The #Angels have added former big leaguers Gary Varsho and Jeff Cirillo to their scouting staff.

— Jerry Crasnick (@jcrasnick) February 19, 2012

Why do they always scout better...

Now Jeff's Friday fun fact looms prescient, which it was not, as Mike Cameron notified the Nationals this morning that he is retiring from baseball.

OF Mike Cameron has notified the Nationals he will retire, bringing his impressive career to an end...Spring Training roster now at 54.

— Nationals PR (@NationalsPR) February 19, 2012

It's not altogether surprising since he was on only a Minor League deal and the Nationals have a crowded outfield, but it's... I don't think sad is the word since Cameron is leaving mostly on his own terms and in (assuming) good health and having made a fortune. His talents were often hindered in being fully recognized by the parks he played in. I have a feeling that in the greater context of baseball history, he will remain under appreciated, but I have also never seen anyone speak poorly of him and that counts too.

Goodbye, Mike. I wish the team I root for hadn't been so dunder-headed that they didn't see the value in keeping you here.

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Fitting the way that works out. It's like if the Giants signed a giant, or if the Mets signed someone they met.

I remember a time this offseason when the Athletics' outfield depth chart was Ryan Sweeney. It was Ryan Sweeney, just. There were a couple other guys - I think they were Michael Taylor and Jai Miller - but they were listed as backups, behind Ryan Sweeney. Ryan Sweeney, at that point, was the designated starter in left, center and right. One might've assumed the A's were really fond of Ryan Sweeney.

The A's traded Ryan Sweeney. Their outfield depth chart is now some unholy combination of Seth Smith, Coco Crisp, Josh Reddick, Jonny Gomes, Collin Cowgill, and Yoenis Cespedes. I tucked the surprise in there at the end. Cespedes, the big-time potential Cuban superstar and potential Cuban Roger Bernadina, has agreed to a four-year deal with Oakland worth $36 million.

It's a complete and utter surprise. You might notice that you are completely and utterly surprised. The A's were in on another Cuban named Jorge Soler, but they didn't seem to be anywhere on Cespedes. No one seemed to be anywhere on Cespedes the way that the Miami Marlins were in on Cespedes. Cespedes signing with the Marlins felt inevitable. I mean, why wouldn't he? A Cuban in Miami? A team that said, flat-out, it would be "aggressive to the point of stupidity" trying to sign him? Cespedes was going to be a Marlin. If he wasn't going to be a Marlin, it would be because some other big player came in and flashed a ton of money.

He signed with the A's. It's easy to make jokes about how, as a foreigner, Cespedes might not understand just how miserable Oakland's situation really is. There might even be some truth to that. And there's a self-serving aspect here - Cespedes inked a four-year deal with Oakland instead of a five- or six-year deal with Miami because this way he can hit free agency sooner. Free agency sooner means major money sooner, since Cespedes doesn't expect Cespedes to flop.

What matters most, though, is that Yoenis Cespedes is an A. It's crazy but it's true, or it will be true as soon as he passes his physical. Next year, every team in baseball will be working with an assigned pool of funds in international free agency. This was the last year for teams to go nuts. Oakland made the big splash. (Update: nevermind about this. Professionals like Cespedes will be exempt.) Oakland was a big player for Aroldis Chapman, too, but they didn't sign him. They did sign Yoenis Cespedes.

For whatever it's worth, Oakland isn't a total stranger to high-priced players. They did have Matt Holliday. They did have Ben Sheets. Eric Chavez was expensive. It's interesting that Cespedes is going to have the highest salary on the team. It's a hell of a risk for an organization you assume takes only calculated risks, but who's to say this isn't a calculated risk?

Most of you are probably reading this because you want to know what this means for the Mariners. It's really hard to say what this means for the Mariners, since it's really hard to say what Cespedes is going to be. It's easy to imagine him as a powerful bat that never develops the discipline necessary to be consistently productive. It's easy to imagine him as a complete center fielder, or a near-complete center fielder. The question isn't his tools - it's how skilled he is at using them.

