Free-Agent Fantasy Baseball: 2018

Given that most MLB free agents this winter signed about two months later than they usually do, it's fitting that my annual roundup of the best all-free-agent team also drops about two months later than usual.

As a refresher for those of you new around here, every offseason, I comb through that year's free-agent class and assemble the best possible team from it—while working through the same constraints that real teams deal with, like a budget. So far, I have yet to find much success with this exercise (last year's team amassed just 17.0 fWAR, which would theoretically be good only for a 65–97 record), probably reflecting the fact that free agency is a really bad way to build a team. I have abiding hope, however, that this year, with its multitude of team-friendly contracts, might be different.

To build the team below, I went into the winter carrying over my payroll obligations from last year's all-free-agent team, which amounted to $103,083,333 for the nine players in black below. My goal, like most teams' nowadays, was to stay below the $197 million luxury tax cap for 2018, so that meant I had $93,916,667 to spend on two outfielders, a middle infielder, a DH, a backup catcher, a backup outfielder, three or four starting pitchers, and a whole bullpen. The 16 players in blue are who I settled on:

Given that he only cost a $20 million posting fee and a nominal signing bonus, Shohei Ohtani was an easy call, of course. Nippon Professional Baseball is a good source for free-agent bargains in general, though, one I mined for Miles Mikolas and Yoshihisa Hirano as well. CC Sabathia and Jaime García both signed for below-market $10 million, one-year deals. Plenty of talented bullpenners were also available for less than $5 million a year each, including ex-closers David Hernández and Héctor Rondón.

Pretty much my entire offense was plucked from the bargain bin late in the winter. Curtis Granderson was available for $5 million for one year despite averaging 3.5 fWAR over the last three years. Todd Frazier's two-year, $17 million deal was so good that I had to get creative, bumping incumbent third baseman Chase Headley to his original major-league position, left field. Indeed, front offices had so much patience to smoke out free agents this offseason that I blinked before many of the shrewder GMs did. Afraid of being the last one at the dance without a second baseman or DH, I signed Lucas Duda (one year, $3.5 million) and Howie Kendrick (one year, $3 million) only to see even more cost-efficient deals for better players (Mike Moustakas, Neil Walker) materialize later.

Ah well; a team-builder can hardly complain. I was able to construct a viable major-league roster on a final payroll that totaled just $194,593,333 ($209,393,333 in the unlikely event that all contract incentives are met). Now let's just hope they win more than 65 games.

Free-Agent Fantasy Baseball: 2017

Is it just me, or was this the longest hot-stove season ever? The other day, Pedro Alvárez—a 22-home-run hitter who in any other year would have been snapped up—finally signed a contract for 2017. He's not an anomaly, either; such big names as Jake Peavy, Ángel Pagán, and Jonathan Papelbon remain free agents well into spring training (and the WBC).

Hence the delay in publishing this post. A new tradition here at Baseballot is annually building the best possible 25-man rosters solely from the ranks of free agency. Then, at the end of the season, I look back and see how my "fantasy" team fared. Last year, my stint in the GM chair was an unqualified bust: my best estimate for my team's record was 65–97, and I saddled my imaginary franchise with a couple stinkers of a contract. So, naturally, I resolved to give it another whirl. Now that the offseason is complete, I've gone through the winter's entire crop of free agents and "signed" whom I deemed to be the best investments (and shrewdest bargains). This article, then, will be a unique tour through the best free-agent deals of 2016–2017.

Here are the ground rules for our little game. The goal is to simulate the real job of being a GM as faithfully as possible: our pretend team signs any free agent to the actual contract that he agrees to with a real major-league team. We have to fill every position on our team as if it were really taking the field: five starting pitchers, a bullpen with options from both the left and right side, one starting position player at each position (including DH), and a bench that can back up every spot on the field. Like a real GM, I forced myself to stick to a budget: the $195 million luxury-tax threshold that many teams are using as a de facto salary cap. And like a real GM, I made myself interact with events in real time, as they happened; I didn't allow myself to look back at the end of the offseason, after the market had played out, and choose the cheapest options. Instead, after news of a signing broke, I gave myself 48 hours to think it over and decide whether to add that player (and that contract) to our books—with no knowledge of any signings that came after.

Finally, to properly incentivize me not to mortgage the future with burdensome long-term contracts, I didn't just start a team from scratch. Instead, I carried forward the "franchise" that I started last year, inheriting its talent as well as its payroll obligations. Seven men from the 2016 edition of our team are under contract for 2017 as well: Jason Heyward, Hyun Soo Kim, Jed Lowrie, Álex Guerrero, Chase Headley, John Lackey, and James Shields. My first executive decision of the offseason was to release Guerrero, who had just one year and $5 million left on his contract. As a major-league bust now playing in Japan, he's not going to provide any value to our team, and his roster spot will be better used on someone new.

The team also held options on two other players: Hisashi Iwakuma and Jason Hammel. Again, to simulate real life most accurately, I chose to do what their true-life teams (the Mariners and the Cubs, respectively) did: pick up Iwakuma's option for $14.3 million and decline Hammel's option for a $2 million buyout. Iwakuma thus took Guerrero's place in the gang of seven carryover players.

But wait, there's more! According to the arcane rules of baseball transactions, I also had two more players who were not technically "under contract" but were still under team control for 2017: José Abreu and Nori Aoki. Were I a real major-league team, I would have had the choice to either non-tender them or enter the arbitration process to sign them for 2017. The non-tender and arbitration process happens over the winter right alongside the free-agent season, but from the beginning I never really doubted that I wanted to keep these two valuable, affordable players. Aoki eventually avoided a possible non-tender by agreeing to a one-year, $5.5 million contract with the Astros—a cheap price for an extremely consistent above-average hitter. Meanwhile, Abreu and the White Sox avoided arbitration by agreeing to a one-year, $10.825 million contract. Of course, I'd have been willing to pay up to twice that for this 100-RBI slugger.

