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Sifting through the 2015-2016 MLB free-agent market, there’s just no one quite like Bartolo Colon.

Simply put, the right-hander is an ageless wonder.

Even with his 43rd birthday looming in May, Colon is still a viable free-agent option for a club that is aiming to round out its rotation. And, Colon isn’t the only big league vet who proved in 2015 that his tank isn’t empty just yet.

On the list that follows, there’s also room for a couple of position players who are primed for rebounds in 2016 and a couple of relievers who put together stunning comebacks during the season that was.

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The Major League Baseball season is over, but hot-stove action is just heating up.

It’s a time when bad teams look to get better, but even the World Series champion Kansas City Royals don’t shut it down in the offseason.

While they are looking to make an already strong team stronger, they also are fending off teams that are seeking to add the services of free agents who played in Kansas City last year, such as Alex Gordon and Ben Zobrist.

One of the major blueprints for Kansas City’s success was a strong bullpen, and middle relievers and closers are hot commodities on this year’s market.

Let’s take a look at where some of the top free-agent relievers could land and how one rival may be trying to lure Zobrist out of Kansas City.

Flamethrower Chapman Draws Interest

Cincinnati Reds closer Aroldis Chapman is 6’4″ and 215 pounds. He’s left-handed and throws 100 mph. It goes without saying that teams like that combination in a closer—or any pitcher, for that matter.

Chapman saved 145 games in Cincinnati the past four years, and according to Peter Gammons of MLB Network, he has many potential trade suitors:

Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal reported the Boston Red Sox could be one of those teams:

Chapman will be a free agent after the 2016 season, and Travis Durkee of Sporting News said the Reds have no interest in paying him to remain with the team thereafter:

Chapman, 27, has recorded no fewer than 33 saves in the last four seasons as the Reds closer. However, he’ll hit free agency after the 2016 season, and the Reds reportedly have no plans to keep him as he’ll certainly command even more than the $13 million he’s set to make in his final year of arbitration.

If so, it would make a lot of sense to unload him now. Closers don’t usually bring back equal value in a trade, but Chapman is one of the rare ones who could come close.

He would be a good fit in Boston. The Red Sox have closer Koji Uehara, but he is 40 and has regressed the past two seasons after a phenomenal 2013 campaign.

The Reds look to be rebuilding this year after trading starting pitcher Johnny Cueto to the Royals midseason. Per Carrie Muskat of MLB.com, Cincinnati is listening to offers on just about anyone at this point.

Chapman is all but gone, but where will he land?

Boston makes sense, as does Detroit, but don’t be surprised if a sleeper comes in at the last minute and makes a deal.

Zobrist on Cardinals’ Radar

The Royals won the World Series in 2015 thanks in large part to midseason acquisition Ben Zobrist. The utility man played mostly second base for Kansas City and batted .284 with seven home runs and 23 RBI in 59 games, after coming over in a trade just before the deadline.

He played a solid second base and registered 20 hits in 16 playoff games for the Royals. Kansas City fans want him to stay. One fan even set up a Go Fund Me page to help keep Zobrist and Gordon with the team. Zobrist and his wife Julianna have become fan favorites, especially when they gave their newborn the middle name, Royal.

That would all change if a recent report from ESPN’s Buster Olney comes to fruition. He writes that the St. Louis Cardinals are interested in Zobrist. 

The Royals and Cardinals are bitter rivals. While most realize professional sports is a business, the last thing Kansas City fans want to see is Zobrist in Cardinals red.

With Zobrist’s flexibility to play nearly anywhere, it would be hard to imagine a team that is not interested in his services. However, Crasnick said the Royals are going to make a push at re-signing the 34-year-old:

Olney’s report on the Cardinals’ interest in Zobrist means they most likely will pursue him, but don’t look for him to end up there.

Zobrist fills a need for Kansas City—who played most of the year with light-hitting Omar Infante at second base—and even as far back as August, he expressed an interest in remaining with the team, per Jeffrey Flanagan of MLB.com.

Royals fans, rest easy that he’ll be back. If not, how else will he explain his daughter’s middle name?

Struggling Tigers Look to Bolster Pen

The Detroit Tigers won the American League Central from 2011 to 2014 with a less-than-stellar bullpen. They were typically exposed in the playoffs, although they did reach the 2012 World Series, only to be swept by the San Francisco Giants.

