1 week Ago By Kerry Miller
As was to be expected from the Winter Meetings, some gigantic free agency dominoes came crashing to the ground in the past week. Willy Adames signed his $182M deal with the Giants the evening before the WMs officially began. Juan Soto's ginormous $765M contract with the Mets was inked Sunday night.
Quickly pivoting from losing Soto, the Yankees landed Max Fried on a $218M deal on Tuesday. And yet, this free agency cycle has only just begun. Our Joel Reuter put together a ranking of the top 100 free agents available back in early November, and 17 of the top 25 are still free agents.
That list didn't even include Roki Sasaki, either, who officially posted this week and instantly became one of the five most coveted players available. Now that a few major signings have taken place, though, it's time for some recalibrating as we try to figure out which landing spots make the most sense for the prized free agents still available. Without further ado, our updated predictions for 10 of the most noteworthy free agents who remain free.
Players are presented in alphabetical order by last name, which just so happens to mean tackling the biggest ones first. 2024 Stats : .240/.
329/.459, 34 HR, 88 RBI Spotrac Market Value : 6 years, $174M MLB Trade Rumors Projected Contract : 5 years, $125M When I wrote Pete Alono's landing spots article back in October, an offseason full of big names staying put on more expensive contracts felt about right, including Alonso returning to the Mets if and when they lost the Juan Soto sweepstakes to the Yankees. They didn't lose that bidding war, though.
So, do they still have room in the budget—if Steve Cohen even believes in a budget—for an Alonso reunion? The Mets presently have nine players with salaries of $13M or greater, costing a combined total of $202.375M in 2025. Factor in a few arbitration salaries to be determined, about a dozen players on league-minimum $800,000 salaries and they're right around the $241 competitive balance tax threshold.
There has been talk of them wanting to trade Starling Marte. Whatever they're able to save there might help increase what they're willing/able to offer Alonso. Who are they bidding against, though? After the Yankees' response to losing Soto was to sign not Alonso but Max Fried, it doesn't particularly feel like they're in the Polar Bear market.
The Astros need a first baseman, but they're far more focused on re-signing Alex Bregman and probably wouldn't pay the going rate for Alonso even if they whiff on Bregman. The Mariners also need a first baseman, but they likely don't have the room in their budget for Alonso. The Nationals have been a trendy landing spot at times, but (spoiler alert) we see them getting a different first baseman.
It still feels like the Mets are the favorite to make Alonso the big bat behind Soto that Aaron Judge was in 2024. Prediction : 6 years, $182M to the New York Mets 2024 Stats : .260/.
315/.453, 26 HR, 75 RBI Spotrac Market Value : 4 years, $120M MLB Trade Rumors Projected Contract : 7 years, $182M The Houston Astros reportedly offered Alex Bregman a six-year, $156M deal over a week ago, but it's evidently going to take more than that to sign what has been— by FanGraphs WAR calculations —the third-most valuable third baseman over the past three years. At 14.
0 fWAR since the beginning of 2022, Bregman is basically tied with Manny Machado (14.1), who signed an 11-year, $350M contract two winters ago at almost the exact same age (30 years, 7 months, 20 days) as Bregman is now (30 years, 8 months, 14 days). An offer for five fewer years and an AAV $5.
8M lower probably felt offensive to Bregman, who wants at least a $200M deal. Where's that going to come from, though? If the Astros can't pony up that type of dough, do we think Detroit or Seattle will? The Tigers did sign Miguel Cabrera to an eight-year, $248M deal in March 2014, just a few months after Seattle inked Robinson Canó to a 10-year, $240M contract. Throw in the semi-recent Javier Báez signing and Julio Rodríguez extension and we do have some evidence that both teams are willing to make big investments when they feel it's necessary.
Toronto could also be in play here after missing out on Juan Soto, though if they've got $200M just lying around, you'd think they're trying to give it to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. or Bo Bichette. The Tigers still feel like the pick here, and not just because of the AJ Hinch connection.
They have plenty of room in the budget to make a big splash, and they could be one big bat and one semi-big arm away from going from the plucky postseason underdog to the clear favorite in the AL Central. Prediction : 8 years, $216M to the Detroit Tigers 2024 Stats : 15-9, 194.1 IP, 2.
