2031’s Top Free Agent Signings

[Lions]

With San Juan‘s victory in the Planetary Extreme Championship capping off an eventful 2031, the free agency period is set to being. Teams will first need make some tough decisions about who should have their options picked up, who should be offered arbitration, and who should get a qualifying offer. Once those things are done, players will file for free agency and the feeding frenzy will begin.

Last year’s free agency market saw some big names get some big contracts. San Antonio committed a boat load of cash to third baseman Luis Cedeño. Madison made a large commitment to 3B Marcos Sánchez. On the pitching side, Kenny Ashley and John Turner signed large contracts with Florida and Amsterdam, respectively. These players weren’t all of the top names, but they were all expected to be great performers for their new teams. Questions remain over whether or not they were worth the lofty sums they were given, but all contributed positively. That said, who were the top FA signings?

We’ll look at this first strictly based on WAR. Wins above replacement isn’t a perfect measure of player performance, but it’s a pretty good proxy for the relative merits of a player’s contributions. For now, we’ll leave out questions on whether or not their contracts were worth it.

5. SP Luigi Bright (NO) – 4.5 WAR – 1 year, $3M

Bright struggled in 2030, posting a 5.85 ERA and the first negative WAR of his career. The Trendsetters snapped him up last February and he turned right back into the pitcher he had been before. He led the team with a 16-9 record and his 3.27 ERA and 1.09 WHIP were right in line with his rotation mates. In July, he signed for another bargain deal that will make him worth every penny even if he’s only half as good.

4. 3B Matthias Ouellette (HAR) – 4.5 WAR – 4 years, $53.5M

Ouellette was signed to replace the aforementioned Cedeño for Hartford. The team’s former Royal Raker was good, but nowhere near up to his prior levels. As a result, San Antonio watched as Hartford went to the postseason, with Ouellette having a better overall season than his predecessor. Ouellette took an interesting path to get here. Originally drafted in the 1st round by Kalamazoo, he was released and picked up by Manchester when they were still in the WIL. He grew into a useful player for them, but like Bright, struggled in his walk year. The Maulers certainly wish they’d gotten this level of production from him.

3. SP Orlando García (SA) – 4.5 WAR – 3 years, $45M

Luis Cedeño wasn’t the only player that San Antonio signed away from Hartford last winter. García won 15 games for the Harpoon in 2030. If the Calzones were looking to replace Hartford as an IL Wild Card team, signing a couple of their best players certainly seemed like a good approach at the time. It didn’t quite work out that way, and while García wasn’t quite as good as he had been for his old team, he was (spoiler alert) the free agent pitcher who posted the highest WAR for their new team in 2031.

2. C Germán Hernández (WV) – 4.6 WAR – 1 year, $26M

Famously holding out for a big contract, Hernández finally settled on a 1 year deal with a team that could afford one of his desired magnitude. The Alleghenies got everything they paid for, as he was the best catcher in the league by WAR last season. He didn’t sign until the first week of April, so don’t be surprised if it’s a similar story this coming offseason.

1. 3B Christian Webb (FLA) – 4.8 WAR – 5 years, $109.5 M

Did you have Webb at the top of last year’s FA production list? Probably not. Florida’s struggles as a team overshadowed a number of strong individual performances, with Webb being further overshadowed by other compelling storylines. Luppe van Dam clearly developing into the ace of aces people have been expecting. Wilson Muñóz got traded to the Badgers. Florida drafted 3 generational prospects at the top of the 2031 draft. The team committed gobs of money to international amateur free agents. Webb was just a footnote in all of that, and if you were paying attention to a Florida FA signing, it was probably going to be Kenny Ashley.



You’ll notice that among the top 5, you don’t see any of the names listed above. The reality is that all four of the players mentioned earlier in the article had good seasons. Turner’s 3.7 WAR was the lowest, and Sánchez would’ve made the list just fractions behind Bright. Top FA’s are typically going to be good, but there are others who will post great years and turn to be steals.

[MikeB]

Putting WAR aside, Schneider had a better batting avg. than Webb (.267 to .256) and slugging (.453 to .396) and stole more bases (27/29 vs. 12/12). He was less on WAR at 3.5 and did lose games to injury. Would have preferred Webb and probably still do but injury aside I would say Harley performed better.

[Lions]

Putting WAR aside, Schneider had a better batting avg. than Webb (.267 to .256) and slugging (.453 to .396) and stole more bases (27/29 vs. 12/12). He was less on WAR at 3.5 and did lose games to injury. Would have preferred Webb and probably still do but injury aside I would say Harley performed better.

