There’s always a lot of focus on the players who rake in the most money in MLB free agency. But what free agents who are still unsigned provide the best value?
Yoenis Cespedes, Kenley Jansen, Aroldis Chapman, those names were the main focus of the early portion of MLB free agency, and rightfully so. However, as the new year comes closer, the free agent market starts to shift to guys that they may be a bit more under appreciated. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t provide a good bang for a team’s buck.
There’s already been some under-the-radar deals that have been struck that look like steals for those respective clubs. Here are some of the players that I feel got less money than they deserved this offseason.
- Welington Castillo (Baltimore Orioles)-1 yr, $6 million ($7 million player option for 2018)
- Sean Rodriguez (Atlanta Braves)-2 yr, $11 million
- Jon Jay (Chicago Cubs)-1 yr, $8 million
- Matt Joyce (Oakland Athletics)-2 yr, $11 million
- Koji Uehara (Chicago Cubs)-1 yr, $6 million
All of these players got short-term deals that will be them $8 million or less per season. This blows my mind because relief pitcher who get three outs are making double the amount of players that are playing daily. That’s not to say that a Mark Melancon or Aroldis Chapman aren’t elite players for their position, but it just seems to be all the rage to sure up the bullpen by investing heavily in players who don’t get on the field as much, which leaves little money leftover for solid players like the Welington Castillo and Matt Joyce’s of the world.
This leaves some MLB free agent bargains out there in the next couple months, and here are some available players still left who club’s might get for less than what the player actually deserves.