Braves sign R.A. Dickey and Bartolo Colon

Well, the Braves used to be a young, rebuilding team. Now they are a slightly older rebuilding team. Signing the pair helps solidify the Braves rotation and suck up a ton of innings.

As for the changes in fantasy implications, I see none for Bartolo Colon. He is staying in the same division and still on a decent offense to get Wins. As long as he continues to command his 88 mph fastball, he will be playable in deep leagues and as a spot starter. I am pretty sure people know what they are getting from him at this point in his career.

The R.A. Dickey signing is a little more interesting. Dickey has been pretty much irrelevant in the past couple of seasons except for generating a ton of subpar rate stats for the teams brave or desperate enough to roster him.

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Playing a little catch-up from the holidays, here are the fantasy implications from the latest impact moves and they aren’t all former Cincinnati Reds:

(Remember, you can follow all the move analysis here)

Johnny Cueto signs with SF

If a pitcher who struggled mightily like Jeff Samardzija gets a major boost by joining the Giants, then you can only imagine what it could do for Cueto. Overall, he had a fantastic season and has been  one of the best pitchers in baseball for the last five seasons. He sputtered some with KC, allowing a ton more hits while striking out two fewer batters per nine innings. He closed strong with a World Series complete game, but he’s likely thrilled to return to the Senior Circuit.

Homers usually get Cueto when he’s off. He had a 1.1 HR/9 with KC including outings of 4 and 3 HR. AT&T Park is the spot to stifle homers. That’s something Fangraphs, Statcorner, and ESPN can all agree upon when it comes to measuring park factors. This is a great move for the Giants to solidify their rotation with a big three in Madison Bumgarner, Cueto, and then Samardzija. All of a sudden, the burden on Jake Peavy and Matt Cain is much lower and Chris Heston is now the fill-in if one of them fails.

Impact: ++ for Cueto, – for Heston

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My headline would’ve been way better if Todd Frazier was traded somewhere south of Cincinnati. It’s pretty dope, though, right? RIGHT? He was the centerpiece to a three-team trade with the Dodgers, White Sox, and of course the Reds. The Dodgers and Reds each got a three-pack of prospects which we’ll get to shortly, but first let’s focus on Frazier with the White Sox.

Third base has long been an issue for the White Sox. In fact, when they first hired Robin Ventura it was to be the third baseman again, but after informed them that he was 44 years old and wouldn’t be any better than the dregs they were running out there already, he shifted into the manager’s role and they went with Orlando Hudson (50 wRC+ in 51 games) and Brent Morel (11 in 35) before getting the last bit of juice out of Kevin Youkilis for the second half of the season (110 in 80 and then he was done after just 28 games with NYY the following season).

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Jason Heyward and Ben Zobrist signed with the Cubs

The signing of both players by the Cubs points to two major impacts, a good Cubs offense and Javier Baez doesn’t have a full-time job. Starting with the offense, the Cubs don’t really have any holes except at catcher and there are worse catchers than Miguel Montero. If last year’s rookies (Russell, Bryant, Schwaber, and Soler) continue to grow and don’t regress too much, the Cubs could put up a ton of runs. This means plenty of Runs and RBI for every Cub. They will also get more at-bats since fewer outs are being made so more offense. It tough to put an exact number on the run increase, but I would not be surprised to see them challenge the Rockies for the most runs scored next season.

I just don’t see how Javier Baez is going to get regular playing time with Zobrist at second base and Russell at short. Zobrist gives the Cubs some flexibility to give some others a day off and Baez could fill in. Baez may only be looking at 200 plate appearances unless another starter has a major injury or a second-year player has a huge slump. I could see the Cubs move Baez in a trade.

Not much else really changed. The Cubs pitchers may see a small increase in value with Heyward in the outfield. Over the course of a season, Wrigley Field plays pitcher-friendly in the cold spring and then heats up in the mid-summer, so the pair’s offense will stay the same. Heyward and Zobrist are pretty much done stealing bases, so I don’t any movement in that category.

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Yesterday included one of my favorite activities of the offseason – the Rule 5 draft. If you’re not familiar with it, the Rule 5 draft is when teams have a chance to select players from rival franchises. Here are the main rules:

• Any player on the 40-man roster is protected
• Players signed at age 19 or older are protected for four seasons
• Players signed at age 18 or older are protected for five seasons

If none of those conditions apply to a player, then he may be selected in the draft. Draft picks cost $50K and the drafting team must keep a player on the major league roster for the entire season in order to retain him. Injured players must spend at least 90 active days on the roster.

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Jeff and I will be covering the fantasy implications of key transactions all winter long here at Rotographs. You can catch up on past deals here. The Winter Meetings wrap up early today with the Rule 5 Draft, but the last full day of action gave us a couple more high-impact trades:

To HOU: Ken Giles

To PHI: Vincent Velasquez, Brett Oberholtzer, Derek Fisher, and Thomas Eshelman

Primary piece(s): It seemed pretty clear that it was a “when” not “if” situation regarding the Astros acquiring a closer. They have been tied to all the available big-time closers and finally landed their guy in Giles. This might actually work out best as others they were targeting either lacked long-term control (Aroldis Chapman – I’m not ignoring his awfulness off the field, but that came to pass when Houston was already out of the running) or cost a pretty penny for said control (Andrew Miller).

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Jeff and I will be covering the fantasy implications of the Winter Meetings moves all week long here at Rotographs. You can catch up on past deals here. Tuesday night offered up two nice fantasy-relevant deals and then a Wednesday morning deal came in as I was finishing this up!

To NYY: Starlin Castro

To CHC: Adam Warren

Primary piece(s): Warren performed better last year, but he is unlikely to have a role relevant to all fantasy leagues making Castro the piece that matters most here. Castro enters his age-26 with six full MLB seasons – four good, two bad. Unfortunately, the two bad have come within the last three, including 2015. Castro hasn’t really run since 2012 with just a 55% success rate in 33 attempts. His path to resurgent fantasy value is with the bat.

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Jeff and I will be covering the fantasy implications of the Winter Meetings moves all week long here at Rotographs. Jeff has already done some pieces on earlier signings including his most recent on the huge pitching deals made this weekend. Let’s take a look at the three most recent deals of note, chronologically which happens to put them in order of least-to-most impactful for fantasy purposes, too.

–The Chapman deal isn’t done yet, so I’m holding off, especially since we don’t even have a general idea of the returns for Cincy–

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David Price signed with the Red Sox

As a whole, the David Price signing doesn’t change his perception or ranking. He is back in the AL East where he made a majority of his career starts. Fenway is a bit of a hitter’s park, so he could see a bit of increase in his ERA and WHIP. Also, the Red Sox’s roster is not set yet, but its defense could vary greatly depending on its final configuration.

The biggest impact will be which of the other starters gets moved to the bullpen or the minors. I would not be surprised if they keep all of them. Buchholz’s disabled list paper work is already typed out and ready to be signed. The rest of the staff, Rick Porcello, Wade Miley, Eduardo Rodriguez and Joe Kelly, all struggled at some point during the 2015 season. Right now it looks like Joe Kelly is the odd man out, all that could and probably will change by opening day.

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Jordan Zimmermann signed by the Tigers

The move to Detroit for the 29-year-old Zimmermann would be considered a downgrade based mainly on him facing a DH more often than a pitcher. The other factors are about the sasme. The ballpark factors are both league average. The 2015 Tigers defense was better than the Nationals according to UZR, but the Tigers also lost their top-rated defender in Cespedes.

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