For literally as long as professional baseball has existed, people have been predicting its imminent demise. Yet every year, more and more money is spent on baseball, by more people watching in more countries. And every winter, a great deal of that money is unleashed as baseball's free agents participate in the biggest auction outside of Christie's or Sotheby's. Even that's selling baseball short, given that Pablo Picasso's highest-priced painting, which recently sold for $179 million, wouldn't have been enough to land 10 years of Robinson Cano a few years ago.
With baseball's free-agent market generally not as deep as in the early years of free agency -- teams have long realized the wisdom of signing star players before they hit the market, when possible -- more money is chasing fewer stars and those lucky few are about to score a quantity of dollars written with many commas.
Below we have the players with the top 25 highest free-agent valuations, as projected by the ZiPS projection system. These are not necessarily what each player will get paid in the end or what he should expect to get paid. Rather, based on the projections, these are estimated valuations of what the player's contribution in wins is worth. In other words, this is how much ZiPS says the player is worth.
Players are ranked by total projected contract value, and we'll progress from cheapest to most expensive. In doing so, we'll compare their ZiPS projected value with their market value, as determined by former GM/ESPN Insider Jim Bowden, whose valuing the free agents file was posted recently. Jim's market valuation of each player, determined through tedious market research and through speaking with various MLB executives, has proved to be very accurate over the years, and it'll give us a gauge of how much the market can be expected to inflate -- or bring down -- each player's contract.
25. Daniel Murphy, 2B/1B/3B
Age: 30 | DOB: 4/1/1985
Years in league: 7 | 2015 WAR: 1.4
No top free agent saw a bigger boost to his stock this October than Murphy. Coming into the World Series, he was the biggest playoff story, crushing seven homers in nine playoff games. A lot of that "goodwill" evaporated in the Series, with Murphy going 3-for-20 with no extra-base hits and playing lousy defense. He's a good hitter for a second baseman -- he has a 111 OPS+ over the past five seasons -- but has always been stretched defensively at second.
The Rockies have made noises about pursuing Murphy to play first base, which is a classic Rockies maneuver (signing an average, over-30 player to a contract despite little hope of contending), but Murphy's best fit is a contending team that needs a stopgap second (or better yet third) baseman for a few years.
24. Austin Jackson, CF
Age: 28 | DOB: 2/1/1987
Years: 6 | 2015 WAR: 1.5
ZiPS sees Jackson getting $35 million, but in truth, I think he'll be available for less than that (as Bowden predicts). While he has never matched his .300/.377/.479 age-25 season in 2012, he was still putting up a .730 OPS for the Tigers before being traded to the Mariners in 2014, so he could very well turn out to be a bargain. While it seems like he has been around forever, he turns just 29 in February.
23. John Lackey, SP
Age: 37 | DOB: 10/23/1978
Years: 13 | 2015 WAR: 5.6
Age tends to mean a lot less for a pitcher than for a hitter -- the big thing for a pitcher is whether or not his arm is attached well at the elbow and shoulder -- but once any player approaches his late 30s, age does play a role in the market, which will keep the dollar figure well below what the 37-year-old hurler is actually worth.
Either way, Lackey, who made just $507,500 in 2015 due to a stipulation in his contract regarding a previous elbow injury, will get a nice raise in 2016. Don't be surprised if it's back in St. Louis, as Lance Lynn's injury leaves the rotation with an extra hole, and the Cardinals are well-inclined to sign a pitcher who gave them a gutty season while making the league minimum.
22. Howie Kendrick, 2B
Age: 32 | DOB: 7/12/1983
Years: 10 | 2015 WAR: 1.1
Kendrick was brought over from the Angels for the purpose of filling second base for a year while the Dodgers sorted through their various long-term possibilities. Kendrick did just that, hitting .295/.336/.409, but missing the most time he has missed in a season since 2009 due to a hamstring injury. Of particular concern is that his defense was off quite a bit in 2015, hardly surprising for a middle infielder his age, and while he might still get a few years on a contract, teams aren't going to fall over themselves to sign a 32-year-old non-star second baseman. Even with other options, the Dodgers were still correct to make a qualifying offer.
21. Hisashi Iwakuma, SP
Age: 34 | DOB: 4/12/1981
Years: 4 | 2015 WAR: 2.4
If this were 2013, Iwakuma's place in this ranking would look a lot different. After a seven-WAR 2013 season (14-6, 2.66 ERA) that landed him a third-place finish in the AL Cy Young voting, he has been more of a midrotation starter behind King Felix. Granted, midrotation starters still earn plenty of dough, but considering he'll turn 35 next April, there's not a ton of upside left for Iwakuma, even though he appears to be fully recovered from the lat strain that cost him part of the 2015 season.
