The never-ending transaction wheel in San Diego has continued to spin this morning. In the wake of acquiring Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, and Justin Upton, the Padres have now set their sights on remaking their infield. First stop was to find a new third baseman, and the team has shockingly settled on a defensively challenged right-handed slugger with contact issues. Will Middlebrooks played his way out of Boston even before the team signed Pablo Sandoval to replace him, so he was clearly getting traded this winter; the Padres picked him up in exchange for Ryan Hanigan, who came over from the Rays.

Middlebrooks’ value will likely come down to his defense at third base. Steamer projects him as a league average hitter for 2015, a significant step up from what he’s done in Boston. A 97 wRC+ with solid defense at third base is a pretty nice role player, especially for the league minimum and with multiple years of team control.

That said, his defensive value isn’t so cut and dry. In just under 2,000 innings at third base, UZR thinks he’s been okay-ish, rating him at -3 runs per 150 games. However, DRS has him at -16 over the same time period, which would make him among the worst third baseman in baseball. With a sample this small, you certainly want to regress towards the mean, and so Middlebrooks should probably project as something closer to league average with the glove until we have more evidence that he’s not.

If he’s a decent enough defender, he’s a +1 to +2 WAR player with a little bit of upside. If he’s the butcher that DRS thinks, he’s Chris Johnson 2.0.

Still, the price was right to take the gamble, as Hanigan is a good defender who was displaced by last night’s acquisition of Derek Norris, and the team just signed David Ross to take over as the defensive half of the catcher tandem. Hanigan will be a useful player for the Red Sox, but the gap between what he provides and what the Padres will get from Ross isn’t huge, especially in a reserve role.

The Padres still have plenty of work to do to sort out a roster crowded with outfielders and heavy on right-handed hitters, but the Hanigan/Middlebrooks swap gives them a decent third baseman without dramatically downgrading their catching situation. This kind of offense-only-who-cares-about-defense philosophy is never going to win me over, but this part of the plan looks reasonable, at least.

Well, this is fascinating. A day after finalizing the Matt Kemp trade, and on the day the Wil Myers trade is expected to be announced, the Padres have reportedly agreed to acquire Justin Upton as well. I think it’s safe to say that A.J. Preller puts a high value on right-handed power hitting outfielders.

As I see it, there are a few ways this could work.

1. The Padres are going to play either Wil Myers or Matt Kemp in center field. Myers came up as a CF in the minors, while Kemp has played mostly CF in the big leagues. If the Padres just really think defense is completely useless, this gets all three sluggers into the line-up and maximizes the team’s offense.

2. Either Kemp or Myers is going to go to first base, replacing Yonder Alonso, who doesn’t really fit into the mold of what the new Padres seem to value. Kemp would seem to be the better candidate, but Jeff Passan suggests that maybe Myers would be the guy heading to first base instead.

3. Wil Myers is getting traded again. As I speculated a few nights ago, there’s a fit between the Padres and Rangers for a Wil Myers-Jurickson Profar swap, assuming the two sides could agree on the other parts of the deal. The Rangers need a right fielder, the Padres need a shortstop, and both sides clearly have depth to trade from now.

Any of the three options would be kind of interesting, at least. The first option seems the most likely, and probably the worst, as punting outfield defense entirely just isn’t a very good plan. Kemp would be more valuable at first base than in the outfield, but swapping one of the newly acquired OFs for an SS might be the best plan of all. Clearly, the Padres aren’t done dealing just yet.

For this week’s Library update, we’ve rolled out a very long, thorough glossary entry that offers a brief description and links (where applicable) for every single pitching statistic available on our leaderboards. It’s easy to find our glossary entry on FIP, for example, but if you want to know what wFB/C is, it takes a little bit of digging to get to the right place.

Now, we have a permanent pages that lists every statistic we have according to the acronym used on the leaderboard. You can jump over to this page at any time and find the corresponding stat or use “CTRL + F” to make your Internet computers do it for you.

As always, should you have any questions, I encourage you to drop a comment below, find me on Twitter @NeilWeinberg44, or stop by our weekly Q&A chats Wednesdays at 3pm. Enjoy!

Hey, remember the Matt Kemp trade that happened last Thursday? Well, it didn’t really happen so much as news of a pending agreement was reported a week ago. For the last seven days, details have been getting finalized, which included having Matt Kemp take a physical. He did that on Tuesday. Apparently, it didn’t go very well.

SD in perfect position to squeeze LAD for more money in Kemp deal: Kemp's medicals ugly, LAD has cash and needs Kemp deal more than SD does.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) December 18, 2014

The holdup in Matt Kemp trade is because the physical revealed arthritis in both hips. The #Padres continue to consult medical experts.

