MLB Free Agency Isn't Dead Yet, but the Warning Signs Are Everywhere

Look back at Major League Baseball's recent history and marvel at what a difference free agency has made.

The last three World Series champions owed a great deal to free-agent signings, after all. It's also wild to think that the three offseasons prior to 2025-26 saw the bar for the biggest free-agent contract get set, reset and reset again by Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto.

But with all apologies to Colorado Rockies play-by-play man Drew Goodman, here's some free advice: Take a good look, you won't see it for long.

You Can Already Hear MLB Free Agency's Death Rattle

The Point: The free-agent market cooled last winter as the biggest contracts have largely flopped.

Really? An "MLB free agency is dying" take in the year 2026? Does this guy know it's not 2019 anymore?

Fair, but let's at least agree MLB free agency is coming off a vibe shift. It was chilly out there this past winter, resulting in the first free-agent market out of the last five to fall short of $3 billion in spending, according to FanGraphs.

Free agency seemed in trouble in the late 2010s because teams were wary of paying top dollar for players who weren't A) young or B) of superstar quality. This past offseason invited that risk-aversion to return, and the 2026 season is mostly reinforcing why it was there in the first place.

Player	Age	Team	Years	Dollars	2026 WAR
Kyle Tucker	29	LAD	4	$240M	0.9
Dylan Cease	30	TOR	7	$210M	1.6
Alex Bregman	32	CHC	5	$175M	0.8
Cody Bellinger	30	NYY	5	$163M	2.0
Pete Alonso	31	BAL	5	$155M	0.8
Kyle Schwarber	33	PHI	5	$150M	1.7
Ranger Suarez	30	BOS	5	$130M	1.8
Bo Bichette	28	NYM	3	$126M	0.1
Framber Valdez	32	DET	3	$115M	0.2
Josh Naylor	29	SEA	5	$92.5M	0.5

Data according to FanGraphs

Of the players who were meant to drive the market*, only Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette were in their 20s, and applying the superstar label to either required waving off damage injuries did to their creds in 2024 and 2025. So, go figure that they got $366 million, against MLB Trade Rumors' forecast of $608 million.

*There wasn't a consensus on the 26-year-old Munetaka Murakami's market even before he got the cold shoulder that has since sent him on a revenge tour.

Cut to now, and neither of those deals looks like a win. The same largely holds true for all the biggest signings from this past winter. The 20 largest signings are averaging 0.7 fWAR, with only six clearing 1.0 fWAR. For reference, 141 other players have cleared 1.0 fWAR already.

The Future Couldn't Possibly Look Uglier

The Point: A weak class of free agents and a potential lockout await MLB this winter.

Setting aside the obvious elephant in the room for a moment, the upcoming class of free agents would look nothing like the blockbuster markets of 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Two-time Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal is the big prize, and he even has red flags planted in his elbow. And apart from him, is Freddy Peralta worth a mega-deal? How about an aging Kevin Gausman? And with Bichette (who has an opt-out) and Jazz Chisholm Jr. mired in down years, the best free-agent hitter might be…a 31-year-old Randy Arozarena?

Good grief. Skubal might be the only solid bet for a nine-figure contract. There hasn't been an offseason with only one $100-plus million free-agent signing since Yoenis Cespedes stood alone after the winter of 2016-17.

Then there's that elephant: The threat of a work stoppage.

It's real, alright, and what happened the last time CBA negotiations between MLB and the MLBPA caused a work stoppage isn't necessarily a fitting prologue. The lockout during the 2021-22 offseason paused the offseason, but didn't ultimately pinch the flow of money to the free-agent market.

This time feels different, as the owners seem serious about pursuing a salary cap or something meant to rein in big spenders like the Dodgers, Mets and Yankees. If the owners get their way, it's hard to imagine that being a good thing for free agency, either in the present or the future.

Does Anyone Even Want to Be a Free Agent Anymore?

The Point: Free-agent paydays are out and ASAP contract extensions are in.

There's an alternative universe out there where the last free-agent market was a lot less "blah" because of one man: Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Guerrero was meant to be a free agent after 2025 until the Toronto Blue Jays locked him down with a 14-year, $500 million contract extension. Good for them…but just imagine the hysteria if the five-time All-Star slugger had hit the market hot off a playoff run in which he went off with a 1.298 OPS and eight homers.

This is just one hypothetical of recent winters. The market could also have included Ronald Acuña Jr. after 2024 and Yordan Alvarez after 2025 if neither had signed an extension. Even if both would have been coming off injuries, this is classic "But still!" stuff.

If it's now a question of when someone might chase the free-agent legacies of Judge, Ohtani and Soto, the best hope might be Gunnar Henderson after 2028. If not him, maybe Paul Skenes and Elly De La Cruz after 2029.

Otherwise, this particular landscape is as bleak as it is far-reaching.

Bobby Witt Jr. and Julio Rodríguez could have shared a free-agent class as 20-something superstars after 2027, but both committed to staying in Kansas City and Seattle, respectively. The latter secured a complex mega-deal before he even had a year of service time, and that now looks less like an outlier and more like a model.

Michael Baumann of FanGraphs uncovered there is indeed a trend toward players signing away free-agent years way sooner than Guerrero, Alvarez and even Acuña did. Colt Emerson, Kevin McGonigle and Konnor Griffin did so in April with little to no service time, with other high-profile examples of recent vintage being Corbin Carroll, Roman Anthony, Jackson Chourio and Samuel Basallo.

On one hand, this is a window into a new reality in MLB. Young, cost-controlled players have always been the sport's most valuable resource. And now, such players are both arriving and performing sooner. For teams, they're the perfect investment opportunity.

On the other hand, it's a window into plain, old-fashioned temptation.

If you're a young, upcoming star and someone offers you a huge payday years before you're eligible for free agency, what do you do? Do you bet on yourself and hope to make out like Soto? Or do you abide by the Jarred Kelenic cautionary tale and take the money?

Ultimately, it's hard to fault either the offerers or the takers of these contracts. But if the watering-down effect that extensions have on free agency is already being felt, it's hard to feel optimistic about future markets that won't feature the Witts, Rodríguezes, Carrolls, McGonigles and Griffins of the world.

None of this is going to result in free agency dying as soon as tomorrow. But if it's going to happen, it'll happen the same way catastrophes tend to: gradually, then suddenly.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.