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"Whoo Bessy. $15 million smackeroos!" (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)

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There goes another semi-attractive free agent pitcher, as Brandon Lyon is apparently close to signing a three-year deal with the Astros worth $15 million. It's way too much money for Lyon, a competent reliever who is effective against both lefties and righties. Lyon's upside is probably about a win above replacement, and while he'll nicely fill the hole left by the departing LaTroy Hawkins, $5 million a year is just crazy. Then again, Hawkins just signed a two-year deal with the similarly-daft Brewers worth $7.5 million, so I guess madness can only be measured relatively.

This is all good news for Mike Gonzalez, who is a much better pitcher than either Lyon or Hawkins -- and is a lefty to boot -- though his injury history is more troubling than the other two. Gonzalez's agent -- a Mr. Scott Boras -- will doubtless be using Lyon's deal with Houston as a jumping-off point in negotiations with other clubs. I don't know that the Mets are in the market for a big-ticket reliever, though I certainly don't care to see them spend $18 million over three years for Gonzalez plus forfeit a high draft pick to Atlanta in the process. Payback for Tom Glavine's defection two years ago, to be sure.

The two best free agent relievers -- Rafaels Soriano and Betancourt -- both accepted their former clubs' offers of salary arbitration, so consider them off the market for now. The Braves are fielding offers on Soriano, who has given the team permission to trade him, but don't expect him to end up on the Mets. Soriano made $6.1 million and could see a bump to $9 million or more in 2010. That's a lot of money, though the cost is mitigated somewhat by the fact that it would only be a one-year deal and that Soriano, if healthy, is a safe bet to be a Type-A free agent again next year. I'm not sure Atlanta would even consider trading him to New York, though it may be a moot point anyway as it looks like he's on his way to Tampa Bay.

Kiko Calero is the most attractive free agent reliever still available, and his price tag comes without the added encumbrance of draft pick compensation, which is not something you can say about Jose Valverde. Beyond those two you've got the likes of Russ Springer, J.J. Putz, and Chan Ho Park, the latter of which might actually be the most appealing of the three. At all events, the list of available -- and moderately attractive -- free agent relievers is now rail-thin, so anyone in the market for one should act fast or risk winding up with Luis Ayala et al.

I'm closing the comments on this one because I don't want to queer the results. Will reopen later.

"It's not just about strikeouts in a vacuum. If a player strikes out but he also walks, he's a functional hitter. I tend to look more at on-base percentage and slugging percentage than I do just flat strikeouts."

It's the moment that literally dozens of you have been waiting almost four weeks for. On Monday we announced the third-place winner. Yesterday we found out the second-place winner. And now, the grand prize announcement. The best all-around AAOP entry we received -- with an average score of 8.25 -- was AAOP: QRSTUVWXY and Z by Evan_S. The highlights.

• Signed Gregg Zaun for one year, $1.5 million.
• Signed Nick Johnson for one year, $5 million.
• Traded Luis Castillo (and a mid-level prospect or two) to the Dodgers for Casey Blake.
• Signed Felipe Lopez for two years, $10 million.
• Signed Matt Holliday for six years, $106 million.
• Moved Jeff Francoeur to the bench; installed Angel Pagan as the everyday rightfielder.
• Signed Rich Harden for one year, $8 million, with a 2011 option worth $11 million.
• Signed Ben Sheets for one year, $6 million, with a 2011 option worth $10 million.
• Signed Kiko Calero for two years, $5 million.
• Signed Mike Gonzalez for two years, $6 million. The money is a bit low here; Gonzalez might get $6 million per year.
• Signed Adam Everett and Endy Chavez to fill out the bench.

This plan is pretty similar to our second-place winner's, though this one has Johnson and Lopez (instead of Delgado and Polanco) and goes with Sheets instead of Bedard. Quality-wise, this plan did a better job on the bullpen, which is really what put it over the top. Evan_S also earned some bonus points for asthetics, as he featured a sharp banner and photos at the top and wrapped it all up with some snazzy WAR charts. None of that would have mattered much if the plan was dreck, but fortunately his substance was a fine match for his style.

