Top Landing Spots for Free Agent Walker Buehler

Every offseason there’s always a few free agent names looking to rebound and reclaim some of their past form that put them on the map in the first place. This winter the biggest name looking to prove himself in 2025 might just be Walker Buehler.

This season was a disappointing return from Tommy John for the 30-year-old righty, as in 75.1 innings pitched across 16 regular season starts he posted a 5.38 ERA, a 5.54 FIP, a 1.55 WHIP and a .286 AVG against.

But come October Buehler showed us some the form he had in his breakout campaign in 2021 where he finished fourth in NL Cy Young voting. In three outings, two of which were starts, between the NLCS and World Series, Buehler threw 10.0 innings of scoreless baseball while striking out 13.

He’s in a unique situation from other mid-tier free-agent names, like a Sean Manaea or a Nathan Eovaldi, as his peak has been as good if not higher than them but he’s three seasons removed from that and entering free agency coming off his worst regular season.

This leads me to believe there will be two types of landing spots for Buehler this winter. The first will be teams that have had success building reclamation project type pitchers back up to what they once were. The second will be teams that have enough strength in their rotation already to take a shot at Buehler’s immense potential and have the pitching depth to absorb the possibility of the best outcome not coming to fruition.

So with all of that in mind, here are some of the best fits for Buehler in free agency this offseason.

Landing Spots with Past Successes with Reclamation Projects

New York Mets

The Mets have done well with signing and revitalizing reclamation projects, getting them back to the form they once held. Just look at the work they did with Manaea and Luis Severino last season after they agreed to one year deals with the club last winter.

And Buehler’s shown more upside at his peak than either of these arms had when they signed their deals, making him a potentially more promising project for David Stearns and co.

So long as he’s not posting ERAs north of 5.00, WHIPs over 1.50 and allowing hitters to hit at near .300 clip off of him, Buehler can offer the Mets another arm that can at the very least play a role in filling out the lower half of the rotation, but at his best can join the the likes of Kodai Senga in the top-spot in the Mets’ staff.

A key area that makes me believe this reclamation project could work comes in Buehler’s batted-ball metrics. He’s always been solid at inducing weaker contact, as when he was at his peak in 2021, he sported a hard-hit rate, barrel rate, ground ball rate and average exit velocity at or above the 63rd percentile. And even when things were at their lowest this season he still managed to hold most of these metrics above the 65th percentile. This bodes well for a Mets rotation that in 2024 prided itself in their ability to limit strong contact, ranking in the 10th in hard-hit%, fifth in HR/9 and fourth in HR/FB.

When you pair all of this the fact that he has the track record for pitching in the big moments under the brightest lights after so many years with the Dodgers, he checks a lot of boxes in the Mets starting pitching search.

Atlanta Braves

The Braves could arguably fall into both categories of fits for Buehler. If we’re talking about organizations that can get the best out of their starting pitching, it’s hard to look past the Atlanta Braves. On top of that, they sport one of the deeper rotations in baseball when fully healthy.

In 2024 the Braves revitalized the careers of two big league arms: Chris Sale and Reynaldo López. Sale went from oft-injured former all-star that had made just 31 starts in three seasons from 2021 to 2023 to winning the NL Cy Young in his first year in Atlanta after getting him for basically nothing last winter. And López went from a full-reliever in 2023 to a starter that made 25 starts and sported a sub-2.00 ERA in 2024.

So between those two, the return of ace Spencer Strider, the strong rookie from last season in Spencer Schwellenbach, as well as promising young depth like AJ Smith-Shawver and Hurston Waldrep waiting in the wings, the Braves have the necessary quality to really take a chance on Buehler in hopes of getting that pitcher we saw in October all throughout 2025.

And just from a traditional free agency standpoint the Braves can offer a two-time World Series champion in Buehler the opportunity to pitch for an organization that has World Series ambitions on a yearly basis, while also offering him as close to a homecoming as you can get being from Kentucky and going to school at Vanderbilt.

