The Mets looked like quite possibly the favorites to sign Ben Zobrist, right up until they didn’t do that. So now they’ve gone ahead and re-purposed their “Welcome” sign to read “Neil Walker” instead, picking up the second baseman from the Pirates for Jon Niese (pending physicals) . It’s a straight one-for-one, with Walker set to make almost $11 million, and Niese set to make $9 million. Walker is then eligible for free agency, while Niese has a pair of club options.

For the Mets, Walker subs in for Zobrist in theory, but he’s really subbing in for Daniel Murphy. And the convenient thing about that is Walker, overall, is awful similar to Murphy. He switch-hits, yeah, and he has a bit of a different personality, and Murphy strikes out less often, but these are slightly above-average hitters who are probably slightly below-average defenders at second. Walker projects for a 113 wRC+, while Murphy projects at 109. Both of them are 30, although Murphy will sooner turn 31. Walker doesn’t bring everything that Zobrist would’ve, particularly beyond just the season ahead, but this is almost like an extension of the status quo. Walker is a fine player, and the Mets have plenty of excellent players.

On the Pirates end, Walker has long been the subject of trade rumors, particularly with his free agency approaching. In Niese, the Pirates have added rotation depth, and depth that could be controlled for another three years if that’s what they prefer. Niese’s club options are worth $10 million and $11 million, and he’s looked like a decent pitcher in the past. He has a track record of being in the vicinity of average, around some worrisome shoulder problems.

Niese did just lose some strikeouts. You never want a pitcher to lose strikeouts. What he didn’t do was lose any velocity, and now he gets to join up with Ray Searage. And I feel obligated to point something out — Niese projects for a 4.13 FIP, according to Steamer. Shelby Miller projects at 4.22. Mike Leake also projects at 4.22. I don’t mean to suggest that’s everything, or that Niese ought to be on that level, but that is an objective forecast. He could easily be restored to being an average starting pitcher, and these days those go for more than $10 – 11 million a year. That’s probably the Pirates’ angle.

For the Mets, Niese was clearly expendable, and they wanted help in the infield. And it’s better to gamble on a hitter than on a pitcher with a shoulder history. But the Pirates could pull some value of their own out of this, and it wouldn’t even require that much Searage magic. Just Jon Niese pitching more or less like himself. Fold back in a few more strikeouts, and you have a No. 3 or No. 4 starter with a modest salary. It’s not nothing.

The Braves have reportedly sent Shelby Miller to the Diamondbacks for 25-year-old outfielder Ender Inciarte, 23-year-old right-hander Aaron Blair, and last year’s number one overall pick, 21-year-old shortstop Dansby Swanson. The Diamondbacks get a good pitcher under control for three years, and the Braves continue their rebuilding process.

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The other shoe dropped soon after the Cubs signed Ben Zobrist and created a logjam at second base — Starlin Castro is reportedly heading to New York for Brendan Ryan and Adam Warren. The deal, at its worst, is a way for the Cubs to spread some talent around at areas of need while giving the Yankees an average second baseman. Need for need.

The arm the Cubs are getting could change the calculus, though.

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The Cubs have reportedly signed Ben Zobrist to a four-year deal worth $56 million. That’s definitively not an $80 million deal, but at the behest of agents, all sorts of silly numbers get thrown around in the rumor mill. This number makes a lot more sense. In fact, the deal seems to be paying for floor.

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In a deal which will presumably make more sense when all the details come out than it does now, the Cardinals are reportedly set to acquire Jedd Gyorko for Jon Jay, with perhaps other players (or money) being in the deal.

Source: Jon Jay is going to San Diego. https://t.co/9GHVvrxqDV

— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) December 8, 2015

The Padres need a center fielder and more left-handed bats, so Jay to San Diego makes plenty of sense, since he mostly lost his job in St. Louis due to the Cardinals outfield depth. But the Gyorko to STL part of this is a little tougher to figure, given that the Cardinals already have three good players at the the infield spots where Gyorko could fit. Matt Carpenter is entrenched at third, Jhonny Peralta is locked in at shortstop, and Kolten Wong established himself as their second baseman a year ago, and Gyorko is at best a platoon option at second and occasional starter at 3B/SS. He’s a solid enough depth piece for a team that needs a decent backup middle infielder, but there’s also this.

Assuming the buyout of the final year of that deal, Gyorko is due $33 million over the next four seasons. Yes, free agent prices are going up, but I don’t see how Gyorko gets 4/$33M on the open market, especially not to play in a reserve role. Chase Utley got 1/$7M to play more than Gyorko will. Cliff Pennignton got 2/$4M to serve as the Angels utility infielder. It’s not that hard to argue that Gyorko’s youth makes him preferable to both of those guys, but 4/$33M for a guy who is going to play 2-3 times per week? I don’t think MLB is there yet.

So I’m guessing that the Padres are either eating a good chunk of this deal, or there’s another player going to San Diego that will help balance the scales a bit. Perhaps in the end, this will be the Andrew Cashner deal or something, with Gyorko included to just lower the price in prospects the Cardinals had to pay to get something else. That’s total speculation, but it would make more sense than the Cardinals taking on $33 million in salary for a utility infielder.

