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The Kansas City Royals and Danny Duffy agreed to terms on a five-year extension worth $65 million, according to Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan.  

The Royals formally announced the extension on Twitter:

The Kansas City Star‘s Rustin Dodd shared a yearly breakdown of the contract:

Duffy was under team control for one more season before he was set to become a free agent next winter, per Spotrac.

The 28-year-old left-hander went 12-3 with a 3.51 ERA in 42 appearances for the Royals in 2016. He began the year in the bullpen before making his first start May 15 and emerging as the Royals’ ace.

According to FanGraphs, Duffy finished with a 3.56 ERA and 3.99 FIP in 26 starts, both of which were the lowest among Kansas City’s regular starting pitchers. Duffy also averaged a career-best 9.42 strikeouts and 2.10 walks per nine innings.

With major question marks over the starting rotation, re-signing Duffy was a great move for Kansas City. Edinson Volquez signed with the Miami Marlins, Ian Kennedy was disappointing in the first year of his five-year deal, and Yordano Ventura took a big step backward in 2016.

Keeping Duffy for the next five years stabilizes the staff, and an average of $13 million is a more than reasonable salary. He won’t even be the highest-paid starter. Kennedy, who is four years older, will earn an average of roughly $15.6 million for the next four seasons, per Spotrac.

ESPN.com’s Dan Szymborski tweeted that Duffy’s deal gives the Royals some flexibility:

Kansas City made back-to-back World Series in 2014 and 2015, winning a title the second time around, but general manager Dayton Moore said in October he expected the team’s payroll to “regress a little bit” after the Royals spent relatively big in pursuit of a World Series ring, per Dodd.

Duffy’s extension is evidence, however, that Kansas City’s ownership is still willing to invest in the team to ensure it remains competitive in 2017 and beyond.

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The rich get richer. The good get better. It doesn’t always work that way, but sometimes it does.

Just ask the Chicago Cubs.

One year after winning their first World Series since the debut of the Model T Ford, the Cubs are positioned for another deep postseason run.

Their potent lineup remains intact. They expect a full, healthy season from Kyle Schwarber. They plugged the hole in the back of their bullpen by acquiring closer Wade Davis and signing veteran setup man Koji Uehara.

FanGraphs projects a 95-67 record for Chicago in 2017, but that feels more like the Cubs’ floor than their ceiling.

That’s this year. But here’s a blood-curdling thought for MLB‘s other 29 franchises: The Cubs are positioned to get even better in the near future.

I’m not just talking about the growth of the club’s young core, though that’s part of it. Kris Bryant (age 25), Javier Baez (age 24), Schwarber (age 23) and Addison Russell (age 22) are all climbing toward their primes. Their output up to now may have been merely the trailer for an epic blockbuster, something FanGraphs’ Dave Cameron deftly illustrated:

It’s no secret that the Cubs have some of the best young hitters in baseball, but it is exceptionally rare for teams with this many young hitters to win it all. The last World Series winner with to give at least 2,400 plate appearances to players in the 25 and under category was the 1971 Pirates; unsurprisingly, the Pirates won 57% of their games in the 1970s, finishing first or second in their division in seven of the next eight years.

In addition to that, the Cubs are about to have money to burn. While this year’s free-agent class was weak, the next two will be strong enough for Chicago to flex its checkbook and add even more star wattage.

First, let’s don our old-timey green eyeshades and crunch some numbers. Between Davis, Uehara, center fielder Jon Jay, catcher Miguel Montero, right-hander John Lackey and lefty reliever Brian Duensing, the Cubs will shed more than $56 million next winter.

Those players will create holes if they’re not re-signed, obviously, though the Cubs can fill some with cost-controlled in-house options. Willson Contreras is already at the top of the Cubs’ catching depth chart, for example, and is years away from salary arbitration.

Chicago may opt to extend Davis if he has a strong season on the North Side. If the Cubs choose, however, they can pour their remaining resources into adding top-shelf free agents, particularly in the starting rotation.

One of the biggest studs in next winter’s class could be Chicago right-hander Jake Arrieta. The Cubs avoided arbitration with the 2015 National League Cy Young Award winner Friday, signing him for one year and $15.64 million.

