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A couple of days ago, various baseball media outlets reported that the Toronto Blue Jays had signed free agent reliever Ronald Belisario to a minor league deal after making a strong push for him. Jim Bowden of ESPN.com was the first reporter to break the story.

The deal made sense for the Blue Jays, as the team was looking to overhaul a bullpen that had badly struggled during the 2014 season and finished 25th in the majors in ERA.

Belisario, too, was coming off a poor 2014 season where he posted 5.56 ERA in 66.1 innings pitched while picking up eight saves in 12 chances. But analysis indicates that the right-hander could be a prime bounce-back candidate during this upcoming season. 

Unfortunately, it appears that the story of Belisario signing with the Blue Jays was released prematurely, while the two sides were still negotiating and had yet not finalized a contract.

According to Mike Wilner of Sportsnet.ca, the Blue Jays and Belisario were very close to reaching an agreement, but the deal fell through at the last minute.

Belisario remained a free agent until today, when he signed a minor league deal with the Tampa Bay Rays, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.

With Belisario off the market, the Blue Jays continue their search for relievers heading into spring training. According to Sportsnet.ca’s Ben Nicholson-Smith, Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos stated that Toronto is still monitoring “a lot of the remaining free agents.”

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You can look ahead and see the start of spring training approaching. Or you can look behind and see the enormous cloud of dust kicked up by the first three months of the Major League Baseball offseason.

It’s been a busy one, alright. Probably a lot busier than any of us figured it would be, which makes putting it all in proper perspective that much harder.

But darn it, we’re going to give it a shot anyway. 

Though the offseason isn’t finished just yet—the unofficial end will come whenever James Shields finally signs—the key takeaways of it all are pretty much set in stone at this point.

Of those, there are plenty worth discussing. There’s how Scott Boras is still very much “Mr. January,” the ongoing trend of first-time managers, Joel Sherman of the New York Post‘s point about the Kansas City Royals inspiring big spending on the relief pitching market and Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated‘s take on the widespread move toward roster flexibility.

The four big ones in my eyes, however, begin with…

Hey Look, No Qualifying Offer Drama!

If the term “qualifying offer” is alien to you, dear baseball fan, you need to catch up. I recommend a rundown at MLB Trade Rumors and columns by Sherman and C.J. Nitkowski of Fox Sports.

The Cliffs Notes version, however, is this: Free agents who reject qualifying offers become attached to draft-pick compensation, and that led to problems in the first two winters of the program.

Among those who had issues shopping their services were Michael Bourn, Adam LaRoche, Kyle Lohse, Rafael Soriano, Nelson Cruz and Ervin Santana, all of whom lingered on the market and ultimately signed disappointing contracts. Kendrys Morales and Stephen Drew had it worst of all, as their ties to draft-pick compensation had a hand in them remaining unsigned into the 2014 season.

So yeah, the first two years of the qualifying offer system were a mess. A big enough mess, even, to suggest that the system needed either major tweaking or a full-on demolition.

But this winter? In a pleasant surprise, things have taken a turn for the better.

Of the 12 players who received qualifying offers, only Shields remains unsigned. The others all signed multiyear deals ranging from $21 million to $210 million. And with Shields rumored for a nine-figure deal, it looks like this year’s qualifying offer experience will be decidedly pain-free for a change.

Granted, this has a lot to do with how there’s a lot of money in the game now and how more teams have been willing to spend it—we’ll have more on that later. But it also seems that players have figured out the key to avoid being hurt by draft-pick compensation:

Just go ahead and sign early.

Michael Cuddyer got the ball rolling, signing for two years and $21 million with the New York Mets before the deadline for qualifying offer decisions even arrived. After that, everyone but Scherzer and Shields signed in November and December.

It’s not hard to imagine future qualifying offer players following suit. For though the risk of signing early is losing out on a few million bucks, that’s better than possibly losing tens of millions of bucks by trying to play the waiting game with the weight of draft-pick compensation.

We’ll see what happens next winter. But for now, it seems that the solution for the qualifying offer problem has been found.

Spending on Cuban Talent Is Still Bonkers…But for How Much Longer?

You might have noticed that MLB teams have gone a little nutty over talent from Cuba in recent years. First, it was Aroldis Chapman for $30.25 million in 2010 and then Yoenis Cespedes for $36 million, Yasiel Puig for $42 million, Jose Abreu for $68 million and Rusney Castillo for $72 million.

