Ranking the Best Players on the Free-Agent Market as the New Year Begins
It's not very often that the best free agents of the offseason are some of the last to sign, but that may be the case this season with Max Scherzer and James Shields.
All of the top (MLB) hitters have already been signed from an admittedly thin market, leaving mostly scraps or high-risk, high-upside players to sign short-term deals. The reliever market still has plenty of talent available, but the majority of the offseason's game-changing moves have come and gone.
Some of the best free-agent deals in recent seasons have come in after New Year's (hello, Nelson Cruz), so there will still be plenty to watch for as we start 2015.
Here are the top players on the free-agent market.
(Note: Yoan Moncada has been excluded since he is not yet cleared to sign. He would have placed No 2. on the list.)
SPs Ryan Vogelsong / Aaron Harang
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There's no glamour to guys like Ryan Vogelsong or Aaron Harang. With career ERAs of 4.42 and 4.21 respectively, that's understandable.
However, if your team signs one of these guys to fill a spot at the back end of the rotation, there are plenty of reasons for optimism.
In Vogelsong's case, he's averaged a 1.1 WAR over the last four seasons with a 3.92 FIP since returning from a brief stint in Japan, so at the very least he's better than average. He's also been a very strong postseason pitcher, going 3-0 with a 2.92 ERA in eight games (seven starts) across two World Series runs with the San Francisco Giants.
Harang has had a similar revival over the past four seasons, saving his best for 2014, when he eclipsed the 200-innings mark for the first time since 2007, finishing with a 3.57 ERA. Much of his success can be attributed to his adding a cutter and curveball. Brooks Baseball shows how effective the curveball has been, generating some of the highest swing-and-miss rates of his career this past season.
Vogelsong is 37 and Harang will be 37 in May, so it's clear these guys won't win you a World Series on their own. However, over the course of a 162-game season, reliable arms that you can count on for innings have proven to be invaluable, and these two fit the bill.
They can likely be had on one-year deals for $4-5 million, and if they perform well in the first half they'll have value at the trade deadline.
RP Rafael Soriano
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Rafael Soriano is no stranger to the free-agent market.
Over the course of his 13 years in the majors, he's played for five different organizations and has been the closer for all of them at some point during his stay.
Soriano got a lot of flak over the course of his two years with the Washington Nationals, even losing his closer's job by the end of the 2014 season. There was certainly reason for concern then and now, as his ERA before the All-Star break was a sparkling 0.97, while his post-All-Star break ERA was 6.48.
Despite that, the 2014 season was still one of Soriano's best, and FanGraphs' projections still have him as an above-average reliever with a 3.54 ERA for 2015.
He just turned 35 this December, so he's the oldest of the bunch on this list, but outside of his bad two-month stretch he has just one season with an ERA above 4.00 since 2006, so he has plenty left to give at the back end of a team's bullpen.
RP Casey Janssen
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Sitting in the middle of my closer sandwich is Casey Janssen. With a career ERA of 3.52, I find it a little puzzling that there's such little interest in the former Toronto Blue Jays closer.
The main reason for his down season was his "bout with food poisoning" during which he lost eight-to-10 pounds, according to John Lott of the National Post, an illness which contributed to his 6.46 ERA in the second half of the season.
Janssen isn't the strikeout artist the other two closers on this list are, but don't let that fool you: He's every bit as successful thanks to his strong control. His strikeout-to-walk ratio over the past three seasons is 4.68 to go along with his 0.99 WHIP and 3.27 FIP.
Despite being 33 years old, Janssen has only amassed 493 innings over his eight-year career, so there are plenty of bullets left in the tank. He didn't receive a qualifying offer, so there isn't a first-round pick attached to his new deal.
And as the Royals showed us, having a strong bullpen can take a team a long way.
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RP Francisco Rodriguez
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Francisco Rodriguez gets the edge on the other remaining closers, because despite being around forever, he's still just 32 years old and therefore the youngest of the three on this list.
More importantly, he also happens to be the best pitcher.
Rodriguez has a 2.73 career ERA with 1,005 strikeouts over 835.1 innings. While he's no longer the flamethrower he was with the Angels, averaging a 95.8-mph fastball as recently as 2007, he now sits around 90 mph, according to Brooks Baseball.
He's also shifted his repertoire a great deal, utilizing a sinker as much as 37 percent of the time last season and his fastball as little as 17 percent. The changeup has always been his best swing-and-miss pitch, which hasn't changed, so despite the lesser velocity, K-Rod has been able to trim his walk rate while maintaining his high strikeout-per-nine ratio.
"K-Rod is on [the Blue Jays'] radar," according to CBS Sports' Jon Heyman, but with FanGraphs projecting a 3.48 FIP next season, I'd be surprised if more teams didn't give him a call before the 2015 season starts.
IF Stephen Drew
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Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Coming off the 2013 season, Stephen Drew was expected to land a multiyear deal upwards of $48 million, according to MLB Trade Rumors. Instead, he held out due to being tied to draft-pick compensation, signed midseason with the Boston Red Sox and had the worst professional season of his career, hitting .162 with a .299 slugging percentage over 85 games with the New York Yankees and Red Sox.
According to the Joel Sherman of the New York Post, the Toronto Blue Jays, Oakland Athletics, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Angels all have interest in Drew as a second baseman, but some teams are not interested in his reported $9-10 million asking price.
Sherman notes that executives have serious concerns if the player with a career slash line of .256/.322/.425 is gone for good: "Fine, you want to say June and July [last year] were spring training for him, well, how about August or September? There was never a time in which he looked like a major league hitter. The ball didn’t come off his bat well, there was zero consistency. Nothing."
