When you think about a particular year’s free-agent crop, you think of the big tickets.

You remember how well Zack Greinke pitched for the Los Angeles Dodgers last year, while shaking your head at how poorly Josh Hamilton performed for the Los Angeles Angels.

At some point in the future, we’ll look back at this winter and judge how well the expected massive contracts for Robinson Cano, Jacoby Ellsbury and Shin-Soo Choo worked out — or, quite possibly, didn’t. But focusing on the ever-increasing prices at the top of the market tends to overlook where the true value is found.

For teams that know where to look, there’s a class of free agents primed to provide production at a fraction of the cost. We saw this last year with guys like Russell Martin,James Loney and Scott Kazmir. Each was coming off a subpar season but had a history of success, and each contributed substantially this year to a playoff team.

Can we find players who fit a similar profile on this year’s market? The Cleveland Indiansmay have already, reportedly signing useful outfielder David Murphy to a reasonably priced two-year deal Tuesday night, hoping they’ll get something more like his excellent 2012 than his down 2013.

Murphy isn’t alone, however — there are others like him.

Dan Haren, RHP

For years, Haren has been one of baseball’s top pitchers with the Athletics, Diamondbacks, and Angels. He received big money on a one-year deal to fill out the Nationals’ rotation in 2013. But it didn’t work, mostly; after 15 starts, Haren had a 6.15 ERA and had allowed opposing batters an ugly line of .306 AVG/.340 OBP/.548 SLG.

After his 15th start, he ended up on the disabled list with what was officially termed “shoulder soreness” but what was widely believed to be more of a simple breather to get him some time off the mound.

When he returned, he was a new man. In his final 16 games (15 starts), his ERA was 3.29, his line against was a solid .228/.271/.355, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio was an excellent 84/18. Just as importantly, he allowed only nine homers in his second half, as opposed to 19 before that.

Haren isn’t the ace he once was, not with 11 years in the bigs on his arm and downward-trending velocity. But he showed in the second half that his excellent control and a commitment to keeping the ball down can still allow him to be a productive pitcher, and his poor first half ensures he won’t get anything like $12 million again, making him a nice buy-low candidate.

Chris Young, CF

Young appears on this list for all the same reasons Murphy would have — they’re both eight-year veterans from the Houston area who suffered through arguably the worst years of otherwise productive careers in 2013.

Young might be an even better bet to buy low on, because he’s two years younger and was more productive at his peak than Murphy, providing Arizona with about 11 WAR from 2010 to ’12. Traded to Oakland last year, Young fell apart, hitting only .200/.280/.379, and the A’s predictably declined his $11 million option. Still, he’s only 30 and has three 20/20 seasons under his belt.

Young never did become the star that his 32-homer debut (at 22 years old in 2007) suggested he might be, but searching in the value bin isn’t about finding stars, it’s about identifying players who may be able to fit a role. If Young isn’t exactly the plus-plus center fielder he used to be, he’s still an above-average defender in a corner, and with a career .364 wOBA against lefties (only .310 against righties), he is an intriguing platoon option who can handle all three spots.

Even at his best, Young never had a high batting average — he has topped .250 just once — so he’d be best-served to land with a team that wisely doesn’t put much stock in that number. He’d do even better to end up somewhere that doesn’t have a lot of foul ground; of the 226 players with at least 1,000 plate appearances since the start of 2011, only five have popped up more than Young.

Ike Davis, 1B | New York Mets

Davis doesn’t fit the mold perfectly, because he’s not a free agent, but the Mets have made it clear he’s available, and he has the biggest boom/bust potential of anyone around. In just four years in the bigs, Davis has had a dizzying array of ups and downs, from a .302/.383/.543 line in a shortened 2011 season and 32 homers in 2012, to bouts with a severe ankle injury, Valley fever and finally a Triple-A demotion in 2013.

It’s not surprising that the Mets sent him down in June, because he was hitting just .161/.242/ .258, the second consecutive year he’d been beyond awful for the first half. In 2012, he turned it around and was fantastic down the stretch; in 2013, he again showed improvement after being recalled, hitting .267/.429/.443 in July and August until an oblique strain shut him down in September.

While he’s often infuriating to watch, he will be only 27 years old next year, and he has been an above-average hitter overall in a world where power keeps getting harder to find. He’s perhaps the biggest “change of scenery needed” player on the market, with Mets fans seemingly finished with him. A team that would keep him away from lefty pitching (career .269 wOBA) and let him hit righties (.357 wOBA) may enjoy their purchase.

The 2014 Steamer projections, it should be noted, are optimistic, projecting a .238/.341/.439 line with 18 homers in part-time play.

Corey Hart, 1B/OF

Hart missed all of 2013 with knee injuries, and that makes him an enormous risk as he heads into his age-32 season. Yet Hart will get an opportunity for the same reason that Davis will, and that’s because offense continues to trend down — 2013’s MLB wOBA of .314 is the lowest the sport has seen since 1989.

Hart has proclaimed himself healthy, and he hit .279/.343/.514 with 87 homers from 2010 to ’12. If not for the missed year, that’s the kind of performance that would have earned him a sizable multiyear contract in this market. The health concerns mean he’ll likely get only a single-year, make-good offer — and we saw how well that worked out for the Red Sox andMike Napoli last winter.

It’s still early enough in the offseason that Marlon Byrd landing a two-year deal with thePhiladelphia Phillies is the biggest player movement we’ve seen so far, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any clear winners yet. There are two, and they’re the same two teams that always seem to fall into that category: the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees.

What could they possibly have won already, when no games are being played and they have not added any new players (yet)? They’ve won the ability to potentially pick up three additional draft picks apiece, more than any other teams in baseball, because of the “qualifying offer” system that went into place last year in the new collective bargaining agreement.

Rather than the old “Type A” and “Type B” arbitration system, teams may now offer eligible free agents a one-year deal for the average of the top 125 salaries in baseball, which this year comes out to $14.1 million.

If the idea of the draft serving to aid two of the wealthiest teams in the sport, especially when one is the defending champion, seems counterintuitive, it is. Yet that’s exactly what the new CBA has brought, as the fears of many who worried that small-market teams would find themselves further handicapped are being realized.

Under the old system — which, to be completely fair, no one particularly loved — teams could offer arbitration to any of their free agents. The player could decline and sign elsewhere, giving his old team a pick based on his status as a Type A, B or C free agent, as determined by a statistical formula, or he could accept and submit to arbitration. If the player signed elsewhere, his old club could receive up to two compensatory draft picks.

The key there is that there was no artificial dollar figure that served as a “one size fits all” mark, like the current system does. The team and player could submit their figures, and the arbitrator would choose one, giving each side incentive to stick to something realistic for that particular player.

Ironically, part of the reason the system was changed was because big-market teams were exploiting it — remember the Red Sox having five first-round picks in 2005? — but the new rules haven’t changed much. Many teams are bidding farewell to useful free agents because they are afraid of a one year, $14.1 million deal, taking the idea of draft pick compensation completely off the table.

Haves and have-nots

The problem with the new system is demonstrated fairly well by Bartolo Colon and Hiroki Kuroda. Colon, 40, and Kuroda, 38, are coming off very similar seasons and considering their age would almost certainly be valued comparably in a vacuum. However, the A’s are not in a position to risk $14 million on an aging pitcher, which is why Colon did not get a qualifying offer. The Yankees, however, can take that gamble, and made the tender to Kuroda, which means they will get an extra draft pick should he sign elsewhere.

