Free Agent Market 2006: Starting Pitching Update

With the recent signing of Barry Zito, all of the big name free agent pitchers have been taken off the market.

Here’s a list of the rest.

Bruce Chen
Roger Clemens
Shawn Estes
Rick Helling
Jason Johnson
Brian Moehler
Mark Mulder
Tomo Ohka
Ramon Ortiz
Russ Ortiz
Chan Ho Park
Joel Pineiro
Mark Redman
John Thomson
Steve Trachsel
Ron Villone
Jeff Weaver
David Wells
Jerome Williams
Jamey Wright
Victor Zambrano

Pretty sad bunch. One would assume that Mulder, Weaver, & Clemens are the cream of the crop. Following in the second-tier would be often injured John Thomson, David Wells, Chan Ho Park & others.

By browsing the list, there are a few pitchers that could have some upside if fine tuned (could suck too), such as Williams, Zambrano & Pineiro, but for the most part, this is a thin pool of talent too choose from.

With a few teams still in the market for a starting pitcher (especially the Mets with their pile of money and thin starting pitching), we could still see some pretty insane contracts given to the “left-overs” of the 2006 free agent class.

Any Predictions?