From the Desk of the Commish

For the first time in six years, we are witnessing a reversal in the trend of having weaker and weaker auction classes with each passing year. Below are the total (current year) VORPs of the 50 players in each auction:

This is encouraging news for those of us with money to spend this winter. While we aren't anywhere near the level of the Class of 2004 (nor even 2008), it's good to see we've reached somewhat of a nadir.

The same trend reversal is evident if you focus only on the VORPs of the top ten free agents in the auction:

It's difficult to believe, but this will be the first time in league history that veterans Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter are free agents. Their 10-year contracts finally expired this winter. Several other big names populate the top ten, including three ace pitchers: Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Javier Vazquez.

In general, this is a very strong auction class for starting pitching, as Randy Wolf, Ted Lilly, Jarrod Washburn, Scott Feldman, Ryan Dempster and Carlos Zambrano are also among this year's bumper crop of free agents. What this means is that we may finally see some deflation in the salaries of starting pitchers. It's been many years since a 200-inning staff ace went for less than $12-15 million (and sometimes as high as $22 million.) This year, only Halladay -- and possibly Vazquez -- are likely to get as much as $15 million in salary.

This is also a very strong draft for teams that are not planning to compete in 2010, as there are several big-name players coming off of injury-plagues MLB '09 seasons that can be had at a bargain price. Among them are Jake Peavy, Erik Bedard, Jose Reyes and Brandon Webb. All four players would normally go for more than $10-$15 million on the open market, but each can probably be signed for significantly less this year.

If you leave this auction with a ton of money to spend, and spots still remaining in your starting lineup, starting rotation or bullpen...you are in deep trouble. This year's draft class is incredibly weak, even compared to last year's class. The top ten in terms of VORP are:

There are some interesting names kicking around the bottom of this scrap heap, but for the most part, none of these players is going to carry any team to a 2010 division title.

Hold onto your hats. Thanks in part to our new "Type H" rule, there is less money available to be spent on free agents this year than at any other time in league history since the inception of the auction. (Although, on a per-player basis, there was less money to be spent in 2003.)

Year	Total cash available	# of free agents needed	Cash per player	$ spent in auction
2003	$557.1m	360	$1.55m	$328.5m (59%)
2004	$606.2m	343	$1.77m	$363.5m (60%)
2005	$498.2m	292	$1.71m	$318m (64%)
2006	$621.3m	327	$1.90m	$341.5m (55%)
2007	$569.0m	296	$1.92m	$364.5m (64%)
2008	$595.5m	320	$1.86m	$324.0m (54%)
2009	$543.3m	292	$1.86m	$289.5m (53%)
2010	$417.5m	261	$1.60m	TBD

Simple economic theory tells us that when you have less money to spend on better quality players, you should see some deflation. This is good news for bargain-hunters, and those with tons of money to spend.

No team is in better position to spend money on free agents this year than the Chicago Black Sox, as they have a whopping $52.1 million to spend. (If you're curious, the 2003 South Carolina Sea Cats hold the BDBL record by having $58 million to spend in the auction.) Chicago GM John Gill has plenty of options available to him. If he decides to go for it in 2010, he can probably build a winner through free agency. And if he decides to build a superteam for 2011, he has the resources to do so. It's the perfect storm.

On a per-player basis, the Akron Ryche are the wealthiest team in the league. While Chicago needs 18 players to fill its roster, Akron needs only three. And with $17.4 million to spend, that gives them an average of $5.7 million per player.

Other big spenders include (god help us all) New Milford ($36.1M total/$3.6M per player), Villanova ($29.9/$3.0), Niagara ($29.6/$2.3) and Kansas City ($28.8/$2.4). At the opposite end of the spectrum, Great Lakes ($2.9/$0.4), San Antonio ($3.6/$0.4), St. Louis ($5.8/$0.6), New Hope ($6.1/$0.5), Corona ($7.5/$0.6) and Las Vegas ($13.3/$0.7)needn't bother showing up for the auction at all.

Of the top five teams in 2009 VORP, Allentown ($14.4/$2.4), Los Altos ($16.3/$1.5) and Salem ($17.4/$1.3) have plenty of cash to add to their impressive VORP totals this winter.

Not that any of us are likely to have any money to spend on them, but the Class of 2010 looks fairly decent at this point. Among them are Nick Johnson, Jorge Posada, Jimmy Rollins, Carlos Pena, Francisco Rodriguez, Adam Dunn, Jorge de la Rosa, Aaron Hill, Josh Beckett, Roy Oswalt, Raul Ibanez, Kevin Youkilis, Robinson Cano, Mark Buehrle, Manny Ramirez, Ryan Doumit, Joe Nathan, Jason Bay, Michael Young, Chipper Jones, Brian Roberts and John Lackey.

2010 Draft Day Preview