What’s so remarkable about Corey Kluber’s second Cy Young Award, the receipt of which was announced Wednesday evening, is he won it despite missing a month of the season. At the All-Star break, it looked like Sale in a runaway, but Kluber found another level and produced one of the great Cy Young comebacks of all-time. That’s how dominant he was from the point at which he returned in June through the end of September following a trip to the DL with a back strain.

How good was Kluber?

Starting with that appearance against Oakland on June 1, Kluber struck out 224 batters (!). That’s 224 strikeouts in two-thirds of a season. That’s 224 strikeouts against 619 batters faced, good for an astounding 36.2% rate. He walked only 3.7% of those same batters.

The difference between Kluber’s strikeout and walk rate (K-BB%) from June to September was 32.5 points. To put that mark in context, consider: among all pitchers, only elite bullpen arms recorded Craig Kimbrel, Kenley Jansen and Chad Green better marks for the season. (It should be noted that Chris Sale led MLB starters over the whole season with a 31.1-point differential. Kluber finished second to Sale among starters, with a 29.5-point mark.)

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If you had Jerry Dipoto in the pool of which GM will make this off-season’s first trade, congratulations, you win nothing because of course he did. Trader Jerry is baseball’s version of the red paperclip guy, attempting to take his team from mediocrity to contention by making a million small upgrades. And his latest deal is particularly interesting, even if it wasn’t exactly a swap of household names.

The deal’s particulars.

Seattle Gets:

Ryon Healy, 1B

Oakland Gets:

Emilio Pagan, RHP
Alexander Campos, SS

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Free agency began a week ago to an expected lack of fanfare. Unlike the NBA, where free-agent deals are often announced minutes after the midnight opening bell, it usually takes a little while for baseball’s hot stove to ignite. Until the GM Meetings, which began this past Monday, free agency is usually dominated by leaked contract demands, contract extensions, and declarations by certain players that they intend to keep playing.

Thus far, the 2017-2018 offseason is no exception. For the moment, we must content ourselves with news of minor-league deals for Kevin Quackenbush and Rubby de la Rosa with Cincinnati and Arizona, respectively.

Alongside the minor-league signings and contract demands, the early days of this offseason have been marked by another annual tradition. According to Orioles beat writer Rock Kubatko, Baltimore has shown “definite” interest in Andrew Cashner and Jason Vargas. The Orioles’ rotation remains a weakness for the club, and as is often the case, the team appears to be targeting mid-level innings-eaters. It also appears to be all they’re likely to afford: due to questionable commitments on the payroll, the Orioles will probably find it difficult to pursue many true rotation upgrades to prop open their closing — or perhaps already closed — window.

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Every winter, hundreds of nondescript ballplayers become minor-league free agents. Players are granted minor-league free agency when they’re omitted from a club’s 40-man roster and have also spent at least six years in the minor leagues. In other words, they’re the ones who weren’t good enough to merit a call-up after several years in the minors, and their organizations suspect they lack the potential to be worthy of a 40-man spot.

Some of these players latch on with new organizations; some of them don’t. But regardless, the overwhelming majority never have much big-league success. Carson Cistulli found that only about 1% of minor-league free agents produce at least 0.5 WAR the following season. Minor-league free agents are the absolute bottom of the barrel when it comes to player transactions. But there’s an occasional gem at the bottom of that barrel. It’s not unheard of, at all, for a minor-league free agent to make a major-league impact. A few successful examples of players I highlighted in this space last year:

• Wilmer Font dominated the PCL by striking out a jaw-dropping 32% of batters as a starter, earning him a role on the deepest pitching staff in baseball. My money’s on him opening 2018 on someone’s big-league squad.
• Lane Adams recorded 122 plate appearances of above-average production with the Braves, much of that coming as a pinch-hitter.
• Jacob Turner was a serviceable swingman for the 97-win Nationals in the season’s first half (33.2 innings, 4.28 ERA through June 18th).

