Ranking Phillies' Ranger Suárez's Top 10 Landing Spots in MLB Free Agency

Over the past five seasons in Philadelphia, Ranger Suárez has been one of the more consistently solid starting pitchers in Major League Baseball.

Not consistently dominant. Not consistently healthy, either. But consistently solid, with a 3.25 ERA, 1.24 WHIP and 8.4 K/9 in nearly 700 innings pitched—with seemingly at least one month-long stretch of each season in which he shoves like an ace-in-waiting, ready to flourish.

He's arguably one of the 20 best starting pitchers in the game today, and easily one of the five best arms available in free agency this winter.

Where will he end up signing?

Spotrac puts his market value at six years, $162 million ($27 million AAV). MLB Trade Rumors says Suárez ought to fetch five years for $115 million ($23 million AAV). Either way, the 30-year-old southpaw won't come cheap.

With a career 1.48 ERA in 42.2 innings pitched in the postseason, though, he might be worth every penny to his new employer.

10. San Diego Padres

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Nick Pivetta

Projected Rotation: Nick Pivetta, Joe Musgrove, Randy Vásquez, JP Sears, Matt Waldron

Even before November began, the San Diego Padres were one of the bigger mysteries to monitor this offseason.

There was the question of whether Mason Miller will close or start, as well as the loss of Dylan Cease and Michael King from the rotation, and the already hefty long-term payroll that was going to make it difficult to replace either of them.

Then we discover Yu Darvish is going to miss all of 2026 after undergoing UCL surgery, that news followed about a week later with reports that the Seidler family might be looking to sell the team.

At this point, goodness only knows what the Padres want to do or can justify doing in their eternal quest to dethrone the Dodgers atop the NL West. That goal feels like a pipe dream with their current starting rotation.

Nick Pivetta had a great 2025 campaign, but is he an ace?

Is Joe Musgrove the ace, after missing all of this past season to Tommy John surgery?

And are JP Sears and/or Matt Waldron legitimate options every fifth day for a team with postseason aspirations?

They could certainly use a starting pitcher like Ranger Suárez, if they can afford him.

9. Toronto Blue Jays

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Trey Yesavage

Projected Rotation: Kevin Gausman, Shane Bieber, José Berríos, Trey Yesavage, Eric Lauer/Bowden Francis

Had Shane Bieber declined his $16 million player option, Toronto's desperation to sign one of the 5-6 best arms available would have been a lot higher than it presently is. We probably even could have made the case for the Blue Jays as the No. 1 landing spot for Suárez.

Now, though?

They already have a projected payroll of close to $240 million, and they have a solid top four in their rotation, provided Trey Yesavage's breakthrough year is more long-lasting in its legitimacy than was the case with Alek Manoah and Bowden Francis in recent seasons.

If they can justify committing $25 million or more per year on a new long-term deal, it's likely they'll try to strike that deal with Bo Bichette or even Kyle Tucker as opposed to another pitcher.

Then again, both Gausman and Bieber will be free agents next offseason, while Berríos can opt out of the final two years and $48 million remaining on his contract. At that point, they would be in rather dire straits if they don't add a multi-year arm this winter.

However, with George Springer, Daulton Varsho and more also among their impending free agents, they really ought to have the funds to find a solution when that need arises.

8. Boston Red Sox

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Brayan Bello

Projected Rotation: Garrett Crochet, Brayan Bello, Kutter Crawford, Connelly Early, Patrick Sandoval

Without question, Boston would benefit from adding one of the big arms available this offseason.

The Red Sox basically had a three-man rotation last season until Connelly Early's late arrival gave them a fourth quality arm. But one of those starters (Lucas Giolito) is now a free agent, and another (Brayan Bello) has both a career ERA and FIP north of 4.00.

Adding a legitimate co-ace to Garrett Crochet could be huge, but how high is it on their wish list?

Between rumors of interest in Pete Alonso and their non-tendering of Nathaniel Lowe, it sure seems like first base is a top priority for them. And if first base isn't their No. 1 concern, that's perhaps only because third base is a bigger issue with Alex Bregman now a free agent.

The good news in Boston is there ought to be room in the budget to address multiple needs, especially if they manage to unload the more than $12 million salaries of Patrick Sandoval and/or Jordan Hicks. Even with those two eight-figure arms included, their projected payroll is nowhere close to $200 million.

Add the salaries of Alonso and one of Bregman or Munetaka Murakami to the mix, though, and a third major addition might be too much to hope for.

7. Houston Astros

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Spencer Arrighetti

Projected Rotation: Hunter Brown, Cristian Javier, Lance McCullers Jr., Spencer Arrighetti, Jason Alexander

Houston found quite the diamond in the rough last year with Jason Alexander, released from the pitching-starved Athletics with an 18.00 ERA in six innings pitched before giving the Astros a 3.66 ERA from mid-June onward.

