The 5 factors of MLB Free Agency

When it comes to MLB free agency, is it always just about the money? There's lot's of evidence to the contrary.

AP Photo/Chris Szagola

When it comes to MLB free agency, perception has always been the most important thing to players is the bottom line. The team who offers the most money always gets the player, right? 

In the information economy that is the baseball offseason, we’ve learned more and more about player decisions and what goes into them. Plugged-in reporters, and often the players themselves, share details we may not have been able to know 10-15 years ago through the power of social media, podcasts and constant updates.

One trend that’s appeared recently through this spate of information is players are often leaving money on the table to take less elsewhere.

This isn’t that hard to understand when you take a step back and think about the life of a baseball player who gets to be a free agent.

Sure, they play a sport for a living and get paid handsomely to do so, even in their league minimum years. The vast majority of people in the world can’t fathom making $720,000 a year. But outside of college players deciding where to go to school, for the most part baseball players spend upwards of 30 years of their lives not being able to choose where they can work and live.

They don’t get to pick what teams draft them, where they play in the minors, where they play in the Majors, or where they can be traded to until they’ve reached a certain service threshold. The CBA bars players from making those decisions—unless teams make it for them by releasing them.

As such, players work their entire lives for the right to free agency, the right to have teams come to them and roll out the red carpet and convince them that their city is where they should move to and spend the next few years of their lives.

Wouldn’t it stand to reason, then, that players would factor in a lot more than just money in such a hugely important life choice?

Some of this indifference to the bottom line could be due to the very large amounts of money players can get paid in free agency. At a certain point, if one team is offering you $120 million and another $125 million, does an extra $5 million matter if it’s coming from a team where you really don’t want to play?

Fans and media get on the case of teams for failing to sign certain free agents every offseason. But that attitude disrespects the notion that free agency decisions come down to the players choosing where to play, not the teams choosing the players. And besides, what if there are certain things at play that a team simply can’t compete with for a variety of reasons?

As such, I’m presenting the 5 Factors of MLB Free Agency. A few notes before I get into this: some of these factors are interrelated, but they all felt different enough to be separated out. And you’ll notice one of them is sort of two different factors combined. So this could really be the 5-ish Factors, but that didn’t have the same ring to it. 

Without further ado, and in no particular order, here are my 5 Factors of MLB Free Agency:

Factor #1: Money

Even though I just spent a bunch of time explaining how money isn’t always the biggest factor in MLB free agency, I have to start with it because it does, in fact, matter and will ultimately be the biggest factor in many instances.

Sure, a player may really want to play in Boston, for example. But there’s a certain financial threshold Boston would need to meet to reasonably get that player to sign. No player is going to sign somewhere for $50 million guaranteed if someone else is offering $100 million guaranteed. 

Players work their whole lives to cash in on their talent and get financial certainty. That absolutely cannot and should not be discounted, and the bottom line can be what matters most.

Going back to the Boston example, it’s fair to say in the recent past that big free agents taking the most money from Boston was not the best thing for either the player or the team in the long run. Carl Crawford, Pablo Sandoval, Hanley Ramirez and David Price are among the names that come to mind here.

Money isn’t everything, and that’s what the next four(ish) factors will show.

Factor #2: Opportunity

This comes down to what the player wants to do on the field over the course of their next contract. For a position player, this can be about both playing time and where they’ll play on the field. 

“Does the team offering me this contract already have a player at the spot where I want to play? Do they have a hot prospect in Triple-A who could take my spot and move me to another position in a year or two?”

For example, if a player is set on playing a corner infield or outfield spot for the foreseeable future, they could be less likely to consider a place that can only offer them DH at-bats. Other factors could get them to change their mind, but opportunity has to be part of the mix.

For a pitcher, the opportunity is less of a factor for most. But for some, they may want to explore the opportunity to start if they’ve been a reliever in the past, for example. Or, a reliever may have a better opportunity to be a closer—and thus earn more money either presently or down the line—for one team over another.

