Baseball players are often described—or describe themselves—as creatures of habit. And at no time is their adherence to routine more evident than during their methodical preparation for the season, when they shake off a winter’s worth of rust and ramp up for the coming campaign. Pitchers, especially, are dependent on spring training to build up arm strength, incorporate new offerings into their arsenals, and learn to work with their batterymates. But every three (or, starting in 2009, four) springs, including this coming one, an event takes place that threatens to disrupt that routine: the World Baseball Classic. The timing of the tournament has caused concerns that pitchers who choose to participate in it could be adversely affected, which likely explains why the United States squad that was announced on Thursday, while stocked with star position players, is relatively short on impact pitching talent.

There’s some basis for this fear. In May of 2006, not long after the first World Baseball Classic concluded, Nate Silver observed that the pitchers who’d taken part in the tournament had performed far worse to that point in the regular season than PECOTA had predicted, prior to Opening Day, that they would. The pitchers had posted a collective 5.08 ERA in over 1,000 innings compared to a projected mark of 4.10. Some of the difference was attributable to a higher-octane league-wide offensive environment than PECOTA had anticipated, but even after accounting for that discrepancy, the WBC pitchers’ performance still stood out as particularly poor. Starting pitchers with WBC experience began the regular season with especially disappointing results.

In all the many media entities based on the Sherlock Holmes character created by Arthur Conan Doyle, there had never before 2012 (to my knowledge) been one in which Holmes applied his deductive skills to baseball. Nor would one expect there to be, since 19th-century London—traditionally Holmes’ home—was not a hotbed of baseball analysis. But since his character was created, Holmes has become an accomplished traveler in both space and time, making it possible to conduct two TV shows and a movie franchise based on his character concurrently. And, thanks to the newest of those shows, also making it possible to expose the world’s most famous fictional detective to baseball.

The CBS procedural Elementary, now approaching the end of its first season, reimagines Holmes as a tattooed modern-day detective, freshly released from rehab and relocated from London, who offers his consulting services to the NYPD. And it takes Elementary all of one episode to bring up baseball, as if to remind the viewer that this is Sherlock Holmes in New York, like you’ve never seen him before. The scene, which I’ve embedded below, comes at the end of the pilot and shows Sherlock (Jonny Lee Miller) and Watson (Lucy Liu) winding down after a long day of deducing by watching the Mets.

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We don't typically think of particular player types as being associated with certain teams. There are some exceptions that seem to persist over time: the Rockies go after groundballers, for instance, and the Yankees tend to target lefty-swinging sluggers. But those teams' player preferences are tied to their ballparks. If the Rockies played at a lower altitude or the Yankees found they could fit in another luxury box by making their outfield fences more symmetrical, they would adapt to their new surroundings and stop pursuing the same sort of player.

Other apparent preferences are illusions or short-term trends based on temporary team composition or the whims of one front-office regime. The A’s, for a while, liked fat guys, but then they discovered defense. The Royals, under Dayton Moore, have a thing for former Braves. The Tigers, under Dave Dombrowski and scouting director David Chadd, have a reputation for liking big pitchers who throw hard. But that’s almost an obvious affinity, sort of like saying a team favors hitters who hit the ball far. The Tigers might like pitchers who throw hard a little more than most teams, and they might be a bit more willing to overlook the shortcomings of pitchers who fit that profile. But what team doesn’t like big pitchers who throw hard?

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At this point in the offseason, few impact free agents remain on the market, save for Scott Boras clients who’ve been hurt by the new CBA’s draft pick compensation system. Assuming Mike Napoli and Francisco Liriano eventually ink with the Red Sox and Pirates, respectively, only seven of the top 50 free agents have yet to find a home.

However, there are still some decent values waiting to be dug up by teams that are willing to look in the bargain bin. Last year, injury reclamation projects like Bartolo Colon, Oliver Perez, and Pat Neshek, bench bats like Jonny Gomes, Jeff Keppinger, Wilson Betemit, and Gregor Blanco, and unremarkable relievers like Fernando Rodney all went on to have strong seasons after signing in January, most of them with contending teams. (Rodney, who entered the year with a 4.42 ERA in his previous five seasons, became one of 2012’s best stories, posting a 0.60 ERA and finishing fifth in AL Cy Young voting.)

