Ranking the Top 10 Free Agent Starting Pitchers in the 2024-2025 Class

With MLB free agency upon us, the offseason hot stove will get warmer and warmer each day, as teams look to bolster their squads ahead of the 2025 season.

And one of the key focuses of every offseason is at the premium position of Starting Pitcher, who often land some of the most lucrative deals across the league every winter.

We saw some huge names in last year’s free agent class of starters sign a variety of deals.

A budding star and key piece to the Dodgers’ 2024 World Series title winning team, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, signed a lucrative $325 million deal. We saw past award winners like 2023 NL Cy Young Award Blake Snell sign new deals. And we saw signings who made award-worthy impacts with their new clubs, like Shota Imanaga and Seth Lugo.

While this free agent class as a whole may not be the strongest it’s been in year’s past, there’s a wide ranging variety of starting arms available for teams to sign this winter.

From top tier, ace potential arms, to valuable middle-of-the rotation pieces, to talented names looking bounce back in 2025, this free agent starters class offers a variety of depth.

With that being said, here are the top 10 free agent starting pitchers for the 2024-25 offseason:

Ranking the Top 10 Free Agent Starting Pitchers

Honorable Mention: Shane Bieber

2023 and 2024 Combined Stats

There’s no denying the talent that Shane Bieber has shown throughout his career, but adding Tommy John to a long list of injuries and ailments is why the 29-year-old falls outside the top 10.

That being said, in two starts in 2024 Bieber looked like the pitcher that took home Cy Young honors in 2020. He posted a spotless ERA with a 0.92 WHIP and .227 AVG against with 0.8 fWAR accumulated in just 12.0 innings.

And in his last 140.0 innings across 23 starts since the start of 2023, Bieber has pitched to the solid tune of a 3.47 ERA, 1.21 WHIP and .248 AVG against.

He’s bounced back from injuries before, meaning if someone signs him to a “prove-it” deal, they may very well tap into the Bieber we’ve become accustomed to seeing over the years.

10. Walker Buehler

2024 Stats

The 2024 season was another year of adversity for Buehler.

After missing a majority of 2022 and all of 2023 due to injury, he returned to the Dodgers’ rotation and struggled in the regular season. In 75.1 innings pitched across 16 starts, Buehler posted a 5.38 ERA with a 1.55 WHIP and a .286 AVG against.

But what lands Buehler on this list is how he bounced back in the Dodgers’ World Series title run, where he showcased the form he had in 2021 which lead him to a fourth-palace finish in the NL Cy Young race that year.

In two starts and three appearances in total between the NLCS and the World Series, Buehler pitched 10 innings without surrendering an earned run, only giving up five hits and striking out 13. And how could we forget the save that secured the World Series for Los Angeles just a few weeks ago.

While his 2024 regular season can’t be ignored by interested parties this winter, Buehler showed that he can still tap into that high ceiling he showed early in his career when the lights are shining the brightest and possibly pitched himself to a decent contract with his October play alone.

9. Luis Severino

2024 Stats

While Severino didn’t replicate the All-Star form he had early in his career with the Yankees, he arguably had his best season since in 2024.

He posted his highest season workload (182.0 IP) since the 191.1 innings he threw in 2018 in the Bronx, as well as his highest fWAR (2.1) since then.

What Severino did so well in his rebound season in 2024 was limiting the amount of quality contact opponents were able to get off of him. He ranked in the 88th percentile in AVG exit velocity, the 82nd percentile in barrel rate, the 75th percentile in hard-hit rate and the 72nd percentile in groundball rate, according to Baseball Savant.

What keeps him in lower portion of this top 10 list is the fact that 2024 was the first full workload we’ve seen from Severino since his prime years with the Yankees, as he failed to pitch more than 102.0 innings since 2018 until this season. And we also aren’t far removed from a 2023 season where he pitched to a 6.65 ERA and -0.5 fWAR.

But after signing a “prove-it” deal with Mets last winter and really showing his value in 2024, this offseason has much a brighter outlook for Severino, as he should see plenty of free agent interest after playing a key role in that magical Mets run.

8. Nick Martinez

2024 Stats

Nick Martinez is not like the other names on this list due to the fact he spent extensive time both starting and coming out of the bullpen in 2024.

But Martinez executed his dual-role with the Reds admirably in 2024 posting a 3.10 ERA, ranking him in the top 20 among pitchers with at least 100 innings pitched (18th).

And what Martinez does so well as a pitcher is limiting both quality contact and walks. He ranks in the 96th percentile in hard-hit rate, the 94th percentile in AVG exit velocity and the 88th percentile in barrel rate, while posting a 99th percentile walk rate of just 3.2%.

All signs point to Martinez to being a full-time starter in 2025, as he was a permanent member of the Reds rotation from Aug. 5 onwards in 2024.

And as a starter he posted respectable overall numbers with a 3.84 ERA and 1.12 WHIP in his 16 starts.

The 34-year-old Martinez stands to earn a decent chunk of change in a multi-year deal this winter.

7. Yusei Kikuchi

2024 Stats

Yusei Kikuchi has been as up and down as you can get in the course of a big league career.

He went from being an All-Star in Seattle in 2021, to having as bad a year as a starter could have in 2022 with the Blue Jays. He went on to re-write the script in Toronto with his first sub-4.00 ERA season in MLB in 2023. Then, he struggled in the first half of the 2024 season before being dealt to Houston at the deadline and playing the best baseball of his career there.

And his form in Houston is exactly what will attract potential free agent suitors this winter.

In 60.0 innings pitched across 10 starts in the Space City, Kikuchi posted a 2.70 ERA, a 0.93 WHIP and a .187 AVG against, all while posting the highest strikeout rate of his career, sitting down opponents at a 31.8% clip.

