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 Detroit Tigers. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
Detroit’s collection of hitters doesn’t fair particularly well by the projections, nor is this particularly surprising: having finally embraced the notion of a rebuild, the club has spent the last six months divesting itself of all mildly attractive assets. Ian Kinsler, J.D. Martinez, and Justin Upton represented three-quarters of the team’s offensive core least year. They’ve all been traded since mid-July.

What remains is rather modest. Miguel Cabrera (526 PA, 2.0 zWAR) and Nick Castellanos (634, 2.3) receive the only projections of two or more wins. Designated hitter Victor Martinez (446, 0.3) is a replacement-level player. All other starters occupy a spot somewhere with that range. This is a below-average group.

That’s not to say there aren’t items of interest. Overall, the team is younger. Third baseman Jeimer Candelario (596, 1.7), acquired from the Cubs in the Justin Wilson trade, earns a nearly league-average forecast. Also, the club appears likely to field one of its best defenses for some time. Leonys Martin (507, 1.7) is projected for +9 runs in center field. Dixon Machado (496, 0.8) is a +4 shortstop playing second base. Miscast as a center fielder, Mikie Mahtook (428, 0.7) is probably an asset in left.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the Padres’ social-media accounts getting hacked, Scott Boras’ “volcano” comment, Hall of Fame voting results, and Jeff’s article about batting practice, then answer listener emails about team construction and the wild card, consistency and Carlos Santana, the baseball equivalents of football’s recent Super Bowl staples, the decline and comeback of four-man rotations, a knuckleball hitter, three Mike Trout hypotheticals, baseball owners opening their books, and a change to free-agent eligibility, plus a Stat Blast on teams that have been better or worse than their underlying stats.

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Thursday’s Christian Yelich deal with Milwaukee netted Miami four prospects: OF Lewis Brinson, 2B Isan Diaz, OF Monte Harrison, and RHP Jordan Yamamoto. Full, deeper reports on each of these players is available on our Brewers pref list, but below are condensed summaries of each.

Lewis Brinson, CF (60 FV) – It’s important to note that Brinson opinions among scouts and executive vary pretty widely, especially for a player who has performed at the upper levels of the minors. Some people just don’t think he’s going to hit, but Brinson has made relevant swing adjustments multiple times as a pro and his strikeout rate has dropped every season. It’s been a very reasonable 20% over the last two years and he has monster complementary tools in plus power and plus speed.

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The most recent World Series, of course, was won by the Astros, and the previous World Series, of course, was won by the Cubs. Those teams have had the most successful examples of recent rebuilds, and although things don’t always go that well, the ideal rebuild goes through three phases. First, you tear down, exchanging shorter-term players for longer-term players. Then, you develop, with more talent accumulation along the way. Finally, there’s the push, the re-investment in trying to win. That’s when the rebuild is basically over. That’s when a team has climbed back in the race.

I don’t know what marked the Astros’ transition to phase three. Perhaps it was trading for Evan Gattis. Perhaps it was trading for Scott Kazmir, or for Carlos Gomez. On the Cubs’ side, there was the signing of Jon Lester, and there was the acquisition of Dexter Fowler. When the Astros and Cubs decided they were ready to win, the change was unmistakable. And now, hoping to follow in their footsteps, we have the Brewers. The Brewers have entered phase three.

To their credit, the Brewers didn’t let the process bottom out. After finishing above .500 in 2014, they spent just two years out of the hunt. Last season, they were an overachieving surprise. And now they’ve pulled off a major one-two punch. Thursday afternoon, they traded for Christian Yelich. Only a short time later, they signed Lorenzo Cain. Yelich cost four prospects. Cain got five years. But there’s no missing the message: The Brewers are ready.

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Two days ago, this author politely asked a major-league team — really any major-league team — to sign free-agent outfielder Lorenzo Cain. Tonight, Brewers general manager David Stearns and team ownership obliged.

This author — and others, too, including former FanGraphs editor Dave Cameron — tabbed Cain as the top value play in free agency, assuming the terms of his contract emerged as expected. The crowd and Dave each predicted a four-year, $68-million deal.

At a reported five years and $80 million, Cain is a bit less of a bargain than expected. There was no New Year’s discount for his services, for example. Nonetheless, the Brewers on Thursday night added two impact outfielders in Christian Yelich (about whom Jeff Sullivan is writing at this moment) and Cain, the top position-player free-agent available.

