Upcoming 2023 MLB Free Agents Who Need a Big Year to Land the Bag
MLB players sometimes pick the perfect time for a career year.
No one was surprised to see Corey Seager and Max Scherzer get paid this offseason, and the same will be true once Carlos Correa signs on the dotted line.
However, few would have guessed that Marcus Semien would walk away with a $175 million deal, or that Robbie Ray would hit the open market as the reigning AL Cy Young winner and secure a $115 million contract.
Looking ahead to next offseason, which players could position themselves for a similarly surprising payday with a strong showing in 2022?
We've highlighted 10 upcoming free agents who could land the bag with a big contract year.
SP Chris Bassitt, Oakland Athletics
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Chris Bassitt needs to continue impressing to secure a lucrative multiyear deal in free agency next offseason.
The 32-year-old did not become a regular member of the Oakland Athletics rotation until 2019, when he logged a 3.81 ERA in 144 innings. But he has quietly established himself as one of the best pitchers in the American League over the past two seasons.
Bassitt finished eighth in AL Cy Young voting in 2020 with a 2.29 ERA in 63 innings. He backed up that abridged performance last year when he went 12-4 with a 3.15 ERA, 1.06 WHIP and 159 strikeouts in 157.1 innings to earn an All-Star selection and again crack the top 10 in Cy Young balloting.
More of the same would put him comfortably alongside Nathan Eovaldi, Joe Musgrove and teammate Sean Manaea at the top of the 2022-23 free-agent starting pitching market. Of course, if Jacob deGrom decides to opt out of his contract, he'll be in a tier all of his own.
LF Andrew Benintendi, Kansas City Royals
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Andrew Benintendi once looked like a future star for the Boston Red Sox. After winning Golden Spikes honors during his junior season at Arkansas, he went No. 7 overall in the 2015 draft, and he was No. 1 on the Baseball America Top 100 prospect list by 2017.
Benintendi hit .271/.352/.424 with 20 home runs, 90 RBI and 20 steals to finish second in AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2017, and he was a 4.8 WAR player the following season. But his development stalled from there, and the Red Sox sold low last winter when they flipped him to the Kansas City Royals.
Benintendi batted .276/.324/.442 for a 104 OPS+ with 17 home runs and 73 RBI during his first season with the Royals in 2021, but his strong finish has provided some optimism that a big contract year could be forthcoming. Over the final month of the season, he hit .342/.398/.570 with five home runs and 29 RBI in 31 games.
Given Benintendi's age and defensive ability, a spike in his offensive production over a full season could mean the difference between a modest two-year deal and a lucrative long-term contract.
SP Mike Clevinger, San Diego Padres
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When healthy, Mike Clevinger is a legitimate ace-caliber pitcher. He ranks in the top 10 in ERA (2.96, sixth) and ERA+ (152, fourth) among pitchers with at least 450 innings pitched since 2017, which was his first full season in the Cleveland rotation.
Unfortunately, he has topped 130 innings in a season only once, and he spent all of 2021 watching from the sidelines while recovering from Tommy John surgery.
The 32-year-old has been virtually unhittable at times in his career, including a 2019 season in which he posted a 2.71 ERA with a staggering 169 strikeouts in 126 innings. But his lack of durability figures to be a significant limiting factor when it comes to his value on the open market.
Clevinger likely needs to show his pre-injury stuff and chew through 150-plus innings to convince teams to give him a big contract.
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RP Edwin Diaz, New York Mets
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Edwin Diaz has struck out 38.6 percent of the batters he has faced over the course of his six-year career. That doesn't happen by accident.
Despite some issues with his command and with the home run ball at various points in his career, he still offers as much upside as any reliever in baseball when everything is clicking.
The 27-year-old converted 32 of 38 save chances with a 3.45 ERA, 1.05 WHIP and 12.8 strikeouts per nine innings last season. He limited opposing hitters to a .195 average while clocking in at 98.8 mph with his fastball and backing it with one of baseball's most lethal wipeout sliders.
Another year of effective late-inning work will make it that much easier for teams to overlook Diaz's 5.59 ERA and 15 home runs allowed in 58 innings during an ugly 2019 campaign. His age (28 in March) makes him an appealing candidate for a long-term deal if he performs well in 2022.
LF Joey Gallo, New York Yankees
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Joey Gallo is a three-outcome offensive player to an extreme degree.
A staggering 58.8 percent of Gallo's plate appearances last year ended in a strikeout (213), walk (111) or home run (38). But even with a batting average under .200, he still posted a .351 on-base percentage and 121 OPS+ during a 4.7-WAR season.
Anyone still treating the stats on the back of a baseball card as the best way to assess talent will never appreciate Gallo's game, and the strikeouts are going to be a talking point all season playing in the bright lights of New York.
However, if he can tune out the noise and post another 30-homer, 4-WAR season while once again playing Gold Glove-caliber defense in the outfield, he's poised to cash in with a nine-figure deal when he hits the open market prior to his 30th birthday.
