Who Are the Top Free Agents Set To Hit the Market?
Just Baseball ranks the top 10 hitters, starters, and relievers who will reach free agency this offseason.
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Last year, it was Juan Soto. The year prior was the winter of Shohei Ohtani. Aaron Judge earned his mega-deal the year before that. Every offseason, the biggest stars on the free agent market dominate the discussion, sometimes for months on end.
Over the past few weeks, Just Baseball’s editor-in-chief Ryan Finkelstein has been putting together comprehensive lists with every impending free agent to know at each position group, including starting pitchers, relief pitchers, infielders, and outfielders.
However, we also wanted to highlight the very best of the best hitting the market this winter. So, the JB editorial team hopped on a call and ranked the top 10 impending free agent hitters, starters, and relievers.
You can check out our consensus rankings and my commentary below. Clicking on a player’s name will take you to his Baseball Reference page, so you can spend as much time as you’d like poring over his most up-to-date stats.
All stats taken prior to play on August 25.
Top 10 Free Agent Position Players for 2025-26
Former Astros teammates Kyle Tucker and Alex Bregman are trending in different directions, but Tucker is still our choice for the top free agent of the 2025-26 offseason.
At the end of June, Tucker was a serious contender for the NL MVP, and discussions about his free agency centered on just how many hundreds of millions it would take to sign him. Meanwhile, Bregman was sitting on the injured list with a significant quad strain.
Yet, Tucker has struggled badly in July and August (perhaps due to a hairline fracture in his right hand) while Bregman returned from the IL firing on all cylinders. At this point, it wouldn’t be all that shocking to see Tucker sign a pillow contract, not unlike Bregman’s deal with Boston last winter. That said, a two-month cold streak isn’t enough for us to drop an MVP-caliber talent from the top spot on our list.
As for Bregman, it seems all but certain that he’ll opt out of the two years and $80 million remaining on his contract with the Red Sox. He’ll be coming off a much stronger walk year than he had in 2024, putting the star third baseman in a great position to cash in.
Kyle Schwarber is another hitter enjoying a terrific walk year, but his age (he’ll be 33 next year) and the fact that he’s a DH-only player keep him two spots below fellow slugger Pete Alonso on our ranking. Alonso, like Bregman, is all but certain to opt out of his contract with the Mets.
You might be surprised to see Cody Bellinger ranked so highly, considering how unceremoniously the Cubs dumped him on the Yankees over the offseason. However, he’s playing a lot more like he did in his bounce-back 2023 season than his disappointing follow-up in 2024. A talented all-around player who only just turned 30 years old, Bellinger has no reason to pick up his $25 million player option for 2026.
Next on our list is a resurgent Bo Bichette, followed by the slugging Eugenio Suárez and his teammate (MLB’s newest speed demon) Josh Naylor. The last two spots on our top 10 go to Gleyber Torres, whose pillow deal with the Tigers has worked out swimmingly, and J.T. Realmuto, the best catcher set to hit the market.
Top 10 Free Agent Starting Pitchers for 2025-26
The groundball master Framber Valdez is one of the most reliable frontline starters in the game. Since his breakout season in 2020, he ranks fifth in MLB in innings pitched and eighth in ERA (min. 600 IP). Whether you look at the most traditional stats or the most advanced metrics, it’s clear the southpaw is a stud. No pitcher has more wins in that span, and only four have more Wins Above Replacement (per FanGraphs).
Maybe (and only maybe) a couple of other pitchers on this list can offer more upside than Valdez, but none can offer his consistency.
If there’s one perfect example of the type of pitcher I described above, it’s Brandon Woodruff. The right-hander has only pitched one full season in his career, but it was arguably a better season than any Valdez has ever had.
Since his breakout season in 2019, Woodruff has only thrown 638.2 innings, but they’ve sure been terrific. The only pitchers with at least 600 innings and a lower ERA in the last seven seasons are Jacob deGrom and Clayton Kershaw. Woodruff is a top-of-the-rotation ace if he can stay healthy, but that’s a huge “if” – especially for a pitcher who turns 33 next year.
Michael King, Shane Bieber (player option for 2026), and Zac Gallen are three more names in the same general category. We know they have the stuff to lead a rotation, but King has been injured for much of 2025, Bieber has only just returned from Tommy John surgery, and Gallen has been healthy but uncharacteristically unreliable.
Ranger Suárez isn’t far off from that category either. Maybe he’s more of a mid-rotation starter than an ace, but he has flashed All-Star stuff. Unfortunately, injuries have prevented him from ever pitching a full, qualified season.
For teams that might be more risk-averse this winter, the next best option after Valdez will be Dylan Cease. His results haven’t been quite as consistently excellent as Valdez’s, but he hasn’t missed so much as a single start in the past six years. Since the day of his MLB debut, no pitcher has started more games.
Rounding out the top 10 are Lucas Giolito, who is 28.2 innings away from turning his club option into a mutual option; Merrill Kelly, whose midseason trade will prevent him from being saddled with a qualifying offer; and Chris Bassitt, another durable arm à la Valdez and Cease (though a lot less exciting).
Top 10 Free Agent Relievers for 2025-26
Three years ago, Edwin Díaz became the first reliever to sign a nine-figure contract when he inked a five-year, $102 million deal with the Mets. It now seems all but guaranteed that he’ll opt out of the final two years and $37 million remaining on that deal and re-enter free agency. Relievers are famously unpredictable, but considering his track record, recent success, and top-notch stuff, it wasn’t a hard decision to rank Díaz first.
It was pretty surprising when the Padres signed Robert Suarez to a five-year $46 million contract three years ago. It wasn’t that he didn’t have an excellent walk year – he did! – but he was entering his age-32 season with only 47.2 innings of MLB experience in his career.
Following an injury-marred 2023 campaign, Suarez has been one of the better closers in the game for the last two years (2.92 ERA, 70 saves). He will surely opt out of the three years and $26 million remaining on his contract.
Ryan Helsley is having a down year, but he was arguably the best reliever in the NL from 2022-24, pitching to a 1.83 ERA and 5.7 fWAR in 152 games. He offers almost as much upside as Díaz, and unlike his Mets teammate, he won’t be eligible to receive a qualifying offer.
Aroldis Chapman will enter free agency for a fourth year in a row, and he’ll probably sign another one-year deal. That’s just life for a reliever in his late thirties. Of course, if any team had been willing to sign him to a multi-year deal three years ago, he would have given them a 2.75 ERA and 4.8 fWAR over 184 games from 2023-25. The list of pitchers with more appearances, a higher fWAR, and a lower ERA in that span is two names long: Emmanuel Clase and Tanner Scott.
The rest of our top 10 includes a pair of long-timer closers, Raisel Iglesias and Devin Williams; the often underrated Rogers Twins, Tyler and Taylor; and a pair of veterans who have recently shown they can handle ninth-inning duties, Luke Weaver and Emilio Pagán.
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Leo Morgenstern is one of the managing editors for Just Baseball. He is also the managing editor at Jays Centre. His writing has appeared all over…