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Here’s a table! It includes every team in baseball, and it shows how many regular-season games each team has won over the past five years. The Dodgers have been very good. The Phillies have not. Come to FanGraphs.com for all of your groundbreaking baseball analysis.

Lately I’ve been thinking about a few different questions. The main thrust of one: Which team is best positioned to be good for a while? The main thrust of the other: Which team seems to be the most screwed? We all, I think, have our suspicions, and the first one has maybe been talked to death. I’m not sure. Situations are always changing. But I couldn’t quite think of the right way to approach the subjects. I’ve also known I’ve wanted to gauge community opinions. And so we come to this, which is just another FanGraphs community polling project. I think I’ve settled on an appropriate question.

Above, for every team, you see five-year win totals, through 2017. Below, there are 30 polls — one for each team — and I’m looking for your rough combined win projections for 2018 through 2022. It’s relatively easy to project one season ahead, but for these purposes, I don’t think that accomplishes enough. It asks a different question. By focusing on five years, instead of one, I’m not just asking about the strength of the current roster. It forces you to consider the front office, and the farm system, and the player development, and the overall resources. In theory, we could go beyond five years, but then it’s all effectively unknowable. I mean, even the fifth year is probably unknowable, but just give it your best shot, based on what you understand about your team. As always, I’ll do a follow-up analysis post, so that we can evaluate the whole spread of the landscape.

I recognize that these polling projects are usually easier. This one requires some basic math. For reference, an average of 81 wins over the next five years would yield a combined total of 405. An average of 90 wins over the next five years would yield a combined total of 450. An average of 75 wins over the next five years would yield a combined total of 375. Those might give you some useful targets. You can also refer to the table at the start. It’s not fun to have to do math just in order to respond to an internet poll, but I think the results of this could be really interesting. It’s a question we’re frequently thinking about, yet I’ve never polled in this way. Given sufficient participation, we can assess every team’s short- and medium-term strength in league context.

Thank you in advance for your help. I can’t wait to see what the numbers reveal.

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Congratulations to Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Chipper Jones, and Jim Thome. That quartet of fine players all received word yesterday that they’d earned a place in baseball’s Hall of Fame, each receiving more than 75% of the BBWAA’s vote.

If you think the day after one year’s results are announced is too early to start thinking about the next year’s ballot, that’s fair. If you believe next year’s ballot is fair game, however, come with me as I consider what might happen next January.

First, a point regarding the sheer number of candidates. No players on this year’s ballot were in their 10th and final year of voting, so nobody was removed due to time constraints. That means that every player who was not elected this year and who also received at least 5% of the vote will be on next year’s ballot. Four players were inducted this year, though. Last year, it was three. The size of those two classes alone helps clear out the logjam of eligible candidates a bit.

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This is the time of year when top-100 lists begin to emerge. Baseball America and Keith Law, for example, have both released their annual lists just in the past week. Other outlets will follow soon.

While our eyes tend to look for new additions, for the players who have zoomed to the top — Ronald Acuna and Shohei Ohtani are sexy names, after all — there are also players who drop off the lists each year. Maybe most visible this year was Mickey Moniak, who fell off the Baseball America top-100 list entirely after appearing 17th there last year. Maybe he’ll recover; it wouldn’t be the first time. And even if he doesn’t, maybe there will be the slight solace that his won’t be the biggest such decline in list history.

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The moderator, MLBNetwork’s Jon Morosi, suggested slyly at one point that if any of the panelists cared to consummate a trade, the event could be paused in order for them to do so. He then proposed that maybe “Miami could spin Christian Yelich to the Rockies.”

Amid appreciative laughter from the audience, the question “What would it take?” rang out. Marlins president of baseball operations Michael Hill, sitting immediately to Morosi’s left, responded with a smile: “Back up the truck.”

———

Held this past Monday at the Harvard Club of Boston, the “MLB Executive Panel Q&A” was organized by the Friends of Harvard Baseball and the Harvard Varsity Club. Along with Hill, the panelists included Colorado Rockies VP/general manager Jeff Bridich, Oakland A’s general manager David Forst, Boston Red Sox VP of player development Ben Crockett, and Peter Woodfork, a senior VP of baseball operations in the commissioner’s office. All are former members of the Harvard baseball team, while Morosi, a self-described “slap-hitting second baseman on a team of slap-hitting second basemen” — played on the junior varsity.

Not everything said on Monday night was on the record, but several of the stories that were shared can be repeated to the population at large. Along with the aforementioned exchange, here are some of them.

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