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Dexter Fowler, Ian Desmond, Yovani Gallardo and Howie Kendrick have a lot in common.

They’re all quality big leaguers, and they’re all unemployed. That second similarity is a product of that nasty draft-pick compensation they’re lugging around after declining qualifying offers from their old employers.

With MLB spring training just a couple of weeks away, the murky futures of that forgotten foursome stand out as the biggest question mark of the offseason.

As we tackle the latest round of questions and answers, there’s also time to explore the most recent speculation surrounding one of the game’s most polarizing players.

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There was a time, not all that long ago, when the best team in baseball wouldn’t commit anything more than a three-year contract to a starting pitcher. The Toronto Blue Jays lost some pitchers in the early 1990s, but they won back-to-back World Series.

Imagine trying to do that now.

This winter, even average big league starters have routinely signed three-year deals, and anyone slightly better than average qualifies for five years or more. The Blue Jays watched ace left-hander David Price walk away to the Boston Red Sox for seven years and $217 million, and it cost them $36 million over three years to sign J.A. Happ as a sort of replacement.

Pitchers may be more brittle than ever, but they’re also more expensive than ever. Just this winter, 16 free-agent starting pitchers have signed multiyear deals, with 10 of them signing for five years or more. Almost all those deals were for huge money.

“Crazy stuff!” one National League general manager said by text message Wednesday.

It may be crazy, but it also seems unavoidable. Unless you’re not trying to win or are blessed with five great young (and therefore still cheap) starters, try assembling a competitive rotation without joining the spending spree.

And even if you have that great young rotation, as the New York Mets do, try keeping it together without eventually committing too many years and too many dollars to pitchers who could easily break down.

Paul Beeston, the former Blue Jays president who once had the three-year limit for pitchers and later limited all his free-agent contracts to five years, may well have been prudent. But after those back-to-back championships in 1992-93, the Jays went 22 years without making the playoffs.

Beeston told Canada’s Prime Time Sports last month that he wouldn’t have gone longer than five years, even for Price. But the Red Sox, looking at an ace-less rotation and three last-place finishes in the last four years, willingly did.

Still, it’s not the Price contract that makes this winter different.

Pitchers signed seven-year contracts each of the previous two winters, with Masahiro Tanaka going to the New York Yankees in January 2014 and Max Scherzer signing with the Washington Nationals a year after that. Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw, who weren’t free agents, also signed for seven years each.

But in the last two winters combined, just three free-agent pitchers (Tanaka, Scherzer and Jon Lester) signed for more than four years. This winter, those long deals went to aces like Price and Zack Greinke, but also to guys like Ian Kennedy, Mike Leake, Jeff Samardzija and Wei-Yin Chen.

The Los Angeles Dodgers even gave out an eight-year deal to Japanese right-hander Kenta Maeda, although it was so loaded with incentives that Maeda is guaranteed just $25 million over the length of the deal. According to Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times, the Dodgers were concerned about Maeda’s elbow and his ability to stay healthy.

Johnny Cueto’s elbow was also supposed to be a concern, but the San Francisco Giants still gave him $130 million over six years—all guaranteed.

The Giants have plenty of experience with big, long contracts, having once given Barry Zito a seven-year, $126 million deal in December 2006 that, at the time, was the biggest ever given to a pitcher. When the Zito deal didn’t work out, it seemed to scare the Giants and some other teams away for a while. But eventually the Giants gave six years and $127.5 million to Matt Cain, only to watch him miss large parts of both the 2014 and 2015 seasons because of injury.

Cain, at least for now, hasn’t needed Tommy John surgery, which puts a pitcher on the shelf for more than a year. But two pitchers who had signed six-year contracts—Yu Darvish of the Texas Rangers and Homer Bailey of the Cincinnati Reds—were among the 25 pitchers on major league rosters who needed Tommy John surgery in 2015.

There’s risk with any contract, of course. Position players can get injured and can also see big performance declines that turn their long-term deals into albatrosses. But the long-held belief in baseball, one that has proven out over time, is that pitchers are at bigger risk of both.

But executives who don’t win are at even bigger risk of losing their jobs, and owners who don’t win are at risk of ordering flashy new signings, regardless of the potential cost.

As Detroit Tigers owner Mike Ilitch said after his team committed five years and $110 million to Jordan Zimmermann, via Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press, “It might sound silly, but I don’t care about spending money.”

It might sound silly to risk so much money on something so fragile as a pitcher’s arm, but in today’s baseball world, it can sound even sillier to spend money elsewhere and neglect the starting rotation.

As Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal wrote, after the Baltimore Orioles committed more than $200 million to keep Chris Davis, Matt Wieters and Darren O’Day and add Mark Trumbo, it won’t be worth a thing if they don’t top it off by adding a starting pitcher.

