Kuzul

There’s fewer than 60 days until pitchers and catchers report, which means there’s less than two months until the Alex Rodriguez circus begins again for the New York Yankees.

It’s been a while since the embattled Rodriguez last was a regular topic of discussion and debate in baseball circles, let alone a daily one, as he surely will be come Feb. 20, 2015.

Now that Rodriguez is 39 years old and coming off a few injury-riddled seasons and the longest performance-enhancing drug-related suspension in Major League Baseball history—that is, the entire 2014 campaign—the discussion and debate will rage on. 

What should the Yankees do with Rodriguez? Can the team and fans reasonably expect him, after a year off to train and get healthy, to be a capable performer?

Or has all that time away from the game been too detrimental to both parties? Should the Yankees simply cut their losses, swallow the $61 million still owed to Rodriguez through 2017 and cut him?

The situation is sticky in so many ways.

On one hand, it’s hard to believe that Rodriguez could be more than even a semi-regular player at this stage of his career.

By re-signing Chase Headley to be the starting third baseman and then trading for Garrett Jones to be another option at designated hitter, the Yankees essentially have been trying to make it such that there won’t be any need to rely on Rodriguez much, if at all.

“So it appears that Alex Rodriguez, with 654 career home runs and $61 million in Yankee paychecks due him, has been reduced to a part-time DH at best,” as Wallace Matthews of ESPNNewYork.com writes.

Here’s what general manager Brian Cashman said recently, per reports:

I can’t expect Alex to be anything. I’ve got to think the worst and hope for the best. Even before the suspension, he wasn’t the same player at third base on the defensive or offensive side. And that was before the suspension.

And now he’s been out of the game for a year. He’s approaching 40 years of age. And just to automatically assume given his circumstances that he’ll be able to plug right in, play third as an everyday guy and hold up and be productive, I think that would be dangerous thinking from my perspective, in the seat I’m sitting in.

That’s the smart and safe way to handle this, no?

One imagines a world in which the Yankees are forced, by some cruel twist of fate, to count on Rodriguez going forward is a world in which the Yankees are still missing out on Octobers.

On the other hand, however, the Yankees actually need more offense after finishing 2014 as the 11th-worst run-scoring club in MLB, their lowest ranking in that category since—wait for it—1990, when they scored the third-fewest.

New York received an aggregate .230/.290/.372 triple-slash line from the DH spot in the lineup last year, good for a .662 OPS—fourth-worst in the AL. And it’s not entirely crazy to think that Rodriguez could surpass that performance by himself if used as the primary DH with plenty of rest and days off.

After all, despite his age, injury history and PED past, Rodriguez always has produced at the plate, even in the second half of 2013—the last time he was on a baseball field, some 15 months ago—when he hit .244/.348/.423 with seven home runs in 44 games after returning from hip surgery.

The translation of his 118 OPS+ that quarter-season means his .771 OPS was—believe it or not—13 percent above league average.

For what it’s worth, Rodriguez is said to be in “unbelievable shape,” according to a source close to the three-time MVP cited by Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News.

Speaking of which, all of this is shaping up to put a lot on spring training, at which point the Yankees decision-makers, from ownership to Cashman and the front office to manager Joe Girardi, will get their first look at Rodriguez in action in what will by then have been a long, long time.

There’s more than a little chance that Rodriguez can still hit, which means he’ll likely have an opportunity to help the Yankees despite everything he’s been through over the past year-and-a-half.

But the Yankees aren’t planning on that happening, and they’re certainly not banking on it. They’re set up to have an out on Rodriguez if they need it.

As David Lariviere of Forbes writes:

If [Rodriguez is] hitting .220 with a homer and 10 RBI in the middle of May, the real plan is to hand him his walking papers by Memorial Day and eat the remaining $60 million or so on his contract which runs through 2017. The surest bet in sports right now is that A-Rod will never play through the rest of that pact.

Should the Yankees go that route, no one’s saying it won’t cost them a heck of a lot of money.

But should Rodriguez prove to be more of a circus than a productive member of the Yankees, no one’s saying that such a path won’t be worth it, either.

Statistics are accurate through the 2014 season and courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.

