The way in which people evaluate defense fascinates me. Not because I find defense fascinating, per se, but because it strikes me as a very different evaluation process than the one most people use when evaluating offensive performance. I think this applies to both casual and die-hard fans, just to varying degrees.

Offensive evaluation is largely based on basic accounting. As a fan, analyst, or someone directly connected to the game, you weigh a player’s offensive actions against one another to develop an idea of their performance. Some people might choose to use a linear weights structure, or some might think only in RBI or RISP, but the methodology is largely consistent for each person. Each plate appearance is weighed based on its importance and not on the outcome.

Some will choose to treat each PA pretty equally, some will choose to place a lot of weight on certain moments, but it’s a predictable process. When evaluating defense, I believe things get much less clear.

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Despite television deals with ESPN, FOX, and TBS that will net Major League Baseball an average of $1.5 billion per year over the next years, franchises derive most of their revenue locally. Ticket sales, advertising, naming rights, local radio broadcasting rights, and local television rights constitute the majority of each team’s revenue. In recent years, new local television deals have generated incredible revenues with one-third of all teams now having signed deals worth at least one billion dollars. The deals have raised a question: When will this television rights bubble burst and send these skyrocketing guarantees back to earth? The Arizona Diamondbacks new television deal, believed to be in excess of one billion dollars, partly answers the question: Not yet.

Skepticism regarding the continual rise of local television contracts is justified. There have been indications recently that all is not well for the regional sports networks. The Los Angeles Dodgers generated news when they signed a contract worth more than $8 billion two years ago. Unfortunately for the Dodgers, that contract is still generating news as Time Warner Cable has been unable to successfully negotiate with the rest of the television providers in the Los Angeles area, leaving 70% of LA homes without the ability to watch Dodgers games on television. The San Diego Padres have had trouble getting their product in local homes before reaching a deal prior to the start of last season, and Houston’s deal has been a disaster as they try to charge high subscriber prices to watch a team they had no plans to make successful for several seasons.

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Yesterday, we gave you a little bit of a tease, giving you a glimpse into the making of FanGraphs Top 200 Prospect List. This morning, however, we present the list in its entirety, including scouting grades and reports for every prospect rated as a 50 Future Value player currently in the minor leagues. As discussed in the linked introduction, some notable international players were not included on the list, but their respective statuses were discussed in yesterday’s post. If you haven’t read any of the prior prospect pieces here on the site, I’d highly encourage you to read the introduction, which explains all of the terms and grades used below.

Additionally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point you towards our YouTube channel, which currently holds over 600 prospect videos, including all of the names near the top of this list. Players’ individual videos are linked in the profiles below as well.

And lastly, before we get to the list, one final reminder that a player’s placement in a specific order is less important than his placement within a Future Value tier. Numerical rankings can give a false impression of separation between players who are actually quite similar, and you shouldn’t get too worked up over the precise placement of players within each tier. The ranking provides some additional information, but players in each grouping should be seen as more or less equivalent prospects.

If you have any questions about the list, I’ll be chatting today at noon here on the site (EDIT: here’s the chat transcript), and you can find me on Twitter at @kileymcd.

Alright, that’s enough stalling. Let’s get to this.

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I returned a few days ago from a three-day trip to the Dominican to see top July 2nd prospects (more on that in the coming weeks) and also a workout that had 18 Cuban players in it. Two of those 18 were big-time prospects, the well-known and hyped 29-year-old 2B Hector Olivera and the brand new name, 18-year-old righty Yadier Alvarez.  Here’s my notes and video on those two, along with some quick updates on the other two notable Cubans on the market, 2B/3B/CF Yoan Moncada and 2B Andy Ibanez.

For reference, in my top 200 prospects list that is coming next week, these Cuban players aren’t included on the list, but Moncada would be 8th, Alvarez would be 57th and Ibanez would be in the 150-200 range, while Olivera is ineligible due to his age and experience.

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As I write this on the afternoon of February 1, the Diamondbacks catching depth chart looks like this:

#31 Diamondbacks

That’s a position for a major league baseball team! A not particularly good or even interesting team, but a major league team nonetheless. Look at it. Bask in it. If the concept of “replacement level” needed a human face, well, here’s a bunch of them. With barely more than two weeks before pitchers report to begin throwing to those catchers, that’s what the Diamondbacks look like they’re going to have. It’s been nearly two months since Miguel Montero was dealt to the Cubs, and everyone assumed that another move would be coming, some way to ensure that the team would have at least a single dependable catcher to make it through the season.