Add it all up, and I entered the offseason with nine names already penciled in for 2017. Once the price tags for Aoki and Abreu were officially set, I had $123,358,333 in predetermined payroll obligations for 2017. Given our budget of $195 million, that meant I had $71,641,667 to spend on free agents for the remaining 16 spots on our roster: two or three starting pitchers, an entire bullpen, a starting catcher, a starting second baseman, a starting outfielder, a DH, a backup catcher, a backup infielder, and a "wild card"/utility player to fill any final holes.

Starting Pitchers

This year's crop of free agents was notoriously weak, but nowhere more so than at starting pitcher. The best starter on the market was universally agreed to be Rich Hill, who was uninspiring enough to have only merited a one-year, $6 million deal last offseason. This year, he ultimately signed for three years and $48 million—not a bad price, but then you remember that he's basically guaranteed to miss half the year every year with blisters. So who's the second-best pitcher on the market? Probably Hammel, who posted a very characteristic 105 ERA+ last year in Wrigley and has averaged 1.8 fWAR the past three years. Frustrated that I couldn't have him at the very affordable ($12 million) option year from his Cubs contract, I nonetheless targeted him early on to fill out the front end of my rotation.

In the meantime, I tied up the back end with two capable innings-eaters: R.A. Dickey ($8 million) and Bartolo Colón ($12.5 million). Both 40-somethings signed one-year deals with the Braves very early in the offseason. It was appropriate: like the rebuilding Braves, our team was also looking for low-cost stopgaps who won't embarrass us to serve as bridges until more permanent starting-pitching solutions hit the free-agent market in future years.

From those November signings, though, it was a long wait for Hammel. February 1 came and went, and the righty remained unsigned. Did the Cubs know something the public didn't—an injury, perhaps—when they declined that option? Was I saving a slot in my starting rotation for a savior who would never come? Thankfully not—Hammel inked a deal with the Royals just a week before spring training, and it was worth the wait: two years for a mere $16 million, including a $5 million salary in 2017. Against all odds, our team actually saved money by declining that option and resigning him—and now he is under team control for just $9 million in 2018 as well.

Relief Pitchers

This was an offseason that saw the all-time record for biggest contract given to a relief pitcher broken not once, but twice. I don't understand it. Relief pitcher is always the deepest position in free agency, and plenty of respectable pitchers are always available for a fraction of what Aroldis Chapman signed for. The issue is that they're not as consistent as the A-list relievers—but given the small sample sizes involved with pitching in relief (a third of the innings of a starting pitcher for even the most hard-working fireman), is that really so surprising? The key is to find a pitcher who slumped in the previous year but retains strong peripheral stats. I found one such candidate in Casey Fien, who signed with the Mariners for just $1.1 million in early December. Fien struggled to a 5.49 ERA in 2016 despite entering the campaign with a career 3.54 FIP and 4.58 K/BB ratio. An improbable 24.5% HR/FB rate inflated his 2016 ERA, but an elite spin rate on both his fastball and his curve is good reason to expect a bounceback.

Another such candidate I brought on board was Drew Storen, the perpetually unlucky former Nationals closer. In Washington, Storen's two high-profile choke jobs in the playoffs overshadowed a career 3.02 ERA there, and last year his 5.23 ERA between Toronto and Seattle belied a 3.69 K/BB ratio and 3.51 SIERA. Finally, I opted for another former closer in Shawn Tolleson, who signed with the Rays for a mere $1 million guarantee in mid-January. He quickly lost the Rangers' closer job in 2016 on his way to a 7.68 ERA, but that was thanks to a .372 BABIP, 59.9% LOB%, and 24.2% HR/FB percentage. His xFIP was dramatically better at 3.89, in line with his excellent 2014–2015, when he had a 143 ERA+.

For the token lefty in my 'pen, my first choice was Brett Cecil (an awesome 138 ERA+ and 3.98 K/BB ratio the last three years), but he signed for way too much (four years, $30.5 million). I waited patiently for the market to cool off, but it showed no sign. Mike Dunn signed for three years and $19 million, but there were still plenty of names available, so I kept waiting. Boone Logan signed for one year and $6.5 million, but there were still other names available, so I kept waiting. Jerry Blevins signed for one year and $6.5 million, and, well, it was getting late in the offseason, but I had come this far, right? Finally, my patience paid off—one of the last southpaws to come off the board was J.P. Howell, who hitched up with the Blue Jays for only $3 million over one year. Like the rest of my relievers, Howell had a down year in 2016, but by his standards this merely meant "barely below average" (a 4.09 ERA). His K/BB ratio actually improved over 2015 (from 2.79 to 2.93), and his SIERA of 3.36 was virtually unchanged from his career norms.

Leaving my bullpen shopping until the last minute, when players are scrambling for jobs, paid off in another way as well. In mid-February, I got a player I never would've expected to be able to afford at the beginning of the offseason: Sergio Romo. Romo is, without exaggeration, one of the best relievers in baseball, posting a 1.8 fWAR in 2015 albeit missing time with injury in 2016. Nevertheless, according to FanGraphs, he allowed the second-lowest exit velocity on batted balls of any pitcher last year. For a mere $3 million for one year, I got to install the newest Dodgers reliever as my closer.

Finally, I was hoping to snag Joe Blanton to fill my final bullpen slot, but the Mets' signing of Fernando Salas in mid-February (one year, $3 million) was an offer I couldn't refuse. SIERA has been in love with Salas the past few years: 2.82 in 2014, 2.65 in 2015, and 3.72 in 2016. Despite that recent spike, he still posted an above-average ERA last year and finished the season on a 19-strikeout, zero-walk tear with the Mets. Of course, only about two weeks later, Blanton signed for pretty much the same price ($4 million), but that's the uncertain exercise of team-building for you.

Catcher

Initially, catcher looked like the hardest slot on my roster to fill—it's already the scarcest position on the free-agent market, so finding a good catcher there is nearly impossible. When Jason Castro signed with the Twins for $24.5 million over three years, I became worried that the catcher market would be so out of control I would have to play in the shallow end. Fortunately, this ended up not being the case. Wilson Ramos, clearly the best catcher available, fell to the Rays for just $12.5 million over two years due to a torn ACL suffered at the end of 2016. Although he is expected to miss the first half of 2017, having an above-average catcher at an affordable salary for one and a half years after that wasn't something I could pass up.

