MLBTR Originals News & Rumors

While the collective baseball world — MLBTR included — eyes the final stages of the season and gears up for exciting postseason pushes, we’re also of course keeping an eye on the offseason to come. Performances both good and bad in 2025 will naturally impact the asking price of free agents this winter. We’ve done two iterations of our annual Free Agent Power Rankings series so far this year — one in April, one in late May — and it feels like a good opportunity to refresh the list once more.

As a reminder, our power rankings at MLB Trade Rumors are not a straight ranking of the best free agents in the upcoming class. There are plenty of older veterans who can make significant impact on short-term deals. Our rankings are based on total earning power, which means older vets like Paul Goldschmidt are rarely going to crack the top 10, regardless of how strong their performance is. Their age will simply limit them to a shorter-term pact that caps their earning power and leaves them with smaller guarantees than less-productive (but still quality) contributors who can more push for longer-term deals.

As we’ve seen with recent mega-deals for Juan Soto and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., age is king when it comes to unlocking the richest deals MLB has to offer. The best way a player can position himself for a monster contract is to get to free agency at as young an age as possible — and, of course, do so while turning in excellent results at the plate or on the mound.

Onto the rankings!

1. Kyle Tucker, OF, Cubs

There’s no change up top. Tucker remains the cream of this year’s free agent crop. He’s not enjoying as much production, on a rate basis, as he did last year but has been healthier than last year. Tucker’s .271/.384/.474 slash is 41% better than league-average, per wRC+, and he’s just two homers shy of a fifth straight 20-homer season. He’s averaging 90.4 mph off the bat with a 42.4% hard-hit rate and has never posted an average exit velocity under 90 mph or a hard-hit rate under 41.9%. Tucker’s 23 steals in 2025 have him on pace to top his career-high 30. He’s only been caught twice. Given Tucker’s 26th-percentile sprint speed, that’s a testament to his baserunning acumen.

Tucker will play all of next season at age 29. He’s on track for a fifth straight season where he’s at least 30% better than average at the plate and a second straight year with more walks than strikeouts. This year’s 14.4% strikeout rate is the second-lowest of his career and sits lower than his 15.2% walk rate (the second-highest of his career).

Tucker is a quality defensive right fielder with above-average arm strength and plus accuracy. Teams with needs in either outfield corner will be interested in Tucker, and he’s the type of talent for whom a team would look to create roster space via the trade market. Tucker won’t approach Juan Soto or Shohei Ohtani territory, but he’ll have a case to top $400MM and could try to take aim at Vladimir Guerrero Jr.‘s $500MM mark with a big enough finish to the regular season and/or postseason performance. He’ll receive and reject a qualifying offer, but that won’t be a deterrent of any note in his market.

2. Bo Bichette, SS, Blue Jays

Bichette has shaken off a pedestrian start to the season and, more importantly, made last year’s lack of production in an injury-ruined campaign feel like a distant memory. He’s hitting .300/.341/.468 in 508 plate appearances overall, but that jumps to a stout .306/.347/.508 when looking at his past 380 plate appearances. Bichette’s power was M.I.A. for the season’s first five weeks or so. All 15 of Bichette’s home runs this season have come since May 3. He’s been on an otherworldly tear of late, hitting .404/.449/.633 over the past month.

He’s still not walking much (5.3%), but Bichette’s 14.8% strikeout rate is the lowest of his career. He’s averaging 91 mph off the bat with a hearty 48.6% hard-hit rate. It’s still a swing-happy approach (hence the lack of walks), as evidenced by a 33.9% chase rate on balls of the plate. That’s about six percentage points higher than average but stands as the lowest mark of Bichette’s career. Even with those swings, however, Bichette’s contact rate is plus. That’s particularly true when Bichette zeroes in on balls over the plate; his 91.2% contact rate on balls in the strike zone ranks 19th in all of baseball.

Bichette has slowed down noticeably in recent seasons. He’s swiped just five bases this year, 20 short of his career-high 25 set back in 2021. It’s unlikely Bichette will ever return to those levels of thievery. His average sprint speed back in ’21 was 28 feet per second — faster than nearly four out of five big leaguers. This year, he’s averaging 26.2 ft/sec and sitting in just the 22nd percentile of MLB players, per Statcast.

