Contract Crowdsourcing 2025-26: Ballot 11 of 12
Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series. As in other recent seasons, FanGraphs is once again facilitating a contract crowdsourcing project, with the idea being to harness the wisdom of the crowd to better understand and project the 2025-26 free agent market.
In recent years, we’ve added a few features to these ballots based on reader feedback. You now have the option to indicate that a player will only receive a minor league contract, or won’t receive one at all. If there is a player option, team option, or opt out in a player’s contract, you’ll be able to indicate whether you think he will remain with his current team or become a free agent. Numbers are prorated to full season where noted. The projected statistics and WAR figures are from the first cut of the 2026 ZiPS projections.
Below are ballots for eight of this year’s potential free agents — in this case, a group of foreign pros from NPB and the KBO who may be posted this winter. For more detailed scouting information, be sure to read their reports on The Board, as well as Eric Longenhagen and James Fegan’s recent piece on the players who could be coming over from Asian pro leagues this offseason.
Meg is the editor-in-chief of FanGraphs and the co-host of Effectively Wild. Prior to joining FanGraphs, her work appeared at Baseball Prospectus, Lookout Landing, and Just A Bit Outside. You can follow her on Bluesky @megrowler.fangraphs.com.
I gave Murakami over 100m even though I dont really get why anyone would do it in a market where if you want to give 100-150m to a portly slugger that youre not sure is going to hit .220 you have Kyle Schwarber and Pete Alonso to choose from, or this Japanese mystery box that could be anything…even Kyle Schwarber or Pete Alonso
But teams love mystery boxes so here we go!
Big difference between Schwarber and Alonso — Alonso’s got plenty of pop, but Schwarber is top 3-5 in raw power, hits lefty, and hits well against lefties.
Do not undersell the age difference either. Many teams (correctly, IMO) are willing to pay more for riskier but younger bat, because the upside payoff can be huge.
I went with 6 / $90M, which I think was around Yoshida’s deal. I thought his deal was inexplicable, so that’s my default now for “Japanese hitters who have produced but have red flags.” I definitely think he gets less than Seiya Suzuki who was an incredible hitter in the NPB.