Printer-friendly

Contact Author

November 14, 2007

Prospectus Today

Low-End Free Agents

by Joe Sheehan

I have pretty much the same opinion of the 2007-08 class of free agents as I did about the last two classes, with the exception that this class includes one of the greatest players in baseball history. If you can sign Alex Rodriguez, you do so; he’s worth somewhere around the $30 million a year he’s supposedly asking for to a team that’s on the brink of contention right now. His decline phase may well be worth that kind of money as well, given where the marginal value of a win is headed, and the additional revenues that Rodriguez can generate as he chases down some of the game’s most hallowed records.

Beyond Rodriguez, though, I fail to see any good places to put tens of millions of dollars over three or more years. If you can make the kinds of deals that the Red Sox and Padres have made so far, signing league-average starters to one-year contracts, that’s fantastic. The same goes for teams thinking of getting Tom Glavine, Andy Pettitte, or Roger Clemens to sign that kind of contract; if you can pull it off, great, because there’s no such thing as a bad one-year deal anymore.

The highest-profile guys in this market, though, are past-prime players for whom defense, which declines with age, is a key component of value. The center fielders look attractive now, but do you want to commit $15 million to the notion that a 35-year-old Torii Hunter will have the legs to play center field or the bat to play right? The same question applies to Aaron Rowand. The pitchers provide even less reason to be confident: Kyle Lohse? Carlos Silva? Yecch. As excited as I might be by Kosuke Fukudome’s skill set, the man missed half of last season with an elbow injury, and hasn’t been seen playing baseball since. We know that power hasn’t translated well for Japanese players, and that elbow injuries can affect power themselves, so how much can you pay for a player carrying multiple unknowns as he crosses the Pacific?

No, if I’m dipping into this market with my team’s money—owners looking to hire, I can be reached through the link at the bottom of the page—I’m looking to the bottom of the list, the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to…wait, that sounds familiar. I’m looking for upside rather than certainty, and to get that upside with a minimal investment. That approach won’t make the beat writers or a team's marketing staff happy, but it should be good for the win total and the bottom line when all is said and done.

The following low-profile free agents fit my criteria of not being ranked A or B, and having enough upside to warrant a one-year or one-year-plus-option deal. I don’t expect all of these players to break through and have great 2008 seasons, but on the whole, this pool will outperform the contracts they receive in the market.