“There is certainly a chance he could be here beyond next year, but we don’t have any ongoing talks or anything specific scheduled,” Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein told reporters. “I’m sure it will come up at some point.”

Arrieta is a Scott Boras client, which means you should be conjuring cartoonish cash-register sound effects.

He’s also coming off an uneven year in which his ERA rose from 1.77 in 2015 to 3.10, his innings dropped from 229 to 197.1 and his strikeouts fell from 236 to 190.

He’s still one of the NL’s top arms, though, and is in the midst of his prime at age 30. With all that payroll freed up, the Cubs can pay him and still have cash left over.

They could use it to sign another ace-level starter next offseason from a group that will be headlined by Yu Darvish and Johnny Cueto, assuming Cueto opts out of his current contract with the San Francisco Giants.

Imagine a rotation headlined by Arrieta, Cueto, Jon Lester and control artist Kyle Hendricks, backed by the Cubs offense.

Speaking of offense, here’s another route Chicago could take: Save its ducats and sink them into the mythical 2018-19 free-agent class, which is set to feature Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, among others.

Yes, the Cubs are loaded in the infield and outfield. But finding a place to put Harper or Machado is the definition of a good problem to have.

Picture a Bryant/Anthony Rizzo/Machado heart of the order, keeping in mind that Machado is 24 years old and ranked seventh in baseball with a 6.5 WAR last season by FanGraphs’ measure. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

OK, have you caught your breath? Here’s where we add a few wet-blanket caveats. While it’s undeniably true the Cubs will have money to spend after this season even if they don’t raise payroll, it’s also true their young stars will get increasingly expensive as they move toward free agency.

The Cubs’ service-time shenanigans with Bryant bought them a little wiggle room, but it only delayed the inevitable. His cost will skyrocket when he reaches arbitration. When he hits free agency? Forget about it.

The new collective bargaining agreement raises the luxury tax threshold over the next several years, from $195 million in 2017 all the way up to $210 million in 2021. It also increases the penalties for clubs that go over, however, meaning budget-busting megadeals will sting extra hard. (The Cubs were one of six teams to go over the luxury tax this season.)

Epstein deserves credit for building this team methodically, stockpiling and developing prospects rather than throwing money at the problem. He’s also pulled the trigger on some key free agents, including Lester and Ben Zobrist, who were a big part of the Cubs’ title run.

Soon, he’ll have more cash to play with and plenty of players worth giving it to. The rich could get richer. The good could get better.

Sometimes, that’s the way it goes.

All statistics and contract information courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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When the San Diego Padres acquired Wil Myers in December 2014, he was a talented, injury-prone enigma. Two years and change later, he has a chance to be a franchise cornerstone.

On Friday, Myers and the Padres agreed to a six-year extension worth “more than $80 million,” per Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal. 

The deal buys out three of Myers’ arbitration years and three years of potential free agency and keeps him in San Diego through his 31st birthday. Essentially, the Friars just went all-in on Myers’ prime.

If you’re in a pessimistic mood, Myers has flaws. We’ll highlight them shortly. The Padres, however, haven’t had a winning season since 2010, haven’t tasted the postseason since 2006 and have defined dysfunction under general manager A.J. Preller. 

Let’s start with the positive.

Myers enjoyed his best big league season in 2016, hitting 28 home runs with 28 stolen bases and 94 RBI. He made his first National League All-Star team. He graded out as an excellent defensive first baseman who also has experience at all three outfield spots, per FanGraphs.

It was, by almost any measure, the year Myers boosters had been waiting for since 2013. That’s when Myers won American League Rookie of the Year honors with the Tampa Bay Rays after posting a .911 OPS in the minors and appeared ticketed for stardom.

Now, he belongs to the Pads for the foreseeable future. And, more good news, they appear to have gotten him for below market rate. The ZiPS projection system pegged his value considerably higher than the amount Rosenthal reported, as ESPN.com’s Dan Szymborski noted:

So there’s the glass-half-full take: The Padres inked a special player who appears to be coming into his own for a relative bargain. He can anchor a young core that figures to include top outfield prospects Manuel Margot and Hunter Renfroe and help usher San Diego back to contention after years in the woods.

