Justin Verlander and 8 MLB Free Agents With Huge Buy-Low Upside
The holiday season is here, and MLB fans are hoping to find a big package under their team's tree. Sometimes, though, it's the smaller ones that end up delivering the best memories.
To wit, arguably the best free-agent signing of last winter was Jorge Polanco. The Seattle Mariners signed him for just $7.75 million, and he darn near carried them to their first World Series in October.
We're going to look at eight free agents on this winter's market who have similar buy-low upside for 2026. Not all of them are coming off a "down" season, per se, but each has the potential to provide a huge payoff on deflated market value.
We'll check them off in alphabetical order.
1B Luis Arraez
1 of 8
Age: 28
2025 Stats: 154 G, 675 PA, 8 HR, 11 SB, .292 AVG, .327 OBP, .392 SLG
Why He's Worth a Shot
Luis Arraez was always going to be the most polarizing free agent on this winter's market. And judging from how little buzz there's been on him, it would seem teams are mostly unimpressed.
This is justifiable in the sense that Arraez has been a roughly 1-WAR player in each of the last two seasons. The bat-to-ball skill is the best there is, but it doesn't come with sides of walks, power, baserunning or defense.
Even so, this is a lifetime .317 hitter with three batting titles to his name. He also entered the market hotter than his overall line would suggest, as he recovered from a slow start to hit a decidedly more Arraez-like .310 in the second half of 2025.
Even if all he can do is set the table, a team with enough power in the middle of its lineup could make the most of that talent. This year's San Diego Padres were not a good proof of concept in this regard, as their 152 total home runs were the third-fewest in the league.
Potential Landing Spots: Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas Rangers, Detroit Tigers
INF/OF Willi Castro
2 of 8
Age: 28
2025 Stats: 120 G, 454 PA, 11 HR, 10 SB, .226 AVG, .313 OBP, .366 SLG
Why He's Worth a Shot
Willi Castro was quietly one of the most sought-after players on this year's trade market, but he proceeded to destroy his stock after the Minnesota Twins sent him to the Chicago Cubs.
He went from a solid .743 OPS as a Twin to an abysmal .485 OPS as a Cub. Come the playoffs, the North Siders were using him strictly as a defensive replacement and letting him nowhere near the plate.
As a defensive presence, though, there aren't many players who can match the sheer usefulness of Castro. He can play all three outfield spots and three positions on the infield, leaving only first base, catcher and pitcher as positions he can't be counted on to cover.
He's basically "Ben Zobrist Lite" when he hits, and he did that more often than not in his last two-and-a-half seasons as a Twin. His OPS-plus was consistently above 100, in part thanks to decent gap power from both sides of the dish.
Potential Landing Spots: San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners, New York Yankees
RHP Zach Eflin
3 of 8
Age: 31
2025 Stats: 14 GS, 71.1 IP, 88 H (18 HR), 50 K, 13 BB, 5.93 ERA
Why He's Worth a Shot
The three-year, $40 million deal Zach Eflin signed with the Tampa Bay Rays three winters ago was the largest in their history. He didn't stick around long enough for them to see the end of it, and that's just as well for them.
This was a lost year for Eflin, mostly owing to a back injury that dogged him all season and finally required surgery in August. And when he did pitch, he was roundly crushed.
This was, however, his fifth straight season with a walks-per-nine rate in the 1.0s. He also maintained a chase rate in the 87th percentile, indicating an ongoing talent for getting hitters to swing at his pitches.
Between those things and what will hopefully be better health, teams should see Eflin as a candidate to bounce back and be more like his usual self in 2026. As in, the guy who made 59 starts and put up 6.3 rWAR across 2023 and 2024.
Potential Landing Spots: Athletics, San Francisco Giants, San Diego Padres
RHP Zac Gallen
4 of 8
Age: 30
2025 Stats: 33 GS, 192.0 IP, 176 H (31 HR), 175 K, 66 BB, 4.83 ERA
Why He's Worth a Shot
Zac Gallen is probably the most obvious buy-low free agent on the market, though there is the complication of how selling him is harder than it ought to be.
Yes, he was a finalist for the NL Cy Young Award as recently as 2023. Yet he took a substantial step back in 2024 and just plain wasn't good in 2025. Most notably, his home run rate effectively doubled as he got taken deep a career-high 31 times.
There's nothing wrong with Gallen's fastball velocity, though, and that pitch even had a plus-four Run Value this year. It was more so his knuckle-curve that let him down, as hitters upped their average against it from .148 to .219 from 2024 to 2025.
This was even though that pitch's underlying metrics (whiff rate, xBA, etc.) actually got better or stayed about the same, which strongly hints at some flukiness. As such, you don't even need to consider his strong second half (3.97 ERA) to see him as a rebound candidate for 2026.
Potential Landing Spots: Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Angels, Texas Rangers
DH Marcell Ozuna
5 of 8
Age: 35
2025 Stats: 145 G, 592 PA, 21 HR, 0 SB, .232 AVG, .355 OBP, .400 SLG
Why He's Worth a Shot
Marcell Ozuna turned 35 on November 12, which is worth noting because he really did show signs of aging this season.
After slamming 79 home runs across the 2023 and 2024 seasons, it's no accident that he didn't come close to another 40-homer campaign this year. His key batted ball metrics all took a turn for the worse, and it's hard to separate that from a 1.1 mph downturn in his average bat speed.
If nothing else, though, Ozuna's plate discipline had never been better. He walked a career-high 15.9 percent of the time, with a chase rate in the 85th percentile.
If that alone could be the foundation for a solid 113 OPS-plus like the one he had this year, then there's a lot more waiting if he can turn some of his power back on. Albeit as a younger man, his 2021 and 2022 seasons serve as reminders that this is something he's done before.
Potential Landing Spots: Pittsburgh Pirates, Miami Marlins, San Diego Padres
INF Luis Rengifo
6 of 8
Age: 28
2025 Stats: 147 G, 541 PA, 9 HR, 10 SB, .238 AVG, .287 OBP, .335 SLG
Why He's Worth a Shot
On the plus side, Luis Rengifo got more exposure this year than he had ever gotten before. On the minus side, all that exposure left him, well, exposed.
After hitting an even .300 in 78 games last year, his average dropped 62 points and he didn't do a whole lot to balance things out. He didn't excel as a walker, slugger or baserunner, nor was he much of a defender in the field.
Yet when a guy is still in his 20s like Rengifo is, it's that much harder to wipe away his track record as one of the best-kept secrets in the AL West. He was a solidly above-average hitter for the Los Angeles Angels between 2022 and 2024, hitting .273 with a 109 OPS-plus.
There could also be an opportunity to pull a trick play of sorts with Rengifo. He's a switch-hitter, but the big gap between his right-handed OPS (.749) and left-handed OPS (.665 OPS) suggests he might be better going exclusively from the right side.
Potential Landing Spots: Washington Nationals, Colorado Rockies, Athletics
RHP Justin Verlander
7 of 8
Age: 42
2025 Stats: 29 GS, 152.0 IP, 155 H (16 HR), 137 K, 52 BB, 3.85 ERA
Why He's Worth a Shot
Yeah, yeah. "Someone should sign the future first-ballot Hall of Famer" doesn't sound like much of a take. Of course someone should sign Justin Verlander.
Nonetheless, the obvious question at this point is how much he has left in the tank. He'll be 43 years old on February 20, and the success he had this year obscures how he can't really overpower hitters anymore. His fastball velocity, whiff rate and strikeout rate were all below average.
And yet, the old guy was legitimately good in his last 13 starts of the year. He posted a 2.60 ERA, with 70 strikeouts against 24 walks over 72.2 innings. This was when he started putting more trust in a sweeping slider that ended up being the best pitch in his arsenal, to the tune of a plus-eight Run Value.
Granted, vintage Verlander isn't walking through that door for anyone. But if the sweeper continues to bamboozle hitters in 2026, he's at least a solid No. 3 in a contender's rotation.
Potential Landing Spots: Detroit Tigers, Houston Astros, San Francisco Giants
1B/DH LaMonte Wade Jr.
8 of 8
Age: 31
2025 Stats: 80 G, 242 PA, 2 HR, 1 SB, .167 AVG, .271 OBP, .254 SLG
Why He's Worth a Shot
LaMonte Wade Jr. had a rough one in 2025. He got designated for assignment by the San Francisco Giants in June, and later got released by the Los Angeles Angels—the latter being the baseball equivalent of a fate worse than death.
None of it was undeserved. Wade's whole thing in 2023 and 2024 was getting on base. He stopped doing that in 2025, and it exposed his shortcomings in other areas so badly that he ended up being worth minus-1.7 rWAR.
Yet there was nothing wrong with his approach this year, as his chase rate dropped a few percentage points relative to 2024. He just didn't drive the ball when he made contact, which could indicate he went a little too hard with his running-centric workout routine the previous winter.
In any case, Wade isn't ancient and he isn't far removed from posting a .376 OBP and 4.9 rWAR across 2023 and 2024. Of all the candidates to be picked up on minor league deals this winter, he might be the one with the most upside.
Potential Landing Spots: Colorado Rockies, Washington Nationals, Houston Astros
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
