[OC] I Went Through Every Free Agent So You Don’t Have To (Catchers, Outfielders, & DHs)

Hello! This is the final part of my Every Free Agent series where I have been going through every single free agent available and doing analysis. I’m really glad that I was able to just barely get this post out before the Winter Meetings, since a bunch of these guys will already be signed by this time next week. This post is super long because I’m covering 3 different position groups, so let’s jump right in!

**Catchers:** I completely forgot about catchers when doing my infielders list since the Blue Jays are so set at this position (whoops!), but I did say EVERY free agent so let’s take a quick look:

*Available Catchers: Mitch Garver, Gary Sanchez, Victor Caratini, Austin Hedges, Tom Murphy, Michael Perez, Tucker Barnhart, Chad Wallach, Austin Wynns, Manny Pina, Yasmani Grandal, Roberto Perez, Andrew Knizner, Mike Zunino, Curt Casali, Sandy Leon, Jorge Alfaro, Jacob Stallings, Austin Nola, Cam Gallagher, Martin Maldonado*

With the Mets claiming Tyler Heinemann off waivers the team doesn’t currently have a 3rd catcher (they do have a catcher in AAA named Zach Britton though and finding that out made feel like I just had a That’s So Raven vision into the 2016 Wild Card Game). I don’t think they really need to add a 3rd catcher but if they decide to then going after a solid glove like Hedges or Barnhart or someone with a bit of pop like Murphy makes the most sense.

Garver is an interesting name here, I wasn’t sure whether to include him in Catchers or DHs. I decided to include him in Catchers because I think the Jays have the opportunity to copy from the Rangers here if they do sign him. Garver can really swing it, he has phenomenal walk & chase rates, great exit velocities and a batted ball profile that allows him to make the most of the contact that he makes. You don’t lose any offense by signing him as a primary DH, but you get the added benefit of someone who can catch 30-40 games. That ability to fill in behind the dish gives the Jays the flexibility to shop Jansen more freely to try and fill other holes on the roster (especially if the rumors about the lack of an extension are true). One dance partner that made a lot of sense to me was the Cubs, they’re currently 3 strong in the outfield (Tauchmann, Suzuki, Happ) with a top prospect (Pete Crow-Armstrong) ready to come up (and they’re also still trying to bring Bellinger back). Flipping Jansen and a prospect or 2 for Happ / Suzuki, or Jansen for Tauchmann & a Cubs lottery ticket would allow both teams to fill needs while trading from a surplus. Essentially, signing Garver gives you a competent DH while also providing the opportunity for a better upgrade in the outfield than what’s available right now, just something to think about.

**Everyday Outfielders:** These guys don’t need a platoon partner and all have a signature skill of some kind. Your opinion may vary on some of them but it’s a safe bet that they’ll all find a home as a starter in a big league lineup next year.

*Players in this Tier: Cody Bellinger, Jung-Hoo Lee, Kevin Kiermaier, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Adam Duvall, Teoscar Hernandez, Harrison Bader, Joey Gallo, Tommy Pham*

Cody Bellinger: If you read my last post on infielders, you’ll know that I’m a big peripherals guy so it should be no surprise that I’m not the highest on Bellinger. He adjusted his 2 strike approach to try and cut Ks by putting the ball into play more often, and he benefitted from excellent batted ball luck on those defensive 2 strike swings. On balls less than 95 MPH with 2 strikes, Bellinger posted a .354 wOBA compared to a .260 xWOBA, the 4th highest differential in the league on those batted balls (min 50 results). That being said, I do think that the conversation about the poor peripherals has jumped the shark a bit, he’s almost certainly not going to revert back to his 2021 & 2022 numbers and he’s still only 28 years old. Realistically he’s probably not a true talent 130 wRC+ guy, but he can most definitely be a 110 wRC+ guy with excellent outfield defense. I just don’t think that kind of guy is worth paying $175M for 7 years, especially when there are other guys in this OF class who can probably provide similar production for much less cost and commitment.

Jung Hoo Lee: Lee is probably the biggest question mark out of any player in this class, we just don’t have a ton of data to go off of when looking at how he might perform. He’s a contact wizard, walking more than twice as often as he strikes out, but he avoids those strikeouts by defending the zone and beating balls into the ground. His 59.2% groundball rate in 2023 would have placed him 2nd in MLB this year, right behind Tim Anderson (yikes!). That being said, hitting a lot of groundballs isn’t necessary a death sentence, both Christian Yelich & William Contreras both ran GB rates above 55% and they both had above average offensive seasons (122 & 124 wRC+ respectively). The caveat here is that both of these guys hit the ball extremely hard, extremely consistently with 85th percentile exit velos and a near 50% hard hit rate. We don’t have the data to see if Lee also hits the ball hard which is what will likely drive his market. He is still only 25 though, and the age and defense will be attractive to teams no matter what, but I feel like he’s more of a multi-year project than someone that you can plug in right away and expect 110-120 wRC+ out of.

