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I'm writing a series of guest posts at FanGraphs, one of the first places baseball fans go for top analysis and stats. Today, I examine the Braves and show how they avoided free agency this winter. Next offseason will likely be different, though. Click through to see what lies ahead in Atlanta.

Nearly three quarters of baseball's 30 teams signed at least one free agent to a multiyear contract this offseason. A year ago 17 clubs signed free agents to multiyear deals and that figure rose by five to 22 this winter. Only the Blue Jays, Rays, Indians, Royals, Braves, Brewers, Astros and Cubs have limited themselves to one-year commitments to this point.

Over the course of the entire 2009-10 offseason, 27 free agents signed multiyear contracts. This offseason, teams handed out 44 multiyear free agent contracts, as MLBTR’s Transaction Tracker shows*. 

There's a chance that Vladimir Guerrero, Scott Podsednik or another free agent signs with one of the eight clubs above, but that seems unlikely at this point in the winter. There probably won't be any more multiyear free agent contracts for the 2010-11 offseason.

Most teams spent on free agents this winter, but it's worth noting that small-market clubs weren't the only ones shying away from the winter's robust free agent market. Teams such as the Braves and Cubs also avoided long-term free agent contracts, while small-market clubs including the Pirates and A's signed multiple free agents to multiyear deals. 

*I am not counting Tsuyoshi Nishioka's deal, since he was not available on the open market. No extensions for players under team control count, either. I am counting the extensions for Ted Lilly and Brandon Inge, since they were on the brink of hitting the open market, when they signed their respective contracts.

Two multiyear contracts were given out today (to Billy Butler and Jason Hammel), but they came a day late compared to recent history. Yesterday was the first time in five years that at least one long-term contract extension was not agreed to or finalized on January 21st, and we're not talking about a bunch of two-year deals either. Let's recap the last four years' worth of action…

• 2010: Felix Hernandez officially signed his five-year, $78MM deal. King Felix took home the AL Cy Young Award last season after posting a 2.27 ERA with 8.4 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9 in a league leading 249 2/3 innings.
• 2010: Josh Johnson officially signed his four-year, $38MM contract as well. He contended for the NL Cy Young Award, pitching to a 2.30 ERA with 9.1 K/9 and 2.4 BB/9 in 183 2/3 innings.
• 2010: Joe Blanton agreed to a three-year, $24MM deal. He pitched to a 4.82 ERA with 6.9 K/9 and 2.2 BB/9 in 175 2/3 innings last season while battling an oblique strain. The Phillies are rumored to be looking to move Blanton and his salary, though GM Ruben Amaro Jr. recently said otherwise.
• 2009: Nick Markakis passed his physical, making his six-year, $66MM deal official. After a .306/.406/.491 season in 2008, Markakis has slipped down to .295/.358/.445 in the two years since.
• 2009: Jayson Werth agreed to a two-year, $10MM deal with the Phillies. The deal bought out his last two years of arbitration-eligibility, and he hit .282/.380/.519 with 63 homers over the life of the contract. Werth landed a much more handsome payday this offseason.
• 2008: Yadier Molina agreed to a four-year, $15.5MM deal with a fifth year option. He's hit .286/.348/.372 in the three years since signing the contract, throwing out 42% of attempted base stealers and winning three Gold Gloves as well.
• 2007: Chase Utley agreed to a seven-year, $85MM deal. The second baseman has lived up to his end of the bargain, hitting .296/.393/.518 with 102 homers and the highest UZR among players at his position in the four years since. The Phillies have won a World Series and been to another in that time, so there's no complaints from that end either.

There have been a total of 19 contract extensions handed out this winter, as MLBTR's Transaction Tracker shows. The most notable recipients include Butler, Dan Uggla, Joey Votto, Carlos Gonzalez, Ricky Nolasco, Jay Bruce, and Troy Tulowitzki. Players like Josh Hamilton, Jose Bautista, Edinson Volquez, and Carlos Marmol could be in line to receive one between now and the start of the season as well.

