On MLBTR’s list of top 50 free agents for this past offseason, 49 of them eventually reached deals, with outfielder Michael Conforto being the lone exception. It was later revealed that the reason he hadn’t signed was that he suffered a shoulder injury during the lockout, which would eventually require season-ending surgery.
Conforto’s agent, Scott Boras, later walked that “season-ending” descriptor back in May, saying that there was a chance that Conforto could return late in the season. While that opened up the possibility of some team signing an injured Conforto and hoping for him to recuperate ahead of schedule, it was never going to happen prior to the draft since Conforto turned down a qualifying offer from the Mets. Taking a risk on Conforto might have some appeal, but not so much that any team would forfeit a meaningful draft pick for the pleasure.
Now that the draft has been completed, that has become a moot point. Signing Conforto is no longer connected to any kind of forfeiture of draft picks or bonus pool money. Naturally, Conforto is now garnering more interest, per Jon Heyman of the New York Post. Heyman speaks to Boras, who says that he got four phone calls about Conforto after the draft and that “there is very strong interest by some very good teams.”
When asked to list the teams that were interested, Boras said “They’re all in the United States except one,” hinting that the Blue Jays are one of the teams at the table. The involvement of the Jays isn’t terribly surprising, given that they had previous interest in the offseason as part of their desire to add left-handed hitting. Around the same time that the news of Conforto’s injury came out, the Jays acquired a different lefty bat in Raimel Tapia. Since Tapia has hit .275/.300/.388 this season for a wRC+ of 91, or 9% below league average, it stands to reason that Toronto still thinks they can upgrade in that department.
Of course, even if Conforto is able to return to health before season’s end, it’s fair to wonder which version he will be. After an amazing stretch of play from 2017-2020 wherein he hit .265/.369/.495 for a wRC+ of 133, he followed that up with a down year in 2021. His batting line last year was .232/.344/.384 for a wRC+ of 106, still above average but a far cry from his previous seasons. Given that disappointing season, followed by shoulder surgery, a lengthy layoff and then a rehab process of some kind, it’s hard to know how effective he can be in the coming months.
Of course, from Conforto’s perspective, he’d surely love the ability to get back on the field and show some signs of life before the offseason. As a free agent marketing himself to teams for the 2023 season, there would be a big difference between getting healthy in December and holding a showcase versus playing in real games, even if it’s only a handful.
Signing an injured player comes with risks but is not unprecedented. For instance, in August of last year, the Dodgers signed Cole Hamels for $1MM plus incentives as he was working his way back from various injuries. In that case, it didn’t work out, as Hamels was shut down for the season just two weeks later. With less than two weeks to go until the trade deadline, any team looking for an extra bat that comes up short could turn to Conforto as a risky fallback option.
No Way!!!
LOL Mets!
Love people who pull out this tired old trope. How exactly is this a LOL Mets situation? They offered him a multi-year contract that HE turned down because Boras promised him riches. Conforto leaving led to signing Marte who has been fantastic and fun to watch.
How dare you interject logic into Robcock’s comment.
He got what he wanted, a REACTION. Ignore him and he’ll be a lonely LOL artist. But I’m rooting for Rob to be happy, everyone deserves to be happy. The only exception to that rule is when they wish someone else negativity. Hint hint.
It’s like my Dad used to say, there’s more horse’s @sses in this world than horses.
The Mets haven’t been the LOLMets since the new regime took over. Adults are now running the show, and teams don’t really like to play them, Charlie Morton most recently explaining why.
MLB Pipeline just ranked the Mets recent draft haul #1 in MLB.
Rest of the rankings have the Rockies #2, followed in order by the Orioles, Reds, Guardians and Padres.
LFGM
Not sure how this is LOLMets. Mets did everything right here. Offered him a 4-5 year deal for $100-120 million before the 2021 season. Then they offered him the QO after his poor 2021, which would have been a great way for him make a lot of money and rebuild value. Conforto turned down both. Now he has no contract and is re-habbing on his own dime.
This one is an epic failure by Conforto and Boras, not the Mets.
Lol
Of course. This is one of the risks of hiring Boras. He has been known to over play his hand and lose.
I refuse to believe that it’s the Jays who are interested. Conforto should do well in Mexico.
I know the article is implying he was saying the Jays are interested. But, I think it was just a humorous way to say ‘a lot of teams are interested’. Which is what every Agent wants you to think.
Forto anti vax. He cant play for toronto
Right, if he’s still unvaccinated it’s a non-starter with Toronto. They can’t sign a player who can’t cross the border.
Too bad he’s not vaccinated and can’t play in Toronto.
