Kuzul

The beauty of sport is its unpredictable nature, right?

It’s funny because even though we can all agree that sport is the best in unscripted reality television, our natural tendency is to predict. We think we know who may compete this baseball season simply because we can look at rosters and compare them.

The irony is that our uncontrollable need to forecast a season ultimately plays into that original premise—that our predictions are often wrong. That’s exactly why sports rate so well on television. We are unable to perfectly predict the outcome.

So every season there are teams that shock the baseball world by contending for the postseason. Consider the Seattle Mariners to be one of those out-of-nowhere teams in 2016.

Before you go apoplectic about such a claim, remember this: To pick the big surprises of the 2016 season, there first has to be a litany of reasons not to.

The organization has a new general manager, Jerry Dipoto, who likely told the franchise he would need time to turn the team into a competitor. Since he took the job in September 2015, the hourglass isn’t even close to empty.

He needs to infuse talent into Seattle’s minor league system which ranked 28th in Baseball America’s latest rankings. The team, though it underwent a large overhaul of its roster this offseason, didn’t make a major splash in free agency.

Now that we’ve gotten all that’s working against the Mariners this season on the record, there were a couple of under-the-radar moves that give reason to think they’ll improve on last year’s 76-86 record and justify FanGraphs’ prediction of an 84-win 2016 season.

In 2015, the Mariners ranked fifth in Major League Baseball with 198 home runs. So how the heck did they rank only 21st with 656 runs scored?

They couldn’t get on base.

Seattle hit .249 as a team last season, only .06 points higher than baseball’s worst team. Their .311 on-base percentage ranked 22nd in baseball. What did they do this offseason?

They got guys who could get on base (you probably guessed it, I know).

Outfielder Nori Aoki (.353), Adam Lind (.360) are both solid on-base players who figure into the team’s everyday lineup. And the Mariners didn’t lose much power in the offseason.

The team returns Kyle Seager and Nelson Cruz who combined to hit 70 of Seattle’s home runs last season.

In 2015, second baseman Robinson Cano also saw his average dip below .300 for the first time since 2008 and should return to being the high-average player the Mariners thought they were getting when they signed him as a free agent prior to the 2014 season. An uptick in Cano’s average should help the middle of Seattle’s order produce more runs.

There’s a whole other side of the game, of course.

The team’s ace, Felix Hernandez, posted his worst ERA (3.53) since the 2011 season (3.47). He is likely to vastly improve from a subpar 2015 campaign and remain one of baseball’s more coveted pitchers. Joaquin Benoit, a 14-year veteran, was added this offseason to bolster the bullpen.

Luck factors in, too. The Mariners could use some of that. This roster isn’t baseball’s most talented. But it isn’t a roster bereft of talent, either.

The most talented team doesn’t always win. If it did, baseball’s paper champion would also be its World Series Champion. And who would want to watch a game that predictable?

The Mariners have contending-type pieces. Hernandez has been among baseball’s best pitchers, Cano was one of its most sought-after free agents, Cruz has been an All-Star the past three seasons and Seager has one All-Star appearance to his name.

It’s easy to overlook what the Mariners have on their roster because of so much they lack. The 2015 season exposed many deficiencies on this roster—including its weak minor league system—that a turnaround in 2016 seems unfathomable.

Should the Mariners contend in 2016? Probably not. That doesn’t mean they can’t, though.

That is precisely why you’ll be watching all season.

Seth Gruen covers baseball for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @SethGruen.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

A wild card exists in every Major League Baseball rotation. The Los Angeles Dodgers, though, have a deck of them.

Starting pitchers Scott Kazmir, Kenta Maeda and Alex Wood all enter the 2016 season with questions about how they may perform.

A history of arm injuries plagued Kazmir earlier in his career. Can he stay healthy enough to maintain top-of-the-rotation stuff in Los Angeles? He has only one 200-inning season in his 11-year major league career.

For Maeda, who played professionally in Japan the last eight seasons, will his stuff translate to the major leagues? Though the Dodgers protected themselves financially by only guaranteeing $25 million in an incentive-laden, eight-year deal, the rotation will still be dependent upon Maeda’s ability to succeed.

Then there’s Wood, who, considering his previous success, could be the rotation’s equalizer. The uber-talented lefty had an inconsistent 2015 season, particularly after being traded from Atlanta to Los Angeles on July 30.

But if Wood, 25, can revert to the success he had in 2014 with the Braves when he posted career bests in ERA (2.78) and strikeouts (170), what Kazmir and Maeda do would just be gravy.

That isn’t to say the Dodgers aren’t expecting a solid season from either Kazmir or Maeda. But Wood’s potential is greater.

Pairing the 2014 version of Wood with ace Clayton Kershaw would give the Dodgers an innings-eating duo that could actually make Kazmir and Maeda more successful.

How exactly?

