Turner has strong case as 2016’s best available free agent

News broke on Tuesday that Yoenis Cespedes had reportedly signed a four-year, $110 million contract to remain with the Mets. It seems very likely to be the highest free-agent contract we’ll see this offseason, but there’s a good case to be made that the best free agent might not actually end up with the largest deal. That’s because Justin Turner is almost certainly not getting a deal that large — and he just might be a better option.

We say that because according to free-agent lists ordered based upon 2017 projection systems, like those here at MLB.com and at FanGraphs, it hasn’t been Cespedes’ name atop the list. It’s been Turner. Is it actually possible that a 32-year-old infielder coming off his first big league season as a full-fledged starter is the game’s best available free agent?

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Consider the alternatives. Other than Cespedes before he signed, Edwin Encarnacion is also available, and all he’s done is hit more homers over the past five seasons (193) than every player in the game except Chris Davis (197). But then there’s Turner. As FanGraphs’ Dave Cameron said when he listed Turner as the best potential free-agent bargain this offseason: “Turner looks like this year’s Ben Zobrist: a good player who will get underpriced because he doesn’t feel as good as he actually is.”

Inasmuch as there’s such a thing as consensus in free-agent rankings, the prevailing wisdom is to list Cespedes, Encarnacion, and Turner in some order as baseball’s best available free-agent hitters. Let’s take a look at what those aforementioned projection systems have to say about 2017 for each of those three players:

Steamer 2017 ProjectionsTurner: 3.6 WARCespedes: 3.2 WAREncarnacion: 2.4 WAR

WARcel 2017 ProjectionsTurner: 3.5 WARCespedes: 3.2 WAREncarnacion: 3.2 WAR

As far as these projection systems are concerned, there’s no debate who the cream of the crop is in this free-agent class: Turner. Why, then, is Cespedes the most-oft cited king of the field?

There are two big reasons. First, and most importantly, Cespedes has a more established track record than Turner. Ever since reaching the Majors in 2012, Cespedes has been a regular, whereas …

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