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Right-hander Tyler Chatwood signed with the Cubs today for three years and around $40 million, according to Jon Morosi. The contract is about what one might expect. Dave Cameron, for example, called for Chatwood to receive $10 million a year for three years. The Cubs have given him more annually than Cameron expected. But for one of the youngest pitchers on the market, it’s not absurd.

But there’s also another reason for optimism regarding Chatwood’s near future besides just his relative youth. Given the tools at our disposal, there appears to be evidence that Chatwood’s stuff hasn’t fully translated into results.

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The hot stove is flickering! There is actual news!

Cubs have agreed to a three-year deal with RHP Tyler Chatwood

— Sahadev Sharma (@sahadevsharma) December 7, 2017

Chatwood was one of the more interesting free agents in this class. Mike Petriello made a case for why Chatwood could be this year’s Charlie Morton, a high-velocity guy with a high-spin curveball who just needs a change of scenery. He was always likely to sign with an analytically-inclined organization, and the Cubs certainly qualify.

Chatwood ranked 17th among our Top 50 free agents heading into the off-season, with projections that work out to roughly league-average pitching when he’s on the mound, with durability a legitimate question.

I projected he’d get $30 million over three years, but it sounds like he did a bit better than that.

Tyler Chatwood's contract with #Cubs is worth around $40 million over 3 years, source says. @MLB @MLBNetwork

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) December 7, 2017

At nearly $40 million, Chatwood is no huge bargain, but there are definitely things to like about having him as a back-end starter with upside. There’s also plenty of risk here, of course, and the fact that an upside play with a limited track record of success costs $40 million tells you that this is a good winter to be a free agent pitcher.

In the next few days, it’s expected that Giancarlo Stanton will decide whether he’s going to waive his no-trade clause to join the San Francisco Giants or, less likely, the St. Louis Cardinals. Those are the two teams that have struck deals with the Marlins, and both made their pitch to him in person last week. Stanton has appeared to be holding out hope that the Dodgers would get into the mix, though to this point, no public reports have suggested they’ve seriously engaged the Marlins in discussions.

The Dodgers’ reticence likely has to do with their CBT tax position. Acquiring Stanton would put them over the tax threshold again, and, as I laid out in my argument for why the Dodgers should be interested, acquiring Stanton would probably force the team to choose between re-signing Clayton Kershaw or making a big run at Bryce Harper in free agency next winter. And according to Ken Rosenthal, the Marlins aren’t interested in taking back any current payroll in a Stanton deal, as they try to trim their 2018 player expenses to under $90 million.

But despite the Marlins’ apparent tunnel vision here, there still might be a way for both sides to get what they’re looking for, and it’s one of Friedman’s go-to moves: the three-way trade.

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Riley Pint has a golden arm and a sky-high ceiling. The 20-year-old right-hander reaches triple digits, which helped prompt the Colorado Rockies to take him fourth overall in the 2016 draft. He’s the best pitching prospect in the system and a potential big-league ace.

The numbers don’t reflect that. Since signing out of an Overland Park, Kansas, high school, Pint is 3-16 with a 5.40 ERA and a 1.70 WHIP. This past season, he walked 59 batters in 93 innings at Low-A Asheville. To say he’s a work in progress would qualify as an understatement.

Are the Rockies concerned? I asked Zach Wilson, the club’s director of player development, for his appraisal of the youngster’s development.

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Zach Wilson on Pint: “Numbers are numbers, and in the development world, they don’t tell the whole story. As a matter of fact, they tell very little of the story. Walking [59] guys in fewer than 100 innings is going to raise a red flag to somebody staring at a stat line, but this was a 19-year-old in his first full season — and we were aggressive with him. The numbers weren’t a concern to us whatsoever. This was just a small part of the global developments scenario for Riley. He made strides.

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I think we all understand the present circumstances. The Marlins are trying to trade Giancarlo Stanton in order to clear payroll, and they’ve reached general agreements with both the Cardinals and the Giants. From the Cardinals, the Marlins would get talent and salary relief. From the Giants, the Marlins would get talent and salary relief. There are differences, obviously, but right now you’d think there are only these two finalists. Stanton has full no-trade protection, but he doesn’t want to stick around where he is, and so we’re getting to a decision point. Stanton will soon need to pick St. Louis or San Francisco.

Or neither. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but Stanton grew up and played high-school ball around Los Angeles. We’re not familiar with Stanton’s actual thoughts, but the consensus opinion is that Stanton’s ideal outcome would be a trade to the Dodgers. To this point, we haven’t heard much about the Dodgers’ trade interest. Stanton wouldn’t be the type of add they typically make. And yet, here we are. The Dodgers continue to loom over this whole thing.

