Mlb Free Agents, Who Do You Want Your Team To Pursue

[jay16509]

Guys, here is the list of free agents for this off season. who do you want your team to pursue

Catchers

Rod Barajas (36)

Josh Bard (34)

Henry Blanco (40)

Ramon Castro (36)

Ryan Doumit (31) - $7.25MM club option for 2012, $8.25MM club option for '13 with a $500K buyout

Ramon Hernandez (36)

Jason Kendall (38)

Gerald Laird (32)

Jose Molina (36)

Yadier Molina (29) - $7MM club option with a $750K buyout

Dioner Navarro (28)

Ivan Rodriguez (40)

Brian Schneider (35)

Kelly Shoppach (32) - $3.2MM club option with a $300K buyout

Chris Snyder (31) - $6.75MM club option with a $750K buyout

Matt Treanor (36)

Jason Varitek (40)

First basemen

Russell Branyan (36)

Jorge Cantu (30)

Michael Cuddyer (33)

Prince Fielder (28)

Ross Gload (36)

Brad Hawpe (33)

Eric Hinske (34) - $1.5MM club option with a $100K buyout

Casey Kotchman (29)

Mark Kotsay (36)

Derrek Lee (36)

Xavier Nady (33)

Lyle Overbay (35)

Carlos Pena (34)

Wily Mo Pena (30)

Albert Pujols (32)

Second basemen

Clint Barmes (33)

Willie Bloomquist (34) - $1.1MM mutual option with a $150K buyout

Orlando Cabrera (37)

Robinson Cano (29) - $14MM club option with a $2MM buyout

Jamey Carroll (37)

Alex Cora (36)

Craig Counsell (41)

Mark Ellis (35)

Jerry Hairston Jr. (36)

Bill Hall (32) - $4MM mutual option with a $250K buyout

Aaron Hill (30) - $8MM club option for 2012 and $8MM club option for '13

Kelly Johnson (30)

Adam Kennedy (36)

Felipe Lopez (32)

Jose Lopez (28)

Aaron Miles (35)

Brandon Phillips (31) - $12MM club option with a $1MM buyout

Drew Sutton (29)

Shortstops

Clint Barmes (33)

Yuniesky Betancourt (30) - $6MM club option with a $2MM buyout

Orlando Cabrera (37)

Jamey Carroll (37)

Ronny Cedeno (29) - $3MM club option with a $200K buyout

Craig Counsell (41)

Rafael Furcal (34) - $12MM club option with a $1.3MM buyout

Alex Gonzalez (34)

Jerry Hairston Jr. (36)

Cesar Izturis (32)

John McDonald (37)

Nick Punto (34)

Edgar Renteria (35)

Jose Reyes (29)

Jimmy Rollins (33)

Ramon Santiago (32)

Marco Scutaro (36) - $6MM club option/$3MM player option with a $1.5MM buyout

Jack Wilson (34)

Third basemen

Wilson Betemit (30)

Casey Blake (38)

Jorge Cantu (30)

Eric Chavez (34)

Craig Counsell (41)

Mark DeRosa (37)

Greg Dobbs (33)

Edwin Encarnacion (29) - $3.5MM club option with a $500K buyout

Jerry Hairston Jr. (36)

Kevin Kouzmanoff (30)

Andy LaRoche (28)

Felipe Lopez (32)

Jose Lopez (28)

Nick Punto (34)

Aramis Ramirez (34) - $16MM club option with a $2MM buyout; Ramirez can void

Omar Vizquel (45)

Left fielders

Travis Buck (28)

Pat Burrell (35)

Johnny Damon (37)

Mark DeRosa (37)

Jay Gibbons (35)

Jonny Gomes (31)

Carlos Guillen (36)

Scott Hairston (32)

Bill Hall (32) - $4MM mutual option with a $250K buyout

Willie Harris (34)

Eric Hinske (34) - $1.5MM club option with a $100K buyout

Raul Ibanez (40)

Conor Jackson (30)

Reed Johnson (35)

Ryan Ludwick (33)

Jason Michaels (36)

Laynce Nix (31)

Felix Pie (27)

Juan Pierre (34)

Scott Podsednik (36)

Juan Rivera (33)