20. Colby Rasmus, CF/LF
Age: 29 | DOB: 8/11/1986
Years: 7 | 2015 WAR: 2.6
Rasmus still hits for power but still has trouble contributing offensively when he's not hitting a homer. Not needed in center field exclusively in Houston, Rasmus can still fake the position well enough to stay at the position.
Rasmus has the fifth-most homers of any center fielder in baseball since his 2009 debut (behind Curtis Granderson, Adam Jones, Matt Kemp and Andrew McCutchen), and while he probably would do OK on the open market, it appears he's going to be the first player to accept his qualifying offer.
19. Matt Wieters, C
Age: 29 | DOB: 5/21/1986
Years: 7 | 2015 WAR: 0.8
Wieters is the best catcher in an otherwise weak market for catchers, which is why his market value is so high, but if his ZiPS value is any indication, the qualifying offer he received would look a lot better. I doubt he'll accept it, but ZiPS clearly has significant concerns about a catcher who has played only 101 games in two years. That's reflected in the relative modesty of his projected value, and truth be told, human general managers are likely going to have the same concerns.
Wieters has never developed into the offensive force it was hoped he would when he was drafted by the O's, and if he's not catching, his value is limited. A 100 OPS+ makes for a lousy first base/designated hitter type, so it's hard to think of Wieters as a Victor Martinez/Mike Stanley type who can be valuable after catching.
18. Asdrubal Cabrera, IF
Age: 29 | DOB: 11/13/1985
Years: 9 | 2015 WAR: 1.8
ZiPS clearly likes Cabrera's bat bouncing back to his career numbers in 2015; his 105 OPS+ and 1.8 WAR were his best numbers since 2012. Cabrera is stretched as a shortstop -- and has been for a few years -- but he'd be an interesting option at second base for the same teams in the Murphy bidding, and I think he'd be preferable to Murphy in a middle-infield spot. But please, make it second base; Cabrera is minus-10 runs per year player at shortstop now.
17. Dexter Fowler, CF
Age: 29 | DOB: 3/22/1986
Years: 8 | 2015 WAR: 2.2
By ZiPS' reckoning, Fowler is the best center-field option (over Denard Span, who just missed the top 25), assuming you're not dazzled by the puzzling illusion that Yoenis Cespedes should be thought of as a center fielder.
While Fowler's .757 OPS doesn't look impressive on its face, that's actually right around his career numbers when you factor in his Coors Field seasons. He has never been a star -- and isn't going to be -- but he does a lot of things well offensively despite uninspiring contact numbers and is just adequate enough in center to not be a problem as long as he's hitting.
16. Ben Zobrist, 2B/OF
Age: 34 | DOB: 5/26/1981
Years: 10 | 2015 WAR: 1.9
Which second baseman in baseball has the most WAR (baseball-reference version) since 2009? Well, it's not Zobrist -- I tried to catch you cheating -- but Zobrist ranks second among second basemen (behind Robinson Cano) and fifth among all position players, with 39.3. Simply put, Zorilla has been the most underrated player in baseball the past decade. The only reason he's down this far on the list is that birth date, given that signing 35-year-old middle infielders tends to be risky business. Remember how well Chase Utley seemed to be aging in 2013-2014? Oops. Zobrist likely won't put up a 2015 Utley season in 2016, but his next team ought to be sure it's paying for future, not past, performance.
15. Yovani Gallardo, SP
Age: 29 | DOB: 2/27/1986
Years: 9 | 2015 WAR: 4.1
One would think that after putting up the best ERA (3.42) and most WAR (4.1) of his career on a team that had such a strong second-half surge, Gallardo would be getting more buzz in the free-agent market. ZiPS is skeptical about his 2015 season given his peripherals (4.00 FIP, 4.31 xFIP), but he's also one of the most durable free-agent starters in the market, and not everyone is going to wave $150 million-200 million at David Price or Zack Greinke.
I like Gallardo more than ZiPS, and while I think he'll make a little more than the computer predicts, I still see him as a possible bargain unless his market suddenly takes off. Gallardo won't make your team a pennant winner, but guys like him aren't a cinch to find.
14. Wei-Yin Chen, SP
Age: 30 | DOB: 7/21/1985
Years: 4 | 2015 WAR: 3.8
Chen has never been a star, but he has done an admirable job surviving as a fairly soft-tossing control pitcher in a division full of power hitters and a park that's home run-friendly. In fact, he has been one of the Orioles' best bargains, posting a 3.72 ERA and 10 WAR in four years in Baltimore for just $15 million. Given that he already has proved he can survive in a tough environment, he ought to have a wide range of suitors and, like Gallardo, should be a fairly safe, non-star option.
