Right after the end of the playoffs, we lost August Fagerstrom to a major-league front office. I miss having August around, because he was a good friend and an excellent writer. If there was one complication, though, it was that, shockingly often, we wanted to write about the same things. The same sorts of stuff inspired us, and in this line of work, there’s nothing more precious than a half-decent idea. It would be discouraging to want to do something, and then realize another person already had something along the same lines in progress.

It’s not good to have August gone. Less quality content is less quality content. But if nothing else, I am now freer to pursue what I like. Which means I am now freer to write about Domingo Santana. Used to be, August would carry that torch, and he wrote positive things about him any number of times. Now it’s up to me. Much like August, I consider myself a Domingo Santana fan. And it looks like he could become a crucial piece of the Brewers’ organizational rebuild.

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One of the complaints people make about us for some reason is that we spend too much time talking about how awesome Mike Trout is. I could issue the same complaint about those people in reverse: Clearly, they don’t spend enough time talking or thinking about how awesome Mike Trout is. He’s not just some great player, right? It’s not like you talk about Mike Trout in the same breath as Jose Bautista or Robinson Cano. Last year, Trout was better than the next-best position player by a full WAR. Over the past three years, Trout has been better than the next-best position player by more than 3 WAR. Over the past five years, Trout has been better than the next-best position player by 15 WAR. By 15 WAR! Looking at Steamer projections, over a constant denominator, there’s Trout’s projected WAR, at 7.8. And then there’s Manny Machado, at 5.9.

This is another Mike Trout puff piece, in a way. I like it because it serves a purpose, I like it because it’s simple, and I like it because I got to write the same damn article last spring. The offseason isn’t over, and certain teams are still going to make certain additions. But it’s a near guarantee the following will remain true: Mostly thanks to Trout, the Angels look like they should have the best outfield in the game.

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The holiday season is upon us, and hot stove activity will likely take a pause in the coming days. Here’s one more installment of our position-by-position look at hitter contact quality before the break. Last time it was AL third basemen, and now it’s time for their senior circuit counterparts. As a reminder, we’re utilizing granular exit-speed and launch-angle data to measure how position players “should have” performed in comparison to their actual stat lines.

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If you’ve watched Odubel Herrera in the field over the last two years, you might be surprised to see him rated as a positive by defensive metrics. He can certainly run circles around a ball from time to time, and we’ve all seen that iconic route that saved Cole Hamels‘ no hitter. But if you drill down into Herrera’s defense, it starts to look like he’s the opposite of Derek Jeter, who made the big plays and made us all wonder if the negative defensive numbers were wrong. Because Herrera is fine on the easy plays — it’s those 50/50 plays that lead to the questions about his ability in center.

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Teams have been less than enthusiastic with this year’s class of free-agent starters. Only two pitchers, Rich Hill and Edinson Volquez, have received multi-year contracts worth more than $10 million per season. Combined, the years and dollars on their contracts equal the same five years and $70 million that Ian Kennedy received from the Kansas City Royals last year, the eighth-highest contract given to a starting pitcher during the 2015-16 offseason.

There’s good reason for the lack of sizable free-agent contracts for starters this winter: the class isn’t particularly good. While some have already begun looking ahead to the monster class of free agents available after the 2018 campaign — one that includes Bryce Harper, Matt Harvey, Clayton Kershaw, Dallas Keuchel, Manny Machado, and David Price — next year’s class should actually be quite strong as well. It might be even stronger than the 2018-19 offseason’s free agents on the pitching side.

The effect of opt-outs in contracts has been rather small thus far. In recent years, Alex Rodriguez and CC Sabathia both opted out of their contracts and then re-signed with the New York Yankees. Zack Greinke opted out of his contract with the Dodgers last winter and cashed in with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Next winter, we’re going to see the first full-fledged offseason during which opt-outs could loom large.

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After having typically appeared in the very famous pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past few years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Los Angeles Angels. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Boston / Chicago NL / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / San Diego / Tampa Bay / Toronto / Washington.

Batters
Most everyone has become comfortable with the fact that Mike Trout (680 PA, 9.0 zWAR) is the world’s best living ballplayer. Merely because one has grown accustomed to his excellence, however, doesn’t preclude one from wanting to have that greatness illustrated periodically. Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections facilitate an opportunity to do that. ZiPS, like other projection systems, is inherently conservative. Despite that, Trout is forecast for nine wins. For reference, consider that, since 2011, a player has reached the nine-win threshold on just six occasions. (On four of those occasions, of course, the player in question was Trout himself.) By definition, a nine-win season is an outlier. Nevertheless, Szymborski’s computer has suggested that as the median outcome for Trout in 2017.

Beyond Trout, unfortunately, there’s little reason for enthusiasm here. Kole Calhoun (620, 3.0) and Andrelton Simmons (574, 3.4) offer some promise. Of the remaining six positions on the club’s offensive depth chart, though, five of them are expected to produce only about a win.

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For the fourth consecutive year, Ben and Sam draft the 20 minor league free agents they hope will earn the most major league playing time next season.

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While answering a question in my chat last Friday, I wound up navigating to Billy Butler’s player page, and then I casually noticed that since he debuted a decade ago, he’s been worth about -9 wins on the bases. In the moment, that didn’t seem like something that was going to stick in my mind, but, here we are. You’re going to get a whole article about this.

Look, everyone knows that Billy Butler isn’t much of a baserunner. Butler certainly knows, which is why he laughs and calls attention to himself whenever he does anything good out there. I’ve written about his baserunning before, and it’s hard to go back to this without feeling like I’m making fun. My intention isn’t to be cruel. It’s just, hey, this is a site where we talk about numbers, and some of his numbers are crazy. Butler built a career around his bat, and he has a lifetime 115 wRC+. That’s great. Very few people on planet Earth could do that over one month, much less 10 years. Yet, as Butler’s bat has provided positive value, his legs have given some of that back. He’s nearly the worst baserunner of all time.

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