The World Series looms and the offseason will begin around two weeks from now. One of the first key decisions for teams is whether to issue a qualifying offer to any of their impending free agents. Clubs have until the fifth day after the conclusion of the World Series to make QO decisions.

The QO is a one-year offer calculated by averaging the 125 highest salaries in MLB. This year’s price is $22.025MM. Players who receive the QO have around two weeks to get an early feel for the market before deciding whether to accept. If they do, they cannot be traded without their consent until at least June 15 of the following season — as is the case for any MLB free agent who signs a major league deal.

If the player rejects and signs elsewhere, his former team would receive draft compensation. The signing club would forfeit a pick (or picks) and potentially international signing bonus space. The compensation and penalties vary depending on teams’ revenue sharing and luxury tax statuses. MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk recently examined what each team would receive if they lose a qualified free agent, and the penalties they’d pay to sign one.

Yesterday, MLBTR looked at a relatively light class of expected recipients on the position player side. There’s more intrigue with the pitching, which could feature a handful of borderline cases depending on option decisions and health questions.

No-Doubters

• Dylan Cease (Padres)
• Edwin Díaz (Mets)
• Ranger Suárez (Phillies)
• Framber Valdez (Astros)

This group is straightforward. Valdez and Suárez should easily land nine-figure contracts. Cease will probably begin the offseason with a nine-figure ask of his own based on his durability, plus stuff, and excellent strikeout potential. His 4.55 ERA and general inefficiency in the second half might prevent him from cashing in to that level, but he’d at least be able to command a two- or three-year deal with opt-outs even if his market doesn’t materialize as hoped. There’s no reason for him to accept a one-year deal.

Díaz is expected to opt out of the remaining two years and $38MM on his contract. He wouldn’t do that only to accept a one-year offer at $22MM. He’ll decline the qualifying offer and could look for a four-year deal that pays around $20MM annually.

Likely Recipients

• Zac Gallen (Diamondbacks)
• Michael King (Padres)
• Brandon Woodruff (Brewers)

All of these pitchers seem like comfortable recipients as well, though it’s not 100% certain they’d each decline as the top tier would. Gallen had an up-and-down season that concluded with a 4.83 earned run average over 192 innings. His 21.5% strikeout rate was the lowest of his career, and he struggled with the home run ball for the first time in four seasons. It’s not an encouraging walk year, but he’s only 30 years old and is a few months removed from having a case for a $150MM contract. While he’s not going to get there now, he should be able to land a two-year deal with an opt-out if no team is willing to pay nine figures.

King and Woodruff would’ve been locks to reject the QO had they finished the season at full stride. King missed a couple months with a pesky nerve injury in his throwing shoulder, then lost a few weeks to a knee issue. He returned in the middle of September but didn’t make it beyond five innings in any of his final four starts. The Padres carried him on the playoff roster but had pushed him far enough down the depth chart that they turned to a diminished Yu Darvish to start an elimination game while keeping King in the bullpen. It’s still likely that he’ll decline the qualifying offer and command a multi-year deal, but it’s an uphill battle to the nine-figure money that once seemed to be in the cards.

Woodruff finished the season on the injured list with a lat strain. He’d missed all of 2024 and the first half of this past season rehabbing from a shoulder surgery. In between, he was one of the best pitchers on the planet. He turned in a 3.20 ERA with a 32% strikeout rate across 12 starts. Teams are always on the hunt for playoff-caliber starters, and Woodruff certainly has that kind of ceiling. The durability questions and his age (33 in February) are likely to keep him at two or three years, but he should command a multi-year contract that pays at or above the qualifying offer price.

Borderline Calls

• Jack Flaherty (Tigers)

Flaherty has a $20MM player option. He’ll only become a free agent if he believes he’s going to beat that on the open market. Would he decline the option just to accept a qualifying offer for an extra $2MM if the Tigers offered it? That seems unlikely but isn’t impossible. He’d have the approximate two-week window after receiving the QO to gauge the market, and if he’s not finding the kind of early interest he’d hope, it could make sense to accept the offer.