13. Ian Desmond, SS
Age: 30 | DOB: 9/20/1985
Years: 7 | 2015 WAR: 2.0
ZiPS is still sort of a believer in Desmond. Even in a season that was seen as a key disaster in the Nats' five-ring Circus of Catastrophes in 2015, he still recovered enough to essentially be a league-average shortstop for the season. Even if he stays at his 2015 level, he still has some value, but even a modest bounce-back season makes him an interesting pickup if his market remains skeptical. That said, Desmond turning down a seven-year, $107 million contract isn't looking like it'll make the cut for Great Moments in Negotiation.
12. Scott Kazmir, SP
Age: 31 | DOB: 1/24/1984
Years: 11 | 2015 WAR: 3.3
The "oft-injured" label seems to have dropped by the wayside. One of baseball's best comeback stories after injuries carved a giant chunk out of the middle of his career, Kazmir has actually remained healthy, starting 92 games over the past three seasons. Despite this, Kazmir's arm is still one that teams have avoided trying to ride for 200 innings, which does hurt his value somewhat, as does a rather unimpressive stint with the Astros (I still like the trade though!).
He's fly-ball pitcher who fit well in WhateverIt'sCalledNow Coliseum in Oakland, which I suspect will lead teams in more hitter-friendly climes not to bid too heavily. Still, you can do much worse for a No. 2/3 starter -- and many teams will.
11. Mike Leake, SP
Age: 27 | DOB: 11/12/1987
Years: 6 | 2015 WAR: 2.9
ZiPS likes Leake more for his durability than his performance, because attendance is a significant thing in baseball. ZiPS still sees Leake hanging on to league-average performances despite a declining strikeout rate of 5.9 K/9 this season (including a miserable 4.7 rate for the Giants). Personally, I'd much rather take a chance on four or five of the pitchers ranking lower than him, and I suspect Leake will be a bad signing if he ends up on a poor defensive team. Perhaps the Royals, a team that showed interest in him in July, will make another run, as they remain an excellent defensive team, and pitching coach Dave Eiland has had a lot of success with pitchers like Leake.
10. Jeff Samardzija, SP
Age: 30 | DOB: 1/23/1985
Years: 8 | 2015 WAR: 0.2
ZiPS sees a significant bounce-back season for "the Shark" and a decent salary to match it, though I have to think more teams will be scared away by the drop in his strikeout rate. If there's ever a pitcher who should strongly consider taking the one-year qualifying offer, it's Samardzija, who likely will get decent offers, but nothing like the nine-figure deal he appeared to be headed toward after his 2.99 ERA in 2014. And if not the South Side, given that The Cell is a tough park for homer-prone pitchers, perhaps a one-year deal with a high base salary would be in order.
9. Chris Davis, 1B
Age: 29 | DOB: 3/17/1986
Years: 8 | 2015 WAR: 5.2
Now we get to a special portion of the top 25 list: the very good first baseman who will be overpaid part of our program. Everybody thinks the latest 30-year-old player with limited defensive value and old player's skills will age well, and more often than not, those contracts have backfired.
At least if a team is going to overpay him, it should make sure it's in a situation in which it won't regret the overpay too badly: a desperately power-hungry contending team that doesn't play in a pitchers' park. Given that the 11th time was the charm for the Mariners in "Operation: Sign Aging Slugger" (Nelson Cruz), I wouldn't be shocked to see them go for a 12th try.
8. Alex Gordon, LF
Age: 31 | DOB: 2/10/1984
Years: 9 | 2015 WAR: 2.8
The Royals don't need to have any regrets about Gordon leaving given that they got a World Series title with him and almost certainly the best years of his career. Now 32, Gordon is heading into his decline years and a good glove in left can go only so far. Even with a projected bounce back, paying him to be the player he was from 2011 to 2014 is a bad bet.
7. Yoenis Cespedes, OF
Age: 30 | DOB: 10/18/1985
Years: 4 | 2015 WAR: 6.3
The talk of giving him the NL MVP Award based on just two months with the Mets was crazy, but he was legitimately on a superstar level for the Mets, hitting .287/.337/.604 for them after being acquired at the trade deadline. Cespedes is one of my favorite players to watch, and has been since his hilarious audition video when he was a Cuban superstar looking to sign in the U.S. But the cold, hard cynic in me notes that it's hard to catch lightning in a bottle twice, and 2015 was his first four-WAR season in the majors. While the Mets were right to play Cespedes in center field, it was because the team was having difficulty scoring runs, and it was the only way to find at-bats for Cespedes, Curtis Granderson, Michael Conforto and, confusingly enough, Michael Cuddyer. At minus-22 defensive runs saved, according to Baseball Info Solutions, in 104 career starts in center, he's not really a starting option out there.
6. Justin Upton, RF
Age: 28 | DOB: 8/25/1987
Years: 9 | 2015 WAR: 4.4
While Upton was exciting back when he was called up as a 19-year-old in 2007, in the near decade since, he has been a solid player, but never truly a star. He's certainly less exciting than Cespedes, but given that he just turned 28, there's still a chance Upton can finally hit that next gear, even if that's not as likely as it was five years ago. Even if he doesn't, Upton's blandly solid level of play fits nicely in the middle of a contender's lineup.
