A couple weeks ago, the Rays signed Everett Teaford to a minor-league contract. Even if you noticed it, you forgot it, because people tend to forget all these minor-league acquisitions, and if you remember Teaford for anything, it’s not for being good. After being not good for the Royals, Teaford spent last year in Korea, where he had a league-average ERA. I don’t know if he changed something; I don’t know if the Rays saw something. But I know I can look at Teaford’s PITCHf/x page on Brooks Baseball, and he’s flashed something of a live heater. The vertical-movement column shows a pitch’s movement relative to a pitch thrown with no spin. The league-average four-seamer comes in just shy of 9 inches. Teaford’s been a little north of 10. That’s where you start talking about rise.

And when you talk about rising fastballs, you’re talking about something of great interest to Tampa Bay. They don’t actually rise, of course — they just don’t sink as much as normal fastballs. And while Teaford might not throw a single pitch for the Rays in the regular season, his fastball, at least, looks like it could fit in. The Rays have something going on, and while they’re not the only team with the idea, they seem like the most aggressive in the implementation.

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The MASN dispute between the Orioles and Nationals continues to wage on in New York state court. As a review, the fight involves an arbitration decision issued last year by MLB’s Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee (the “RSDC”), awarding the Nationals roughly $60 million dollars per year in broadcast rights fees from the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network. This award was nearly $30 million more per year than the team had previously been receiving, but far less than the roughly $120 million it had requested.

The Orioles, who own a majority share of the MASN network, have contested the arbitration outcome, contending that the arbitrators – the owners of the New York Mets, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Tampa Bay Rays – were biased in favor of the Nationals. MASN and the Orioles filed suit back in August, asking the court to overturn the arbitration decision. Last month, the court ordered MLB to produce documents in the case relating to commissioner-elect Rob Manfred’s involvement in the arbitration proceedings.

This week both MASN and the Orioles filed new papers with the court, further describing the alleged bias of MLB and its arbitrators.

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The White Sox have had an incredibly busy offseason, but the goal’s always been clear. The Padres, too, have had a busy offseason, striving for an obvious purpose. Right before the Padres took the industry by storm, it was the Dodgers who were making moves every half hour, toward, again, a clear goal of contention. The A’s have had their own busy offseason, but theirs had been more confusing. Giving three guaranteed years to Billy Butler seemed like a move for a team trying to win. Dealing away a long-term asset like Josh Donaldson seemed like the opposite. To Oakland’s credit, though, they stuck to their own message — they weren’t trying to rebuild. They don’t believe in rebuilds. And now we can see how things all come together.

When the Rays signed Asdrubal Cabrera, after having acquired Nick Franklin last summer, they were provided the flexibility to move Ben Zobrist in advance of his contract year. Zobrist, of course, appealed to just about every team in baseball, on account of his talent and flexibility. Now Zobrist has been moved, and he’s been moved to the A’s, along with Yunel Escobar, in exchange for John Jaso, Daniel Robertson, and Boog Powell. The trade’s interesting from the Tampa Bay side, just because it involves moving one of the best players on the team. And the trade’s interesting from the Oakland side, because it adds a great player at little short-term cost. Score yet another point for those who issue reminders that you shouldn’t judge offseasons until they’re complete.

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Asdrubal Cabrera’s signing with the Rays. There was thought the free-agent middle infielder would get multiple years, given the number of teams looking for a shortstop or a second baseman, but by the reports, Cabrera is signing for one year and something in the vicinity of $8 million. Call it the A.J. Burnett contract, if you’d like. Cabrera’s an unexciting player, signing for unexciting terms.

Whenever you think about a fresh transaction, there’s a desire to find and identify that certain hidden something. That one thing about a given player that made him so appealing to his new team. I don’t think there’s a certain hidden something about Asdrubal Cabrera. He’s a fairly established entity: he’s a relatively poor defensive shortstop who used to be a better player than he is. He can play short but he fits better at second, and his overall offense is close enough to being average you can get away with calling it average. What do you have when you have an average hitter who’s roughly an average overall defender? That’s an average player. Cabrera’s close to that, and maybe a little bit worse.

This isn’t a franchise player, the Rays are signing. This isn’t a player many will remember as having been a Ray five or ten years down the line. This is just one of those small, fine deals every team has to make, and the most interesting thing about it is what it means for other players. The Rays are signing Asdrubal Cabrera, which means more and more people are talking about Ben Zobrist.

