Alex Verdugo is one of the most prominent names still lingering on the free agent market, and it doesn’t sound as though he’s been close to coming off the board at any point. Brendan Kuty of The Athletic reports that Verdugo has yet to receive a formal major league offer from any team since becoming a free agent back in November. Kuty chatted with now-former teammates Aaron Judge, Anthony Volpe, Marcus Stroman and Trent Grisham about the situation, each of whom expressed surprise that Verdugo is unsigned and spoke highly of him as a teammate and member of the Yankees’ 2024 clubhouse.
Verdugo has drawn at least some interest from big league teams this winter — the Pirates, Angels and Astros among them. While Verdugo may not have received a formal written offer, Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported recently that Pittsburgh “floated” a number around $8MM in discussions with the outfielder before pivoting to sign Tommy Pham for a year and $4.05MM. It’s not clear whether Verdugo didn’t find that number appealing or whether the Bucs preferred to spread out their limited resources. They signed Pham and Andrew Heaney for a combined $9.3MM.
The Astros were known to be looking for left-handed-hitting outfield help, but the front office has spent the offseason facing payroll limitations. Owner Jim Crane was seemingly only willing to exceed the luxury tax for Alex Bregman and Bregman alone. Houston was only about $5-6MM shy of the tax threshold when Ben Gamel was signed to a one-year, $1.2MM deal that seemingly closed the door on any potential match with Verdugo.
Verdugo, 29 in May, is coming off the worst full season of his career. His lone year with the Yankees resulted in a .233/.291/.356 batting line that clocked in 17% worse than average, by measure of wRC+. That paltry end-of-season line comes despite a terrific start to his 2024 campaign. Through mid-May, Verdugo was batting .275/.362/.450 in 141 plate appearances. He fell into a deep slump shortly thereafter and never really managed to recover; over his final 480 trips to the plate, he mustered only a .221/.270/.330 output. The only qualified hitters with a lower wRC+ than Verdugo’s mark of 69 during that time (indicating he was 31% below par at the plate) were Maikel Garcia and Bryan De La Cruz.
Even with that rough year, however, it’s still a moderate surprise that Verdugo’s market has been so quiet. He’s more than a year shy of his 30th birthday, and from 2019-23 he was a solid regular, hitting a combined .283/.338/.432 with solid or better corner outfield defense. He averaged two to three wins above replacement per 162 games played during that stretch. He might not be an All-Star like some had envisioned during his yearslong run as one of the sport’s top 100 prospects, but Verdugo has generally been a serviceable regular outside of his rough 2024 campaign.
At this point, it seems he might need to wait for an injury to create an opportunity for him. While there are still several teams that could clearly use a corner outfield upgrade, most clubs in that situation have either spent the bulk of their offseason budgets (e.g. Royals) or shown little to no interest whatsoever in spending this winter (e.g. Marlins).
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