Finding diamonds in the rough is *the* goal for fantasy owners. Top 100 prospect lists can give you an idea of which young players are up and coming. I am not going to be looking at players experts have been writing about. Instead, I am going to look for non-prospect position players who have a chance to contribute in the majors if given a chance. Your diamonds in the rough.

To help me find these players, I have created a metric which looks for traits which may not get the most notice by the ranking services. Here are the criteria I used to filter the players:

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Tis the season to make New Year’s Resolutions. Lose 15 pounds, read more books, watch less television, get outside more often, or in Ian Kinsler’s case, steal more bases, as the second baseman recently told Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press. Until 2013, Kinsler had stolen at least 21 bases in each of his full seasons but swiped just 15 last season. He missed some time with a rib injury, but Kinsler blamed how he was managed by Ron Washington as well.

“…and when he did steal, many times it was as part of a hit-and-run in front of the strikeout-prone Elvis Andrus, Kinsler said in a teleconference after he was traded from Texas to Detroit in late November.

“A lot of times that didn’t work out for the team and I got thrown out by two to three steps,” he said. “So those necessarily have to go down as a stolen base attempt but those necessarily in my mind aren’t a stolen base attempt. I’m moving because of the hit-and-run.”

It is human nature to blame others for your shortcomings. It’s not my fault I gained 10 pounds or only read two book last year. It isn’t my fault that I logged 100x the hours on my laptop than I did a treadmill. It is my kids’ fault because their schedule is very busy. It is my wife’s fault because of the long honey-do lists she leaves me on a daily basis. The truth is, all of those things are my fault because I did not manage my time more efficiently.

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If you participate in a fantasy baseball league, then there is a very good chance you have been flabbergasted about a trade made between other league members. You may have been outraged at the inequity of a trade. You may have had no doubts the two trading partners are involved in some nefarious scheme. But before you start jumping to conclusions about whether there is any collusion taking place, you need to first understand what collusion means and also what it does not mean.

The Supreme Court of Fantasy Judgment advocates for fantasy GMs to be able to manage their teams freely and according to their own preferences. Whether they have paid an entry fee or not, GMs should have the freedom to make their own decisions in the management of their team so long as they do not compromise the integrity of the league (e.g., entering into collusive agreements with other GMs). The Court defines collusion as a secret agreement or conspiracy for fraudulent or treacherous purposes.(1) Like many acts of treachery, collusion can take shape in many forms. Collusion can also have various levels of offense in terms of what the participating parties are trying to accomplish. But in the end, they all undermine the integrity of a league and need to be decisively addressed.

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The Cincinnati Reds are in trouble heading into 2014. That might sound like a controversial statement, though it really shouldn’t be, considering how circumstances have changed in the NL Central. The St. Louis Cardinals, fresh off a trip to the World Series, will get the benefit of a full season of their celebrated young pitching and have finally filled their black hole at shortstop. TheMilwaukee Brewers will have Ryan Braun back along with Matt Garza in their rotation, and while the Pittsburgh Pirates haven’t added anyone of note, a full year of Gerrit Cole and the impending arrivals of Gregory Polanco and Jameson Taillon should make them dangerous once again.

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Freddie Freeman’s $135 million extension raised a lot of eyebrows this week, not just because of the size of the commitment but because of Freeman’s somewhat undeveloped power for a first baseman. The position has long been considered the domain of hulking sluggers, and even in this age of reduced power, it’s a position where teams still expect to get a fair share of home runs. And Freeman is not really a home run guy.

Over the last three years, he’s 21, 23, and 23 home runs, and his 67 total homers in that time frame ranks just 14th among qualified first baseman. And of the top 30 qualified first baseman in home runs, Freeman’s rate of home runs per plate appearance — one every 28.1 trips to the plate — ranks 23rd, putting him in the same category as guys like Justin Smoak and Mitch Moreland. If one was to judge Freeman solely on his ability to hit the ball over the wall, he would grade out as an average first baseman at best.