5. Jordan Zimmermann, SP
Age: 29 | DOB: 5/23/1986
Years: 7 | 2015 WAR: 3.4
Remember when, coming into 2015, Zimmermann was talked about in the same breath as David Price among free agents? After 2015, not so much. While Zimmermann's 2015 season was more underwhelming than actual disaster, you don't hear him talked about as an ace that often anymore. Perhaps that's a bit unfair, given that his 3.75 FIP isn't really that much higher than his 3.35 FIP from 2011 to 2013, his 2.68 in 2014 being the outlier.
Zimmermann is a good but not great pitcher, and ZiPS sees him steadily in the 3-4 WAR range for the next half-decade or so. ZiPS compares Zimmermann to a lot of No. 2 starters, guys like Brad Radke, Chris Bosio, Matt Morris, Pat Hentgen and Kevin Tapani, and that appears to be his career trajectory.
4. Johnny Cueto, SP
Age: 29 | DOB: 2/15/1986
Years: 8 | 2015 WAR: 3.9
It didn't prevent the Royals from winning the championship, but going into Cueto's one-run complete-game outing in Game 2 of the World Series, his Kansas City stint had mixed results. The Royals would have made the playoffs easily in 2015 if they had put Bret Saberhagen and Mark Gubicza -- the current renditions -- in the rotation in August, so Cueto's 4.76 ERA in the AL wasn't that big a problem. It's also unlikely that will teams overreact about a poor couple of months from one of the National League's best pitchers since 2010 (23.3 WAR, behind only Cole Hamels and Clayton Kershaw).
Cueto's nonstop tweaking with his windup and his tendency to sometimes get too cute on the corners of the plate might annoy pitching coaches at times, but it also annoys batters and won't keep him from a big payday.
3. Jason Heyward, RF/CF
Age: 26 | DOB: 8/9/1989
Years: 6 | 2015 WAR: 6.5
I'm a big believer in Heyward, but the thought that he'll be the highest-paid position player in a free-agent class is something I've been slow to come around to. Yes, his glove in right field is tremendous, but when people start talking figures of $180 million-200 million for a corner outfielder based on his glove, I'm just not sure Major League Baseball is there yet. When I look at Heyward's offensive comps in ZiPS, the names at the top are players such as Carlos May, Terry Puhl, Von Hayes and Chili Davis. Yes, he's still just 26, but he hasn't shown much growth as a hitter. I guess I just wouldn't pay mid-'70s Carlos May with his excellent defense franchise-player cash. Then again, it's not really my money being spent here, is it? I'm utterly fascinated by where Heyward's market ends up.
2. Zack Greinke, SP
Age: 32 | DOB: 10/21/1983
Years: 12 | 2015 WAR: 9.3
"Obviously the No. 1 thing. I could play for the worst team if they paid the most. ... If the last-place team offers $200 million and the first-place team offers $10, I'm going to go for the $200 million no matter what team it was."
The above quote by Greinke was made before he signed his current deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and it's one of my favorites simply because of its refreshing honesty, a rarity in player quotes when talking contracts. Many armchair psychologists claimed Greinke, who has had anxiety issues in the past, would wilt playing in Los Angeles full-time after playing in the lower-pressure environments of Kansas City and Milwaukee. Didn't happen; Greinke went 51-15 with a 2.30 ERA for the Dodgers with a 19-3 record/1.66 ERA 2015 season that puts him as one of the Cy Young Award front-runners.
Greinke will continue on his Hall of Fame trajectory as the ace of whatever rotation he joins, or if he stays with the Dodgers, a ridiculously good No. 2 thanks to Clayton Kershaw's existence. Being only 31 instead of 29 keeps Greinke from the top spot on this list, but he's headed for a handsome payday nonetheless.
1. David Price, SP
Age: 30 | DOB: 8/26/1985
Years: 8 | 2015 WAR: 6.0
Price was terrible in the playoffs this season! He has two playoff wins in his career, with a 5.12 ERA! His teams have advanced in only two playoff series total!
Luckily for Price's bank account and the fans of his next team, the people making the decision to bring in this year's most valuable free agent won't be relying on terrible arguments like the ones above. Price is one of the elite pitchers in baseball, a key to the Blue Jays' stretch drive (which was quite pressure-filled), and just having turned 30, he's still in the prime of his career. He has fallen short of 200 innings just once since his rookie season and showed absolutely no indication that the 256 1/3 innings he threw in 2014 wore him down, putting up a 2.45 ERA and a 161 ERA+, both career bests.
By the end of Price's next contract, we're likely to be talking about his Cooperstown chances rather than some mythical inability to pitch well in October.