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2017-18 MLB Free Agent Power Rankings

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The non-waiver trade deadline is behind us, and about one-third of the regular MLB season remains.  The list of top free agents for the 2017-18 offseason is beginning to come into focus.  Below, the projected free agents are ranked based on their current earning power.  To view the full list of players eligible for free agency after the season, click here.

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1.  Yu Darvish.  The Rangers traded Darvish to the Dodgers right at the July 31st deadline, making him ineligible for a qualifying offer after the season.  The Dodgers seemingly added the former strikeout king as a playoff luxury.  Darvish began his Dodgers tenure with one of his best starts of the season, a seven-inning gem against the Mets.  Darvish’s leap to the best team in baseball grants the pitcher a major pitch framing upgrade, as explained by Chris Anders at Beyond The Box Score.  Darvish is around nine starts away from his second career 200-inning campaign, quieting health concerns related to his Tommy John surgery.  When he takes the mound next spring, he’ll be three years removed from that procedure.  The righty turns 31 soon, so we’re projecting a six-year contract this winter.

2.  J.D. Martinez.  Martinez, the best hitter in the upcoming free agent class, was traded from the Tigers to the Diamondbacks on July 18th, removing his qualifying offer eligibility.  He was hit in the hand by a pitch in his second plate appearance for Arizona, but avoided a serious injury.  Martinez has slugged 39 extra base hits in 293 plate appearances, a rate surpassed only by Mike Trout and Nolan Arenado among regular players.  However, Martinez’s right field defense continues to diminish his value.  With a six-year contract in play for the soon-to-be 30-year-old, his agent may be best suited looking toward the American League.

3.  Jake Arrieta.  With a strong seven-start run, Arrieta has shaved his ERA down to 3.83.  He’s proven durable since his Cy Young breakout in 2015, and he’s only about five months older than Darvish.  The two righties have a similar free agent profile: still quite good, but not at peak levels.  Our current projection is a five-year deal for Arrieta, who recently laughed off the idea of accepting a one-year qualifying offer.  Talking to Bob Nightengale of USA Today this week, Arrieta expressed a lack of concern about his upcoming foray into free agency.

4.  Eric Hosmer.  Hosmer hit .352/.408/.561 from May through July, boosting his free agent stock immensely.  Still, he’s been out-hit this season by impending free agent first basemen Yonder Alonso, Logan Morrison, and Lucas Duda, so the market features cheaper (but older) alternatives.  Plus, Hosmer seems a strong bet to receive a qualifying offer from the Royals, dampening his value a bit.  Every free agent class seems to have that one polarizing player, and it might be Hosmer this winter.  Is this really a $100MM+ player, or will sabermetrics win the day?

5.  Masahiro Tanaka.  Speaking of enigmas, Tanaka has a chance to experience free agency in advance of his age-29 campaign.  The catch is that he’ll have to opt out of the $67MM the Yankees are obligated to pay him over the 2018-20 seasons.  Tanaka has been very good in his last 13 starts (and downright brilliant in his last eight), but it’s difficult to ignore his season mark of 1.87 home runs allowed per nine innings.  If Tanaka thinks he can get something close to Jordan Zimmermann’s five-year, $110MM pact, opting out is the correct call.

6.  Justin Upton.  Upton, too, is facing an opt-out decision.  He’s owed four years and $88MM and will turn 30 years old in a few weeks.  Upton raked in June and July, and has a shot at a five-year deal.  Even if he’s unsure of earning more money on the open market, Upton may like the idea of leaving the rebuilding Tigers to choose his next team.  If he does opt out, Upton will be ineligible to receive a second career qualifying offer.  On July 30th, Upton told George Sipple of the Detroit Free Press, “I haven’t thought about it, honestly.  But I mean, I came here to win, so I’d have to see what the landscape is like at the end of it.  I enjoy playing here. I enjoy the guys in the clubhouse. I enjoy the atmosphere, the city. That decision is long down the road, months away.”

