9 MLB Free Agents With the Highest Bust Potential

Often in baseball, you will hear executives or pundits talk about there being "no such thing as a bad one-year contract." To a degree, that's true. If you sign someone for a year and it doesn't work out, you turn the page after the season.

But if you invest major resources in a player to be a key cog in your team, even if only for a season, it burns if they don't deliver the desired output. Obviously, long-term deals that don't age well set you back even more. But particularly for lower-budget teams, there is such a thing as a bad one-year deal, at least if you're concerned with trying to maximize your World Series odds.



With all that acknowledged, here's a look at nine free agents this offseason with the highest bust potential, including a few likely destined for Cooperstown. Jack Flaherty put together a strong 2024, a campaign that he split between the Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Dodgers. Across 162 innings, the 29-year-old posted a 3.

17 ERA and struck out 194 batters. The problem is that for as excellent as Flaherty was in 2024, he posted a 4.42 ERA and 4.

36 FIP between 2020 and 2023. Over that period—which was largely spent with the St. Louis Cardinals but also featured a cameo with the Baltimore Orioles—injuries limited Flaherty to 299 total innings.

In our B/R free-agent predictions , we projected he will land a three-year, $60 million deal that will allow him to opt out after the 2026 campaign, the second season of the pact. If he's healthy, that may prove to be a very team-friendly contract. But if the version of Flaherty who struggled to stay on the mound for the four seasons prior to this past year is what any team gets, they'll be disappointed.

In 2024, Jurickson Profar was one of the most complete offensive players in baseball, hitting .280 with 24 home runs, 29 doubles, 85 RBI, 76 walks and an .839 OPS for the San Diego Padres.

It was a career year as he made his first All-Star Game in his age-31 season. However, in 2023, Profar hit .242 with a .

689 OPS and minus-1.6 WAR, according to FanGraphs . He was so bad that the Colorado Rockies released him late in August, and he had to return to the Padres organization on a minor league deal.

The real Profar is definitely a better player than he showed in 2023, but it's fair to be skeptical that he'll replicate his 2024 season. Still, he played so well in 2024 that he's likely to get multiple years in free agency. It's not hard to see the bust risk, even if there's a lot to like about Profar.

Luis Severino revived his career this past season with the New York Mets, going 11-7 with a 3.91 ERA across 182 innings pitched. The Mets extended a one-year, $21.

05 million qualifying offer to the right-hander, which he'll likely decline in search of a multi-season pact. The problem is that from 2019 to 2023—Severino's final five seasons with the Yankees—he was frequently injured and pitched just 209.1 innings.

So if Severino is going to get a multi-year deal, it's probably going to be on the shorter end. And if that's the case, he is probably going to want the chance to get back to the open market relatively soon should he prove that injury issues are behind him. That's why B/R projected that he'll sign a two-year, $38 million deal that allows him to opt out after the 2025 season.

Because Severino received the qualifying offer this offseason, he's not eligible to receive the QO again. So any team that signs him will have to surrender draft compensation, knowing that if he opts out after a year or two and leaves they'll be left empty-handed. If he doesn't opt out, it probably means he's not healthy again.

It was a great story that Severino revived his career in 2024, because when he's healthy he's a fun pitcher to watch. But his health history makes him a risky investment. Max Scherzer is one of the greatest pitchers in MLB history, having won three Cy Young Awards.

He's going to be a slam-dunk first-ballot Hall of Famer, regardless of what happens the rest of his career. But Scherzer is now 40 years old, and he's logged 2,878 innings in his career. He was remarkably durable during his illustrious career but didn't make his 2024 debut until late June after undergoing offseason back surgery.

It was hardly smooth sailing from there, as he had injured list stints due to right shoulder fatigue and a left hamstring strain after his initial return. In total, he pitched just 43.1 innings for the Rangers this past season.

Still, MLB Trade Rumors projects that Scherzer—one of the greatest businessmen in MLB history—will sign a one-year, $16 million deal. It would be awesome if he is able to stay healthy in 2025. History, though, suggests that once the injuries start late in your career, they don't stop.

And $16 million is a lot for someone who is coming off a lost season. The cost-cutting St. Louis Cardinals won't bring back Paul Goldschmidt for a seventh season, which means the former NL MVP will be looking for a new employer in 2025.

Pete Alonso and Christian Walker will command much larger deals at first base, but Goldy could offer a fallback option on a one-year deal. However, there's a reason Goldschmidt will likely only require a commitment of one year. He celebrated his 37th birthday in September and posted a career-worst .