The rest of the catching market was also super affordable: Welington Castillo for one year, $6 million; Matt Wieters for one year, $10.5 million. At those prices, I was tempted to snag myself another starting-caliber receiver—when else are they going to be this cheap?!—but even those modest price tags proved impossible to fit into my budget so late in the offseason. By the new year, I really only had room for small transactions here and there, so I was forced to turn to a traditional backup catcher: Alex Avila, who had a .359 OBP last year and figures to get a decent number of at-bats against righties in Detroit.

Second Baseman

I flirted with the idea of moving Jed Lowrie to second and signing Ian Desmond to play shortstop, but Desmond's five-year, $70 million deal with the Rockies was just too rich for my blood—plus they signed him to play first base, basically confirming that his shortstop-playing days are behind him. Instead, I put all my eggs in a long-sought-after basket: José Miguel Fernández, the Cuban infielder I've coveted since his first attempt to defect in 2014. Back then, he was a 26-year-old on-base machine, considered the third-best player in Cuba and ready to step onto a major-league team. Unfortunately, politics have since robbed him of two years of his prime. After failing to defect, he was suspended from the Cuban national team in 2015; then, he defected successfully and spent 2016 establishing residency and looking for work. The Dodgers finally signed him this January to a minor-league deal with a $200,000 signing bonus—far less, surely, than he would have received had he arrived in mint condition. At the time, I was elated with the signing; the Dodgers had a gaping hole at second base, and Fernández looked primed to share in or even seize the starting job there. Once I inked Fernández and his bargain-basement contract into my fantasy team's starting lineup, though, the Dodgers pulled a deft double play: they traded for Logan Forsythe and signed Chase Utley to plug their hole at the keystone. That makes our signing of Fernández likely to be a low-impact one, but at least it barely cost us any dough.

Outfield/Designated Hitter

These were the two open spots in my lineup where I knew I needed to add significant offense. Problem was, our budget really only had space for one big-ticket signing. I knew early on that it wouldn't be Yoenis Céspedes—his $27.5 million average annual value would have been a third of my total winter expenditures, all on one player. Instead, I set my sights on the second tier, and I found my man in Carlos Beltrán. With 89 wRC and a 122 OPS+ last year, the 39-year-old has proven that he can produce runs even in old age—yet at $16 million for one year, he's almost half the cost of Céspedes. (And in an advantage over other mid-tier sluggers like Josh Reddick, there's no such thing as a bad one-year deal.)

As the market developed, though, I began to wonder if Beltrán had been the right call. The later signings of Matt Holliday ($13 million) and Carlos Gómez ($11.5 million) to cheaper one-year deals gave me slight buyer's remorse. Meanwhile, I watched as the very best free-agent hitters settled for contracts that were frankly far more reasonable than we've come to expect: Justin Turner for $64 million/four years, Edwin Encarnación for $60 million/three years, and even José Bautista for $18.5 million/one guaranteed year and two option years. None of those deals would have been crippling to our imaginary franchise in the long term, but they all would have significantly broken the bank for 2017. With Beltrán in the fold, I had to look for not only a budget option, but also—given that Beltrán is primarily a DH at this point—specifically an outfielder.

Michael Saunders would have fit the bill nicely, but when he signed with the Phillies, it was for $9 million—a little pricey for a guy who amassed only 262 at-bats in the two years prior to his breakout 2016. I passed, but my options dwindled as the offseason ran its course. ($37.5 million over three years for a guy—Mark Trumbo—with the same amount of fWAR over the last three years as Daniel Nava? No thanks.) By the end of January, it looked like I had painted myself into a corner—but then Colby Rasmus dropped into my lap. Rasmus matched Saunders with 1.4 fWAR in 2016 but, because the Rays waited until he was the last outfielder in the bar at closing time, they snagged him for only one year and $5 million. Rasmus has been a frustrating player: in 2015, he showed offensive potential, hitting 25 home runs with a 116 OPS+. Then he was terrible offensively last year (a .641 OPS) but saved an astounding 20 runs on defense. For $5 million, it's worth taking the gamble that he can combine his 2015 batting value (9.6 runs above replacement), 2015 baserunning value (5.2), and 2016 fielding value (14.9) into another season to rival his 5.1 fWAR showing in 2013.

Bench

The well runneth dry of middle infielders. Only one, Lowrie, carries over from the 2016 team, forcing us to sign someone new to back up not only him at shortstop, but also our new starting second baseman. Unfortunately, the market was historically thin at shortstop; Sean Rodríguez was the only halfway respectable option, and after coming off an aberrant 126 OPS+ season, he ended up costing an unreasonable $11.5 million over two years. So I had to get creative—and I plugged my backup-infielder hole with Cuban amateur Lourdes Gourriel Jr. The son of Cuban superstar Lourdes Gourriel Sr., the younger Gourriel projects as an average hitter with decent pop but, crucially, can play all over the field. He played mostly left field and second base in Cuba and worked out at shortstop and center field in his major-league showcase. The Blue Jays finally signed him to be a middle infielder, "or possibly a third baseman." Best of all, he came cheap: $22 million over seven years, including just $600,000 in 2017. Although his immediate value will be limited (Toronto plans to start him in the minors), that's a huge break for a cash-strapped team like ours.

Clearly Ross Atkins and I think similarly, because his Blue Jays also inked maybe my top target of the offseason: Steve Pearce. Pearce was on my all-free-agent team last year as well, and all he did was hit .288/.374/.492 with 2.0 fWAR. That doesn't even account for his value in position-switching: he covered first, second, third, left field, and right field at various points last year. An excellent lefty masher, Pearce hits well enough to not only back up all around the field, but also platoon with the left-handed-hitting Fernández, Aoki, and/or Rasmus.

