So you’re a team on the free-agent market, looking to add the next massive piece of what you hope can be a contending team, or maybe just that final complementary part to help get you over the line. Who’s out there – and what kind of help can they offer?
It’s an interesting market this year, because while there’s plenty of talent – especially in mid-level starting pitching – there’s no franchise-defining talent who completely reshapes your club. The past few offseasons had, in order, Judge, Ohtani and Soto. There’s nobody quite like that this time around. What there will be is a nice selection of all sorts of positions, talents, and skills that just might fit your team perfectly. Using the new Statcast Hot Stove Tracker at Baseball Savant, we can try to see what’s there based on what you need.
(For players coming to the Majors after playing in foreign leagues, like Japanese stars Munetaka Murakami and Tatsuya Imai or returning American ex-pats like Cody Ponce and Anthony Kay, 2025 Statcast data is not currently publicly available and is not included here.)
If you’re looking for: The best hitters overall
Expected Weighted On-Base Average (min. 200 plate appearances, for this and below)
If you’re looking for hitters this winter, this is where you’re headed. This is the cream of the hitting crop. We’re using a powerful Statcast metric with a goofy acronym (xwOBA), and what it does is account not only for the quality of contact made (exit velocity, launch angle) but the amount of contact made, too (strikeouts, walks, hit by pitches). The 2025 MLB average was .316; the absolute best was Judge, at .459.
So yes, if you already thought that Schwarber, Alonso, and Tucker were the best hitters available, this confirms that. (Remember that we’re looking at 2025 hitting only here, and not trying to adjust for age to project forward.) This tells you that Grisham earned his 34-homer season – remember that he hit far better away from Yankee Stadium than at home – and that the well-traveled Bell, who you probably don’t think about that much, might still have some life in his bat.
Where, though, are Alex Bregman (.336, 12th) and Cody Bellinger (.322, 24th)? Still quality hitters, to be sure, but in Bregman’s case, that’s well down from his peak years, when he was in the .370 range – and his second half was exactly 200 points of OPS less than his first half. In Bellinger’s case, the up-and-down trajectory of his career has long been difficult to evaluate, and unlike Grisham, the short porch at Yankee Stadium really did seem to help: His home OPS (.909) was much better than his road mark (.715). What a metric like xwOBA is saying is: His true performance was probably somewhere in the middle.
If you’re looking for: Smashed baseballs
Schwarber and Alonso top this grouping also, as you’d absolutely expect, and then …. Refsnyder? He’ll be 35 in March, and he’s spent the last decade bouncing around the American League as a little-noticed utility player, but he also found a home in Boston over the last four years, posting a 123 OPS+ (that’s 23% above the league average) with three excellent years around a down 2023. Aside from his age, the flaw here is obvious: Refsnyder is an extreme platoon player, one who probably doesn’t ever really need to face a right-handed pitcher.
Against lefties, though, Refsynder simply mashes. In 2025, among those with 125 plate appearances against lefties, his .302/.399/.560 mark was 10th best; over the last four seasons, min. 500 plate appearances, it’s sixth-best. It’s what he does. If you look at the teams with the weakest corner-outfield/DH production against lefty pitchers last year, you get a number of teams who seem to want to make a playoff push in 2026: Kansas City, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and San Francisco. It’s not at all hard to see Refsnyder being a more valued option than you’d think.
If you’re looking for: Smashed baseballs, in the air
We’re oversimplifying a little here, but if a hard-hit ball can be a grounder, then a barrel is a hard-hit ball in the air. It’s the best combination of exit velocity and launch angle (you can read a fuller definition here), and it’s been proven to be one of the more predictive Statcast metrics. We, again, simply can’t say enough times that Schwarber and Alonso stand above the rest of the crowd in baseball-mashing, and Tucker (10.8%, above the MLB average of 8.6%) is the best all-around player due to his well-rounded skills and relative youth. Suárez and Grisham just had big power seasons. These are not exactly unknown quantities.
