There’s been a lot of talk about this free agent market being unfavorable for free agents. I decided to analyze whether the top free agents have been underpaid based on expectations. I’m not including free agents who didn’t yet sign. 1. SP PATRICK CORBIN Expectation: 6 Years/$129 Million Result: 6 Years/$140 Million Corbin was clearly not affected by the free
Read morePhoto courtesy of Google Images. Let me preface this by saying that I hold no ill will for the city of Philadelphia or the Philadelphia Phillies. They built a good team over the last few years, and should be in contention this season. I don’t think that it’s “bad” for anyone to sign with them, and this article is not
Read moreHow much WAR did teams get from free agent acquisitions? For this research, I’m only using players that were acquired by the team via free agency. I’m not including players that signed as international or amateur free agents. NEW YORK YANKEES Pitching WAR: 6.9 Batting WAR: -0.2 Total WAR: 6.7 ATLANTA BRAVES Pitching WAR: 2.3 Batting WAR: 4.1 Total WAR:
Read moreWhich free agent pitchers are bargains and which are likely to be busts? I decided to analyze the list. BARGAINS 1. LANCE LYNN Lynn’s fastball velocity improved from 92.6 in 2017 to 94.0 in 2018. His Swing% improves from 44.4% in 2017 to 46.3% in 2018. His K/9 rate improved from 7.4 in 2017 to 9.2 in 2018. He also
Read morePhoto courtesy of WikiMedia. Bryce Harper is “custom-made” for Yankee Stadium. He is a lefty bat and the Yankees just happen to need lefty bats. Just look at the amount of righties in their lineup: C Gary Sanchez, 1B Luke Voit, 2B Gleyber Torres, 3B Miguel Andujar, RF Aaron Judge, DH Giancarlo Stanton. He’s also great at getting on base
Read moreBryce Harper and Manny Machado entered this season with the general expectations being that they would be the recipients of record-setting contracts after the season, that hasn’t changed. What has changed however, is that Harper has been having a “down season of sorts” and Machado has the advantage of no longer being tied to draft pick compensation due to being
Read morePhoto courtesy of MLB.com. Last week I wrote an article about what I think that the Los Angeles Dodgers should do based on how their season has been going. I decided to focus on one particular issue: Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw has the chance to opt out of his contract at the end of this season, and
Read morePhoto courtesy of MLB.com. The Baltimore Orioles are bad this year, as in they’re horrible. Their best player is a free agent at the end of the season and is unlikely to sign an extension. It’s unknown if they will trade him or not, their asking price was unrealistic during the offseason. Will that change now? What teams could be
Read moreCharlie Blackmon just signed an extension with Colorado. This is huge as he was going to be one of the key free agents this upcoming offseason. His wOBA over the last 4 seasons (2014-2017): .339, .345, .394, .414. His current wOBA for this season is .582. Look at his ISO over the last 4 seasons: .152, .163, .228, .270. This
Read moreThe 2017-2018 offseason is over and Spring Training is officially on the way. So, who are this offseason’s winners and losers? Of course we won’t really know until the season ends, but we can still make some reasonable judgements. I should also add that the order of teams isn’t done on purpose. WINNERS 1. NEW YORK YANKEES Anytime you add
Read moreMike Moustakas is staying in Kansas City. The big story here is that he rejected 1 year/$17.4 million to receive…… 1 year/$6.5 million instead. Photo courtesy of Pinterest.com. Did Moustakas hire George Costanza as his new agent? On the legendary sitcom Seinfeld, George once negotiated his and Jerry’s contracts to write a pilot with NBC to a lower price. All
Read moreI decided to go through the top free agents and decide on how much they’re worth, how much they want and whose fault it is that they haven’t signed. 1. YU DARVISH A quick look at his stats, indicates that he wasn’t an ace in 2017. He’s a recent TJS survivor, and had well-known struggles in the playoffs (despite the
Read moreIt’s no secret that this off-season has been shockingly stagnant despite the number of free agents still left on the market. After the Giancarlo Stanton and Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes were resolved, an expected succession of signings didn’t materialize. Why? Are teams more hesitant to give out large contracts? Are they simply not enthralled by the top free agents? Are they
Read more