So there you have it: the Baseballot all-free-agent fantasy team for the 2017 season. Unfortunately, it ended up costing me slightly more than my allotted budget. Salary obligations for these 25 total up to $200,043,333 guaranteed, with a maximum payroll of $211,193,333 if all incentives are met. Let's say I have a very generous team owner or something; just go with it. Now, with actual, meaningful baseball games just a few weeks away, let's sit back and see how this team performs. Watch this space at the end of the season, when I simulate how a team with their stats would have placed in the standings. Then we'll see if I'm as good at judging baseball talent as I am at sticking to a budget!

If a Team Did Nothing but Sign Free Agents, How Would They Do?

Last winter, I embarked upon an experiment: build a hypothetical baseball team entirely from free agency. The rules were straightforward. I would simulate, as faithfully as possible, the circumstances of the offseason and the economic constraints that real GMs work under. I set a budget of $200 million and "signed" players to the same contracts they received in real life. I required myself to make decisions in real time, as quickly as possible after news broke of a new signing—like real GMs, I could not benefit from the hindsight of knowing that, say, Dexter Fowler would sign a bargain $13 million contract after Alex Gordon signed his $72 million one. I forced myself to find two players to play each position on the field—one to start, one to back up—and a full complement of five starting pitchers and a seven- or eight-man bullpen. It was harder than I expected—but I did ultimately field a roster of 25 for a combined salary of $193,990,833. Here's my 2016 "fantasy" team:


Now for the big question—how did I rate as a GM? Did I score some good bargains, or did I saddle my franchise with regrettable megacontracts? Most importantly—did I build a winning team?

It was a good lesson in the unpredictability of baseball and the dangers of the free-agent market: for the most part, I crashed and burned as a GM. But my team wasn't totally hapless, and there were some pleasant surprises in the bunch.

Overall, my players amassed 17.5 wins above replacement (using the FanGraphs version of WAR, including RA9-WAR for pitchers), which would theoretically translate to a record of 65–97. My team exhibited a capable offense, slashing .263/.335/.419. That would have been the fourth-best OBP in baseball but the 15th-best slugging percentage, as my hitters couldn't keep up with 2016's home-run-happy scoring environment. However, my team was miserable at pitching, posting a 4.63 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, and 4.76 FIP. Even worse, many of my pitchers, including C.J. Wilson, Henderson Alvárez, and Kris Medlen, were injured and barely played. My pitchers only amassed 947.1 IP, compared to the MLB average of 1444. If you use replacement players to fill in the gap, my team's stats would rise to a 4.72 ERA, 1.39 WHIP, and 4.77 FIP.

Easily the worst contract on my books is James Shields's $75 million deal. He actively harmed my team this year with a 5.85 ERA, 10.3 hits per nine innings, and the worst peripheral stats of his career. My attempts to cobble together a bullpen on the cheap also fell flat. My best signing was Yusmeiro Petit, who gave me a 4.50 ERA in 62 innings for the $3 million I paid him. Meanwhile, Matt Albers stunk up the joint to the tune of a 6.31 ERA, and Carlos Villanueva wasn't much better at 5.96 despite pitching in PETCO Park. The rest of my bullpen, Jason Frasor and Neal Cotts, didn't pitch in the majors at all.

Offensively, I caught lightning in a bottle with Mike Napoli, who led my team with 34 home runs, although it only translated to 1.0 WAR; still, at $7 million for one year, I'll take it. Steve Pearce was another great bargain signing. For $4.75 million, I received a .288/.374/.492 batting line, positional flexibility, and 2.0 WAR. Carlos Beltrán anchored my lineup with an .850 OPS and 2.3 WAR. Finally, my faith in Hyun Soo Kim was validated when, after a terrible spring training for the Orioles, he bounced back by hitting .302/.382/.420 over half a season. Even Jason Heyward produced 1.6 WAR, although this was far below everyone's expectation when he signed with the Cubs for $184 million and eight years. He slashed just .230/.306/.325 and was the most disappointing member of my lineup. His is another contract that could cripple my pretend franchise, although personally I think Heyward was more unlucky than bad last year and would reserve judgment for one more year.

So let's find out, shall we? I'll carry over my imaginary team into this offseason and again try to build it into a contender—on budget—using only free agents. Like in real life, though, I'll have to do it while operating under existing payroll commitments: the handful of players on my old team still under contract for 2017 and beyond. It's a list that includes some bad—Heyward and Shields—but also some good—Kim, John Lackey, and José Abreu. Stay tuned to see which players from this winter's historically shallow free-agent class I decide to roll the dice on this time.

Free-Agent Finishing Touches

Pitchers and catchers have reported; Spring Training games have begun; players are even starting to fall victim to cuts and injuries. With the signings of the last big free agents like Ian Desmond and Dexter Fowler, the hot-stove season is also officially over. That means it's time to reveal the final roster for Baseballot's All-Free-Agent Team. In two previous installments, I went through the offseason in real time "signing" the best free agents to one imaginary team. In February, we plugged the team's final holes (the blue names below). Here is the 25-man active roster; my logic and justifications after the jump:

Infield

With one position player slot left and a hole at second base, I narrowed my choices down to recent Cuban defector José Fernández and Juan Uribe. But then Steve Pearce signed with the Rays on a team-friendly, one-year, $4.75 million deal. Pearce, if you've read some of my other blog posts, is one of the most intriguing baseball players in my book—an ostensibly part-time player who burst out for a .930 OPS in 2014 on the basis of peripheral stats that were actually quite solid. He's also very versatile defensively, playing over 120 innings at second base last year. Don't think I didn't notice that; it's not enough playing time for me to claim, in good conscience, he can be a staring second baseman, but as a utility man... That could work!

The downside to this is that Álex Guerrero, who horrified scouts with his play in the field last year, is now our team's starting second sacker. That's not ideal, but second is much easier to play than shortstop, Guerrero's natural position. And the chance to buy into a legitimate breakout candidate like Pearce is too good to pass up. It also proved to be a safe play: Fernández still hasn't signed with a team, raising doubts that he will play at all in 2016.

