Stock Up, Stock Down on MLB's Top 10 Free Agents as Offseason Approaches
While there's still plenty of baseball to be played—we've got two-plus weeks of the regular season to go and a full slate of playoff action yet to come—the upcoming offseason and free-agent market have begun to become visible on the horizon.
And what a free-agent market it's shaping up to be.
From aces to middle-of-the-lineup sluggers to versatile veterans, there's going to be at least one available player who appeals to each one of MLB's 30 teams. Whether those teams are willing to pay what it'll cost to add those players, however, is a different story.
There's little doubt that the cream of the free-agent crop is going to get paid—and paid well—this winter. Just how high those new contracts will climb, however, will be dictated by how those players finish out the regular season.
What better time to take a look at which of the 10 best soon-to-be free agents have boosted or diminished their open-market value than right now?
Let's get to it.
Note: Players are listed in no particular order.
Stock Up: 1B Chris Davis
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There's plenty of blame to go around as to why Baltimore has gone from a 96-win team in 2014 to one with a losing record this season. But very little of it—if any—lands on Chris Davis' broad shoulders.
Davis has been on an absolute tear, hitting .308 with 23 home runs, 54 RBI and a 1.126 OPS since the All-Star break. He leads baseball with 42 homers on the season and is among the game's leaders in RBI (106), walks (70), slugging percentage (.562) and OPS (.920).
Sure, he also leads baseball in strikeouts (187), but his ability to put a team on his back and carry it for a stretch outweighs his swing-and-miss tendencies, which come from his aggressive approach at the plate.
While Baltimore would like to keep Davis around, the Baltimore Sun's Josh Land accurately noted that Davis is pricing himself off the Orioles with each successive swing. He figures to stay in the American League, where the designated hitter spot will be an option, but chances are it'll be with a new club.
Stock Even: SP David Price
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To borrow a line from former NFL head coach Dennis Green, David Price is who we thought he was—the unquestioned ace of the upcoming free-agent class.
Price has done exactly what we thought he'd do in Toronto, solidifying the rotation with superb outings that have only strengthened his case to take home his second AL Cy Young Award since 2012.
In eight starts for the AL East-leading Blue Jays, Price has gone 6-1 with a 2.28 ERA and 1.01 WHIP, striking out 65 batters over 55.1 innings. Combined with his numbers in Detroit, Price has gone 15-5 with a 2.46 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and 203 strikeouts over 201.1 innings of work.
He'll be at the top of the list for any team looking to bolster its rotation this winter, and his performance in Toronto has only strengthened his chances of matching—or beating—the seven-year, $210 million pact that Max Scherzer signed with the Washington Nationals in late January.
Stock Up: OF Yoenis Cespedes
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We've seen players go on a tear after being traded before, but what Yoenis Cespedes has done since joining the New York Mets is on a completely different level.
“I don’t know if there is a higher league, but he needs to be moved up,” Mets skipper Terry Collins told the New York Daily News' Mike Lupica. “I think he is enjoying this as much as everybody else. He’s come over in a pennant race...he’s caught up in everything that is going on. It’s catchy.”
In 39 games with the Mets, Cespedes is hitting .310 with 29 extra-base hits (16 home runs), 41 RBI and a 1.039 OPS—numbers that have people talking about him as a legitimate contender for the NL MVP Award.
But his impact in New York goes deeper than numbers. He's injected the team's lineup with a swagger—an attitude that they can hit any pitcher the opposition throws at them—and the proof is in the results, with the Mets going 28-11 in games that Cespedes played.
While Cespedes might be older than Jason Heyward and Justin Upton, the other two high-profile outfielders set to become free agents, his torrid hitting coupled with quality defense at all three outfield positions and his lethal cannon of a throwing arm could find the soon-to-be 30-year-old the winter's most sought-after bat.
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Stock Down: SP Johnny Cueto
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Both Johnny Cueto and the Kansas City Royals continue to insist that there's nothing physically wrong with the team's ace and, that come playoff time, the 29-year-old will be back to his usual dominant self.
But as the Kansas City Star's Andy McCullough wrote, the Royals and their fans should feel free to start pushing the panic button repeatedly, if they haven't done so already.
"In his last five outings, Cueto has given up 30 runs in 26.1 innings. His ERA resides in the cloud-scraping echelon of 9.57. He has lost five decisions in a row. His pitches lack bite. To his coaches, his body lacks confidence."
While a horrid five-start stretch isn't enough for teams to ignore Cueto's track record of success, it wouldn't be surprising if American League teams were beginning to question whether Cueto is the right fit for their rotations and the right fit for their league.
Some pitchers are simply built for the National League, and Cueto may very well be one of them. And there are certainly enough big-market teams in the NL—Chicago and Los Angeles, specifically—that figure to have serious interest in him once the free-agent market opens for business.
He's going to land a huge deal this winter.
But continued struggles could find some AL clubs turning their attention elsewhere for pitching help, shrinking his potential market. That's never a good thing for a free agent, even one as talented as Cueto.
Stock Up: SS Ian Desmond
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While half a season isn't nearly enough time for Washington's Ian Desmond to fully wipe our memories of his brutal first half, the 29-year-old has done everything in his power since the All-Star break to convince us that he's still one of the game's premier shortstops.