RF Brandon Nimmo, New York Mets
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Like several others on this list, Brandon Nimmo would greatly improve his free-agent stock by staying healthy for a full season.
Nimmo has played in only 216 of 384 games for the New York Mets over the last three seasons. Despite suiting up for only 92 games in 2021, he was still a 3.6-WAR player and one of the few bright spots on a disappointing Mets team.
The Mets' addition of Starling Marte means Nimmo will no longer be miscast as a center fielder. He can instead focus on his offensive game, which centers around his elite on-base ability.
The 28-year-old has a .393 career on-base percentage, and he got on base at a .401 clip with a 14.0 percent walk rate last year. That makes him a rare player in today's strikeout-heavy game.
If Nimmo plays in at least 130 games and has an on-base percentage hovering around .400 once again, he'll be one of the most in-demand outfielders on the market next offseason.
C Gary Sanchez, New York Yankees
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Gary Sanchez is heading into a make-or-break season.
With a projected salary of $7.9 million in his final year of arbitration, the New York Yankees weren't guaranteed to even tender him a contract after he steadily lost playing time to Kyle Higashioka during the 2021 season. But in the end, the Yankees decided to bring him back.
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman told reporters in November what went into that decision:
"He worked his tail off. I thought his catching, without a doubt, got better. In the very end, he had some struggles which got magnified, which is almost like picking the scab and making everybody remember what it was like in the past. But I think overall he was significantly better at the catching position defensively last year than [2020], so I've got to give him a lot of credit for the hard work and the dedication that he had toward trying to improve."
Improvements aside, Sanchez is still a well-below-average catcher (-10 DRS, -2.5 FRM), and his offensive game has not made up for those shortcomings in recent years. This past season, he hit .204/.307/.423 for a 99 OPS+ with 23 home runs and a 27.5 percent strikeout rate in a 0.7-WAR season.
The catching market is thin enough that even a slight uptick in production relative to his 2021 numbers would make Sanchez an appealing free-agent target. But he could just as easily take another step back and struggle to find a starting job next winter.
SS Dansby Swanson, Atlanta Braves
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Dansby Swanson is a rock-solid everyday shortstop, and he's going to get paid one way or another next offseason. But he has shown flashes of being the type of player who could command a nine-figure payday if everything clicks.
The 28-year-old had career highs in hits (146), doubles (33), home runs (27), RBI (88) and runs scored (78) last season, but his .248/.311/.449 batting line represented a step backward from where he was in 2020, when he received some down-ballot MVP support.
He slumped down the stretch, hitting .176/.271/.275 with 36 strikeouts over his final 107 plate appearances to take a bite out of his overall numbers, but he rebounded with a solid postseason and homered twice in the World Series.
As is, Swanson is poised to command a nice multiyear deal, but he is the type of player whose market could explode if he puts together a career year offensively.
SP Noah Syndergaard, Los Angeles Angels
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After pitching a grand total of two innings over the past two seasons, Noah Syndergaard settled for a one-year, $21 million deal with the Los Angeles Angels as he looks to prove he can healthy and rebuild his value for a run at a long-term deal.
The 29-year-old has been one of baseball's most overpowering pitchers when he's right. But during his last fully healthy season in 2019, he went 10-8 with a 4.28 ERA (96 ERA+) and 1.23 WHIP in 197.2 innings, which profile more as middle-of-the-rotation numbers than frontline starter production.
Getting on the mound for two one-inning appearances down the stretch last season could go a long way in helping him hit the ground running in 2022, and a pitching-starved Angels team will be counting on him occupying a spot atop the starting staff.
It's not out of the question to think Thor could be the No. 1 starter on the market next offseason if he's healthy and back to his pre-injury form, but there's also a wide range of outcomes in terms of where things could end up next winter.
SP Jameson Taillon, New York Yankees
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Jameson Taillon quietly had an effective first season with the New York Yankees, posting a 4.30 ERA (100 ERA+) and a 1.21 WHIP with 140 strikeouts in 144.1 innings.
However, he is capable of more.
Injuries derailed Taillon early in his pro career after the Pittsburgh Pirates selected him No. 2 overall in the 2010 draft. He later underwent surgery for testicular cancer in 2017 while he was still settling into his spot in the Pirates rotation.
Everything came together in 2018 when he went 14-10 with a 3.20 ERA, 1.18 WHIP and 179 strikeouts in 191 innings, but he missed the bulk of 2019 with a forearm strain and eventually he underwent Tommy John surgery for the second time in his career.
Taillon stayed healthy in 2021, which was a big first step toward cashing in as a free agent. Another season avoiding an extended stint on the injured list with numbers somewhere between his 2018 and 2021 campaigns would push him into the upper tier of available starters ahead of his age-31 season.
All stats courtesy of Baseball Reference and FanGraphs.
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