Relief Pitcher

The remainder of the open jobs on the all-free-agent team were in the bullpen. My strategy here was to pass on all the lucrative, $6-million-a-year reliever contracts and wait until the last minute to snatch up the bargains that are always left over at the end of the offseason. (You can't wait around and safely assume that there will be a good shortstop still on the market by February, when remaining free agents can be signed at huge discounts, but there will always be good relievers; it's always the deepest position in free agency, with hundreds of players on the market and not that many guaranteed bullpen jobs.) The gambit served me well, as I think I built a solid bullpen for just a few million a pop.

Korean closer Seung-hwan Oh, nicknamed the Final Boss, had 41 saves in Japan last year, and at first I targeted him as a dominant but probably below-market-price finisher. When he signed with the Cardinals, though, reports were sketchy about how much he was paid—and the implication was that it was a pretty penny. Scrapping that plan, I resolved that "closer" is just an intimidating label, and I threw Yusmeiro Petit—who still holds the MLB record for most consecutive batters retired!—into the role. That freed me up to look for a setup corps on the cheap.

When the Cardinals signed Carlos Villanueva last offseason on a minor-league deal, I really liked it for the team. Sure enough, he filed a 2.95 ERA in a long-relief role, continuing his career-long ability to absorb quality innings. When he signed a $1.5 million deal with the Padres this offseason, I knew I had to have him. His .265 BABIP last year indicates some regression may be in store, but that will be mitigated by pitching in PETCO Park.

In mid-January, Joe Blanton signed a $4 million, one-year contract with the Dodgers. I was a big believer in his 2015, when he reinvented himself as a 25.6%-strikeout-rate reliever, but even this fairly average contract was a bit too rich for my blood. I was confident that better deals would bubble up for comparable relievers, and I was right: a few days later, the White Sox signed Matt Albers for $2.25 million. Injured and insanely lucky (with a left-on-base percentage of 95.1%), Albers put up a 1.21 ERA in 37.1 innings in 2015. Nevertheless, his FIP was still a solid 3.48, and he has a long track record of excellence thanks to an ability to get groundballs (59% in 2015). His injury is unlikely to be nagging, as it was a broken finger suffered in a bench-clearing brawl.

Albers completed my right-handed arsenal, although there were even more options I could have sprung for. Tommy Hunter, who has allowed just two walks per nine innings in his career, signed for the bargain rate of $2 million, although it later turned out he was injured, so our team likely dodged a bullet. Even cheaper was Ryan Webb, who cost the Rays just $1 million.

I had just one opening left—for my bullpen's left-handed specialist. I was hot in pursuit of Angels non-tender-ee César Ramos, but his was a curious case. After putting up a 3.33 ERA in 135 innings since 2014, he's the kind of guy who might have been in line for a hefty multi-year deal. Instead, he signed with the Rangers on a minor-league deal, and the team announced they would convert him to a starter. Unusual, to say the least—but this also meant he wouldn't work in the role we wanted him for.

Antonio Bastardo was also on my short list, but he got the rare lucrative deal late in the offseason. This had me scraping the bottom of the barrel for lefties—Matt Thornton and Neal Cotts were two of the only reliable ones left. Finally, in late February, Cotts won the staring contest of who would sign first. He went to the Astros for only $1.5 million—certainly affordable for our imaginary ballclub.

Starting Pitcher

With seven starting pitchers on our roster as of several months ago, this wasn't a position where we were looking to add—but I was certainly tempted to when Mat Latos hitched up with the White Sox for $3 million. Latos had a terrible 2015, posting a 4.95 ERA for three teams (all of which seemed to hate him), but the previous two years he carried 3.25 and 3.16 ERAs. His strikeout-to-walk ratio in 2015 indicated he hadn't actually gotten any worse but instead was just supremely unlucky. Three million dollars is a steal for any starting pitcher, let alone one who is actually a good candidate for a bounceback. And although Latos has a reputation for being injury prone, if he is merely a league-average pitcher for two months, then suffers a season-ending malady, he'll still have been a bargain. (Mediocre starting pitchers regularly sign for $12 million a year these days, so a third of a mediocre season is worth $4 million.) I was upset I couldn't fit him onto my team, but he is a perfect example of the virtues of staying patient throughout the free-agent season. This year, I simply didn't wait out the market long enough. Sad!

* * *

At the beginning of the offseason, I pledged to build a 25-man roster of free agents under the constraints of a $200 million payroll. It was a close call, but we came in under budget, as our 25 players are guaranteed $193,990,833 for the 2016 season. The final roster will be viewable on this website all season long, and after the campaign I'll take a look back to see how they fared. Were they worth all that money? Or did I waste a not-so-small fortune on a bunch of replacement players? Stay tuned!

This Holiday Season, the Best Gifts Will Be These Four Free Agents

Merry Christmas, a belated happy Hanukkah, and an early happy new year to the baseball-blog-reading internet. I have a present for you: the latest update to the Baseballot All-Free-Agent Team. This offseason, readers and I are assembling the best possible baseball team constituted solely of current and recent free agents. Read the rules of our little game here; catch up on the first wave of "signings" here, and contribute to the team by tweeting me here.

We've added four players to the team in the last couple weeks: Jason Heyward, Hyun Soo Kim, Mike Napoli, and Henderson Álvarez. Our team's payroll is now up to $184,940,833 for 2016. That means we have just over $15 million left to spend before hitting our self-imposed budget of $200 million. Here's what the team looks like as we enter 2016:

Outfield

Like a thunderclap from some out-of-season Midwest supercell, all of St. Louis felt a shudder when Heyward signed an eight-year, $184 million contract with the Cubs. Despite the deal probably being this offseason's biggest for a position player, it was actually underpaying for the svelte outfielder. He may not match up in traditional offensive stats (13 homers, 79 runs, 60 RBI), but Heyward's huge value added in baserunning (+7 runs) and defense (+24 runs) make him one of the best players in baseball. For a six-win player, $23 million a year is a steal. And, while I'm normally leery of long-term contracts, this one is likelier than most to work out because of Heyward's age: he's a mere 26. The deal will encompass four or five years of his peak—not begin just as he starts to fade, as is the case for most free agents. This, of course, is all assuming Heyward doesn't opt out after three years, as is his wont under the contract. Even so, the agreement would work out to $78 million for three of his prime years. That's a fair market rate. Since our team is going for broke on the field, let's go for broke off it too. Heyward's the new face of our fake franchise.

