Welcome to FanGraphs’ top-50 free-agent rankings. Dave Cameron has previously been responsible for this annual post. This year, though, I’m leading the charge, with some assistance from my colleagues.

In what follows, I’ve provided contract estimates and rankings of the winter’s top free agents, along with market-focused breakdowns for the top-25 players and one case beyond that. (As for why I’ve provided commentary on only the top 25, you can decide for yourself whether it’s because my take on No. 46 Cody Allen was too hot for the internet or if all the players just kinda seemed the same to me by that point.) Meanwhile, a combination of Craig Edwards, Jay Jaffe, Eric Longenhagen, Meg Rowley, Dan Szymborski, and (in one case) Carson Cistulli have supplied the more player-focused breakdowns designed to provide some context for each player at this current moment in his career.

Note that players are ranked in the order in which I prefer them, in terms of the overall guaranteed money I’d spend on them. Usually, this is very similar to the order of overall contract values as both the crowd and I have projected. In some instances, that’s not the case, however — notably with the first and second players on the list. I explain my rationale where relevant.

Given how slow and frustrating last offseason was for the players, the biggest storyline to follow this winter will be how the market reacts. With the Dodgers and Yankees getting under the luxury tax specifically for this winter, multiple mid-market clubs rumored to be ready to spend, and rare stars in their prime on the market, there are fewer causes for restraint. I wouldn’t expect Harper or Machado to sign quickly, as both their agents and the players union will be focused on precedent-setting across the board and they’ll need to get the lay of the land first. If you’re interested in more notes and rumors, I’ve got a corresponding post up, but I didn’t want to make you scroll any further.

Now let’s get to the list.
– Kiley McDaniel

Kiley’s Take
Has produced roughly as many career wins as Harper and is projected to produce roughly the same number in the near future, but will likely be available for less. That and ability to play shortstop place him first.

Player Notes
Machado’s baserunning antics and related comments cast him as a villain during the Dodgers’ postseason run, but they probably won’t dent his market much. Despite splitting his season between Baltimore and Los Angeles, he set or tied career bests in all three slash stats, wRC+, walk and strikeout rates (9.9% and 14.7%), and homers. Given his age, he could maintain this level for a few years. Meanwhile, playing shortstop full-time for the first time since 2012, his pre-trade metrics were brutal (-7.2 UZR, -18 DRS in 96 games), but improved markedly post-trade (0.8 UZR, 6 DRS in 51 games) thanks to a combination of better positioning by the analytically inclined Dodgers and an emphasis on better anticipating batted balls as opposed just to reacting to them. Expect him to prioritize remaining at short and to receive a massive payday. – JJ

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Brock Burke was nowhere to be found on top-prospect lists when he was featured here at FanGraphs last June. But he did merit our attention. Tampa Bay’s third-round pick in the 2014 draft had one of the lowest ERAs in the minors at the time. While the sample size was small — just nine starts on the season — his dominance was undeniable. He’d begun to put himself on the map.

The southpaw out of Evergreen, Colorado wasn’t nearly as good after a mid-summer promotion from low-A Bowling Green to high-A Charlotte. His ERA as a Stone Crab was exponentially higher than it was as a Hot Rod — a Brobdingnagian 4.64 as opposed to a Lilliputian 1.10.

This year he flip-flopped his ebbs and flows. The 22-year-old lefty started slow, then got on a serious roll after earning a promotion to Double-A Montgomery in July. In nine starts for the Biscuits, Burke put up a 1.95 ERA and punched out 11.9 batters per nine innings. If win-loss records are your cup of tea, six of seven decisions went his way.

He blames this season’s slow start on a confluence of timidity and anger. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh, Jeff Sullivan, and ESPN’s Sam Miller recap the results of their 2018 minor league free agent draft and the surprising season of Wade LeBlanc, banter about Willians Astudillo and Delmon Young, discuss the defining memory of the 2018 season (and other seasons), and react to Clayton Kershaw’s contract extension. Then (28:54) they bring on Rob Neyer, author of the new book Power Ball: Anatomy of a Modern Baseball Game, to discuss how he picked a game and topics to write about, whether baseball is changing in worrisome ways, knowing when and how to cite stats and talk to players, an unintended consequence of a powerful MLB Players Association, the pace of baseball’s evolution, Rob Manfred’s performance so far, and much more.

Audio intro: The Whigs, "Say Hello"
Audio interstitial: Rockpile, "When I Write the Book"
Audio outro: Joanna Newsom, "The Book of Right-On"

Link to minor league FA draft episode
Link to EW competitions/draft spreadsheet
Link to Sam’s article on each season’s defining memory
Link to Sam’s article on 2017’s defining memory
Link to Sam’s Delmon transaction tree article
Link to Jeff’s Kershaw contract post

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Less than a week ago, Clayton Kershaw had to worry about every single pitch he was throwing in the World Series. And then after he threw most of those pitches well, but some of those pitches not well enough, he had to worry about the future of his career. Kershaw had to decide whether to opt out of his existing contract, which promised him $65 million over the next two years. If you’ve stayed in touch with baseball at all this week, you knew Kershaw and the Dodgers had moved the decision point to Friday. Decision’s been made. Kershaw will stay in LA, and he’s effectively getting a one-year extension.

