Free Agency Part 1 - The Crazy

Under the current system, players eligible for free agency are ranked by an outside source (Elias Sports Bureau) based on several measurements. There are three tiers of FA players: Type A (top 20% of the class), Type B (the next 20%) and unclassified. If a player is awarded Type A status and does not resign with his most current team, then the team with which he does sign gives either its first- or second-round pick (depending on the record of the new team) to the team who lost the player AND that team is awarded a "sandwich pick" (an extra round in between the first- and second-rounds). If the player is given Type B status and doesn't resign, then his former team is awarded just the sandwich pick.

In a three-part post, let's take a look at the most pressing problems with the free agency classification system:

1. The Classification System

The Classification system is bogus on two accounts: it ranks every MLB player, including rookies and other players not eligible for free agency, by accumulating certain, arbitrary stats, over the previous two years. Here are the stat categories used for each of the five position groups.

• 1B/OF/DH: PA, AVG, OBP, HR, RBI
• 2B/3B/SS: PA, AVG, OBP, HR, RBI, Fielding percentage, Total chances at designated position
• C: PA, AVG, OBP, HR, RBI, Fielding percentage, Assists
• SP: Total games (total starts + 0.5 * total relief appearances), IP, Wins, W-L Percentage, ERA, Strikeouts
• RP: Total games (total relief appearances + 2 * total starts), IP (weighted slightly less than other categories), Wins + Saves, IP/H ratio, K/BB, ERA

At first glance, we can see that hitters and pitchers have different stat categories. How does Elias expect all of these different categories to be weighted equally when they are so very different? This does not even take into account that with the exception of OBP, the stats are completely useless and irrelevant for analyzing the true value of a player. They look more like they were derived from a fantasy baseball league than from real life. Too many of the stats above are actually more involved team stats than purely individual measures. Why should a good player from a bad team be penalized for not having high RBI and Run totals because the players in front of and behind him in the lineup can not do a better job? Also, pitchers do not win games; they merely put their team in a better position to win the game if they perform well. Please read the following Baseball Prospectus article for more information.

The second issue with Elias' rankings is that it ranks every player in MLB so the free agents are not only being compared to its own class, but also in relation to the general population of MLB players. In theory, the top 20% could all be players that are not free agents, and so that year could not have one player worthy of two first round picks. To have such a system that ranks players based on obsolete, archaic and irrelevant stats and to organize the free agent rankings with a mixture of eligible and non-eligible players just shows how disorganized MLB leadership is.

The crux of this matter is that the value of free agents directly influences the long-term plans of MLB organizations and affects the financial outlook of each organization that has hundreds of employees. In order to perform good business, MLB must adopt a change in their free agency metrics to value players as accurately as possible.