Under-the-Radar MLB Free Agents Your Team Should Target After the Lockout
With Major League Baseball's free agency, it's not always the stars on mega-contracts who end up paying the biggest dividends. For example, think Carlos Rodon, Mike Zunino and Kendall Graveman.
As such, we tried to preemptively dig up some overlooked free-agent gems for when the lockout is over.
We ultimately settled on eight players who don't figure to command big bucks when the market reopens but could nonetheless help your team in 2022. Some have high enough floors to be useful role players. Others have high enough ceilings to be more than just useful.
We'll start with four hitters and end with four pitchers.
INF Matt Carpenter
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Age: 36
2021 Stats: 130 G, 249 PA, 3 HR, 2 SB, .169 AVG, .305 OBP, .275 SLG, 65 OPS+, minus-1.1 rWAR
On the surface, it seems like the next step for Matt Carpenter should be retirement.
Since finishing ninth in the National League MVP race after a 36-home run outburst in 2018, Carpenter saw his production for the St. Louis Cardinals diminish in each of the last three seasons. In 2021, he ranked ninth from the bottom in OPS+ among hitters who appeared in at least 100 games.
Weirdly, however, the 36-year-old also mustered a solid average of 90 mph and a hard-hit rate of 42 percent on his batted balls. Taken in tandem with his likewise sturdy 14.1 walk percentage, he clearly still had an eye for the strike zone and a feel for the barrel.
As reported by Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, Carpenter has since spent the offseason working with Joey Votto and others to remake a swing that had gotten to be too quick through the zone. If fixed, he stands to get more out of his hard contact.
Even if it's only on a minor league deal, it all amounts to a good enough excuse for a team to take a flier on Carpenter as a potential lottery ticket as a designated hitter.
INF/OF Josh Harrison
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Age: 34
At this stage of his career, Josh Harrison is not the two-time All-Star that he was for the Pittsburgh Pirates between 2014 and 2017.
Power-wise, Harrison didn't even rank in the 20th percentile for exit velocity and hard-hit rate while playing for the Washington Nationals and Oakland Athletics in 2021. He was also caught stealing on five of his 14 attempts, a rate that's somewhere below "optimal" for a base stealer.
But even though he hit the skids with Oakland, Harrison still hit for a decent average on the season. That was largely due to one skill that he and relatively few other hitters in today's MLB have: the ability to make contact. His 13.4 strikeout percentage was in the 94th percentile.
Harrison also remained not just a versatile defender, but a good one. Particularly on the infield, where outs above average rated him as an above-average defender at second and third base.
After 2020, Harrison re-signed with Washington on a deal that included just a $1 million base salary. That'll probably be his approximate market value on the other side of the lockout, so teams that need to round out their benches and save money should give him a call.
INF/OF Brad Miller
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Age: 32
In 2021, Brad Miller ranked fourth on the Philadelphia Phillies in home runs despite also ranking ninth on the team in plate appearances.
That partly speaks to how well he's still hitting the ball even as he leaves the age-30 threshold further behind. At 92.4 mph, his exit velocity was just 0.1 mph off that of National League MVP Bryce Harper.
What Miller's most recent success mostly speaks to, however, is the danger he presents to right-handed pitchers. He hit 16 of his 20 home runs against them in 2021, with an overall wRC+ that topped 120 for a third straight season.
It's not as easy to heap praise on Miller's glove work, but he's at least useful enough in that arena to avoid being labeled as a likely DH for 2022. Though he's best suited for first base, he's good enough to moonlight at second and third and both outfield corners.
Signing Miller might require granting him a raise on the $3.5 million he made last year. But if he were to provide another 20 homers in a platoon role, nobody would have any regrets.
OF Tommy Pham
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Age: 34
Tommy Pham once got MVP votes for the Cardinals in 2017, and you only need to go back to 2019 to find the last time he was an impact player with the Tampa Bay Rays.
Unfortunately, he wasn't able to be that guy for the San Diego Padres in 2020 or 2021. A broken hand was part of a lost season in the former. Following a stabbing in the offseason, his productivity only modestly recovered in the latter.