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According to Dennis Lin of the U-T San Diego, the San Diego Padres — despite rumors to the contrary — aren’t interested in flipping the recently acquired Wil Myers to the Phillies in exchange for Philadelphia left-hander Cole Hamels.

Writes Lin:

Indications from sources within the organization… are that the Padres intend on playing all three of their newest outfielders, including Myers. The early plan is for the 2013 American League Rookie of the Year to start in center field, flanked by fellow power-hitting right-handers Justin Upton and Matt Kemp.

The bold is mine and the bold is of some interest insofar as center field, with the exception of 51 innings in 2013, isn’t a position at which Wil Myers has spent much time as a major leaguer. He played it to a greater extent in the minors, making about two-thirds as many starts there as he did in right field while still a member of the Royals organization. But one also notes that minor-league defensive assignment aren’t necessarily excellent indicators of future major-league defensive prowess. Miguel Cabrera, for example — on something more intimate than just nodding terms with inertia even as a 20-year-old rookie — nevertheless made more minor-league starts at shortstop than any other position. Michael Morse made 95% of his nearly 500 minor-league starts at shortstop leading up to his 2005 major-league debut. His physique now isn’t identical to his physique then, but he’s still the same human — and that human wasn’t a good shortstop in 2005.

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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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Right-hander Burch Smith has been traded from San Diego to Tampa Bay. “Will he start or not?” is a question a person might reasonably ask about that. What follows is an attempt to answer the question — in part, if not in whole.

At some point during during April or May of 2013, after the latter had produced some conspicuously excellent numbers with Double-A San Antonio, the present author developed a fascination with then-Padres right-hander Burch Smith — including that pitcher, for example, in multiple editions of the Fringe Five.

When Smith was finally promoted to the Padres, it was not unlike Christmas on May 11th. And even after Smith conceded six runs over a single inning in his debut, I remained curiously enamored of him.

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The Winter Meetings revelry has passed. We’re still waiting on a few big trades to finally ‘consummate,’ but the list of free agents is less attractive by day. Before you turn down a chance at glory with the guys left waiting for a team, it’s probably a good idea to look at how badly you need them. This is not dating advice, but it sort of feels like it.

To that end, I’ve taking our depth charts and calculated a quick stat for ‘neediness.’ By averaging team WAR over 13 roster spots — the portion of the 25-man roster usually used for offense — and then looking at the difference between that average WAR and each position WAR, I’ve found a way to show where the biggest remaining lineup holes are.

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Turner, Joe Ross to #Nationals. Myers, Hanigan, Jose Castillo to #Padres. Souza, Ott, Rivera, Smith, Bauers to #Rays (Souza, Ott from Nats).

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 17, 2014

Generally speaking, in such cases as a prospect — or any player, really — possesses a combination of power and speed, said player is regarded with some interest by what is referred to broadly as the “scouting community.” While sabermetricians have (in the past, at least) cultivated a reasonable suspicion about such players — or, at least the level of enthusiasm exhibited on their behalfs — it’s also true that those players who’ve both (a) demonstrated power and speed have also generally (b) developed into above-average major leaguers.

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Earlier today, Kiley McDaniel published his consummately researched and demonstrably authoritative prospect list for the Tampa Bay Rays. What follows is a different exercise than that, one much smaller in scope and designed to identify not Tampa Bay’s top overall prospects but rather the rookie-eligible players in the Rays system who are most ready to produce wins at the major-league level in 2015 (regardless of whether they’re likely to receive the opportunity to do so). No attempt has been made, in other words, to account for future value.

Below are the top-five prospects in the Rays system by projected WAR. To assemble this brief list, what I’ve done is to locate the Steamer 600 projections for all the prospects to whom McDaniel assessed a Future Value grade of 40 or greater. Hitters’ numbers are normalized to 550 plate appearances; starting pitchers’, to 150 innings — i.e. the playing-time thresholds at which a league-average player would produce a 2.0 WAR. Catcher projections are prorated to 415 plate appearances to account for their reduced playing time.

Note that, in many cases, defensive value has been calculated entirely by positional adjustment based on the relevant player’s minor-league defensive starts — which is to say, there has been no attempt to account for the runs a player is likely to save in the field. As a result, players with an impressive offensive profile relative to their position are sometimes perhaps overvalued — that is, in such cases where their actual defensive skills are sub-par.

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