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Thanks to a busy month of December, most of the top free agents from this offseason are off the board, assuming the Carlos Correa deal with the Mets eventually gets over the finish line. From MLBTR’s list of the top 50 free agents, only three remain unattached: Jurickson Profar, Andrew Chafin and Michael Wacha. That means that teams still looking for upgrades will have to sift through the remainders, looking for talent that other clubs have overlooked.
One interesting candidate who deserves a look is Adam Duvall, who hasn’t been written about on MLBTR since August. If any teams have interest in him, it hasn’t been leaked to the public yet. It’s not especially shocking that his market has been quiet to this point. His 2022 was cut short in July when he required season-ending wrist surgery. He also limped to a .213/.276/.401 line in the first few months of the season while striking out in 32.1% of his plate appearances. That production was 13% below league average, as indicated by his 87 wRC+.
That’s certainly not an ideal platform for a trip into free agency, but there are still things to like about Duvall. The plate discipline issue has always been there, as he has a career 6.7% walk rate and has never finished a season above 8.7%. He’s struck out in 28.5% of his career trips to the plate and has been at 25.8% or above in each season of his career. For reference, this year’s league averages were an 8.2% walk rate and 22.4% strikeout rate. However, he’s always paired that with tremendous power, topping 30 home runs in a season three times. He also hit 16 in the shortened 2020 season and 12 this year prior to being shut down.
He’s also considered to be a strong defensive outfielder. He’s tallied 58 Defensive Runs Saved on the grass in his career, 28 Outs Above Average and has a 22.7 from Ultimate Zone Rating. His DRS and UZR slipped to below average in 2022, but OAA still was quite bullish, placing him in the 88th percentile in the league. His arm strength placed in the 78th percentile, his outfielder jump in the 74th and his sprint speed 67th.
If 2022 showed Duvall’s profile at its worst, 2021 showed how valuable it can be. He struck out in 31.4% of his plate appearances and walked in only 6.3% of them, but he launched 38 home runs, stole five bases, led the National League in RBIs with 113 and provided excellent defense. He got a 9.9 from UZR, 19 DRS and +4 OAA. That DRS figure was tied with Michael A. Taylor for best in the league among all outfielders while the UZR score was in the top five. That was primarily corner outfield work, but 210 2/3 innings out of his 1155 total innings came in center field. He was awarded the National League Gold Glove award for right field. All told, FanGraphs calculated him to be worth 2.7 wins above replacement for the year.
Duvall is now 34 years old and coming off a down year, both in terms of health and performance. It would be easy to roll one’s eyes at the idea of a team bringing him aboard and giving him a significant role. However, the pickings in free agency are getting slim and every player still out there is going to have flaws in one way or another. Duvall likely won’t earn a tremendous salary in free agency due to his struggles this year, but he has the ability to provide strong corner outfield defense while playing center field on occasion. His plate discipline isn’t great but he has tremendous power. It’s also possible that the upcoming shift bans will boost his batting average by a few points, since he was shifted in 71.7% of his plate appearances this year despite hitting right-handed. Even with his struggles at the plate in 2022, he was still worth 0.9 fWAR in 86 games before the wrist issue put him out for the second half. He isn’t likely to kill you in a platoon capacity either, as his career splits aren’t drastic, with a 101 wRC+ against lefties and a 94 otherwise. For a team looking for a low-cost flier to find some sneaky value this late in the offseason, they could do much worse.
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