To talk baseball or fantasy baseball, check in with me on Twitter: @JayCat11.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The New York Yankees need Yoan Moncada, the next Cuban sensation readying to make his way to Major League Baseball. And they need him for oh-so-many reasons.

Moncada, in case you haven’t been paying attention, defected from his native Cuba and established residency in Guatemala, where he held a showcase workout for teams in mid-November. He already has been declared a free agent by MLB, but before open season on signing Moncada starts, teams still are awaiting word that he has been cleared by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the United States Department of the Treasury.

The quick must-knows about Moncada that make him such a phenom are as follows: He is a 6’0″, 210-pound, switch-hitting infielder with average or better tools across the board—all at the age of 19.

As a teenager, Moncada hit .273/.365/.406 for Cienfuegos in Cuba’s Serie Nacional from 2013-14.

Just about every team, of course, is interested in this sort of player, especially given the recent success other former Cuban stars have had in America.

But when it actually becomes time to sign Moncada, the Yankees should be at the top of the list.

Already this offseason, the Yankees have traded for new shortstop Didi Gregorius and right-hander Nathan Eovaldi, and they have signed free-agent third baseman Chase Headley and reliever Andrew Miller for a combined $88 million—a steep but reasonable amount by MLB and Yankees’ standards these days.

General manager Brian Cashman has indicated the club apparently will not be shelling out major money to land one of the two remaining premier high-priced free agents, righties Max Scherzer and James Shields, according to Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News.

Perhaps they’re keeping a little stashed away for Moncada? And why not?

The Yankees’ minor league system has been middle-of-the-pack to mediocre the past few years, and the club’s ranking has dropped three straight seasons, according to Baseball America:

A number of Yankees prospects have been stunted by injuries (Manny Banuelos, Ty Hensley, Jose Campos) or a failure to develop (Tyler Austin, Eric Jagielo, Angelo Gumbs). And that’s to say nothing of those top picks who were questionable selections even at the time they were drafted, like Cito Culver and Andrew Brackman, New York’s first takes in 2010 and 2007, respectively.

While a number of pitchers actually have graduated to the majors recently, including 2014 breakout reliever Dellin Betances, David Phelps, Adam Warren and Shane Greene, as well as David Robertson and Joba Chamberlain before them, there has been next to nothing out of the position players.

This is oft-cited but very much still disturbingly true: The last position player drafted and developed by the Yankees who has turned into a productive big leaguer for them is outfielder Brett Gardner, now 31, who was a third-rounder all the way back in 2005—or a decade ago now, if you’re counting along at home.

That is just staggering.

Heck, even the top-of-the-line, can’t-miss hitting prospects New York has traded away haven’t been any good for their new teams, either. Just ask the Seattle Mariners how they feel about Jesus Montero.

And the likes of Mason Williams, Slade Heathcott and Dante Bichette Jr., all considered to possess impressive potential not long ago, have shifted gears to reverse and put the pedal to the floor, devolving from highly regarded prospects into complete suspects.

Also especially troubling? Not a single, solitary amateur picked by the Yankees in the past four drafts has made it to the majors yet.

Because of all that, combined with an aging, increasingly injury-prone and expensive roster—Alex Rodriguez, CC Sabathia and Mark Teixiera, among others, say hello—the Yankees have a dire need for young position players who represent potential franchise building blocks.

To wit, the average age of the Yankees’ position players in 2014 was 32.6, nearly two full years more ancient than any other club in baseball. And several key members of the roster, from Teixeira and Carlos Beltran to Sabathia, Masahiro Tanaka, Ivan Nova and Michael Pineda, missed significant time to disabled-list stints.

Sure, there’s finally some hope in the minors, thanks to slugging outfielder Aaron Judge, offensive-minded catcher Gary Sanchez and Greg Bird, a first baseman with a knack for getting on base.

But there has to be more. That is why the Yankees must go all-out to land Moncada for all of the above—his youth, his wide-ranging skill set, his steep ceiling, his marketability—once he’s declared an amateur international free agent.

“We scout Cuban players extensively,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said via Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com, who writes that Moncada is the “most celebrated young prospect to leave Cuba since Jorge Soler, who signed with the Cubs in 2012.”