This example isn’t perfect, as $14.1 million would represent a big raise for Colon and a slight pay cut for Kuroda, but their past salary isn’t that relevant to how they should be valued now.

For the Yankees and Red Sox, qualifying offers carry minimal risk. They can afford to carry multiple players who are making close to that level or more anyway, to start with, and even if, say, Kuroda, Jacoby Ellsbury, Mike Napoli, and Stephen Drew had all accepted their offers — which was never going to happen — New York and Boston could have made that work.

A full 10 of the 22 offers came from the Red Sox and Yankees alone, and a huge majority came from other teams that can easily be considered big players, like the Texas Rangers (Nelson Cruz, Josh Hamilton) andSt. Louis Cardinals (Carlos Beltran, Kyle Lohse).

That’s because it’s offered almost exclusively to players who are all but certain to go off and get huge, multi-year contracts, like when the Rays were able to extend an offer to B.J. Upton last season. Upton even reaching that point was something of a rarity, because most smaller teams have either locked up their young stars before free agency hits (see: Evan Longoria) or traded them for huge returns (see: James Shields).

By design, this system is meant to reward wealthier teams who can both hang on to players through free agency and then risk the $14.1 million salary.

Broken system

To its credit, MLB tried to build in some safeguards for this, like protecting the first-round picks of the worst 10 teams, in theory enabling them to sign a qualifying offer player without losing more than a second-round pick, and creating the competitive balance draft. It’s nice, but somewhat without teeth. Many of those teams with protected picks aren’t at the right point in the win cycle to buy expensive free agents — that is, the difference between 67 wins and 71 wins doesn’t mean a whole lot — even if those top players did want to go to losing teams, which many do not.

The competitive balance draft is somewhat better, because it distributes extra picks to the smallest-market and lowest-revenue teams based on a lottery. Still, some of those picks come between the first and second rounds and the rest between the second and third; since they come after the qualifying offer compensation picks, which are at the end of the first round, those teams still get their extra picks behind teams like the Yankees and Red Sox.

In theory, the draft is supposed to help the worst teams while keeping costs down, which is why it is generally seen as the best path to success for small-market clubs. But as we’re seeing with the free-agent compensation system, all that is happening is that the rich are getting richer.

A lot of people don’t trust speed-and-defense players to age well. They’re one knee injury away from being worthless! Once the speed goes, what’s left! Just look at what happened to Carl Crawford! The skepticism over the value of production that is not hitting is never more evident then when a player like Jacoby Ellsbury hits the free agent market. While some might grudgingly admit that Ellsbury has had a couple of terrific seasons lately, his lack of power and dependence on his legs have created some doubt about whether he’ll be able to be an impact player for much longer.

Is such skepticism actually warranted, however, or simply another instance of hitting being overvalued relative to other skills? Rather than just lean on conjecture, let’s actually look at how players with similar skill sets and performances at Ellsbury’s age have done after they turned 30. To find a good set of comparable players, I looked at all outfielders over the last 30 years, then narrowed down the list to just players who were in the same general range of production as Ellsbury during those three seasons and had a significant part of their value come from defense and baserunning.

Including Ellsbury, I found ten outfielders who matched this skillset and performance to a pretty high level, and have actually completed their age-36 season, so that we can compare their performances over a seven year period, the length of contract I expect Ellsbury to land this winter. Here is the table showing Ellsbury’s performance relative to those age-27 to age-29 peers.

OFF/600 and DEF/600 are simply the number of runs created through offense or defense per 600 plate appearances, and then WAR/600 is Wins Above Replacement per 600 plate appearances, so that we see each player’s totals on a scale that is roughly one full season’s worth of playing time.

In terms of total production, Ellsbury was actually better than most of these guys over the three years being measured, even though he missed half a season during his age-28 season and had limited production when he did manage to play. His production in his two healthy seasons was so great that it puts him in the top tier of these types of players even with his mediocre 2012 season included.

Overall, these players give us a pretty decent group of outfielders who were productive at this stage in their careers despite moderate power, primarily succeeding through excellent baserunning and tracking down balls in the outfield. Devon White, Marquis Grissom, and Steve Finley were more defensive specialists than total all around stars, but it’s still informative to see how guys who were more defense and less offense did as they got older.

Including the three lesser hitters also helps serve to balance things out, so that the total production of the nine players we’re looking at nearly matches Ellsbury’s own production. Overall, the average wRC+ posted by these players in their 27-29 seasons was 119, just a little below Ellsbury’s 123. They were approximately nine runs above average defensively per season, while Ellsbury was 12 runs above average per season. Not every player matches Ellsbury perfectly as a comparison, but as a group, these guys comprised most of the same skill levels as he does now.

So how did they do from their age-30 to age-36 seasons? I’m glad you asked.

Grissom is the warning sign that people often point to, as his performance regressed to the point that he was barely worth playing, and he produced little value after age-30. Of course, he was also the worst player of the comparable age-27 to age-29 group, so perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised that he was also the worst player beyond age-30.

Lenny Dkystra and Andy Van Slyke could also be pointed to as moderate warnings, or at least reminders that future health is not guaranteed. Both Dykstra and Van Slyke were pretty effective players even beyond age-30 when they were on the field, Dykstra managed just 1,600 plate appearances and Van Slyke just 2,300 after their age-29 season. We don’t see the precipitous decline in production with either of them that we do with Grissom, but they failed to age well because they weren’t able to stay in the line-up often enough, and both were out of baseball by the time they were 35.

The other six, though? Pretty obvious success stories. Henderson got better, even as he moved to a corner outfield spot full time. Ichiro maintained almost all of his value, staying basically the same player that he was in those first three years. Raines and Lofton both got worse, but both were still excellent players even after their speed began to slip. Devon White and Steve Finley, despite starting from lower baselines, actually hit better after turning 30, and the increases in offense helped to offset their defensive downgrades, leaving them as productive regulars for the bulk of their age 30-36 seasons.

Overall, these nine players maintained an average of 70% of their ages 27-29 WAR/600 rates. If you apply that 70% rate to Ellsbury’s +5.8 WAR/600 from his last three seasons, he’d forecast as a +4.0 WAR per 600 PA player over the next seven years. Even if we include the players whose careers ended early, the group of comparables still averaged 522 plate appearances per year over their 30-36 seasons. Take 70% of Ellsbury’s last three year performance and project it out to 525 plate appearances per year and you’re still left with a guy who averages +3.5 WAR per season over the next seven years.

The idea that Ellsbury-type players fall apart as their speed declines is simply exposed as a myth. Players like this that have come before have simply made adjustments to compensate for their declining speed, and have continued to produce at a high rate even as their speed and defense diminished. Don’t buy into the idea that Jacoby Ellsbury is headed for a crash as he slows down. In fact, if he performs like the average of the similar players who came before him, the rumored price tags of $120-$140 million might end up proving to be a bargain.

There are plenty of moves that, from the outside, look fairly predictable. The Tigers want a proven closer, and Joe Nathan is looking for a job shutting the door for a contender. The Giants are looking for another starting pitcher with some upside, and Dan Haren wants to go back and pitch on the west coast again. The Mariners need a leadoff hitter and a center fielder, and Jacoby Ellsbury is looking for his first and probably only long term contract.

There are players and teams that look tailor made for each other, but more often than we might expect, the baseball off-season surprises us. The often mocked “mystery team” has been making more and more appearances of late, with teams signing or trading for players who weren’t such obvious fits at the beginning of the off-season. It’s happened so often that maybe we should begin to expect the unexpected. So, here are three acquisitions that might not seem so obvious from the outlook, but should be candidates for surprise transactions that make sense in retrospect.

