Scherzer? Correa? Seager? Best MLB Free Agent Value of 2022

Real estate, stocks, fantasy baseball. What do these have in common? In order to assemble a winning portfolio you must seek value.

Buy low, sell high. This is a mantra businessmen and women live by.

Value is the name of the game in so many of our everyday life choices. We hit up the gas stations with the cheapest prices. Why? Value.

We send our children to the schools that will provide the best learning environment at the most affordable price. This is value.

In real estate, we look for houses in the best neighborhoods with the most amenities at the best price. Value.

Free agency in professional sports is no different.

The sports news ether has been flooded with NFL off-season news for the past couple of months, but the balance of power has also shifted in the MLB this off-season due to several big-name players putting themselves on the market.

This winter was muddied by the painfully slow negotiations between the MLB players union and the owners, but plenty of business went down as well.

Being a math minded person I cannot help but analyze the value in key free agent signings. It should surprise no one that some players provide more value to their new teams than others. Sometimes teams must overpay to get their guy. Other times you get a bargain.

Looking at the amount of money these players will make in the 2022 season, Max Scherzer was the most expensive free-agent signing – earning $43.33 million.

The next 5 free agents in order of their 2022 salaries are Carlos Correa, Corey Seager, Freddie Freeman, Chris Bryant, and Marcus Semien.

Let’s take a look at the top 3 free agent signings of the winter and the value that they provide to their new organizations.

Is Max Scherzer worth his record-setting price tag? Did the Twins overpay to land a franchise shortstop? Questions like these and many others will be answered as we explore the financial side of the MLB off-season.

Wins above replacement (WAR) is a catchall quantitative statistic to measure the value an MLB player provides his team. Ever since gaining popularity at the beginning of the 2010s, WAR is seemingly everywhere.

This metric aims to take everything a player or pitcher does – including hitting, defense, and baserunning – and arrive at a number of additional wins that that player provides his team over a replacement-level player.

The term “replacement-level player” is often assumed to mean league-average player but this is not true. Looking at WAR statistics over the past several MLB seasons clearly shows that even league average players have positive WARs.

When you hear “replacement-level player”, think about a backup who plays once or twice a week. Those are the types of replacement players that are called into action should the starter go down.

For this study, I used a weighted WAR from each player’s last 3 seasons. The shortened 2020 COVID year is weighted less to balance the numbers.

This article was finalized before the Red Sox signing of Trevor Story to a 6-year/$140M contract.

Max Scherzer – SP

3 yr / $43.33M

New York Mets

The Mets’ workhorse for several seasons running has been the ever-dependable and profitable Jacob deGrom. 1.08, 2.38, 2.43, 1.70. What on earth are these incredibly low numbers? That’s deGrom’s ERAs from the previous 4 seasons.

New York would have no need for Max Scherzer if pro baseball was a one-pitcher league. We use 5 in rotations these days, though, meaning the Mets can still add loads of value to their club with the acquisition of Scherzer.

The ole’ trophy shelf is getting pretty full in the Scherzer household. Mad Max is an 8-time All-Star, 3-time Cy Young winner, and just the 6th pitcher in history to win Cy Youngs in each league.

Scherzer is the 3-time strikeout king, 4-time wins leader, 3-time complete game leader, 2-time innings leader, and has tossed 2 no-nos.

Max is one of the few starting pitchers remaining in the league who can truly be called a workhorse – but even he has his limits. Scherzer threw 180+ innings in each season from his 1st year in Detroit (2010) until his 2018 season in Washington.

It was not until a back injury shelved him twice in 2019 that Scherzer’s innings were reduced.

Max was pitching for Washington that season. You might remember that the
Nationals had a pretty good year in 2019 – a World Series winning year, in fact.

Sportswriters throw around the term “bulldog mentality” but Scherzer proved he possessed it in October 2019 by coming back early from his injuries and turning in gritty postseason performances to will his Nationals to the top of the baseball mountain.

After the short 2020 sprint of a season, Max was once again fighting off injuries in 2021.

He began last season with the Nationals before being dealt to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a blockbuster deadline move. Max developed the dreaded dead arm during the postseason.

Unable to get healthy, the Dodgers had to do without Scherzer in key NLCS games – eventually dropping the series to the eventual-champion Atlanta Braves.

Max Scherzer is 37. He has logged over 2,500 innings of high-intensity Major League pitching. Watch just 1 inning of a Max Scherzer start and you will see that he puts everything he has into every pitch. He’s the ultimate competitor.

Sherzer has a very simple yet violent delivery to the plate. The arm only has so many pitches in it.

A 3-year deal will keep Scherzer in New York until his 40th birthday. This is past the expiration date for most Major League pitchers – especially hard throwers such as Max.

Another former Tiger – Justin Verlander – has managed to last a long time as a front-of-the-rotation man, but Verlander has dealt with many serious injuries during his career and his delivery is 10 times smoother than Scherzer’s.