In the past handful of years, a number of prominent Cuban stars have come to MLB and had an immediate impact, including Soler, Aroldis Chapman, Yoenis Cespedes, Yasiel Puig and Jose Abreu, who ran away with the AL Rookie of the Year Award in 2014.

“In most cases, a lot of those teams have benefited from doing their transactions,” as Cashman points out, per Sanchez, “but we’d like to scout a player, but also get a chance to know the player before we make recommendations at those financial levels. It’s harder when you don’t have access to get background and stuff like that.”

As for Moncada, here’s a take from Christopher Crawford of ESPN Insider (subscription required):

In terms of pure talent, he’s as good as any Cuban prospect there is…Moncada has big-time bat speed from both sides of the plate, with the tools to hit for both average and power. Add in plus speed and the fact he already has a track record of performing well in tournaments against upper-level competition, and you have a potential superstar, though expecting him to contribute at the big league level before 2016 is probably asking too much of the 19-year-old.

For all that hype and hope, Moncada could command a contract upward of $30 million to $40 million, as Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports speculated, an amount that would obliterate what teams are supposed to pay for international amateurs.

In that regard, Moncada is somewhat restricted by MLB’s rules, which state that any international free agent who is younger than 23 and doesn’t have five years in another pro league must count against an MLB team’s allotted international signing bonus pool.

But the Yankees already have blown past that mark for the 2014-15 signing period, so they’re facing the penalty and coinciding overage charges for the 2015-16 period, which begins next July 2.

In fact, that’s yet another reason the Yankees should go hard for Moncada: Since they’re already going to be taxed on their spending this time and won’t be able to give out a contract north of $300,000 to an amateur international free agent for the 2015-16 signing period anyway, they might as well go all-in right now.

As Ben Badler of Baseball America writes:

The top players at every position on [the Yankees’] depth chart are at least 30. The farm system takes more heat than it should because it’s New York, but the Yankees have struggled to produce good young talent in the big leagues, and there isn’t a star position prospect who’s close to helping in the majors. The Yankees have the money to beat anyone’s offer. They’re willing to invest in international talent, whether it’s unprecedented spending on Latin American amateurs or $175 million for Masahiro Tanaka. When you line up all the evidence, if the Yankees truly want Moncada, they’re going to be tough to beat.

That assumes, of course, OFAC unblocks Moncada and MLB declares him a free agent before the next signing period begins—otherwise the Yankees are out of luck.

With no more Core Four, and no Derek Jeter or Mariano Rivera around, the Yankees need a new face of the franchise.

If they get Moncada, and he pans out and plays to his potential, he could be just that.

The Yankees need Moncada. For oh-so-many reasons.

Statistics are accurate through the 2014 season and courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.

To talk baseball or fantasy baseball, check in with me on Twitter: @JayCat11.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

In case you haven’t noticed, Major League Baseball’s offseason has been going crazy with activity. While most of the big-name free agents have already signed, there also have been dozens of trades involving scores of players.

Whaddaya say we try to concoct a few more?

With players like Matt Kemp, Wil Myers, Justin Upton and Derek Norris being dealt in the past few days alone—all to the San Diego Padres, by the way—the trade market is cooking and jerseys are changing every day.

But there are still a number of names that remain on the trading block and, in fact, have been rumored to be on the move.

With those players as the starting point, let’s put together a handful of swaps in which they’re traded for prospects, all with the intention of making each deal a win-win for both sides.

Begin Slideshow

If it wasn’t obvious before, it certainly is now: The San Diego Padres are going for it in 2015. Like, really going for it, so much so that they have acquired an entirely new starting outfield made up of Matt Kemp, Wil Myers and now Justin Upton—just in the past week.

The man behind all the manic maneuvers? New general manager A.J. Preller, who was hired only four months ago, in August, to try to revitalize a franchise that hasn’t had a winning season since 2010 and hasn’t made the playoffs since 2006.

“A month and a half into his first offseason as general manager, A.J. Preller has already introduced himself as one of the more aggressive front-office types in the game,” writes AJ Cassavell for Sports on Earth. “And one thing is very clear: He wants to win now.”

The Padres, suddenly and undoubtedly, are relevant again, thanks to all of these new big-name additions—Preller also traded for All-Star catcher Derek Norris from the Oakland Athletics on Thursday evening—but is this avalanche of activity going to work out?

