Contract Crowdsourcing 2019-20: Ballot 7 of 10
Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent offseasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract-crowdsourcing project this offseason, the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowds to the end of better understanding the 2019-20 free-agent market.
Below are ballots for 10 of this year’s free agents — in this case, a group of interesting starting pitchers, a few of whom are very good, including the possible American League Cy Young Winner, Gerrit Cole. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. Projected WAR figures from final the update of the 2019 Steamer forecast.
Meg is the editor-in-chief of FanGraphs and the co-host of Effectively Wild. Prior to joining FanGraphs, her work appeared at Baseball Prospectus, Lookout Landing, and Just A Bit Outside. You can follow her on Bluesky @megrowler.fangraphs.com.
I wonder how often a 40-year old pitcher with a 3-year average of 2.7 WAR/.180 IP is projected for 3.5 WAR/180 IP. And I wonder if any teams’ internal projections will match that projection.
The real question here is more the 180 innings part. Betting on him getting close to 180 IP would be even more foolish than betting on him getting to 3.5 WAR per 180 IP.
I can’t imagine any team that signs Rich Hill would expect >100 innings; seems like a decent bet to stay in LA in a curated role