MLB Free Agency: Ranking The Top 50 Position Players Available For 2025
Image credit: (Photos By Eddie Kelley/Baseball America Illustration)
Today, we’re launching our series early free agent previews featuring a blend of numerical and observational analysis that will help frame the upcoming free agent season in a robust, informational manner. As more clarity emerges with respect to specific players, we’ll update this list accordingly.
Our list leverages work from MLB Trade Rumors for the list of free agents, as well as FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Reference for player win values above baseline, Baseball Savant and Baseball Prospectus for defensive data and FanGraphs for all other data. We encourage our readers and subscribers to consider subscribing to FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus as well.
Read on below the table for a tier-by-tier breakdown of available position player free agents.
NOTE: All Data Through September 29th and all ages as of April 1, 2025. 2024 Wins are an average of totals pulled from FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Reference.
rank | NAME | POS. | AGE | 2024 WINS | AVG | OBP | SLG | wRC+ | HR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Juan Soto | RF | 26.4 | 8.2 | .288 | .419 | .569 | 180 | 41 |
2 | Willy Adames | SS | 29.6 | 3.6 | .251 | .331 | .462 | 119 | 32 |
3 | Alex Bregman | 3B | 31.0 | 3.8 | .260 | .315 | .453 | 118 | 26 |
4 | Pete Alonso | 1B | 30.3 | 2.7 | .240 | .330 | .462 | 123 | 34 |
5 | Teoscar Hernandez | LF | 32.5 | 3.9 | .272 | .339 | .501 | 134 | 33 |
6 | Tyler O’Neill | LF | 29.8 | 2.9 | .241 | .336 | .511 | 131 | 31 |
7 | Jurickson Profar | LF | 32.1 | 4.2 | .280 | .380 | .459 | 139 | 24 |
8 | Anthony Santander | RF | 30.5 | 3.2 | .235 | .308 | .506 | 129 | 44 |
9 | Christian Walker | 1B | 34.0 | 2.9 | .251 | .335 | .468 | 119 | 26 |
10 | Marcell Ozuna | DH | 34.4 | 4.7 | .304 | .381 | .552 | 156 | 39 |
11 | Cody Bellinger | CF | 29.7 | 2.3 | .266 | .325 | .426 | 109 | 18 |
12 | Eugenio Suarez | 3B | 33.7 | 3.1 | .256 | .319 | .469 | 115 | 30 |
13 | Ha-Seong Kim | SS | 29.5 | 2.2 | .233 | .330 | .370 | 101 | 11 |
14 | Brandon Lowe | 2B | 30.7 | 2.2 | .244 | .311 | .473 | 123 | 21 |
15 | Gleyber Torres | 2B | 28.3 | 1.7 | .257 | .330 | .378 | 104 | 15 |
16 | Rhys Hoskins | 1B | 32.0 | 0.1 | .214 | .303 | .419 | 100 | 26 |
17 | Paul Goldschmidt | 1B | 37.6 | 1.3 | .244 | .300 | .411 | 98 | 22 |
18 | Joc Pederson | DH | 32.9 | 2.8 | .275 | .393 | .515 | 151 | 23 |
19 | Miguel Rojas | SS | 36.1 | 2.6 | .283 | .337 | .410 | 111 | 6 |
20 | Danny Jansen | C | 30.0 | 0.8 | .205 | .309 | .349 | 90 | 9 |
21 | Max Kepler | RF | 32.1 | 1.1 | .253 | .302 | .380 | 94 | 8 |
22 | Ryan O’Hearn | 1B | 31.7 | 2.1 | .264 | .334 | .427 | 119 | 15 |
23 | Kyle Higashioka | C | 34.9 | 1.4 | .220 | .263 | .476 | 105 | 17 |
24 | Carlos Santana | 1B | 39.0 | 2.7 | .238 | .328 | .420 | 114 | 23 |
25 | Gary Sanchez | C | 32.3 | 0.4 | .220 | .307 | .392 | 96 | 11 |
26 | Harrison Bader | CF | 30.8 | 1.5 | .239 | .287 | .378 | 87 | 12 |
27 | Alex Verdugo | LF | 28.9 | 1.0 | .233 | .291 | .356 | 83 | 13 |
28 | Jesse Winker | LF | 31.6 | 1.8 | .253 | .360 | .405 | 118 | 14 |
29 | Andrew McCutchen | RF | 38.5 | 1.1 | .232 | .328 | .411 | 105 | 20 |
30 | Jorge Polanco | 2B | 31.7 | 0.9 | .213 | .296 | .355 | 92 | 16 |
31 | Paul DeJong | SS | 31.7 | 0.8 | .227 | .276 | .427 | 95 | 24 |
32 | Kevin Newman | SS | 31.7 | 1.4 | .278 | .311 | .375 | 89 | 3 |
33 | Yasmani Grandal | C | 36.4 | 1.3 | .228 | .304 | .400 | 95 | 9 |
34 | Michael Conforto | LF | 32.1 | 1.1 | .237 | .309 | .450 | 112 | 20 |
35 | Kevin Kiermaier | CF | 34.9 | 0.5 | .197 | .237 | .313 | 54 | 5 |
36 | Michael A. Taylor | CF | 34.0 | 0.6 | .193 | .253 | .290 | 50 | 5 |
37 | Yoan Moncada | 3B | 29.8 | 0.2 | .275 | .356 | .400 | 117 | – |
38 | Randal Grichuk | RF | 33.6 | 1.6 | .291 | .348 | .528 | 139 | 12 |
39 | Jacob Stallings | C | 35.3 | 1.1 | .263 | .357 | .453 | 114 | 9 |
40 | Elias Diaz | C | 34.4 | 0.9 | .265 | .313 | .382 | 81 | 6 |
41 | Eloy Jimenez | RF | 28.3 | -0.4 | .238 | .289 | .336 | 78 | 6 |
42 | Brandon Drury | 2B | 32.6 | -1.4 | .169 | .242 | .228 | 34 | 4 |
43 | Gio Urshela | 3B | 33.5 | 1.0 | .249 | .285 | .362 | 81 | 9 |
44 | Austin Barnes | C | 35.3 | 0.4 | .264 | .331 | .307 | 86 | 1 |
45 | Austin Hedges | C | 32.6 | 0.2 | .152 | .203 | .220 | 20 | 2 |
46 | Kevin Pillar | CF | 36.2 | 0.4 | .229 | .291 | .377 | 88 | 8 |