Or could so much turnover in such a short period of time backfire on Preller and the Padres?

While there are questions to be answered and likely still more moves to be made, of this we can be sure: The Padres offense will be better in 2015. It almost has to be just by default, but now it’s going to be way, waaay better.

After all, San Diego scored just 535 runs last year—dead last in MLB by a wide margin—and the club’s aggregate triple-slash line was look-away hideous: .226/.292/.342.

To put that in context: Those first two triple-slash numbers rank among the very worst in baseball history since the end of the dead-ball era in 1920. That .226 batting average was 14th-worst in that span, and the .292 on-base percentage was 21st-worst.

All three of Kemp, Myers and Upton are right-handed power-hitters, which should provide a huge—and much-needed—boost.

But that doesn’t necessarily guarantee offensive success. Remember: The Padres still have to try to make contact with the baseball at hitter-hell Petco Park, which is death to righty swingers in particular. And all of the players Preller has brought aboard in the past week happen to hit from the right side.

“If you have an imbalance…you don’t want to flip it too far the other way,” Preller said recently via Dennis Lin of U-T San Diego. “I think ideal world is you leave [manager] Buddy (Black) with enough pitching and try to find a way to get a few more bats.”

Maybe San Diego’s lineup is too righty-heavy?

There’s also the fact that the club’s outfield defense could be a concern, as none of Kemp, Myers or Upton is more than an average defender, and they’ll have to cover an extremely spacious outfield, to boot.

Can Kemp’s reportedly arthritic hips handle center field? Or will the Padres play the younger, fresher Myers there? Or maybe San Diego will put Cameron Maybin to use by letting him patrol center with his athleticism and range, thus perhaps shifting Myers to first base?

It certainly could help if Myers, who has experience as a catcher and third baseman in the minors, could handle that position. Otherwise, the Padres appear for now to be stuck at first with injury-prone Yonder Alonso and his 27 career homers in 405 games.

While it seems that third base also could present a problem, madman Preller already has addressed that potential Yangervis Solarte-sized hole by swapping one of his recently acquired catchers for yet another righty slugger, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports:

That said, despite his power, Will Middlebrooks is far from a sure thing, having endured injuries and struggles at the plate the past two years, hitting just .213/.265/.364 in that time for the Boston Red Sox.

Then there’s the issue of what San Diego does at shortstop, currently manned by glove-only Clint Barmes.

In other words, despite the additions of Kemp, Myers, Norris and now Upton and Middlebrooks, Preller, it seems, isn’t finished. He can’t be.

After all, why stop now, when the roster is overstocked with excess outfielders who have to become bait for even more trades? Lookin’ at you, Rymer Liriano, Seth Smith, Will Venable and Carlos Quentin!

With Kemp and Myers both under team control through 2019, there’s no way the Padres can carry so many outfielders.

Look for Preller to spin at least a couple of those names above to obtain either a shortstop and/or some rotation depth after Andrew Cashner, Tyson Ross, Ian Kennedy and the ever-injured duo of Josh Johnson and Brandon Morrow.

A former top prospect, Liriano could command a nice little return, and Smith’s team-friendly contract has drawn interest, according to Lin. Then again, Smith looks like the only capable lefty bat on the roster at the moment.

As for the Upton deal, it represents both a bigger push for 2015 and a bigger risk, because he is a free agent this time next year. The Padres could try to sign him long term, of course, but if not, at least they’ll get a compensation draft pick out of it in 2016.

Thanks to Preller, the Padres now have overtaken the Dodgers, Red Sox and Chicago White Sox as the most active team so far this offseason. And there’s almost certainly more to come out of—and more into—San Diego.

There still are holes to be filled and problems to be answered. Preller has work to do, trades to make and players to sign.

But the Padres are better now than they were a week ago, maybe even better enough to matter in the NL West—home to the presumptive favorite Dodgers and World Series defending San Francisco Giants—for the first time in years.

Before that judgment can be made, though, let’s see what else Preller has up his sleeves, which are firmly rolled up.

Statistics are accurate through the 2014 season and courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.

