Askmen.com presents their top ten list of All-time Baseball Free-Agent Bargains. 

I’m glad to see their memory is intact and they remember Andre Dawson at #3.  In the collusion market after the 1986 season, Dawson was picked up by the Cubs for $500,000 (plus incentives which eventually came out to around $700,000).  Even back then, that was a pitiful amount. 

The rest, as they say, is history.  Dawson had his famous 49-homer, 137 rbi season for the last place Cubs.  Both figures led the NL that year and were enough to garner him the NL MVP. 

Fortunately, the Cubs saw value in their new outfielder and gave him a raise.  They signed him at $1.85 million the next year.

Dawson played six 20+ HR years for Chicago.

Related posts

• Dawson: Cub, Expo, what does it matter? He’ll be in. (0)
• Lou Piniella, lame duck (0)
• Mark looking for a Prior commitment (0)

Posted in: Baseball History by The Baseball Zealot
1 Comment »

Below are some good links to track the off-season free agency. 

For my money, the best sortable list is ESPN’s Free Agent Tracker but Sport City’s and MLB Trade Rumors’ both list them qualitatively and sometimes with a little commentary.

ESPN’s Free Agent Tracker

Sports City’s Top 25 Free Agents

MLB Trade Rumors Top 50 Free Agents

Cot’s Baseball Contracts Free Agent position players/ pitchers

The Cot’s link is new to me but I had fun looking through their site earlier today.  The site is not organized in a sorted list format rather it has very detailed information for each player.  Alternatively, you can find a page for each team which has detailed salary and transaction information for each player. 

Related posts

• Andre Dawson: Best free agent money could buy? (1)

Posted in: Hot Stove by The Baseball Zealot
No Comments »