If you paid any attention at all to the 2016 Giants, you noticed that the bullpen was pretty terrible. When the game was on the line – when all the cards were on the table – the bullpen came in and ruined everything. Need I remind anyone of NLDS Game 4 against the Chicago Cubs? I didn’t think so.

Anyway, that’s old news. The Giants did something about this problem, inking closer Mark Melancon to a four-year, $62MM contract on December 5.

Some in the baseball industry think that the contract is risky. There are two main reasons: first, Melancon relies heavily on limiting home runs, and was helped by playing half his games at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, an extreme pitcher’s park. Indeed, his HR/FB ratio over the last four years (5.9%) has been much better than the league average (10.1%), and if it regresses, Melancon is in trouble. The obvious counterargument is that Melancon is moving move from one of the most pitcher-friendly ballparks in baseball (PNC Park) to the most pitcher-friendly ballpark in baseball (AT&T).

The second knock on Melancon is that his strikeout rate is just mediocre. This makes him risky because if he suddenly starts walking people or losing command within the strike zone, there’s no buffer of dominant stuff to fall back on to sustain the success he’s had for most of his career. Before delving into that success, it’s worth understanding where the Giants are coming from.

Somehow, the Giants bullpen wasn’t dead last in Win Probability Added (WPA) last year. They were 10th-worst in baseball at -0.01. The bullpen essentially broke even in terms of increasing or decreasing the team’s chances of winning.

For example, if a starter went six-plus innings, leaving the game with two on and one out in the 7th with a team win probability of 80 percent, the Giants bullpen (as a whole, for the entire season) sustained those odds. Of course, in reality, things don’t quite play out that way in individual games, since the odds at the end of a game are always 100 or 0 percent. Essentially, they blew some games and they saved some games. Compared to other teams in baseball, the Giants were significantly worse. They were the only playoff team with a negative bullpen WPA. When the dust all settled, the bullpen was pretty bad, both in and out of context, and the breakeven WPA reflects that.

Enter Mark Melancon. Over the last four seasons, no relief pitcher has a better WPA. He’s put up 13.25 WPA in 290 innings. While WPA isn’t necessarily a sustainable skill, it’s hard to argue that the following players lucked their way onto the top 10 WPA leaderboard among relief pitchers since 2013: Melancon (13.25), Zach Britton (12.97), Andrew Miller (10.94), Wade Davis (10.41), Tony Watson (10.31), Craig Kimbrel (9.32), Aroldis Chapman (9.21), Dellin Betances (9.00), Kenley Jansen (8.98), and Joaquin Benoit (8.92). Those are some of the very best relievers in the game.

Notice that Melancon is way ahead of Britton, and way, way ahead of everybody else. Melancon’s stellar WPA basically means that, since 2013, he’s been the best reliever in baseball at increasing his team’s chances of winning. That seems significant.

On a broader scope, Melancon has been among the best relievers in the game in other key areas:

Relative to his peers, Melancon has pitched a ton of innings, been among the best in baseball at preventing runs, limited baserunners extremely well, and induced plenty of soft contact. While he may not be the most dominant relief pitcher out there, the results speak for themselves, and the Giants are clearly expecting those results to continue.

Melancon will remain in an extreme pitcher’s park. He’s a ground-ball guy who has a tendency to allow weak contact, and he will have an excellent infield defense behind him. He has a track record of success (albeit not the kind that’s always sustainable).

The Giants seem to covet pitchers like Melancon who induce weak contact, instead of guys who routinely strike out 10+ batters per nine. Johnny Cueto is like that. Matt Cain was like that. Those two perfectly illustrate the risk and reward with players of their statistical profile.

Cueto took a step forward in what was already a brilliant career when he moved to the wide open spaces of AT&T Park with stellar infield defense behind him. Matt Cain, however, lost the control that enabled him to be so successful early in his career, and his ability to induce weak contact and limit home runs disappeared, and he suddenly became one of the worst pitchers in baseball.

Any large commitment to a baseball player is risky. Melancon is arguably a type of pitcher who comes with some added risk. Despite it, Melancon has a tremendous track record, will play in a great ballpark for his skill-set, and will be helped by San Francisco’s superior infield defense. There are no sure things in baseball, but continued success for Melancon is well within the realm of possibility, and it’s exactly what the Giants expect and need.

Following up on the introduction of xFantasy this week, I’ve packaged the projection equations together here into a single Triple Slash Converter tool. This allows you to input a player’s PA, AVG, OBP, and SLG, and will spit out the resulting expected 5×5 stats. Check out the original post to explore the equations used in more detail.

Triple Slash Converter

A few optional things can be used to improve the projected fantasy line…

• Batting order: Must be an integer between 1 to 9. Determines overall R/RBI/SB as well as distribution of R vs. RBI. If you aren’t sure, the sixth spot is about average production.
• Team runs: Number of runs you expect the player’s team to score (full season). More team runs means more player R/RBI. If you aren’t sure, 720 is about average.
• Team SB: Number of bases you expect the player’s team to steal (full season). More team SBs means more player SBs. If you aren’t sure, 85 is about average.
• SPD: The SPD score for a player is fairly consistent year-to-year (outside of aging effects), and is useful for two reasons: 1) Faster players score more runs 2) SPD predicts SB’s well. If you aren’t sure, 3 or 4 is about average for fantasy-relevant players.