Despite some rumors, nothing’s happened. Dioner Navarro is still a Blue Jay, despite Russell Martin. Welington Castillo, seemingly made redundant by Montero and David Ross joining the Cubs, is still in Chicago, and if a deal was going to be there, it seems like it would have been there within the Montero deal. Carlos Corporan is a Ranger. Geovany Soto went to the White Sox. A ton of other catchers — Ryan Hanigan, Rene Rivera, Yasmani Grandal, Derek Norris, Hank Conger, etc. — found themselves on the move. The top remaining free agent catcher is probably 35-year-old Gerald Laird, which is to say, there’s no longer any remaining free agent catchers.Update: Of course they did.

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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 Arizona Diamondbacks. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Chicago AL / 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
Offensively, first baseman Paul Goldschmidt has evolved into a broadly skilled weapon, reproducing not only the above-average home-run and walk rates that he posted in the minors, but also recording above-average BABIP and base-running figures. His projection for 2015 suggests he’ll continue doing all these sorts of things.

Nor is Goldschmidt alone in his hitting abilities. David Peralta, A.J. Pollock, Yasmany Tomas, and Mark Trumbo are all starters forecast to produce above-average offensive lines. For all them, with the exception of Pollock, the question is less of offensive — and more of defensive — ability. There’s a real possibility, supported by ZiPS, that each is occupying a place on the defensive spectrum probably more demanding than the actual skills warrant.

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This morning, Ben Badler of Baseball America reported that the Diamondbacks have agreed to sign Cuban right-handed pitcher Yoan Lopez to a deal that includes an $8.25 million signing bonus. In comparison to the types of dollars we’ve seen for previous Cuban defectors, that number might seem somewhat small, but because of Lopez’s age and the rules surrounding international free agents younger than 22, Arizona has actually agreed to pay an extremely high price for the rights to sign the 21 year old hurler.

First, a quick refresher on the rules. Because MLB wanted international signings to somewhat mimic the way the amateur draft works, foreign players under the age of 22 are subject to bonus pool allocation limits. Like with the draft, these bonus pools are sliding scales based on prior season record, so teams that finished with the worst records get the most money to spend. Because the Diamondbacks finished with the worst record in baseball last year, they are going to receive the largest international bonus pool of any team for the signing period that begins on July 2nd.

However, by signing Lopez, they just punted the opportunity that comes with having the most money to spend, because the $8.25 million bonus that they gave Lopez pushed them way over their limit for the current signing period. The penalty for exceeding their pool allocation is a 100% tax on their overage and an inability to sign any player for more than $300,000 during either of the next two international signing periods, so while the Diamondbacks will be given a bonus pool in the range of $5 million for the upcoming July 2nd crop of talent, they won’t be able to spend it; there just aren’t enough legitimate prospects who will want to sign with Arizona for $300,000 apiece for them to use up their ~$5 million allocation.

And realistically, the 2016-2017 signing period will probably be similar. The Diamondbacks project as one of the worst teams in baseball for next season as well, so they’ll likely also have one of the larger bonus pools for the signing period that begins in 18 months, and again not be able to utilize it due to the restriction imposed by signing Yoan Lopez. Because of their poor Major League performances, the Diamondbacks were in a position to be able to make some significant international signings over the next two years, but they’ve decided that signing Lopez now will provide a better return than the chance to sign impact talents over the next two signing periods.

Now, there is some potential logic to this move, even beyond just the fact that Lopez might be really good. The signing restriction isn’t the same thing as the pool allocation being stripped away, as it is when a team forfeits a draft pick to sign a free agent; the Diamondbacks will still get the largest pool allocation for next year even after this signing. And because you can trade international bonus slots, Arizona will now have some pretty interesting trade chips to play with the next two summers. Any team who wants to sign a prospect for more than their own allocation, but without having to take the signing restriction policy, can now call up Dave Stewart and attempt to acquire some extra bonus money, and the Diamondbacks should be able to extract some prospects in return for the bonus money they can’t use.

And, there is some chance that MLB will just tear this whole system up in the next CBA, since it’s very clear the roadblocks the league tried to put in place to stop this kind of spending aren’t working. The current CBA expires on December 1, 2016, so if a new international system is put in place, it’s possible that the second year signing restriction could be eliminated, or at least converted into some other kind of penalty under whatever new system is adopted. Perhaps Tony LaRussa has some inside information on the likelihood of this system getting abolished before the second year restriction gets put in place, and so Arizona will take less of a hit for signing Lopez than currently appears.

And, of course, there’s always the possibility that Lopez just turns out to be a dominant #1 starter, which would make all of this a footnote; if he’s an elite talent, then these are easy prices to pay to acquire six years of team control. So, it’s not like this is a guaranteed disaster. Lopez could easily justify his acquisition cost if he turns into a good big league starter.

