2014 Potential Free Agents

            Every team has a flaw somewhere; pitching, hitting, defense and even coaches could hinders a team from making the playoffs.  While most teams now and days use the farm system to replenish their needs as best they can some teams don’t have the pieces that they need to fix the holes.  When this happens a team turns to the free agent market to fix the holes that the team hasn’t or can’t fix alone.  There are many obstacles during this process though that in the end could hurt a team as badly as they were before they signed the player in the first place.  What I want to do is list the players that will be free agent eligible at the end of the next season and talk about a few that could be interesting.

First Basemen
Lance Berkman *
Jason Giambi
Travis Hafner
Todd Helton
Eric Hinske 
Paul Konerko
Mike Napoli 
Paul Konerko
Casey Kotchman
Adam Lind *
James Loney 
Kendrys Morales
Justin Morneau
Mike Morse
Lyle Overbay
Carlos Pena
Mark Reynolds
Juan Rivera
Kevin Youkilis


Second Basemen
Robinson Cano
Alexi Casilla
Mark Ellis *
Mike Fontenot
Omar Infante
Kelly Johnson
Nick Punto
Ryan Raburn
Brian Roberts
Ramon Santiago
Skip Schumaker
Chase Utley
Ben Zobrist * 


Shortstops
Alfredo Amezaga
Clint Barmes
Willie Bloomquist
Jamey Carroll *
Alexi Casilla *
Stephen Drew
Yunel Escobar * 
Rafael Furcal 
Alex Gonzalez 
Cesar Izturis 
Derek Jeter *
John McDonald
Jhonny Peralta
Brendan Ryan


Third Basemen
Wilson Betemit *
Eric Chavez 
Mark DeRosa
Mike Fontenot
Jerry Hairston Jr.
Brandon Inge
Placido Polanco
Mark Reynolds
Juan Uribe
Kevin Youkilis
Michael Young


Catchers
Rod Barajas
Henry Blanco
John Buck
Jesus Flores
Ramon Hernandez
Gerald Laird
Brian McCann
Jose Molina
Dioner Navarro
Wil Nieves
Miguel Olivo
Ronny Paulino
Brayan Pena
A.J. Pierzynski
Humberto Quintero
Carlos Ruiz
Jarrod Saltalamacchia
Kelly Shoppach
Chris Snyder
Geovany Soto
Kurt Suzuki *
Yorvit Torrealba 


Outfielders
Alfredo Amezaga
Rick Ankiel
Jeff Baker 
Jason Bay
Carlos Beltran
Shin-Soo Choo 
Coco Crisp *
Nelson Cruz 
Rajai Davis
David DeJesus
Mark DeRosa
Matt Diaz
Jacoby Ellsbury
Jeff Francoeur 
Curtis Granderson
Franklin Gutierrez
Tony Gwynn Jr. 
Corey Hart
Raul Ibanez
Reed Johnson *
Austin Kearns
Jason Kubel *
Nate McLouth
Nyjer Morgan 
Mike Morse
David Murphy
Xavier Nady
Laynce Nix
Hunter Pence 
Juan Rivera
Luke Scott 
Ryan Sweeney 
Andres Torres
Chris Young * 
Delmon Young 


Starting Pitchers
Bronson Arroyo
Scott Baker
Erik Bedard 
Nick Blackburn * 
A.J. Burnett
Chris Capuano * 
Chris Carpenter
Bruce Chen
Bartolo Colon
Aaron Cook
Jorge De La Rosa
Scott Feldman
Gavin Floyd
Jeff Francis
Armando Galarraga
Jon Garland
Matt Garza 
Roy Halladay * 
Jason Hammel 
Aaron Harang * 
Rich Harden
Dan Haren
Roberto Hernandez
Tim Hudson
Phil Hughes 
Ubaldo Jimenez *
Josh Johnson
Jeff Karstens
Hiroki Kuroda
John Lannan
Jon Lester * 
Colby Lewis
Ted Lilly
Tim Lincecum
Derek Lowe
Paul Maholm
Shaun Marcum
Jason Marquis
Daisuke Matsuzaka
Brett Myers * 
Ricky Nolasco
Mike Pelfrey 
Andy Pettitte 
Wandy Rodriguez *
Jonathan Sanchez
Ervin Santana
Johan Santana *
Joe Saunders *
James Shields *
Tim Stauffer 
Jason Vargas 
Ryan Vogelsong * 
Edinson Volquez
Tsuyoshi Wada *
Chien-Ming Wang 
Chris Young
Barry Zito