If the front end of the Dodgers rotation is able to save the bullpen, guys like Maeda and Kazmir could throw harder in the early innings. With a well-rested bullpen on the days they start, they wouldn’t be pressured to go as deep into games.

Managing Kazmir and Maeda’s innings nets benefits, too.

A limitation of Kazmir’s innings would help prevent injury. Doing so for Maeda would allow a gentler transition to American baseball. The hitters are obviously better in MLB, so Maeda may need to work deeper into counts to get outs.

Along with Kershaw, Wood should be the workhorse starter. He is that talented—a top-of-the-rotation player who could help vault the Dodgers to another National League West title.

Yes, his 2015 season looked a lot like a heart monitor. He would touch his potential at times, but nearly as frequently he looked more like a back-end starter.

Through July and August, which includes time with the Braves and Dodgers, Wood made it through seven innings only once. His ERA in 12 starts (11 decisions) with Los Angeles was an abysmal 4.35.

But his stint with the Dodgers last season did more to suggest he could successfully be the Dodgers’ No. 2 pitcher than the totality of his statistics may otherwise indicate.

Wood’s unsightly ERA with Los Angeles was largely affected by two starts. On Sept. 11 at Arizona, he allowed six earned runs in 1.2 innings. At Colorado on Sept. 27, he allowed eight earned runs in 5.1 innings.

Chase Field (home to the Diamondbacks) and Coors Field (home to the Rockies) were the two places Wood pitched the worst in 2015. In two starts at Chase Field, he had a 6.52 ERA, and in three appearances at Coors Field, he had a 12.27 ERA.

Starts at those parks skewed his numbers.

Further proof that his poor performance against the Rockies was, in part, due to pitching at Coors Field: Wood had his best start as a Dodger against Colorado at home. On Sept. 16, he allowed only one hit and needed just 78 pitches to go eight innings.

His ERA at Dodger Stadium was 2.21 in 2015. All five of his starts at the park as a Dodger were quality starts (at least six innings pitched and no more than three earned runs allowed).

So, he has a record of pitching well in the park that will house about half his outings in 2016. And if the team chooses, it can actually manipulate the rotation to get Wood more starts at home.

As the Dodgers built their rotation this offseason, they must have considered Wood’s performance in their ballpark. Otherwise, they may have pushed harder to retain Zack Greinke.

Regardless, it won’t do anything to quash the innumerable questions surrounding this rotation.

Wood, however, could easily be the answer to all of them.

Seth Gruen covers baseball for Bleacher Report among other sports. Follow him on Twitter @SethGruen.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Spring training can get kind of boring, right?

The game’s best pitchers are held back, and its best position players don’t often take the games seriously. It’s more like a televised health club than competitive athletics.

I get it, of course. After months off, position players are just looking to get a feel for their swings and timing in the field. The best pitchers are held back because there’s no worse feeling than watching an ace hurt his arm in spring training.

But there’s still reason to watch. Baseball’s top prospects provide that.

There isn’t a question as to whether baseball’s best minor league talent will be promoted to the major leagues. But the timing of it certainly matters—especially to the prospects themselves.

In the era of arbitration, sooner is always better for baseball’s best prospects. Just ask Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant, who didn’t break camp with the team in 2015 because the organization wanted to ensure it had an extra year of team control, so he filed a grievance.

But in the interest of—to put it bluntly—money, baseball’s prospects will grind out spring training games like they’re in a pennant race. OK, maybe that’s hyperbole. But you get the point.

They’re all going to try pretty hard in spring training to crack the 25-man roster. Which of them could be successful?

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There’s a credo among baseball executives nowadays: Get younger.

Whereas putting together a World Series contender was once as simple as writing a check for some big-market teams—ahem, the New York Yankees—the emphasis for organizations more recently has been on improving their minor league systems.

Free-agent spending still has its role—an important one—but building an organization is much like building a house. You’re not going to put mahogany on the walls (high-priced free agents) without building a foundation first (prospects).

It’s a combination that makes the Los Angeles Dodgers best set for the future. Other big-market teams, like the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox, deserve credit for similarly building upper-echelon minor league systems.

With their mega television deal, however, the Dodgers will be able to add to their young core more easily via free agency and in the foreign market.

Are the Dodgers ready to compete this year? Definitely, despite issues surrounding the team—namely star outfielder Yasiel Puig. In November, former player Andy Van Slyke told CBS 920 (h/t InsideSTL.com) that Los Angeles ace Clayton Kershaw wanted Puig traded.

Regardless, 2016 will be an opening act as some of the organization’s young stars begin to matriculate to the major league club.

The main event won’t come for a few years.

“We’re really excited about the group of talent that we have and probably more important the group of humans—the group of men—that we have,” Gabe Kapler, the Dodgers’ director of player development, said in a phone interview with Bleacher Report.

Among those expected to be promoted to the major league club this season is Corey Seager, who, at 21 years old, should be the Dodgers’ starting shortstop on Opening Day.

