Barry Larkin is largely expected to answer a phone call Monday afternoon and hear from Jack O’Connell, Secretary of the Baseball Writers Association of America, that he has been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The BBWAA has voted at least one player into Cooperstown in every season since 1996, and Larkin has the best chance of anyone on the ballot this year.

However, that congratulatory phone call is not guaranteed. The long-time Cincinnati Reds shortstop must accumulate another 12.9% of the votes to jump from the 62.1% he garnered last year to the necessary 75% for induction, and the average percentage gained by the last twelve players inducted into the Hall of Fame (not in their first year of eligibility) once reaching the 60% threshold was only 10.8 — which would leave Larkin on the outside looking in for yet another season.

Even if Larkin does follow that trend, though, and only receives 72.9 percent of the vote this year, it seems inevitable that we will eventually be talking about Barry Larkin the Hall of Fame shortstop. And we should be.

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According to Ken Rosenthal and Jon Morosi of FOX Sports, the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds are conferring about a possible deal that would send left-hander Sean Marshall to Cincy in return for fellow-southpaw Travis Wood. It is not immediately clear if other players are being discussed as a part of the deal.

Though no trade has been agreed upon as of yet, the move would significantly help both teams within the context of each organization’s blueprint for future success.

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The Reds and Padres swung a mini-blockbuster today, with Mat Latos heading to Cincinnati in exchange for four players: first baseman Yonder Alonso, catcher Yasmani Grandal, and right-handers Edinson Volquez and Brad Boxberger. We’re all familiar with Volquez because he’s been around a while, and Baseball America recently ranked Alonso, Grandal, and Boxberger as the Reds’ third, fourth, and tenth best prospects, respectively.

Rather than look to fill specific needs — which some felt the Royals did when they traded Zack Greinke to the Brewers last winter — it appears as though the Padres just took the best package of talent they could find. There’s a lot going on here as far as the San Diego is concerned, so let’s break it all down…

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The Cincinnati Reds had an abundance of redundant prospects and a big need to upgrade their starting rotation, so their plan for this off-season was obvious to nearly everyone. They needed to combine a group of good young talents who were blocked from playing regularly and turn them into one high quality starting pitcher. After kicking the tires on nearly every available arm on the market, the Reds finally got their wish today, shipping a quartet of good young talents to San Diego in exchange for 24-year-old Mat Latos.

Let’s start with what the Reds are getting in Latos, who is probably the best fit for their team of any pitcher rumored to be available on the market this winter. During his first two years and change in the Majors, Latos has been one of the better pitchers in baseball. For comparison, here are the starters who have thrown at least 350 innings in the last two years and have posted strikeout rates between 23% and 25%.

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No! Not this Joe Jackson! Oh well, he’s alright too. The early stuff, at least.

Ol’ Pete Rose seems to work on a lunar calendar. Because like any holiday based on a lunar calendar — such as my favorite: Chinese/Lunar New Year — I seem to hear about him every year, at a different time each year, and sometimes twice a year, inexplicably. Oftentimes, he reminds me gently — like a lapping tide reminds the sand of rain, which the Mayans had no concept of 2013.

Anyway, I recently stumbled into a Rob Neyer column concerning said Pete Rose, wherein Neyer discusses the disgraced hitsman and the possibility that Bud Selig will reinstate him.

Frankly, I don’t care too much about Ol’ Rosey. Yeah, he leads the world in hits, but he certainly doesn’t lead the game in wOBA or wRC+ — in fact, depending on the plate appearances requirement, you might find him thereabouts of page 14 on that particular dispay (one sorted by wRC+, that is). To me, that screams empty batting average.

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You can set your watch to it: Every year after the MVP awards are announced, people complain about who got — or didn’t get — votes. We SABR nerds at Fangraphs are no different. But, of course, we look at things a little differently. With that in mind, here are some SABR-darlings who haven’t gotten a single MVP vote in five years — and why that might not change this year.

First things first, though. We need a metric by which to measure player production. Since this is Fangraphs, we’ll use WAR as the measuring stick. I’m using a five-year range because most MVP voters will have had some exposure to advanced metrics during that time.

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On Tuesday, we took a quick look at the competitive balance in the MLB, and I made the claim that baseball may have more parity than most leagues, but it also has want of greater balance. During the course of the piece, I made this statement:

The NFL has decided it wants payroll to have essentially no impact on winning, so teams basically trot out the same amount of money every Sunday and hope their money was better-spent. Is that what the MLB wants?

Aft’wards, Paul Swydan pointed out to me that indeed NFL salaries are not flat. Despite their hard cap, their hefty revenue sharing, and their tight spandex pants, the NFL still exhibits nearly a $77M gap between the biggest and lowest payroll — impressive, but still nothing compared to the MLB:

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By now most baseball fans realize that the majority of bunts decrease the bunting team’s run-scoring. However, we also know that bunting also makes sense in some situations, even for non-pitchers who can hit a little bit. It makes sense from the standpoint of game theory (keeping the fielders honest), can increase run expectancy in some situations, and in some situations in close games, it is better to play for just one run. As I did after last season, I would like to look at the three most successful bunts of the 2011 regular season as measured by Win Probability Added (WPA).

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With a classic World Series — the most exciting in a long time, if not the best-played or best-managed — now over, it is time to hand out individual awards for the 2011 regular season. Sure, some people are anticipating the Cy Young, MVP, and Rookie of the Year announcements, but I bet true baseball fans really pumped for stuff like today’s award, which attempts to measure how much a hitter has contributed to his team’s wins beyond what traditional linear weights indicates. Who is 2011’s King of Little Things?

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It’s hard to believe that just six years ago, 23-year-old Dontrelle Willis threw 236.1 innings for the Florida Marlins and logged one of the better seasons from a starting pitcher over the past decade — 2.63 ERA, 2.99 FIP, and 6.2 WAR.

Since then, Willis has gone from Cy Young contender to replacement-level pitcher. He has become a major-league journeyman, playing with four organizations over the last four years and trying to re-discover the spark that once made him a star.

In that time frame, though, he compiled a 6.15 ERA over 199 innings with more walks (156) than strikeouts (139).

Despite those lackluster numbers, things appeared brighter this year in Cincinnati. Reds’ pitching coach Bryan Price helped smooth out Willis’ mechanics and focused on staying behind the baseball more effectively. He started 13 games in Triple-A Louisville to begin the year and dominated hitters. The walk rate was back down to 2.39 BB/9, and his 2.63 ERA earned him a mid-season promotion to the big leagues.

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