Free Agent Hit Rates

The latest newsletter from KCSN Sports Data Scientist, Joseph Hefner

Every year, teams spend millions and millions of dollars on free agents. Every year, some of those players work out for their teams, and others fail magnificently. There are also a ton of players that land somewhere in the middle. It can be difficult to get a real feel for how well teams do

I have been playing around with Pro Football Reference’s Approximate Value (AV) stat for a few weeks now. Last week, I wrote about NFL free agents average outcomes in their first contract for their new teams. In todays’ article, I looked at how each individual team has done in free agency since 2018.

I calculated the average AV for each free agent contract by percentage of the salary cap they earned per year (APY). I then used that data to create a LOESS model that essentially creates an expected AV based on a players contract APY. To put it into less nerdy terms, here’s an example: a player who earns a contract worth 5% of the cap ($12.8M in 2024) should earn 5.96 AV each year of that contract.