I guess the message, and the message that probably didn't need to be delivered, is that we can't just write the A's off. A lot of real and fake ink has been spilled this offseason about how the A's are blowing things up. Look at the A's. Actually look at them. They're not bad. They're not good, but they're not bad, and they're not old. They just signed a significant player for significant money. The Mariners are not in a three-team division, and they're going to have some trouble with the A's. Not just in 2012. In the long run. Even if Cespedes doesn't turn out.

If he makes the roster out of camp, the first Major League pitcher Cespedes will see is Felix Hernandez. He'll face him in Japan.

Hello there, baseball fans! Welcome to Lookout Landing. You are probably interested in predictions about the upcoming season. Sorry, you will not find that here. We don't really fancy predictions because the future is unknowable (for you) and so predictions are just excuses to engage in speculation and that makes us all blah really? We do have some projections though. Those are different. Please understand that those are different so that you might stop bitching about projections being wrong when it turns out they didn't exactly predict the future. You sound like a cretin when you do that.

Today's featured projection system is CAIRO. It's in all capital letters so I assume it is either an acronym or an initialism. I also don't consider those to be the same things. The official definitions are fuzzy but I believe we should have different terms for abbreviations that become words (radar, scuba) on their own and ones that are strictly letters (HTML, FBI). There are border cases though and something's weird about ones that become words but are still used in all caps like NATO. Compare that to Interpol which is a word now and also represents an organization but I feel comfortable writing Interpol in place of INTERPOL, but have to write NATO, not Nato. See how weird that looks? This is confusing. We need more terms.

So, CAIRO, whatever it stands for. Who cares? Here's the link to the latest crop. Looking over it I noticed that most of the good teams were good last year. That's not a big shock or even an aftershock, but it led me to making this graph.

Notice the best fit equation. Hey look, it's regression! That right there is regression. It takes the magnitude from 0 from last year and spits back a little over 75% of that number. Another way of putting that is saying the 2012 projected run differential is three parts actual 2011 run differential and one part league average (0). Regression! Catch the wave!

The above chart doesn't do anything to identify which are the good teams and which are the bad teams. We're (not us we, people we) all about categorizing things into groups of preferably two. People like things in only two possible categories because "black or white" and "either you're with us or you're against us" is just so much less mentally taxing than actual reality. I will indulge it this one time.

Here are the remaining 13 teams. The terrible thirteen. I tried to come up with an alliterative and catchy moniker to saddle them with but I faltered in identifying an English word that's a synonym for bad and prefixed with a "th" sound. Any suggestions from linguists or other writers are welcome. It could even be a foreign word if appropriate enough. If you come up with one that I find delectable, I will bestow this...uh...free...pen on you. It's a wonderful pen. It has a clicky thing at the top and a good balance for twirling.

I arranged the teams in ascending order based on projected wins and broke the ties by using 2011's record just as the MLB draft order would do.
60 - Astros
67 - Twins
68 - Pirates
70 - Orioles
71 - Cubs
74 - Mariners
74 - Royals
74 - White Sox
75 - Mets
75 - Dodgers
76 - Padres
76 - Athletics
78 - Blue Jays

The Padres have the highest combined playoffs projections of any of those 13 and it's just 8.2%, which gives you a notion of the gap between these two groups. By the way, on average, American League teams had two more wins than their National League little brothers. Basically, that means the Mariners and the Padres are like the same team.

There have been some mightily team-friendly deals signed this winter and the Texas Rangers just added another by buying out all three of Elvis Andrus' arbitration years. I heard about the length of the contract in advance of hearing about the monetary figures, so while I waited for those, I went about constructing what I thought to be a fair value contract and also my guess as to the actual deal about to be leaked.

Based on wide agreement as to Andrus' hitting level and across-the-board praise of his defense, I think three wins (3 WAR) is a fair projection for Andrus going forward and based solely on that and the 40%/60%/80% arbitration guesstimates, pinned a fair market deal for Andrus in the $20-25 million range to buy out all three years. My guess was that the actual figure was going to be nearer $17 million because I knew what the two parties filed for in arbitration ($3.6M from Andrus, $2.65M from the Rangers). I'm not sure why, but first-year arb players constantly seem to be undervalued and that can skew things when being bought out like this.