After jettisoning veterans such as Matt Kemp, Melvin Upton Jr. and James Shields, the Padres can turn to Myers for leadership, as well.

CBS Sports’ Dayn Perry called it a “sensible” move, which counts as high praise given San Diego’s recent track record. 

Alright, now for the caveats. 

Last season was the first time in his MLB career Myers played more than 100 games. He’s made multiple trips to the disabled list in his brief big league tenure, centered around lingering left wrist issues. In his first season with San Diego, the wonky wrist landed him on the 60-day DL.

Myers played 157 games last season, so you could argue he put much of that behind him. His performance, however, tailed off significantly in the second half:

“I know I’ve been horrendous in the second half,” Myers said in September, per Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “This is just a learning tool. I’ve not been this bad for this long of time in any level of baseball. It’s just the way it goes sometimes.”

Myers insisted he wasn’t injured. Instead, he suggested, it was merely him getting used to the rigors of a full MLB campaign.

“Being my first full season here in the big leagues and my first full season in three years, you find out what the grind is like,” he said, per Lin.

That’s something to keep an eye on in 2017. If Myers can replicate his 2016 production, though, he’ll be worth every penny of his reported deal.

The Padres are more significant now. With the Chargers moving to Los Angeles, the Pads become San Diego’s only professional sports franchise.

With monopolistic power comes great responsibility. Perhaps Myers can shoulder the load. 

We’re talking about a guy who knocked on the door of a 30/30 season. If his injury issues are in the past and last year’s second-half slide was an issue of conditioning, it’s easy to imagine him getting MVP votes.

Nothing is guaranteed. Pads fans have every right to be skeptical based on recent history. From most angles, though, this looks like a savvy move.

Smile, Friars faithful—you’ve earned that much.

All statistics courtesy of FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.  

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The Hall of Fame lists Frank Thomas as a first baseman.

Not as a first baseman/designated hitter. Not as a designated hitter/first baseman.

Thomas started 340 more games as a DH than he did at first base, but nowhere on his Cooperstown plaque or on his page on the Hall of Fame website does it even mention his time at DH. Paul Molitor is a third baseman, according to the Hall, even though he started 1,168 games as a DH and 786 at third base.

When will we put a DH in the Hall of Fame? We already have.

Just not Edgar Martinez.

He was so good at the job that baseball named the annual DH award after him. He’s so connected to the job that you get the feeling it’s the biggest thing keeping him out of Cooperstown.

He was, as ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark wrote, “one of the great hitters of his generation.”

And yet until this year, I didn’t give him a Hall of Fame vote. I’m not alone. As recently as 2014, Martinez got just 25.2 percent of the vote.

He jumped to 43.4 percent last year, and Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall of Fame Tracker has him taking another jump this year. He’s gaining votes, but he’s also running out of time. It doesn’t look likely he’ll get in this year, and he’ll be on the ballot only two more times.

In other words, it’s about time we figure out what to do with him. It’s about time we figure out how to judge a guy who barely wore a glove for the final decade of his career.

It’s about time we come to grips with the DH rule, now in its 45th year in the American League.

Do we judge a guy who was almost exclusively a DH (71 percent of his career starts and 98 percent of his starts in his final 10 seasons) the way we would any other hitter? Or does he need to be even better to make up for not contributing anything on the other side of the game?

Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated, who spends as much time as anyone evaluating Hall of Fame candidates, calls Martinez one of the top 30 or 40 hitters of all time. During the best seven-year stretch of his career (1995-2001), Martinez ranked third in the majors in Baseball-Reference.com‘s OPS+, which equalizes for league and ballpark.

The only two guys ahead of him during that span? Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire.

Neither of them is in the Hall of Fame, either, but that’s another argument. It’s that other argument—the steroid argument—that dominates Hall of Fame debates. It’s so overwhelming that it obscures other just-as-interesting discussions, such as what to do with closers and what to do with designated hitters.

