Kuzul

SAN DIEGO — Closing is no day at the beach…but a day at the beach sure played an accidental role in developing one of the greatest closers in history.

Ah, the sands of time.

As Trevor Hoffman sweats out voting in his first year on the Hall of Fame ballot—results will be announced Wednesday—there is no guaranteeing he will sail into Cooperstown this year on the strength of his legendary changeup.

You might think that 601 career saves, second only to Mariano Rivera on baseball’s all-time list, would make Hoffman a no-brainer, slam-dunk Hall of Famer. Eventually, surely, yes.

On the other hand, no pitcher who worked strictly as a reliever throughout his career has ever been a first-ballot electee.

The voting can work in strange ways.

Sort of like life itself.

The day after the 1994 players’ strike started, Hoffman and several friends with whom he grew up in Orange County headed to the ocean in Del Mar, a suburb of San Diego.

Playing beach volleyball, Hoffman, with just one full season in the majors at that point, lunged to return a shot that was dropping just over the net. As he landed, fully extended, he felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder.

Not long afterward that same day, Hoffman and his friends set down the volleyball and picked up a football. Playing catch in the ocean, Hoffman dove for a ball in what he thought was reasonably deep water. Instead, he landed on a sandbar. More searing pain.

“I hurt my shoulder twice, basically,” he said during a visit with B/R at Petco Park one morning last month. “Did a doozy on it.”

By that December, it wasn’t getting any better. So he saw doctors and started an injury rehabilitation program.

By 1995, when the strike finally ended and a shortened season started, a fastball that once sat at 95 mph and touched 96, 97, had shriveled to 91, 92. He would end up having surgery later to clean up some debris in his shoulder.

Yeah, for a fleeting instant, with a career hanging in the balance, you bet he beat himself up.

“The next day, when I could barely pick up my arm because it was so inflamed because of the trauma I had subjected it to, there was a lot of remorse,” Hoffman said.

“And then having to go through basically the rehabilitation without surgery just to get it up and going again, there was a lot of remorse that that wasn’t really what I should be doing. There was the realization that I should be working on improving, rather than trying to get better from a stupid incident.”

He was 26 when the players’ strike started.

And he hadn’t had time off in the summer since his school days.

How could a couple of hours of beach volleyball and throwing a football be a bad thing?

“And then when I realized my velocity was gone, that I didn’t touch the mid-90s after that, that was kind of a bummer,” Hoffman said.

Far more of a bummer, obviously, had he not perfected his devastating changeup and become the Padres’ closer even with an under-construction repertoire in 1995. San Diego traded Gene Harris to the Detroit Tigers on May 11 the previous year, clearing the way for Hoffman.

He already had developed a solid foundation for the changeup out of necessity in the Cincinnati organization in the early 1990s, when the Reds informed him that his days as a light-hitting middle infielder were over. They wanted him to come back the next spring as a pitcher.

From there, the Florida Marlins picked him in the expansion draft and then shipped him to the Padres in a blockbuster deal for Gary Sheffield in 1993.

Even with a fairly crisp fastball that had sparked his rapid ascent to the majors, a little slider, a curve and a basic changeup, Hoffman knew he was going to need more. And that was before his day at the beach.   

Now, in 1995, a previous conversation he had with a fellow reliever named Donnie Elliott came into focus. Elliott had shown Hoffman how he gripped a changeup, a lesson that clicked with the young, evolving closer as he tried to navigate his way through the sore shoulder.

Elliott pinched a particular seam on the horseshoe-shaped part of the stitching when he threw his changeup so that, instead of the pressure on the ball coming through the outside of his hand—the pinky finger and finger next to it—it came from the index finger and the thumb.

The idea made sense. He threw his fastball, slider and curve with that area of his hand already. Why would he use a different part of his hand to throw the changeup?

When he employed his index finger and thumb on the changeup, throwing with his fastball motion but using that part of his hand to choke off the velocity, things started to happen.

While the Padres were rebuilding in ’95 following a fire sale of the roster a few years before, providing cover for Hoffman (with low expectations for the team, there was more room for experimentation), another reliever named Doug Bochtler debuted and quickly moved into an eighth-inning role as Hoffman’s setup man.

As such, the two became catch partners during pregame warm-ups. The inquisitive Hoffman, his career appearing at a crossroads, asked Bochtler how he threw his changeup, an effective pitch the players had nicknamed “The Dreaded Letdown.”

“We were doing flat ground work, and he threw me a couple that weren’t very good,” said Bochtler, who this winter was named San Diego’s bullpen coach for 2016. “Then he threw a pitch that went right through my legs and I was like, ‘Holy crap!'”

“Can you do that again?” Bochtler asked.

“I think so,” Hoffman replied.

“So he throws it again, and I got leather on the next one,” Bochtler said. “I tipped it but still didn’t catch it. I said, ‘Wow, dude, that is legit.’ These are like the first Trevor Hoffman changeups he ever really threw.

“Looking back, I remember what it looked like. I asked, ‘Why are you fiddling around with that, anyway?’ He said, ‘Dude, I’m not always going to throw 95.’

“That was Trevor’s gig. He had the foresight, the preparation. It was crazy, man, to be there and, literally the first two of that Hall of Fame pitch, one of the best ever, I was on the receiving end of.

“Not that I caught them. But I was there to see them.”

Hoffman finished 1995 with 31 saves. At season’s end, he wound up having shoulder surgery to clean up his rotator cuff and labrum.

The next season, with Hoffman saving 42 games, the Padres won the NL West. He collected 37 more saves in 1997 and then led the majors with 53 in 1998 as the Padres won the NL pennant.

The legend was born, the signature pitch perfected.

Thanks in no small part to, yes, the beach, the volleyball, a football and, what the heck, for good measure, even the Wiffle ball he played in the backyard as a kid with his two brothers and their friends.

“It seems kind of silly to think about, but there were some fundamental things about throwing a Wiffle ball, trying to screw with the hitters in the backyard, whether it was my brothers or friends, that became a part of trying to learn the changeup with this new grip,” Hoffman said.

“Some of the things I was trying to do in the backyard I was trying to do with this pitch in somebody else’s backyard.”

The backyards became bigger, and more plush.

So did his changeup.

He doesn’t spend much time looking back now, of course. There’s no reason.

“You can always armchair it afterward,” he said. “What kind of career could I have had on the front end if I still had that velocity? Now does the changeup ever show up? Or do you just kind of roll throwing hard?

“I think I had to make that transition to becoming a pitcher sooner than I expected.”

In the end, despite the pain caused by that day at the beach, it certainly didn’t hurt him. Probably, in a twisted way, it helped.

“It was just stuff you did when you were a kid, man,” he said. “Here I am, I get to be in the best place in the world in August, when whether is perfect, I don’t have to worry about going to work [because of the strike]. Now I get to be a kid and a summer I haven’t had in 15 years.

“I made up for lost time pretty fast. Stupid.”

He grinned, and his eyes twinkled.

Hall of Fame careers are not produced on a cookie-cutter assembly line. This is a game for all shapes and sizes. He will be giving a speech in Cooperstown one day, and if there is any justice, it will be this July.

It is a classic story of taking what life gives you and turning it to your advantage. Make lemonade out of lemons, right?

“And I have a home now probably 100 yards from where it all happened,” Hoffman said, chuckling. “Poetic justice. I put up volleyball nets now.

“I’m laughing at fate, I guess. I don’t know. It was an unfortunate day.”

However, as things turned out, it was not such a bad career move.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

It sat on my desk for several days just before Christmas. In the envelope. Unsealed. Stamp affixed. Questions nagging.

Finally, into the mail it went.

Last-minute Christmas card? No.

My Hall of Fame ballot.

The process is nearly the same every year. Spend most of December wrestling with it, thinking about it, researching it, second-guessing myself about it. Reach a point where I think I’ve got it…but then I don’t mail it back until the absolute last minute, leaving every opportunity to change something if a roaring doubt here or there isn’t quelled.

This was my 17th ballot, and there are few greater responsibilities, work-wise, in my year than this. As I remind everyone annually in this column, I’ve always viewed my vote akin to that of a congressman or representative: The Hall of Fame is a public house, belonging to the baseball fans, and each year when I vote, I’m mindful that I’m casting that vote on behalf of constituents. Not everybody is going to agree, but you do your best to represent.

So for this week’s Starting 9, and in advance of the 2016 Hall of Fame election results’ being announced Wednesday, here is what my ballot looked like (in alphabetical order), with a couple of other thoughts tagged on at the end.

1. Ken Griffey Jr.

Every now and again, a no-brainer, slam-dunk candidate comes onto the ballot, and that’s what Griffey is. The finest all-around center fielder in history, from his backward cap to his grin to his highlight-reel plays, is what you see when you close your eyes and envision what baseball should look like.

Easily, the biggest intrigue here is whether he can challenge Tom Seaver’s record 98.84 percent of the vote. What you might ask, and it absolutely is a fair question, is why wouldn’t Junior’s election be unanimous?

Here’s why: Believe it or not, nobody has ever been elected unanimously to the Hall of Fame. Somehow, 11 voters in 1936 did not see fit to vote for Babe Ruth. In 1962, 36 writers did not vote for Jackie Robinson. In 1966, 20 voters did not cast a ballot for Ted Williams.

I’m not sure who could look at Griffey’s career and conclude, “Nah, I’m not going to check the box next to his name.” History tells us it will be somebody, though. But after posting all-time numbers and making it through the Steroid Era considered squeaky clean, if Griffey doesn’t check in Wednesday with roughly 99 percent of the vote, some in the electorate need to look themselves in the mirror.

2. Trevor Hoffman

Given his 601 career saves rank second only to Mariano Rivera on the all-time list, some will be surprised to learn that not only is Hoffman not a surefire bet to be elected, but that chances are strong he will have to wait until at least his second or third year of eligibility.

Here’s a secret: Nobody who pitched exclusively as a reliever throughout his entire career has ever been elected in his first year of eligibility. Both Dennis Eckersley and John Smoltz worked part of their careers as starters. Rollie Fingers (second year of eligibility), Goose Gossage (ninth year) and Bruce Sutter (13th year) all had to wait.

My sabermetric friends continually point out how overvalued the closer’s position is, and I lean toward agreeing with them. I have not, for example, voted for Lee Smith, who for a time was baseball’s all-time saves leader with 478 saves.

But sometimes the body of work is so staggering that it should be obvious that, from whatever angle you view it, you are looking at a Hall of Famer. And I believe Hoffman’s 601 saves over 18 years clears whatever hurdles a Hall of Famer should clear in both dominance and longevity.

3. Jeff Kent

I’m still not sure about Kent, but in the end, I acquiesced to the fact that he hit more home runs as a second baseman than any man ever, 351. The doubts, though, continue to nag: Kent played in an offensively friendly era of juiced balls and ballparks that favored hitters. And I’m not sure the rest of his game screams “Hall of Famer.”

This isn’t to knock him. Obviously, he was a very, very good player. But good enough to be ranked among the greatest 1 percent ever (which, essentially, is what being a Hall of Famer means)? I wonder if I allowed myself to be seduced by that one gaudy home run number.

4. Fred McGriff

The Crime Dog is in his seventh year on the ballot, and I only began to vote for him two years ago based on this: I do not vote for players tainted by steroids (see explanation below). And as more and more of those came onto the ballot, it began to feel like I was spending more time penalizing players than anything else.

So why, then, shouldn’t I do the opposite of that in certain cases? Especially for players who by all appearances played clean, only to be completely pushed into the shadows by the cheaters?

With 493 career homers, McGriff ranks 28th all-time. Remove some of the steroid frauds from that all-time list and he comes close to cracking the top 20. With only 12.9 percent of last year’s vote, McGriff won’t get in. But he sure is worth looking at.

5. Mike Mussina

I know, I know: Wins are passe. They’re not a meaningful stat for starting pitchers anymore in this modern age of bullpen usage, yadda, yadda, yadda. But I look at Mussina’s pitching his entire career in the beastly AL East in an age of fierce sluggers, steroids and bloated payrolls producing All-Star lineups and see his 270 wins, and it resonates. The guy produced 11 seasons of 15 or more victories.

There are plenty of other numbers to back his cause, too. But I’ll leave it to my sabermetric friends to fill you in with all of those (wink, wink).

6. Tim Raines

After checking in with 55 percent of the vote last year, where will Raines, now in his ninth year on the ballot (and with just one year of eligibility remaining), land this time? There absolutely should be a place in Cooperstown for a man with a staggering .385 career on-base percentage and whose 84.7 success rate on steal attempts (among those with 300 or more attempts) ranks second all-time.