Factor #3: Geography/Family Reasons

This is the one factor that could have counted for more than one entry here, but I decided to keep them together because of how connected they are. This factor was a massive storyline in the 2022-23 offseason where it seemed many, many deals were swayed by geography and family concerns and not just money.

We know that Andrew Heaney was offered more guaranteed money by the Red Sox after 2022 but signed with Texas instead as that was closer to his Oklahoma home. Zach Eflin was offered identical contracts by the Red Sox and Rays—he cited family reasons as to why he picked Tampa, not far from his native Orlando. It’s unclear what other offers Mitch Haniger had, but when presented with free agent options he elected to sign with his hometown Giants.

Perhaps the single-biggest example of this last offseason was Trea Turner, who reportedly left $42 million on the table from the Padres so he could sign with the Phillies instead. Turner grew up in Florida, played the start of his career in Washington, DC and—most crucially—his wife is from nearby New Jersey. 

Much was made recently about how free agent Jordan Montgomery is spending this offseason in Boston because of his wife’s medical residency. It’s hard to say how much of a factor that will play in Montgomery’s decision. But if he likes it in Boston…it can’t hurt.

It’s worth pointing out that for Eflin and Heaney, a lack of state income taxes may have played a role in their decisions. But these guys hire accountants for a reason—I’ve long believed this is a very overblown storyline for free agent choices, but that’s a topic for another day.

Either way, a player makes this choice on their own. If they’re deadset on sleeping in their own bed as much as possible during the season, and seeing their kids and loved ones more often—it can be very, very hard for teams in other geographic locations to compete with that. You can offer more money, sure. But this is that aforementioned instance where money can only mean so much.

Factor #4: Relationships

Relationships matter in Major League Baseball, and they matter most during the offseason. This applies to relationships between executives and agents, executives and other executives, and, most crucially in this instance, relationships between players and teams.

Relationships are often why players stay with their prior teams in free agency. Aaron Nola has been in the Phillies organization since he was drafted in 2014. Reportedly he turned down bigger offers elsewhere to stay with Philly this offseason. Relationships he’s spent nearly a decade building must have played a factor there.

Much was made after the 2021 offseason about the Red Sox lack of willingness to extend a contract of significance to Kyle Schwarber. But he had a strong relationship with his prior hitting coach, Kevin Long. When Long took the Phillies job, that was a huge factor in Schwarber’s decision.

Going back to Turner’s decision to take less money to sign with the Phillies—the impact of his long-term friendship with Bryce Harper was an additional factor beyond his family ties to the area. 

The list goes on and on here. Sometimes a team has a person or people associated with it that gives them a leg up on a prospective player’s free agency decision, and there’s nothing other teams can do about it. Again—money matters here, the Phillies did end up giving Schwarber the most money, after all. But relationships can matter more.

Factor #5: Winning

I put this factor last for a reason, because as more time has gone on, the less this seems to be a factor for some players. Certainly not all, being on winning teams does matter to a lot of players. But some would rather go someplace where they’ll be paid well and be comfortable than go to a winner. 

This could partially be due to the fact that “winning” is fleeting in MLB. We’ve seen several teams the last few years that looked like surefire winners on paper turn out to be complete duds. But sometimes it’s just about money and comfort.

Kris Bryant was a young, versatile star when he finally became a free agent after the 2021 season. He had many choices of where he could go, but he chose the perennially-disappointing Rockies because they offered him $182M and they aren’t far from his native Las Vegas. That was his choice, but it’s hard to say it had anything to do with winning.

In the end, these factors are not the final word on all this. But hopefully they provide you a guide for what to look for as the hot stove season finally starts to really heat up.

Follow Jake on Twitter/X @JakeTODonnell. If you’re a fan of sports trading cards and history, subscribe to Jake’s Wax Pack Wisdom YouTube channel.

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