In Pavano’s case, it isn’t too hard to figure out why he isn’t going. His skills, though admirable, just don’t translate well to the fantasy world. Pavano posted a very good WHIP and good ERA, but Pavano simply doesn’t strike anyone out—of the pitchers who threw at least 200 innings, Pavano struckout the sixth fewest hitters. He did record 17 wins, but as any good fantasy player knows, chasing wins is a fool’s errand.

There are guys like Mark Reynolds, who provide far more value in fantasy than they do in real life—unless your league counts negative for strikeouts, that is—but most of the players who provide real-life value also provide fantasy value.

These following guys are the exception. They are skilled in ways that help their team, but probably won’t help yours. I don’t necessarily recommend picking up one of these guys, unless you are in one of my leagues, in which case you should be drafting ALL OF THEM.

Hitters (WAR Rank among position players/current ADP)

Aubrey Huff (17/109)

It surprises me that Huff was one of the top-20 hitters in baseball last year, and ever more so that he was a top-five first baseman, but that’s what happens when you post a career high WAR at age-33. He hit .290 with 26 home runs, even in park that was hitter-hostile, but derived a fair amount of his value from solid defense at first base and during occasional stints in left field. I can’t blame drafters for being wary of a repeat performance, especially given his age, but while the 17 position players with a higher WAR than he are going in the first 2-3 rounds, Huff has slipped into the middle third of most drafts.

Daric Barton (31/328)

First base is a pretty deep position, with the potential for four first baseman to go in the first round of a draft without anyone reaching too much. Beyond that top tier is another set of solid options, but you can get one of 2010’s top-10 first baseman in the last round of your draft in any league with 12 teams or fewer. Barton played stellar defense at first base, posting a 12.1 UZR, which is why he managed to be the sixth best first baseman without an OPS over 800. Barton’s walk-rate got a nice boost in 2010, but he’s going to need to make that a permanent addition to his game for him to rise up draft boards, and even that won’t help unless he either raises his average (.273 in 2010) or his home run total (10 in 2010, 26 for his career). Oakland may have benefited from his career-high 33 doubles, but most fantasy players simply did not.

Marlon Byrd (39/294)

Byrd seems like an interesting option in the very late rounds of deep leagues, though his value is heavily tied to how new manager Mike Quade elects to use Tyler Colvin. He accrued almost all of his value in 2010 before the All-Star break, as he hit .317/.365/.480 in the first half and a paltry .261/.321/.361 after the break, which may also explain why he’s slipping to the very end of drafts. Though Byrd owners were thrilled at his production early in the season, he left a bad taste in their mouths with a September line of .247/.278/.344. Byrd gets points for playing good defense in center field, but he’s on a three-year offensive slide. Your best-case scenario was picking Byrd up late in last year’s draft, trading him in early July, and staying the hell away from him this year. His ADP tells me that—unless you’re in a 14+ team league—you’re likely to be able to grab him off the wire if he looks like he’s going to repeat his first half again.

Pitchers (WAR Rank among Pitchers/Current ADP)

Jason Hammel (36/Not Drafted)

What do Jason Hammel and Max Scherzer have in common? If you said their 2010 WAR, you win a prize! Presently, they’re being drafted about 100 players apart. I’m sorry, that’s deceptive, they’re currently being drafted 100 pitchers apart. Scherzer is typically the 23^rd pitcher taken in drafts, while Hammel sits at 125; Scherzer has been slipping just barely into middle third of the draft at 101, but you can get Hammel as late as…May. He doesn’t even register on Mock Draft Central’s ADP board, meaning he’s at least lower than 400^th overall. In reality, it speaks more to how rough the beginning of Scherzer’s year was more than anything positive about Hammel, who simply gets hit way too much. In many ways, Hammel is the anti-Pavano. His ERA and WHIP are too high to be helpful, but he does strikeout an acceptable number of hitters. Playing in hitter-friendly Coors Field doesn’t help his cause, but more than anything, Hammel needs to do a better job keeping hitters off the bases.

Carl Pavano (46/291)

The man who started this whole quandary. The book on Pavano hasn’t changed over the course of 1000 words, he’s still a good but not great option. If, and this won’t happen because of changes he has made to his repertoire, but if he were to start striking out 7-8 hitters per game, his value would skyrocket. As it is, Pavano will live or die based on the defense behind him and his ability to keep hitters off balance, neither of which is going to win you categories any time soon. This ADP is up from last year’s mark, but it isn’t saying much that he went from a perceived waste of a pick to a fringe 25^th round selection in 12-team leagues.

