131 free agents signed Major League deals this offseason, ranging from Scott Olsen at $550K to Carl Crawford at $142MM. The group was guaranteed just over $1.3 billion for 203 contract years, for an average of $6.4MM per year. The average player scored a contract worth $9.93MM. These numbers do not include Ted Lilly, Brandon Inge, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Frank Francisco, Jason Frasor, who were not signed on the open market.
- Right field: $10.975MM per year ($153.65MM over 14 years). This group includes seven players, with Jayson Werth pulling up the numbers.
- Closer: $10MM per year ($40MM over four years). I've included only Mariano Rivera and J.J. Putz here, as the other relievers were not signed as certain closers.
- Left field: $9.775MM per year ($156.4MM over 16 years). This group of ten is greatly skewed by Carl Crawford.
- Third base: $9.4MM per year ($103.45MM over 11 years). Adrian Beltre makes up almost all of this.
- Designated hitter: $9.16MM per year ($128.25MM over 14 years). Adam Dunn and Victor Martinez were compensated abnormally well for players who will mostly be serving at DH.
- Shortstop: $8.19MM per year ($73.75MM over 9 years). Derek Jeter is the headliner.
- Starting pitcher: $7.42MM per year ($229.975MM over 31 years). Cliff Lee leads the group of 22 pitchers I designated as starters. Aside from him, starters were paid $4.2MM per year.
- First base: $7.38MM per year ($110.65MM over 15 years). Paul Konerko leads.
- Second base: $4.84MM per year ($38.75MM over 8 years). Juan Uribe received the biggest deal.
- Right-handed reliever: $3.66MM per year ($146.28MM over 40 years). Rafael Soriano tops the chart.
- Left-handed reliever: $3.06MM per year ($58.05MM over 19 years). Scott Downs got the biggest deal.
- Catcher: $3.04MM per year ($57.675MM over 19 years). John Buck's surprising deal tops the list.
- Center field: $1.14MM per year ($3.425MM over 3 years). Center fielders were tough to come by this winter, as Rick Ankiel, Melky Cabrera, and Tony Gwynn Jr. make up this group.
- Click here to download a spreadsheet with all the data.
The regular season can not start fast enough.
Ridiculous how closers got more than SP. Although has he said only 2 are up there, but still. That’s a hell of a lot of dough for a 1-2 inning pitcher.
No kidding. MLB’s obsession with saves makes my head want to explode. Who cares how many runs you give up in the first 8 innings, as long as you have a better-than-usual chance of preserving a lead in the 9th, right?
Considering it only has two players and one is Rivera it’s not so surprising.
A few outliers (the elite FA) really skew these numbers…
I think the median average rather than the mean average might be a more useful measure.
Soriano’s deal with the yank’s proves your point, take the 72 saves out and he would of had a hard time getting 7 mil.
True, although Benoit is making $5.5 million and has a grand total of 2 saves since 2008
Jose Bautista’s also not included, right?
Right.
Soriano’s RH-RP contract skewed the numbers north but Kerry Wood’s $1.5M low ball signing brought it back down
Are the salary-per-year numbers means? Medians are usually more indicative of an ordinary salary because high annual salaries can really skew averages.
talk about the year of the pitcher, no other position besides starting pitcher and right-handed reliever got over 20 years, while those 2 got 31 and 40 respectively