MLB Free Agency Season 2025-26: Analysis and Grades
The “hot stove” season has begun! The 2025-26 MLB offseason is already here, and at Alofoke Deportes we bring you the ratings and analysis of each major signing and trade this winter. From free agent signings that change the course of your team to spectacular trades, we will inform you about what these decisions mean for next season and beyond. Our experts will evaluate each move as it happens. Stay tuned to this section, as it will be constantly updated. Check back for the latest analysis from now until the start of Spring Training.Update:
Orioles add reliever Helsley on a two-year dealThe agreement: 2 years, $28 million, player option after the 2026 season Rating: C+ Due to the absence of Felix Bautista for most, if not all, of the 2026 season due to shoulder surgery, Baltimore needed a reliever to close out games. Helsley had been performing that role to perfection for the Cardinals for several seasons, before a brief and forgettable stint with the Mets.If there isn’t an obvious and measurable drop in his performance, it’s always better to rely on his previous performance. In the last three seasons, Helsley is one of the 12 relievers with at least 4.0 fWAR in total, and only seven have recorded more saves than Helsley’s 84.
Helsley, primarily a fastball and slider pitcher, apparently began to “tip” his pitches in 2025, and opposing batters began to anticipate his fastball early in counts with much success. He ended up allowing a .422 average and a .667 slugging percentage with his four-seam fastball last season, despite the fact that his average velocity (over 99 mph) and spin rate were in line with previous seasons. The hope is that Helsley solves (or has already solved) the problem and can once again combine his high-velocity fastball with his high-performance slider, a combination that helped him save 49 games for St. Louis in 2024. The structure of this deal gives him the opportunity to re-enter the market next season, after proving that his performance with the Mets was a fluke. For the Orioles, Helsley assumes the primary role of saves after early free agency conversations suggested that some teams saw him as a possible conversion to the rotation. The contract is a bit risky if Helsley doesn’t perform and decides not to exercise the option, as an average annual value of $14 million is what you’d want to pay a top-tier closer, not an “average” reliever. At his best, Helsley has been a high-level, high-impact reliever for several seasons, and the Orioles clearly believe his unfortunate experience with the Mets was a mere stumble, not his new reality.Blue Jays Make First Big Pitching Move With Cease SigningThe agreement: 7 years, $210 million Rating: B One of the interesting aspects of MLB free agency is that the number of interested parties in a player isn’t always directly related to their value on the field. After all, there are only a limited number of teams willing and able to spend nine figures. In recent years, we’ve seen excellent players like Pete Alonso, Matt Chapman, and Blake Snell settle for short-term deals at the end of the offseason, while waiting for that big long-term offer that never came, or that was taken off the table. In the case of Dylan Cease, it makes a lot of sense for him to sign early while the money is available. He’s a pitcher with clear skills and ability, but also with frustratingly inconsistent results, which was going to lead to a large variation in how teams evaluated him, and therefore in the offers he received. The $210 million deal that the Toronto Blue Jays gave Cease is closer to the high end for him, given Kiley McDaniel’s projection of five years and $145 million.The positive:
- Pure talent: The “Stuff+” metric (which several sites now calculate based on a large number of things like spin, movement, and velocity) rates Cease’s pitches as some of the best in the majors, including a fastball that averages 97 mph. Among pitchers with at least 100 innings in 2025, he tied for 12th in Stuff+ by FanGraphs.
- Durability: Cease is on a streak of five consecutive seasons with at least 32 starts. Since 2021, he is first in the majors in games started and seventh in innings. Considering that the best predictor of future injuries is past injuries, that health record and projected durability give him a high level of security for any future deal.
- Age: He is entering his 30-year-old season, clearly still in his prime years.
The negative:
- His ERA has risen from 2.20 to 4.58 to 3.47 to 4.55 in the last four seasons with corresponding changes in his value, from 6.4 WAR in 2022 with the Chicago White Sox to only 1.1 with the San Diego Padres in 2025, when he had a high ERA despite pitching in a good park for pitchers. His ERA as a visitor in 2025 was 5.58, which is undoubtedly a concern, as he is now going to a division with better hitters and a park more favorable to hitters.
- His lack of efficiency not only leads to too many walks (he leads the majors in the last four seasons), but also to short outings due to high pitch counts. Cease failed to last five innings in 10 of his 32 starts, which is too often for a pitcher who just got $210 million.
- RHP Sonny Gray
- $20 million in cash
- LHP Brandon Clarke
- RHP Richard Fitts
Can that be fixed? With a fastball averaging 92 mph, maybe not. Gray threw his three fastball variants 53% of the time, so maybe the Red Sox will suggest a different pitch mix: the four-seam fastball, while giving him the only pitch Gray throws in the upper zone, has been punished for two years in a row, but it was still the pitch he threw most often in 2025.