The Tigers would need to decide whether it’s worthwhile to take that chance. Flaherty is coming off a middling 4.64 ERA but took the ball 31 times and struck out 27.6% of opponents. There are some similarities to where Nick Pivetta was at this time last year: a reliable source of innings with a plus strikeout/walk profile but concerns about his home run tendency. It was a little surprising that the Red Sox made Pivetta a qualifying offer and even more so that he turned it down. That gamble ended up netting the Sox the #75 pick in the draft. The Tigers, as revenue sharing recipients, would get a pick after the first round if Flaherty declines a QO and still pulls a $50MM+ guarantee from another team (as Pivetta did).

• Lucas Giolito (Red Sox)

Giolito lost the 2024 season to internal brace surgery. He began this year on the injured list after suffering a Spring Training hamstring strain. He posted an ERA near 5.00 in May before settling in as a productive mid-rotation arm over the next few months. Giolito turned in a 3.03 earned run average across 20 starts and 113 innings from June onward.

A sub-20% strikeout rate raised some doubts about the sustainability of that kind of run prevention. Still, he looked like a reliable third starter who would do well on the open market once he crossed the 140-inning threshold to convert a $14MM team option into a $19MM mutual provision. Luis Severino had a similar profile and commanded three years and $67MM with an opt-out after declining a qualifying offer last winter. While that contract was an overpay to get a free agent starter to pitch at Sutter Health Park, a three-year deal in the mid-$50MM range is still preferable to accepting a QO.

Then came another injury. Giolito suffered flexor irritation and a bone issue in his throwing elbow at the end of the regular season. He did not make the Wild Card roster and would not have been available even if the Red Sox had made a deep postseason run. Giolito told Chris Cotillo of MassLive that there’s no ligament damage and the issue should heal with rest. Whether to make the QO will come down to Boston’s risk tolerance on the elbow.

The Sox’s luxury tax status should also be a consideration. Unofficial public estimates have them narrowly above the $241MM base threshold. If that’s the case, they’d only get a compensatory pick after the fourth round if Giolito rejects a QO and signs elsewhere. It’d fall in the #75 overall range — like the Pivetta pick — if they had stayed below the tax threshold. That won’t be known publicly until MLB releases its final payroll tallies in December, but the team surely has an idea of where they stand.

• Shota Imanaga (Cubs)

Imanaga has a complex option setup that might keep him from getting to free agency. The Cubs first need to decide whether to exercise a three-year, $57MM option covering the 2026-28 seasons. If they decline, Imanaga has the right to opt out of the remaining two years and $30MM on his deal. If both sides decline their end of the option structure, he’ll be a free agent. The Cubs would then need to decide whether to make the qualifying offer or be content to let Imanaga walk.

The longstanding assumption has been that the team would exercise the three-year option. Imanaga was fantastic in 2024 and carried a 3.08 ERA over 20 starts through the end of August this season. Then he got torched in September (6.51 ERA) and gave up six runs over 6 2/3 innings during two postseason starts. He gave up at least one home run in each of his last nine regular season starts, as well as in both playoff outings. Imanaga surrendered an MLB-worst 20 longballs in the second half.

That’s likely to continue to be a problem. Imanaga’s fastball sits around 90 MPH and he’s an extreme fly-ball pitcher. After striking out more than a quarter of batters faced during his rookie season, that dropped to a slightly below-average 20.6% mark this year. There are a lot of red flags, but he also owns a 3.28 ERA over 318 MLB innings in the last two seasons. How much has the final six weeks soured the Cubs on his future projection?

Unlikely/Long Shots

• Brad Keller (Cubs)
• Tyler Mahle (Rangers)
• Robert Suarez (Padres)
• Luke Weaver (Yankees)
• Devin Williams (Yankees)

This group gets a cursory mention largely because there’s often one or two long shot recipients each year. Pivetta and especially Nick Martinez fell into this bucket last winter. Still, it’d register as a major surprise if anyone from this group receives the QO.