Marcus Thames (35)

Josh Willingham (33)

Center fielders

Rick Ankiel (32)

Carlos Beltran (35)

Willie Bloomquist (34) - $1.1MM mutual option with a $150K buyout

Mike Cameron (39)

Coco Crisp (32)

David DeJesus (32)

Scott Hairston (32)

Andruw Jones (35)

Nate McLouth (30) - $10.65MM club option with a $1.25MM buyout

Corey Patterson (32)

Cody Ross (31)

Grady Sizemore (29) - $8.5MM club option with a $500K buyout

Dewayne Wise (34)

Right fielders

Willie Bloomquist (34) - $1.1MM mutual option with a $150K buyout

Milton Bradley (34)

Michael Cuddyer (33)

David DeJesus (32)

J.D. Drew (36)

Kosuke Fukudome (35)

Willie Harris (34)

Brad Hawpe (33)

Jason Kubel (29)

Ryan Ludwick (33)

Xavier Nady (33)

Magglio Ordonez (38)

Cody Ross (31)

Nick Swisher (31) - $10.25MM club option with a $1MM buyout

Josh Willingham (33)

Designated hitters

Milton Bradley (34)

Johnny Damon (37)

Jason Giambi (41)

Vladimir Guerrero (37)

Carlos Guillen (36)

David Ortiz (36)

Jason Kubel (29)

Hideki Matsui (38)

Jorge Posada (40)

Jim Thome (41)

Starting pitchers

Erik Bedard (33)

Mark Buehrle (33)

Chris Capuano (33)

Bruce Chen (35)

Bartolo Colon (39)

Aaron Cook (33) - $11MM mutual option with a $500K buyout

Kyle Davies (28)

Doug Davis (36)

Ryan Dempster (35) - $14MM player option, no buyout

Zach Duke (29) - $5.5MM club option with a $750K buyout

Jeff Francis (30)

Armando Galarraga (30)

Freddy Garcia (36)

Jon Garland (32)

Aaron Harang (34) - $5MM mutual option with a $500K buyout

Rich Harden (30)

Livan Hernandez (37)

Hisashi Iwakuma (31)

Edwin Jackson (28)

Kenshin Kawakami (37)

Scott Kazmir (28) - $13.5MM club option with a $2.5MM buyout

Hiroki Kuroda (37)

Rodrigo Lopez (36)

Paul Maholm (30) - $9.75MM club option with a $750K buyout

Jason Marquis (33)

Kevin Millwood (37)

Sergio Mitre (31)

Roy Oswalt (34) - $16MM mutual option with a $2MM buyout

Brad Penny (34)

Oliver Perez (30)

Joel Pineiro (33)

C.C. Sabathia (31) - may opt out of remaining four years, $92MM

Javier Vazquez (35)

Tsuyoshi Wada (31)

Adam Wainwright (30) - $10MM vesting option for '12, $12MM for '13

Tim Wakefield (45)

Chien-Ming Wang (32)

Brandon Webb (33)

Dontrelle Willis (30)

C.J. Wilson (31)

Chris Young (33)

Closers

Heath Bell (34)

Jonathan Broxton (28)

Matt Capps (28)

Francisco Cordero (37) - $12MM club option with a $1MM buyout

Frank Francisco (32)

Brad Lidge (35) - $12.5MM club option with a $1.5MM buyout

Joe Nathan (37) - $12.5MM club option with a $2MM buyout

Jonathan Papelbon (31)

Jon Rauch (33) - $3.75MM club option with a $250K buyout

Francisco Rodriguez (30)

Rafael Soriano (32) - $11MM player option or a $1.5MM buyout

Jose Valverde (34) - $9MM club option, no buyout

Right-handed relievers

Luis Ayala (34)

Danys Baez (34)

Miguel Batista (41)

Shawn Camp (36)

Todd Coffey (31)

Juan Cruz (31)

Octavio Dotel (38) - $3.75MM club option with a $750K buyout

Chad Durbin (34)

Kyle Farnsworth (36) - $3.3MM club option with a $650K buyout

Jason Frasor (34) - $3.75MM club option

LaTroy Hawkins (37)

Aaron Heilman (33)

Ryota Igarashi (33)

