Last winter, the Blue Jays found success by avoiding paying a big commitment to re-sign David Price, instead spreading their money around to bring back Marco Estrada and add J.A. Happ to the rotation, each of whom pitched better than Price did in 2016. So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that they may just be deciding to go that route again.

Sources: Kendrys Morales to #BlueJays, three years, $33M, pending physical. First reported: @DfineNrmLC.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 11, 2016

With Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista, the Jays have two DH-type players that they could have signed to much more lucrative long-term deals, but Morales presents a much cheaper option, giving the team the flexibility to spend the extra $40 or $50 million on an outfielder, bullpen upgrades, or both. Instead of putting their money into one better player, the Jays look like they’re again going to bet on depth.

In general, I think that plan can often work out, especially if you have some serious holes on the roster that need addressing, as the Jays do. In practice, though, I’m not sure if I’m as excited about spending $33 million on Kendrys Morales as part of a spread-things-around approach.

For reference, here’s where Morales ranked in our Top 50 free agent rankings, and the write-up I noted when guessing that even at 2/$22M, I wouldn’t be a big fan of the expected price.

If all he really had to do was hit, Morales would still be a useful piece, but since he then has to try and run after he makes contact, Morales remains an overrated player; his lack of ability to move at human speed renders even his one-dimension of value less worthwhile than it seems. Thirty-four-year-old designated hitters who can’t run aren’t worth much, so even these modest contract forecasts are probably overpays.

I know it’s easy to say the Jays are paying for Morales’ bat and not his legs, but the fact that it’s still so difficult to knock him in once he gets on base makes his offensive production less valuable than his batting line looks like. Last year, he was worth just +2.3 runs above average as an offensive player once you include baserunning, and for a DH, being barely above average offensively means you’re barely above replacement level.

So, yeah, $33 million for the age 34-36 seasons of a decent hitter who can’t run seems like not a great use of funds to me. The team could still make this plan worthwhile if they spend the savings on a quality regular or a couple of good role players, but Morales himself just isn’t that good.

To be clear, there are two positions here.

Position: Pittsburgh Pirates Baseball Informatics Internship

Location: Pittsburgh
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Position: Tampa Bay Rays Baseball Research & Development Intern

Location: St. Petersburg, Fla.
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The Braves have signed their second pitcher over the age of 40 in as many days. This time it’s the unflappable Bartolo Colon, bringing the man they call Big Sexy’s three-year run in Queens to an end. Colon made himself one of the most beloved figures in baseball during that time. He threw 588.2 innings as a Met, posting a 3.90 ERA, walking just 1.31 batters per nine innings, accumulating 8.3 WAR, and hitting one incredible home run. Thankfully, he will remain in the National League, and will continue to dazzle us with his hitting feats.

Much like R.A. Dickey, who they signed yesterday, Colon is being brought in by the Braves to soak up innings. He led the Mets in innings pitched during his time in Queens and shows no real signs of slowing down. The Braves used 16 starters last year, everyone from Julio Teheran to Lucas Harrell to Jhoulys Chacin to the artist formerly known as Fausto Carmona. Only three of them cleared the 100 IP mark. Teheran was legitimately good, Mike Foltynewicz was okay, and Matt Wisler, shall we say, has some things to work on.

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The Braves seem committed to fielding a competitive product next year. I don’t think we see eye-to-eye on this — the way I figure, it’s not yet time for the Braves to attempt to push forward. But I also can’t bring myself to be too critical of an operation that wants to build a winner for its fans, so I’m just looking for the Braves to keep from getting too aggressive. There’s nothing wrong with making affordable upgrades. And the Braves have made their first, signing R.A. Dickey for one year and a guaranteed $8 million. Dickey is back to being a starter in the NL East.

This is not about the Braves suddenly being a great team. This is not about Dickey suddenly being a great starter. But, you know what kind of shape the free-agent market is in, with regard to starting pitchers. You’ve seen some of the numbers thrown around when talking about Ivan Nova. Nova is a lock to get three years, and he could get four, or even five. And, well, Nova’s almost 30. Dickey just turned 42. But last year, Dickey had the worse ERA- by just four points. Over the past two years, Dickey has been better, by 10 points. Over the past three years, he’s been better by 19 points.