“Otherwise,” Rosenthal wrote, “Davis will be nothing more than an ornate showpiece, a freak-show, home-run hitting attraction at Camden Yards.”

The Orioles, who have made the playoffs just twice in the last 18 years, have been searching for an ace for years. They’ve tried without success to develop one, haven’t been able to trade for one and haven’t been willing to pay for one.

So yes, there’s a risk your big-money starter gets hurt or fails to perform. You can take that risk or you can take the other one—the risk of going without that starter.

They spend their money, and they cross their fingers. And the pitchers get rich.

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

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

It’s difficult not to admire the aggressive approaches of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Boston Red Sox—two of the biggest spenders of the 2015-16 MLB offseason.

No one knows just yet how it will all shake out, but on paper, the upcoming campaign is looking awfully promising for those two franchises. At the same time, some clubs’ offseason overhauls don’t look nearly as impressive.

Let’s take a trip around the league and explore which teams have orchestrated the best and worst winter rebuilds.

Makeovers are all about total transformations, not just refurbishing already-competitive teams. For the purpose of this exercise, only squads that weren’t in contention (and weren’t on the right side of .500) in 2015 were eligible for consideration.

To determine which front offices executed the best and worst makeovers, we took one central factor into consideration: how effectively the given brass addressed their most glaring weakness from 2015.

The outlook for each team’s division also factored into the equation, and for a couple of American League hopefuls, that’s bad news.

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Back in November, it seemed the San Diego Padres were taking a risk when they offered $15.8 million to pitcher Ian Kennedy. It seemed like Kennedy was taking just as big a risk when he turned it down.

Seriously, $15.8 million for one year, for a guy who lost 15 games and served up home runs at a higher rate than any other full-time major league starting pitcher? Seriously, he thought he was going to do better than that, especially after the Padres’ offer guaranteed he would cost the signing team a draft pick?

Seriously, he did. Saturday, Kennedy agreed to terms on a five-year, $70 million contract with the Kansas City Royals.

As Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal tweeted:

Remember that when someone tells you baseball’s qualifying-offer system for free agents is broken. But also remember this: Of the six best free agents who remain unsigned, five are tied to draft picks. So, if you (or I, or owners) want to bring up Ian Kennedy as proof the system works, someone else (or agents) can point to Ian Desmond as proof that maybe it doesn’t.

Desmond, a shortstop who turned down that $15.8 million qualifying offer from the Washington Nationals, remains unsigned. Meanwhile, teams like the New York Mets and San Diego Padres turned to free-agent shortstops who didn’t require them to forfeit a draft pick.

Desmond is a long way from becoming Stephen Drew, another shortstop who was weighed down by a draft pick in the winter of 2013-14. Drew went through the entire baseball winter unsigned, finally going back to the Boston Red Sox on May 21.

But as the winter goes on and spring training approaches and Desmond, Justin Upton, Yovani Gallardo, Dexter Fowler and Howie Kendrick remain unsigned, the question of whether the system works will get more and more attention—and the possibility that it becomes a bigger part of negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement will only increase.

For now, the Major League Baseball Players Association prefers not to comment. But at the very least, the union is certain to want to see the system at least tweaked in the next CBA.

The way it works now, teams can give qualifying offers to any of their free agents who spent the entire season with the same club. The amount of the offer is adjusted annually by averaging the top 125 player salaries from the previous season. Players who accept the offer are considered signed. Players who reject become free agents, with a team that signs them forfeiting a draft pick and the team that loses them gaining one.

The idea was to make the offer amount high enough to only cover players who would be worth giving up a draft pick to sign. But as the game has gotten younger and talent has become harder to acquire, the value of those draft picks has continued to rise. Now, even big-market teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees hate surrendering picks.

“If you’re picking in the top 15 or 20, it’s different than picking 50,” Yankees CEO Hal Steinbrenner told reporters, including Ken Davidoff of the New York Post. “We all know that.”

Did his father know that? Did he care?

Anyway, the idea was to make the offer amount high enough that teams wouldn’t just give it to anybody. In the first three years the system was in place, only 34 total qualifying offers were made, and none were accepted. Only three of those 34 players (Drew, Kendrys Morales and Nelson Cruz, all in 2014) ended up signing for less than the qualifying offer.

The offer amount rose from $15.3 million to $15.8 million for this winter, but teams still offered a record 20 players. For the first time, three of those players (Colby Rasmus, Matt Wieters and Brett Anderson) accepted, and another (Marco Estrada) quickly agreed to a two-year, $26 million deal.