And on it goes this winter.

Though he didn’t quite get the $100 million contract he was rumored for, Cuban slugger Yasmany Tomas still squeezed $68.5 million out of the Arizona Diamondbacks. That’s basically the going rate for a talented Cuban defector on the free-agent market, but there’s also been some noise on the amateur market.

The Los Angeles Angels set a record when they inked Cuban shortstop Roberto Baldoquin with an $8 million bonus, only to see it broken when the Diamondbacks gave right-hander Yoan Lopez an $8.27 million bonus.

Before the offseason is finished, there could be a bonus for a Cuban amateur that utterly demolishes those two figures. There’s a 19-year-old phenom named Yoan Moncada who should soon be available, and Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports expects his bonus to be in the range of $30-40 million.

These are signs of the times figuratively just as well as literally. Escaping Cuba to chase a major league dream became a lot more appealing for Cuban players when Chapman signed five years ago, and the success of him and others has changed the perception of Cuban talent in MLB front offices.

“It’s been a revelation that these guys are pretty much major league-ready. That may not have been [the thinking] when Cuban players started signing,” said San Francisco Giants President and CEO Larry Baer to Jorge L. Ortiz of USA Today.

At the rate things are going, you wonder when the bubble is going to burst. 

Well, maybe soon, actually.

As soon as it was announced in December that the United States and Cuba would be restoring full diplomatic relations, what it meant for the flow of talent from Cuba to MLB became an immediate question mark. And though it will likely be a while before anything is set in stone, you can take it from Ben Badler of Baseball America that there will be changes.

Though the need for Cuban players to defect in order to chase a job in MLB should thankfully be a thing of the past in the near future, Badler writes:

It’s highly unlikely, however, that there would be a sudden free-for-all on Cuban talent. MLB doesn’t want that. Neither does the Cuban government. Both sides would want to establish some order to what would be an extremely complicated process for all sides to navigate…

In other words, the flow of talent from Cuba to MLB will likely be heavily regulated. Presumably, that will go for both experienced veterans like Chapman, Cespedes and Abreu and for amateurs like Baldoquin, Lopez and Moncada.

So if you’re just getting used to the wild spending on Cuban players, don’t dwell on it. It’s been fun, but the times will likely be a-changin’ soon.

The AL’s Unfair Advantage on the Hitting Market

Pitching is king in today’s MLB. And when pitching is king, everyone needs hitting.

Trouble is, one league can’t acquire free-agent hitters quite as easily as the other.

Though it’s noteworthy that teams haven’t gone too crazy spending on hitters this winter, nine hitters have signed for at least $40 million, and 16 have signed for at least $10 million. In all, those 16 hitters’ new deals combine for $734 million. 

And of those 16, 13 are now on American League clubs.

Maybe you’d think that’s owed to AL clubs having more money to spend than National League clubs. But as I highlighted in December, that’s not the case. The real culprit is something else:

The designated hitter.

Because the National League doesn‘t have the DH, it never had a shot at landing Nelson Cruz, Victor Martinez, Billy Butler or Kendrys Morales. There’s also been buzz that the DH was a factor in Pablo Sandoval jumping ship from the NL to the AL, and it seems to have played a similar role with Hanley Ramirez, Adam LaRoche and Russell Martin.

One National League general manager has already gone on record—Doug Melvin of the Milwaukee Brewers to ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark in 2013—with laments about how the lack of the DH makes it hard for NL teams to attract free-agent hitters, and here’s guessing he’s not alone. When you need hitting and you’re at a disadvantage in acquiring hitting, well, that sucks.

For now, new MLB commissioner Rob Manfred doesn‘t sound too concerned about this particular issue. But this offseason has made it clear that it is indeed an issue. And at some point, it will have to be addressed.

On the bright side…

The Golden Age of Parity

It’s no big revelation to say there’s a lot of parity in Major League Baseball these days.

Heck, we just saw two sub-90-win teams play each other in the World Series. And if you’re thinking MLB’s parity can’t match, say, the NFL’s, Stark has all sorts of goodies for you. Further, Jon Morosi of Fox Sports made a case for MLB as the standard-bearer for parity among all four of North America’s major professional sports leagues.

Nonetheless, it has to be said: This offseason really, really, really drove the point home. Like, really.

To be sure, usual suspects like the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers and Washington Nationals have generated a lot of headlines this winter. But generating just as many, if not more, headlines have been unusual suspects.

