Back in 2008, Edinson Volquez shone near as brightly as any young starter in the game. The 24-year-old, acquired from Texas the previous winter for Josh Hamilton, used his low-90s heat and devastating changeup to post a 3.21 ERA and 4.2 Wins Above Replacement in nearly 200 innings. Since then, however, his standing has dimmed considerably. Volquez succumbed to Tommy John surgery in 2009, got slapped with a 50-game PED suspension in 2010 and got lit up and demoted to the minors in 2011. He has been worth just 0.8 WAR over the past three years, with a 5.01 ERA in 221 frames.

It seems odd, then, to suggest that a pitcher coming off three lost seasons could be a bargain in 2012. But Volquez still has strikeout stuff and shouldn’t have near as much of a problem keeping the ball in the park next season as he did in 2011, especially with his move west to Petco as part of San Diego’s haul for Mat Latos. If Volquez can at least show passable control — particularly against lefties — he could provide a nice return on investment in the later rounds on draft day.

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Jimmy Rollins inked a 3-year deal with the Phillies this weekend. Since he is staying with the Phillies, not much changed with his surroundings. The 33-year-old’s main issue is that he is fairly old for a SS and age is beginning to bring down his stats.

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The final tier of our closer keeper rankings are the capital-C closers. The guys that will get save chances without the guarantee of even average performance. Some are even injury risks, but because these fellas are locked into ninth inning jobs for the time being, they’ll end up on our rosters.

I’ve included Zach Sanders’ end of season player rankings for reference, but they weren’t the only criteria used to create the rankings or delineate the tiers.

Tier One (link)
Craig Kimbrel
John Axford
Jonathan Papelbon
Mariano Rivera

Tier Two (link)
Ryan Madson
Joakim Soria (late add)
Brian Wilson
J.J. Putz
Jose Valverde
Heath Bell
Rafael Betancourt (late add)

Tier Three (link)
Drew Storen
Joel Hanrahan
Kyle Farnsworth
Carlos Marmol
Sergio Santos
Jordan Walden

Tier Four (link)
Andrew Bailey
Matt Thornton
Brandon League
Mark Melancon
Jason Motte
Frank Francisco

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As we saw through last week’s series of articles, there’s been quite a lot of talk about the Fan/RotoGraphs Dynasty Mock Draft.  Yes, there seemed to be a bit of confusion — two people thought it was a regular keeper draft rather than a dynasty one — but lost in the mundane and repetitive critique of that aspect was the true meaning of a mock draft.  Its is a test.  It is a guideline.  It is a tool.  You use a mock draft to gauge where particular players are going; where certain positions come off the board in a run.  It certainly isn’t the gospel, but while the calendar hasn’t even flipped to January and offseason player movement has far from ceased, it’s definitely a useful piece of information from which to get started.  That being said, we’re going to wrap up its coverage with a listing of the catchers that went, where they came off the board, and a few notes along the way.

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There’s no place like home. No one knows this more than Mat Latos, who called the cavernous Petco Park his home over the last three and a half seasons. That all changed on Saturday, as Latos was traded to the Cincinnati Reds for a bevy of prospects. While Latos has shown flashes of greatness in the past, we’ve seen Petco Park make pitchers look substantially better than they deserve. With Latos moving to one of the more hitter-friendly ballparks in the National League, how much can we expect him to regress?

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It is hard to believe, but mock draft season is already in full force. According to Mock Draft Central’s latest ADP report, there have already been 109 qualifying drafts, as well as 3 expert drafts. What’s cool about their ADP reports is that they publish the expert league ADPs separately so you can compare what the industry is thinking about a player with how the general public feels. I thought it would be interesting to see which players had the large differences between their regular ADP and expert league ADP. Below are the 10 players with the biggest differences, with the one caveat being that at least one of the ADP values had to represent a pick in the top 10 rounds. So any player with both ADP values above 120 were eliminated.

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There’s a saying in fantasy that I’ve heard for evaluating potential deals: Whoever gets the best player usually wins the trade. This isn’t always the case, but it has served me pretty well in my dealings. The San Diego-Cincinnati swap that sent Mat Latos — the best player in the deal in my opinion — to the NL Central might be the exception to that rule. San Diego may have delayed their next period of competitiveness by dealing Latos for prospects, but they definitely improved the team at a number of positions and cut down on their costs in the meantime.

Latos himself will be covered at length in another piece, but here is how moving to San Diego will affect the pieces headed west.

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As you all are aware by now, us Rotographers held a very early mock draft this past Sunday. The team has done a great job breaking down and analyzing the selections at the respective positions they cover. Now, it’s my turn to take a look at the shortstop selections. I’m not going to talk about every player picked, only the ones I found interesting.

R1 P1: Troy Tulowitzki
R1 P11: Hanley Ramirez
R2 P7: Jose Reyes

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The strange square dance of Josh Willingham, Michael Cuddyer, the Twins, and the Rockies seems finally to have ended, and everyone — for the time being anyway — is happy with their new partner. The Twins get a player with a consistent track record of .800 OPS or better, the Rockies get the player they wanted from the start of the offseason, Willingham gets the starting job he deserves, and Cuddyer gets $10 million more than Willingham despite not really being that different a player in the outfield.

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Sometime soon, Bryce Harper will be hittin’ bombs and blowin’ kisses as the Washington Nationals’ right fielder. But could “soon” actually be this spring? The most hyped prospect in draft history might have actually exceeded expectations at age 18 during his first pro season, hitting .297/.392/.501 with 17 home runs between the Low Class-A South Atlantic League and the Double-A Eastern League in 2011. And, according to Amanda Comak of The Washington Times, Nats manager Davey Johnson seems eager to get Harper’s 80-grade power in his lineup:

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