Are you tired of reading about reliever signings yet? If you are, well then I’m sorry for this post, but at least it’s almost over. There’s only a couple good relievers left now, because they’ve seemingly all signed in the last 24 hours. The Athletics did some work on their bullpen when they acquired Liam Hendriks from Toronto for Jesse Chavez a few weeks back, and last night they did some more work by signing Ryan Madson to a three-year deal worth $22 million guaranteed.

Now, the thing about signing Ryan Madson to a three-year deal is, that’s three times as many years as he’s pitched since 2011. By the end of that 2011 season, Madson was seen as one of the best relief pitchers in the game, but then he needed Tommy John surgery, and he was seen as a hopeful comeback story. He missed 2012, of course, but experienced some setbacks in 2013 and was seen as a less-hopeful comeback story. After having not pitched in 2014, either, Madson was seen as retired.

And then suddenly, Madson was pitching in the World Series for the Kansas City Royals, and suddenly Madson could again be viewed as one of the best relief pitchers in the game, and suddenly Madson signed his name on a piece of paper that said he’d make at least $22 million dollars over the next three seasons, no matter what.

Maybe it’s a risky move. It’s definitely a risky move, but maybe it’s a risky move that doesn’t work out, too. Even the non-risky moves have a chance of not working out. Maybe you think this one is especially risky, given the 35 years of life that Madson has lived and the three years in a row of wanting to pitch but not being able to. Alternatively, you could take the stance that Madson last year proved he was finally able to get over that arm injury, and if that’s the case, what difference is missing three years to missing one year, given he’s truly over the injury? A couple years extra rest for the arm could be viewed as a good thing, if you wanted it to be.

After all, Madson couldn’t have been more similar to his previous self, which was, again, considered one of the best relievers in the game the last time we saw him, prior to this year. Consider that, during Madson’s peak years in 2010-11, his fastball sat 94, and that last year it sat 94.3. Consider that, in those previous two years, Madson struck out 27% of batters and walked 6%, and that last year, he struck out 23% of batters and walked 6%. The ERA was in the mid-2’s, and then it was in the low-2’s. The ground ball rate went up. The arsenal is, more or less, the same. Madson had previously established an elite level of performance, and this year, he simply returned to it. If you took away the years in front of the stat lines, you wouldn’t realize he took any time off at all, let alone three years.

So while the three years and tens of millions of dollars may seem risky — and they still probably are — look at Madson then, and look at Madson now. We’ve no reason to believe that a healthy Madson won’t be effective, and, for now, we’ve no reason to believe Madson is anything but healthy.

And the Madson signing is just another example of an A’s organization that seems to not need much time before buying into a player’s comeback or breakout. The A’s were the team that bought into Scott Kazmir in 2014 after just one season, and the A’s are the team that made a point of acquiring both Liam Hendriks after one good season, and Rich Hill after just four amazing starts. Part of that, surely, is a byproduct of their financial restrictions and the ever-looming necessity to find value at the cheapest cost, but perhaps the A’s have some sort of internal belief in players quickly establishing a new level, or re-establishing a previous level. Anyway, if you think the Madson deal seems over-the-top, it’s the years that surprised you, not the money. The market has been set for what good free agent relievers get paid, and Madson is simply earning along with his peers.

That’s been the Madson angle, but what about the A’s angle? They are the team that will ultimately benefit, or the opposite of benefit, from Madson’s performance or lack thereof, after all. Well, last year, the bullpen ERA was the second-worst in the majors. The bullpen FIP was the third-worst. The bullpen WPA was the first-worst, and couldn’t have imaginably been gotten any lower. And to that last point, there’s some reason for optimism, even in such a negative number. Jeff Sullivan already wrote about how the A’s were perhaps the most unlucky team we’ve seen in the BaseRuns era, due to their bullpen, and for those same reasons, why they might be in line for a rebound season.

The most simple way of looking at it is this: last year, the A’s actual record had them winning 68 games, but their projected record, according to BaseRuns, had them winning 80 games, and that’s a significant difference. Most of that difference is due to their bullpen, and from last year’s bullpen, many of the serial offenders are gone. Dan Otero, Eric O’Flaherty, Edward Mujica, Fernando Abad — all no more. In their place, well that’s where Hendriks and Madson come into play, and those guys were just as good, recently, as the bad group was bad. Sean Doolittle dealt with shoulder injuries throughout last year, and when healthy, Doolittle’s ranked among the game’s elite. Fernando Rodriguez will be back again, and he was one of the few relievers who didn’t kill the A’s last year. Evan Scribner was one of the relievers who killed the A’s last year, but he also posted one of the best K-BB%’s in baseball, and if you squint past the atrocious home run rate, you could see the potential for a relief weapon in Scribner.

What was just arguably the worst relief unit in baseball is currently projected for the sixth-highest bullpen WAR in the majors, and while I did just write about why the bullpen projections can be a bit wonky, it’s better to be near the top than the bottom, especially when you’re coming from the bottom. At the very least, the A’s seem to have improved a major weakness, and that’s all the offseason’s about, anyway.