Heyward's signing left us with just one slot to fill in the outfield: a backup position. As at most positions in this loaded free-agent class, our options are an embarrassment of riches. The going price for a solid complementary piece was between $5 and $6 million: Rajai Davis and Alejandro De Aza both got one-year deals in that range. I'd have been satisfied with both: they typically deliver league-average OPSes and create about 50 runs a season in limited time. But is that worth $6 million? On the other side of the spectrum, I loved the Angels' signing of Daniel Nava at $1.375 million for one year—always cast as a bench player, he was nonetheless worth 2.6 WAR just one season ago—but I wasn't confident that he would get enough plate appearances. Thankfully, I had an easy out of this conundrum: Kim, the 27-year-old Korean outfielder who just signed with the Orioles for two years and $7 million. In Kim, our hypothetical team gains a patient hitter expected to get regular playing time in Baltimore entering his physical prime, and at a lower price point to boot. Even after Jung Ho Kang, the market for Korean baseballers remains undervalued. Although it's not realistic to expect Kim to replicate the 28 home runs he hit for the Doosan Bears in 2015, his main skill is contact and batting eye, a skill that should translate. Even with an offensive dropoff, he'll walk enough and strike out rarely enough to be worth $3.5 million a year.

Infield

For our vacant DH spot, I opted for Napoli on a $7 million salary. Napoli's down year last season was due mostly to his .252 BABIP with the Red Sox; when he was traded back to the Rangers, he was a changed man (.295/.396/.513). His two biggest skill sets—power and ability to take a walk—were unaffected by age, injury, or bad luck, so at a relatively low salary, I like his odds to be MIKE NAPOLI again.

The DH spot came down to Napoli or Orioles utilityman Steve Pearce, whose .930 OPS season in 2014 has me convinced he's ready for a bigger role. However, I ultimately decided a Napoli in the hand is worth two Pearces in the bush. We have no guarantee that Pearce will receive significant playing time in 2016 (unlike Napoli, who the Indians have said will start at first base for them), and his salary is a mystery too.

There's a small chance I can still shoehorn Pearce onto our team. Our one remaining vacancy on offense is a second baseman, and Pearce played a bit of 2B in 2015 for the Orioles. It may not be his primary position (that's first base and the outfield, where he's actually an above-average defender), but he held his own with 6.5 UZR/150 there last year. The other options for our starting second baseman aren't inspiring. I could sign Pearce to be our utilityman and install incumbent Álex Guerrero as the starter at second, but his defense is even more suspect (though a natural shortstop, he has played only third and left field in the majors, and badly at that). I'll take a hard pass on Daniel Murphy, too; his 2015 was a career year, his defense saps a lot of his value, and he's on the wrong side of 30. Juan Uribe is a name I'll keep an eye on; though he's likely to be a part-timer going forward, he's produced a ton of value in that role before thanks to outstanding defense, including 5.0 WAR (!) in 426 plate appearances in 2013. If I can afford him (and if he establishes legal residency in time), my first choice would be José Fernández—but no, not that one. The 27-year-old Cuban defector fits a pattern I've well established here: in exchange for their lack of major-league track record, international free agents can usually be had at discounts, and their relatively young age means their prime years are usually still ahead of them.

Starting Pitcher

Dodgers fans felt their insides turn a little bit when the report out of Japan leaked that Hisashi Iwakuma had failed his physical. We can relate. Iwakuma was one of the all-free-agent team's first signings, and a personal favorite of mine—the low-ERA, low-WHIP guy with excellent fundamentals who came at a fraction of the cost of a David Price or Zack Greinke. Los Angeles backed away from their three-year, $45 million deal, letting Seattle swoop in and re-sign him to a complex contract. If healthy, Iwakuma will get a similar $47.5 million over three years, but the risk to the team is much less—"the Bear" is only guaranteed one year and $12 million. That built-in safety convinced me to stick with Iwakuma where the Dodgers didn't. Looks like we don't need to dip back into the pool for an emergency starter after all.

Still, the uncertainty means it might not be a bad idea to build some starting-pitcher depth. Bartolo Colón's $7.25 million deal to return to the Mets—reportedly lower than offers he received elsewhere—was tempting for a guy who can still be an effective starter. But I decided to go with upside. Álvarez had a gruesome 2015, dealing with two serious injuries and ghastly results when he did take the field. But when right, he's a young starter with great stuff and the ability to dominate. The Marlins' head-scratching non-tender of him meant that his next team would control him for two years under the arbitration process, a chance too good to pass up. The A's signed him to just $4.25 million guaranteed. That's the price of a decent reliever—except this $4.25 million contract has the chance to be worth tens of millions. This was an easy call and, barring another failed physical, ends my pursuit of starting pitching once and for all. (Sorry, Wei-Yin Chen.)

Relief Pitcher

The bullpen market has exploded since my last post. I'd have loved Steve Cishek as my closer and Tony Sipp as my lefty weapon out of the 'pen—but both signed for contracts that were far too rich ($10 million and $18 million, respectively). Shawn Kelley would be a good eighth-inning guy, right? Only if I want to pay him $15 million (I don't). Maybe Ryan Madson would be a cheap alternative at closer due to his injury history. Nope—somehow he got $22 million. This is a world where Jerry Blevins, a useful lefty but one who only pitched seven innings total last year, got $4 million guaranteed. I'm truly taken aback at how the usually affordable reliever market has gone to the next level.

Most of the truly safe relievers are now off the board, and I still have three slots to fill in late relief. Maybe it's time to get worried? But, as I explained a couple weeks ago, relief pitching is the ultimate crapshoot. I'd almost be comfortable waiting to just sign the last three relievers who ink contracts in February/March; because of the nature of the market, they'll be the cheapest, and because of the inherent randomness of bullpens, they won't necessarily be any worse. I'm not ready yet to succumb to the pressure of the fast-moving market and overpay.

Got any sleeper picks for good free-agent relievers? I'm open to pretty much any suggestions!

