There might not be a fan base that has suffered through a drearier offseason to date than that of the Baltimore Orioles, which has watched the New York Yankees import Masahiro Tanaka, Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran while the Boston Red Sox re-signed Mike Napoli and the Tampa Bay Rays added Grant Balfour.

Baltimore, meanwhile, has made more news for the deals it hasn’t been able to close — voided signings for Balfour and Tyler Colvin after physical concerns — than the ones it has actually made. So far, all the Orioles have done is complete minor trades for infielder Jemile Weeks (more of a salary dump of useful reliever Jim Johnson than anything else) and outfielder David Lough along with signing middle reliever Ryan Webb to a two-year deal.

A quiet winter is fine when a team is in the midst of a rebuild, but the Orioles have raised expectations by winning 178 games over the past two seasons, including making it to the playoffs in 2012 for the first time since 1997. Despite that, they have rarely even been mentioned in rumors this winter and by most indications haven’t made a serious push for any of the big-name free agents. Will Webb or a potential Chris Capuano or Bronson Arroyo satisfy the Baltimore faithful? Not likely.

Fortunately for the Orioles, luck just might be on their side. Somewhat unexpectedly, the market has a new “best pitcher available,” one who won’t demand a long-term contract or cost a draft pick and who might limit himself to a geographic area, which means the Orioles need to battle only four or five teams for his services.

He’s A.J. Burnett, and Baltimore absolutely has to sign him if it’s going to make something out of this winter as the 2014 season looms.

A rotation that needs help

Chris Tillman is a fine young pitcher, one who would be worthy of a home in the middle of most big league rotations, so this really isn’t meant to put him down. But he is exactly why the Orioles need another good arm because he’s not in the middle of Baltimore’s rotation; he’s at the top.

Even with an All-Star Game appearance last season — one American League manager Jim Leyland freely admitted was given to Tillman over the superior Hiroki Kuroda simply because Tillman had a better win-loss record — Tillman is misplaced as the ace of a team hoping to contend. Among qualifying starters, his 3.71 ERA was 50th, behind Dillon Gee and Ricky Nolasco; his 4.42 FIP was 72nd, behind Edinson Volquez and Wily Peralta. Only A.J. Griffin and Dan Harenhad higher home run rates, and that’s a problem that keeps Tillman from being considered an elite pitcher.

Despite pitching at 37 years old in 2013, Burnett was superior in nearly every way:

This illustrates Baltimore’s need for an upper-level starter, and while we’ve compared Burnett and Tillman atop the rotation, the true impact wouldn’t be to displace Tillman. The effect would be that Burnett would take innings that would otherwise go to the overrated Bud Norris, the inexperienced (though talented) Kevin Gausman or the merely decent Miguel Gonzalez. Ideally, those are the kind of pitchers you have ready to step in to fill a gap, not the ones you’re counting on from the start of the season.

Best of the bunch

If we repeat the comparison with this winter’s trio of non-Tanaka free-agent starters, we can see that Burnett had a better season than Ubaldo Jimenez and Ervin Santana, as well as Matt Garza, who just collected a guaranteed $50 million from Milwaukee.

Yet while Garza just hit it big and Santana and Jimenez are likely to do the same, Burnett’s age and apparent preference to go year-to-year at this point — as well as the fact that he’s likely to limit the teams he’ll even talk to — should keep his cost at a fraction of their price. Considering that Burnett had a solid 2012 while Jimenez and Santana were replacement-level or below, investing in him is something of a no-brainer.

While moving from the National League Central to the AL East is a concern for any pitcher, Baltimore represents a perfect fit for Burnett for another important reason.

Among all qualified big league starters, only Cleveland’s Justin Masterson induced a higher ground ball rate than Burnett did, thanks to a sinker that Burnett started using as his primary pitch upon his arrival in Pittsburgh. That works with the Orioles stellar left-side defense, since third basemanManny Machado not only led all big league third basemen in defensive runs saved but also put up the highest number at the position since the stat was first recorded in 2003. Next to him is J.J. Hardy, a good enough defender to keep Machado off his natural shortstop position and one who finished fourth in DRS at his position in 2013. (Second base is unsettled, though Ryan Flahertywould be a solid defender if he can hit enough to earn time.)

As a team, Baltimore finished fourth in DRS, and it’s vital for a ground baller to pitch in front of plus gloves.

No place like home

For months, the expectation was that Burnett would either retire or return to Pittsburgh, but it now appears he’s willing to pitch elsewhere. That doesn’t really open up the bidding to any team because he has been consistent about not wanting to leave the area around his Monkton, Md., home, approximately 30 miles north of Baltimore. (Prior to 2012, Burnett reportedly refused to waive his no-trade clause when the Yankees attempted to move him to the Angels.)

The Phillies and Nationals could each use an additional starter, the Pirates will certainly attempt to bring him back, and both New York clubs would have interest in improving their rotations, so bringing Burnett to Baltimore won’t come without a bit of a fight. But Baltimore could argue that it is closer to his home than anyone, that the Mets and Phillies are unlikely to contend and that his initial tour of the Bronx didn’t go smoothly. Burnett could still decide he prefers the National League, in which case the Orioles would be out of luck. If not, they need to make sure he’s wearing orange in 2014. He’s a perfect fit, and he’s the only impact option they have that won’t cost a draft pick.

What’s the most fun part of any baseball offseason? Free-agent signings, of course. How much longer and colder would this winter have felt if we couldn’t have bandied around theories and predictions for where Robinson Cano, Shin-Soo Choo, and Jacoby Ellsbury would end up, then judge the impact they’ll have after they signed?

Of course, those players are only interesting now because they’re coming off big seasons, since a poorly timed down season can kill a free agent’s value. For example, a season ago, Chris Perezwas coming off his second consecutive All-Star Game appearance and a career-high 39 saves. Yet after a 2013 that saw him post career worsts in ERA, FIP, and WAR –while losing his closer’s job in September — he was forced to settle for a mere $2.3 million guaranteed to work in middle relief for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

With no-doubter stars like Clayton Kershaw and Felix Hernandez no longer a part of next winter’s market due to contract extensions, we’re going to be seeing a lot of second-level guys who need to make a huge splash in 2014 if they hope to land huge contracts. Here’s a look at four players who need to excel to avoid being the next Perez.

Chase Headley, 3B | San Diego Padres

In 2011, Headley had a perfectly fine season, contributing 2.3 WAR to the Padres but doing so with only four homers. In 2012, he exploded, crushing 31 homers while playing good defense and ranking behind only David Wright among all third basemen with 7.2 WAR. Then, in 2013, slowed by a broken thumb and a sore knee that eventually required surgery, he put up a .250/.347/.400 line that was his worst of the previous three seasons.

