It might seem easy to envy the life of a major league baseball player: even the least famous of them make a lot of money, have a bunch of Twitter followers, and get to play a game for a living. But it’s always been a little tougher for me to envy the life of a relief pitcher, who seems to experience the worst drawbacks of the job with little of the upside. As opposed to starting pitching — where one’s mistakes can be more easily made up for by logging good innings — relief pitching is simply less forgiving, with every mistake massively amplified. And no pitcher has embodied that more in the past two seasons than Evan Scribner.

You might know about Scribner, as he was just traded from the A’s to the Mariners last month. There’s more than that to him, of course, and one of the big things is the number of strikeouts he’s recorded compared to the number of walks he’s issued. That’s important, because we like the K-BB% stat a lot for pitchers: it’s been shown to be the best ultra-simple ERA estimator we currently have. It’s not perfect, but it can be a handy way to get an idea of how a pitcher could perform in the future. There’s even some work that shows it performed better than xFIP, FIP, and SIERA at predicting second-half ERA after a first half was in the books. All of this is just a set up, really, for this table, which shows the 15 best K-BB% marks for relievers with at least 70 innings pitched between 2014-2015:

The list is pretty much a who’s who of dominant relievers, as every guy in the top 10 is closing or has closed for their respective teams sometime during the past two years. Then there’s Scribner, who sticks out like a sore thumb mostly because of his ERA and the fact that he walks no one. Well, not no one, but in major league terms, he walks no one. He has the lowest walk rate among relievers who have pitched meaningful innings in the past two years (20+ innings), and it’s not particularly close; in raw numbers, he’s walked four batters in 71.2 innings.

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Come eat and drink with FanGraphs readers and writers on Friday, January 22nd in Seattle. We’ve invited some of our best friends in the writing and baseball world to join, as well. There will be free food, happy hour pricing, and good conversation, and we hope you’ll join us. The event runs 5-7 pm in the Mezzanine, but I’m sure you’ll find us downstairs for a while afterwards. Details and attendees are below.

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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: Atlanta / Baltimore / Cincinnati / Kansas City / New York AL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / Seattle / Texas / Toronto.

Batters
The object of considerable attention among the authors of this site, it’s probably not inaccurate to suggest that infielder/outfielder Mookie Betts is riddled with virtue. Or perhaps, afflicted by virtue. In either case, what he’s done is to parlay wide-ranging competence into a star-level profile. He’s projected to produce nearly a 20-20 season while also recording a strikeout rate of about 12%. He certainly doesn’t possess the skill set typical of a right fielder, but he’s equipped to produce wins anywhere, given an opportunity.

Elsewhere, one finds that (a) the second-best projection among Boston’s field players belongs to another 23-year-old, shortstop Xander Bogaerts, (b) ZiPS forecasts a slightly above-average season for Jackie Bradley Jr., and (c) Hanley Ramirez receives a defensive projection for first base!

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Last week, I wrote a retrospective on Jerry Dipoto’s whirlwind first few months as the Seattle Mariners’ general manager. It’s been a time filled with moves, roster churn and intrigue. Yet the biggest curveball of Dipoto’s tenure has occurred since then, as Hisashi Iwakuma’s deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers broke down due to concerns about his physical, which allowed the Mariners to catch Iwakuma on the rebound.

The M’s major offseason moves had apparently been wrapped up, for better or worse, only for this early Christmas present to fall into the team’s lap. (Ironically, the move was announced at the club’s holiday party.) Many lessons can be learned from this turn of events. One is a better understanding of the roles of the player physical and the management of the team salary budget within the business of player procurement. A more subtle, and enlightening takeaway, is how some simple baseball axioms — having defined principles, knowing and scouting your own players better than anyone else’s and letting the game come to you — enabled the Mariners to make their own good fortune.

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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: Atlanta / Baltimore / Cincinnati / Kansas City / New York AL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / Texas / Toronto.

Batters
The arrival of Jerry Dipoto in Seattle has been accompanied by considerable turnover within the club’s roster — some of which is represented in the major-league depth chart. Nori Aoki, Chris Iannetta, and Adam Lind all receive projections in the one-win range. Not unexpected, that, but also not a source of great inspiration to the people of Seattle. Then there’s the case of Leonys Martin. Rendered more or less redundant in Texas, the center fielder is projected to produce 2.5 wins in roughly two-thirds playing time, one of the best marks among the club’s position players.

Elsewhere, the strengths of the club remain the same. Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz, and Kyle Seager are all forecast to record three or more wins. This is particularly encouraging for Cano. After posting a 2.1 WAR in nearly 700 plate appearances this past season, Cano is expected to approach the four-win threshold in 2016.