Episode 614
Paul Swydan is the managing editor of the Hardball Times. He’s also the editor-in-chief of that site’s annual publication, about which he raps like a cool dude on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.

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 36 min play time.)

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2015 was an unquestionably special year in baseball: we witnessed teams that hadn’t made the postseason in 20 years break through the barrier, saw latent fanbases reborn, and finally, after falling just short in 2014, a magic-fueled, unconventional team won the World Series. Because of a mixture of player development trends and incredible fortune, we also saw something exceedingly rare: the best positional rookie class in the past century. The likes of Kris Bryant, Carlos Correa, Matt Duffy, and many others announced their arrival with exceptional first-year performances, taking the league by storm and bringing about a new golden age for young, ultra-talented position players.

We’ve stated many times how much better the 2015 rookie positional class was than any other in the past hundred years. The fact bears repeating again because of its magnitude. Below you’ll find a chart showing the average Wins Above Replacement for positional rookies for a full season of plate appearances (600 PAs) from 1920 to 2015:

As we can see, no other season is close to 2015. There are a few reasons for that, reasons that are complex and outside the particular scope of this article. For now, this should serve as background for what we’re discussing today: how sophomore/follow-up seasons compare to great rookie campaigns. We’ll be focusing specifically on the years that followed Rookie of the Year campaigns to try to discern whether a “sophomore slump” occurred among the league’s best first-year players, and we’ll also bring in the 2016 projections for our exceptional crop of 2015 rookies to look at next year’s expected performance.

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It’s different when you’re an executive for a smaller-budget organization. It’s not bad, and it might even be fun, but the circumstances force you to be a little more imaginative. You don’t ever really get to splurge, not unless you get lucky. More often, you have to be creative — you have to try to see things where other people don’t. You’re forever hunting for bargains, looking for upside where others might see downside. So much is about accepting flaws and reclamation projects. It can be a rewarding challenge, but only the challenge part is certain.

It’s simpler when you have resources. There’s a lot more pressure, as there are higher expectations, but when you have resources, you don’t always need to overthink. When you have resources, like the Dodgers, you can determine that you have a weakness in the bullpen, and you can just go get Aroldis Chapman to try to fix it. The Dodgers looked somewhat thin behind Kenley Jansen, who’s one of the best relievers in baseball. So word is they’re on the verge of picking up another one of the best relievers in baseball.

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If you’d made your way over to the “relief pitchers” tab of our team depth charts section lately, there’s something peculiar that may have caught your eye. It didn’t seem to get past Twitter user Brad Shapiro, operating under the moniker @Big_Hebrew:

@BtBScore HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, that’s hilarious. Best bullpen in baseball last 2 season means nothing, got it

— Brad Shapiro (@Big_Hebrew) December 6, 2015

To whom is Brad referring? A quick perusal of Brad’s Twitter profile reveals a Royals “Took the Crown” avatar, a “Royalty” header, and tweets like “CRYING LIKE A BABY RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” posted minutes after the Royals won the World Series. Using these context clues, I’ve drawn the conclusion that Brad is a Royals fan, and that Brad’s tweet was in reference to the Royals bullpen being ranked 25th by our projected depth charts.

Now, I understand that sounds a little silly, given what you know about the Royals bullpen. But here’s the thing about the projections that doesn’t need repeating but probably needs repeating: the projections aren’t perfect, and under certain unique circumstances, they’re going to miss. Also: bullpens, in particular, are hard to project, because relievers are notoriously volatile.

So when you look at Wade Davis‘ Steamer projection for 2015 — the 2.74 ERA, the 3.04 FIP, the 1.4 WAR that’s the same as or lower than Brett Cecil‘s and Will Smith’s — you have to understand that these projections come with error bars. You have to understand that Wade Davis used to be a starter, a bad starter, and that the projection systems can’t make individual player exceptions. And you have to understand that the difference between 25th place and sixth place on the reliever depth chart projections is 1.0 WAR, and that if you just project Wade Davis as a 2.4 WAR reliever — still probably low — rather than a 1.4 WAR reliever, the Royals are right back near the top where they belong.

But about that Royals bullpen, which has, in fact, probably been the best in baseball the last two seasons (h/t Brad). It doesn’t have Greg Holland anymore, lost for the season to Tommy John surgery, and Holland’s been a key part those last two years. It doesn’t have Ryan Madson anymore, signed by the A’s, and Madson was a key part last year. It doesn’t have Franklin Morales anymore, currently a free agent, and Morales was a key part last year.