A glance at MLBTR's Free Agent Tracker confirms the commonly-held belief that there's just not much starting pitching remaining on the free agent market. If we assume that Andy Pettitte is only an option for the Yankees and keep in mind that Jamie Moyer will miss the upcoming season, the list shrinks even more. At this point, only four free agent starters could be considered dependable options for a rotation (2010 innings totals in parentheses):

• Rodrigo Lopez (200)
• Kevin Millwood (190 2/3)
• Dave Bush (174 1/3)
• Jeremy Bonderman (171)
• Freddy Garcia (157)

Only two of those pitchers finished the season with an ERA below 5.00 and Garcia (4.64 ERA) and Bush (4.54 ERA) both posted marks above 4.50. The alternatives to those starters pitched less in 2010 and many of the free agents below dealt with injuries last year: 

• Todd Wellemeyer (58 2/3)
• Brian Moehler (56 2/3)
• Doug Davis (38 1/3)
• Justin Duchscherer (28)
• John Maine (39 2/3)

Teams looking to sign free agent starters are probably not impressed with the options remaining. But clubs looking to trade starters could take advantage of the shallow free agent pool and send their arms elsewhere for salary relief and a prospect or two. The Phillies (Joe Blanton) Tigers (Armando Galarraga) and Braves (Kenshin Kawakami) would all deal pitchers for the right return, so it wouldn't be a surprise to see one or two more trades for starters before the season begins.

If you’re interested in free agency or the draft, chances are you’ve heard about the Elias rankings. The Elias Sports Bureau takes player stats from the previous two seasons and classifies all players as Type A or B or unranked. If Type A or B free agents turn down their teams’ offers of arbitration to sign Major League deals elsewhere, the clubs collect picks in the upcoming Rule 4 draft. 

But there’s a lot of history to the rankings, which are now in their 30th edition. Here are the essential facts about the Elias rankings system:

How did it all begin?

Free agent compensation was at the center of the 50-day strike that took place between the teams and the players in 1981. Baseball owners wanted compensation for losing top free agents, but the players association was reluctant to diminish free agents’ bargaining power. The association argued that teams would be less eager to bid on free agents if that meant surrendering a big league player or amateur draft choice.

The sides determined statistical formulas through collective bargaining and hired the Elias Sports Bureau to track players’ stats and provide rankings. The rankings aren’t exactly the same as they were 30 years ago and teams don’t approach the rankings as they did in the early ‘80s, but the Elias Bureau has tracked them the entire time.

Then and now

The rankings are not much different now than they were 30 years ago. Players are still ranked on their stats from the previous two seasons and divided by position (for example, catcher) or position group (for example, second base, third base and shortstop). The stats used have been tweaked, but the MLBPA and MLB have generally asked the Elias Bureau to track the same stats. For example, plate appearances, batting average, on-base percentage, home runs and RBI still figure prominently into the rankings for non-pitchers.

The rankings themselves haven’t changed much in 30 editions, but signing ranked free agents used to have significantly different consequences for clubs. Teams that signed ranked free agents once had to expose major league players to a winter draft. The clubs that had lost top free agents would select players from a pool created from unprotected players on the rosters of teams that decided to pursue that year’s crop of top available players. Teams could opt out and protect all of their players, but that would prevent them from signing the top names.

For example, the Mets decided to pursue free agents after the 1983 season and left Tom Seaver, unprotected in January of 1984. The White Sox pounced on the future Hall of Famer, who had just posted a 3.55 ERA (103 ERA+) in 231 innings in his age-38 season. Seaver would spend two and a half years in the White Sox rotation, pitching deep into games with ERAs slightly better than the league average.

Draft pick compensation, always an element of the system, became more prominent once major league players were no longer exposed to MLB teams.

The top 20% of players are still Type As if they’re free agents, but the remaining players are now categorized differently. There were once Type C free agents, but that classification no longer exists; it’s now Type A, Type B or unranked.

Changes in compensation

Today, teams obtain two draft choices for losing Type A free agents who turn down arbitration and one draft choice for Type Bs who turn down arbitration.

Teams once obtained amateur draft choices and professional players for losing Type A free agents, as explained above. But after the 1985 strike, big league players were no longer involved in compensation.

In the early 1980s, teams obtained two amateur draft choices for losing Type B free agents (now they just get one pick).

Bargaining Power

Players would occasionally use the rankings to prove their worth in negotiations with teams. After the 1986 season, for example, Blue Jays catcher Ernie Whitt was acting as his own agent. And as he explained to the Toronto Star, he used the Elias rankings in negotiations with Toronto GM Pat Gillick.

“Out of the 63 catchers who were ranked," Whitt said, "my client, Ernie Whitt, is No. 6. The rankings are based on the performances of the last two seasons – plate appearances, on-base percentages, RBIs, home runs, defense – the works. I got this information through the players' association. Naturally, I feel it's powerful information."

Next up…

Steve Hirdt has been a statistician at the Elias Sports Bureau since the rankings were implemented and he expects the bureau to continue producing the rankings.