The Five Best Free-Agent Signings Coming Out of the Winter Meetings

After a couple weeks of simmering, then scalding hot stove action, the Baseballot all-free-agent team is starting to take shape. Here's how the roster looks now:


The blue names are players we've "signed" so far this offseason. They've added $38,007,500 to our existing payroll of $122.1 million. That leaves us with $39,892,500 left to spend before we hit our self-imposed budget of $200 million.

Here's why we chose who we did, why we passed on some particularly tempting names, and who our targets will be in the coming weeks.

Starting Pitcher

We only had two open spots in the starting rotation, and with the depth of this year's free-agent crop at that position, I wanted to make them count. That's why I didn't even consider options like Marco Estrada, whose 3.13 ERA was an illusion, having been backed up by a 4.40 FIP, or Jeff Samardzija, who got $90 million over five years despite being pretty terrible in two of the last three years (I'm not at all convinced that his 2014 self was the real version, especially after his 4.18 SIERA in 2015).

Jordan Zimmermann has long been a favorite of mine—after years of going to Nats games in DC, I've probably seen him play more than any other pitcher. When he signed for what felt like the below-market rate of $110 million over five years, I thought about pulling the trigger. But luck of the draw already stuck us with two $20-plus-million-a-year starting pitchers (James Shields and CJ Wilson), and it felt like a luxury to grab a third. Plus, while basic projections by FanGraphs predict he'll be worth the deal just about exactly, there are undeniable risks like his replaced elbow ligament, velocity decrease last year, and high second-half ERA. The market also boasts two Zimmermann clones in strike-throwers Wei-Yin Chen and Hisashi Iwakuma, whose price tags are substantially cheaper. With sadness, I passed on bringing my old ballpark constant on board our little experiment.

Speaking of Iwakuma, he was near or at the top of my wish list from day one of this experiment. The quality of his pitching compares to the top-tier options at this position. His ERA− over the last three years, 84, is the same as Zimmermann's and not far off David Price's 78. His SIERA over that time frame is 3.21, better than Zack Greinke. He also has the best K/BB ratios of anyone on the market other than Price (5.29 last year, 5.36 over the last three years). Only on quantity does he not match up—he's pitched 179 and 129.2 innings the last two years. Because of this, plus his age (34), we knew he would get a much cheaper deal, and that was borne out when he signed a three-year, $45 million deal with the Dodgers. In the friendly environment of Dodger Stadium and the National League, his ability to pitch to that value isn't in question, even if he misses up to a third of starts during that period.

John Lackey was in the same boat as Iwakuma. Lackey's 2.77 ERA, 3.30 K/BB, and 3.6 fWAR last year were comparable to elite free-agent starters, but his advanced age (36) kept him cheaper (two years, $32 million). But age hasn't slowed him down so far (he pitched 218 innings last year), so this feels like a low-risk bet. Essentially, for $31 million—the average annual value of a Price or Greinke—we got two almost-as-good starters who are just at different stages of their career. Although there remain lots of interesting names on the starting-pitcher market, our team's rotation is now full, and I think we're probably done at this position unless a crazy bargain presents itself.

Relief Pitcher

I have, apparently, an unusual outlook on building a bullpen: there's no need to spend money to do it. Sure, the absolute best relievers—Darren O'Day ($31 million over four years), Joakim Soria ($25 million over three years)—cost money, but what you're really paying for is their 100% reliability, not their stellar numbers. You can get stellar numbers elsewhere for much less cash thanks to the fact that relievers only throw 50 innings a year—a small sample in which anything can happen. The key is to sign guys who are likely, but not certain, to post stellar numbers for significantly cheaper. Guys like Ryan Webb (3.20 ERA in 2015), César Ramos (2.75), or Joe Blanton (2.84), clearly, are capable of excellence, but they will cost less because they're not sure things. When building a bullpen, it's smarter—or at least more cost-effective—to sign a boatload of these types. If three or four of them work out, you've got a good bullpen for almost nothing.

For that reason, although we have no less than five open bullpen spots, I'm not swimming in the deep end of the pool. And because there are over 100 free-agent relievers, we can afford to wait around for the bargains to surface. With most signings so far being the big fish of the market, I haven't seen a lot of these yet. I was tempted by Justin De Fratus ($750,000) and Ernesto Frieri ($850,000) because they were so cheap, but there are others I like better who will still come at an acceptable price (say, $3 million).

Chad Qualls is a perfect example. Although he put up a 4.38 ERA last year, his SIERA was 2.60, and he has among the game's best walk (1.6 BB/9) and strikeout (8.4 K/9) rates. His deal this week, for $6 million over two years, would have been an excellent value—if it wasn't with the Rockies. Calling Coors Field home will be death to Qualls's ERA, limiting his value to our make-believe team. Going into this exercise, Qualls was my top pick for our vacant closer job, but this signing forced me to move on.

The only relief signing I liked enough to add was the Nationals' one-year, $3 million deal with Yusmeiro Petit. Petit was an average pitcher last year but has always been a strike-thrower, helping him to realize stretches of dominance in the past. His ability to mop up innings also increases his total value. He's on our team.

Outfield

Colby Rasmus was a tempting target after he accepted his qualifying offer—after all, there's no such thing as a bad one-year deal. But ultimately the $15.8 million price was too big a percentage of our budget to justify on a player who is solid but not elite. At prices that high, we might as well aim for the best. Let's just say we'll be very competitive in the bidding for Jason Heyward...

Until Heyward signs, the outfield market isn't expected to budge much, but one notable early signing was Nori Aoki to the Mariners. There are lots of similar cheap-ish, solid outfield options to complement the Heyward/Justin Upton/Alex Gordon top tier, including Marlon Byrd, Gerardo Parra, and a dark horse pick of mine, Hyun Soo Kim. However, each comes with a red flag explaining why they're not more expensive. Byrd's is his age, and the fact that he has rapidly declined from an OPS+ of 137 to 109 to 101 the last three years. Parra's is the fact that his once-elite defense appears to be crumbling before our eyes. Aoki's is the concussion he suffered toward the end of last season. Ultimately, I chose to accept Aoki's risk as the least scary. The Mariners clearly believe he is over the injury, as they are planning to install him as their leadoff hitter, and his performance throughout his major-league career has been the model of consistency:

It seems pretty safe that Aoki can duplicate those numbers again in 2016, and that would certainly be worth his asking price of $5.5 million.