It appears, based on Ken Rosenthal, that I was still too optimistic and that the contract is going to be for about $15 million, though it will not include any team options, which are usually friendly to the ballclub. This is no Howie Kendrick-level steal for the Rangers, but it's a fine deal for Texas based on Andrus' already established level of play and he showed hints at a relatively improving bat last season.

I had some increased, and a touch irrational, hope that the Mariners would still prevail in signing Prince Fielder to a reasonable contract. He's a good bat but his market appeared to be severely and quickly drying up. However, what I was more interested in was the signal that such a signing would send. Having Justin Smoak, Prince Fielder, Jesus Montero and Mike Carp all on the same team would possibly force the team into an offense-heavy line up that would be exciting in the way that disregarding your preset and tested sailing route in order to get a better view of an island and damn any probably-totally-not-harmful rocks potentially in the way would be exciting.

Not at that price though. Nooooooo. I'll have to check when the full details become public but the money is close enough that it's conceivable that Prince Fielder is, in terms of real (i.e. adjusted for expected inflation) dollars, going to be paid the same or more than Albert Pujols will over 90% of the contract length. I never believed that Fielder was going to come at a bargain, but wow.

With Seattle's payroll currently well below last year's mark, few big money targets left and a still-present thirst for a big push for offense, there are going to be fans angry that the Tigers, not the Mariners, are the team to ink Fielder. Some will claim that the Mariners could have made this contract work. If those people are willing to listen, I say that I sympathize, but beware of speculating based on what Fielder signed for. We just don't know that Fielder would have signed with Seattle at the same price. Or if he would have signed here at any price for that matter.

There's a rumor that he didn't want to sign here, but rumors are just rumors. That Fielder wouldn't want to sign here was always a possibility, whether the media speculated on it or not. Of course, the trade for Jesus Montero appeared to make the Mariners much less likely to pursue Prince Fielder even if he were open to the idea. Instead, it's the Tigers that get the talented bat, but have to deal with the defensive fallout. I was initially disappointed that he didn't sign with the Nationals for the chance of some entertaining Mike Morse in left field GIFs, but based on other rumblings, we'll get the joy of Miguel Cabrera back at third base GIFs instead. Hooray!

Like Jeff and others, I don't have an idea where the Mariners put their remaining offseason money, however much that is. One consideration I hadn't yet seen mentioned is that for the third season in four, the Mariners have a top three pick in the MLB draft. Those picks are not cheap to sign so perhaps some of the slush money is going to end up there. I hope it goes somewhere to make the team better. I still believe that it will.

Last night I took part in a podcast, which you can listen to here. I enjoy doing podcasts, even though we haven't done an LL podcast in a while. Podcasts provide a different way to talk about baseball - an easier way to talk about baseball, where I don't have to think about every single word and look at it on a screen. Writing can be hard sometimes. Talking out loud is a change of pace.

Over the course of the podcast, I took a few jabs at the Astros. I make Astros jokes the way a lot of people make Prince Fielder fat jokes, which is to say I make Astros jokes all the time. They're really bad. A lot of Mariners fans are looking forward to the Astros joining the AL West in 2013, because the Astros are really bad. They're so bad.

I went to bed having made fun of the Astros. I woke up to this news. The Astros have hired Mike Fast, effective immediately, or effective almost immediately.

Many of you are familiar with Mike Fast. For those of you who aren't familiar with Mike Fast...let's put it this way. I think, generally, there are baseball writers, and baseball researchers. Sometimes baseball writers do research, but Fast was a researcher. Mike Fast was a baseball scientist. Frequently leaning on PITCHfx, he generated so many fascinating studies, including this one on pitch framing from September. Fast was at the top of his field.

And now he'll continue with his analysis, only he'll do it as an employee of a team who'll soon become a division rival. There are people who do similar things to Fast, and for all I know there are people who are better, but Fast has the right blend of intelligence and creativity. And motivation. Definitely motivation.

