MLB Free Agents Who Did the Most to Help/Hurt Their Market Value in the Postseason

Fantastic or horrific, MLB postseason performance likely doesn't have all that much of an impact on what a free agent is worth.

Let's acknowledge that much right away.

Unless you're a big believer in the importance of the "clutch gene," it's simply a minuscule sample size compared to the past few seasons' worth of data. It's on par with how much production in a bowl game or an NCAA tournament run affects where a college athlete will be drafted, which often probably isn't much.

But if October play does impact how much free agents get offered in November, these are the nine players who have done the most over the past few weeks to either help or hurt their bank accounts.

Players for both the Phillies and the Astros still have up to seven games to change the narrative of their postseasons, with whatever Noah Syndergaard is able to do in the World Series standing out as the biggest variable still in play. However, with 34 games in the books and most teams already eliminated—and a few more days to kill before the World Series begins—let's talk free agents.

Players are listed in no particular order aside from oscillating between "Helped Value" and "Hurt Value."

Listen, Aaron Judge is still going to make a lot of money.

We're talking an "all but guaranteed to have one of the five highest average salaries in baseball beginning in 2023" amount of money.

But if he was worth a seven-year, $300 million type of contract heading into the postseason, maybe that drops down to a $290 million deal in the aftermath of yet another disappointing October.

Judge did hit two home runs against the Guardians—a two-run blast in the third inning of Game 3 and a solo shot in the second inning of the do-or-die Game 5—but he triple-slashed .139/.184/.306 and struck out in 15 of 38 plate appearances this postseason.

And he was the polar opposite of clutch.

Against the Astros, he went 0-for-4 with one walk in plate appearances with runners on base. Judge also went 0-for-8 with two strikeouts in plate appearances in the eighth inning or later. And down by one with two outs in the bottom of the 9th inning of Game 4, he feebly grounded out to the pitcher in what might be the final AB of his Yankees career.

In his past 21 postseason games dating back to October 2019, Judge has batted .151 and whiffed in 34.7 percent of plate appearances.

The ability to hit a boatload of regular-season home runs will make Judge extremely rich, but as of now, he's clearly not the second coming of "Mr. October."

One year removed from winning both a Gold Glove and the AL batting title (.319) with an OPS of .846, Gurriel hit .242 and had a meager .647 OPS during the regular season and was not named a finalist for a Gold Glove.

It sure looked like the 38-year-old first baseman was rapidly approaching the end of the line.

But then October hit, and Gurriel caught fire.

He went 3-for-4 with a home run in Game 1 against the Seattle Mariners, added another three hits in the 18-inning marathon that was Game 3 of the ALDS and then hit another homer in Game 1 of the ALCS against the Yankees.

Overall, he's is leading the Astros with a .367 batting average. And the old man—a term of endearment coming from this 36-year-old who has to ice his knee after slow-pitch softball games—even stole a base against the Mariners, which is something he hadn't attempted to do since August 2.

Of course, it's only seven games. Gurriel had a similar seven-game stretch back in mid-May (12-of-29 with three home runs and a stolen base) and followed that up with an .046 on-base percentage over the course of the subsequent week. Andf he has a similar showing in the World Series, perhaps it's right back to the drawing board.

As things currently stand, though, there may be more suitors and money for his services than we would have suspected two weeks ago if he wants to come back for another season.

I'm going to take some artistic liberty here and say that New York's postseason actually began during its series in Atlanta over the final weekend of the regular season, when the teams were fighting for the NL East title.

If you'll allow that to count here, Chris Bassitt had a "postseason" line of 6.2 IP, 6 H, 7 ER, 6 BB, 4 K.

Not. Great.

The regular-season start against Atlanta was the worse of the two, as he completely wilted in the third inning after the offense had staked him to a 3-1 lead in a game the Mets had to win in order to get a first-round bye.