As far as just 2017 goes, I’m not convinced Nova will be better than Dickey. I know, I know, Ray Searage magic and everything, but Nova’s track record is unimpressive, and his contract will come with a ton of risk. Dickey isn’t nearly so risky. He projects to be basically the same as Jeremy Hellickson, Jason Hammel, Edinson Volquez, and Andrew Cashner. Dickey has been basically the same pitcher in Toronto for four years, and he practically never misses a start. With any knuckleballer, you think of the pitch as being unreliable. Pitch-to-pitch, that might be true, but Dickey himself is remarkably consistent.

He’s something in the vicinity of an average pitcher, and you can put him in for 30+ starts in ink. The Braves might not yet be within that competitive bubble, but last year, no other baseball team used as many starting pitchers as they did. They entered the offseason with an assortment of question marks behind Julio Teheran and Mike Foltynewicz, and Dickey is a useful stopgap. Maybe he won’t teach a younger player a nifty changeup grip or whatever, but there’s value in reliability. There’s value in fielding a better major-league product, and the Braves got Dickey without giving anything up. It’s not a bad way to start the push.

If the Braves want to win 80+ games in the season ahead, they need to make so many improvements. This is one they can cross off. Pitchers who are equally average are going to receive far bigger commitments, and they are unlikely to look very good.

Free agency is officially underway, and odds are good you’re going to spend the next few weeks thinking about who your team should sign, or not sign, depending on the faith you have in your team’s front office. To help with those endeavors, we’ve created a couple of free agent leaderboards for your perusal.

Free Agent Hitters

Free Agent Pitchers

As you know by now, this isn’t a particularly great free agent crop. Only three of the 75 pitchers on the list posted at least +3 WAR last season, and only seven of the 78 hitters got over +2.5 WAR. This is a free agent class of role players and depth pieces, not franchise-altering stars.

But role players are necessary too, and there are some useful players on the market. With these leaderboards, you can sort and filter to your heart’s content, looking for specific skills or traits that might fit your team’s needs.

For instance, does your team need a corner outfielder who can hit left-handed pitching? Well, click a few options, pick “vs L” from the splits drop-down, and all of the sudden, you have this, and can see that Franklin Gutierrez put up a 151 wRC+ against lefties in 329 PAs over the last three years. You shouldn’t expect that to be his production level going forward of course, but a guy like Gutierrez has some value to a team as a part-time player, and these leaderboards will help you find guys like him.

Or maybe you’re looking for a power arm for your bullpen. Everyone knows Arodlis Chapman is the hardest thrower on the market, but do you know who had the second highest average fastball velocity in this class in 2016? Well, now you can: Neftali Feliz, followed closely by Daniel Hudson. Goes to show you need a bit more than a 96 mph fastball to be a good reliever, I guess.

Anyway, we hope you find these tools useful. Because the player lists were created manually, we may have missed a few guys here and there, so let us know if you find any free agents not on the list, and we’ll get them added.

And stay tuned the next few days, because we’re going to be rolling out a list of the Top 50 free agents in this class, as well as providing the results of the contract crowdsourcing project to estimate what players may sign for this winter. Even in a weak class, there are still some bargains to be found.

Since the World Series ended, a few of us have been busy behind the scenes updating all the team depth charts. They’re still not perfect, and they’ve yet to be updated with a few final adjustments, but for the most part, everything’s in decent shape. We have 30 team depth charts that would look pretty good if the 2017 season were to start today. Very obviously, that will not happen! But free agents have been moved off rosters, onto our free-agent squad. Depth pieces within systems have been given appropriate playing-time estimates. What does the MLB landscape look like with the offseason just beginning? Here’s what I’m seeing:

We aren’t yet actually projecting 2017 wins on FanGraphs. We just have WAR projections, but I’ve gone ahead and converted those into team-win estimates. Which is simply the WAR projection, plus a constant. I can’t imagine much in here is surprising, but, sure enough, the Cubs have baseball’s best projection. They’re threatening to push 100 wins again. The Dodgers are right behind them, and then there’s a gap before you get to the Nationals. (Schedule strength is not taken into account for this.)

A bunch of rebuilding clubs are at the other end. The Brewers look worst here overall, while the Twins look like the worst in the American League. There are 10 teams that project between 76 – 81 wins, so that might represent the bubble. Any of those teams might elect to sell, or to try to push forward. Of some note here, the Astros get the best projection in the AL West, followed by the Angels. The Angels projection is precarious, given the health questions around Tyler Skaggs, Garrett Richards, and Matt Shoemaker, but you can see how they could have a path.

