The MLB winter meetings are now behind us and a substantial number of this offseason's free-agent crop have found new homes. Most of those players signed are pitchers, however, as the free-agent position-player market has been slow to develop.
As a group, the free-agent pitchers, most of them on the wrong side of age 30, have signed at a premium compared to industry expectations. As flush in cash as the game appears to be, it stands to reason that there will then be some free-agent hitters signing for less than consensus projections. Enter Justin Upton, whose name has been conspicuously scarce in the daily rumor mill. He's young, productive and healthy -- and well-positioned to emerge as perhaps the best bargain in this year's class.
Despite a respectable .271-.352-.473 career line with 190 homers at age 28, Upton's career to date is often looked at as a disappointment. This is largely due to the expectations placed upon him as an elite prospect.
The 2005 MLB draft will go down as one of the best amateur drafts of all time. Alex Gordon, Ryan Zimmerman, Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzki, Andrew McCutchen, Jay Bruce, Jacoby Ellsbury, Matt Garza and Colby Rasmus were all selected in the first round, and Clay Buchholz went in the sandwich round. Upton was taken before all of them; he was the first overall pick despite being just 17 years old.
He blitzed through the minor leagues -- he amassed just 1,034 plate appearances -- posting a lusty .288-.373-.481 line as the youngest player at each level, and made his big league debut while still a teenager. It takes most high school draftees at least a few years to tap into their power as a professional, but not this guy. This kid hit 13 homers in 306 plate appearances, slugging .556 at the Double-A level at age 19 before his call-up.
Each season I prepare my own minor league position-player rankings based upon production and age relative to league and level. Upton ranked No. 1 overall on my list in 2007, and a very strong No. 37 in 2006 in his only other full minor league season. These rankings marked him as a future star, and potentially a generational player.
This is why some consider him a relative disappointment; he has been good, but not generational. He has quietly been selected to three All-Star Games and has made it to the postseason three times, but his career high in homers is 31 and in RBIs is 102. He has led the league in exactly nothing. So why should Justin Upton be a big deal in the free-agent market?
Well, if the answer can be boiled down to a single number, it would be 28, the age at which he has become a free agent.