Kuzul

It’s already Week 7 of the 2015-16 MLB offseason, and Clayton Kershaw still needs a sidekick.

From figuring out who will be backing up baseball’s nastiest starter at Dodger Stadium to trying to explain why so many prominent free-agent bats remain unsigned, there are all sorts of questions to ponder as 2016 inches ever closer.

There’s room in this week’s conversation for talk about whether one of the game’s most underrated bullpen aces could be on the move. But first, let’s get back to Kershaw and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ work-in-progress rotation.

Who Will Be the No. 2 Starter at Chavez Ravine?

The Jose Fernandez trade talk just won’t go away.

And the Miami Marlins aren’t exactly quashing the noise:

According to Jon Morosi of Fox Sports, the door remains slightly ajar when it comes to the Dodgers and Fernandez:

But based on the Marlins’ staggering reported asking price, the key phrase is likely “no deal close.” Back during the winter meetings, Joe Frisaro of MLB.com explained that the Fish wanted Julio Urias, Corey Seager, Joc Pederson and two more players in exchange for the electric Cuban.

For the Marlins, there’s no harm in asking. But that’s the kind of exorbitant demand that would lead Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman to hang up the phone and hang up fast.

Lyle Spencer of MLB.com suggested that Friedman should give Billy Beane a ring as he searches for that second ace:

Gray doesn’t generate the same buzz as Fernandez, but the diminutive righty is a rising star in his own right. In 2015, the starter landed third in the American League Cy Young Award voting. And Beane, the Oakland Athletics’ executive vice president of baseball operations, is in no rush to cash in on Gray.

“It’s a fair question,” Beane said, when asked by Joe Stiglich of CSN California about the topic of trading Gray. “And you could imagine how many people, at least early in the winter, were inquiring on him. We were pretty aggressively returning those calls and saying it wasn’t something we were gonna consider. That’s our stance now.”

So where could the Dodgers turn with Fernandez and Gray looking like virtual no-go’s?

Jake Odorizzi is one guy to watch out for. Per Jon Heyman of CBS Sports, Los Angeles has already checked in with the Tampa Bay Rays about the starter, who turns 26 in March.

Odorizzi doesn’t have nearly the same national profile as Fernandez or even Gray, but there’s still a lot to like about his arm. Last year, the starter was eighth in the AL with a 3.35 ERA. Thanks to his contract situation, he could also be a Dodger for the foreseeable future, as he remains under team control through the 2020 season.

The Answer: Odorizzi

What the Heck Is Going on with the Free-Agent Market for Bats?

The market for top-of-the-line position players has been moving about as fast as a glacier.

Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports provided the cold hard numbers: “Only two free-agent position players have signed multiyear contracts this offseason for more than $20 million guaranteed—outfielder Jason Heyward and infielder Ben Zobrist.”

Surveying the remaining class of bats, here’s the list of guys who should have already cleared that relatively low bar:

• Chris Davis
• Yoenis Cespedes
• Justin Upton
• Alex Gordon

Davis is the outlier here, as the masher could have already landed a new gig if he had wanted to. As Heyman noted, the Baltimore Orioles “pulled” a seven-year, $154 million offer after Crush Davis and his agent Scott Boras took too long thinking about it.

The slow play is classic Boras, as the super-agent is well-known for his strategy of waiting out the market before securing a megadeal seemingly out of nowhere at the last moment.

But when it comes to the nearly nonexistent market for Cespedes, Upton and Gordon, it’s much more difficult to explain just what’s going on.

Cespedes cracked 35 home runs last year, and so far he doesn’t have a single reported offer.

Noah Syndergaard would like to see the New York Mets make an offer.

“Of course we’re hoping [that he’ll be back],” Syndergaard said, per Dan Martin of the New York Post. “We all saw the tear he went on from July through the end of the season. We’d love to have that bat back in the lineup, so as long as he’s out there, we’re hoping for that.”

