If you go to our leaderboards and click on “career,” you’ll get a sample of 3,879 qualified position players, and 2,988 pitchers. If you lower the playing time threshold down to zero on each, you end up with 16,824 and 9,127. Now, obviously there’s some overlap in those numbers, but the point is that at least 16,000 players have suited up for a major league game. In that context, when I note that only 472 players total (314 position, 158 pitcher) have crossed the 40 WAR threshold, you can see it’s a big deal. It’s more or less the top-500 players in the game’s history (you can fill in the gaps — and probably then some — with Negro League players for whom we don’t have WAR or any advanced metrics).

That’s not to say there’s a lot of fanfare with getting to 40 wins. No one throws you a party, and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything to the person. But since we know that 50 WAR is sort of the dividing line for whether a player can be a Hall of Famer (as I noted recently, there are plenty of players in the Hall of Fame who barely cracked the 50 WAR plateau, and I believe there are even some in who are below it), then 40 WAR is sort of the dividing line for whether we’ll argue about a player being deserving of the Hall of Fame. Well, for everyone except relief pitchers, anyway.

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It’s been true for each of the last five years, that Francisco Liriano has finished each season with a higher strikeout rate than the one before it. It’s been true for each of the last four years, that Liriano has finished each season with a slower average fastball velocity than the one before it. The magnitude of these differences isn’t substantial — he’s gained a little more than 2% on his strikeout rate since 2012 and lost a little more than 2 mph — but the trends exist, and they’re headed in opposite directions.

We live in a world where older pitchers are holding their velocity better than ever before, and some are even gaining, despite what decades of convention have led us to believe. Velocity is up. Velocity is correlated with strikeouts, and strikeouts are up. Name a trait or outcome that’s positive for a pitcher — it’s probably up.

Yet clearly, something else besides velocity is working in Liriano’s favor.

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No team has more conspicuously made us look silly than the Royals. Not in the last few years, for all the reasons you already know. Not many things more visible than consecutive trips to the World Series, and when you look at what the Royals did against what the Royals were expected to do, statistically, it’s natural to wonder what’s up. It’s normal to find comments like this one, left earlier today:

Dave, if the Royals once again reach the post season, or even the world series, is it time to re-calibrate the predictive model? In other words weight some of the production measures differently? 4 years in a row isn’t luck.

For some, “projection” is a dirty word, and for others there’s just a certain skepticism. The Royals are the “face” of this feeling, if that makes any sense, because after all, they’re the defending champs, and they were projected to not be very good. There’s absolutely no question the Royals have exceeded statistical expectations the last few years. What might surprise you is another team has done that even more.

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Every time the Pirates acquire a new pitcher, the analysis is basically the same. It’s either super lazy, or super insightful, and I’m not really sure which. Here’s how it goes: while the given pitcher might have had his struggles lately, the stuff is there, and Ray Searage ought to be able to work his magic. Every time. Some fans of some baseball teams wouldn’t even be able to name the pitching coach. Searage is so prominent he all but has to come up every time a new arm is brought into the fold. He’s an enormous part of the Pirates’ plan, and the Pirates are going to put Searage to work on newcomers Yoervis Medina and Juan Nicasio. And others. Always others.

The newest arm, as of today, belongs to Neftali Feliz’s right shoulder. Feliz has signed a one-year contract worth a bit under $4 million, and ordinarily this would be an easy thing to ignore. Feliz wasn’t even brought back by the Tigers, for God’s sake, and he’s coming off an ERA over 6. To many, the most interesting thing about Feliz is what he used to be, years and years ago. Before the starting experiment and elbow surgery. The way this reads is that Searage has just another live-armed project. As I look at it, though, Searage might have less to do here than you’d think. Feliz doesn’t really seem that far off.

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As of this morning, at first base, the Pirates had the right-handed Michael Morse, and the right-handed Jason Rogers. As depth, there’s the right-handed Sean Rodriguez, and though the switch-hitting Josh Bell is on the way, he’s got his own stuff to figure out. So for the Pirates, there was an obvious need. They don’t have a lefty-heavy lineup, and last year they about tied for the highest rate of right-handed pitchers seen. The division projects to be righty-heavy again. The Pirates needed an affordable lefty for first.

Chris Davis is a lefty for first. But then, I said “affordable.” A week and a half ago, when Eno looked at this situation, he settled upon John Jaso. Now the word is out that the Pirates have signed John Jaso. He’s getting two years, and he’s getting $8 million, and if this isn’t the very most Pirates move, it’s at least in the conversation. It doesn’t get much more Pirates than this.

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We spend a lot of time talking about value. Which means we spend a lot of time arguing about value, because value is a difficult thing to nail down, given the ambiguity of the word and issues with some of the statistics. We also spend a lot of time talking about future value, which introduces even greater uncertainty on account of the future hasn’t happened yet. Player value is right at the core of FanGraphs, but a lot of the time it’s incredibly complicated. It’s a refreshing break when you can make it easy.

And I don’t know if it gets easier than evaluating relievers, after the fact. It can still be something of a chore, but relative to other players, it’s a breeze. Relievers get inserted in particular places, and they’re supposed to keep the score where it is. A reliever is supposed to do as much as he can to improve his team’s chances of winning. We can see how the performances went by checking WPA. WPA, of course, includes a leverage component, but then, relievers tend to earn their high-leverage responsibilities. Let’s take a brief look back. Let’s talk about some really valuable relievers.