Part III, examining the predictive power of xFantasy and comparing it to projections, is still in the works, but I realized that the package of equations from Part I would be much more useful if everyone had a tool to play around with them!

Last season the St. Louis Cardinals scored the fourth-most runs in the majors, but were a mere 13th in runs allowed. Yes, the rotation had its issues, including but not limited to Lance Lynn’s season-long absence, but the pitching staff managed to finish seventh in FIP. The large disconnect between the Cardinals’ runs allowed and FIP has the aroma of a defensive rat.

The Cards ranked 17th in the FanGraphs Def rating, and five of their top eight players by plate appearances had negative ratings. The team’s roster had a severe internal contradiction last year, putting weak defenders behind a merely average strikeout staff; the Cards were 15th in K% last year. Cardinals’ GM John Mozeliak recognizes the problem, and recently took one step to address it by signing Dexter Fowler to play center. Craig Edwards recently covered the signing in detail, calling attention to the continuing controversy regarding Fowler’s defense. The Cards will play him in center, but he might not really be a center fielder.

Randal Grichuk patrolled center last year in a manner that will make no one forget Jim Edmonds. His advanced defensive metrics, though, were not terrible; his UZR in center was a hair below average. The Fowler signing pushes Grichuk to left, but it isn’t at all clear Fowler is actually an improvement.

It is clear, however, that even Fredbird would be a defensive improvement over Matt Holliday in left. UZR liked Holliday as a defender early in his career, but hasn’t thought much of him since 2012. Holliday’s offense made up for his increasingly offensive glove, until last year. Mozeliak’s first move to right the wrongs of the Cardinals’ 2016 roster was his eminently wise decision to let Holliday walk. Fowler may or may not be better than Grichuk in center, but Grichuk will almost certainly be far better than Holliday in left. (And, heck, maybe Fowler’s defensive improvement will stick.)

This will still, in all likelihood, be a below-average defensive outfield, but 2017’s edition should be slightly more agile than the 2016 product. The good news is that St. Louis has a heavy groundball staff; they led the league in GB/FB ratio last year. The bad news is that infield defense is even worse than the outfield.

Mozeliak is moving to fix this, too. Matt Carpenter has played five different positions in his career, none especially well. Next year he will man the cold corner, his bat having developed to the point that it can carry him at that position. Giving most of the second-base starts to Kolten Wong will improve defense at the keystone. He’s not a stellar defender, but is far better than any of the other available options.

The left side of the infield, as currently constructed, will remain scary bad. Defense is the province of the young, something that Jhonny Peralta isn’t. Heading into his age-35 season, Peralta will surrender runs in quantity whether he plays short or third. The current odd man out in the infield, Jedd Gyorko, could be a solution at the hot corner. He’s not a great defender either, but he’s better than Peralta, six years younger, and probably at least equivalent offensively.

Aledmys Diaz is young, but not as young as you think, and played old at short last year, finishing 22nd out of 28 shortstops with at least 450 plate appearances in Def. It’s hard to know whether the offense he displayed last year is real; Steamer sees some regression but is still optimistic. As long he hits he’ll play, and St. Louis will have to hope the glove develops, at least a little. The farm lacks much of a shortstop crop, and the free-agent cupboard is also bare.

The pitching staff can help hide the defense’s weaknesses by striking batters out more often. The return of Lance Lynn and his career strikeout rate of 22% in April or May should help in that regard, although Tommy John survivors sometimes struggle initially upon their return. The flame-throwing Alex Reyes, with a combined career K/9 of 11.7 at all levels, could help even more if he wins a rotation spot.

But that’s a big if. Assuming Lynn and Reyes both win spots, that leaves one of last year’s starters spitting seeds in the bullpen. Lynn in effect replaces the now-departed Jaime Garcia. But who would Reyes replace? “Mike Leake” roars (or chirps) the Cardinal faithful, and on pure performance they’re not wrong. Leake projects to have the worst ERA, FIP, and K/9 of any Cardinals starter next year. He will also be entering the second year of his questionable five-year, $80-million contract, making Leake simultaneously a Cardinal and an albatross. He is a less-extreme version of Jason Heyward, a player whose contract significantly impedes benching.

Lynn may not be back on opening day, and teams frequently can avoid using a fifth starter for the first couple of weeks of the season thanks to frequent off days. It’s likely that manager Mike Matheny won’t make a decision until he has to, and he may not have to until well into May. Leake may get off to an awful start, perhaps making it easier to banish him to the pen. Michael Wacha may suffer a similar fate, or get injured again. Both the Mikes were disappointing last season, but Reyes doesn’t offer sure improvement, given his eye-watering walk rates.

So this may be a roster bug, but it’s also a feature. The Cardinals have no sure-fire No. 1-caliber starter, but they have considerable depth, including the guys mentioned above as well as Carlos Martinez, Adam Wainwright, Luke Weaver, and perhaps Trevor Rosenthal. The last two are nearly and entirely untested (respectively) in the major-league rotation, but both cook with gas and could help alleviate the team’s defensive problems if they can command their stuff.

