Very few starting pitchers are a bargain. These 4 free agents could deliver huge value

The most expensive type of player to acquire on the open market is often a starting pitcher.

MLB teams averaged $33.8 million spent on starting rotations last season, the most of any position type, according to Spotrac. Starting pitchers generally have the highest average annual salaries in free agency. To add external help to a rotation is costly.

That makes value shopping at the position difficult. There are few bargains. But when such a signing does hit, it becomes a great relative value for a club.

Which remaining arms could be undervalued and help a club in 2026? (We are not considering Zac Gallen, who is attached to a qualifying offer.) Rather, we want to target the available pitchers expected to be limited to short-term deals, who still find themselves available because of some real or perceived blemish. Let's explore.

Zack Littell, RHP
Littell might not seem like a compelling addition. He doesn't strike out many batters, his Stuff+ scores are below average. He doesn't light up a radar gun. However, he does a few things exceptionally well.

Since the start of last season, he's tied with Tarik Skubal for the lowest walk rate (4.5%) among qualified pitchers. That's an excellent skill to build upon.

And the righty does something else incredibly well that might be underappreciated: He generates swings. When he made the leap in 2023 from reliever to starter, Littell changed his arsenal. He increased his splitter usage and added a two-seamer to give him three types of fastballs he threw regularly -- an arsenal that increased his zone percentage. As a result, he generated an incredible amount of swings.

His swing rate of 51.4% in 2025 was tied for the sixth-best mark among pitchers who reached at least 150 innings. The only arms ranked above him? Skubal, Bryan Woo, Jacob deGrom, Garrett Crochet and Kevin Gausman. That's an elite list.

Compelling batters to swing more often results in fewer balls, fewer walks and more innings. Littell ranked 11th in innings last season, ranking between Paul Skenes and Woo. In fact, since the start of 2024, only 16 pitchers have thrown at least 340 innings while posting a lower ERA than Littell's in that span (3.73). Moreover, he's also one of the younger arms on the market (30).

Littell is a sneaky innings-eating machine.

Aaron Civale, RHP
Not all that long ago, Civale was thought of highly enough that the Rays surrendered a top prospect in Kyle Manzardo to acquire him at the 2023 Deadline. It was one of the few trades the Rays have lost.

Traded twice since that deal, Civale has seen his stock dip because of uneven performance. His 4.85 ERA last season, and back-to-back campaigns with less than 1 WAR (per FanGraphs), have him still available in February.

But there are some interesting things going on under the hood. Among all pitchers to toss at least 40 innings in the second half last season, Civale ranked 22nd in strikeout-minus-walk percentage (20.5%), an elite rate in a useful metric that accounts for what pitchers largely control. His 3.39 second-half SIERA (Skill-Interactive ERA), which also accounts for batted-ball quality, is also the best among all remaining free-agent starters.

Civale did make five multi-inning relief appearances in the second half, and he performed well during those, so one can argue his numbers were inflated by his role. But his performance improvement also coincided with a pitch-mix change as he ramped up usage of his curveball. It gave him an unusual combination, making him the only pitcher in the second half to have a cutter-curveball combination account for at least 50% of offerings. Perhaps he's found a formula that can allow him to help a rotation, or as an impact swingman.

Chris Bassitt, RHP
Bassitt is becoming more of a risk of decline entering his age-37 season, as most any pitcher would. His velocity is falling off. He's not going to miss many bats.

But he is incredibly durable, having logged at least 150 innings in every season since 2021. He's also the owner of one of the deepest arsenals in the game, allowing him to perhaps get by on guile and creativity, even as his stuff declines.

He also continues to tinker, dropping his arm angle by three degrees last season, creating more horizontal movement across his pitch offerings. His curveball's run value improved from -1 in 2024 to +5 compared to the league average. His full-season SIERA (3.92) was better than the league average and his best since 2022. It suggests he still has some fuel in the tank for 2026.

Lucas Giolito, RHP
Given his pedigree and his 3.41 ERA last season, it might seem surprising that Giolito is still available. But teams are paying more attention to his expected ERA of 4.99 last season, a campaign that ended with a sore elbow.

Giolito said recently he's fully recovered and began his offseason throwing program in the fall. But his injury history is significant. He had Tommy John surgery after he was drafted, and an internal brace procedure cost him all of 2024.

But it's because of that injury history that Giolito is still available and likely to get a low-risk, high-upside, short-term deal. An investment in Giolito is in part a belief that he'll be stronger a year further removed from surgery and return to being a strong strikeout arm (26% K-rate in 2023, 25% career rate).

There's another reason for clubs to sign Giolito: He was one of the unluckiest pitchers in baseball by one measure: performance in full counts. The MLB average for a K-BB% mark with a full count is around zero, or neutral. But Giolito's mark was -17% last season. When the count was full, he walked 30 and struck out 17.

While stuff plays a role, that's a number that also carries some extreme poor luck. After all, his velocity held steady from 2023, and his Stuff+ scores were in line with when he was striking out more than a batter per inning in recent seasons -- when he had a more neutral full-count performance.

If Giolito can get back to neutral, he can be a mid-rotation contributor, and likely do so at a discount.