Morning Mound Visit: sabermetrics news - 12/13/19

FanGraphs | Devan Fink: For the 13th straight year, Brett Gardner will remain an outfielder for the Yankees, signing a $12.5 million deal with a team option for 2021. He had one of his best offensive seasons, surprisingly, in 2019, and he will be incredibly important with the loss of Aaron Hicks for the season.

Baseball Prospectus | Mark Berry: Jon Gray had had a relatively lackluster performance with the Rockies, and the only real solution is a change of scenery. His fastball stinks, but he has a dynamic slider that if properly utilized on another squad, he could finally unleash the potential people expected a few years back.

The Athletic | Eno Sarris ($): The gap between public and private information for baseball analysis is closing, but there’s still a lot we don’t know. Teams will often make acquisitions with specific roster needs in mind, things we can’t know or anticipate; if you need a right-handed reliever in Triple-A, you may make a quirky transaction that doesn’t “make sense” to us. You may also avoid trading with a team because you flat-out don’t like the GM or you don’t connect with them, so those very human things we can’t pick up on from afar.