But Joel Sherman of the Post was quick to dash those hopes:

As long as Cespedes remains on the block, Upton could be in a bind. Like La Potencia, Upton is a slugger best suited for left field. But last year, Cespedes trumped Upton in WAR, average, slugging percentage, OPS, home runs and RBI, per FanGraphs.

And then there’s Gordon. Unlike Cespedes and Upton, at least the longtime Kansas City Royal has drawn some concrete interest, per Heyman, from clubs like the Orioles, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Angels and San Francisco Giants. Rosenthal also added the Chicago White Sox to that list.

That’s a good start for Gordon.

The problem is that he’s not just competing for a job with all those other corner guys on the free-agent front. He’s also competing with star trade pieces like Carlos Gonzalez. According to Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post, CarGo—he of 40 home runs in 2015—is available in a swap.

Simply put, the free-agent and trade marketplaces are flush with talent. And word in the industry is that there are more than a few clubs who have no interest in writing any big checks.

That’s a bad look for the game, and even worse news for the players.

The Answer: Thanks in Part to Tanking, Supply is Exceeding Demand

Will the Pittsburgh Pirates Sell High on Mark Melancon?

Neal Huntington, the understated general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates, never wins the offseason.

But the clubs that he constructs have a knack for racking up wins during the regular season, as the Bucs have tallied at least 88 Ws in each of the past three campaigns.

The trick is Huntington is always thinking one step ahead and making moves that keep the roster deep yet cost-controlled. With the unheralded Mark Melancon hanging in the trade winds, just such a move could be on tap for the National League Central squad.

“We’ve never had to trade Mark,” Huntington said, per Adam Berry of MLB.com. “It’s always been [a question of] if we’re better with him with us, or if we think it’s a better move for the organization to move him elsewhere, and that still applies.”

That sounds like Huntington is daring rival execs to make him an offer he can’t refuse.

And why shouldn’t he? Melancon, who was eighth in Senior Circuit Cy Young voting in 2015, can become a free agent at the end of next season. The right-hander has put himself on track to score a monster haul next winter.

As a prime candidate to receive a qualifying offer, he’s also all but certain to net the Pirates a compensation pick if he departs. Following that line of reasoning, it would be a shrewd business decision for the team to move Melancon now if the return would significantly beat the value of a comp pick.

The Answer: Not Unless the Pirates Get Overwhelmed

Note: All stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

If you want to talk baseball, find me on Twitter @KarlBuscheck.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The good news for MLB‘s most inactive contenders—like the Kansas City Royals and Los Angeles Dodgers—is that it’s not even Christmas yet, which means there’s still plenty of time to shop.

The bad news for those clubs is that the offseason hasn’t gone to script—at least not yet.

As the baseball world prepares to shut down for the holiday season, this is the perfect time to survey the league and figure out which contenders can afford to be patient and which ones should be hitting the panic button.

The squads that fall on the “patient” side of the equation have prominent needs that can be readily filled either via free agency or the trade market. But the teams that land in the “panic” camp have some major weaknesses and happen to be playing in fiercely competitive divisions.

Begin Slideshow

From trying to decipher what the heck the Los Angeles Dodgers are doing to puzzling over where Yoenis Cespedes will play next season, there are plenty of giant questions left to be answered before the MLB offseason begins its brief holiday hibernation.

While Cespedes isn’t the only free-agent headliner who cracks this list, there’s also room for a veteran infielder who has recently ended up on the trade block.

Departing from the trade and free-agent theme, there’s also a place in the conversation for one National League powerhouse that just can’t seem to catch any luck on the health front.

Begin Slideshow

It’s midway through December, and this has already been one of the most active Major League Baseball offseasons in recent memory. Plenty of teams have been dealing aggressively, making smart acquisitions or signing key free agents to counter the moves made by their divisional rivals.

While teams such as the Arizona Diamondbacks, Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs have stolen the show so far this hot stove season, some clubs have been disappointingly inactive. Others have just made some puzzling moves.