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Yesterday, December 21, was the deadline for 2016 Baseball Hall of Fame ballots to be submitted. As followers of the process are well aware, quite a logjam has materialized in recent years, due to a confluence of factors, most notably the influx of so-called “steroid era” players, some of whom meet every possible criterion applied to prior candidates, only to be refused entry by the BBWAA. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, two of the ten best baseball players of all time, by any measure, with or without PEDs, languish at the gate of the Hall, ironically gaining just enough votes to deny other worthy candidates the game’s ultimate honor.

Edgar Martinez is one of these players, and arguably might be the one single player (perhaps along with Mike Mussina) whose candidacy has been damaged the most. He became Hall-eligible before Bonds and Clemens, and posted early vote totals that historically would suggest future induction. The tidal wave of talent following him onto the ballot, however, has stopped his vote total in its tracks; this is already his seventh year of eligibility, and to make matters worse, players are now allowed only 10 tries before their name is removed from the ballot and turned over to the Veterans Committee, whose specialty is electing no one.

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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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The other day, I had the opportunity to introduce some of you to Mychal Givens. Based on the response, it was actually a chance to introduce most of you to Mychal Givens, who the Orioles love as a potential major contributor to the bullpen. Givens pitched well, but because he pitched later in the season for a go-nowhere ballclub, he didn’t draw himself a lot of attention, which is why many found the Givens post so surprising. We all feel like we have a pretty good understanding of the game, and of the players involved. It’s unusual to be caught off guard.

That wasn’t a one-off, though. Not that this was intended to be a series, but the Mariners happen to have their own comp. If you love what Givens did in a pretty small sample, you’ll love what the other guy did in an even smaller sample. Like Givens, the mystery pitcher took a big step forward in the minors. Like Givens, he came to the majors and struck a bunch of people out. Like Givens, in the majors, he issued precious few walks. Like Givens, we have a righty with a fastball and a breaking ball; unlike Givens, the mystery pitcher can dial it up even more. Based on track record, the Mariners would currently appear to have a mediocre bullpen. But they might be expecting some major assistance from Tony Zych.

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After Jerry Dipoto was hired as the general manager of the Mariners late in the 2015 season, his early tenure with club became one of the most anticipated programs of the fall season. How would he remake one of the most disappointing teams in the major leagues? Would he tear it down, or would he attempt to reload on the fly and stay relevant in 2016? One thing is for certain: it didn’t take very long to find out.

The champagne was barely dry in the road locker room in Citi Field when Dipoto began his handiwork. Much like an accident scene on the highway, the Mariners’ 2015 season and roster was briefly cordoned off, the gruesome but necessary cleanup work performed, and the road re-opened as good as new. Now that the first 13-week installment of “The Jerry Dipoto Show” is in the books, let’s look back at the highs and lows, and try to make sense of what it all means for the near- to intermediate-term future of the Seattle Mariners.

Episode 1 – The Pilot
Traded SS Brad Miller, 1B Logan Morrison and RHP Danny Farquhar to Rays for RHP Nate Karns, OF Boog Powell, LHP C.J. Riefenhauser.

Dipoto hit the ground running, just a few days after the end of the World Series, with one of the two largest and perhaps most controversial deals of his first offseason. Outfield and starting depth were two prime Mariner concerns for 2016, and middle infield one of their few areas of depth. Exit Miller, who was supplanted late last season by Ketel Marte at shortstop, only to struggle in a multi-positional role afterward.

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When Jerry Dipoto met with the Mariners, and when they decided to hire him, they discussed a plan that would have the team avoid any kind of major rebuild. Retooling is a different process, and currently the Mariners’ process, but the goal is for the team to be competitive. So Dipoto has been busy modifying the roster, with 2016 in mind, and now we have another pair of transactions, the latest finalized just earlier Wednesday. From the A’s, the Mariners added Evan Scribner, which cost them Trey Cochran-Gill. From the Brewers, the Mariners added Adam Lind, which cost them Daniel Missaki, Carlos Herrera, and Freddy Peralta.

Unless you’re unusually knowledgeable about the minor leagues, you don’t know those names. They aren’t the names of high-level prospects, but then, that’s been among the issues — Dipoto hasn’t had a strong system from which to draw. Trading for Wade Miley cost him an arm out of the major-league bullpen. Dipoto is limited, by money, and by the various failures of the preceding administration. So here we are now, with the Mariners adding another two players of moderate interest, each with obvious flaws.

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