In 2015, a horrid bullpen wasn’t the only reason the Tigers fell to last place in the Central, but it was a huge factor. Detroit relievers blew 25 saves and converted just 58.3 percent of save opportunities—both ranking 14th out of 15 AL teams.

There are plenty of solid relievers in free agency for the Tigers to go after. According to Crasnick, that’s exactly what they’re doing. Detroit has shown interest in Ryan Madson, Shawn Kelley, Tommy Hunter, Darren O’Day and Joakim Soria—who pitched with the Tigers and Pittsburgh Pirates in 2015.

O’Day, 33, is the most sought-after relief pitcher right now and could demand at least a three-year, $18.5 million contract, per Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun. He thinks O’Day is likely to stay in Baltimore, but nothing is imminent.

“All things being equal, I think O’Day would like to remain in Baltimore,” Connolly wrote. “But once free agency unfolds for real, things stop being equal. And some team is going to pay a whole lot of money for O’Day’s consistency and leadership.”

In 65 innings, O’Day had a 1.52 ERA, and a team could use the setup man as a closer if needed. The side-arm righty closed six games for the Orioles in 2015 and has not finished with an ERA higher than 2.28 since 2011.

Showing interest and actually making a move are two different things. As early as Nov. 10, Olney said an O’Day signing could happen soon:

The Tigers have money to spend after dumping the contracts of Yoenis Cespedes and David Price during the regular season. Agent Scott Boras said owner Mike Ilitch is willing to spend money on starting pitching, per Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press.

However, the Tigers had plenty of pitching over the past five years with Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and Doug Fister and still never got over the hump. If they want to win that elusive World Series, the bullpen must improve.

Ousted general manager Dave Dombrowski is no longer there to make a signature blockbuster trade, but count on new GM Al Avila and Ilitch to add at least one of these relievers from the list.

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It’s only Week 1 of the 2015-2016 MLB offseason, but the trade market is already buzzing.

Per Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com, the Los Angeles Angels have landed Andrelton Simmons from the Atlanta Braves, and there’s plenty of speculation swirling around other prominent players.

When it comes to tackling the biggest questions of the week, trade rumors involving All-Stars like Aroldis Chapman and Brett Gardner dominate the conversation. However, there’s also room on the list for a look at which former big league outfielder could be set to replace Don Mattingly for the Los Angeles Dodgers. 

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The New York Mets are in an enviable position as the free-agent market opens because they may be the one team in baseball that really doesn’t need David Price or Zack Greinke.

Too bad the market doesn’t also offer them what they do need.

The Mets have their rotation, it’s soon to be five-deep and they already know it’s good enough to get them to the World Series. Good enough to win it, too, because the Mets’ loss to the Kansas City Royals had a lot more to do with hitting, defense and the bullpen than with the starting pitchers.

“They need to get more athletic,” one rival scout said a few days after Game 5.

A reasonable suggestion, but the Mets aren’t going to become the next World Series champs by turning into the Royals. They don’t need to. They just need an offense good enough to support their championship-level starting pitching, a group still so young that none of them is eligible for free agency for three more years.

They don’t need Price, they don’t need Greinke and they probably aren’t going to play for any of the biggest-name free-agent hitters, either. My friend Joel Sherman suggested in Wednesday’s New York Post that a successful Mets winter would have them signing Ben Zobrist, Darren O’Day and Gerardo Parra, and a scout familiar with the Mets agreed those seem like reasonable targets.

Fair enough. Any of the three would help. All three would fill significant needs.

Now tell me which one of them is going to replace Daniel Murphy in the third spot in the Mets batting order. Tell me which one takes over for Yoenis Cespedes as both the cleanup hitter and the lineup presence the Mets rode through August, September and October.

The Mets are unlikely to keep Murphy and Cespedes, and just as with their reluctance to trade pitching, there are significant baseball (i.e. not financial) reasons to let both of them walk. Signing Zobrist to replace Murphy would give the Mets a stronger defense and more flexibility. Cespedes‘ willingness to play center field was admirable, but do you really want him locked in there for full seasons?

The Mets are committed to Lucas Duda and David Wright at the infield corners. Right fielder Curtis Granderson was probably their best position player from start to finish, and they smartly would like to see Michael Conforto with an everyday chance in left field.

They could think about moving Granderson down in the order and signing a center fielder who bats leadoff (Denard Span?), but manager Terry Collins smartly doesn’t want to switch Granderson from the spot where he has had the most success. They could theoretically move Granderson to center field, opening up a corner spot to sign someone like Justin Upton, but Granderson as a full-time center fielder doesn’t fit any better than Cespedes did.