To talk baseball or fantasy baseball, check in with me on Twitter: @JayCat11.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Major League Baseball is a month-and-a-half into the offseason and already oh-so-many moves have been made. But there’s no shortage of rumors and speculation—and questions—around a number of free agents and trade candidates, as well as teams’ objectives and plans of attack.

Some of the latest buzz centers on the surprisingly aggressive San Diego Padres, the bidding for star Korean shortstop Jung-Ho Kang and why there doesn’t seem to be much chatter around free agent James Shields.

Having covered a number of topics last time, what better way to continue taking the temperature of the hot stove than by running through a batch of the hottest questions to cover the latest potential transaction action across the sport?

See, that’s a question in and of itself, although the four to follow are a bit more meaningful. Promise.

Begin Slideshow

Major League Baseball’s 2014-15 offseason is only a month-and-a-half over, and big-name free-agent right-handers Max Scherzer and James Shields still remain unsigned. But what the hey? Let’s take a leap ahead and look at next offseason right now, based on what this one has taught us so far.

Next Year’s Russell Martin

Matt Wieters is the only big-time starting catcher set to hit the open market a year from now, which means the Baltimore Orioles star will be in almost the exact same position that Russell Martin was this time around.

Martin, of course, landed a five-year, $82 million pact from the Toronto Blue Jays, a deal that exceeded just about everyone’s expectations by at least a year and upward of $15-20 million.

Then again, that tends to happen when the demand is high and the supply is, well, one.

Fellow free-agents-to-be Dioner Navarro, Chris Iannetta, Alex Avila and John Jaso represent a better batch of second-tier options than what is available this year (read: Nick Hundley, Geovany Soto, A.J. Pierzynski, David Ross), but none of them are close to Wieters’ talent on both sides of the ball.

Provided Wieters’ recovery from Tommy John surgery takes, he’s in for a big payday.

Passing the Panda

With only third- or fourth-tier free agents left on the board by now, it’s safe to say that Pablo Sandoval’s five-year, $95 million deal with the Boston Red Sox will hold up as the largest contract awarded to a position player this offseason.

Perhaps the best candidate in 2015-16—but far from the only one—to surpass that in both years and dollars is Ian Desmond.

A 29-year-old shortstop with three straight 20-20 campaigns on his resume, Desmond already rejected a reported $90 million extension from the Washington Nationals last winter, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports.

“As of right now, I’m here until 2015 and I’m doing everything I can to work as hard and be ready and prepared for 2015,” Desmond said, via Todd Dybas of The Washington Times.

After that, though? Given his age, skill set and ability to play a premium up-the-middle position, Desmond easily should reach nine figures if he hits the open market—it’s just a matter of how much north of $100 million he’ll be able to get.

Oh, and the fact that Jimmy Rollins, 37 next November, is in line to be the next best option in a shallow shortstop class will only help Desmond’s case.

Not to Be Left Outfield

For that matter, however, Desmond won’t be the only $100 million position player in the 2015-16 class.

Jason Heyward, Justin Upton, Yoenis Cespedes and Alex Gordon*—all outfielders—are strong candidates to blast past that threshold.

(*Note: Gordon has a player option for $13.25 million, but it’s hard to believe he wouldn’t cast that aside when the qualifying offer itself is likely to be around $16 million.)

After an outfield class topped by the likes of Yasmany Tomas ($68.5 million), Nelson Cruz ($58 million), Nick Markakis ($44 million) and Melky Cabrera ($42 million), expect big bucks to be shuttled this way starting about 10 months from now.

In other words, teams that didn’t splurge on an outfielder who can hit for power or get it done on both offense and defense will have plenty of opportunities to do so come the end of next year.

Teams Will Keep Handing out Qualifying Offers, Players Will Keep Declining

Once Scherzer and Shields ink, there won’t be a single qualifying offer rejecter left, and none of the 12 who turned that deal down this time saw that potential draft-pick compensation anchor weigh down their market or price point.

Not even reliever David Robertson ($46 million) nor righty Ervin Santana ($54 million) nor Cruz, the latter two of which were going through the QO process for a second straight offseason.

Santana and Cruz, you’ll recall, got stuck waiting until spring training had started before having to settle for one-year deals in 2014, for $14.1 million and $8 million, respectively. Both scored $50 million-plus over multiple seasons this time around.