Desmond, who was hitting .211 with 25 extra-base hits (seven home runs), 24 RBI and a .589 OPS as the Midsummer Classic arrived, has hit .277 with 19 extra-base knocks (10 bombs), 28 RBI and a .826 OPS since.
Those might not be eye-popping numbers, but it's a big enough jump in production for Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal to opine that he could be a fit with no fewer than six teams, either as a shortstop or second baseman.
With a relatively weak free-agent crop of middle infielders, a strong finish to the regular season is only going to see Desmond's stock continue to rise.
Stock Down: SP Scott Kazmir
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Scott Kazmir hasn't been terrible for the Houston Astros, but the 31-year-old southpaw hasn't been able to replicate the success he had in his first three starts with the team, when he allowed only one earned run and 12 hits over 20.1 innings of work.
Over his last six starts, Kazmir has pitched to a 4.72 ERA and 1.46 WHIP, making it through the sixth inning on only three occasions. He's also become more prone to the long ball. After allowing only seven home runs over 109.2 innings with Oakland, he's allowed seven in just 54.2 frames with Houston.
While Kazmir still stands to ink a lucrative, multiyear deal this winter, the glut of available starting pitching, coupled with his less-than-stellar numbers down the stretch, might make it impossible for him to land the $100 million pact that many thought he was destined for only a month or two ago.
Stock Up: RF Jason Heyward
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It's true that Jason Heyward has never developed into the all-world slugger we were led to believe he was destined to become.
It's also true that at 26 years old, Heyward is just entering the prime years of his career. Already one of the best—if not the best—defensive outfielders in baseball, there's still a chance that his bat—and power—will continue to develop.
A notoriously slow starter, Heyward has hit .306 with 38 extra-base hits (nine home runs) and 48 RBI since the beginning of May. Since the All-Star break, he's hit .324 with a .392 on-base percentage and .865 OPS, walking nearly as many times (21) as he's struck out (24).
While Heyward seems to like St. Louis, as he told Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his combination of youth, athleticism, defense and offensive production is going to make him one of the most sought-after outfielders on the free-agent market.
Assuming he continues to produce as he has been—and delivers in the postseason as well—he could very easily become too expensive for the Cardinals to retain.
Stock Up: SP Jordan Zimmermann
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Sitting with a 12-8 record, 3.32 ERA and 1.19 WHIP, it'd be a stretch to say that Jordan Zimmermann is having a bad season. Heck, most starting pitchers would happily sign up for those to be their final numbers on the year in spring training.
Those numbers fall short when compared to the level of production the 29-year-old has delivered in recent years (a combined 3.00 ERA and 1.00 WHIP from 2011 to 2014), and that his velocity is down a tick, per Brooks Baseball, could be a concern for some teams.
But Zimmermann has been improving of late, pitching to a 2.66 ERA over his last seven starts, with an even more impressive 1.45 mark over his last three. While he's not going to become the newest member of the $200 million club this winter, he'll continue to see his free-agent value rise if he can carry his current level of dominance through the end of the regular season.
Stock Up: LF Justin Upton
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Justin Upton isn't exactly tearing the cover off the ball as San Diego wraps up a disappointing season, but the 28-year-old outfielder has at least gotten back to making some positive contributions at the plate. That's something we couldn't say about him only two months ago.
Upton struggled through a brutal two-month slump that encompassed all of June and July, posting an atrocious .182/.277/.309 triple-slash line with only nine extra-base hits (six home runs) and 19 RBI over nearly 200 plate appearances.
He's slashed .266/.369/.517 with 20 extra-base hits (seven home runs) and 18 RBI over 168 plate appearances since, and his OPS on the season is creeping toward the .800 mark, currently sitting at .797.
Upton is sure to be at or near the top of the wish lists of teams looking to add an impact bat to the middle of their lineup, but his horrid defense may scare off some National League clubs, pushing him toward the American League, where his defensive shortcomings could be limited as a designated hitter.
Stock Up: UTIL Ben Zobrist
10 of 10
While Johnny Cueto has delivered mixed results in Kansas City, the same can't be said of super utility man Ben Zobrist who, as Blair Kerkhoff of the Kansas City Star wrote, has been better than anyone could have imagined he would be:
"Ben Zobrist’s first month in a Royals uniform was a terrific one. He joined the team on July 28 from the Oakland A’s and on Aug. 1 against the Blue Jays became the first Royals player to hit a home run from both sides of the plate. For the month, Zobrist hit .343 with four home runs and 12 RBIs. Among American League hitters, he ranked second with 17 walks and sixth with 35 hits.
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And Zobrist hasn't slowed down in September, hitting .311 with a .354 on-base percentage and .887 OPS while crossing home plate 10 times in 11 games.
He may be entering his age-35 season in 2016, but Zobrist's ability to get on base consistently while providing above-average defense at multiple positions makes him an incredibly valuable addition to any team.
Seeing as how no other player on the free-agent market shares his unique skill set, Zobrist is poised to cash in with a lucrative—albeit short-term—deal.
Unless otherwise noted, all statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs and are current through September 13. All contract information courtesy of Cot's Contracts (via Baseball Prospectus).
Hit me up on Twitter to talk all things baseball: @RickWeinerBR
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