Attention Bargain Shoppers

Those wacky stat illusionists at Elias released their Free Agency rankings today. Short version: They group players by general position, rank them by a bunch of pointless stats, and spit out an ordered list. Guys at the very top are Type A FAs. Guys just below that are Bs.

When you lose a Type A you gain the other team's first round pick and get a sandwich pick between the first and second rounds. If you lose a Type B, you get just the ham on rye pick.

Although... in the Nats case, they fall under the protected pick category. The teams with the 15 worst records (that's us!) can't lose their first rounder, so they burp up a second rounder instead.

Don't put any stock into the actual rankings of the players. Elias is a stupid, stupid company and the ratings have little basis in actual win/loss production. Just look for the category. Here's the NL. Here's the AL.

Of note... since the Nats seem to lust for a CFer:
Hunter and Rowand are type As. Andruw Jones and Speedo Cameron are Bs.

The other interesting thing is that Dmitri Young didn't end up being a B, as I thought he might've been. When I wrote that, there was a decent possibility, but his late-season slide and inability to stay on the field pushed him down -- coincidentally, below Ryan Church.

I'm not sure if this changes our perspective on whether they should've traded him or not. On one hand, trading him would've been the only way they could've gotten compensation (although they couldn't have really predicted his concussion). On the other hand, if they had kept him without signing him, they wouldn't have gotten anything had he walked anyway. Eh... whatever.

Just get healthy, NJ!

NFA points out one somewhat grating fact: Belliard would've been a B. Although the risk of offering him arbitration and him getting $5 million or so given how well and much he's played over the last few years, probably would've negated the Nats offering him arbitration -- at least without one of those wink wink gentleman's agreements teams sometimes have with players who conveniently decline the arbitration offer.