The 9 most fascinating free agents of the offseason

The 2023-24 MLB free agency period officially began Monday, kicking off what should be an exciting offseason across the Majors.

This year’s free agent class is laden with talent, including the National League Cy Young Award favorite, international stars ready to make the jump to MLB and, of course, the man everyone is talking about. But who will be the most fun to follow this offseason?

We asked nine MLB.com writers to draft players whose free agent cases they’re interested to watch -- including players who come with a variety of opinions about their potential, outlook and likely contract. Here are the results. (Players are listed with their most recent team.)

1. Blake Snell, LHP, Padres
Snell’s stuff and resume, including an incredible platform year in 2023, suggest he should be one of the most coveted free agent starters in history. The left-hander has a strong chance of becoming a two-time Cy Young Award winner. He just had a season that saw him post a sub-1.00 ERA in three separate calendar months and an overall 1.20 ERA in his final 23 starts. In terms of whiff rate, Snell had three of the 25 best individual pitches -- his curveball and slider both ranked in the top seven -- in MLB (min. 150 swings on that pitch type). No one else even had two such pitches.

Snell, though, is not even the consensus No. 1 starter in this year’s free agent class. Whether it’s his wildness -- he led MLB with 99 walks in 2023 and has averaged 4.1 BB/9 during his career -- his lack of durability or his year-to-year inconsistency, there are some major question marks surrounding the 30-year-old. Still, it’s hard not to be tantalized by the upside.

-- Thomas Harrigan

2. Cody Bellinger, CF, Cubs
Perhaps no player boosted -- or complicated -- his free agent stock more with his 2023 performance. When Bellinger debuted in 2017 for the Dodgers as MLB Pipeline’s No. 13 prospect, he hit the ground running by winning the NL Rookie of the Year Award with 39 home runs and a 143 OPS+. Two years later in 2019, Bellinger won NL MVP with a monstrous 8.6 bWAR season and 47 home runs.

Things took an odd turn after that. Bellinger underperformed in 2020 (112 OPS+) and underwent surgery for a dislocated right shoulder after the season. He returned the next two seasons in a diminished capacity, posting a 66 OPS+ and -0.5 WAR from 2021-22. After the Dodgers non-tendered Bellinger in November 2022, the Cubs signed him to a one-year, $17.5 million deal.

Bellinger bounced back with the Cubs in 2023, producing 4.4 WAR and a 133 OPS+. His batted ball numbers suggest he might have overperformed -- his .331 expected wOBA was much lower than his .370 wOBA -- but he also shaved his strikeout rate by a whopping 11.7%. His next team will have to evaluate his complicated career arc and decide which version of Bellinger will show up going forward.

-- Brent Maguire

3. Matt Chapman, 3B, Blue Jays
Aside from maybe Bellinger, there’s not a free agent who is going to have a case more confounding than Chapman’s. The first month of 2023 looked like it was going to be an all-time contract year push (he slashed .384/.465/.687 with a 1.152 OPS), but then he slashed all of .205/.298/.361 (.659 OPS) for the next five months, including a May and June that were the two worst months of his career.

On one hand, you’ve got a Hall of Fame-level glove that’s still above average (if not quite as elite as it once was) and Statcast metrics that show his hard-hit rate was as good as anyone this side of Aaron Judge. On the other hand, you’ve got a player who just spent much of his walk year not producing at all. What do you even do with that? We’re glad we don’t have to answer that question.

-- Mike Petriello

4. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, RHP, Orix Buffaloes (NPB)
There's always some mystique when an elite player from an international league makes the jump to MLB. (Think Kodai Senga and his "ghost fork" last year for the most recent example.) But really, for Yamamoto, think Shohei Ohtani. That's the realm of hype Yamamoto might approach, with the Buffaloes posting the ace right-hander this offseason.

Yamamoto is the best pitcher in Japan. He's only 25 years old. He's won three straight Triple Crowns. He's won three straight Sawamura Awards, Japan's version of the Cy Young. He's thrown two no-hitters. And he just pitched one of the best games of his career with Orix facing elimination in Game 6 of the Japan Series -- a complete-game, 14-strikeout masterpiece in what might be his final start in Japan.

Yamamoto's stuff, track record and young age will vault him to the top of this year's free agent pitcher class. He could land a contract that shatters Masahiro Tanaka's record $155 million for a player coming from Japan. But will Yamamoto be an instant Cy Young contender like Senga, or a superstar like Ohtani? We won't know until he finally takes the mound in the Majors.

-- David Adler

5. Jung Hoo Lee, CF, Kiwoom Heroes (KBO)
It’s not always easy to predict how a star in South Korea’s KBO will adjust to MLB, but in Lee’s case, the transition should be relatively seamless. The 25-year-old outfielder isn’t far removed from winning KBO MVP honors in 2022, although a fractured ankle in July 2023 shortened his season to 86 games and clouded the picture a bit. A strong contact hitter, Lee owns a career .340/.407/.491 batting line in KBO, making his debut out of high school at age 18 when he was 11.2 years younger than the average KBO player.