Another way to get more Ks would be for manager Mike Matheny to get a bit more out of his bullpen at the expense of his lower-stuff starters. The Cardinals were 20th in reliever innings last year, despite having a bullpen that finished 12th in FIP and 13th in ERA — not Rivera-esque, but usable. The addition of Brett Cecil will help if he performs as his contract suggests the Cardinals are projecting. Some of the losers in the rotation sweepstakes could also be effective relievers. Rosenthal used to be one, and Reyes showed a flash of brilliance in 17 innings at season’s end last year. Few Cardinals fans will put a big stack on Matheny’s decision-making capacity, but there is at least the possibility that he might make better use of the resources at his disposal.

The Cardinals had a poorly-configured team by the end of last season, but Mozeliak is taking steps to correct it. Cardinals fans are surely hoping that whatever roster sins remain will not be mortal ones.

Bobby Evans, the San Francisco Giants general manager, has said on numerous occasions that he’s comfortable with Mac Williamson or Jarrett Parker as the starting left fielder in 2017. That’s hard to believe.

In all likelihood, Evans said that so other teams and representatives of free agents don’t think they need to make a move for a left fielder. It’s a matter of leverage.

The Giants have, however, publicly stated that they’re targeting top relief pitchers. That need is so obvious they’d be foolish to deny it.

Despite what the Giants say publicly, they’re probably in the market for a left fielder and/or a third baseman in addition to an ace reliever.

Evans has stated that Eduardo Nuñez will be the starting third baseman, and that he’s comfortable with that reality. However, he’s lied about third base — or at least gone back on his word — before.

It happened just four months ago. Nuñez was acquired on July 28 in a move that surprised fans and analysts alike. Matt Duffy was just two days away from beginning a rehab assignment on his way back from an Achilles injury. Evans said he spoke with Duffy and assured him he wasn’t being replaced, and insisted that Nuñez was added as depth. Four days later, Duffy was traded to Tampa Bay.

So teams lie. They “change their minds.”

There’s no doubt the Giants could use some help in the lineup. While they weren’t a bad offensive team by any stretch, their lack of power in 2016 was severe, and the departure of Angel Pagan leaves a vacancy in left field. While Parker or Williamson may be capable of filling that void, it’s hard to imagine an otherwise complete team (once the bullpen is addressed) relying on two unproven players at a premium offensive position. Especially if they’re going to stand pat with Nuñez — an average hitter at best — as the starting third baseman, another premium offensive position. The Giants have a great starting rotation and several quality, cornerstone position players. Including the bullpen, they’re just two or three pieces away from looking like one of the best teams in the league. For all those reasons, it would be shocking if they didn’t acquire a left fielder.

One name that’s been mentioned is Ian Desmond. He’s capable of playing center field and shortstop (and therefore pretty much any other outfield or infield position) and he provides solid value on the base paths and at the plate. However, Desmond’s offense is a bit overrated. He’s put up just a 101 wRC+ in his career, and his bat has been known to disappear for long stretches.

Another problem with Desmond is that he’s a free-agent hitter. Free-agent hitters don’t like to sign with the Giants. It makes sense, when you think about it. What hitter in their right mind would want to play in San Francisco, given otherwise comparable alternatives, when it’s cold, windy, and the ballpark is enormous? Sure, the fans are great, the park is picturesque, and of course there’s the whole winning thing. But let’s be real: free-agent hitters would much rather go to Houston, Chicago, St. Louis, or just about anywhere other than AT&T if given the choice.

That’s why the Giants like to make the choice for them. Most of San Francisco’s impact hitters came to the team via the draft or a trade. Buster Posey, Brandon Belt, Joe Panik, and Brandon Crawford are homegrown. Nuñez, Pagan, and Hunter Pence were acquired in trades. They traded for Melky Cabrera, Pagan, and Casey McGehee in recent off-seasons. They got Freddy Sanchez, Carlos Beltran, Pence, Marco Scutaro, and Nuñez in mid-season trades.

That was a really long way of saying that I expect the Giants to trade for a hitter, and I expect that hitter to be a left fielder. Just the other day, Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle mentioned Jay Bruce and J.D. Martinez as possible trade targets:

Evans said yesterday won’t go long term on big OF bat. Martinez, Bruce attractive because both a year from free agency. #sfgiants https://t.co/lCuF7u4NxC

— Henry Schulman (@hankschulman) December 2, 2016

The problem with Bruce is that he’s bad. A lot of Giants fans probably love with Jay Bruce. They shouldn’t. Defense actually matters, and a player’s home ballpark can have a massive impact on his offensive output. Bruce’s defense is terrible, and the offense we’re used to seeing from him is a mirage, because for essentially his entire career he’s played half his games at the Great American Smallpark (eye roll) in Cincinnati.

Forget about Jay Bruce. J.D. Martinez is much more intriguing. Over the last three seasons, Martinez has posted wRC+s of 154, 137, and 142. To put it bluntly, the man can flat out hit. He put up +4.0 fWAR in 2014, +5.0 in 2015, and just +1.8 in 2016. The reason for the big drop in 2016 is that he allegedly “forgot how to play defense.” He put up decent enough defensive numbers in 2014 and ’15 that betting on a rebound is probably worth the risk. His stock might never be lower, which means that now is the time to buy, especially because the Tigers are selling.