Think of the Miami Marlins inking Giancarlo Stanton to a $325 million extension and then making a series of signings and trades designed to get them to October in 2015. Think of the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs acting like the big-market teams they are for the first time in years. Think of the San Diego Padres going all out to acquire Matt Kemp, Justin Upton and Wil Myers, among others.

Don’t overlook what’s happened elsewhere, either.

The Seattle Mariners made a big-ticket signing for the second year in a row with Nelson Cruz. So did the Minnesota Twins with Ervin Santana. The Oakland A’s dropped $30 million on Billy Butler. The Pittsburgh Pirates spent close to $50 million on Francisco Liriano and Jung-ho Kang. The Houston Astros sacrificed $60 million on four free agents and also traded for Evan Gattis and Luis Valbuena.

You could go on and on. Really, the only way you can’t go on and on is by shifting gears and trying to pinpoint teams that weren’t aggressive making improvements. There are the Philadelphia Phillies, the Atlanta Braves, the Colorado Rockies and…well, that might be it.

There are reasons for this, of course.

Thanks to the incredible amount of money in the game today, there really aren’t any poor teams anymore. And with the second wild card granting returns to the postseason for the Orioles, Pirates and Royals in the three years of its existence, teams have gotten the message that contention is more within reach than it’s ever been. This offseason was thus a collision between increased resources and enhanced motivation to use them. 

It wasn’t all that long ago that the baseball landscape was dominated by a handful of teams that had all the money and used it to win all the games. Baseball has come quite a long way since then.

And that’s pretty cool.

If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Even though the weather outside for most of the country doesn’t suggest it, Major League Baseball’s 2015 season is just around the corner. That means MLB Network had to unveil its list of the Top 100 Prospects, which didn’t surprise anyone by naming Minnesota’s Byron Buxton as the No. 1 overall player. 

Jim Callis of MLB.com tweeted out how close the race was between Buxton, Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant and Houston Astros shortstop Carlos Correa:

The official list was released on a television special Friday night, as the top 25 prospects were unveiled. All week MLB.com has been releasing snippets of the list, including top 10 players at each position, but finally the master list is out for consumption. 

Here’s a look at the top 25:

Full Top 100 can be found on MLB.com

One of the most interesting debates for prospect hounds right now is if you would rather have Kris Bryant or Byron Buxton. A similar question was asked four years ago with Bryce Harper and Mike Trout, who have both gone on to do some decent things in their respective careers. 

Those in the Bryant camp will start by noting his absurd power, like Callis on MLB.com when discussing the top third base prospects:

Since signing for a $6,708,400 bonus, a record for a Cub and for a college position player, Bryant has gone deep 52 times in 174 games and led the Minors in homers (43), extra-base hits (78), total bases (325), slugging (.661) and OPS (1.098) in his first full pro season…Ready for Wrigley Field right now, he should hit for a lot of power, draw plenty of walks and play a capable third base.

When you think of how precious power is in this era of baseball, with 2014 producing the fewest home runs per game since 1992 (h/t Baseball-Reference), Bryant is a rare species to find. It also helps that he projects to hit for average and get on base at a high clip. 

People who prefer Buxton will point out that he plays a more important position (center field) and projects to have plus tools across the board, which is what Sam Dykstra of MiLB.com wrote:

Buxton’s profile didn’t take any steps back — nor should it have, given the freak nature of his injuries last season — as both players earned 70 overall grades. If there’s any tiebreaker, it might be that Buxton got above-average 60 grades or better on each of his five tools while Bryant was given average 50s for running and fielding.

Callis also tweeted out the list of reasons why Buxton remained at No. 1 on the prospect list despite a lost 2014 season:

There are two separating factors for Bryant right now, despite being “only” the No. 2 prospect heading into 2015: MLB readiness and health. 

As Callis wrote, Bryant could step into the Cubs’ lineup out of spring training ready to make an impact. He may not, simply as a way to delay his service time, but the fact that it’s plausible helps make his value. 

While no one thinks that Buxton is injury prone, he was limited to 31 games last season due to a wrist injury early in the year and a concussion suffered in August. Losing those reps set his MLB timetable back, as a healthy 2014 could have led to an appearance in Minnesota at some point this year. 

Whatever side you take in the Bryant vs. Buxton debate, there’s little separating the two in terms of talent. They boast very different skills, but have MVP potential as soon as they arrive in The Show. 