Suarez probably has the best chance. He’s one of the game’s best closers and should command a strong two-year deal for his age 35-36 seasons. The Padres have been navigating short-term payroll questions for the past few years, though, and they have Mason Miller as an obvious alternative to handle the ninth inning. Even if they want to give Miller a chance to start, Jeremiah Estrada or Adrian Morejon could close. With bigger needs in the rotation and at first base, they should let Suarez walk.

Mahle had a sterling 2.18 ERA across 16 starts but didn’t miss many bats. He then suffered a rotator cuff strain that cost him three months between mid-June and September. He has battled various shoulder injuries over the past two seasons and underwent Tommy John surgery in 2023. The Rangers are cutting payroll and need to overhaul their lineup. Committing $22MM to Mahle wouldn’t make much sense.

Williams, Keller and Weaver are three of the top relievers in the class. Teams generally reserve the QO for established high-end closers (e.g. Josh Hader, Raisel Iglesias). Williams would’ve been in that group if he’d had a typical platform year, but he finishes his first and probably only season in the Bronx with an ERA near-5.00.

Ineligible

• Chris Bassitt
• Shane Bieber
• Raisel Iglesias
• Merrill Kelly
• Zack Littell
• Nick Martinez
• Justin Verlander

Players who have previously received a qualifying offer in their careers cannot be tagged with a second one. That rules out Bassitt, Iglesias, Martinez and Verlander. Teams can only make the offer to players who spent the entire preceding season on their roster. Bieber, Kelly and Littell (who would’ve been unlikely anyway) were all traded at the deadline.

MLBTR continues its position-by-position look at the upcoming free agent class. Before we move on to the pitching, we’ll wrap up the offensive group by looking at the designated hitters. Every position player technically could play DH, of course, but the vast majority of the class has been covered in one of our prior positional previews. We’ll limit this look to players who are either primary designated hitters or took at least 200 plate appearances at the position this year. Player ages, listed in parenthesis, are for the 2026 season.

Previous entries in this series: catcher, first base, second base, third base, shortstop, center field, corner outfield

Top of the Class

Kyle Schwarber (33)

With the exception of Shohei Ohtani, Schwarber is the top free agent designated hitter in years. He’s going to become the first pure DH to sign a nine-figure contract after blasting an NL-best 56 home runs and leading MLB with 132 runs driven in. Schwarber played in all 162 games and batted .240/.365/.563 over 724 trips to the plate.

Schwarber hit 38+ homers in all four seasons of the free agent contract he’d signed with Philadelphia. He’s going to strike out a lot, but he’s among the five best power hitters in the sport. He’s also adored in the Philly clubhouse, and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski has made no secret about their desire to keep him. Schwarber is going to decline a qualifying offer and should be in position for a four-year contract that pays more than $25MM annually. There’s a non-zero chance that a team stretches to five years to push the overall guarantee above $130MM.

Regular DH Options

Josh Bell (33)

The ever streaky Bell alternated bad and excellent months throughout the season. He had a .730 OPS or below in each of April, June and August while posting an .860 or better in May, July and September. The end result was a .239/.326/.421 batting line with 22 home runs across 533 plate appearances. For all his inconsistency within seasons, Bell has reliably ended up as a slightly above-average hitter in each of the past three years. He should command another one-year deal.

Starling Marte (37)

After consecutive seasons of declining production, Marte had a bit of a rebound in a part-time role for the Mets. He hit .270/.335/.410 over 329 plate appearances. Marte only hit seven homers and isn’t the kind of power bat that teams will want as an everyday DH, but he can take 250-300 at-bats while playing a part-time corner outfield role.

