Is Holliday any more valuable than Bay?  Especially considering his difficulty in the AL?

Yes, Holliday is more valuable than Bay…defense matters.

Wow…they could name Scutaro’s mom GM of some well-off team somewhere, and I don’t think she’d offer Scutaro 2/$20.

Scutaro (D-fens and OBP) and Wagner (K/9 when healthy) are going to get paid.  I would bet Wagner actually gets a 2+ year deal.

I can’t see Bay going to anyone other than the Red Sox.

Holliday should get a real nice contract from a NL team, but is too risky for an AL team to pay big dollars.

I think the decline in 2nd tier free agent contract spending is real, and will adversely affect Scutaro’s deal, among others.

Much of the first tier deals will be driven by three things:

- how many teams are truly bidding on a player
- are the Yankees and Red Sox bidding against each other
- if not, are either the Yankees and Red Sox bidding against other teams for a player

Remember on the Texeira deal last year, there were 3 AL East teams bidding actively and 1 NL East team bidding. Two of those teams were the Red Sox and Yankees. With all that plus Texeira’s skill set, the price went to $ 20M/yr.

So depending on the answers to the questions above Bay and or Holliday could get really significant money, or have to settle for less than what Boras wants.

Bay is at .919 OPS today,
Holliday .911
Texeira .934

Holliday has the negative of his relatively poor play at Oakland, while Bay’s defense is not great.

Texeira had none of those issues.

My guess is that both outfielders end up with something like Torii Hunter’s deal, around $ 90M for 5 years. Bay stays in the AL and Holliday in the NL.

“Texeira had none of those issues.”

But he had his own issue, he’s only a 1B.  Has to be worth something to be able to play the OF.  A good 1B probably does have a bit more defensive value than a bad LF like Bay, but Tex is way under Holliday on defense.