However, even if chicks dig the long ball, not even a first baseman has to specialize in dingers in order to be highly productive and extremely valuable. While Freeman’s home run rate compares with lesser players, it also puts him in the same range as Joey Votto — he’s averaged one home run every 28.7 trips to the plate — and he’s probably the best hitter in the National League. And while Freeman certainly doesn’t have Votto’s track record, there are some similarities here that should make Braves fans less nervous about this large of a commitment to a first baseman who doesn’t physically remind you of The Incredible Hulk.

Freeman’s 2013 breakout season came in large part because of production in hitting the ball to the opposite field, which has been a hallmark of Votto’s career. Last year, 112 of Freeman’s contacted balls were hit to left field, and he posted a .448 wOBA on balls hit to the opposite field; among qualified first baseman, only Chris Davis (.648 wOBA) and Votto (.529 wOBA) were more productive when using the opposite field. In fact, Freeman’s opposite field wOBA was nearly as high as his pull wOBA (.464), as he didn’t lose any real production going the other way than when he turned on a pitch.

How is that helpful? Hitters who go use the whole field, rather than focusing on pulling the ball to maximize their power, regularly post higher rates of hits on balls in play. Freeman’s .371 BABIP is almost certainly unsustainable on a yearly basis, but the way he used the field suggests that higher than average BABIPs should be expected in the future. For instance, the 10 left-handed hitters who hit the ball to the opposite field the most often — Votto was #1, and the list also includes guys like Joe Mauer and Shin-Soo Choo — last year combined for a .322 BABIP, 25 points higher than the league average.

Especially with the increased emphasis on the shift as a defensive weapon against left-handed pull hitters, a hitter who can drive the ball to left field has a significant advantage. While pull-focused hitters like Mark Teixeira have routinely seen line drives caught by a defender playing short right field, hitters like Freeman and Votto are harmed less by the shift, because their offensive approach doesn’t involve trying to hit the ball to right field as hard as humanly possible.

Because it’s easier to pull a ball over the fence than it is to drive a home run to the opposite field, the trade-off is a lower quantity of home runs, but more hits overall. It is essentially the age-old balance of quality versus quantity, and it is important to remember that there is a quantity of singles and doubles that makes up for a lack of home runs, even for a “power position” like first base.

With $135 million in guaranteed money coming his way, it can be tempting to think that Freeman has to develop more power to justify his contract, and become more of a slugger than he has been to date. But he doesn’t, really. $135 million isn’t what it used to be, and it certainly doesn’t buy elite power anymore. Choo, probably the closest approximation in terms of skillset to Freeman on the market this off-season, landed a seven year, $130 million contract as an opposite field line drive hitter, and Choo is headed for the decline phase of his career. Freeman is already as good as Choo, and is on the upswing of his career; factor in three more years of salary inflation, and Freeman’s eventual free agent price would have been far more than the $22 million per year that he sold his five free agent years for in this extension.

Freeman isn’t Prince Fielder or Ryan Howard, and if you just focus on home runs, than it might be easy to miss the reasons that Freeman is actually a good player. He probably won’t be able to sustain his 2013 batting line — even Votto’s career BABIP is .359, pretty much the upper limit for this kind of player — and some expected regression might make Freeman more of a good player than a great one, but $135 million for the prime years of a good player is simply what the market has dictated in 2014. This contract doesn’t require Freeman to be a superstar, or to hit a lot of home runs, in order to be a good investment. He simply has to keep hitting line drives all of the field and the Braves will be just fine.

The Houston Astros have not been very good the past three seasons. They haven’t cracked 60 wins, and have generally played an unwatchable brand of baseball while doing so.

This year should be different. Not only are some of their prospects about to graduate to the majors, but they have acquired some depth at the major league level. They won’t be the worst team in baseball, and might not even be one of the three worst.

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With A.J. Burnett deciding not only to return to play in 2014 but to open himself up to bids from teams other than the Pirates, the market for free agent pitchers has changed yet again. Burnett might be a bit older than guys like Ervin Santana or Ubaldo Jimenez, but he’s also not going to ask for a long term contract, so teams wanting to minimize their overall commitments can pursue Burnett as an upgrade without having to offer up a three or four year deal.