Andrew McCutchen (39)

Cutch has signed a series of one-year, $5MM deals with the Pirates over the past few seasons. This year’s .239/.333/.367 line with 13 homers is his worst production of his three-year second stint in Pittsburgh. McCutchen still has a strong awareness of the strike zone, but he’s no longer a threat for 25-30 homers at this stage of his career. It seems likely he’ll work out another cheap one-year deal with the Bucs.

Marcell Ozuna (35)

Ozuna is the cheap alternative to Schwarber as a true everyday designated hitter. He’s only one season removed from being one of the sport’s best offensive players. Ozuna combined for 79 home runs with a .289/.364/.552 slash between 2023-24. He’s coming off an underwhelming walk year at age 34, as he regressed to a .232/.355/.400 batting line with 21 homers over 592 trips to the plate. It’s still above-average offensive output but not great production for a player who hasn’t logged a single inning on defense in two years.

The in-season trend lines were not encouraging. Ozuna hit .280/.426/.457 with nearly as many walks as strikeouts through the end of May. For a while, he looked as if he’d be one of the best rental hitters available at the trade deadline. He then went through a three-month slog in which he hit .185/.300/.362 over 278 plate appearances. That killed any chance of the Braves getting more than marginal salary relief, so they kept him for the stretch run. Ozuna rebounded somewhat to hit .261 in September, but he struck out at a 32% clip and only connected on one home run in the season’s final month. He’ll be limited to a one-year deal that might be half of the $16MM salary he collected this past season.

Jorge Polanco (32)

Polanco’s contract technically contains a $6MM player option, but he’s going to decline that and hit free agency. The Mariners surprisingly re-signed him on the heels of a disappointing 2024 season. Seattle attributed the down year to a knee injury through which he’d played that required postseason meniscus surgery. They’ve been proven right with a resurgent year from the switch-hitting infielder. Polanco drilled 26 homers and 30 doubles with a .265/.326/.495 line.

While Polanco can still hit, he’ll face questions about his defensive workload over 162 games. Seattle initially planned to play him at third base, believing that not needing to navigate the second base bag would be easier on his knee. That lasted five games before renewed soreness and an oblique injury led the M’s to use him as a full-time designated hitter for a while. He began mixing in second base work in June and played there regularly for the final three weeks of the season. He’s a long shot candidate for a qualifying offer but will likely hit free agency without draft compensation. He should get at least a two-year deal and has a chance for three.

Bench Bats

Wilmer Flores (34)

Flores got out to a strong start to the season, popping seven home runs with a penchant for clutch hits in April. He had a pedestrian .245/.315/.365 batting line from the beginning of May onwards. Flores has made a career as a versatile defender who hits left-handed pitching, but he’s essentially limited to DH and first base at this point. He only has a .228/.278/.371 slash against southpaws over the past two seasons and may need to take a minor league deal.

Mitch Garver (35)

Garver logged nearly 400 innings behind the plate as Cal Raleigh’s backup. The Mariners signed him with the expectation that he’d be their primary designated hitter, but he hit .187/.290/.341 in 201 games over two seasons in the Pacific Northwest.

Justin Turner (41)

Turner got $6MM from the Cubs last offseason to work as a veteran righty bat off the bench. He hit .219/.288/.314 over 80 games in his age-40 season and is probably looking at a minor league deal if he continues playing.

Jesse Winker (32)

Winker landed a $7.5MM guarantee to re-sign with the Mets last offseason. He’ll probably be limited to minor league offers this winter after oblique and back injuries limited him to 26 games.

Player Options

Joc Pederson (34)

Pederson will exercise a $16.5MM player option with Texas after hitting .181/.285/.328 over 306 plate appearances. The Rangers will need a huge rebound from a player who’d hit .275/.393/.515 with the Diamondbacks in 2024.

The World Series looms and the offseason will begin around two weeks from now. One of the first key decisions for teams is whether to issue a qualifying offer to any of their impending free agents. Clubs have until the fifth day after the conclusion of the World Series to make QO decisions.