Using my KATOH projection system, I identified the pitchers from this year’s minor-league free-agent class who showed glimmers of promise in the minors. Since none of these players have any sort of prospect pedigree anyway, I utilized the stats-only version of KATOH. Based on their minor-league numbers, there’s reason to believe they might be able to help at the big-league level sometime soon. This analysis considers only players who logged at least 200 minor-league batters faced in either 2016 or 2017.

For reference, here is my piece from yesterday on minor-league free-agent hitters.

*****

1. Scott Barlow, RHP

Barlow split time between the Dodgers’ Double-A and Triple-A affiliates this past year, pitching to a stellar 3.29 ERA as a starter. He struck out 28% of opposing batters while walking a reasonable 10%. Barlow’s numbers were decidedly worse in his seven Triple-A appearances, but on the whole, his 2017 campaign was excellent for a 24-year-old starter.

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In light both of the ask and the inconsistent performance, the prospect of signing Eric Hosmer should foster trepidation among major-league clubs — a point made by this author last week when expressing a preference for Carlos Santana among this year’s free-agent first basemen.

Scott Boras is reportedly seeking $200 million spread over eight years for a player who, in seven major-league seasons, has produced full-season WAR totals of 0.0 (2014), -0.1 (2016), and -1.7 (2012).

While Hosmer is just entering his age-28 season, while he looks the part, his glove consistently rates below average according to the metrics at first base, and the real concern is whether the bat will consistently play at a star level.

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Episode 784
On Monday, managing editor Dave Cameron published a list of the top-50 free agents for the 2017-18 offseason. Later on that Monday, he discussed it with the host of FanGraphs Audio. This episode is the result of that discussion.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 42 min play time.)

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about pitcher Luis Perdomo’s unusual triples total, Carlos Beltran’s retirement, and Giancarlo Stanton’s trade value, then answer listener emails about Aaron Judge’s similarities to Ryan Howard, an automatic nine-inning, five-run pitcher, the difficulty of evaluating pitch-calling, and bathroom breaks in baseball.

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This is the third post covering the Modern Era Ballot for the Hall of Fame. For a look at the pitchers, click here. For the first four hitters, click here. The introduction below might look familiar.

Last week, the Baseball Hall of Fame announced 10 candidates for consideration for the Modern Era ballot, which includes executives and players whose careers took place mainly from 1970 to 1987. This year, the candidates include one non-player, Marvin Miller, and nine players from that era: Steve Garvey, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Ted Simmons, Luis Tiant and Alan Trammell. Among the player candidates, we have an interesting mix: some who make their claim with a high peak, those who have longevity on their side, and one player with both. Over the course of three posts, I’m examining all the candidates. Today, we’ll cover the two most deserving position players. I’ll also look at one player left off the ballot.

First, a brief word on the rules and procedures of this ballot, which is an updated version of the old Veteran’s Committee. Baseball has been separated into eras, with Early Baseball (1871-1949), Golden Days (1950-1969), Modern Baseball (1970-1987), and Today’s Game (1988-Present). Most players up through 1969 have had their cases considered many times. As a result, during this cycle (2016-2020), the Early Baseball and Golden Days players are scheduled to be evaluated just once, in 2020, with Modern Baseball and Today’s Game receiving consideration every other year from 2016 to -19. There are 16 voting members on the Committee for election, and players must receive 75% of the vote with voting members limited to four votes.

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One more thing about this season’s unanimous American League Rookie of the Year, and possible American League Most Valuable Player. At some point, we’re going to fully move on beyond 2017, and all the numbers will just be a part of the record, only occasionally reflected upon. I want to dedicate one more article to what Aaron Judge just did. What he did, that is, and what it means.

We all probably have our favorite Aaron Judge highlight clips. “Favorite” might be strong, if you, say, root for the Red Sox, but we all remember certain moments. I imagine a lot of people out there most greatly appreciate Judge’s hardest-hit home runs. They’re spectacular, the lot of them. Yet, maybe it’s recency bias, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about a Judge double from early last month. Judge, you’ll remember, was struggling in the ALDS against the Indians, and then, in Game 4, Trevor Bauer threw him something hard, high, and tight.

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