As Headley enters his age-30 season, he’s going to have to do more than ignore the never-ending trade scenarios that swirl around him. He’s going to have to prove he can stay healthy and be consistent, because, at the moment, anyone interested in him can’t be sure which Headley they’re going to get.

Fortunately for Headley, the market should work in his favor. At the moment, the only third baseman under the age of 35 who is even remotely as talented as Headley and headed for free agency next winter is Pablo Sandoval, and there’s more than a few contenders with needs at the position. The Angels and Yankees might be looking for upgrades during or following the season, and the Dodgers, Pirates, and Nationals could all come calling if their current options fail or are moved across the diamond to first base. Now it’s up to Headley to build the demand.

Colby Rasmus, CF | Toronto Blue Jays

Rasmus has had a distinct career to this point, because, after a breakout 2010 season — .276/.361/.498, 4.0 WAR — he was brutal in 2011-12, combining for just 1.6 WAR and a poor .224/.293/.396 line amid conflicts with St. Louis management and a trade to Toronto. He then bounced back to have one of the quietest great years in the big leagues last season, hitting .276/.338/.501 with 23 homers and 4.8 WAR despite playing in just 118 games thanks to an oblique strain and a freak throw to the face.

Rasmus doesn’t turn 28 until August, meaning that he’ll reach free agency in his prime, and a center fielder who can field the position and add offense is a very valuable asset, as Jacoby Ellsbury just showed. But in addition to his up-and-down past, Rasmus is going to have to prove that 2013 wasn’t just a well-timed fluke: His batting average on balls in play (BABIP) was a high .356, or about what it was in his only other good season of 2010. That’s about 100 points higher than in his down seasons, although BABIP isn’t solely a function of good luck — a career-high 22 percent line drive rate lends some credence to the idea that he was making better contact, thus leading to more hits.

Either way, his 2014 performance could easily make a difference on the scale of tens of millions of dollars on the market.

Asdrubal Cabrera, SS | Cleveland Indians

A case of peaking too early? In 2011, a 25-year-old Cabrera made himself into a star by hitting 25 homers while stealing 17 bags and scoring 87 times, to go with a .273/.332/.460 line. In two seasons since, he’s had 30 homers total, and he managed just a .299 OBP last season along with less-than-impressive defense, making him barely better than a replacement-level player.

Due to the name value he built up in 2011, he’ll drive interest on the market, but there are a wide range of possible outcomes, particularly if a team decides he no longer has the range for shortstop.

Step one for Cabrera is merely getting the bat on the ball, since his contact rate fell below 80 percent last season and his strikeout rate increased in kind. That will happen when you offer at five percent more pitches outside of the strike zone than the season before, and a return to simple plate discipline could do wonders, though it’s difficult to see 2011 happening again.

As with Headley, Cabrera’s stock will be improved by his ability to play a position that’s hard to fill. But in a career dating back to 2007, Cabrera has had two very good seasons (2009, 2011), one solid one (2012) and several uninspiring ones. It’s up to him to prove in 2014 that he’s worth paying for the future.

Josh Johnson, RHP | San Diego Padres

A year ago, Johnson was one of the centerpieces of the massive deal between theMiami Marlins and Toronto, expected to help the win-now Blue Jays beat out the beasts of the AL East. It didn’t work out for either side; Johnson made only 16 starts (with a 6.20 ERA) and didn’t pitch after Aug. 6 thanks to a strained right forearm. When he did pitch, he did so with limited velocity, a huge red flag for a pitcher who has now missed big chunks of both 2011 and 2013 with arm injuries, as well as most of 2007 and 2008 due to Tommy John surgery.

Johnson keeps getting a chance because of how good he can be when he’s on; over 2009-10, he was one of the 10 best pitchers in the game, and he was still solidly above average during a mostly healthy 2012. So off he goes on a one-year deal to San Diego, the traditional home for broken pitchers looking to get well again.

If Johnson can show he’s healthy and effective as a Padre in his age-30 season, then some team desperate for pitching will take an expensive chance on him after the season. If not, he might be looking at one-year deals for the rest of whatever career he has remaining.

Panic! Texas Rangers left-hander Derek Holland seriously injured his left knee in a fall at home earlier this month, likely costing him half the season and depriving the Rangers of their No. 2 starter behind Yu Darvish. There’s no way around the obvious: This is bad, potentially very bad, for a Texas team that has to contend with the A’s, Angels and aggressive Mariners in the American League West.

Holland broke out in a big way in 2013, giving Texas 213 innings of 3.42 ERA ball that was closely backed up by the advanced metrics FIP (3.44) and xFIP (3.68). After several years of showing nearly as much inconsistency as talent, Holland managed to cut down his home run problem significantly in 2013, relying heavily on his slider and sinker to keep the ball in the yard while continuing to miss bats.

Now, Holland is expected to be out until around midseason, and if that’s all it is, Texas will take it — the Rangers got burned in a similar situation last year when Matt Harrison was expected to return near midseason after April back surgery, yet after continued setbacks, he never did reappear.

But in the meantime, Texas has a hole to fill and a pennant race in which to compete. There are a few directions they could go, but they are set up in such a way that they don’t need to go add another pitcher. 

Option No. 1: Go big

The Rangers already had been one of the teams rumored to be interested in both Tampa Bay ace David Price and Japanese import Masahiro Tanaka, and calls for either or both certainly won’t quiet now that Holland is injured. But after adding two big contracts in Shin-Soo Choo and Prince Fielder this winter, it’s difficult to see Texas coming up with the cash to outbid the desperate Yankees and opulent Dodgers for Tanaka, even if the righty did want to come to Texas.

The Rangers have the prospects to land Price, yet if GM Jon Daniels was unwilling to meet Tampa Bay’s demands before, it’s probably not realistic to think he’ll suddenly be willing to make a franchise-altering trade simply as a reaction to a few missed months of Holland.

Instead, Texas may look to the second-level trio of pitchers all waiting on Tanaka to sign, thoughMatt Garza was less than stellar in his time in Texas last year and Ervin Santana’s fly ball tendencies seem like a dangerous fit for Arlington. Ubaldo Jimenez? Perhaps, but it really does depend on how much is left in the Texas budget.

Option No. 2: Go reasonable

With all the attention given to Tanaka and the trio behind him, it often gets overlooked that there are some intriguing (and less expensive) options in the stalled pitching market. Certainly there’s no one in this group as good as Holland, but that shouldn’t be the expectation. At a lower cost, Texas could replace a portion of Holland’s performance while also providing themselves with rotation depth (or a swingman) upon his return.

One of those names is Jerome Williams, whom the Rangers have reportedly already been in discussions with, but he’s essentially replacement level; better options might be fellow southpawsnChris Capuano and Paul Maholm. The underrated Capuano has consistently put up solid K/BB rates, actually beating former Dodgers teammate Zack Greinke (3.38 to 3.22) in that department last year. And while Maholm faded down the stretch for Atlanta, he’s got a career ground ball rate north of 50 percent and years of performance in the 2-WAR range. At a fraction of the cost of a Jimenez or Santana, these lefties could help fill the gap.