Dallas Braden (47/377)

If you play in the kind of league that gives astronomical bonuses for perfect games or hitting for the cycle, Braden probably justified wherever you drafted him, but those leagues are few and far between. Nevertheless, Braden is probably the only player on here that I feel is getting underdrafed. Braden’s a lot like Pavano—acceptable ERA, good WHIP, limited strikeouts that kill his value—but he’s going almost 100 picks later. He’s improved every season as a professional, dropping his ERA and WHIP every year, while throwing more innings. Like Pavano, an increase in his K-rate would give him a serious boost in value, but unlike Pavano, he could theoretically do it. He’ll be just 27 this season, and if he can continue to improve his changeup, he could have a legitimate out-pitch. His real value and fantasy value are disparate now, but he could work his way off this list next year.

Livan Hernandez (48/Not Drafted)

Like Marlon Byrd, Hernandez accrued a ton of value early in the season, then hung on for dear life at the end. The man who eats innings like Joey Chestnut eats…everything else went 4-3 with a 2.15 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, and .222 BABIP in his first 10 starts for the Nats. Though his BABIP regressed back to career rates and took his WHIP and ERA with them, he still posted his best season since he was an Expo in 2004. He earned his spot in the Nats rotation by continuing to pitch well, but if you’re modeling your fantasy rotation after the Nationals, you may want to rethink that strategy. Drew Storen is a nice grab, and Jordan Zimmermann might be a late-round steal, but if you’re drafting John Lannan and Hernandez, well…you could be hurting this season.

The Twins did what I hoped they wouldn’t and reportedly have traded J.J. Hardy to the Baltimore Orioles.

Despite assertions to the contrary, I felt like this was pretty much a foregone conclusion when general manager Bill Smith and manager Ron Gardenhire started talking about the importance of speed in the middle infield. Hardy does a lot of things well, but he’s not that much faster than Jim Thome. Whether they had made up their mind or not, citing speed was a pretty good clue that Hardy wasn’t in their long-term plans.

I’m a big fan of Hardy and I thought the Twins would be well served to sign him to an extension, but for reasons that have yet to fully emerge, Smith and Co. pretty strenuously disagreed with that assessment. There was more chatter about non-tendering the shortstop than there was about extending him; never a good sign.

I can understand the reasons for dealing Hardy. He was going to make between $6 and $7 million in arbitration next year and was worth fewer than two wins (1.8 WARP-3) last season. If Hardy performed at a similar level in 2011, it would be a pretty poor return on investment. The Twins may have made plenty of money in Target Field’s first year, but they’re still not a rich enough team to simply throw away 4-5 million dollars by overpaying someone. Alexi Casilla gave the Twins nearly the same value as Hardy last season (1.4 WARP to Hardy’s 1.8) for over $4 million less.

That said, Hardy has value and shouldn’t be treated as a simple salary dump. Yet, for the moment, it appears that’s exactly what happened.

Hardy and the abysmal Brendan Harris were traded to the Orioles for minor league relievers Jim Hoey and Brett Jacobson, neither of whom were in Kevin Goldstein’s top 20 Orioles prospects. The move saves the Twins between $8 and $9 million for 2011, the exact figure won’t be known until Hardy’s arbitration hearing in February.

Hoey and Jacobson are similar pitchers, and a type that the Twins don’t have in spades, so that’s a mark in favor of the deal. Hoey has a career K/9 of 10.3 in the minors and Jacobson’s 8.3 K/9 seems to be on the rise. Live arms like that simply aren’t the Twins forte, as seen with pitchers like Kevin Slowey, Kyle Gibson, and Alex Wimmers—all of whom are known more for their command than their velocity.

The downside to Hoey and Jacobson is their command. Both have shown a propensity for walking a lot of hitters and giving up hits when they can find the strike zone, but that’s exactly what Rick Anderson and the Twins’ minor league staff teaches well. Neither is particularly young—Jacobson is 24 and has never pitched above High-A and Hoey is 28 and could be at Triple-A to start the year—so it’s a toss up as to whether either will actually contribute to the Twins. Jacobson won’t see the big leagues in 2011 and even 2012 seems a stretch, but he seems the more likely of the two to make a difference to the team.

Based on talent alone, this deal is a big win for the Orioles, who get the best player without giving up anything they’ll miss. But the truth is, and I cannot overstate this, this deal can’t be judged until the Twins spend the money they’ve just saved.

