MLB Free Agency Completely Blows Volume 1000: It's January 24th And Could Still Build A Contender With MLB's Unsigned Free Agents
Nottttt a good look for MLB. This market correction is going to lead to the ugliest labor dispute ever a few years down the road. I mean, look at this team. It’s basically the 1927 Yankees. Murderer’s Row.
Not really at all but take a look at these Steamer Projections for their Lineup and Rotation:
2. Matt Wieters 1.1 WAR
3. Marwin Gonzales 1.6 WAR
4. Josh Harrison 1.0 WAR
5. Manny Machado 4.9 WAR
6. Mike Moustakas 2.8 WAR
7. Carlos Gonzales 1.0 WAR
8. AJ Pollock 2.6 WAR
9. Bryce Harper 4.7 WAR
Apparently this is a NL team because they don’t account for a DH, but their rotation and bullpen accrue for about a total of 23-25 WAR on top of the 19 WAR their lineup does. That’s a total of about 43 wins which would have put them about 6th in all of baseball last year. It’s really sad.
Now steamer is more timid when projecting players than other projection models, but still… this is a lineup that bare minimum competes in the AL Central. Gross. Get it together baseball. Do SOMETHING about this. I get that market corrections are taking place and organizations are done paying for what a player has done and are now paying players on what they forecast them to do in the future instead, but still. This can’t continue. Two of the leagues premier free agents of all time aren’t signed yet because they’re not getting offers for their self perceived value and I think everyone can agree that it’s not a good look.
Pitchers and catchers report for most teams around the 15th of February, give or take a few days. At this point it’s looking more and more like it’s possible that Machado and Harper will go by way of JD Martinez and sign in March if they need to.
We’re in one big Mexican standoff right now between the teams and players. It’s a real life Spiderman finger pointing meme, and it needs to end before we all lose our minds.
PS – I think Lozano’s statement last week regarding teams/agents negotiating in the media neutered Nightengale and Levine from their biweekly news dumps, even though Levine quadrupled down on his incorrect 7/175 report last night. We haven’t heard shit other than mystery teams have popped up, which I don’t buy. With how fast news travels through social media in current times, there’s just hardly any chance at all teams could keep their pursuit of a super free agent like a Machado or Harper secret. Not impossible, but unlikely IMO
PPS – without going into detail, take a look at this article. There is one subtle detail in the blog that will help explain the tweet that follows it: