The San Diego Padres have a homefield advantage unlike any other. Petco Park is an extreme pitcher’s park, suppressing offense to just 80.6% of a neutral environment over the last three seasons according to ESPN’s park factors. Add in the great weather and beautiful city, and you’ve got a great destination for free agent starters looking to rebuild their value. This offseason’s reclamation product is local boy Aaron Harang, once on of fantasy’s top starters.

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Red Sox GM Theo Epstein has done a bang up job strengthening his team this offseason, and I’m not just talking about the Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford pickups. He’s remade one of the game’s least effective bullpens in part by picking up righty killer Dan Wheeler and former White Sox closer Bobby Jenks as free agents. In winter that has seen three-year contracts handed out to relievers like candy, the Sox got Jenks and Wheeler for three contract years combined. What does this mean for saves in Boston?

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While everyone in New York and around the country is focused on the free agent the Yankees didn’t sign, let’s talk about the one they did. MLB.com’s Alden Gonzalez reports that the team has signed catcher Russell Martin to contract of unknown terms (presumably one year), and he’ll now take over as their regular starting catcher with Jorge Posada shifting into the designated hitter role. The move impacts not just those two, but uberprospect Jesus Montero as well.

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Adam Dunn and the White Sox seemed like a fit since day one. Kenny Williams wanted a lefty run producer, and Dunn wanted a lot of years and a lot of money. It was a match made in hot stove heaven, and you can insert a generic “Dunn deal” pun here. Four years and $56M took care of things, and now one of the game’s premier power hitters joins a team that sorely needed a left-handed thumper.

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Everyone’s looking for the next big fantasy starter in the mid-to-late rounds of the draft, hoping it clicks for a young player finally given a chance or that a veteran takes an unexpected step forward. Three years ago I managed to grab Cliff Lee out of the free agent pool before everyone else, and two years ago I gambled on Josh Johnson in a mid-teen round. While I was enjoying JJ’s breakout season, someone else in my league was enjoying Jorge de la Rosa’s.

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Let’s take a quick look at the fantasy impact of a trio of recent transactions…

Huff Re-Ups With The Giants

Aubrey Huff went from a man without a job in January to a .388 wOBA in the regular season, helping the Giants to their first World Championship in San Francisco. GM Brian Sabean committed one of baseball’s cardinal sins when he re-signed Huff for big money after he played hero, especially when his performance showed signs of regression during the season and into the playoffs. After coming out of the gate with a .409 wOBA and 20 homers in the season’s first four months, he dipped down to a (still solid) .349 wOBA with just six homers from August onward. His playoff performance (.292 wOBA) wasn’t much to write about either.

With no significant change in his batted ball profile (a few less grounders, a few more line drives) and minimal improvements in his contact and plate discipline rates, there’s little evidence of a real change in Huff’s approach and underlying performance. That’s not to say he won’t be productive in 2010, just don’t expect another extended Albert Pujols impersonation, certainly not at that age (34 next month) and not in that park.

Garland Goes Back To LA

Jon Garland’s had himself a heck of a career, amassing 23.3 WAR (16.2 in the last six seasons) and soaking up innings like few others. His fantasy value is minimal because of a measly strikeout rate (4.84 K/9 career) and a tendency to put a lot of men on base, but he’ll get you double digit wins and shouldn’t blow up your ERA. The most from the Padres to the Dodgers does little, Garland’s basically the same guy he always was.

Uribe Cashes In

Two offseasons ago, Juan Uribe had to settle for minor league contract and an invitation to Spring Training. Now he’s busy celebrating a three year contract that will put $7M in his pocket on annual basis. He brings his ~.200 ISO to the Dodgers, where he’ll slide in at second base. Uribe’s best asset is his multi-position eligibility and ability to approach, if not exceed, 20 homers on an annual basis. The change in run environments won’t do much to his value; he’ll still kill you in an OBP league but serve as a fine second or third tier option at either middle infield spot in regular leagues.

The Marlins, like the Dodgers, wasted no time filling out their pitching staff this offseason. They agreed to a one-year deal worth $7MM with Javier Vazquez yesterday, trading a full no-trade clause for a discount on the sticker price. Javy moves to a friendlier run environment and gets a crack at rebuilding his value before going back out onto the market next season, but more importantly for him, he’s nice and close to his family in Puerto Rico. A physical is all that stands in the way of the deal being a physical, but it’s not a given.

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The first big name free agent came off the board earlier this week, when the Tigers finalized a four-year, $50MM contract with catcher/first baseman/designated hitter Victor Martinez. GM Dave Dombrowski confirmed that his latest pickup will serve as the team’s primary DH in 2011, with a few catching and first base assignments mixed in every so often. The move obviously improves Detroit’s offensive attack, but what does it do for Martinez’s fantasy value?

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This summer I played in the deepest league I’ve ever played in, a 20-team mixed league with traditional 5×5 scoring plus OBP and Quality Starts*. It basically came down to who had the best injury luck and made the shrewdest waiver wire/free agency pick ups (i.e. whoever grabbed Jose Bautista first). My offense was fine, propped up by Robinson Cano, Jayson Werth, Hanley Ramirez, Carlos Gonzalez, and (eventually) David Ortiz. I can’t say the same about my pitching staff.

Cole Hamels and (especially) Wandy Rodriguez started slowly before having monster second halves, and the same was true for Brian Matusz. Dallas Braden was solid yet unspectacular (I had him on the bench for the perfect game figuring the Rays would hit him around), but Ben Sheets was pretty much a flop before getting hurt. My most consistent starter all year was C.J. Wilson. My weekly ERA and WHIP pretty much sucked, and the wins were scarce.

