Archive for Free Agency

There are few who doubt that, after finishing up his sixth season in Major League Baseball, Jason Heyward is a good player. Up for debate is precisely how good Jason Heyward has been during his career, and more importantly for whichever teams signs him this winter, how good Heyward will be moving forward. Attempting to measure defense with advanced statistics like UZR and DRS has its critics, and attempting to place a value on it can be difficult. Heyward has been an above average offensive player, incredible on defense, and heading into free agency a few months after turning 26 years old, provides few realistic players for comparison. Heyward will get paid. How much will he be worth?

Heyward’s main drawback, perhaps only drawback, as a player seeking more than $100 million is his lack of power. He hit 27 home runs in 2012, but recorded just 13 of them this year along with an isolated slugging percentage of .146, essentially league average. Combining average power with a low strikeout rate (14.8% in 2015) and a solid walk rate (9.2%), Heyward’s wRC+ of 121 puts him in the upper third in terms of the league’s hitters. Adding in 23 steals on 26 attempts and the rest of his baserunning, Heyward’s 22 runs above average on offense placed him within the top quarter of qualified hitters. Lacking in top shelf power, Heyward still provided solid numbers on offense, and after a disappointing start with he Cardinals, he hit .306/.375/.455 with a wRC+ of 130 from the beginning of May to the end of the season.

The lack of power does prevent easy comparison to most free agent mega-deals. The names brought up most recently with regard to Heyward are Jacoby Ellsbury, who got seven years and $153 million from the New York Yankees two years ago, and Carl Crawford, who received seven years and $142 million from the Boston Red Sox five years ago. While those deals might no look great now, age is a major factor. When Ellsbury was Heyward’s age, he had just completed his second full season. Crawford debuted young, but due to a team-friendly contract, he did not become a free agent until after his age-28 season, three years older than Heyward. Ellsbury, now 32, has been worth 21 wins since turning 26 while Crawford, 34, has been worth 22 wins over the last eight seasons. Solid production, that, despite some disappointing seasons mixed in.

Read the rest of this entry »

The theory goes that some players can turn it on in the final years of their existing contracts on their way to free agency. The data say otherwise, as both writers and teams, have discovered. In 2013, we witnessed two contrasting examples of walk years from Ubaldo Jimenez and Phil Hughes. Jimenez seemingly flipped a switch in June, pitched like his old self and exercised an out clause in his deal with Cleveland to jump feet-first into a cash-rich free-agent crop. Then there was Hughes, a pitcher who statistically regressed in his walk year. As Buster Olney tweeted yesterday:

Refrain of numerous evaluators this winter about Phil Hughes: Given everything he had at stake in his free agent year, why did he struggle?

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) November 25, 2013

Read the rest of this entry »

Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com is reporting the Los Angeles Dodgers have signed Dan Haren to a one-year, $10 million deal that has a vesting 2015 option if Haren works at least 180 innings next season. Last month, when we did our crowdsourcing for Haren, Carson Cistulli presented the following Haren facts:
Read the rest of this entry »

While the upcoming Free Agent crop isn’t the deepest in recent memory, there are a few sexy names at the top of the list. One of those names is of course Milwaukee Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder. Looking at his stats, we see a player who has accumulated 15.3 WAR over the last three seasons and is a perennial threat to launch 40 home runs and get on base over 40% of the time. However, due to his less than slim body type, it is not prudent to assume that he will age like most other Major League players.

In order to attempt to predict what Fielder will do over the life of his next contract, we should compare him to players with similar body types. Jeff Zimmerman has put together a list of 205 players who weigh more than 3.25 lbs per inch of height in order to construct an aging curve. To put that in perspective, a 6’0″ tall player would have to weigh a minimum of 234 lbs in order to be included in the sample.

Below is a graph that shows the aging curve of the heavy players we identified, and the curve for average sized players. Across the x-axis is age, and the y-axis runs (batting, positional, UZR), with 0 being the peak year. The y-axis shows how many runs below the peak year they are at a given age.

Read the rest of this entry »