So back to the middle of the order, because remember, the day before the Mets began their late-July makeover, they faced Clayton Kershaw with John Mayberry Jr. batting fourth and Eric Campbell right behind him. Remember, the Mets were 28th in baseball in runs scored before the All-Star break, and even with their outstanding pitching (third in baseball), they were so bad offensively they were a 52-50 team before the July 31 Cespedes trade.

They could be better in 2016, if Travis d’Arnaud can stay healthy for a full year, and if Lucas Duda can be a little more consistent, and if Conforto makes a difference in his first full season, and if Wright can stay both healthy and productive.

Or, how about this if: What if the Toronto Blue Jays decide to trade Troy Tulowitzki and the Mets could make a deal for him?

So far, there’s no real suggestion Tulowitzki or any offensive star who fits the Mets’ positional needs (middle infield, center field) can be had in a trade. Mets general manager Sandy Alderson is on record saying he doesn’t want and doesn’t expect to trade any of his big pitchers.

If you’re limited to free agents and you don’t like Sherman’s Zobrist/Parra combo, you could go with Ian Desmond or Asdrubal Cabrera in the middle of the infield, or with Span or Dexter Fowler or Colby Rasmus in center field. But again, which one of those does what Murphy and Cespedes did?

The Mets won the National League in 2015 without making the pitching-for-hitting deal many wanted to see last winter. They could win it all in 2016 without trading any of those pitchers this winter—if a whole lot of other things come true.

At worst, one Mets official said by phone Wednesday, the Mets should be able to ride their pitching and whatever lineup they can build into some form of contention. At worst, he said, they can give themselves another shot, and perhaps Alderson can work the same July magic he did this year.

That’s probably not what Mets fans who got a taste of success and crave more would want to hear. But with a starting rotation so good and so young the Mets can build around it for years to come, it’s probably the right way to go.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball. 

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Starting pitcher Yovani Gallardo is coming off a strong 2015 season with the Texas Rangers, and he’s generating plenty of interest on the open market as a result. 

Continue for updates. 

Diamondbacks Among Clubs Interested in Gallardo

Wednesday, Nov. 11

CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman reported the news and mentioned Arizona is one of “many teams” eyeing up the free agent. 

The interest certainly makes sense. Arizona finished ninth in the National League in team ERA last season, per ESPN.com. Additionally, Diamondbacks pitchers mustered just 69 quality starts, which ranked 11th out of 15 NL clubs. 

After getting traded to the Rangers by the Milwaukee Brewers last offseason, Gallardo strung together an impressive campaign highlighted by a 13-11 record and career-best 3.42 ERA (minimum 20 starts). 

The 29-year-old also struck out 144 batters, which would have ranked second on the 2015 Diamondbacks behind only Rubby De La Rosa. Not surprisingly, Gallardo’s stock is surging after he posted a career-best 4.1 wins above replacement—a tally that trumped his previous best by 1.2, per Baseball-Reference.com. 

Arizona certainly has a need for a rock-solid arm like Gallardo in the middle of its rotation, so it will be fascinating to see how much the franchise is willing to spend in order to secure his talent. 

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Euphoria eventually wears off. It fades like a glorious fog that can be thick enough to mask a flawed landscape within.

That is not to say everything is bad once things clear up. Things might still be attractive to certain onlookers, just not as wonderful as the oasis that once existed.

This is sort of the way Yoenis Cespedes’ free agency has developed. Not that he won’t have a market, and not that he might not command something north of $100 million by the time he puts pen to paper, but the euphoria of his post-trade production with the New York Mets faded through the postseason and could result in some teams becoming unwilling to commit nine figures to him.

“The World Series exposed his occasional inattentiveness and other flaws, but some of those struggles perhaps stemmed from a shoulder injury,” Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal wrote this week. “The bigger problem for Cespedes might be generating enough interest from high-revenue clubs.”

But it only takes a single mega-money agreement to sink a player’s value, turning him into a rip-off going forward.

The Mets, the Detroit Tigers (Cespedes’ former team), the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs do not appear to have interest in him right now. If Cespedes was looking for a deal that topped Jacoby Ellsbury’s $153 million total, taking those teams out of the mix puts a huge dent in that plan.