Option No. 3: Keep it internal

Every win counts in a tight race, but if the Rangers choose to look on the bright side, they can do it in this way: Holland’s loss is a tough one, yet perhaps not as fatal as it seems. The various wins above replacement systems differ on how good Holland was last year, but the midpoint was about 4 WAR. If we assume he misses half the year and comes back strong — hardly a given, of course — then Texas has lost approximately two wins. You can look at that as giving back some of the gain added by the arrival of Choo, and that hurts.

But it’s important to remember that the “r” part of that WAR equation is “replacement,” and Texas is in the enviable situation of not needing to give Holland’s starts to the freely available Triple-A type that the term infers. Instead, they have a quintet of useful young pitchers, along with the formerly useful Colby Lewis as he attempts to return from a missed season, to fill out the two spots behind Darvish, Harrison and Martin Perez[see table].

There’s some real talent there, one of whom was likely to fill out the last spot in the rotation anyway. While it’s not ideal, Texas could get by with a second one as well until Holland returns. Of course, that not only thins out the available depth if another starter gets injured, it could create a ripple effect down the staff — Robbie Ross and Tanner Scheppers pitched exclusively in relief in 2013, so a move to the rotation would weaken a Texas bullpen that already saw Joe Nathandepart for Detroit. However, both are preparing to arrive at camp to compete as starting pitchers, as the Rangers weigh their options.

The verdict: Like any team, if Texas has the ability to get Tanaka, then that’s obviously the best choice, though that was always the case and won’t change simply because of Holland’s knee. Considering the limits of a budget that already has added Choo and Fielder, Texas’ best option is to sign one of the lower-priced free agents to take Holland’s spot, and let their internal options fill the other rotation opening. And if they don’t think Maholm or Capuano is a big enough upgrade, standing pat isn’t the worst idea in the world.

If the goal of any team’s offseason is to improve its roster, then there are several pretty obvious places where that has occurred so far. Seattle, of course, improved enormously at second base by adding Robinson Cano. The Yankees, even having lost Cano, collected big upgrades behind the plate and in the outfield with Brian McCann, Carlos Beltran and Jacoby Ellsbury.

There are more than a few situations like that — Texas’ outfield, the Angels’ rotation, etc. — but anyone who has been even casually following baseball this winter knows about them. What about the quieter upgrades, the ones that maybe weren’t so obvious but could still lead to nice gains for their teams in 2014? Today, we shine a spotlight there.

New York Mets: Outfield defense

For most of the first third of 2013, the corner outfielders in New York wereLucas Duda in left and Marlon Byrd in right, flanking a rotating combination of Rick Ankiel, Collin Cowgill, Jordany Valdespin and Kirk Nieuwenhuis in center field. Defensively, it was a disaster.

While Byrd was somewhat above average in right before being traded, Duda played left like the first baseman he is, putting up a shocking minus-42 defensive runs saved (DRS) in parts of four seasons for the Mets, including minus-11 in just 58 games in 2013. Duda was eventually replaced by Eric Young, but even he was only slightly better, with minus-7 DRS for the season. (Obviously, single-year defensive stats are more guidelines than anything concrete, though these pass the sniff test.)

Things turned around when Juan Lagares took over the bulk of time in center, since even in a partial season he proved himself to be one of the best defensive center fielders in the game. And now that Lagares is going to be flanked by Curtis Granderson and Chris Young, the Mets should head into 2014 with one of the better defensive trios in baseball.

For years, Young roamed center for Arizona and was very good at it, putting up top-three Fielding Bible Awards finishes in 2010 and ’11 while coming in second in DRS at the position in both years. Granderson was obviously signed for his bat, but he has years of center field experience as well, putting up a total of 27 DRS in his time there.

At this point in their careers, neither Young (right field) nor Granderson (left field) should be expected to be what they were at their peak in the field, but the Mets didn’t sign them to play center, and any steps they may have lost will be less noticeable in the corners. With Lagares in the middle — as long as he hits, which is no guarantee — the Mets have three center field-quality outfielders, a huge improvement over last year’s troubled group in a big home field.

Oakland Athletics: Bench

In the grand scheme of things, Oakland signing 36-year-old utility infielder Nick Punto for a mere $3 million guaranteed barely registered a blip on the baseball radar. When Billy Beane later swapped young outfielder Michael Choice to Texas for outfielder Craig Gentry (along with minor prospects on both sides), it was mainly notable only within the confines of the AL West.

Yet these are exactly the kind of moves that keep the A’s in the hunt every year, because for the price of a minimal financial outlay and a decent-but-hardly-elite outfield prospect, Beane greatly improved his team’s depth and flexibility.

When Hanley Ramirez was unable to stay healthy for the Dodgers last year and backups Dee Gordon and Justin Sellers flopped miserably, it was Punto who answered the bell, starting 33 games at shortstop (along with 38 more at second and third) and doing so with plus defense and some amount of on-base skill (.328 OBP). Punto now moves to a team that has a shortstop with an injury history (Jed Lowrie), no real backup at third, and some open questions at second. It’s not dissimilar to the situation he left, and the Dodgers will miss him.

Gentry was rarely more than a part-time player in Texas, and he’ll largely take the playing time vacated by Chris Young and Seth Smith in Oakland. But in 556 plate appearances over the past two seasons — or roughly the equivalent of one full season — he was worth more than 6 WAR to the Rangers, thanks to his outstanding defense (37 defensive runs saved for his career, mostly in center) and his elite baserunning skills.

For his career, Gentry has been successful on 85 percent of his stolen base attempts, and roughly equivalent to Ellsbury on the basepaths. Ellsbury is obviously in a completely different galaxy as far as overall offense goes, and that’s what drives huge free-agency paydays. But for a fraction of the price, Oakland added an outfielder who will add more value than his slash line would indicate. Along with Punto, the A’s now have a pair of undervalued yet productive bench pieces.

Colorado Rockies: Bullpen

Believe it or not, Colorado actually had a reasonably useful bullpen last year. Despite having a relief corps asked to throw more innings than any bullpen other than Minnesota’s, the Rockies finished with middle-of-the-pack marks in FIP and xFIP. But that was largely concentrated in the trio of Rex Brothers, Matt Belisle and Adam Ottavino, with far too many opportunities given to the likes of Edgmer Escalona and Rob Scahill. With the injured Rafael Betancourt’s career possibly over and Josh Outman traded to Cleveland for outfielder Drew Stubbs, depth was suddenly a huge issue.