Kershaw breakdown: $31M in 2019, ‘20 and ‘21, plus $1M each for 24 starts, 26 starts, 28 starts, 30 starts. Also gets $1.5M for Cy Young, $500K for second- or third-place finish.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 2, 2018

Instead of two years and $65 million, Kershaw’s contract has been reworked to three years and $93 million, with some achievable bonuses. This doesn’t guarantee that Kershaw will stay with the Dodgers for the rest of his life, but it’s a major step in that direction, since when this is over Kershaw will be approaching 34 years old. This was the clearest opportunity for Kershaw to leave. The opportunity wasn’t seized, and while I have no specific rooting interest, I’m rather pleased about that.

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Unlike Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, who retired after the 1973 and -76 seasons, respectively, Willie McCovey was still playing in 1978, which means that I was old enough to see the tail end of his career, and to have more than an inkling of his significance. My father and grandfather, lifelong Dodgers fans, spoke with a mixture of awe and “ohhhh” regarding the towering slugger nicknamed “Stretch,” while my eight-year-old brain marveled at the back of his 1978 Topps card, which required a different, smaller font than the standard cards in order to contain every season, and every home run — 493 of them, 92 more than any other player in the set — of a career that stretched back to 1959. McCovey was power-hitting royalty, with a regal bearing and a uniform number (44) that linked him both to Aaron, whose home run heroics I’d already read about, and Reggie Jackson, whose exploits I’d seen on television.

 
Indeed, McCovey was the only player to reach the 500 home-run plateau — which he did on June 30, 1978, the 12th player to do so — between September 13, 1971 (Frank Robinson) and September 17, 1984 (Jackson), and when he retired with 521, he was tied with Ted Williams for eighth on the all-time list. Jackson had only just passed McCovey when I encountered the two at Phoenix Municipal Stadium in March 1986. The former, entering his final season as an Angel, merely growled at my request (and the requests of several others) for an autograph, but the latter, a newly elected Hall of Famer and a spring instructor for the Giants, cracked a modest smile as he slowly and methodically signed every last scrap of paper handed to him.

So it was a sizable pang that I felt upon hearing Wednesday night’s news that McCovey passed away at the age of 80 after what the Giants called “a battle with ongoing health issues.” Of the small handful of Hall of Famers whose autographs I’ve obtained myself, I don’t think any had shuffled off this mortal coil until McCovey.

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Free agency officially begins on Saturday. While clubs have had the right this week to negotiate exclusively with their own departing players, that stops tomorrow. Tomorrow, anyone can talk to anyone.

As we enter free-agent season and attempt to understand which deals are likely and which are less so, it helps to have a sense of how much each club has to spend. Last offseason unfolded slow: teams and players battled on contract terms until spring. When the dust finally settled, payroll hadn’t actually increased from the previous year — a relatively rare occurrence, especially in an era when the game is so financially healthy.

That lack of upward movement in salaries was attributed, in part, to the impressive free-agent class of this winter. By looking at payrolls from the past couple years, we can get an idea of who has the most money to spend and who will need to significantly increase payroll if they want to get in on free-agent spending.

To begin, let’s consider what payrolls looked like at the beginning of the 2018 campaign.

That massive payroll worked out pretty well for the Red Sox: the World Series winners took advantage of the attempt by others clubs to stay under the competitive-balance tax threshold. At the other end of the payroll spectrum, meanwhile, Milwaukee, Oakland, and Tampa Bay managed to win a bunch of games without spending big, though the relationship between payroll and wins remains relatively strong.

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This past Sunday’s notes column led with Scott Radinsky’s evolution as a pitching coach. Admittedly old-school when he first started out, the former big-league left-hander has since incorporated a heavy dose of new-age into his approach. TrackMan and the Angels’ analytics team were his allies as he served as Anaheim’s bullpen coach each of the past three seasons.

Today we’ll hear from Radinsky on several of the team’s relievers going forward. He won’t be with them — along with a few other Angels coaches, he won’t be returning — but he certainly knows each of them well. Having been hands-on with their development — particularly the youngsters of the bunch — he sees plenty of blue skies ahead for the club’s bullpen.

———

Radinsky on Hansel Robles: “Sometimes it takes awhile for a guy to buy in to what we’re sharing with them, but once he does, he can make real strides. It’s not the Bible, but it is well-thought-out information. This isn’t like back in the day when a pitching coach was on his own island and relying on the naked eye. It’s valuable data that is given to us as coaches, and it’s our job to translate it and pass it along to the players. We can use it to make them better.

“We had guys come [to the Angels] and buy in. They would realize, ‘Damn, man.’ Hansel Robles, from the Mets. This guy was headstrong about using his fastball. His fastball is a great pitch — he can really backspin it at the top of the zone — but our encouragement was, ‘When the catcher puts down slider, you don’t always have to shake. Utilize the thing.’ And do you know what? The more he used it, the better it got. Not only that, the more respect his fastball got. The next thing you know, he became more of a complete pitcher, and we were able to use him in higher-leverage situations.

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