
The big theme at this year’s Winter Meetings in Orlando, Fla., was power. There were two major deals struck, each for a premier slugger -- Kyle Schwarber and the Phillies agreed on a five-year, $150 million contract to keep him in Philadelphia, and Pete Alonso signed a five-year, $155 million pact to join the Orioles.
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Now that the two biggest power threats on the free-agent market are off the board, where can teams turn in order to add some slug to their lineups heading into 2026?
Here’s a look at 13 free-agent options ranging from sluggers coming off huge seasons to candidates for a rebound campaign next year:
The best pure masher remaining
Eugenio Suárez
Suárez tied a career-high by smashing 49 home runs between the D-backs and Mariners last season, including four in a single game while he was with Arizona. He then hit three more in the playoffs for Seattle, including a memorable go-ahead grand slam late in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series.
There is a lot of swing-and-miss with Suárez and he strikes out frequently (29.8% K rate in 2025). But when he connects, the ball often lands over the wall. And it’s often over the left-field wall -- among qualified batters last season, Suárez ranked third with 16.3% of his batted balls being in the air to the pull side (minimum 300 batted balls).
Suárez’s 14.3% barrel rate ranked in the 89th percentile, according to Statcast. Suárez was particularly prodigious with his power against sliders in 2025, slugging .655 against the pitch.
Only five players have hit more homers than Suárez’s 261 since 2018. When it comes to pure slug remaining on the market, he’s your guy.
The elite all-around talents
Kyle Tucker, Cody Bellinger, Alex Bregman, Bo Bichette
If it’s a well-rounded hitter with pop that you’re seeking, there are several free agents still out there to fill that need.
Entering this Hot Stove season, Tucker was considered the top overall hitter on the free-agent market. The 28-year-old right fielder has established himself as an elite all-around player, and while he is coming off a down year by his standards at the plate, he’s in the middle of his prime.
Over the past five seasons, Tucker posted an .878 OPS with 134 home runs and 105 steals. The four-time All-Star does come with injury concerns -- over the past two years, he’s missed time due to shin, finger and calf issues.
Bellinger, meanwhile, has resuscitated his career after fast becoming a slugging star with the Dodgers and then watching his offensive production decline drastically from 2021-22. He rebounded with the Cubs in ’23, when he won the National League Comeback Player of the Year Award.
While Bellinger hasn’t been able to replicate the incredible numbers he put up in his 2019 NL MVP campaign, he is still a power threat -- his 29 homers for the Yankees last season represented his highest total since he launched 47 in that MVP season. He also struck out at the lowest rate of his career in 2025 -- his 13.7% K rate ranked in the 91st percentile.
Bregman, like Bellinger, hasn’t been able to reproduce the kind of season he had when he finished runner-up in AL MVP voting in the same year Bellinger won the honor in the NL. That year, Bregman belted a career-high 41 homers and led MLB with 119 walks.
The similarities between Bregman and Bellinger don’t end there -- both are difficult to strike out and rarely swing and miss. Bregman’s K rate last season was 14.1% and he had an elite whiff rate of 15% (92nd percentile). Bellinger’s whiff rate was 18.1% (84th percentile).
Bichette proved that his down year in 2024, in which he was limited by injury, was just a blip on the radar and not the start of a trend. He bounced back in a big way in ’25, helping lead the Blue Jays all the way to Game 7 of the World Series. Still just 27 years old, he posted the second-highest slugging percentage (.483) in any full season of his big league career.
Bichette’s power was on display in World Series Game 7, when he crushed a dramatic three-run homer off Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani. The ball traveled a Statcast-projected 442 feet to dead-center-field.
The Japanese sluggers
Munetaka Murakami, Kazuma Okamoto
Murakami has been said to have “Ruthian” power, demonstrating that with a massive 2022 campaign in Nippon Professional Baseball in which he belted 56 home runs and won the Triple Crown. He’s had strikeout problems, fanning 29.5% of the time in 2024. In ’25, he was limited to 56 games by an oblique injury, but still hit 22 homers.
Murakami’s power also translates through his elite exit velocities -- in 2025, his maximum exit velocity was 116.5 mph. That bodes well for his transition to the Majors after being posted by his NPB club, the Yakult Swallows. The strikeout rate is concerning, but the upside is big here.
Okamoto also showed significant power in Japan, hitting 30 or more home runs in each season from 2018-23, and 248 homers for his career. He is considered to be a more polished hitter than Murakami with a higher floor, though Murakami’s “epic power,” as one executive put it, could give him the higher ceiling over time.
The switch-hitters
Jorge Polanco, Josh Bell
Polanco just turned in his best season at the plate since he connected for 33 homers with the Twins in 2021. The switch-hitting second baseman/designated hitter slugged .495 with 26 homers in 471 at-bats for the Mariners last season and helped Seattle reach the ALCS.
The big question with him moving forward will be about durability -- he hasn’t played in more than 138 games in a season since that big ’21 campaign, and he’s had knee troubles recently.
Bell, meanwhile, has consistently been a 20-plus-homer hitter but hasn’t approached his huge 2019 All-Star campaign with the Pirates, when he launched 37 homers.
The rebound candidates
Adolis García, Marcell Ozuna, Rhys Hoskins, Michael Conforto
It was somewhat surprising -- though, when you consider all the factors at play, perhaps not -- that the Rangers non-tendered García following the 2025 campaign. The 2023 ALCS MVP and walk-off hero in Game 1 of that fall’s World Series saw his output at the plate decline over the next two seasons.
After a career year in 2023, in which he belted 39 home runs with an .836 OPS, García’s OPS was well below .700 in each of the next two seasons. In ’25, his OPS was .665 and he hit 19 homers. But since he’s still just two seasons removed from that huge performance and with his overall track record, a rebound in ’26 is certainly feasible.
Ozuna saw his numbers drop last season after finishing fourth in NL MVP voting in 2024. He was still an above-average hitter, but the decline in production was stark given the heights of the prior season. In ’24, he hit .302/.378/.546 with 39 homers, but last season, his slugging percentage fell by more than 140 points to an even .400 while his home run output was down by nearly half (21).
One factor with Ozuna is that he’s entering his age-35 campaign in 2026, and it’s hard to determine whether and how much being on the wrong side of the age curve will impact his production moving forward. But for a guy who delivered such a prodigious performance just two years ago, he should certainly find another spot as he looks to rebound.
After undergoing surgery to repair a torn left ACL in 2023, Hoskins hasn’t been the same slugger he was in six seasons with the Phillies prior to that. He’s shown he is still capable of hitting 20+ homers in a season (26 for the Brewers in ’24) but his slugging percentage before the injury was .492, and since then, it’s .418.
Still, Hoskins has yet to play in a season of more than 131 games since the operation, so there’s some potential for a bounceback if he can stay healthy in ’26.
Conforto was a rising star with the Mets early on in his career, but he just couldn’t stay healthy consistently enough to reach his potential. He did hit 88 homers from 2017-19, but he’s had inconsistent results since undergoing a right shoulder surgery that cost him the entire 2022 campaign. Last season with the Dodgers, he had the lowest offensive output of his career (.637 OPS) in 138 games.
There are some underlying numbers that indicate there may be hope for a rebound, though. Conforto’s .404 xSLG last season was 71 points higher than his actual slugging percentage, his 44% hard-hit rate was higher than his career norm (41.1%) and his 9.7% barrel rate didn’t deviate alarmingly from his 10.3% career average. His whiff rate, strikeout rate and walk rate were also in line with career norms.
