Hoo boy, here we go. Welcome to prime hot-stove season, everyone. Ian Desmond is going to the Colorado Rockies, and he’s going to be paid $70 million to play there for five years. And, according to various reports, the Rockies may be looking at him as a first baseman. This move is the equivalent of the Denver Broncos signing Lionel Messi. It’s unexpected. It’s bonkers. It’s newly legal in Colorado, and Jeff Bridich is into it.

Man, let’s think about this for a minute. Ian Desmond was a lost cause a year ago. He had imploded in glorious fashion in Washington and then took a pillow contract with the Rangers to play a super-utility man. He wound up moving the outfield and recorded roughly average overall defensive numbers there. He also put together a 106 wRC+ for the year… but just a 65 wRC+ in the second half. Did he go back to being his 2015 self? Was it just a prolonged slump. Was he really a decent hitter once more?

We’re going to find out. We’re also, apparently, going to find out if he can play first base. Or… are we?

I mean, is Ian Desmond really going to play first? Committing $70 million to a guy to play a position entirely foreign to him seems strange. Asking him to play first base after he’s just finished a roughly average offensive season is also strange. If the Rockies wanted to move an outfielder to first base, they could’ve just done so with Carlos Gonzalez, whose defensive skills have been declining for some time now. Instead, the Rockies are going to stick Desmond there and cross their fingers.

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Last night, the Tampa Bay Rays signed Wilson Ramos for two years and $12 million, with nearly $18.25 million available in all if he meets certain incentives. Ramos represented an interesting case for potential suitors. At 29, he’d just produced the best season of his career. He’d also sustained, and is currently rehabbing, the worst injury of his career — one that will prevent him from returning until midseason at best. From the Rays’ perspective, the move is unusual in at least one way, too: they just signed a catcher who can hit.

Were Ramos to repeat his 2016 campaign, he’d immediately become the best catcher the Rays have ever had. Were he to repeat his second-best season, he’d become the best catcher the Rays ever had. Were he to repeat his third-best season, Ramos would be the third-best catcher the Rays have ever had. By wins above replacement, Ramos — once he’s healthy in 2018 — is very likely to become the best Rays catcher ever. Even if he just hits to his career level (exactly league average), once he sees 100 plate appearances, he’ll be the best hitting catcher the Rays have ever had.

Of course, there’s a lot more going on than offense and positional value in this deal, which slots in nicely with the two-year, $10-ish million contracts that have been handed out to volatile veterans like Matt Joyce, Steve Pearce, and Sean Rodriguez. There’s plenty to worry about, just like in those deals.

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Think about the teams that need to make the most of the year ahead. The Red Sox, certainly, will now be under a lot of pressure to roll through the playoffs. That’s the consequence of working how they’ve worked. The Royals will face a lot of pressure in a different way, because it looks almost certain that 2018 and beyond will be a challenge. For Kansas City, this could be their last competitive season in a while. And then you get the Rangers. The Rangers’ situation and the Royals’ situation aren’t too dissimilar. The Rangers are probably a little better off, but the long-term picture isn’t so sunny. This’ll probably be the last year with Yu Darvish and Jonathan Lucroy.

So the Rangers need to maximize what they have. They also need to try to do that without doing any more harm to the long-term outlook. Enter Carlos Gomez on a one-year deal. It’ll be an important year for both parties. Gomez is looking for a pillow season, a chance to re-establish some value in a friendly place so that next offseason he could really score. The Rangers are trying to give it what could be one last go. Gomez still isn’t without his big giant upside, as the Rangers try to keep up with the Astros.

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Yesterday, while ruminating about the Royals opportunities this winter, I suggested the following.

If I’m Kansas City, I’d rather send Davis to a team like the Cubs or Dodgers, a team that doesn’t really have a ninth-inning guy with whom they’re currently comfortable, and would pay a bigger premium for the upgrade they’d get in their bullpen. The idea of swapping Davis for Jorge Soler and something else is more interesting to me, for instance. Soler is, in some ways, the outfield version of Kolten Wong at this point; a mid-20s guy who hasn’t shown he can be an above-average regular yet, but has a long-term deal at cheap prices that makes him somewhat useful even if he just is what he is. Except Soler still has mythical upside: if he figures out how to hit like people think he could hit, his value would skyrocket.

The Royals, it seems, had similar thoughts.

Sources: #Cubs close to acquiring Wade Davis from #Royals for Jorge Soler.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 7, 2016

The deal isn’t done quite yet, because reviewing the medicals on a guy who went on the DL twice last year with elbow problems is no minor matter. But assuming the Cubs are confident that Davis is healthy enough, the deal sounds like it will go through, and likely as a one for one.

Source: #Cubs' trade with #Royals, if completed, will be straight-up: Davis for Soler. No other players.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 7, 2016

So, let’s talk about Soler and Davis. In a challenge trade, it’s usually hard to pull off a win-win deal, given that the performance of the two players isn’t going to be identical. This one, though? This looks like this could work well for both teams.

