The Astros have made it clear that they intend to upgrade their bullpen this winter, chasing Andrew Miller and David Robertson with significant four year offers before watching both sign with other teams. So this morning, they turned to Plan C, reportedly signing Luke Gregerson to a three year, $18.5 million contract, according to Bob Nightengale.

The big question hanging over this move, and the pursuits of Miller and Robertson, is why the Astros are spending money to sign free agent relievers. Expensive bullpen arms have historically proven to provide the lowest return on investment in baseball, and the Astros are not in a position to sacrifice significant future value for a modest short-term boost. Why would a team that has been so set on building for the future suddenly shift gears and sign an aging reliever who probably won’t still be an effective arm by the time the Astros are ready to contend?

Well, I’m just speculating here, but perhaps the Astros signed Gregerson with the clear intention of trading him this summer for something that could be a part of their future. As we see every July, the markup on useful bullpen arms is ridiculously high in-season, and with so many teams currently in go-for-it mode, the Astros are positioned to be one of the few teams able to take advantage of what should be a very strong seller’s market.

When everyone is buying, being the only team with stuff to sell is a great position to be in, but first, you have to have things that the buyers want. As long as he continues to pitch relatively well, contending teams will want Gregerson in July, especially if the Astros agree to pick up a bit of his future salary. And in effect, the Astros could essentially be buying themselves a pretty decent prospect.

Let’s say they hold him until mid-July, so they’d have paid him $3 million of his $6 million 2015 salary, then agreed to pick up $5 million of the remaining $15 million he was still owed. An acquiring team would only have to absorb $10 million in salaries for 2.5 years of relief work, which would look like a bargain at a time when there are going to be few other options to upgrade in-season. And so, the Astros could likely extract a solid young player in return, essentially buying that prospect for $8 million in salary.

The Astros have money, so they can afford to gamble the $18.5 million in guaranteed money that Gregerson can still be effective for a few months. If it doesn’t work out, well, they’re out $6 million per year in a few years where they probably weren’t going to win anyway, and premium free agents aren’t taking their money until they get a little more respectable anyway. Yeah, Gregerson could suck, and then they’d have “wasted” that money, but it’s only wasted cash if you could have spent it on something better. If no one wants to sign with the Astros, and the alternative was to not spend it, then it’s not a waste even if he’s lousy and nukes his own trade value.

If he’s not lousy, and his trade value is buoyed by the Astros willingness to pay down part of this contract in July, then the Astros might have just found a way to make themselves an even more attractive seller in a market where there is going to be very little competition.

After a very long courtship, Jon Lester has decided to pitch for the Chicago Cubs.

Jon Lester, Cubs agree on six-year, $155M deal, sources tell Yahoo Sports. Red Sox are runners-up. Their final bid: six for $135M.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 10, 2014

Passan also adds that the Giants were willing to stretch to $168 million over seven years, so Lester took a slightly smaller total guarantee from Chicago. Lester immediately becomes the Cubs ace, and along with the addition of Miguel Montero earlier today, signals to the rest of the National League Central that the Cubs are moving up their window to win.

We’ll have a full-write up on this deal in a bit, but for now, let me encourage you to read the things that we’ve already published on Lester this week.

How Much to Believe in Jon Lester’s 2014, by Jeff Sullivan.
How Will Jon Lester Age?, by Tony Blengino.

Lester’s one of the best pitchers in the game, and he’s now getting paid like it. Whether the Cubs can improve the rest of their roster enough to make this deal pay off remains to be seen, but a team with a strong future suddenly has a much stronger present.

At the end of November, the author wrote a post concerning Atlanta’s acquisition of Corban Joseph entitled — for purposes simultaneously of information and also very mild amusement — entitled “Atlanta Signs Basically Tommy La Stella“. The main point of that brief dispatch: that Corban Joseph, a below-average defender with compelling and probably overlooked offensive skills, was a sensible and economical replacement for the recently traded La Stella.

What I didn’t know at the time — indeed, couldn’t have known — is that the Atlantans would less than two weeks later acquire a player arguably more similar to La Stella than even Joseph himself. Today, the Braves signed former Oakland infielder Alberto Callaspo to a one-year, $3 million deal.

Here are the Steamer projections for the triumvirate, prorated in each case to 550 plate appearances:

Callaspo is older than La Stella by some margin, but possesses similar defensive value, nearly identical plate-discipline projections, and also probably a power profile that more nearly resembles La Stella’s. Of some interest with regard to Callaspo is his batted-ball skill. Over that past three years, Callaspo has produced just a .259 BABIP — one of the lowest figures, that, among qualified batters during that same interval. The Atlanta front office probably has some feelings about how much that says about Callaspo’s hit tool. In any case, it would appear as though Callaspo is the favorite to start at second base for Atlanta presently.