If those two examples, as well as the Stephen Drew and Kendrys Morales debacles last offseason, weren’t enough motivation for players to accept in November, then why should teams think anyone will be agreeing in 2015?

In the three years since MLB created the QO system, players have gone 34 of 34 in saying thanks, but no thanks. At some point, that streak will end. But don’t bank on it happening next winter.

The Internationals Will Draw Interest—and Money

Just like Masahiro Tanaka last year and Yasmany Tomas this year, there’s likely to be at least one or two highly sought-after international stars from Cuba, Japan and Korea.

It’s hard to predict this market because so much of it is conjecture based on players either being posted by their club or defecting from their native country.

In fact, there’s still a chance that top right-hander Kenta Maeda could be posted by the Hiroshima Toyo Carp of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball. But if not, the 26-year-old certainly would be at or near the top of any international class in 2015-16.

Other names undoubtedly will go from never-heard-of internationals to must-have next big things.

The Pitching Bottleneck Will Continue

It happened in 2013-14, in part because everyone was awaiting Tanaka.

It happened again this year thanks to all the speculation surrounding Jon Lester, who finally agreed with the Chicago Cubs for $155 million in the early-morning hours of Wednesday, Dec. 10, after which the winter meetings became an utter madhouse over the final two days.

Well, guess what? The trend is going to continue because there are so many high-end arms coming up on free agency after 2015 that it’s going to take a little while to have the top of the market set.

Just take a look at some of these names: David Price, Jordan Zimmermann, Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija, Doug Fister, Rick Porcello, Hisashi Iwakuma and Mat Latos.

That group also might include Zack Greinke, who can opt out of the final three years and $71 million of his deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Even in a pitching-rich market, the right-hander would do better on the open market, so that’s a possibility.

“What happens with Lester and Scherzer will say a lot,” Greinke told Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times in July.

With $155 million in Lester’s pocket and almost certainly more going in Scherzer‘s bank account, it’s a good time to be a top-of-the-rotation starting pitcher.

Whether that’s this offseason or next.

Statistics are accurate through the 2014 season and courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted. Information about 2015-16 free agents comes from MLB Trade Rumors.

To talk baseball or fantasy baseball, check in with me on Twitter: @JayCat11.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Just because Major League Baseball’s busy-as-all-get-out winter meetings are in the rearview mirror doesn’t mean the hot stove has to cool down any time soon.

Having been over the winners and losers of the busiest four days baseball has had in quite some time, it’s time to turn attention toward what still might happen next.

The offseason is only a month-and-a-half old, which means there’s enough time for a heck of a lot more moves to be made before pitchers and catchers report in mid-February.

Like, perhaps, some of these predictions.

Begin Slideshow

Now that left-hander Jon Lester has signed with the Chicago Cubs, Max Scherzer is easily the No. 1 free agent remaining on the market. Heck, a strong case could be made that the right-hander, who won the 2013 American League Cy Young Award, was the top talent in free agency when the offseason began.

Combine that with the fact that Scherzer, who spent the past five years with the Detroit Tigers, is represented by agent Scott Boras, and the stud starting pitcher is in line for a massive payday.

Question is: Just how massive?

As you’ve probably heard, seen and read by now, the asking price coming out of Scherzer‘s camp is—gulp—north of $200 million, as Jon Morosi of Fox Sports reported:

Sounds steep, right?

Lester, of course, just got $155 million over six years from the Cubs, or $11 million more than Scherzer rejected as an extension offer from the Tigers last March, and an amount that Scherzer should top based on his stuff as well as his status in the market.

But $200 million? As great as Scherzer is, and even factoring in that any clubs that missed out on Lester might feel a little more desperate to spend on a front-of-the-rotation star, he’s not close to $45 million better than Lester.

And given that Scherzer already is 30 and will turn 31 in late July—he’s about six months younger than Lester—the team that eventually does sign him is going to be paying for two, maybe three more above-average-to-ace seasons followed by his declining years.

In case you need a reminder, the history of players who signed nine-figure deals as free agents, especially pitchers, ain’t pretty.

