We have our first qualifying-offer acceptance of the offseason, and it’s Jeremy Hellickson who’s taken $17 million to stay put for another year. He’ll remain with the Phillies for now, and get paid rather handsomely to do so.

A guarantee of $17.2 million isn’t bad at all for a pitcher with Hellickson’s past. He was a somewhat interesting commodity given that he was coming off easily the best year of his career. Hellickson threw 189 innings of 3.71 ERA ball — or 3.98 FIP ball, if that’s more your speed. DRA, however, rated him at 4.34. Basically, Hellickson pitched like a middle-back-end guy and got a little lucky. Because this year’s stable of free-agent pitchers is largely composed of Rich Hill and a band of merry — if also raggedy — men, Hellickson would have probably had more than a few suitors had he declined the qualifying offer. The Phillies made him the offer assuming that he would — and that they would, in turn, collect the draft pick attached to it, cashing it in this coming summer.

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Gary Sanchez may or may not be named American League Rookie of the Year tonight. Either way, the New York Yankees catcher made a huge splash in his truncated campaign. In 53 games, he slashed .299/.376/.657 and clubbed a whopping 20 home runs.

Sanchez’s season has drawn comparisons to 1959, when San Francisco’s Willie McCovey copped National League honors. The erstwhile Giants slugger played in just 52 games, but he was every bit as brilliant in that short time. After being called up on July 30, McCovey slashed .354/.429/.656 and hit 13 round-trippers. With no other strong candidates on the ballot, he was a unanimous selection as top rookie.

He wouldn’t have won the award under today’s rules. The accolades almost certainly would have gone to Vada Pinson.

Since 1971, rookie status has been defined as having had fewer than 130 at-bats, or fewer than 50 innings pitched, in previous seasons. A player must also not have been on an active roster for more than 45 days prior to September 1.

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On Friday, news broke that the Blue Jays signed Kendrys Morales for three years and $33 million. Morales is clearly a quality hitter, but he can’t really do anything else, so Dave thought it was a bit of an overpay. Okay! Keep that in mind.

On Saturday, the Mariners traded for Danny Valencia. Kendrys Morales is 33. Danny Valencia is 32. Valencia is projected for a salary of $5.3 million in his last year of arbitration. This past year, Valencia was a better hitter than Morales was. Over the past two years, Valencia has been the better hitter. Over the past three years, Valencia has been the better hitter. Over the past four years, Valencia has been the better hitter. The evidence would suggest that Valencia is at least as good as Morales at the plate, and Valencia isn’t limited to being a DH. He’s also a slightly better runner. It would seem to make him the better player, even though he’s going to cost so much less.

From the Blue Jays’ perspective, there’s some value in having Morales locked in for a while. They have a DH for the foreseeable future. And there’s another aspect to this — Valencia, in the past, has been somewhat polarizing. It’s not that all of his teammates have hated him, but some of his teammates have hated him, and Morales is an easier fit into a clubhouse. It’s not a coincidence that Valencia is so well-traveled. But the Mariners are betting on production, figuring that any other issues can be dealt with later, and as a part of betting on production, they’re betting on Valencia’s recent transformation. It used to be, Valencia was a platoon guy, who brutalized southpaws. A couple years ago, it looks like he figured things out.

Valencia has looked like an everyday player, and he’s going to be treated like an everyday player. Over the past two seasons, he’s been as good a hitter as Buster Posey, Kyle Seager, and Christian Yelich. The drawbacks are that Valencia won’t be a defensive plus at first base or in the corner outfield, but he certainly fits a hole on the roster, and his 2017 will be affordable.

It hasn’t been hard to see that the A’s were going to move Valencia somewhere. Because of his surplus value, he wasn’t acquired for free. For giving up Valencia, the A’s are receiving Paul Blackburn, a 22-year-old righty who’s not regarded as a top prospect. What Blackburn doesn’t do is miss a ton of bats. What he does do is keep the ball on the ground, and he’s kept his walk rates low. He feels a lot like another Kendall Graveman, a guy who could become an established major leaguer in a hurry. Graveman made just 11 combined starts between Double-A and Triple-A. Blackburn just spent a whole season in Double-A, but he gave up just eight homers. He could be depth as soon as next season, and the A’s are no strangers to needing extra starting pitching. Blackburn could help them in the future more than Valencia ever would.

So it’s a neat little exchange. Depending on how you interpret Valencia’s clubhouse concerns, he might be a genuinely underrated player. Blackburn, also, might be differently underrated, but the Mariners don’t have a lot of shiny prospects to sell. The Blue Jays, I’m sure, are happy to have Morales. Maybe they very much didn’t want Valencia back. It’s enough to make you wonder, though.

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.