This deal cannot be judged until the Twins spend the money they’ve just saved.

If the Twins use the savings to re-sign Carl Pavano, it’s a bad deal. If they use it to buy dugout benches covered in fur, it’s a bad deal. If they make a separate deal for a top-of-the-rotation pitcher and use the savings to sign him to an extension, well, that’s a different matter entirely.

I don’t claim to know everything about the Twins and baseball in general, but one thing I’ve definitely learned is that none of these deals happen in a vacuum. We won’t know what the Twins lineup looks like until camp opens in February and perhaps not even until March. On the surface, this deal looks like a very poor one for the Twins, but I’m not going to skewer a front office that did a damn good job in 2010 before they get a chance to show their whole hand.

When the list finally came out, just three of the team’s potential free agents had been made offers of arbitration. Three others were notably absent from the team’s retention list.

Six of the Twins’ free agents had some type of compensation status, meaning that if the Twins offered them arbitration and the player declined, the team would receive draft picks as compensation for losing the player. Type-A free agents would net the team not only a compensation pick—also called a sandwich pick because the pick comes between rounds during the draft—but also the signing team’s first round pick. There are some exceptions to this rule—if the team has already lost its first round pick or if the signing team’s pick would fall in the top half of the draft, for example—but generally speaking that’s how Type-A compensation works. Type-B free agents do not cost the signing team anything, but the losing team still gains a sandwich pick.

By not offering these first three players arbitration, the Twins will not receive any compensation when they sign with new teams.

Matt Guerrier

This was one of the two surprises in my opinion. Guerrier has been an absolute workhorse out of the Twins’ bullpen the last three seasons, compiling no fewer than 74 appearances in a season since 2007. He was one of Gardy’s trusted pieces out of the bullpen to the point of overuse. He burned out badly in 2008, compiling a second-half ERA of 8.88 and a WHIP of 2.092, but rebounded in 2009 with one of his best seasons. He was unable to keep the momentum going in 2010, and while he was adequate, he wasn’t superb.

One reason I thought the Twins would offer him arbitration is that, despite his poor 2008 and mediocre 2010, he was a Type-A free agent. Ultimately, with Joe Nathan ready to return and Matt Capps almost certainly remaining with the Twins, the decision came down to Jesse Crain or Guerrier. Crain has better stuff and that left Guerrier out in the cold.

If they didn’t want to retain him, the Twins did Guerrier a favor by not offering him arbitration. As Juan Cruz found out in 2009, teams do not like to spend a draft pick by signing a Type-A relief pitchers, which could have made it harder for him to find a job. As it is, I expect someone to lock him up fairly quickly, since he has shown himself to be an asset in either long or short relief.

Brian Fuentes

I think the Twins would have liked to re-sign Fuentes as a solid lefty option, but his desire is to close, and the Twins already have a closer and a closer-in-waiting. Three closers might be fun in theory, but when each expects to be paid at or near the market rate, it’s an expensive collection to maintain. Nathan is already under contract and general manager Bill Smith has all but explicitly stated that Capps will remain with the team rather than being non-tendered, which leaves Fuentes holding the bag.

After stints in Colorado and Anaheim, Fuentes might want to consider a ballpark that isn’t quite so hitter friendly. Still, if he’s set on closing, his options may be limited.

Jon Rauch

The Twins got the absolute best out of Rauch, especially since he cost them virtually nothing to acquire during the stretch run of 2009. With Nathan on the shelf, Rauch did a passable job as closer, though he would lose the job to Capps at the trade deadline. Re-signing Rauch would be simply a waste of money. He was the 36^th best reliever in baseball last year, which is fine, but he was set to make $3-4 million next year and the Twins are likely going to be able to replace his production for less. Cutting ones losses is an important skill to have, but equally important is knowing when to cut successes before they become losses, and that’s what the Twins did here.

It is theoretically possible that each of these players could rejoin the team if the market doesn’t seem to want their services. It’s unlikely for Fuentes and Rauch, but there’s no rule prohibiting it, hence it’s theoretical possibility. I think there’s a decent chance that the Twins could make a move to retain Guerrier if they can negotiate a multiyear deal at a below-market rate.

The next three were offered arbitration, which increase the likelihood that they will return to the team, but does not guarantee it. These players still have the choice to accept or reject their arb offers.

