The Top Landing Spots for Free Agent Harrison Bader

Harrison Bader is coming off of arguably the best season of his career. He is now set to be the third-best outfield free agent available based off of 2025 fWAR (he and Trent Grisham both had 3.2 fWAR). Only Cody Bellinger and Kyle Tucker finished with more fWAR than Bader.

This has placed Bader in position to receive a decent payday this off season. He is coming off signing a one-year, $6.25 million contract with the Minnesota Twins.

Finishing the year with the Phillies after being traded at the deadline, Bader put up the second-best fWAR of his career and set numerous career highs in 2025. Those include home runs, RBIs, batting average, on-base percentage, and wRC+.

While Bader did put together a strong overall season, he was even better following his move to Philadelphia, hitting .305 with a 129 wRC+ down the stretch with the Phillies.

While his bat was certainly the story, Bader’s defense deserves praise as well. Despite being on the other side of 30, he showed that he can still go get it in center field. He also logged innings at all three outfield spots.

Bader finished 2025 ranked seventh among all qualified outfielders with +13 defensive runs saved. His +6 outs above average was also quite solid, placing him 13th. Whoever signs Bader is going to get a solid bat as well as an excellent defender, making him a desirable target for organizations across MLB this winter.

Free Agent Profile: Harrison Bader

• Age in 2026: 32
• 2025 Stats: 146 G, .277/.347/.449, 17 HR, 54 RBI, 122 wRC+, 3.2 fWAR
• 2025 Salary: $6.25 million
• Qualifying Offer Eligible: Ineligible, Bader was traded mid-season, disqualifying him

Contract Projection

• Contract Length Expectation: 1-3 years
• Expected AAV: $12-17 million

This is an interesting free-agent class with regards to outfielders. It is incredibly top heavy.

Kyle Tucker and Cody Bellinger headline the group, then there is a steep drop off to Grisham and Bader. They are then followed by another drop off to Mike Yastrzemski, Starling Marte, Max Kepler, and others.

Bader sets up to be the third or fourth-best outfielder available depending on your opinion (especially if you view Ryan O’Hearn as a DH/1B). This could make for an interesting market and drive his price up for a nice payday.

Here are the five best fits for Harrison Bader this off season.

Free Agent Landing Spots for Harrison Bader

Kansas City Royals

The Kansas City Royals are the perfect fit for Bader. This team is desperate for outfield help, and that might be an understatement.

When it comes to outfield production in 2025, this unit in Kansas City was the worst in baseball. They finished with a league worst -1.1 fWAR (no, that is not a typo). That made them the only team in the league to produce a negative fWAR from their outfield unit.

They also ranked dead last in wRC+, OBP, HR, RBI, and runs. As I said, this was far and away the worst outfield in the majors.

With regards to returning talent, Jac Caglianone, Kyle Isbel, and John Rave project as the starting outfield. Caglianone should be the only one in the lineup on Opening Day. Isbel is a great defender, so he could stick around, but Rave will likely be replaced.

The Royals also have MJ Melendez and Drew Waters who project to start the season in the minors. Both also struggled mightily last season.

This would likely be a one-year deal, maybe two with a club option. The Royals are looking to get back to the playoffs after coming up short in 2025, but they need some offense to support the pitching staff.

Bader on a short deal to Kansas City makes a lot of sense. If the team struggles again it would be easy to move Bader at the deadline to a contender. The biggest concern would be the fact that Kauffman Stadium is such a pitcher-friendly park. It could be a tough place for Bader to replicate his 2025 production.

Cincinnati Reds

The Reds are a bit similar to the Royals in that they did not have the best outfield unit last year. A bit better than the Royals but not by much.

The Reds found themselves in the bottom third of the league as a unit in both fWAR and wRC+. However, the most concerning number was being only 21st in home runs while playing half their games in Great American Ball Park.

While those numbers are a bit concerning, the difference between the Reds and Royals is that the Reds look to have an okay group for next year.

TJ Friedl and Noelvi Marte are both coming off fairly solid seasons, especially Friedl. Gavin Lux was an above-average bat last season, but the transition to the outfield was really ugly defensively. Bader would be a solid upgrade over Lux.

This could allow Lux to be a superutility piece, still getting a little bit of time in the outfield but spending most of his innings on the infield dirt where he is more comfortable.

One concern from Reds fans might be the lack of power from a player like Bader. As stated earlier, the lack of home runs from this outfield unit considering their home park is concerning. You could argue that the Reds need to target a big bopper who could come in and hit 30 home runs next year.

