Free-Agent Market

Average annual value and years of every major-league free-agent deal that started in 2026 (RosterResource).

• Last winter’s free-agent contracts: AAV, years, age at signing (RosterResource)
• Blind Marcel+ projections as of each signing (seasons before 2026 only)
• Walk-year WAR and role (hitter, starter, reliever)
• The Winter Plan’s recommended 40-man and the depth-chart engine

• log(AAV) on log(projected WAR + ½), role and role × WAR, age, and log(walk-year WAR + ½); years on WAR, WAR², age, age²
• Accepted qualifying offers and sub-minimum records left out; scored leave-one-out against $9M per WAR with years by age
• This winter’s class priced from 2027 projections built the same way, never clipped; beyond last winter’s range the price follows the model’s extrapolation, capped at 1.1× the richest deal of his role (the cap is never below that deal; the model’s own price can be); years from the full projection, with a ±1-year band at three years or more
• Walk year tested for a spike beyond the projection with a nested term scored held out: it didn’t help, so the price uses the plain walk-year term
• Value − price at $9M/WAR, 4% growth, 8% discount
• Wins added: the plan’s roster with and without him through the depth chart and role-based playing time
• Shopping lists: the most 2027 wins a budget buys, net of draft picks given up, from a beam search over sets measured whole on the budgeted depth chart (wins aren’t additive); each pick must make the 26-man and add wins to the set
• At most one signing per position group; pitchers grouped by the innings they’d pitch, so a bullpen arm whose innings are mostly starts is rotation depth (a sixth starter). The one-arm rotation-depth cap is a judgment: the floor list publishes what it costs
• A likely qualifying-offer recipient costs Pittsburgh a pick, added to his net cost; a toss-up (QO?) counts the pick at those odds
• Before the CBA expires Dec 1, deals are at today’s prices: each pick is tested on his own fit against the market’s wins per $10M, and the early group is the picks that still clear it signed together

• One winter of deals, so the market’s mood that winter is baked in.
• Above last winter’s range (aces, elite relievers) the price curve extrapolates.
• Who gets a qualifying offer is estimated from his price until offers are made in early November; no medicals or player preferences beyond the board’s medical rule.
• Wins added is 2027 only; later years show up in value − price.
• No outside price benchmark: no published forecast of this winter’s contracts is in our data, so the prices are checked only against last winter’s deals, held out one at a time.
• Value − price uses one price of a win for every role, so it favors starters (priced below hitters last winter) and disfavors relievers (priced above); each player’s tooltip also gives his value at his role’s own rate.
• Park isn’t in the wins: they use park-adjusted WAR; on Pittsburgh’s board each player’s PNC Park fit is shown beside them, not added.

• Actual 2026–27 contracts vs. these estimates (graded in the spring)
• Pittsburgh’s signings and their 2027 wins added