Defense is going to be the biggest knock on Bichette in free agency. He’s never been a great defensive shortstop, and some teams will probably prefer him at second base from the jump. Both Defensive Runs Saved (-6) and Outs Above Average (-6) feel he’s been well below average with the glove this year.

Bichette can probably handle shortstop for another couple seasons, but it’s not likely that he’ll finish a long-term contract at the position. He’s not the same type of defender as well-compensated shortstops Willy Adames (seven years, $182MM), Dansby Swanson (seven years, $177MM), Javier Baez (six years, $140MM) and Trevor Story (six years, $140MM). However, he’s hitting the market earlier than any of those players did — ahead of his age-28 season. That extra year of his prime should allow Bichette, who’ll reject a qualifying offer, to land in the range of those other recent top-tier shortstops in free agency. If he sustains his absurd summer production (or anything close to it), he could push for $200MM or more.

3. Alex Bregman, 3B, Red Sox

Bregman isn’t technically a free agent yet, but barring some form of major injury in the final two months, he’s all but guaranteed to opt out of the remaining two years and $80MM on his contract. He’s not likely to secure another $40MM annual value — though you can argue that he didn’t truly get there anyhow, thanks to deferred money — but topping that remaining $80MM will be no problem.

This past offseason, Bregman spurned six-year offers from his incumbent Astros and the Tigers in order to take a short-term, opt-out laden deal that could get him back to the market after a strong year.

Mission accomplished.

He missed more than a month due to a quadriceps strain, but he’s shown minimal ill effects since returning. Bregman is hitting .295/.373/.533 in 295 plate appearances. He’s popped 15 home runs and picked up 20 doubles. The uncharacteristically low 6.9% walk rate he showed last year is back up over 9%, and his perennially low strikeout rate is sitting at 16.9%. His 18.8% chase rate on balls off the plate is eighth-lowest in MLB (min. 250 plate appearances), and his 86.8% contact rate ranks 22nd.

Bregman is a plus defensive third baseman who could certainly handle second base and could likely fill in at shortstop if needed. Front offices, coaching staffs and teammates all rave about his makeup, leadership and clubhouse impact. None of that is easily quantified, but there will unquestionably be teams who value him even more than his raw numbers suggest due to that intangible profile.

Bregman’s market was relatively limited last year as he came off a mixed bag of a season and contended with a qualifying offer. That won’t be the case this time around. The Red Sox will want him back, but the Tigers, Cubs, Dodgers, Mets, Phillies and Mariners could all jump into the fray.

As MLBTR’s Contract Tracker shows, the only position players in the past decade to secure contracts of five-plus years beginning at age 32 are Lorenzo Cain, DJ LeMahieu and Freddie Freeman. LeMahieu’s contract was stretched to six years for luxury tax purposes. Freeman got six years but with deferred money. Even on a five-year deal, Bregman would have a case for $150MM or more. Six years could very well be attainable, as could $200MM. Regardless, Bregman has a chance to top Freeman’s $162MM guarantee and take home the largest free agent deal we’ve ever seen for a player starting in his age-32 season.

4. Framber Valdez, LHP, Astros

Speaking of 32-year-olds in line for prominent paydays, Valdez has left little doubt that he’s the top arm in this year’s class. He’s on his way to what would be a third sub-3.00 ERA in four years, having piled up 140 innings of 2.83 ERA ball. Valdez’s 25.4% strikeout rate would be the highest of his career in a 162-game season, and his 7.9% walk rate is better than league average for a fourth straight year (and south of 8% for a third straight).

On top of the consistency and strong strikeout-to-walk numbers, Valdez is one of the sport’s top ground-ball pitchers. This year’s 60.9% mark trails only the Angels’ Jose Soriano for the MLB lead not just among qualified starters, but among the 225 pitchers who’ve tossed at least 10 innings as a starter. He’s sitting 94.4 mph with his sinker, down from his 95.3 mph peak but up from last year’s average of 94.1 mph.

Valdez gives up more hard contact than the average starter, but so much of it comes on the ground that it’s more easily mitigated. Since moving into the Astros’ rotation full-time, he’s never allowed more than 0.86 homers per nine innings in a given season — this despite being a lefty whose home park features a short left-field porch for righty bats who hold the platoon advantage against him. And, in an era of five-inning starters and teams who are reluctant to let starters turn a lineup over for a third time, Valdez is a throwback. He’s averaged 6 1/3 innings per start not just in 2025 but over his past five seasons combined.

