Contract Crowdsourcing 2023-24: Ballot 4 of 11
Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2023-24 free agent market.
In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor-league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2024 Steamer600 projections.
Below are ballots for eight of this year’s free agents — in this case, another group of outfielders.
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 actually think the only one who will get a multi year contract here is Taylor. It won’t be super long or have a high AAV but he had a nice year and teams are desperate for center fielders.
I put 2/$22m for Heyward. The 2B Mookie experiment was a huge success for the Dodgers this year, in part because Heyward did a good job of holding down his end of the RF platoon. I think the Dodgers re-sign Heyward thinking:
I’m sure they’d like to do a 1yr deal but might have to go to 2 to beat another team.
I gave Heyward 2 and Taylor 3. This is another not too spectacular bunch.
There simply aren’t many good position players in this free agent class, based on 2023 WAR from the 2024 free agent tracker: Heyward is actually the best available outfielder in the entire year’s free agent class (near tie with Kiermaier). There just aren’t many league average position players I’d want anywhere but 1B or DH available this year.
I think Kiermaier is the best outside of Bellinger if he’s healthy–definitely better than Taylor. But he’s almost never healthy, so I’m not sure a long-term deal is going to come together for him.
A Kiermaier / Taylor or Kiermaier / Bader platoon would be deadly, not really thinking it’s going to come together though.
I gave Taylor 3 years, Heyward 2 years, and Pederson 4 years. Pederson is going to take advantage of a weak class and push for more years at a lower AAV imo. I think Hayward resigns with the Dodgers on a 2 year deal. Taylor will get 3 years from fringe contender that will flip him if they don’t see team-wide success after a season.
I can’t see Pederson getting anything close to what he got in 2023.
0.6 WAR isn’t going to have teams beating the door down.
Yeah, strict platoon, really should be dh only, terrible fantasy football league commissioner. I love the guy. Think he’s a good guy and good for the game, but he was also straight up fat at the end of the season. I can’t see teams committing more than a year there.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Brantley and Pollock retire, because I’m not sure they’ll get enough money to entice them to keep going.
I could see Brantley back in Houston for 1 yr $8M or so.
I had Pollock as no contract. I think he’s toast & teams know it.
I gave Pollock a MiLB contract, someone will take a flier on that if he’s willing to take the contract.
Teams will give MiLB contracts to almost anyone. The only reason a guy like Pollock wouldn’t get one is if he decides he’s had enough and is going to retire.
I had Brantley for a 1 year $7.6M contract and Pollock for a 1 year $3.2M deal.
Pederson’s been replacement level or worse 3 of the last 4 seasons. At age 32 he’s firmly in 1 year territory. Certainly won’t sniff 4
Agreed on Taylor. I can’t decide if I’m clever or delusional, but I think Joc might get 2 yr, $25-30m deals as platoon guys. Heyward, for sure, if he were younger But yeah, a LOTTA 1 yr/MiLB guys so far. Starting to think Bellinger might really cash in on being the only non Ohtani position player “star”
Chapman is there with Bellinger, but I don’t think that meaningfully changes things. I don’t really know what is going on with Joc Pederson, but he certainly is capable of delivering a strong offensive performance so maybe someone goes to two or three years. Heyward, I think he’s looking at another one year deal. Anyone who looks at one good year after all those bad ones should probably be hedging their bets.
Exactly why I gave Taylor the QO here. I would imagine Twins rather overpay for a year of a quality starting CF than have to fight over one in the scrap heap with everyone else.
at $20m??? Good chance you could get him on a 2 year deal close to $20m total