New York Mets sign Robinson Cano.

The Mets currently have two players under contract for 2014 — David Wright and Jon Niese — and they account for just $25 million in salary obligations. The team has another 11 players who are up for arbitration, meaning that the Mets control their rights and will be on the hook for some salary north of the league minimum, but even if the Mets brought all 11 of those players back (an unlikely result at best), they’d still only be on the hook for approximately another $25 million or so between them, leaving them with at least $40 to $50 million to spend this winter just to get back to their 2013 payroll levels. If they use some of the money the league has distributed to the teams from the national TV contracts, they could go even north of that, maybe even pushing to $60 or $70 million in additional spending.

The Yankees are dancing with the luxury tax, and seem to have been turned off to long term free agent deals by some of their recent signings. Cano is Jay-Z’s first big client, and as such, he probably isn’t in a position to give the Yankees a big discount. Perhaps the Mets should make everyone happy, allowing Cano to land a monstrous contract while also staying in New York, but letting the Yankees off the hook for another 10 year deal that probably won’t end all that well.

With the ownership’s financial situation hindering the team’s spending in recent years, the Mets fan base could use a jolt of energy, and few things would invigorate Queens like stealing the Yankees best player. While a 10 year, $250 million commitment might appear like an albatross waiting to happen, the Mets have the current budget space and the long term financial capability to make such a bold move work, and Cano would transform a Mets line-up that could desperately use an elite left-handed stick.

The Mets should be one of the most aggressive spending teams this winter, and Cano is the best player on the market. They’ve got the geographic advantage in allowing him to remain entrenched in New York, and have the financial capability to let Jay-Z make his first big splash while showing that he won’t be beholden to the Yankees. They have the need and the cash, and putting Cano on the Mets would would make the Subway Series a fun rivalry once more.

Oakland A’s acquire Max Scherzer.

Billy Beane and his crew have kept the A’s alive by hoarding draft picks and trading stars away before they get too expensive, so they’re not the kind of team you expect to give up the farm to acquire a guy who is a year away from free agency. However, the A’s have a contending roster in place, and just need one more good piece to push them into being a legitimate World Series contender, and Max Scherzer could be that piece.

Even with the expected Cy Young Award in his back pocket, Scherzer’s unlikely to get more than $15 million in arbitration this winter, meaning that he’ll be relatively affordable in terms of salary compared to other elite players at his level. And Scherzer could be a difference maker in a rotation that lacks a front line starter.

Bartolo Colon gave the A’s a miraculous performance in 2013, but when the postseason rolled around, it became clear once again that Oakland didn’t have any arms that could match up against Scherzer or Justin Verlander, and for the second year in a row, the Tigers power arms sent the A’s home in the first round. Now, however, the Tigers probably can’t afford to keep all of their star players for the long term, and might choose to cash in on Scherzer before he commands a $150 million contract next winter. And the A’s should capitalize on the Tigers need to rearrange their roster.

The A’s control the rights to Yoenis Cespedes for another two years, and the Tigers are looking to get more athletic in the outfield. Cespedes is exactly the kind of player that could convince Dave Dombrowski to make Scherzer available, and if the A’s could work in additional pieces to get Andy Dirks coming back to Oakland, they could use their outfield depth to rent-an-ace and make a run at winning it all in 2014. Yes, they won’t be able to sign Scherzer to an extension, but if they acquire him this off-season, they’ll be able to turn his exit into a 2015 draft pick, which has extra value to teams like the A’s who need to build through the draft. Getting a full year of a legitimate ace and then collecting draft pick compensation next winter when he walks should be enough to entice the A’s to make a bold move for a player who could put them over the top.

Kansas City Royals acquire David Price

Last year, the Royals and Rays hooked up on perhaps the most notable trade of the winter, with the Rays sending James Shields and Wade Davis to Kansas City in exchange for super prospect Wil Myers and a few less prospects not quite as super. It was the Royals declaration that they were tired of losing and tired of waiting for the future, so they were pushing their chips and making a run when they saw the opportunity. They did win 86 games, but finished well behind Detroit and Cleveland in the AL Central race, and now they face a 2014 season that could be Shields’ last year in Kansas City, as he’s set to hit free agency next winter.

So Dayton Moore should go back to the well and make another trade with the Rays to bring in a frontline starting pitcher. This time, the Rays are going to be looking for a buyer for David Price, and the price again is going to be steep. However, the Royals have already pushed their chips into the middle of the pile, and backing off now because of concerns about what it might do to their future could leave them stranded in a position where they’re not good enough in 2014 and not good enough to contend after Shields’ off-season exit. The Myers trade made this their window, and they should do what they can to make sure they give themselves a real opportunity to take advantage of their chance to win.

Maybe it costs them Eric Hosmer, who would certainly appeal to Tampa Bay as a cheap young first baseman. Or maybe it’s Billy Butler and flame-throwing pitching prospect Yordano Ventura headlining the package. Price isn’t going to come cheap, and like with the Shields trade, it’s probably going to require giving up some talent from their 2014 roster in order to outbid other interested suitors. But Hosmer and Butler could be replaced, at least in the short term, while Price would give the Royals another frontline player to allow them to make a serious run at a Detroit team that might be in for a step back next year.

The cost is again going to be painful, but the Royals made the decision to push the gas pedal last winter, and slamming on the breaks right before you go crashing through the wall only leads to a totaled vehicle. At this point, it should be pedal to the metal, and the Royals have the pieces that could get Price. If it works, and a playoff push leads to an attendance surge, maybe they even find a way to re-sign Shields next year, and then can flip Price in 12 months to recoup some of the talent they gave up to borrow him for a year. And if it doesn’t, well, at least they really tried.

Free Agency officially begins on Tuesday, as players will have the right to begin negotiating with all 30 teams, and financial figures can start to be officially exchanged. No free agent is going to be asking for bigger numbers than Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano. He is undisputedly the best player on the market this winter, and early reports have suggested that he’s looking for a monstrous contract, maybe even aiming to become baseball’s first $300 million player.

With any deal for a player of Cano’s stature, we’re essentially guaranteed a minimum of seven years, and recent trends suggest that elite position players — Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder most notably — have enough leverage to demand eight, nine, or even 10 year contracts. Joey Votto got a 10 year deal from the Reds when he was two years from free agency, effectively making that a 12 year commitment, and he didn’t even have the leverage of other teams bidding up his price. However, there’s one thing those three players all have in common; they play first base, and their value comes almost entirely from their hitting skills.

Cano is a second baseman, and while he’s an amazing hitter relative to other second baseman, his offense wouldn’t be quite so impressive at a less demanding position. A significant part of Cano’s value comes from the fact that he can play an up the middle position, and teams have historically not paid the same price for defensive value as they have for offensive value. Especially when it comes to signing a player into his late 30s — Cano just turned 31, so even an eight year deal would take him through his age-38 season — teams have historically been skeptical about betting on up the middle players sustaining their value, at least relative to the bets they are willing to make on players who derive their value from standing at the plate and hitting the ball really far.

More specifically, there seems to be a decent amount of skepticism about how second baseman in particular will hold up towards the end of their careers. Roberto Alomar, for instance, completely fell apart after his age-33 season, going from an MVP caliber star to a nearly worthless scrub almost overnight. He was one of the best players to ever man the position, but was totally washed up by his 34th birthday. One theory espoused for the unexpected and dramatic declines of second baseman; they take a physical beating from hanging in on the double play, having years of players slide into their legs and knees, and eventually, it just wears them down.

