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Dennis Sarfate is now 36 years old, and he hasn’t thrown a pitch in the majors since 2009. In terms of just the general profile, fans of every team have experience with their own Dennis Sarfates. It’s maybe the most familiar reliever profile there is: hard-throwing righty who doesn’t throw strikes. Most of the time, those pitchers don’t blossom. When they’re in the minors, they’re viewed as future closers, but the strikes never come, and they bounce around on waivers. They get replaced. There are always replacements.

Sarfate blossomed. He didn’t do it in the majors, nor did he do it with a major-league affiliate. You might argue that Sarfate blossomed quietly. But in fact, that would reflect a biased perspective, because Sarfate went and became a dominant reliever in Japan. Sarfate was so good he was just voted as his league’s MVP, and although it’s not often the true MVP works out of a bullpen, the results send a message. Pitching in another league, Sarfate has turned into something overwhelming. He set Japan’s single-season record for saves, and he worked three innings in the decisive game of the championship. I used to make fun of Sarfate, when I was younger and he was bad. Sarfate now has maximized his talent. He might be the best reliever available.

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In the midst of a slow beginning to the offseason, the big slugger in Miami keeps hitting homers — at least when it comes to providing content. Even after I made the case for acquiring Giancarlo Stanton — particularly for a team like the Giants — and Craig Edwards pointed out how an opt-out lowers Stanton’s value, the NL MVP remains a source of inspiration. Because, while all of those posts regarding Stanton feature assumptions about his ability to produce years from now, none of them focus on how well or poorly he’ll age, specifically. How he ages, though, is super important to how one thinks about his contract. It’s a matter worth unpacking further, in other words.

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Yesterday, I suggested the Blue Jays and Cardinals should consider making a swap centered around Josh Donaldson. Unsurprisingly, many of the comments felt the return for a true superstar was less than it should be. Historically, the public expectation of what elite players will return in trade is less than they actually bring back when traded. But beyond just a difference in expected market value for one year of an elite player, I think that the Jays might want to consider that, if things go south this year, they’ll be tasked with trading a third baseman in a buyer’s market.

Let’s start by just looking at the teams that we can reasonably expect to be buyers this summer. There are 10 teams that currently project for 84+ wins in 2018; here are their third base situations.

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“This is maybe the most unique circumstance in baseball that I can recall. It is all about how you as a city, as an organization and as human beings appeal to an individual, rather than the final paycheck. In my lifetime, that’s really never been a thing.”

—Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto

This author certainly cannot remember a more interesting courtship in the history of free agency. Once Shohei Ohtani is officially available — he’s expected to be posted Friday or Saturday after an owner’s vote on the posting agreement — he will have 21 days to make a decision. After that, the world will wait. Teams will recruit.

That recruiting effort became more interesting over the weekend, as Ohtani’s, agent, Nez Balelo of CAA Baseball, sent something of an exam to all 30 clubs, a development first reported by The Associated Press.

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Chatter has been picking up that Major League Baseball will introduce a pitch clock in 2018. It’s felt like an inevitable development for some time, with the clock having been in place in the upper minors for the last few years. Reactions have been mixed, because reactions are always mixed, but the pitch clock is coming, and it’s probably going to be fine. We’ll get used to it, everyone will get used to it, and the game will remain by and large the same.

I made a point about the pitch clock last week. According to early reports, the proposed clock would only be used when the bases are empty, and I pointed out that the game only really slows down after somebody reaches. When there’s a runner on base, pitchers have more to worry about, so it makes sense that they’d work slower. But I don’t want to make this all about pitchers. We tend to think of pitchers as being responsible for dictating the pace. They are, after all, the guys holding the baseballs. But in any at-bat, there are two parties involved. As Buster Olney wrote in his report, no batter in the National League averaged more time between pitches than Odubel Herrera. And no batter in either league averaged more time between pitches than Marwin Gonzalez.

On average last year, overall, there were 24.2 seconds between pitches. For Gonzalez, that average was 29.5. That was up from the previous year’s 27.2, and up from his career low of 24.4. Pitching to Gonzalez was most recently 22% slower than pitching to a league-average hitter. Just as a pitch clock will make certain pitchers hurry up, it would have the same effect on certain hitters. At least, given proper enforcement.

I imagine we can mostly agree that’s a good thing. There’s baseball’s normal, familiar pace, and there are the players who push it too far. Wasted seconds benefit no one, and there’s no need for there to be just two pitches every minute. Players will need to maintain a good tempo. What effect this all ultimately has, we’ll have to see. Yet there’s one question we can answer right now: What in the heck is Marwin Gonzalez even doing?

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After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Cincinnati Reds. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
The 2017 campaign wasn’t what anyone would characterize as an “overwhelming success” for Cincinnati. The club finished 26 games under .500. Their BaseRuns record wasn’t much better, either. All in all, it was the sort of season one might expect from a rebuilding club.

A brief inspection of the numbers, however, reveals that the club’s position players were actually pretty good. Due largely to a defensive performance rated highly both by DRS and UZR, the Reds’ batters and fielders recorded the 10th-best WAR in the league. The team’s pitchers, meanwhile, ranked 30th by that measure. The split was the second largest in all the league.

The defense should be a strength once again in 2018. While free agent Zack Cozart (projected for +7 runs at shortstop and 3.0 zWAR overall) is unlikely to return to Cincinnati, both catcher Tucker Barnhart (+9, 2.5) and center fielder Billy Hamilton (+12, 2.3) return to a roster populated mostly by average-or-better fielders.

As for Joey Votto (5.3 zWAR), he isn’t projected to be an elite defender. He is, however, forecast to be the club’s best player — by a couple wins, in this case. Eugenio Suarez (3.5 zWAR) is the team’s other All-Star candidate according to the projections.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about a slow week in baseball and the likely effects of MLB’s impending pitch clock, then talk to former front-office executive (and former FanGraphs writer) Tony Blengino about how baseball brain trusts could and should be crafting their responses to the seven questions that Shohei Ohtani’s agent recently sent to teams.

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Somewhat quietly, the Rangers have ended up in a difficult situation. We tend to think of the Rangers as perennial contenders, and they’ve established a fairly good record of success, but they could be approaching a cliff. In the same way you see the Orioles as a club that could be rebuilding a year from now, the Rangers aren’t too different, now that Yu Darvish is gone and Cole Hamels has declined. Just like every other club, the Rangers are interested in Shohei Ohtani, but just like every other club, the Rangers have to understand they probably aren’t going to get him. They don’t occupy an enviable spot.

What the Rangers haven’t done, however, is throw in the towel. There is still a path to short-term success, even should Ohtani go somewhere else. It requires the Rangers to be smart with their money, trying to get the most bang for their buck. They’re presently on the verge of signing Doug Fister. Last I heard, all that’s left is a physical. This is a good start. Fister should supply some immediate help.

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