Martinez is an impact bat. He’s under team control for one more season and costs just $11.8M. He’s 29 years old. He would immediately become the Giants’ biggest power threat. His righty bat would fit in nicely among a lineup of mostly left-handed hitters. Manager Bruce Bochy could use Parker and Williamson to give Pence, Span, and Martinez days off, meanwhile evaluating if they’re capable of having a bigger role in 2018. Or, the Giants could fall in love with Martinez and do their best to re-sign him after 2017, as they’ve had success doing with players they’ve acquired in trades.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Martinez would be a big splash and a massive upgrade (assuming, which we probably shouldn’t, that he remembers how to defense), but there are other intriguing trade targets to discuss.

Jorge Soler is one of them. He has big upside. He’s entering his age-25 season. He still flashes the tremendous raw power and athleticism that had people so hyped on him after his spectacular, albeit brief, 2014 debut in which he slashed .292/.330/.573 in 97 plate appearances.

Despite the hot start, Soler has managed a pedestrian .258/.328/.434 line in 765 career PA. He’s no longer a starter for the loaded Chicago Cubs. Kyle Schwarber’s return from a knee injury makes playing time even more unfathomable for Soler. He’s likely expendable if the price is right.

He’s signed for the next four years for a total of just $15M, but he can opt into arbitration eligibility if he feels that will earn him more money. It’s worth noting that Soler’s defense does not rate particularly well, although it’s also worth noting that he’s not as bad as Jay Bruce.

Another intriguing name is Marcell Ozuna, who would probably be a better ‘get’ than Soler. He’s put up a solid 103 wRC+ in his young career. He’s only 26 and is arbitration-eligible for the first time this offseason. He’s capable of scintillating hot streaks at the plate and plays very good outfield defense. He would be an excellent addition to the Giants, and, like Desmond, he can play center field. The Marlins are reportedly interested in acquiring starting pitchers after the tragic death of Jose Fernandez. The Giants could theoretically offer a package centered around their young, promising minor-league pitcher Tyler Beede.

So there you have it. Everybody knows that the Giants need serious help in the bullpen. It’s so obvious, the team is willing to shout it from the rooftops. What’s less obvious is their need for for an upgrade in either the outfield or at third base. (Of course, it’s entirely possible they’ll upgrade at both positions.) Since Nuñez is an established veteran, and Parker and Williamson are not, it seems more likely that the Giants will target a left fielder than a third baseman if they decide to only address one of those positions.

Baseball’s winter meetings are right around the corner (editor’s note: now underway! Mark Melancon!). Look for the Giants to be right in the thick of things. They’ve been heavily involved at the meetings these last few years, as constructing a roster that wins championships has become a realistic annual goal. Despite the front office saying that they’re comfortable with their current group of position players, the acquisition of a left fielder in addition to an ace bullpen arm seems imminently likely in the coming days or weeks. It’s just a matter of when, and whom.

With the new MLB CBA being agreed upon, details of the agreement are trickling in to the baseball news outlets. One of the major agreements is a new luxury-tax threshold for the upcoming 2017 season and beyond. The threshold will increase to $195 million for the 2017 season, an increase of $6 million. It will continue to increase over the four following seasons as well. This is good news for the Yankees.

For years, the Yankees have been over the luxury-tax line since its incorporation in the 2003 season. With incremental increases in taxes from being above the line, the Yankees have paid in excess of $276 million over the past 14 seasons, far more than any other team. Because of the funds that the Steinbrenners have had to issue out as an extra tax, Hal Steinbrenner has stated that he wants to go under the tax and reset the penalties against them.

As it stands, the Yankees have a payroll of approximately $136.2 million, albeit with only seven major leaguers signed to contracts. Their payroll includes the $21 million paid to Alex Rodriguez and $5.5 million of Brian McCann’s salary that they share with the Astros. With that said, they have seven players that they are likely to retain through arbitration, which adds approximately $22.1 million to their payroll according to MLBTradeRumors.com. After that, their payroll stands at about $158 million. To complete their 25-man roster, 11 MLB minimum contracts need to be added. At the new amount of $535,000, the total then stands at $164 million.

As their roster stands, the Yankees will be well under the tax threshold if they don’t sign a single MLB free agent. After a year of doing that already though, that is very, very unlikely. The team is already highly involved in negotiations with most of the top remaining free agents. Three of the players they are involved with include Aroldis Chapman, Edwin Encarnacion, and Rich Hill. Most of all, the Yankees are involved with Chapman and have long been thought to be the ultimate landing spot for him by several sources.

According to FanGraphs’ own Dave Cameron, Chapman projects to receive in the realm of $18.5 million as an annual average. He follows with an annual average of $21 million for Encarnacion. For the sake of this article and the point of the Yankees spending less (and my own belief of salary projection), I will use MLBTradeRumors’ Tim Dierkes’ salary projection for Rich Hill. He puts it at $16.7 million on average compared to Cameron’s $24-million average. The difference comes down to the third year, yet at a cheaper rate.