47 | David Peralta | RF | 37.6 | 0.7 | .267 | .335 | .415 | 115 | 8 |
48 | Josh Bell | 1B | 32.6 | 0.3 | .249 | .319 | .405 | 101 | 19 |
49 | Enrique Hernandez | 3B | 33.6 | 0.9 | .229 | .281 | .373 | 83 | 12 |
50 | Whit Merrifield | 2B | 36.2 | 0.5 | .222 | .311 | .314 | 80 | 4 |
Tier 1 : Juan Soto
Juan Soto is in a clear tier of his own, and as a preview of the upcoming positional deep dives, we’ll do a deep dive here for the future Hall of Famer.
Soto is the closest you can get to a sure-fire .400 OBP player with power. While he doesn’t provide a lot of value with the glove—being somewhere between 4-8 runs below average—his bat will likely carry him to the Hall of Fame. Let’s visualize how special of a talent Juan is:
Against breaking balls (curves, sliders, sweepers and cutters), he shows an incredible approach. He’s aggressive on pitches in the zone and rarely chasing pitches, which, once again, limiting his swings when the pitch is in the bottom third of the zone. We’ll have more to say about Soto in the upcoming positional deep dive.
Tier 2: Power Hitters Galore
Willy Adames
Shortstops are always in demand, and Adames is clearly the best available in this free agent class, which is why we have him as the No. 2 position player available.
Pete Alonso
Alonso is perhaps the biggest name outside of Soto to enter free agency. Excluding 2020, he’s hit 30 home runs every year, including four seasons with 40 or more homer. Excluding, again, the pandemic season, he has played at least 152 games eery season and posted a wRC+ of at least 120. His production is as rock solid as you can get. Sluggers like Alonso may not age well in their latter years, but he’s very likely to be a middle-of-the-lineup producer for many years to come.
Teoscar Hernandez and Tyler O’Neill
Hernandez and O’Neill are broadly similar players, but the edge goes to Hernandez as we have more confidence in his ability to stay healthy.
Alex Bregman and Jurickson Profar
Both these players are elite contact hitters, though Profar added about three mph to pretty much all of his EV metrics, catapulting him into the top tier of free agency. Bregman doesn’t need his home ball park to succeed.
Anthony Santander
Santander is close to Hernandez and O’Neill, but we have him here as he’s a lesser defender who is somewhat over-reliant on hitting home runs.
Marcell Ozuna and Christian Walker
These dudes absolutely mash, but they are about 4-5 years older than Alonso. And you never know when that performance cliff will come for a 1B/DH.
Cody Bellinger
Bellinger is the one guy other than Profar in this tier that didn’t crack 30 HR, but he’s a very good all-around player, and only 30 years old entering next season. He’s now put together two consecutive seasons of high-quality production, so it feels likely that he’ll opt out and try to get a more favorable contract.
Eugenio Suarez
A good defender who hits a lot of home runs, Suarez will need to be on a team that can stomach the streaky nature of his production (likely ruling out intense markets like New York).
Tier 3: Boring, But Valuable
Ha-Seong Kim, Brandon Lowe and Gleyber Torres
Kim and Lowe don’t get a lot of hype, but are both extremely valuable baseball players. We’ve grouped these three players as we think they are the most likely to produce positive free agent value to the team that scoops them up.
Paul Goldschmidt and Joc Pederson
We worry that Goldschmidt may have hit an age-related performance cliff, and see limited value in a DH-only platoon bat. You could perhaps move Pederson down a tier, but the bat is really good, as he slugged over .500 in 2022 and 2024.
Tier 4: Guys With Some Questions
Miguel Rojas is probably the third-best shortstop available this off-season. Max Kepler had a bad year, but looks like an average player. Carlos Santana continues to mash, but he’s entering his age-39 season. Danny Jansen has struggled to stay on the field, while Kyle Higashioka is limited offensively. Ryan O’Hearn is a solid bat, but he’ll likely only be a 1-2 win player in the next few seasons.
Tier 5: Everyone Else
There will always be a gem or two that comes out of this group. If we had to pick a couple of names, it would probably be Jesse Winker and Jorge Polanco.
Our Sources of Data
This endeavor isn’t possible without the work being done inside our industry. We certainly understand the importance of subscriber revenue in today’s modern media landscape, and encourage our susbcribers to consider supporting the following resources