Enter the ageless LaTroy Hawkins, signed to a very reasonable one-year deal; lefty Boone Logan, who received a far-less-reasonable three-year contract; and former Rockie Franklin Morales, acquired from Boston for infielder Jonathan Herrera. With Logan (.281 wOBA against lefties), Morales (.215) and Brothers (.230), manager Walt Weiss now has a trio of southpaws who proved to be well above average at neutralizing same-side hitters in 2013. (MLB as a whole allowed a .317 wOBA to lefties.)

A bullpen sextet of Hawkins, Brothers, Logan, Ottavino, Belisle and Morales isn’t going to win any name recognition contests. But in a winter where the Rockies have done little to upgrade their team other than take a shot in the dark on Brett Anderson and add the well-past-his-prime Justin Morneau, they’ll at least have a surprisingly deep bullpen to call upon.

St. Louis Cardinals: Infield and outfield defense

More than a few people have had St. Louis atop their “best offseasons” lists to this point, and it’s not hard to see why. Jhonny Peralta should bring a huge offensive upgrade at shortstop over Pete Kozma and Daniel Descalso, and getting some trade value for declining third baseman David Freese was seen as a coup.

Yet while most of the focus on St. Louis is on the talented group of young arms and the impact that Peralta will have on the lineup, what the Cardinals have really done is improve their defense throughout the field. Jon Jay’s defensive follies in the playoffs probably made him look worse than he was, but he’s long been overmatched in center, and now the Cards get to replace him with Peter Bourjos (acquired for Freese), who has not only been great enough with the glove to push the otherworldly Mike Trout to left, but who is either the best defensive center fielder in baseball or very close to it.

If that was all they did, that’d be improvement enough. But moving Freese — who has never had the defensive metrics to back up his reputation, and who bottomed out badly in 2013 — set a chain reaction of moves into motion. The trade with the Angels allows Matt Carpenter, who had been surprisingly valuable in a crash course at second base in 2013, to move back to his natural position of third, where he should be an upgrade over Freese on both sides of the ball. Replacing Carpenter at second will be a combination of rookie Kolten Wong and veteran acquisition Mark Ellis, who has lasted in the big leagues this long almost entirely because he’s a plus defender. (Ellis has been ranked by both DRS and UZR/150 as being above average in every season of his career, despite repeated leg injuries.)

From a strictly statistical viewpoint, Peralta is a step down from Kozma on defense, but not by nearly as much as their respective reputations would have you believe, and his offense obviously makes it worthwhile. Throw in the fact that Allen Craig — or Jay, or rookie Oscar Taveras, or some combination — will replace the aging legs of Carlos Beltran in right, and the Cardinals’ defense is going to be a real asset in 2014. That’s just what the rest of the NL Central wants to hear, anyway: more advantages for St. Louis’ dangerous young pitchers.

If you think about the five most dangerous hitters in baseball (as ranked by wOBA) over the past two years, you’ll certainly come up with the top two (Miguel Cabrera and Mike Trout) pretty easily. The No. 3 (Joey Votto) and No. 4 (Andrew McCutchen) bats probably wouldn’t be too difficult to discern either. But which player would round out the top five: Robinson Cano, Buster Posey, Giancarlo Stanton?

That trio and many others are valid guesses, but none of them make it into the top five, and if not for the big picture at the top of this article giving it away, you might have been cycling through names in your mind for hours before coming up with Edwin Encarnacion. Often thought of as not even being the best hitter on his own team, the truth is that the soon-to-be 31-year-old Toronto slugger is one of baseball’s elite bats and still is almost certainly the sport’s most underappreciated power source.

Nomadic beginnings

If fans haven’t properly respected Encarnacion, they’re not alone, because the sport itself hasn’t always either. For years, he had been a quiet favorite of some stats-oriented observers, who looked past lousy third base defense and poor batting average (he failed to top .251 in four of his first six seasons) in favor of impressive on-base and power skills. In parts of five seasons with the Cincinnati Reds, Encarnacion hit a solid .262/.345/.449, all before the age of 27, butoccasionally clashed with manager Jerry Narron and found himself fighting for playing time with the likes of Ryan Freel and Rich Aurilia.

In 2009, Encarnacion was shipped off to the Toronto Blue Jays in the Scott Rolen deal, but even then it wasn’t smooth sailing. He was outrighted off the 40-man roster in 2010, spent time in the minors and was waived again following the season, briefly landing in the Oakland organization before the A’s let him go as well.

Just three years ago, any team could have had Encarnacion for nothing at all, and that’s shocking when you look at what he has done. Since 2010, he has more home runs than David Ortiz and only one fewer than Stanton and Cano. His wOBA over that span is identical to Shin-Soo Choo’s, who just collected a budget-busting contract from Texas, and hiswRC+ is exactly the same as that of respected stars Joe Mauer and Carlos Beltran. Even when judging Encarnacion by wins above replacement, which penalizes him for that unimpressive defense, he has been worth roughly as much asMatt Kemp in that span.

That’s pretty strong company to be mentioned in, and it hardly stops there. Over the second half of last season, Encarnacion was an almost identical offensive performer to Arizona first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, who ended up as the National League’s second-place finisher in the MVP ballot. Here’s a look at how they compared over that span:

Goldschmidt: .288/.408/.544 16.4 walk rate, .399 wOBA, 152 wRC+
Encarnacion: .286/.401/.538 16.2 walk rate, .398 wOBA, 152 wRC+

If one thing separated them, it was that Goldschimidt struck out 20.7 percent of the time in the second half, which isn’t out of the ordinary; the sport as a whole struck out 19.9 percent of the time in 2013. But Encarnacion whiffed a mere 6.7 percent of the time in the second half and 10 percent overall, making him the rare power hitter who doesn’t pile up absurd strikeout numbers, and that puts him in some other rarified company.

Contact hitter

Since the turn of the century, just five other players have done what Encarnacion accomplished in 2013, which is to hit at least 36 homers while striking out fewer than 62 times. Two of those players — Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols — rank among the best who have ever played, and two others — Todd Helton and Gary Sheffield — will have strong Hall of Fame cases to make when they become eligible. Only six qualified hitters struck out at a lower clip than Encarnacion did last year, and they were mostly Marco Scutaro types, not power hitters, with none coming within 100 points of Encarnacion’s .534 slugging percentage.

If you take that further, looking only at power hitters who know how to take a walk without piling up strikeouts, you’ll find Encarnacion’s name nearly alone at the top of the peak. Over the past two years, 28 hitters displayed an ISO of at least .200, and just five from that group walked at least 13 percent of the time; of those five, only Encarnacion and Votto walked more than they struck out. When you’re piling up free passes, not whiffing and showing immense power, you’re usually doing something right.