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Appearing on MLB Network in the wake of yesterday’s non-elections, Jon Heyman looked like a broken man. Visibly deflated (unless that’s just how everyone who sits close to Tom Verducci looks by comparison), Heyman called Morris’ stagnant results—just three votes and one percentage point higher than last year’s, leaving him well short of the magic 75 percent mark with one year of eligibility remaining—“unfair” and “a real shame," even going so far as to suggest that Morris was “mistreated.” After the segment, Heyman took to Twitter to get a head start on the decisive 2014 voting, which will, one way or another, drive a stake into the heart of these delightful end-of-year debates:

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Being a baseball rumormonger is a difficult job to do well. First, you spend years building a network of sources who can and will tell you interesting things about baseball teams. Even after you’ve collected your contacts, be prepared to put in long hours and work weekends to stay ahead of the story or be the first to break it. Don’t expect to sleep or be seen without a cell phone.

However, the job has its perks: attract a large enough following, and you can create your own stories. Slow news day? Pick a highly coveted player whom it might make some sort of sense for a team to trade. Ask an executive who works for that team if there’s any chance that said player might be moved. If the executive says the player won’t be traded under any circumstances, you have a story, or what passes for a story in the MLBTR/Twitter era. If the executive allows even the slightest sliver of a possibility that the player might be available, you have a story that lives a long time and begets a long line of other stories, like something straight out of the Old Testament. What is he worth, and what might it take to trade for him? Which teams might match up? Will the team still be willing to trade him tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow? What about the day after that?

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Michael Bourn turns 30 today, but barring a buzzer-beating offer, he won’t get the gift of a new contract until after his birthday. Bourn, the highest-ranked free agent remaining on the market, hasn’t attracted the widespread interest that he and agent Scott Boras had hoped for. Some teams may be concerned that the center fielder’s speed-based skill set could suffer once he loses a step; others might be reluctant or unwilling to forfeit the draft pick Bourn would cost them because of the qualifying offer he received from the Braves. Regardless of their reasons for looking elsewhere, several potential buyers for Bourn have already removed themselves from the running by making other moves: the Nationals, Phillies, Reds, and A’s have landed center fielders via trade, while the Giants and Braves have invested in other free agents, re-signing Angel Pagan and bringing in B.J. Upton, respectively.

It’s still too soon for Bourn to panic or consider seeking new representation. While it’s possible that he’ll have to settle for the so-called “pillow contract” that some Boras clients have had to swallow when their expected megadeals never materialized, Boras has often wangled the biggest possible payday by waiting until late in the offseason, when some teams are desperate for an upgrade and there are few attractive alternatives to his high-profile clients.

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There comes a point in every fantasy draft when one owner drafts a particular player at a certain position—shortstop, let’s say—which reminds every other owner that they also need a shortstop and that there are only so many good ones left to go around. The ensuing collective hysteria causes a run on anyone eligible at that position, and by the time the league comes to its senses, Clint Barmes is the only shortstop still standing.

That’s essentially what happened on the Friday before Christmas, except with injury-prone starting pitchers. On Friday morning, the Twins signed Rich Harden. On Friday afternoon, determined not to be locked out of the injury-prone-pitcher market, the Indians signed Scott Kazmir and the Mariners followed suit by signing Jeremy Bonderman. (Brandon Webb is still somewhere on the board.) Realistically, except for their fingerprints, not much ties the current Kazmir, Harden, and Bonderman to the versions who had success several seasons ago. But the names are still notable, and the faces are still familiar, so we can't help but wonder whether the stuff might still be similar too.