All of the preseason accolades for Bryant could be a prelude to a star-making 2015 season in Chicago. Assuming he gets called up soon enough, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2013 draft will be the heavy favorite to win NL Rookie of the Year. 

Given what the Cubs have done in the offseason by hiring Joe Maddon as manager and signing Jon Lester to lead the rotation, adding Bryant and the bevy of talented prospects to the lineup will make playoff talk in Wrigley a reality very soon. 

Buxton just has to remain healthy, and he should have no problem putting those insane tools to good use, though 2016 seems more realistic to see him in a Minnesota uniform. Until then, just sit back and enjoy watching this talented star develop.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Some MLB teams just have so much pitching it’s not even fair.

The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Washington Nationals definitely fit that description. Next season, those clubs will be trotting out two of the strongest starting staffs in the majors. The Nats have aces all over the rotation, but for the Dodgers, it all starts with the big three.

What follows is a look around the league at the top 10 rotation trios entering 2015. There were an array of factors that went into the ranking process, but none was more important than the way the respective trios pitched in 2014. Stats like ERA, strikeout rate, walk rate and WAR were all taken into consideration. 

It wasn’t just about last season, and as a result, broader track records were also part of the equation. Plus, factors like injury histories and the upside of rising stars were also considered.

Thanks primarily to the fact that they don’t face designated hitters on a regular basis, National League teams dominate the top spots in the rankings. However, there were still several American League trios who cracked the top 10.

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We can talk all we want about the offseason drawing to a close and spring training being just around the bend, but here’s how we really know it’s almost baseball season:

Ladies and gentlemen, our first Yasiel Puig controversy of 2015 has arrived!

Sort of, anyway. It’s a controversy to the extent that it’s going to be viewed that way in some circles. But in this one? Meh, not so much. If anything, this particular Puig controversy is the opposite of a controversy, whatever that is.

At any rate, let’s get to what the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ lightning-rod right fielder had to say. It seems Puig held court with some reporters on Friday and, courtesy of Roberto Baly of VinScullyIsMyHomeboy.com, one of the things he said was this:

Hardball Talk’s Craig Calcaterra introduced this tweet by writing, “This is gonna create some headlines.” 

Well, we know there’s at least one now. And there will probably be more. It is the slow season, after all, and this is one of those Internet-friendly OH SNAP! moments.

The rivalry between the Dodgers and the Giants is no joke. They both entered the National League in 1883, and their rivalry traveled from New York to California in the 1950s and became an intradivisional affair when the NL West formed in 1969. Through it all, the Dodgers-Giants rivalry has produced enough fodder for a Wikipedia page that’s about as long as you’d expect it to be.

And, of course, there’s what the Giants have done lately. While the Dodgers are still working on winning their first World Series since 1988, the Giants’ championship run in 2014 was their third in five years.

In light of all that, shouldn’t Puig‘s eyes be on the Giants instead of the Cardinals? Don’t they matter just a little bit more?

Not necessarily, no.

There’s no question the Giants are on the Dodgers’ minds, as new general manager Farhan Zaidi acknowledged as much at his introductory presser in November. And, for all we know, the Dodgers are just as envious of the Giants as they are aware of them.

Feeling envious, however, is not the same thing as feeling inferior.

Puig‘s comments indicate he doesn’t feel the Dodgers are inferior to the Giants, and there’s another Dodger who recently came right out and said it. Remember when Adrian Gonzalez told this to Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register?

You can say he was just trying to rationalize the Dodgers’ season, but he had a point.

The Dodgers did indeed win the division over the Giants in 2014 and also did the same in 2013. A big reason they were able to this past year is because they won eight of the last 11 games the two teams played against one another.

So based on recent history, Puig‘s not quite out of his mind in not perceiving the Giants as a major threat. Over the Dodgers’ last 324 regular-season games, they really haven’t been.

And looking ahead to 2015, the projections see more of the same in store. Courtesy of Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs:

Both projections see the Dodgers winning their third straight NL West title, and handily at that. And knowing what they’re working with, that should be easy enough to believe.

The Dodgers may have lost Hanley Ramirez, Matt Kemp and Dee Gordon, but they still have plenty of quality bats. Throw in a rotation led by Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke, a hugely improved defense and a bullpen that should also be improved, and they don’t just deserve to be perceived as the top contender for the NL West. In my eyes, they’re baseball’s top World Series contender.