Lee returned for a pinch-hit cameo in October 2023 and should be healed from his injury by the time he makes his Major League debut. The Kiwoom Heroes announced in January they would post Lee to MLB after the 2023 season, and the outfielder is represented by the Boras Corporation. Given his age and talent, Lee should be in line for a big free agent deal, but the terms will depend on how MLB clubs expect him to handle the jump.

-- Theo DeRosa

6. Jordan Montgomery, LHP, Rangers
If someone had told you two months ago that Montgomery would receive the most lucrative free agent contract for a veteran MLB pitcher this winter (excluding Shohei Ohtani), would you have believed them? I’m guessing not, but it seems plausible.

Given Montgomery’s superb finish to the Rangers’ championship season, perhaps this isn’t too surprising now. The 6-foot-6 southpaw allowed two earned runs over his final 27 regular-season innings and then placed himself in the Rangers’ record book during the postseason.

Montgomery has been extremely durable -- he is one of 11 pitchers who have made 30 starts in each of the past three seasons -- and his 6.2% walk rate in 2023 was stellar. But nothing else really pops off his profile. His strikeout rate fell to a five-year low of 21.4% in 2023. His chase and whiff rates also took significant dips. While Montgomery has turned in sub-3.50 ERAs the past two seasons, his expected ERA in each year reached 4.00.

Snell, Aaron Nola, Sonny Gray and other free agent pitchers have shown Cy Young potential during their careers. Yet might it be the 30-year-old Montgomery, the recipient of zero Cy Young Award votes in his career, who signs the richest deal of them all this winter?

-- Brian Murphy

7. Aaron Nola, RHP, Phillies
Nola is hitting the market at a tough time. Teams know what he’s capable of, but coming off a fourth-place finish in NL Cy Young Award voting in 2022, he pitched to a 4.46 ERA in his 32 starts in 2023. It wasn’t necessarily a matter of bad luck, either. His hard-hit rate leapt almost seven points from 2022. He gave up a career-high 32 home runs. Both his four-seamer and sinker were noticeably less effective than they had been the previous year, and his curveball got fewer swings and misses than ever before. Not great.

His strong postseason should help somewhat, but the question for Nola is how much his potential suitors currently value durability in a No. 1 starter. He’s made an utterly ridiculous 199 regular-season starts since his last non-COVID-related IL stint in April 2017, and he’s one of just three pitchers to have made 32 starts in each of the last three seasons (alongside José Berríos and Dylan Cease). It’s worth wondering if that particular quality is going to be in even higher demand this winter, especially given our fresh memories of the long-term deals signed by Carlos Rodón and Jacob deGrom a year ago.

-- Shanthi Sepe-Chepuru

8. Lucas Giolito, RHP, Guardians
Giolito is still only 29, but he has already been through so many ups and downs in professional baseball that it’s hard to know what to make of his path forward. He’s been a first-round Draft pick who underwent Tommy John surgery after one pro game; a consensus top-five Minor League prospect; a struggling young pitcher who led the Majors in earned runs allowed (2018); and a legitimate top-of-the-rotation starter who received American League Cy Young Award votes in three straight seasons (2019-21). But since then, Giolito’s 86 ERA+ ranks 107th of 119 pitchers (minimum 200 innings). To make matters worse, Giolito’s 2023 went off the rails, as he was traded from the White Sox to the Angels (6.89 ERA in six starts), then claimed off waivers by the Guardians (7.04 ERA in six starts).

On one hand, many of Giolito’s key metrics have been trending downward. On the other hand, many teams figure to be intrigued by the possibility of helping him get back to where he was not so long ago. Will Giolito look for a one-year “pillow contract” to re-establish his value, or take the biggest deal he can find? Will he prioritize landing with a club renowned for its work with pitchers? I look forward to finding out.

-- Andrew Simon

9. Shohei Ohtani, DH/RHP, Angels
Ohtani’s free agency is the dominating storyline this offseason, and for good reason: the two-way superstar, who has made history at every turn so far in his Major League career, represents an unprecedented case. We’ve never seen anyone like Ohtani before. Therefore, there is no free agency comp to consult.

Prior to the final month of the regular season, the sky was the limit with regard to how much a team might offer Ohtani, who has hit 171 home runs with a .922 OPS at the plate while posting a 3.01 ERA over 86 starts on the mound during his six-year MLB career. A favorite to win his second career AL MVP Award following another sensational campaign in 2023, Ohtani played so well that figures as high as $600 million for his next contract were bandied about.

But then Ohtani underwent surgery to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow, casting some uncertainty over his future as a two-way player. While he’s already far exceeded even the loftiest of expectations upon his arrival in the Majors back in 2018, it’s reasonable to wonder whether he can continue to simultaneously hit and pitch at such a high level. At minimum, Ohtani won’t pitch again until 2025, though he’s expected to be ready to hit by Opening Day of ’24.

So, on top of an already tall task in trying to determine the value of a baseball unicorn, a new complication has been introduced into the calculus. Will Ohtani still command something over half a billion dollars? Or will his injury history suppress his earning potential this offseason? What was already set to be a fascinating free agency has become even more intriguing.

-- Manny Randhawa