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Around this time of year, the free-agent and trade markets begin to feel like stacked dominoes – one domino falling sets many more in motion. The big domino to fall yesterday was, of course, Chris Sale’s trade to Boston. It’s only natural to wonder what the fallout from that trade will be. The Nationals were reportedly very interested in Sale: Will they look elsewhere for elite rotation help now that he’s no longer available? Other teams still said to be interested in top-of-the-rotation arms include the Braves, the Astros and even the World Champion Cubs. (I’m still practicing adding that “World Champion” qualifier on the Cubs. It hasn’t stopped looking weird, has it?) As long as teams continue to look for elite starting pitching, one name will continue to be thrown around: Chris Archer. Now that the Red Sox have added Sale and are clearly attempting to build the American League’s “team to beat,” is the time right for the Rays to finally pull the trigger and deal Archer?

A few weeks ago, Jeff Sullivan compared the potential trade value of both Archer and Sale. The first conclusion he reached – that Sale has been better than Archer – quickly passed the sniff test. The second conclusion is significantly more intriguing. Here’s what he had to say:

“Chris Archer might be a worse pitcher than Sale is, but his contract is more team-friendly still. And one should expect that to make a difference, these all being negotiations taking place in the 2016 industry landscape. If you want to trade for one of these starters, Chris Sale could be the more affordable of the two.”

Archer and Sale are six months apart in age and both under contract for just under $40 million, but Archer’s contract includes team options for the 2020 and 2021 seasons. Sale’s contract, meanwhile, expires after the 2019 season. So, for essentially the same amount of money a club can acquire either three years of Sale or five years of a pitcher who has been nearly as good. Consequently, Archer’s contract provides — to use the hip lingo — more surplus value. In fact, due to those extra two seasons Jeff found that “Chris Archer’s surplus value is 152% of Chris Sale’s surplus value.” The White Sox just pulled in a player who has previously been listed by some publications as the No. 1 prospect in the sport. If the Rays can reasonably command an even higher asking price for Archer, then, at the very least, they have to be listening to offers.

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With the Chicago White Sox’ decision to trade Chris Sale to the Red Sox for an impressive array of prospects, the club has made clear their intentions to begin selling. They are rebuilding, and are going to get younger with an eye on the long-term future. Yoan Moncada — maybe the best prospect in baseball — and Michael Kopech are a very good start. If we start to go down the list of players the White Sox have who might fetch a good deal on the trade market, we begin with Chris Sale. With Sale crossed off the list, the obvious next name belongs to the White Sox other ace, Jose Quintana.

To be clear, Jose Quintana is not Chris Sale. His stuff is not quite as electric, he doesn’t strike as many batters out, and he doesn’t dominate a game in the way that Sale does. But not being as good as Chris Sale isn’t much of an insult. One can be less good than Chris Sale and still really freaking good, and that basically describes Jose Quintana.

Here is a list of the top-10 pitchers in baseball over the last three years, by our version of pitcher WAR.

That’s eight guys generally agreed to be legitimate No. 1 starters, plus Quintana and Cueto, who have performed like aces despite not having classic ace stuff or ace strikeout rates. But by limiting walks and home runs, Quintana has been one of the best pitchers in baseball, in a league with guys who are unquestionably elite arms.

So that’s what he’s done. You can’t buy the past, but the past does help us predict the future to some degree. So, looking forward, we have the Steamer projections. What does Steamer think about Quintana for 2017?

Well, it thinks he’ll be a little worse, because pitchers generally do get worse as they get older. But by “worse,” that means he projects as a +4 WAR pitcher instead of a +5 WAR one, and that forecast calls for him to be as valuable as Cueto, Chris Archer, Jake Arrieta, and Dallas Keuchel. Again, these are great names with which to be associated. Steamer thinks Quintana is a top-15 or -20 starting pitcher in major-league baseball next year. And oh yeah: he’s signed for less money over the next four years than Sale is due over the next three. And that means there’s an argument that the package the White Sox receive for Quintana shouldn’t be wildly different than the one they got for Sale.

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The Red Sox acquired a second pitcher on Tuesday following their trade for reliever Tyler Thornburg — in this case, receiving talented left-handed starter Chris Sale from the White Sox in exchange for an impressive return (roughly in order of consensus future value): Yoan Moncada, Michael Kopech, Luis Alexander Basabe and Victor Diaz.

Here’s how the minor leaguers headed to Chicago grade out by my KATOH system. KATOH denotes WAR forecast for first six years of player’s major-league career. KATOH+ uses similar a methodology with consideration also for Baseball America’s rankings.

*****

Yoan Moncada, 2B (Profile)

KATOH: 6.2 WAR (36th overall)
KATOH+: 14.0 WAR (4th overall)

There’s no denying that Yoan Moncada was one of the most productive hitters in the minors this year. In 61 High-A games, he hit .307/.427/.496. In 44 Double-A games, he slashed .285/.388/.547. He 45 stolen bases across both levels. Moncada excels in multiple areas: he hits for power, runs like crazy, and plays a semi-premium position. His tools are top-notch, which is why he was the consensus No. 1 prospect last summer.

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