But they didn't win, and he wasn't much better in the do-or-die Game 3 of the wild-card series against the Padres. He got Juan Soto and Manny Machado to go 0-for-4, but the bottom of San Diego's order (Ha-Seong Kim, Trent Grisham and Austin Nola) went 2-for-3 with three walks and three RBI against Bassitt.

Bassitt and the Mets have a mutual option for $19 million next season, which might actually be the rare case in which both sides agree on that number for one more year. But after a strong 2022 and top-10 finishes for the AL Cy Young in both 2020 and 2021, it wouldn't be a surprise if the 34-year-old pitcher is the one who turns down the deal hoping for a two-year or three-year contract.

If he does hit the open market, his poor showings in October might cost him some money in contract talks.

By his standards, Trea Turner came into this postseason with atrocious career numbers in October.

He had played in 39 postseason games from 2016-21, batting .228 with one home run and 45 strikeouts. That is staggeringly poor production for a career .302 hitter who averages 24 home runs per 162 games played with an 18.0 percent strikeout rate.

But in Los Angeles' equally staggering four-game stay in the playoffs, he was rock solid.

[Well, rock solid at the plate, at any rate. He did have a brutal error on what should have been an inning-ending GIDP in Game 2, which eventually allowed the game-winning run to score. He also botched a pop fly in Game 3 that the official scorer generously ruled a single, but at least that snafu didn't lead to any runs.]

Turner had at least one hit in each game, going 6-for-18 with two doubles, two homers and a stolen base. The homers came pretty early in Games 1 and 2, but one of those six hits was a clutch leadoff single in the eighth inning of Game 3 with LA trailing 2-1. Unfortunately for the Dodgers, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith and Max Muncy did nothing after Turner's hit, and they still lost.

Already likely to be the most coveted shortstop in this year's free agency cycle, Turner finally showing up in October will only help his cause. That's particularly true since two of the other big-name shortstops (Carlos Correa and Xander Bogaerts) missed the postseason while the third, well...

Dansby Swanson had one heck of a contract year, setting career highs in hits (172), runs (99), RBI (96) and stolen bases (18). He played in all 162 games and was named an All-Star for the first time in his career.

But the man who homered in both Games 4 and 6 of last year's World Series was a ghost in Atlanta's NLDS loss to the Phillies.

In Game 1, he went K-K-K-K in his first four at bats before finally singling in the ninth. He did work a critical two-out walk in Game 2, extending the sixth inning and eventually scoring a run in the only half inning in which either team scored. H also had a double in Game 3, later scoring Atlanta's only run of that contest.

On the whole, though, he went 2-for-16 with seven strikeouts and just the one walk.

Say this much Swanson: He had a lot of company in that dugout. Marcell Ozuna and Eddie Rosario both went 0-for-8 in the series. Michael Harris II went 1-for-14 while Austin Riley went 1-for-15, each managing just one single. Swanson was one of just four Braves to record both multiple hits and multiple runs in the NLDS.

But he's the only one hitting free agency and the one who had been Atlanta's metronome-like heart and soul throughout the regular season. For him to vanish like that when they needed him most was hard to watch.

Compared to most on this list, Pierce Johnson is not a household name.

He just reached the end of a three-year, $7 million contract with the Padres in which he made zero saves and was the starting pitcher for two bullpen games. However, he did record 12 holds in 2021 and opened this season as San Diego's primary set-up man until forearm tendinitis shelved him for nearly five months.

Thanks to two appearances that got a bit rough—one against the Dodgers; one against the Braves—Johnson ended up posting a 5.02 ERA in 14.1 IP during the regular season and does not profile as anything close to a hot commodity in free agency.

But at least he pitched well this postseason when the Padres called upon him to keep a deficit from getting too out of hand.

He made three appearances out of the bullpen—one in each of San Diego's three series. And in each appearance, he recorded multiple strikeouts, finishing with an overall line of 4.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 6 K.