7.  Mike Moustakas.  Moustakas’ home run barrage has continued, leaving the Royals’ third baseman second in the American League with 32 bombs.  Barring injury, Moose seems likely to become the first Royal to hit 40 home runs.  At his current pace, he’ll wind up closer to 50.  Even with a paltry 4.3% walk rate, Moustakas seems like a candidate for a five-year deal heading into his age-29 season, despite a probable qualifying offer.

8.  Lorenzo Cain.  Cain is quietly on track for his third career season worth at least four wins above replacement.  The value isn’t quite as obvious as the position players ranked above him, but capable center fielders with above-average bats are hard to find.  We’re projecting Cain to get four years, with a shot at five.  Like his teammates on this list, Cain may get a qualifying offer.  Under the new CBA, that’s not nearly as limiting as it has been in the past.

9.  Wade Davis.  The Cubs’ laid-back closer has a career-worst walk rate, but he also has a 2.31 ERA and zero blown saves on the season.  Davis will likely have Mark Melancon’s four-year, $62MM contract in his sights, even if that particular deal doesn’t look so great currently.

10.  Greg Holland.  Holland leads MLB in saves and has slightly outpitched Davis this year.  The Rockies’ stopper has a $15MM player option he’s likely to decline in search of a multiyear deal.  Despite missing all of 2016 due to Tommy John surgery, Holland should be a popular free agent.

Johnny Cueto, previously a mainstay on this list, must decide after the season whether to opt out of the $84MM remaining on his contract with the Giants over the next four years.  He’s currently on the disabled list with a mild flexor strain, an injury that may be enough to convince Cueto to play it safe and keep his current deal.  Also falling off the list is Michael Pineda, who had Tommy John surgery in mid-July and will miss most of the 2018 season.

Players just missing the power rankings top ten include Logan Morrison, Zack Cozart, Lance Lynn, and Carlos Santana.  LoMo sits sixth in the AL with 28 home runs.  Cozart is tied with Upton for the free agent WAR lead with 3.6, despite a pair of DL stints.  Lynn’s strong ERA looks somewhat dubious when stacked up against pedestrian peripheral metrics.  Santana, meanwhile, has turned it on lately but is trying to distance himself from a very poor start to the year.  Ultimately, these players may be hard-pressed to find four-year deals, though there’s still time left to bolster their stock.

Matt Shoemaker Undergoes Season-Ending Forearm Surgery

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Aug. 8: Shoemaker’s operation went as expected, and the team expects him to be ready the 2018 season, tweets Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register.

Aug. 6: Angels right-hander Matt Shoemaker will undergo surgery Tuesday to release the radial nerve in his right forearm, the team announced (via Twitter).  The usual recovery timeline for such a procedure is an estimated 12-14 weeks, so Shoemaker will miss the rest of the 2017 season.

Shoemaker hit the disabled list in mid-June with a strained extensor muscle in his right forearm.  While initially considered to be less serious than most forearm-related injuries, Shoemaker suffered a setback in his rehab process and was diagnosed with posterior interosseous nerve syndrome last month.  The Angels announced on Friday that Shoemaker was considering surgery to correct the problem.

In 77 2/3 innings for the Angels this season, Shoemaker posted a 4.52 ERA, 2.46 K/BB rate and 8.0 K/9.  He suffered increases in his walk rate (3.2 BB/9, up from his career 1.9 BB/9 prior to 2017) and hard-hit ball rate (36.2%, above his 31.5% career rate), though perhaps most importantly for the injury-ravaged Angels staff, Shoemaker was still able to serve as a capable innings-eater prior to his own DL stint.  It was good seeing Shoemaker back on the mound at all, given that his 2016 season was prematurely ended after the righty suffered a skull fracture and a hematoma after being hit in the head by a Kyle Seager line drive on September 4.

Despite the pitching injuries and a general lack of offense beyond Mike Trout and Andrelton Simmons, the Halos have nevertheless stuck around in the AL wild card race.  The team is sitting three games behind the Royals for the last wild card slot, albeit with a 55-57 record.  It may still be a tall order for L.A. to leapfrog the pack within the crowded American League, though the Angels still get some late-season rotation reinforcements in the form of Andrew Heaney, Tyler Skaggs and potentially Garrett Richards.