But Seager is just the headliner in a crop of prospects that might be baseball’s best.

Left-handed pitcher Julio Urias, 19, is the Dodgers’ best pitching prospect since Kershaw, and right-handed pitcher Jose De Leon is a 24th-round pick from the 2013 MLB amateur draft who has developed into one of the organization’s best prospects. Baseball America ranked him third in the Dodgers’ organization behind Seager and Urias.

According to MLB.com’s minor league organizational rankings in August of last season, the Dodgers had five prospects in the top 100.

While the Dodgers have baseball’s best position player-pitcher duo in Seager and Urias, they should be most heralded for their depth. Kapler was specific in mentioning 26-year-old catcher Austin Barnes.

“If you just gave him the opportunity to go out and play right now at the major league level, you have a guy that is a good, quality major league catcher today,” Kapler said.

When might these heralded prospects arrive at Dodger Stadium?

That is somewhat unclear, and Kapler cautioned not to generalize how the organization may handle its young prospects. They won’t come all at once. A sweeping claim about the team’s philosophy in handling prospects is that there really isn’t one.

Kapler emphasized that the organization wants to take an individualized approach to handling its prospects and their potential promotions.

That much was apparent Tuesday when the Dodgers added Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux and Raul Ibanez as special assistants to Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations. Expanding the team’s baseball operations department allows for more individualized attention throughout the organization, which can only help development.

It’s a luxury, though, and much easier when you consider that the Dodgers have a major league roster that can compete now. There’s no need for the organization to rush the development of any of its prospects.

When needs at the major league level do arise, the Dodgers’ limitless payroll allows them to seek a short-term solution via free agency.

But where the Dodgers’ payroll flexibility will really benefit them is when all of their prospects arrive. Then they can spend on big free agents to bolster the roster. We’re getting back to the idea of building the house with the mahogany walls.

Moreover, the Dodgers’ developmental philosophy preaches versatility.

So when the prospects arrive, might the Dodgers use their bottomless pocket to fill a need? Of course. But the group’s versatility may also allow the Dodgers to identify the biggest-impact free agents—whether or not they fill an apparent need.

Any time a team has players who can fill multiple roles, it allows for more flexibility in the players a team can target in free agency.

“As a philosophy, versatility is critically important and I don’t mean just in a traditional sense where [a guy] can play shortstop, he can also play second base,” Kapler said.

“It’s very important to us that our players come into our system with the mindset that they are athletes. They are not 2-hole hitters, they are not 5-hole hitters, they are not shortstops, they are not starters. They are athletes and highly trained ones that can play multiple positions, hit multiple spots in the lineup, work in various roles.”

We’re still talking about prospects here. Things dramatically change when it comes to teenage and early-20-something baseball players. So Kapler wasn’t suggesting each of the organization’s players will come to the major leagues with limitless flexibility.

Development doesn’t end at the major league level.

But once the likes of Seager, Urias, De Leon and Co. get to Los Angeles, it very well could make a milestone beginning.

Seth Gruen covers baseball for Bleacher Report. He previously worked at the Sun-Times, where he covered baseball in addition to a multitude of other sports. Follow Seth on Twitter @SethGruen.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Determining offseason winners and losers can be a futile task of sorts. We’ve all heard the cliches about playing the games, right?

There’s a paper champion and then the real champion. Very rarely do they match. Who is to say whether a contract is good or bad until we actually watch a player during the season?

It’s difficult to determine the overpaid, the underpaid and the teams that adeptly spent their money. But in attempting to sort through the MLB offseason’s winners and losers, it was apparent that every loser spawned a winner.

There were players, managers and teams that won and lost this offseason. But some winners and losers were more loosely defined: groups of players, as defined by their statistics and style of play, won and lost. A rivalry was reinvigorated. There was a shocking twist in one team’s managerial hire. And for now, the baseball purists will get their way.

Here’s how it all went down…

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An eternal hope exists among Cubs fans that every year is “their year.” Even when the Cubs were rebuilding in the first years of the Theo Epstein era, it didn’t dent their optimism.

But 2015 rookie stars Kris Bryant, Addison Russell and Kyle Schwarber gave Cubs fans a hope never seen before in Wrigley Field, sports’ version of a psychological torture chamber.

Forget about 2016 being their year. This is supposed to be the Cubs’ decade. A group of promising 20-something position players have traded hope of just one World Series for the expectation of many and a sustained success the organization has never enjoyed.

There’s a tangible potential with this group, one that casts Bryant, Russell, Schwarber and Co. as an offensive powerhouse. Will we see that in 2016, though? Probably not.

Breathe, Cubs fans. This team still will make the playoffs this season, which will be only the third time in Cubs’ history the team has done so in back-to-back years (the organization, then called the Chicago White Stockings made the playoffs in 1885 and 1886, but no one cares because the players’ parking lot was filled with horses and buggies).

