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. Ages listed are for the 2026 season.
Previous entries in this series: catcher
The Top Guys
Alonso is signed through 2026 but he has an opt-out and has already said that he will use it, so he’ll be back on the open market for a second year in a row. That’s the outcome he and his representatives at the Boras Corporation were hoping for. Last winter, he couldn’t find a satisfactory long-term commitment, so he pivoted to the short-term, opt-out path. The hope with that strategy as that a better platform year and a lack of qualifying offer would lead to a more robust market.
The lack of QO is already assured, as a player can only receive one in his career. Alonso also held up his end of the bargain by having a better walk year. His home run total went from 34 to 38. His batting average climbed from .240 to .272 and his on-base percentage from .329 to .347. His strikeout rate dropped as his batted ball data at Statcast improved. That led to a wRC+ jump from 121 to 141. FanGraphs considered him to be worth 3.6 wins above replacement this year, almost double last year’s 2.1 tally.
That improvement should help him in free agency but it’s still unknown if a long-term contract will be out there for him. In the past seven years, Freddie Freeman is the only free agent first baseman to get a deal longer than three seasons. There have been some long extensions, including for Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Matt Olson, but those players were still in their 20s. Alonso’s defense has never been strong and has been especially poor in the last two years. Now that he’s about to turn 31 in December, teams may be wary about how he will age into his mid-30s.
Concerns aside, Alonso will be one of the best bats available. The Mets seemed genuinely willing to let him depart last winter, so the teams outside of Queens should have a legitimate shot at getting him.
Naylor doesn’t quite have the offensive ceiling as Alonso but he’s pretty solidly above average at the plate. He hit 20 home runs this year, his fourth straight season of getting that number to at least 17. He doesn’t walk a ton but doesn’t strike out either. His 13.7% strikeout rate this year was barely half of the 22.2% league average. His .295/.353/.462 line translated to a 128 wRC+, indicating he was 28% better than the league average hitter overall. That makes four straight seasons for Naylor with a wRC+ between 118 and 128.
Like most lefties, he’s better against right-handed pitching, but his splits aren’t extreme. His wRC+ against southpaws has been between 104 and 126 in each of the past three seasons, perfectly acceptable production.
He also has other intriguing qualities. The reviews on his glovework are mixed but not awful. He has 12 Outs Above Average at first base in his career. Defensive Runs Saved has him at -5 overall but that includes a -6 grade in 2024 which looks like an outlier. He’s been close to par in every other season of his career.
He’s not a burner on the basepaths, with Statcast crediting him with second percentile sprint speed, but he has shown a knack for stealing bases regardless. He swiped six to ten bags in the three prior seasons coming into 2025. This year, he cranked that way up to 30, including a shocking 19 steals after being traded to the Mariners at the deadline.
On top of his skills, Naylor’s market should be helped by his relative youth and the fact that he can’t receive a qualifying offer as a player traded midseason. As mentioned in the Alonso section, big league teams haven’t given many long deals to free agent first basemen recently, but Naylor’s reliability and relative youth could help him buck that trend.
A few years ago, O’Hearn looked like a lost cause with the Royals. However, he’s now coming off a strong three-year run as an above-average regular, mostly with the Orioles but also with the Padres after a deadline trade.
He hit 17 home runs this year and slashed .281/.366/.437 for a 127 wRC+. Going back to the start of 2023, he has a .277/.343/.445 line and 121 wRC+. Like Naylor, he doesn’t have Alonso’s huge offensive upside but he’s been a consistently strong contributor. Similar to Naylor, he’s a lefty without strong platoon concerns. O’Hearn had a 108 wRC+ against southpaws in 2023. That dipped to 74 last year but he brought it up to 135 this year. Overall, he has a .261/.326/.442 slash and a 116 wRC+ against lefties over the past three years.
O’Hearn’s glovework seems acceptable as well. He has four OAA at first base in his career. His -12 DRS total isn’t pretty but most of that came earlier in his career. He was credited with 4 DRS here in 2025. He can also play a corner outfield spot in a pinch.