Mariners Acquire Yonder Alonso

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The Mariners have acquired first baseman Yonder Alonso from the Athletics in exchange for minor league outfielder Boog Powell, per an announcement from Seattle. The M’s claimed Alonso off waivers prior to working out a deal with the American League West rival A’s, reports Ken Rosenthal of MLB Network (on Twitter).

Yonder Alonso[RELATED: Updated Mariners & A’s Depth Charts]

The 30-year-old Alonso has enjoyed a breakout season, but as an impending free agent on a rebuilding team, the expectation was that Oakland would move the $4MM slugger this summer. The A’s were unable to find a trade to their liking for Alonso before this past Monday’s non-waiver deadline, however, thanks in part to a lack of leaguewide demand at first base.

The playoff-contending Mariners have gotten little production from the position this year, though, with their first base options having combined for a woeful batting line (.246/.305/.385) and the majors’ third-worst fWAR (minus-0.8). Despite that shoddy production, Seattle holds a 56-55 record and sits just 1.5 games out of a wild-card position.

Seattle’s primary first baseman has been Danny Valencia, whose overall output hasn’t been great. However, the right-handed hitter has feasted on southpaw pitchers (.297/.368/.505), which could set up a formidable platoon consisting of him and the lefty-swinging Alonso. Buoyed by a newly adopted fly ball-first approach, Alonso has slashed an excellent .266/.369/.527 with 22 home runs in 371 plate appearances this year. Almost all of that damage has come off righties, against whom Alonso has batted .287/.393/.559 in 254 trips to the plate.

To land Alonso, the Mariners gave up the 24-year-old Powell, who got his first taste of big league action earlier this season and hit .194/.310/.194 over nine games and 43 PAs. He owns a far better .340/.416/.490 line in 239 Triple-A PAs this year, and has slashed a lifetime .288/.365/.402 at that level. Powell actually entered the professional ranks as the Athletics’ 20th-round pick back in 2012. They ended up sending him, John Jaso and Daniel Robertson to the Rays in a 2015 deal that netted the A’s Ben Zobrist and Yunel Escobar.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Pirates Acquire Sean Rodriguez From Braves

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The Pirates have acquired utilityman Sean Rodriguez from the Braves, MLB.com’s Mark Bowman writes (Twitter links). In return, the Braves will receive minor-league 1B/OF Connor Joe, according to FanRag’s Tommy Stokke (on Twitter). The move is now official. The two sides consummated the deal after the Pirates put in a waiver claim on Rodriguez.

Sean RodriguezRodriguez, of course, played for the Pirates in 2015 and 2016 and had his career-best season with the Bucs (.270/.349/.510 over 342 plate appearances) in 2016 before signing a two-year, $11.5MM deal with Atlanta last winter. Later that same offseason, however, Rodriguez and his family were in a serious car accident, and Rodriguez spent the first few months of the season working his way back from a shoulder injury. He finally returned in mid-July and has batted .162/.326/.351 in 47 plate appearances since.

Now, though, the Braves don’t have the need for Rodriguez they once might have — as Bowman notes, Johan Camargo has hit well while playing the leftmost three infield positions for the Braves this year, and the team added another versatile player, Danny Santana, in a trade in May. Meanwhile, the Pirates have been left without Jung Ho Kang this season as the third baseman struggles to get a visa, and the team has gotten poor production at various points from bench players like Philip Gosselin, John Jaso and Max Moroff. Rodriguez will provide them with another option around the infield and at the corner outfield spots. In addition to the remainder of his salary this season, he will make $5MM in 2018.

The 24-year-old Joe was the 39th overall pick out of the University of San Diego in the 2014 draft, but he’s moved through the minors slowly for an early college pick, owing in part to a 2014 back injury but also to his struggles to generate offense commensurate with the corner positions at which he’s played. This season, he’s batted .240/.338/.380 in 28 plate appearances for Double-A Altoona, demonstrating a good batting eye (with a 12.1 BB%) but modest average and power. He did not rank in MLB.com’s list of the Pirates’ top 30 prospects.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Justin Verlander Clears Revocable Waivers

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Aug. 4: Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press reports that Verlander has cleared revocable waivers (Twitter link). As such, the Tigers will be able to freely discuss trades of Verlander from now through the end of the 2017 season, though he’d need to be on a new team’s roster before Sept. 1 in order to be eligible for the postseason roster.