The QO is a one-year offer calculated by averaging the 125 highest salaries in MLB. This year’s price is $22.025MM. Players who receive the QO have around two weeks to get an early feel for the market before deciding whether to accept. If they do, they cannot be traded without their consent until at least June 15 of the following season — as is the case for any MLB free agent who signs a major league deal.

If the player rejects and signs elsewhere, his former team would receive draft compensation. The signing club would forfeit a pick (or picks) and potentially international signing bonus space. The compensation and penalties vary depending on teams’ revenue sharing and luxury tax statuses. MLBTR’s Mark Polishuk recently examined what each team would receive if they lose a qualified free agent, and the penalties they’d pay to sign one.

We’ll start with a look at the position players, with a preview of the pitchers to come later in the week. While there may be some close calls on the pitching side, there shouldn’t be a ton of intrigue with the hitting decisions. Many of this year’s top free agent hitters are ineligible for a qualifying offer, meaning there’ll probably only be four who receive it — each of whom would have a relatively easy decision to decline.

No-Doubters

• Bo Bichette (Blue Jays)
• Kyle Schwarber (Phillies)
• Kyle Tucker (Cubs)

There’s not much to say about this trio. They’ll all receive and reject a QO. Tucker could seek a contract north of $400MM, while Bichette should aim for $200MM+ despite a late-season knee sprain. Schwarber’s age and lack of defensive value will keep him below $200MM, but he’s going to easily beat $22MM per season on what should at least be a four-year contract.

Likely Recipient

• Trent Grisham (Yankees)

Grisham is a safe bet to receive the qualifying offer as well, though that’s perhaps more of a 90-95% likelihood than the absolute locks of the top tier. It should be an easy call for him to decline on the heels of a 34-homer breakout that is supported by impressive batted ball metrics. Even with a dip in his typically strong defensive grades, Grisham has a shot at a four- of five-year deal going into his age-29 season. He’s the top center fielder in the class.

The only argument against the Yankees issuing the QO is that they’d receive the lowest compensation as a luxury tax payor: a pick after the fourth round. If they feel there’s even a 10% chance of Grisham accepting, maybe they’d rather not risk committing $22MM and an accompanying $24MM in luxury taxes within the first two weeks of the offseason. Still, one imagines they’d happily take Grisham back on the off chance that he were willing to accept a one-year guarantee.

Long Shots

• Jorge Polanco (Mariners)
• Gleyber Torres (Tigers)

Polanco has had a huge second season in Seattle. He hit 26 homers with a .265/.326/.495 slash across 524 regular season plate appearances. His .703 OPS in the postseason isn’t great overall, but he has drilled three more home runs (including two off Tarik Skubal in a Game 2 victory in the Division Series). It’s arguably the best offensive performance of his career after accounting for the difficulty of hitting at T-Mobile Park. All that said, it’s difficult to see the Mariners offering $22MM to a 32-year-old whose defensive home is in question because of knee injuries. There’s a strong chance Polanco would accept, as his age and durability issues should cap him at a three-year deal even if he’s not attached to draft compensation.

Torres was on track to receive a qualifying offer after hitting .281/.387/.425 in an All-Star first half. He subsequently hit .223/.320/.339 and underwent postseason sports hernia surgery. While the injury offers an explanation for the late-season drop in production, it’s likelier that Torres is who he is: an above-average but not great hitter who plays a mediocre second base. He finished his lone season in Detroit with a .256/.358/.387 line with 16 homers, similar numbers to those he posted (.257/.330/.378) during his walk year with the Yankees. That got him a $15MM free agent deal. It’s tough to see Detroit offering him an extra $7MM and potentially locking that money up by mid-November.

That’s essentially it for any hitters with an outside chance to receive a QO. The only other player who even received consideration in this tier is Luis Arraez. While he still has the game’s best contact skills and is a good bet to hit .300, there’s just not enough overall impact to justify a $22MM salary. Of the 32 first basemen who tallied 400+ plate appearances, Arraez ranked 19th in on-base percentage (.327) and 26th in slugging (.392).