Due to his late breakout, O’Hearn is older than both Alonso and Naylor. That will limit his market to shorter deals but he should be helped by a lack of a QO. Since he was traded midseason, he’s ineligible to receive one.
Everyday Players
The book on Arráez is well known at this point. He hardly ever walks but he’s also almost impossible to strike out. There’s not a ton of power but he’s the best contact hitter in the league. His 3.1% strikeout rate this year was easily the best in the majors among qualified hitters. Jacob Wilson came a distant second with a 7.5% rate.
However, Arráez’s overall production has been trending down lately. In 2022 and 2023, he had a combined .335/.384/.445 batting line and 131 wRC+. He had a .347 batting average on balls in play but that actually wasn’t too high for him personally. His swing seems perfectly designed to drop singles in between the infield and the outfield, so he has regularly had BABIPs in the .320 to .370 range, even though league average is usually around .290.
Over the past two years, he’s dropped down to a combined .303/.337/.392 line and 107 wRC+. The cause of that could be debated. He was playing through a torn thumb ligament last year and only hit four home runs. He’s never been a huge power guy but he’s usually good for eight to ten long balls a year. This year, this thumb has presumably healed and he hit eight homers, but his BABIP dropped to .289. That’s probably not all luck, as his average exit velocity, hard hit rate and barrel rate have all dropped in recent seasons.
He’s not a burner on the basepaths and isn’t especially well regarded on defense. He does have 2 DRS at first in his career but his -14 OAA mark is dreadful. His best trait is the ability to put the bat on the ball. He’s still doing that but with lesser results over the past two years. Put it all together and it’s one of the tougher markets to predict, but some team will find a lineup spot for him.
Bell is one of the most hot-and-cold bats in the majors, but he always seems to find his way to a solid season in the end. He signed a one-year, $6MM deal with the rebuilding Nationals coming into 2025. His first half was rough but he finished strong. The end result was a .239/.326/.421 line and 109 wRC+ over 533 plate appearances.
It’s been a long time since he was an All-Star, but Bell has never been on the injured list for more than a few days. He has appeared in at least 140 games in every full season going back to 2018. He hasn’t been a flashy player for a few years now but has still been solid. In the past three seasons, he hit between 19 and 22 home runs with respectable strikeout and walk rates. His wRC+ finished between 101 and 109 in all three of those campaigns.
His defense isn’t great and he hasn’t stolen a base since 2018. But for clubs who want a plug-and-play first baseman/designated hitter who should be in the lineup and contributing from time to time, Bell will be there and won’t be expensive.
Hoskins had a strong run with the Phillies as one of the most consistent power hitters in the league. However, his recent career has been more tumultuous. He suffered a torn ACL during spring training in 2023 and missed that entire season. He became a free agent and signed a two-year, $34MM deal with the Brewers, with an opt-out chance halfway through.
Both Hoskins and the Brewers were likely hoping for him to rebound after his lost year and then return to free agency. It hasn’t played out that way. His 2024 started strong, but he faded later in the year and finished with a .214/.303/.419 line and 101 wRC+. After that tepid year, he decided not to opt out and returned to the Brewers for 2025. He was a bit better this year on a rate basis, with a .237/.332/.416 line and 109 wRC+.
Unfortunately, a thumb sprain put him on the IL in July. While he was out, Andrew Vaughn took his job and ran with it. Hoskins was reinstated from the IL with about three weeks left in the season but hardly played, with Vaughn at first base and Christian Yelich in the DH spot most days. Hoskins was not included on Milwaukee’s NLDS roster. He’ll head into free agency without a lot of juice since his recent seasons haven’t been great, but he’s still been an above-average hitter on the whole. His deal has a mutual option for 2026 but it’s been more than a decade since a mutual option was picked up by both sides.