7. Alan Trammell

It is going to be sad to see Trammell drop off the ballot after this season (and he will, because he only received 25.1 percent of the vote last year, nowhere near the 75 percent needed). I’ve voted for him every year and maintain that the mid-1980s Detroit Tigers are egregiously overlooked by the Hall electorate (yes, it is a gross injustice that Jack Morris is out in the cold, too).

Trammell came in with Cal Ripken Jr. and Robin Yount (both Hall of Famers), and his offensive numbers clobber those of Ozzie Smith (yes, a Hall of Famer). I’ve yet to talk with a manager of that time who would have picked Ozzie over Trammell if given the choice. Plus, Barry Larkin was enshrined, and Trammell’s numbers and career run in close parallel to Larkin.

Trammell has been criminally undersupported, and it’s a shame.

8. The Steroid Stance

OK, I intentionally left this until after I revealed my ballot because those who are not on my ballot should not overshadow those who are on it. And year after year, that’s what Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens do.

I do not vote for those who have admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs, who have tested positive for it or who are obscured by a mountain of circumstantial evidence. Period. I never have, and while reserving the right to change my mind in future years, I do not plan on doing so.

For those like Manny Ramirez (and, eventually, Ryan Braun), who blatantly broke the rules after PED regulations were instituted in 2004, they made their choice. It’s pretty black and white.

For those who came just before, like Bonds, Clemens, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro, they knew they were cheating the game and their peers. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been dipping into PEDs away from the clubhouses and ballparks. There is a reason why players were doing these things in private and attempting to hide their activities.

Just look at what Mark McGwire said in 2012 while apologizing for his actions before coming back to the game as a coach, per Petros & Money, via USA Today: “It’s a mistake I have to live with for the rest of my life. I have to deal with never, ever getting into the Hall of Fame. I totally understand and totally respect their opinion and I will never, ever push it.”

And, per the Associated Press via the Huffington Post: “I wish I had never touched steroids. It was foolish and it was a mistake.”

What sometimes gets lost amid the social media shouting at this time of year is that the Baseball Writers’ Association of America is not on some sort of organized, evangelical mission to keep the PED guys out. I am not standing on street corners, on a soapbox, shouting to the masses.

I am one man with one ballot who is voting my conscience. I wish the players’ union, or the owners, or MLB Commissioner Bud Selig would have stood up back in the day and corralled this issue long before it got out of hand. They didn’t. Now, the issue has come to the Hall of Fame voters, and on behalf of many fans who think along the lines that I do, if I can in some small way make a stand now for what I believe in, then that is my obligation. I welcome the opportunity to do so.

Some of my best friends in the business always have voted for those who used PEDs. A couple of other close friends who once held out changed their minds this year and now vote for them. I predict you will see the vote totals for Bonds rise this year.

That’s fine. I respect that. Clearly, there is no wrong and right here, only deeper and confusing shades of gray. But in the end, in whatever aspect of life we are facing, we each must stand up for what we believe in. There is no higher individual honor in this game than the Hall of Fame. And for that precious place, I cannot—and will not—knowingly endorse the career of a man who cheated.

And for those who say Bonds had a Hall of Fame career before 1999, when it is generally believed he started using, my Hall of Fame vote is not for a partial career. It is for a full career.

9. The Near-Misses

Mike Piazza and Jeff Bagwell

These are the two guys who continue to keep me up late into the night wondering what to do. I have not yet voted for either because of steroid concerns, yes. Yet neither’s name was found in the Mitchell Report or anywhere else. The evidence is purely circumstantial (both men’s bodies got a whole lot smaller after retirement).

I’ve had each in a sort of holding pattern, wanting to allow a few years to elapse before ultimately deciding to cast a vote in his favor, to see if anything PED-related comes to light. So far, it hasn’t. Bagwell is in his sixth year on the ballot, while Piazza is in his fourth. So each has a few years left (they can stay on the ballot for 10 years).

I want to vote for both men. Piazza may well earn election this year (he was at 69.9 percent last year); Bagwell (55.7 percent) is getting closer. If they both are elected this year, I’ll be happy for them.

Curt Schilling

Yes, I know he was one of the greatest postseason pitchers of our time, and I know his strikeout totals are staggering. I also know he had a whole lot of mediocre years surrounding all of this. Many voters raged against Jack Morris’ 3.90 ERA; Schilling managed just 216 wins during his career. Forget 300—he barely had 200. Sorry, if there’s no place in Cooperstown for Morris, I sure don’t see a path for Schilling. Head-to-head, in their prime, I’d take Morris.

Edgar Martinez

I have not voted for him because, to me, if you’re going to be a one-dimensional player as a designated hitter, your numbers had better be staggering (see my Hoffman vote explanation above). And with 309 career homers and 2,247 career hits, Martinez’s are not. Except…his .418 on-base percentage is. Had he played the field like Raines did, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat. But strictly as a DH…he’s in his seventh year on the ballot, and I’ll reconsider again next year. But I wish some of those other numbers were higher.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Clown noses, check. Circus music, check.

But under the Miami big top, would the Marlins really trade ace Jose Fernandez now? When they’ve got him under team control for another three years?

In the three-ring circus that always is just one elephant short of going full Barnum & Bailey under the carnival-barker owner Jeffrey Loria, have things deteriorated so rapidly that Fernandez’s teammates at times in 2015 openly rooted for him to get blasted while he was on the mound?

Granted, the Marlins being the Marlins, anything is possible. No other team could—or would—overshadow its own managerial hire (Don Mattingly) with the hiring of a batting coach (Barry Bonds). In Miami, it’s business as usual.

Fernandez is young (23), sensational (22-9, 2.40 ERA in 47 big league starts) and, as the club’s first-round draft pick in 2011, should be one of the franchise’s flagship players for years to come.

He is also coming back from Tommy John surgery in May, 2014, represented by the same agent who clashed with the New York Mets last summer over Matt Harvey’s workload under similar circumstances and, at times, is immature enough to anger opponents and teammates alike. Just ask Brian McCann, who was furious with him for pimping a home run in 2013.

Now, as the Los Angeles Dodgers and others investigate acquiring him while a steady drumbeat of rumors flow this winter, Fernandez’s South Florida future is dominating the hot stove league landscape.

That he is pitching for the game’s most toxic regime only fuels the speculation.

The Marlins’ culture under Loria and club president David Samson for years has been lowbrow, but even that reached a new high (low?) last summer when the club fired manager Mike Redmond and moved Dan Jennings downstairs from the general manager’s office to replace him.

Jennings was met icily with everything but an open mutiny upon replacing Redmond last May. Players were angry and distrustful that the neutral zone between the clubhouse and the front office had been torpedoed.

Soon, players took to playing circus music in the clubhouse and on charter flights whenever anything they viewed as amateur enough to be endemic to the Marlins occurred. Former Marlin Jeff Baker passed out clown noses. This was all first reported earlier this winter by Andy Slater, a talk show host for the Marlins’ flagship radio station, WINZ, and multiple Bleacher Report sources confirm Slater’s account.

Furthermore, Slater quoted a source saying that Fernandez’s arrogance expanded to the point last season that there were times when coaches and players hoped “he would go out on the mound and get shelled.”

In this winter’s avalanche of rumors surrounding Fernandez’s attitude and desire to be traded from the Marlins, retired pitcher Dan Haren, who started last season in Miami’s rotation before being dealt to the Cubs at midseason, finds at least that last part impossible to believe.

“No way,” Haren told Bleacher Report. “No way. A lot of those things in [Slater’s] article were actually right. But at least from a pitcher’s standpoint, there’s no way anybody was on the bench rooting for Jose to get hit.”

Haren then extended that to include position players as well.

“There’s no way,” he said. “You can be frustrated with a person on and off the field, but I would say there are very few instances [where it reaches that point]. There are people I hate, too. People I don’t get along with, and who don’t like me. But I find it hard to believe in a team sport like baseball, where you need the guy to your left and right to succeed, that people are rooting against someone.”

Marlins starter Tom Koehler echoed Haren.   

“That’s ridiculous,” Koehler told Bleacher Report. “Why would you want your teammate to do poorly? It reflects on everybody. You play to win. If you root for your best pitcher to lose? It doesn’t make sense.”

Multiple sources close to the Marlins acknowledge that Fernandez has grown more and more blunt with management, and there are those who do not appreciate the way he sometimes speaks to his superiors.

Among other things, these sources maintain that several players angrily spoke up when Marlins’ management informed them that Jennings would replace Redmond as manager last May, and that Fernandez was one of them.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Fernandez’s agent, Scott Boras, and Marlins management was already testy over the club’s dealings with outfielder Marcell Ozuna. When Ozuna, also a Boras client, was dispatched to Triple-A New Orleans last summer during a 1-for-36 slump, the agent publicly rebuked the team.

Samson responded by telling Steven Wine of the Associated Press: “My strong suggestion to Mr. Boras is that instead of resting on his 5 percent that he collects from his stable of players, he write a check and buy a team. Then he would have the opportunity to run a team that he claims to be so able to do. Until that time, he is in no position to comment how any Major League Baseball team is operated.”

Then at the general managers meetings in November, Samson suggested that Boras will be excluded from any talks regarding Fernandez’s workload this summer as the pitcher continues his comeback from Tommy John surgery (he returned last July 2 and made 11 starts for the Marlins, working 64.2 innings).

Boras took the high road earlier this month at the winter meetings in Nashville.

“The Marlins have been very cooperative,” Boras told Bleacher Report. “We’ve had meetings with the general manager, Mike Hill, and their doctor and Jose’s doctor. We’ve had two or three of those conversations during the summer. I actually had a brief conversation with Jeffrey [Loria] not more than three weeks ago about how well things went for Jose.

“All I know is, our doctor, Jose’s surgeon, is involved in all calls and we certainly like to share that information with the team. As to who’s on that call, obviously, it’s Jose’s choice because they are his private medical records. And if the team wants to be involved and gain that information, and I’m sure they do and their doctor does, then obviously they’ll join the calls as they’ve done in the past.

“People have come to me about this, and that is not the pattern of conduct from the Marlins that I’ve seen.”

As for Samson specifically threatening to go around the agent in the care and handling of Fernandez, Boras told Bleacher Report: “I know I have a regular course of conversation with Michael Hill and Jeffrey Loria. I don’t deal with David much because he’s not involved in baseball dynamics.”

All of this, and more, factors into the appearance of Fernandez arriving at a premature career crossroads in Miami.

Though his free agency is still three years away, with Boras advising him, Fernandez is viewed throughout the industry as a goner in Miami following the 2018 season. Especially as starting pitcher salaries continue to soar, and after he’s reportedly rejected club overtures in the past regarding a contract extension.

If David Price is worth $217 million over seven years this winter at 30 years of age and Zack Greinke is worth $206.5 million over six years at 32, how far out of Miami’s price range will Fernandez be as a free agent in the winter of ’18-’19 coming off his age-25 season?

Given Fernandez’s homegrown status and Cuban heritage, he should be a cornerstone piece for this franchise for years to come. Among the most dazzling numbers in his glittering resume: He is 17-0 with a 1.40 ERA in 26 career starts at home in Marlins Park.

Increasingly, however, it appears as if he will become just another table-top item in the Marlins’ perennial swap meet.

Fernandez could not be reached for this story. During a recent charity appearance, though, he did nothing to dissuade reports that he wants out of Florida.

“I’ve got no comment on that,” Fernandez told the Miami Herald. “I’m not allowed to comment on it.”

Certainly, if he does want out, Fernandez would simply join a long list of Marlins seeking asylum elsewhere.

Far and wide, the club culture under Loria and Samson is—and always has been—viewed as amateur hour. Players despise Samson for many things, according to multiple sources, including his frequent, unwelcome postgame clubhouse appearances questioning them on things that went wrong during a game.

And it is not uncommon for players to head to the postgame spread and find that they are, say, 12th in line because Loria and his entourage, or Samson and his kids, have beaten them to the food. And if Loria isn’t screaming at umpires, the Marlins are firing popular television broadcaster Tommy Hutton.

“There’s a pretty open relationship there with the front office people and, for me, as a player, it’s hard to be criticized by people who maybe haven’t played the game,” Haren said. “That’s a difficult thing for all players, and for Jose especially.

“He’s very vocal in what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. I think part of the problem is the relationship is very difficult between the front office and the players. That could be extended to any field, really: It could be hard for a writer to be criticized by someone who hasn’t written before.