The Martinez debate is more than just a DH debate, though. He finished in the top five in MVP voting just once (1995), and his career totals (2,247 hits, 309 home runs) look a little light, in part because he didn’t become a major league regular until he was 27.

He didn’t have as many big postseason moments as David Ortiz, a DH who will likely find an easier path to Cooperstown.

But Martinez was still a great hitter, and it’s hard to believe he’d have such a hard time with voters if he’d spent the majority of his career at third base.

“I can’t believe any AL voter would discriminate against him,” Bob Ryan wrote in the Boston Globe. “Has to be those NL Luddites.”

Yeah, except that two of the guys who didn’t vote for Martinez this year (Nick Cafardo and Dan Shaughnessy) have covered the Boston Red Sox for the Globe.

“I have left off Edgar Martinez, never feeling his numbers were quite good enough,” Cafardo wrote.

I know the feeling. I looked at Martinez’s numbers every year, and every year I thought, “Not quite good enough.”

Eventually, I realized I was looking for too much. I was asking for too much, trying to make up for what Martinez didn’t do on defense. I never eliminated him because he had been a DH, but I set unrealistic standards for him because he was one.

I switched this year, and I don’t expect to switch back. I’m not alone on that, either. Thibodaux’s Hall of Fame Tracker has Martinez adding 31 votes this year (while inexplicably losing one). My Bleacher Report colleague Scott Miller was also one of the switches, citing many of the same reasons I did.

Martinez finally has momentum on his side. He has plenty of numbers on his side, including those where he compares favorably to Ortiz (147-141 edge for Martinez in OPS+, .933-.931 in OPS, 68.3-55.4 in Baseball-Reference.com’s version of WAR).

And just as it ought to help Trevor Hoffman that baseball named its National League Reliever of the Year Award after him, it should help Martinez that it’s the Edgar Martinez Outstanding Designated Hitter Award (which Ortiz won in 2016).

Cy Young is in the Hall of Fame, isn’t he?

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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Veteran reliever Santiago Casilla has found a new home this offseason, agreeing to a deal with the Oakland Athletics.  

Robert Murray of FanRag Sports first reported Casilla and the A’s were nearing agreement on a two-year deal. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle confirmed the deal.

Casilla has spent the previous seven seasons with the San Francisco Giants, playing an integral role in the team’s World Series wins in 2012 and 2014 with a 0.63 ERA and 15 strikeouts in 14.1 innings over 20 appearances. 

The 36-year-old did start to show signs of slowing down last season, though he was hardly the only Giants reliever who struggled in 2016. His strikeout and strikeout-to-walk rates were fine, but opposing hitters did seem to be squaring him up with greater ease.

It’s hardly a surprise to see Casilla start to take a step back. He has pitched in a lot of games for the Giants over the years, recording at least 50 appearances six times in the last seven years, not to mention additional innings in the postseason. 

Granted, Casilla was rarely overextended in San Francisco. His innings total ranged from 50.0 to 63.1 since 2009, a testament to Giants manager Bruce Bochy’s ability to get the most out of his relievers. 

Casilla was an attractive free agent because of his extended role as the Giants closer, including racking up a career-high 38 saves in 2015. 

The A’s have taken a unique approach with their roster this offseason. Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca reported they offered Edwin Encarnacion a higher average annual salary of $25 million than what the slugger ultimately took from the Cleveland Indians, but the years on the contract were shorter. 

After missing out on Encarnacion, per Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, A’s general manager Billy Beane gave 36-year-old outfielder Rajai Davis $6 million for one year. 

After losing 93 games last season, the A’s are trying to build a more competitive roster in 2017. Casilla likely won’t be their closer, as Ryan Madson is coming off a solid season in the role and is under contract for two more seasons. 

However, Casilla does give A’s manager Bob Melvin more length to take advantage of in late-game situations. The team finished 20th in bullpen ERA last season, and its 23 blown saves were the seventh-most in MLB, per ESPN.com.

There was a clear separation at the top of this year’s market for relievers, with Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen and Mark Melancon setting the tone and everyone else following in their wake. 

