Free Agent Review

There were an amazing 11 Type A Free Agents signed this past off-season. Boston, Huntington, and Richmond all signed two. There were also 6 Type B Free Agents signed as well. New Orleans leads the league in compensation picks for the 3 players they lost, while Boston and Las Vegas each have two picks.

Dario Yamaguchi, SP, Arizona High Heat 3yrs/$22.5mil
Dario has had a spectacular start to the year as he has gone 6-2 with a 3.05 ERA in 9 starts for Arizona so far. With a 3:1 K/BB ratio and a WHIP of 1.19. Its looking like Arizona's rotation is going to be great, and carry them far this year.

Timothy Stokes, LF, Boston BackBay Badboys, 2yrs/$10mil
Stokes has been a solid contributor to Boston so far this year. Coming over from Charlotte, he has posted a line of .361/.449/.810 so far this year. Not spectacular for a COF, but definitely not bad either.

Tony Hernandez, RF, Boston BackBay Badboys, 2yrs/$12mil
Tony has had an impressive start to the season. We are only 45 games into the season and he has 26 XBHs already. As good as his bat has been so far he has been somewhat dreadful in the field with 4 errors already, for a .902 fielding percentage in right field.

T.J. Hernandez, SP, Cleveland Cuyahogas, 3yrs/$70mil
The prize of this past seasons free agent class, T.J. has lived up to the billing. Some say mytitan overpaid, but its hard to argue with the results so far. 6-3 with a 4:1 k/bb ratio and a 1.08 whip, he has been dominant. In his 3 losses he has given up a total of 10 runs, so its not like he got blown out. The guy is a workhorse and its surprising to see mytitan have him pitch once every 5th day rather than as much as possible.

Vic Vazquez, 3B, Colorado Helmet Sundaes, 3yrs/$19.8mil
Vic was signed by the now defunct ucbulls33. Luckily he fits nicely in Colorado, but then again, what hitter doesn't? 14HRs already, to go with a .381OBP and .604SLG, he has been worth almost every penny of the contract.

Ralph Jefferies, RP, Colorado Helmet Sundaes, 1yr/$4.8mil
Another signing by ucbulls33 who has gone on to abandon the franchise. This one is a head scratcher, but at least he didn't give up a draft pick and only provided a compensation pick. Ralph already has pitched 34 2/3 innings and those innings have been downright ugly. A 1.93WHIP and a 9.09ERA is not what a major league pitcher should be putting up. He is an extreme ground ball pitcher, which is what you want in Colorado, but he has mid 50's control which is barely passable. Why would anyone pay a guy $4.8mil who has a career ERA of 4.61 prior to this season?

Matthew Riggs, SP, Huntington Blazers, 5yrs/$60mil
Riggs has been good so far this year, not great, but good. He is 4-3 so far with a 3.62ERA after moving away from the friendly confines of Detroit. I would imagine that both ERA and WHIP will slowly start creeping higher as his home ball park is definitely more suited for hitters.

Doug Buck, RF, Huntington Blazers, 5yr/$64mil
Huntington spent a lot this past off season to land some free agents, lets hope they pan out for him. Like Riggs, Doug has gotten off to a good start, but not a great one. He's putting up numbers that are pretty much more or less the same as his career averages. Is he worth $64mil? Not in my mind.

Giovanni Lemon, SP, Kansas City Monarchs, 4yrs/$27mil
This is not what Kansas City was thinking was going to happen when they signed Giovanni. He's 1-5 with an ERA over 6.00. Its not like he's keeping the ball in the park either as he's given up 12HRs and has a slugging against of over .600. I would imagine this is just bad luck on his part as his skills say he shouldn't be doing this.

Raul Brogna, DH, Las Vegas Highrollers, 3yr/$18mil
Raul has been mentioned as an early MVP candidate in the American League with his 1.043OPS, and surely will be in the top 5 if he keeps it up. He is currently on pace to set career marks for nearly every offensive statistic there is.

Manny Sherman, RP, Las Vegas Highrollers, 3yrs/$17.4mil
One would think that if you are going to sign a Type A relief pitcher that you would be in need of a reliever, but this is not the case in Las Vegas. They already have a couple of competent relieves in the pen, but yet they went out and gave Sherman a pretty nice sized contract AND gave up draft picks. So far this year Manny has only pitched in 3 games and has 2 2/3IP. The 3 games he has pitched though have been great as he's only given up a single hit.

Karl Bale, 1B, Los Angeles Trolly Dodgers, 2yrs/$9.5mil
It appears that Karl has been a pinch hit bat coming off the bench most of the time as he's only started 26 games so far this season. His OBP would be higher if he was able to hit the ball a little better, but he is drawing alot of walks in his limited time so far. There is a mutual option for next year but I wouldn't think Bale would exercise it as its hard to imagine a team willing to pay him more than the $5.5 that he is owed next season.

Don Embree, RP, Montgomery Mauraders, 3yrs/$11.7mil
There have been some high priced relievers that were signed this past season, ones that don't figure to have prominant roles in the pen either. Don Embree is another example of this. Costing Montgomery almost $6mil this season he has only pitched 20innings and is slotted in the Setup B role. He hasn't even pithced well in the 20 innings he has pitched with a WHIP over 2.00. His skills say that this is probably just a small sample size though and he should come back to earth shortly.

Morris Phillips, SP, Philadelphia Phightins, 2yrs/$5.4mil
Philadelphia is still a couple of seasons away from competing and it looks like the signing of Phillips is just a stop gap until some young arms can develop down on the farm. It looks like he will fill that role just fine as he has 3 seasons of over 180ip. If his control was a little bit better he'd be a #3-4 on a contender.

Micah Regan, CF, Richmond Storm, 2yrs/$15mil
Micah would be better suited at second, but is currently playing out in Center for Richond. The Storm were active this year in free agency and signed two type A's, but the money they shelled out hasn't resulted in more wins, yet. This could be because Micah is 40pts below his career OBP and 90pts below his career SLG. I've noticed that some players with Micah's skills, and robocoach mentioned this as well, seem to be in a funk lately. With Micah, and the other guys I've noticed, its all happened at about the same time which would lead me to believe it was a change to the engine. We'll see.

Bucky Truman, 1B, Richmond Storm, 3yrs/$25mil
Bucky was my "Top Hitter" in this years free agency period and was signed by Richmond, and has not disapointed. With an OBP over .400 he has remarkabley only scored 21runs while being on base over 91 times so far this season. This stat indicated that Richmond just doesn't have anyone else on the roster that is capable of brining in runs, which is a shame for Bucky.

Ismael Franco, RF, Tacoma Pilots, 5yrs/$40mil
So threester backloaded this contract, only paying $4mil this year and paying $9mil each of the last 4 years. Hopefully he's around for the duration, and I have no reason to believe he won't be. His move to an extreme pitchers park has not hurt his stats at all which must be a nice suprise for threester. He had an early stint on the DL with a Back Strain, which is nothing new as he has been on the DL four seperate time due to his back. He's healthy now and on his persuit of 110rbi+ for a 6th straight season.