Eddy: An analytical look at minor-league free agents

From Matt Eddy at Baseball America on November 21, 2016:

Starting pitchers with swing-and-miss stuff and passable control. Middle infielders with power. These commodities are in short supply on the minor league free agent market because teams tend to hoard them on 40-man rosters.

The outlook for teams trying to add minor league system depth in other areas—such as speed, corner power, dependable middle-infield defense, effective bullpen help—is considerably more favorable.

For many fans, even hardcore Baseball America prospect watchers, those players who hit the minor league free agent market are simply names on a computer screen. So in this piece I will attempt to add context to those names, with a focus on younger free agents. To do this I determined league percentile ranks for major component statistics—where higher is always better—for all 534 minor league free agents in this year’s pool and ranked them accordingly.



Originally published: November 21, 2016. Last Updated: November 21, 2016.