With these salaries, as with many large MLB contracts, there is an expectation of back-loading the deal, or having higher averages at the end of the contract. Because of this, a projection of first-year salaries close to $16 million for Chapman, $17 million for Encarnacion, and $13 million for Rich Hill are obtainable. For those values, the deals would have to be fairly back-loaded, which would sting a bit in the long-term. However, it is good to keep in mind that back-loaded deals wouldn’t hurt too much since two major salaries in C.C. Sabathia and Rodriguez will no longer have to be paid.

For the first-year salaries above, the Yankees could conceivable sign one of Chapman or Encarnacion and Rich Hill while staying below the luxury-tax threshold. They wouldn’t be far off if they decided to sign both Chapman and Encarnacion (a net $32 million added after factoring in league-minimum deals for two players sent to AAA).

All of this doesn’t even factor in the possibility of the Yankees trading Brett Gardner and/or Chase Headley. Trading both would give them the ability to add two of the above plus potentially Justin Turner while giving young players like Aaron Judge and Tyler Austin the opportunity to play.

Considering these possibilities, the Yankees would be able to creep just under the luxury-tax threshold heading into the season. This would reset their penalties with a year to spare before an expected spending spree during the 2018-2019 offseason thanks to the likes of Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, and many others that may be available that winter. All of this is very speculative, but it shows that one of the premier teams in terms of spending has the potential to become much better than last year while spending much less. The Yankees having more money to spend is dangerous for the rest of the league and gives them the ability to cut bait and buy players if their top prospects don’t work out.

The 2016 Texas Rangers finished with just 82 wins. With an aging core and a desiccating farm system, the Rangers are drifting toward baseball’s Sargasso Sea of medioc-

What? You say the Rangers won 95 games last season?? Get on with your bad self!

Hmm … diligent research has revealed that the Rangers did indeed win 95, despite a microscopic run differential of +8, the lowest positive run differential in the majors last year. That wily Pythagoras pegged the Rangers at 82 expected wins last season, and perhaps unsurprisingly, FanGraphs currently projects the Rangers to win, yes, 82 games next season. A modest uptick in offense (due in significant part to having Jonathan Lucroy available for the whole year) will be offset by a modest erosion of the Texans’ already leaky run prevention. With an aging core and a desiccating farm system, the Rangers are drifting toward baseball’s Sargasso Sea of mediocrity, a team neither good enough to challenge for a playoff spot, nor bad enough to enable Total Roster Makeover.

For public consumption at least, Rangers’ GM Jon Daniels is acting like he has a 95-win team on the roster, throwing out speculation that the team may be after Andrew McCutchen, Edwin Encarnacion, or perhaps even Chris Scissorshands. Daniels is, on the evidence publicly available, a rather capable individual, and it is difficult to believe he is ignorant of the true state of his team.

He has a core of four 3+ win players (Yu Darvish, Cole Hamels, Adrian Beltre, and Lucroy), none of whom is younger than 30. They have some young guys with upside (Rougned Odor, Nomar Mazara, Jurickson Profar, Joey Gallo), a glove-first shortstop whose contract won’t end until after humans have colonized Mars, and Shin-soo Choo, who has become the fragile platoon corner outfielder that many feared when he signed his own post-Mars-colonization deal.

Fortunately for the Rangers, their roster weaknesses are glaring. They have four positions (1B, CF, DH, and 5th SP) that each project to amass fewer than 1 win. These should be the focus of Daniels’ attention. Let’s take them in turn:

1B/DH

I’ll consider these together, because the Rangers can fill one of these positions with Joey Gallo, if they don’t trade him. Gallo is a true baseball anomaly, and his big-fly-big-whiff profile has been well chronicled. He had a 34.6% strikeout rate in AAA last year, a rate qualifying hitters exceeded only twice in the majors since 2007:

Mark Reynolds     2010     35.4%

Chris Carter           2013     36.2%

And the bad news is that neither of these whiffly guys broke 30% in their minor-league careers (leaving out a very short appearance in AA by Reynolds). So Gallo walks (and homers, and strikes out) alone. If the Rangers really were a 95-win team, they would probably be best served by moving Gallo for whatever they could get, which would undoubtedly be a useful return. A 95-win team can move a prospect for an overpriced veteran who will nevertheless put them over the top. But that team is not the Rangers, who are probably better off seeing what they have in Gallo, working him into the lineup as soon as practicable. But Rangers fans beware! No windshield in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan statistical area will be safe.

That still leaves a big hole at the other position. Profar could play first, but his bat likely won’t be able to carry the position, at least not yet. Encarnacion wants a megacontract, and while the Rangers may be able to afford the cash (they have the eighth-highest payroll in the AL next year, and they have a Texas-sized TV contract) the contract length will be brutal. Encarnacion recently turned down 4y/$80m from the Blue Jays, so he’ll presumably want more than that from the Rangers (or anyone else). Thanks to the qualifying offer, he’ll also (for now, at least) cost a first-round pick. While he obviously would provide some short-term help for the Rangers, adding a very expensive and declining veteran on a long-term deal probably isn’t the kind of move an 82-win team should be making.

Last season, E5 had his worst wRC+ and ISO since 2011, and his worst K% since 2009. Next year will be his age-34 season, and while even a decaying Encarnacion can help a team, his punishing contract is likely a better fit for a team that already has almost every other piece in place. For all his gaudy counting stats, E5 projects as just a 2.4 win player next year. The Rangers can probably get better results by spreading his putative salary over a larger number of players and a lower number of years. A platoon of Steve Pearce and Pedro Alvarez at DH could be the bargain-hunter’s option here. And let’s not overlook Ronald Guzman, who had a breakout season in AA last year (.825 OPS) before struggling in 95 plate appearances at AAA. He’s not a top prospect, but he’s still only 21, and he could be a useful piece later in 2017.