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) December 18, 2014

Arthritis in both hips. This isn’t something you hear too often, and it brings back memories of Albert Belle, who was one of the game’s most dominant hitters until an arthritic hip ended his career after the 2000 season. Belle’s decline was swift, as he went from a 165 wRC+ to a 139 wRC+ to a 104 wRC+ in his final three seasons, finally retiring after his age-33 season when it became clear that he wasn’t going to be able to play through the condition any longer.

Matt Kemp is only 30, and looked fine at the plate in the second half of last season, so maybe it all sounds scarier than it actually is. Maybe he’ll be fine, and the Dodgers will just kick in some extra money to get the deal done.

But this already looked like a bad deal for San Diego, and Kemp was already a poor fit for their park. Arthritic hips seem like the kind of thing that would make a defensive bounceback less likely, and on the surface, it would seem to serve Kemp’s interests to have him end up on an AL team where he could spend the bulk of his time at DH.

But it’s probably not as easy as the Padres just telling the Dodgers they changed their minds. As Ken Rosenthal and others have noted, Kemp’s medical information is protected by HIPAA, and should not have been released publicly, even anonymously. It would be difficult for the Dodgers to prove that the Padres leaked the information, but at the very least, backing out of the deal at this point might serve to make other teams reluctant to trade with San Diego in the future. A.J. Preller already had a reputation as a polarizing executive who didn’t always play by the rules during his days in Texas, and leaving the Dodgers holding a bag of arthritic hips wouldn’t be a good way to show everyone that he’s changed his stripes.

We should find out today whether this deal is happening or not. No matter what happens, this might get ugly for San Diego, either on the field or off of it.

According to the rules of Major League Baseball, a drafted player cannot be traded by his team within the first calendar year of signing his initial contract. According to another rule, however, teams can agree to trade players to another organization without specifying who they are for up to six months, meaning that teams can actually trade drafted players six months and one day after they sign, using the player to be named later loophole.

This is the back door that the Padres are using to ship Trea Turner to the Nationals as part of the Wil Myers trade that should be announced shortly. When the deal is announced, no one is going to officially acknowledge that Turner is part of it; he will simply be referred to as a PTBNL. And then, when spring training starts, he’s going to report to Peoria and train with the Padres. He’s going to stay in their system until June 14th, in fact, meaning that he’ll spend the first two months of the minor league season playing for a team that actually traded him before Christmas.

Back before the internet and the land grab of information, this maybe wasn’t worth worrying about. Now, though, nothing a baseball team does remains in the shadows for too long, and Turner is certainly aware of the fact that he’ll be switching teams in June. And yet, he still has to go to camp with the Padres, play in their minor league system, get treated by their doctors, make friends with their prospects, and bide his time until the rules say he can finally join the organization who sees him as their shortstop of the future.

This just all seems beyond silly. The PTBNL is such an established loophole to the trade exception that it doesn’t really make sense to continue the charade. Teams can currently trade drafted players six months after they sign, so let’s just make that the rule. Why make Turner go through a few months of this? Why make the Nationals sit around and hope that the Padres don’t screw up their asset while they don’t have custody over him? What’s the point of any of it?

The PTBNL can serve a legitimate purpose — trade returns can differ based on how a player performs after a deal, helping mitigate risk when trading for a health risk — but I see no real benefit to requiring teams to use it as a loophole around the trade limitation. Let teams officially trade prospects six months after they sign, as they already can, and let the PTBNL be used for instances where teams actually decide later on who the prospect is going to be. Once everyone agrees to move a kid from one organization to another, how about we just go ahead and let him move?

Just two years after getting shipped out of Kansas City, Wil Myers is reportedly on the move again. This time, he’s going to San Diego in a fascinating three way trade that looks to create more questions than it answers.

First, the most updated details, as we know them, via Mark Topkin.

Hearing #Rays are down to 2 scenarios on Myers trade, waiting to hear if #Nats are in or out.

— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) December 17, 2014

Either way, #Rays said to give up Myers, Hanigan and 2 low minor-lgrs, and get back Rivera, B.Smith, Bauers from #Padres. Then ….

— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) December 17, 2014

If #Nats are in, #Rays under these scenarios to get Souza and A-ball LHP. If #Nats out, #Rays said get J. Ross, Trea Turner from #Padres

— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) December 17, 2014

Trea Turner was #Padres first-round pick so if he was in #Rays or #Nats deal he would have to be a PTNBL

— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) December 17, 2014

As best as we can sort it out, it looks like the deal might be something like this.