Of course, simply not striking out doesn’t instantly correlate with success — strikeouts aren’t often much worse than other outs — but putting the bat on the ball more often does put Encarnacion in position to take advantage of his natural skills. Again looking at 2012-13, Encarnacion has the third-highest fly ball rate in the game, and the 14th-highest rate of home runs per fly ball. The equation there is simple: more contact leads to more fly balls leads to more homers.

That’s easier said than done, and in Encarnacion’s case the key came through coaching. Prior to 2012, he was advised to shorten his swing by keeping both hands on the bat, rather than letting his top hand come off in his follow-through, and to stop attempting to pull every ball to left field. It worked, and quickly: Of Encarnacion’s 24 career homers to center and right field, 11 have come in the past two seasons.

Playing for a team outside of the media spotlight and often overshadowed by teammate Jose Bautista, Encarnacion generally gets left out of the conversation about baseball’s best. He finally made his first All-Star team in 2013, but that’s just a small step toward the recognition his performance deserves considering how great his past two seasons have been. When he’s an MVP candidate in 2014 (assuming he will have no ill effects following minor wrist surgery in September), don’t say you didn’t see it coming. After all, the past two awards went to a powerful corner infielder who didn’t offer much defensive value, either.

It’s been an active offseason in the National League East, where four of the five teams have made steps to improve themselves in 2014.

The Washington Nationals stole Doug Fister from Detroit and added role players Jerry Blevins andNate McLouth to fill out a roster that was among the league’s hottest down the stretch in 2013, while the New York Mets imported Curtis Granderson, Bartolo Colon, and Chris Young in an attempt to show some respectability. The Philadelphia Phillies should see some benefit fromMarlon Byrd, Roberto Hernandez and the returning Carlos Ruiz, and even the Miami Marlinsdipped their toes in the free-agent waters, adding Jarrod Saltalamacchia to an impressive collection of young talent.

Those teams are all attempting to catch the defending champion Atlanta Braves, who have worked to maintain their edge by … acquiring a catcher who can’t catch (Ryan Doumit) and a pitcher who can’t pitch (Gavin Floyd, recovering from May Tommy John surgery) while bidding farewell to star catcher Brian McCann and longtime starter Tim Hudson.

It’s hard to see those moves as anything but a step down, and so from a baseball perspective, it’s been a decidedly disappointing winter in the Peach State.

The Braves do have enviable young talent on the field and in the rotation, along with the best closer in baseball. But they also have two expensive black holes in the lineup — second base (Dan Uggla) and center field (B.J. Upton) — and are limited by a poor television deal that pays them a fraction of what other clubs receive, as well as a notoriously tight-fisted ownership group that regards the team as merely a minor line item on a larger ledger.

That makes Atlanta’s flexibility limited, since the Braves usually spend about $90 million annually, and a steady payroll is a declining one in today’s increasingly wealthy game. Including Doumit and Floyd, the Braves now have about $55 million committed for 2014, but they still need to set aside approximately $30 million for what was the largest arbitration-eligible group of players in baseball at the beginning of the offseason. Unless ownership suddenly finds itself in an unexpectedly generous mood, Atlanta looks to be getting close to its payroll limit, and the team has little choice but to give Upton a second chance to prove himself.

That said, there is still time for the Braves to salvage the winter, and here are three things they can do to prevent this offseason from being a complete disaster.

Start signing extensions with young players

This isn’t going to immediately make the 2014 roster stronger, because the Braves will have these players anyway. But in addition to helping make a public relations splash by showing that they’re “committing to the future,” or whatever they think ticket-buying fans would like to hear, this would help alleviate in future offseasons what’s limiting them now — an unusually high amount of arbitration cases making for difficulty in projecting cost certainty (see table).

There’s probably a half-dozen such players Atlanta might want to extend — Mike Minor and Andrelton Simmons among them — but tops on the list ought to be Jason Heyward and Freddie Freeman, two 24-year-old established stars who should represent the core of the Braves’ lineup for years to come.

Freeman is probably just outside the very elite at first base — no slight when we’re talking aboutChris Davis, Paul Goldschmidt and Joey Votto — but comfortably ranks as the sixth or seventh best first baseman in baseball by most of the major offensive and total value metrics. Heyward has had some health concerns, but has been a star-level producer in his two completely healthy seasons of 2010 and 2012. Considering their age and talent, the Braves need to buy out a few free-agent seasons while they still can.

Fix second base

There’s bad, and then there’s what Uggla was in 2013, which ended with him not even making Atlanta’s postseason roster as the Braves instead went with Elliot Johnson. Yes, Uggla hit 22 homers, but he also did so with a .364 slugging percentage, making him the only man in the history of the game to hit that many homers with such a low slugging percentage. (Uggla had just 13 other extra-base hits, and only one total after

Over the past two seasons, he’s hit only .201/.330/.374, a huge drop from the six consecutive seasons when he slugged at least .450, all while striking out a whopping 31.8 percent of the time.

Some cling to the fact that late-season laser eye surgery can help him rebound, but it’s unlikely we see a big turnaround at age 34 after two consecutive down seasons. That said, the Braves still owe him $26 million over the next two seasons, and the internal options — mainly reserves Tyler Pastornicky andRamiro Pena, with prospect Tommy La Stella unlikely to be ready in April after just 81 games above Class A — are questionable.

The Braves may need to live with Upton, but it’s difficult to see a contender going into a season with the potential for zero offensive production at three spots, including the pitcher. So what to do?Howie Kendrick is a great fit, since he’s been reportedly very available in trade talks, and the Braves are a good match for an Angels team that is thin on both pitching and prospects. The Giants may be willing to discuss the reliable Marco Scutaro, or Atlanta could try to make a rare deal with the Mets for the very available Daniel Murphy.

However, if the team really wanted to get creative, Atlanta could attempt to send Uggla to a non-contender who is looking for an effective way to spend its cash. That is, a team like the Astros or Cubs may prefer to effectively “buy prospects” from Atlanta in exchange for taking on a decent amount of Uggla’s contract, rather than throw money away on a Nelson Cruz type.

No matter what direction they go in, the Braves can’t simply assume Uggla will rebound. His age and several years of decline say otherwise.

Don’t go crazy for an “ace”

The Braves are unlikely to have the financial resources to be in on Masahiro Tanaka, and don’t seem willing to completely clear out their farm system for David Price, so perhaps this is a given anyway. While certainly every team would love to add another elite starter, the narrative that the Braves can’t succeed without one doesn’t ring true.

As a group, the Atlanta rotation was top-six in both ERA and FIP last year, and while no one will confuse Minor with Clayton Kershaw, Atlanta’s underrated lefty was one of the 30 best starters in the game. As Julio Teheran continues to mature along with Kris Medlen, Alex Wood, David Haleand (when healthy) Brandon Beachy and Floyd, the Braves have a solid enough rotation while waiting on prospects like J.R. Graham and Lucas Sims to arrive.