These teams include the Baltimore Orioles, San Diego Padres, Toronto Blue Jays, Cleveland Indians and Colorado Rockies. It’s time these ballclubs show their respective fanbases that they have clear plans in place. 

In the case of the Padres, reversing the course from last offseason may be the right move, but trading away significant pieces and a large chunk of the bullpen is worrisome.

Other teams have been slow to sign big names while the free-agent market chugs onward. As we saw in the case of the Zack Greinke deal closely following Jordan Zimmermann’s signing, once one domino falls, others topple soon after.

A number of general managers have yet to address certain glaring needs. Let’s look at why 2016 may turn out to be a long, frustrating year for various MLB teams.

Begin Slideshow

The 2015 MLB offseason has been an exercise in patience for prime-time outfielders like Yoenis Cespedes, Alex Gordon and Justin Upton.

Now that Jason Heyward has inked an eight-year, $184 million deal with the Chicago Cubs, the market has been set and the offseason game of outfield musical chairs can begin.

No team wants to be left without a seat—or rather, an outfielder—so the biggest names should start flying off the board in short order.

From predicting a new home for La Potencia to sending Gordon to one of the Kansas City Royals’ division rivals, here are four deals that will go down before New Year’s.

In addition to the free-agent forecasts, there’s also room on the list for a trade involving a vet who smashed 40 home runs in 2015

Begin Slideshow

At best, Johnny Cueto for six years and $130 million gives the San Francisco Giants the bargain of the winter.

Don’t believe it? Check the numbers, the other numbers, the ones that show Cueto with the second-best ERA in the major leagues over the last five seasons. He’s at 2.71, behind Clayton Kershaw but just ahead of Zack Greinke (2.82), the guy who will cost the Arizona Diamondbacks $76.5 million more over the same six years.

Oh, and the 29-year-old Cueto is two-and-a-half years younger than Greinke. And after pitching to that 2.71 ERA while playing most of his home games at the hitter-friendly ballpark the Cincinnati Reds call home, he’s about to move to the pitcher-friendly home of the Giants.

You can make this one sound really good, and you can bet the Giants will when they discuss the deal agreed to Monday (and first reported by Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com).

It could work out great for the Giants, with another ace to team with Madison Bumgarner atop their rotation. It could work out just as well for Cueto, which is why I argued in this space three weeks ago that he should want to sign with the Giants.

That’s could rather than should. It’s could, because the reason the Giants were able to sign Cueto for a fraction of what Greinke and David Price signed for (and less per year than Jordan Zimmermann got from the Detroit Tigers) is that Cueto carries some mystery along with that 2.71 ERA.

There’s been speculation for months about his health, speculation that didn’t completely go away even when he topped 200 innings for the third time in four seasons, or when he made four more starts in the postseason for the Kansas City Royals.

Cueto’s horrible ALCS start in Toronto raised more questions, even though his two huge postseason wins—Game 5 of the division series and Game 2 of the World Series—were better than anything Price has done in October.

If you’re going to pay a guy $21.7 million a year, you’d like him to be dependable enough that you don’t need to carefully pick where he pitches. The Royals felt a need to arrange their World Series rotation so Cueto would pitch only at home.

Then again, if Cueto came with fewer questions, he’d also come with the same $30-plus-million-a-year price tag as Price and Greinke. Instead, the Giants got him at an amount that allowed them to also sign Jeff Samardzija for five years and $90 million.

With Bumgarner, Cueto and Samardzija at the top of the rotation, the Giants can match up to Arizona’s Greinke, Patrick Corbin and Shelby Miller (and easily top anyone the Los Angeles Dodgers can currently team with Kershaw). The Giants can fill out their rotation with veterans Matt Cain and Jake Peavy or with Chris Heston, who had a 3.95 ERA (and a no-hitter) as a rookie.