Ineligible

• Pete Alonso
• Harrison Bader
• Cody Bellinger
• Alex Bregman
• Ha-Seong Kim
• Josh Naylor
• Ryan O’Hearn
• J.T. Realmuto
• Trevor Story
• Eugenio Suárez

Players who have previously received a qualifying offer in their careers cannot be tagged with a second one. That rules out Alonso, Bellinger, Bregman, Realmuto and Story (who seems unlikely to opt out anyway). Teams can only make the offer to players who spent the entire preceding season on their roster. Bader, Naylor, O’Hearn and Suárez were all traded at the deadline. The Braves claimed Kim off waivers from Tampa Bay in September.

A number of teams (and their fanbases) have already turned their attention towards the offseason. Identifying free agent targets is a big part of that prep work, so it’s worth taking a look at the players who’ll be available at each position.

We’re moving to center field, a position that has been weak in free agency for the past few years. That’s again the case this winter, as the handful of potential regulars face questions about their offensive consistency and/or how long they can play up the middle. Ages listed are for the 2026 season.

Previous entries in this series: catcher, first base, second base, third base, shortstop

Everyday Players

Trent Grisham (29)

Grisham has gone from fourth outfielder to the top center fielder in the class within six months. He picked a great time for the best season of his career. Grisham connected on 34 home runs, doubling his previous season high. He pushed his already strong walk rate to a career-high 14.1% clip while cutting his strikeouts (23.6%) to the lowest mark in four years. The end result was a .235/.348/.464 slash line across 581 plate appearances. He spent most of the season hitting atop the Yankee lineup in front of Aaron Judge.

It’s not entirely fair to say that came out of nowhere. Grisham is a former top prospect who had a couple strong seasons with the Padres early in his career. He had hit just .191/.298/.353 in nearly 1300 trips to the plate from 2022-24, however, so almost no one would have seen a season like this coming.

The breakout was neither a product of batted ball luck nor Yankee Stadium. Grisham posted well above-average marks in hard hit rate, barrels and average exit velocity. Statcast’s expected batting average and slugging percentage (based on his plate discipline, exit velocities and launch angles) were even better than his actual production. That doesn’t necessarily mean the numbers are sustainable. Even if this year’s results were “deserved,” there’s no guarantee he’ll continue swinging the bat as well as he did.

While this was a career year offensively, Grisham’s defensive grades went the other way. Both Statcast and Defensive Runs Saved had graded him as an average or better defender in every previous season. That was not the case this year, with DRS (-11) particularly down on his work. Grisham’s speed has trended down over the past few seasons and he’s now one of the slower center fielders in MLB.

It leaves teams with a difficult evaluation. Will Grisham remain an impact bat at the top of a lineup? How much longer will he stick in center field? He’s one of the most high-variance players in the entire free agent class. The Yankees should make him a qualifying offer, which he’d almost certainly decline. That’d entitle them to a compensatory pick after the fourth round while costing a signing team draft (and potentially international bonus pool) compensation. A four- or five-year deal could be on the table.

Cody Bellinger (30)

Bellinger is opting out of the final year on his contract with the Yankees. New York won’t be able to make him a qualifying offer because he already received one from the Cubs after the 2023 season. Bellinger won’t be attached to draft compensation and should pull a larger contract than Grisham, potentially in the nine figures.

It’s unclear if any team would make that kind of offer for Bellinger to play center field every day. He hasn’t reached 500 innings at the position in either of the past two years. The Cubs split him evenly between center and right in 2024. The Yankees gave him 38 starts and a little over 300 innings in center while playing him more often in the corners. Bellinger still runs well and grades as a strong corner defender, though the hope would probably be for league average glovework if a team plays him in center.

Bellinger hit 29 homers while slashing .272/.334/.480 across 656 plate appearances. His left-handed swing seemed tailor made for Yankee Stadium, as he hit .302/.365/.544 with 18 longballs at home. His pedestrian road numbers (.241/.301/.414) could give some teams pause, and Belllinger’s middling exit velocities have been a talking point for the past few years. He very rarely strikes out, though, and he’s coming off his second well above-average offensive season in the past three years.