Scott Boras, Drew's agent, believes that "the market for [his client] will heat up in January," according to Nick Cafardo of The Boston Globe. The super-agent "hinted that a personal/family issue may have contributed to Drew’s offensive decline last season."
With the decline of offensive production from up-the-middle players, Drew has value as a low-risk, high-upside starter. To get that chance, he's going to have to lessen his demands and sign a deal to re-establish his value akin to Asdrubal Cabrera and his deal with the Tampa Bay Rays, which was reported by Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal and Sherman, among others.
OF Colby Rasmus
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When I think of Colby Rasmus, missed potential is the first thing that comes to mind. However, after checking out his stats, I'm surprised every time (maybe not every time) by his solid production.
Rasmus has played six seasons in the MLB and has topped the 20-homer plateau three times. Last year, Rasmus' ISO (power) was .223, which was better than the likes of two-time MVP Miguel Cabrera, among others. His line-drive rate has increased in three straight seasons, per FanGraphs, showing that his growth and potential (sound familiar?) are legitimate.
Heading into his age-28 season, Rasmus could be primed for a breakout.
He's been injury-prone over the past two seasons, but his per-162-games average is that of a 30-home run player with a .253 batting average and .477 slugging percentage. In 2012 and 2013 he was a 2.6 WAR player defensively, and while that slipped in 2014, he's proven that he can be an asset defensively. He also has his limits as an everyday player, with a career slash line of .213/.287/.361 versus left-handed pitching.
Put Rasmus in the right situation (a platoon), and he can shine. Dan Connolly of The Baltimore Sun wrote that the Baltimore Orioles were set to meet with him Saturday. He believes Rasmus might sign for one year and between $6-8 million, which would let allow him to sign a long-term deal heading into his age-29 season if he performs.
Per Baseball-Reference.com, he's averaged 2.3 WAR over the past five seasons, so to get a player of his age, potential and production on a short-term, one-year deal would be one of the steals of the offseason.
SP James Shields
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Since joining the Rays rotation in 2007, nobody has thrown more regular-season innings than James Shields. That is the type of consistency every team wants from an ace, but at what point do these innings start to take a toll on his arm?
Justin Verlander led the MLB in innings pitched in 2009, 2011 and 2012 before signing a mega-extension that made him the highest-paid pitcher in history. He was heading into his age-30 season, but his ERA jumped from 2.64 in 2012 to 3.46 and then 4.54 in each of the last two years.
Jon Heyman of CBS Sports reported on the type of deal Shields could get:
"One competing AL GM suggested he believes Shields should match the deals of Anibal Sanchez and C.J. Wilson, who received $80 million and $77.5 million, respectively, on five-year free-agent deals in recent seasons. That may be a bit of wishful management thinking, as Shields, a clear ace, could easily be a $20-million-a-year pitcher.
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So where could he land?
MLB.com's Jane Lee says the Oakland Athletics won't be surprise contenders for Shields, and ESPN's Jim Bowden reported Saturday that the Boston Red Sox "met with James Shields at the winter meetings but haven't had substantive talks with him," while the Giants aren't interested either. In addition, Texas Rangers assistant GM Thad Levine told MLB Network Radio (via TheScore.com) that it would be "a bit of a long shot" for them to sign Shields.
The one big-market team that seems wide-open is the Boston Red Sox. Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal tweeted about the possibility, and The Boston Globe's Nick Cafardo mentioned Boston was "in the picture."
Over the past eight seasons, Shields' WAR ranks 12th among all pitchers, per FanGraphs, and he's recorded 11 or more wins in each of those years. Whichever team signs him will be getting a front-of-the-rotation stud for the first few years of the deal. They just have to hope he can maintain that level of production over the long term.
SP Max Scherzer
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Max Scherzer started this offseason as the best free agent on the market and remains the biggest prize available.
The only reason he is still available is the exuberant $200 million he is looking for, according to Fox Sports' Jon Morosi. He explains why that much money is "not far-fetched at all," but the problem is: Which team will be willing to spend that type of money?
As mentioned with James Shields, Texas Rangers assistant GM Thad Levine told MLB Network Radio (via TheScore.com) that it would be "a bit of a long shot" to sign either Shields or Scherzer.
New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman also suggested they were out when speaking to the media (links here to tweets from Brendan Kuty of the New Jersey Star-Ledger) in mid-December. Even Scherzer's old team, the Detroit Tigers, revealed they were out of the Scherzer sweepstakes, according to a tweet from USA Today's Bob Nightengale.
Who does that leave?
CBS Sports' Jon Heyman suggested the St. Louis Cardinals "have apparently at least considered a pursuit of [the] hometown star," but he didn't make it sound like the match was made in heaven. Would the Giants make a run at him after striking out on both Jon Lester and Pablo Sandoval?
The Red Sox need an ace; do they have enough money after spending lavishly on the aforementioned Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez? Jason Beck of MLB.com believes that if the situation "lingers," the Tigers could re-enter the conversation.
A lot of speculation, not a lot of clarity.
Ultimately, this type of talent does not become available very often. Scherzer won the AL Cy Young Award in 2013, was tied for most in the AL with 18 wins last season and struck out 252 batters in just 220 innings. The acquisition price is reportedly very high, but a team on the verge such as the Washington Nationals could make a surprise bid and add another ace.
Statistics are accurate through the 2014 season and courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.
To talk baseball or follow the latest rumors, check in with me on Twitter: @ZPetersel.
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