brad ausmus | The Baseball Zealot

Free Agency season starts today

It’s free agency season. As of 12:01am today, all free agents are eligible to negotiate with all teams.

ESPN has my free agent tracker of choice. Take a look at it now while all free agents are rated “NR” which I guess stands for “No Regrets”.

The average age of the 167 eligible free agents is 33.9 years old but that includes Brad Ausmus who I thought retired. That skews it a bit by probably a tenth of the year or so.

Ausmus isn’t the oldest though. That honor belongs to reliever Trevor Hoffman who might like to add to his all-time leading 601 career saves in 2011.

Which team lost the most players to free agency? The answer might surprise you. The Tampa Bay Rays who succumbed twelve players including six pitchers.

Brad’s gone too

Speaking of retirements, Brad Ausmus is hanging up his tools of ignorance for the last time today.

Never a big stick (he hit .251 for his career), Ausmus will be more known for slick glove behind the plate. He won three Gold Gloves in his career. More amazing to me though is the fact that Ausmus caught 1,938 games in his 18 year career. That ranks 10th among all catchers all time. Look through his stat board and you’ll see that he often led his league in many defensive categories like catcher putouts and catcher assists.

Ausmus participated in six postseasons and one World Series (in 2005 with the Astros).