2010’s Multi-Year Free Agency, in Three Tables

Below are three tables which briefly summarize multi-year free agency this past decade. The pace, trend, and equitability of free agency in recent years, in tandem with the noteworthy Winter Meetings earlier this month motivate this post. 

Of course, this December has represented a wild month in free agency; the most sought-after trio of Scott Boras clients, Stephen Strasburg, Gerrit Cole, and Anthony Rendon, all signed very recently in that order. Those signings were additionally framed by two other 5-year deals, for Zack Wheeler to start off the month and more recently Madison Bumgarner. Cumulatively, those deals guarantee 987 million dollars. 

Data for these tables originates from MLBTR’s delightful annual free agent trackers, which run back through the beginning of this decade. These trackers, it should be noted, do not always include the options and/or the performance bonuses which apply to any given contract. As a result, option years are not included as part of these summaries. As the title above suggests, only multi-year deals are considered.

So, below you will find the number of multi-year contracts from each year of this decade, broken down by years guaranteed within each. The following table provides the total average value of those deals. Finally, the third table provides those contracts based on average annual value.

The table above indicates, in a couple different ways, that free agency did seem to slow from 2016-18. 2017 may feature an above average total of multi-year deals, but that result is driven by a lopsided number of shorter, two-year pacts. Meanwhile, 2016 & 2018 feature well below average numbers for multi-year guaranteed deals. Last offseason, no five year deals were handed out and only the larger deals were given to the elite trio of Bryce Harper, Patrick Corbin, and Manny Machado.

It’s mildly sobering to recognize, of those talented and fortunate enough to make it to free agency and command a multi-year deal, roughly just 10 players annually can earn a 4+ year contract. The average number of players who sign a multi-year deal at all make up the space of less than 2 rosters of players.

Here, median might have been a better figure for this exercise, admittedly, but there are a few interesting takeaways. Five year deals, for instance, have only once this decade averaged 100 million in cumulative value, and that was back in 2010. 2018 saw a spike in value of 2 year deals, but that corresponded to a drop-off in the number of those deals handed out.

It should first be noted that a couple international signings play a big role in dampening the 5+ year deal weighted average, as Yasiel Sierra (6yr/30mil guarantee) and Kenta Maeta (6 yr/25mil, incentive-laden deal) are present and accounting for only guaranteed dollars at the time of their respective signings.

The 2019/20 offseason is no longer nascent, but there is still plenty of time to go. While it might be tough to project anyone remaining on the board to be signed to a 5-year deal, the five 5/5+ year deals signed so far represent a high water mark in free agency dating back three off-seasons. One hopes that those shorter terms deals can keep at least some pace with the larger ones, but in the meantime, it’s just nice to see free agency bouncing back from a multi-year period of relative dormancy.