With millions of dollars flying around, this was MLB’s best free-agent deal

ST. PETERSBURG — At some point every winter, we all grumble about the Rays never being aggressive enough on the free-agent market. I do it, you do it, Kevin Cash probably does it in silence.

It’s one thing to see New York or Los Angeles go on a spending spree, but it’s quite another to watch Minnesota, Detroit, Colorado or some other midsize market throwing hundreds of millions around to lure big-name players to town.

Carlos Correa! Javy Baez! Kris Bryant! All-Stars! Gold Gloves! Silver Sluggers! Combined, they pocketed more than $400 million in free agency.

Also, they may all be sitting home this October when the playoffs begin.

Corey Seager, Marcus Semien and Jon Gray got more than $550 million just from the Rangers.

Also, Texas was 10 games below .500 entering Tuesday’s games, and its manager and team president were fired last week.

When you look back at the more than 100 free agents who signed in the offseason, only 21 had produced a WAR above 2.0 at this point in 2022. And only one of those 21 signed a deal for less than $1 million.

Yup, you got it.

Tampa Bay reliever Jason Adam, it could be argued, was the best free-agent signing of the year. Pursued aggressively by the Rays after the lockout ended, Adam has outproduced every reliever who was on the free-agent market. That includes a dozen relievers who got contracts worth at least $10 million guaranteed on the open market: Andrew Chafin, Yimi Garcia, Kendall Graveman, Raisel Iglesias, Kenley Jansen, Corey Knebel, Aaron Loup, Collin McHugh, Mark Melancon, Hector Neris, Brooks Raley, Ryan Tepera.

Adam signed with the Rays for $900,000.

All he had done entering Tuesday is throw more than 50 innings with an ERA of 1.07 while giving up 3.7 hits per nine innings. Do you know how many other pitchers have had similar numbers in the last 20 years? Three.

The point is, free agency tends to skew the market and teams routinely overpay in the vain hope of looking like they’re trying to win in December. We know the risks, we understand it could handcuff future payrolls, we’ve seen past disasters, yet we all want to shop in the high-end aisles.

Texas was obviously a big spender last offseason. So were Detroit, Colorado, Boston, San Francisco, Anaheim, Miami and the Chicago Cubs. All of them went into Tuesday’s games below .500.

That doesn’t mean all big-money contracts are bad ideas. If you sign the right player at the right moment in a franchise’s window of opportunity, it could mean the World Series.

Look at the Dodgers. They’re flirting with a .700 winning percentage and Freddie Freeman had a .914 OPS. You think they have buyer’s remorse over his six-year, $162 million deal? Ditto with the Mets and Max Scherzer, who is making a record $43.3 million this year. New York’s in line for its first division title since 2015.

You could even consider Tampa Bay’s biggest free-agent splurge of the last decade. When the Rays signed Charlie Morton to a two-year, $30 million contract in 2019, it was among the top dozen deals of that offseason. In return, Morton went 5-1 with a 2.10 ERA in the 2019-20 postseasons for the Rays.

So, with that in mind, how did the Rays do last offseason?

Better than most but still not flawlessly. Adam was clearly a major coup, and Brooks Raley has pitched well (2.38 ERA, six saves entering Tuesday) for the size of his contract (two years, $10 million).

Based on Corey Kluber’s production this season (7-7, 4.33 ERA entering Tuesday) they probably overpaid for him (one year, $8 million), even if he has been a dependable presence.

In a cruel twist, two of the free-agent pitchers they signed in 2021 with disappointing results (Michael Wacha and Chris Archer) have bounced back in Boston and Minnesota, respectively, and have been better, or similar, to Kluber for less money.

This isn’t a suggestion that payrolls be kept artificially low. Teams still need to spend to retain their best young players, and the Rays are a mixed bag in that arena. They have signed Wander Franco and Brandon Lowe to long-term deals but have dealt a host of other players as they have approached arbitration status.

The point is that free agency cannot be a shortcut to becoming a contender, and we’ve seen it over and over. Spend wisely in the offseason and you can be in position for another postseason. Spend recklessly and you can lose your job.

Speaking of which, I hear Aaron Judge is going to be a free agent in a couple of months.

John Romano can be reached at jromano@tampabay.com. Follow @romano_tbtimes.

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