Top MLB Free Agents Most Likely to Be Overpaid This Offseason
Whichever team ultimately signs Juan Soto this offseason will feel very comfortable that the pact he signs will age well.
Even if he signs for close to a decade and a half, he's 26 years old and, at a minimum, you feel certain his elite offensive approach will age well, even if he isn't an outfielder for the entirety of his contract.
Obviously, a major injury could change the trajectory of someone's career, but as far as these gigantic contracts go, Soto is about as safe of a bet as it gets.
There will be other major free agents signed this offseason where it's much easier to envision the worst-case scenario playing out given their respective health histories. Others will be paid to be stars but will end up playing more like just above-average players.
With that acknowledged, here's a look at nine players who will sign deals this winter that may ultimately be seen as overpays.
Alex Bregman
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Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic opined last week that he believes that Alex Bregman and agent Scott Boras will likely open free agency looking to get a deal in the range of the 11-year, $350 million extension that Manny Machado agreed to with the San Diego Padres prior to the 2023 campaign.
First of all, it's fair to wonder how well that deal for Machado—which runs through his age-40 season—will age. Second of all, Machado was a much better player in the three seasons prior to the extension than Bregman has been since the start of the 2022 season.
Machado 2020-2022: .291 batting average, .881 OPS, 14.2 WAR
Bregman 2022-2024: .260 batting average, .798 OPS, 14.0 WAR
Mind you, while those WAR numbers may look similar, the first of those three seasons for Machado was the pandemic-shortened 2020 season that saw just a 60-game slate. And he still topped the overall WAR of Bregman, who had three full seasons leading up to his chance to get a new contract.
The guess here is that Bregman won't sniff Machado in terms of years or overall dollars. Still, he's going to get paid handsomely. At B/R, we've projected a five-year, $130 million deal with a $26 million club option for the 2030 season. That's on the low end of predictions. MLB Trade Rumors predicted a seven-year, $182 million pact.
Bregman is still a productive player, as evidenced by the .795 OPS he's posted over the last five seasons. But he's not the Hall of Fame-level hitter he appeared to be between 2018 and 2019 when he posted a .970 OPS.
The risk with Bregman, who will turn 31 next March, isn't that you'll sign him and he'll flop. It's that you'll pay him to be the second-best player on a World Series team, and he'll perform more like the fourth-or-fifth-best player on a championship team.
Jack Flaherty
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Jack Flaherty is coming off of an excellent campaign that he split between the Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Dodgers, ultimately helping his hometown team win a World Series after a regular season in which he posted a 3.17 ERA across 162 innings pitched.
The problem when considering investing in Flaherty is that in between finishing fourth in NL Cy Young Award voting in 2019 and reigniting his career this past season, he posted a 4.99 ERA and logged just 299 innings.
Flaherty is still only 29 years old, and because he was traded during the season, he wasn't eligible to receive a qualifying offer from the Dodgers. Here at B/R, we've projected that he'll sign a three-year, $60 million deal that allows him to opt out after the 2026 season if he chooses to do so. If someone signs him and gets the version of Flaherty from 2019 or 2024, it will be a steal.
But Flaherty was unhealthy and ineffective for four seasons between those two campaigns. If you give Flaherty $20 million a season and get the 2020-2023 version of him, it will burn.
Max Scherzer
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Max Scherzer is a three-time AL Cy Young Award winner who is one of the greatest pitchers in MLB history. He'll be a first-ballot Hall of Famer when his time comes, possibly in unanimous fashion.
But offseason back surgery kept Scherzer from making his 2024 debut for the Texas Rangers until June 23, and then he had two other injured list stints because of right shoulder fatigue and a left hamstring strain.
To his credit, Scherzer still posted a 3.95 ERA in the nine starts he did make for the Rangers this past year. If he's healthy in 2025, he still can definitely be effective.
With that said, Scherzer will turn 41 during the 2025 season. For as durable as he's been in his career, it just feels like the 2,878 innings Scherzer has logged in his career are finally catching up to him. MLB Trade Rumors projects he'll land a one-year, $16 million deal in free agency, which feels like a lot for someone whose most recent season was essentially a wash because of injuries.
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Nick Pivetta
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Nick Pivetta's potential has long intrigued teams, which is why both the Philadelphia Phillies and Boston Red Sox have given him extended runway to try to figure things out. The result is some moderate success, as he's posted a 4.09 ERA and 4.02 FIP over the last two seasons, pitching primarily out of the starting rotation.
Still, it was a mild surprise to see the Red Sox issue Pivetta a one-year, $21.05 million offer this offseason. It now looks like a smart move, though, because Pivetta declined it and the Red Sox will receive draft compensation if he signs elsewhere.
Pivetta has logged more than 140 innings five times in his career, and it's definitely possible that his best is yet to come.
Then again, Pivetta is entering his age-32 campaign and posted a 4.33 ERA in four full seasons with the Red Sox. If this is what he is, giving him a multiyear deal and giving up draft compensation feels like a pretty hefty price to sign him.