However, as we have seen time and time again in free agency, it only takes one team to want a guy enough that it offers him the years and dollar amount he is seeking. There does not have to be a bidding war, only one general manager looking to price out the market and secure the player’s signature.

And with the San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, Houston Astros and Los Angeles Angels possibly in the market for an impact bat, Cespedes still could land that kind of huge contract.

“He was hurt by makeup questions in Boston and little things have cropped up in New York,” the New York Post’s Joel Sherman wrote about Cespedes recently. “He is a great athlete with righty power (that pays) with an industry worried if he shuts down with long-term security.”

Cespedes turned his production to volume 10 after his July trade from the Tigers to the Mets, which was the third time he’s been traded in the previous three years to give him four employers since the July 2012 trade deadline. That movement has some believing Cespedes will continue to be driven even after locking in a rich, long-term deal.

“In my view, he’s developed a pretty big chip on his shoulder from being traded so many times in recent years,” a scout told Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com. “I think that will drive him for a while.”

Upon getting to New York, Cespedes hit .309/.356/.691 with a 1.048 OPS, 17 home runs and 42 RBI in his first month and a half (41 games, 188 plate appearances) with the Mets. Those numbers even drew in supporters of him as a National League MVP candidate.

He cooled down dramatically over the last 16 regular-season games, and during the postseason, he hit .222/.232/.352 with a .584 OPS and 17 strikeouts in 56 plate appearances. He also played some shoddy defense, though it came in center field, where no courting team would consider making him a full-time occupant.

Cespedes has been a productive player to this point in his career since coming to the majors from Cuba. Since his debut in 2012, he ranks 12th among all outfielders in FanGraphs’ wins above replacement, and his 121 wRC+ is 21st among qualified outfielders.

Defensively, he is also one of the better left fielders in the game. His 32 defensive runs saved rate third since 2012, and his 33.3 ultimate zone rating ranks second, as does his throwing arm.

The red flags are that Cespedes gets on base only about 32 percent of the time, and a guy like Alex Gordon, while he is older, might come cheaper with better defense. Gordon also gets on base more, though he has less power.

Cespedes probably will never recreate those stunning first six weeks he spent with the Mets, but he will almost certainly be better than what he was in the postseason. Teams also have to consider that Cespedes is 30 years old, the prime time for hitters to start their career decline.

For Cespedes to reach the $150 million range, it means some team is paying him for his best past production and praying he will duplicate it in the years to come. That is a dangerous precedent, and one that could turn Cespedes from a trade-deadline god to a free-agent bust.

The euphoria has faded for Cespedes, but the coming weeks will tell if enough of it can still blind some team to pay him beyond his actual worth.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired first-hand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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When the Chicago Cubs hired Joe Maddon last winter, Theo Epstein called it a “unique opportunity” the team just couldn’t pass up. When they signed Jon Lester six weeks later, Maddon said they’d “won the baseball lottery.”

Now it’s time to do it again.

The ace-heavy free-agent market presents the Cubs with another unique opportunity, another chance to win a lottery. And a chance to take everything they accomplished last winter and this past season and push it a huge step further.

All they have to do is sign Zack Greinke.

OK, so signing Greinke isn’t all the Cubs would need to do this winter to make them World Series-capable in 2016. And if they end up not signing Greinke but signing David Price instead, it’s going to be hard to say they’ve lost a lottery.

This issue here isn’t really which ace to sign. Instead, it’s that just like last winter, when the Cubs weren’t necessarily ready to make their big push but saw opportunity and went for it, a real opportunity has appeared.

If they wait, it might not be there again.

There’s no Price among starters eligible for free agency next winter, and there’s certainly no Greinke. So even if the Cubs think they’ll have more money to spend in 12 months, they may not find an ace to spend it on.

And if you think they already have their ace in Lester, or their two aces in Lester and Jake Arrieta, you’re right. But as the Los Angeles Dodgers found out for three straight Octobers with Greinke and Clayton Kershaw, two aces aren’t always enough.

Now if you put Greinke with Lester and Arrieta, you’ve really got something. You have a rotation that doesn’t drop off, the way this year’s did when the Cubs had to go to Kyle Hendricks and Jason Hammel in the playoffs. Those two combined for an 8.31 ERA and just 13 total innings in four combined starts.

The Cubs still hit enough to get past the St. Louis Cardinals (after Arrieta stuffed the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Wild Card Game). But faced with the New York Mets rotation in the NLCS, the Cubs got nowhere, with Lester and Arrieta getting outpitched on the road, and Hendricks and Hammel not able to recover at home.