For most of the other 16, the draft pick didn’t seem to be any drag on value. Zack Greinke signed for an even higher average annual value than David Price, even though the Arizona Diamondbacks had to surrender a draft pick for Greinke and the Boston Red Sox did not for Price (because he was traded midseason).

Other players also got huge deals, but a few still don’t have any deal at all. That group includes Yoenis Cespedes, who isn’t tied to a draft pick (because of his midseason trade), but also the five qualifying-offer leftovers.

The union may argue the offer amount needs to go up, or that it shouldn’t be limited to a one-year deal. The union could also argue that while teams losing a player should be compensated with a draft pick, the signing team shouldn’t surrender one.

The owners could argue that players like Desmond, who was coming off a poor season, may have simply made a bad business decision by rejecting the $15.8 million.

Or maybe there won’t be any need to argue. Maybe sometime between now and spring training, Desmond and the others will get contracts for much more than $15.8 million, just as Kennedy did.

Seriously, don’t you think that’s possible?

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

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Another week. Another round of questions about Yoenis Cespedes, Chris Davis and Justin Upton—baseball’s unfortunate free-agent trio.

As Week 10 of the 2015-16 MLB offseason draws to a close, the future remains murky for those prime-time mashers who are still hanging out in a winter purgatory. The good news for one of those guys (and the bad news for another) is that there’s a new five-year offer to report.

There’s also room in the conversation for talk about yet another impact outfielder, whose name just keeps popping up in the trade rumor mill. Plus, with arbitration hearing looming on the horizon, some All-Stars, Cy Youngs and even an MVP are set to cash in.

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Just this week, baseball’s public relations folks sent out a handy list of spring training reporting dates. Yes, it’s getting to be that time of year.

So why doesn’t Justin Upton have a job yet?

He’s not alone, of course. This winter’s free-agent market moved slowly overall, and very slowly when it came to outfielders. The Dec. 15 Jason Heyward signing was supposed to get things going, but it didn’t. Now here we are in the middle of January, and Upton and Yoenis Cespedes both remain unsigned.

It’s never safe to speculate that a lack of rumors indicates a lack of interest or that a long stay on the market means a player will settle for a cut-rate contract. Max Scherzer didn’t sign his record-setting deal with the Washington Nationals until Jan. 21 last year.

Still, there’s been little enough buzz about Upton that it’s hard to even come up with a favorite to sign him. And there’s been enough chatter that maybe Upton should take a one-year contract that agent Larry Reynolds felt the need to respond.

“We are not considering shorter-term deals at this time,” Reynolds told MLB Network’s Jon Heyman.

In fact, an official of one team that has talked to Reynolds said the agent is looking for a “long, long” contract and suggested the lack of apparent movement on Upton may in part be due to an asking price that has been too high for the current market.

That may be, but at a time when many teams seem to be flush with cash and power hitting is supposed to be at a premium, Upton really should have plenty of options. He shouldn’t have to take a one-year deal, even though he could go back into what will almost certainly be a much weaker free-agent market next winter.

The outfielder-heavy market this winter didn’t hurt Heyward, even though he hit fewer home runs the last two years combined than Upton hit in 2015 alone. And while the market may have kept Alex Gordon’s contract in a range where the Kansas City Royals could afford to keep him, Gordon still signed for $18 million a year.

Heyward and Gordon are both better defensive players than Upton and partly because of that, both are more popular with teams focused more heavily on analytics. But Upton’s defense is nowhere near bad enough to account for the lukewarm interest.

Then again, this isn’t exactly a new story. The San Diego Padres never found an Upton trade offer they really liked last July, and they held on to him even though he was a pending free agent almost certain to leave at the end of the year.

It’s all enough to make you wonder if there’s something else going on, if there’s something about Upton we don’t know but many teams do. But when I asked an official from one of Upton’s former clubs if he understood the seemingly low level of interest, he said he didn’t.

“I like Justin a lot,” the official said.

Just not enough to sign him to a big contract, it seems.

It’s not Upton’s age. He’ll play most of next year at 28, so even a long-term deal now should carry him through the prime years of his career.

What’s more likely is that trends in the market and in the game have worked against Upton. Analytics work against him, especially on the defensive side.

But there also seems to be something of a perception issue. The official from Upton’s former team praised his character but admitted some baseball people who don’t know Upton well mistake his quiet demeanor for a lack of leadership skills.

Another executive who knows Upton well said he likes him, but not as the focal point of the team.

In fact, the question of what type of player Upton is has followed him from club to club, ever since the Arizona Diamondbacks made him the first overall draft pick in 2005 and watched him debut in the big leagues at age 19.

“There were some people who wanted him to be [Ken Griffey Jr.],” one of the executives said.