San Diego gets Wil Myers, Ryan Hanigan, and pitching prospect Jose Castillo.
Tampa Bay gets Steven Souza, Rene Rivera, and prospects Burch Smith and Jake Bauers.
Washington gets Trea Turner and Joe Ross

If the Nationals part of the deal doesn’t happen, Souza would stay in WAS and TB would keep Ross and Turner.

The Padres get a young right-handed hitter who is supposed to be a future slugger, but he hasn’t shown that kind of power in the big leagues as of yet. And while Myers certainly still has enough upside to develop into what he was projected to be, this is a bit of an odd fit for San Diego, who already had Seth Smith in one corner and is close to acquiring Matt Kemp to play in the other corner. Something will have to give in SD’s crowded outfield, whether it’s Smith getting moved or Myers potentially heading to yet another team.

For the Rays, this is a bit more cut-and-dry. Souza is exactly their kind of player, an underrated prospect whom the projections adore, and they pick up a few additional pieces in exchange for making a perceived downgrade in right field. Souza destroyed Triple-A last year and Steamer has him as Myers equal for 2015.

He is a little bit older and hasn’t yet hit in the big leagues, but he comes with one extra year of team control, which is always valuable to the Rays. While the perceived gap between Myers and Souza is likely quite high, given that Souza has never been ranked as a top prospect, the forecasts think that this isn’t actually a huge step back for Tampa Bay. Even if you think the projections are too optimistic for Souza or too pessimistic for Myers, the Rays get a few additional minor pieces to offset some of that gap.

The Nationals seem to be the third team in this deal simply because the Rays wanted Souza as a Myers replacement; for them, this trade just moves some prospects around. Souza was blocked in Washington by Jayson Werth and Bryce Harper, so the Nationals turned him into a couple of pieces they’re more likely to be able to use. Ross gives them more pitching depth in case they end up trading an arm like Jordan Zimmermann, while Turner will slot in as Ian Desmond’s long-term replacement at shortstop.

We’ll have a full write-up (or two) on this once everything is official. My early take is that this is a fair-ish deal for all involved, pending what San Diego does to clear their new outfield logjam. The Rays seem to be betting on Souza’s projections, the Padres are betting on Myers power developing, while the Nationals are betting that two good prospects slightly further from the majors are better than one who is big league ready.

If you haven’t been on Twitter tonight, you’ve missed a series of pretty fascinating rumors. According to various reports — most easily summed up over at MLBTradeRumors — the Rays are working on a trade with the Padres that would send Wil Myers to San Diego. The likely return is not yet known, nor is it entirely certain that Myers would stay with the Padres, as Jeff Passan is suggesting that this deal could be the precursor for another trade.

Sense among those in the know is that while Padres-Rays deal involving Wil Myers is straight-up, players dealt could be on the move again.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 17, 2014

With Matt Kemp and Seth Smith already in the fold, the Padres don’t seem like a great fit for another corner outfielder, though they have been previously linked to Justin Upton, so perhaps they’re planning on acquiring Myers to replace Smith. But for a team that seems to be making moves to upgrade now, that would be a little odd, given the projections for 2015.

So, let’s just speculate a bit. What the Padres need more than another corner outfielder is a shortstop. You know who has an extra young shortstop and needs a corner outfielder? The Texas Rangers. You know where A.J. Preller just worked, running the international scouting department when Jurickson Profar was signed as a 16 year old? Yeah, the Texas Rangers.

Completely speculative, but perhaps the Padres are looking to acquire Myers because Preller knows that Jon Daniels wants him to play right field, and will give up Profar and some other of Preller’s old favorites. Given the injury problems Profar has suffered, I find it unlikely that there would be a one for one trade, but I could see a situation where the Padres are trading prospects to get the guy that gets them Profar.

Or, maybe they just love Wil Myers. There aren’t too many good young above average hitters on the market these days, and Smith isn’t good enough that you don’t acquire a piece of that value simply because it forces another deal. Perhaps we’ll find out soon. I think my wild speculation about a Myers-Profar second deal at least sounds reasonable, even if it’s based on nothing more than imagination.

A few days ago, Dave had to throw up an omnibus transaction post for the last day of the winter meetings. Moves were getting made fastly and furiously, and Dave couldn’t keep up writing about each one individually, so for simplicity he crammed some of them together. Well, what we have now is another little flurry of moves, albeit lesser moves than some that were made last week. But in keeping with what I’ll designate as a new InstaGraphs tradition, here is another omnibus transaction post, despite it not being titled as such. Following, moves that have happened in the last 24 hours, and three sentences about them. Maybe you don’t think that’s enough sentences, but before this post, the moves had been given zero sentences. Three is bigger than zero! That’s just analysis.