Platoon and Part-Time Bats
Flores battled knee troubles throughout 2024 and put up awful numbers. He bounced back somewhat in 2025, with production close to league average, though he didn’t get a ton of playing time in the second half as San Francisco’s acquisition of Rafael Devers squeezed Flores into a short-side platoon role with Dominic Smith. A right-handed hitter, Flores has been better against lefties in his career but had reverse splits this year. He finished the season with a .241/.307/.379 line and 95 wRC+.
France had a strong run from 2020 to 2023 but he’s now had two straight years of subpar offense. He signed a one-year deal with the Twins coming into 2025 and got flipped to the Blue Jays as part of the Louis Varland deadline deal. France finished the regular season with a .257/.320/.360 line and 92 wRC+. He finished the season on the IL due to an oblique injury and was left off Toronto’s ALDS roster.
The Yankees signed Goldschmidt to a one-year, $12.5MM deal in the offseason. He got out to a hot start but quickly ran out of gas. He had a .338/.394/.495 line and 148 wRC+ at the end of May but then slashed .226/.277/.333 for a 69 wRC+ the rest of the way. As he struggled, he got bumped into the short side of a platoon, with Ben Rice starting against most righties and Goldschmidt mostly facing lefties. Goldy had a 74 wRC+ against righties this year but a 169 wRC+ against lefties. Based on his track record, he could still get an everyday job somewhere. But considering his age and widening platoon splits, he might fit best as a veteran mentor and lefty masher/bench bat.
Santana has defied the aging curve by remaining a solid player into his late 30s, but 2025 wasn’t his best year. He slashed .219/.308/.325 for a wRC+ of 82. The Guardians released him in late August. He latched on with the Cubs but didn’t play much. Santana consented to an optional assignment late in the year and wasn’t on the club’s playoff roster. He’s still a great defender and the plate discipline is still good, so he could garner interest even as a 40-year-old coming off a rough year at the plate.
Smith spent the first few months of the season with the Yankees on a minor league deal. He opted out of that pact in the summer and signed with the Giants. He finished his season strong with a .284/.333/.417 line and 111 wRC+ in 63 games with San Francisco. Almost all of that production came against righties. The Giants only let him face southpaws 27 times and he had a .200/.259/.280 line in those matchups.
Solano has been a pretty solid big league hitter going back to 2019 but is coming off a down year. He was released by the Mariners in September and briefly latched on with the Rangers. Between those two clubs, he hit .247/.291/.337 for an 82 wRC+. He is capable of playing other positions but only got very brief looks at second and third base this year.
Tellez also split his time between the Mariners and Rangers in 2025. He hit a combined .228/.276/.443 for a 101 wRC+. He finished with a bit of momentum, as he slashed .259/.315/.457 with the Rangers down the stretch for a 115 wRC+ with that club. Still, it’s been two straight years with poor plate discipline and overall production around league average.
Turner has been staying away from Father Time throughout his late 30s but seems to finally have been caught. He signed a one-year, $6MM deal with the Cubs but hit .219/.288/.314 for a 71 wRC+ this season. He is on the Cubs’ playoff roster but hasn’t played much. His deal has a mutual option for 2026, but that won’t be picked up.
Wade had a strong run with the Giants from 2021 to 2024 but just had the worst season of his career. He slashed .167/.271/.254 in 242 plate appearances in 2025. He was designated for assignment by the Giants in June and landed with the Angels, but the latter club released him in early August. He didn’t sign anywhere else in the final two months of the season.
Options
Perez is primarily a catcher but has been spending more time at first base in recent years. It’s a fairly moot point for the free agent market, as Kansas City isn’t going to let its captain go. He is a franchise legend and he can be kept around for 2026 via a $13.5MM club option with a $2MM buyout, making it a net $11.5MM decision. Royals general manager J.J. Picollo has already essentially said Perez will be back in next year, so it seems the Royals will either pick up the option or work out a new extension.
Photo courtesy of Steven Bigig, Imagn Images