My team was still competitive thanks to the offense and luck, but the pitching staff needed work. I started to pursue trades rather aggressively in early-June but after a week or two I gave up. Quality pitching was hard to come by in this league and everyone knew it, so if you wanted a good starter you were going to have to overpay. Frustrated but in need of some kind of fix, I gave up on starters and instead turned to the free agent pool for middle relievers. Not closers and not necessarily setup men either, but guys that pitched a fair amount of innings with high strikeouts rates.

In the first week of Operation Middle Reliever I grabbed Hong-Chih Kuo (this was long before Jonathan Broxton fell apart), Arthur Rhodes, Darren Oliver, Mike Adams, and a rookie just breaking in by the name of Jonny Venters. All five had sky high strikeout rates at the time and were getting a boatload of work, so I figured it was worth a shot. Here’s what they gave me that first week…

15 IP, 11 H, 6 R, 5 ER, 7 BB, 19 K (3.00 ERA, 1.20 WHIP)

The numbers would have been better if it wasn’t for Rhodes’ first meltdown of the season, a 0 IP, 3 H, 3 ER effort that put the always scary “inf” in his ERA and WHIP columns for a few days. Aside from that, the overall production is pretty damn good, basically the same as adding two good starters to my staff. Our league carried 3 SP, 2 RP, and 3 P starting spots, so from that point on I had four or five middle relievers going every night. As the season progressed I got a better handle on things and leveraged my roster spots by keeping track of workloads (via Daily Baseball Data). The production was solid and best of all, there’s a seemingly limitless supply of these kind of relievers available. If someone got hurt or hit a rough patch, a capable replacement was just a few clicks away. Trust me, those were just the first five relievers I picked up, there was another dozen or so that came in and out as the season went on.

There’s a downside as well. Blow-ups like the one Rhodes had are inevitable and can screw up your week rather easily. If two relievers have performances like that, I basically done for the week. I was also close to punting QS, though things improved there once Hamels, Wandy, and Matusz hit their strides late. Roster efficiency was another issue; I needed four or five guys to give me the production I could be getting from two or three. I was pretty desperate for help, but the strategy worked. I finished the year with the best regular season record in the league but ultimately lost in the Championship Round.

While I recommend going heavy on quality middle relievers in deep leagues, my best advice to make sure you have good starters. I know it’s a helluva lot easier said than done, but I wouldn’t go into the season counting on bullpeners to carry my pitching staff. If you need help at midseason and aren’t willing to meet to asking price for starters in a trade, grab some high strikeout relief arms to tide you over. Don’t try to catch lightning in a bottle with sketchy starters.

* Not a fan of QS in fantasy, probably won’t use them again.

Not a whole lot went right for the Brewers in 2010, especially on the pitching side of things. Ryan Braun failed to hit at least 30 homers for the first time in his career, Prince Fielder continued a trend of being merely very good and not holy crap good in even-numbered years, and Trevor Hoffman was below replacement level despite soaking up close to 9% of the team’s payroll.

There was certainly some good, however. Rickie Weeks finally stayed healthy and put together a six-win season, Corey Hart rediscovered his power stroke, and an unheralded 2008 waiver claim by the name of Casey McGehee built upon his 2009 success (.367 wOBA) and emerged as an above-average player at the hot corner. His .346 wOBA was the most production Milwaukee got out of the position since Braun’s rookie season, before he moved to the outfield.

McGehee was a nice surprise for fantasy owners too, especially those who didn’t grab one of the position’s elite producers early in the draft (or Jose Bautista from the free agent pool). Here’s where his production ranked among all third baseman in the core fantasy categories this season…

AVG: .285 (6th)
OBP: .337 (10th)
SLG: .464 (8th)
HR: 23 (8th)
RBI: 104 (tied for 3rd)
R: 70 (13th)
SB: 1 (negligible)

It’s rock solid production, better overall than guys like Mark Reynolds, Mike Young, and Aramis Ramirez, all of whom were drafted much higher than McGehee on average yet had down seasons for whatever reason. At 28-years-old (well, he will be next week) and basically the prime of his career, is this the kind of performance we can expect out of McGehee going forward?

The power numbers didn’t come out of nowhere. McGehee hit double digit homers in four of his five full minor league seasons, then swatted 16 in just 394 plate appearances in 2009. Hit Tracker considers 14 of his 23 homer this year to be “Just Enoughs,” meaning they cleared the fence by less than ten vertical feet or landed less than one fence height beyond the wall. It’s the second highest total of Just Enoughs in the NL (and MLB) behind Adrian Gonzalez (who has extreme ballpark issues), and as you can imagine those are the most volatile homers on a year-to-year basis given the margin of error. That’s not to say that McGehee is due for a huge homerun drop-off next season, but we can’t just brush it under the rug.

McGehee also took advantage of southpaws in 2010, tagging them for a .399 wOBA (158 PA) compared to just .327 against righties (452 PA). It’s a small sample, but enough of one to boost his overall production. He also raked at home (.375 wOBA vs. .316), so there’s two significant splits that should raise some eyebrows. Is the output against lefties just small sample size noise? Miller Park is generally neutral, perhaps favoring pitchers a bit, so why such the large gap? McGehee doesn’t have enough of a track record to know if this is sustainable production, or if it’s just an outlier.

That said, he’s still a solid third base option, perhaps as high as eighth or ninth on most draft boards. Weeks, Braun, and Fielder will get on base enough in front of him to create RBI opportunities, and he hits enough line drives and ground balls to keep his average in an acceptable range. We don’t know all that much about him after a season-and-a-half, but McGehee’s 2010 season is unlikely to be a complete fluke that fools us all, yet there’s definitely a little risk going forward. Probably not enough to consider passing on him in the double digit rounds, especially if you whiffed on a high end third baseman early.