When Kevin Towers, then the Diamondbacks general manager, traded Upton to the Atlanta Braves in January 2013, Towers cited the expectations as one reason for making the deal. He felt there would always be added pressure on Upton in Arizona and expressed hope that getting away from his first team might help.

The Braves had already signed Upton’s brother, then known as B.J., to a club-record five-year, $75.25 million contract. The story of the two brothers playing together was a spring training special that year, with the Braves expressing hope that both players would thrive.

Instead, B.J. badly underperformed. He later asked to be called by his given name of Melvin Upton Jr. By April 2015, the Braves traded both Uptons to the Padres.

The brothers are different players and different people, but you almost wonder if Melvin’s bad contract has teams wondering about signing Justin for big money, too. That shouldn’t be the case, especially since when Justin signed his big contract with the Diamondbacks in the spring of 2010, he made it look good by finishing fourth in the Most Valuable Player balloting a year later.

He signed that six-year, $51.25 million deal on March 3, which was no problem because he was already in spring training.

By March 3 of this year, will Justin Upton have a spring training camp to go to?

You’d think so. Then again, you would have thought that he’d have a team by Jan. 13, too.

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

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion of the Toronto Blue Jays are not only two of the most dangerous hitters in the American League, but they are also two of the headliners of the 2017 MLB free-agent class.

“Joey Bats” is the top right fielder and Encarnacion is the scariest designated hitter, but who are the prime-time guys at all the other spots?

After digging through the recent stats—and placing the most emphasis on 2015 numbers—here’s the breakdown of the top free-agents-to-be at every position on the diamond.

In addition to singling out the biggest stars (and some deserving honorable mentions), we’ve also included logical landings spots based on which clubs have a need (and an opening) at the given positions.

After poring over MLB Trade Rumor.com’s free-agent list, there’s no question that the class of starters is looking awfully weak. However, there are still plenty of game-changing pitchers who will be up for grabs next winter.

*Note: Players with an asterisk either have a team option or an opt-out clause.

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Outfielder Gerardo Parra has reportedly found a new home in the NL West.

Wilmer Reina, via Jon Morosi of Fox Sports, reported Parra has agreed to a three-year, $26 million contract with the Colorado Rockies. Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post confirmed the report, but noted a $27.5 million contract with a $12 million option. 

Parra played for the Milwaukee Brewers and Baltimore Orioles last season and batted .291 with 14 home runs and 51 RBI.  

Baltimore traded for Parra in August as a means of upgrading its outfield and the productivity of its lineup, which turned out to be a short-term rental.

MLB.com’s Bill Ladson reported earlier in January the Washington Nationals were interested in acquiring Parra. There was a clear connection there since Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo gave Parra his first professional contract in 2004.

In addition to being a fine hitter, Parra is a two-time Gold Glove Award recipient and has proved to be capable of playing all three outfield positions during the course of his career. 

The Rockies play in a hitter-friendly park, which may see Parra soar to new heights at the plate.

More importantly, when opponents feast on Colorado pitching, as they’ve often done lately—the Rockies ranked 30th in quality starts and team ERA in 2015—Parra will help the cause defensively in a big way. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

From the arrival of Zack Greinke at Chase Field to the landing of David Price at Fenway Park, it has been an ambitious offseason for big spenders like the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Boston Red Sox.

The question now becomes whether that offseason ambition will transform into wins on the field in 2016. As we get set for the latest round of “contender” or “pretender,” let’s begin by laying out the ground rules.

Only teams that weren’t in contention in 2015 were eligible for the list. That means there’s no room for the likes of the Chicago Cubs and New York Yankees, who have been doing plenty of business but who were both already established in the contender conversation before the offseason began.

In the process of labeling the following five teams, we took two key factors into consideration:

• How successfully each team addressed its most glaring weakness(es)
• The landscape of each team’s division/league

Squads like the D-backs and Red Sox, which have imported prominent players such as Greinke and Price, dominate the list, but there’s also a spot for one team’s whose most consequential additions have been to the coaching staff.

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It’s good to be David Price and Jason Heyward.

During the 2015-2016 MLB offseason, the lefty ace and defensive whiz raked in contracts worth slightly more than $400 million combined.

The big question moving forward is just how well those megadeals will work out for their new employers, the Boston Red Sox (Price) and Chicago Cubs (Heyward).

In the process of ranking the 15 largest contracts (in terms of overall value) from worst to best, we considered two key factors.

The first factor was how well the specific move addressed both the short- and long-term needs of the given team. The second factor was how the individual contract compared to deals for similar players. Did Club X wildly overpay for a headliner, or does the price tag match up with other spending around the league?

Starting at No. 15—the worst deal of all—let’s count down to No. 1—the best deal of the offseason. As it turns out, the same club bookends these rankings.

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