This can obviously change as it goes, but Giants expect a Stanton decision by the end of the week. I’m hearing they continue to view Dodgers, not Cardinals, as biggest threat.

— Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) December 6, 2017

Giancarlo Stanton? Stanton has plenty of leverage. But so do the Dodgers. The Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes are unusual, but so is this situation, with Stanton effectively able to hold out until he gets what he wants.

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The most curious entry on Shohei Ohtani’s list of seven finalists is the San Diego Padres. Given the club’s relatively diminutive market and general lack of competitiveness over the last decade, the Padres don’t immediately profile as a destination for a player of Ohtani’s magnitude.

But the Padres aren’t the only outlier. There’s another. If not quite as unexpected as the Padres, the Cubs certainly represent the second-most surprising team on Ohtani’s list.

The Cubs have the market. They also have a recent track record of success and the roster to compete in the future. They represent a geographic outlier among Ohtani’s remaining suitors, though. Of those seven final clubs, the Cubs are located in the eastern-most and coldest-climate city. For a player who seems to have a strong preference for playing on the West Coast and in ideal weather conditions, Chicago is a curious choice.

Ohtani eliminated every other NL East, AL East, NL Central, and AL Central club, en route to selecting his final seven teams. That he retained the Cubs must mean that he really likes something about the team apart from geography and market size. In other words, he really likes something about the Cubs that their decision-makers within the organization can control or sell.

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After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Texas Rangers. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
In 2017, six of the Rangers’ position players surpassed the two-win threshold. Only one of that group (Carlos Gomez, specifically) appears likely to play elsewhere next season. In light of that lone departure, one might expect something on the order of five players to record two or more wins in 2018. Dan Szymborski’s computer, however, clearly operates by a different sort of calculus.

Indeed, a brief examination of the tables below reveals that only Adrian Beltre (430 PA, 2.7 zWAR) is forecast by ZiPS to record two-plus wins next year. As for the other four returnees, all are projected to endure some manner of regression: worse numbers on contact for Elvis Andrus (656, 1.9) and Robinson Chirinos (270, 1.3); more strikeouts and fewer extras bases for Joey Gallo (507, 1.7); and what appears to be fewer runs from defense and probably baserunning for Delino DeShields (471, 0.4).

This isn’t the end of the bad news, either: all told, four positions on the rough depth chart below — catcher, second base, center field, and designated hitter — are accompanied by a rounded WAR figure of 0 or 1. A very dreary sort of binary code, is how one might characterize that.

One, desperate for an optimistic note, can find it in Willie Calhoun’s projection (586, 1.9). Part of the return for Yu Darvish, Calhoun lacks a defensive home. What he doesn’t lack, however, is a promising offensive profile. ZiPS calls for markedly above-average contact and power numbers, represented by his 13.1% strikeout rate and .220 isolated-slugging figure, respectively.

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The Indians signed reliever Dan Otero to a deal yesterday. It wasn’t for much in baseball terms, $2.5 million over two years, and that might make sense. He doesn’t strike anyone out and is only projected to be a little bit better than league average. That’s if you look at his overall arsenal. If you pick one pitch, he’s got a good one.

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Coming into the offseason, the Rangers needed to add pitching. Just pitching, regular pitching, any kind of pitching. They looked thin in the rotation and they looked thin in the bullpen, and that makes things both complicated and entirely simple. Complicated, in that the Rangers needed plenty of help. Simple, in that there’s a lot of potential help out there. Already, the Rangers have added Doug Fister. Fister will help. The deal looks good.

The Rangers are one of the seven finalists for Shohei Ohtani. Obviously, landing him would be a dream. The team was also interested in Miles Mikolas, but he’s decided to sign with the Cardinals. Matt Bush is attempting a conversion from the bullpen to the rotation. And now, according to reports, the Rangers are signing Mike Minor to a multi-year deal. Minor entered the market as one of the most in-demand available relievers. The Rangers could use him as a reliever — but, apparently, Plan A is to convert him, too. Minor will get a chance to start, and the Rangers might end up with a six-man rotation.

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Two weeks ago, commissioner Rob Manfred announced the punishment for Atlanta following illicit efforts by former general manager John Coppolella to avoid exceeding bonus-pool limits in international free agency. At the center of that punishment: the dissolution of contracts for 12 players acquired by means that violated league policy.

Today, one of the more promising ex-Braves has signed with the Royals. MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez reports:

The signing by Kansas City of right-hander Yefri Del Rosario is notable for a couple reasons. One, because he represents the first of the former Atlanta prospects to sign with another team. And two, because Del Rosario’s deal might provide clues as to the bonuses likely to be received by the 11 other players in question.

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