After missing out on re-signing Zack Greinke, it seems likely that the Dodgers are about to have a very active week as the winter meetings begin. In fact, they might be checking one big item off the list before the meetings even officially begin.

Sources: #Dodgers in talks to acquire Aroldis Chapman from #Reds for prospects.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 6, 2015

Source: There is growing confidence in the Dodgers organization that they're going to be able to finish Aroldis Chapman trade.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) December 6, 2015

Sources: #Dodgers making progress on Chapman deal with #Reds.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 6, 2015

The Dodgers already have one of the best relievers in baseball in Kenley Jansen, but adding Chapman would instantly give them the best two reliever combination in baseball — with all due respect to Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller, who are fantastic themselves — and would allow the team to avoid many of the 8th inning issues they struggled with in 2015. That is, assuming Jansen doesn’t mind being demoted out of the closer’s role; the Drew Storen narrative will certainly be brought up if Jansen doesn’t pitch as well in the 8th inning as he did in the 9th, and we don’t know enough to say that it absolutely isn’t a factor. But it’s probably better to assume that Jansen’s cutter will still be ridiculously difficult to hit, even when he’s pitching in non-save situations.

The Dodgers have a lot of prospect depth to trade from, and with Chapman being highly likely to receive a qualifying offer at the end of next year, the return for him should be significant, even though it’s just one year of team control.

A day after missing out on Zack Greinke, the Giants quickly turned to their secondary plan.

Source: Samardzija is five years, $90M with #SFGiants, as @TBrownYahoo said.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 5, 2015

Even coming off a miserable season, Samardzija was still able to land a deal for $18 million per year, $3 million more per season than I predicted, and well north of the $64 million the crowd projected. The Giants, like the other suitors, chose to look beyond his 2015 performance, and are paying for the expected future value that lies in a right-arm that still owns premium stuff.

Even with the lousy 2015 season on his track record, Steamer still sees roughly a +3 WAR pitcher going forward, so this deal isn’t nearly as crazy as one might think by just looking at most recent season.

Jeff Samardzija’s Contract Estimate — 5 yr / $77.4 M

Year	Age	WAR	$/WAR	Est. Value
2016	31	2.8	$8.0 M	$22.4 M
2017	32	2.3	$8.4 M	$19.3 M
2018	33	1.8	$8.8 M	$15.9 M
2019	34	1.3	$9.3 M	$12.0 M
2020	35	0.8	$9.7 M	$7.8 M
Totals		9.0		$77.4 M

Assumptions
Value: $8M/WAR with 5.0% inflation
Aging Curve: +0.25 WAR/yr (18-27), 0 WAR/yr (28-30),-0.5 WAR/yr (31-37),-0.75 WAR/yr (> 37)

Dan Szymborski put up the ZIPS forecast for Samardzija on Twitter, and it’s even more optimistic.

Samardzija #ZiPS projection in SF. pic.twitter.com/5IQecABMus

— Dan Szymborski (@DSzymborski) December 5, 2015

While $90 million isn’t cheap, Samardzija doesn’t project dramatically worse than Jordan Zimmermann going forward, and this is the price range the market is establishing for above average pitchers. And by signing Samardzija for $90 million, the Giants likely have room to add a second starter as well while still coming in under the total amount they would have had to pay Greinke over the next five or six years.

While there will likely be lots of criticism of this deal from those who simply look at Samardzija’s disaster season in Chicago, the stuff and the longer track record suggest that he’s still a quality arm who just had a bad year. $90 million isn’t a bargain, especially when you factor in the cost of the draft pick surrendered to sign him, but Samardzija’s a good pitcher who will help the team win, and this isn’t a dramatic overpay for a team looking to win in the short-term.

Tonight, we saw the internet trolled by a fake account saying that Zack Greinke had signed with the Giants. Just when those foolish enough to fall for the troll (note: this includes me) were calming down, real reporters announced that Greinke had in fact signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks. The marvelous Ken Rosenthal has the deal at six years, $206 million, which would be a record for pitching average annual value (though he notes that some of the money may be deferred).

While this might not be truly astounding, as the Dbacks have indicated a desire to land an ace this offseason and shown a particular interest in Greinke, it’s still a little unexpected. The signing brings the Dbacks a modicum of respectability, and opens up the possibility that the 2016 National League West will be more than the two-horse race it’s been in recent years.

Through much of Friday, the Dbacks starting rotation depth chart looked like this:

SP Diamondbacks

That 9.9 WAR wasn’t really blowing anyone’s skirt up. Let’s add Greinke to the mix:

SP Diamondbacks

Let’s be clear — adding Greinke to the mix doesn’t instantly make the Dbacks World Series favorites, but they’ve leapfrogged from the bottom of the starting pitching pile into the middle of the pack. Greinke’s inclusion represents a projected upgrade of 2.7 WAR, as the majority of the innings that he will be taking were from near-replacement-level pitchers. (Also, this is just a quick and dirty projection of how the innings for the rest of the staff will shake out. It might not be 100% accurate, but you get the idea — some incumbents not named Patrick Corbin will see fewer innings next season.)