CF

The conversation probably starts with McCutchen, who appears to be a good buy-low candidate from a Bucs team that obviously wants to sell. Cutch has a team-friendly deal and a reputation as a glue guy, but the key questions are (a) will he ever hit again and (b) will he ever field again? The Rangers are going to have start restocking the farm soon, and giving away what remains of their young talent for McCutchen seems shortsighted unless they are convinced they can fix him (or that he can fix himself). Steamer, for what it’s worth, sees a significant bounceback.

Carlos Gomez presents a (much) less exciting option, but also one that will only cost money, and perhaps not in excessively painful amounts. If the Rangers believe that his health has returned for more than a minute, Gomez could fill the bill, but most of the value he has is likely to be on defense, and the Rangers did not have an especially fly-prone staff last year (nor will the addition of Andrew Cashner change that much).

Dexter Fowler raises some of the same issues as Encarnacion, though on a smaller scale. Although he put up adequate defensive numbers last season, most metrics have  seen him as a below-average center fielder throughout his career, and he will surely want more years than make sense for the Rangers’ current position on the development curve. He’ll also (for now) cost a first-round pick. All of the above is true with even greater force with respect to Ian Desmond. The Rangers should make sure he becomes someone else’s problem next year.

If the Rangers can somehow swing a trade involving Profar and one or more lesser prospects for McCutchen, then that might be the best plan. (I’m not forgetting Marcell Ozuna here, but I’m assuming he’ll cost even more in prospects than McCutchen, and I’m not assuming he’ll be able to retain his OBP progress from last year.)  There are no great options here, but the lower-risk move is probably to sign Gomez.

Starter 5

A.J. Griffin is currently slated for the cannon-fodder spot in the rotation, and this year’s free-agent pitching class is legendarily bad. Rich Hill could be a perfect fit, given that he won’t ask for too many years and is having a late-career resurgence that may only be explicable with reference to the dark arts. As a fly-ball pitcher, however, he would need help in center (e.g., Carlos Gomez), and he might cough up a few more homers than last year. And he’s obviously an injury risk, but that will be priced into the deal.

Ivan Nova (!) is probably the next-best option. Steamer projects a 2.3-win season, in line with what he achieved in 2011, 2013, and last year. I’ve never been a big Nova fan, but the Rangers don’t have a lot of options here, so he may be a decent plan B if Hill signs elsewhere. And that Top-100 prospect, southpaw Yohander Mendez, has put up good minor-league numbers across six levels (counting the three A levels separately): a collective 2.46 ERA over 292 innings, and an 8.6 K/9. He’ll also be just 22 next year. While probably needing a bit more seasoning, he could reach the rotation in next season’s second half if (when?) Cashner or Martin Perez falters, or Hill gets hurt.

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The 95-win Rangers were an illusion, and their chances of standing toe-to-toe with the Astros in the 2017 AL West are slim indeed. Instead, they need to start preparing for the post-Beltre era. They have some good young talent in place and a front office that has shown aptitude for acquiring more. They can attempt to sneak into the playoffs this year at relatively low cost, while retaining a cadre of young talent with which they can challenge the Astros’ AL West dominance in the years to come. Or they can act like a 95-win team. Sometimes it’s better to take the medicine.

The qualifying offer is a tax that is designed to depress the salaries of free agents. I’m not sure it actually does a great job of that, but what is clear is that it has a number of other effects on free-agent salaries and destinations.

As a starting point, economists distinguish between good taxes and bad taxes. Good taxes have a few key features.

• They are efficient – the simplest way to think about efficiency is that a tax doesn’t change your preferences that much. Once a tax is imposed you can buy less stuff overall, but in similar proportions.
• They are fair, and in this context we mean that entities in the same position get treated equally.
• They should be relatively easy to predict and understand.

The QO is not a good tax. A few of the worst features follow.

The rate of tax decreases for better free agents

Good taxes don’t distort preferences — at least not very much. Most consumption taxes (certainly in Australia) are charged as a percentage of the value of an item. Say a high-quality beer costs $10, and a low-quality beer costs $5. You can either have one good beer or two bad beers. Add a 100% tax (ouch). A bad beer costs $10, and a good beer costs $20. You are trading off a good beer for two bad beers and your preferences likely don’t change a lot, although you can probably buy fewer beers overall. Instead of a percentage tax, change it to a $5 flat tax per beer. I am now trading off 1.5 bad beers for every good beer – the tax has biased me towards high-quality beer (even more!).

The qualifying offer works as the latter kind of tax.

Take Cespedes and Trumbo. I will use Dave’s valuations (adjusted to make the math easier). Before the QO, say I value Cespedes at $120 million and Trumbo at $60 million. I trade off one Cespedes for two Trumbos (that’s a lot of Trumbo!). Now, say I am picking 16th in the draft with a pick valued at $20 million. The costs bump up to $140 million for Cespedes and $80 million for Trumbo. The ratio drops to 1.75:1. If I am a rational GM, the qualifying offer has significantly increased my valuation of Cespedes, relative to what I would pay Trumbo.