“We’re aware of the new expectations this year and how a team might respond but we’re not concerned about it because we really trust the makeup of these players both individually and as a group,” Epstein, the team’s president of baseball operations, said.

“Our young players are really mature, really grounded and are in it for the right reasons and have experienced a lot already in their young careers and I think that will help them avoid the ‘sophomore slump’ and help them adjust to playing with some greater expectations on their shoulders—both as individuals after their seasons last year and as a team given what they accomplished last year.”

But avoiding that “sophomore slump” will be enough of a challenge. The aforementioned rookie trio had an advantage over major league pitchers. They faced them for the first time. Now opposing pitchers have a season of tape on 2015 rookies and an offseason to study it.

In 2016, Bryant, Schwarber and Russell will be challenged unlike they have at the major league level.

And the canyon-wide gap between the offensive team the Cubs were in 2015 and one that can swing its bats to the World Series is too large to close in one season.

In 2015, the Cubs were tied for 15th in runs scored at 689, one above the league average. The league-leading Blue Jays scored 202 more runs that the Cubs in 2015, an average of 1.25 more runs per game. The Cubs were tied for 17th with an OPS of .719, .02 points behind the league average.

Despite the fanfare, the Cubs were an average offensive team.

So, expect slumps this year. Expect games in which the Cubs are shut out. This team is still developing. That’s why the 2016 roster wasn’t built upon the team’s potential ability to score runs.

The Cubs are much more likely to win because of the pitching trio of Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester and offseason signee John Lackey than their young players turning the team into an offensive juggernaut. Aside from Lackey, the Cubs’ major signings were second baseman Ben Zobrist and outfielder Jason Heyward.

Both boasted a .359 on-base percentage in 2015, but aren’t power bats capable of carrying the Cubs to big-run totals.

Heyward’s $184 million contract was justified, in part, by his defensive metrics. In 2015, he was second among outfielders with an ultimate zone rating (UZR) of 22.6, according to FanGraphs, a metric that quantifies the number of runs a player saves or gives up as a result of fielding.

Formerly that kind of money was reserved for a player capable of chasing a Triple Crown. But now a player’s defensive ability is quantifiable and, more importantly, valued.

“The threat always is that you want to be better in a sense or greater is the enemy of good sometimes or something to that effect,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “I don’t want us to think that way [that the team has to achieve big-picture offensive goals]. Just go out there, beat the day, do the work properly, maintain our humility and if we do that everything is going to work out.”

Maddon is acknowledging that it’s a process. The team is still young and developing. Eventually this team might be an offensive power. They may eventually win games by smashing home runs and lighting up the scoreboard.

We may see some of that in 2016. But fans who want to see the Cubs win entirely with offensive firepower this season?

All they’ll have is hope.

All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs.

Seth Gruen covers baseball for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @SethGruen.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Like a college student who crams for a test he knows he will fail, the Chicago White Sox have created some artificial hope this offseason with a few creative moves.

The team was almost obligated to double down on a disappointing 2015 season in which the organization thought itself equipped to make a World Series run. It finished the 2015 campaign with a paltry 76-86 record.

This season?

Well, that’s likely to look much the same. Only this time, the White Sox—who elected to push for the playoffs past the 2015 trade deadline—will act in an entirely different manner. Expect them to dump inventory like a department store gone out of business come this July.

Use any term you want. Fire sale. Rebuild. Tweak. Makeover.

That’s all semantics. But this team, as currently constituted, isn’t a playoff team. The White Sox are stuck in baseball purgatory—better than those rebuilding yet a distance behind those contending.

To understand why, we must first go back in time. Not too far. But just to the 2015 offseason, when the White Sox became paper champions with a slew of moves that made the team a sexy pick to win the American League Central.

Prior to the 2015 campaign, the White Sox addressed a big need on the left side of the plate by signing switch-hitter Melky Cabrera and the left-handed bat of Adam LaRoche, who had hit at least 20 home runs in each of the three previous seasons.

They also signed reliever Zach Duke and traded for Jeff Samardzija—an acquisition that, along with incumbent ace Chris Sale, appeared to give the team one of the best one-two pitching duos in baseball.

Then the team unexpectedly flatlined in 2015.

So it’s understandable that it would want to approach the 2016 season with similar hope. The White Sox added All-Star third baseman Todd Frazier and infielder Brett Lawrie this offseason, trying to put a Band-Aid on what ailed them in 2015.

There’s also the “Chris Sale effect” too, which is to say that having one of the best left-handed power arms in baseball has motivated the team to try to compete this season.

The White Sox’s front office has been in angst while the team wastes Sale’s prime years as it continually misses the playoffs. The thought is that if the team were to make the playoffs, Sale, 26, is so dominant that it could ride him to another World Series.

That’s true. But it has to get there first. In another division, that might be likely. But in the American League Central in 2016, it seems unfathomable.

