In my regular Wednesday chat this week, this question popped up:

Interestingly, a few days before, I’d been thinking about the narrative of the Yankees heading into 2016, and how so much of it is being driven by their lack of free agent spending this winter. It’s almost historically unprecedented for the Yankees to sit out an entire free agent class, but this winter, the team decided to make their upgrades through the trade market instead, and thus have not signed a single player to a major league contract this off-season. With the Red Sox stocking up for another run, the Blue Jays likely to still be a force, and the Rays and Orioles doing enough to keep themselves around .500, the Yankees are in the unusual position of being something of an afterthought in the AL East.

Thus, we get questions like this one from Christian, asking for some hope that his team might contend in 2016. Well, fear not, Christian; not only do I think there are reasons to think the Yankees are legitimate contenders, I think they might actually be the most underrated team in baseball heading into the season.

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The Yankees have assembled one of the most intimidating bullpens imaginable. This is covering ground that’s been covered, but seriously, you’re not doing anything better with your time — think about this again. The Yankees have Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, and Dellin Betances. Last year they threw 212 innings, with 347 strikeouts and a 1.66 ERA. The year before, they did the same thing. It would be a luxury to have just one of these pitchers, and this feels like something off of a fantasy roster. If the Yankees keep this group together, it’s going to help the starting rotation, and it could be an unhittable daily force in the playoffs.

As I wrote about the Chapman trade last week, I discussed how this should only continue an organizational pattern. Last year’s Yankee bullpen was outstanding, with Justin Wilson in place of Chapman. The Yankees have gotten used to strong bullpens, with Joe Girardi proving himself a skilled high-leverage manager. I didn’t think too much about this a few days ago, but now that I’ve taken the time to look back, it’s been ages since the Yankees had unreliable relief. According to how they’ve actually performed, the Yankees haven’t had a below-average bullpen in two decades.

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Your immediate reaction to the Aroldis Chapman trade was right on. The Yankees have assembled something silly, a three-headed bullpen monster to rival any in the history of the game. On talent, Chapman, Andrew Miller, and Dellin Betances are three of the five or ten or so best relievers in baseball, and now if this plan comes together, one will hand the ball to the other, who will then in turn hand the ball to the other. While the 2016 Yankees aren’t going to feature a roster full of All-Stars, it’s going to feel like a pitching staff full of All-Stars in the most important moments, and that’s not going to be any fun for half the people watching.

There’s something important to be said, though. On talent, the 2016 Yankees bullpen should be better than the 2015 Yankees bullpen. Yet on performance, it’ll be hard for this coming year’s group to improve on the group that was. You’ve probably seen some of the numbers, like how the Yankees were 66-3 when leading after six, and 73-2 when leading after seven. Honestly, that probably already says enough, but we can make use of some of our own statistics. Whether you go superficial or analytical, last year’s bullpen almost always got the job done, when the job was important.

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A couple of days ago, news broke that the Yankees had traded for uber-reliever Aroldis Chapman. In exchange for Chapman’s services, the Bombers coughed up four prospects: Starting pitcher Rookie Davis, corner infielder Eric Jagielo, second baseman Tony Renda and reliever Caleb Cotham. Here’s what my fancy computer math says about this quartet.

Rookie Davis, RHP (Profile)
KATOH Projection Through Age 28 (2015 stats): 2.6 WAR
KATOH Projection Through Age 28 (2014 stats): 0.7 WAR

The Yankees took Davis in the 14th round out of high school in 2011, but he soon proved to be a steal at that spot. In 2013, he dominated Short-Season A-Ball with the help of a mid-90s fastball. He continued to establish himself in 2014 by posting a sub-4.00 FIP as a starter in Low-A.