“As long as they’re a part of the CBA and we’re baseball’s official statistician, we’ll produce them as we’ve continued to for the last 30 years,”  Hirdt told MLBTR.

Data compiled from the Elias Sports Bureau and historical reports in the New York Times, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and the Miami Herald.

If you'd like to filter MLBTR's information by team or limit it to transactions only, we've got you covered.

In the navigation bar, check out the Feeds By Team dropdown.  Clicking on the name of a team returns all the posts that reference that club.  For example, this page displays only posts with Braves-related rumors.  The newest will always be on top. 

Next to the word "Braves" you'll see an RSS button and a Twitter button.  The RSS button leads here, to the URL you'd put into your RSS reader to receive only our Braves rumors.  The Twitter button takes you to @mlbtrbraves, which shows all posts involving the team.  The MLBTR team Twitter pages are also a place to quickly receive info from team press releases, even if that info is not used on the main site.

Be sure to check out your favorite team's MLBTR page on Facebook so you can receive and comment on the latest rumors.

If you'd prefer to monitor only actual transactions, we've got several options.  Our Transactions page shows only posts marked as transactions, such as signings, trades, DFAs, and releases.  You can also get this same info on Twitter and RSS.

MLBTR's Arbitration Tracker has details on every arbitration eligible player. If the player agreed to terms with his team, we have the dollar amount. If the sides exchanged figures, you'll see both submissions and our automatically-generated midpoint. The tracker allows advanced sorting, so you can narrow your searches by team, signed/unsigned players and whether the case went to a hearing.

As teams and players resolve arbitration cases in January and February, we'll keep the tracker updated with all the information you need to know. Check out MLBTR's Transaction Tracker and Free Agent Tracker while you're at it.

The summer defection of agent Dan Lozano left Beverly Hills Sports Council without Albert Pujols, Joey Votto, Jimmy Rollins, Michael Young, and others.  Not long after, Dan Uggla and Jayson Werth departed.  However, BHSC recovered from a disappointing summer to put together a respectable winter, mainly by finding more dollars or years than expected for their relievers.

We know the new Blue Jays regime loves draft picks, and in early November they chose a $750K buyout and a pick over paying Kevin Gregg $4.5MM in 2011 or $8.75MM in 2011-12.  Beverly Hills ended up getting Gregg the first multiyear deal of his career, a two-year, $10MM deal with the Orioles with a vesting option that could bring the total to $16-20MM over three years.  Perhaps the Jays simply valued the sandwich pick more than whatever trade value Gregg would have had on a one-year deal, but it's also possible that they didn't expect him to do that well on the open market.

In October, I pegged Brian Fuentes for a one-year deal in the $4MM range, yet he has reportedly agreed to a two-year contract worth more than $5MM per season.  I feel like this contract might have been panned had the Astros signed it, whereas with Oakland some might find ways to justify it after the fact.  Regardless, it's clearly a player-friendly deal.

41-year-old lefty Arthur Rhodes received a $4.1MM guarantee from the Rangers, the best salary of his career.  With good health, he'll end up getting $7.9MM over two years.  In November, the Reds were unwilling to take the risk that Rhodes, a Type A free agent, would accept an offer of arbitration.  Since he only earned $2MM in 2010, it's difficult to believe Rhodes would have topped $4.1MM for 2011.  The implication: Rhodes is another BHSC client who got more on the open market than his old team expected in November.

Will Ohman was coming off a pair of minor league deals, but this winter he snagged a two-year, $4MM deal with the White Sox.  The second guaranteed year was a win for the agency.  The entire relief market has been inflated from the start this offseason, but BHSC is still brokering player-friendly deals in January. 

Beverly Hills also hammered out deals for Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Octavio Dotel, and Brad Hawpe this winter.  They've got unfinished business in Todd Coffey and Chad Durbin.  After reaching an agreement on a $3.3MM second-year arbitration salary for Ryan Theriot, BHSC has five arbitration cases: Hunter Pence, Ryan Ludwick, Darren O'Day, Jesse Litsch, and Andy Sonnanstine.

Photo courtesy of Icon SMI.

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Here are some quick notes that deal more with the business side of baseball…

• Bob Baum of the AP writes that Major League Baseball and the players' union will soon begin talks about the next Collective Bargain Agreement. Commissioner Bud Selig said the two sides are "on a constructive path." The current CBA is set to expire in December, and the new deal could feature changes to the draft and Super Two status.
• Joe Torre said he expects to speak with Selig further about becoming MLB's executive vice president of baseball operations, according to Bill Madden and Teri Thompson of The New York Daily News.