It might not be fair to say the Tampa Bay Rays don’t care about player makeup concerns. You could conceivably come up with a hypothetical talented player so awful the Rays wouldn’t take a chance. Based on precedent and indications, it might be fair to say the Rays care the least about player makeup concerns of any team in the league. Almost by necessity, if you figure the Rays need to identify exploitable inefficiencies in order to survive. Given such, perhaps the least surprising move of the winter meetings so far is that the Rays acquired Yunel Escobar from the Marlins in exchange for Derek Dietrich.

Strip away the traits that make this deal unique and it makes plenty of sense on the face of it. Escobar wasn’t much of a fit with Miami, since the Marlins prefer Adeiny Hechavarria at shortstop. The Rays were looking for an everyday shortstop, the acquisition of which would allow Ben Zobrist to go back to roaming. The Rays wanted someone good now; the Marlins wanted someone potentially good later. Escobar is affordable, at $5 million in 2013, with $5 million options for each of the next two years. If the offseason is about front offices answering as many questions as they can, the Rays and Marlins both just answered questions by swinging this deal.

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Is Josh Johnson still an ace?

The 2012 season had some encouraging signs after shoulder injuries cut short potential Cy Young campaigns in 2010 and 2011. Johnson posted a 3.81 ERA and 3.40 FIP, but more importantly he took the mound 31 times, showing he at least has the ability to make it through an entire season without major issue.

But the results have to be considered unsatisfactory relative the the prior three seasons. In 458 innings from 2009 to 2011, Johnson managed a brilliant 2.64 ERA and 2.74 FIP. I watched one of Johnson’s more typical starts from 2012 — September 12th against Philadelphia (7 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 6 K, 3 BB, 1 HR) — and I came away with two questions, the answers to which will determined if Johnson can return to his prior ace level.

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There’s a fair amount of belief out there that the Marlins should finish the job they started with the Blue Jays and trade their biggest chip for a huge package now. And the 23-year-old masher now named Giancarlo Stanton is quite the chip. He enters his final seasons at the league minimum just seven home runs short of triple digits, and still has three years of team control remaining after the upcoming one. It’s those years of control that provide room for the most debate about his value.

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Early Sunday morning, Twitter was abuzz with news that the Dodgers and Fox Sports West had agreed to a 25-year broadcast deal valued between $6 billion and $7 billion. By Sunday afternoon, Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times had confirmed the outline of the deal, but cautioned that the Dodgers and Fox were still negotiating, with a November 30 deadline looming.

As I explained last week in this post, the parties’ existing agreement gave Fox an exclusive, 45-day window in which to negotiate a new deal to govern the 2014 season and beyond. Hence, the November 30 deadline. If an agreement isn’t inked by Friday, the Dodgers must submit a final offer to Fox by December 7. Fox then has 30 days to accept or reject the offer. If Fox rejects the offer, the Dodgers are free to negotiate with whomever they want.

However the negotiations play out, it’s clear now that the Dodgers’ local TV revenue is about to enter the stratosphere. A 25-year deal worth between $6 billion and $7 billion would net the Dodgers between $240 million and $280 million per year. Per year. That’s more than any team has ever spent on player salaries in a single season — even the Yankees. And it’s nearly double the amount of local TV revenue pulled in annually by the team with the second-most lucrative deal — the other Los Angeles team (the Angels) — which entered into a 17-year deal with Fox Sports West worth $2.5 billion.

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Episode 278
Prospect analyst Mike Newman considers, among other topics, the impact a deep minor-league system can have on an organization’s ability to acquire major-league talent — not unlike what happened in the recent trade that saw Toronto acquire Mark Buehrle, John Johnson, and Jose Reyes from Miami.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 53 min play time.)

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No.

The Marlins didn’t kill publicly-financed ballparks. Or arenas. Or stadiums. Not in Florida. Not anywhere. Sure, the Marlins’ fire-sale trade with the Blue Jays — which came less than a year after the opening of the publicly-financed Marlins Ballpark — won’t help the cause of those seeking public monies to build new sports facilities. But teams will continue to seek public financing and municipalities will continue to say yes.

Why?

Because the Marlins’ swindling of the Miami-Dade taxpayers is nothing new. It’s simply the latest example of public officials falling prey to threats that a city’s team will leave and fancy reports prepared by team consultants that say a new ballpark will bring jobs, tax revenue and economic development — despite study after study that shows those claims hardly ever are true.

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Episode 277
FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron analyzes all baseball — and, in particular, the part of baseball concerning how the Marlins have made a mistake by abandoning all hope so far as the 2013 season is concerned. Also: both guest and host make multiple unsubstantiated claims regarding the art world. Also-also: Your 2013 Blue Jays, Toronto.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 29 min play time.)

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It’s the bottom of the eighth inning. Men are on first and third base, there’s one out and your team is down by one run. The opposing team has one of the best ground-ball pitchers on the hill, and the infield is playing back and is looking for a double play. All you need is a fly ball to tie the game and significantly swing your chances of winning.

So who do you want at the plate?

It’s likely that the opposing manager will either bring in a ground-ball specialist or just tell the pitcher to stay away from pitches that could be hit in the air to the outfield. Knowing who you’d want to hit requires an understanding of what pitches are the most likely to induce a ground ball — and what hitters manage to hit fly balls against those pitches most often.

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Last night, the Marlins traded every player on their active roster with a 2013 salary greater than $1.6 million, save for Ricky Nolasco, who’s owed $11.5 million next season. And Nolasco may be gone soon, too. The Marlins’ latest fire sale came less than a year after Miami signed free agents Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle, and Heath Bell to great fanfare, as the team prepared to christen the new, publicly-financed Marlins Ballpark. Now, all those players are gone. Reyes and Buerhle were traded last night to the Blue Jays, along with starter Josh Johnson, outfielder Emilio Bonifacio, and catcher John Buck.  Bell was sent to the Diamondbacks in late October. When the Marlins open their second season in the new ballpark, fans will see Giancarlo Stanton in right field and a lot of unknown young players scattered around the diamond.

Tuesday’s trade was just the latest purge by Marlins’ owner Jeffrey Loria, after the latest spending binge, after the prior purge. Loria’s pattern is well-known and has landed him in hot water occasionally, although not nearly as frequently — or as hot — as his critics demand.  One such critic is the players’ union. The Major League Baseball Players Association complained for years that the Marlins violated the league’s revenue-sharing plan by using the money received under the plan for everything but improving the product on the field, as is required. Between 2002 and 2010, the Marlins reportedly received close to $300 million in revenue sharing. With the threat of a formal grievance, the Players Association forced an agreement from the Marlins to use all revenue-sharing proceeds on player development and salaries for three seasons. The agreement was announced in January 2010 and now, three seasons later, has expired. Imagine that.

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It’s true, probably. If you remove emotion from the equation, the Marlins of the past two decades have been a successful corporation. Even under the newest ownership, they’ve satisfied all of the requirements you might put on a great franchise. Your appraisal of their work to date, and even their trade this week, includes emotion, but an honest eye towards the bottom line can put a different spin on all of it.

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