to contend, and the Cardinals included Jay to offset some more money. Based on the intent of this deal, it’s forgettable. It’s an exchange of money and role players.

The shame, if you want to call it that, is both Gyorko and Jay are interesting. And I mean beyond just being professional ballplayers. Neither will be treated as much, but there are points of significance here. Jay has an interesting background. Gyorko might still have an interesting future.

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Following Boston’s signing of David Price, reports indicated that the Cardinals were $30 million short of the $217 million contract Price would eventually receive from the Red Sox. The deal certainly indicates that Boston was willing to spend this offseason. Given the Cardinals’ pursuit of the left-hander, however, you’d assume that St. Louis also has some money to throw around.

Except this is weird: their current roster has $126 million of commitments on it right now, and they spent $122 million on last year’s roster, and that was the most they’d ever spent on a roster. So maybe the Cardinals don’t have money to throw around. Maybe they just wanted David Price.

Still, they have losses and need to try to get better to stay atop their improving division. Losing Lance Lynn, John Lackey, and Jason Heyward means losing almost 10 projected wins.

Their uncanny ability to find 27-year-old usable bats in their farm system means that they can move some guys around. They probably won’t have to pay for the full 10 wins on the market. But they probably will have to do something. What?

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If you are a frequent user of this website, you likely know that on our player pages, you can find the five most-recently cited articles about a player — a mix of FanGraphs and RotoGraphs articles. Generally, a regular player will be written about at least five times a year. But when I sat down to write this piece, when I went to Peter Bourjos‘ page, the fifth article was Dave Cameron’s piece from Nov. 22, 2013, reacting to the news that Bourjos had been traded from Anaheim to St. Louis along with Randal Grichuk, for David Freese. That in and of itself is a bad sign. While we once thought of Bourjos as one of the game’s premier defenders, Bourjos — who was claimed this week via waivers by the Phillies — is an after-thought.

In that 2013 piece, Dave noted how Bourjos had basically become the best defensive center fielder in the game:

Since 2010, here are the top 5 center fielders in UZR/150 among players who have spent at least 2,000 innings in center field.

Peter Bourjos, +20.2
Carlos Gomez, +18.2
Jacoby Ellsbury, +13.7
Michael Bourn, +9.9
Denard Span, +9.5

The deal seemed like a great one for the Cardinals — and thanks to Grichuk, it may still be — but Bourjos never really held up his end of the bargain. In his four seasons with the Angels, he played 405 games — effectively two and a half seasons — and piled up 9.2 WAR. Not bad, right? That’s something between three and four WAR over a full season. Full seasons were hard to come by for Bourjos, though, which is why the playing time was spread out over four seasons. Still, hope sprung eternal when he landed in St. Louis.

Of note, Bourjos set a goal of stealing 40 bases in his first season in St. Louis. (Hat tip to Scott Perdue for the reminder) This was always going to be a bit of a stretch, as Bourjos, to that point, had just 41 stolen bases over his four-year career, against 13 times caught stealing. Clearly he had the speed, and a knack for stealing bases, but when your career high is 22 steals, shooting for 40 is a lofty goal.

That’s not really the point. The point is that he was excited. And the Cardinals appeared excited, as well. Bourjos started on Opening Day, and eight of the first 10 games in center. And then… he stopped playing. After those 10 games, Bourjos was hitting just .207/.258/.310, and while it was just 31 plate appearances, manager Mike Matheny had seen enough to know that he didn’t want Bourjos to be his everyday center fielder. Bourjos would start just six of the next 17 games in center, with Jon Jay logging the other 11 starts. And then Grichuk was called up. He and Jay would start the next five games, and then Bourjos reclaimed the job, as the Cards optioned Grichuk back to Triple-A. If this seems like an odd playing time pattern, well, let’s just say it wasn’t an isolated incident for Matheny.

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The title of this post is a question I asked in my own head yesterday. As to what precise set of circumstances led to the question, I can’t say — nor does the effort required to conduct a full audit of my memory seem justified. The main virtue of the question is that it’s led to the production of Content, which one finds below and which has allowed the present author to delay briefly his perpetually imminent dismissal from FanGraphs. And perhaps it possesses a second virtue, as well: that those, having wondered idly the same thing, might now observe an attempt at supplying an answer.