Of course, it wasn’t so long ago that there was no demand for A.J. Burnett. After a couple of miserable seasons in New York — if you judge a pitcher by ERA, anyway — the Yankees just wanted to be done with Burnett, and paid the Pirates to take him off their hands; Pittsburgh assumed just $13 million of the $33 million Burnett had remaining on his contract, and proceeded to give them two excellent years for bargain prices.

So, instead of bidding up an aging Burnett who has re-established his market value, why not look for the next A.J. Burnett, a pitcher at the low point of his value with a contract that could be assumed in lieu of signing any of the free agents on the market. Here are three options for pitchers who might have a Burnett-like career rejuvenation still left in them.

Ryan Dempster, Boston Red Sox: 1 year, $13.25 million remaining

Dempster’s first year in Boston didn’t go so well, as he posted his highest walk rate since 2007 and the highest home run rate of his entire career. That’s not a great combination, and Dempster ended up losing his spot in the Red Sox rotation after the team acquired Jake Peavy at the trade deadline. With spring training just a few weeks away, Dempster is on the outside looking in, and his main role with the Red Sox is to provide depth in case one of the starting five get hurt.

However, there are plenty of reasons to think that he can still help a team that doesn’t have Boston’s rotation depth. His stuff didn’t seem to decline at all, as his velocity held steady and batters made contact on just 77% of swings against him, right in line with his days as a quality pitcher in Chicago. If he can get the walks in line, normal regression should fix his home run problem, and the strikeout rate should allow him to return to being a quality starting pitcher.

The Red Sox might enjoy the depth he provides, but $13 million is a high price for a backup starter, and any team who would take his contract off their books would probably not have to give up much to get him. With a decent chance for a rebound and only a single year commitment, Dempster could easily be a nifty acquisition for a team who would rather not pay free agent prices.

Josh Beckett, Los Angeles Dodgers: 1 year, $15.75 million remaining

While Beckett is currently penciled in to the #5 spot in the Dodgers rotation, he certainly isn’t guaranteed a spot, as the team’s pursuit of Masahiro Tanaka showed. Even without Tanaka, there have been talks that the Dodgers could pursue a free agent starter such as Bronson Arroyo, and shedding Beckett’s contract would likely encourage them to make a run at one of the starters remaining on the market.

For a team not interested in making a two or three year commitment to a pitcher like Arroyo, however, Beckett could be an interesting one year option. He missed nearly all of the 2013 season with a groin injury, but the good news is that his arm seemed to be in decent shape when he was on the mound. His velocity bumped back up from his final year in Boston, and hitters only made contact on 76% of their swings against him last year, rivaling the numbers he put up back in his glory days in Miami. While it seems like Beckett has been around forever, he’ll only be 34 next year, and his peripheral numbers don’t support the idea that he’s lost his ability to pitch at the big league level.

He might not be an ace anymore, but if he can stay healthy enough to throw 160 to 180 innings, Beckett could easily be an above average starting pitcher. If a team can get the Dodgers to kick in some cash to help facilitate Beckett’s exit, landing him on a one year deal could be a nice little upgrade for a team looking for a rotation boost.

John Danks, Chicago White Sox: 2 years, $28.5 million remaining

The Pale Hose are a team in transition, and GM Rick Hahn made several good moves this winter to help setup their franchise for future success, but they’re unlikely to be contenders in 2014 and maybe not in 2015 either. While Danks is still young enough — he’s just going to be 29 this year — to figure into the White Sox long term plans, he’s more valuable to a contender for the next few years, and the White Sox probably wouldn’t mind getting a chance to reallocate some of his money to fill out the rest of their roster with lower cost players.

While Danks didn’t show the same stuff or strikeout ability as he did before shoulder surgery sidelined him in 2012, he did post the lowest walk rate of his career, seemingly acknowledging that he’d have to find new ways to succeed with a reduced repertoire. Danks is still young enough to reinvent himself as a command oriented innings eater, and while $28 million for a back-end starter is no bargain, a team that could convince the White Sox to eat some of that money in order to facilitate a trade could end up with a better option than paying any of the remaining free agent starters who would take a two year deal.

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.