“The front office is pretty hands-on there, and that’s tough for him. He’s very young, he grew up in a different country. A lot of times there’s a language barrier. Jose speaks really good English, but maybe he was raised to handle things differently.”

As far as Fernandez’s relationship with teammates, other than isolated incidents that are not unusual to any club during the course of a long season, Koehler said there are no problems.

“I don’t see anything that’s any different than what anyone has with each other all the time,” Koehler said. “I think one thing needs to be remembered in all this is that he is 23 years old. Dan’s 35. There’s a lot of growing up that goes on in those ages.

“As far as being disrespectful to teammates or management, I’ve never seen it. I love him.”

After their recent three-team deal with Cincinnati and the Chicago White Sox that netted them right-hander Frankie Montas, second baseman Micah Johnson and outfielder Trayce Thompson from the White Sox, the Dodgers have stockpiled enough top-level prospects this winter that they are viewed as a favorite if the Marlins decide to deal Fernandez for what certainly would have to be a whopping package.

Miami’s template for a deal, meanwhile, was roughly set when Arizona sent center fielder Ender Inciarte, right-hander Aaron Blair and shortstop Dansby Swanson, the top overall pick in this year’s draft, to Atlanta for starter Shelby Miller earlier this month. The Marlins certainly will require an even bigger return than did the Braves.

On the other hand, with lucrative, billion-dollar regional television contracts funneling seemingly endless cash streams to clubs throughout the game, Loria is said to be working feverishly to try and renegotiate his club’s comparatively paltry deal that doesn’t expire until 2020. And with ratings spiking with each Fernandez start (by an average of 5 percent last year, according to Fox Sports Florida, after a 19 percent spike in 2014 and a 16 percent increase in 2013), if the Marlins ultimately decide not to deal him this winter, that may be the biggest reason why.

It is all business, from the bottom-line dollars to the television ratings to how to proceed from Fernandez’s surgery in a manner that works both for the club and for the pitcher and his agent.

And in this atmosphere, it is a very fine line that separates a fresh-faced phenom from a precocious villain.

There are many in the industry who believe absolutely nothing in Miami will ever change as long as Loria and Samson continue to run the show.

Fernandez is primed to become the latest example.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

It was Tuesday, Sept. 1, when they all filed into the Fenway Park baseball conference room: pro scouts, amateur scouts, administrators—all for one of those change-of-command meetings that can lead to sleepless nights and bottles of Tums.

Dave Dombrowski, hired a mere two weeks earlier as Boston’s incoming president of baseball operations, walked in to conduct the meeting and, as he did, carried with him a couple of the thickest notebook binders that maybe had ever been seen in Fenway.

The reams of information and notes contained within did not lead directly to the landing of ace free agent David Price for an astounding $217 million over seven years.

They did not yet trace directly to San Diego and the acquisition of All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel.

But inside those binders were the organized thoughts and keys that would help produce the highly systematic and productive winter that the Red Sox are confident will put them back in contention, and soon.

Inside that room, Eddie Bane, a former big league pitcher-turned-super scout, and currently a Boston special assistant for player personnel, couldn’t help but smile.

“I had told the guys about his thoroughness,” said Bane, who was rescued by Dombrowski in Detroit after the Angels unceremoniously fired him as their farm director in 2010 despite the fact that he was the point man for drafting Mike Trout.

Bane worked for the Tigers under Dombrowski in 2011 before moving to the Red Sox in 2012. In the uncertain days following Boston’s bombshell, in-season hiring of Dombrowski on Aug. 18, not surprisingly, Bane fielded many inquiries from his Boston colleagues: What, exactly, are we getting into with this new guy?

“The Red Sox are world-famous for all of their computer stuff, and David walked into that first meeting, like I knew he would, with these unbelievably thick binder notebooks that carry all the information in the world,” Bane continued. “He is unbelievably comfortable in front of a computer, but Dave likes his information written in front of him, the written word.

“Our guys have never seen books that thick in their lives.”

As an organization, the Red Sox had plenty of work to do. They were headed for a second consecutive last-place finish in 2015 for the first time since baseball instituted divisional play in 1969. Worse, wrapped around that 2013 World Series title, Boston was on its way to finishing last in the AL East for a third time in four years.

Considered one of the finest executives of this generation, Dombrowski had been fired by Detroit Tigers owner Mike Ilitch just two weeks earlier, on Aug. 4. Immediately, several teams, including Toronto and Seattle, reached out regarding the possibility of hiring him.

With a clear sense now that things were moving quickly, and with his wife Karie, daughter Darbi and son Landon out of town visiting Karie’s side of the family in Oklahoma, Dombrowski had time alone the weekend of Aug. 14-16 to figure some things out. He sat down with a couple of long sheets of notes and jotted down some of his thoughts.

All things considered, from Dombrowski’s perspective, the Boston fit was the best. Like Detroit, the Red Sox have a century’s worth of rich history behind them. Lots of talent already was in place. And he had worked closely with John Henry, Boston’s principal owner, when Henry owned the Florida Marlins and Dombrowski was the general manager.

He now knew two things: He wanted to get back to work immediately. And he felt that doing it during the season, rather than waiting to start a new job after the season, would be advantageous.

He reached a deal with the Red Sox on Aug. 18 and went right to work.

“It was very helpful,” Dombrowski told Bleacher Report this week. “It gave me the chance to get a firsthand impression, get to know the club myself and also get to know people in the office before you have to move forward into the winter when the bulk of our work is done.  

“It gave me a chance to get to know them and get to know their responsibilities. I don’t think it would have been possible to come in during the winter, not knowing the club, trying to ask intelligent questions, taking the pulse and learning things, like which scouts are high evaluators and low evaluators.

“That six- or seven-week period was extremely important.”

He immediately scheduled meetings with some baseball operations folks who were based in Boston during his first week on the job. After starting on Tuesday, Sept. 1, he sat down with then-GM Ben Cherington for probably a total of six hours over two days, that Thursday and Friday.

Dombrowski appreciated Cherington’s willingness to share his thoughts and opinions on a variety of organizational issues. But he failed to convince Cherington to stay, given that the final say on baseball matters would become Dombrowski’s.

“He gathered information from us at a very early stage right when he took the job,” Mike Hazen, whom Dombrowski promoted to GM from assistant GM, told B/R last week in Nashville, Tennessee, at the winter meetings. “Where are the limitations on the roster? Where do we need to fix? Where do we need to improve? How do you guys see the team?

“He talked to a number of people, I’m sure, externally as well. And then he formulated that plan and we tried to execute it as best we could.”

Most of Dombrowski’s key advisers had remained in Detroit. Al Avila, his right-hand man for years, was named by Ilitch to replace him with the Tigers. Other key Dombrowski lieutenants such as Scott Reid, David Chadd and Scott Bream stayed with Avila and the Tigers, too.

In Boston, Dombrowski hired only one new special assistant, Frank Wren, the former Atlanta Braves GM. The two worked together in the Marlins’ organization nearly two decades ago.

Right away, he met with Hazen and Brian O’Halloran, another assistant GM who, among other things, specializes in rules.

“Just to get his bearings,” Hazen said. “Because we were in the middle of the season. Roster situations, this is what we have. I think we had someone on release waivers at the time.

“It was, ‘Hey, get me up to speed on where we’re at. What do we need to get done? Don’t let me miss anything.’ And that’s fair, because things already were in place in a lot of cases. We were playing games. Do we have any impending roster situations? Is anyone hurt? The tactical day-to-day stuff.

“After a few days, he met with the entire front office, explaining, ‘This is who I am, this is my plan, this is what I want to execute. I’ve heard a lot of good things about you guys. I don’t know a lot of you. I know some of you.’

“From that point forward, it was just sort of get back to work. It was great. I think he put everybody at ease very quickly.”

Through the day-to-day details, relationships were formed and then strengthened. As small tasks got done, they moved on to the bigger stuff.

“Over time it became, ‘Look, I’m going to hire a GM; you’re a candidate to do that, you’re auditioning, you’ve been interviewing for me for weeks now. Keep doing that and we’ll sit down and talk and have an interview at some point once I’m ready to tackle that position,'” said Hazen, who formally was named as GM on Sept. 24.

Once the season ended, Dombrowski summoned all of the Boston pro scouts for a second meeting, this one in Phoenix during the Arizona Fall League season, the weekend of Oct. 23-25. With the World Series now underway, free agency was coming quickly. It was time to set a final winter strategy blueprint and start to move.

“Just like David did in Detroit, we got together at the end of the year and you talk about next year and the future,” Bane said. “Same thing, I’m sure, as when he worked with Roland Hemond [the legendary former executive who was honored by the Hall of Fame in 2011] when he was with the White Sox.

“Being so organized, it makes your job easier and others feel appreciated.”

By that point, the Red Sox, of course, had done extensive work on Price. Obviously, Dombrowski knew the pitcher well from their time together in Detroit. Bane scouted “probably four of David’s last five starts.”

“As far as the contract, I didn’t have anything to do with that,” Bane said, chuckling. “I know it looked like it was sudden, but it was anything but.

“We were planning on having an ace. We didn’t have an ace before.”

By the time those meetings in Arizona were finished, the Red Sox’s winter plans called for more than just an ace.

“Really, that starts at the end of the season when you meet with your major league staff,” said Dombrowski, who retained manager John Farrell, bench coach Torey Lovullo, hitting coach Chili Davis and pitching coach Carl Willis, among others. “I knew some of the people, not as well as in the past like, say, Jim Leyland, whom I had worked with for a few years.”

But based on internal meetings with the staff, and others, the winter goals and needs came into sharp focus:

• Top-of-the-rotation starter.

• Someone who could step up and close immediately, given that Koji Uehara will be 41 when the 2016 season starts.

• A fourth outfielder.

• A beefed-up bullpen, given the workload setup man Junichi Tazawa has carried for the past three seasons (190 total innings).

“You have some thought processes, and you really know what your needs are at the end of the season. You can identify those,” Dombrowski said. “You crystallize your rankings—who you like, who you want to pursue. That’s done in Arizona, when you get everyone together.

“Then, you sit down with the owner and you move forward. If you’re ready to go, you may as well go ahead and do it. Things fell together very quickly.”

On Friday, Nov. 13, just three weeks after the Red Sox’s AFL meetings, they acquired their closer, Kimbrel, by sending four minor league prospects to San Diego.

On Monday, Nov. 30, the Red Sox agreed to terms with outfielder Chris Young on a two-year, $13 million deal.

The Price mega-deal dropped two days later, when the left-hander agreed to the seven-year contract with an average annual value of $31 million.

Then, in a winter meetings swap in Nashville on Dec. 7, the Red Sox sent excess starter Wade Miley and a prospect to Seattle for starting pitcher Roenis Elias and young setup man Carson Smith.

Bingo. Over an adrenaline-filled 25-day span, the Red Sox had checked off all four items from their winter wish list:

• Kimbrel is perhaps the game’s best closer.

• Smith is the setup man who they hope will help pull things together in the bullpen.

• Young is the veteran outfielder who should add depth behind Rusney Castillo (the intriguing Cuban import in left field), Jackie Bradley Jr. in center and Mookie Betts in right.

• And Price is the centerpiece as the Red Sox look to put two lost years behind them and swing for the fences again.

“One thing is, he’s very direct and honest,” Hazen said. “It’s not surprising, but everyone has a different style and different approaches. That’s been the one thing that stands out, and it reverberates through a number of people on our staff.

“Ben was one of my best friends and is a great guy, and honest, so they’re very similar in that way. Dave is just very direct in what he wants to do, whether it’s lining up going after acquisitions or identifying needs on the trade market or otherwise. It’s, ‘Hey, let’s do it, let’s get it done.’

“We haven’t gotten everything done we want to do, but in a lot of ways that course has been charted.”

And following that brief period of internal uncertainty in Fenway Park for those who wondered what their futures held under Dombrowski, it’s been full steam ahead.

“Joe Klein (a former major league executive) told me a long time ago, just remember there’s good people in every organization,” Bane said. “And when you think your team is the only team with good people, you’re going to get beat.

“It seems David goes by the same thing. He had great people in Detroit, people like David Chadd and Scott Bream and Scott Reid. But he also knew we had good people in Boston.”

Last week in Nashville was only the third time Boston’s entire baseball group gathered in one place, following that Sept. 1 meeting and the October get-together in Arizona. Hemond, now retired, visited the Red Sox suite to see Dombrowski and share memories.

This week, with most of the heavy lifting done for the winter, things finally are beginning to slow down.

