The hot stove has been bubbling on a low simmer during the past month, with some notable signings and trades taking place in the early weeks of the offseason.
Will it come to a full boil this week?
The 2025 Winter Meetings officially begin Monday in Orlando, though executives and agents started arriving in town over the weekend.
We’ll hear plenty about the top free agents on the market – Kyle Tucker, Kyle Schwarber, Cody Bellinger, Pete Alonso and so on – but the action could extend far beyond the biggest available names.
As always, rumors will buzz throughout the lobby as free agents look for new deals and teams discuss potential trade opportunities.
Here are five storylines to watch as the biggest week of the offseason gets underway:
Making their pitch
Dylan Cease got the pitching market off to a big start with his seven-year, $210 million deal to join the Blue Jays, but there are a number of other frontline starters available.
Framber Valdez, Tatsuya Imai, Ranger Suárez, Michael King and Zac Gallen lead the list, while Merrill Kelly, Justin Verlander, Chris Bassitt, Tyler Mahle, Zach Eflin, Lucas Giolito and Zack Littell are also on the market.
The list of teams looking to upgrade their respective rotations is lengthy: the Mets, Cubs, Orioles, Angels, Tigers, Yankees, Red Sox, Padres and Braves are all in the starting pitching market to varying degrees.
Not all of them will be looking to dish out the type of contract it will take to land the likes of Valdez, Imai, Suárez or King, but with a plethora of arms available, there is an abundance of options from which to choose – and some of those pitchers should start coming off the board this week.
Back-end bonanza
The free-agent pitching market isn’t limited to starters, as some high-impact relievers are also available for the right price.
Edwin Díaz, who opted out of the final two years of his record five-year, $102 million contract with the Mets, is the No. 1 reliever on the market, and it may very well take a similar contract to secure his services through the rest of the decade.
But like the starting market, there are a lot of late-inning relief types available. We’ve already seen Devin Williams, Ryan Helsley, Emilio Pagán and Raisel Iglesias sign new deals, but Robert Suarez, Pete Fairbanks, Kenley Jansen, Tyler Rogers, Kyle Finnegan and Luke Weaver are among the other relievers with closing experience still on the market.
No market tends to react to early signings like relievers, evidenced by the fact that four notable relief pitchers have already signed. The bullpen is the one area that all 30 teams can always look to upgrade, so the market for relievers should be plentiful as the meetings get underway.
What about the hitters?
Oh, right. In case you forgot, there are also some pretty good hitters available.
Tucker, Schwarber, Alonso, Bellinger and Alex Bregman lead the way, and predictably, all five players are receiving interest from multiple teams. Two Japanese star hitters – Munetaka Murakami and Kazuma Okamoto – are also drawing significant attention around the league.
Schwarber could be the first to sign, though whether he returns to the Phillies remains to be seen. Talks between the two sides have been slow, sources said, though other clubs including the Mets, Red Sox, Orioles and Reds are also in the mix for the slugger.
The Blue Jays are making a strong push for Tucker, hosting him for a visit at their spring facility in Florida last week. Tucker isn’t expected to make a decision before the end of the meetings, though an aggressive offer from Toronto – which is also hoping to bring back Bo Bichette – could always push that timeline up. Bellinger’s timeline could depend on what happens with Tucker, as some of the teams interested in the latter could view the former as Plan B.
Some of the second-tier position players – Jorge Polanco, Harrison Bader, Luis Arraez, Eugenio Suárez, Ha-Seong Kim and J.T. Realmuto, for example – could also look to get deals done sooner than later.
Trade winds
The trade market has already been active this offseason, with a half-dozen deals – including three notable trades – taking place in the lead-up to the meetings.
Those deals might wind up being precursors to an active trade season, as a number of players remain available and, in some cases, likely to move.
The Nationals have one of the most attractive trade candidates in All-Star left-hander MacKenzie Gore, who is under club control for two more seasons. Other players with multiple years of control who could be moved include Brendan Donovan of the Cardinals, Steven Kwan of the Guardians, Edward Cabrera of the Marlins and Jarren Duran of the Red Sox.
Then there’s the biggest name on the market: two-time AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal. The Tigers aren’t necessarily looking to deal Skubal, but with only one year remaining until he becomes a free agent, the possibility of a trade will linger throughout the offseason – and right up to this summer’s Trade Deadline.
Veterans potentially on the move include the Cardinals’ Nolan Arenado and Willson Contreras, the Brewers’ Freddy Peralta, the Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara, and the Phillies’ Nick Castellanos. The Twins have three potential trade candidates, as well: starters Joe Ryan and Pablo López and outfielder Byron Buxton, though sources say Minnesota is more likely to hold all three and add on the margins in an attempt to contend in the AL Central in 2026.
The Boras effect
In what has become an annual tradition, the free-agent list includes a number of prominent players represented by agent Scott Boras, who has developed a reputation of dragging out his clients’ free agency deep into the winter.
Some years, Boras lives up to that reputation, but a number of his clients have signed early in the offseason, and certainly will at the Meetings. For example, Cease is one of his clients, and he’s signed the biggest deal of the offseason.
Who can forget the 2019 meetings in San Diego? Three Boras clients – Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg and Anthony Rendon – signed nine-figure contracts over consecutive days at the meetings for a combined total of $814 million. Could we see a repeat this year?
Boras’ free-agent client list this winter includes Ranger Suárez, Imai, Gallen, Alonso, Bregman, Bellinger, Okamoto, Kim, Nick Martinez and Max Scherzer, giving the agent plenty to do in Orlando – and ample opportunities to steal the headlines each day.