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At best, Aroldis Chapman is unstable. A manageable sort of loose cannon. At worst, he’s violent, a danger not only to himself but to others. There’s a lot to try to handle here — more than we want to have to handle when we’re dealing with baseball players and baseball trades. We don’t want to have to consider this stuff, but here we are, and it can’t be avoided. Aroldis Chapman has been traded to the Yankees, for Rookie Davis, Eric Jagielo, Caleb Cotham, and Tony Renda. Chapman would’ve been a Dodger by now, or maybe a member of the Red Sox, but for an off-field incident involving alleged violence and gunfire. Chapman wasn’t arrested, but he might still be suspended under MLB’s new domestic-violence policy. That part of this story is front and center. Were it not for the incident, Chapman wouldn’t be on the Yankees. Were it not for the incident, Chapman would’ve commanded a higher price.

I can’t tell you how you’re supposed to feel. I can’t tell you what Chapman did or didn’t do. At this point I bet even the parties involved couldn’t tell you exactly what Chapman did or didn’t do, given the memory’s tendency to warp. All that’s known is there was something ugly, and Chapman was in the middle of it, and the details caused some teams to back off. If you love the trade for the Yankees, that’s fine. If you don’t want to root for Chapman anymore, that’s fine. If you feel like it’s getting harder and harder to be a sports fan these days, that’s fine. The more we know our athletes, the more we know them as real people, and real people are complex, where sports are supposed to be simple. This isn’t what a lot of us signed up for.

Your job is to figure out how you feel. And how you want to feel, if it’s different. My job is to tell you about the baseball. I’m not qualified to do the other stuff. And here’s the reality of baseball: no team likes off-the-field concerns, or potential pending suspensions. Every team wants its 25 players to be saints. But character is only part of it, and when the talent level is high enough, teams will overlook everything else. Aroldis Chapman is one of the greatest per-inning pitchers on the planet. Of that there is zero question. There are questions about his character, but teams know this stuff blows over. And beyond that, you could say Chapman’s off-field problems created a market inefficiency. Just ask Brian Cashman:

“Given the circumstances that exist, the price point on the acquisition has been modified,”Cashman said. “We felt this was an opportunity to add a big arm to our bullpen.”

There you go. Sometimes executives are reluctant to share the whole truth. Cashman is more of a straight shooter, and that excerpt tells you everything. Chapman’s got some troubles. Those troubles scared off other teams. And that made it appealing for the Yankees to strike. As far as roster management is concerned, Chapman’s incident is practically a good thing. Value value value. Below, I’m going to write more about baseball. After all, there’s a transaction to analyze, and I have a job to do. Read, or don’t. I’m not here to judge you or anybody. I’m here to judge statistics, and Chapman has some awesome statistics.

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At around 4:15 AM this past Sunday morning, I was out getting some pizza with friends, when none other than Alex Rodriguez walked through the door. Like every drunken idiot at Joe’s Pizza that night, I put forth my best effort to initiate an interaction with him, but he paid me no attention. After multiple failed attempts, I enlisted my girlfriend to approach him and ask if he’d take a photo with me on his way out. I told her to say I was with FanGraphs, hoping that would somehow help.

Through some combination of my girlfriend’s attractiveness and the FanGraphs brand, he agreed to take the photo. The end result was the following photo of me, Alex Rodriguez and Alex Rodriguez’s 80-grade pecs. In our starstruck haste, we promised I’d write an article about him. That’s one of the reasons I’m telling you this story. However, since I’m undeniably certain he won’t be checking, it’s more that I wanted an excuse to put this photo on the internet.

Those first two paragraphs explain why I’m writing about A-Rod, though it’s not as though one really needs an excuse to write about A-Rod. He’s arguably the best player many of us have ever seen, and he remains a productive one even as he embarks into his 40s.

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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 New York Yankees. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

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

Batters
However one would characterize the precise opposite of a stars-and-scrub approach to roster construction, this is what the Yankees appear to have employed in collecting their present group of talent. Eight of the club’s nine likely starters are projected to record a WAR figure somewhere between 1.5 and 3.1, from Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira on the low end (largely due to a less-than-full complement of plate appearances) to Brian McCann on the high. Wildly average, is perhaps the best description.

