NEWSLETTER
Attacking free agency aggressively and emerging triumphantly is far from an exact science. And few things represent that more than what the Cubs have experienced in the last 10 years in the free agent market.
The Cubs’ class of 2015 has the potential to be one of the team’s more productive classes, especially if the trio of Jason Heyward, Ben Zobrist and John Lackey live up to preseason projections from Steamer, ZiPS and others.
But did you ever wonder how the Cubs’ previous free agent signings fared immediately before and after signing with the Cubs?
[adinserter block=”1″]Using ESPN’s MLB Free Agent tracker as a guide, charted below is every free agent the Cubs signed to a Major League deal in each of the last 10 offseasons. ESPN’s free agent tracker is a nifty tool that allows you to dive into what transpired in a given year’s free agent market, even though it only goes back to 2006.
Digging into the names and the deals, with some thoughts and a full chart below:
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CUBS FREE AGENT SIGNINGS SINCE 2006:
| YEAR | PLAYER | AGE | fWAR | Next year |
| 2015 | Heyward | 26 | 6.0 | 5.1* |
| Zobrist | 35 | 2.1 | 2.9* | |
| Lackey | 36 | 3.6 | 2.6* | |
| Cahill | 28 | 0.1 | 0.2* | |
| TOTAL | 31.3 | 11.8 | 10.8* | |
| 2014 | Lester | 31 | 5.5 | 5.0 |
| Hammel | 32 | 1.7 | 2.4 | |
| Ross | 37 | 0.3 | 0.1 | |
| Motte | 32 | -0.6 | 0.5 | |
| Denorfia | 32 | 0.4 | 0.8 | |
| Coke | 32 | -0.1 | 0.0 | |
| TOTAL | 32.7 | 7.2 | 8.8 | |
| 2013 | Hammel | 31 | 0.6 | 1.7 |
| Veras | 33 | 0.7 | -0.2 | |
| Wright | 29 | 0.1 | 0.2 | |
| TOTAL | 31.0 | 1.4 | 1.7 | |
| 2012 | Jackson | 29 | 2.1 | 2.0 |
| Fujikawa | 32 | — | 0.2 | |
| Feldman | 30 | 2.1 | 2.0 | |
| Baker | 31 | -0.1 | -0.9 | |
| Schierholtz | 29 | 0.5 | 1.9 | |
| Stewart | 28 | 0.1 | DNP | |
| Navarro | 29 | 0.3 | 2.1 | |
| TOTAL | 29.7 | 2.9 | 7.3 | |
| 2011 | DeJesus | 32 | 1.7 | 1.2 |
| Maholm | 30 | 1.9 | 2.0 | |
| Wood | 35 | 0.4 | -0.3 | |
| Johnson | 35 | 0.3 | 1.1 | |
| TOTAL | 33.0 | 4.3 | 4.0 | |
| 2010 | Pena | 33 | 1.0 | 2.5 |
| Wood | 34 | 0.1 | 0.4 | |
| TOTAL | 33.5 | 1.1 | 2.9 | |
| 2009 | Byrd | 32 | 1.3 | 4.0 |
| Grabow | 31 | 0.2 | -0.4 | |
| Nady | 31 | -0.1 | -0.7 | |
| TOTAL | 31.3 | 1.4 | 2.9 | |
| 2008 | Dempster | 32 | 4.7 | 3.6 |
| Bradley | 31 | 4.2 | 0.7 | |
| Miles | 32 | 1.6 | -1.4 | |
| Gathright | 28 | 0.2 | -0.2 | |
| Bako | 37 | -0.1 | DNP | |
| TOTAL | 32.0 | 10.6 | 2.9 | |
| 2007 | Wood | 31 | 0.4 | 2.1 |
| Lieber | 38 | 1.4 | DNP | |
| TOTAL | 34.5 | 1.8 | 2.1 | |
| 2006 | Soriano | 31 | 5.4 | 6.7 |
| Ramirez | 29 | 3.7 | 4.8 | |
| Lilly | 31 | 2.1 | 3.8 | |
| Marquis | 28 | -0.5 | 1.4 | |
| DeRosa | 32 | 2.9 | 2.5 | |
| Blanco | 35 | 0.7 | -0.6 | |
| Floyd | 34 | 0.2 | 0.7 | |
| Wood | 30 | -0.1 | 0.4 | |
| Miller | 30 | -0.1 | -0.3 | |
| Ward | 32 | 0.3 | 0.9 | |
| TOTAL | 31.2 | 14.6 | 20.3 |
Key: *denotes Steamer 2016 projections; fWAR-accumulated in season before signing with Cubs; Next Year-fWAR in player’s first year with Cubs
