All the Non-Tendered Players, By the Projections

Tuesday night represented the deadline for clubs to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players. MLB Trade Rumors has rendered a service to the public by publishing a list of those players who were not tendered contracts by their respective clubs and who have, as a result, become free agents.

What follows is suspiciously like the aforementioned MLB Trade Rumors’ post, except for that the author — who remains employed by the present site for uncertain reasons — has also included the Steamer projections for all the non-tendered players prorated to 600 plate appearances for hitters (450 PA for catchers) and 200 innings for pitchers (65 IP for relievers).

Hitters
Here are the prorated Steamer projections, sorted by WAR, for those hitters who were non-tendered by their clubs:

# Name Age Pos PA AVG OBP SLG wRC+ Off Def WAR
1 Kyle Blanks 28 1B/OF 600 .251 .322 .426 111 7.6 -9.7 1.8
2 Everth Cabrera 28 SS 600 .251 .312 .336 84 -7.9 2.1 1.4
3 Andy Dirks 29 OF 600 .259 .321 .394 101 0.8 -7.5 1.3
4 Carlos Rivero 27 3B 600 .257 .303 .373 87 -8.8 0.5 1.2
5 Justin Smoak 28 1B 600 .238 .324 .400 105 0.6 -10.3 1.0
6 Slade Heathcott 24 OF 600 .246 .301 .383 90 -6.9 -3.2 1.0
7 Andrew Brown 30 OF 600 .238 .307 .403 99 -0.6 -10.2 0.9
8 Gordon Beckham 28 2B 600 .243 .294 .358 83 -11.8 0.2 0.8
9 Eric Young 30 OF 600 .243 .311 .334 83 -6.9 -5.2 0.7
10 Juan Francisco 28 1B/3B 600 .225 .289 .411 95 -4.0 -9.5 0.6
11 Adam Rosales 32 IF 600 .239 .297 .355 84 -11.5 -1.2 0.6
12 John Mayberry 31 OF 600 .233 .300 .385 93 -5.2 -9.6 0.4
13 Daniel Descalso 28 2B/3B 600 .242 .311 .342 83 -10.2 -5.6 0.3
14 John Baker 34 C 450 .203 .276 .271 54 -24.0 5.8 -0.5

Pitchers
Here are the prorated Steamer projections, sorted by WAR, for those pitchers who were non-tendered by their clubs:

# Name Age Hand IP K/9 BB/9 HR/9 FIP WAR
1 Kris Medlen 29 RHP 200 6.6 2.4 1.0 3.98 1.9
2 Brandon Beachy 28 RHP 200 6.8 3.1 1.2 4.47 0.8
3 Wesley Wright 30 LHP 65 7.6 2.9 0.7 3.60 0.2
4 David Huff 30 LHP 65 7.0 2.4 1.0 3.79 0.1
5 Wade LeBlanc 30 LHP 65 7.5 2.4 1.1 3.87 0.0
6 Alexi Ogando 31 RHP 65 7.8 2.8 1.0 3.91 0.0
7 Curtis Partch 28 RHP 65 8.9 4.1 1.0 4.13 0.0
8 Jose Campos 22 RHP 65 7.7 3.0 1.2 4.23 0.0
9 Yoslan Herrera 34 RHP 65 7.4 3.0 1.0 3.93 -0.1
10 Logan Ondrusek 30 RHP 65 7.7 3.0 1.0 3.97 -0.1
11 Francisley Bueno 34 LHP 65 6.3 2.7 1.0 4.08 -0.1
12 Chaz Roe 28 RHP 65 7.9 3.3 1.1 4.17 -0.1
13 Michael Kirkman 28 LHP 65 7.5 4.3 1.0 4.51 -0.2
14 Scott Carroll 30 RHP 65 5.2 3.1 1.0 4.65 -0.3
15 Kraig Sitton 26 LHP 65 5.4 3.8 1.2 5.01 -0.3
16 Gus Schlosser 26 RHP 65 6.0 3.7 1.2 4.91 -0.9
17 Scott Snodgress 25 LHP 200 5.2 5.1 1.4 5.74 -1.4

Three Brief Notes
Here are three brief notes of limited utility:

• While the prorated WAR projections provide a reasonable estimate of each player’s present true talent, it’s also true that a number of the players here, due to injury, are unlikely to play a full season. Former Atlanta right-handers Brandon Beachy and Kris Medlen, for example, both underwent Tommy John procedures last spring and won’t approach pitch a full complement of innings in 2015 — a major factor, no doubt, in the Braves’ decision not to tender them contracts.

• There are a number of players here who appear likely to provide value in 2015 — just not at the price their salaries would have dictated at this point on their respective arbitration calendars. Matt Swartz’ has created a model for projecting arbitration salaries, available here. One finds, for example, that Gordon Beckham, projected to produce about a win in 2015, would have likely earned $5.0 million by way of arbitration — a bit expensive for what amounts to a bench player at this point.

Kyle Blanks and Andrew Brown were invoked in these pages recently as potential sources of right-handed power available at a relatively affordable cost in the context of those seemingly inflated contracts given recently to Billy Butler, Michael Cuddyer, and Nelson Cruz.





Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.

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Jon
9 years ago

Where’s Gaby Sanchez? Probably the best bet for right handed power of all non-tenders. Did he already sign somewhere or just an oversight.

I think Blanks is really interesting, while Sanchez probably has less variance.