Aug. 2: Tigers righty Justin Verlander was placed on revocable waivers on Wednesday, tweets ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick. It’s worth emphasizing, especially early in the month, that the move comes as no surprise. Teams will place the vast majority of their rosters on revocable waivers this month in an effort to gauge interest and also as a smokescreen to mask which players they may actually be more amenable to trading. There’s no downside, after all, as each club has the right to pull a player back from waivers the first time that he is claimed.

[Related: How August Trades Work]

That said, Verlander’s placement is among the more notable instances of this largely procedural move. With about $65.3MM owed to Verlander through the completion of the 2019 season, he’s exceedingly likely to clear. At that point, the Tigers will be able to continue discussing trades with all 29 other teams in the league, though Verlander’s full no-trade clause and sizable contract will continue to serve as significant impediments to working out a trade. (Notably, Crasnick reminds that Verlander’s no-trade protection would allow him to even veto a claim in the unlikely event that a club places a claim and the Tigers were willing to let him go for nothing.)

At last check, Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press reported that the Tigers were only willing to pay the remainder of Verlander’s 2017 salary — a sum that currently stands at about $9.33MM. That’d leave any team on the hook for $56MM from 2018-19 in the event of a Verlander trade.

The 34-year-old Verlander hasn’t been himself in 2017, as he’s averaged fewer than six innings per start with an elevated 4.2 BB/9 rate and a diminished 8.7 K/9 rate. The deteriorated ground-ball rate he’s displayed in recent years has also held up, as he’s checked in at 33.9 percent in that regard. Overall, Verlander has a 4.29 ERA through 130 frames this year, though his fastball velocity remains as strong as ever (95.2 mph average). And, to his credit, Verlander has been much better in his past 32 innings in terms of ERA (2.25), though his 3.7 BB/9 rate in that time is still a lofty mark — especially by his excellent standards.

The Cubs, Astros, Dodgers and Brewers were among the teams linked to the former Rookie of the Year, Cy Young winner and American League MVP prior to the non-waiver deadline. The Dodgers, of course, went on to pick up Yu Darvish in a last-minute deadline blockbuster, while the Cubs made a significant rotation splash in mid-July by acquiring Jose Quintana from the crosstown White Sox.

Edinson Volquez To Undergo Tommy John Surgery

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Marlins right-hander Edinson Volquez will undergo Tommy John surgery on Friday, president of baseball operations Michael Hill announced to reporters (Twitter link via Tim Healey of the South Florida Sun Sentinel). This will mark the second Tommy John procedure of Volquez’s career.

Marlins skipper Don Mattingly announced earlier today that Volquez would miss the remainder of the season and suggested that there was more at play than the knee tendinitis that had sidelined him since early July. However, there’d been no indication to this point that Volquez was dealing with any sort of arm injury, making the news of Tommy John surgery a fairly stunning development.

The timing of the injury is especially unfortunate for Volquez, as a fairly standard 12- to 15-month recovery timeline would keep him out of action not only for the balance of the 2017 season but also for most, if not all of the 2018 campaign as well.

Miami inked Volquez to a two-year, $22MM contract this past offseason due largely to his durability. From 2012-16, Volquez averaged 32 starts and 187 innings per season, and he hadn’t even been on the disabled list since his previous Tommy John surgery, which came back in 2009 as a member of the Reds. Volquez is still owed $16.05MM from now through the end of the 2018 campaign — $3.05MM for the remainder of the 2017 season in addition to a $13MM salary next year.

Braves To Promote Ozzie Albies, Lucas Sims

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2:37pm: Atlanta has announced that Johnson and righty Akeel Morris were optioned to create roster space. With Albies in the lineup at second base tonight, it could well be that the Braves are readying to move on from Phillips — who could be traded or allowed to depart through a waiver claim, though he does have 12-team no-trade protection.