92 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 8.4 K/9 Spotrac Market Value : 6 years, $184M MLB Trade Rumors Projected Contract : 7 years, $200M Two of this year's big three arms have already signed, with Blake Snell going to the Dodgers at $36.
4M per year for half a decade and Max Fried to the Yankees on that eight-year, $218M deal. But Corbin Burnes was regarded by most as the best of the bunch, so how much will he get? Both the Spotrac and MLBTR projections above feel laughably low at this point. There's just no way Burnes is going to sign for both less total money than Fried and a much lower salary than Snell.
Not after five consecutive years receiving Cy Young votes and after five years of being more valuable than every other pitcher not named Zack Wheeler, per FanGraphs . In fact, he's probably now aiming to beat them both by a slight margin. A six-year, $218.
5M deal would put Burnes $500,000 total ahead of Fried, as well as $16,666 per year ahead of Snell. So, that's the new guess. New ownership or not, that's likely far too rich for Baltimore's blood.
The Mets could find a way, but it's hard to imagine they sign all of Juan Soto, Pete Alonso and Burnes. The Washington Nationals could be in the market, although they're still nowhere near done paying that Stephen Strasburg contract and may be reluctant to invest so much in yet another pitcher. Toronto and San Francisco have been floating around recently as the likeliest landing spots for Burnes.
But even after trading for Garrett Crochet earlier this week, the Red Sox still feel like the strongest candidate, even though they've kind of balked at the price tags for both Burnes and Max Fried in the past week. After all, Crochet's projected $2.9M salary for 2025 did nothing to impact Boston's ability to pay Burnes, and they entered this offseason needing to add multiple starting pitchers.
They got one for a platter of prospects and they'll add the other for a boatload of money. Prediction : 6 years, $218.5M to the Boston Red Sox 2024 Stats : 13-7, 162.
0 IP, 3.17 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 10.
8 K/9 Spotrac Market Value : 3 years, $63M MLB Trade Rumors Projected Contract : 5 years, $115M From 2020-23, Jack Flaherty pitched a combined total of 299.0 innings, failing to log enough to qualify for an ERA title in any of them. (Not that he would've won the title, anyway, posting a cumulative 4.
42 ERA and a bWAR of 1.1 .) That's why he signed a one-year, $14M deal with Detroit last winter before bouncing back in a big way in 2024.
Was his renaissance enough to quell concerns about a possible long-term deal? Or will the combination of his 7.36 ERA in five postseason starts, four years of mostly ineffectiveness and back issues that led the Yankees to back out of trading for him leave Flaherty to settle for another 'prove it' type of short-term deal? He turned 29 in October, so Spotrac's projected three-year deal would leave him in a position to potentially sign another big contract during the 2027-28 offseason when he'll be just a few weeks older than Blake Snell is right now. However, a $21M AAV on a three-year deal feels a few million low, especially after Yusei Kikuchi, Luis Severino and Nathan Eovaldi each got more than that on their three-year contracts.
As far as a team goes, this feels like a great spot for the Angels to make one more splash. Flaherty was born and raised in Los Angeles, but the Dodgers are probably out of the $20M+ pitcher market now. And the moves the Halos have made already this offseason show a desperation to not sputter through another lost year.
Adding Flaherty to the mix alongside Kikuchi, Kyle Hendricks, Tyler Anderson and José Soriano at least makes them interesting in the AL West race. Prediction : 3 years, $72M to the Los Angeles Angels 2024 Stats : .272/.
339/.501, 33 HR, 99 RBI Spotrac Market Value : 3 years, $71M MLB Trade Rumors Projected Contract : 3 years, $60M The Dodgers recently signed Michael Conforto to a one-year, $17M deal, so they might be out on re-signing Teoscar Hernández? As things presently stand, it's looking like they'll have Conforto, Tommy Edman, Andy Pages, James Outman and Chris Taylor as outfield options, plus Mookie Betts on days Miguel Rojas gets the start at shortstop. Top prospect Dalton Rushing might also be in the mix, so they're likely all set on corner outfielders.
After losing Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo, the Yankees are very much in the market for an outfielder. However, they're likelier to chase Anthony Santander's switch-hitting bat than the right-handed Hernández, as three of their four departed regulars were lefties. If the Tigers don't land Alex Bregman, this could be where they add a right-handed power bat.