On the plus side, Pham salvaged a quality on-base percentage by way of his stupendous eye (i.e., 98th-percentile chase rate) for the strike zone. Given that, his problem was more so the quality of his contact.
Or was it? Because whether you look at exit velocity, hard-hit rate or barrel percentage, Pham was actually safely above average with his batted balls. He even hit 35.6 percent of them in the sweet spot, the launch angle range that tends to be conducive to slugging.
FanGraphs crowdsourced a two-year, $20 million contract for Pham, but it wouldn't be surprising if he has to settle for less in the post-lockout signing rush. If not, he could turn even $20 million into a bargain.
LHP Tyler Anderson
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Age: 32
If there's only one reason why teams should be considering Tyler Anderson for their starting rotations, it's that he can handle a decent-sized workload.
In 2021, only 39 starters pitched at least 160 innings. Not counting the strike-shortened seasons of 1981 and 1994 and the pandemic-shortened season of 2020, that's the lowest such number since baseball began its expansion era in 1961.
It ought to be no small thing, then, that Anderson was one of those pitchers. Plus, those 167 innings mark at least one thing he had in common with NL Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes.
The left-hander also did other things well. Namely, post a walk rate in the 89th percentile and hold batters to a well-above-par 87.0 mph average exit velocity. To the latter, it helped that he exceled at getting batters to expand the zone with a chase rate in the 94th percentile.
For 2022, Anderson is an innings-eater at worst and something like a mid-rotation starter at best. Either way, he could more than justify a contract that probably won't even guarantee him eight figures per year.
RHP Johnny Cueto
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Age: 36
Johnny Cueto has done it all. Been an All-Star. Contended for Cy Young Awards. Won a World Series. Come back from Tommy John surgery. You name it.
As for what's next, "nothing" could be a real possibility. Cueto is getting up there, and he's coming off a 2021 season with the San Francisco Giants that started strong but ended with a 4.72 ERA over his last 10 outings.
If a team is going to sign Cueto, it should be out of faith that he can get back on the track that led him to a 3.63 ERA through his first 12 starts of 2021. He allowed home runs in only four of those, with another key being that he walked just 4.3 percent of the batters he faced.
After that happened, Cueto might have run out of gas after pitching just 132.1 innings across the three previous seasons. His fastball velocity, which fell from 92.0 to 91.4 mph, would seem to lend some credence to that notion.
If Cueto can maintain a full tank for longer in 2022, he could more than justify what would likely be a one-year, seven-figure deal.
RHP Collin McHugh
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Age: 34
Because of discomfort in his elbow in 2019 and his subsequent opt-out in 2020, Collin McHugh didn't set foot on a major league mound for 19 months between Aug. 2019 and April 2021.
The time away was evidently just what he needed, as he succeeded no matter how the Rays deployed him. He had a 0.00 ERA as an opener and a 1.90 ERA as a reliever, and he ultimately went unscored upon in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and ninth innings.
As for what, specifically, McHugh did to keep batters under wraps, a better question would be what he didn't do. The 90.6 mph he averaged on his fastball was nothing special, but his peripheral stats were otherwise excellent across the board.
Best of all, McHugh surrendered only four barrels all season. Among pitchers who had at least 150 balls put in play, only cutter maestro Emmanuel Clase did better.
No matter the rate, teams shouldn't want to miss out on this living, breathing Swiss Army knife. As it is, McHugh could be lucky to pull in even eight figures on a one-year deal.
RHP Trevor Rosenthal
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Age: 31
You can't help but feel for Trevor Rosenthal.
He had a hard enough time coming back from Tommy John surgery in 2017, not pitching at all in 2018 and then struggling mightily when he returned in 2019. He finally put himself back together in 2020 but then missed all of 2021 after having thoracic outlet and hip surgeries.
It wasn't clear at the time of the latter in July 2021 whether Rosenthal would recover in time for spring training. And even now, with spring training hypothetically just days away from starting, it still isn't clear where the veteran flamethrower is in his recovery.
Because of that, Rosenthal will probably have to hold a showcase for teams before the offers start rolling in. Even then, he might have to settle for a minor league deal.
In any case, he's going to be a reclamation project. But since this particular project was averaging 98.0 mph and hitting 100 mph just two years ago, any shot on him will be worth taking.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