In a winter of runaway inflation, the Pirates have reportedly re-signed Francisco Liriano to a deal that looks downright reasonable.

Liriano in agreement with #Pirates on three-year, $39M deal. Pending physical. First reported: @RobertMurrayMLB

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 9, 2014

3/$39M is exactly the contract I guessed a month ago, and just $1 million more per year than our crowdsourcing project came up with. Given that almost every deal signed so far has added an extra year or several million onto the AAV, signing a player for the expected price looks like a relative bargain.

The issue with Liriano is always going to be health. Even the last two years — two of his best seasons — he’s only thrown 160 innings, and he’s only managed to throw 3,000+ pitches in a season once in his career. You don’t sign Francisco Liriano for durability or innings. You sign him because when he’s on the mound, he’s really quite good.

Over the last two seasons, his ERA-/FIP-/xFIP- line is 89/90/87, putting him well above the league average in all three marks. For comparison, other starters with an 87 xFIP- over the last two seasons: Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija, Garrett Richards, Tyson Ross, and Hyun-Jin Ryu. Jordan Zimmermann is at 88. Cole Hamels is at 89. Jon Lester is at 90.

Now, Liriano has historicaly underperformed his peripherals, but his runner stranding problems haven’t followed him to Pittsburgh, and he’s pitched at essentially a +3 WAR level when he’s been on the mound with the Pirates. Even if you discount that performance for the lower total of innings pitched, Liriano looks like a +2 WAR pitcher for 2015, with some upside beyond that. In this market, $39 million for that kind of value looks like a pretty nice steal for the Pirates.

Of course, he could also break down at any point, and Pittsburgh could end up getting nothing out of their investment. Liriano offsets a lot of his value with about as low a floor as you can find. He’s super high risk/high reward, but for this price, this seems like the right kind of risk/reward balance for the Pirates.

A fiery topic of contention this offseason has been how much trade value Cole Hamels actually has. The Phillies reportedly think he’s worth a bundle of a team’s best young talents, while many of us around here happen to think he’s worth quite a bit less than that, due to the fact that his contract absorbs a good amount of his value. Once Jon Lester signs, we’ll probably find out just exactly what Hamels trade value really is, though my guess is that the Phillies will pay down enough of his salary to get several significant pieces back in return.

But as we wait for Lester and Hamels, the Jeff Samardzija trade has happened. The A’s swapped their ace for four players, with Marcus Semien as the headline piece coming back to Oakland in the deal. I think Semien’s probably good enough to justify the swap, but it’s based on the same kind of logic that thinks Hamels isn’t really a top-tier trade chip, and I’m well aware of the fact that many people disagree with that sentiment.

So, I figured I’ll put this to a poll. We’ve seen what Samardzija went for, with one year of control at $10 million in salary. Hamels has either four years at $96 million or five years at $109 million left on his contract, depending on whether he can use his no-trade to force the fifth year option to be picked up as part of the terms of the deal. In other words, a team is either acquiring an additional three years at $86 million, or an additional four years at $100 million, by trading for Hamels instead of Samardzija.

Given that fact, and Hamels longer track record of success, do you think Hamels is worth more or less than what Samardzija just went for?

If you hadn’t noticed, the White Sox are going for it. No, they haven’t officially landed Jeff Samardzija yet, but they have just completed a pretty dramatic upgrade of their bullpen.

Source confirms: #WhiteSox signing David Robertson to four-year deal for at least $40M. First reported: @bobnightengale.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 9, 2014

The White Sox bullpen was a huge problem. Overall, our forecast had the entire group being worth +0.3 WAR, the second worst collection of relievers in baseball. David Robertson immediately changes that calculation, given that he’s forecast for +1.8 WAR in 65 innings pitched. Adding Robertson to the White Sox group pushes them from something like worst in the league to middle of the pack. He’s that good.

Over the last three years, among relievers who have averaged 60 IP per season, Robertson ranks 10th in ERA-, 6th in FIP-, and 5th in xFIP-. He’s not quite Craig Kimbrel or Aroldis Chapman, but he’s comfortably in the next tier of dominant relievers. You don’t want to overpay a free agent closer just because a good reliever happened to be given the 9th inning and accrued a bunch of cheap saves, but that’s not Robertson’s resume. He’s a true relief ace.