Harrison Bader (32)

Bader will decline his end of a $10MM mutual option in favor of a $1.5MM buyout. He hits the market for a third consecutive offseason. His past two trips resulted in one-year deals. Bader should find a multi-year pact this time around, and there’s an outside chance he commands a three-year deal.

A plus runner with excellent range and a strong arm, Bader has been a fantastic defender throughout his career. Even at 32, he’s the best defensive center fielder on the open market (assuming the White Sox pick up their option on Luis Robert). Bader split his 2025 season almost equally between left and center, but that was only because he spent the first half playing in the same Minnesota outfield as Byron Buxton. He was a full-time center fielder after being traded to the Phillies at the deadline.

The question is how much of this year’s personal-best offensive output is sustainable. Bader slashed .277/.347/.449 with a career-high 17 home runs in 501 plate appearances. He set new high water marks in batting average and on-base percentage. His slugging output was the second-best of his career behind his 2021 season with St. Louis.

Bader’s underlying offensive metrics are not as encouraging. He struck out at a 27.1% clip, his highest rate in five seasons. He made more hard contact than he had in prior years, but Statcast estimators feel he dramatically outperformed his expected batting average and slugging percentage. He’s unlikely to hit .359 on balls in play again. Teams will expect him to take a step back offensively. He should land somewhere in between this year’s production and the .239/.284/.360 slash he posted over the prior three seasons.

Low-End Regulars/Fourth Outfielders

Cedric Mullins (31)

A few months ago, Mullins had an outside chance at a nine-figure deal. He started the year on fire, hitting .278/.412/.515 with six home runs through the end of April. He was on pace for his best season since he was a top ten MVP finisher four years ago.

Things fell apart. Mullins had a sub-.650 OPS in four of the final five months. He hit .198/.263/.355 in 379 plate appearances from May 1 onward. A deadline trade to the Mets didn’t serve as the turning point they’d hoped. Mullins hit .182/.284/.281 over 42 games in Queens. He was essentially relegated to fourth outfield work as the team squandered a playoff berth.

Mullins still logged over 1000 innings in center field. Defensive metrics have been mixed on him throughout his career. Statcast grades him as a generally rangy defender but rates his arm as one of the worst in the league. He’ll probably find a team willing to play him every day, but he’s likely looking at a one-year deal.

Lane Thomas (30)

While Thomas is probably better suited for right field, the Guardians mostly used him in center. Cleveland paid a decent prospect price to acquire Thomas from Washington at the 2024 deadline. It didn’t work out (postseason homer off Tarik Skubal aside), as he hit .189/.258/.340 over 329 plate appearances with the Guardians. That includes a .160/.246/.272 slash over 39 games this season. Thomas dealt with a right wrist injury early in the season and tried to play through plantar fasciitis in his right foot. He had three separate injured list stints overall.

Thomas is only two seasons removed from hitting 28 homers and stealing 20 bases for the Nats. He was an above-average regular who feasted on left-handed pitching at his best. He’ll need to take a one-year deal after how poorly things went in Cleveland.

Team Options

Luis Robert Jr. (28)

Robert isn’t likely to get to the market. The White Sox hold a $20MM club option that comes with a $2MM buyout. The $18MM difference is substantial for a player who has been a below-average hitter in consecutive seasons. The White Sox maintained a high asking price on Robert in trade talks, though, and GM Chris Getz has implied that they’ll exercise the option. There’s another $20MM option for 2027, so there’s still some long-term upside if Robert recaptures the form he showed earlier in his career.

Minor League Deal Candidates

• Garrett Hampson (31)
• Travis Jankowski (35)
• Jorge Mateo (31)
• Jose Siri (31)
• Leody Taveras (27)
• Chris Taylor (35)
• Tyler Wade (31)