Every offseason, there are some deals that make you scratch your head. Not necessarily for the money paid to the player, but for the return received in trade or how that player actually fits on the roster. The 2013-2014 MLB offseason has been no exception.

Let’s take a look at five transactions where we’re not sure what one team was thinking.

Colorado Rockies trade Dexter Fowler to the Houston Astros for Jordan Lyles and Brandon Barnes

Fowler isn’t perfect, but he was the best center fielder the Rockies had. They preferred the upside of Lyles, hoping that they could find another Tyler Chatwood. And perhaps there is logic in that, because they’re both young pitchers who might have been rushed to the majors.

But where Chatwood has a good fastball and gets tons of ground balls, Lyles has neither a good fastball nor generates enough grounders to succeed at high altitude. Last season, among pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched, just two — Charlie Morton and Samuel Deduno — generated a higher percentage of ground balls than did Chatwood. Lyles, meanwhile, ranked 41st on that list. Perhaps the Rockies can change Lyles’ game, but that’s a big bet when the player you’re giving up is a known and precious commodity — a league-average center fielder.

The issue is that Fowler may be even be more than that. Over the past two seasons, he ranks 10th among qualified center fielders in wRC+, on par with Carlos Gomez. And now that he has left Coors Field, his defensive statistics — advanced and otherwise — will only look better, as the cavernous Colorado ballpark throws off all defensive outfield evaluations. To compound the problem, the Rockies are now hoping to play star outfielder Carlos Gonzalez in center field more frequently, but given the giant pasture there and CarGo’s past knee troubles, that plan looks like a recipe for disaster.

The Astros also gave up Barnes in the deal, but he is likely no better than replacement level, and the Rockies already had two such players in their outfield in Charlie Blackmon and Charlie Culberson. Barnes then became even more irrelevant when the the Rockies traded for Drew Stubbs less than two weeks later. He’ll be lucky to be the team’s fifth outfielder.

Los Angeles Dodgers sign Chris Perez

There’s no way to sucarcoat it: Last year, Perez was terrible. The Dodgers had a full bullpen of better pitchers — particularly Kenley Jansen, Paco Rodriguez, J.P. Howell, Brian Wilson and Ronald Belisario. In addition, rookies Chris Withrow and Jose Dominguez were better. Heck, even Carlos Marmol, in his time with the Dodgers, performed better than did Perez in Cleveland. The Dodgers then added to their stable of competent-to-good relievers when they signed Jamey Wright.

With as many as eight competent relievers under contract, surely the Dodgers didn’t need a ninth? And yet, they decided to lock in Perez. This makes little sense, and will probably cost a kid like Withrow or Dominguez a shot at a big league job.

The deal also didn’t really make much sense from Perez’s standpoint, if his end goal is to try to retain a closer’s job. At best, he’ll be No. 3 on the depth chart for saves behind Jansen and Wilson, and the Dodgers will have no reason to trade him to a contender at midseason, since they will already be contenders. If he doesn’t work out in a middle-leverage role, he’ll be cut. And if he does work out, he may have pigeonholed himself back into the far-less-lucrative setup man territory.

The Dodgers are probably hoping for a rebound from Perez, but given that they already had a whole bullpen full of better choices, and the fact that Perez’s average fastball velocity was the lowest of his career last year, there is little reason to expect such a rebound. On top of all that, there was no reason to lock him up for a major league job in early December when they could have waited for cheaper options to emerge. All things considered, this move just didn’t make any sense.

San Francisco Giants sign Joaquin Arias to two-year extension

Like Perez, Arias is a replacement-level player. He has one skill — he is above-average at third base defensively. The Giants have sometimes made use of this skill — Arias started at third base 18 times last season, but the bulk of his work there has come as a defensive replacement.

In his two seasons with the Giants, he has played 129 games at third base, but he has started just 57 of them, and has played a complete game at the hot corner just 51 times. He’s a defensive sub — around when the team wants to give Pablo Sandoval a breather, and on the bench when they don’t. Nevertheless, the team locked him into a two-year deal this week, to cover his last two arbitration years. The cost will be modest, so it’s an easily corrected mistake, but one that shouldn’t have been made in the first place.