If a Matt Garza drops into their laps, then fantastic, but it’s not worth the risk considering the other needs this team has.

The offseason is barely half over, so teams still have time to fill the remaining holes on their rosters before spring training starts. Some of those weaknesses are obvious; everyone knows, for example, that the Angels need another starting pitcher and that the Yankees, as currently constructed, might not be able to cobble together four healthy infielders at the same time.

However, some teams’ flaws are flying a bit more under the radar and, unless fixed, could have an impact on 2014’s pennant races. Here’s a look at four teams with surprising weaknesses and potential fixes for each.

Team: San Francisco Giants | Weakness: Starting pitching

For a team that has long survived — excelled, really — on great pitching carrying a merely decent offense, the Giants have started to lean the other way over the past year or two. The problem with last season’s 86-loss team wasn’t the lineup, which had three star-level performers (Brandon Belt, Hunter Pence and Buster Posey) and at least two wins above replacement from all eight lineup positions, counting the combination ofAngel Pagan and Juan Perez in center. It was the starting rotation, where Barry Zito and Ryan Vogelsong each fell apart, Matt Cain had his worst year since his rookie campaign and Tim Lincecum continued to look like a shell of his former elite self.

Tim Hudson, going on 39 years old and coming off a severely broken ankle, was the Giants’ big winter upgrade, although he should still be a considerable step up from Zito. Even so, a rotation led by underappreciated young ace Madison Bumgarner is largely treading water and, afterranking 27th in MLB in WAR last season with 6.4, is projected to reach just 9.6 this year. (By comparison, Detroit led the majors in 2013 at 25.3.)

Proposed fix: Vogelsong’s comeback story was nice, but he’s best served as depth rather than guaranteed a rotation job. A No. 14 overall pick is too much to give up for free agents Ubaldo Jimenez or Ervin Santana, so adding Northern California native Matt Garza, the most talented pitcher remaining who’s not subject to a qualifying offer, makes a lot of sense for a team that needs to improve to compete with the Diamondbacks and the Dodgers. The Giants won’t, but they should.

Team: Cincinnati Reds | Weakness: Outfield

Last season, the Reds had three of the better offensive performers in the National League in Shin-Soo Choo, Jay Bruce and Joey Votto, along with reasonably productive infielders Todd Frazier and Brandon Phillips, so it’s somewhat surprising to see them ahead of just five other offenses in FanGraphs’ 2014 WAR projections. That gets less surprising when you see that both left field and center field are projected to be barely above replacement level, with each position ranking worst in the league.

The downgrade from Choo to talented-but-risky Billy Hamilton is obvious, yet it’s really Ryan Ludwick who’s the issue here. Ludwick will turn 36 this year, is coming off a 2013 that was marred by a shoulder injury and poor performance, and has been worth fewer than 2 WAR in three of the past four seasons. Because he’s also a negative defender, he shouldn’t be counted upon to be an everyday player at this point, especially if the Reds are going to gamble on Hamilton in center.

Proposed fix: Choo would be ideal but likely will be priced out of a return to Cincinnati, and the outfield free-agent market behind him, including the overrated Nelson Cruz, is barren. Instead, this is a rarely discussed but smart landing spot for Andre Ethier, whom the Dodgers are likely to deal. Yes, he’s overpriced, but the Dodgers can eat enough salary to make him palatable, and as a top-10 hitter against righty pitching over the past three years, Ethier would make for a great complement to the right-handed Ludwick while adding some Hamilton insurance after spending most of 2013 playing a surprisingly not-awful center field.

Team: Colorado Rockies | Weakness: First base

It’s been a long time since the Rockies needed to fix up first base; the last time they entered a season not expecting Todd Helton to be the primary first baseman was 1997, when the Diamondbacks and Rays had yet to play their first games. With Helton finally riding off into retirement, Colorado went out and signed former Twin Justin Morneau. That would have been fine if this were still 2006, but at age 33, with declining defense and negative value on the bases, Morneau is barely above replacement-level these days. Throw in a total inability to hit lefty pitching — .298 career OBP, a number he hasn’t even managed in a season since 2010 — and it’s easy to see how first base in Colorado could be among the least productive positions in baseball.

Proposed fix: Fortunately, the Rockies have an in-house solution for this problem in Michael Cuddyer, who won a batting title in 2013 but isn’t likely to repeat the .382 batting average on balls in play that helped make it happen. He’s still a reasonably productive hitter, however, and giving him 50 percent or so of the time at first base would not only help minimize Morneau’s exposure, but it also would keep one of the worst defensive right fielders of 2013 from doing as much damage in the outfield. So far this month, Colorado has added defensively proficient outfielders Brandon Barnes and Drew Stubbs, giving it both the depth and flexibility to make such a move. The Rockies have some interesting pieces, but they just need to deploy them correctly.

Team: Toronto Blue Jays | Weakness: Starting pitching

A year ago, Toronto’s rotation was newly assembled and fascinating, with NL Cy Young winner R.A. Dickey, Miami ace Josh Johnson and the reliable Mark Buehrle joining Brandon Morrow and J.A. Happ. Beset by injuries and Dickey’s inability to repeat his 2012 performance, last season the Jays ended up using 13 starters, including digging up discards like Ramon Ortiz and Chien-Ming Wang. Now, Johnson is gone to San Diego, Dickey is 39, Morrow’s health can’t be counted on and the Jays suddenly have a rotation that’s middle-of-the-pack at best. In a tough American League East and with a still-dangerous lineup, Toronto badly needs a starter it can rely on in order to make the run it was supposed to go on last season.

Proposed fix: Because Toronto failed to sign its 2012 first-round pick (No. 10 overall) and finished with the No. 9 overall pick this year, the Blue Jays have two protected first-round picks. That means that signing a player who received a qualifying offer would cost them only their second-round pick (their third in the draft, somewhere around No. 45 overall) and shouldn’t cause hesitation on moving on such a player the way it might for other clubs.

Santana is a possible fit, but the better choice is Jimenez, who is less homer-prone than Santana while missing more bats, important in an offense-friendly Toronto park. The draft pick is immaterial here, while the boost to what is clearly a win-now Toronto team is essential.

Earlier this week, we heard reports out of Boston indicating that the Red Sox would “wait out” the market on shortstop Stephen Drew, with the intention of jumping back in if the terms were right. That’s probably an improvement over what they figured would happen at the beginning of the offseason, since a solid player represented by Scott Boras in a very weak field for left-side infield help would have been thought to be an appealing item.

But more than a month into the winter, Drew’s market has been relatively soft. The St. Louis Cardinals, the team most desperately in need of a shortstop, instead signed Jhonny Peralta. Other potential fits like the New York Mets have spent their money elsewhere first, and rumored trade targets like Elvis Andrus and Asdrubal Cabrera further complicate the market.