Jason Isringhausen (39)

Scott Linebrink (35)

Mike MacDougal (35)

Ryan Madson (31)

Guillermo Mota (38)

Pat Neshek (31)

Ramon Ortiz (39)

Micah Owings (29)

Vicente Padilla (34)

Chad Qualls (33) - $6MM club option with a $1.5MM buyout

Jon Rauch (33) - $3.75MM club option with a $250K buyout

Fernando Rodney (35)

Takashi Saito (42)

Yoshinori Tateyama (36) - $1MM club option

Dan Wheeler (34) - $3MM club option with no buyout; vests with 65 appearances in 2011

Kerry Wood (35)

Jamey Wright (37)

Michael Wuertz (33) - $3.25MM club option with a $250K buyout

Joel Zumaya (27)

Left-handed relievers

Jeremy Affeldt (33) - $5MM club option with a $500K buyout

Mike Gonzalez (34)

John Grabow (33)

Javier Lopez (34)

Damaso Marte (37) - $4MM club option with a $250K buyout

Hideki Okajima (36) - can opt for free agency

Darren Oliver (41)

Arthur Rhodes (41) - $4MM club option with a $200K buyout; vests with 62 appearances

J.C. Romero (36)

George Sherrill (35)

Brian Tallet (34)

My team is the Pirates. There are 3 players I would like to see them pursue. I would love to see them go after Edwin Jackson. It would be taking a chance on him, but if the Buccos could sign him, it would shore up another hole in their rotation. The other 2 players I would like to see them sign is Casey Kotchman at First Base, and Clint Barmes at shortstop. Casey Kotchman is a good defensive first baseman, and can help our team, and I can't watch any more of Cedeno at short.

[Yankee4Life]

For the Yankees, no one. And I'll tell you why. Every time the Yankees sign one of these free agents they usually come up way short and are never worth the money they pay them. For example AJ Burnett, Mark Teixeira, Rafael Soriano and Pedro Feliciano are the four recent ones that the Yankees have signed.

Let's look at them individually.

AJ Burnett: The worst free agent signing by the Yankees in the history of the team. He has been on the team for three years now and has a 34 - 35 record. And this is from someone making 16.5 million a year.

Mark Teixeira: Three years on the team. His batting average has dropped each year from .292 in 2009, ,256 in 2010 and .248 this year. It looks like his bat has got slower each year. All this for 22.5 million dollars a year.

Rafael Soriano. Went from a 3 - 2 record with 45 saves and a 1.73 ERA in 2010 with Tampa Bay to a very disappointing 2 -3 record with 2 saves and a 4.12 ERA in his first year with the Yankees. All this for 14 million a year.

Pedro Feliciano: Signed as a left handed relief specialist from the New York Mets. Never played a game this year for the Yankees because this slug got hurt in spring training and missed the entire year. Earned 4 million dollars this year.

And let's not forget CC Sabathia. Yes he has been successful but he could be leaving the Yankees this year due to some idiotic opt-out clause in his contract. Was awful down the stretch partly because of his trips to Pizza Hut, McDonalds and Dairy Queen, all of which he did on a daily basis.

This is why I don't care if the Yankees sign any free agents. They are just wasting their money.

[scottybilly]

For the Giants I want them to resign Jeremy Affeldt and Javier Lopez. I dont see a need to acquire any position players, unless they did the impossible by resigning Carlos Beltran. I would consider resigning Cody Ross only if he could come on the cheap. Schierholtz deserves to play almost everyday.They were wise to dump Tejada and Rowand. They should just admit failure and release Barry Zito. Why would you want a guy on your team that freely admits that his head isnt in the game some of the time, and that all that money puts too much pressure on him. Poor effin baby. Also I would get rid of Aubrey Huff. They knew full well that he is a streaky hitter and usually follows a decent season with a horrible season. Let Brett Pill and Brandon Belt play fulltime. They have no reason to be in Triple A anymore. If the Giants could resign Pat Burell at around $1M, I would do that. He is a valuable asset to have on the team. He had a subpar year but he was also hurt most of the time.

And Y4L, I here you on all that, buddy.

[Jim825]

AJ Burnett: The worst free agent signing by the Yankees in the history of the team. He has been on the team for three years now and has a 34 - 35 record. And this is from someone making 16.5 million a year.