In general, Gray fills a big void without the Red Sox paying a long-term contract, and the Red Sox didn’t give up anyone projected to be an impact player for them in 2026 (like starters Payton Tolle and Connelly Early, who debuted last season and could be in the 2026 rotation). Cardinals’ Grade: C It’s not exactly a salary dump, but it feels like one, although the Cardinals at least contributed $20 million to get a better performance from the player’s side. Fitts could be a bottom-of-the-rotation player, and given the holes in St. Louis’ rotation, he’s almost certain to get that opportunity. His four-seam fastball, which sits between 95 and 96, was an effective pitch in the 10 starts he made for the Red Sox in 2025, but he hasn’t really developed a reliable secondary offering. His slider was hit hard and didn’t generate enough swings and misses. Maybe his sweeper/curve combination will eventually elevate his game, but he threw both less than 11% of the time. Clarke, a hard-throwing lefty who has reached 100 mph, was recruited from a Florida junior college in 2024. He underwent Tommy John surgery in high school and took a redshirt year in Alabama with another injury. The Red Sox limited him to 14 starts and 38 innings in 2025 in Class A, where he recorded high strikeout numbers (60) and high walk totals (27). ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel ranked him as the No. 9 prospect in the Boston system in August, and although there is obvious potential if everything goes well, he is not close to the majors and the profile screams reliever risk. For the Cardinals, at least they have made their intentions clear: If 2025 was a “reset”, 2026 will be a rebuild. Nolan Arenado, Brendan Donovan, and Willson Contreras could also be traded before the winter ends.Rangers and Mets exchange veterans
Mets get:- 2B Marcus Semien
- OF Brandon Nimmo
For the Mets, it’s important to underline the fact that Semien is 35 years old. Although he competed for the American League MVP award during Texas’ championship season in 2023, his offensive numbers have been declining, as is often the case with middle infielders with their increasing chronology. In the last two seasons, his hitting has been just below the league average, and while there is a lot of value in being more or less average, it remains a precarious base for a player in the final part of his career. His offensive forecast is not as good as that of the presumed regular second baseman of New York, Jeff McNeil, who could still play a lot in other positions.
That said, Semien is a much better defender than McNeil. Semien is coming off his second Gold Glove of his career, an honor backed by consistently strong fielding metrics that have marked his play at the base since he moved from shortstop. Although Semien’s contract presents a higher average annual value than Nimmo’s ($25 million in terms of the luxury tax calculation versus $20.5 million), it is of shorter duration and the move will reduce New York’s considerable long-term obligations. One thing that is perplexing here: the Mets have a lot of depth in high-quality infield prospects, from Luisangel Acuña to Ronny Mauricio and Jett Williams, all of whom have considerably more potential than Semien at the moment. Rangers’ Grade: C+ If you ignore positional adjustments, Nimmo is a better hitter than Semien and should be a considerable upgrade for Texas in the outfield compared to what the Rangers had been getting from the recently non-tendered Adolis García. He is not as good a defender as García, especially in terms of arm strength, and in fact, he is more likely to play in left field in Texas instead of García’s old position in right. As mentioned, Semien was a Gold Glove winner at his position and now, in their effort to remake an offense that needed an overhaul, you worry that the Rangers are affecting their defense. We’ll see how that turns out as the offseason unfolds, but for now, we can focus on Nimmo’s bat and the possibility that his numbers could increase due to the change of venue. He has generally hit better on the road than at Citi Field, a pitcher-friendly ballpark, and Globe Life Field, though strangely stingy overall last season, has typically been a good place to hit for left-handed hitters. The project in Texas is clear. It’s not just about improving offensive production, but also about pursuing that goal by changing the focus of the attack. Nimmo’s power bat is a slight improvement over Semien and a downgrade over García. But Nimmo is a much better hitter in terms of average than both, and has the best plate discipline of the trio. These are two characteristics that the Rangers’ offense badly needed. Nimmo’s contract is a problem, but it’s more of a long-term problem than it will be in 2026, when he’ll earn $5.5 million less than Semien. Texas is looking to reorganize while controlling spending, and this is the type of deal that helps that agenda. The Rangers can worry about the real downside of Nimmo’s deal later. For now, they can hope that moving to a new view for the first time will boost Nimmo’s numbers, which have settled a level below where they were during his best time with the Mets.The Orioles trade their former star prospect for the Angels’ power bat
Orioles get:- LF Taylor Ward
- RHP Grayson Rodriguez
The first big trade of last offseason occurred on November 22nd, when Cincinnati traded Jonathan India to Kansas City for Brady Singer. This was leaked on November 18th, so we’re starting earlier. Given the relatively tepid nature of this year’s free agent class, the hope is that this deal will be the vanguard of an upcoming baseball trade market. Trades are fun.
Unfortunately, although it was easy to understand the reasoning of both sides in the aforementioned Reds-Royals agreement, I’m not sure I understand this one so much from the Orioles’ side. The caveat is that perhaps the Baltimore front office, which obviously knows much more about Rodriguez than I do, has good reason to think that Gray-Rod (I just made that up) is not likely to live up to his considerable pre-MLB hype.