Before, Arizona was in a dead heat with the Marlins for the 24th-best projected rotation. Now, they’re in a dead heat for 14th overall with the Rangers and Mariners, and eighth in the NL. That’s a lot better than where they were 24 hours ago.

Dave delved into why Greinke is worth $200 million earlier today, and we’ll undoubtedly have more on this deal in the coming days, but Dbacks fans can be elated tonight. The Dbacks had to give up the 13th pick in the coming draft to net Greinke, but that is a small price to pay for landing one of the top pitchers in the game. And again, he’s not just good at pitching. As Dave mentioned and as Jeff has covered before, he is good at hitting. Oh, and fielding, too.

Not everyone is a big fan of the second wild card, and I count myself in the camp of those who are critical of it. But one of the effects of adding a second wild card is that the barrier to playoff entry is lower than it was in the past. With Paul Goldschmidt, Zack Greinke, and A.J. Pollock leading the way, and good supporting players like Ender Inciarte, David Peralta, Jake Lamb and Corbin, the Dbacks as contenders is no longer far fetched. As August noted earlier this week, the Dbacks have shown the ability to hang around the .500 mark. Now, they may show the ability to get to 85-88 wins, and if they can, the NL West is going to be really fun to watch.

This afternoon, the Chicago Cubs found their free-agent pitcher in right-hander John Lackey. According to the marvelous Ken Rosenthal, the deal is of the two-year variety, and will pay Lackey $32-34 million. There are a few interesting things to dissect here, but right off the top it fills up the Cubs rotation, so let’s start there.

Lackey comfortably slots in behind Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester, and perhaps Kyle Hendricks, depending on how you feel about him. But given Lackey’s veteran presence, let’s assume that he will be the Cubs number-three starter, with Hendricks and Jason Hammel slotting in behind him. That’s a solid rotation. It has star power, and it has legitimate depth in Travis Wood and prospect Carl Edwards. All of the five starters project to be worth at least 2 WAR. Of the remaining free-agent pitchers, Lackey was tied with Wei-Yen Chen for fifth in projected 2016 WAR. Lackey was significantly cheaper than Zack Greinke or Johnny Cueto, and comes with a longer track record than Hisashi Iwakuma or Chen. In other words, it’s the sort of signing you would expect from Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer and Co.

This also marks the second time that Epstein has signed Lackey, as he was still in command of the Red Sox baseball operations when Boston brought Lackey aboard in December of 2009. It’s not hard to see why Epstein would have a fondness for the Texas-bred righty. Aside from 2012, which he missed due to injury, Lackey has tossed 160 innings or more in every year since 2003. And in most of those years, he’s been average or better. In his first full season in Anaheim, he only logged 1.9 WAR, as he hadn’t ratcheted up his strikeout percentage quite yet. In 2008, some trouble with the long ball limited him to 1.4 WAR. And then in 2011, when he pitched hurt, he logged a paltry 0.9 WAR, though in retrospect it was sort of amazing that he was pitching at all. In the other nine full seasons of his career, he’s been worth at least 2.4 WAR, and at least 3.1 in seven of the nine.

Over the last year-plus, he proved that he was completely adaptable to the National League. In fact, little seems to faze Lackey outside of boneheaded plays by his fielders or being pulled out of a game mid-inning. On Slack, Jeff Sullivan described him as “boringly consistent,” and if you don’t believe him, just look at Lackey’s average fastball velocity — 91.5-91.7 mph for each of the last four years. Over the last two years, Lackey has junked his slider for a two-seamer (at least, according to PITCHf/x), but other than that he’s not much different.

If you’re thinking that $32 million is a lot of coin for a pitcher entering his age-37 season, well, I suppose you’re not technically wrong. And if we were to look up the pitchers who netted contracts of $10+ million per year heading into their age-37 season, it’d probably be a short list. But if you think Lackey is between a two-and-three-win pitcher and that a win on the market costs between $7 and $8 million, well then this is a pretty fair deal given our current market conditions. And perhaps there is some extra synergy in Lackey being back with old friend Jon Lester. Epstein and Hoyer clearly aren’t afraid of another chicken and beer scandal.

The Cubs don’t necessarily need to be done working on their starting rotation. But if they are done, they should not only have a good starting rotation, but a stable one. Contrast that to the health question marks in that rotation to the southwest (Adam Wainwright, Carlos Martinez, Jaime Garcia) and the defections in that rotation to the east (A.J. Burnett and J.A. Happ) and the Cubs may just head to spring training as the favorites in the National League Central.

The Tigers just signed Mike Pelfrey to a two-year deal worth $16 million. The big right-hander has a good fastball, a penchant for licking his fingers, and a split-finger that’s decent for grounders, but he still shows up on the bottom of an important leaderboard. Despite that, he’s been an average major league player four times in his career, and he’s projected to be worth the deal.

Turns out, he has one ability that is elite. And if he continues to display that skill, the Tigers will have made out on this short deal.

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