I might have to disagree on this one. Have you forgotten about Carl "American Idle" Pavano. The Yankees paid him $40 million and got a total of 9 wins. That works out to $4.44 million per win.

The Yanks have paid Burnett $49.5 million so far for those 34 wins, or $1.45 million per win. Compared to Pavano, Burnett is a bargain!! :D

[Yankee4Life]

I might have to disagree on this one. Have you forgotten about Carl "American Idle" Pavano. The Yankees paid him $40 million and got a total of 9 wins. That works out to $4.44 million per win.

The Yanks have paid Burnett $49.5 million so far for those 34 wins, or $1.45 million per win. Compared to Pavano, Burnett is a bargain!!

Yes, I thought of him too and I was thinking about making him the worst free agent signing by the Yankees but I still could not get past Burnett. For his four years with the Yankees Pavano only had a 9 - 8 record. And he also missed an entire year with the various injuries that he had.

Most of his time with the Yankees was on the sidelines. He never really got going to show the Yankees what he was capable of doing. 2005 was his first year and by June of that year he was already done for the season. He did have some good games but before we knew it he was done for the year. And he missed all of 2006 and only played in two games in 2007. So what we had was this guy for 2 1/2 years doing nothing for the team. Add on the fact that the New York press was all over him. They were the ones who invented that name "American Idle" and once the press gets on you the fans pick up on it and it's all over. In his last year with the Yankees in 2008 he posted his only winning record with the team (4-2, 5.77 ERA) in only seven games. He missed most of 2008 too as he won his four games that year from August 23rd to the end of the season. By that time he was good as gone from the team.

It's a toss up between both of these guys. Both were good right handed pitchers who showed great poise on the mound and proved they could win. That is until they got to New York.

[Jim825]

I hear what you are saying about Pavano. It's hard to know what he could have been had he had stayed healthy. Like other pitchers, I don't think he would have handled the pressure of New York very well. It happened to Kevin Brown and Randy Johnson and it's happened to Burnett as well.

It's not much different in Boston. Look at the number of players the Red Sox have signed who have melted under the pressure. John Lackey has become the Red Sox version of A.J. Burnett.

[Veesmack]

Pavano? Burnett? Lackey? pssh.

Jason Schmidt with the Los Angeles Dodgers 2007 to 2009: 3 years/46.14 Million

Schmidt's record was 3-6 with a 6.32 ERA with the Dodgers. That's 15.4 million per win! He played in 10 games and pitched in only 43.1 innings. That's a tad bit more than a million per inning. He also missed all of 2008 when the Dodgers made it to NLCS.

Combined with the fact that Schmidt left the rival Giants, to play with the Dodgers, I've got to say Schmidt took takes the cake as the worst pitching free agent signing of all time! he's near the top if not the paramount of it.

[emath2432]

I wouldn't mind seeing Prince at first base, and CJ Wilson in the Cubs rotation, but it wont happen. Cubs wont likely spend much of anything this year. Prince would be a possibility because of his ties to our new manager , but Theo and crew have said big money deals like that are not likely until they can build a solid base.

I'd LOVE to see Pujols at first base, but since he wont sign what would be considered a smart contract (for the team, not him), it wont happen. I would be pissed if the Cubs decided to give him more than 4 years, and since he wants, what, 8-10... Forget it. Plus, the only reason I want him is to rub it in the Cards faces. lol

I figure the Cubs are most likely to sign Pena again for 1B (or give it to the one dude they have in the minors that had a big year... LeHair, or whatever his name is), and maybe some solid, but fairly cheap pitching help. I have been in favor of the Cubs dumping salary and rebuilding for years.. Now they probably will be for the next couple, and it's gonna be even uglier than usual.

I hope to see Brett Jackson next year. I didn't keep up on baseball at all this season, so I don't know how he did, but he appears to be better than the last few "can't miss" guys we have brought along. Unlike Pie, or Patterson, and others, he has a good OBP coming up, and that translates better than BA, and power, and crap like that

[GoRedSox34]

I'd really like to see the Red Sox go out and sign closer Heath Bell. He's a really quirky guy and I think he would thrive here.