Can the soon-to-be 33-year-old do it again, though?

How many innings can reasonably be expected from the perpetually injured Lance McCullers Jr., who has logged 103.0 IP over the past four seasons combined?

Is Cristian Javier good enough to be a No. 2 starter, with a 4.47 ERA in 46 starts across the past three seasons?

And can Spencer Arrighetti bounce back from an injury-plagued 2025 campaign to reharness the high-strikeout form from his rookie season?

In short, Houston's rotation features one Cy Young candidate in Hunter Brown, with a steady diet of question marks behind him.

However, the biggest question mark of all is: With a projected payroll already well north of $200 million, how much money do they have to address the problem?

They did "recover" a decent chunk of cash by non-tendering Ramón Urías and trading away Mauricio Dubón for Nick Allen. That probably saved them around $10 million in arbitration salaries. They could look to save another $7 million or so by trading away Jesús Sánchez, too.

At that point, they probably have room in the budget to pursue signing Suárez as their replacement for Framber Valdez.

6. Detroit Tigers

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Tarik Skubal

Projected Rotation: Tarik Skubal, Jack Flaherty, Casey Mize, Reese Olsen, Keider Montero

If it's the Tigers landing Suárez, the unknown is whether he would be joining or replacing Tarik Skubal atop the rotation.

Financially speaking, the "joining" option might be tough. They already have Jack Flaherty, Gleyber Torres and Javier Báez signed for a combined sum of $66.025 million in 2026, with Skubal likely to run them another $20 million.

Add Suárez on top of that, plus 21 other players, and they'd be looking at by far their highest Opening Day payroll since Chris Ilitch inherited the team from his late father.

If they're keeping Skubal, though, aren't they already pretty darn committed to winning it all in 2026?

Couldn't they handle a steeper payroll than normal for this coming season, already knowing that almost half of it will be leaving in free agency next winter?

And wouldn't it be fun to have one year of one of the best lefty-lefty top-of-the-rotation tandems in recent history?

"Replacing" could work, though, provided they're getting one heck of a "helps right now" platter in return for Skubal. Otherwise, why even bother spending big for Suárez now?

5. Texas Rangers

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Nathan Eovaldi

Projected Rotation: Jacob deGrom, Nathan Eovaldi, Jack Leiter, Kumar Rocker, Jacob Latz

Unless Baseball-Reference is leading me astray here, Suárez is the only player in MLB history named Ranger.

He is literally the Lone Ranger.

And while they don't have a Tonto on the roster, if the Texas Rangers don't even try to capitalize on that marketing opportunity, they should be ashamed of themselves.

They entered the offseason talking about shedding payroll, and they've already done a solid job on that front. That was punctuated on Friday by the decisions to non-tender both Adolis García and Jonah Heim, who were likely headed for a combined sum of close to $20 million in what is the final year of arbitration eligibility for each.

They subsequently on Sunday made the surprising swap of Marcus Semien ($25 million AAV) for Brandon Nimmo ($20 million AAV), thereby shaving another $5 million off the 2026 payroll. (While also paving the way for Sebastian Walcott to possibly crack the Opening Day roster?)

At this point, their projected Opening Day payroll is down to around $178 million, which is $38 million below last year and $47 million below where they opened the 2023 campaign.

So, they can add a $25 million-ish starting pitcher now and still say they trimmed payroll, yeah?

At any rate, they almost certainly need to add an arm if they're serious about contending again.

The deGrom/Eovaldi tandem up top is excellent (when healthy). However, Leiter and Rocker are questionable at best, even though they were both top-three draft picks. And Latz as the projected No. 5 might as well just be a big question mark emoji.

4. New York Mets

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Sean Manaea

Projected Rotation: Nolan McLean, David Peterson, Clay Holmes, Kodai Senga, Sean Manaea

Even after releasing the injured Frankie Montas, the New York Mets aren't lacking for viable options in their rotation. In addition to this quintet, they also still have Tylor Megill, Brandon Sproat and Jonah Tong, not to mention Christian Scott, who missed all of 2025 while recovering from Tommy John surgery.

That's nine guys who could win a job in the back half of a lot of starting rotations.

What they are lacking, though, is intimidating arms, which is inexcusable with their limitless budget.

Nolan McLean is a tantalizing rookie. But if you took all the starting options from the Mets, Dodgers and Yankees and drafted them according to who you would most want in your rotation in 2026, is he even a top-eight pick? And would any other Met go before 14th?

Long story short, they need an ace; maybe even several of them.

Combining that need with their ability to spend money, they have repeatedly ranked in the top five of probably all of our landing spots articles for starting pitchers thus far this offseason as we wait to see which one(s) they want the most.

However, my guess—which could be completely off base, but it's my guess—is that they're going to prioritize Dylan Cease, Framber Valdez and maybe even Zac Gallen over Suárez. Those guys have Opening Day, top-of-the-rotation experience which Suárez lacks.

