With spring training right around the corner, a number of baseball players remain on the market. (Amber Matsumoto/Yahoo Sports)

Earlier this week, a giddy general manager sent a mirthful text, the sort of which rarely arrives just weeks before spring training: “Time to go bargain hunting!”

Typically, as February dawns, most well-regarded and successful major league veterans have found jobs. Maybe a straggler or three remains on the prowl, but the vast majority of players know at which spring-training outpost they’ll spend their Valentine’s Day. It’s what makes 2017 such a mixture of odd and curious.

Today, 18 days from the first pitchers and catchers reporting to camp, a legitimate major league team’s worth of players remains free agents. Now, this would not be a particularly good team, but it probably wouldn’t be the worst in the big leagues, either. (Thanks, Padres!)

This happens to be one of those times when Wins Above Replacement can be a handy statistic. It judges just how much better or worse than a replacement-level player – i.e. a Triple-A call-up – a player is. A team with 25 replacement-level players, according to the standard set by Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs, would be projected to finish 48-114. Thus, the team’s collective WAR added to 48 gives a pretty reasonable approximation for its final record. The r-squared between WAR and actual wins last season was 75 percent, a fairly strong correlation.

Well, Yahoo Sports’ All-Unemployed Team projects for a combined 12.0 WAR, according to the Steamer projections provided by FanGraphs. A 60-win team isn’t great shakes, by any means, but for this time of year, it speaks to why teams are elated.

Players are bugging their agents asking for updates. Agents are whispering among one another that the environment smells collusive, even if there’s no definitive evidence. And clubs are happy to wait, to let the market get more nervous and to jump at those low-guarantee one-year deals or, even better, no-guarantee minor league pacts.

At least one poor sap on this team – and more likely a few – will end up without guaranteed money, even though almost all have at least six years of reasonable major league production. For now, here’s our free-agent 25-man roster, with starters, a bench, a rotation, a bullpen and Steamer’s projected WAR for each player.

View photos Catcher Matt Wieters is the best remaining free agent. (Getty Images) More

C: Matt Wieters

Age: 30

WAR: 1.4

Résumé: The best player left on the market, Wieters is coming off arguably his worst professional season, with an 87 OPS+. Still, enough teams need quality catching that he should wind up with a one-year deal in the $9 million range.

1B: Mike Napoli

Age: 35

WAR: 0.9

Résumé: There are two good reasons Napoli has struggled to find the multiyear deal he desires. Slugging first base types tend not to age particularly well, and there’s an absolute glut of them available. Combine the two and, best-case scenario, Napoli is looking at a one-year deal with a club option.

2B: Chase Utley

Age: 38

WAR: 0.6

Résumé: Utley is one of those eminently employable types. His reputation is nonpareil. He’s still about average with his glove. Neither the bat nor the plate discipline are what they once were, but enough is there for Utley to fetch a major league deal in a utility/mentor role.

SS: Daniel Descalso

Age: 30

WAR: 0.0

Résumé: Putting Descalso here is fudging a bit. Ian Desmond is really the only quality shortstop in this class, and he played center field last season and will spend this year at first base. Descalso, coming off a career year, may not get the multiyear deal he desires, but he fits in a number of places on a one-year pact.

View photos Aaron Hill split his time in Boston and Milwaukee last season. (Getty Images) More

Story continues