For one thing, Sandoval is a free agent after the 2014 season, and the Giants’ next starting third baseman might not need to be replaced defensively. Furthermore, Sandoval is once again in shape this year, and dare we say, the best shape of his life. With such improved conditioning, he might not need to be replaced as frequently himself this season. After all, it’s not like he’s a defensive disaster — for his career, he has a positive UZR at the hot corner.

Finally, the team has Nick Noonan available at the league minimum salary. Like Arias, Noonan is a banjo-hitting utility infielder with a good glove. The difference is that Noonan is a lot further from arbitration, and will make less for the foreseeable future.

Having Arias around this year isn’t the worst thing in the world, but given that the Giants don’t know what third base will look like next year and have a league-minimum earner around in Noonan, it wasn’t necessary to lock in Arias for a second year.

Detroit Tigers trade Doug Fister to the Washington Nationals for Robbie Ray, Ian Krol and Steve Lombardozzi

The Nationals may have got the steal of the offseason with this deal. Last year, Fister’s 4.6 WAR (per FanGraphs) made him the 12th-most valuable pitcher in the majors, and over the past three years, only eight pitchers have had a higher WAR.

For their trouble, the Tigers got a utility infielder that they didn’t really need and two pitchers who don’t figure to crack their starting rotation and have just a grand total of 31 innings pitched above Double-A. Ray is a decent prospect, but for a team that is trying to win the World Series right now, this was a perplexing move. The Mariners were the first team to be burned when they got too little in return for Fister, and the Tigers will almost assuredly be the second.

Nationals sign Nate McLouth to two-year deal

McLouth is a good player and the Nationals had some depth issues with their outfield last year. So on the surface, this signing makes perfect sense. But then you read things like the team expects to give him “significant at-bats,” and you see that he will be paid more than $5 million a season, which is more than what most fourth outfielders make. And you start to wonder, exactly how is this arrangement going to work?

By signing this contract, the Nationals are essentially saying that they are confident that one of their corner outfielders — Bryce Harper and Jayson Werth — will get hurt at some point. And maybe that will happen. But what if it doesn’t? What if they’re healthy all season? McLouth is a nice player, but any day he spends in the lineup in front of a healthy Harper or Werth is a day where the Nationals don’t have their best team on the field. McLouth on his best day might be as good as Harper or Werth on their worst, but you’d have to squint to see it. In the past three seasons, McLouth’s best wRC+ is an even 100; that is also Werth’s worst. Harper’s wRC+ hasn’t yet dipped beneath 121, and probably won’t any time soon.

Perhaps the Nationals want to play McLouth in center, but that wouldn’t be a great idea. McLouth hasn’t played significant innings in center since 2011, and he hasn’t played well in center since 2009, and that was really the only season out of his five with significant time in center field in which he was actually valuable.

Scott Hairston would be a better bet to play over Denard Span if he needs a breather. For one, Hairston hits right-handed, which better complements Span. For another, he has played a better defensive center field in his career than McLouth. For their careers, Hairston has been worth 3.4 UZR per 150 games in center, while McLouth’s UZR/150 is minus-12.3. And when you throw in the fact that both McLouth and Span hit left-handed and that Span is McLouth’s equal at the plate and clear superior with the glove (Span’s UZR/150 in center is 6.1), it’s hard to see how you would justify playing McLouth over Span at all, never mind in center field.

McLouth is a nice player, but he is inferior to all three of Washington’s starting outfielders, and in certain situations — specifically against left-handed pitchers — he is inferior to Hairston as well. So unless one of the other four outfielders lands on the disabled list, giving McLouth that aforementioned significant playing time will be a mistake.

The Toronto Blue Jays have to sign a pitcher. It’s not a question of desire. They’re short a starting pitcher, maybe two.

Roughly 40 percent of all pitchers who pitched last year will hit the DL at some point in 2014. That means every rotation in baseball — in your average year — needs at least six pitchers. Seven pitchers is a better plan, in case one of those DL stints is longer than most. If you’re the Blue Jays and coming off two straight years of losing more time to pitcher injuries than most of baseball — and still hope to contend — you might want to go eight deep.

