8 free agents with very particular skill sets

Every team has different needs when entering the offseason -- and whatever they're looking for, there's a player to match.

Let's take a look at the players with the top individual skills who are free agents heading into the 2024 season.

This is loosely based on baseball's traditional five tools -- contact hitting, power, speed, fielding and arm strength (with a couple of extras mixed in). There are some free agents who have more than one standout tool, but we're using each player only once.

Here are the best tools available on the 2023-24 free-agent market.

Contact hitting: Cody Bellinger

What a difference a year makes. Bellinger, the 2023 NL Comeback Player of the Year, reinvented himself from a boom-or-bust slugger who barely hit above the Mendoza Line in 2022 to a .300 hitter who became all about bat-to-ball skill in 2023. He cut his strikeouts nearly in half. He made way more contact. He started spraying line drives. And he still hit 26 home runs.

Check out Bellinger's turnaround from 2022 to '23, and how he ranked alongside the rest of the league:

• K rate: 27.3% (14th percentile of MLB) to 15.6% (87th percentile)
• Whiff rate: 27.2% (33rd percentile) to 20.1% (77th percentile)
• Sweet-spot rate: 34.4% (58th percentile) to 38.0% (86th percentile)
• Expected BA: .213 (6th percentile) to .268 (74th percentile)
• Batting run value: -9 (18th percentile) to +23 (88th percentile)

He was just a different type of hitter, even compared to his MVP and Rookie of the Year seasons. Props to Bellinger for reinventing himself and becoming one of the top free-agent hitters.

Honorable mention: Michael Brantley, Shohei Ohtani, J.D. Martinez, Whit Merrifield

Power: Shohei Ohtani

This one should be obvious. The American League home run king and MVP is the best power hitter on the market. Ohtani might be the best power hitter in baseball, period. He has 124 home runs over the last three seasons, averaging over 40 a year. His quality of contact is top-of-the-scale. Ohtani has 220 barrels since 2021 -- that's Statcast's highest level of contact, balls that are likely to be either home runs or extra-base hits based on their exit velocity and launch angle. The only hitter with more is Aaron Judge (242).

Statcast also gives each hitter an expected home run total, based on how many of the 30 MLB ballparks their batted balls would be home runs. Ohtani's expected home runs are right in line with his actual home runs. He had 120.7 xHR from 2021-23, which, again, means 40-plus home run power. And nearly half of Ohtani's total homers over that span, 59 of 124, have been "no-doubter" home runs -- that means they'd be gone at all 30 stadiums. In other words: No matter where Ohtani signs, he'd be putting up elite power numbers. He even hit the longest home run of the 2023 season, 493 feet.

Honorable mention: Teoscar Hernández, Rhys Hoskins, Jorge Soler

Plate discipline: Brandon Belt

There are several veteran hitters on the free-agent market who have top-tier plate discipline. The best of those is Belt, who was one of the leaders of a playoff-bound Blue Jays team in 2023. The 35-year-old is still contemplating his playing future, but if he signs with a new team for next year, he'll be providing a valuable presence in the lineup. Belt rarely chases pitches out of the strike zone, which results in great on-base numbers. His 17.9% chase rate ranked in the 96th percentile of all MLB hitters last season, his 15.1% walk rate ranked in the 97th percentile of MLB, and he posted a .369 on-base percentage.

Belt's eye also lets him pick out the pitches he can make high-quality contact against: His 44.5% sweet-spot rate ranked in the 99th percentile of MLB in 2023, and his 15.0% barrel rate ranked in the 91st percentile. That's what led to his .858 OPS over 400-plus plate appearances. Mitch Garver (98th percentile chase rate, 90th percentile walk rate, 83rd percentile barrel rate in 2023) is strong competition when it comes to having plate discipline and turning it into production, but Belt has proven to possess this skill over a long period of time in the big leagues.