Anthony Santander
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Anthony Santander isn't on this list because we believe he's not going to be a productive player moving forward. But it feels unlikely he'll ever match his 2024 campaign in terms of power output, and there's not a ton of margin for error with him.
Santander homered 44 times and drove in 102 runs for the Baltimore Orioles in 2024 posting an .814 OPS. He average 30.5 home runs the two prior years, and posted a .785 OPS.
For someone with the type of power that Santander has, you would expect higher marks in terms of OPS. But while he doesn't strike out as much as a typical power hitter, he doesn't draw walks at nearly as high of a clip either, with the 58 walks he had in 2024 representing a career-high. That's problematic for the .246 career hitter.
Like we said, there's just not much of a margin for error with Santander. If he's homering 35 times and driving in 90 runs, he can make a big impact. But if he becomes a 25-homer guy later in this contract and still isn't getting on base at a particularly high clip, this deal might not age well.
We've projected a five-year, $101 million deal for Santander, and any team that signs him other than the Orioles would have to give up draft compensation since he declined a qualifying offer from Baltimore. He could help put your offense over the top in 2025, but committing to him won't be for the risk averse.
Justin Verlander
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Justin Verlander was left off of the ALWCS roster by the Houston Astros after he posted a 5.48 ERA across 17 starts during the regular season. The three-time AL Cy Young Award winner admitted that he came back too quickly from a neck injury, and that contributed to the 9.26 ERA he had over five starts in September.
The former AL MVP has appeared to be at the end multiple other times in his career, only to come back and add to his Hall of Fame resume. Some team will take a chance on a one-year deal for Verlander, likely pointing to the fact that as recently as 2023 he logged 162.1 innings and finished with a 3.22 ERA.
But Verlander will turn 42 in February, and while it would be cool to see him find another life and make a run at 300 career victories—he is sitting at 262 wins right now—history tells us it's much more likely that he's finally hitting a wall for good.
Even if it's only for a year, there's a very real chance that Verlander is given $10-$15 million for 2025 and is unable to be healthy enough to pitch consistently.
Walker Buehler
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It's a great story that Walker Buehler got to be on the mound to close out a World Series win for the Dodgers. The reality, though, is that if not for a bevy of injuries in the starting rotation, the two-time All-Star probably wouldn't have been on the playoff roster at all after posting a 5.38 ERA in 16 regular season starts.
Even in Buehler's first start of the 2024 postseason—Game 3 of the NLDS against the San Diego Padres—he was rocked, allowing seven hits and six earned runs over five innings.
Quite simply, Buehler has not come close to being the Cy Young-caliber arm he once was since undergoing the second Tommy John surgery of his career in August 2022.
The further he moves away from that procedure, perhaps he'll rediscover his form. It will likely only take a one-year deal to sign Buehler, and if he impresses, his 2025 employer will be able to give him a qualifying offer next winter.
If we had to bet, though, there's a better than 50 percent chance Buehler underwhelms on a one-year deal. A few nice outings at the end of the postseason don't undo what was a very concerning 2024 season as a whole.
Jurickson Profar
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Let's compare Jurickson Profar's numbers over the past two seasons.
2023: .242/.321/.368, nine home runs, 46 RBI, .689 OPS, minus-1.6 WAR
2024: .280/.380/.459, 24 home runs, 85 RBI, .839 OPS, 4.3 WAR
The real Profar probably lies somewhere in between the two campaigns, as those probably represent the best and worst seasons of his career. He was released by the Colorado Rockies late in the 2023 season and had to return to the Padres on a minor-league deal in September of that year. In 2024, he was an All-Star for the first time in his career, and when you add in that he also drew 76 walks, he was one of the most complete offensive players in the sport.
Such wild variances in performance make it difficult to project what Profar will be moving forward. Because the 2023 season is still in the back of the heads of most teams, Profar's ceiling in free agency will likely be a three-year deal. B/R has projected a two-year, $34 million deal with a $17 million club option for 2027. It's the type of deal that would be a bargain if you get the 2024 iteration of Profar, but an albatross if he's anything like he was in 2023.
Luis Severino
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Luis Severino pitched well enough for the Mets in 2024—3.91 ERA over 182 innings pitched—that they were willing to give him a one-year, $21.05 million qualifying offer for 2025. Still, he declined it.
Such a turn of events would have been unthinkable a year ago.
After consecutive All-Star Game nods in 2017 and 2018, Severino logged just 209.1 innings pitched over the five-season stretch between 2019 and 2023. Obviously, the Tommy John surgery he underwent in February 2020 contributed to his thin workload during that period. But man, half a decade is a long time to struggle to stay on the mound. One season probably isn't enough time to convince you that the 30-year-old has completely turned the corner.
B/R has projected that Severino will sign a two-year, $38.5 million deal that allows him to opt out after the 2025 season and return to free agency. So it will take giving up draft compensation to sign Severino, and you're maybe only guaranteed one season with him. He wouldn't be eligible for the qualifying offer next offseason if he opts out. So you could be left empty-handed in a year. You could also get stuck with him for two years if his injury issues rear their ugly head again.
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