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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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).

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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–

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

We have been a concentrating on our positional reviews here at RotoGraphs and have missed covering the fantasy ramifications of some offseason trades. It is time to catch up on the major players in each trade.

Arizona Diamondbacks traded RHP Jeremy Hellickson to Philadelphia Phillies for RHP Sam McWilliams

Jeremy Hellickson: The 29-year-old righty got a second lease on life with this trade. The Phillies will just start him every few days and live with the results. They really don’t have any other options.

I don’t see the move as a positive for Hellickson’s production. He is going from a one home run park to another so his heavy flyball nature will still generate home runs. The Phillies aren’t going to win a ton of games so he won’t get a bunch of wins. I see him as a matchup pitcher in NL-only or 20-team or deeper leagues.

Read the rest of this entry »