“The biggest thing is that I’m finally healthy,” said Wil Myers before a game with the Giants. After breaking his wrist in the fourth game of the year in 2014, and then following that up with another broken wrist (the other one) about six weeks later, Myers is happy to have his health. Those broken wrists did a number on his game.

After the first wrist broke, Myers played through it. “I still have a bone that sticks out,” Myers said as he points to a protrusion. “And any time I turned this wrist over, this tendon right here was very painful.” Even that first half of last year, before the second injury, Myers had below-average power (.126 Isolated Slugging, .145 is average).

It was worse when he came back from the second broken wrist after 81 days away. “I just didn’t have it,” Myers said as he shook his head. “This forearm looked like a baby’s forearm, I had no muscle.” That’s when his performance really tanked, as his .055 ISO and overall offense that was 50% worse than league average can attest.

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Last week, I wrote a piece looking at minor league players who saw stark decreases in the number of pitches they saw inside the strike zone. My analysis was inspired by recent research by Rob Arthur that suggested drops in Zone% can be early predictors of a breakout. Essentially, Arthur found that hitters who saw fewer pitches down the heart of the plate late in the year often outperformed their projections the following season. By his theory, a pitcher knows a good hitter when he sees one, and chooses to approach him with caution. So when pitchers change their approach, it’s often because the hitter’s gotten more talented.

One of the hitters who jumped to the top of my list was Richard Shaffer, a third baseman in the Tampa Bay Rays organization. Shaffer spent the entire 2014 season in Double-A Montgomery, where he hit an uninspiring .222/.318/.440. Although he hit for a good amount of power last year, the rest of his game left a lot to be desires. KATOH wasn’t thrilled with this lack-luster season — especially his elevated strikeout rate– and gave him just a 50% chance of even reaching the major leagues. Here’s a look at my system’s full break-down of Shaffer’s odds.

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If someone asked you to guess which right fielder provided the most value on the defensive side of the ball last year, the only logical answer is Jason Heyward. Heyward was so far above his compatriots that you almost wonder if he was simply not supposed to be a right fielder and that Fredi Gonzalez’s lineup card handwriting was somehow confusing the players and sending them to the wrong positions.

Heyward posted 32 defensive runs saved and a 24.1 ultimate zone rating in 1317 innings in right field. No one else was even in the ballgame, but if you had to guess who was second, it might be a little more difficult. Enter Kevin Kiermaier. Kiermaier’s 14 DRS and 16 UZR in right field landed him at second on a list of right fielders sorted by DEF, which is UZR and the positional adjustment.

DEF is a cumulative statistic, meaning more opportunities can lead to higher numbers. Heyward’s DEF was 17.3 and Kiermaier’s was 13.3, but Kiermaier played just 526.1 innings in right field last year. If you convert those marks to a rate statistic, say UZR/150, then Kiermaier rockets up to an insane 56.6 UZR/150 while Heyward settles just above 20. By the numbers, Kiermaier was the most dazzling defender we saw in right field last year.

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And now the final division preview, just in time for Opening Day. If you missed them, here are the first five:

NL West
AL West
NL Central
AL Central
NL East

Now, wrapping things up with the AL East.

The Projected Standings

The only division in baseball where all five teams have a legitimate shot at winning; the projected spread between first and last place in the AL East is smaller than the gap between first and second place in the NL East. The forecasts have a favorite, but this division is wide open, and nearly any order of finish could be reasonable. On to the teams themselves.

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We’re in that awkward time between the true offseason, when most deals are made, and the spring, when all the Best Shape of His Life news stars flowing in. Let’s call it Projection Season, because we’re all stuck ogling prospect lists while perusing the projected numbers for the major league squads.

One of the most frustrating things about projection season can be the fact that most projection systems remain agnostic about change. Many of the adjustments the players talk about in season don’t take, or take for a while and then require further adjustment to remain relevant. So projections ignore most of it and assume the player will continue to be about the same as he’s always been until certain statistical thresholds are met and the change is believable from a numbers standpoint.

But projections do worse when it comes to projecting pitching than hitting, so there’s something that pitchers do that’s different than the many adjustments a hitter will make to his mechanics or approach over the course of a season. The submission here is that pitchers change their arsenals sometimes, and that a big change in arsenal radically changes who that player is.

Look at Greg Maddux pitching for Peoria in 1985. He’s not the Greg Maddux we know and love. Watch him throw fourseamers and curveballs. It was enough to get through the minor leagues, but, at that point, he’s barely throwing the two pitches that made him a Hall of Famer eventually.

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Yesterday, we gave you a little bit of a tease, giving you a glimpse into the making of FanGraphs Top 200 Prospect List. This morning, however, we present the list in its entirety, including scouting grades and reports for every prospect rated as a 50 Future Value player currently in the minor leagues. As discussed in the linked introduction, some notable international players were not included on the list, but their respective statuses were discussed in yesterday’s post. If you haven’t read any of the prior prospect pieces here on the site, I’d highly encourage you to read the introduction, which explains all of the terms and grades used below.

Additionally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point you towards our YouTube channel, which currently holds over 600 prospect videos, including all of the names near the top of this list. Players’ individual videos are linked in the profiles below as well.

And lastly, before we get to the list, one final reminder that a player’s placement in a specific order is less important than his placement within a Future Value tier. Numerical rankings can give a false impression of separation between players who are actually quite similar, and you shouldn’t get too worked up over the precise placement of players within each tier. The ranking provides some additional information, but players in each grouping should be seen as more or less equivalent prospects.

If you have any questions about the list, I’ll be chatting today at noon here on the site (EDIT: here’s the chat transcript), and you can find me on Twitter at @kileymcd.

Alright, that’s enough stalling. Let’s get to this.

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As I reported on twitter moments ago, MLB sent a memo to clubs detailing the new process for Cuban players to go from leaving the country to signing with an MLB team. The short version is that super prospect Yoan Moncada is eligible to sign now, after a maddening long delay.

For those new to this topic or if you just want a refresher, here’s a recap of my coverage of this Moncada saga from the start:

– October 3, 2014: Moncada is confirmed out of Cuba, but no one knows where he is.  We assume his whereabouts will become clear soon as he’s the most hyped prospect to leave the island in years. Here I first quote the common “teenage Puig that can play the infield and switch hit” comp and break down all the implications about who can sign him, who is likely to pony up the big bucks, game theory implications and more.

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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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