The reigning World Series champion Kansas City Royals were able to keep their core intact by re-signing outfielder Alex Gordon. The Twins nearly made the playoffs last season with a young, less experienced group of players that will only get better.

Both are better candidates to win the division.

With the Red Sox much improved this offseason, the Astros returning a young playoff roster from 2015 and the Yankees prime to compete, the wild-card race will also be too competitive.

And when the White Sox finally realize that the team can’t ride this collection of players to October, it will surely reboot and attempt to reinvigorate its minor league system.

Consider some of the team’s assets to potentially trade this July (for White Sox contract figures, click here):

• Jose Quintana, SP—At only 26 years old, the lefty has seen his innings load increase in each of his four major league seasons. His strikeout-to-walk ratio continually gets better—it was 4.02 in 2015—and every contending team can always use left-handed pitching. He is signed through 2019 and will make an affordable $5.4 million in 2016, making him appealing to small-market teams that may compete this season.
• Avisail Garcia, OF—Shockingly, Garcia seems to have fallen out of favor in Chicago. When he came to Chicago in a three-team trade in 2013, Garcia was thought to be a building block for the future. He suffered a season-ending injury in 2014 and hit only .257 in 2015. Could the 24-year-old still be in the White Sox’s future plans? Sure, but another subpar season could cause the team to shop him to a team that still values his vast potential.
• Todd Frazier, 3B—If the White Sox do find themselves out of contention by July, there’ll be no need for the proven Frazier. Any contending team could use Frazier, who has been an All-Star in the past two seasons and has two years of team control left on his deal.

By trading any or all of the aforementioned, the White Sox would still retain Sale (signed through 2019), first baseman Jose Abreu (signed through 2019) and center fielder Adam Eaton (signed through 2020)—all young players who would still be around even if the organization took a couple of seasons to restructure.

However, it should be noted that any player—even Sale—could be thrust into trade talks depending on how drastic a restructure the organization wants to undergo.

Would it be parting with young players? Certainly. But the value of players like Quintana and Garcia could net the White Sox a haul of prospects that would outweigh trying to compete for yet another season with this group.

The team’s issues are too great for a quick fix. We saw it in 2015. It’s difficult to believe 2016 will be any different.

And for a team in a hurry to compete, a fire sale might be the fastest way to get there.

Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs. All contract figures courtesy of Baseball Prospectus.

Seth Gruen covers baseball for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @SethGruen.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

In Chicago, Starlin Castro was a victim of circumstance. Now, after being traded to the New York Yankees, the shortstop-turned-second baseman should be its beneficiary.

There wasn’t a more criticized athlete in Chicago than the Cubs‘ once-prized shortstop who ended his career with the team as a second baseman before being traded to the Yankees on Dec. 8, a move that will benefit not only both teams but also Castro.

Castro, in his early 20s, was thrust into a starring role on Cubs teams with no intention of competing during the early years of the Theo Epstein rebuild. When Epstein took over as Cubs president of baseball operations, Castro was unprotected in the lineup and often forced to hit third or fourth—slots in which he has put up his worst offensive numbers.

Struggles at the plate snowballed into mental lapses in the field, which drew the ire of a tortured Cubs fanbase. In his six seasons in Chicago, the Cubs went through five managers—Lou Piniella, Mike Quade, Dale Sveum, Ricky Renteria and Joe Maddon—while he was trying to learn English.

Those conditions made it difficult for Castro to develop defensively. Only Piniella and Renteria speak Spanish fluently. Try discussing a shift or wheel play in a language you don’t know. You’ll understand the difficulty.

Jim Hendry, the Cubs’ general manager at the time, signed Castro in 2006 and promoted him to the major leagues in 2010, at 20 years old, straight from Double-A Tennessee.

Hendry always had confidence in Castro’s bat—he led the National League with 207 hits in 2011—and thinks that Castro is an ideal fit for a Yankees team trying to compete yet get younger. Castro will turn 26 right before the start of the 2016 season.

Hendry, who was the Cubs’ general manager from 2002-11, has been a Yankees special assistant since 2012.

“In hindsight, very few people can do that [be the centerpiece on a major league team as a young player] well,” Hendry said, while praising the job Epstein has done in Chicago, in an interview with Bleacher Report.

“Obviously the Cubs weren’t trying to contend then. Besides the [Mike] Trouts and [Bryce] Harpers of the world at 21, 22, 23 years old, not too many guys can take on that spot. So I think he probably got in a rut of trying to do too much, swing got a little longer and chased some bad pitches.”

As a shortstop, Castro failed to meet the expectations that cast him as a rangy player with the kind of arm capable of taking away base hits.

Instead, inexcusable mistakes that included eating sunflower seeds while on the field, unawareness of the infield fly rule on one occasion and situational miscues colored his stint as the Cubs’ shortstop.

It didn’t help that Castro replaced fan favorite Ryan Theriot, who didn‘t cover a lot of ground but made all the routine plays. That magnified the former’s fielding errors.

