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.
1. Lucas Sims, RHP
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.
2. Carson Kelly, C
Years and years ago, scribe Rany Jazayerli fashioned a