Kevin Kiermaier / Lourdes Gurriel Jr. / Teoscar Hernandez AKA The Ex-Girlfriends: I’m grouping all of the former Blue Jays together since they all remind me of different types of Ex’s you can have. The KK breakup is way too fresh so there’s no way you’re getting back together again. You want to call her because of how fun the past year was but if you do it’ll just seem desperate since she dumped you looking for something better.
Lourdes is the girlfriend that you dumped because you thought you could do better but after you broke up she seemed like she was doing just fine. Her new relationship was treating her a lot better, taking her out to all these fancy places like the World Series, before they split up. Teo is the girlfriend you broke up with but then everything went wrong for after. She took the split pretty badly and ended up with someone who kept gaslighting her into thinking they were in it for the long haul, but would only pick up 54% of the cheque at dinner. Looking back, all of these relationships were pretty good, your friends loved them (especially your Dominican Canadian, son of a HOFer friend) and they’re all available at the same time as you are. Maybe I should call her…

Tommy Pham: Pham is going to turn 36 next year but he can still get after it with the bat. He absolutely crushed the ball this year, posting a 94th percentile average exit velocity along with greatly improving his chase & contact rates. He also severely underperformed his expected numbers (.332 wOBA vs .361 xwOBA), and while that can likely be attributed to his high GB% (He’s only outperformed his xwOBA once in 9 seasons), there’s still the potential for some positive regression. The fact that his exit velocities haven’t dipped at all and he’s still making a ton of in-zone contact (87.3%) makes me believe that he’ll be able to stave off regression, at least for another season before someone like Addison Barger or Orelvis Martinez comes up.

I also think Joey Gallo could be a sneaky good pick-up for a 1 year deal. I’m not a huge fan of 3-True-Outcome baseball but Gallo did a really good job of cutting down his Chase rate as the season went on in 2023 which is huge for a guy who lives and dies by only swinging at pitches he can crush. [Here’s a chart showing how his Chase rate declined over the year and how his wOBA responded](https://i.imgur.com/zrW25mY.png), it’s honestly pretty satisfying to see how aligned the 2 are. If he keeps this up in 2024, he could be primed for a 2018/2019 Joey Gallo type season.

**Love Island (Platoon Edition):** Welcome one, welcome all to the inaugural edition of the MLB’s Love Island (Platoon Edition) dating show. I’m your host u/sliderguy35, and today we’re going to take a look at some Sexy Single Free Agent Outfielders and try to find them a platoon partner for life. All of our bachelors have a particular set of skills, but are missing that other half to make them feel like a complete hitter. Feel free to drop a comment on who you think is the sexiest platoon pair from our list of eligible bachelors (who am I kidding, any pair that has Randal in it is the sexiest one, he’s just so goddamn Handsome).

*vs Righties: Eddie Rosario, Travis Jankowski, Austin Meadows, Tyler Naquin, Ben Gamel, Aaron Hicks*

*vs Lefties: Michael A. Taylor, (Handsome) Randal Grichuk, Hunter Renfroe, Robbie Grossman*

Generally you’d like to have one part of your platoon pair be at least an above average defender, but the only plus defenders out of this list are Jankowski & Taylor so it kind of limits your options. The options vs lefties are all pretty safe picks but the options vs righties are a lot more questionable outside of Jankowski & Rosario. In reality, if the Blue Jays decide to platoon in the outfield corner, Cavan will probably be the platoon partner vs righties, with one of these FAs filling in against lefties.

**The 2018-2022 Failed Blue Jays Outfielders (AKA the remaining outfielders):** Seriously, more than half of the guys remaining were former Blue Jays prospects or played for the team between 2018 and 2022, it’s insane. Shatkins really knows how to pick em’.

*Players in this tier: Rafael Ortega, Tim Locastro, Billy McKinney, Jordan Luplow, Jake Marisnick, Jonathan Davis, Kevin Pillar, Raimel Tapia, Franchy Cordero, Trayce Thompson, Brett Phillips, David Dahl, Kyle Lewis, Jackie Bradley Jr., Corey Dickerson, AJ Pollock, Jurickson Profar*

If you get excited for any of these names then you obviously weren’t around before 2023 so welcome to the subreddit! I’m also not sure that any of them are better than Nathan Lukes so I’m just going to move on.