Currently, the spots for Nos. 3-8 in the Blue Jays’ rotation are manned by Brandon Morrow, J.A. Happ, Esmil Rogers, Todd Redmond, Kyle Drabek and Drew Hutchison, in some order. That group averaged just over 60 innings in the big leagues last season. For a roster that looks to be built for the now, it’s a grim group of pitchers. Even if you add the exciting big-league ready prospect Marcus Stroman, the Jays need another pitcher.

Of course, two potentially elite starting pitchers are available on the free-agent market: Ervin Santana and Ubaldo Jimenez, and the Blue Jays must make sure at least one of them is toeing the rubber in the Rogers Centre by summer.

Relatively low cost

The biggest reason Santana and Jimenez are still available is that both will cost the team that signs them a draft pick. This is less of a problem for the Blue Jays because they have two of the top 11 picks in the 2014 draft, and the 11th is actually protected because it comes as compensation for failing to sign Phil Bickford, their 2013 first-rounder. In other words, they would only have to sacrifice a second-round pick to sign either pitcher.

A win-now team can afford to lose a second-rounder, especially since by that time, the chance of finding a successful player in the draft has already dropped below 10 percent.

If the rumors are to be believed, the asking price for Santana has fallen below four years, $60 million, and Jimenez is seeking similar terms. That might seem steep for a club whose payroll jumped to $120 million last season after never previously topping $100 million, but it’s a relative bargain when compared to the contract given to Masahiro Tanaka.

So if we assume the Jays need to sign one of these guys, the question becomes: Which one?

Santana vs. Jimenez

If health is your primary concern, then Santana is the choice; he has averaged 206 innings over the last three years to Jimenez’s 183. But age is a component to any discussion about health, and at 30, Jimenez is a year younger, which is worth about an extra percentage point in terms of injury projection.

The research on using pitcher types to predict injury is split a bit in the case of these two pitchers. Santana throws more sliders than anyone in the game, and sliders have been shown to stress the elbow. But Jimenez doesn’t have good control and his mechanics get out of whack sometimes — good control has been shown to lead to good health outcomes.

If health is maybe a wash in this situation, then how about performance? Though the shape of their work over the last three years has been different, and they have different strengths and weaknesses, projection systems see them both as pitchers whose ERA will land in the 4.00 range. They’ve each had issues with home runs in the past, and they’d be leaving home parks that suppress home runs to go to Toronto, the eighth-friendliest park for home runs last season.

A look at their arsenals could split the difference. Santana throws a fastball or a slider 93 percent of the time. Against lefties, he throws the change a little more (11 percent the last two years), but he’s really hoping to get a grounder with the pitch, not whiffs. The slider and the sinker have the worst platoon splits in baseball — lefties love them from a righty. And that’s why Santana’s strikeout, walk and home run rates all get worse when he faces a lefty.

Jimenez has a completely different arsenal. By BrooksBaseball’s algorithm, he threw seven different kinds of pitches last year. The sinker and the slider are still his bread and butter, and they too have platoon splits, but he’s added a new pitch that is fairly exciting. His split-finger, which he used almost one-fifth of the time last year against lefties, gets both whiffs and grounders at an above-average rate, and virtually assures that he’ll continue to show even numbers against batters of both hands.

That might be important to the Blue Jays, who had the third-worst numbers against left-handed batters in the American League last year. As a team, they had a 4.56 FIP against lefties and a 4.08 against righties.

Can the Blue Jays add another $15 million to their budget? Right now, they’re projected to have a $133 million payroll, quite a jump from the $84 million they spent in 2012. But with Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista (and R.A. Dickey) locked up below market value through 2015 (with some club options for 2016), this might be their current window of contention.

So who should the Blue Jays sign? A starter. Maybe one whose arsenal fits their team needs best. Maybe the one who comes with the fewest years attached, or the smallest cost. Maybe the team was waiting for Tanaka to set the wheels in motion so it could catch the falling free agent. It all makes sense.

At least if the Blue Jays sign one of these guys in the end.