Given Casilla’s age, he may not be the same pitcher two years from now, but his ability to miss bats makes him a safe bet to play a key role in the bullpen for the Athletics in 2017.  

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The Tampa Bay Rays took steps to stockpile talent in their farm system starting next season by trading starting pitcher Drew Smyly to the Seattle Mariners. 

Per the Rays’ official Twitter account, they received outfielder Mallex Smith and minor leaguers Carlos Vargas and Ryan Yarbrough to send Smyly to Seattle. 

Smith made his major league debut last season with the Atlanta Braves. He hit .238/.316/.365 in 72 games and was a terrific defender with seven runs saved between left field and center field in 451 innings, per FanGraphs.

Matthew Pouliot of Rotoworld noted similarities between Smith and one of his now-former teammates with the Braves:

Vargas and Yarbrough are still working their way through the minors, with the latter being closer to the big leagues and the more highly regarded prospect. 

Yarbrough is a 25-year-old left-handed pitcher who spent last season at Double-A. He posted a 2.95 ERA with 99 strikeouts and 31 walks in 128.1 innings. 

Per J.J. Cooper of Baseball America, Yarbrough was going to rank No. 12 on the Mariners’ prospect list due to be released in the coming weeks. 

Per MLB.com, Yarbrough will rank as Tampa Bay’s No. 16 prospect with this evaluation:

Yarbrough has thrown harder as a professional than he did in college, as he’ll sit at 91-93 and occasionally bump the mid-90s, all while throwing strikes and working on a downhill plane. His changeup is his best secondary offering, thrown with excellent deception from his three-quarters delivery, and it complements his action on his fastball. The left-hander’s breaking ball is slurvy and tends to linger up in the zone, though he still has the ability to throw it for a strike. He has outstanding command and generates a good amount of ground-ball outs.

One potential hang-up for Yarbrough as a starter in the big leagues is health. Last season marked the first time since he was drafted in 2014 that he broke the 100-inning barrier. He hasn’t had any major injuries to this point, despite missing time in 2015 with a groin injury. 

Vargas is a wild card in this equation for the Rays. He’s a 17-year-old shortstop who played 62 games in the Dominican Summer League last season and posted a .242/.344/.391 slash line in 215 at-bats. 

The Rays noted Baseball America ranked Vargas as the No. 19 international prospect two years ago, with MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez offering this scouting report at the time of his signing in 2015:

Scouts like Vargas’ raw power along with his projectable body, and there’s a belief that he will hit for power in the future.

On defense, the teenager could be athletic enough to stay at shortstop as he matures, but he could also end up at third base because of his size. He could also end up in the outfield.

Because Vargas is so young and has yet to play in a full-season league, his potential value to the Rays in this deal likely won’t be known for at least another four years. There is upside in his bat, as he fills out his 6’3″, 170-pound frame that makes him a worthy gamble. 

Even though Smyly was still under team control through 2018, the Rays were able to seize an opportunity now by dealing him with two years of arbitration left. They dealt from an area of depth with Chris Archer, Jake Odorizzi, Blake Snell and Alex Cobb plugged into the rotation. 

In doing so, the Rays got an outfielder in Smith who can help them right away and has six years of team control remaining. Yarbrough could contribute out of the rotation or bullpen as soon as this season, and Vargas could end up as a power-hitting corner infielder. 

It’s not a bad return for a team that always has to be mindful of finances and keep the farm system stocked with talent to compete in the American League East.

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The New York Mets sent out invitations Wednesday to their major league spring training camp, but Tim Tebow is not one of the names on the list, according to Marc Carig of Newsday. 

Carig did add that the Mets could “borrow” Tebow for Grapefruit League games.

A former college football star and NFL quarterback, Tebow signed a minor league deal with the Mets in September and spent the fall in the Gulf Coast and Arizona Fall leagues. 

Tebow’s attempt at the majors was a surprising one, as he hadn’t played organized baseball since high school.

After he put on a showcase in late August for MLB scouts, reviews of his potential spanned from “a complete waste of time” to “better than I expected,” per Josh Peter of USA Today. 