Relief Pitchers
David Aardsma
Jeremy Accardo
Manny Acosta
Matt Albers
Scott Atchison
Luis Ayala
Grant Balfour 
Matt Belisle *
Joaquin Benoit
Rafael Betancourt * 
Bill Bray
Craig Breslow
Tim Byrdak
Shawn Camp 
Matt Capps
Joba Chamberlain
Jose Contreras
Manny Corpas
Jesse Crain
Joey Devine
Octavio Dotel
Scott Downs 
Chad Durbin *
Kyle Farnsworth
Pedro Feliciano 
Frank Francisco 
Jason Frasor
Chad Gaudin
Mike Gonzalez 
Kevin Gregg
Matt Guerrier
Joel Hanrahan
LaTroy Hawkins 
Clay Hensley
Rich Hill
J.P. Howell 
Casey Janssen *
Jesse Litsch
Matt Lindstrom *
Kameron Loe
Boone Logan
Javier Lopez 
Mark Lowe
Brandon Lyon
Ryan Madson
Carlos Marmol 
Nick Masset
Kyle McClellan
Peter Moylan
Edward Mujica
Joe Nathan * 
Pat Neshek
Eric O’Flaherty
Will Ohman
Hideki Okajima
Darren Oliver 
Juan Carlos Oviedo
Vicente Padilla
Manny Parra
Oliver Perez
Rafael Perez 
Chad Qualls
Jon Rauch
Mariano Rivera
Fernando Rodney
J.C. Romero
George Sherrill
Joe Smith
Matt Thornton *
Koji Uehara 
Jose Veras * 
Jamey Wright

Yes kind of a big list but these are all of them.  No one thing that I’ll mention right now is that a lot of these players will be signed before they hit free agency, many more will sign after the season ends so they don’t have to worry about negotiations during the season.  Lets take a look at the big names that could hit the market position by position.

            1^st base has a number of veterans in the ranks from Lance Berkman to Kevin Youkilis but many of them are past their primes, like the two I just mentioned.  To me the best of the bunch is James Loney, Adam Lind, Mike Napoli, Mike Mores and Kendrys Morales and the rest seem to be to injury risk or way to old.  The 1^st base pool is not very deep or good this upcoming free agency so teams might want to look in team to fix this hole, that or signing players to a 1 year deal for a cheap fix.

            2^nd base is actually an interesting options for teams next year.  But lets get 1 thing straight right off the bat; Robinson Cano is going to stay a Yankee and if he doesn’t I won’t be the only very confused baseball fan.  That out of the way Chase Utley is a great option if a team remembers he’s not a 20 HR guy anymore but a solid defense and still a good batting average guy.  Ben Zobrist is the master Utility guy and can help teams with a decent bat and good glove.  Omar Infante is a “poor mans” Zobrist but could be a good UTIL guy.  The rest of the pool is fool of guys can help a team in 1 way or another but not many starting 2^nd baseman.  Stronger than 1^st base in the depth of position and could be interesting to see how many go for these players.

            Shortstop isn’t in much better shape than 1^st base but is full of players that can be useful.  Rafael Furcal, Stephen Drew and Jhonny Peralta are the guys that have the most upside and could compete for jobs if they don’t resign with the current team.  After that its mostly bench player and back up players, I’m not counting Derek Jeter in this list since if he doesn’t resign I believe that he will retire.

            3^rd base is weak, very weak and has no one under the age of 30 in the pool.  Its got some interesting names but at the same time Wilson Betemit and Eric Chavez are not really the guys teams are looking for to fill the void.  Micheal Young is the best of the bunch but that’s really not saying much since he’s a DH at best and he has no power.

            Catcher actually has some very interesting names that could help a team out.  Brian McCann, Jared Salty, Carlos Ruiz and Kurt Suszuki are just a few names that could help a team with the bat or the glove.  There’s no one guy that will help in every category except the first 3 guys of the 4 I listed.  Given what I know my guess Salty and Ruiz will resign and the teams looking for catcher are going to have to settle for a 1 trick pony.

            Outfield could be interesting with guys like Jacoby Ellsbury, Hunter Pence, Coco Crisp, Nate McClouth, Shin-Soo Choo, Nelson Cruz and Raiji Davis all being available.  That’s just a small sample of the talent in the pool potentially.  That said many of these guys are most likely not going to hit the market, I don’t see the Giants letting Pence go or the Reds letting Choo go.  Overall OF is easily the position that will draw the big teams that need OF help.

            I’m going to clump pitching together since there are a lot of them.  While there are guys like James Shield and Ryan Madson on the list there are more interesting names than actual help.  For every Jon Lester on the list there’s a Tim Hudson and Jason Hammel .  Pitching is going to have a good amount of innings eaters and middle relief guys but nothing that screams game changer other than James Shields that is.

            Well that was a quick look at the upcoming off season’s free agent pool.  Were getting to that point in the season were we will see the signings come out and that’s why I decided to show off the potentials but not go into massive detail since many will sign well before free agency.

The Problem of Puig

My dad and I had a conversation a few days ago where I asked him “So where do you think Puig ends the season?”  My dad is not a major stats person like myself but he does pay attention and his answer was “Bout a .330 AVG with maybe 25 plus HR’s.”  My reply was simply “Ok, I think he’ll end the season closer to .287 AVG and the max HR’s is around 20-23.”  He looked at me quizzically and simply said “Really?!?”  After this conversation it makes me think on how many players like Puig have come up this season, not players with similar talent pools but players that don’t have a real track record so far in the minors and from a statistical point of view have no real info on.  When I look at stats I look for players with a good enough track record to get an idea on how he will play in the majors but players like Puig, Kevin Gausman, Mike Trout and Bryce Harper all had very little time in the minors but were brought up very quickly to the majors to see how they do.  The four players I just mentioned were in the majors 1 year or less after begin drafted.

