The best remaining MLB free agents as camps open

The runners for the coming Major League Baseball season have been called to their starting blocks. Spring Training begins this coming week, and a number of teams (read, the Dodgers) are probably feeling pretty confident. However, dozens of MLB free agents are still without contracts, and perhaps it’s time to take a crack at the remaining players who could be signed earlier than later.

It’s OK to think of the following players as the “best” remaining, but it’s probably more accurate to think of them as the “most useful” or “best considering certain teams’ current circumstances.”

No. 1 Trevor Rosenthal

That Trevor Rosenthal is still unsigned at this point may seem mystifying, but it’s a matter of decent reasoning that Rosenthal and/or his agents are still seeking too much money. Clearly, a number of teams have been sniffing around the fire-balling reliever, and there are a number of articles floating around the internet about how important he could be to a team’s bullpen.

Among the MLB free agents left, Trevor Rosenthal is probably at the top of the pile.

Having apparently fully recovered from Tommy John surgery (finally), Rosenthal pitched well enough after being traded from Kansas City to San Diego last summer that Mike Petriello cautiously calls him, despite less than 24 innings last season, “the best remaining free-agent reliever” available.

And with writers implying that fans of the Phillies, Angels, Cubs, Royals, Padres, and Yankees would be delighted with Rosenthal, the begging question appears to be: Is he asking for just too much money for those ERA-perfect ten innings for San Diego?

Or is there some analytical something else? Recall, as Petriello recounts, that the 2019 season was a disaster for Rosenthal. This followed a year off following his TJ procedure. Was there something buried in his sparkling Padres performance that the film-and-data guys have unearthed?

This seems unlikely. It is quite difficult to post a 0.00 ERA for even one MLB game, let alone 10 innings spread out among nine games. Moreover, Rosenthal’s aggregate WHIP for his two teams last season was 0.845.

Trevor Rosenthal will be crossed off the MLB free agents list before Spring Training rolls very far along – or even starts.