However, the theory is usually based on anecdotal evidence. It’s one thing to point to Roberto Alomar or Ryne Sandberg, but is there actually evidence that players who play second base and hit like Cano are more likely to flame out than players at other positions?

This is a little bit of a tricky question to answer simply because there are so few second baseman who hit like Robinson Cano. But, there have been some, and we can look at their careers to see if we see a pattern of early collapses.

For a fair comparison, here are the top five offensive second baseman over the last 50 years, from ages 28-30, sorted by wRC+:

Joe Morgan: 2,019 PA, 156 wRC+, +26.8 WAR
Rod Carew: 1,994 PA, 152 wRC+, +20.0 WAR
Robinson Cano: 2,059 PA, 142 wRC+, +19.1 WAR
Chase Utley: 2,007 PA, 141 wRC+, +23.4 WAR
Craig Biggio: 1,907 PA, 137 wRC+, +15.3 WAR

For all five, the playing time during those three seasons was pretty similar, ranging from 416 games for Biggio to 480 for Cano. He actually has more games played and more plate appearances during his age 28-30 seasons than any of the other four players on the list, so relative to his peers, durability seems to not be an issue.

How’d the other four do in the latter stages of their careers, performance wise, starting with their age-31 seasons? Let’s take a look at the numbers.

Joe Morgan: 5,390 PA, 135 wRC+, +46.7 WAR
Craig Biggio: 6,744 PA, 113 wRC+, +33.6 WAR
Rod Carew: 4,915 PA, 130 wRC+, +28.4 WAR
Chase Utley: 1,858 PA, 121 wRC+, +15.9 WAR

Morgan played until he was 40, and was even better after turning 30 than he was before. His two best seasons came at ages 31 and 32, and even at the end of his career, he was still an excellent player. He played second base all the way to the end of his career as well, never moving to an easier position even after 20 years of turning double plays.

Biggio also had the two best years of his career at ages 31 and 32, and he played until he was 41, but he’s actually a bit more in the Alomar camp than the Morgan camp, as he was essentially an average player from 34-41. He hung around, but wasn’t a very effective player at the end of his career, and his decline from greatness to mediocrity was pretty swift. He was so good in his early 30s, however, that the overall performance during that span is still excellent.

Carew is a bit of a mix of the two, at least in terms of age-31 excellence, as he also had the best year of his career in that season, but he comes with a bit of a caveat; he moved to first base full time at age-30, and spent the second half of his career playing a much less demanding position. Still, the move to first base didn’t keep him from being a fantastic player in his 30s, as he retained almost all of his offensive value and was a very good player through age-36 before tailing off in his last few years.

Finally, we have the incomplete story of Chase Utley. He just finished his age-34 season, and his last four years have been full of injuries. However, Utley’s been so good when he has been on the field that he’s been at least a +3 WAR player in each of his age 31-34 seasons, even while only averaging 108 games per season. We don’t know what Utley’s next few years will look like, but if he represents the injury prone downside of taking a beating at second base, that’s a pretty great worst case scenario.

Of the four second baseman of the last 50 years who were comparable to Cano heading into a similar point in his career, two are in the Hall of Fame, one should be, and the active player will have a decent case if he can stick around for a few more years at the level he’s been playing recently. It’s hard to get a better set of comparables than that.

Maybe going to 8+ years for Cano won’t turn out to be a good idea, just as it doesn’t appear to have been a good idea to give Prince Fielder a nine year deal or Albert Pujols a 10 year deal. These long contracts come with tons of risk. However, the evidence that great second baseman in particular come with extra risk seems to be lacking. I’d be leery of giving any player on the wrong side of 30 a deal that runs for nearly a decade, but teams shouldn’t be less willing to give that kind of deal to Cano just because he plays second base.

Was there a bigger disappointment in 2013 than the Los Angeles Angels? Perhaps the Washington Nationals or the Toronto Blue Jays are in the conversation, but to suffer 84 losses after spending on Josh Hamilton and being an overwhelming preseason playoff pick was nothing less than a crushing blow for Arte Moreno’s heavily-hyped team.

Coming off their terrible season, the Angels find themselves in something of a difficult position headed into 2014. Once likely arbitration cases are figured in, they have approximately $140 million in contracts on the books, including four different players — Hamilton, Albert Pujols, Jered Weaver and C.J. Wilson — making at least $18 million, and that limits their flexibility to improve.

The good news is that after starting out at 17-27, they were above .500 (61-56) from late May through the end of the season. As we saw with the Red Sox, a team with star talent can make a quick turnaround, and since the Angels already have an expensive payroll with big names, they are motivated to go for it all in 2014. Here’s how they can turn it around.

Any accounting of what the team must do has to begin with what they have, and the Angels aren’t without their share of positives. That starts, of course, with Mike Trout, who is just about unarguably the best player in baseball even if he won’t be the Most Valuable Player. Trout made just less than $1 million total over the past two seasons while giving the Angels more than 20 WAR.

Unfortunately, more help isn’t coming from within the organization. The team’s consensus top prospect, third baseman Kaleb Cowart, hit only .221/.279/.301 at Double-A, and everyone else in their top 10 is either low impact or several years away, with only relieverNick Maronde perhaps likely to impact the 2014 team.

That’s what will happen when you haven’t had a first-round pick since 2011 thanks to your free-agent signings. With the state of the system being what it is, the Angels really can’t afford to give up yet another top pick by signing a player who comes with a qualifying offer, or they’ll never right this ship. That means expensive free agents like Shin-Soo Choo orRobinson Cano can’t really be considered, even if they did fit into the budget.

Pitching, pitching, pitching

While Jered Weaver was fine after returning from an early-season broken left elbow that cost him nearly two months, his declining velocity is a huge red flag, and he can no longer be seen as the ace he once was. With the back end of the rotation in shambles — Joe Blanton and Tommy Hanson were disasters, Jason Vargas can be a free agent and Jerome Williams should be a long reliever or emergency starter only — the Angels need at least two starters to go with Weaver, Wilson and Garrett Richards.

Depending on how wide Moreno is willing to open the checkbook, Japanese import Masahiro Tanaka is a perfect fit here, because he’ll provide badly-needed talent without costing a draft pick — and his posting fee won’t count against the luxury tax. Unfortunately for the Angels, that’s the exact same rationale that will make him so attractive to suitors like the Yankees and Dodgers. But if Moreno is motivated to take some of the spotlight back in Southern California, that’s how you do it.

Be active on the trade market

Peter Bourjos, Howie Kendrick and Mark Trumbo have heard their names in trade rumors for most of the past year, and now is the time to move one or more of them to add more pitching. Bourjos is a sublime defensive outfielder who has had trouble staying healthy, and may find himself without a spot if 2013 surprise Kole Calhoun proves he’s worthy to start next to Trout and Hamilton. Trumbo’s obvious on-base deficiencies are somewhat masked by the fact he has plus power (95 homers in three years) in a game where that’s increasingly difficult to find, and he’s already been linked to clubs like San Diego, Kansas City and Pittsburgh.

Kendrick is an interesting case because while replacing him with Grant Green or an inexpensive alternative like Mark Ellis (assuming the Dodgers decline his option) would be a step down, his talent and contract — due $18.9 million over the next two years — make him a valuable asset in an extremely thin second-base market. Assuming Cano returns to New York, it’s easy to see contending teams with excess pitching and room to improve at second base (Baltimore, Detroit if Omar Infante leaves, Atlanta, perhaps Kansas City or Washington) being willing to send starting pitching value in return.

