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Love Me Non-Tender

Yesterday, 58 Major League Baseball players were not tendered contracts by their former teams, releasing them into the wild unknown of the free agent market. Non-tendered players can still negotiate with their old teams, but they are free to negotiate with the other 29 teams as well. There are a lot of warm bodies here, many of which are adept at one thing or another. Some of them are even pretty good at baseball. You just have to know what to look for.

Jay Payton: The Mets waited a long time for Payton to live up to his hype. He was drafted out of Georgia Tech, where he was roommates with Nomar Garciaparra. He had a promising rookie season in 2000 where he finished runner-up in the Rookie of the Year voting to Rafael Furcal, hit .291 and belted 17 homeruns. He also had went an unthinkable 5-for-16 in stolen bases (31% success rate). He's spent an exorbitant amount of time on the disabled list in his career in both the minors and majors. He put up a deplorable .298 OBP in 2001 in 361 AB, and was hitting .284 in 2002 before being shipped to the Rockies. In 47 games for the Rocks that year, Payton tore it up, going .335/.376/.606 with his new team. He wasn't able to keep up that torrid pace, but he did post very good numbers in 2003 with Colorado, posting a solid .866 OPS (.287 GPA) with 28 homers and 89 RBI. Sure, a lot of that was Coors field. But he actually hit more homers on the road (15-13), and posted a decent if not sparkling .813 OPS. He's a hacker, so he'll never walk much but will put the ball in play. He doesn't have a great bat for a corner outfielder, and he doesn't have much of an arm, but he always hustled when he was with the Mets, and he would make a decent third outfielder for a bad team or a good fourth outfielder for a good team.

Randall Simon: As far as hackers go, he might rival Kevin Mitnick for the world's biggest. He's averaged one walk every 22.5 at-bats over the course of his career. The upside is that he doesn't strike out much either -- only once every 11.3 at-bats. As a comparison, Whiffy McStrikeout walks once every 22.1 at-bats and K's once every 4.7 at-bats. The difference is that Soriano does a lot more damage when he makes contact than Simon does. Simon has a very good career batting average at .297. His .743 career OPS (.256 GPA), while not completely useless, has no business taking up 300+ at-bats in any major league lineup, particularly one with post-season aspirations. He's got enough pop and makes good enough contact to be fairly valuable as a primary pinch hitter for most teams. His defense is pretty bad, though he can whack a sausage with the best of them.

Danys Baez: This guy will find work. He made an absurd $5.125 million last season to close games for the Indians, but would be a good pickup for a bad team looking for a stopgap closer (*cough*) or a good team looking for a decent setup man. He had a very good 7.85 K/9 ratio last season with 2.87 K/BB. He gave up a few too many longballs, surrendering nine in only 75.2 innings. He somehow lost nine games coming out of the pen, while saving 25 in 35 chances (71% SvPct). He's not an ace reliever by any stretch, but he'll help some team out in 2003.

Braden Looper: He's picked up 41 saves over the past two seasons in 50 chances (82% SvPct), and fits into a similar category as Baez. His strikeout rate is okay (6.25 per nine innings last season), and he did a good job limiting homeruns, coughing up only four in 80.2 innings. His 29 years are three more than Baez, though both could go for around $1-$1.5 million to any number of teams. I'd consider taking a flyer on either of them.

A number of non-tenders will still resign with their old teams, they just might not have been able to come to terms on a deal in time for yesterday's deadline. There are no premier guys here, but certainly puzzle pieces that can fill in a team's holes. For a complete list of non-tenders, check out ESPN.com.