Infield

Ben Zobrist was the big signing during the Winter Meetings, but I'm going to take a pass. I love the player Zobrist is right now, but I don't know how long that player can last. At age 34, Zobrist's historically good defense collapsed to −12 Defensive Runs Saved, dropping his WAR to 2.1 from 5.5—despite his best offensive season (.809 OPS) in three years. Since defense tends to really degrade with age, I'm not sure he's going back to his slick-fielding ways, and the offense is likely to regress too. I don't want to make the $14-million-a-year gamble. I'd rather fill our infield hole the cheap way (Juan Uribe?) or the creative way (recent Cuban defector José Fernández, who has mad OBP skillz and is only 27).

Catcher

The catcher market caught fire early in November, and by December 11 all the dust seems to have settled. AJ Pierzynski was the first domino to fall for $2 million, but his OBP has always been too low for my tastes. Chris Iannetta ($4.25 million), Geovany Soto ($2.8 million), and Alex Avila ($2.5 million) were also solid, affordable options, but I decided to hold out for Jarrod Saltalamacchia. None of the options on the catcher market are particularly outstanding, but Salty probably has the most upside. Over the last three years, he's averaged 1.9 WAR, tops among the free-agent class (like I said, it's a modest group). And the best part is that he'd be practically free. The Marlins are still paying his salary, so we'd only be on the hook for the major-league minimum ($507,500). Why spend any money at all on a catcher when you're probably not going to get anything other than a lottery ticket?

When Saltalamacchia did finally sign with the Tigers on Sunday, though, I wasn't thrilled with his landing place. Reports say that he'll "compete for the backup catcher job." If we're trying to build the team that will amass the most value/WAR (and we are), that's not great, since even awesome numbers can't make up for a lack of playing time. (Iannetta, by contrast, is expected to start for the Mariners, while Soto and Avila will get plenty of plate appearances as part of a platoon.) Plus, the big park in Detroit will probably not agree with his power stroke. At the league minimum salary, it's not a very costly mistake, but I did paint my way into a corner by passing over all my other options to get to Salty.

An Exercise in Free Agency

We've all had the thought that we could do better than our favorite team's GM. I mean, [insert name here] is such an idiot, right? Can you believe he made that dumb trade? We're just regular old fans, and even we know that the obvious correct move is to sign [player we really like]. Not sure why we bother paying this guy when we would totally rock this job for free!

This thought occurred to a friend and me in high school, and we actually went through with it—at least in our heads. We constructed an entire 25-man roster from the ranks of free agency that winter. The team was terrible. Years later, when I became acquainted with sabermetrics, I went back and calculated it: the squad was cumulatively worth 20.2 wins above replacement (FanGraphs version), roughly comparable to the 2015 Milwaukee Brewers. It wasn't as easy as it looked.

Of course, our rudimentary understanding of advanced stats in baseball (coupled with a decidedly pro-ex-Red Sox bias) probably doomed us early on. Over a decade later, I think it's time for a do-over—a chance to see whether all this baseball knowledge I've accumulated since then is actually worth anything.

So here's my challenge for the next few months: build the best major-league team that can possibly be assembled out of the ranks of free agency. Try to guess which of this offseason's signings will provide the best bang for my make-believe buck, and try to avoid crippling my fake franchise with an albatross of a deal. Simulate, as faithfully as possible, the circumstances of the 2015–16 offseason and the economic constraints that real GMs work under.

To do all this, I need your help.

You, my friend, are part of an elite group—the people who actually read this blog! This will be the Baseballot community's team, so I'll take input from readers in the comments and on Twitter. You'll be the scouts and the Jonah Hills to my GM.

Here are the ground rules. We can "sign" any free agent to the contract that he eventually agrees to with a real major-league team. After news of the signing breaks, we'll have 48 hours to think it over and decide whether to add that player, and that contract, to our imaginary team. (Like real GMs, we won't be allowed to look back at the end of the offseason, when the market has been set, and choose the cheapest option—we have to interact with events as they happen.) We have to fill every position on the team: five starting pitchers, one starting position player at each position (including DH—our hypothetical team plays in the AL), and a bench that can back up every spot on the field. And, again like real GMs, we have to stick to a budget. We'll be generous and say $200 million—the third-biggest payroll in the game.

To avoid an issue that my high-school friend and I encountered—lack of positional scarcity (it took away a lot of the challenge when we needed two third basemen and there were only two legitimate options on the market)—we'll give ourselves a head start on this go-around. We'll seed half the team with players already under contract that our mock club might have plausibly signed in offseasons past. Out of the major-league players who signed free-agent contracts in the last four years, I randomly (with positional weighting) selected the following 12:

• Michael Morse
• Carlos Beltrán
• José Abreu
• Jed Lowrie
• Chase Headley
• Álex Guerrero
• Nick Hundley
• James Shields
• CJ Wilson
• Jason Hammel
• Kris Medlen
• Jason Frasor

There are some bad contracts on that list (would YOU pay CJ Wilson $20 million to pitch next year?), but it could have been a lot worse—Abreu and Hammel are nice bargains. Still, it's an expensive group overall. With the help of Cot's Baseball Contracts, we find that this core of 12 players are owed $122.1 million in 2016. That doesn't leave us with much ($77.9 million) to add two starting outfielders, a DH, a middle infielder (probably to start at second base), a part-time catcher, two starting pitchers, and basically an entire bullpen.


So what are you waiting for? Get thinking about who you want on our team! Think Alex Gordon would be a fit? Perhaps Jordan Zimmermann would look nice in our nonexistent team uniform. As real GMs fill out their squads, we'll make our calls in tandem. Follow me on Twitter and check this blog all winter long to track additions to our team roster. I'll post periodic updates on the team-building explaining my thoughts and justifying my decisions. By March, we'll see whether the 25 guys we threw together are worthy of taking the field as a major-league team.