Were it not for the fact that Valdez will turn 32 in November, he’d be the No. 2 free agent on this ranking and comfortably projected for a $200MM contract. As it stands, he’ll be angling to become just the fourth pitcher to secure even a five-year deal in free agency beginning with his age-32 season (Contract Tracker link). A four-year deal for Valdez would surely clock in well over $100MM, but he should be expected to land five years and will have a real chance to join Zack Greinke as the only 32-year-old starter in recent memory to reel in six years. A deal in the $150-180MM range shouldn’t be a surprise, even after he inevitably rejects a qualifying offer.

5. Cody Bellinger, OF/1B, Yankees

Through a series of one-year deals and opt-out opportunities, Bellinger keeps finding his way onto MLBTR’s Power Rankings. He was just off the early-season edition of this year’s rankings but has risen to the middle of the pack due to some down years from other free agents but, more importantly, a very strong all-around performance of his own.

Bellinger looked lost at the plate from 2021-22 while returning from shoulder surgery, but this is his third straight strong year with the bat. He entered play Wednesday slashing .276/.328/.496 with 20 homers and 10 steals. Bellinger has continually whittled away at his strikeout rate in recent years, to the point that he’s now one of the toughest strikeouts in the sport, sitting at just 12.9%. He doesn’t post the type of gaudy exit velocity numbers toward which today’s front offices gravitate, but he’s been a consistently above-average hitter for three years now despite a middling quality-of-contact profile.

The Yankees have used Bellinger across all three outfield positions and at first base. He’s graded out roughly average in center but is a plus in either outfield corner. Bellinger has only played 19 innings at first base this season, but he received strong grades when he played 431 innings there for the 2023 Cubs (+5 DRS, +1 OAA).

Bellinger holds a $25MM player option for the 2026 season. It comes with a $5MM buyout that he’ll receive if he declines. Even if it were a true $25MM decision rather than a net $20MM decision, Bellinger would easily turn the option down. He can’t receive a qualifying offer this time around, and despite how many straight offseasons he’s been a fixture on the free agent market, he’ll play the bulk of next season at just 30 years of age.

Bellinger would only be 35 at the completion of a five-year deal or 36 after a six-year pact. An annual salary north of $20MM for a 30-year-old corner outfielder who’s posted a .283/.337/.481 slash in nearly 1600 plate appearances since 2023 — particularly one who can capably handle center field or first base — should be attainable, which means Bellinger has a real chance to sign for more than $100MM on the open market this time around.

6. Dylan Cease, RHP, Padres

Cease hasn’t had the season he hoped in his final year of club control. He’s still showing the durability, plus velocity and swing-and-miss arsenal that make him so appealing, but the results haven’t been there for the former AL Cy Young runner-up. In 123 1/3 innings, he’s pitched to a 4.60 ERA that would stand as the highest of his career (excluding a partial season in his 2019 MLB debut).

That said, Cease’s 97.1 mph average four-seamer is his best since the shortened 2020 season and the second-best of his career. He’s generating more chases off the plate than ever before, and this year’s 15.9% swinging-strike rate is the largest of his career. Command issues plagued him for much of his time with the White Sox, but this is now two seasons with the Padres and two seasons with a walk rate comfortably south of 10%. He may “only” have average command (perhaps a slight bit below), but Cease is a durable flamethrower who misses bats with the best in the league. He’s punched out 30.6% of his opponents. Metrics like FIP (3.52) and SIERA (3.33) feel he’s as good as — if not better than — he’s ever been.

Cease is also incredibly durable. He’s never been on the major league injured list outside of a short stay on the Covid-related list in 2021. Since 2020, he leads Major League Baseball with 165 games started and is ninth with 897 2/3 innings pitched.

