Free agency notes plus more on Fornataro

The offseason technically began the day after the World Series ended.

Now free agency has officially gotten under way.

As of 12:01 a.m., teams could officially start making offers to free agents, this after teams had the last five days to exclusively negotiate with their players who were set to hit the open market.

The Nationals currently have five free agents - Adam LaRoche, Asdrubal Cabrera, Rafael Soriano, Nate Schierholtz and Scott Hairston. As expected, none of them were presented with a qualifying offer prior to yesterday's deadline, meaning they won't have draft pick compensation attached to them as they head into the free agent market.

Two years ago, the Nats gave LaRoche a qualifying offer, and it stunted the market for the free agent first baseman, allowing the Nats to re-sign him on a two-year, $24 million deal.

The qualifying offer pays $15.3 million this year, and 12 players will now have to choose whether they want the big bucks on a one-year deal or if they would rather sort through multi-year offers from other clubs.

The 12 players to receive qualifying offers this year were Max Scherzer, James Shields, Pablo Sandoval, Nelson Cruz, Victor Martinez, Hanley Ramirez, Melky Cabrera, David Robertson, Russell Martin, Francisco Liriano, Ervin Santana and Michael Cuddyer.

Those players now have a week to accept the offer or reject it.

The 12 names you see above make up some of the bigger free agent options this winter, but if you're looking for a list of the best available players, well, there are lists aplenty all over the Internet.

Yahoo's Jeff Passan has a list ranking this year's top free agents here, ESPN's Keith Law has his list here (subscription required), and MLBTradeRumors.com has a list here, complete with predictions of where each player will land.

Most analysts that I've seen predict that LaRoche will land a multi-year deal, probably for two years, in the $18-30 million range, while Cabrera could end up getting around $8-10 million per year, but likely will score a three-year deal because of how weak the market is for middle infielders.

Meanwhile, here's a bit more on Eric Fornataro, the right-handed reliever the Nationals claimed off waivers from the Cardinals yesterday.

Fornataro is a three-pitch guy, and his fastball averaged 92.8 mph in his eight big league appearances this season, according to FanGraphs. Baseball America, however, wrote in the past that the righty's fastball can play up since he started coming out of the bullpen, and that Fornataro has thrown in the 96-98 range.

The 26-year-old isn't a big strikeout guy, notching just 118 Ks in 182 innings at the minor league level over the past three seasons, but he gets lots of ground balls and keeps the ball in the ballpark, allowing just nine home runs since the start of the 2012 season.

Fornataro saved 15 games at Triple-A Memphis last season, so he's got some experience in the late innings at the minor league levels.

While he wasn't one of the Cardinals' September call-ups, Fornataro does have some potential. This was a no-risk move by the Nats, adding another relief arm to their system at no cost, one who they can take a closer look at in spring training.