With now less than a week until the start of spring training, baseball's free-agent market stands frozen at an unprecedented level. Just over half of this winter's free agents remain unemployed, including 11 of Keith Law's top-20-ranked free agents.
Though various underlying explanations combined to create this state, these players will inevitably sign with teams at some point. This means teams still have the opportunity to upgrade their rosters more than is usually possible in February.
The question becomes: Which teams have the most incentive to bring in the remaining free agents, especially the difference-makers? This has been a quiet year -- for signings, at least -- for teams such as the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers at the top of the scale, trying to stay below the luxury tax that functions as a soft salary cap. And by and large, the rebuilding teams would rather keep their powder dry and not chase after this year's most coveted available players. That just leaves baseball's middle class, the teams that still seek to join the elites for the 2018 season rather than the penurious.
For the purposes of defining the middle class of 2018, I'm using teams that currently project with a ZiPS probability between 33.3 percent and 66.6 percent as the teams with their 2018 fates most up in the air.
Boston Red Sox
The weaknesses: 1B, DH, C
Current ZiPS playoff probability: 66.3 percent
Boston is the closest to baseball's elite class, making it seem a stretch to remove a team that won 93 games from baseball's upper class. But thanks to aggressive moves made by the Yankees both at the trade deadline and during the winter, the Red Sox have lost significant ground to their rivals.
There's a lot to like about the team, but its 14th-ranked slugging percentage in the AL last year held back the success of the offense, and there's no obvious reason to think that this situation will improve outside of the team no longer employing Pablo Sandoval. And that weakness is driven largely by the incumbents at first and DH, Mitch Moreland and Hanley Ramirez, at positions where it's the easiest to find offense.
Boston rightfully has been linked with J.D. Martinez for some time and is right that he represents the best improvement the team can make in this market using only money, increasing the projected playoff probability by 9 percent, to 75.3 percent. To instead bring in Eric Hosmer moves the needle to only 71.2 percent (4.9 percentage points). If the Sox start to seriously explore a Jose Abreu trade, he would be a superior option to Hosmer (+7.1 percent)
The combination of Christian Vazquez and Sandy Leon is likely to be uninspiring but adequate. Jonathan Lucroy is the only real option in free agency (+1.1), but J.T. Realmuto (+5.7 percent) would be a fun pickup, though likely one the Marlins are going to ask a steep price for.
St. Louis Cardinals
The weaknesses: RP
Current ZiPS playoff probability: 54.9 percent
Of all the teams listed here, the Cardinals may have the hardest time making more significant upgrades. ZiPS projects the Cardinals to be above average across the board, but not actually elite anywhere but the Marcell Ozuna-manned spot in left field. That makes upgrading a specific position a bit tricky, something the Cardinals are aware of, which is why they were going all-out to bring in one of the Marlins' three top-tier outfielders or dabbling in Josh Donaldson and Manny Machado trade talks rather than setting their sights lower.
That pretty much leaves the bullpen, and truth be told, the group wasn't anywhere near as poor as advertised. It looked ugly at times, but Cardinals relievers combined for a 3.81 ERA, seventh-best in baseball, and the group was actually a second-half strength. Now, from a situational standpoint, they were worse than that ERA suggested, a bit below average in win probability (WPA) at 18th. But it's common, due to the obviousness of the failing, for people to vastly overrate how many wins a weak bullpen actually costs. The worst in baseball, by WPA, which considers the cost of situational incompetence, was the Oakland Athletics at only five wins worse than average.
The market for relief has remained active, in contrast to other positions, and Greg Holland remains the only Law-ranked relief pitcher still available (+3.7 percent), but I don't see the Cardinals meeting his asking price. The team is focused on lower-key additions like Luke Gregerson and Dominic Leone, and I expect they keep in that vein.
Los Angeles Angels
The weaknesses: C, 1B, DH, SP, RP
Current ZiPS playoff probability: 48.0 percent
There's no team, at least from a projection standpoint, that has made as much progress in brightening its 2018 hopes as the Angels have this offseason. The sad truth, however, is that Albert Pujols, a much-beloved former star nearing more career milestones, is the biggest obstacle remaining to the team's playoff hopes. C.J. Cron projects as below average overall, but is still an improvement over Pujols, one of the least valuable players in baseball in 2017. Let's use a little chart to show how the best 1B/DH (I'm assuming for the sake of argument they can persuade J.D. Martinez to play the latter) changes Angels probabilities when replacing Cron vs. Pujols
I won't go too deep into it as I've already talked quite a bit about the match of Jake Arrieta (+13.6 percent) and the Angels. But he projects very well with them in part due to the team's absurdly good 2B/3B/SS defense. While the Angels' rotation would be solidly above average, assuming good health, that is a fairly risky assumption with this group of pitchers. Even Shohei Ohtani comes with risk.
