Free Agent Market Coming Into Focus

Monday, November 20 2006 @ 12:15 PM EST

There's been roughly 22 signings so far. The market for hitters has become a little more established. The market for starting pitching is still hazy as El Duque and Mussina are the only ones to have signed contracts at this point.

Here's a look at the contracts:

Player	Age	Years	Dollars	Average/Year	Comp
Alfonso Soriano, LF	30	8	$136,000,000	$17,000,000	A
Aramis Ramirez, 3B	28	5	$75,000,000	$15,000,000
Mike Mussina, SP	37	2	$22,500,000	$11,250,000
Jim Edmonds, CF	36	2	$19,000,000	$9,500,000
Frank Thomas, DH	38	2	$18,120,000	$9,060,000	B
Nomar Garciaparra, 1B	33	2	$18,000,000	$9,000,000
Orlando Hernandez, SP	37	2	$12,000,000	$6,000,000
Alex Gonzalez, SS	29	3	$14,000,000	$4,666,667	B
Justin Speier, RP	33	4	$18,000,000	$4,500,000	A
Mark DeRosa, 2B	31	3	$13,000,000	$4,333,333	B
Frank Catalanotto, LF	32	3	$13,000,000	$4,333,333	A
Sean Casey, 1B	32	1	$4,000,000	$4,000,000
Jose Valentin, 2B	37	1	$3,800,000	$3,800,000
Wes Helms, 3B	30	2	$5,450,000	$2,725,000
Henry Blanco, C	35	2	$5,250,000	$2,625,000
Scott Spiezio, 3B	34	2	$4,500,000	$2,250,000
Alex Cora, SS	31	2	$4,000,000	$2,000,000
Kerry Wood, SP	29	1	$1,750,000	$1,750,000
Kazuo Matsui, 2B	31	1	$1,500,000	$1,500,000
Wade Miller, SP	30	1	$1,500,000	$1,500,000
Damion Easley, SS	37	1	$850,000	$850,000
Ramon Martinez, 2B	34	1	$850,000	$850,000

It's no surprise that teams are willing to give up draft picks to sign top free agents like Soriano. However, it is a little surprising to see decent contributors like Catalanotto and Speier sign before the arbitration deadline date of December 1st.

The sandwich round in this year's draft is going to be long. It's already at 6 picks and there's likely to be at least another 10 by the time free agency is over.

Right now the Jays will have 7 of the top 100 picks in the 2007 draft, and likely 6 of the top 75. Lilly and Zaun would both yield sandwich picks if they signed elsewhere, with the signing team not giving up any compensation. Molina would yield two picks, but I'd be very surprised if the Jays offered him arbitration and another team signed him. If the Jays offer arbitration to Molina there's a high chance he'll be back in Toronto next year (which is probably more likely today than a month ago). If the Jays sign an 'A' free agent from another team they would foreit their 1st round pick.

As free agency is showing, your best value are contributing players prior to their free agent years, and particularly during their first 4 years. These extra picks will allow the Jays to try to get a few more of these players.

So what does a top 100 draft pick during the JP era look like? Here's a list of the 14 players taken in the top 100 picks of Ricciardi's 5 years.

Player Name	Rnd	#
Ricky Romero	1	6
Aaron Hill	1	13
Russ Adams	1	14
Travis Snider	1	14
David Purcey	1	16
Zach Jackson	1	32
Josh Banks	2	50
David Bush	2	55
Curtis Thigpen	2	57
Shaun Marcum	3	80
Adam Lind	3	83
Justin Maureau	3	86
Brian Pettway	3	86
Danny Hill	3	87

Obviously it's too early to tell on most players, but it's about 50/50 for these picks. And you don't get to the complete busts until the bottom of the list. Everyone else is still a prospect of varying degree. The Jays should be able to come out of this draft with at least 3 solid contributors. It'll be interesting to see how they play their hand, but that's a long way off still.

I seem to remember Baseball America saying that the draft is fairly strong in 2007. However, in his blog today Keith Law wrote that, "at this moment, the 2007 draft pool doesn't look particularly strong, especially not in comparison to the class right behind it, this means that teams without comp picks are watching the values of their second-round picks evaporate, making the first round even more important than usual."

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