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Back when I played fantasy baseball, I used to get attached to particular players, whom I’d try (within reason) to acquire year after year. This was probably the worst possible way to play fantasy baseball. A good fantasy player (or major-league general manager, for that matter) thinks only about value and doesn’t care where it comes from. It doesn’t make sense to be sentimental: players who are valuable (or at least undervalued) one year can be worthless or (overvalued) the next, and paying for past performance instead of projection is a reliable way to make mistakes. Getting too attached to particular players was an especially lousy strategy in a league like mine, which was filled with friends who knew whom I’d taken a shine to. There was a period of a year or two when it was well known that I would have traded my own grandmother (or worse, someone much better at baseball) to get Dave Bush. (Yes, Dave Bush. Also Conor Jackson. The time commitment wasn’t the only reason I gave up the game.)

Not only did I have a tendency to get attached to particular players, but I was also a sucker for players who could do more than one thing: relievers who could slide into a rotation slot on a day when someone else wasn’t starting, bench players who could fill in at several positions when others had offdays. And I was biased toward players who walked a lot. Not because walks helped my fantasy team—until I convinced the other owners to add on-base percentage as a category, it hardly helped at all—but because I’d recently read Moneyball. And lastly, I liked injured players. I could always convince myself that someone who’d been hurt before was a bargain and a bounceback waiting to happen instead of a chronic injury case. Basically, any success I had in fantasy I had because I was obsessive about setting my lineup and because I was looking at some stats other owners weren’t aware of. Otherwise, I was the worst.

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With only 50 days remaining until the first February report dates—and 100 until Opening Day—most teams have already crossed off the majority of the items on their winter to-do lists, and only a handful of the top 20 free agents are still looking for work. But while many of baseball’s best clubs have stayed busy bringing in new players or bringing back old ones, a few of the teams that made (or came close to making) the playoffs last season have been quiet. Here’s a look at four teams with more tumbleweeds than transactions this winter:

Baltimore Orioles
Biggest move they’ve made: Re-signing Nate McLouth to a one-year contract
Why they haven’t been busier: The Orioles went from last place to the playoffs without making many major moves last winter, and they didn’t stop tinkering after Opening Day. Unlike the Yankees, who’ve spent much of the winter trying to keep or replace free agents, the O’s entered the offseason with most of their important players under team control for 2013. However, they will have to pony up for arbitration raises, which restricts their financial flexibility.
Will they wish they’d done more? The Orioles’ run differential didn’t prevent them from making the playoffs last season, but the odds aren’t good that they’ll be able to replicate their 29-9 regular-season record in one-run games. Balitmore can hope for better health and better production from their young players, but with their division rivals all active since October, the O’s run a real risk of falling prey to the Plexiglas Principle and losing ground to the teams they leapfrogged last season.
What might they still do? Last winter, Dan Duquette waited until January to sign Wei-Yin Chen and February to trade for Jason Hammel, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he took the patient approach again. This year, Joe Saunders is the most likely late entry to the rotation. It’s a long shot, but the O’s have also been linked to Adam LaRoche, who’d fit in nicely at first with Mark Reynolds off the roster.

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Through his first four starts and 26 1/3 innings of 2012, Braves starter Mike Minor allowed one home run, striking out 21 and walking five. He had a 3.42 ERA, and the Braves were 3-1 when he pitched.

Then came his next six starts. In those six starts (four of which Atlanta lost) and 31 2/3 innings, Minor still struck out 30, but he walked 16 and gave up 12 home runs—as many as Tim Hudson allowed all season. Minor’s outings got so ugly that on May 21st, after the fifth of those sixth starts, Fredi Gonzalez defended him—sort of—by saying, “he only gave up four solo home runs.”

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Winning baseball teams—at least the ones without exorbitant payrolls—are usually powered by young, cost-controlled talent. And in the land of cost-controlled talent, the top prospect is king. Not only do elite prospects stand a good chance to be stars, but they promise to provide that production—which would cost a fortune to obtain from a free agent—for the league-minimum salary or something close to it.

Since top prospects are such valuable commodities, teams are reluctant to trade them without receiving huge hauls in return, so we rarely see them change organizations before they’ve had a chance to sink or swim in the majors. That’s why it was so strange to see two top prospects—Wil Myers and Trevor Bauer, each of whom either is now or has recently been a top-10 prospect in baseball—on the move this week.

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