Again, there's not going to be a fierce bidding war here, but that useful October performance legitimately could be the difference between Johnson getting another MLB contract and settling for a return to Nippon Professional Baseball, where he played in 2019.

If he ends up staying in San Diego and the Padres are able to hang onto Robert Suárez (who has a $5 million player option for 2023), that Johnson-Suárez-Josh Hader back end of the bullpen could be dynamite.

Whereas Aaron Judge and Dansby Swanson both had incredible contract years and likely won't be tangibly damaged in their contract negotiations by their sub-par postseason showings, Wil Myers needed to do something this October.

And, to put it lightly, he didn't.

Myers did homer to lead off the fifth inning of Game 1 of the NLDS against Los Angeles, giving the Padres some life in what was a 5-0 Dodgers rout at that point. But he also grounded into a rally-killing double play in his next plate appearance and grounded out again in the ninth inning.

Overall, he went 3-for-29 with 13 strikeouts and no runs, RBI or extra-base hits aside from that lone solo shot.

Myers had a respectable run over the final month of the regular season, hitting four of his seven home runs after Labor Day. But that strong finish wasn't enough to salvage a brutal, injury-riddled season in which he slugged .398.

San Diego has a club option to bring back Myers for $20 million in 2023, but there's no way that's happening. They'll pay the $1 million buyout, and the soon-to-be 32-year-old will become a free agent.

He'll get a two- or three-year deal somewhere, because the market for both first basemen and right fielders is pretty limited this year. But following that poor performance in October coupled with his disappointing regular season, it won't be a particularly lucrative deal.

In 2019, José Quintana had a then-career-worst 4.68 ERA. After logging just 10 mediocre innings in 2020, he had a 6.43 ERA in 2021 and lost his spot in the starting rotation.

It was a rough three-year run that led to him taking a one-year, $2 million deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates this season.

But he was solid for four months in Pittsburgh (3.50 ERA), was considerably better in St. Louis in 12 starts after getting traded (2.01 ERA) and was rather surprisingly named the Game 1 starter in the wild-card round against the Phillies.

Quintana did not disappoint.

In his first postseason appearance in five years, Quintana went 5.1 scoreless innings, allowing just two hits and one walk.

It was impressive at the time, but even more so looking back on it with the knowledge that Philadelphia would reach the World Series while averaging better than five runs per game. In each of their three wins over Atlanta, they scored at least six runs by the end of the sixth inning. But Quintana mowed them down.

The 33-year-old lefty also made three regular-season starts against the mighty Dodgers, allowing just two runs in 17 innings of work as his team won each of those three games.

He probably won't get a long-term deal, but he'll definitely be making way more than $2 million in his next contract.

Trey Mancini made it to the big leagues with the Baltimore Orioles right as that franchise began to tear apart at the seams. That isn't to say their recent struggles were his fault or anything, but it's why the 30-year-old just made the first postseason appearance of his career two weeks ago.

And for his sake, here's hoping he has just been conserving some fireworks for the World Series, because the first few appearances were beyond disappointing.

Mancini was the starting DH for four of Houston's first seven games, but he is still searching for his first hit. He is currently 0-for-12 with a walk, a hit by pitch and a sacrifice fly. He left a combined nine men on base in those 12 unproductive ABs.

Mancini was also lifted for a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning of Game 3 against Seattle with a man on first and no outs in a 0-0 game. The right-handed hitter was replaced by a right-handed hitter (Aledmys Díaz) with similar career numbers against the pitcher (Diego Castillo), so it wasn't even a decision based on matchups. Dusty Baker simply didn't have faith in Mancini to come through in that clutch situation.

Houston and Mancini have a mutual $10 million option for next season—one which the O's clearly assumed he would decline in pursuit of a bigger contract if they traded him away. But between hitting just .176 in 51 regular-season games with Houston and (thus far) no-showing in the postseason, it may well be the Astros declining the option.