Minnesota Twins
The weaknesses: 1B, DH, SP, RP
Current ZiPS playoff probability: 44.0 percent
Like the Red Sox and J.D. Martinez, the Twins know precisely whom they should be targeting: Yu Darvish. By all accounts, Minnesota has made serious offers to Darvish, not simply trying to stir up some local good press with an noncompetitive offer. While the loss of some starts from Ervin Santana (finger surgery) doesn't give the Twins a large hit (ZiPS is not a Santana booster), it's enough to push Darvish's value to the Twins even higher. The +20 percent that ZiPS gives the Twins with Darvish is the largest possible free-agent-to-team jump I can find. Jake Arrieta (+11.5 percent) wouldn't be quite as exciting, in part due to the team's rather ordinary infield defense.
Darvish is more interesting than other team upgrades, simply because despite the Twins' success in 2017, they're still assembling their core (they competed earlier than anybody expected). If they're going to make a long-term commitment to a player before they see how their top prospects develop, it ought to be for a pitcher like Darvish, who is hard to clone from your minors.
Milwaukee Brewers
The weaknesses: C, 2B, SP
Current ZiPS playoff probability: 40.6 percent
The Brewers' needs aren't all that dissimilar from those of the Twins, with their biggest target also being Yu Darvish (+17.4 percent). The Brewers do have one advantage that the Twins don't have in excess outfield talent, with none of Domingo Santana, Keon Broxton or Brett Phillips having routes to full-time jobs in Milwaukee in 2018, thanks to the team's significant outfield upgrades.
Combine outfielders with minor leaguers -- Milwaukee still has a number of interesting prospects -- and the Brewers have some interesting trade targets. Milwaukee is one of the teams that could put together a package for Chris Archer (+16.6 percent), the most notable target available. The Brewers are also one of the teams for which Jonathan Lucroy (+6.3 percent) can be a real upgrade, even if his star years are behind him, and there's a lot of history between the two parties.
San Francisco Giants
The weaknesses: LF, CF, RP
Current ZiPS playoff probability: 38.2 percent
Just having chances on this level required that the Giants do a lot this offseason and their division mates do little to nothing, but the team still has some serious holes. Center field remains their largest problem, and that's even after bringing in Austin Jackson. It strikes me as unlikely that they'd already push him out of playing time. Lorenzo Cain (+17.4 percent) coming off the market destroyed their best shot to upgrade the position, with Carlos Gomez (+5.5 percent) the next-best option remaining in free agency.
I would also be shocked if the team wasn't willing to give Hunter Pence first dibs on the position. J.D. Martinez (+9.4 percent) is theoretically the dream signing there, but ZiPS projects AT&T Park as among the worst for Martinez's power-and-lousy-defense skill set.
Arizona Diamondbacks
The weaknesses: 2B, LF, RF
Current ZiPS playoff probability: 35.8 percent
This has been a very J.D. Martinez-themed article, which is hardly surprising given that he's the best hitter available in a large but weak free-agent class. Martinez is still talking with Arizona and he remains a good fit for the team (+14.6 percent). Arizona acquired him to fill a gaping hole in the outfield, and the reality is that his departure would simply open that hole again. Yes, I'm aware of Yasmany Tomas, whose plate discipline and defense are so wretched that he's the exceedingly rare player who can be around replacement level while hitting 30 homers.
The soft market may give Arizona a window to be a bit creative with Martinez's contract beyond just giving him his asking price. Opt-outs are frequently a bad idea, but in this case, I suspect there's at least a possibility of being able to use one to get a deal they otherwise wouldn't be able to, offering Martinez the prospect of testing the market again if he desires. Martinez may not take something like two years, $50 million with an opt-out after 2018, but it's worth exploring. If he really can't get better than, say, six years, $120 million in this market, he might value the opportunity to try to beat five years, $95 million after 2018 or four years, $70 million after 2019. He has played 130 games only once in the majors, and a full healthy season with the same power in 2018 would make him more valuable. When teams spend $150 million on a free agent, they generally expect to not also absorb significant risk.