Major League Baseball free agency kicks off this weekend, as free agents can begin negotiating with teams at 12:01 am on Saturday. This winter, the Pirates are in the market for at least one starting pitcher: Gerrit Cole and Francisco Liriano will return to the rotation for sure; Charlie Morton (one more guaranteed season on his contract) and Jeff Locke (arbitration eligible) will presumably be given another shot … Tyler Glasnow will likely be held down in AAA until the middle of the summer … meanwhile, A.J. Burnett is retiring and J.A. Happ is a free agent. The Bucs have dipped into the free agent starter pool often in the past, and there should be options there this winter if they choose to go that route.
Our preliminary rankings for this year’s starting pitching class are below. I’ve broken them down into tiers, using the past three years of performance as a guide. As well as age, I specifically looked at innings pitched, K/9, BB/9, ERA, and WAR (FanGraphs), weighting the more recent seasons more heavily (5/4/3 – a la the Marcel projections). I then calculated each pitcher’s percentile within each category and totaled them, finding some decent results.
This system has its pros and its cons. It was difficult for pitchers who, in particular seasons, pitched very little. It was more difficult for those who didn’t pitch at all. For that reason, I excluded Cliff Lee, Bronson Arroyo (still has a club option out-standing at the time of writing this), Brandon Beachy (also club option), Shaun Marcum, and Chad Billingsley. Lee (whose $27.5 million club option was declined by Philadelphia on Tuesday) hasn’t thrown a pitch since July of 2014, and at age 37, I have no idea where to put him (he’s probably retiring anyway). On the other hand, Marcum, Beachy, and Billingsley didn’t pitch at all in 2014 and sparingly in 2015, and I don’t think they’re worth worrying about right now. I also scratched Brandon Morrow, Sean O’Sullivan, and Rich Hill, who threw 120.2, 108.2, and 73 innings, respectively, in the last three years combined.
Precision was not my utmost intent (hence the tier-based method), and I made adjustments where I saw fit. Below the rankings, there’s an embedded Excel app where you can choose specific players and see their percentile ranks.
Final notes:
– Clay Buchholz, R.A. Dickey, and Jaime Garcia have had their club options exercised.
– Zack Greinke has officially opted out of his current contract with the Dodgers and is a free agent.
– The Royals did not exercise their end of Jeremy Guthrie‘s mutual option, so he is a free agent.
– All the numbers I used can be found via FanGraphs, h/t MLB Trade Rumors.
Without further ado…
Tier 1
David Price (age 30)
Zack Greinke (32)
Jordan Zimmermann (30)
Johnny Cueto (30)
These four are undoubtedly the best pitchers available. They also won’t be coming to Pittsburgh.
Tier 2
Jeff Samardzija (31)
John Lackey (37)
Wei-Yin Chen (30)
Hisashi Iwakuma (35)
Mike Leake (28)
Scott Kazmir (32)
This level contains some solid mid-to-top rotation arms, although they’re most likely going to be finding larger deals elsewhere. Samardzija has been an innings-eater with mixed results over the years, and coming off an ugly season with the White Sox, would be a fun acquisition to potentially rebuild his value. Still, I’m not sure how much his stock has fallen and other teams will likely still be all over him.
John Lackey defied the aging curve with a ridiculously good season in St. Louis (of course), and it’ll be interesting to see how his market develops considering he just turned 37. Meanwhile, the two youngest of this group — Wei-Yin Chen and Mike Leake — will be looking for long-term deals. Chen has quietly enjoyed four solid seasons in Baltimore, a guy who has consistently outperformed his FIP, thanks to an ability to suppress hard contact. Leake is a familiar face having spent most of his big league days in Cincinnati; while not overpowering, he’ll end up with a nice payday for his age (28), durability (~200 innings each past three years), and consistency (3.37 ERA in ’13; 3.70 in ’14; 3.70 in ’15).
Iwakuma battled injuries in 2015, but has been one of the more underrated pitchers in baseball while pitching behind King Felix in Seattle. Kazmir’s been fairly dependable since returning to Major League Baseball in 2013, and his name seems to get attached to the Pirates every once in a while.
While it’d be welcome, I’m not expecting the Bucs to land one of these arms.
Tier 3
Mat Latos (28)
Ian Kennedy (31)
Yovani Gallardo (30)
Bartolo Colon (43)
Doug Fister (32)
Mark Buehrle (37)
Marco Estrada (32)
Colby Lewis (36)
J.A. Happ (33)
Kyle Lohse (37)
Brett Anderson (28)
This is your middle tier where the Pirates will probably be sitting, beginning with Happ. I admittedly wasn’t much of a fan of his before the trade, and as great as he was, how much of an 11-game sample can we buy? Yet it wouldn’t be the worst thing to re-sign him, and it seems a lot of fans are looking for him to return. I’m curious to see what kind of offers he gets — how much value will teams (appropriately) place on his previous track record versus 11 stellar starts in Pittsburgh?
Elsewhere, Doug Fister had a rough season in DC and was ultimately bumped to the bullpen. His normally good groundball rate fell below average (44.6%) and he had trouble keeping the ball in the yard (1.22 HR/9), but he’d be an interesting bounce-back candidate.
Ian Kennedy, who’s had his name linked to the Pirates in the past, also struggled this season in what has become an up-and-down career. His strikeout rate is promising, though he’s a flyball pitcher who had a home run problem in 2015 (a league-worst 1.66 HR/9 despite pitching in PETCO Park).
Oft-injured Brett Anderson would have been a solid reclamation project last year, before the Dodgers scooped him up for one year at $10 million. He’s a perfect fit for the Pirates groundball philosophy, but will likely again seek more money than they’re willing to spend.
Tier 4
Tim Lincecum (32)
Aaron Harang (38)
Alfredo Simon (35)
Justin Masterson (31)
Chris Young (37)
Bud Norris (31)
Dillon Gee (30)
Trevor Cahill (28)
Edwin Jackson (32)
With the exception of veterans Harang and Young, this group mostly consists of buy-low, bounce-back arms. Lincecum hasn’t been relevant for about four years now, and I’m not sure he still has the stuff to turn things around. Masterson looked like a potential fit last offseason with his generally good strikeout and great groundball rates, before signing with Boston for $9.5 million and falling on his face. Bud Norris has been connected to the Pirates before, but was awful in 2015 between Baltimore and San Diego (the Padres stuck him in the bullpen). Trevor Cahill also bounced around the season and found himself in the Cubs’ bullpen, where he found some success and ended up pitching meaningful innings in the postseason.
Tier 5
Kyle Kendrick (31)
Jeremy Guthrie (37)
Mike Pelfrey (32)
Eric Stults (36)
Ryan Vogelsong (38)
Chris Capuano (37)
Jerome Williams (34)
Hector Noesi (29)
Feel free to disagree, and let us know who you have going where.
Here’s some of the data if you’d like to check it out:
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