Unfortunately, it does not appear as if that player exist in the Reds’ price range. While Bader doesn’t have the most power in the world, his 17 home runs last year would have been 19 if he played his games at Great American.

Not to mention that last year, 19 home runs would have been the most of any Reds primary outfielder and the third most on the team.

The Reds make a lot of sense for Bader. He can slot in an already decent looking group of outfielders and help this team make a run back to the playoffs.

Philadelphia Phillies

A reunion in Philadelphia makes too much sense not to suggest it.

As mentioned, Bader had a really good start to the 2025 season with the Twins. He played 96 games for them and posted a 118 wRC+ with 2.0 fWAR. He was one of the Twins’ most consistent bats in the lineup and was one of the reasons the Twins stayed afloat as long as they did.

Then he was traded to Philly. Once he arrived in the City of Brotherly Love, Bader got red hot. He played just 50 games down the stretch with the Phillies. He upped his wRC+ to 129 and his batting average jumped 50 points to .305. On top of that, he recorded 1.2 fWAR, improving the pace he was on in Minnesota.

Despite the Phillies being one of the best teams in baseball last season, their outfield play was not great. Once on the team, Bader was their best outfielder by production. This also would have been true if he was with Philly for the entirety of the season.

With the Phillies rumored to be moving on from Nick Castellanos, this could be a rough outfield. Without any additions the Phillies starting outfield would likely be Brandon Marsh, Justin Crawford, and Johan Rojas. That is not pretty.

There is one glaring difference between the Phillies and the two teams mentioned prior. The Phillies could be going big-game hunting this off season. While Bader is likely on their radar, the Phillies are more than likely going to take a run at Tucker and/or Bellinger.

Despite this, based off the projected outfield, the Phillies could (and should) be searching to add two outfield bats. Maybe that means they sign both Tucker and Bader. It could also be some other combination, but why not bring back the guy that was really good for them down the stretch last season.

Seattle Mariners

This is the Victor Robles contingency plan. If you are a Mariners fan and looking at the projected roster for next year, you likely don’t have many questions. Robles however, is probably one of them.

Robles is such a wild card entering the 2026 season. Does he return to the 2024 Victor Robles who looked like he could get down ballot MVP votes, or is it more like the Robles that we are used to, slightly better than replacement? Somewhere in between? No one knows.

Despite Robles dealing with injuries for a lot of 2025, the Mariners had one of the better outfields in baseball. That is due in large to both Julio Rodriguez and Randy Arozarena. Signing Bader would offer the team a solid fourth outfielder as well as a safety net for Robles.

There are admittedly some concerns with this fit. The biggest being that Seattle’s four outfielders would all be right handed. This shouldn’t be a deal breaker when looking at the individual splits of the players.

Rodriguez has shown very little variance in splits over his career. He hits righties and lefties equally well. Arozarena hit righties slightly better last year but that is not the trend for his career. Robles has always hit lefties better over the course of his career.

That leaves Bader, who is better against lefties over the course of his career, but he demolished right handed pitching last season. In fact, every season since 2021 Bader has had a higher wRC+ against right handed pitching with the exception of the 2023 season.

The Mariners also have Dominic Canzone, who is a left-handed bat that can play the outfield. The handedness issue can be worked around. While corner infield is likely the big concern for Seattle, Bader would be a good get this offseason.

St. Louis Cardinals

Before last season, the best years of Bader’s career came with the St. Louis Cardinals. Bader would be a welcome addition to an inconsistent outfield.

The Cardinals are looking to make it back to the playoffs for the first time since 2022. Similarly to a lot of the other teams that would be good fits for Bader, the Cardinals performed very poorly as an outfield group last season.

The Cardinals do, however, have talented outfielders. Alec Burleson had a good season last year. Lars Nootbar is coming off the worst season of his career and should bounce back. Then you have Victor Scott II and Jordan Walker, two incredibly talented and young players that just haven’t figured it out yet.

Scott and Walker each have minor-league option left. There is a chance the Cardinals need to use those this season. Having a player like Bader to plug in would be ideal.

The elephant in the room that could squash this homecoming is manager Oli Marmol. Bader was traded away from St. Louis in Marmol’s first season as manager.

Marmol benched Bader for lack of hustle after he didn’t run out a fly ball. All things considered, Bader appeared to handle that situation well. There were some rumblings about wether or not Marmol should have handled it the way that he did.

No one outside of Bader and Marmol can say how they feel about each other. Maybe this is not a big deal and would play no role in deterring a reunion in St. Louis, just a factor to consider.