So congratulations to Evan_S, who takes home a chunk of Shea Stadium courtesy of Uncommon Goods. A hearty thanks again to everyone who participated in the AAOP contest this year; I think we all consider it a huge success and we're looking forward to doing it again next year.

The second-best AAOP entry we received -- with an average score of 8.00 -- was My Day in Omar's head by MangoMetsFan. The highlights.

Signing both Sheets and Bedard is an interesting move, and even if each contributes just a half-season of solid pitching they'd be doing so at $6-8 million combined, which is a pretty good return on investment. The rotation overall is still suspect, with Mike Pelfrey, Oliver Perez, and John Maine slotting in behind Johan Santana. Figueroa provides some depth there, but the over/under on the number of these starters who will spend time on the disabled list in 2010 is four. Also, if Delgado is hurt then the Mets are back to Daniel Murphy at first, which is a little frightening. Still, the Mets improved their offense considerably with the signings of Holliday and Polanco and managed to improve their defense at the same time.

One thing that distinguished this entry from the pack was the inclusion of some substantive commentary at the outset, as MangoMetsFan wrote a bit about the current state of the Mets and described what the Mets' offseason strategy should be before ultimately unfurling his game plan. He also included detailed WAR and salary projections for 2010, a nice addition that was absent from most of the other submissions.

For coming in second, MangoMetsFan wins a copy of the Bill James Handbook 2010 (review here) courtesy of ACTA Sports.

More photos » by Chris Carlson - AP

"I am the subject of an unsubstantiated rumor!" (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

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Just to be clear, any headline you see here with a trailing question mark should be considered unsubstantiated -- or marginally substantiated -- and is being posted here for the purpose of discussion.

With that in mind, Joel Sherman is reporting that the Mets are pursuing Nationals outfielder Josh Willingham (which we kind of already knew) and Angels outfielder Juan Rivera.

The third-best AAOP entry we received -- with an average score of 7.75 -- was My plan to turn the Mets into "WORLD PHU**IN' CHAMPTIONS" by Schmidtxc. The highlights.

• Really well-written (you'll notice this one as a running theme among the winners).
• Trades Luis Castillo for Milton Bradley. Bradley's attitude and injury history are troubling, but so are Castillo's age and declining skillset.
• Takes a gamble on Nick Johnson at first for $4.5 million. This one will pay off big if Johnson can stay healthy.
• Signs Felipe Lopez for two years, $10.5 million. Lopez is a Type-A but the Brewers didn't offer him arbitration so there's no compensation (we didn't know this at the time of the AAOP, of course).
• Signs Matt Holliday for seven years, $119 million, the same deal Carlos Beltran received five years ago. The Mets forfeit their second-round pick.
• Signs Rich Harden for one year, $7 million, with an option for 2011 at $11 million. Johan Santana, Mike Pelfrey, Oliver Perez, and John Maine round out the rotation, so we've still got some question marks here. Minor league deals with Fernando Nieve, Noah Lowry, Mark Prior, and Nelson Figueroa give the Mets some serviceable depth.
• Signs Kelvim Escobar for one year, $1.5 million to augment a bullpen that features Francisco Rodriguez, Bobby Parnell, Pedro Feliciano, Brian Stokes, Sean Green, and Pat Misch. Former closers Chad Cordero and B.J. Ryan are inked to minor league deals.
• Signs Aroldis Chapman for four years, $35 million. This is both risky and expensive, as the author points out, but he had some money to burn and took a chance on the flamethrowing Cuban.

There were a lot of similar plans submitted but this one was fleshed out the best of the group. The pitching staff is not spectacular, and we're relying quite a bit on questionable commodities like John Maine and Oliver Perez. The good news is that the Mets have a high-upside starter in Harden to support Santana in the rotation and with the additions of Lopez, Holliday, and Bradley, the Mets should have one of the best lineups in the league. Lopez and Holliday will also improve the team's defense at their respective positions.

Congratulations to Schmidtxc for a very well-rounded AAOP. Though we had only planned on giving away a grand prize to the overall winner, ACTA Sports was kind enough to sponsor some giveaways for us so Schmidtxc takes home a copy of the Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010.