Honorable mention: Garver, Robbie Grossman, Andrew McCutchen, Tommy Pham

Speed: Garrett Hampson

Hampson being non-tendered by the Marlins puts one of the fastest players in baseball on the market. Hampson's average sprint speed last season, 29.8 ft/sec, was tied for 14th fastest in MLB. He also had 32 "bolts" (runs at or above Statcast's elite speed threshold of 30 ft/sec), tied for 18th most. And Hampson's 32 bolts came on just 80 competitive runs, so he was reaching elite speed nearly half the time, which is a very high rate. Hampson just turned 29, so he should still have his excellent speed for a while, which helps him both on the bases and in the field. A speedy utility player still in his 20s should be able to find a nice landing spot somewhere.

Editor's note: Hampson signed a one-year deal with the Royals on Wednesday.

Honorable mention: Bellinger, Billy Hamilton, Kevin Kiermaier

Glove (Infield): Matt Chapman

There are plenty of great fielders available this offseason, so we're splitting up the defense category into infielders and outfielders. In the infield, it doesn't get any better than Chapman, a perennial Gold Glove candidate at third base who's won the award four times, including in 2023 with the Blue Jays. Since his MLB debut in 2017, Chapman has accumulated +54 Outs Above Average at the hot corner, making him one of the top fielders in MLB overall in that time and the second-best third baseman behind only the great Nolan Arenado.

Honorable mention: Nick Ahmed, Brandon Crawford, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Jonathan Schoop

Glove (Outfield): Kevin Kiermaier

Kiermaier is to the outfield what Chapman is to the infield, a four-time Gold Glove Award-winning center fielder who's the reigning Gold Glover at his position (and just so happened to be Chapman's teammate in Toronto last season). He might be one of the best defensive center fielders ever. Kiermaier's range in the outfield is second to none -- since Statcast introduced Outs Above Average in 2016, Kiermaier's +84 OAA in center field is the best of any outfielder, and ranks in the top five among all MLB fielders at any position. Kiermaier has made 62 plays with a catch probability of 50% or lower over that time, one behind Jackie Bradley Jr. for the most of any outfielder, including 17 five-star catches (25% catch probability or lower), one behind Billy Hamilton for the most of any outfielder.

Honorable mention: Harrison Bader, Bellinger

Arm (Infield): Gary Sánchez

Arm strength can be particularly important for a catcher, especially with the new rules MLB introduced in 2023 to encourage more stolen bases, and the Kraken has one of the strongest arms of any backstop. Sánchez's pop times always rank among the fastest in MLB -- in 2023, his average pop time to second base of 1.90 seconds was tied for sixth best among all catchers, and fourth best among catchers with 20 or more throws -- and those pop times are the product of his strong throws. Sánchez's average arm strength last season was 85.5 mph, and he tied for the fastest tracked individual throw of the season by a catcher at 89.7 mph. He can catch even the best baserunners trying to steal, like Corbin Carroll.

Honorable mention: Brian Anderson, Chapman

Arm (Outfield): Michael A. Taylor

Taylor has the right combination of raw arm strength and the ability to turn it into real value, both by throwing runners out and simply preventing them from taking extra bases. Last season, Taylor's average competitive arm strength of 91.5 mph ranked among the top 10% of MLB fielders, and he reached a max of 97.9 mph. In fact, his arm strength has been in the top 10% of the league every season since Statcast debuted the metric in 2020. Taylor has an overall arm strength of 91.9 mph over that time, a max arm strength of 102.4 mph -- making him one of only 10 fielders with a 102-plus-mph throw -- and a high of 98.8 mph on an outfield assist.

But having a strong arm is only half the battle. Taylor turns it into results. Since the start of the 2020 season, he's prevented 15 runs due to his arm in the outfield, the highest outfield arm value of any MLB player. That's led to runners attempting to advance against him at a rate far below average -- Taylor, Kiermaier, Ronald Acuña Jr. and Jose Siri are the outfielders that baserunners try to run on the least.

Honorable mention: Bader, Joey Gallo, Aaron Hicks