Pray for Hamilton and Pujols

The sad truth, however, is that the Angels absolutely need their two highly-compensated stars to start giving a return on their investment. There’s almost no hope at this point that either one will actually be worth all of the money they’re receiving, but it’s important to remember that this isn’t another Wells situation, at least not yet. Hamilton was of course a mess in his first season in California, but still managed roughly league-average production with 21 homers and 1.9 WAR. It’s also worth noting that he was much better in the second half (.344 wOBA) than in the first (.302 wOBA), so it’s not unreasonable to expect better production in 2014.

Pujols is more of a concern, because while he had a .329 wOBA in a league that averaged .318, if you compare him only to designated hitters, he’s below average (.335). This is quickly looking like one of history’s all-time worst contracts, but the hope is that after eight full months of rest (he didn’t play after July 25), his troublesome left foot will allow him to at least be a mild asset in 2014.

The Angels won 78 games despite the fact Hamilton struggled and Pujols and Weaver missed much of the year. With healthy seasons from all three and the continued excellence of Trout, that’s the core of a winning team. With a few shrewd moves, they can compete with the A’s and Rangers.

For just the second time since the 1994 strike, the New York Yankees missed the playoffs, and as you’d expect, they’re not taking that setback lightly.

ESPN New York’s Andrew Marchand reported that the Yankees are considering a $300 million spending spree this winter to put the team back into contention, while still planning to stay below the $189 million luxury tax threshold they’ve been working to avoid for years. The last time the Yankees did that, they followed up their 2008 playoff miss with a $423 million offseason run that brought them A.J. Burnett, CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira — and helped them win the 2009 World Series.

Of course, part of the reason they’re in the situation they are today is because of that 2009 spree. Those three players cost them $64.5 million this year (including the portion of Burnett’s contract they’re paying for him to pitch in Pittsburgh) and brought them just 2.5Wins Above Replacement, with Teixeira injured and Sabathia declining. Still, in the short term, that helped them to a championship, and the hope is that they can do it again.

But while $300 million is certainly an impressive number, is it actually enough to propel the Yankees back to glory? Probably not.

Misleading dollar amount

To start with, let’s stop saying “$300 million” as though it will all immediately affect the 2014 team. When the team went on that 2009 spending binge, the deals signed covered a period of 20 contract years, with approximately $32 million of that actually hitting the books in the first year. (And, it should be noted, team payroll was actually down slightly from 2008 after the expiration of huge deals for Jason Giambi and others.)

With the team’s apparent insistence on staying under $189 million (really about $177 million, since administrative costs like player health insurance and worker’s comp count against the cap), there’s only so much room to add new talent considering what they already have committed.

As a whole, this group contributed just 4.5 WAR for the season, or basically what Jason Kipnis gave Cleveland on his own, and even that dollar figure might be light because it doesn’t include taxable performance bonuses like the $6 million Rodriguez would get for hitting 16 more home runs to reach 660 for his career.

Let’s estimate the money needed for rookies and lesser 40-man roster players at around $5 million, and make it $105 million so far. At this point, the Yankees have $72 million left to play with, and you can probably see where this is going. Without yet adding any new players, replacing Andy Pettitte, Hiroki Kuroda, Curtis Granderson and Mariano Rivera, or even accounting for arbitration cases like Brett Gardner and Ivan Nova, the payroll is largely ticketed for a group that consists of one aging starting pitcher, as well as three infielders and three outfielders well past their primes.

If we assume that Gardner, Nova and fellow arbitration case David Robertson return at around $12 million total, and Cano returns as part of the shopping surge at something like $25 million annually, that’s another $37 million on the books, yet even that is problematic. All four are quality players who can help the Yankees win, but the team will have merely maintained some of last year’s status quo, not improved anything. That is, Cano made $15 million in 2013, and he’s now in line for a substantial raise, yet he’s not expected to substantially increase his already-excellent play to match.

The A-Rod factor

Rodriguez’s status is, of course, the huge question mark here, since he may or may not be suspended for the entire season, saving the Yankees the pro-rated portion of his salary. The best guess at this point is that he’ll rightfully win his appeal and not be forced to serve the 211 games MLB is trying to impose, but that he will certainly sit out at least 50 or 100 games, which will recoup some savings for the team.

However, it may be another month or more before his situation is clarified, which makes it difficult for the Yankees to plan around, and of course if he’s gone, the team then needs to find another third base option in a painfully thin market.

The numbers we’ve tossed out so far are high-level and may not be accurate to the penny, because an in-depth examination of the contracts and the rules of the salary cap and luxury tax would require far more than this space allows for. But they’re in the right range, and you can already see the problem here, can’t you? A team in an exceptionally tough division that miraculously won 85 games in 2013 — “miraculously” because they were outscored by 21 runs, and were under .500 from early June through the end of the season — is being weighed down on one end by an old and expensive core, and limited on the other by the insistence of adhering to a luxury-tax limit New York could easily afford to exceed.

So sure, the Yankees could gamble on Japanese import Masahiro Tanaka to join the rotation, or add the aging (yet still productive) Carlos Beltran to the outfield, or make a risky bet on catcher Brian McCann — or even all three. To do so would add something in the neighborhood of $45 million in salary (Tanaka’s posting fee would not count against the luxury tax), and would basically max out the remaining available payroll. It also leaves them perhaps two pitchers short of a rotation (depending on what free agent Kuroda does), light in the bullpen and without any sort of adequate backup plans for the multitude of risks Teixeira, Jeter and Rodriguez offer in the infield.

For this plan to work, the team would need an influx of talent from the minors to make an immediate impact, but the Yankees don’t have the kind of prospects on the horizon who can be expected to make a difference in 2014.

The Yankees can improve their team this winter, and they can also stay under the cap limit. It’s just going to be very hard to do both, and unless Sabathia, Teixeira and Jeter suddenly look like they did five years ago, the Yankees might not be able to spend their way out of this hole any time soon.

Much is made of how baseball in October can often be a crapshoot. The differences between the remaining teams, at this point in the season, are so small that nearly any outcome is reasonably possible. And yet, it would be hard to argue that when the dust settled, the best team from the American League and the best team from the National League are still playing. It’s a battle of baseball’s elite, with two great teams looking to exploit any minor advantage they can find. Let’s look at some of the areas that might make a difference in the final series of the season.

Cardinals X Factor: Allen Craig

No National League team needs the DH more than the Cardinals, as Craig’s foot injury has reportedly healed enough for him to hit but not really do anything else. Luckily for St. Louis, they’ll get a position to let Craig do exactly that in their road games, and adding him back into the line-up could be a huge boost for the Cardinals offense.

Craig might not have the stature of some of baseball’s more well known sluggers, but over the last three years, Craig ranks 15th in baseball with a 140 wRC+, meaning his offensive production is 40% better than the league average hitter. It’s difficult for a guy who racks up as many RBIs as Craig does to be underrated, but because he’s a first baseman who specializes in singles and doubles, he tends to get overlooked when discussing the game’s impact bats. But, when healthy, he absolutely has been one.

But the health remains a huge question mark. The Red Sox just exploited a beaten down Miguel Cabrera in the ALCS, and while Craig might be healthy enough to swing the bat, it is possible that Boston will find a way to attack him in a part of the zone that he can’t cover as well at less than 100%. Craig’s production is a wild card, and his ability to hit at something approximating full strength might be a deciding factor in the outcome.

