Free agent outfielder Michael Conforto once looked primed to sign a nine-figure deal after a promising start to his career. Unfortunately, the former New York Mets first-round pick struggled in his walk year. Making matters worse, he suffered a season-ending injury that winter before signing with a team.
Former First-Round Pick With Untapped Potential Could Be A Value Signing
After sitting out the 2022 campaign to recover, Conforto spent the past two seasons trying to resurrect his career with the San Francisco Giants. While his overall tenure with the Giants was good but lackluster, Conforto hit well in 2024 and still possesses solid potential. 32 on Opening Day, the Washington native will likely generate league-wide interest as teams look for a value signing.
Michael Conforto Free Agent Profile
In 2023, his first season post-shoulder surgery, Conforto hit 239/.334/.384 (100 OPS+) with 15 home runs and 14 doubles in 470 plate appearances. This was vastly different than the .255/.356/.468 (129 OPS+) slash-line he produced in seven seasons with the Mets. He rebounded nicely in 2024, one additional year removed from his surgery.
Last season, Conforto hit .237/.309/.450 (116 OPS+) with 20 homers and 27 doubles. These numbers look even better, considering his great underlying metrics. He ranked amongst the best in Major League Baseball in multiple metrics that rate the quality of contact, including Barrel percentage and Hard-hit percentage.
Additionally, his xSLG ranked in the 89th percentile and was 29 points higher than his actual slugging. It’s not difficult to imagine that his actual numbers would have looked better had he played in a more hitter-friendly home ballpark than Oracle Field.
Teams will also be impressed with Conforto’s approach at the plate. He owns a career walk rate of 11.6 percent and has consistently shown the ability to not chase pitches out of the strike zone. Though last season marked his first with a Walk percentage in the single digits since 2019, his rookie year, it’s too soon to say it was not an outlier.
Conforto pairs his mature approach at the plate with above-average raw power. While he possesses the ability to hit line drives to all fields, he tends to focus on pulling the ball and selling out for power. In his prime, evaluators viewed him as a player who could hit 30 homers and hit around .300. A team with a suitable ballpark might be able to get that production out of him by focusing on an “all-fields” approach.
Potential Red Flags
One potential flaw in Conforto’s game is his defense. He only played left field last year and provided zero Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) and -4 Outs Above Average (OAA) in 835 innings and has earned 2 DRS and 4 OAA in 2,992 career innings in left field.
He primarily played right field in 2023 and recorded -3 for both DRS and OAA. But, similar to his left field defense, his career numbers in right are better than his most recent production (zero DRS and OAA in 3,376 1/3 career right field innings).
Contract Projections
MLB Trade Rumors ranked Conforto as this winter’s 32nd-best free agent and predicted he sign a two-year, $18 million deal. Jim Bowden of The Athletic did not even rank Conforto in his top 45 free agent list.
It seems that Conforto will find a tough time signing a deal larger than the two-year, $36 million guarantee he landed from the Giants two years ago. However, he is talented and young enough to provide a team solid production worth more than $9 million annually. Conforto would be best served taking a one-year deal with a team in a good hitters ballpark and with a good player development track record.
There’s untapped potential left in Conforto, and the right team could make him an absolute free agent steal this offseason.
Main Photo Credits: David Frerker-Imagn Images
