The final free agent list has left the elf’s workshop here, wending its way through the wires to EFLIT (EFL IT) who will make sure it is posted where you can see it. Here are some things you might like to know about it.
- We have 401 free agents to choose from. These include:
- 91 leftover rookies, including at least 2 I wish I’d drafted instead of Colin Rea.
- 75 guys we had on our rosters at the end of last season, which gives the team who had each player the right to match the highest bid. One of those is a leftover rookies — Adam Liberatore.
- The following players added to the list at the initiative of an EFL team:
- Old Detroit: Rafael Soriano, Lou Marson, Steven Lerud
- Portland: Corey Luebke, Sean Nolin
- Cottage: Henderson Alvarez
- Haviland: Peter Bourjos
- Anyone who becomes a free agent after Mar 1 will be on the list for the end-of-April managers meeting.
- We didn’t have 2016 contract information for 61 players. Some are languishing as unwanted free agents, but others are not yet arbitration eligible and are still awaiting the automatic renewal of their contracts. These will be happening over the next week or so for most players — but we will ignore them for our Apr 2 draft.
- For the Apr 2 draft, all players without contracts can be put up for a minimum bid of $500,000. But when the end of April draft rolls around, most of them will have MLB contracts of a little more than that, so if you wait until then we may need to start bidding for them at $750,000 or higher.
- I joked (I think) about some EFL team bidding $26,750,000 per year for 12 years to get Giancarlo Stanton. It would be entirely legal, if you have that kind of money left. If Stanton doesn’t hurt himself again, and lives up to his projections, Fangraphs says Stanton should add five or six wins to the average EFL team’s total. At no more than about $5,000,000 per win, that would be right about the average EF team’s cost per win from the rookie draft.
- Of course, at $5,000,000 per win above replacement, you’ll run out of money mid-way through your 18th WAR, leaving you with fewer than 70 wins overall. Still — if 5 wins is the difference between 4th place and the EFL championship, as it would have been in 2015, maybe it would be worth it!
- Sure, being saddled with $26,000,000 salary to Giancarlo Stanton for 12 years would be a very long haul, and might involve some intense suffering along about 2025. But winners get their team’s name inscribed on the leagues trophy forever. (Assuming we ever arrange for the inscription. Which reminds me, John…)
- If you are going to go full Stanton, you’d better do it now. Drafting him in June or August will still cost the entire $26,000,000 even though you’d be getting him for only a fraction of the season.
- Thinking about a shorter-term contract for Stanton? Why not? A one year deal would work, at only $199,250,000. Oh, no, I guess that’s beyond our salary cap a little.
- This won’t be the year for game-changing debutants that 2015 was. No point in saving any money for them.