The Yankees hit the lottery with Freddy Garcia this season, paying him next to nothing for 146.2 above-average innings. We’ve already had a Freddy Garcia Appreciation Thread and will surely wax poetic about him whenever we get around to covering him during our season review, but for now let’s take a second what the offseason could have a store for the big right-hander. Should the Yankees bring Freddy back?
Garcia’s base salary was just $1.5M this year, but he earned most of his $3.6M in incentives by making 25 starts (he would have had to make 30 starts to earn all of it). The reverse-engineered Elias projections available at MLBTR indicate that Garcia qualifies as a Type-B free agent by the skin of his teeth. He’s the last Type-B with a score of 60.271, just ahead of the unranked Jeremy Guthrie and his score of 59.981. So yeah, Freddy’s a Type-B by less than three-tenths of an Elias point according to the reverse-engineered rankings, which are not official.
The Yankees have to offer Garcia arbitration in order to receive a draft pick if he signs elsewhere, but the risk is that he accepts. An arbitration award would likely put his 2012 salary around $6-7M or so, about a $2M raise. That seems pretty reasonable to me if you’re expecting Freddy to repeat this year’s performance, but that’s hardly a given. There’s always a chance the two sides work out a handshake agreement like the Yankees did with Javy Vazquez last year, ensuring that Garcia will decline arbitration.
No one asked me, but I think Sweaty Freddy would be a fine back of the rotation insurance policy for next season. Not a number three starter you’d count on, just a veteran guy to have for the fifth spot. I can’t see why the Yankees wouldn’t offer him arbitration just to secure the potential draft pick, and if he does accept, then so be it. His 2012 salary figures to be very reasonable, and it’s comforting to know there won’t be a “welcome to New York” adjustment period.