Castro’s poor play in the field overshadowed what he did at the plate, including hitting .307 in 2011 and being selected to three National League All-Star teams (2011, 2012 and 2014).

Hendry, however, did not project Castro as a career shortstop. He knew eventually he would move to either second or third. Hendry said while the Yankees traded for him intending to use him as a second baseman, his versatility allows for spot starts at shortstop or third base should manager Joe Girardi choose to do so.

“He earned some criticism,” Hendry said. “When you make some mental mistakes, you deserve to wear that a little bit. We all knew him, knew he wasn’t a bad kid. He’s a good kid and he cares and he’s a good teammate.”

Castro’s lowest moment came when struggles at the plate prompted a benching in August of last season. Though Maddon did not characterize the move as a benching at the time, Castro was effectively taken out of the everyday lineup.

Addison Russell was moved from second base to shortstop for what would end up being the remainder of the season. Kyle Schwarber was inserted into left field and Chris Coghlan moved from left field to second base. Castro got some opportunities to start at second for the Cubs and eventually worked his way back into the everyday lineup.

In September and October, Castro hit .369/.400/.655. He started all nine games for the Cubs in the postseason.

“After he went to second base, the bat seemed to come back around,” Hendry said. “I thought Joe Maddon did a really nice job handling the last couple months and, in fairness to Starlin, he didn’t pout.

“He went through his ups and downs and I think all those things will prepare him to do well in New York.”

New York might be more unforgiving than Chicago, but Castro is certain to play under less scrutinized circumstances in 2016. With players like Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran in the lineup, Castro will be less of a focal point.

If Castro does become a star in New York and hits over .300, which is well within in his capabilities, he will have eased into the role—not been thrust into it.

In fact, the 2016 season will give Castro his best opportunity to put up gaudy numbers.

With the top of the Yankees’ order set, Castro is likely to slot lower in the lineup. Though the team hasn’t specifically said where Castro might hit, he figures to see several early at-bats hitting eighth. In 113 career at-bats in that spot, Castro has hit .319/.402/.451.

He has always had star power and been capable of carrying a team with his bat. Castro was just restricted by the limitations of a rebuilding Cubs team early in his career. He may be meant to be a star. But it has to be on his terms.

While Castro was pegged as such in Chicago, he is likely to be most successful living in the shadows of a star-studded lineup in New York.

Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs.

Seth Gruen covers baseball for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @SethGruen.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

If there’s a pitfall to success, it’s that sustaining it bears a financial burden. In baseball, almost universally, the teams that are most successful boast underpaid players that exceed the expectations of their contracts.

Cubs ace Jake Arrieta, among Major League Baseball’s most underpaid pitchers, epitomizes that paradigm. The right-handed Arrieta carried the Cubs through much of the second half of the season and ended his 2015 campaign with a major league-best 22 wins and a 1.77 ERA.

The Cubs will eventually sign Arrieta to a lucrative, long-term deal. But when?

Both sides would benefit from doing so right now.

The Theo Epstein era in Chicago as Cubs president of baseball operations has been earmarked by an overhaul of the organization’s minor league system. Young, homegrown players like Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber and Addison Russell, all major contributors in 2015, are still under team control and, therefore, playing on bargain-basement deals. Their time to be paid will come later.

For Arrieta, it’s now.

Unquestionably, Epstein and Co.’s trophy transaction was trading for Arrieta, reliever Pedro Strop and cash in exchange for pitcher Scott Feldman and catcher Steve Clevenger (Feldman was the top-paid player on the Astros last season. In 2015, Clevenger hit .287 in 105 games for the Orioles).

Arrieta, a player who has yet to land a big deal, is looking for the kind of transformational wealth a long-term deal provides. Injuries and control issues stymied the start of the 29-year-old Arrieta’s career. So he has yet to cash in on the type of contract his 2015 statistics might otherwise suggest. But now, by any statistical measure, Arrieta is one of baseball’s best pitchers. 

And, arguably, its biggest bargain.

In 2015, Arrieta was second among all pitchers with a 7.6 WAR and won the 2015 National League Cy Young Award. He made $3,630,000 last season, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, costing the Cubs an astoundingly low $497,260.27 per win above replacement.

By comparison, the other four pitchers in the league’s top five in WAR were Clayton Kershaw ($3,787,375.47 per win above replacement), David Price ($3,085,937.50 per win above replacement), Max Scherzer ($2,678,571.41 per win above replacement) and Chris Sale ($1,397,849.52 per win above replacement).

Arrieta has two years of arbitration remaining on his contract and is set to become a free agent before the 2018 season. The Cubs will never have more leverage in negotiations. The closer Arrieta gets to free agency, the more he will be willing to wait and test the open market.

So now would be the time to offer Arrieta a team-friendly deal that would simultaneously give the Cubs ace security.

A pitcher’s arm is baseball’s most fragile commodity. There’s no determining who might become seriously injured or why.