Red Sox X factor: Xander Bogaerts

John Farrell inserted Bogaerts into the starting line-up for the final two games of the ALCS, and given how he performed, it’s basically impossible to see him returning to the bench for the World Series. The 21-year-old is a physically gifted hitter, but he’s been astonishingly patient at the plate so far in the post-season, drawing five walks in just 11 plate appearances. Bogaerts has actually walked more times in the postseason than Dustin Pedroia, even though he’s only started those two games in the first two rounds.

Bogaerts approach at the plate is extraordinary for a 21 year old, so Cardinals pitchers won’t be able to attack him out of the zone as they would be able to with most inexperienced rookies. While Will Middlebrooks possesses more power at the moment, Bogaerts gives the line-up more depth and another hitter who can run up a starter’s pitch count. And as he showed with his big double when he finally did get something to hit from Max Scherzer, he’s not just a walk machine, as he can hit too. The World Series may end being remembered as the coming out party for Boston’s next superstar.

Cardinals key reliever: Kevin Seigrist

The Red Sox feasted on the Tigers bullpen to advance through the ALCS, but they’re about to see something from St. Louis that Detroit didn’t have: a lefty who sits near 100 mph. Seigrist threw hard in the regular season, averaging 95.3 mph during all his regular season outings, but the last month or so, he’s taken it to another level; his fastball has averaged 97.7 mph so far in the playoffs. The only reliever in baseball who threw that hard during the regular season was Aroldis Chapman.

Interestingly enough, however, the huge uptick in velocity hasn’t let to more strikeouts, as he’s only struck out one of the 12 batters he’s faced in the postseason after striking out a third of the batters he faced in the regular season. Usually, increases in velocity also lead to increases in strikeouts, but Seigrist’s strikeout rate began to tail off as his velocity rose in September, and that has now carried over into October as well.

It’s possible that the extra velocity is straightening out his fastball, making it actually easier to hit than it was when he was sitting at 95. He hasn’t struggled so far in the playoffs, and having a lefty who throws 98 is a nice problem to have to figure out, but the Cardinals might want to consider whether or not the extra velocity is actually helping Seigrist, because they’re going to need him to go after Jacoby Ellsbury and David Ortiz in big situations.

Red Sox key reliever: Junichi Tazawa

While Koji Uehara has been shutting down opponents in the 9th (and occasionally the 8th) inning, Tazawa has been nearly as important to the team’s playoff run in 2013. Between the first two rounds of the postseason, Tazawa has appeared in eight of the 10 game the Red Sox have played, and barring an early blowout, he’s a good bet to pitch in every game of the World Series.

The Red Sox middle relief is the shakiest part of their team, and with Uehara showing he can pitch multiple innings, the Red Sox will have the ability to bring Tazawa in in the sixth or seventh inning to help bridge the gap between the starter and the dominating closer. John Farrell has used Tazawa as more of a situational reliever in the early rounds, but Tazawa was an effective pitcher against left-handers this year too, and may be asked to take on a bigger role in the World Series.

Key Matchup: David Ortiz vs Randy Choate

Evan at age-38, Choate is still humming along as the epitome of the cliched left-handed specialist. Choate appeared in 64 games this year but only threw 35 innings, because he frequently is called upon to pitch to the opponents best left-handed hitter and then is promptly removed when he gets that guy out. In his five postseason outings this year, Choate has thrown a grand total of 20 pitches.

But you’re likely going to see Choate in every close game this series, and he’s going to be used to try and neutralize David Ortiz. The complicating factor is that, during the three games in St. Louis, Ortiz is likely to have to serve as a pinch-hitter, as the DH will not be in play in the National League park. So, Mike Matheny is going to have to anticipate when John Farrell will use Ortiz as a pinch-hitter, and get Choate warm in anticipation of that match-up. The key for Farrell might be using Ortiz in early critical situations so that Matheny hasn’t gotten Choate up in time, giving him a chance to swing the bat against a right-handed starting pitcher. For the Red Sox, success will be avoiding this match-up, and keeping Ortiz away from Choate whenever possible.

Cardinals key bench player: Shane Robinson

Jon Jay has been pretty miserable in the postseason, not hitting or fielding his position well, and Matheny turned to Robinson to make a surprise start in Game 6 of the NLCS; he rewarded his manager’s confidence with two hits the day after hitting a pinch-hit home run. With a few days off to get reset, Jay should be back in the line-up for the series opener, but if he continues to falter, don’t be too shocked if Matheny goes back to Robinson at some point in this series. He’s not a big bat by any means, but he’s a better defender than Jay, and might prove useful for the Cardinals in this series.

Red Sox key bench player: Quinton Berry

As we noted during the ALCS preview, Berry has never been thrown out attempting a steal in his Major League career, and he’s a real weapon as a pinch runner for the Red Sox. However, the Cardinals have a guy behind the plate who just shuts down the running game entirely, and replacing a big hitter like Ortiz or Napoli for the right to try and steal off the game’s best defensive catcher might not be an appealing trade-off for Boston. However, even with Molina behind the plate, Berry’s ability to put a stolen base on the table makes him a fascinating option, and if the Red Sox put him in the game, the drama of Berry-versus-Molina should be a lot of fun to watch.

Key stat: STL pitchers in NLCS: 1.77 BB/9

The Red Sox offense is notorious for taking pitches and drawing walks, but the Cardinals pitching staff just doesn’t issue them. Between them, Adam Wainwright and Michael Wacha have combined to walk five batters in their six postseason starts, and the Cardinals entire pitching staff just pounded the zone against the Dodgers, forcing their hitters to swing the bats if they wanted to put runs on the board. The Red Sox did a good job of mixing up their approach and getting more aggressive against Detroit when it was clear that their work-the-count approach wasn’t working, and they might need to just scrap it all together against St. Louis, at least until their pitchers stop pounding the zone on every pitch.

Modest proposal: The Red Sox should go back to Daniel Nava as their left fielder.

Citing his energy and some gut feelings, John Farrell essentially ended his left field platoon in the ALCS, giving Jonny Gomes regular starts against right-handed pitchers, even though he’s been used mostly against left-handers during the regular season. This promotion for Gomes meant that usual starter Daniel Nava was moved into a reserve role, and he’s now only hit 14 times in the postseason despite. This follows a regular season performance in which Nava hit .303/.385/.445, and hit .322/.411/.484 against right-handed pitching.

The move worked, in that the Red Sox won the series against the Tigers, but with the World Series title on the line, it’s time to put away the hunches and put the best team they can on the field. And the Red Sox best team against right-handed pitching — the only kind of starters the Cardinals have — includes Nava, not Gomes, in left field. Gomes can’t even claim the hot hand advantage, as he’s hit just .200/.259/.280 in the postseason, not a huge surprise considering he’s being asked to face elite right-handed pitchers, a role he’s just not made for. Gomes might be an intense personality whose energy sparks his teammates, but he can yell from the dugouts steps and inspire his teammates by encouraging them between innings.

Nava is a better player than Gomes, and he was the team’s regular left fielder this year for a reason. It’s time for him to get a shot to prove that he can help them win a World Series too.

The Cinderellas are dead, and so the ALCS will be a battle of two high payroll perennial contenders, but that doesn’t mean that this series isn’t interesting. It’s pitching versus hitting, old school versus new school, big name stars versus a balanced roster. What will be the key factors in this battle? Let’s examine.

