Posted by David Golebiewski on Sunday, January 24, 2010 at 5:44 pm

Anecdotally, it seems as though this offseason has provided teams with a strong buyer’s market. Free agents are finding jobs and cash to be scarce. Sure, the elite players aren’t suffering: Matt Holliday inked a deal that will pay him more than the Gross Domestic Product of Anguilla, while Jason Bay and John Lackey also secured fat long-term contracts.

But the guys in the middle appear to be getting squeezed. GMs are sitting back, judging a free agent’s talents against in-house options, and declaring, “you’re only a slight upgrade-lower your asking price or we’re moving on.”

So, what are teams paying for a Win Above Replacement (WAR) on the free agent market this offseason? To try and answer that question, I used Sean Smith’s handy Free Agent Tracker, which records a player’s signing terms as well as his projected WAR during the length of the contract. Using that data, we can get a feel for what clubs are dishing out for a win this winter.

Here are the position players who have signed one-year deals, sorted by projected dollars per win:

Teams are paying about $3.2 million per WAR for one-year position players. Of course, there’s a high degree of uncertainty with many of these players (that’s why they’re signing one-year deals in the first place). Glaus could be a decent first base option for the Braves, or shoulder and back ailments could end his career. Nick Johnson’s a great get, if he stays healthy. Vlad Guerrero and Hideki Matsui have achy knees, Crisp’s coming off of season-ending shoulder surgery, Beltre also had shoulder surgery and Ankiel lost a fight with a center field wall. You get the picture: these guys could provide a great return on investment, or they could bust. GMs pay accordingly.

(Note: Beltre has a $5M player option for 2011, which becomes a $10M option if he logs 640 plate appearances. LaRoche has a $7.5M mutual option for the 2011 season. Ankiel has a $6M mutual option for 2011. Contract info from Cots Baseball Contracts).

Here are the position players signing multi-year contracts this winter:

Overall, teams are paying about $4.8 million per WAR on multi-year deals with free agent position players. CHONE is not sanguine about Bay’s chances of providing bang for all those bucks. Even with significant regression factored in, Figgins looks like a smart signing.

(Note: Bay has a $14M vesting option for 2014, based on PA in 2012 and 2013. Holliday has a $16M club option for the 2017 season.)

Now, the starting pitchers. Here are the starters inking one-year pacts:

Like their position player counterparts, the one-year starting pitchers are mostly guys looking to re-establish value. Clubs are paying $3.3 million per WAR for one-year starters. Again, there’s a lot of volatility here: Harden could be a monster, or he could make ten starts. Duchscherer is returning from elbow surgery and clinical depression.

And multi-year contracts for starting pitchers:

Teams are dishing out $5.2 million per projected WAR to starters on multi-year deals. Lackey’s deal strikes me as neither egregious nor shrewd. He was the best starter available, and the Red Sox paid more than sticker-value. Given the club’s position on the win and revenue curve, it’s defensible.

Relievers aren’t included on Sean Smith’s Free Agent Tracker. So, what I did was use ESPN’s free agent tracker to find the contract terms for relievers. For one-year deals, I used CHONE’s projected WAR to find the projected dollars paid per WAR. For multi-year deals, I took 2010’s projected WAR and applied a generic -0.2 WAR aging curve for each additional year.

Here are the free agent relievers signing one-year deals:

And the multi-year ‘pen arms:

(Note: Valverde has a $9M club option for the 2012 season.)

Yeah, that’s ugly. There has been much discussion lately about the value of relievers. Personally, I think it’s near impossible to justify the payouts given to relief pitchers in free agency in recent years. Even accounting for the high-leverage situations in which they pitch, relievers just don’t provide enough quantity to earn these kinds of salaries. Also, when a closer is sidelined, his innings aren’t given to a replacement-level pitcher. The set-up guy moves into the 9th inning, the middle reliever becomes the set up guy, and so on right to the bottom of the ‘pen. Those high-leverage frames aren’t passed on to the mop-up guy.

So, to recap, here’s what teams are paying for a win this off-season:

The multi-year relievers really drag the average down. Without them, clubs are paying between $4.5 and $4.6 million per WAR, which is around the commonly accepted number. There have been some bargain contracts this winter. But when it comes to relievers, GMs are paying for fillet mignon and getting cheesburgers.