Considering his rocky health history and the qualifying offer/draft-pick compensation that hangs over his head, Drew might not be finding a home as easily as we may have thought he would.

For the Red Sox, this presents the perfect scenario, one that they can use to their advantage: they need to bring Drew back.

Depth is a good thing

Considering how many teams have holes on the left sides of their infields, it may seem like the Red Sox are in good shape without Drew, because 21-year-old shortstop/third baseman Xander Bogaerts and 25-year-old third baseman Will Middlebrooks represent an enviable young duo. Yet the Boston infield pair is still high on risk, as Bogaerts has all of 50 major league plate appearances to his name and Middlebrooks was so inconsistent that he found himself back in Triple-A for a stretch in 2013 before being buried on the bench in the World Series.

Teams that are relatively far from contention can handle the risk of going with two uncertain young players — three if you count the possibility of Jackie Bradley Jr. starting in center — but teams hoping to win a World Series (or in Boston’s case, another World Series) need to have a little more certainty. Even if adding a solid veteran to a part of the roster that already has talent (plus young third baseman Garin Cecchini maybe a year or two away) seems like an embarrassment of riches, well, the Red Sox are one of the teams that can easily handle the financial cost — particularly if Drew’s market forces him to accept a deal below what he’d envisioned.

Drew isn’t a star, but he’d do more than a little to mitigate that risk, having proven himself to be a solid shortstop over his eight seasons in the big leagues. After an excellent 2010 (.355 wOBA), he suffered a badly broken ankle in July 2011 that cost him nearly a full year of play, ruining most of his 2012 as well.

He rebounded in 2013 to contribute more than 3 WAR to the Red Sox in 2013, putting up a .337 wOBA with valuable defense, and giving him a case to be made as a top-10 shortstop in MLBvthis year. Though his strikeout rate has increased, he’s also pushed his walk rate over 10 percent in each of the last two years.

No one should expect Drew to suddenly become a superstar at age 31, but he doesn’t need to be in order to be a valuable player. Most projection systems expect he’ll contribute between 2-to-3 WAR, with double-digit homers and plus defense. Barring another serious injury, it’s difficult to imagine him collapsing completely in the next two or three years.

Increasing trade options

That’s not to say that Bogaerts or Middlebooks won’t work out in 2014, either, just that it’s a lot to expect both of them to be productive everyday players, simultaneously, at this point in their careers. (We saw what happened when Bradley broke camp last April.) Bringing Drew back would not only provide much-needed depth and stability, it would open up a world of possibilities — such as making Middlebrooks available via trade in a market mostly devoid of third baseman.

Middlebrooks has been a particularly difficult player to value, because in 169 career games and 660 plate appearances — essentially one full season — he’s hit 32 homers, which is very good. But he’s also done so with a .294 OBP, 5.0 percent walk rate, and a 25.5 percent strikeout rate, numbers which hurt his value deeply. Big power is nice, but it can’t be the only tool accompanied by contact issues and few walks; if that was okay, Toronto wouldn’t have non-tendered J.P. Arencibia.

Then again, it’s so difficult to find power from third base these days that it’s not hard at all to think that teams would be willing to take a risk on a cost-controlled young player who can’t be a free agent until after 2018. That’s especially so if teams think there’s more growth there as he gains experience and gets further away from a 2012 broken right wrist, and having Drew and Bogaerts at the big-league level with Cecchini on the way would give Boston an intriguing trade chip.

The market there would be fascinating, because his youth and low cost would attract teams without large budgets or contention hopes — the White Sox, Marlins, and Indians all badly need third base help — while his power at a position of need would bring in win-now clubs. (Which is why the “Andre Ethier-for-Middlebrooks” rumors never seem to die.)

The main argument against bringing back Drew is that the Red Sox wouldn’t collect a draft pick that they might have otherwise added had he left. Even that’s not much of a negative, however, because the Sox have already added a pick thanks to Jacoby Ellsbury’s departure to New York, and the value Drew adds to a championship-level team right now is likely to be more than the long-term value of a pick somewhere around No. 32 overall.

With the market for reliable infielders being what it is, they might just be best off taking advantage of retaining a player they already know, one who they have the special privilege of signing without losing their own draft pick, and who would allow them to market Middlebrooks for help elsewhere. There’s a right situation to go all-in on youth with a third of your lineup, but a team looking to win right now is probably not that situation.

Forget the Robinson Cano contract, and press pause on the Masahiro Tanaka posting saga, because no possible move this winter has the potential to shake up the game more than Tampa Bay following through on plans to move ace pitcher David Price.

There’s just so much intrigue involved: Who might get him? When would he be traded? And perhaps most importantly, just how massive of a return would the Rays demand? While Tampa fans certainly don’t want to see him go, it’s a bit easier to stomach when they can dream about prospects like Jurickson Profar, Corey Seager or Taijuan Walker wearing Tampa blue.

Perhaps the Rays will be able to pull off another heist like they did last year by swiping Wil Myers and several other prospects from Kansas City for James Shields and Wade Davis, but the sobering truth is that it rarely works out that way. The recent history of teams dealing ace starters very often ends up with a team shipping out its best pitcher for very little return at all.

But what defines an “ace”? There’s no industry standard for the term, of course, so for the purposes of this exercise, we’ll need to set some ground rules. We’ll limit our boundaries to pitchers traded since 2008 who had put up at least one season of 6.0 RA9-WAR in either of the two full seasons prior to the trade, or in the season of the trade itself. That gets us 23 pitcher seasons from 14 pitchers, encompassing 17 trades. (Cliff Lee was traded three times; Zack Greinke twice.)

For the sake of brevity, we’ll eliminate Josh Beckett and Ian Kennedy, both of whom had seen their value drop precipitously by the time of their trades. We’ll also skip last winter’sR.A. Dickey and Shields deals, since it’s simply too soon to draw conclusions, though the latter deal certainly looks good for the Rays. Now we have a list to work from.

We’re left with 13 trades involving topflight pitchers since 2008. How many have actually worked out? It’s overly simplistic to just add the WAR and make a judgment that way, so that shouldn’t be taken as more than adding some context, but it does make for an interesting comparison.

Worked out well …

There are really only three deals that stand out as nice wins, with the gold standard being the 2010 deal that sent Dan Haren from Arizona to the Angels less than a year after a top-five Cy Young finish. At the time, it was seen as a big win for the Angels, but while Haren was very good for a year and a half and mediocre for another, the Diamondbacks receivedPatrick Corbin, who broke out in a big way in 2013; Joe Saunders, who contributed more than 400 innings of decent ball; and nicely regarded prospect Tyler Skaggs.

Really, these two Angels deals, in addition to the first-round picks they sacrificed to sign all their big recent free agents, are more to blame for their current situation than anything else. It’s difficult to compete when you’re constantly moving young talent elsewhere.