So while the Dodgers are playing catch-up with the Giants to a certain extent, the Giants are also a hurdle they’ve proved they can clear and should be able to clear once again. Rather than on them, their focus should be on a hurdle they haven’t cleared and still poses a threat.

You know, like the Cardinals.

The last two times the Dodgers have made the playoffs, the Cardinals have come along to knock them out. They did the job in the sixth game of the National League Championship Series in 2013, and in the fourth game of the National League Division Series in 2014.

It would be easy for Puig and the rest of the Dodgers to put those two defeats in the past if they knew they didn’t have to worry about seeing the Cardinals in October again, but they can’t do that. 

The Cardinals are largely still the same team they were the last time the Dodgers saw them, but they now feature one of the game’s great right fielders in Jason Heyward. This is to say, they still have the look of a division winner, and both Baseball Prospectus and FanGraphs expect them to be just that in 2015. Odds are the NL Central will be theirs again.

That puts them and the Dodgers on a collision course to meet in October once again. Because of that, they’re more of a threat to stand in the way of the Dodgers’ elusive championship than the Giants are.

Even without context, this alone would be strong enough justification for Puig‘s stance. But when you consider the context, you remember how many layers there are to the Cardinals-Dodgers rivalry.

One of those layers concerns Puig directly. The Cardinals have owned him the last two times they’ve faced him in the postseason, holding him to a .235 average and punching him out in 18 of 37 plate appearances. Thus have they made an otherwise above-average hitter look decidedly pedestrian.

It’s not just his number the Cardinals have had. They’ve also had Kershaw‘s, as they’ve treated him like a regular Barry Zito the last three times they’ve seen him in the postseason. Understandably, he was dazed and confused after his latest defeat. His teammates probably were, too.

Oh, and let’s also not forget the cultural war between these two teams.

In 2013, their postseason battle was a narrative of the respectful old-school types of St. Louis triumphing over a bunch of disrespectful modern loonies from Los Angeles. It was the spirit of Stan Musial stomping all over Mickey Mouse.

In 2014, it was much of the same. Only this time, Jon Heyman of CBS Sports looked at the Dodgers’ absurd payroll and spun a yarn about magic triumphing over money:

The $230 million (or is it $240 million with all the extras counted?) Dodgers slinked back to glitzy L.A. after a 3-2 defeat that completed the Cardinals’ NLDS win, three games to one. This will be four straight NLCS appearances for the Cardinals, who rank in the middle on payroll and haven’t had Albert Pujols for three of those four years now.

The Dodgers-Giants rivalry is one with a long history that now has a championship-envy twist. But it’s the Cardinals who have been the bigger rock in the Dodgers’ shoe over the last two seasons, and the rivalry between them has transcended the action on the field as only good rivalries can do.

So don’t take Puig‘s latest remark to be controversial. The Giants may have the championships the Dodgers crave, but it’s not them the Dodgers have to worry about. The Cardinals pose a bigger threat, and the last two years have made them the Bill to the Dodgers’ Uma Thurman. Revenge is in order.

Of course, Giants fans are welcome to disagree. Either that, or you guys can calm down and count to three. 

I’m not sure what it is, but something about that number should have you feeling better.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.  

If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The Chicago Cubs enter the 2015 season with high hopes. They have more stability than they’ve had in several years, and some of their bright young stars are finally starting to fall into place. For all that stability, the Cubs still have a few question marks heading into the year.

It’s not a bad thing to have competition in spring training, and the Cubs will have exactly that at a few positions as the spring wears on.

Here are three key position battles entering spring training and who’s most likely to win the job.

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This offseason has been surprising—and perhaps somewhat painful—for the Atlanta Braves, who, as part of a somewhat unexpected rebuilding effort spearheaded by a new front office, traded away a trio of their most popular, polarizing players.

Another word that could be used to accurately describe the Braves winter? Justified.

As in, new president of baseball operations John Hart and Co. were justified in the decision to take this route, even considering Atlanta began the offseason with enough talent on the roster to make a rebound campaign a reasonable hope.

After all, this is the Atlanta Braves, a franchise that has been one of the most consistent in baseball, capturing 14 straight NL East titles from 1991 to 2005 and posting five consecutive winning seasons from 2009 to 2013 prior to last year’s second-half collapse (27-40) that led to a 79-83 mark.