            When I look at young prospects I tend to look for the stats they produced in the lower level.  This doesn’t tell me everything but it does give me an idea about what I can expect moving forward and depending on his play through the ranks I get a better idea how he will do in the higher divisions.  Puig had half a season in the minors and the Dominican Republic doesn’t really make the stats well known so what do we get to go off of?  Pretty much what we see is what we get, its kind of why I feel both statistical analysis and traditional scouting are both needed to get a hold of a player since with no info numbers wise we go off what we see.  I call this a “problem” only because I see it leading to many problems in the future with players.  Gausman so far looks over-matched in the majors and he’s a product of this same idea.

            The end goal is to get lucky with your best prospects, we’ve seen this with Evan Longoria, Anthony Rizzo and others that do well or well enough to justify a massive contract (years wise not money) to lock them up and keep them cheap.  I fear that at some point this is going to blow up in a teams face sadly.  But for now us stat guys will just have to work with that data we have till there’s enough of a sample size to make guesses and see how these young players end up.

Power Rankings June 26

            Its that time of the month when we look at the Power Rankings.  There are going to be some shake ups this week but some are coming way late, some of the changes in the list may have applied to the rankings last time just as much as this weeks rankings.  So here we go.

1)   St. Louis Cardinals- With the best record in baseball they still are my (new) pick to win the WS in the end.  The pitching has been great for them so far with a team ERA of 3.23 and a strong stat line in the last 2 weeks shows that the team is not giving up many runs but can sure still score them.

2)   Boston Red Sox- With the lose of Buchholz I worry how long that rotation can stand but so far so good.  The bullpen needs to improve with Bailey failing to live up to the contract and losing his closer role, most likely for good.  But with Ellsbury running the way he is and the offense still going strong I can see them winning a lot of games with need of a closer.

3)   Atlanta Braves- They still scare me with the K% and K/BB% being on the bad side but they survive.  The pitching is keeping them afloat right now but 1 injury could mean bad times in Atlanta.

4)   Baltimore Orioles- Still staying in there and still making it close for Boston.  I expect them to be in the hunt till the end and as long as Chris Davis doesn’t suddenly revert back to the .250 hitter they should be good.

5)   Texas Rangers- I’ve mentioned this on the Podcast but I can understand what’s happening here.  No stat seems to explain what’s wrong with this team in the last month.  They can take BB’s but can’t hit but when they do its for good power?  Then again the pitching is so bad right now that could be the leading cause of headache for the team.

6)   Cincinnati Reds- Still believe that they’re better than what we’re seeing at the moment.  If any team is going to take down the Cardinals it’s this team, just ignore the fact that there in 3^rd.

7)   Detroit Tigers- That bullpen still scares me and with it still struggling they could very well pitch themselves out of a lot of wins.  Hitting wise I can’t see them getting much better, but I’m sure they’d love to prove me wrong.

8)   Arizona Diamondbacks- They’re good, very good and could take the division easily.  They have a lot of things going for them right now but they have a good team under them that can jump on their every mistake.  They need to play well the rest of the way to make the Giants disappear.

9)   Oakland A’s- The pitching is legit and once again that when the numbers game is played Billy Beane knows what he’s doing.  If only I could say that about the offense as well; they are the streakiest of the streaky and that could end up biting them.  It doesn’t help that the Rangers are still around and if they start hitting again the A’s could be in for a battle.  I should note that just because I have them listed here doesn’t mean that I don’t think they can beat the Rangers.  They did it once they can do it again.

10)          Toronto Blue Jays- Yes they finally made it here into the top 10, I can hear the joyful yells of many fans.  Well the resent stretch makes me think that they could find their way into a Wild Card hunt but I don’t know if they could win the division. It’s very possible but at the moment Baltimore and Boston are just better all around teams.  Don’t lose hope Toronto fans you only can go up!

So there’s the top 10 and here comes everyone’s favorite argument (apparently) the Bottom 5 teams.

26) Los Angeles Dodgers- I will admit there is some joy in putting them here.  As hard as I try to stay un-bias (other than my Astros) I’ve never been a Dodger fan.  But more to the point; no hitting, no pitching and they rely on a rookie for any sort of offense.  Bad team that should be doing way better, probably the biggest disappointment this year.

27) New York Mets- Still doing bad, not sure what else there is to say.  Though the pitching does seem to be turning a new leaf but the bullpen will murder their ERA every time.

28) Milwaukee Brewers- How many times can I say their doing bad before I get repetitive?  Well with no Ryan Braun this team gets worse, have decent players but man just…wow.

29) Houston Astros- Its funny how the Astros work, one week the offense is great but the pitching is bad.  The next week it’s the opposite, but the pitching is starting to get things down.  They aren’t the team people where beating up on in the beginning of the season anymore.

30) Miami Marlins- Mike Stanton’s return is interesting and makes me fully confident in my prediction that he is traded by the deadline.  With the rumor spreading that the Giants are looking at Ricky Nolasco look for the Marlins to find new ways to be bad.  At this point they’re making it an art form how bad they are.