“It’s not quite as hectic as it was before,” Dombrowski acknowledged. “But you’re always moving forward under any circumstances.

“We’re going to experience things together as an organization that will be new for us, doing things for the first time—how do you do this, how do you do that? Going to spring training. Opening talks, how do we handle them? Who wants to talk?”

Then, there will be the moving vans. The Dombrowskis already have purchased a home in Boston, but with his daughter in the middle of her senior year of high school in Michigan (his son is a sophomore), they will wait until June to move.

Though they have seen one another fairly frequently since dad set off to lead the Red Sox, two weeks at Christmas will be the longest the family has been together since mid-August. Dave is eager for the short break, and he knows one thing before he even sets foot back in the house: His son, Landon, who flew to Boston for the Price press conference, already has junked his Tigers gear.

“We’re all Red Sox,” Dave said, not missing a beat. “Through and through.”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

1. Early Peek at 2016: Cubs-Diamondbacks NLCS, Red Sox-Tigers ALCS?

So next year’s championship series are set, right? After a few weeks of opening their wallets wide, the Cubs, Diamondbacks, Red Sox and Tigers should keep October open.

Whoa, slow down, hold on, let’s get ahold of ourselves. What are you, nuts?

When we write the Chicago Cubs’ premature obituary next September or early October—and just as surely as Giordano’s deep dish pizza is the most delicious venue on Rush Street, you know it’s coming—it is difficult to say with certainty today what the cause for the demise will be. Maybe Jake Arrieta will decide to throw all knuckleballs. Maybe Kris Bryant and Addison Russell will retire early and join a boy band.

Also, it is difficult to sit here today and say with 100 percent clarity why the Arizona Diamondbacks will disappoint with Zack Greinke and Shelby Miller aboard. Maybe Paul Goldschmidt will suddenly spend more time in the Chase Field swimming pool than in the batting cage.

The Red Sox can’t lose with David Price? Hogwash. What if Pablo Sandoval shows up this spring weighing more than the TD Garden? The Tigers? C’mon. There’s always the chance Jordan Zimmermann loses an “n” and puts Detroit to “zzzzz.”

It is difficult this time of year to see through the blizzard of free-agent dollars, which rightfully generates the sort of enthusiasm in local markets generally reserved for monumental life moments, like the release of a new Adele record.

So consider this simply a precautionary reminder: The teams that have won the winter in recent years have proceeded to lose the summer.

Last year, the San Diego Padres’ acquisitions of Matt Kemp, Derek Norris, James Shields, Justin Upton and others generated more buzz in town than a routine sunset over the Pacific. Today, forensic experts are trying to identify the ’15 Padres through dental records and DNA.

The White Sox and Dodgers won the winter last year, too. Turned out, even with Jeff Samardzija, David Robertson and Adam LaRoche, the Sox were less exciting than your sock drawer. And the Dodgers a year later have a new manager and an even more impatient fanbase.

The winter of 2012-13 was all about Toronto after the Blue Jays acquired shortstop Jose Reyes, outfielder Melky Cabrera and pitchers Mark Buehrle and R.A. Dickey. Then they threw out the first pitch of the 2013 season and the Jays dive-bombed all the way to the AL East basement.

The winter of 2011-12 was all about Miami after the Marlins hired manager Ozzie Guillen and threw down free-agent cash for Buehrle, Reyes and closer Heath Bell. Then came Opening Day 2012, and the Marlins tripped to 69-93.

There’s a reason why they always play the schedule the next summer after the players go all Trading Places in the winter, and that’s because this game has a crazy way of keeping everybody guessing, including the so-called experts.

On paper, having added outfielder Jason Heyward, second baseman/super utility man Ben Zobrist and starter John Lackey, the Cubs are now arguably the best team in baseball.

Yet, how will all of their young talent react to year two?

“I think the sophomore jinx is all about the other team adjusting to you and then you don’t adjust back,” manager Joe Maddon said at the winter meetings last week. “So the point would be that we need to be prepared to adjust back.

“I think that’s my definition of the sophomore jinx, and sometimes you will get the group that takes things for granted and believes or conceded that it’s just going to happen again.”

You can tell, this already is Maddon’s theme for 2016. He said last week he spent time discussing it with the Cubs brass upstairs in the team suite in Nashville.

“[That’s] the conversation I need to have early on in camp, without being negative, without being critical of our guys, because we’re just showing up,” Maddon says. “They’re coming off a wonderful season, and it’s a very complimentary kind of thing. You want to talk to them and praise them.

“But the target’s going to be bigger and I want us to embrace the target. The pressure is going to be possibly greater, and I want us to embrace the pressure.

“The bigger the target, the greater the pressure, I think, equals a grander chance for success. So I’m all about that and I definitely will bring that to our guys’ attention.”

Arizona, Boston and Detroit, after racing off to great starts in reconstructing rosters and filling holes, are in no danger of sneaking up on anybody in 2016, either.

But as we’ve seen in the recent past, their toughest opponent to beat may very well be their own raised expectations when the stadiums open and the season begins.

2. Charlie Hustle Thrown out, Again

Agree or disagree with the decision, credit Commissioner Rob Manfred with giving Pete Rose his long-awaited appeal and then ruling definitively.

It’s more than Manfred’s predecessor, Bud Selig, ever did while the Rose situation drifted interminably forward, no answer in sight. For years, Rose has been asking for a hearing and an answer.

He got one, finally, albeit not the answer he wanted.

Ultimately, the decision is no surprise. Manfred worked under Selig long enough that there was no expectation he would shift against the grain except maybe with small-potatoes issues.

The thinking has been that Selig would never reverse course on Rose because he idolized the commissioner who originally issued Rose’s lifetime ban, Bart Giamatti. Rose’s best hope was that Manfred was another step removed from Giamatti, so, to quote Dumb and Dumber, you’re saying there’s a chance… .

No more.

In one key passage from his decision, Manfred writes, “Mr. Rose’s public and private comments, including his initial admission in 2004, provide me with little confidence he has a mature understanding of his wrongful conduct, that he has accepted full responsibility for it or that he understands the damage he has caused.”

Manfred also writes that “Mr. Rose has not presented evidence of a reconfigured life either by an honest acceptance by him of his wrongdoing, so clearly established by the Dowd Report, or by a rigorous, self-aware and sustained avoidance by him of all the circumstances that led to his permanent ineligibility in 1989.”

In a statement, Reds President and CEO Bob Castellini noted that Manfred phoned him before publicly announcing the decision and expressed gratitude that the Hall of Fame issue will remain separate, to a degree, from what Rose can do with the Reds.

“We are pleased that we have had and will continue to have opportunities to commemorate Pete’s remarkable on-field accomplishments,” Castellini said in a statement. “Any future plans to celebrate Pete’s career with the Reds first will be discussed with the commissioner and then will be communicated publicly at the appropriate time.”

3. Johnny B. A San Francisco Giant

That the Giants would pump $220 million into their rotation this winter in Johnny Cueto (six years, $130 million) and Jeff Samardzija (five years, $90 million) is wholly consistent with the way this top-shelf organization has been doing business for years.

Brian Sabean, point man in charge of baseball operations for nearly two decades, and manager Bruce Bochy philosophically are on the same page in constructing a team, and that page reads pitching, pitching, pitching.

Bochy’s worst fear is having to go to his bullpen in the fifth inning every night. From the time he had right-hander Kevin Brown in San Diego in 1998 to the Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner days in San Francisco, Bochy knows that the most direct path to winning is with an ace pitcher (or two) and a staff that can chew through innings as well as anybody else.

Last winter, the Giants were zeroed in on Jon Lester before the Cubs scored him.

This winter, they went hard after Zack Greinke. They were involved with David Price.

Now, they land Cueto.

The downsides: Rumors of a balky elbow dogged Cueto throughout the summer in 2015, growing especially loud in September when he hit a dead-arm stretch during which his fastball dropped to the 90 mph range. Also, there are legitimate questions surrounding his temperament, in that the Kansas City Royals arranged for him to pitch only home games in the World Series because they didn’t trust him on the road after he melted down in Toronto in the ALCS.

The upsides: Bochy and San Francisco pitching coach Dave Righetti are among the best in the business at handling pitchers. In the NL, Cueto will face easier lineups without DHs. And in the NL West, he’ll pitch in pitchers’ parks in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.

The upsides easily win when you factor all of that into this picture. Especially assuming, gulp, Cueto passes his physical.

4. Diamondbacks Could Still Spring a Leake

Looks like the boxing out under the boards will continue deeper into the winter in the NL West.

Arizona general manager Dave Stewart said before leaving Nashville last week that the D-backs will continue to stay engaged in conversations with free-agent starter Mike Leake.

Difficult to believe given the $206.5 million they’ve committed to Zack Greinke and the blockbuster trade with Atlanta to acquire starter Shelby Miller, but Arizona likes Leake a lot and seems determined.

“Hopefully we will continue to talk and see where it goes,” Stewart said. “Ken [Kendrick, Arizona owner] has been amazing; Ken and Derrick [Hall, club president] [find] creative ways to do things.”

Leake pitched collegiately across town at Arizona State University and industry sources say he is very interested in finding a way to fit with the D-backs.

“I’ll tell you, he’s a pretty amazing kid,” Stewart said. “What he wants to accomplish and what he has accomplished at a young age is amazing.

“I think he definitely would be an asset to our team.”

5. New Managers Making the Rounds

Different strokes for different folks when it comes to learning, and early-stages building of a new team.

Washington manager Dusty Baker says he isn’t rushing out to meet a lot of his Nationals players over the winter because, well, his experience tells him it might not be needed.

“I’ve called a few guys, but I learned, when I went to the Reds I called everybody,” Baker said in Nashville last week. “And then I spent a lot of time talking to Josh Hamilton. And then Josh was gone a couple of weeks later. So until you see who’s going to be on your team, heck, I’m going to be with these guys every day.”

Meantime, new San Diego manager Andy Green, embarking on his first big league skipper’s job, is working it.

“That’s been my favorite part,” Green said, also while in Nashville. “There’s a thousand things that have to take place right away when you take this job, [like putting] your staff together. But my favorite part is sitting across from Tyson Ross having breakfast, finding out who he is as a person and how driven he is, coming in the day after Thanksgiving seeing him dripping in sweat because he’s working out and has a passion to be the best he can be.”

Green said he had lunch with Wil Myers and spent time with Matt Kemp and James Shields, as well, among others.

“My favorite part is the relationship building,” Green said. “It’s not just those guys. I talked to Jon Edwards for about half an hour on the phone the other day. I talked to Jon Jay yesterday.

“It’s every day, being as invested as humanly possible in getting to know these guys on a personal level.”

6. Strange but True Fact

Under general manager Terry Ryan, the Minnesota Twins have never signed a free-agent reliever to a multiyear contract.

“It’s not because I haven’t tried,” Ryan quipped.

This comes up now because the Twins’ No. 1 priority this winter, after signing free-agent slugger Byung-ho Park from Korea, is focusing on improving their bullpen. And with prices for relievers soaring (think Darren O’Day agreeing with Baltimore on a four-year, $31 million deal), that is not an easy task.

7. Free-Agent Power Rankings

1. Johnny Cueto: Can you imagine what the San Francisco fans who wore Panda masks will do after being inspired by Cueto’s dreadlocks? Could be brilliant.

2. Alex Gordon: The trickle-down effect from Jason Heyward signing with the Cubs should mean Gordon is up next. Now, how much of Heyward’s $184 million trickles down?

3. Chris Davis: Orioles GM Dan Duquette confirms the club pulled its $150 million offer off the table. There aren’t a lot of clubs looking for first basemen, but remember when Prince Fielder was on the market until late winter when Detroit’s Victor Martinez hurt himself working out? Yep, Prince and Davis’ agent is one in the same: Scott Boras.

4. Justin Upton: Nationals, Orioles and Giants still look like fits.

5. Yoenis Cespedes: Hello? Hello? Anybody out there? Hello?

8. How Many Catchers Fit on One Roster?

You’d expect them to hoard water in San Diego during the California drought. Not necessarily catchers.

Yet, by acquiring Christian Bethancourt from Atlanta last week, the San Diego Padres now have four—count ’em—catchers on their 40-man roster.

Derek Norris. Bethancourt. Austin Hedges. And Josmil Pinto, whom the Padres claimed off waivers from Minnesota last month.

One thought is that this overabundance will allow Hedges a year of seasoning in Triple-A. He should have had that last year, but spring injuries helped place him onto the Opening Day roster and he spent too much time on the big league bench.

