2021 Top 50 Free Agents

Craig’s Take
While Kris Bryant is the most well-known recent example of service time manipulation, Springer has arguably been hurt the most by the practice. After turning down an extension ahead of the 2014 season, he was held in the minors for a few weeks and barely missed becoming a free agent at the end of last season. He likely would have ended up with more than $200 million in last year’s free agent frenzy, but will have to settle for something closer to half that amount due to his age — he turned 31 in September — and the tightened spending expected this winter.

Player Notes
While many of his Astros teammates saw their offensive stats take a downturn in the wake of the team’s sign-stealing scandal, Springer chugged along as if nothing had happened, putting up numbers right in line with the rest of his excellent career to date. Houston’s malfeasance will lead a lot of general managers to go over Springer’s numbers with a fine-tooth comb. What they’ll find is a player with outstanding plate discipline (he ranked in the top third of qualified hitters last season in strikeout rate, at just 17.1%) and power (his .275 ISO was 20th in that same group) who easily slots in atop any lineup. Any buyer also gets solid defense in center field and above-average speed. A much likelier limiting factor contract-wise will be age: Springer turned 31 in September. But he’s without a doubt the best all-around outfielder on the market, and any contender with a hole in center should be all over him.

MLB offseason begins: 147 players become free agents

A total of 147 players have become free agents, led by pitchers Trevor Bauer, Marcus Stroman, Liam Hendriks and Masahiro Tanaka, José Quintana, outfielders George Springer and Marcell Ozuna; infielders DJ LeMahieu and Andrelton Simmons and designated hitter Nelson Cruz. Additional players will be added pending decisions on team, player and mutual options during the next few days.

The price of qualifying offers rose by $1.1 million to a record $18.9 million. Players are eligible for the offer if they were on the roster for the season and never received a qualifying offer before.

IT’S THE CUBS’ WORLD NOW

Not to spoil the ending, but:

But the Cardinals aren’t doomed. They still have a solid lineup, a solid rotation and a solid bullpen, and you’d have to think they’ll add somebody. But for years, some fans have claimed, wrongly, that Cardinals-Cubs isn’t a real rivalry because the Cards have always been so much better than the Cubs. This, not coincidentally, is the same thing Yankees fans used to say about the Red Sox, before Epstein took over there as well. Now, some have said, in the wake of the Cubs’ signing of Heyward, that this ratchets up the rivalry.

But if anything, I believe it dampens it. Even before Friday, the Cubs were a better team than the Cardinals in just about every way. Now that the Cubs took the Cardinals’ best player, the gap between these teams have widened. If anyone needs to prove this is a rivalry, it’s the fading Cardinals.