The Cubs and Mets went about building their teams in opposite ways, with the Mets stockpiling great young arms while the Cubs loaded up on big-time young bats. Before they met in the NLCS, Mets general manager Sandy Alderson thought back to the unsuccessful pitcher-for-hitter trade talks the two teams had.

“We’re happy we didn’t make a trade,” he said. “And they probably feel the same way.”

The Cubs probably feel even better about it than the Mets, even though the Mets were the team that ended up playing in the World Series. Now both teams are trying to figure out how to win in 2016, and while the free-agent market doesn’t offer what the Mets still need—a middle-of-the-order hitter who can play in the middle infield or center field—it offers exactly what the Cubs could use.

Epstein told reporters Monday he may not have as much money to spend as everyone else thought he would.

“I think if we want to do two [big] things, we have to get pretty creative,” he said, per Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times. “Even if we want to do one really big thing, we have to get creative.”

Greinke would be one really big thing. The right-hander opted out of the final three seasons of a contract set to pay him $24 million in 2016 and another $47 million in the two years after that. He’s not signing cheap, and there will be plenty of competition.

But there have also been suggestions the Dodgers, who don’t need to get creative to offer gigantic contracts, do have an issue with giving long-term deals to pitchers in their 30s. Greinke turned 32 in October.

The Cubs thus could find an opening to get a guy whose 2015 ERA (1.66) was the fourth lowest of any pitcher since 1968 (behind one season of Dwight Gooden and two of Greg Maddux). They could team him with Arrieta, whose 1.77 ERA was the lowest of any Cubs pitcher since 1919, and with Lester, whose 3.34 ERA only looks bloated in comparison to the other two.

Put those three together, and the Cubs would have a clear path back to the playoffs. No one ever has a clear path to the World Series (don’t Cub fans know that?), but with Greinke, Lester, Arrieta and all those bats, the 2016 Cubs would have a real chance.

Epstein told the reporters at the general managers meetings that the Cubs are “going to have more money down the line than we have right now.” Fine, but the free-agent market down the line isn’t going to have a Greinke and a Price.

The Cubs showed last winter they could recognize an opportunity and adjust.

Now they can do it again.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball. 

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For guys like Doug Fister and Mike Napoli, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle in this offseason’s MLB free-agent market, which is flat-out stacked.

From Zack Greinke to Yoenis Cespedes, the class is historically impressive, as one agent explained to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports:

“This [is] the deepest [free-agent] market in memory, especially in terms of pitching and power.”

With the marketplace awash with talent, it’s not out of the question to think that supply could end up exceeding demand. If that happens, lower-profile players like Fister and Napoli could end up being surprise steals for their next employers.

Starting pitchers and power hitters dominate the list that follows, but there’s also room for one table-setter who is aiming to rebound from an injury-riddled 2015.

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It’s awfully difficult to predict what will happen on the MLB free-agent market, but guys like Darren O’Day and Scott Kazmir should be some of the first impact players off the shelf.

The big leaguers who populate the list that follows fall into two general groups. The first are players like O’Day who are clearly at the top of the class at a given position (the relief market) that is looking especially weak. With a lack of quality free-agent relievers up for grabs, the clubs in need of bullpen help simply can’t afford to wait around.

The second group consists of players like Kazmir who were traded before the deadline and who were not eligible to receive a qualifying offer. With no draft-pick compensation attached, Kazmir should draw far more interest than some of the other comparable lower-tier starters who are stuck with qualifying offers.

One of Kazmir’s former teammates, who is also free from the qualifying-offer burden, also cracked this list.

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In other sports, free agency is a sprint. Our Bleacher Report NBA colleagues were writing about the few remaining “hidden gems” by July 4—just three days after the market opened and before anyone could even officially sign.

Baseball free agency is more like the MLB season. It goes on and on, and when it begins, no one really has any good idea who will come out on top. One big difference: A mystery team never wins the World Series but often wins out in the winter.

This year’s market opened for business as of 12:01 a.m. Saturday, so it’s far too early to predict with any certainty where anyone is headed. What we can say for sure is there’s a lot of talent available and plenty of players (158 as of Friday, or more than five per team).

It’s not too early for some suggestions where the top players could go, based on reports and also conversations with people around the game. We don’t have time or interest to list everyone, but we’ll go with the top 10 names on the market.

Let’s get started. Spring training is right around the corner.

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