Hard to see them signing both, though. The Kansas City Royals seemed a good spot for either Santander or Hernández heading into the offseason. Yet after they traded for Jonathan India (a 2B who could play LF) and oft-injured OF Joey Wiemer, they might be content with that budgetary approach to fixing a woeful outfield in 2024.
For no particularly concrete reason other than he has to sign somewhere, Cincinnati feels like the pick. Aside from shipping India and Wiemer to Kansas City for SP Brady Singer, they've yet to do much of anything since bringing Terry Francona out of retirement. This could be where they make their big move, pairing Tito with Teo in an HR-friendly venue—where Hernández has a career 1.
419 OPS, albeit in just six games played. Prediction : 3 years, $66M to the Cincinnati Reds 2024 Stats : 12-6, 181.2 IP, 3.
47 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 9.1 K/9 Spotrac Market Value : 4 years, $72M MLB Trade Rumors Projected Contract : 3 years, $60M After two years of struggling in the NL West despite home games coming at two of the most pitcher-friendly venues in the majors, Sean Manaea was a completely different force with the Mets in 2024.
Per Baseball Savant , Manaea added a cutter to what is now a six-pitch repertoire, leaned more on his sweeper than he had in the past and went back to the sinker as his go-to pitch after mostly throwing a four-seamer in 2022 and 2023. And it worked wonders, with one of the 30 Cy Young voters even throwing him a fifth-place vote for the first of his career. If the soon-to-be 33-year-old can harness that for another few years, he'd be an absolute steal at either 3/$60M or 4/$72M.
Giving Corbin Burnes more than $200M probably isn't in the cards for Baltimore, but this type of deal to pair Manaea with Zach Eflin and Grayson Rodriguez atop the rotation could absolutely work for the O's. Fun fact: Manaea has never pitched at Camden Yards. He has pitched in two different Texas Rangers stadiums and even made a start in London, but Baltimore's is the lone stadium where he has yet to toe the rubber.
Not like that would matter in any way, of course, and he did toss a seven-inning, nine-K quality start in his lone appearance against Baltimore (in New York) this past season. Perhaps they'll remember that late August gem and make this not -too- expensive southpaw a top priority. Prediction : 4 years, $76M to the Baltimore Orioles 2024 Stats : .
235/.308/.506, 44 HR, 102 RBI Spotrac Market Value : 5 years, $89M MLB Trade Rumors Projected Contract : 4 years, $80M It was already mentioned in the Teoscar Hernández section that the expectation is for the Yankees to pursue Anthony Santander aggressively, so no point in burying the lede.
That's our pick: Prediction : 5 years, $100M to the New York Yankees It's going to be quite the drop from Soto's .419 on-base percentage to Santander's career mark of .307 in that department, but a switch-hitting right fielder who clubbed 44 home runs last season is about as good of a plan for replacing Soto as there could be.
Santander is no one-year wonder in the slugging department, either. Since the start of 2022, only Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Schwarber, Pete Alonso and Matt Olson have hit more dingers than Santander's 105. He has done some real damage at Yankee Stadium, too, with three home runs there in 2024 alone.
And if he had played exclusively at Yankee Stadium over the past three seasons, Baseball Savant suggests he would have hit 113 home runs instead of 105. All hail the short porch in right. Even without Soto, New York could have quite the top seven in the lineup with Santander joining Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Austin Wells, Jazz Chisholm Jr.
, Anthony Volpe and the fabled wunderkind Jasson Domínguez. Still need to figure out 1B and 2B, but that's a heck of a start for what is still the favorite to win the American League. Up to now, we've been talking exclusively about players likely to sign multiyear deals worth at least $19M per season.
With Roki Sasaki, however, it's an international bonus pool situation like what brought Shohei Ohtani to Major League Baseball seven years ago. Teams have a hard cap in the $5M-$8M range on the total amount they're allowed to spend on international amateurs in 2025, including Sasaki. (Ohtani got $2.
315M from the Angels during the 2017-18 offseason.) Once that signing bonus is in place, Sasaki has to work his way to free agency just like any other top prospect: three years making basically a league-minimum salary as a pre-arbitration player, followed by three years of arbitration eligibility before hitting the open market. Here's my question, though: What's keeping the team that lands Sasaki from signing him to a big extension before he gets anywhere close to free agency? Maybe it doesn't happen immediately, but if Sasaki is awesome in 2025, couldn't the team buy out his remaining (pre)arbitration years, similar to what Atlanta did with Spencer Strider immediately after his rookie season? And is there a way for teams to convey to Sasaki's agent a willingness to do exactly that, without getting into any sort of tampering trouble? People have been saying it's a level playing field because it looks like an exceedingly rare situation in which teams like Cincinnati, Miami and Tampa Bay can offer more than the Dodgers, Mets or Yankees can.