When you're talking about the difference of 1.0 WAR between players, that difference often isn't all that big. I can easily see your take, and I must admit that I don't fully understand how the WAR calculation works. One thing that I think led to Webb's higher WAR was his .345 OBP compared to Schneider's .313. Webb had more extra base hits (48 to 42) despite the lower slugging, so perhaps that's not as big a difference to WAR as it might be to what you're trying to do with your offense. Schneider's 3.5 WAR ranked him in the top 15 of FA's.

I listed Webb as a 3B just based on his player listing, but he really spent most of the season at 2B. Defense is another area that Webb's numbers pulled him ahead of Schneider. Now that I look at that, I wonder if this isn't the biggest bulk of the difference.

[Borealis]

Probably a defensive factor as well? Webb had 6 E and Harley had 14...

[MikeB]

Either way, not stellar performances for free agents. Seems other than a couple mentioned above the rest of the big ones declined from 2030. Schneider salvaged a poor season with a big September.

[Lions]

I didn't talk about this in the article, but the top WAR players to have switched teams were all traded. Tom Patton (7.0 WAR), Takanobu Shirai (6.6 WAR), and Jason Box (6.0 WAR) were big difference makers.

[Borealis]

Man Sim turned out to be pretty effective FA - even if he was an INT FA...

[Sandgnats]

great article

[Lions]

When looking at the top free agent signings, it’s easy to simply take a look at how players preformed and rank them based on that. However, everyone knows that the amount of money committed to a player is just as important as how they play. If someone posts 3.0 WAR in a season, that’s a solid year from a performance standpoint. If they’re doing that on a $1 million dollar salary or a $30 million dollar salary, though, makes a world of difference.

Last time we ranked the top players based strictly on performance. This time, we’ll take a look at several top signees based on performance who did so for pennies on the dollar. There won’t be a strict ranking of $/WAR, more a glance at the list of top WAR players who were relatively big surprises, bargains, or both. I’m far less interested in players who posted a 1.0 WAR season for the league minimum than those that were at solid regular to All-Star level. These are players who came in and played well above expectation and had bargain contracts to boot.

SP Luigi Bright (NO) – 4.5 WAR – 1 year, $3M – $667K/WAR

We’ll start with Bright, who we covered in the previous discussion as posting the 5th highest WAR among 2031 free agents. He was a superb find for the Trendsetters that every other team whiffed on.

SP Jonathan Sherwin (NT) – 4.3 WAR – 1 year, $7.2M – $1.7M/WAR

Sherwin’s 2031 salary is the highest on the list, and he’s the highest $/WAR on the list, but his performance merits placing him here. Heck, someone’s gotta be highest. Sherwin went 18-6 with a 3.34 ERA for the Akira as they won 104 games on the year. His signing was a great value and would’ve been possible for just about any other team in the league.

SP Kyoichi Gato (AMA) – 4.0 WAR – MLC – $127K/WAR

Gato is listed here as a starter, because that’s what he is, but it’s worth pointing out that he was signed as depth and didn’t even make the major league roster out of Spring Training. He was called up to the PEBA after injuries and ineffectiveness in the rotation, and then proceeded to lead the Lions in ERA and WHIP. It’s not like the rotation was lousy either. As a group, Amsterdam’s starters were 5th in the IL in ERA, with 2 starters other than Gato posting sub-3.00 ERA’s. Gat0’s 2.53 ERA was 9th in all of PEBA.

1B John Lawson (MAD) – 3.8 WAR – 3 years, $18.5M -$1.49M/WAR

Up to last year, Lawson had spent his entire career with Reno. He had some good season, including 2026 which was pretty similar to what he did this year, but it had been some time since he had shown that level of play. Over the four seasons heading into free agency, he had posted declining WAR every season. Had he posted something close to the 0.8 WAR he put up in 2030, this contract would’ve been a bit of an overpay. Instead, he found new life with the Malts and was a nice find for the team in their new home.

3B Michael Lee (KAL) – 3.4 WAR – 1 year, $3M – $882K/WAR

A couple of top prospects living up to expectations and a smart FA signing like this one gave the Badgers the offense needed to contend for the first time in a long time. Lee was pretty far down the list of a loaded third base class in last year’s free agent pool, but Kalamazoo gave him a shot and he delivered. Always known for power, Lee stayed healthy enough to put up 24 home runs and a respectable average while playing passable defense at the hot corner.

(Dis)Honarable Mention: SP George Lee (MAN) – 2.0 WAR – MLC/$1.5M – $750K/WAR

I really wanted to include Lee on this list as his 2.0 WAR is a pretty good total for a guy who got an invite to Spring Training with a promise of $1.5 million if he made the big league rotation. He did make it, and proceeded to post a 3.80 FIP on the year. Unfortunately, that FIP didn’t translate into actual results. His “real” numbers were a 3-14 record with a 5.64 ERA.