Tigers’ X factor: Miguel Cabrera

It’s a little weird to call the best hitter on the planet an X factor, but the reality is that no one really knows what Cabrera is right now. Hobbled by a body that is betraying him, Cabrera has been an immobile singles hitter for most of the last six weeks, as his home run in Game 5 of the ALDS was only his second since the beginning of September.

As Jeff Sullivan noted, the Tigers primarily pounded Cabrera on the outer half of the zone for most of the series, and his home run came on a mistake inside. The Red Sox surely noticed that the pound-him-away plan worked, and are likely to continue until Cabrera shows he can drive the ball the other way like he is capable of.

Beyond just his questionable offensive skills, Cabrera remains a liability at third base, and at some point, Jacoby Ellsbury or Shane Victorino might decide to start bunting in his direction to see if he can adequately play the position. The A’s didn’t have guys who were particularly good at bunting, but the Red Sox have a couple who could use Cabrera’s injuries to get on base regularly, and if his health doesn’t improve, Leyland may still be forced to choose between Cabrera’s less threatening bat in the line-up and taking away free bunt hits from the Red Sox hitters.

Red Sox X factor: Shane Victorino

The Red Sox offense is built around David Ortiz, but over the last couple of months, Victorino has been the reason that this team was a run scoring juggernaut. After giving up switch hitting and batting exclusively as a right-hander, he became a different hitter, pounding right-handed pitching in a way he never had before. For the season, he hit .274/.319/.389 against RHPs as a lefty, but he hit .300/.386/.510 against RHPs as an RHB. And he’s going to see a steady diet of RHPs in this series.

The Tigers rotation is entirely right-handed, and their bullpen pieces lean heavily towards the right side as well. Traditionally, this would have been a problem for Victorino, but he’s mastered the art of getting hit on inside fastballs by right-handed pitching, and his swing has more power from the right side than the left, so he’s both gotten on base and hit for power against righties of late. If Victorino keeps hitting this well from the right side against right-handers, the Red Sox line-up will become basically unstoppable.

Tigers key reliever: Drew Smyly

The Tigers ALDS pitching staff consistent of nine right-handers and two lefties, and of those two lefties, one of them is starter turned long reliever Jose Alvarez. In effect, Smyly was the only left-handed pitcher on the team for the first round, and he’s the only one likely to get called upon to get David Ortiz out in a critical situation.

Ortiz is basically Miguel Cabrera against right-handed pitching, as he hit .339/.440/.652 against RHPs this year. Against lefties, he’s more Omar Infante, as his .260/.315/.418 line shows. Ortiz is going to love facing all the Tigers right-handers, but in late and close situations, he should be fed a steady diet of Drew Smyly, who held left-handed hitters to a .187/.225/.246 line this season. Smyly doesn’t have to be used only as a situational lefty, so they can bring him in to go after Jacoby Ellsbury and let him stick around through Ortiz, and he should probably pitch in every close game this series.

Red Sox key reliever: Ryan Dempster

If the Red Sox have a weakness, it’s probably the bridge innings between when the starters exit and when Koji Uehara enters, which is one of the reasons they acquired Jake Peavy at the trade deadline. Not only did Peavy boost their rotation, but he allowed them to shift Dempster back to the bullpen to strengthen their relief core.

While he’s been exclusively a starter since 2008, Dempster was a pretty good reliever with the Cubs from 2004-2007, and a move back into that role for October will give John Farrell another option to get multiple innings from a reliever who doesn’t have to specialize. Dempster’s fastball/splitter combination plays up in relief, and even as he had his struggles this year, he was much better against opponents the first time facing them. In his first PA against a batter this season, he had 66 strikeouts against 20 walks, but the second time through, that fell to 43/32. In a relief role, only facing batters one team each, Dempster could be a real weapon for the Red Sox again.

Key matchup: Prince Fielder versus Craig Breslow

Primarily, these left-on-left match-ups are fairly straight forward. Team brings in funky sidearming lefty specialist to exploit big slugging left-handed power hitter who is vulnerable to sliders low and away, and specialist throws nothing but sliders to big slugging power hitter. Rinse and repeat. This match-up, though, will probably not be much like that at all.

There’s no question that Prince Fielder is not a premium offensive player against left-handed pitching, as he’s hit just .267/.347/.457 against southpaws in his career. And Breslow, being the Red Sox primary left-handed reliever, will likely be called on to face Fielder during this series. But Breslow is not your traditional left-handed specialist, and in his career, he’s actually been equally effective against right-handed batters (.289 wOBA against) as lefties (.285 wOBA against).

Breslow is a lefty reliever, but not really a lefty specialist. With Cabrera hobbled, Fielder is going to have to pick up some of the slack, and he’s going to get the benefit of facing a mostly right-handed pitching staff without a true dominant left-on-left reliever in the bullpen. Breslow isn’t a bad option against Fielder, but as far as facing ace lefty relievers go, this is a pretty good match-up for Fielder and the Tigers.

Tigers key bench player: Andy Dirks

The Tigers left fielder for much of the season, Dirks has been unseated by Jhonny Peralta (and, weirdly, Don Kelly) in the playoffs, and only got three at-bats against the A’s in the first round. Dirks, though, is easily the Tigers best defensive left fielder, especially for the games in Fenway Park, where The Green Monster comes into play. While the Tigers aren’t a team known for their defensive skills, punting experience in left field during the games in Boston seems like a big risk, and letting Dirks handle those games is probably the best plan. Despite getting displaced in the first round, Dirks could be a big key for the Tigers in the ALCS.

Red Sox key bench player: Quinton Berry

The Sox aren’t going to need to platoon or pinch hit much in this series, since the Tigers are all right-handers all the time, so you’re probably going to see few substitutions from John Farrell. However, he will need to pinch run occasionally, and that’s why Berry is on the Red Sox roster. Including the postseason, Berry is 27 for 27 in stealing bases in the big leagues, so while he’s not as fast as Billy Hamilton, he is a similar kind of weapon off the bench. With the Red Sox starters not exactly being the speediest group in the game, look for Berry to get a few chances to run in this series, and given his track record, he’s probably going to be safe.

Key stat: Red Sox .325 wOBA allowed against right-handed hitters

The Red Sox have a bunch of good right-handed pitching, so it doesn’t seem like this should be a weakness for them, but they actually ranked tied for 24th in holding down opponents RHBs this season. And the Tigers have some pretty good right-handed hitting.

Some of this weakness will be neutralized by leaving lefties like Felix Doubront, Matt Thornton, and Franklin Morales off the roster or using them sparingly against the Tigers, but even the Red Sox right-handers had some problems against right-handed hitting this year. John Lackey, Ryan Dempster, and Brandon Workman were all better against southpaws this year, and although reverse platoon splits are usually just small sample size, these guys are not traditional right-handed pitchers who dominate right-handed hitters. Toss in two starts from Jon Lester, and this could be a nice series of match-ups for Torii Hunter, Omar Infante, and Austin Jackson.

Modest proposal: The Tigers should bench Jose Iglesias.

The Tigers acquired Iglesias from the Red Sox to patch the hole created by Jhonny Peralta’s suspension, but Peralta is no longer suspended and is the team’s best option at shortstop. They got him into the line-up by using him in left field in the first round, but the defensive downgrade in having Peralta running around the outfield — especially behind Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, two fly ball pitchers — is larger than the upgrade they get by having Iglesias man shortstop instead. The Tigers are a better team with Peralta at short and Dirks in left field than they are with Iglesias at short and Peralta in left. Dirks’ bat is significantly better than Iglesias, Peralta can play short better than he can left. Iglesias can still be inserted for defensive purposes, but their best line-up doesn’t include him in it.