What this means in a general sense is that the qualifying offer makes the top-end guys more appealing (along with the players that don’t have taxes imposed on them), and erodes the market for the mid-market free agents.

The chart below plots the tax rate for a team with a draft pick valued at $20 million, assuming the cut-off for a team to offer a QO is a valuation of $20 million. What it shows is you have three zones: your cheap, tax-free free agents, your high-end, relatively low-tax guys and your middle-of-the-market danger zone. That Ubaldo signing last year, sheesh.

It applies at different rates to different teams.

Good taxes are meant to be equitable. That can mean it treats everyone the same, but sometimes it means that they tax better-off individuals at a higher rate. The QO attempts to do the latter. Unfortunately it introduces a new distortion in to the market. Every team faces a different rate of tax (a different draft pick), and a different set of relative prices between players.

Partially, this makes sense. MLB values competitive balance, and this is another approach to achieving that. However, this introduces an interesting wrinkle. The teams with the best draft picks at stake (the best teams) are biased towards the top of the free-agent class (and free agents that don’t have picks attached). Unfortunately this means that the worst teams are driven to the middle of the free-agent class, which history suggests is exactly where you don’t want to be shopping (Happy competitive balance day, here’s your tax-free Jeff Suppan!). This would be like exempting the poorest families from paying tax on tobacco.

Competitive balance matters, but worrying about achieving it with every tax is probably not the best approach. If you use modern tax theory as your guide, all that matters is that the system as a whole achieves your competitive balance objectives. Deal with competitive balance through mechanisms where it makes sense to (like revenue sharing and the draft) and then charge all teams the same free-agent tax.

The marginal rate declines when you buy more.

This one is odd. As I mentioned above, this tax bears a lot of similarities to excise taxes on gambling, smoking or drinking. These are the taxes at the government imposes to save us from ourselves. Here, the odd wrinkle is that the rate of tax declines when you buy your second free agent. This would be like the government levying a high rate of tax on your first packet of cigarettes, but exempting you from paying tax on your second packet because we didn’t get through to you the first time. The qualifying offer incentivizes teams to binge on the free-agent market once they have broken the seal.

The qualifying offer might not even depress salaries.

This requires some further research, but if owners aren’t spending money on free agents, the best alternatives are the draft or international free agents (or, pocketing more money). But both of these areas are capped, and the QO tax itself is paid in draft dollars. So, it doesn’t necessarily follow that this tax will depress the amount paid to free agents. It certainly redistributes money away from mid-tier free agents to upper- and lower-tier free agents, but the impacts on total spending are ambiguous.

As of right now there are only eight active pitchers with at least 150 major-league wins on their resume: CC Sabathia, Bartolo Colon, John Lackey, Justin Verlander, Zack Grienke, Felix Hernandez, Jake Peavy, and Jered Weaver. Unsurprisingly, Jon Lester is only four wins away from joining the group. Cole Hamels is 14 off the mark. With a little bit of run support from the Minnesota Twins’ juggernaut of an offense, Ervin Santana can also join this exclusive group in 2017. Without a little research, it would’ve taken me at least a couple dozen guesses before I arrived on Mr. Santana as a candidate to join this group. He has flown under the radar for years now and it is about time he got his due credit as a solidly above-average major-league starting pitcher.

The problem with Santana is when he’s bad, he’s extremely bad. His disastrous seasons in 2007, 2009, and 2012 left us wondering when his next implosion would arrive. With those seasons well in the rear-view mirror, we can look at them as anomalies rather than Ervin’s reality. His 2012 in particular looks like a result of huge misfortune. His HR/FB shot up to 18.9%, 6.1% higher than any other season of his. As a result, his HR/9 approached 2. While Ervin has always been semi-homer prone, it is safe to say that a season like his 2012 was either a fluke or could be attributed to some kind of injury.

Early in his career, what plagued him was his low GB% and high walk rate. Slowly, as his career has progressed, he has become much more of a groundball pitcher and gotten control over his ballooning walk rate. His groundball rate has been above 40% every year since 2011 and his walk rate has been around or below three walks per nine every year since 2007, something that could not be said for his first three years in the league.

He is at 25.3 fWAR for his career, which is good for 19th among active pitchers, hovering around names with a much more successful connotation such as Ubaldo Jimenez and Scott Kazmir. It is easy to look past Santana and more towards guys such as Jimenez and Kazmir because the latter have done it with much more flash. Santana’s only standout season was way back in 2008, and since then he has only posted one season above 3.0 fWAR, his 2016 season. In other words, Santana has done it with under-the-radar consistency a la Bartolo Colon.

In the hypothetical world where there exists a Hall Of Solidly Good, Ervin Santana would be a first-ballot Hall-Of-Gooder. What strikes me is how different the baseball world seems to view him from what the numbers say about him.