Yes, its a shame the vaccine is no longer available. Its not like he could just walk into the local pharmacy and roll up his sleeve in order to get paid millions. Oh. Wait. He actually can do that!
If he could only play on the field again. It isn’t his vaccination status keeping teams from signing him right now.
You should really be banned at this point for this obnoxiousness. You have to bring up such nastiness in every post? What is wrong with you, why are you so hateful? On a baseball site no less.
There is a guy I COMPLETELY forgot about. Doesn’t really say much about him as a player.
You forgot about him because he was hurt and away from the game. Doesn’t say anything about him as a player. If healthy, he’s still an asset.
No he isn’t too hot and cold
There have been plenty of guys that were hurt and away from the game that I did not forget about. In my opinion, Conforto is just not that good or memorable a player.
Then you’re terrible at evaluating mlb talent. He was a top 50 free agent prior to the surgery, his team offered him nearly 20M$ on a one year deal.
No the Mets said eh YOURE worth about 2-2.5 wins. That’s an average regular, not that good
Only a small percentage of players are FAs each year. Being in the top 50 of that small group isn’t saying much.
When he is healthy, not if. And more importantly, if he is back to his 2020 self, not just back.
When asked to list the teams that were interested, Boras said “They’re all in the United States except one,” — All right, now thats funny.
Zaidi is always on the lookout for injured players that he can go dumpster diving. But Conforto is too good of a prospect to consider.
I think you are all forgetting the Quebec Capitales of the Frontier League. Boras isn’t forgetting. That’s the league where Boras got Kumar Rocker his fantastic deal with his bum shoulder.
What a step up he would be offensively over Jackie Bradley. Love JBJ but Conforto with one arm might hit much better. I might even throw him out in the bullpen.
He’d probably be a decent bullpen catcher
If a player recovering from injury signs in season, can he be retroactively placed on the 60 day IL? Probably not, but wondering if a team could petition for that given that it’s easy to point to a surgery date. I’m sure any acquiring team would have at least one fringe roster guy worth a DFA, but just a thought about the calculation.
As far as I know he can be retroactively placed, but retroactively is just a few days before he is placed on the IL list by the team. Say someone signs Conforto today, he could be placed on the IL list tomorrow, I guess, but not since April 2022 because he wasn’t on the team at that moment, nor on the 40-man roster, nor on the 26-man roster etc etc.
Yankees can’t get any worse production out of him than they do Gallo.Sign him up!
You mean blue chip trade asset Joey Gallo?
But plays good defense.SMH
Braves should take another former Mets player. No Pearls and Peterson this year but Conforto could be a bat for the bench?
Scott Boras = no.
It’s funny that Boras’ lap dog Jon Heyman is the one that’s pushing the Conforto info.
Always does.
I find it EXTREMELY odd that Heyman didn’t ask the obvious question: Where is Conforto in his rehab process? I think that’s a pretty significant piece of information any interested team would need to know. My guess is if Boras didn’t bring it up, Conforto must not be anywhere near ready to play for some time.
That’s what I was looking for. Reread the article to see. All moot if we don’t know how close he is.
How do we get Yankee/Red Sox money in the fold without specifically naming an interested team?
Bingo !
Boras has work to do. He owes this client.
How was he not signed by now. Was he hurt?
You could literally just read the article, not that hard.
Some people just have to be completely stupid !
I skimmed through it. I actually forgot he had a shoulder injury. I didn’t know it was season ending surgery though.
Sorry n Scheisse
He fell into a black hole into another dimension, just came back with Bill and Ted. Excellent!
You’d jump into that hole too, haven’t you seen those “princesses”?
“PUT THEM IN THE IRON MAIDEN.”
“…..Excellent!”
Woah!
The 3rd movie wasn’t the same without Rufus. I guess he didn’t follow the unwritten rules of the road.
Rest in pieces sir(line from Black Sheep)
Yes
How much does Boras pay Heyman
I’ve been following all MLB players for over fifty years. Along with The Athletic and Fangraphs, MLBTR is my best source for analysis. With respect to “what does this transaction mean” MLBTR is state of the art / best in class. Thank you for the great work.
I don’t believe a word boras says. No one has interest
Notice he didn’t specify Major League teams. That may be splitting hairs, but knowing Boras’ moral flexibility he could have included Independent League teams in that statement.
Boras grabbing Conforto a New Jersey Jackals contract would be a coup! Maybe Sussex County Miners? As as I said earlier, the Non-USA team is the Quebec Capitales.
Although I feel he had some bad advice, I hope he gets well and is able to get his career back on track; When healthy, he’s a very good ball player and we are both Oregon St. Beavers.
