How Good Are The Rays At Signing “Under-The-Radar” Free Agents?

Andrew Friedman and Co. are neck deep in their sixth hot stove season. We know the Rays are great at making trades. And we have a sense that they are pretty good at drafting. But how good are they at free agency? The Rays are well-known for picking up hidden gems like Carlos Pena and Joaquin Benoit. But they have also missed terribly with guys like Pat Burrell and Troy Percival. So let’s see if we can quantify how World B. Friedman has fared with his free agent picks. We already saw last week, that in 2010, the Rays only received $7.1 million in production from their free agents, despite paying those players $23.8 million in salary. This was the second-straight year the Rays overpaid their free agents. After the jump, let’s look at the totals for 2006-2010 by breaking it by every free agent signed by Friedman that spent time on the Rays active roster (plus Shinji Mori). The “Value” for each player is measured as the difference between how well they played and...