Five Non-Tendered Players Worth a Look

Baseball's Hot Stove season switched into a higher gear at midnight on Thursday night. A whole new batch of free agents flooded the market with the deadline for offering contracts to arbitration-eligible players.

It's not a terribly sexy list. Players get non-tendered because their potential arbitration salary exceeds their likely value, so the non-tendered players, by definition, have some warts.

That said, there are usually a handful of non-tendered players who end up having a big impact.

Reliever Matt Capps was non-tendered by the Pirates last year, and he ended up earning an All-Star slot with the Nationals in 2010. Catcher John Buck was non-tendered by the Royals, and he went to the Blue Jays, where he had a career season that earned him an All-Star spot and an $18 million contract this winter from the Marlins.

Of course, the head of the notable non-tender list is David Ortiz, who was let go by the Twins and picked up by the Red Sox in 2002. The rest, as they say, is history.

Here are the top five players to watch from this year's non-tender class (see the full list here):

1. Bobby Jenks, RHP. It wasn't too tough of a decision for the White Sox to let Jenks go. He made $7.5 million last year, and he had the worst year of his career, with a 4.44 ERA. He'd also clashed with manager Ozzie Guillen. There will certainly be multiple teams interested in Jenks now that he won't cost as much. He's going to be 29 in 2011, and he had 99 saves with an ERA of 3.00 over three full seasons prior to 2010.

2. Russell Martin, C. A two-time All-Star, Martin looked like one of the cornerstones of the Dodgers before dropping off the map the past two years. He lost a lot of weight from 2008 to 2009 and he gained it back for 2010, and it didn't make a difference. Martin, who will be 28 next season, hit .249 over the past two years, but he did have a respectable .350 OBP over that span. Considering the state of catching, he's certainly worth a flier for a team that needs a catcher. He just wasn't worth the nearly $6 million he'd have made in arbitration. The Dodgers will also try to bring him back in a lesser role.

3. Jack Cust, OF-DH. This is Cust's second time around. The Athletics non-tendered him in 2009, and then re-signed him for slightly less money than he was making in 2008. Then they sent him to the minors for the first six weeks of the season. Cust hit just 13 homers in 112 big league games, but he still had a .395 on-base percentage. He still has a track record that includes 84 homers and a .378 OBP over the previous three full seasons. Cust is going to be 32 next month, and he can't really play much in the outfield, so his market may be limited.

4. Edwin Encarnacion, IF-DH. The A's just claimed Encarnacion on waivers last month, and now they've ditched him. (Non-tendering Cust and Encarnacion could be a sign that the A's feel good about getting another slugger on the free-agent market.) Encarnacion is going to be 28 next season, and last year he hit 21 homers in two-thirds of a season in the majors. The bad news is he's not good defensively and he's got a .312 OBP the last two years.

5. Joel Peralta, RH. Although his isn't exactly a household name, Peralta was one of the more surprising non-tenders. He had a 2.02 ERA and a WHIP of 0.80 in 49 games for the Nationals. He was signed to a minor league contract by the Nationals last offseason. This was his second time being eligible for arbitration, so he probably wouldn't have made more than $1.5 million. Peralta is going to be 35, and this was his best season, so perhaps the Nationals were concerned it was a fluke.

Other notables: LHP George Sherrill was an All-Star closer with the Orioles in 2008 and was lights-out for the Dodgers in 2009. He had an awful 2010, but a handful of teams will be willing to take a shot at him now. ... RHP Lance Cormier has a 3.55 ERA over 113 games with the Rays over the past two seasons. His WHIP of 1.450 is a bit high, though. ... OF Lastings Milledge has never quite figured it out, but he's a former first-round pick with tools and he's going to be 26 this season. ... RHP Chien-Ming Wang didn't pitch at all last season, recovering from shoulder surgery, but his rehab was reportedly going well in the fall. The Nationals may still try to work out a deal with him. ... RHP Andrew Miller was non-tendered by the Red Sox just weeks after they acquired him from the Marlins. Miller, once the top pitching prospect in the draft, does not turn 26 until May. ... OF Matt Diaz hit .313 with 13 homers and a .390 OBP in 2009 before sliding to .250/.302 in 2010. He's got a career .907 OPS against lefties, though, so he'll be attractive as a platoon player, at worst. ... RHP Hideki Okajima had three solid seasons before 2010, with a combined ERA of 2.72. He slipped to 4.50 last season.