Most likely, though, the method to GM A.J. Preller’s madness here is that catchers are always in demand, and either this winter or as spring training deepens, San Diego will begin fielding inquiries about its catching stash and be able to acquire a young prospect or two in a deal.

The Padres are attempting to compete while also restocking their farm system. But they still need a shortstop and, so far, do not seem overly interested in free-agent Ian Desmond.

9. Chatter

• As he feverishly worked to improve the Atlanta Braves in Nashville at last week’s winter meetings, GM John Coppolella, after arriving last Sunday night, did not sleep from Monday morning until he checked out and headed home Thursday. Did. Not. Sleep. Worked all night every night, and looked like it when we spoke as he exited the hotel and headed home. But Atlanta’s haul in the Shelby Miller deal, center fielder Ender Inciarte, pitching prospect Aaron Blair and shortstop Dansby Swanson, Arizona’s No. 1 pick in last summer’s draft, made it worthwhile.

• Yankees GM Brian Cashman on CC Sabathia, whom we last heard from just before the AL Wild Card Game when he announced he was checking himself into an alcohol rehabilitation program: “He’s doing great. He’s now in full-blown getting-ready-for-the-season mode and we’re looking forward to getting him back in the mix in spring training.”

• The Tigers since season’s end under new GM Al Avila have undergone a significant makeover, with seven new players on their 25-man roster: Starters Jordan Zimmermann and Mike Pelfrey, closer Francisco Rodriguez, outfielder Cameron Maybin, relievers Mark Lowe and Justin Wilson and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia.

• Tigers manager Brad Ausmus on Avila: “Al, without question, has been extremely active. He’s really kind of accomplished a good portion of what was our goal to accomplish coming out of our organizational meetings in mid-October, which was pitching, pitching and more pitching.”

• Say this for new Padres manager Andy Green: He has a sharp sense of humor. Asked whether he was surprised by Arizona’s strike for Zack Greinke, the man who coached third base for the D-backs last year quipped, “I think once they cleared my salary off the books, they had enough to go after Zack Greinke.”

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

NASHVILLE — While the Los Angeles Dodgers scramble to address life after Zack Greinke, there remains the very real question of whether they can continue to live with Yasiel Puig.

As the Dodgers deal with the possible disintegration of their Aroldis Chapman trade with Cincinnati because of bombshell domestic abuse allegations, MLB already is conducting a parallel domestic abuse investigation into a bar fight involving Puig.

Two years after he rocked the baseball world and saved the Dodgers’ season upon his shooting-star arrival, the flamboyant Cuban outfielder now generates more controversy than homers, more antipathy than offense.

Tucked somewhere among the salacious stories of Greinke tossing Puig’s suitcase off the bus and onto a street in Chicago, ace Clayton Kershaw allegedly advising the Dodgers front office this winter to dump the outfielder and third baseman Justin Turner almost getting into a fight with Puig last spring looms one of the biggest questions facing the Dodgers for 2016:

Is the relationship between Puig and his teammates inside the Dodgers’ clubhouse irreparably broken?

“I think for the most part, no,” Dodgers All-Star first baseman Adrian Gonzalez told Bleacher Report during a telephone conversation this week. “I’m still a guy who believes in Yasiel’s heart and where he wants to go and where he wants to be.

“When I talk to him heart to heart, he explains to me that he wants to be the best he can be. Growing up, sometimes it takes awhile to break bad habits.”

Others believe it is time the Dodgers break their bad habit of employing Puig.

“He is the worst person I’ve ever seen in this game,” one ex-Dodger who believes Puig is beyond redemption said flatly. “Ever.”

It is the question that persists, and is asked with more and more frequency as the hurricane that is Puig wreaks ever more damage: Can the frayed relationships between Puig and his teammates be salvaged in Los Angeles?

“I think they definitely can,” Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis told Bleacher Report this week in another telephone conversation. “I think there has to be give-and-take on both sides.

“As his teammates, we have to do a better job of encouraging him and reaching out to him. I know I do. And from Yasiel’s side, he has to continue to grow and to mature and to be accountable and understand that not all criticism is negative.

“I think trust has to be established, and maybe we missed that early.”

Piled onto three years’ worth of tardiness, rifts with teammates and other assorted drama-queen moments come two more troublesome incidents this winter.

The first arrived when former MLB outfielder Andy Van Slyke, father of current Dodgers outfielder Scott Van Slyke, essentially told a St. Louis radio station that ace Clayton Kershaw had approached Dodgers management and declared that “the first thing you need to do is get rid of Puig.”

Shortly after that, TMZ Sports reported that Puig was involved in an altercation in a Miami-area bar that started when he reportedly pushed his sister, got physical with employees at the bar who ran over to break it up and then allegedly sucker-punched a bouncer.

Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, flatly denied the Kershaw story at a news conference to announce the hiring of new manager Dave Roberts earlier this month.

Ellis, Kershaw’s best friend on the team and frequent carpool partner to Dodger Stadium during the season, doubts the veracity of Van Slyke’s story.

“If that happened, Clayton’s kept that even from me,” Ellis said. “And Clayton and I tell each other everything.

“I’ve never heard Clayton say, ‘I’m going to talk to Stan Kasten’ or ‘I’m going to talk to Andrew Friedman.’ Clayton respects the chain of command. And he’s pretty focused.

“As a guy who’s closer to him than to anybody else on the team, I’ve never heard that.”

Meanwhile, the man who is closest to Puig on the team reached out to him after the Miami incident last month to seek the truth among the sensational reports.

“I told him to stay away from bars,” Gonzalez said. “I told him, ‘If you want to drink, do it at home.’ I told him in this day and age of camera phones, nightclubs are not a place he should be drinking in.”

It is not the first bit of advice that Gonzalez, 33 and entering his 13th big league season in 2016, has dispensed to Puig, 25, since his heady debut in 2013 when he hit .319/.391/.534 with 19 homers and 42 RBI in 104 games.

Gonzalez separates the bar incident with Puig from some of the other things that have happened because “it’s not a team issue.” In other words, it was an out-of-season, personal incident that happened on Puig’s time, not on the Dodgers’ watch, which does not affect anybody else.

Of course, it will affect the Dodgers if Puig is suspended.

Despite the frequent counseling of Gonzalez, Puig remains so rough around the edges that there doesn’t appear to be enough sandpaper in Los Angeles to smooth him out.

What was a regular habit of late arrivals peaked when he was late to Dodger Stadium on Opening Day 2014 and subsequently benched by then-manager Don Mattingly.

He showed up to spring training overweight in 2014, has had his work ethic questioned in batting practice and in the weight room, has run into outs with maddening frequency on the bases and often has come up coincidentally aching after striking out.

“Shoulder yesterday, back today, so I’m not sure if they’re going to get him tests or get him to the MRI Monday or a bone scan on Tuesday, maybe,” Mattingly memorably said during the Dodgers’ season-opening series in Australia in 2014, sarcasm thick as pine tar. “I’m not quite sure what we’ll do. We may not do anything. I’m not sure.”

Real hamstring injuries limited him to 79 games last summer, a season in which he never could achieve full stride. He hit a career-low .255/.322/.436 with 11 homers and 38 RBI.

Because he is signed to a club-friendly seven-year, $42 million deal through 2018 and because they still go dreamy at the memory of that debut rookie season, the Dodgers say they never have seriously entertained trading him. They feel the benefit of slicing the daily drama out of their clubhouse could be quickly eclipsed if he recaptures his superstar lightning in another uniform.

But having torpedoed his own reputation through repeated, petulant behavior, it’s not as if his trade market is robust, anyway. Across the industry, he is viewed as damaged goods with burdensome baggage. And the Dodgers don’t sell low.

“That’s a lot of money for a huge risk,” one former general manager told B/R. “There’s such a huge downside. He’s a problem. He’s a distraction. He’s selfish. He’s not going to play if he doesn’t feel like it. He’s got his money.

“You’re taking on a whole series of problems.”

Others wonder if the decline in his game can be reversed.

“He’s a completely different athlete than he was three or four years ago, and it’s not even close,” another veteran scout said. “He doesn’t have the bat speed or pitch recognition. Everything he does is a notch or two down from where it was. All of the injuries. We’ve all seen it.

“He doesn’t have the same athleticism he had before. I’m watching guys throwing 90 throw the fastball right by him. When he first got here, guys were afraid to throw him fastballs for a strike.”

Puig is said to be working out feverishly near his home in South Florida this offseason at the same facility in which Miguel Cabrera works out. Gonzalez believes this because he hasn’t only heard it from Puig, but also from Colorado outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, who also is a frequent visitor to the same gym.

Always, the thing with Puig, as with most players who habitually rub teammates the wrong way, is this: When he’s hitting and playing as he did in 2013, his grating behavior at least is tolerable. When he isn’t, it isn’t. It moves from the charming Manny Being Manny school to Get This Guy out of Here.

The Greinke Suitcase incident, first chronicled in author Molly Knight’s book published last summer entitled The Best Team Money Can Buy, occurred in mid-September 2014 during a 10-day trip to San Francisco, Colorado and Chicago.

The Dodgers had scheduled their traditional rookie “hazing”—dressing the first-year players up in ridiculous-looking outfits—for the trip from Colorado to Chicago, but the Rockies whipped the Dodgers, 16-2, in the series finale there, and by the time they landed in Chicago, patience among some players had grown thin.

On the bus trip from the airport into the city, some veterans ordered the bus stopped and the rookies to disembark and fetch pizza from a shop off the street. Gonzalez, pitcher Jamey Wright and another veteran or two accompanied the rookies into the pizza joint and, when the wait became longer than expected, some veterans on the bus became angry and wanted the bus to continue along.

Puig was outside of the bus looking for his luggage in the holding bay underneath and, after Puig ignored several requests to close the bay door, Greinke hopped off the bus, grabbed Puig’s suitcase and tossed it onto Michigan Avenue. According to the book, Puig went at Greinke and was restrained by veteran reliever J.P. Howell.

Illustrating the general mood of impatience at the time, Kershaw, Ellis and veteran pitcher Dan Haren called for an Uber from the bus, according to the catcher, and hopped off the bus and went straight back to the team hotel.

“Right when we got to the hotel, my phone exploded with text messages,” Ellis told B/R. “I’ve heard a lot of different versions of that story. All of them are pretty consistent.”

So are the stories from last spring, when infielder Justin Turner and Puig tangled during spring training and had to be separated.

“Neither one of them was correct,” Gonzalez said. “It shouldn’t have escalated to that extent. There was some ill will from a couple of instances before.”

The two moved past that incident, according to Gonzalez, who likened it, as players often do in these kinds of instances, to a couple of family members fighting.

The frequent discord and hostilities within the Dodgers’ clubhouse involving Puig no longer are a private matter, though, which is why the path Friedman and Co. elect to take has become one of the game’s biggest stories and, surely, most highly rated soap opera.

With his escape route fast approaching last season via the opt-out clause in his contract, some close to the Dodgers said Greinke would not even consider returning to the club unless he received a guarantee that Puig would be dispatched elsewhere.

But given the astounding contract Arizona awarded him, $206.5 million over six seasons, a record annual average value of $34.42 million, it is easy to believe that leaving Puig behind was just a small but happy byproduct of Greinke’s decision to bolt Los Angeles.

Ellis, who has spoken with Greinke since the deal, said it was not a factor.

“It couldn’t be further from the truth, Zack wanting to leave because of Yasiel,” Ellis said. “One thing Zack really respects and loves is talent. When Yasiel is healthy, Zack loves watching him play.

“Zack would have loved to stay in L.A. I talked to him about it. But Arizona came in at the 11th hour and offered so much more than the rest of the industry. And Zack really loves [the talent on] that team.”

Said Gonzalez: “Obviously Zack is an incredible pitcher and you definitely don’t want to lose him. But I can’t blame him for going someplace to get that kind of money and to be able to live in the same house year-round and not have to move during spring training.”

While Greinke spent a day with his wife earlier this week shopping for a house in the Phoenix area, the Dodgers spent the week here shopping to fix a suddenly depleted roster and picking up the pieces of the Chapman trade that had to be put on hold when the domestic abuse story broke several hours after the Dodgers and Reds reportedly had come to a deal.

Visions of Chapman and Puig together in the same clubhouse—the Dodgers would have the market cornered on two of MLB’s three open domestic abuse investigations, missing only shortstop Jose Reyes—led to more chatter this week in Nashville. And plenty of sympathy for the potential mess new manager Dave Roberts might be walking into.

“I guarantee you they’re trying to get rid of him,” one source with a rival club said of Puig. “There’s no question he’s a problem. In my mind, he’s a problem anywhere he goes.