Rays trade Matt Joyce to Angels for Kevin Jepsen

The Rays just found out they’ll start the year without Jake McGee, so Jepsen’s a nice bullpen addition with two remaining years of team control, against Joyce’s one. Jepsen’s coming off a career-best strikeout season, having added a functional changeup he threw once per six pitches. Joyce can’t do anything against left-handed pitching, but he’s proven very much useful against right-handed pitching, so the Angels can pair him with C.J. Cron while using him also as Josh Hamilton injury insurance.

Yankees sign Chris Capuano for $5 million

CC Sabathia is coming off surgery, Ivan Nova is coming off surgery, Masahiro Tanaka is coming off an elbow problem, Michael Pineda isn’t too far removed from surgery, and the Yankees recently traded Shane Greene for a shortstop. There are reasons why the Yankees have been rumored to have interest in Max Scherzer, but even failing a Scherzer pursuit, it’s never the worst idea in the world to try to accumulate some starting-rotation depth. It can be difficult to find a functional veteran willing to move to the bullpen if that’s what needs demand, so what the Yankees have in Capuano is a relatively rare sort who’s willing and able to be fine in two roles.

Rockies sign Daniel Descalso for $3.6 million over two years

Over four years as a semi-regular with the Cardinals, Descalso was worth exactly 0.0 WAR. He plays all over the infield, so he’s basically just taking the place of the departed Josh Rutledge. Two years might seem like too long, but in the grand scheme of things, what are two years, really?

Marlins sign Michael Morse for $16 million over two years

Right-handed power, playoff experience, and he’s not Garrett Jones. When he’s healthy, Morse remains a potent hitter, and he might very well outhit the more expensive Kendrys Morales and Billy Butler. Yet because he’s seldom healthy, and because he’s not a good defender anywhere, this is going to read like a better deal than it is, and you have to remember that the market allowed for this contract to happen despite there being so few legitimate bats available.

Padres sign Brandon Morrow for $2.5 million, with incentives

Morrow has narrowly exceeded 200 innings over his last three years combined, with diminishing totals in each. He’s understood to be a massive injury risk, and in his peak WAR seasons, he had unremarkable RA9-WAR seasons. Yet the last time we saw Morrow, he was still throwing in the mid-90s, and he’s just 30 years old, so as an upside starter or an upside reliever, Morrow’s a perfectly sensible investment for a team that sure wants to do something in 2015.

Padres sign Trayvon Robinson to minor-league contract

It happened. I think. That’s what the internet says.

Braves sign Alberto Callaspo for $3 million

When it’s all said and done, Callaspo will finish with similar numbers of walks and strikeouts. He’s somewhat versatile and he’s decently disciplined, and the Braves had a gaping hole after dealing Tommy La Stella. The one thing Callaspo doesn’t do is hit the baseball hard enough for the baseball to notice, and it turns out that’s the kind of thing you want to be able to do if you want to sign a contract with greater terms than this contract.

Cubs sign Jason Motte for $4.5 million, with incentives

Motte was a good reliever in 2010, 2011, and 2012. Tommy John surgery cost him 2013, and upon his return in 2014, he was missing velocity and therefore effectiveness. Yet a similar thing happened to Joe Nathan in 2011 before he returned to being his old awesome self in 2012, so while the Cubs understand the obvious risk here, they have the money and Motte comes with bigger upside than most of the other affordable free-agent options.

Dodgers sign Brett Anderson for $10 million, with incentives

Tommy John surgery in 2011, rehab and an oblique strain in 2012, a foot stress fracture in 2013, and a finger fracture and a bulging disk in 2014. Anderson has thrown 206 big-league innings over the last four years, but in those 206 innings he’s been worth a combined 3.3 WAR, with good-enough peripherals, so the upside is obvious, especially if you figure things like fractures are freak accidents. Anderson isn’t 27 until February, and the Dodgers will plan for him to be their fifth starter for as long as he can remain on the mound, which is a perfectly good roll of the dice for a team that can afford to outspend almost all others.

—

Update!!!

Indians sign Gavin Floyd for $4 million, with incentives

Tommy John cost Floyd much of 2013, and some of 2014. Yet last season ended due to an unrelated elbow injury, one that’s supposed to be just fine in time for spring training, and when Floyd did pitch with the Braves, he flashed a career-best 14% K-BB% and an overall somewhat average profile with undiminished stuff. The Indians were in no particular need of rotation help, but everyone’s in need of rotation depth, and Floyd will actually be the most expensive starting arm on the team.