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You have a choice. I’ll give you $100 right now, or you can let me flip a coin. If it lands on heads, I’ll give you $250. But if it lands on tails, I’ll give you $20. I’m using a fair coin, so the expected value of flipping the coin is $135 based on the 50/50 odds it lands on heads or tails. If you like risk or are a risk-neutral person, it’s an easy decision to take your chances with the coin because the odds are strongly in your favor. If you’re a risk-averse person, however, you’re more likely to take the sure thing because $135 isn’t a whole lot more than $100, and $100 is a whole lot more than $20.

Let’s add another wrinkle. It’s the same choice, but if you choose the coin flip, you have to wait a month. The dollar amounts are the same, but now there’s a time component. To get the value of the coin flip, you need to apply a discount factor to the $135. For some people, that discount factor is pretty close to one, but it might be much lower if you’re strapped for cash and the $100 would dramatically improve your life in the present.

Major league players face a much higher stakes version of this decision when their club comes to them with a contract extension. Do they take a sure thing now, or do they wait and gamble on themselves? While we’re focusing a lot on the 2015-2016 free-agent class this month, there are eight players who could have been free agents for the first time this year but instead chose to cash out early by signing extensions. Did they make the right decision?

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The Pirates’ ZiPS projections came out today, and it’s generally a rosy picture. If you give Pitching Genius Ray Searage some hope with Jon Niese, Jeff Locke, and Allen Webster in the back end of the pitching rotation, and have a little hope in the Jordy Mercer’s bat, you could see league-average or better production all around the diamond. Even if you don’t believe those arms can do it, the team has Tyler Glasnow and Jameson Taillon this year in the minors, perhaps ready to contribute further.

In any case, it looks like more of the same from the Bucs, except for one glaring situation: first base. Michael Morse is fun, Michael Morse has power, but Michael Morse is projected to be a replacement-level first baseman.

It appears, from recent comments made by general manager Neal Huntington to Rob Biertempfel, that the Pirates don’t have much money. Using arbitration projections for their current roster, they might have as little as $5 or $6 million to spend on first base, if they retain their $10 million closer Mark Melancon. How do they find a platoon partner for the right-handed Morse for that kind of scratch?

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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 Pittsburgh Pirates. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Cincinnati / Kansas City / Philadelphia / Toronto.

Batters
Andrew McCutchen has produced between -15 and -20 fielding runs in center field over the past two seasons, according both to Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) and Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR). It’s not ideal, that, but it also represents basically all the flaws in McCutchen’s current profile. Indeed, ZiPS projects the Pirates’ center fielder to improve slightly on his WAR total this coming year in slightly fewer plate appearances.

Because his role was unclear entering 2015, Jung-ho Kang was omitted from the infield portion of last year’s Pittsburgh depth chart; this year, he’s the centerpiece of it. The algorithm in Dan Szymborski’s computer doesn’t account specifically for how Kang’s season ended with a torn meniscus and fractured tibia. What it does account for is how Kang recorded something less than a full complement of plate appearances. Projected to miss all or some of April, Kang’s projected plate-appearance total (494) seems reasonable.

The most notable weakness among the club’s positional projections appears to be first base, currently occupied by Michael Morse. It would be a surprise to find that position occupied by Morse on opening day.

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All along, it seemed like the Mets were the clear frontrunner for Ben Zobrist. The Nationals and the Giants hung around in the periphery, but the Mets were among the earliest suitors, were perhaps most vocal suitor, and the fit made plenty of sense. It came down to the wire, enough for Mets fans to truly get their hopes up, but seemingly at the last minute the Cubs swooped in and made Zobrist their own. Turns out the Cubs had been in on Zobrist all along, but the public didn’t know that, and to New York fans, missing out on Zobrist must have felt like a crushing blow. Zobrist is the kind of player that any team would like to have.

One day after missing out on Zobrist, though, the Mets did what they perceived to be the next-best thing. They acquired Neil Walker from Pittsburgh in exchange for left-handed starter Jon Niese. Niese is set to earn a little over $9 million this season, with a pair of similarly-priced club options in the following two seasons. Walker is in his final year of arbitration, projected for $10.7 million by MLBTradeRumors, and for those reasons, Walker’s been an offseason trade candidate from the start. The Mets could’ve used a second baseman, having lost Daniel Murphy, and having something of a surplus of starting pitching. The Pirates needed starting pitching, having lost A.J. Burnett and J.A. Happ, and having something of a surplus of infielders. This is what the offseason is for.

Yet, in reading reactions to the trade, I couldn’t help but notice that it seemed the consensus was that Walker was a somewhat disappointing fallback plan to Zobrist. A lesser option, or a little brother, or a poor man’s Zobrist. They’re both switch-hitters, and they’ve both been around for a while, and they both play second base, and they were both targeted by the Mets, and they’ve both experienced success (even if Zobrist’s peak has been higher than Walker’s) and so the comparison isn’t surprising.

But I think to categorize Walker as anything less than Zobrist’s equal, at this stage in their careers, would be unfair to Walker. Regard their performance over the last three seasons, with Zobrist’s defensive numbers only coming from his time spent at second base:
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