But don’t let the $8.25 million figure fool you; the Diamondbacks are paying far more than that to sign this kid. They had already previously announced five international free agent signings this period, with Badler reporting that two of the signings received $350,000 apiece, so they had already spent close to $1 million of their $2.3 million in allocated funds. By adding Lopez’s $8.25 million to the total, they’re looking at an overage tax of roughly $7 million, so the pure financial cost of signing him is really more like $15 million. And that’s without factoring in the opportunity cost of surrendering the largest pool allocation in next year’s international signing period, and potentially one of the largest bonus pools in the signing period after that as well.

This signing just made Lopez one of the most expensive pitching prospects in history. The signing bonus might look like peanuts in today’s baseball economy, but Lopez cost Arizona a lot more than just his $8 mlilion signing bonus.

Adding in a couple of comments from Kiley McDaniel, which he noted on Twitter.

Scout told me Yoan Lopez similar to Nick Howard (19th pick 2014 draft). Another prefers Lopez “by a hair” to teammate Touki Toussaint (16th)

— Kiley McDaniel (@kileymcd) January 13, 2015

I repeated those two quotes to a third source, who said he’s much lower on Lopez & he sees RP. Pro debut should clear a lot of this up.

— Kiley McDaniel (@kileymcd) January 13, 2015

International baseball has been in the news often lately with the ongoing saga of Yoan Moncada (he’s in America now), the signing of Yasmany Tomas and yesterday’s news that Cuba-U.S. relations could be getting much better.  In recent news, at the yearly international scouting directors’ meeting at the Winter Meetings last week, sources tell me there was no talk about the recent controversial rule change and no talk about an international draft, as expected.

So much has been happening lately that you may have temporarily forgotten about last summer, when the Yankees obliterated the international amateur spending record (and recently added another prospect). If the early rumors and innuendo are any indication, the rest of baseball isn’t going to let the Yankees have the last word.

I already mentioned the Cubs as one of multiple teams expected to spend well past their bonus pool starting on July 2nd, 2015.  I had heard rumors of other clubs planning to get in the act when I wrote that, but the group keeps growing with each call I make, so I decided to survey the industry and see where we stand.  After surveying about a dozen international sources, here are the dozen clubs that scouts either are sure, pretty sure or at least very suspicious will be spending past their bonus pool, ranked in order of likelihood:

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I was asked the other day why there hadn’t even so much as been any noise on the Yankees trying to find a new shortstop. It was a known wide-open hole, and it didn’t seem like any negotiations had developed. But, sometimes, things come together quickly. Other times, things come together slowly, and we just don’t hear about them in the lead-up. The Yankees now have their new shortstop, and it’s a player who’s been rumored to be available for a while. Yet what we don’t have is a two-team straight-up player swap.

The Yankees are getting Didi Gregorius, who’s long been a candidate to fill the vacancy, what with Arizona also having Chris Owings. But this is a three-team trade, with the Tigers involved, and they’re getting Shane Greene from New York. Finally, the Diamondbacks are getting Robbie Ray and one Domingo Leyba, both from Detroit. It’s a trade full of second-tier intrigue, and I think the best way to do this is to discuss the move by breaking it up into team-specific sections. It seems to me like the Yankees did well, and the Tigers did well, too. The Diamondbacks are taking the biggest risk.

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It was the Diamondbacks who managed to swoop in and get Yasmany Tomas signed to a contract. The raw terms are six years and $68.5 million, which is a bit lower than what was expected, but then that skips over the critical opt-out clause after year four. The clause is a benefit to the player and not to the team, so the clause has significant value, and you barely have to value it at anything to conclude that Tomas signed what’s effectively the biggest contract yet for a Cuban. While his deal doesn’t have the highest sum, it is the most player-friendly.

It remains to be seen what the Diamondbacks do with Tomas. It remains to be seen what the Diamondbacks do with the rest of their roster, and it remains to be seen whether this deal will end up being worth it. Arizona now has an extra-crowded outfield, with first base occupied by a young superstar, so it seems like some pieces will have to be moved around. That’s something to be thought about another day. For this day, let’s consider, what kind of player might Yasmany Tomas be?

There are a handful of good scouting reports out there to be read. Scouting reports provide a good idea of the current understanding of a player’s various strengths and weaknesses, and Tomas has been written up by Ben Badler and Kiley McDaniel, among others. My intention here is to take things one step further. Drawing upon what’s been written by people like Badler, McDaniel, and Jesse Sanchez, I want to identify player comparisons such that I can find an estimate of Tomas’ overall value. This, then, is a bit of an experiment, but let’s make a player out of the Yasmany Tomas scouting reports.

Read the rest on Just A Bit Outside.