Free Agency Frenzy

If you are a baseball nerd like me, there is never any downtime in baseball. The concept of free agency is one I love, where players can freely jump from team to team. Headlined by Aaron Judge, a quartet of elite shortstops, and a large amount of starting pitching talent, this free agency class looks promising. Because of my love for this time, I have decided to create a spreadsheet, stocked with important stats front offices use, a mix of basic and sabermetric stats. If you don't really understand sabermetric stats, just know for pitchers, any stat with two decimals you want to be low. Rate stats really depend on the scenario. The perfect pitcher would have a high strikeout and groundball rate, and a low walk rate and hard hit rate. Hitters are pretty simple, higher stats are good.

The spreadsheet will be updated with all players former teams, new teams, and contract details. At the time of writing, known lover of brass instruments Edwin Diaz, and Robert Suarez are the only two players to sign, reupping with their former teams, (the Mets and Padres respectively) on 5 year deals.

Here is every stat listen with brief explanations if needed.

Pitcher Stats

IP- Innings Pitched

ERA- Earned Run Average

xERA- Expected ERA, determined by quality of contact

FIP- Fielding Independent Pitching- Determined by BB/9, K/9, and HR/9, the three true outcomes

xFIP- Expected FIP, determined by taking FIP and adjusting HR/9 to the league average

fWar- Fangraphs wins above replacement

bWar- Baseball Reference wins above replacement

SIERA- Skill-Interactive Earned Run Average, takes xFIP and adjusts it for quality of contact (ex: if two pitchers have the same xFIP, the one that produces more desirable contact would have a lower SIERA)

K%- Strikeout Rate.

BB%- Walk Rate.

K-BB%- Strikeout - Walk rate, shows which pitchers are efficient with their strikeouts.

CSW%- Called Strikes + Whiff rate, shows a pitcher's ability not only to get swings and misses, but called strikes. High is good

GB%- Ground Ball Rate- Ground balls are the most desirable outcome of contact, have the lowest batting average once put in play. High is good

HH%- Hard Hit Rate- Rate that contact has an exit velocity <95 MPH. Low is good

Hitter Stats

PA- Plate Appearances

BA- Batting Average

OBP- On Base Percentage

SLG- Slugging Percentage

OPS- On Base Plus Slugging

wOBA- Weighted On Base Average- On Base percentage, but each outcome of a hit gets more valuable. Ex a home run is more valuable than a triple which is more valuable than a double which is more valuable than a single

xwOBA- Expected Weighted On Base Average- Uses the expected outcomes based on Quality of Contact (Launch Angle and Exit Velocity) to combine with walk rate

wRC+- Weighted Runs Created Plus- wOBA neutralized to a number scale adjusted for park factors and run scoring environment. 100 is league average

fWar, bWAR, BB%, K%- See Pitchers

Framing Runs- How many runs a catcher has saved from just framing.

OAA- Outs Above Average- Defensive metric that uses range to calculate how many outs a player saves

DRS- Defensive Runs Saved- Similar to OAA, but takes outfield arm, infield double plays, and errors into account

BsR- Base Runs- Takes the 3 main aspects of base running- stolen bases, double plays, and advancing extra bases- and turns is into one number.

Here is my spreadsheet with stats that will be updated daily for all MLB free agents, including ex Astros and Twins shortstop Carlos Correa, who is in line for a big, long term deal.