There’s not much going on right now, so let’s take an expanded look at baseball. Everyone else seems to be doing it, so why not me? I decided to rank 50 free agents and make predictions for where they’d land. I personally am very excited to look back at these and see how ridiculously dumb these predictions were.
| Rank | Player | Position | Qualifying Offer? | Predicted Team |
| 1 | Bryce Harper | OF | Yes | Phillies |
| 2 | Manny Machado | SS/3B | No | Yankees |
| 3 | Patrick Corbin | SP | Yes | Yankees |
| 4 | Dallas Keuchel | SP | Yes | Cardinals |
| 5 | Josh Donaldson | 3B | No | Phillies |
| 6 | Nelson Cruz | DH/OF | No | White Sox |
| 7 | Craig Kimbrel | RP | Yes | Braves |
| 8 | Michael Brantley | OF | No | Dodgers |
| 9 | Charlie Morton | SP | No | Astros |
| 10 | Nate Eovaldi | SP | No | Red Sox |
| 11 | AJ Pollock | OF | Yes | Giants |
| 12 | Wilson Ramos | C | No | Nationals |
| 13 | Marwin Gonzalez | UTIL | No | Astros |
| 14 | Adam Ottavino | RP | No | Red Sox |
| 15 | Zach Britton | RP | No | Dodgers |
| 16 | Hyun-Jin Ryu | SP | Yes | Dodgers |
| 17 | Jeurys Familia | RP | No | Phillies |
| 18 | JA Happ | SP | No | Nationals |
| 19 | Yasmani Grandal | C | Yes | Rangers |
| 20 | DJ Lemahieu | 2B | No | Indians |
| 21 | Jed Lowrie | 2B | No | Red Sox |
| 22 | Andrew Miller | RP | No | White Sox |
| 23 | Mike Moustakas | 3B | No | White Sox |
| 24 | Daniel Murphy | 2B…ish | No | Twins |
| 25 | Andrew McCutchen | OF | No | Braves |
| 26 | Adrian Beltre | 3B | No | Rangers/Retired |
| 27 | David Robertson | RP | No | Cardinals |
| 28 | Brian Dozier | 2B | No | Brewers |
| 29 | Kelvin Herrera | RP | No | Nationals |
| 30 | Cody Allen | RP | No | Royals |
| 31 | Steve Pearce | UTIL | No | Red Sox |
| 32 | Asdrubal Cabrera | UTIL | No | Angels |
| 33 | Adam Jones | OF | No | Rockies |
| 34 | Jesse Chavez | RP | No | Cubs |
| 35 | Kurt Suzuki | C | No | A’s |
| 36 | Wade Miley | SP | No | Tigers |
| 37 | Nick Markakis | OF | No | Indians |
| 38 | Gio Gonzalez | SP | No | Braves |
| 39 | Anibal Sanchez | SP | No | Royals |
| 40 | Jose Iglesias | SS | No | Pirates |
| 41 | Joe Kelly | RP | No | Twins |
| 42 | Clay Buchholz | SP | No | White Sox |
| 43 | Joakim Soria | RP | No | Indians |
| 44 | Carlos Gonzalez | OF | No | Reds |
| 45 | Matt Harvey | SP | No | A’s |
| 46 | Shawn Kelley | RP | No | Mariners |
| 47 | Sergio Romo | RP | No | Cubs |
| 48 | Greg Holland | RP | No | Royals |
| 49 | Freddy Galvis | SS | No | Tigers |
| 50 | Ervin Santana | SP | No | Mariners |
I’ll be honest here. A lot of these are darts. And that’s okay. Anyone who tells you otherwise when doing one of these lists is lying straight to your face.
As you can see, I have the Royals spending some money on pitching. I have a strange hunch that they still like Cody Allen even after his rough season and might be able to get him at a discount. I don’t support the idea as much as I just could see it happening. And a reunion with Holland was a lot more likely before he pitched great for the Nationals, but he’s a guy I think they love and would bring back in a heartbeat. As for Sanchez, he’s a veteran arm who reinvented himself and can help the Royals either fill out their rotation with the idea that the young fifth starter candidates can work in the bullpen or could allow them to shift Danny Duffy there.
As for the rest of the Central, I think the White Sox try to do more on the starting pitching front than I listed above, but ultimately fail in luring a big time guy there, though it sounds like they’re in on basically everyone, so don’t rule them out for Keuchel potentially. My predictions have the Indians kind of filling in on the fringes with some nice role players. I originally had Markakis on the Yankees before they brought back Gardner, but this works out better for him anyway so he can keep his glorious beard. The Tigers probably aren’t going to do much, but a guy like Miley and a shortstop like Galvis makes some sense for them as they’re still in that transition phase. And the Twins probably don’t end up doing a whole lot either, but add some offense and some fire to the back of the bullpen.
I didn’t have the Yankees getting anything after Machado and Corbin, but, as I mentioned, I did originally have them on Markakis and CC Sabathia was heading back to them on the original list I wrote a few days ago as well. And if the Nationals do what I’m predicting, I’d feel pretty good about them if I was a fan of them heading into the 2019 season. I thought about giving them Brian Dozier as well, but went against it.
Otherwise, that’s what I’ve got. I suspect we’ll start to see how wrong I am soon enough.