The Giants could still use something of an offensive boost. Someone such as Justin Upton or Yoenis Cespedes would work, but as Alex Pavlovic of CSNBayArea.com tweeted Monday afternoon, they’ve probably spent their big money for this winter:

The Giants went into the winter with some money to spend, and with a plan to fulfill their every-other-year destiny. The plan was to sign a difference-making pitcher, and while the Giants’ initial hope was that it would be Greinke, they barely had to course correct when he went to Arizona instead.

They quickly signed Samardzija but had enough money left to get Cueto, too.

He was still out there on the market, the one big pitcher remaining. He had turned down $120 million for six years from the Diamondbacks, and when the winter meetings ended last week there, there was some talk that Cueto and his agent Bryce Dixon had made a mistake.

Instead, Cueto ended up in a place he can thrive, with a manager (Bruce Bochy), pitching coach (Dave Righetti) and catcher (Buster Posey) who have a history of getting the most out of pitchers. He should find every bit the comfort zone he had in Cincinnati—the one he eventually found in Kansas City in time to help the Royals win a World Series.

The Giants and their fans even love a little eccentricity. Check out how the team welcomed Cueto on Twitter:

He has that hair, and he has that ring, the one Greinke and Price are still chasing. That’s got to be worth something.

Something like six years and $130 million.

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

Fortunately for Jason Heyward, the Atlanta Braves thought they had a chance to win in 2010. Unfortunately for Stephen Strasburg, the Washington Nationals knew they didn’t.

Both Heyward and Strasburg were young phenoms that spring. The Braves put Heyward on their Opening Day roster. The Nationals had Strasburg make 11 minor league starts before calling him up for a much-hyped major league debut on June 8.

This matters in December 2015 because Heyward was a free agent who just agreed to a $23 million-per-year contract with the Chicago Cubs. Strasburg is stuck for one more year in a salary-arbitration contract that will likely pay him somewhere around $10 million, and he won’t be a free agent until next winter.

It matters because this year, two players filed grievances complaining about service-time manipulation, bringing the issue to arbitration and raising hopes MLB will find a way to end the ugly but profitable game teams often play with the current rules.

“There’s always flaws in every sport, and over time, things change,” one of the players, Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant, told the Huffington Post’s Jordan Schultz. “Hopefully, this is something that can get changed.”

It won’t be easy for reasons as big as the difference between the Heyward and Giancarlo Stanton contracts. It won’t be easy because we’re talking about millions of dollars—or tens of millions.

The Cubs sent Bryant to the minor leagues after a monster spring training, with manager Joe Maddon explaining, per MLB.com’s Carrie Muskat, that “when you look at the entire picture of development, you’re still looking for a couple other areas to improve a little bit.”

Seventeen days later—conveniently, just long enough to delay Bryant’s free agency by a full year—the Cubs decided his “entire picture of development” had improved just that little bit. Bryant joined the Cubs, became the National League Rookie of the Year and helped carry the Cubs to their first postseason appearance since 2008.

Bryant ended the season with 171 days of service time. Maikel Franco finished with 170 days after the Philadelphia Phillies kept him in the minor leagues until May 15. Both Bryant and Franco filed grievances, as Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports first reported.

Passan suggested the grievances could be resolved during bargaining for baseball’s new collective bargaining agreement and that they could lead to changes in the CBA to limit the service-time game.

As Bryant told the Huffington Post, he’s “kind of going to bat for the people after me.”

And for the rest of us, whose only interest is in seeing the best players compete in the major leagues. The system, as it stands, includes a huge incentive for teams to keep some of those best players out of the major leagues longer than necessary.

It’s been going on for years, from Evan Longoria with the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays to Strasburg and Stanton in 2010 with the Nationals and Florida Marlins, respectively. It’s hard to blame teams for doing it because not only is there big money at stake, but the extra year before free agency can help them keep a key player for one more year.

And that’s exactly why it will be tough to get the system changed, even if Bryant or Franco wins his grievance or if new rules are negotiated because of the grievances.