“He’s Hanley Ramirez: He’s a cancer on a ballclub.”

Mattingly, who now is managing the Miami Marlins, and former Los Angeles batting coach Mark McGwire, now bench coach for San Diego, both could barely stomach Puig by the time they left the organization, sources with knowledge of the Dodgers say. Mattingly politely declined comment this week in Nashville, saying he prefers to look forward with the Marlins, not backward to his bygone Dodgers days.

Like many around the Dodgers, Gonzalez points out that Puig is still only 25 and that “everything that’s been thrown at him since he was 21 is a lot more than a lot of people can handle. A lot of people forget that a lot of prospects in the organization haven’t even made it to the majors yet and they’re older than Puig.”

Ellis agrees.

“This goes all the way back to when our manager (Mattingly) was about to be fired and our season was about to go down the drain and Yasiel saved us,” the catcher said, speaking of that 2013 season when the Dodgers, 23-32 and 8.5 games back in the NL West on June 2, went 69-38 the rest of the way after Puig joined them on June 3. L.A. won the NL West with the rookie sensation carrying them during June, July and August, hitting .349 with 13 homers and 31 RBI during those three months.

“Think about what a rookie goes through, what Joc Pederson went through this year. Yasiel got past all of that, and it’s hard to go back and start from scratch because he went from zero to 100 faster than anybody I ever saw.

“In a month, he became a superstar quicker than anybody I’ve ever seen.”

As he did, while the Dodgers began to employ extra security following an ESPN The Magazine story detailing, among other things, an extortion threat to Puig following his escape from Cuba, his immaturity and emotional nature were revealed on enough occasions that many teammates developed an instant disdain for him.

Two Januaries ago, in another offseason Florida incident, he was arrested for driving 110 mph with his mother and two others in the car.

More than anyone else in the clubhouse, Gonzalez has tried to work with him as a mentor and teacher, in addition to being a teammate.

“Adrian has more insight into him than anybody,” Ellis said. “Adrian has done a great job. I give Adrian a ton of credit for showing him unconditional love and support. Adrian, you can see he’s the one guy who can correct and be stern with Yasiel and not get the reaction someone else gets.

“I think we all can take lessons from that, myself included. And there’s the other side, too: Yasiel needs to show he’s able to grow.”

After three years in the majors, the clock is ticking quickly.

“Obviously, the times he’s late to the clubhouse or shows up at the last minute, then certain guys—and I’ll say myself included—are going to [be bothered],” said Gonzalez, who continued to talk about how, in our culture, being on time or early is viewed as one of the most important traits a player can have, and if he doesn’t, then that player often gets tagged as a man who “doesn’t want to win.”

Puig does want to win, Gonzalez said, but hasn’t been able to “wrap his mind” around the punctuality part of things. Just as when Gonzalez played winter ball in Mexico, Gonzalez said, he could not get used to some of the customs there.

“Obviously the issues are people call him out on things and he doesn’t like to be called out, so there’s friction,” Gonzalez said. “In his heart, he wants to win and he wants to be a great teammate. That’s all there.

“But his first reaction when he’s criticized is to lash back. So even after the fact, he knows it was for his own good, but he’s already created a negative mentality where the other person is concerned.”

With each incident, such as the bar fight in Miami, two things happen: You hope maybe this is the moment Puig finally grows up and begins to settle in. And you wonder whether that moment will arrive before the repeated, self-inflicted wounds finally torpedo what once had the makings of a brilliant career.

So here we are again, wondering what’s next: Theoretically healthy and with something to prove, will Puig charge back in 2016 toward his second All-Star Game? Will MLB’s investigation lead to a suspension? Or will the Dodgers pull the trigger on a deal?

The underlying organizational fear in that last scenario, of course, is that Puig will recapture his 2013 highlight-reel self in another city for the low, low price of the $19.5 million he is owed over the next three seasons.

Regarding Kershaw supposedly wanting him gone, Gonzalez said that he got a different vibe when he spoke with club executives this offseason.

“They talked with Clayton and the consensus was that Clayton does agree that a good and healthy Puig being on the team doing everything right is better for our team than what we would get in trade,” Gonzalez said.

“We all know he can be a superstar. If all of a sudden he does a 180 and becomes the person everybody wants him to be, shows up on time, is a good teammate to everybody and produces, a year from now, everyone is going to say this is the best trade nobody made.”

As for the more immediate future, Kershaw and Puig next week will become teammates again on a four-day MLB goodwill tour of Cuba led by Hall of Famers Joe Torre and Dave Winfield.

“That was encouraging for me,” said Roberts, the new manager, who has not yet met Puig. “You hear things from the other side.”

You hear a lot, from all sides.

And increasingly, more and more of it is damning.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

1. Navigating Nashville, Music City USA and Baseball’s Epicenter This Week

You probably think the most difficult thing for a general manager at the winter meetings is completing that three-way trade to land an ace or boxing out four other teams to land a bat.

Wrong. This year, the hardest thing in this massive maze of a resort that is the largest non-casino hotel in the United States outside of Las Vegas, with some 2,700 rooms, will be actually finding someone. For example, St. Louis general manager John Mozeliak could schedule a meeting with Cleveland GM Chris Antonetti on Monday at 1 p.m. to discuss a blockbuster trade, and they may not actually locate each other until Wednesday at 4 p.m. You need a GPS and a nutrition bar every time you leave your room, just in case.

Yes, signing a free agent like Jason Heyward (Cardinals? Angels?), Yoenis Cespedes (Mets? Cardinals?), Ben Zobrist (Mets? Cubs?), Johnny Cueto (Dodgers?), Chris Davis (Orioles?) or Daniel Murphy (Yankees?) will be difficult, too. It will require far more cash than clubs want to pay, especially based on what we’ve seen so far (David Price to Boston for seven years and $217 million, Zack Greinke to Arizona for six years and $206.5 million, Jordan Zimmermann to Detroit for five years and $110 million).

“I like the free-agent field. I think it’s good,” one longtime talent evaluator says, and amen to that. It is a strong and deep class this winter, especially regarding starting pitchers and corner outfielders.

But he adds, correctly: “I think it is the secondary guys who make or break a club more than the top-tier guys.”

Think back to 2012, the last time these winter meetings were in Nashville, and how Boston signed outfielder Shane Victorino, first baseman Mike Napoli and reliever Koji Uehara. All played key roles in the Red Sox winning the 2013 World Series.

In the meantime, the stage is set for an active trade market—possibly hyperactive—too. Several clubs have checked in with the Atlanta Braves on starter Shelby Miller. And rumors continue to crackle around a couple of legitimate aces: Oakland’s Sonny Gray and the Chicago White Sox’s Chris Sale.

Best part, always, are the surprise deals. Last year, nobody saw the Dodgers dealing second baseman Dee Gordon to Miami, and the Marlins wound up obtaining a batting champion.

As long as nobody goes missing, or is lost traveling the indoor river that flows through the Opryland Hotel, all should be good.   

2. NL West: Off to the Races

The question as they flew to Nashville was, will the Dodgers get left behind?

Zack Greinke to the Diamondbacks and Jeff Samardzija to the Giants left the Dodgers playing catch-up, big-time. But practically before Monday morning’s coffee had cooled, Los Angeles was on the move: They were on the verge of a deal with free-agent right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma late Sunday night, according to Bleacher Report sources, then Monday morning they reportedly landed Cincinnati closer Aroldis Chapman for two prospects.

The Dodgers were left with no choice but to act quickly: Losing Greinke was bad enough, but watching him flee to an NL West rival was especially painful in terms of Arizona closing the gap for 2016.

Together, Greinke and Clayton Kershaw camouflaged a series of weaknesses in Los Angeles last summer. Even had Greinke returned, the Dodgers needed rotation help. Now, it’s S.O.S. time, especially with the San Francisco Giants immediately striking to sign right-hander Jeff Samardzija ($90 million) practically before Greinke had even learned what next summer’s uniform combinations will be like in Arizona (trust us, there seemingly are more offerings than the 31 flavors at Baskin-Robbins).

The Diamondbacks and Giants both would like to add another starting pitcher, and both, according to industry sources, are targeting Mike Leake.

In San Francisco’s favor, perhaps, is that Leake pitched for Bruce Bochy during the second half of last year after Cincinnati traded him.

In Arizona’s favor, perhaps, is that with Greinke aboard, the Diamondbacks clearly have momentum going into ’16, and Leake played in Tempe at Arizona State.

The Dodgers? Adding Chapman to closer Kenley Janssen not only adds intrigue internally (Which one will close? Would Janssen accept a move to the eighth inning?), it signals the club’s post-Greinke plan: Clearly, building a strong bullpen now is a necessity given a rotation that likely will be weaker. Their sticking point with Greinke was they did not want to add a sixth year to their offer for a pitcher who already is 32.

One thing that has to rankle the Dodgers is that, with a payroll of around $300 million, they pumped $44 million worth of competitive balance tax into this year’s pool, and the D-backs were only too happy to be one of the recipients. In a way, the Dodgers helped finance Arizona’s poaching of Greinke.

3. Strong Secondary Pitching Market

Beyond David Price and Zack Greinke, the market is loaded with options—though things already have started to move. Even with Jordan Zimmermann (Tigers), Jeff Samardzija (Giants), John Lackey (Cubs) and Hisashi Iwakuma (Dodgers) off the market, Johnny Cueto, Yovani Gallardo, Ian Kennedy, Doug Fister, Scott Kazmir, Mike Leake, Wei-Yin Chen, Bartolo Colon and Mat Latos all are available.

And already, Cueto reportedly turned down a $120 million offer from Arizona (the D-backs, of course, rebounded nicely with Greinke).

Beyond the free agents and the aforementioned starting pitcher trade options, even more could flood the market. Cleveland is desperate for offense, and some wonder whether the Indians will fix that by trading from their starting pitching depth. The names of Carlos Carrasco, Danny Salazar and Trevor Bauer all have made their way to the rumor mill, so whether Cleveland finds a deal it likes will be one fascinating part of this week.

As the Padres look to fill holes, they are believed to be making James Shields very available. Failing that, don’t be surprised if the Padres move Andrew Cashner or Tyson Ross (for a whopping price only).

Might Tampa Bay move one of its excellent starters, Jake Odorizzi or Matt Moore? Might the Yankees deal Ivan Nova as they look to reshuffle and upgrade their rotation?

Beyond Price and Greinke, there are no sure things. While Bochy and San Francisco pitching coach Dave Righetti stand every chance of getting Samardzija launched in the right direction, he is coming off of a rock ’em, sock ’em year in which he led the majors in hits allowed and earned runs allowed, and produced a ragged 4.96 ERA.

“The thing that’s attractive about Samardzija to me is that he’s a super athlete,” one former GM says. “He’s going to go out there, and he’s probably going to get you 200 innings a year for the next four or five years. So at least you’re getting that.”

Yeah, but…

“I think the team that signs Samardzija will be horrified with the lack of what he gives you,” says one scout. “I understand he gives you [innings], but you lose. The most wins he’s had in a season in his career is 11. He’s a .500 pitcher at best, and he’s never proven anything beyond that.”

See, in baseball during the winter, as in modeling, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

4. Where Will Jason Heyward Go, and Whatever Happened to Yoenis Cespedes?

Let’s not allow pitching to hog the entire spotlight (hey, this is Nashville, and even on the television show by the same name, there’s plenty of room for both Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere).

With runs per game and hits per game dwindling to early 1970s rates, few teams out there do not need hitting. And there are a handful of difference-makers, starting with Heyward. The Cardinals would love to bring him back. The Angels have a big need for an impact, left-handed bat. He fits several other places, too, and is projected by at least one handicapper to hit $200 million or more over 10 years.

“He is interesting to me, but the money they’re talking about with him I just don’t believe,” one industry source says. “This isn’t Mike Trout we’re talking about.”

So let’s raise a question: What if, instead of paying Heyward that, a team in the market for an outfielder who can get on base went for Dexter Fowler instead?

“If I wanted to get two guys out of this, I’d go get Fowler and then somebody else for the same money I’d have to pay Heyward,” the source says. “The market is there to go ahead and do that, to get two of what is considered second-tier players.”

Heyward is 26 and batted .293/.359/.439 with 13 homers, 60 RBI and 23 steals last season.

Fowler is 29 and batted .250/.346/.411 with 17 homers, 46 RBI and 20 steals last season.

In their same list, mlbtraderumors.com projects Fowler to go for $60 million over four years. Sure, Heyward is younger, but one size doesn’t fit all in the Hot Stove League.

