The free agency market is top-heavy to begin with, but the hitting market seems especially thin as compared to years past. That can make it hard to assess the good versus the bad, which is what I thought I’d do in this post, with the help of my invented stat, Earned Run Average Against. ERAA, as it’s shortened, is exactly as it sounds, applying the ERA formula using hitting statistics to help us visualize statistically a hitter’s ability on a scale that we all know and love: pitchers' ERA. I’ve talked about ERAA before on Baseball with Matt and how it correctly predicted the MVPs in 2022 (spoiler alert: it did it again in 2023), so to say that I’m proud of my layman’s advanced stat is an understatement. I’ve updated my Excel spreadsheet for the 2023 season, which you can find below, so without further ado, let’s talk some free agent hitters.
Cody Bellinger
It’s no secret that Cody Bellinger had one of the best bounce-back seasons of any hitter in recent memory (he did win the Comeback Player of the Year Award, after all), which makes him arguably the best only-hitter in the free agency pool for the 2023-2024 offseason. Bellinger finished the 2022 season with a 3.73 ERAA, while his 2023 ERAA almost doubled to 6.63. Overall run production doubling year-over-year can only suggest a sustainable change, at least in my mind (or steroids, but I digress). I’m not saying that signing Belli is a surefire safe bet, but it’s certainly safe to say that the 2019 NL MVP might’ve found his swing back.
J.D. Martinez and Brandon Belt
Here are two older DHs that left their longtime teams in 2023 and reset their markets well. The pride of the 2018 Red Sox, Martinez left Boston after a down 2022 for the sunnier pastures of Dodger Stadium in 2023, raising his ERAA from 5.06 to 6.21 year-over-year. Brandon Belt, meanwhile, went West Coast to East Coast, San Francisco to Toronto, and took his ERAA from 3.81 to 6.18, directly below Martinez in the 2023 ERAA rankings. Belt has the higher walk rate and is known for his patience at the plate, while Martinez is more of the pure hitter, putting up 33 homers and a .572 slugging percentage in only 113 games last season. I’d rather Martinez, if I were debating between the two, but they’re basically interchangeable in contract length and average annual value.
Matt Chapman
What started off as an MVP-type year for Chap ended up dipping south as spring turned to summer. His ERAA only improved by .11 points from 2022 to 2023 and is still only at a 5.00. I had a lot of high hopes for the El Toro High School graduate (the only reason I know that is because he was the shortstop on his team while Nolan Arenado played third) that were squashed by an otherwise mundane Matt Chapman year. An option for Chapman is to find a one-year deal similar to Bellinger and hope that he can fix the problem that has troubled him his whole career: abysmal strikeout numbers.
Jeimer Candelario
Perhaps the most plebian of the good free agent hitters, Candelario made a name for himself in 2023 by improving his ERAA from 3.40 to 5.46 and will most likely be coveted by small-market teams looking to make a punch in free agency. I wouldn’t be surprised if a big-market team goes after him to fill up a roster spot, but Candelario just isn’t a big enough name to make it in with the big fellas. Jorge Soler, Lourdes Gurriel, and Teoscar Hernandez are bound to be coveted more than Candelario, but I wouldn’t sleep on the ERAA increase. It was the largest gap eclipsed out of him, Soler, Gurriel, and Hernandez, and only Soler had a higher ERAA in 2023.
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