FanPost

Free Agent Target: Matt Holliday

Matt Holliday

PICTURED: Matt Holliday during the 2009 season with Oakland.

With the 2016 season winding down, let us look to the offseason. More specifically, let us look to potential trades and free agents. Oh, let us look. Let us ponder all the glorious roster moves ahead of us.

For now, let's focus on free agency, and one free agent in particular. Our old friend Matt Holliday. I know, I know, some of you don't like Matt Holliday and free agency is definitely wayyyyyy less fun to think about than #trades, but I've thought this one through and it makes too much sense.

Holliday needs no introduction, he is one of the best hitters of the past decade. His 141 OPS+ from 2006-2014 is arguably Hall of Fame worthy. After twelve seasons in the league split between Colorado, Oakland, and St. Louis, he sits at a career line of .303/.382/.515. However, age and injuries are taking their toll, and he's been limited to 180 games over the past two seasons. His 2016 season is likely over, according to MLB.com, after injuring his thumb on a hit-by-pitch. His .282/.314/.450 line this season was not Holliday-esque, due to a drop in batting average and walk rate.

However, Paul Swydan of Fangraphs thinks Matt Holliday can still hit. He makes a convincing case, and ends his article by saying:

For a long time, Matt Holliday was one of the best players in baseball. He could run, hit and field with the best of them. But his calling card was always at the plate. It’s hard to put a 139 wRC+ for eight straight seasons, but that’s exactly what Holliday did. He might not be that guy anymore (I’m not willing to fully write him off yet) but he still has the ability to turn in a mean at-bat, and park more than his far share of baseballs over the outfield fence.

Additionally, while the A's might be heavy on right-handed bats right now, there's no reason why Holliday cannot take over the Frank Thomas Memorial DH spot, once also occupied by Mike Piazza.

It's likely that the Cardinals will pay Matt Holliday his $1M buyout rather than pick up his $17M option for next season, and Holliday will be a free agent. Smart money would be on him moving to an American League team where he can spend a good amount of time at DH. There would certainly be other options for Holliday in the role (Texas, Toronto, Houston, and Kansas City off the top of my head). Since he'll be on a short-term deal, though, it's feasible for the A's to offer a dollar amount that matches or surpasses any of those clubs. We've seen the A's give out high dollar figures on short-term deals in the past, and Holliday could be the next in line.

Something along the lines of 2 years, $25M could work. My rough estimate is that the A's will be around $50M in guaranteed money, with Butler/Lowrie/Axford/Madson/Doolittle the only guaranteed contracts, and Gray/Davis/Hendriks/Vogt the only arbitration-eligible players likely to stick around. There's plenty of money to spend in 2017.

Lastly, I don't know how much stock to put into veteran presence and all that, but the A's have a LOT of up-and-coming bats between Ryon Healy, Marcus Semien, Khris Davis, Joey Wendle, Matt Chapman, and Kevin Kiermaier (*wink*). Wouldn't it be nice to have one of the most accomplished hitters in baseball around to mentor them? Not to mention how nice a Holliday-Davis-Healy 3-4-5 looks in the lineup...

So should we pay up for Matt Holliday, make him a full-time DH, and bat him in the third spot of the lineup on a daily basis in 2017?