2025-26 MLB free agency, trade grades: Offseason analysis

It is sizzling range season! The 2025-26 MLB offseason is formally right here, and we’ve got you lined with grades and evaluation for each main signing and commerce this winter.

Whether or not it is a big-money free agent signing that modifications the course of your crew’s future or a blockbuster commerce, we’ll weigh in with what all of it means for subsequent season and past.

ESPN MLB specialists Bradford Doolittle and David Schoenfield will consider every transfer because it occurs, so comply with alongside right here — this story will proceed to be up to date. Examine again in for the freshest evaluation by way of the beginning of spring coaching.

Associated hyperlinks: Tracker | Prime 50 free brokers

The deal: 5 years
Grade: A-

If there was an award free of charge agent prediction most to seemingly come true, Josh Naylor returning to the Seattle Mariners would have been the front-runner, so it is hardly a shock that that is the primary important signing of the offseason (pending a bodily). As quickly because the Mariners’ season ended with that heartbreaking loss in Sport 7 of the ALCS, the entrance workplace made it clear that re-signing Naylor was its prime precedence. Such public vocalizations at that stage are uncommon — and the Mariners backed them up with a five-year contract.

It is simple to grasp why they needed Naylor again. The Mariners have been trying to find a long-term answer at first base for, oh, occurring 20 years — actually, since they traded John Olerud in 2004. Ty France gave them a pair strong seasons in 2021 and 2022, however since 2005 solely the Pirates’ first basemen have produced a decrease OPS than Seattle’s.

Naylor, in the meantime, came to visit on the commerce deadline from Arizona and supplied an enormous spark down the stretch, hitting .299/.341/.490 with 9 house runs and 33 RBIs in 54 video games, good for two.2 WAR. Together with his time with the Diamondbacks, he completed at .295/.353/.462 with 20 house runs in 2025. Given the pitcher-friendly nature of T-Cell Park, it isn’t simple to draw free agent hitters to Seattle, however Naylor spoke about how he loves hitting there. The numbers again that up: In 43 profession video games at T-Cell, he has hit .304 and slugged .534.

Importantly for a Seattle lineup that’s heavy on strikeouts, Naylor is a high-contact hitter in the course of the order; he completed with the Seventeenth-best strikeout fee amongst certified hitters in 2025. Naylor’s complete sport is a little bit of an oxymoron. He ranks in simply the seventh percentile in chase fee however nonetheless had an almost league-average stroll fee (forty sixth percentile) with a wonderful contact fee. He cannot run (third percentile!) however stole 30 bases in 32 makes an attempt, together with 19-for-19 after becoming a member of the Mariners. He would not seem like he’d be fast within the subject, however his Statcast defensive metrics have been above common in every of the previous 4 seasons.

He isn’t a star — 3.1 WAR in 2025 was a profession excessive — however he is a secure, predictable participant to financial institution on for the subsequent few years. This deal runs by way of his age-33 season, so possibly there’s some threat on the finish of the contract, however for a crew with World Sequence aspirations in 2026, the Mariners wanted to deliver Naylor again. The entrance workplace might be pleased with this signing and so will Mariners followers. — David Schoenfield