Kevin Brown. Mike Hampton. Barry Zito. CC Sabathia. Cliff Lee. Zack Greinke. Masahiro Tanaka.

Cha-ching?

And for further context, since Scherzer and Boras apparently want $200 mil—or at least, that’s the price at which they’re starting the negotiations—here’s a rundown of the 10 largest pitcher contracts in baseball history.

You’ll see Lester’s $155 million smack dab in the middle of that well-paid group. But what do you also notice?

That the only pitcher to surpass—let alone sniff—a contract with a “2” followed by eight zeroes is Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Kershaw, who by age 26 has won a record four straight MLB ERA titles and three Cy Youngs in the past four seasons, became the first—and so far only—$200 million arm because he’s a freak of nature still in his prime who also happens to play for one of about five teams that can afford to spend that much on a single player.

In other words, the circumstances were just right for Kershaw to get his $215 million, even if he wasn’t yet a free agent like Scherzer is now.

So throw out the idea of $200 million for Scherzer. Ain’t happening.

That said, Scherzer is worth more to some teams than others, namely contenders, and particularly contenders that need pitching—but only contenders who also have the financial fortitude to max out on Max.

That’s simultaneously a larger cross section of clubs than you might think and a small enough subset that the price likely won’t be driven up by more than two or three teams at most.

The clubs who fit the bill include, perhaps: the Detroit Tigers, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants and maybe the Washington Nationals and Chicago Cubs.

Detroit already has indicated it’s out of the Scherzer game, according to general manager Dave Dombrowski via Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press:

The Yankees? They seem intent on not splurging this winter after forking over half a billion dollars to drop from 85 wins to 84, and they have too many 30-plus-year-olds making $150 or more (Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, Jacoby Ellsbury and Sabathia).

The Red Sox still need an ace after coming up short on Lester, but they were hesitant to pay him more than $135 million, per Gordon Edes of ESPNBoston.com, so why would they go much higher than that for Scherzer?

The Angels are up against the luxury-tax threshold, thanks to albatross contracts they handed out to Albert Pujols, Josh Hamilton and C.J. Wilson.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, just paid more than $32 million to unload Matt Kemp on the San Diego Padres, and they don’t have a pressing need for a stud starter, what with Kershaw and Zack Greinke atop the rotation.

Even for big-market contenders, the reasons to avoid giving in to Scherzer and Boras‘ $200 million demands stack up quickly. But let’s not pretend Scherzer isn’t going to get his money from some team—and a whole lot of it, too.

Going back to the top-10 pitcher contracts table above, there’s a pretty sizable gap in two places: after Kershaw ($215 million) and after Hernandez. That second range, between Sabathia’s $161 million and Hernandez’s $175 million, could be Scherzer‘s sweet spot.

The amount he signs for won’t be what’s being asked for up front, but Scherzer will top Lester. The real question, then, is whether he’ll approach Verlander and Hernandez in the $175 million-to-$180 million range.

If that happens, Scherzer and Boras may have to “settle” for being the second-highest-paid pitcher ever.

Statistics are accurate through the 2014 season and courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.

To talk baseball or fantasy baseball, check in with me on Twitter: @JayCat11.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

After starting out slow on Monday and then building to a magnificent crescendo by mid-day Thursday, Major League Baseball’s winter meetings are over.

Now that the flurry—nay, absolute avalanche—of signings and trades in San Diego are complete, here’s the question: Are you all caught up on the transaction action?

If not, don’t worry: We’re here to run through a bunch of the winners and losers from one of the most hectic, chaotic and, most of all, exciting stretches of moves the sport has seen since the July 31 trade deadline.

Phew!

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Major League Baseball’s offseason is more than a month old, but there’s no shortage of rumors and speculation—and questions—around a number of free agents and trade candidates, as well as teams’ objectives and plans of attack.

Some of the latest center on the plans of the deep-pocketed Los Angeles Dodgers, the fallout in Oakland from the Josh Donaldson trade and what Chase Headley is worth on the open market.

Having covered a number of topics last time, what better way to continue taking the temperature of the hot stove than by running through a batch of the hottest questions to cover the latest potential transaction action across the sport?

See, that’s a question in and of itself, although the four to follow are a bit more meaningful. Promise.

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