Even so, his first at-bat in the Gulf Coast League was something out of a storybook, as he belted an opposite-field home run. 

It was all downhill from there, though, as Tebow struggled mightily following his move to the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League. In 70 plate appearances, he batted .194/.296/.242, per Matt Snyder of CBSSports.com. Those stats prompted ESPN.com’s Keith Law to label the outfielder “an imposter.”

However, Snyder did point out that Tebow’s game improved down the stretch; he batted .281 with a .425 on-base percentage in his final 11 games.

The 29-year-old’s game is still raw, however, and needs a ton of work. While he has power and decent speed, there isn’t much else that would qualify him for a career in the majors. 

For a Mets team that looks poised to make a serious run in the National League in 2017, Tebow’s body of work was too small and not impressive enough to earn a call to the big league camp. 

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As of this writing, the Los Angeles Dodgers have a glaring hole at second base. Hence the persistent trade rumors surrounding the Minnesota Twins‘ Brian Dozier.

Whether the Dodgers acquire Dozier or someone else, the odds are good they’ll add a middle infielder of note before the start of spring training.

For now, though, let’s run down the existing depth chart and look at some key players waiting in the wings.

In addition to second base, there are question marks at the back end of the rotation and some uncertainty in the outfield. However, this roster looks strong enough to compete for a fifth straight National League West crown and the Dodgers’ first championship in more than a quarter-century.

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Alex Reyes’ journey has already taken him from New Jersey to the Dominican Republic to the top of prospect rankings and finally to the major leagues in 2016.

Next stop: the top of the St. Louis Cardinals starting rotation.

OK, so that’s not set in stone. With a healthy Lance Lynn set to rejoin Adam Wainwright, Carlos Martinez, Mike Leake and Michael Wacha in 2017, the Cardinals have five proven starters for five spots. That’s a tough nut for a 22-year-old with only 46 major league innings to crack.

The Cardinals did remove a key barrier in Reyes’ way when they traded Jaime Garcia in December, however. After that, Mike Matheny declared the young right-hander would get his shot.

“He should be a starting pitcher,” the skipper said, via MLB.com. “We’ll see how it plays out through spring training. There are certain guys who have slotted innings set for them, and Alex is going to have those. He’s earned that.”

No kidding. With a 1.57 ERA in 12 appearances (five starts) last year, Reyes was a shot in the arm for a Cardinals pitching staff that had tumbled from the high perch it had occupied in 2015. That’s pretty good as far as first impressions go, and it wasn‘t even enough work to strip Reyes of his rookie status. 

That means Reyes is technically still a prospect. And my, what a prospect he is.

While there was some disagreement about the league’s best hitting prospect going into 2017, Reyes ran away as the best pitching prospect in MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo’s poll of MLB executives.

“I don’t even know who else is a candidate,” said one pro scouting director. “Reyes has the best combo of stuff and results with the stuff.”

Reyes’ stuff has had scouts drooling for years. Baseball America‘s report on him last year, for example, remarked he featured “closer stuff” for six or seven innings when he was at his best. That included a fastball that could climb as high as 100 mph and a 12-to-6 curveball described as a “true hammer.”

In the minors, Reyes used his weapons to strike out 12.1 batters per nine innings. But it wasn’t until he was promoted in August that fans got a proper introduction to his stuff.

It must have been love at first sight for many, as Reyes pitched a 1-2-3 inning that featured a couple of 101 mph fastballs in his debut:

Per Brooks Baseball, Reyes was no longer flirting with triple digits by the time the Cardinals were stretching him out as a starter and long reliever in September. But he was still sitting in the mid-90s. And overall, Baseball Prospectus vouches that Reyes showed a fastball that ranked in the top 10 in average velocity (96.7 mph) and whiff-per-swing rate (26.9 percent).

As for Reyes’ other notorious offering, he used his curveball sparingly by throwing it only about 8 percent of the time. However, the curves he did throw lived up to their “hammer” reputation by ranking here in downward action, per Baseball Prospectus:

1. Alex Reyes: -11.57 in.
2. Mike Fiers: -11.33 in.
3. Seth Lugo: -11.18 in.
4. Chris Tillman: -10.52 in.
5. Evan Scribner: -10.44 in.