It will be interesting to see how Brian Cashman, Joe Girardi, et al. address what does appear to be the team’s one positional weakness — namely, right field. Dan Szymborski’s computer is pessimistic about the 39-year-old Carlos Beltran, projecting him not only for a roughly league-average batting line but also negative defensive-runs mark. That said, the club does have some internal options immediately available: the recently acquired Aaron Hicks and also Rob Refsnyder (who has considerable experience in right field) also receive forecasts in the league-average range.

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Brian Cashman wants the Yankees to get younger. Did you know that Starlin Castro is only 25 years old?

Somewhat lost in the shuffle of last night’s winter meetings madness was the trade that sent Castro to the Yankees in exchange for right-hander Adam Warren and utility man Brendan Ryan, mere minutes after Castro had been displaced in Chicago by the Cubs’ signing of Ben Zobrist.

Castro, it seems, developed something of a bad rap in Chicago, and the writing of his departure had been on the wall for some time. It’s easy to forget that Castro is still just 25, though, and for a 25-year-old, he’s accomplished quite a bit. For instance, Castro already has nearly 1,000 hits! Getting to 3,000 essentially makes you a lock for the Hall of Fame, and by age 25, Castro is already one-third of the way there. Through his age-25 season, Castro has accumulated more hits than all but 20 players in baseball history. Of those 20 players, 14 are Hall of Famers, and the other is Alex Rodriguez. Of course, I don’t at all mean to insinuate Castro will achieve 3,000 hits or make the Hall of Fame, but players who a) debut young enough and b) perform at a good enough level to continue to receive playing time generally go on to have rather successful careers.

Anyway, that’s just an anecdote about Starlin Castro that I happen to enjoy. What actually matters is that the Yankees felt an upgrade at second base over Dustin Ackley and Rob Refsnyder was in order, and that the Cubs had a young second baseman to spare. This is how trades come together.

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You’re forgiven if you don’t much care about Wednesday’s swap of Aaron Hicks for JR Murphy. Maybe you’re not a fan of the Twins or the Yankees. Maybe you’re not a fan of baseball at all, and you somehow wound up here by accident. Or maybe you are a fan of the Twins or the Yankees, but you recognize this as a trade featuring two players with less than 2 combined WAR over more than 1,200 plate appearances. Hicks has been probably the more hyped of the two, but Murphy is the younger of the two, and he seems like a backup. This isn’t on the level of Brad Miller and Nate Karns, and even that wasn’t on the level of something truly big.

These are the moves we have available to discuss, though, and if you want to speak generally, every professional baseball player has a compelling story. They’re all tremendously talented, and they’ve all dreamed of big-league success. If you want to speak specifically, Hicks is interesting, and I’d rate his level of interest above-average. He’s a former top prospect who’s trying to recover from initial struggles, and the most recent year saw him take a step forward. As far as this trade is concerned, it’s important to understand 2015 Aaron Hicks, and what follows are three keys to fully grasping the Hicks campaign. What he was in 2014, he wasn’t this summer.

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While it’s not going down as any kind of blockbuster, the Twins and Yankees struck a deal today, with Minnesota sending outfielder Aaron Hicks to the Yankees for catcher JR Murphy.

Hicks, a former highly though of prospect, finally showed some signs of life in 2015, putting up +1.5 WAR in 97 games after getting called back up from Triple-A. The improvement primarily came from his ability to avoid strikeouts, which looks to be potentially caused by a new-found willingness to swing at pitches in the strike zone; his in-zone swing rate jumped to 66%, significantly higher than it had been in his first two runs through the big leagues. With enough power to not just be a slap hitter and a good enough eye to draw some walks, Hicks profiles as something like a league average hitter going forward; Steamer projects him for a 99 wRC+ in 2016.

With some baserunning value and decent enough defense in center field, that makes Hicks a potentially interesting piece. In fact, if you look at the Steamer600 projections, where playing time is equalized for all players, you’ll note that Hicks looks like the kind of outfielder the Yankees have shown affinity for.

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