It’s hard to feel shortchanged by this year’s NLCS, because the Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals have arguably the two deepest, most talented rosters in the league. These two franchises have been competing against each other since the 19th century, and the previous time the Dodgers made the playoffs, in the 2009 NL Division Series, it was they who ended the Cardinals’ season in a series that will long be remembered for Matt Holliday’s flubbed catch.

This promises to be a lengthy, hard-fought series for the right to advance to the World Series. Here’s a look at the key matchups and under-the-radar players.

Cardinals’ X factor: Michael Wacha

In Wacha’s final start of the regular season, he came within one out of a no-hitter against the Nationals. In Game 4 of the NLDS against the Pirates, he took another no-hitter into the eighth inning. He’s also all of 22 years old with 10 starts under his belt, so there’s more than a little potential for volatility here in both directions.

For the Cardinals, one of the downsides of needing Game 5 to eliminate the Pirates is that ace Adam Wainwright won’t be available until Game 3, so St. Louis needs its other starters to step up against the rested Dodgers rotation. Wacha is undeniably talented — 74 strikeouts in 72 innings, including his NLDS start — but still inexperienced, so how he responds to the growing spotlight in what might be two head-to-head starts against Clayton Kershaw could tell the story of the series.

Dodgers’ X factor: Don Mattingly

The fourth and final game of the NLDS victory over Atlanta will be remembered for two eighth-inning managerial decisions that loomed large. After Atlanta’s Fredi Gonzalez went with David Carpenter to hold a 3-2 lead rather than give the ball to the dominant Craig Kimbrel, Juan Uribe slammed a two-run homer that proved to be the winning margin … but only after Mattingly had called twice for Uribe to give Carpenter an out with a sacrifice bunt, even though Yasiel Puig was already in scoring position and Uribe had proven throughout the season that bunting isn’t a skill he has.

That came on the heels of a Game 2 head-scratcher that had Mattingly calling for a bases-loading intentional walk so that the struggling Paco Rodriguez could face Jason Heyward rather than Reed Johnson — a decision that ended as poorly as one would have expected.

Mattingly showed a deft touch with his starters by lifting the ineffective Hyun-Jin Ryu after three innings in Game 3 and successfully starting Kershaw on short rest in Game 4, but every decision gets magnified in the playoffs, and his choices thus far have often been questionable at best.

Cardinals’ key reliever: Randy Choate

With St. Louis expected to use exclusively right-handed starters in the NLCS, it will fall on manager Mike Matheny to effectively use his bullpen to neutralize lefty Dodgers bats such as Carl Crawford, Andre Ethier, and Adrian Gonzalez. Kevin Siegrist will help with that, but he’s so effective against hitters from both sides that he’s more of a full-inning type than a situational one, meaning that ageless ex-Dodger Choate will be the true lefty specialist here. (Choate appeared in 19 more games than Siegrist, yet threw 4 1/3 fewer innings.)

Choate, 38, hasn’t allowed a homer to a left-handed hitter in more than two years, a streak he’ll need to keep alive in big spots in the late innings.

Dodgers’ key reliever: Paco Rodriguez

For most of the year, the young lefty with the funky delivery was one of Mattingly’s main bullpen weapons, striking out 63 in 54 1/3 innings with a sold 3.08 FIP as he became Kenley Jansen’s primary setup man. Through the end of August, he’d allowed opponents to hit just .140/.214/.185 against him.

But as September arrived, Rodriguez struggled terribly (.308/.438/.731), then allowed six of the eight Braves he faced in the NLDS to reach, including a Heyward home run. Chris Capuano is more of a long reliever at this point, so if Rodriguez can’t be trusted, Mattingly is left with only J.P. Howell as a lefty reliever, potentially creating some matchup problems.

Key matchup: Hyun-Jin Ryu against the Cardinals’ offense

With Kershaw and Zack Greinke leading the way (more on them below), the Cardinals absolutely have to get to the lesser Dodgers starters in order to keep pace. Unfortunately for them, they’ll likely see the lefty Ryu in Game 3, and only one team in the NL had a harder time hitting lefty pitching than St. Louis did.

Ryu had a wonderful debut season in the United States, but struggled badly in Game 3 of the NLDS, lasting just three innings. Interestingly, he has a reverse split — he was more effective against righties (.280 wOBA) than lefties (.322 wOBA), making this likely Game 3 showdown a key one for the series. If the series goes to a full seven games, the Cardinals could see a lefty starter four times.

Cardinals’ key bench player: Kolten Wong

With Allen Craig still nursing a foot injury, Matt Adams has moved into the lineup and left the Cardinals’ bench almost entirely devoid of offensive utility. That could be a real problem as the games get tight, because Adron Chambers, Shane Robinson, Wong, and whoever isn’t starting at shortstop between Daniel Descalso and Pete Kozma, are less-than-dangerous threats. (Craig is now claiming he could play in the NLCS, but even if he does, it’s unclear how effective he would be.)

Wong, who is coming off a very good .303/.369/.466 season in Triple-A, is really the best of this bunch and should get the high-leverage pinch-hitting opportunities. He very well might be the starting second baseman next season, and Matt Carpenter’s defensive versatility allows him to play five positions. Late-game double-switches that take advantage of moving Carpenter as needed could allow Wong to play a surprising role.

Dodgers’ key bench player: Michael Young

Young’s best days are long behind him, as is the value he once provided with his glove, but he’s clearly become Mattingly’s top pinch-hitting option. Mattingly rarely used his bench in the NLDS — Young and Ethier were the only pinch hitters used — and Ethier now hopes to be healthy enough to move back into the lineup.

That makes Young the man who is likely to get the bulk of important pinch-hitting appearances late in games. Now appearing in his fourth consecutive postseason, it’s going to fall to Young — not Nick Punto or Tim Federowicz or Skip Schumaker — to make the most of those chances.

Key stat: 76.5 percent

That’s the percentage of starts this season in which Kershaw (28 of 35) and Greinke (21 of 29) allowed two runs or fewer. They are lined up to start four games in this series, and that gives the Dodgers an edge in the pitching department — especially since Wainwright won’t be available before Game 3.

That percentage actually might be a little misleading, because it includes Greinke’s road back from the broken collarbone he suffered in April; the previous time he allowed more than two earned runs was July 27, more than two months ago. Since then, the duo has allowed two runs or fewer in an incredible 23 of 24 starts, making for a huge uphill battle for the Cardinals’ offense.

Modest proposal: Give Shelby Miller a home start

This is unlikely to happen, because Joe Kelly or Lance Lynn is likely to start Game 1, but it should. Matheny chose Lynn to start the second game of the NLDS, and Lynn couldn’t deliver, allowing five runs in less than five innings as the Cardinals fell 7-1. That, along with Wacha’s ascendance, left Miller without a start in the series — an odd fate for a pitcher who finished the year right between Cy Young Award candidates Felix Hernandez and Chris Sale in the overall ERA rankings.

Miller did have a somewhat tougher go of it in the second half, compared to his first, but he rebounded in September (.238/.317/.324 line against him), and he’s got massive home/road splits (.253 wOBA against in St. Louis as opposed to .345 on the road) that basically make him Wainwright (who had a .252 wOBA) at home. He should be a candidate to start at least one game in St. Louis.

Prediction: Dodgers in 6