Even though the 2017 season officially ended last week, the preparations for next year have been underway for some time. In a sense, teams have been planning for 2018 for years. After all, it can take a high-school draft pick five-plus seasons to receive the sort of development and polish necessary to survive in the major leagues. Balancing the future and the present is a significant task for a front office. And since the close of the season, teams have been gathering and meeting at their respective operational headquarters to narrow strategies on how to attack this winter and how to best position themselves in 2018 and beyond.

Just over a month ago, after an Alex Gordon home run set the major-league record for total homers in a season, I arrived at the (tentative) conclusion that it would be more challenging to plan for the future in today’s game. Consider: just three years ago, the game was in the midst of a depressed run environment. There was this idea that the future of offense was going to be defined by flat swings and line drives.

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Episode 781
Charlie Morton finished the World Series for the Astros by hitting 99 mph with frequency and throwing a nearly unhittable curve. It was a departure from the pitcher he’d been for most of his career. If one player can transform so completely, what’s to prevent anyone from become an elite ballplayer? Managing editor Dave Cameron attempts to answer this and other haphazardly phrased questions.

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

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 44 min play time.)

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The Detroit Tigers are in full rebuild mode, and Isaac Paredes projects as a big part of their future. His bat is the primary reason why. Despite an August swoon that caused his numbers to plummet, the 18-year-old shortstop finished the season with a .725 OPS. Given that he was one of the youngest players in the Midwest League, that’s not exactly chicken soup.

Paredes was acquired by the Tigers, along with Jeimer Candelario, in the trade-deadline deal that sent Alex Avila and Justin Wilson to the Cubs, and the news threw him for a loop. When I talked a him a week and a half later, the Hermosillo, Mexico native admitted to having been shocked and not particularly pleased. His initial thought was “this is something bad.”

Once his head stopped spinning, his attitude shifted to “this is a good thing.” Paredes realized he was going to an organization that would be relying heavily on players just like himself. Read the rest of this entry »

Each week, we publish in the neighborhood of 75 articles across our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
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Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the 2017-18 free-agent market.

Below are links to ballots for five of this year’s free agents, all of them relievers.

Other Players: Matt Albers / Yonder Alonso / Jake Arrieta / Alex Avila / Jose Bautista / Carlos Beltran / Jay Bruce / Melky Cabrera / Trevor Cahill / Welington Castillo / Lorenzo Cain / Andrew Cashner / Jhoulys Chacin / Steve Cishek / Alex Cobb / Bartolo Colon / Zack Cozart / Johnny Cueto / Yu Darvish / Wade Davis / Lucas Duda / Jarrod Dyson / Alcides Escobar / Yunel Escobar / Doug Fister / Todd Frazier / Jaime Garcia / Carlos Gomez / Carlos Gonzalez / Miguel Gonzalez / Curtis Granderson / Luke Gregerson / Jeremy Hellickson / David Hernandez / Greg Holland / Matt Holliday / Eric Hosmer / Tommy Hunter / Chris Iannetta / Jon Jay / Howie Kendrick / Brandon Kintzler / Francisco Liriano / Jonathan Lucroy / Lance Lynn / J.D. Martinez / Cameron Maybin / Jake McGee / Mike Minor / Mitch Moreland / Logan Morrison / Brandon Morrow / Mike Moustakas / Pat Neshek / Juan Nicasio / Ricky Nolasco / Eduardo Nunez / Seung Hwan Oh / Brandon Phillips / Michael Pineda / Addison Reed / Jose Reyes / CC Sabathia / Carlos Santana / Masahiro Tanaka / Chris Tillman / Justin Upton / Jason Vargas / Neil Walker / Jayson Werth.

Sergio Romo (Profile)
Some relevant information regarding Romo:

• Has averaged 48 IP and 0.8 WAR over last three seasons.
• Has averaged 1.0 WAR per 65 IP* over last three seasons.
• Recorded a 0.3 WAR in 55.2 IP in 2017.
• Is projected to record 0.2 WAR per 65 IP**.
• Is entering his age-35 season.
• Made $3.0M in 2017 as part of deal signed in February.

*That is, a roughly average number of innings for a reliever.
**Prorated version of final 2017 depth-chart projections available here.

Click here to estimate years and dollars for Romo.

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Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the giant and large 2016-17 free-agent market.

Below are links to ballots for five of this year’s free agents, all of them relievers.