Even with incumbents Davis and Kelvin Herrera, the Royals bullpen, when Brad composed his tweet, looked a little vulnerable. The next-best option was Luke Hochevar, and while he’s a nice comeback story, his ERA and FIP were both near or at 4.00 last season, he’s now 32 years old, and remember that thing about relievers being notoriously volatile? No telling whether Hochevar returns to being anything more than a middle relief option at this point in his career. Teams could do worse than having Luke Hochevar throw high-leverage innings for them, but the Royals are World Champions with high expectations who have built this sort of bullpen model, and that model doesn’t include Luke Hochevar throwing high-leverage innings.

What it does include, though — and boy have I done some kind of job burying the lede here — is Joakim Soria throwing high leverage innings, because the Royals signed the 31-year-old reliever to a three-year, $25 million contract with a fourth-year mutual option.

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On Friday night, Zack Greinke decided to take his talents to Phoenix, joining the Arizona Diamondbacks, who are now an interesting potential contender for 2016. That decision, of course, left a significant hole in the Dodgers starting rotation, and the loss of their alternate ace has set the team down a different course. Since the Greinke news broke, they’ve struck deals with aging veterans Hisashi Iwakuma and Chase Utley, traded for Aroldis Chapman, talked to the Marlins about Jose Fernandez, were named as a suitor for Ben Zobrist, and probably have a few dozen other alternatives that haven’t leaked out to the public yet. This certainly won’t be a boring winter in Los Angeles.

But it’s certainly possible that, for the second straight winter, the Dodgers are going to choose to acquire a larger quantity of potentially good players rather than banking on the elite performances of a few high profile stars. Andrew Friedman’s roster revamp a year ago saw the team acquire guys like Brandon McCarthy, Brett Anderson, Yasmani Grandal, Jimmy Rollins, and Howie Kendrick rather than make runs at All-Stars like Max Scherzer or Jon Lester. And then the Dodgers essentially affirmed that philosophy in July, when they were heavily linked to Cole Hamels, but chose to make a deal that brought in Alex Wood and Mat Latos instead. Capping their offer to Greinke at $160 million might have been surprising for a team that has seemingly unlimited payroll space, but while the Dodgers have spent extensively on acquiring young talent (particularly in the international market), this front office has not shown an inclination to pay a premium for high-end veterans.

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Remember life before Mike Trout? There was less joy in the world and the Angels didn’t have to spend so much money on new baseballs. There were also different expectations placed on young players. Because of Trout, though, and the era of players he ushered in, the way we look at prospect timelines has changed. Trout was the best player in baseball at age 20 and has been great ever since. Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, and plenty of other newcomers have taken the sport by storm with awesome debuts. Carlos Correa! Kris Bryant! Francisco Lindor! Top prospects now burst onto the scene and are immediately awesome. It’s fun to watch.

But it can also be distracting. The Trout-led immediacy has moved us to forget about players who don’t excel right away. I’m not just talking about mid-level prospects who aren’t getting their due, I’m thinking about good prospects who don’t have four-win seasons prior to their 23rd birthdays.

There’s an attention gap between the year you lose prospect status and the year you show up near the top of the leaderboards for the first time. Once a player loses his rookie eligibility but before he’s fully reached his cruising altitude, we sort of lose track of them unless they play for our favorite team.

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On July 7th, 2006, a 23-year-old righty made his major league debut against the Tigers. He entered the game in relief and immediately began putting up 99s on the radar gun. It wasn’t enough, however, to prevent Chris Shelton from singling to shortstop and beating out the throw. Brandon Inge also wasn’t afraid of the velocity, as he hit a ground-rule double to center. The young righty was now flustered. He hit Curtis Granderson to load the bases. He paced around the mound, gathered himself, and then rallied to strike out Placido Polanco, get a weak grounder from Ivan Rodriguez, and strike out Magglio Ordonez to end the threat.

On that day, Mark Lowe began a journey that started with the Mariners and continued on to the Rangers (in the Cliff Lee deal), and then the Dodgers, Angels, Nationals, Rays, Indians, Mariners (again), and Blue Jays. And now, almost ten years later, the Tigers have signed him with a two-year deal to be their setup man. It’s been quite a trip for him.

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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 Toronto Blue Jays. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Kansas City.

Batters
Toronto’s position players recorded the highest collective WAR in the majors this past year. Based on the numbers produced by ZiPS for 2016, the possibility of repeating that feat would appear to be distinct. Adding the rounded WAR figures in the depth chart below — a practice, it needs to be said, that should be reserved for entertainment purposes only — yields a sum of about 28 wins. That total would have been the third-highest in 2015. An encouraging development, that.

The strengths of the team aren’t surprising. Jose Bautista, Josh Donaldson, and Troy Tulowitzki have been good in the past and appear capable of continuing that trend. Of some interest is what appears to be the team’s only weakness — namely, second base. Devon Travis exhibited considerable promise as a rookie, but is expected to begin the season on the disabled list. Ryan Goins, meanwhile — despite what appears to be above-average defense — is regarded by Szymborski’s computer as a replacement-level player. Finding even just some value from second would appear to represent an easy means by which the club can improve itself this offseason.

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