Most of them, anyway. Tellez sort of is what he is at this point, which is to say a bat powerful enough that it overcomes deficiencies in making contact and baserunning/defense that, in his best years, gets him up to a league-average bat. Moncada, however, is a far more interesting name. A big part of the trade that sent Chris Sale to Boston a decade ago, Moncada had a star-level 2019 for the White Sox (25 homers, 141 OPS+), but years of decline and injury followed, leading to a one-year deal with the Angels just as camp started in February.
Moncada got hurt again, missing time with thumb and knee issues. He played the weakest third base defense in the league. But he also posted a 116 OPS+ (that’s 16% better than average), and hit a dozen homers in a half-season, and he’s a 30-year-old switch-hitter who has spent years on some of baseball’s least effective teams, and that barrel rate pops. We might see if some forward-thinking team thinks it’s worth a look. Not, however, as a regular third baseman.
If you’re looking for: Good defense
Statcast’s Fielding Run Value takes all of the various fielding metrics – catcher framing, outfielder arms, fielder range via Outs Above Average, etc. – and puts it onto one scale. Last year, the best fielders, studs like Patrick Bailey, Alejandro Kirk, Ceddanne Rafaela, and Pete Crow-Armstrong – got up into the 20s and even 31 Runs, in Bailey’s case. There’s no one quite like that here, but there’s certainly fielding value to be had.
There’s value, for example, in Bellinger, who offers not only quality defense (+9 FRV) as a way to stand out from poor free agent defenders like Bichette (-10) and Alonso (-8), but does so with the ability to play all three outfield spots and, if needed, first base. While his bat isn’t quite what the best sluggers here can offer, his somewhat rare defensive skills make for a far more well-rounded player. While France’s defense was a bit of a surprise and Santana’s career might be over as he nears 40 after a poor hitting season, note that Bader is one of the best outfielders Statcast has ever seen. You also may have noticed what Rojas did during the World Series.
One real weakness of this class: If you want a strong defensive backstop, there’s really not one to be found. No, not even J.T. Realmuto (-6), who has had a notable decline in his defense as he’s aged, though that’s almost entirely due to framing and blocking, because his ability to throw out baserunners remains excellent.
If you’re looking for: Fast runners
We cut this one down to a minimum of 100 plate appearances, because you don’t really need that much time to show if you’re fast or not, and the Major League average here is 27 ft/sec, with true burners like Trea Turner and Victor Scott II topping 30. Thomas is the standout here, and it’s up to you as to whether you think you should be worried that the speed guy had his season end early due to foot surgery or be impressed that he could run that fast despite plantar fasciitis that required that procedure.
Not shown here is the actual stolen base king of the market, Josh Naylor, who managed to swipe 30 bags despite being one of the slowest players in the Majors. As Juan Soto showed us this year, speed is a nice thing to have when you want to steal, but it’s not as vital as you’d expect, either.
If you’re looking for: The most effective starters
Let’s set a minimum of 100 innings here. Expected ERA, or xERA, is the same idea as the xwOBA metric we discussed above for hitters — it’s based on both the quality and quantity of contact — just presented on the ERA scale. It’s useful because it attempts to take out the effects of ballpark, defense, and luck.
Suárez and Cease are the true standouts here, while Imanaga has until Nov. 18 to decide whether he’s going to accept the Cubs’ qualifying offer, so he may not even be an option. (Not shown: Brandon Woodruff, who also has the same qualifying offer decision as Imanaga, and pitched only 64 2/3 innings, though with an excellent 2.18 xERA, which was well beyond his best seasons.)
Other than “Suárez is really good,” there should probably be two takeaways here:
If you’re looking for: The most effective relievers
Minimum 40 innings here, and now we’ve got some very different names.