Speaking of which, there is remarkably little buzz, so far, surrounding Cespedes. Partly because….

5. Ben Zobrist, Darling of the Hot Stove League

The Mets are pursuing Zobrist hard, according to Bleacher Report sources, and he fits well with several other clubs, too, including the Angels, Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs, Nationals and Giants. Take your pick; Zobrist is versatile in the field, he’s a switch-hitter and he’s a leader in the clubhouse.

As of now, Cespedes is holed up waiting for clubs that don’t get Zobrist to turn to him.

6. The Unknown Factor in This Year’s Meetings

Introductions, please:

Ten clubs have changed GMs (or point men in charge of baseball operations, if you factor in those with a “president of baseball operations”-type of title) in the past few months, including the Angels (Billy Eppler), Red Sox (Dave Dombrowski), Tigers (Al Avila), Mariners (Jerry Dipoto), Blue Jays (Mark Shapiro/Tony LaCava/Ross Atkins), Brewers (David Stearns), Braves (John Coppolella), Marlins (Michael Hill is still president of baseball operations but the GM position is vacant), Phillies (Matt Klentak) and Reds (Dick Williams, with Walt Jocketty moving up to director of baseball operations).

Some of those names are familiar and experienced (Dombrowski, Dipoto), but many are just breaking ground in their new roles. How quickly will they move? How difficult will it be for them to navigate the landscape at the winter meetings and deal? And will they get lost in Nashville like so many hotel guests seen aimlessly wandering around?

7. Revisiting Closers

Already, Boston has traded for Craig Kimbrel and Detroit has acquired Francisco Rodriguez, and with teams such as the Chicago Cubs looking for a closer, there are several to be had via the trade market.

Early Monday morning, the Dodgers reportedly acquired the sexiest name on the trade market, Cincinnati closer Aroldis Chapman, but Monday night a bombshell dropped: Yahoo! Sports’ Tim Brown and Jeff Passan reported of a domestic violence incident at Chapman’s Florida home in October that put the trade on hold and well may lead to bigger and far more serious issues.

The Yankees are said to be listening on Andrew Miller as they look to upgrade their rotation. The Phillies are listening on Ken Giles, the White Sox might be enticed to deal David Robertson, one of their prizes from last year’s free-agent market, and the Nationals are widely expected to trade Drew Storen this winter and make a strong push to deal Jonathan Papelbon.

8. Other Points of Interest Beyond the Johnny Cash Museum

• Credit the Cubs for identifying a need and zeroing in on it quickly: John Lackey was a great under-the-radar buy before the Cubs snapped him up with a two-year, $32 million deal. “He’s one of the best out there,” one scout told B/R a couple of hours before he landed with the Cubs. “I know he’s 37, but this guy gives unbelievable effort and quality starts, time in and time out.”

• The Padres are expected to be much quieter than they were last year when GM A.J. Preller stole the show at the winter meetings, but they still need a shortstop (Ian Desmond?) and bullpen help (Fernando Rodney?).

• The Blue Jays traded 11 pitchers this year (including Daniel Norris and Matt Boyd to the Tigers in the David Price deal). They are looking to replenish their supply of minor league arms.

• They are done with their major moves, the Red Sox say, but some in the industry still expect new president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski to dump erstwhile slugger Hanley Ramirez at some point. “I would get Hanley as far away from that ball club as possible,” one executive says. “Panda (Pablo Sandoval) is a follower, not a leader. When he was with the Giants, he wasn’t a guy you worried much about. Yeah, he was overweight, but he played hard. Then he gets with Hanley and has one of the worst years of his career. Gee, I wonder if there’s any correlation. David’s got to unload one of those two, and my guess is he unloads Hanley—and he’s going to pay for a bunch of it.” Ramirez is still owed more than $69 million over the next three years.

• The Reds aren’t necessarily looking to deal third baseman Todd Frazier, but given the rebuilding and desperate need for pitching, anything is possible with Cincinnati.

• The Hall of Fame Pre-Integration Committee fired a shutout, failing to elect any of the 10 candidates they were considering. Charged with reviewing those who played before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947, the committed reviewed, among others: Wes Ferrell (who pitched for 15 seasons and finished second in AL MVP voting in 1935 with Boston), Sam Breadon (an early Cardinals owner who hired Branch Rickey and created the blueprint for the modern farm system), slick-fielding shortstop Marty Marion (1944 NL MVP with the Cardinals), first baseman Frank McCormick (1940 NL MVP with the Reds) and right-hander Bucky Walters (who won the 1939 NL MVP award with the Reds).

• Sending all the best to Mets GM Sandy Alderson, who is battling an undisclosed form of cancer and is embarking upon 12 weeks of chemotherapy, and will not be in attendance in Nashville. Good thoughts and prayers his way.

9. Who Is Kenta Maeda and Why Do You Need to Know Him?

He is a 27-year-old right-hander posted last week by his Japanese team, the Hiroshima Carp. Being that he is at least two years younger than the best free-agent starters available right now and given that he won the Japanese version of a Cy Young Award this year (he surrendered only five total homers while facing 821 batters), he immediately becomes a very interesting player.

The Diamondbacks are looking for another starting pitcher, and GM Dave Stewart raved about Maeda last winter. “I love Maeda,” Stewart told MLB.com. “I love him.” The Dodgers need pitching, the A.J. Preller-led Padres always are in the market for international players, the Yankees could absolutely use him (though they again apparently are determined to stay under the $189 million competitive balance tax threshold and may not make a big free-agent move).

Any interested major league club can bid up to $20 million for the right to negotiate with him, and the winner would earn exclusive negotiating rights. If that club signs him, it pays the posting bid to the Carp, plus the contract to Maeda. If Maeda goes unsigned, that club does not owe anything to Hiroshima.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

See ya, Dodgers.

Talk about a stunner. Zack Greinke to Arizona couldn’t be more shocking if the ace right-hander showed up with an actual, live Diamondback rattlesnake wrapped around his shoulders on Opening Day talking a mile a minute while sipping cactus juice.

Except for one thing: The Diamondbacks have an Albert Pujols-in-his-prime type in Paul Goldschmidt and the game’s most underrated star in A.J. Pollock, and they’re ready to win right now.

So the Sleeper Pick to win in 2016 nails the Sleeper Free Agent signing on the eve of next week’s Winter Meetings in Nashville, Tennessee.

Quick, Sleep Train, get in here with a sponsorship.

Maybe some people out there weren’t paying attention because, sadly, outside of John McCain’s state lines, who ever pays attention to Arizona? Who even knew the Diamondbacks had the dough to promise Greinke what Bleacher Report sources confirm is $206.5 million over six years?

Truthfully, maybe they didn’t, though in an industry that now is approaching a record $9.5 billion in revenues, nobody is close to going broke. Plus, in this winter of giddy money, who cares? Sources say a chunk of Greinke’s gold rush is deferred, so by the time it comes due, Chief Baseball Officer Tony La Russa and Co. will be long gone, anyway.

Whatever, the Snakes didn’t hire La Russa to finish fourth in an NL West that suddenly just got a whole lot more interesting.

Until Greinke opted out of his Dodgers contract following the World Series, just as everyone knew he would, the Los Angeles rotation was Kershaw and Greinke and then try to schedule a day for open tryouts.

At the trade deadline, while everyone screamed that the Dodgers should have popped for David Price or Johnny Cueto because they haven’t even played in a World Series since 1988, let alone won one, they instead traded for Mat Latos (LOL) and Alex Wood (chips).

Now, with Price already delivered to Boston (seven years, $217 million), Jordan Zimmermann to Detroit (five years, $110 million) and Greinke splitting town for a division rival, the suddenly pitching-poor Dodgers are dangerously close to sifting through the free-agent market leftovers bin.

Suddenly, Cueto never looked so good.

The Diamondbacks, meanwhile, still may sign another starter: Sources tell Bleacher Report that they’re also engaging in conversations with free-agent right-hander Mike Leake, who finished the season in San Francisco after being traded from Cincinnati and who also pitched locally for Arizona State as a collegian.

Don’t laugh, and don’t be yammering on about that cold-blooded Greinke leaving Hollywood simply for the money and nothing else.

The Diamondbacks improved their win-loss record last season by 15 games, the third-biggest jump in the National League behind the Cubs (plus-24) and Mets (plus-21). You might remember those two clubs met in the NL Championship Series.

Plus, Arizona finished the season as the youngest team in baseball, according to STATS LLC, with an average age of 26 years, 341 days.

Greinke can win here. This is a team poised to do some big things if only it could make the correct big moves, and those all revolved around the mound.

Know this about Greinke, too: He is one of the sharpest players in the game, with the analytical mind of a baseball executive.

When he signed with the Dodgers before the 2013 season, he had studied their farm system and knew about a couple of very young prospects (at the time) named Corey Seager and Joc Pederson.

When he pitched for Milwaukee in the spring of 2012, he talked personnel with Brewers executives and joined some of them on a scouting trip over to Arizona State University to watch a game and look at some players.

When he was at the All-Star Game in 2014, he spoke at length the day before the game, reeling off several statistics, accurately, when discussing whether the Dodgers at the time were underachieving or about where they should be. He also spoke knowingly about a couple of the game’s biggest contracts at that time and where some upcoming free agents should land, financially.

“The teams are greedier than the players, just so you know,” Greinke quipped that day.

There surely will be some angry Dodgers fans feeling jilted right about now who will refute that, and maybe some others as well. No matter. The Dodgers, with their $300 million payroll, could have kept Greinke had they wanted to. Industry insiders knew the San Francisco Giants were romancing Greinke hard, and most everybody thought it was coming down to a two-horse race, Dodgers vs. Giants, Hot Stove League style.

So call this the most deceptive curve ball Greinke’s ever thrown, and in his brilliant career, that’s saying a mouthful. He should have won the Cy Young Award this year with that stellar 19-3 season, 1.66 ERA and 0.844 WHIP.

Pitching in the dry desert where balls sometimes carry as if propelled by rocket fuel, no chance the numbers look that sweet for Greinke again in 2016.

But in Arizona, he has a chance to accomplish two things he couldn’t do in three seasons in Dodger Stadium: Make more money in a season than any other pitcher in baseball (the average annual value of his contract comes to $34.42 million a year, according to B/R sources), and win a World Series.

Let that last part roll around in your head for a bit.

The Sleeper Team for 2016 nails the Sleeper Free Agent Signing of the winter. Suddenly, things just got a whole lot noisier for the quiet Diamondbacks. Maybe now, people will pay attention to them beyond Yuma.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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1. The Budding Red Sox-Tigers Rivalry

The beautiful thing about sports is that the landscape is ever-changing and the competition is ever fiercer, and a couple of years after Torii Hunter lands upside-down in a bullpen in Boston in October, things between the Tigers and Red Sox can get even stranger.

Before Boston eclipsed them Tuesday by agreeing to terms with David Price on a record (for a pitcher) $217 million deal, the Tigers signed the first big free agent of the winter, handing Jordan Zimmermann a six-year, $110 million contract this week. Key takeaway: With Al Avila in charge of the front office, so far the Tigers don’t look much different than they did with Dave Dombrowski in charge.

Dombrowski, now running the Red Sox, was fired in August. Well, Detroit owner Mike Ilitch doesn’t use the word “fired.” But when your contract is running out and you are not asked back, what else do you call it?

“He knew he wasn’t getting a contract,” Ilitch told the media in Detroit on Monday as the Tigers introduced Zimmermann, via MLB.com’s Jason Beck. “That’s all there was to it, because I didn’t win with him. We were close. He’s a great guy. But you know, there’s times you’ve got to change. If you’re not winning, you’ve got to change.

“So I made up my mind: I’ve got to change. So I called him and told him like a gentleman.”

Combined with their acquisition of Francisco Rodriguez two weeks ago, the Tigers are leaping out of the gate this winter. Avila, highly respected in the industry, is off to a flying start.

Now, here’s the interesting part:

“This year, I like the way Al and [manager Brad Ausmus] are going after everything,” Ilitch said. “I’m telling them, ‘You have to go out and get me the best players. I don’t care about the money. I want the best players, and that’s it.”

Dombrowski brought Miguel Cabrera to Detroit. Also Max Scherzer. Victor Martinez. Prince Fielder. David Price. One after another, like an assembly line. With him in charge, the Tigers won four consecutive AL Central titles from 2011-14. They played in two World Series (’06 and ’10) and just missed two more (losing the ALCS in ’11 and ’13).