That’s what Reyes’ ball-on-string curve looks like in numbers. And now for moving pictures:

The revelation of Reyes’ breakthrough, though, was the quality of two supposedly inferior pitches. 

Although scouts didn’t ignore his changeup during his journey to The Show, the consensus was that it lagged behind his heater and hook. But it was an effective go-to pitch for him against major league hitters. It accounted for 23.7 percent of his offerings and held batters to a .172 average.

Contrary to those of his fastball and curveball, the measurements on Reyes’ changeup aren’t eye-popping. Its effectiveness is more a matter of location and deception. Reyes showed an ability to (mostly) spot it on the glove-side corner of the strike zone, where it worked well in tandem with (mostly) high fastballs because…

Well, let’s let the man himself explain.

“I feel like that [the changeup is] more of a swing-and-miss pitch for me now because hitters have to be geared up for the fastball,” he told J.J. Cooper of Baseball America.

The other pitch that served Reyes surprisingly well is the slider that he broke out in September. He threw it more often than his curveball that month and limited hitters to a .143 average with it.

This is another pitch that doesn’t have otherworldly measurements. But albeit in a limited sample, he showed it’s the breaking pitch he has better control of. Whereas his curveballs were all over the place, his sliders routinely broke off the glove-side corner.

That means Reyes impressed with four pitches from either a sheer electricity perspective or from a command-and-sequencing perspective. With an arsenal that loaded, it’s no wonder opposing hitters were so overwhelmed.

It would’ve been good enough if Reyes had dazzled only with his rate of 10.2 strikeouts per nine innings. But even his solid .283 batting average on balls in play doesn’t capture how well he managed contact. Per Baseball Savant, the average exit velocity off him was an MLB-low 84.9 mph.

Since hitting Reyes’ stuff is such a challenge, arguably the best strategy against him is for hitters to keep their bats on their shoulders.

Although Reyes’ stuff was as advertised last season, it’s less encouraging that his control was also as advertised. He walked 4.6 batters per nine innings in the minors and stayed that course by walking 4.5 per nine innings in the majors.

That’s no way to be efficient, and it also lessens his margin for error. Clearly, this defect needs fixing.

However, that doesn’t seem to be a major undertaking.

Reyes isn’t walking batters because he’s a small dude with a high-effort delivery. Even his listed size of 6’3″ and 175 pounds seems conservative, and he shows his strength and athleticism with every pitch. He puts as much effort into throwing a baseball as Average Joe does into changing the channel.

As Christopher Crawford and George Bissell of Baseball Prospectus noted upon Reyes’ arrival, his challenge is maintaining a consistent arm slot. That should be a matter of making simple tweaks rather than undergoing a major mechanical overhaul.

That’s to say Reyes isn’t far away from the leap between dominating in a small sample size and dominating over a larger one.

I’ll leave it to Wainwright (via Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal) to explain what that means:

As everyone will have noticed by now, there’s no argument here.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com, Brooks Baseball and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked. 

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The Chicago Cubs will be the last team to visit President Barack Obama in the White House before he leaves office on Jan. 20. 

According to NBC 5 Chicago’s Mary Ann Ahern, the Cubs—who hail from Obama’s hometown—will meet with the 44th president on Monday, Jan. 16. 

Although Obama is a noted Chicago White Sox fan, he publicly supported the Cubs during their come-from-behind World Series run as they took down the Cleveland Indians in seven thrilling games:

First Lady Michelle Obama also tweeted her support of the Cubs in the midst of their historic championship run:

In December 2016, the Chicago Tribune‘s Paul Sullivan reported the Cubs were working to try to arrange a meeting with Obama before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. 

“Because of the respect the organization has for the White House and for the president, it’s something you’d like to see if we can make it happen,” Cubs spokesman Julian Green said, per Sullivan. 

And with Obama’s final days in the Oval Office currently winding down, it’s only fitting that a team from the Windy City would be the last to make the trip to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

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