For example, White Sox ace Chris Sale looks like his elbow is about to pop out every time he throws. He hasn’t had serious arm surgery. Former Cubs pitcher Mark Prior was said to have perfect mechanics. His once-promising career ended early as a result of injury.

Testing the open market would require Arrieta to gamble on the unknown.

To command a contract that would pay him $25 million-$30 million per year, Arrieta would need to replicate his 2015 season in 2016 and 2017. Impossible? No. It may even be likely, considering how much he improved in 2015.

But it only takes one pitch to derail the career of a star hurler. One bad movement could mean Tommy John surgery, a torn labrum or any of the litany of arm injuries that can alter the trajectory of a promising career.

Arrieta has to weigh the upside of waiting, which may not justify the risk given his age.

He wouldn’t become a free agent until he was 31. His birthday is March 6, so he will actually turn 32 before the beginning of the 2018 season. By that age, teams would be less willing to offer Arrieta a longer deal.

If Arrieta were to accept a deal now and he continues to prove he has top-of-the-rotation stuff, then he could potentially sign another lucrative contract similar to the one 37-year-old John Lackey signed this offseason—a two-year, $32 million deal with the Cubs, according to ESPN.

What might a team-friendly deal look like?

There are many ways contracts can be structured. But a deal that pays Arrieta no more than $20 million per year could potentially save the Cubs at least $5 million per year should Arrieta continue as one of baseball’s best pitchers. Over the course of a six-year deal, that could pay him as much as $120 million. The deal could be front-loaded and include an opt-out, vesting option or other player-friendly clauses.

His value might never be higher.

It always seems in these negotiations that there is one side that has overwhelming leverage. Like any team and player approaching potential contract talks, the Cubs and Arrieta are on divergent roads.

Lucky for both sides that, right now, they intersect.

Seth Gruen covers Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @SethGruen.

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Ever wonder what goes on behind the closed doors of a salary negotiation for a top-flight free agent? What about how players evaluate potential suitors?

Alan Nero has been an agent for as long as baseball players have had agents—some 30 years. He is the chairman of Octagon’s baseball department, which is the No. 1 agency in global baseball placement. Nero’s department places players in leagues around the world in addition to representing some of baseball’s biggest names stateside—including Felix Hernandez, Jose Bautista and Jose Altuve.

His free agents this offseason include middle infielder Ben Zobrist, pitcher Yovani Gallardo and Korean first baseman Byung-ho Park—who is expected to sign with a major league club this winter. 

Nero explained how the agency business works, in his own words, edited slightly for clarity and brevity. 

It’s all about relationships. 

You get to a certain point where the money is going to be the same with the highest bidders, or the second bidder is going to be willing to step. So oftentimes, I’m advising clients on aspects other than money, including the quality of family life and where they may be best suited to chase a World Series.

There are certain situations where I devote myself entirely to that process for one player, like in Randy Johnson’s situation, when he was the No. 1 free agent in the market after the 1998 season.

A colleague and I moved into his guesthouse for about three weeks and we met every day after his kids went off to school.

Each day we would focus on a different team, spending the entire day on that one suitor. Because we have so many clients, we would make sure to get him on the phone with our clients on those teams.

We would get the wives on the phone to talk about the family situation. So it comes down to money, but then it comes down to wanting to win. So you want to go to a team that’s going to win and you want it to logistically make sense.

We wanted to make sure it was the right decision. He was going to be the highest-paid pitcher in the game at the time, and he had a family—four kids—which prioritized where they were going to be and how his family was going to be treated.

We ended up narrowing it down to five teams—the Yankees, Rangers, Diamondbacks, Angels and Astros (because they had traded for Randy at the trade deadline the previous season)—and said if you want to come and have an interview with Randy, then you have to be at his house on Thursday at 3.

They all came to him.

Having [former Yankees owner] George Steinbrenner in a limousine outside the house waiting for his turn was quite the statement. In the end, though, Jerry Colangelo [then the Diamondbacks owner] convinced us that Randy staying home in Arizona was the right thing.

He was committed to winning, and he was going to do all the things he said he was going to do to win. Sure enough, three years later they won the World Series.

Years ago, at the trade deadline, the Mets wanted to trade for Juan Gonzalez, who was playing for the Texas Rangers. He failed a physical. The trade didn’t go through.

The Rangers publicly denied that his injury was valid, and they basically said he knowingly sabotaged the trade. It made Juan look very, very bad. So it was very upsetting.

I got on a plane and flew to Texas. When I got there, the Rangers were being very nice and sent someone to pick me up and drive me to the stadium.

He was an intern named Jon Daniels. He is now the president of baseball operations for the Rangers. I’ve known him for 15 years and we have a very good, trusting relationship to this day.

It’s all about trust. I got a call once from an agent, whose name will remain non-disclosed. Because of our international contacts, we sometimes work with agents in placing players in other leagues.