Cease will be 30 in December. A five-year deal would “only” run through his age-34 season. With a big season, he and agent Scott Boras could perhaps have pushed for a seven-year contract in excess of $200MM. This year’s uneven performance presents multiple paths he could pursue. Cease will receive a qualifying offer and is almost certain to reject. If he looks to max out, he could perhaps still secure a long-term deal but probably not for close to the money he’d hoped entering the year. We’ve seen Boras clients like Carlos Rodon and Blake Snell go the short-term/opt-out route in the past, and Cease is young enough that he could still command a notable long-term deal following the 2026 season if he went that route.

Still, these rankings are based on earning ceiling, and there’s a scenario where Cease finishes strong, looks to max out and winds up with six years and a hearty annual value. For power arms who can miss bats like this, teams are increasingly willing to look past a rocky ERA.

7. Ranger Suarez, LHP, Phillies

Though not as durable as Valdez has been, Suarez pitches deep into games and keeps runs off the board just like his fellow southpaw. He allowed five runs in a 6 1/3-inning start just this afternoon, one of his worst outings of the year, but still carries a 2.94 ERA in 107 frames. He averaged 5 1/3 innings per start back in 2022, jumped to about 5 2/3 innings per start in 2023-24 and is up to nearly 6 1/3 innings per appearance in 2025.

Suarez has been consistently good along the way, with roughly average strikeout rates, good command and well above-average grounder rates. In many ways, he’s a “lite” version of Valdez. He’s fanned 21.8% of opponents since 2022, issued walks at a 7.8% clip and turned in a 51.5% ground-ball rate. Back, hamstring and elbow injuries have limited his workload in that time, keeping him to 538 innings of regular season work.

The 2025 season has been Suarez’s best in terms of results. It’s also his second straight season with notable time missed due to a back injury, however. Suarez opened the season on the injured list due to lower back pain and wound up missing more than a month. His lower back also cost him a month in 2024 and two weeks in 2022. He’s an immensely talented pitcher, but three IL stints for his lower back in a span of four years isn’t ideal — especially since he’s had other injuries mixed in (most notably a 2023 elbow strain that cost him six-plus weeks).

Suarez doesn’t throw as hard as Valdez, sitting at a career-low 90.2 mph with his sinker this season. The declining velocity and recent troubles with back injuries are limiting factors, but Suarez is a steady No. 3 starter who’ll pitch nearly all of next season at age 30. There’s no reason he shouldn’t handily top Eduardo Rodriguez‘s four-year, $80MM contract, and a five-year deal that pushes up closer to the Kevin Gausman/Robbie Ray territory of $110-115MM feels attainable.

8. Kyle Schwarber, OF/DH, Phillies

Schwarber is going to break plenty of precedent this offseason. He’s nominally an outfielder but has played 107 games at designated hitter this year. Maybe a team would plug Schwarber into left field early in a new contract, but a full-time move to DH probably isn’t too far down the road. Players with such minimal defensive value generally aren’t compensated well in free agency. Nelson Cruz and Victor Martinez got four-year deals as designated hitters … back in 2014. J.D. Martinez got five years and $110MM with the Red Sox back in 2018, but deal came with the expectation of at least some part-time outfield play. He logged 493 innings in year one of the deal and 330 in year two.

Players with negligible defensive value like this have a hard time finding big money in free agency, but Schwarber is going to be an exception. He’s not “just” a designated hitter — he’s one of the best hitters on the planet. He still strikes out more than you’d prefer (26.9% after three punchouts on Wednesday), but he’s also belted 40 homers in just 506 plate appearances — his third 40-homer effort in the past four years. (He hit “only” 38 bombs in 2024.) Schwarber has walked at a 14.8% clip as well, and he’s hitting .256/.376/.585 overall — a massive 63% better than average, by measure of wRC+.

Statcast ranks Schwarber in the 99th or 100th percentile in each of the following categories: bat speed, average exit velocity, barrel rate, hard-hit rate, expected slugging percentage and expected wOBA.

Earlier in his career, the book on Schwarber was that lefties could get him out. That’s not the case anymore — far from it. Schwarber has been well above-average against lefties dating back to 2021, including a colossal .278/.394/.656 slash (186 wRC+) in left-on-left matchups this season. He’s a .242/.341/.468 hitter in his past 1059 plate appearances versus southpaws.