12:34pm: The Braves will promote top infield prospect Ozzie Albies for tonight’s game, according to MLB.com Pipeline (Twitter link) and MLB.com’s Mark Bowman (via Twitter). Pitching prospect Lucas Sims is also heading to the majors to make his first start, as David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported yesterday on Twitter.

"MarThe move on Albies comes as something of a post-deadline surprise, as the Braves’ infield mix currently includes veterans Brandon Phillips and Sean Rodriguez as well as younger players Johan Camargo and Micah Johnson (who was himself just promoted).

Albies has long been considered one of the organization’s best prospects and drew consensus top-twenty billing leaguewide entering the season. Though he scuffled a bit in his first attempt at the highest level of the minors in 2016, Albies has turned in solid results there in the present season. Through 448 trips to the plate, the 20-year-old switch-hitter carries a .285/.330/.440 batting line with 21 steals and nine home runs. That’s a nice jump in the long ball department for a player who launched just one ball out of the yard in his first two professional seasons and hit just six in 618 plate appearances last year.

It’s unclear how Atlanta intends to line up with Albies on the roster. He’s capable of playing both middle infield positions, but has spent most of his time in recent years at second. The thought had long been that Albies would form a double-play pairing with shortstop Dansby Swanson, and he may yet, but Swanson is currently back at Triple-A Gwinnett after struggling early on this year. The corresponding move isn’t yet known, but may be expected shed some light on the situation. Unless this is planned only as a quick trip up, though, the Braves will presumably be clearing the way for Albies to receive regular playing time.

As for Sims, his promotion comes with somewhat less fanfare but is notable in its own right. The former first-rounder had seen his prospect star fade somewhat in recent years, but he has turned in intriguing results this season at Gwinnett. Through 115 1/3 innings, Sims carries a 3.75 ERA with an excellent 10.3 K/9 against 2.8 BB/9 — marking a notable reversal from the control problems that have plagued him at times in the past.

While Sims already had a spot on the 40-man roster, Albies will still need to be added. Atlanta does appear to have some free slots available, though, so it may not be necessary for the club to risk control rights over any existing players. It remains to be seen who’ll depart the active roster to make an opening.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

New Facebook Pages For Fans Of Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Braves, Cardinals

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For the past month, we have been attempting an experiment: five human-curated team Facebook pages.  Under the direction of JP Hadley, Jack Stockless, Stephanie Nevill, Chris Jervis, and Tanner Puckett, our Facebook pages for the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Braves, and Cardinals have become engaging, informative, fun, and up-to-date.  Instead of the previous automated posting of MLBTR content, these pages have team news of all kinds, polls, infographics, interesting links, discussion, and of course hot stove rumors.  These pages have everything a fan could want.  If you follow any of these five teams, please give our new Facebook pages a Like today!

How August Trades Work

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Now that the July 31 trade deadline has passed, teams can still make trades, only with more restrictions than before.  The full list of rules surrounding post-deadline trades have, of course, been shared elsewhere, most notably in an article by Jayson Stark (then with ESPN.com) from all the way back in 2004, and in greater detail at Cub Reporter. Since the rules surrounding August deals are confusing, though, they’re worth reviewing here.