Now, relievers are still highly volatile, and nearly every big money contract for an ace reliever has gone south in recent years. $40 million — or maybe more, given the “at least” in Rosenthal’s tweet — plus the surrendering of a second round draft choice means that Robertson isn’t coming cheap, and it’s unlikely that he’ll still be one of the game’s best relievers by the time this contract ends.

But for the next couple of years, Robertson should make the White Sox quite a bit better. And given that they’ve clearly decided to push their chips in on 2015, making short-term upgrades is probably a good plan. You don’t trade for Jeff Samardzija and surround him with the 2014 White Sox roster. If you’re going to make that kind of move, you’re also going to try and put a supporting cast in place to try and make that move worthwhile.

David Robertson is the kind of player who can help do just that. The White Sox bullpen was terrible. David Robertson makes it kind of okay. If they add Samardzija tomorrow and find a couple more position players, the White Sox could be pretty interesting next year.

The last time I put up an InstaGraphs post about a potential Jeff Samardzija trade, it turned out to actually be the Josh Donaldson trade. This time, though, it appears that the A’s really are dealing their ace, with multiple reporters confirming that a deal is close between the A’s and White Sox.

Sources: #WhiteSox close to acquiring Samardzija from #Athletics. @JonHeymanCBS and @JeffPassan were on it.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 9, 2014

The White Sox would be acquiring one year of Samardzija’s rights, plus an exclusive window to negotiate an extension. Failing that, they’d have the ability to make him a qualifying offer at the end of the year, or if they aren’t in the race in July, flip him for talent mid-season.

Samardzija would join Chris Sale and Jose Quintana, giving Chicago one of the better top-three rotations in the American League. More importantly, he would represent a significant upgrade over whichever #5 starter candidate would get pushed out of the picture; both both Chris Bassit and Erik Johnson project as essentially replacement level arms for 2015, and #4 starter Hector Noesi isn’t too far above that. This is a team that needed pitching depth, and Samardzija likely represents a larger upgrade for Chicago than nearly any other team in the league.

No word on the specific return that might go back to Oakland, but Susan Slusser has suggested that the team is interested in both major league infielder Marcus Semien and minor league infielder Tim Anderson. Kiley McDaniel just rated Anderson as the White Sox #2 prospect, concluding with these guesstimates of future value:

Upside: .280/.330/.450, 15-18 homers, solid average defense, plus baserunning value
FV/Risk: 60, High (4 on a 1-5 scale)
Projected Path: 2015: AA, 2016: AAA/MLB, 2017: MLB

Semien was rated as their #1 “big league growth asset” on the same list, and as Carson Cistulli has repeatedly noted, the statistical projections for him are often quite optimistic. In fact, Steamer sees Semien as an average big leaguer in 2015, as his minor league numbers suggest he’s a better player than he’s been in parts of 2013 and 2014 in the Majors.

We’ll have a full write up on the deal once it’s official and all the parts are known. For now, it looks like the A’s might be continuing to weaken their 2015 team to strengthen their future, while the White Sox are joining the very long list of AL teams going for the ring next year.

Let’s play a fun little game. Below are the 2012-2014 performances of two players. One of them was just traded for Joey Wendle, because the A’s didn’t want to pay him $7 million via arbitration next year. The other one is due $107 million over the next five years, and the Dodgers are asking for several of another team’s best young players in a trade.

Of course, this isn’t the whole story with either player. Kemp was an absolute monster in the second half, playing at a very high level, while Moss struggled with a hip problem that sapped all of his power. Moss is a year older. Moss is a lefty who probably needs to be platooned, while Kemp is right-handed and can play everyday. Kemp is a good athlete with obvious physical skills, while Moss has been outperforming scouting expectations with every season of success.

Like with my Chase Headley/Jacoby Ellsbury comparison this morning, I’m not suggesting that Moss is Kemp’s equal going forward, or that their market values should be the same. However, I will suggest that maybe the marginal difference between them isn’t actually that large, especially if the surgery Moss had on his hip doesn’t continue to hinder him going forward.

Steamer forecasts a 128 wRC+ and +2.3 WAR per 600 PAs for Kemp versus a 121 wRC+ and +1.9 WAR per 600 PAs for Moss. Toss in the risk associated with Moss’ hip problems, and maybe you think the gap is even a little bit bigger than that. And perhaps Kemp’s handedness is worth a premium, given how much more teams are paying for right-handed power than their left-handed equivalents.