On top of the gaudy on-base numbers and nearly unmatched power output, Schwarber is a beloved clubhouse presence whose teammates and coaches rave about what he brings to the team off the field. He’s going to be 33 next March, and while some teams will want to keep him to a high-AAV three-year contract, the offensive contributions have reached a point where it’s hard to envision less than four years. A fifth year isn’t even completely out of the question, even though he’ll receive and reject a qualifying offer.

9. Pete Alonso, 1B, Mets

The 2025 season has been a rollercoaster, but at the end of the day Alonso is having one of the best seasons of his career. He’s hitting .264/.352/.507 with 25 homers already, making him all but a lock to yet again top 30 homers — a feat he’s reached in each 162-game season of his career. Alonso’s walk rate is holding steady around 10%, and he’s cut a couple percentage points off his strikeout rate, which sits at 22.9%.

That’s far higher than the 14.6% clip he showed in a superhuman month of April, but it’s still right in line with the league average. Alonso did a lot of the heavy lifting for his season in March/April, but he also had a huge performance in June and is out to a nice start in August. July was his only truly bad month of the year from an offensive production standpoint.

Alonso is making more hard contact than ever (52.8%) and sporting career-high marks in average exit velocity (93.7 mph) and barrel rate (20.4%). His defensive limitations are obvious, and he’s never going to contribute much value on the bases. At the same time, he’s as reliable a source of 30-plus homers as nearly anyone in the game. Since he received a qualifying offer last winter, he’s ineligible to receive another one.

The two-year, $54MM contract Alonso signed last winter paid him $30MM this season with a $24MM player option for the 2026 campaign. If he and the Mets don’t agree to a longer-term deal between now and the time that option decision comes due, he’s a lock to turn it down and head back to the market. Much has been made of Alonso rejecting a seven-year, $158MM extension from the Mets several years ago. He’s already pocketed $50.5MM in salary in two years since turning that down, however, and bringing home another $107.5MM over the next five years doesn’t at all feel out of the question. We saw a 34-year-old Christian Walker land three years and $60MM last winter. He’s a better defender, but Alonso will play 2026 at age 31. A four-year deal worth around $25MM annually or a five-year deal in the $22-23MM range seems plausible.

10. Brandon Woodruff, RHP, Brewers

A new entrant on the list, Woodruff recently returned from a more than yearlong absence due to 2023 shoulder surgery. His velocity is down noticeably, but his results are elite and largely commensurate with his outstanding big league track record. It’s only a sample of 28 1/3 innings so far, but the 32-year-old righty has a 2.22 ERA, a 35.6% strikeout rate and just a 3.8% walk rate.

In the five seasons preceding his shoulder injury, Woodruff pitched to a combined 2.93 ERA in just under 600 innings. His strikeout and walk rates were both excellent, though not to the extent in his five-start sample this year. Woodruff averaged 96.3 mph with his fastball during that time, compared to just 93.2 mph in 2025, but it’s not unreasonable to think he could continue adding velo as he shakes off some rust. Woodruff’s four-seamer averaged 94 mph in his most recent start against the Nationals, for instance — his best in any start of 2025.

A 32-year-old who had a recent, major surgery is going to be capped in terms of contract length, but that could result in a bit of a bidding war when it comes to annual value. Nathan Eovaldi just got three years and $75MM beginning with his age-35 campaign this past offseason. Woodruff will be two years younger this offseason than Eovaldi was last winter.

This all hinges on how Woodruff finishes out the year, but if he keeps gaining velocity and/or wraps up his return campaign with an ERA in the low-to-mid 2.00s, there will be plenty of teams interested in adding a premium arm on a deal on a relatively short-term deal (three or four years). Woodruff technically has a $20MM mutual option, but he’ll receive a $10MM buyout when he declines his end in search of a long-term deal in free agency. The Brewers can then make him a qualifying offer, which he’d decline if he can sustain anything close to his current pace.

Honorable Mentions (listed alphabetically): Edwin Diaz (opt-out), Jack Flaherty (opt-out), Zac Gallen, Lucas Giolito (’26 club option becomes mutual option at 140 innings this year) Trent Grisham, Ryan Helsley, Michael King, Tyler Mahle, Munetaka Murakami (NPB), Cedric Mullins, Josh Naylor, Ryan O’Hearn, Eugenio Suarez, Robert Suarez (opt-out), Gleyber Torres, Luke Weaver