A name that’s heating up in the free agency market is Gerardo Parra, who last played for the Baltimore Orioles and is most likely to end up batting for the Washington Nationals, Colorado Rockies and Kansas City Royals.
As we’ve explained a couple of times, there seems to be one big stall in the market when it comes to the bigger available names: Yoenis Cespedes, Justin Upton and Chris Davis, all because the Orioles are waiting for Davis to pick up or reject their offer. Once that’s decided, everything will start moving, and we’ll see players from the “first tier” and also guys like Dexter Fowler, Austin Jackson and Alex Gordon finding new teams or staying with their current ones.
We mention Gordon specifically because of the Royals. They’re trying to re-sign him, but Gordon is waiting for a bigger offer he thinks he might from the San Francisco Giants or St. Louis Cardinals. At the moment, as we’ve said, there are a lot of good outfielders and plenty of teams with available cash in need of outfielders, but Davis, and maybe Gordon a bit too, are holding everyone up. The Royals have tabbed Parra as the guy they go after if Gordon does indeed leave.
For the Nationals and Rockies, it’s more about not being pleased with what they currently have. They don’t think Michael Taylor is ready for the everyday job at center field while there’s the option of re-signing Denard Span, but that’s if they really get desperate. The Rockies are in a similar spot: The Rockies are probably looking to trade Carlos Gonzalez, which would open up space for Parra, who has played all over the outfield, and mostly right field for the Orioles.
Parra will turn 29 in May. He had a rough time in Baltimore, batting just .238 in 55 games, but his tenure with the Brewers for 100 games before the trade and his overall career numbers (.277 batting, .730 OPS) should be enough to keep him happy with the next deal he gets, as we can see from the amount of interest he’s attracting. A two-time Gold Glove winner when he was playing for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Parra hit .328 for the Brewers last season with a whopping .886 OPS, hitting nine home runs.He made $6.2 million last season.