I don’t like to be too actuarial about these things, but you have to be in this case because Ward will be a free agent after the 2026 season, while Rodriguez has four seasons of team control remaining on his service time clock. Therefore, even if Rodriguez is likely to need an adjustment period this season as he tries to recover from the injuries that cost him all of 2025, Baltimore would have had plenty of time to let that happen.
Ward turns 32 next month, which likely puts him on the outer edge of his prime. He’s been a decent player (averaging 3.0 bWAR over the last four years), but his skillset is limited. Ward has been a fixture in left field the last two seasons and has shown a decline both defensively and on the bases. He’s someone you acquire for his bat. In that regard, Ward hit a career-high 36 home runs in 2025, but his underlying Statcast-generated numbers suggest he slightly exceeded expectations in that area. Ward, who bats right-handed, generates power to the opposite field, but his power game is likely to still see a negative impact from the move to Camden Yards. He is patient at the plate to the point of occasional passivity, as he is almost always looking for a pitch to drive, even if that means taking a couple of strikes. That’s not a bad thing, but that approach, combined with a heavy distribution of fly balls, has led to a constantly falling average: .281 to .253 to .246 to .228. He’s a guy who takes and rakes and doesn’t generate enough fear from pitchers to keep them out of the zone, which could overload his walk rate enough to raise his OBP to an acceptable level, which won’t be given the trend of the batting average.And would all this be okay for a year of a productive hitter who would probably earn between $12 and $14 million through the arbitration process? But at the cost of four years of a pitcher with Rodriguez’s ceiling? I don’t see it.
Angels’ Rating: A- This is about the potential for an Angels pitching staff desperate for a true No. 1 starter. Expecting Rodriguez to fill that need in 2026 is a lot, and perhaps, given his durability issues, he may never get there. His results in the major leagues (97 ERA+, 3.80 FIP in 43 starts in 2023 and 2024) are solid but nothing special. Rodriguez’s appeal remains the combination of high ceiling and controllable seasons. And the ceiling is very high. ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel ranked Rodriguez as the game’s top pitching prospect in 2022 and rated him nearly as highly in 2023. The mere possibility of Gray-Rod (I did it again) fulfilling that potential in an Angels uniform is an exciting notion for fans in Anaheim.Whether or not there’s much chance of Rodriguez getting there is almost irrelevant. I’d feel better about this if he were going to an organization with a better track record of transforming underperforming/injury-prone pitchers, but maybe the Angels can make some headway in this area.
The deal opens a hole in the outfield for the Angels without an obvious organizational fill-in solution. But finding a free agent replacement that approximates or surpasses Ward’s production shouldn’t break the bank. Here’s a vote to go after Cody Bellinger.The possibility of that kind of improvement and maybe someday a fully realized Gray-Rod, all for the low price of a season of Taylor Ward? Sign me up.
The Mariners start the winter by re-signing Naylor
The agreement: 5 years, $92.5 million Rating: A-If there were an award for predicting free agent signings most likely to happen, Josh Naylor’s return to the Seattle Mariners would have been the favorite, so it’s no surprise that this is the first major signing of the offseason (pending a physical). As soon as the Mariners’ season ended with that heartbreaking loss in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, the front office made it clear that re-signing Naylor was their top priority. Such public vocalizations at that level are rare, and the Mariners backed them up with a five-year contract.
It’s easy to understand why they wanted Naylor back. The Mariners have been looking for a long-term solution at first base for, well, about 20 years, really, since they traded John Olerud in 2004. Ty France gave them a couple of solid seasons in 2021 and 2022, but since 2005, only the Pirates’ first basemen have produced a lower OPS than Seattle’s. Naylor, for his part, arrived at the trade deadline from Arizona and provided a great spark down the stretch, batting .299/.341/.490 with nine home runs and 33 RBIs in 54 games, representing 2.2 WAR. Including his time with the Diamondbacks, he finished with .295/.353/.462 with 20 home runs in 2025. Given the pitcher-friendly nature of T-Mobile Park, it’s not easy to attract free agent hitters to Seattle, but Naylor talked about how he loves to hit there. The numbers back it up: In 43 career games at T-Mobile, he has hit .304 and slugged .534. It’s important to note that for a Seattle lineup that relies heavily on strikeouts, Naylor is a high-contact hitter in the middle of the order; he finished with the seventeenth-best strikeout rate among qualified hitters in 2025. Naylor’s complete game is a bit of a contradiction. He ranks in the seventh percentile in chase rate, but still had a nearly league-average walk rate (46th percentile) with an excellent contact rate. He can’t run (third percentile!), but he stole 30 bases in 32 attempts, including 19 of 19 after joining the Mariners. He doesn’t seem like he was fast on the field, but his Statcast defensive metrics have been above average in each of the last four seasons. He’s not a star (3.1 WAR in 2025 was the peak of his career), but he’s a safe and predictable player to rely on for the coming years. This deal extends to his age-33 season, so there may be some risk at the end of the contract, but for a team with World Series aspirations in 2026, the Mariners needed to bring Naylor back. The front office will be happy with this signing, and so will Mariners fans.