The point isn’t to reach any strong conclusions. Don’t place any bets based on these projections at the beginning of November. Rather, I think these are most useful as a baseline. These are the rosters the clubs will be adding to and subtracting from over the following months. Last season’s records don’t matter anymore. Whatever the Blue Jays do next won’t be tweaking an 89-win ballclub. It’ll be more like it’s tweaking an 81-win ballclub. Of course, you can argue with that number, but it’s an estimate. It’ll be interesting to compare the spring-training projections to these projections, to see which offseasons made the biggest differences on paper.

Have fun. But don’t have too much fun. This is how the teams all project. And all of the teams will change.

Position: Sports Info Solutions Video Scouting Internship

Location: Coplay, Pa.
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I wouldn’t say the Cameron Maybin trade exactly opened the floodgates or anything, but now we do have another trade to talk about. In this one, Carlos Ruiz is going from the Dodgers to the Mariners, and Vidal Nuno is headed in the other direction. You’re not impressed. No one’s impressed. This is a low-profile move, and maybe the most interesting player involved in the whole thought process is Austin Barnes, who’s now going to get a roster spot in Los Angeles. The Mariners are getting a backup catcher, and the Dodgers are getting a relatively soft-tossing reliever. It’s one of the first of many “whatever” moves we’re going to see over the next handful of months.

There’s still something here, though. The way I figure, it’s on the Dodgers’ side. To tackle the Mariners’ side first — they get a year of Ruiz, for $4.5 million. That’s not a bad rate for a reliable backup, and even though Ruiz is almost 38, he just managed a .365 OBP, and he projects to be a half-decent hitter. Pitchers seemingly like working with Ruiz, despite the fact that he rates as a below-average framer. He’s said to have those leadership qualities, he’s a better backup than Jesus Sucre, and he’s reasonable insurance for the unpredictable Mike Zunino. Ruiz makes sense here. You see why the Mariners jumped.

And I think you can see why the Dodgers jumped. In part, this is about clearing space for Barnes. But beyond that — I was asked recently about the market. We all know the market is light on starting pitching, and I was asked if there are more guys out there like Mike Montgomery, relievers you could target and think about putting in the rotation. Nuno might actually fit here. Here’s a plot of 2016 starting pitchers, and I’ve also included a red dot to represent Nuno, overall in the major leagues:

If there’s one thing Nuno has proven, it’s that he’s a strike-thrower. He’s thrown strikes as both a starter and as a reliever, and while he’s never been a swing-and-miss type, his contact rates haven’t been terrible. On top of that, when Nuno moved to the bullpen, his stuff didn’t really play up. It’s easier, then, to imagine him as a starter again, throwing the same pitches around the same speeds. Don’t be too turned off by his home-run rates — he just allowed the same average exit velocity as Justin Verlander and Johnny Cueto. I don’t think it’s a stretch to look at Nuno and think he has some shot of being another Wei-Yin Chen. The core abilities there are pretty similar. Chen signed an $80-million contract.

Nuno is already 29. If he’s going to be Chen, he’d better hurry up. And the Dodgers aren’t hurting for starters, and starting candidates. Nuno isn’t going straight into the rotation, and maybe we’ll just never hear from him again. But Ruiz is an old catcher with one year of control left. Nuno is a younger strike-thrower with three years of arbitration eligibility. You can see why the Mariners wouldn’t mind this move. And you can see why the Dodgers would go for it. The Dodgers’ front office hasn’t forgotten its small-market roots, and they’re always trying to win the surplus-value game. Nuno could be something more than he looks like. The boring moves are seldom quite as boring as they seem.

This past season we debuted our custom splits tool for players, and over the weekend, we updated the tool to include filtering options. These filtering options allow you to remove the lines of stats which don’t meet a specific criteria.

For example, if you wanted to view only those seasons in which Dexter Fowler recorded more than 200 plate appearances at home, you can add a filter for that. You could also add a filter to see the seasons where Fowler had over a 20% strikeout rate on those splits. This filter also works if you group by months, weeks and games, so, for example, you could return all the games in which a player had three or more hits. Filters act like the splits in that they can be combined and customized.

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