After that kind of sustained success, pushing the restart button doesn’t come easy.

But that’s what Hart has done—that’s what he needed to do—after taking over for former general manager Frank Wren. And there are a number of reasons why.

First and foremost, Wren had left the Braves farm system lacking in both quality and quantity after years of mediocre, uninspiring drafts.

“We had a tough year, and I know there was a lot of speculation about us going into this winter,” Hart said, according to Jeff Schultz of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We had the 29th-ranked farm system in baseball. We had some bad contracts.”

As Keith Law of ESPN writes of Atlanta’s system, now the sixth-best in baseball:

They were a bottom-5 system when the offseason started, but six trades later, they’ve built up a stash of prospects that makes up for five years of execrable drafts and very little production from their Latin American efforts. Ten of their top 12 prospects have appeared on at least one of my past three top-100 rankings, including six this year.

To get there, Hart had to bite the bullet by swapping young outfielders Jason Heyward, Justin Upton and Evan Gattis, each of whom was a homegrown product or a popular player—or both.

But the 25-year-old Heyward, whom the Braves drafted 14th overall in 2007, and the 27-year-old Upton, who hit 56 homers in two seasons in Atlanta after being acquired from the Arizona Diamondbacks, were entering their final year under contract.

With both stars set to become free agents in line for nine-figure paydays, there was no way the Braves could afford to bring back both—let alone even one. Especially not after spending a lot last winter to lock up other young talent, like first baseman Freddie Freeman, closer Craig Kimbrel, shortstop Andrelton Simmons and righty Julio Teheran.

In return for Heyward, who was sent to the St. Louis Cardinals, and Upton, who is now a San Diego Padre, Atlanta landed young, team-controlled, high-upside talent: big league righty Shelby Miller, as well as a slew of prospects—righty Tyrell Jenkins, lefty Max Fried, infielders Jace Peterson and Dustin Peterson and outfielder Mallex Smith.

And in dealing Gattis—the man, the myth, the legend affectionately known as El Oso Blanco—to the Houston Astros, the Braves cashed in at peak value, getting two very good prospects in right-hander Mike Foltynewicz and third baseman Rio Ruiz for a powerful but offensively flawed, defensively limited, injury-prone player who already is 28 years old.

In short, Hart made the Braves younger and cheaper with each of these moves, which also was the right choice given the state of the NL East, a division Atlanta used to dominate but that instead was flag-planted by the Washington Nationals last year and very well could be again.

After winning the East by (count ’em) 17 games over the Braves and New York Mets, the Nationals went out and signed right-hander Max Scherzer for $210 million, one of the game’s very best starting pitchers, making arguably the sport’s best rotation even better.

With the Mets and Miami Marlins also on the upswing, armed with enough young talent to have a chance to make a run at a wild-card spot this year, that would have left little room for the Braves to make any headway in 2015.

“Look, we weren’t going to be favored even if we kept everybody and added two pitchers,” Hart said via Paul Newberry in The Augusta Chronicle. “But I think the future is significantly brighter because of what we were able to do this winter.”

And Atlanta would have been even worse in 2016 without Heyward and Upton. So Atlanta traded them while it still could—while they still had value—and managed to pull in promising returns in the form of youngsters who can develop and grow and blossom between now and, oh, 2017.

That, of course, is when SunTrust Park, the Braves’ new stadium in Cobb County, is slated to open.

So in fact, all of this activity has the team aimed at once again being a contender by the time the address changes. At least, that’s how this could shake out, in theory.

After a busy—and rather unexpected—offseason, the Braves are going to look a lot different in 2015 than they did in 2014.

While that might hurt a bit next year, if they make good on their returns and time everything right, the decision will look smart—and the pain will be gone—by 2017.

Statistics are accurate through the 2014 season and courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.

To talk baseball or fantasy baseball, check in with me on Twitter: @JayCat11.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The Baltimore Orioles are heading into the 2015 season with a less-than-below-average farm system after stud righty Kevin Gausman and second baseman of the future Jonathan Schoop shed their prospect labels this past year.

In addition to the loss of a highly ranked lefty in Eduardo Rodriguez, who was involved in a trade that netted reliever Andrew Miller from the Boston Red Sox, the Orioles are going to need to get a lot of value out of some of their prospects outside of the elite tier.