This is by no means a doom-and-gloom post. Fast is one guy. One employee. He's not a player. He's very far removed from the players. There's no telling how much influence he's going to have, and there's no telling how useful he's actually going to be. Bad teams have hired smart people and stayed bad before.

But this is another sign that the Astros are on the rise. They hired Mike Fast. They have a new owner. They hired Jeff Luhnow. They have a guy whose job title is Director of Decision Sciences, which I'm not even smart enough to understand. The Astros' on-field product was laughable in 2011 and it'll probably be laughable in 2012, but there's reason for them to hope after a few years of misery.

The Astros aren't going to join the AL West as some kind of clown car. They're on their way towards legitimacy. And it's not just them. All teams are getting smarter. Some teams are getting smarter slower than other teams, and some teams are still run by Ned Colletti, but baseball's getting sharp. The intelligence gap between organizations is shrinking, increasing the significance of money and luck.

We trust the Mariners' front office. We think the Mariners' front office is smart, and usually knows what it's doing. Most front offices are smart, and most front offices know what they're doing. On a WAR scale, I don't know where the Mariners' front office would stand. I get the sense that the replacement level keeps getting pushed higher and higher.

Anyway, I don't know how this post ended up this long. The Astros hired Mike Fast. Mike Fast is brilliant, or something close to brilliant. Fast should improve the Astros organization to some degree. The Astros overall are getting better. The Astros are shortly going to join the Mariners' division. Hello to increased competition.

The Mariners better hope like hell that these young players pan out.

It isn't the Mariners, which is good or bad, depending on your perspective. It isn't the Rangers, which is good or bad, depending on your perspective. It isn't the Nationals, which, whatever, I don't know. It's the Tigers. It's the Detroit flipping Tigers.

I only have a few minutes to write this up before I need to run out the door, so I'm not going to go into detail. I don't really need to go into detail, anyway, not here - it's the Tigers, and we don't care about the Tigers. Speaking for myself, I have absolutely no feeling either way about the Tigers at all. I don't really care if this ends up a great move, and I don't really care if this ends up a mistake.

You have to appreciate what Scott Boras has done. You might not want to, but you have to. Boras waited until the end of January. He waited until the end of January with a hugely impressive client. He got the contract he wanted from the very beginning, and he got it from a team that was never really on the radar, at least publicly. That's amazing. Sure, you could say maybe he got lucky because the Victor Martinez injury might have opened the door, but I think we might be beyond the point at which we can ascribe Boras' successes to luck.

I'm pretty sure the Boras household is like the Wallace & Gromit household, except that all the contraptions were wished by Boras into existence, and they're controlled by his mind.

What does this mean for the Mariners? It means the Mariners aren't signing Prince Fielder, which had looked increasingly less and less likely. From the start, the Mariners didn't look like a very appealing destination for Fielder, since they're rebuilding, they play in a big park, and they're super far away from his home. Recently, there was talk that Fielder didn't want to play for Seattle. This morning, there was this, from Softy:

Ken Rosenthal just told us on air he's been told that Prince Fielder does not want to play in Seattle

Maybe that would hurt if Fielder wound up signing a reasonable contract. He wound up signing a $214 million contract for nine years. Even if the Mariners could have put together a comparable offer, or a bigger offer, would that have been smart? I can't imagine that that would've been smart. Whatever short-term improvement and appeal might've been there would almost inevitably and invariably disintegrate with the passing of time.

Based on the odds, it's good that the Mariners didn't do this. I don't know where they go from here. Over the rest of this particular offseason, I mean. They still seem to have money available. Maybe they don't spend it. Maybe they spend it on a surprise. Maybe they save it for next year, which sounds nice, but which isn't often done.

We'll see. In the big picture, what's important to realize is that the Mariners are on the right path, and missing out on Fielder doesn't do anything to change that. Given the contract terms, it probably helps that. Don't be disappointed by what the Mariners don't have. Be excited about what they do. They're not whole, but they're getting there.