  • After the trade deadline, a big-league player must pass through revocable waivers before his team can trade him without restriction. These waivers last 47 hours. If no one claims him in that period, his team can trade him anywhere.
  • If a player is claimed, his team can do one of three things. It can trade the player to the claiming team, revoke the waiver request (in which case the player will remain with his original team), or simply allow the claiming team to take the player and his salary (although a player with no-trade rights can block this from happening).
  • A recent example of an August trade that developed from a waiver claim was the Mariners’ acquisition of Arquimedes Caminero from the Pirates last season.  The Mariners claimed Caminero and then worked out a deal with the Bucs to bring the right-hander to Seattle for two players to be named later. An example of a claim that didn’t result in a trade occurred in 2015, when an unknown team claimed Brewers reliever Francisco Rodriguez. The two sides couldn’t strike a deal, so the Brewers revoked their waiver request, and K-Rod remained in Milwaukee. Examples of teams simply letting players go via revocable waivers are more rare, particularly with big-contract players. That being said, it is always possible; in 2009, the White Sox claimed Alex Rios from the Blue Jays, who simply let him go to Chicago without a trade. The White Sox were thus responsible for all of the approximately $62MM remaining on Rios’ contract.
  • A team has 48.5 hours to trade a claimed player, and can only negotiate with the team awarded the claim on him.
  • It’s common for teams to place players on revocable waivers, and their having done so does not necessarily mean they have serious plans to trade them. As Stark points out, teams commonly use waivers of certain players purely as smokescreens to disguise which players they really are interested in trading. In fact, sometimes teams place their entire rosters on waivers.
  • If more than one team claims a player, priority is determined by worst record to best record in the league of the waiving team, followed by worst record to best record in the other league. For example, if an NL team places a player on revocable waivers, the team with the NL’s worst record will get first priority on claims, followed by every other team in the NL from worst to best, followed by AL teams from worst to best.
  • If a team pulls a player back from waivers once, it cannot do so again in August. So if a team places a player on waivers for a second time, those waivers will be non-revocable.
  • Players not on 40-man rosters are eligible to be traded at any time without passing through waivers.
  • A player on the disabled list can only pass through waivers if his minimum period of inactivity has passed and he is healthy and able to play at his accustomed level.
  • Teams can still make trades in September, but players acquired after August 31 can’t play in the postseason.

Players traded last August included such notable names as Caminero, Fernando Salas, Michael Bourn, Dioner Navarro, Sean Burnett, Coco Crisp, A.J. Ellis, Carlos Ruiz, Jeff Francoeur, Mike Aviles and Erick Aybar.  Due to the number of restrictions in place, it isn’t often that you see a true blockbuster deal go down in August, though it isn’t totally out of the question.  The biggest August trade in recent memory is easily the nine-player swap between the Dodgers and Red Sox in 2012 that saw Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett head to L.A.  That deal not only set the tone for the Dodgers’ free-spending ways over the last five years, but it also allowed the Red Sox to clear tens of millions in salary commitments off their books, paving the way for the team to reload in the offseason and go on to win the 2013 World Series.

This post is adapted from a prior series of posts.

Mets To Promote Amed Rosario

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The Mets will promote top prospect Amed Rosario for tomorrow’s game against the Rockies, general manager told reporters this afternoon (Twitter link via Newsday’s Marc Carig). He’ll play shortstop at Coors Field in his Major League debut. Tyler Kepner of the New York Times tweets that the GM said first base prospect Dominic Smith is “not far behind.”

Rosario, 21, was ranked by ESPN’s Keith Law as the No. 1 prospect in baseball in his midseason update of the game’s 50 best prospects. He rated fourth on Baseball America’s midseason Top 100 and second on the midseason top 100 over at MLB.com.

Amed Rosario | Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Thus far, Rosario has slashed an impressive .328/.367/466 with seven homers, 19 doubles and seven triples in 425 plate appearances while playing in the hitter-friendly Triple-A Pacific Coast League (specifically, in a favorable Las Vegas setting). He’s also swiped 19 bases in 26 tries, showing off the wheels that have earned him plus ratings in many scouting reports.

Rosario is regarded as a plus defender at shortstop with a plus hit tool and some potentially emerging power. (His seven home runs are already a career-high.) Scouting reports agree that he’s a slam dunk to stay at shortstop where he should provide the Mets with anywhere from above-average to superlative defense for the next several years.

While the Mets’ somewhat crowded infield picture still features veterans Jose Reyes, Asdrubal Cabrera and Neil Walker, it seems all but certain that Rosario will be given the chance to play on a daily basis in the Majors. Walker and Cabrera are definite August trade candidates via the trade waiver process. However, even if that pair remains in Queens for a good portion of the month — or even all of the month — it’s in the Mets’ best interest to ensure that Rosario takes the field at shortstop on an everyday basis as opposed to navigating the difficulties of inconsistent playing time as a part of a time share.

Even if Rosario is in the Majors for the remainder of the 2017 season, the most service time he can accrue will be 62 days. That’ll leave him well short of Super Two trajectory and will put him on pace to reach arbitration eligibility following the 2020 season and free agency upon completion of the 2023 season.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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