Top prospect Dylan Bundy is hoping to make a significant impact at the major league level this season, after being selected fourth overall in 2011. After several setbacks, Bundy needs an uninterrupted season in order for him to complete his development into a major league hurler.

All is going according to plan with fellow blue-chip Hunter Harvey, who dazzled in his first full professional season, compiling a 3.18 ERA with the Single-A Delmarva Shorebirds in 17 starts.

First baseman Christian Walker will be looking at securing a considerable amount of playing time at designated hitter this year, as it looks more and more likely that Steve Pearce will man left field with Chris Davis holding down first.

That leaves us with several prospects who no one has been talking about but could turn a few heads as early as this season.

Here’s a look into the most underrated prospects in the Orioles farm system right now, ranked in order of most major league ready.

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As the Philadelphia Phillies continue to offload some of their veteran assets, closer Jonathan Papelbon continues to find himself at the center of trade speculation.

Todd Zolecki of MLB.com has more on two teams continuing to show interest:

The Phillies are still talking to the [Milwaukee] Brewers and [Toronto] Blue Jays about a Jonathan Papelbon trade.

Two sources said this evening that talks are alive, although the seriousness of those discussions is unclear. Yahoo! Sports first reported Friday that the Phillies and Brewers were in serious negotiations. FOXSports.com mentioned the Blue Jays’ interest.

In the following days, reports surfaced that a deal with either team is unlikely. But that has not stopped them from continuing to talk about Papelbon.

Indeed, this comes just a few days after Milwaukee’s general manager, Doug Melvin, basically dismissed the likelihood of a deal happening.

“It doesn’t appear there’s any momentum to it right now,” he told Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “It could be revived later, I guess, but right now there’s nothing happening. Whatever traction there was seems to have dissipated.”

Toronto’s interest appears to be fairly tepid as well, per Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports:

Haudricourt adds:

Papelbon finished 2-3 this past season with 39 saves, a 2.04 ERA, 0.90 WHIP and 63 strikeouts in 66.1 innings pitched. Phillies fans have grown weary of his act, however, as he appeared to make an obscene gesture toward Phillies fans as he was coming out of a game in September and has never shied away from commenting publicly when he’s been unhappy with the team’s lack of success.

But trading him has been made more complicated by his contract. He’s scheduled to make $13 million this season and has a vesting option in 2016 for the same amount of money, which becomes guaranteed if he finishes 48 games this season, per Zolecki. 

That’s a big contract for a 34-year-old closer who has run hot and cold in his time with the Phillies. 

Still, it wouldn’t be surprising if a team found a way to bring Papelbon aboard, with Philly eating some of the contract. For a rebuilding Phillies team, Papelbon is more useful if he can bring back prospects. For a team looking to contend, Papelbon is a proven closer who was pretty solid in 2014. 

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Star Cuban prospect Yoan Moncada is close to becoming a free agent after it was determined he no longer needs a specific unblocking license from the Office of Foreign Asset Controls.    

Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan first reported the news, noting that the highly coveted 19-year-old infielder could potentially start negotiations with MLB teams in two weeks. Because teams will have to essentially pay double for the already expensive youngster, Passan believes the big-money clubs are the favorites:

The New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs remain the favorites for Moncada, major league sources said, particularly because the team that signs him will need to pay nearly a dollar-for-dollar penalty on his bonus. For every dollar a team spends over its allotted international bonus pool between July 2, 2014, and June 15, 2015, it is taxed an equal amount.

According to Passan, there is more hype surrounding Moncada than there was for talented compatriots such as Yasiel Puig, Jose Abreu, Aroldis Chapman and Yoenis Cespedes. Baseball America‘s Ben Badler added that he has more upside than Rusney Castillo and is better than Yasmany Tomas, suggesting that he would be in contention for the No. 1 overall pick if eligible for the 2015 draft. 

All of that is incredibly high praise, but by all indications, Moncada is worth it. Standing at 6’1″ and 210 pounds at the age of the 19, the switch-hitting infielder is a legitimate five-tool talent. 

ESPN the Magazine‘s Molly Knight puts the Los Angeles Dodgers as her favorite to acquire the young prospect:

You can expect a handful of teams to be equally aggressive, as Moncada will almost assuredly break the signing-bonus record recently set by Yoan Lopez. 

As Passan discussed, there are still some details to be worked out that could delay this process. But Moncada’s free agency appears imminent, and that means one team is close to adding a potential future superstar.      

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