MLB Power Rankings: The best free agent on every Wild Card team
By Kevin Henry
After a chaotic weekend with plenty of seeding shuffling, the MLB postseason is officially set and ready to kick off with the Wild Card round on Tuesday.
Before we get to the best-of-three round, however, let's take a look at the Wild Card teams and some of the players who could be playing their last games with their respective squads this week. Each of the players listed in this article are free agents after this year (or expected to be), and we have taken the liberty to rank the players in a list from the player who could be least chased in free agency to the one who could be on everyone's wish list.
Wild Card free agent to watch: Robert Stephenson, Tampa Bay Rays
We start our ranking at the lower end of the spectrum with Stephenson, a reliever picked up from Pittsburgh in June in a move that didn't make many headlines. However, since his arrival in St. Petersburg, Stephenson has pitched well, logging a 2.41 ERA/2.48 FIP/0.696 WHIP in 41 games covering 37.1 frames.
The 30-year-old right-hander has played for four different teams during his eight-year MLB career, and is under a $1.75 million deal for this season. The price tag is right and the performance has been there this season, so Robertson may be under-the-radar find for some team in 2024.
By the way, if you're wondering why Stephenson was chosen as Tampa Bay's representative, take a look at how their roster is structured. The Rays have a number of players under control at very reasonable salaries. Once again, they are the poster child for building a contender with a small payroll.