Coming away from 2014, we knew some things. The Royals were going to have a little extra money to spend, after getting as far as is possible to get without winning the World Series. The Royals were also going to be in the market for a designated hitter, and additionally perhaps in the market for a right fielder. They plugged the DH hole not long ago, giving two years and $17 million to a bounceback candidate in Kendrys Morales who was most recently absolutely godawful. And now the Royals have a new outfielder, who has had good seasons before:

alex rios agrees to one-year with royals. $11M.

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) December 16, 2014

Over the last three years, Alex Rios has about the same WAR as Josh Hamilton, Coco Crisp, Shin-Soo Choo, and Jose Altuve. That’s the good part. This is the worse part:

2012: 4.2 WAR (31 years old)
2013: 3.1 (32)
2014: 0.2 (33)

Maybe you prefer something as simple as plate appearances per home run:

2012: 25.6 PA per dinger
2013: 36.8
2014: 130.3

Rios is getting up there in years, and just last season it seems like his power completely eroded. Now, prior to that, he was productive as a regular, so Rios — like Morales — seems like a decent bounceback candidate, but now the Royals have guaranteed $28 million to a couple guys who last year were worth a combined -1.5 WAR. Last year’s performance isn’t the best indicator of next year’s performance, but even if Rios and Morales bounce back some, it doesn’t look like the Royals will be getting bargains. They’ll be getting acceptable players, eating up what looks like a high salary on that team.

This is a .gif of fastball heat maps to Rios over the last two years:

Rios bats right-handed, so what you’re seeing is a shift a little more inside. Over the last two seasons, 122 different right-handed batters saw at least 500 fastballs each year. In 2013, about 33% of fastballs to Rios were over or beyond the inner third. In 2014, that rose to about 43%. The increase of 9.3 percentage points was the biggest such increase in baseball, by a couple percentage points, and it might indicate rising confidence pitching Rios in. To the pull side, he has a career .295 ISO, but last year it dropped to .145, with only two dingers. The point of all this being, pitchers changed their approaches to Rios, and Rios had a bad year, and he’s in his mid-30s now.

Because it’s a one-year contract, it can be only so bad. Rios isn’t a great defender, but he’s not a bad one. He can add some value on the bases, and he still hits for an above-average contact clip, so in those ways Rios isn’t a lousy fit for the roster model. Used properly, he can help what’s already an athletic and capable outfield, and it’s not like the market left Dayton Moore an infinite supply of options. Also, note that Rios signed for one year and $11 million the same day Brett Anderson signed somewhere for one year and $10 million, with incentives. Cheap fliers aren’t so cheap anymore. But as good as Rios was once, he presumably will be no longer so good. And if Rios and Morales don’t bounce back, the Royals will have spent some of their windfall on players who weren’t good the very season before they became Royals. That would be ripe for mockery in hindsight, which is the best and worst kind of mockery.

Kyle Blanks heading to #Rangers, as @ChrisCotillo reported. Will make $1M if he's on MLB roster. $600K in bonuses based on PA's.

— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) December 15, 2014

Right-handed power — for reasons both that do and don’t entirely appear to make sense — has been expensive thus far this offseason, as generous contracts for Billy Butler, Nelson Cruz, and Michael Cuddyer all illustrate.

Recently, the present author sorted through the Steamer projections with a view towards identifying targets for those clubs searching for economical alternatives to Butler and Cruz, et al.

The result of that brief study? That, issues of health aside, giant corner-type Kyle Blanks — recently non-tendered by Oakland — appeared to be the best option for a club looking for a right-handed power hitter. Today, the Texas Rangers have signed him to a split contract that’d pay the former Padre $1 million plus incentives should he reach the majors.

There would appear to be ample opportunity for Blanks to contribute. Currently, Mitch Moreland and “others” constitute the entirety of their DH depth chart. Moreover, there’s the distinct possibility Prince Fielder will benefit from rest as he attempts to recover from a herniated disk — and the attendant surgery to repair it — that reduced him to fewer than 200 plate appearances in 2014.

Of course, health is an issue for Blanks himself. Worth roughly 2.0 WAR per every 600 plate appearances over the course of his six-year major-league career, Blanks has also only recorded 862 of those (i.e. plate appearances) during that same interval — largely the result of injuries, as opposed to ineffectiveness.

In this case, the Rangers’ gamble is a modest one. If healthy, Blanks can reasonably be expected to provide $1 million of production in roughly 50 plate appearances. A low bar for repayment, that.