Checking out the Brewers’ team dashboard from 2016, and — HOLY HELL THEY STOLE A TON OF BASES. That’s 181, to be exact. Forty-two more than anyone else in the league. The seventh-most since 1996. The craziest thing about the Brew-Crew’s stolen-base total is that they didn’t even steal as many as they could. A huge chunk of the stolen bases came from break-out star Jonathan Villar, but an even bigger chunk came from three young up-and-comers in Hernan Perez, Orlando Arcia, and Keon Broxton. These three combined for fewer than 1000 plate appearances and all are expected to be starters at the outset of the 2017 season. The Milwaukee Brewers are going to challenge the 1996 Rockies’ number of 201 stolen bases for most team stolen bases in two decades.

Sensationalist title aside, it will take a little luck for the Brewers to break the 201 mark. Jonathan Villar alone will have a hard time repeating his 62-steal output, but right now I’m going to figure out just how the Brewers can make this work.

Firstly, they’re going to need health. Have a catastrophic injury to Villar and their chances of breaking the record go out the window. Same can pretty much be said about Broxton or Perez. Injuries are never fun so I’m going to put them aside just for this exercise in the name of entertainment. In a miracle by the Brewers training staff, all of their speedsters have a clean bill of health on the season and with that play in 150+ games. Same goes for solid stolen-base contributors in Ryan Braun and Scooter Gennett.

Jonathan Villar’s 2016 turns out not to be a fluke. He comes slightly back down to earth and steals only 50 bases in 2017, mostly attributed to his lower batting average/on-base percentage. Boom. Just like there we’re a quarter of the way there. As you can see, there’s no making it past 201 without Villar. In reality, I’d be pretty confident in betting the over of 50 steals for Villar.

Next is Hernan Perez. It’d be easy to extrapolate and and say in a full season, Perez would surpass 50 steals. The problem is it is hard to believe Perez will repeat his 2016 success. If Perez manages to stay in the lineup all season, he could easily make it past 40 steals, with 50 not out of the picture. Let’s play it safe and pencil Perez in for 40 steals. Okay, we made it to 90 after just two players.

Here’s where we can have a little fun. Brewers top prospect Keon Broxton is a strikeout machine. Even with those strikeouts, he made a big splash in his rookie 2016 season, hitting nine homers, stealing 23 bases, and sporting a .354 OBP in 254 plate appearances. Although Broxton has always been a big strikeout guy, there is reason to believe he might see some improvement. His K% of over 36% is bound to fall at least a few points. Age is also on his side. With a hypothetical decrease in whiffs, we can expect an increase in his already steady on-base percentage. I’m going out on a limb and predicting 50 steals for Broxton in a breakout sophomore campaign. That’s 140. A ton needs to go perfect for the team from Wisconsin but there is at least reason to believe these players can get 140 steals between the three of them.

The speed does not stop there. The Brewers’ top prospect, Orlando Arcia, stole 23 bases combined in Triple-A and the major leagues last year, his debut season. In Double-A in 2015, he stole 25 in 129 games. The young shortstop is expected to begin the season as Milwaukee’s starter. He should easily surpass the 20-steal mark assuming he holds onto the full-time job. With the running environment afforded to him in Milwaukee, I’d expect at least 25, with room for more. Twenty-five steals would have been the most on 19 different teams in 2016. Twenty-five might be the fourth-most on the 2017 Brewers alone.

From this point on the Brewers need to steal fewer than 40 bases to surpass the 201 mark. You don’t have to look far for those steals. Ryan Braun is getting older but he still stole 16 bases last year, and 24 in 2015. Scooter Gennett stole eight bases last year and reached double-digit stolen bases three times in his minor-league career. Kirk Niewenhuis stole eight bases in fewer than 400 plate appearances last year. Domino Santana is expected to see a full year of playing time barring injury, and has breached the double-digit mark in stolen bases in his minor-league career. And then there’s the occasional catcher steal or maybe even a steal from a pitcher or two. This is also not including any off-season deals the Brewers might pull off.

Adding all of this together, somehow it is even easier to see the Brewers blowing past the 1996 Rockies’ mark of 201 steals. Of course, with predictions like this a lot of things have to go right. They are largely dependent on a few speedsters, they have to avoid injuries, and the players still have to perform well enough to even have a chance to steal their bases. All in all, the 2017 Brewers have as much, if not more, of a shot of passing the 201 mark than anyone in the last 20 years.

The Cubs won the 2016 World Series. Though that hopefully isn’t news to anyone, it is still interesting for a variety of reasons. Notably, it was the Cubs’ first World Championship since 1908. I have nothing new or interesting to add to the conversation about the Cubs’ accomplishment. The reason I want to talk about the Cubs now is because not only are they World Champions, they were also clearly the best team in the MLB this year.

Most fans recognize that those two statements are saying vastly different things. The Cubs won more games in 2016 than any other team, had the greatest run differential and had the highest team WAR total, so it is fairly safe to say that they were, in fact, the best team in 2016. But in 21 seasons from 1995-2015 (wild-card era) the team with the best regular-season record (or tied) has only won the World Series four times: the Red Sox in 2007 and 2013 and the Yankees in 1998 and 2009. That’s a 19% success rate. Also since 1995 only three teams that have led the major leagues in team WAR have won the World Series: again the 2007 Red Sox and 2009 Yankees, and also the 2010 Giants. That’s 14%. So that raises the question: is this a problem? Should the World Series champion more frequently be the best regular-season team? Should MLB change things to fix this problem?

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