He said: “Alan, can we talk? I think we really need to talk.”

I said: “Sure, what’s going on?”

He said: “No disrespect, but I think you have a problem.”

I said: “What’s that?”

He said: “You tell the truth.”

I said: “Excuse me?”

He said: “You tell the truth.”

I said: “Yeah…”

He said: “Well, for example, we both have free agents at the same position and I’m out there telling them I’ve got offers for X amount of dollars and you’re out there telling the truth and I’m trying to bid it up and you can’t tell the truth in this business.”

I said: “Do you really think they believe you? Because if you don’t tell the truth once, they’ll never believe you again. And everybody knows you’re a liar. So why wouldn’t you tell the truth?”

He said: “Because you can’t in this business.”

I said: “Well I’ll stick with my motto. You stick with yours.”

If you’re honest and have integrity all the time, it goes a long way. It has helped throughout my career, beginning with the first deal I ever did.

I came from the insurance side, and the life-insurance business evolved into the financial-services business. Growing up in New England, I ended up getting some athletes. As a Northwestern Mutual agent (a Milwaukee company), while I was at a conference in Milwaukee, I successfully cold-called the Brewers and Bud Selig (who at the time was the owner of the Chevy dealership there). 

Though I was only an insurance agent, I was able to get the Milwaukee Brewers and Bud Selig as a client. This background ultimately proved to be the primary catalyst to becoming a success in the sports-agent world.

Around that time, the union galvanized the players. They went on strike and fought for, primarily, free agency.

Marvin Miller ran the MLB Players’ Union at the time and was a genius. Not only did he gain free agency for the players, but he also gave them the rights to salary arbitration. He also did something that seemed to be completely harmless at the time—empowering the players to have agents.

I wasn’t a sports agent at the time, still focusing on insurance. But slowly, the players I worked with began asking me to represent them in contract negotiations.

Red Sox first baseman Cecil Cooper came to me and asked me to be his agent. He told me that he really trusted me, and I finally agreed.

As fate would have it, a year-and-a-half later, Cecil was traded to the Brewers. I negotiated Cecil’s new contract, and it was the first I ever did. It was a surreal feeling, but soon after my phone starting ringing.

It was Bud Selig.

He said: “I think we have a problem.”

I said: “What’s that?”

He said: “Don’t you think we have a conflict of interest?”

I said: “Well, I think conflicts of interest come from nondisclosure. We knew each other. We knew what everybody’s position was.”

He said: “Well, I think it would be best if you made a decision. You can’t be my agent and Cecil’s agent.”

I made the tough decision to resign as the insurance agent for the Brewers and Selig. Cooper became my first client, and that’s how I started in the sports-agency business.

My wife and I decided to move to Chicago because it was a big sports town, and every time I would fly somewhere, I would stop in Chicago anyway.

Over the years, I’ve developed great relationships with all the general managers because I’ve known them for so long.

The most interesting one was with [now-MLB analyst] Jim Bowden. Jim was the GM for the Reds, then later for the Nationals. He had the kind of personality where, in the middle of negotiations, he would just tip over the table and basically throw you out to the point where it was hilarious.

In one particular negotiation, he did just that. He pushed back from his chair and told me to leave. Then he decided to run out of the room, and I instinctively jumped up and blocked the door, wouldn’t let him leave, got him to calm down and we ended up getting the deal done.

He was probably the most flamboyant, unpredictable GM I ever worked with. But we had a great relationship, and it’s guys like Jim who keep the job exciting. Those same qualities are why I love him on radio and TV.

Many times, you come to a verbal agreement, but suddenly the circumstances change and people without character renege on deals. There are a lot of honorable people in this business, but if you shatter the faith in your word, it’s hard to come back from that.

I’ve done deals with Jerry Reinsdorf, the owner of the White Sox. We agreed to a deal, but circumstances dramatically changed and negatively impacted his franchise. Many people would use this as an escape route and tear down the agreement, but Jerry’s word is gold. Even though the deal hadn’t been formally inked, Jerry would live by his word.

I’m surrounded by tremendous people. We’ve got a research team that gives us all the information we need to be prepared to go into the negotiations—a crucial element in today’s analytical landscape.

When we first started out years and years ago, the owners had all the information and the players and agents had none of it, which created a clear leverage gap and an uneven playing field.

Now, because of the strength of the union, we also have a database and a website that we all have access to. This newfound transparency and preparedness, in my opinion, is what has brought about the labor peace that we’ve had for so long.

At the winter meetings and the GM meetings, we’ll go through a discovery process of who is interested in which free agents. But it’s not like it used to be, where it was a necessity.

The GM meetings and the winter meetings are just a really good way for people to gravitate together, but most of the deals don’t get done there. They’ll get done by phone or by email.

The agency business has evolved tremendously. Of course technology has been a catalyst for much of that.

But at its core, success is still dictated by the same core principles—honesty, transparency and a willingness to forge relationships. 

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