The ups and downs of his career will always bring skepticism when evaluating how much Kikuchi is worth on the open market, but it’s hard to deny the numbers he posted in 2024 which had to have surely left a good impression on teams looking for that middle of the rotation lefty to round out their starting staff.

6. Nathan Eovaldi

2024 Stats

Eovaldi might be the prime example of a guy who goes in and does the job he’s called to on a nightly basis.

He’s made at least 20 starts and posted a sub-4.00 ERA in each of his last five seasons.

And the last two seasons in Texas has seen the 34-year-old righty take things to another level. While his ERA totals in 2023 and 2024 may look as similarly solid as his 2020 through 2022 seasons, he has seen fairly significant drops in his WHIP and a AVG against since.

What has Eovaldi just shy of cracking the top five of this list is the fact that he’s never had an absolutely stellar season that would see him and outright one or two in a rotation, whereas the guys ahead of him on this list have higher ceilings.

But if you pair his half-decade long solid run of form with his instrumental performances in two World Series title runs (BOS 2018 and TEX 2023), it makes Eovaldi a prime candidate to score a decent deal this winter in the later stages of his big league career.

5. Sean Manaea

2024 Stats

Like his teammate Severino, Manaea signed a prove-it deal with the New York Mets on 2024 and made the most of situation, arguably to a higher degree than Severino did.

And what I mean by “making the most of his 2024 situation”, is that he had a career year with New York.

In a career-high 181.2 innings of work, Manaea posted his lowest ERA, WHIP and AVG against, apart from a short 29.2 inning season in 2019 in Oakland.

What keeps Manaea from challenging the top guys on this list is the fact that before 2024 he posted ERAs above 4.00 and fWARs no higher than 1.2 in three of four seasons from 2020 to 2023.

But the strong contract season he just put up should see Manaea draw plenty of interest in teams looking for an impact two or three slot starter on the open market.

4. Jack Flaherty

2024 Stats

The 2024 season was a kind one to Flaherty, as he turned back the clock and showed us the type of form we saw early in his career in St. Louis.

He threw his highest inning total and his lowest ERA since 2019, as well as his lowest WHIP and AVG against totals since 2021.

He was among the league’s top arms in terms of swing and miss capabilities, ranking in the 90th percentile in K-rate and 91st percentile in whiff rate.

Pair that with an 83rd percentile walk rate of 5.9% and Flaherty was easily one of the most efficient pitchers in a contract year.

The fact he hasn’t consistently managed to string seasons like this together throughout his career holds him back from the three names ahead of him. But after the regular season he had, paired with the contribution he made to the Dodgers’ World Series winning effort, there will certainly be teams chomping at the bit to add him to their rotations this offseason.

3. Max Fried

2024 Stats

Max Fried enters free agency as one of the league’s most consistent arms over the last five seasons.

Since 2020, Fried has posted an ERA no lower than 3.25 in each season. He’s also managed a sub-1.15 WHIP and an AVG against at .225 or lower in four of the last five seasons.

And entering free agency Fried is coming off a very respectable year where posted a 3.25 ERA, a 1.16 WHIP and a .225 AVG against.

He also offers top-notch batted ball against data, with a 95th percentile AVG exit velocity, 89th percentile barrel rate, 81st percentile hard-hit rate and 96th percentile groundball rate.

Fried may not have the same accolades and overall completeness to his game that the two names ahead of him on this list have, but Fried is firmly in the top three available starters with elite upside still in the tank.

2. Blake Snell

2024 Stats

The two-time Cy Young Award winner in Snell will enter free agency for the second straight season, once again posing as one of the top targets on the open market for the league’s top contenders.

The star southpaw made a great impression after signing one of the several Scott Boras “star short-term” deals last winter, posting a low-3.00’s ERA with a glittering 1.05 WHIP and .174 AVG against in 104.0 innings of work across 20 starts with the Giants in 2024.

He featured elite swing and miss stuff, as made evident by his 98th percentile strikeout-rate, 98th percentile whiff rate and 81st percentile chase rate.

Snell can undoubtedly hang with best of them, but what holds him back from some of the top-tier starters in the league is his walk rate, which has gotten him in some trouble in the past.

This past year, Snell gave up 3.81 BB/9, which saw him ranked 117th among MLB starters with at least 100 innings pitched. This resulted in a 19th percentile walk rate, which marked the fifth straight season he’s posted a walk rate below the 30th percentile.

But regardless of the walk rate, Snell is still a multiple time Cy Young winner with now three straight seasons with a sub-3.50 ERA. So with another shot at the free agent market, expect those longer terms deal we expected last winter to come Snell’s way this time around.

1. Corbin Burnes

2024 Stats

Burnes is the undisputed ace of the 2024-25 starting pitching free agent class, after putting together a string of four phenomenal seasons since becoming a full-time starter back in 2021.

In that four season span since the start of the 2021, Burnes statistically ranks as one of MLB’s best starting pitchers, including accumulating the second highest fWAR in that time span.

And in terms of his form entering free agency, a sub-3.00 ERA to pair with a low 1.00’s WHIP and a low .200’s AVG against isn’t a bad place to be when looking for that long term contract worth the big bucks.

Burnes also found himself ranking in the 90th percentile or higher among big league arms in fastball velocity and hard-hit rate, and in the 80th percentile or higher in AVG exit velocity, chase rate, walk rate and groundball rate.

The 2021 NL Cy Young Award winner and 2024 AL All-Star Game starter is as elite as elite can be. He’s more than worthy of leading a free agent class and is certainly a shoe-in to get that lucrative contract from a contender this winter.