Eleven free agents have signed multiyear contracts to this point in the offseason, as MLBTR's Free Agent Tracker shows. Of the 11 players with multiyear contracts, five have agreed to terms with new teams (Gerald Laird, David Ross, Torii Hunter, Maicer Izturis and Melky Cabrera).
If recent offseasons are any indication, these 11 deals will represent approximately one quarter of the multiyear contracts signed this winter. Last offseason saw teams hand out 40 multiyear deals and the year before that included 44 contracts of two-plus years.
Still, the biggest and longest contracts have yet to be signed. So far Jake Peavy's two-year, $29MM contract with the White Sox leads the way in terms of total dollars. Izturis, Jeremy Affeldt and Brandon League are the only players to obtain three guaranteed years.
MLBTR’s tracker allows you to filter free agents by many criteria: team, position, signing status, years, and dollars. Plus, we recently made it possible to filter free agents according to whether they obtained, accepted and declined qualifying offers. You can also link to your search results, which makes them easy to share.
For the most part, our cutoff for a player's inclusion on the tracker is 50 MLB plate appearances or 20 innings pitched in 2012. We also have a basic list that shows which free agents remain available at each position.