… not so much

Ten of the 13 trades haven’t quite worked out as well, with the obvious caveat being that in some cases, young players may yet change the score. In most cases, the cumulative value that came back to the teams didn’t equal even a single year of their departed ace.

Generally, what we see here is a whole lot of prospects who just never amounted to anything, with a great example being the CC Sabathia deal in 2008. Matt LaPorta was the big get for Cleveland, but he was a huge bust, putting up negative value in more than 1,000 plate appearances, and he didn’t even see time in the bigs in 2013. The only real value the Indians got was from Michael Brantley, who has been a good-but-not-great outfielder for a few seasons. Just three weeks after the trade, Cleveland did far better by trading three months of decent third baseman Casey Blake to Los Angeles for catching prospect Carlos Santana, who has established himself as one of the better young hitters in the game.

The Roy Halladay deal looked good at the time, since all three prospects were highly regarded. But Kyle Drabek blew out his arm and his future remains uncertain; Travis d’Arnaud was of course part of the Dickey deal, while Michael Taylor turned into Brett Wallace and then Anthony Gose, who has speed but massive plate discipline problems. Even when players involved have panned out, it’s been for other teams, like Carlos Gomez, who has developed into a star for Milwaukee, or Melky Cabrera, who was horrible in Atlanta before finding success in Kansas City and San Francisco.

Then there’s Cliff Lee, who was famously traded three times for a total of 11 players within the span of a year, starting in July 2009. Nearly as famously, all three trades turned out to be enormous busts for the teams that let Lee go. Believe it or not, the most productive player involved in any of the deals may have been Lou Marson, who gave Cleveland a few seasons of decent play as a backup catcher before being non-tendered on Monday.

The most highly regarded prospect at the time was probably first baseman Justin Smoak, who has spent nearly 2,000 plate appearances since then proving that he’s merely a replacement-level player. The others have been slowed by injury, legal issues or just plain mediocrity.

Obviously, this isn’t an exact science, particularly since Price has two full seasons of control left while some of these pitchers had only one or even less — and if there’s any front office that has shown it knows how to trade an ace, it’s Tampa’s. But the Myers trade, immediately panned by nearly every non-Royals observer, is the baseball equivalent of a lightning strike. It’s going to be difficult to expect that kind of return to happen twice.

When rumors circulated last week that the Milwaukee Brewers might consider trading left fielder Ryan Braun, it generated a ton of interest around the sport. After all, this year’s free-agent market is largely devoid of top-level offensive thump other than Robinson Cano, and an elite hitter like Braun would fit nicely into the lineup of nearly every contending team in baseball.

Milwaukee general manager Doug Melvin quickly shot down the rumors and further defused the talk by discussing the potential of moving Braun to right field next year.

So while it seems the Brewers might not have any plans to move him, I would argue that they should reconsider that stance.

This has little to do with Braun’s performance-enhancing drug troubles, though that’s certainly a part of the story. It has a whole lot more to do with the fact that Braun turned 30 last week and plays for a team that has gone from 66 to 79 to 88 losses in the past three years and is stuck in a division that had three 2013 playoff teams and a Chicago organization that’s maybe only a year away from seeing its crop of highly touted prospect bats start to arrive.

With a thin starting rotation and one of the weakest farm systems in the game, Milwaukee is probably in for a tough few years. The Brewers can finish in last place just as easily without Braun as with him.

Milwaukee is years away

The Brewers could hang on to Braun as he ages and the team rebuilds, all the while dealing with ticket holders who feel as though they’ve been betrayed, or they could give both themselves and Braun a fresh start. Those who insist that Braun’s baggage will prevent other teams from wanting to acquire him are mistaken; over the past three years, including his shortened 2013, he has been one of the 10 most valuable players in the game. It’s naive to think that other teams wouldn’t jump at the chance to add that skill set.

That’s especially true because the current market is set up in such a way that acquiring talent via trade is often more efficient than via free agency, since the sport is both flush with television money and limiting where teams can actually put that money to use. Knowing that signing Cano — who is a year older and will cost a draft pick — is likely to top $200 million, Braun’s contract looks almost reasonable.

For example, San Francisco outfielder Hunter Pence, seven months older than Braun, signed a five-year deal worth $90 million to remain with the Giants in September. That’s an average annual value of $18 million for a solid player heading into his age-31 season who had never been more valuable in a season than Braun until 2013, when Braun played only 61 games.

By comparison, Braun heads into his age-30 season with seven years and $117 million left on his deal, a lower average value of $16.7 million. (That doesn’t include a $4 million buyout of a 2021 option but also doesn’t account for the fact that $18 million is deferred through 2031 at no interest, lowering the value.)

If Braun were on the open market, he would almost certainly match his current deal’s total value and perhaps get more. That’s the case despite the ugliness surrounding his controversial failed drug test, successful appeal and ultimate suspension that cost him the final 65 games of 2013, an elephant in the room that can’t be ignored.

But the truth of the matter is that as much as fans may dislike it, major league teams value talent over rap sheets. Just this month alone, Marlon Byrd, Jhonny Peralta and Carlos Ruiz — all with PED-related suspensions in the recent past — signed deals that roughly equaled or exceeded their entire career earnings to date, and Nelson Cruz is likely to do the same soon.

The annual inflation in salaries factors into that somewhat, but it’s mostly that they were among the best options on the market and were paid accordingly, despite the black marks on their records. Front offices want to win games, not act as the sport’s morality police.

Low supply of superstars

Braun’s reputation is likely tainted forever, but the fact is that there’s no simple pill or cream that can account for a No. 5 overall draft pick hitting the way he did from the start of his career, not when he is one of just 21 players in history to have a .400 wOBA in his 20s (minimum 4,000 plate appearances).

In other words, his combination of talents is nearly unmatched on the market, and he would be a fascinating trade chip were he to become available. Over the summer, Jim Bowden wrote that Braun is still by far the Brewers’ most valuable asset and would be consideredsecond only to Cano if he were a free agent this winter.

While the Mets are often mentioned when his name comes up, it’s actually teams like Pittsburgh, Kansas City and Seattle that would immediately be able to get into the game for a talent that usually eludes them on the open market. The Pirates and Royals desperately need a power-hitting corner outfielder as they attempt to capitalize on their breakthrough 2013 seasons, while Seattle is constantly looking for offense and has money to spend. (Braun has a no-trade clause, but those are easily negotiated around.)

The Pirates, Royals and Mariners all have the high-end prospects that the Brewers desperately need, and a Braun trade would help jump-start the rebuilding process while ridding Milwaukee of a PR problem.

As we’ve seen on the market so far this winter, PED busts aren’t creating a drag on value, and making Braun available could do wonders for Milwaukee’s future.