Yoenis Cespedes didn’t sign a bad contract, but he certainly signed a surprising one. With Chris Davis and Jason Heyward receiving more than $150 million, and Justin Upton in the picture with a $130 million, it would figure that Yoenis Cespedes might line up somewhere in that range. Perhaps not above Upton, but certainly above $100 million. Consider: the Cuban outfielder just produced a career year at age 29 which saw him record 35 home runs and nearly seven wins above replacement. Furthermore, wasn’t eligible for a qualifying offer, meaning a signing club wouldn’t have the burden of sacrificing a draft pick. The contract he did sign with the Mets pays him $75 million over three years, which seems like a small total guarantee relative to the rest of the free-agent class, but the opt-out and the opportunity to return to free agency next year does provide Cespedes with another opportunity to cash in.

If Cespedes decides to stick with his current contract, he’ll be a free agent entering his age-33 season after making $75 million dollars. While that is not the ideal scenario for him, if he is still playing well at that time, he might end up making close to the amount Justin Upton is to be paid over the next six years. If Cespedes plays poorly over the next three years, he will at least have his $75 million — not what he would have hoped, but also preferable to just a one-year pillow contract.

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It’s been true for each of the last five years, that Francisco Liriano has finished each season with a higher strikeout rate than the one before it. It’s been true for each of the last four years, that Liriano has finished each season with a slower average fastball velocity than the one before it. The magnitude of these differences isn’t substantial — he’s gained a little more than 2% on his strikeout rate since 2012 and lost a little more than 2 mph — but the trends exist, and they’re headed in opposite directions.

We live in a world where older pitchers are holding their velocity better than ever before, and some are even gaining, despite what decades of convention have led us to believe. Velocity is up. Velocity is correlated with strikeouts, and strikeouts are up. Name a trait or outcome that’s positive for a pitcher — it’s probably up.

Yet clearly, something else besides velocity is working in Liriano’s favor.

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The Padres last week designated outfield prospect Rymer Liriano for assignment to clear a roster spot for the newly signed Alexei Ramirez. The move became yet another curious move in a string of questionable decisions by A.J. Preller and his front-office staff. Not only does Liriano have a prospect pedigree, but San Diego had multiple outfielders on its 40-man roster who could be described as “fringy,” namely Jabari Blash, Alex Dickerson and Travis Jankowski. Yes, Liriano is out of options, but I have a hard time thinking he’s a worse prospect than Blash, who — as a Rule 5 pick — also is out of options.

In some ways, Liriano looks the part of an exciting prospect. The 24-year-old’s power, speed and throwing arm grade out as better than average. Relatively few prospects have such a strong and diverse collection of skills. Furthermore, he’s parlayed those tools into some nice numbers in the high minors. He hit .291/.375/.466 with nearly 40 steals between Double-A and Triple-A in the past last two seasons.

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

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles NL / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Texas / Toronto.

Batters
This set of ZiPS projections for the Nationals represents the 23rd post in this offseason series. A brief examination of the 22 previous installments reveals that no field player has received as robust a forecast yet as Bryce Harper (579 PA, 6.9 zWAR) does here. The other top contenders? Josh Donaldson (6.6 zWAR), Buster Posey (6.3), and Andrew McCutchen (6.0). Conspicuous by his absence from that brief list, of course, is Mike Trout. As for when Szymborski intends to release the Angels’ projections, one can only speculate as to that heartless monster’s plans.

Apart from their outfield wunderkind, the Nationals’ collection of batters is rather ordinary. Third baseman Anthony Rendon (512 PA, 3.3 zWAR) has the benefit both of youth and also a six-win season in his recent past. Otherwise, no starting field player receives a projection that reaches even the two-win threshold, the recently acquired Daniel Murphy (606 PA, 1.9 zWAR) representing the best of the remaining six.

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Episode 626
Aaron Gleeman is a contributor to NBC’s Hardball Talk and longtime proprietor of AaronGleeman.com. He’s also the guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio, during which episode he laments both (a) his inability to fully participate in the human adventure and also (b) everything else.

This edition of the program is sponsored by Draft, the first truly mobile fantasy sports app. Compete directly against idiot host Carson Cistulli by clicking here.

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 1 hr 7 min play time.)

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In an era where punch outs are more common than ever, Justin Nicolino is an anomaly. Of the 328 pitchers who threw 50-or-more innings last year, 327 had a higher strikeout rate than the 24-year-old left-hander. In his rookie season for the Miami Marlins, Nicolino fanned just 23 batters in 74 innings.

Despite the dearth of Ks, Nicolino enjoyed a modicum of success. He won five of his nine decisions, and his 4.01 ERA was certainly respectable. In seven of his 12 starts he allowed two or fewer runs.

Nicolino knows that he probably has to K more than 2.8 batters per nine innings in order to remain in a big league rotation. That doesn’t mean he has to become Steve Carlton. In 1976, Randy Jones had a 2.7 K/9 and won the National League Cy Young award. Five years earlier, Dave McNally went 21-9, 2.89 while posting a 3.7 K/9. Jamie Moyer, yet another crafty lefty, was at 5.4 for his career. Read the rest of this entry »

Yoenis Cespedes will return to the Mets, and from the team’s side of things, there’s almost nothing not to like about the arrangement. Even in the worst-case scenario where Cespedes just ends up a dead $75 million, he’s off the books before the starting pitchers hit free agency. And far more likely is that Cespedes opts out in a year, making him sort of an extended rental, without the long-term concern. Mets fans get to see their team spend, and they get to embrace a dynamic outfielder without bearing witness to a frustrating decline. If Cespedes opts out, the Mets can collect a draft pick. He’s better than what the Mets were going to go with, and Juan Lagares is still around to help, even if this means Alejandro De Aza has to disappear. The Mets’ chances of winning everything just got better.

It’s cause for celebration. Cespedes even turned down a bigger guarantee to go back to New York, because he likes it there, and this money might not otherwise have gone back into the team. Of course, Cespedes is unlikely to repeat his 2015. He blew past his career numbers, and with the Mets, he got to feast against some light stretch-run competition. People are aware that Cespedes struggled in the playoffs, and people are aware of his barely-.300 OBP. His game is power, and power’s inconsistent. But Cespedes has yet to be anything but an above-average player. The Mets know what they have in Cespedes as a hitter. What they don’t know, as much, is what they have in Cespedes as a defender. It’s probably the biggest question about his 2016.

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Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on 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, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
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When the Mets and Royals met in the World Series a few months ago, it was billed as an extreme clash of styles. The Royals were the best defensive team in baseball; the Mets were, well, not. They weren’t as bad in the field as their reputation may have suggested, but with Daniel Murphy, Wilmer Flores, and Yoenis Cespedes playing up the middle in the postseason, the Mets weren’t exactly the rangiest club around. And then, during fall classic, the Mets lived down to their reputation.

The Royals didn’t win the World Series solely because of the Mets defensive miscues — KC made a few of their own, in fact, and those were forgotten about because they won — but it’s hard not to remember the fielding lapses, and heading into the winter, the assumption was that the team would spend the off-season upgrading that weakness. Instead, however, the Mets have made an even bigger bet against the value of defense this winter.

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