**Designated Hitters:** Ok I’m not going to do a whole blurb on Ohtani because I already covered him when I did my Starting Pitchers post. In that post I thought you were all delusional and that Hell would freeze over before we signed the most talented baseball player to ever live. Ever since then, all of the reporting has come out that the Jays are serious players and might actually sign this guy. Even though that’s the case, I’ve decided to stand firmly… in the bandwagon baby HES COMING TO CANADA, ITS A DONE DEAL WOOOOOOOOOO. I’m all decked out in Delulu Lemon and I’ve never been more happy to be wrong in my life. I am ready for my soul to be absolutely crushed when he signs with the Dodgers but right now I don’t care, I am LIVING.

As for the rest of the DHs, I’ve split them up into Right Handed Hitters, Left Handed Hitters, and Designated (For Assignment) Hitters.

**Right Handed DHs:** J.D Martinez, Jorge Soler, Rhys Hoskins, Andrew McCutchen, Donovan Solano, Justin Turner

I am pretty down on the crop of Right Handed DHs in this class, mainly because it feels redundant to add another righty when you already have Kirk / Jansen filling in for that slot throughout the season. The Belt signing worked out really well last year and I expect the Jays to take a similar approach with a Left Handed Hitter this year. These guys are all really good hitters though and will definitely provide value for whatever team they end up on.

**Left Handed DHs:** Carlos Santana, Brandon Belt, Mike Ford, Joc Pederson, Michael Brantley, Daniel Vogelbach, Ji Man Choi, Jessie Winker, Rowdy Tellez, Joey Votto

Joc Pederson: I think Joc is pretty clearly the best non-Ohtani left handed DH in this FA class, he walks a ton and hits the ball hard and in the air when he does make contact. He had a bit of an unlucky season in 2023, continuing to hit the ball hard but underperforming his expected stats by nearly 30 points across the board. The plate discipline peripherals all look good as well, the out of zone swing rate is down while the in zone swing rate is up. The defensive numbers are pretty horrendous but you can still run him out there in Left Field for 20-30 games in a pinch or if someone needs a day off. Just a really solid all around hitter who will likely continue to be solid moving forward.

Michael Brantley: PROFESSIONAL HITTER! PROFESSIONAL. HITTER. P R O F E S S I O N A L H I T T E R ! ! ! !

Ji Man Choi: He was hurt for most of last season but I think The Ji Man is due for a bounce-back season this year. Despite only posting a .267 wOBA in 30 games last season, his xwOBA was nearly 100(!) points higher at .353. He actually increased his average exit velocity and barrel rate and his wRC+ dropped 50 points! This feels like the most Belt-esque signing they could make: find a guy who had a rough time the year prior but with excellent peripherals and give him the chance to play in a minimized role where he’ll have the greatest chance of success (vs Righties). He can also fill in at first if need be, he’s slightly below average there but is at least somewhat competent around the bag.

Joey Votto: The vibes of a pickup like this would be absolutely unmatched, listening to Joey Votto interviews is what keeps me going on dark and stormy nights. He’s one of my favourite players of all time and I can’t wait until he’s inducted into the HOF one day. However, when we look at whether or not he can make a meaningful offensive contribution in 2024, my head is saying Not (despite what the heart wants). Basically every peripheral stat tells you that a bounce-back isn’t happening, his exit velocities are down while his groundball rate is up. He’s swinging at more pitches in the zone but making less contact overall. His walk rate is down and his chase rate is up. Basically everything we know about underlying hitting metrics, he’s declined in over the past 2 years. I would love to be proven wrong, that this was due to some undiagnosed injury and he’s going to have one last career resurgence at 40 years old, but I just don’t see it happening.

**Designated (For Assignment) Hitters:** Garrett Cooper, Dominic Smith, Darin Ruf, Luke Voit, Yuli Gurriel, CJ Cron, Franmil Reyes, Trey Mancini, Kole Calhoun

These guys are designated hitters that can barely hit. There’s potential for a Trey Mancini or Franmil Reyes bounceback (especially with how young Franmil is), but it’ll be a team like the Royals or A’s that tries to make that happen, not the Blue Jays.

Whew, we did it! Over 250 (jesus that is so many) free agents categorized and analyzed. I want to thank anyone who read all 4 parts, these were a lot of fun to write but they were pretty exhausting to get done, especially since I wanted to have all the parts done prior to the Winter Meetings. I have some plans for other fun posts this offseason so keep an eye out for those, and thank you again for all the support!