Baseball Free Agents

It’s November. Oscar contenders hit theaters, Xmas shopping begins and baseball free agents wait by the phone to find out who’s overpaying for them. Picture: Andruw Jones sitting by his phone, waiting for it to ring, picking it up occasionally thinking it has rung. Here’s a breakdown of some free agents and why they matter in fantasy baseball.

Yorvit Torrealba
.255/47/8/47/2
Yorvit Torrealba goes to the Mets. This seems all but done at this point. He went from a sleeper in a deep league to a “stay away.” Leaving Coors, hurts his value in a big way. His numbers last year away from home were: .212/15/2/13. Seriously, what is Minaya smoking? Not to mention, Yorvit could end up in a 70/30 time split with Ramon Castro. Let someone else take him in your NL-only league. Personally, I feel the Mets would have been better served coaxing Todd Hundley out of retirement.

Barry Bonds
.276/75/28/66/5
Barry Bonds goes to the American League. This seems inevitable. He contends he can still play the field, but Barry is DH-bound or he’s not playing. If you’re in an OPS or OBP league, you absolutely should draft Bonds. His patience at the plate is almost equal to his ego. Or he could go to jail for thirty years, guess we'll have wait to see.

Andruw Jones
.222/83/26/94/5
This was a walk year, you’re supposed to perform well, you mother******! Let’s hope the fantasy gods repay Andruw Jones by landing him in Washington. (On a related note: Hey, Nationals, bring back Tom Paciorek! Don Sutton sucks!) Perhaps the contract year pressure actually got in Andruw Jones’s head and caused him to choke for the entire season. Though, I don’t buy it. He pays like he’s listening to Bobby McFerrin in his iPod. Why would pressure get to him? Frankly, I think a lot of people will be predicting a bounce back for Andruw, but just maybe his God-given abilities that he coasted on for so many years have begun to slow. Defensively, sure he’s great, but I wouldn’t put him on a sleeper list for next year.

Michael Barrett
Numbers don’t matter
Michael Barrett goes to Colorado. This I would drop onto the sleeper list ASAP if it were to go down. I wrote above that numbers don’t matter and, in this case, they don’t. This is what happened to Michael Barrett this year: He was talking to a girl he liked in gym class and the class bully pantsed him and he was wearing skidmarked underwear. Mortified, he moved to a new town and never shook the embarrassment. Hopefully, by next year he’s moved on, because he’s not too old to bounce back to being a very productive offensive catcher.

Eric Gagne
Again, numbers-shmumbers
He will break your heart. Those Cy Young years are trailing off into the rearview mirror. Let someone else worry about his back, rotator cuff, Magglio-wannabe hair, etc. If you’re a francophile, draft Erik Bedard.

Matt Clement
Anyone who knows my past drafting can attest, I have a special place in my heart for Matt Clement. I will not waver. He strikes people out and usually comes in with a low to mid-range ERA (and on the high side WHIP, but I’ll ignore that since I’m a fan). Definitely capable of fourth fantasy starter status. If he lands in the NL (preferably with the Padres), I will have Clement on at least one of my teams and I suggest you do the same. Lest not forget how well he can deflect a line drive with his melon; this guy is money!
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