Jesse Crain

Crain is a polarizing figure among fans, due in no small part to the fact that in each of the last two seasons he has gone through periods of both extreme hittability and pure nastiness. Crain’s recovery from Tommy John surgery has been similar to Francisco Liriano’s in that both seem to be coming back into form after a protracted recovery. Crain possesses a decent fastball that sits in the mid- to upper 90s, but his slider is what sets him apart as the Twins’ best reliever at missing bats.

Crain is different from most of the Twins’ relievers in that sense. His K/9 was the highest among the team’s relievers (minimum 9IP) and a divergence from the rest of a staff that makes their defenders work. He isn’t looking to put the ball in play, which makes him a big asset in close and late situations, especially with runners on. It’s worth noting that because Crain is the Twins’ go-to option in these pressure situations, his numbers strand rate is below where it would be if he were used in combination with other swing-and-miss relievers.

Crain’s uniqueness is a big part of the reason it was smart for the Twins to push to retain him. If he leaves for a chance to close somewhere else—a real possibility—they ought to consider replacing him with another strikeout arm.

Carl Pavano

There’s a bigger piece coming about retaining Pavano, but this was a good step to take whether the Twins want to keep him or not. Pavano’s incredibly strong 2010 pushed him into Type-A status, which meant that the Twins needed to offer him arbitration to reap the benefits if he chose to leave. There was talk about the Twins not offering the righty arbitration for fear that he might accept and kill their payroll.

It’s a possible outcome, but one I think it exceedingly unlikely.

Pavano’s value was next to nothing when he left New York, his reputation destroyed by a disastrous stint in the Bronx. The Indians and Twins saw enough left to take a chance on him, especially after his showed a glimmer of hope in 2009. His 2010—combined with a down market for starting pitchers—gives him a chance to hit free agency with momentum and need, exactly the conditions he needs to cash in and get a big contract. He won’t get that contract by accepting the Twins’ arbitration offer, since he’ll get just a one-year deal through arbitration. His value will never be higher and that will keep him from accepting the Twins’ offer.

Pavano might like to stay in Minneapolis and the Twins might even like to keep him, but when he expects a deal in the 3-years, $30 million range, it doesn’t seem like they’ll find common ground. He needs to take a big deal this year, and he knows it, because a down year next year could submarine his value all over again.

I wouldn’t completely rule out of the possibility of the ‘stache coming back to Target Field, but if he does, it won’t be on a one-year deal. It will be because the Twins decided to invest in a longer deal that Pavano could live with.

Orlando Hudson

This was the biggest surprise of the night to me, as everything I had heard pointed to Hudson’s third team in three years. I’m less sure that Hudson will decline than I am that Pavano will decline, though I think there’s a good chance he does. Like Pavano, he’s near the top of a depleted position and coming to a point in his career where big contracts aren’t going to come for much longer.

What Hudson needs to weigh is whether he’s likely to get the first multiyear deal of his career. If so, it makes sense that he would latch onto that deal rather than fight the free agent market, only to get a below-market deal in February. If his perception is that he’ll be left to fight for the market scraps the way he has the last two seasons, I suspect he’ll forego that process and simply resign with the Twins.

Hudson’s decision could greatly impact the future of double play partner J.J. Hardy, who has been rumored to be on his way out of Minnesota. I won’t delve into that situation 1500 words into a different subject, it deserves more thoughtful coverage than that. If Hudson accepts, he’ll make close to the $5 million he made in 2010, probably with a small increase despite having his worst offensive season since 2005.

It is entirely possible that the Twins could retain both middle infielders, but not if they believe Alexi Casilla is ready to take over one of the positions, and doubly so if they win the bidding for Japanese infielder Tsuyoshi Nishioka. The Twins could find themselves rather bullish on infielders, or they could enter the season with an unproven Casilla as an integral part of their plan for 2011, there’s just too many variables right now to make a definitive judgment.

The Twins knew exactly what the possibilities were when they offered Hudson arbitration, so I have to believe they are prepared for him to accept. If I had to forecast it at this moment, I’d say there’s a 70 percent chance that Hudson is the Twins’ second baseman on Opening Day 2011, a 5 percent chance of a platoon with Hudson and Casilla, and a 25 percent chance of rain.

When the dust settles and camps open in mid-February, I suspect three of the Twins’ six free agents will still be with the team, just not the three that were offered arbitration. Crain will almost certainly be back, I believe Guerrier will be as well, and I think Hudson begrudgingly accepts, while Fuentes, Rauch, and Pavano choose to ply their trade elsewhere.