Everyone loves a bargain deal. It’s true most days, but it’s the animating spirit of this particular day. (Heck, half the people reading this on the original publication date probably clicked over from a tab containing online shopping.) We lean into that reality on an annual basis by using today, the highest of all days for bookkeepers, to highlight a handful of Major League Baseball free agents who could become bargains.
What do we mean by that? Usually, it’s a shorthand way of implying these players will receive smaller contracts than what their future performances merit. Sometimes that’s because a player is coming back from injury or attempting to rebound from a down year; sometimes it’s because the player has some particular skills that just need the right situation or organization to manifest into better production.
Whatever inspires us to include a player in this piece, the one rule we have is that we will not list anyone who ranked in our top 50 free agents; if they’re good enough for that designation, then we feel it’s cheating to include them in this kind of article.
We’ve been doing this column for eight years now. Last year, we hit on Jacob Stallings as a potential bargain (he notched 1.8 Wins Above Replacement for a cool $2 million). In the past, we’ve also nailed the likes of Carlos Estévez, Pierce Johnson, Anthony DeSclafani, and Jordan Lyles, among others. Who might join that group heading forward? Let’s highlight five possible candidates.
No trope gets more mileage in this kind of article than the reliever with better stuff than results. (Just you wait.) Sims is coming off a Jekyll-and-Hyde season that saw him perform well with the Reds (a 124 ERA+ in 35 innings) before cratering (68 ERA+ in 14 innings) following a trade to the Red Sox. (We suppose he’s fine with carmine, but that he draws the line at garments.) All the while, he maintained an arsenal that features three above-average pitches in his fastball, slider, and cutter. Sims could stand to throw more strikes, but he’s shown he’s capable of being a solid middle reliever even with substandard command. His stuff gives him a chance to do it once again.
Years and years ago, scribe Rany Jazayerli fashioned a “law” of sorts at Baseball Prospectus that stated any backup catcher could hit .300 in a season if he’s given enough chances. The point was that weird things, like undeniably weak offensive players having good offensive campaigns, can happen in small samples. Kelly, coming off his best showing at the plate (96 OPS+) in years, will try to prove that he’s not evidence of the aforementioned phenomenon. We’re not willing to vouch for Kelly’s bat — he has a good feel for the zone while lacking strength — but whichever team signs him will at least benefit from an above-average defensive skill set. And, hey, if he signs on as a backup, maybe he can prove that Jazayerli’s Law strikes twice.
3. Michael Soroka, RHP
Soroka’s performance upticked significantly after he was relegated to the bullpen, including a 39% strikeout rate that would’ve put him in company with Mason Miller and Edwin Díaz. Soroka streamlined his arsenal, throwing more four-seamers (that went faster on account of him working in spurts) and sliders and fewer sinkers and changeups. Clearly it worked. Will it continue? Some team is going to find out — and they might get a better return on their investment than they anticipated.
4. Eloy Jiménez, DH
Jiménez should never be allowed to handle a fielding glove again, for his safety and for the safety of those around him. That leaves him as a right-handed DH coming off the worst season of his career … or, the exact kind of player unlikely to receive a warm embrace from modern-day front offices. Hence Jiménez’s inclusion: he’s almost certain to receive a pittance, making him a pure upside play in the process. Mind you, he can still put a charge into the ball (he ranked in the 90th percentile in both average exit velocity and hard-hit percentage), and now that he’s hit rock bottom he might be more inclined to attempt to alter his swing plane — a move that would see him lift the ball and play into his innate strength at a greater frequency. Were that to happen, he’d be more than worth a cheap one-year deal.
We tend to be lower on Bell than other prognosticators, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he didn’t make the cut for our top-50 rankings. He’s coming off consecutive league-average offensive seasons, all the while profiling as a negative defensively at the cold corner. It’s fair to write that’s not a great profile. Still, we’ll give Bell this much: he’s one of the few free agents we didn’t place in the top 50 who ranked in the top 75 or so among qualified batters when it came to production against 1) pitches 95 mph or hotter and 2) pitches classified as breaking balls. You have to be able to hit at least speed or spin to last anymore; Bell can do both at decent clips, even if his overall output isn’t particularly inspiring. You can do better, but you can also do worse.
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