New York offered a 3-year deal because that was likely the shortest-length contract that Scherzer would accept. The Mets have no clue what they’re going to get out of Scherzer this season let alone in 2024.

With such an awesome 1-2 combo in deGrom and Scherzer, the Mets appear to be selling out for the 2022 season. It’s now or never.

Last year, the 5 Mets starters who logged the most innings combined for a cumulative war of 11.1.

This wasn’t bad. 11.1 was the 13th-highest WAR for a rotation in all of baseball. Of course, Jacob deGrom contributed almost half of this himself with a 4.9 war and Marcus Stroman (who is no longer with the club) contributed another huge chunk with a 3.4 WAR effort last year.

Sliding Scherzer into the mix will eliminate the need for the Mets to continue trying out a bottom of the rotation guy every 5 days. Fifth starters for the Mets last season produced a war of just 0.6. That’s pretty negligible.

Scherzer‘s three-year weighted WAR average is 5.73. This is an improvement of 5.13 wins above last year’s rotation for the New York Mets.

Scherzer is owed $43.33 million for this upcoming season. He’s providing his team just north of 5 additional wins which comes out to $8.45 million paid per each additional win added.

How does this value stack up against the other huge free agent signings of the winter? Surprisingly, it was a decent value. It is not the steal of the off-season, but the Mets didn’t get ripped off either. They paid an appropriate price for one of the most dominant pitchers of the past decade.

Carlos Correa – SS

3 yr / $35.1M

Minnesota Twins

Tigers fans thought Correa was coming to MoTown. The narrative was there. The Tigers desperately needed improved shortstop play and had money to spend this offseason. The kicker is Detroit’s manager – ex-Astro AJ Hinch – who has a personal relationship with Correa.

Detroit dismissed these rumors early in the winter with the signing of Javier Baez. The Tigers could have decided to take a page out of the Rangers’ book and pay through the nose for a completely new middle infield, but GM Al Avila decided one splashy signing is enough for a team who hasn’t played postseason ball since 2014 and has no World Series title since 1984.

Sadly for Tigers fans, Correa landed in-division. A grand total of zero experts saw it coming when the Minnesota Twins emerged from their hibernatory igloos to announce they were inking Carlos Correa to a 3-year deal worth $35.1 million per season.

In order to entice Correa to come to a sub-optimal location, the Twins threw some goodies into the contract in the form of player opt-outs.

Should Correa dislike the scene in the snowy north after 1 season – he may opt out. Suppose the Twins really lay on the dog and pony show and Correa doesn’t realize how miserable he is until after the 2nd season. No biggie. He may opt out then, also.

Correa has the power to make this deal last 1, 2, or the full 3 seasons. This is speculation, but I assume Correa will be making his decision whether to opt out based upon if the Twins are winning and whether he feels a proper team is being built around him.

No pressure – but Byron Buxton – the amount of time Carlos Correa spends in Minnesota is directly correlated to the health of your hamstrings … and quads … and back … and …

Correa has a weighted 3-year WAR of 3.99. Any positive WAR would be an improvement for the Twins whose -0.4 WAR among shortstops in 2021 was tied for dead last in the MLB with Pittsburgh.

Andrelton Simmons played full time at SS in Minnesota last season – compiling a line of .223/3/31 with a .283 OBP.

Correa adds 4.39 additional wins to the Minnesota lineup at 35.1 million dollars per year. This equates to an even $8 million spent per win for the Twins – a slightly better value than the Max Scherzer deal in New York.

Corey Seager – SS

10 yr / $32.5M

Texas Rangers

The Rangers elected to shore up not 1 but 2 of their middle infield positions via free agency this offseason – landing the 3rd and 6th-most expensive mercenaries of the winter (Seager and Marcus Semien).

Corey Seager is a former Dodger with a 28th birthday on the horizon and an impressive list of accolades for a young player in a big market surrounded by other stars.

The North Carolina native took home Rookie of the Year honors for a 2016 season in which Seager maintained a .308 average with 26 homers and 105 runs scored.

Additionally, Seager is a 2-time All-Star, 2-time Silver Slugger, and was the World Series MVP in the bubble in 2020 vs Tampa.

Seager signed in Arlington nearly simultaneously with former-Blue Jay Marcus Semien – instantly forming one of the best double-play combinations in baseball.

Rangers shortstops combined for a 2.3 WAR in 2021 – ranking 22nd in the MLB. Isiah Kiner-Falefa played regularly for Texas – hitting .271 with 8 homers, 53 RBIs, and 20 steals.

While Seager doesn’t provide the stolen base potential IKF did, his 3-year weighted WAR of 3.77 is a 1.47 win improvement over last year’s team. At 32.5 million per year, Texas paid through the nose – shelling out $22.1 million per additional win – a horrible value.