But knowing that those small-market teams won't pay a penny more than they need to over the next six years, isn't Sasaki still most likely to sign with a big-market team that might give him a mega deal before 2030? Most of the talk thus far has been Dodgers or Padres—San Diego because Sasaki is a huge fan of Yu Darvish and the Dodgers because they're the Dodgers—and we'll lean toward Los Angeles. That's mostly because Sasaki has only averaged a little over 100 innings pitched over the past four seasons in Japan and probably needs to go to a team with a considerable amount of rotational depth instead of being immediately tasked with making 30+ starts. Prediction : Sasaki signs with the Los Angeles Dodgers 2024 Stats : 9-6, 22 saves, 72.
0 IP, 1.75 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, 10.
5 K/9 Spotrac Market Value : 4 years, $66M MLB Trade Rumors Projected Contract : 4 years, $56M Per Baseball-Reference , Emmanuel Clase was the most valuable relief pitcher in the majors in 2024 at 4.4 bWAR. No.
2 on that list was Tanner Scott at 4.0—this after he was No. 1 among relievers in 2023 with a 3.
6 bWAR . In the six years before that, he was anything but the best reliever in baseball, saddled with a 4.61 ERA and 1.
56 WHIP from 2017-22. It's probably because of that track record that Scott isn't expected to sniff the types of deals that Josh Hader and Edwin Díaz received in recent years. Nevertheless, the 30-year-old southpaw figures to be the most sought-after reliever.
So, which contenders need a closer? Even after adding Jordan Romano on a one-year deal, the Phillies remain at or near the top of the list. The Yankees are also hurting for relievers after losing all of Clay Holmes, Tommy Kahnle and Tim Hill—but do at least still have Luke Weaver for cheap. The Rangers might be most desperate of all, though.
Bullpen woes were what was supposed to keep them from winning the World Series in 2023, and now they've lost pretty much their entire 2024 'pen. Kirby Yates, David Robertson, José Ureña, José Leclerc and Andrew Chafin are all out of the picture, leaving minor league acquisition Luis Curvelo as possibly their top candidate for save situations. That could change in a big way by adding a proven star like Scott, who should fit within their budget even after re-signing Nathan Eovaldi for $75M.
Prediction : 4 years, $70M to the Texas Rangers 2024 Stats : .251/.335/.
468, 26 HR, 84 RBI Spotrac Market Value : 3 years, $66M MLB Trade Rumors Projected Contract : 3 years, $60M Over the past three seasons, there have been a combined total of 11 instances of a player tallying enough plate appearances to qualify for a batting title, posting an OPS of .800 or better and winning a Gold Glove. Those instances were: Kyle Tucker (2022), Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
(2022), J.T. Realmuto (2022), Andrés Giménez (2022), Mookie Betts (2022), Nolan Arenado (2022), Adolis García (2023), Bobby Witt Jr.
(2024) and Christian Walker (all three years). It would be difficult to overstate the value added to the Arizona Diamondbacks over the past three years. The big question is how much value the soon-to-be 34-year-old has left to add over the next three years.
If he continues to produce at that level with 30+ home runs per year and fantastic glovework at first base, the contract projections above would be steals. For what it's worth, both Paul Goldschmidt and José Abreu were pretty darn valuable in both their age-34 and age-35 seasons before both dropping off a cliff at age 36. Some motivated buyer will be willing to bet on Walker doing the same—or at least bet on him being considerably more productive in 2025 than the likes of Anthony Rizzo, Josh Bell or Goldschmidt, who are also still available.
The Yankees are probably the best bet here given their first-base situation, but this could be a fantastic spot for the Washington Nationals to join the offseason proceedings with perhaps a modest overpay. Not only have the Nats needed a first baseman for a while now, but Walker could be the veteran leader of a roster where possible closer Derek Law (34) and reserve outfielder Alex Call (30) are the only players not in their 20s. Prediction : 3 years, $75M to the Washington Nationals.