716 OPS this past season. Granted, the .799 OPS he posted after the All-Star break was much better than the .

664 OPS he had in the first half. But it still was an underwhelming season by the standards of the seven-time All-Star. If you're a team looking for a moderate upgrade at first base and some veteran leadership, Goldschmidt can probably provide that.

It won't be cheap, though, with MLB Trade Rumors projecting the five-time Silver Slugger Award winner will command $15 million on a one-year deal. There's always the chance when you sign a player for that type of money this deep into their career that it just ends up being a wash. Yusei Kikuchi is one of the most interesting free agents this offseason.

He posted a 4.75 ERA across 22 starts for the Toronto Blue Jays this past season but then got hot after a trade to the Houston Astros, finishing with a 2.70 ERA across 10 starts.

In total, Kikuchi posted a 4.05 ERA over 175.2 innings pitched this past season.

His 3.75 expected ERA and 3.46 FIP suggest he was better than his back-of-the-baseball-card stats might lead you to believe.

Still, Kikuchi has a 4.57 ERA and 4.53 FIP across six MLB seasons.

There isn't a qualifying offer attached to him, but he's also entering his age-34 season. Our B/R contract projection for Kikuchi is a three-year, $51 million deal, so unlike many of the other veteran pitchers on this list, you could get stuck with a poor contract for multiple years if he doesn't pan out. Anthony Santander clubbed 44 home runs in his contract year, as the switch-hitter posted an .

814 OPS and drove in a career-high 102 runs. Santander was an All-Star for the first time in his career and won a Silver Slugger. We've projected that the slugger—who turned 30 in October—will land a five-year, $101 million contract in free agency.

He earned it with such a massive power output in his walk year. With all that acknowledged, there's not a ton of margin for error with Santander, especially given that any team that signs him other than the Orioles will have to surrender draft compensation by virtue of him being saddled with a qualifying offer by Baltimore. If he's hitting 30-35 home runs per year while driving in around 100 runs, Santander provides a lot of value.

But he's also a career .246 hitter, and while he doesn't strike out as much as most power hitters, he also has never walked more than 58 times in a season. Santander's defensive metrics have been a mixed bag over his career, but according to FanGraphs he posted minus-7 defensive runs saved and minus-2 outs above average this past season in right field.

If there's a dip in his power production as his deal goes along and he ends up having to be a full-time DH, there will likely be some regret in terms of the commitment that's going to be made to him this winter. Walker Buehler closed out the World Series for the Dodgers and didn't allow a single run over the final 10 innings that he pitched in the postseason. If that proves to be his final action in a Dodgers uniform, it's a fitting end to a seven-year tenure that featured stretches where he was one of the finest pitchers in the sport.

However, when you evaluate Buehler as a free agent, it's impossible to ignore that he allowed six earned runs over five innings in Game 3 of the NLDS, which followed a regular season that he finished with a 5.38 ERA and 5.54 FIP across 75.

1 innings pitched. If not for a rash of injuries to their starting pitching, Buehler may not have even been on the postseason roster for the Dodgers. That's how much he struggled in his first season back from his second career Tommy John surgery.

Is Buehler going to wash out of the sport like Noah Syndergaard did a few years after a Tommy John surgery that he clearly didn't recover well from? Probably not. But he had Tommy John surgery in August 2022, so it wasn't as though he rushed back to pitch in 2024. For him to struggle as much as he did for much of the campaign does make you wonder if the 30-year-old will ever get back to the form that allowed him finish fourth in NL Cy Young Award voting in 2021.

If a team is able to get Buehler on a one-year deal as he tries to rebuild his value, it's probably a worthwhile risk. But his results in 2024 should serve as a reminder that he's far from certain to make you look like a genius if you bet on him in 2025. You can take a lot of what was written about Scherzer and copy/paste it about his former teammate Justin Verlander.

He's a three-time AL Cy Young Award winner, former AL MVP and is destined to one day be enshrined in Cooperstown. But like Scherzer, he's coming off an injury-riddled campaign, having been limited to 90.1 innings because of right shoulder inflammation and neck discomfort, the latter of which he returned from too quickly by his own admission .

Verlander finished the season with a 5.48 ERA over 17 starts and was left off the Astros' postseason roster. It might not cost quite as much to sign Verlander as Scherzer, with MLB Trade Rumors projecting he'll land a one-year, $12 million deal.

But he's older (42 in February) and has logged even more innings (3,415.2) than Scherzer. Father Time has taken longer to catch up with Verlander than almost all pitchers in MLB history, but you can't help but wonder if he's finally here.

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