Four phone calls? Mets and 3 three “mystery” teams?…
I don’t totally trust Boras, but it’s amazing people just ASSUME he is lying. If Conforto really is out for the year than he would fail his physical and owners would likely not be as willing to deal with him going forward. Is that a risk worth taking right now if you are Boras?
Boras is self-serving – he is just trying to get one headache out of the way now (Conforto) and deal with his other headache (Gallo) in the off-season
Boras strikes me as the type of guy to buy a Dominos pizza and spend an entire party trying to spin how it’s the best pizza on the market and anyone who disagrees just doesn’t understand and isn’t good enough to eat it.
Okay but Dominos is underrated though.
Yes, it deserves a D, instead of the F most people assume.
Conforto sucks!
He has a 124 OPS+ and 124 wRC+ for his career and he’s a solid defensive corner outfielder.
He’s also still only 29.
Those of us that watched him play everyday know he hasn’t been the same since dislocating his left shoulder on a swing in August 2017. Even before that, he was always a Jekyll and Hyde player. Hit one month, completely lost the next. I wish him luck in his comeback.
That’s true overall, but for those of us who watched him day in and day out, he was just awful offensively in 2021. In fact he looked lost. He rebounded slightly at the end, and offering him the QO was a sign of goodwill by the Mets. Until the lockout, Boras was talking him up like he was a perennial all-star.
When he came up in 2015, he was a line drive hitter with gap power. Fast forward to 2021 and he was all about the launch angle. He completely changed his swing and not for the better.
I wish him well and hope he lands somewhere where he can reestablish himself.
as a choice to provide help down the stretch
Perfect bay for Yanked stadium
Don’t rush him let him rehab and get him ready for next season
No on Soto who is slightly below average defensively and same on the base paths even though he’s possibly the best left handed bat in all of baseball at 23yo. We don’t need the best, we need defense and a multi dimensional lineup with power, contact, speed, lefty and righty bats! We have that just about now with Carpenter. Just need to move Gallo and Hicks and replace them with a lefty bat that can run and make contact.
Conforto is the least clutch player Iv ever seen. You can look up hits stats when the Mets are down or up by 2 runs, hes batting around .200. When the games are blowouts, thats when he hits like hes Babe Ruth. Him batting third was the sole reason the Mets did so bad last year. Before he came back from his hamstring injury, the Mets were in 1st place last year. He came back in time for the Dodger Giants roadtrip and the Mets went I believe 1-9 in those games. I feel bad for anyones team that gets conned into signing him longterm
Is there a stat that combines AVG and SLG and neglects OBP? These advanced stats are great, but, as I understand it, all of these stats like OPS (and wRC?) treat hits and walks as equals. In my opinion, hits are more valuable than walks. Conforto seems like a good example – .232 hitter that rates as 9% better than league average becausehe walks. OBP is important, but it has less meaning to me if you never get any hits.
You’re right as far as OPS+ goes, but wRC+ is weighted runs created that’s adjusted for ballparks and era. It basically shows how effective the batter is at creating runs. League average is always 100, so that means Conforto has been 24% better than league average at creating runs throughout his career.
I personally use wOBA instead of OPS+ but I mentioned OPS+ because a lot more people are familiar with it. But wOBA is fantastic and resolves the exact issue you mention. It stands for weighted on base average, and instead of just factoring when a player gets on base it factors in HOW they got on base. It gives less credit for BB and HBP and progressively more credit for XBH. League average this year is .310 while Conforto is at .352 for his career which is well above average.
This is the formula used for it:
wOBA = (0.690×uBB + 0.722×HBP + 0.888×1B + 1.271×2B + 1.616×3B + 2.101×HR) / (AB + BB – IBB + SF + HBP).
As you can see, more credit is progressively awarded depending on how the player got on base. It’s typically the best way to determine a player’s overall offensive value (minus base-running).
This guy IS NOT drawing interest from anyone.
Could be a Mariners pick up. He is a PNW guy.
Let’s go cardinals would much rather have him than Corey Dickerson.
“Michael, he has extraordinary healing powers and the doctors are saying as we walk through this, there’s potential for him potentially hitting in September certainly and we have to see … how his rehab goes to fulfill that expectation,” Boras said in the interview. “But there is very strong interest by some very good teams.
You gotta laugh. Boras is so full of it.
The Blue Jays are last I saw the second worst team in MLB at hitting left handed pitching. The obvious solution, as the article notes, is to go out and sign a hitter who’s notoriously terrible against lefty pitching? Just because you have a lot of right handed hitters, you don’t automatically need left handed hitters without looking at how any of the guys actually hit against each handed pitcher.
Even if he’s vaccinated and healthy, he’s the absolute last thing the Blue Jays need. He’s also terrible defensively, and the Jays need their DH spot for Kirk.