Orange County Register

Elias Sports Bureau (keepers of all things statistical) has released its official rankings of this year’s free-agent class.

Free agents ranked in  the top 20 percent at their position by Elias are considered Type A free agents. Players ranked in the 21-40 percent range at their position are Type B free agents.

This is important for one reason — compensation. This can have a big impact on a free agent’s attractiveness to suitors (and how anxious their former team is for them to leave).

A team losing a Type A free agent receives two draft picks as compensation – either the first- or second-round pick of the signing team (depending on that team’s record the previous season) and a sandwich pick between the first and second rounds.

A team losing a Type B free agent receives just one sandwich pick as compensation.

This past June, the Angels had five of the first 48 picks in the draft including two first-rounders thanks to compensation for losing free agents Mark Teixeira, Francisco Rodriguez and Jon Garland last winter.

They could be in for a similar windfall next June with potential departees John Lackey, Chone Figgins and Darren Oliver ranked as Type A’s and Vladimir Guerrero a Type B.

Teams have to offer arbitration to their free agents in order to receive compensation. That deadline will come along in December.

Here are this year’s Type A and B rankings. Keep in mind that some players have contract options which might keep them from becoming free agents:

TYPE A FREE AGENTS

Atlanta Braves — P Mike Gonzalez, P Rafael Soriano

Boston Red Sox — OF Jason Bay, C Victor Martinez, P Billy Wagner

Chicago Cubs — P John Grabow, P Kevin Gregg

Colorado Rockies — P Rafael Betancourt

Chicago White Sox — P Octavio Dotel, OF Jermaine Dye

Detroit Tigers — 2B Placido Polanco

Houston Astros — P LaTroy Hawkins, IF Miguel Tejada, P Jose Valverde

Angels — 3B Chone Figgins, P John Lackey, P Darren Oliver

Dodgers — 2B Orlando Hudson, OF Manny Ramirez, P Randy Wolf

Minnesota Twins — SS Orlando Cabrera

New York Yankees — OF Johnny Damon

Philadelphia Phillies — P Cliff Lee

San Francisco Giants — C Bengie Molina

St. Louis Cardinals — OF Matt Holliday

Toronto Blue Jays — SS Marco Scutaro

TYPE B FREE AGENTS

Atlanta Braves — OF Garret Anderson, 1B Adam LaRoche

Arizona Diamondbacks — P Doug Davis

Baltimore Orioles — 3B Melvin Mora

Boston Red Sox — C Jason Varitek, P Tim Wakefield

Chicago Cubs — P Rich Harden

Cincinnati Reds — C Ramon Hernandez

Colorado Rockies — P Joe Beimel, Jason Marquis, C Yorvit Torrealba

Detroit Tigers — P Brandon Lyon, P Fernando Rodney

Florida Marlins — P Kiko Calero, 1B Nick Johnson

Houston Astros — P Doug Brocail

Kansas City Royals — C Miguel Olivo

Angels — OF Vladimir Guerrero

Dodgers – IF Ronnie Belliard, P Jon Garland, P Guillermo Mota, P Will Ohman, P Vicente Padilla

Milwaukee Brewers — OF Mike Cameron, C Jason Kendall, P Braden Looper, IF Felipe Lopez, P Dave Weathers

Minnesota Twins — P Carl Pavano

New York Mets — 1B Carlos Delgado, IF Fernando Tatis

New York Yankees — OF Xavier Nady, P Andy Pettitte

Oakland A’s — P Justin Duchscherer

Philadelphia Phillies — P Scott Eyre, P Chan Ho Park

San Diego Padres — OF Brian Giles

Seattle Mariners — P Erik Bedard, 3B Adrian Beltre

San Francisco Giants – P Bob Howry, P Randy Johnson, OF Randy Winn

St. Louis Cardinals — IF Mark DeRosa, 3B Troy Glaus, P Joel Pineiro

Tampa Bay Rays — OF Carl Crawford, P Brian Shouse, P Russ Springer, C Gregg Zaun

Texas Rangers — OF Marlon Byrd, C Ivan Rodriguez

Toronto Blue Jays — C Rod Barajas

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