Maybe Ilitch, 86, will get his long-awaited World Series title with Avila in charge. Could happen. But it is nearly humanly impossible for Avila to acquire players with greater marquee value than Dombrowski did.

Meanwhile, in Price, Dombrowski hauled in the ace the Red Sox couldn’t get last winter when they whiffed on Jon Lester. Dombrowski, of course, traded Price away from Detroit last July with the Tigers out of the postseason running, because an aging organization was desperate for an infusion of young talent.

Daniel Norris and Matt Boyd, the young pitchers Dombrowski obtained from Toronto in the Price deal, figure into Detroit’s 2016 rotation behind Justin Verlander, Zimmermann and Anibal Sanchez.

While it would have been even more interesting were the Tigers pursuing Price as well, the fact that Avila is operating in Detroit with nearly all of Dombrowski’s staff working under him while Dombrowski continues chasing a World Series title in Boston adds one more early layer of intrigue to 2016.

Maybe it was just time for the proverbial fresh start for both sides. But you can bet that of the many things now driving Dombrowski in Boston, sticking it to Ilitch and the Tigers is one of them. He’s got too much class to ever say that himself, but it is a natural human emotion, isn’t it? Someone tells you adios, no matter how friendly it is, and you still want to prove the other guy wrong.   

There was some thought in Detroit at the time that maybe the Tigers would shift philosophy and embark on a retooling program. But Ilitch, speaking publicly for the first time since cutting Dombrowski loose, said he plans to continue spending toward that elusive World Series win. He made it clear that if the Tigers payroll passes the luxury-tax threshold of $189 million, it’s fine with him.

“I’m supposed to be a good boy and not go over [the threshold],” Ilitch said, via the Detroit News‘ Bob Wojnowski. “If I’m going to get certain players that can help us a lot, I’ll go over it.

“Oops, I shouldn’t have said that.”

The Tigers still need an outfielder, another starter and some bullpen help. The Red Sox have added Price and star closer Craig Kimbrel. Stay tuned.

2. The Dodgers, Dave Roberts and “Collaboration”

The reason Gabe Kapler emerged as an early favorite for the Dodgers’ managerial job is because it is clear that the front office wanted a man who is willing to play ball and employ the front office’s ideas. Congenial as Don Mattingly is, he was never fully that guy.

So call new manager Dave Roberts a compromise.

When Los Angeles ownership worried that Kapler could not be sold to the players because they would view him simply as an extension of the front office, GM Andrew Friedman and his front-office partners, Farhan Zaidi and Josh Byrnes, turned to Roberts. And any question regarding how much autonomy Roberts will have was answered in the first few minutes of Tuesday’s news conference.

“He’s got intellectual curiosity, he’s been around a lot of front offices with different philosophies, he understands the collaborative process of how to put a team together and how he’s going to run a team,” Zaidi said.

“I’m definitely open to it,” Roberts said, noting that the Dodgers have “the brightest people in this organization in research and development and baseball operations. … All great organizations in any industry depend on collaboration.”

Translation: When Friedman, Zaidi or Byrnes think the Dodgers lineup should tilt a particular way on a given night, Roberts will be fully open to implementing their thoughts.

In today’s world, it’s the way more and more clubs are doing business: collaboratively.

There’s always been a “collaboration” between the manager’s office and the front office, in that the general manager’s job always has been to construct a team. Tommy Lasorda had to “collaborate” with Al Campanis and Fred Claire to a degree, as well.

It’s just that the old way of doing business was that the GM would assemble a team and then turn it over to the manager. And a manager like Lasorda—or Sparky Anderson or Dick Williams—could have an outsized personality and was clearly in charge on the field.

Those days are gone. Fewer and fewer managers anymore come with dominant personalities. The job description now is to run the clubhouse, get along with the players and accept input when it comes to lineups, rotations and how to manage a bullpen.

Whether the pendulum ever swings back the other way, we’ll see.

Roberts is a terrific baseball man and a good guy who still gets mail from Red Sox fans after his epic stolen base in the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees. He becomes the first minority manager in Dodgers history, no small thing in an organization that hired Jackie Robinson to break baseball’s color line in 1947.

He is the right man at the right time, as long as the Dodgers get the pitching he needs.

3. Yasiel Puig Gets Smaller

Last week’s reported brawl and the fact that MLB is expected to investigate Puig under its new domestic violence policy only clouds Puig’s future even further.

We already know that the Dodgers have asked him to lose weight this winter following an injury-plagued season during which he played only 79 games. Maybe you’ve heard trade rumors attached to his name, but it is difficult to see Los Angeles trading him this winter, because right now the Dodgers would be selling low. Puig’s current trade value has never been lower.

One of Roberts’ biggest challenges as the new Dodgers manager, clearly, will be handling Puig. Roberts said he has never spoken a word to Puig, of whom he said, “From the other side, he is ultra-talented, a special player, feared, tough to compete against.”

“Feared” and “tough to compete with” could describe playing alongside Puig as well.

“This is an opportunity for me to embrace him,” Roberts said.

Biggest question is whether Puig ever will allow that to happen. It takes two to embrace.

 4. Barry Bonds and Miami is No Fish Story

The easy joke is that Barry Bonds just might be a better hitter at 51 than Ichiro Suzuki is at 42.

How might Bonds work out as the Miami Marlins’ co-hitting coach?

And can he be of any aid to Ichiro, who hit .229/.282/.279 in 153 games last summer?

And should Bonds even be welcomed as a full-time coach with any team?

Colleague Danny Knobler examined this issue the other day, so I won’t go deep here. Bonds generally got good reviews during his brief spring training stint as a San Francisco Giants hitting coach a couple of years ago and in working with Alex Rodriguez and others over the winter.

Whether or not Miami or any other team wants to hire Bonds is its own business. The man enveloped by one of the biggest steroids clouds in history has never acknowledged his cheating, nor is he expected to. Several years ago, it was made clear to Mark McGwire that if he wanted to leave exile to become Tony La Russa’s hitting coach with the Cardinals, he would have to cop to using steroids and apologize for it.

Granted, years have passed, and we live in a different day and age now. But it sure seems hypocritical to press McGwire for an apology and give Bonds a free pass.

5. Free-Agent Power Rankings

1. David Price: OK, $217 million in Boston, baby. Can y’all top that?

2. Zack Greinke: Working on it, owner of Astro the dog, who will eat very, very well now.

3. Jordan Zimmermann: Signs five-year, $110 deal with Detroit. He ain’t David Price, but he’s a start for the Tigers.

4. Ben Zobrist: Chatter surrounding him is increasing as next week’s winter meetings in Nashville draw near. Mets fans are dreaming of a Zobrist Christmas.

5. Johnny Cueto: Reportedly spit at a six-year, $120 million offer from the Arizona Diamondbacks. What does he want, water included with his desert?

6. Reviewing Instant Replay Reviews

Ever wonder which managers are the best at challenging umpires’ calls? You’re in luck: David Vincent of the Society for American Baseball Research has doggedly tracked this for the first two years of replay, and here’s what he found.

The list below includes, alphabetically, all managers and interim managers, with totals at the end. The “Total” category represents how many instant-replay challenges a manager has asked for, the “Over” category lists how many of those umpire calls were overturned, and the “Over %” category lists by percentage how many of that manager’s challenges have been overturned.

With a small sample size of only two years, as Vincent notes, “Any manager within five percent of the 52 percent average is average as far as I’m concerned.” One other note: Remember, while the names listed are the managers, their success rates also include the video guys assigned to watch replays in the clubhouse and individual team philosophies regarding replay. Some teams challenge far more often than others.

7. Reviewing Instant Replays Part II

So, breaking down the above list per Vincent’s information, we have two more charts. The first lists managers with the most challenges, the second lists managers by success rate:

8. The Evolution of Pitching

Here are some interesting complete-game and relief stats, courtesy of friend Tim Kurkjian. It’s why the market for a reliever like Darren O’Day is so hot, and why the Reds are taking so many calls on Aroldis Chapman:

9. How Many Sluggers Has Your State Produced?

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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Do you want to win, or do you not want to win?

That question trumps Price tags, sticker shock and sometimes even common sense when Jack Frost starts nipping at your nose and memories of a crumbled summer are crackling in the fireplace.

Maybe there comes a day when the Boston Red Sox will regret tossing a record-shattering $217 million over seven years to David Price, as Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe reported Tuesday, but you cannot see that day from here. And you cannot blame the Red Sox for shifting directions after last summer’s debacle that started with the starting rotation.

That the Sox are backing up the Brink’s truck with a deal surpassing Clayton Kershaw’s seven-year, $215 million contract for the 30-year-old, eight-year MLB veteran is no surprise. The minute Boston hired Dave Dombrowski to run its baseball operations last August, you could see this coming. Given the familiarity between Dombrowski and Price in Detroit, many people viewed their reunion in Boston as predictable as Sam hitting on Diane every week on Cheers.

And if not Price, who gets an opt-out clause after three years, per Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, then it was going to be Zack Greinke. Or Johnny Cueto. Acquiring stars—including filthy, top-of-the-rotation starters—is how Dombrowski rolls. Always has.

You win with pitching. The Red Sox are coming off of two consecutive last-place finishes in the AL East, a combined 40 games out of first place, because they’ve produced the Pee-wee Herman of AL East rotations.

Two years ago, recognizing they had fallen hopelessly behind in the division, they gutted their rotation and traded Jon Lester, John Lackey and Jake Peavy at midseason.

Last year, their rebuilt rotation ranked 13th in the AL with a 4.39 ERA and tied for 10th in the AL with a 1.33 WHIP. Only the Detroit Tigers (500) and the Chicago White Sox (463) surrendered more earned runs than did the Red Sox starters (462).

Clay Buchholz as Opening Day starter was not the answer last year (even though Buchholz threw seven shutout innings that day against Philadelphia, but, really, who didn’t beat the Phillies last season?). And a rotation stocked with Nos. 3 and 4 starters such as Wade Miley and Rick Porcello quickly proved to be a flawed idea.

So what if they all gave you innings if bat racks full of runs accompanied them?

Where all of that started last year was in San Diego in December, at the winter meetings, when Lester spurned the Red Sox to sign with the Chicago Cubs. In halfheartedly attempting to sign Lester to a contract extension before dealing him to the Oakland Athletics earlier in the ’14 season, the Sox underestimated their underwhelming offer. With no small bit of arrogance, they figured they could lure Lester back as a free agent regardless.

They couldn’t.

Things quickly went south from there, leading to the departure of former president Larry Lucchino, the hiring of Dombrowski and the resignation of general manager Ben Cherington, a good baseball man who couldn’t fill Theo Epstein’s Whiz Kid front office chair despite drawing up plans for Boston’s 2013 World Series win.

Things deteriorated in Fenway Park more quickly than you could say “Mike Napoli.”

Dramatic falls call for dramatic moves, especially in a hardball town with hard-edged fans.

You win with pitching. You can’t fake it with weak soup (or, in Boston, clam chowder) atop the rotation. When Boston won it all in 2004, Curt Schilling and Pedro Martinez led the rotation. When it won in ’07, Josh Beckett was at his peak, and Daisuke Matsuzaka was dealing. When it won in ’13, Lester was establishing his bona fides, and Lackey was steady.

You saw how the New York Mets rolled to the World Series this fall with dominant starters. The Kansas City Royals got there with the help of ace Johnny Cueto. And the Toronto Blue Jays earned their first playoff appearance in 22 years only after acquiring Price at midseason. He went 9-1 with a 2.30 ERA in 11 starts for them.

Yes, he’s 30, and the back end of this deal will be an issue. No question. But again, do you want to win, or do you not want to win? Right now, this is how the game is played. Pitching is expensive. Word of Price’s deal had barely leaked before Greinke‘s camp sent some hard truths of its own. If Price was guaranteed $30 million each season from 2016 through 2018, then Greinke is seeking more, per ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick:

Price has had great success pureeing AL East clubs in the past, in Tampa Bay from 2008-14 and in Toronto last summer. He won a Cy Young in 2012 and finished second in the AL Cy Young balloting in 2010 and 2015.

There is nothing not to like about Price except, admittedly, his 2-7 record and 5.12 ERA in 14 postseason games (eight starts).

Last I checked, however, this would have been a moot point with the Red Sox. That’s because the past two seasons, they haven’t thrown a postseason pitch.

You can’t get there without elite starters from April through September. And with Dombrowski snagging Price on the heels of his acquisition of All-Star closer Craig Kimbrel, the Red Sox have sent a strong message: They’re aiming to be back. And soon.

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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