Building An Expansion Team From The Remaining Free Agents

Pretend you’ve just discovered and patented cold fusion. Unlimited, cheap energy for the world, and you get all the profits. Now you’re a billionaire several times over. You can hire Bill Gates to be your ottoman for a few days. All the money in the world.

More importantly, you can hire Bud Selig to be your ottoman for a few days. And as the richest baseball fan in the world, you offer to pay baseball $2 billion for an expansion team. Don’t know how the whole 31-team thing will work, Bud? Here’s another billion to figure it out. So now you have a team, and you want to go on a spending spree that would make George Steinbrenner choke on his fermented Tyler Chicken drink.

What kind of team could you buy?

Here’s my guess at the best team available right now for the top bidder, with what they might cost next season. Note: while I’m probably not a complete buffoon when it comes to the potential salaries, I could be way off on a couple. Be gentle.

Now you’re rich, and Johnny Damon is your cleanup hitter. That’s a weird way to go Beverly Hillbillies on the world. But if wild-eyed projection is your thing, you could take a wild swing at a $60 million commitment to Yoenis Cespedes and hope he’s major-league ready.

As is, it’s not a horrible lineup. It’s certainly not good, but when you remember that Willie Harris has had an OBP over .340 in four of the last five seasons, and that Chris Snyder has been a good hitter (for a catcher) when healthy, you have to get to Jack Wilson until you’re forced to plug your nose and recoil. There really aren’t a whole lot of shortstops left.

While the lineup is underwhelming, the rotation is pretty solid. I put Jackson up top for no particular reason, but the front three are interchangeable quality starters. Colon and Maholm are quality back-end guys. It isn’t a cheap rotation, but at least it’s one with the potential to be better than average.

We’re definitely out of the bargain zone, and hopefully your expansion team doesn’t have to face any teams with left-handed hitters, as your lefty specialists leave something to be desired. And you’ll probably need a little insurance considering that Lidge and Wood will probably make it out of the season with one combined tendon. All things being equal, though, it isn’t a bad bullpen. It’s not cost effective -- you can buy .5 Rafael Sorianos for that kind of cash -- but it’s perfectly acceptable for someone waiting for the last day before the holidays to get his or her shopping done.

Total Cost:
$119 million, with six bench spots left to fill.

Worth it?
I don’t know. You tell me, Mr. Fancy Pants Scientist. It would appear to be something better than a 90-loss team, but nothing much better than a .500 club unless a couple of the hitters go off for career seasons. As far as $119 million teams go, this one could be pretty bad. But at the very least, this wouldn’t be an absolutely horrid team. But if you start to get optimistic about the rotation, and you get a little overly optimistic about the OBP potential at the top of the lineup … maybe, just maybe.

All that’s left for you to do is invent cold fusion, pick a city you want a team in, and come up with a cool name. How much merchandise would a rejuvenated Portland Beavers brand sell? A lot, I’m sure, even if you don’t really need the money anymore.