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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Whether he’s a Willing Ham, a Compliant Pig, or just The Pork, outfielder Josh Willingham will be making his bacon in the Twins outfield for the the foreseeable future.*

Jeff Zimmerman has already looked into batted ball profile and found that he became more pull-happy in 2011. That could bode well for his power in the coming year, but let’s look at the contextual clues in order to determine what else we can say about Willingham’s 2012.

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We got the RotoGraphs team together for a mock dynasty draft, the results of which I believe you can see here. (Just remember that Brandon Wood is a placeholder for Nolan Arenado, Anthony Vasquez = Danny Hultzen, Hector Gomez = Jurickson Profar, and Anthony Slama = Trevor Bauer.)

My team seems strong and young, at least to me. My core infield is Dustin Pedroia, Mike Morse, Brett Lawrie and Elvis Andrus, and I love starting the draft with the infield at the premium positions. Got some love in the outfield for my Jay Bruce pick earlier today, and even though I waited longer than anyone not named Podhorzer for starting pitchers, I ended up with Michael Pineda, Dan Hudson and Ricky Romero. Maybe I’ll write about all this in the future.

But maybe the most interesting thing, at least today, is that I took Ryan Braun with my second-round pick in this dynasty league mock.

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Based on some of the names Brian Sabean was rumored to be shopping at the winter meetings, it was hard to figure the Giants would pull off any sort of a deal, let alone one that would actually serve as an upgrade for the team.  But when he dealt centerfielder Andres Torres and reliever Ramon Ramirez to the Mets yesterday in exchange for 30 year old Angel Pagan, he did just that.  We’ll leave the defensive debate for Jack Moore’s piece over in FanGraphs ( I threw in my two cents in the comments section).  RotoGraphs is fantasy and in fantasy, for position players,  it’s about the hitting.  And offensively speaking, Pagan should fare well in San Francisco and improve the team’s leadoff hitting, something they are in desperate need of doing.

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The first domino has fallen in Miami. Jose Reyes will be the shortstop, for the next couple of years at least, and Hanley Ramirez will play third base. That second domino has pushed the Marlins’ remaining position battle into centerfield. Who will emerge from the three-headed beast at that position in 2012? Crockett got the occasional urge for stability in his life, but it’s chaos that produces fantasy value picks. Let’s break down the three candidates.

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Found the light switch. In the zone. In a groove. Dialed. Signed a deal with the Devil.

Call it what you want, but after Mike Carp’s sizzling finish to 2011, fantasy managers want to know just who the hell this guy is who was supposed to be simply “organizational depth” for a fledgling franchise.

The 2011 Seattle Mariners, buoyed largely by some fantastic starting pitching, hung around in the AL West race long enough to let Mike Carp bludgeon AAA pitching until the organization couldn’t not call him up. So they did. And he stunk. He stunk badly. Like .200/.333/.257 with no home runs and 14 strikeouts over 15 games bad. And then they couldn’t not send him back down – which they did on July 3rd.

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Bust. Injury-prone. Waste of money. Entering the 2011 season, Alex Gordon was burdened by all of these labels. The Nebraska Cornhusker stud, a Golden Spikes Award winner, number two pick in the ’05 draft and career .321/.438/.578 hitter in the minors, struggled with quadriceps, hip and thumb injuries early in his MLB career and batted just .244/.328/.405 from 2007 to 2010. Moved off third base in deference to Kansas City’s new hot-shot hot corner prospect, Mike Moustakas, Gordon was an afterthought fighting to prove he was still worthy of being in, much less anchoring, a big league lineup.

That all changed during his age-27 season. Gordon stayed healthy while living up to his minor league dossier and former #2 overall prospect status from Baseball America, swatting pitchers for a .303/.367/.502 line in 690 plate appearances. His offensive surge during a season in which run-scoring once again declined meant that his bat was 41 percent better than average (141 wRC+), compared to seven percent worse than average from ’07 to ’10.

The question now, of course, is whether Gordon is here to stay as a .300+ hitter and all-around offensive threat. Was his torrid 2011 a sign of things to come as he’s in what are typically a hitter’s peak seasons, or will he be overvalued in 2012 by euphoric owners who overlook warning signs that his sudden turnaround was too good to be true? The truth likely lies somewhere between those two extremes — Gordon did indeed make progress at the plate, but expecting him to replicate his 2011 season would be a good way to end up disappointed in 2012.

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With apparent savior/curse-ender Theo Epstein leading the new regime on the North Side and a list of available players like Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, Jose Reyes and C.J. Wilson seeking new homes, it was just a matter of time before the Cubs made a big splash in the free agent market.  While we still wait for that giant cannonball into the deep end, the Cubbies did atleast dive into the pool Wednesday when they inked outfielder David DeJesus to a two year, $10M deal.  After a brief stop in Oakland and that cavernous hole they call a ballpark, DeJesus gets to now call the friendly confines of Wrigley Field home and thankfully becomes fantasy relevant once again.

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Lance Berkman came out nowhere last year. 35 years old and coming off a career-low in home runs, he looked like toast. When the Cardinals signed the player some call “Fat Elvis” to play in the outfield for the first time since 2007, it seemed like a bust. Some of us even said so.

But then the magic happened. Could lightning hit twice? Could this happen again?

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