But man, it’s hard to not like the Indians picking up Moss for a song when you see what the asking price for Matt Kemp is.

When the Cubs traded Jason Hammel to the A’s, Hammel made it clear that he’d enjoyed his time in Chicago and would be open to returning. He wasn’t kidding, apparently, he’s reportedly reached a deal to return to Chicago. According to Chris Cotillo, the deal is in the range of $18 million over two years with a likely team option.

That price would put him a little under what the average-ish veteran starter got last winter. Tim Hudson, Bronson Arroyo, Bartolo Colon all landed deals in excess of 2/$20M, while Scott Feldman got 3/$30M from the Astros. The crowdsourcing project and and I both expected Hammel to get something close to Feldman’s deal, but he ended up settling for a little less than the older pitchers got a year ago.

At 32, Hammel doesn’t have a ton of upside, but he’s essentially the definition of a league average starter. If he can give the Cubs 350-400 average-ish innings over the next two years, he’ll easily be worth the $18 million. There’s value in having solid arms at the back of your rotation, especially when they come at a bit of a discount.

As everyone assumes that the Cubs will add a front-line starter this offseason as well, this move could push Travis Wood out of the rotation, or potentially make him a chip to be used in a trade. If they add Jon Lester to the fold, a rotation of Lester, Jake Arrieta, Hammel, Kyle Hendricks, and either Edwin Jackson or Tsuyoshi Wada would be pretty interesting.

The signing of Hammel won’t draw big headlines, but it’s a nice depth signing for the Cubs, and pushes them closer towards contending in 2015. For the price he apparently gave them, it’s hard to argue with this deal from the Cubs perspective.

There are a lot of people out there wary of giving any reliever a four-year contract. That much is understandable; relievers are capricious. Just yesterday, I tried to make the case that Andrew Miller would be worth Nick Markakis money. And now, Miller has been given Nick Markakis money, almost. He gets the same four years, but Miller’s getting $36 million, not $44 million. This kind of contract was inevitable, and it appears justifiable. At the same time, it’s not a surprise the contract was drawn up by the Yankees.

Let’s say there are teams who believe that Miller will be worth the money. Yet, it’s a clear risk, so, who could most afford the potential downside? The answer in this case, and in all cases: New York. From Kiley McDaniel not too long ago:

A Yankees source told me they could break even financially with a $500 million payroll expenditure[…]

When you put it that way, it’s like, why even bother with analysis? The Yankees don’t have the same worries other teams do. The Yankees do have their limits, but to some extent those limits are artificial, so if you’re in a bidding war for a player the Yankees both like and need, you have to be prepared to lose. It’s the winner’s-curse argument, with a twist where the cursed team is also uniquely blessed.

For the Yankees, it hasn’t been a case of Andrew Miller or David Robertson, necessarily, because they could still conceivably bring their own guy back, but at least, the Yankees have gone with Miller first. He was a little better than Robertson last year. He’s been very similar over the last three years. They’re the same age, and while Robertson’s good against lefties, Miller’s just plain left-handed, which could make him less vulnerable to the peculiarities of Yankee Stadium. And then there’s this: Miller was traded last summer. Robertson turned down a qualifying offer. So if the Yankees were to sign Robertson, they’d be forfeiting a potential compensation pick. There’s value in that, whereas with Miller, all the Yankees are surrendering is money.

And Miller’s great. Obscenely great. Now he gets to be paired with Dellin Betances, and, here’s where those two pitchers ranked last year among all relievers with 40+ innings:

Miller has one career save to his name. Betances, as well. Yet, statistically, last year these two were no worse than Wade Davis and Greg Holland, so if they’re great again in 2015, the Yankees could approach the late innings by deploying their best relievers based on the matchups. You could see both end up with 20+ saves; alternatively, one could emerge, or neither could get the role, if Robertson comes back or someone else does something. Even as a non-closer last season, Miller was worth a ton, so he doesn’t need to close to justify this deal. It’s just something he could end up doing, because he’s more than good enough.

On Friday, the Yankees opened up a hole in their starting rotation by dealing Shane Greene. Yet, they also plugged a hole in their pitching staff by adding Andrew Miller, and Miller should be no less valuable than some No. 4 or 5 starter the Yankees find as a replacement. There’s no such thing as a bargain reliever contract that costs thirty-six million dollars. But the Yankees have to worry about that less than anyone, and Miller is almost as good as it gets. He told Ken Rosenthal he likes to pitch in the AL East. The AL East hitters are probably getting sick of him.