Díaz, obviously, is the biggest star reliever out there, and even though this makes Thielbar look like he’s close, Díaz is also seven years younger. There are some fascinating names here that you might not have expected. For example: Keller transformed himself into an excellent reliever after years being a back-end starter, and Fairbanks became a free agent for the first time after several years of top-flight performance for Tampa Bay.
But we expanded this list just a touch longer than the previous ones expressly to include Williams, who will reach free agency under the cloud of “having posted a 4.79 ERA” but who, like Cease, will retain great appeal for everything that still looks great under the hood. Teams don’t select pitchers, especially relievers, only on ERA.
Note how high the submarining Rogers is, and store that away. We’re going to get back to him.
If you’re looking for: The best swing-and-miss stuff
Whiff rate (min. 40 innings)
Díaz, like Schwarber and Alonso on the hitting side, will continue to show up atop these lists, for good reason. This is also exactly why Williams will attract more interest than the ERA would indicate – he’s still missing bats – and look at Cease, the only starter showing up there like he’s a short-outing reliever. Keep an eye out for Maton as an interesting name — he really leaned into his destiny as a cutters-and-curves guy and increased his strikeout rate from 23% to 33%, the second-largest jump of any qualified pitcher last year.
If you’re looking for: The best ground-ballers
Ground-ball rate (min. 40 innings)
There’s Rogers again, continuing a career of keeping it on the ground, and Valdez, who is one of the most preeminent ground-ball artists of his generation. As though Keller adding a ton of velocity and strikeouts wasn’t impressive enough, he’s a ground-baller too, apparently, and should be a very intriguing free agent on the market.
If you’re looking for: The best fastball velocity
4-seam/sinker velocity (min. 40 innings)
No Rogers here, but we’re not done with him yet. Once again, Keller stands out as being of interest, and once again, Cease pops as being basically “a reliever who can throw a ton of innings.” Robert Suarez – that’s San Diego’s reliever, not Philadelphia starter Ranger – is about to turn 35, but the velocity surely hasn’t started to wane.
Perhaps the most interesting question is about Helsley, who has elite fastball velocity and saw a lot of success for St. Louis from 2022-24, yet had a frankly disastrous 2025 in which he was traded to the Mets and put up a 7.20 ERA in 20 innings for New York. The fastball, hard as it was, got absolutely pasted (.422 BA, .667 SLG), and while there was some discussion of pitch-tipping going on, that’s a lot of damage to talk your way around. We assume some team will look at the velo and the history of success and be eager to see if they can fix things.
If you’re looking for: Preventing loud contact
Lowest barrel rate (min. 40 innings)
In terms of lowest hard-hit rate, it’s Ferguson followed by Tyler Kinley, but let’s stick to the better value of “not letting it get crushed in the air,” and now we’re starting to see why Rogers isn’t just odd, he’s good. That these are mostly the same names we’ve seen on other lists gives you a good idea of who the top half-dozen or so relievers will be on this market.
Also note the addition of Soto, who had an odd transformation after joining the Mets. The lefty cut his walk rate by more than half compared to what he’d done with Baltimore, but he also saw his strikeout rate drop, and the end result was about the same as it had been.
If you’re looking for: Extreme arm angles
Part of pitching today is “how weird can you get?” In other words, trying to get different looks and angles and pitch repertoires on the same staff, something teams really do value now. Having a non-traditional arm angle doesn’t inherently make you good or bad … just interesting. The context here is that 90° would be straight over the top, 0° would be exactly sidearm, and that the average thrower is at 38°.
Lowest arm angles (min 40 innings)
Highest arm angles (min 40 innings)
You’ll be absolutely stunned to know that Rogers is a huge extreme in this way, and this is how a pitcher throwing 84-mph fastballs manages to be successful year after year. While it didn’t work out for Helsley in New York, it’s probably not a coincidence that the Mets traded for both Rogers and Helsley on the same day. After all, what could be more confounding for hitters than 84 coming from beneath the dirt followed by 100 coming from right over the top?
