Free Agent Poll: Michael Brantley

I appropriated this idea from Lone Star Ball. It isn’t the first time I’ve stolen from them. The idea is to go through some of the top free agents, use the contract FanGraphs suggests they will get, and have a poll asking if we would like to sign him for that amount.

Michael Brantley was another player I was going to skip since I didn’t see him as a match for the Blue Jays’ needs. Then, today, I read that the team had talked to his agent. If the plan is to include an outfielder in trade, perhaps Francisco Lindor, picking up an outfielder would be a good idea.He is number 11 on Keith Law’s list and number 12 on FanGraphs list of top free agents.

Craig Edwards figures Brantley to get a 2-year, $24 million contract, $12 million a season.Brantley is 33. He’ll be 34 in May. He’s played left field the past few seasons, and that’s the only position he should be playing (other than DH). He was a center fielder when he was younger, but that was some years ago. He’s roughly a league-average left fielder.

He hit 300/.364/.476 this season, right in line with his career numbers. He isn’t a power-hitting (22 home runs is his career-high), but he doesn’t strike out much (15% this year, which is up from his career numbers). He was a good base runner when he was younger, but not so much now.It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a veteran on the team who doesn’t strike out a lot. Maybe set an example.

Brantley’s career was interrupted by injuries that limited him to 101 games total in 2016-17, but around that, he’s been very consistent: In the five years when he was healthy since 2013, he posted OBPs between .364 and .385 and slugging percentages between .468 and .506. He’s a disciplined hitter who rarely swings and misses in the zone, less than 10 percent of the time in five straight years until he got to 10.2 percent in 2020, and he doesn’t chase pitches out of the zone very often.

In the past four years he’s had bWAR numbers of 2.4, 3.7, 4.8 and 1.5. You would expect his numbers to decline a bit, but then he should be pretty decent for the next couple of years.