A few weeks ago we solicited entries for the first annual Amazin' Avenue Offseason Plan Contest, or 'AAOP'. We received 43 entries and astonishingly few of those were truly awful. One was disqualified because it was actually a 2002 offseason plan, which itself isn't a problem except that most of the players mentioned are no longer playing.

The original plan was to select the five-or-so best plans and put them to a community vote, but we scrapped that idea because it would have required a lot of reading on your part and the voting process would have been a trainwreck. Instead, the four of us each slogged through all forty-three entries and rated them on a scale from one to ten, sorted by the average score, and ultimately arrived at a consensus top-three. There were a lot of really great submissions: first and third places were separated by just a half-point. The winner will receive a chunk of Shea Stadium, which is one of the more popular items at Uncommon Goods and is actually backordered as we speak.

To heighten the drama just a bit, we're going to roll out the top three AAOPs in reverse order beginning with the third-best entry today at noon. The runner-up will be posted at noon tomorrow (Tuesday) with the winner being announced at noon on Wednesday.

Thanks again to everyone who participated.

More photos » by Morry Gash - AP

Bengie Molina means business, if by 'means business' you really mean 'is bad at baseball'. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

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The Giants declined to offer arbitration to free agent catcher Bengie Molina, allowing his future team to sign him without fear of additional penalty in the form of draft pick compensation to San Francisco. It also seemingly clears the way for the unholy union between Molina and the Mets, not that something like draft pick compensation would've stood in the way between Omar Minaya and a lousy baseball decision (we weren't going to sign that draft pick anyway!).

Even though the Mets have already handed a guaranteed contract to Chris Coste and have seemingly signed Henry Blanco to back somebody up, I'd peg the odds at 50-50 that Molina winds up in Queens. How bad would that be? It depends on the contract, but probably pretty bad. Molina has been worth around two wins with his bat in each of the past five seasons, which is pretty solid, especally for someone who only plays 120-130 games a year. If that were the end of the story, you could make a reasonable case that a one-year deal worth $5 million with a second-year option might be a decent investment. Molina's bat probably wouldn't be worth much more than that, but there's no shame in merely getting your money's worth.

The problem, as you've probably already guessed, is that there's more to baseball than just hitting, and that's where the case for Molina falls apart. In addition to offensive contributions we also have to consider defense and baserunning.

Evaluating catcher defense is tricky business, but two recent efforts have made positive strides towards usefulness. This post by Matt Klaasen at Driveline Mechanics breaks down a catcher's credits and debits into "caught stealing runs", "wild pitch/passed ball runs", "throwing error runs", and "fielding error runs". By this method, Molina clocks in at -3.4 runs, or minus one-third of a win. Then we have this post by Chuck Brownson at Beyond The Boxscore, which also includes run totals for "baserunning" and "misses", but also incorporates "reputation", or the likelihood that a runner won't steal based on the catcher's rep. Molina charts at -7.06 runs above average.

Things don't get any better for Molina when he takes to the bases (something he managed to do on his own in just 28.5% of his plate appearances last year). Regularly considered one of the slowest runners in the league, Molina was worth -4.5 EqBRR in 2009. The Bill James Handbook has him down at -17 bases, which is probably about the same as his EqBRR in terms of runs (I'm not sure of the translation from bases to runs; obviously it depends somewhat on which 'base' we're talking about).

If we add up Molina's debits for defense and baserunning, plus factor in another year of age-related decline, we're pretty close to ten runs (or one win) to the bad. Now we've gone from a two-win player with the bat to a one-win player overall, which is hardly anything worth falling over yourself to acquire. For comparison, Omir Santos was worth between one-half of a win (StatCorner) and one win (FanGraphs) with his bat last year in just a half-season, and the defensive metrics rate him quite favorably (Klaasen had him at +2.4; Brownson at +14.5!), though his baserunning was as bad as Molina's (-3.0 EqBRR). If we say that his defense and baserunning 'offset' each other, we're still left with a near-one-win catcher making the league minimum, which makes it pretty tough to justify paying Molina dramatically more than that.

Someone is going to give Bengie Molina two guaranteed years at $6-8 million; I just hope it isn't the Mets.