An ultra-competitor with a proven past track record that’s looking for the right opportunity to bounce back, doesn’t that sound exactly like an Alex Anthopoulos type of signing?

Landing Spots That Currently Have Strong Rotations

New York Yankees

Yankees fans may have some recent painful memories of Buehler, as just over a month ago he was the last pitcher they faced before being eliminated in five games in this year’s World Series.

But for a lot reasons going after Buehler makes a lot of sense for New York, considering they witnessed first hand the type of arm he can be when he’s firing on all cylinders.

The Yankees have one of the league’s more established starting rotations as it stands right now, with ace Gerrit Cole leading the way alongside key middle rotation options in Carlos Rodón, Luis Gil and Clarke Schmidt, and veteran options like Nestor Cortes and Marcus Stroman.

And in 2024 their starting group was good enough to finish in the top half of the league in ERA (11th), WHIP (T-15th), AVG against (T-7th), strikeout rate (T-4th) and walk rate (T-7th).

Given the fact their top four in Cole, Rodón, Gil and Schmidt seem to be rotational locks for 2025, the Yankees have the luxury to afford taking a flier on a guy with immense upside like Buehler in hopes of getting close to a 100th percentile outcome, and can absorb any growing pains that building him back up to that form might bring.

And with how poor Stroman was down the stretch along with the fact Cortes has not been the same pitcher that he was back when he was an All-Star in 2022, an addition to the rotation might be a wise option for Brian Cashman and the Yankees’ front office.

Kansas City Royals

The top end of the Royals’ rotation may not be four-deep like the Yankees’ starting staff is, but there are few teams that offer the three-man starting punch that Royals do in Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha.

That alone gives them the unique opportunity to take a chance on Buehler this winter and utilize the professional pitching resources that developed Ragans into the ace he is today, made Lugo into the Cy Young candidate he was last season, and kept Wacha at a mid-3.00s ERA rate for the third consecutive campaign.

And after dealing Brady Singer to Cincinnati this offseason, the Royals find themselves in need of solidifying the rest of their rotation, which ranked second in ERA, fourth in both FIP and WHIP and sixth in AVG against.

Kansas City has the chance to get a potential Cy Young caliber arm for the fraction of a price, which is precisely how smaller market teams need to operate.

And for Buehler, this is a chance to remain part of a strong rotation like he was in in Los Angeles, while still being on a postseason contending roster.

Chicago Cubs

The Chicago Cubs might have missed out on the postseason once again in 2024, but it wasn’t due to the performance of their rotation, which finished tied for fifth ERA and tied for eighth in WHIP.

Featuring All-Star caliber arms like Shota Imanaga and Justin Steele, along with middle-to-lower rotation options like Jameson Taillon, Javier Assad and the newly-signed Matthew Boyd, along with Just Baseball’s 55th ranked prospect in Cade Horton projected to debut in 2025, the Cubs are in a scenario that they have the quality options in their rotational mix to take the gamble on Buehler’s upside.

But they’re also in a place where they could really benefit from having the type of performer Buehler was during the postseason, as outside of Imanaga and Steele, there are some questions on what type of pitchers they’ll get out of the three to five spots.

Taillon might have been a low-3.00s ERA guy in 2024, but a 47th percentile 4.05 xERA and a 26th percentile .256 xBA makes you think whether he’ll be the same pitcher he was in 2024 or the high-4.00s ERA arm he was in 2023. Assad may have kept a sub-4.00 ERA in 2024 but he sported a high 1.40 WHIP and fell below the 50th percentile in nearly every major underlying metric last season. And while Boyd was phenomenal for the Guardians upon his return from the IL down the stretch last year, it’s a small sample size to go off of, especially when he’s only a year removed from being a 5.45 ERA pitcher with the Tigers in 2023.

If Buehler is on, he’s shown he can be one of the league’s more dominant arms, and considering he’s coming off a down year in the regular season, the Cubs could get a real value signing that could be right there with Imanaga and Steele atop that rotation if he’s dialed in.