Other Players: Matt Albers / Yonder Alonso / Jake Arrieta / Alex Avila / Jose Bautista / Carlos Beltran / Jay Bruce / Melky Cabrera / Trevor Cahill / Welington Castillo / Lorenzo Cain / Andrew Cashner / Jhoulys Chacin / Steve Cishek / Alex Cobb / Bartolo Colon / Zack Cozart / Johnny Cueto / Yu Darvish / Wade Davis / Lucas Duda / Jarrod Dyson / Alcides Escobar / Yunel Escobar / Doug Fister / Todd Frazier / Jaime Garcia / Carlos Gomez / Carlos Gonzalez / Miguel Gonzalez / Curtis Granderson / Luke Gregerson / Jeremy Hellickson / David Hernandez / Greg Holland / Matt Holliday / Eric Hosmer / Tommy Hunter / Chris Iannetta / Jon Jay / Howie Kendrick / Brandon Kintzler / Francisco Liriano / Jonathan Lucroy / Lance Lynn / J.D. Martinez / Cameron Maybin / Jake McGee / Mike Minor / Mitch Moreland / Logan Morrison / Mike Moustakas / Ricky Nolasco / Eduardo Nunez / Brandon Phillips / Michael Pineda / Jose Reyes / CC Sabathia / Carlos Santana / Masahiro Tanaka / Chris Tillman / Justin Upton / Jason Vargas / Neil Walker / Jayson Werth.

Brandon Morrow (Profile)
Some relevant information regarding Morrow:

• Has averaged 31 IP and 0.7 WAR over last three seasons.
• Has averaged 1.5 WAR per 65 IP* over last three seasons.
• Recorded a 1.6 WAR in 43.2 IP in 2017.
• Is projected to record 1.2 WAR per 65 IP**.
• Is entering his age-33 season.
• Made $1.3M in 2017 as part of deal signed in January.

*That is, a roughly average number of innings for a reliever.
**Prorated version of final 2017 depth-chart projections available here.

Click here to estimate years and dollars for Morrow.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan discuss the end of the season and the challenging (if somewhat merciful) transition to offseason mode, the resolution of the World Series and an underwhelming Game 7, the best and worst World Series performers, the significance of the Astros’ victory, the difficulty of repeating as champion, the outlooks for the Astros, Dodgers, and other 2017 playoff teams in 2018 and beyond, the uncertain status of Shohei Otani, new t-shirts for the show, and more.

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Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating this offseason a contract-crowdsourcing project, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the 2017-18 free-agent market.

Below are links to ballots for five of this year’s free agents, all of them relievers.

Other Players: Matt Albers / Yonder Alonso / Jake Arrieta / Alex Avila / Jose Bautista / Carlos Beltran / Jay Bruce / Melky Cabrera / Trevor Cahill / Welington Castillo / Lorenzo Cain / Andrew Cashner / Jhoulys Chacin / Steve Cishek / Alex Cobb / Bartolo Colon / Zack Cozart / Johnny Cueto / Yu Darvish / Wade Davis / Lucas Duda / Jarrod Dyson / Alcides Escobar / Yunel Escobar / Doug Fister / Todd Frazier / Jaime Garcia / Carlos Gomez / Carlos Gonzalez / Miguel Gonzalez / Curtis Granderson / Luke Gregerson / Jeremy Hellickson / David Hernandez / Matt Holliday / Eric Hosmer / Chris Iannetta / Jon Jay / Howie Kendrick / Francisco Liriano / Jonathan Lucroy / Lance Lynn / J.D. Martinez / Cameron Maybin / Mitch Moreland / Logan Morrison / Mike Moustakas / Ricky Nolasco / Eduardo Nunez / Brandon Phillips / Michael Pineda / Jose Reyes / CC Sabathia / Carlos Santana / Masahiro Tanaka / Chris Tillman / Justin Upton / Jason Vargas / Neil Walker / Jayson Werth.

Greg Holland (Profile)
Some relevant information regarding Holland:

• Has averaged 51 IP and 0.9 WAR over last three seasons*.
• Has averaged 1.2 WAR per 65 IP** over last three seasons.
• Recorded a 1.1 WAR in 57.1 IP in 2017.
• Is projected to record 1.4 WAR per 65 IP***.
• Is entering his age-32 season.
• Made $7.0M in 2017 as part of deal signed in January.

*Excludes 2016 season, which Holland missed.
**That is, a roughly average number of innings for a reliever.
***Prorated version of final 2017 depth-chart projections available here.

Click here to estimate years and dollars for Holland.

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The Oakland A’s gave up a pair of quality relievers when they traded Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson to the Washington Nationals in July. The trio of players they got in return are pretty talented themselves. One is already established — Blake Treinen logged 16 saves this year — while the others are promising prospects.

Sheldon Neuse, a 22-year-old infielder out of the University of Oklahoma, recorded a .321/.382/.502 slash line in his first full season of pro ball. The 2016 second-round pick did his damage at three levels, hopscotching from Low-A to High-A to Double-A.

And then there’s Jesus Luzardo, whose ceiling would be best described as “lofty.” While getting his feet wet at the lowest rungs of the minors — Rookie-level ball and the New York-Penn League — the polished-beyond-his-years southpaw struck out 48 and walked just five in 43.1 innings. His ERA was a smooth-and-shiny 1.66.

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