Free Agent Fantasy Team Update: Building a Rotation-Off the Radar

Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Jeremy Guthrie joins the All-Free Agent team as a pitching staff starts to take shape. Photo by Denny Medley-US PRESSWIRE

The off-season marches on, as the non-tender deadline (which produced some interesting free agents) has passed and the Winter Meetings are about to begin. Again, if you are unfamiliar with the rules of the All Free Agent Fantasy Team, follow the original link.

So Players Signed over the last two weeks:

Carlos Torres: MiLB contract

Tim Byrdak: MiLB contract

Brian Bogusevic: MiLB contract

Dewayne Wise: 700,000 for 2013

Sept 12, 2012; Houston, TX, USA; Chicago Cubs relief pitcher Shawn Camp (54) pitches against the Houston Astros during the eighth inning at Minute Maid Park. Mandatory Credit: Thomas Campbell-US PRESSWIRE

Shawn Camp: 1.35 million for 2013. It may seem silly to guarantee money to Shawn Camp, but he has 5 straight positive fWAR seasons with FIP – under 100 in each of those. Like Pierre, it would be another “just don’t be terrible” contracts with a lower ceiling. He threw in 80 games last year, so either he is due for an injury or he is durable (pick which one I guess). The good news is that Camp threw at the same velocity across the board in 2012 that he did in 2011 with the Blue Jays (after a pretty big velocity dip).

Jeremy Guthrie: 5 million for 2013, 20 million in future commitments

Why guarantee so much to a mid-rotation starter? Guthrie is worth 25.1 million retail according to ZiPS over the 3 year period. Of course, those projections assume around 5 million per win, when I am operating at 3.24 million per win and do I really want 1/6th of my future committment money to be taken by Jeremy Guthrie?

Oct 14, 2012; Bronx, NY, USA; New York Yankees starting pitcher Hiroki Kuroda throws a pitch against the Detroit Tigers during game two of the 2012 ALCS at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Noah K. Murray/THE STAR-LEDGER via US PRESSWIRE

Hiroki Kuroda: 15 million for 2013. He isn’t going to be worth 5 WAR, but if I am too conservative and still have holes in my rotation when all the pitchers are off the board, I am going to regret it.

A Baker, Kuroda, Colon, Guthrie rotation (with a minor league free agent at 5) for 28.5 million doesn’t sound too bad. In fact, let’s do a projection. Assuming I sign a minor league free agent for my 5th starter and he performs at 0 WAR, I am paying for 8.79 WAR. Kuroda, Colon, and Guthrie had a fWAR of 7.3 in 2012 and Baker was obviously recovering from Tommy John. If you just use the 3 year averages of the 4 pitchers, you get a 8.82 WAR average. That is with Colon and Baker both missing basically a year, and Guthrie’s first half of 2012 being wasted in Colorado. So even if Kuroda takes an expected step back, one can still argue that these 4 are worth these salaries, with only Guthrie costing any future money. This will mean I have already spent 45.7 million of my 105 million, but I have basically already build my rotation and will be able to use the rest to build up my offense. This still isn’t an overly strong rotation if I can’t get any production from any minor league free agents as a 8.79 fWAR would place me as the 24th best rotation in baseball between the Angels and Royals. So I am still not done with the pitching.

This is why I picked up Scott Feldman at 6 million for 2013.

Ryan Madson: 3.5 million for 2013

Mike Fontenot: MiLB contract

Rich Thompson: MiLB contract

Here is my roster so far (with WPA changed to WAA simply because it is a better statistic):

So I have spent 57.25 million of my available 103 million for 2013. I have spent 37.1 of my 128.5 million of future committments. I have used 23 of the available 60 roster spots so far. So I really need to find some hitters on multi year deals. As far as pitching goes, I could probably use some more depth, but I don’t plan on spending much more money on the pitching staff and will focus mainly on hitting (especially in the infield).