No matter how they draw it up, there has to be some dividing line to decide when a player is eligible for free agency. No matter how they set that up, a team can gain by delaying when players cross that line.

Perhaps a player could gain his first full year of service time if he has even 75 days in the major leagues that year, or 100 days (rather than the full 172). Teams could still hold top players back, but the penalty for doing it would be much greater.

If the Cubs had held Bryant back to make sure he ended 2015 with fewer than 100 days, it easily could have cost them their playoff spot.

One American League executive said Sunday the Franco decision could impact teams more than the Bryant ruling because what the Cubs did with Bryant seemed so “obvious.” What the Phillies did with Franco, while also fishy, seemed more like what many teams do with many players every year.

If you don’t believe it, read what Passan wrote for Yahoo about Strasburg back in April 2010:

All that’s preventing Strasburg from pitching Sunday in the big leagues, as opposed to Altoona, Pa., is a clause in baseball’s collective-bargaining agreement that for 20 years has encouraged teams to keep their most talented players in the minor leagues simply to avoid paying them more in the long run.

He was right then, and what has happened to Strasburg since has proved it. Strasburg is still with the Nationals, still not eligible for free agency for another year.

And the Braves?

With Heyward having a big rookie year, they did make the playoffs in 2010. But they traded Heyward last offseason, knowing he was already within a year of free agency. The deal helped them in their rebuilding process, but they were forced into it because back in 2010 they were the rare team that didn’t try to game the system.

Five years later, maybe it’s time to change the system.

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

The 2015 MLB offseason has been a major bummer for Chris Davis and Yoenis Cespedes.

The winter meetings are fading into the background and those free-agent mashers are still hunting for that lucrative, and to this point, elusive, payday.

The big leaguers who crack the list that follows fall into two camps. The first are prominent free agents like Crush Davis and La Potencia, whose respective markets have been slow to materialize. Some of those free-agents are stuck unaccounted for because they’re attached to draft pick compensation.

The second group are players whose names have been swirling around in the trade winds, but whose chances of actually getting moved look bleak. Some are playing on outsized contracts that don’t match their on-field production. Others, have ended up here because they’ve dealt with issues in the clubhouse or away from the diamond entirely.

Begin Slideshow

Understatement: St. Louis Cardinals fans have not taken the news well that Jason Heyward has left for Chicago.

After the report that the outfielder signed an eight-year, $184 million deal with the Cubs, according to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, some fans took a page out of Cleveland’s book and opted to give J-Hey a warm, crackling farewell a la LeBron James—burning his jersey, of course.

Considering the Cardinals lost pitcher John Lackey to Chi-Town as well, it’s not surprising to see at least one fan become unhinged. Division rivalries make people do crazy things.

[h/t The Score]

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

FRIDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: We told ourselves we were only going to deal with transactions during the winter meetings, which ended Thursday afternoon. But some things are too big to ignore, so with the news that free-agent outfielder Jason Heyward has chosen the Chicago Cubs (first reported by Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times), we’ve added an 11th transaction.

The 2015 MLB winter meetings included one trade so big you could write a whole column about it. In fact, I did.

The winter meetings didn’t include the largest free-agent contract (by annual value) in major league history, but the Arizona Diamondbacks did make Zack Greinke’s signing official during them.

These weren’t the most active winter meetings of all time. Officially, 45 players changed teams between Monday morning and Thursday afternoon, the exact same number that moved at the 2014 meetings.

Some deals were small. Did you know the Oakland A’s traded pitcher Evan Scribner to the Seattle Mariners in exchange for pitcher Trey Cochran-Gill?

Perhaps that has a significant impact on the 2016 season, but right now we’re guessing it won’t. So we’ll stick to what we’ll call the 10 impact deals (some in combination) of the 2015 MLB winter meetings.

If there’s another deal announced Friday, don’t blame us for missing it. The meetings ended Thursday afternoon.

So here we go.

Begin Slideshow