And passing on the likes of Blake Snell and Max Fried last winter while instead signing Manaea, Holmes and Montas to multi-year deals with a combined AAV of $54.7 million is how they came to find themselves in this mess in the first place.

That isn't to say Suárez's talent level is closer to Montas than it is to Snell. But if the Mets are in fact going big for one of the top arms out there, they'll probably just go all the way in for Valdez.

Even having said that, it would be hard to justify ranking them any lower than this.

3. Baltimore Orioles

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Trevor Rogers

Projected Rotation: Trevor Rogers, Kyle Bradish, Dean Kremer, Tyler Wells, Cade Povich/Brandon Young

Baltimore's decision to trade its four remaining years of team control on Grayson Rodriguez to the Angels for one season of Taylor Ward was a real head-scratcher, unless at least one of the following two things is true:

A) They don't think Rodriguez will be healthy enough to pitch in 2026, and they kind of duped the Angels by getting the deal done without any requirement of a physical.

B) They were already committed to adding a better pitcher than G-Rod this offseason and chose in the meantime to pounce on the opportunity to add a legitimate slugger.

It's probably a slight dash of A on top of a hearty helping of B, and it's more than plausible Suárez is the No. 1 arm on Baltimore's big board.

They might prefer Dylan Cease and/or Framber Valdez for their durability, especially after a 2025 campaign that was in large part derailed by waiting for several starting pitchers to recover from Tommy John surgery. But Suárez is so consistently good when healthy—and has such a remarkable track record in the postseason—that he could be their guy.

It's really just a question of whether they're willing to make this much of a financial commitment in an "outsider" after failing to lock up any of the homegrown talent (aside from Samuel Basallo) and after getting so spectacularly burned by Chris Davis the last time they gave someone a nine-figure contract.

After that Rodriguez/Ward swap, though, it feels like they are all the way in on winning right now and might actually loosen the purse strings for a change.

2. San Francisco Giants

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Robbie Ray

Projected Rotation: Logan Webb, Robbie Ray, Landon Roupp, Hayden Birdsong, Kai-Wei Teng/Carson Whisenhunt

It's not the first time I've made this comment this offseason and probably won't be the last, but the Giants' rotation looks like a full house: two aces and three fives.

And if they don't do something significant to buttress their one-two punch of Logan Webb and Robbie Ray, they might as well just send a letter to their season-ticket holders to let them know it's probably going to be a fifth consecutive season of 79-81 wins, as well as a ninth October out of 10 in which the only thing they'll have to root for is the demise of the Dodgers.

There are much less expensive options for them than Suárez. They could go back to the Justin Verlander well for another one-year deal on an aging veteran like Merrill Kelly, Chris Bassitt, Max Scherzer or even Verlander again. They could also buy low on a bounce-back year from Zach Eflin, Nestor Cortes or Erick Fedde.

In fact, they probably could do both of those things at a combined 2026 cost roughly equal to what Suárez's salary will be.

However, with Ray entering his final season before free agency and nothing close to a can't-miss pitching prospect in this farm system, surely they have a desire to lock in a multi-year solution at No. 2/3 in the rotation.

Getting home games at Oracle Park could be fantastic for Suárez, too. Per Baseball Savant, his expected home runs allowed if all innings had been pitched there is 59, compared to 78 at Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park. He's already great at minimizing the long ball, and he could get about 25 percent better just via that change in venue.

1. Chicago Cubs

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Shota Imanaga

Projected Rotation: Matthew Boyd, Cade Horton, Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon, Colin Rea/Justin Steele (when healthy)

Shota Imanaga taking the one-year, $22.025 million qualifying offer to remain with the Cubs was kind of surprising, but it probably didn't change their interest level in a long-term solution to their starting rotation.

Perhaps Imanaga's return lessened the likelihood they'll make a blockbuster trade for Tarik Skubal? If they managed to make that happen, they would have Skubal, Imanaga, Taillon and Boyd (mutual option) as impending free agents next winter, with both Steele and Rea up for free agency after the 2027 campaign, no less.

With so many quality arms available this winter, now is the time for the Cubs to get someone to pair with Horton for the next 5-6 years.

And with Imanaga's sky-high home run rate still in the mix here, specifically targeting Suárez's 0.78 HR/9 ratio over the past half-decade might be the play for them.

(Framber Valdez has an even lower HR/9 ratio of 0.70 during that time. However, much like when the Cubs signed Dansby Swanson for $177 million as the fourth-most expensive shortstop available a few years ago, they'll likely strongly prefer to avoid paying what is a "best arm available" premium for the former Astro.)

For what it's worth, in 14.1 career innings pitched at Wrigley Field, Suárez has yet to allow a single home run and boasts a 1.88 ERA.