And, in fact, the answer probably does have some real-live implications. Yesterday in these pages, for example, Craig Edwards performed an examination of Chris Davis’s free-agent candidacy. Edwards found something that isn’t likely to surprise anyone — namely that, whatever Davis’s virtues, a broad base of skills isn’t one of them. His power is prodigious; his contact abilities and defensive acumen, decidedly less so. To whatever degree Davis is compensated this offseason, he will be compensated for his power on contact. To the degree that Davis is successful in the future, it will be for that same trait.

Meditating on Davis in this way naturally leads to the equal and opposite line of inquiry: which player is least dependent on a single skill or trait?

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There are few who doubt that, after finishing up his sixth season in Major League Baseball, Jason Heyward is a good player. Up for debate is precisely how good Jason Heyward has been during his career, and more importantly for whichever teams signs him this winter, how good Heyward will be moving forward. Attempting to measure defense with advanced statistics like UZR and DRS has its critics, and attempting to place a value on it can be difficult. Heyward has been an above average offensive player, incredible on defense, and heading into free agency a few months after turning 26 years old, provides few realistic players for comparison. Heyward will get paid. How much will he be worth?

Heyward’s main drawback, perhaps only drawback, as a player seeking more than $100 million is his lack of power. He hit 27 home runs in 2012, but recorded just 13 of them this year along with an isolated slugging percentage of .146, essentially league average. Combining average power with a low strikeout rate (14.8% in 2015) and a solid walk rate (9.2%), Heyward’s wRC+ of 121 puts him in the upper third in terms of the league’s hitters. Adding in 23 steals on 26 attempts and the rest of his baserunning, Heyward’s 22 runs above average on offense placed him within the top quarter of qualified hitters. Lacking in top shelf power, Heyward still provided solid numbers on offense, and after a disappointing start with he Cardinals, he hit .306/.375/.455 with a wRC+ of 130 from the beginning of May to the end of the season.

The lack of power does prevent easy comparison to most free agent mega-deals. The names brought up most recently with regard to Heyward are Jacoby Ellsbury, who got seven years and $153 million from the New York Yankees two years ago, and Carl Crawford, who received seven years and $142 million from the Boston Red Sox five years ago. While those deals might no look great now, age is a major factor. When Ellsbury was Heyward’s age, he had just completed his second full season. Crawford debuted young, but due to a team-friendly contract, he did not become a free agent until after his age-28 season, three years older than Heyward. Ellsbury, now 32, has been worth 21 wins since turning 26 while Crawford, 34, has been worth 22 wins over the last eight seasons. Solid production, that, despite some disappointing seasons mixed in.

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Unless you’re Cardinals fan, or you happened to watch a lot of Cardinals games this year, you’ve probably given very little thought to Tommy Pham. It’s very possible that you’d never even heard of him before this year’s playoffs. Heck, it’s even possible you’re still not even sure who he is or where he came from. But the 27-year-old rookie played a big role in Friday night’s game, when he blasted a pinch-hit homer off of Jon Lester in the 8th inning. His homer added an important insurance run for the Cards, extending their lead from one run to two. Check it out.

Hitting a homer isn’t a particularly rare occurrence for Pham, at least not lately. He hit five of them in his 173 big league trips to the plate this year, which helped propel him to a .268/.347/.477 batting line. His home-run total placed him third among Cardinals rookies, trailing only Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty. But unlike his rookie teammates, Pham missed the cut for just about every organizational prospect list — both this season and in every prior season.

His absence from these lists had almost everything to do with his age. Pham turned 27 back in March, making him significantly older than your average rookie. But while 27-year-old impact rookies are few and far between, Pham’s success hasn’t exactly come out of the woodwork. He hit .320/.391/.487 in 603 Triple-A plate appearances between this year and last, which was good for a 132 wRC+. To put that in context, Pham was essentially the Lucas Duda of Triple-A before the Cardinals gave him a call.

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