It’s a Good Thing Nobody Needs a Shortstop

Shortstop is one of the hardest positions on the diamond to fill, especially if you want anything resembling useful offensive production from the position. Nevertheless, it has been one place where help is usually available on the free agent market.

In the four full offseasons that either straddled or succeeded the last lockout, eight different teams have signed a free agent shortstop to a contract worth $140 million or more. This includes the Rangers, who did it twice in the same winter.

Here’s every free agent shortstop over the past four offseasons who either produced 2.0 WAR or more in his walk year, received a total guarantee of $10 million or more in free agency, or both in most cases.

Is this trend — if you want to call it that — inflated by back-to-back bumper crops in 2021-22 and 2022-23? Maybe, but just last offseason the Giants gave Willy Adames $182 million over seven years. Sure, not all of these guys ended up working out. Some of them didn’t even stay at shortstop — the Rangers and Padres, most notably, doubled or even tripled up at the position.

This is what we’re staring down for this offseason. These are the four free agents listed as shortstops by RosterResource, who either produced 1.0 WAR in 2025 or are projected to do so in 2026.

When we did the Top 50 Free Agent list, I ended up with the blurb for Ha-Seong Kim. I went to Meg to ask if we were really sure he was going to opt out. Kim’s player option for 2026 was for more than he made in 2025, and in the intervening year he’d not only gotten older, but he’d also been hurt most of the year, and basically replacement-level when he was able to take the field. The Rays straight-up cut bait on him rather than risk paying him $16 million in 2026.

I guess this is why he opted out.

I think Bichette is a stud. Just three months ago I wrote that he was basically a poor man’s Turner (or a slow man’s Turner), and that I’d be shocked to see him sign for less than $200 million this winter.

I don’t think he’s a shortstop anymore. Even before the knee sprain that turned Bichette into a Bucknerite figure on the bases in the World Series, he was the worst defensive shortstop in baseball in 2025. He had below-average arm strength and first-percentile defensive range. I’d pay him anyway, because I think he’d be fine at second and the bat plays just about anywhere, but leaving him at shortstop would be foolish.

Kim’s the cream of the crop, otherwise. After him, you’ve got Castro, who played just 26 innings at short in 2025, and Rojas. Taking nothing away from Rojas’ World Series Game 7 heroics, the fact that he was in a position to hit that home run and make that crucial bases-loaded play meant the Dodgers were on Plan C or D by that point. The next man up by 2025 WAR is Kiner-Falefa, whose postseason performance exposed the reasons why you don’t want to go into the season with him as your starting shortstop.

It’s a pity that the cupboard is so bare, because shortstop has traditionally been a pretty safe place to spend major resources.

Of the eight teams that signed those ultra-big shortstop contracts over the past four seasons, five made the playoffs last season. One of the three exceptions, the Rangers, won the World Series in their second year with Seager and Semien in the fold.

Last season, 14 teams spent at least $10 million on their starting shortstop. A few of those — the Padres, Phillies, and Cubs — displaced a decent-or-better incumbent to make room for a big, fancy free agent signing. Seven teams started their own first-round pick at short. One team, the Royals, used a first-rounder to draft a franchise shortstop and then signed him to a massive extension, and thus fell into both buckets. (Given how good Bobby Witt Jr. is, that high price is looking like the bargain of the century.)

That’s two thirds of the league, and quite a few of the 10 holdouts are borderline cases. Gunnar Henderson and Masyn Winn were second-round picks, but went in the top 50 overall. Jeremy Peña was a third-rounder but is due for a huge contract whether he extends with the Astros or holds out until free agency. Elly De La Cruz is even more due for a huge contract.

Ezequiel Tovar got a mid-season extension that’ll pay him eight figures by the end of the deal. So did Geraldo Perdomo, who’s keeping the well-compensated Ketel Marte and first-round pick Jordan Lawlar off the position. Joey Ortiz and CJ Abrams were both key prospects in trades that sent the face of the franchise out of town in order to facilitate a rebuild.

Listing off all these shortstop success stories does bring into focus why this free agent class is so weak: Most of the league already has the position squared away.

Of the teams that had expensive shortstops in 2025, the Twins and Rays divested themselves from the position during the season, and the Blue Jays are either going to lose Bichette to another team or move him off the position. The Rays aren’t going to go outside the organization for a shortstop with top prospect Carson Williams major league-ready. Ditto the Tigers and Kevin McGonigle, if they decide to use Báez elsewhere.

Some of the teams with entrenched incumbents might be tempted to see what’s on the other side of the fence, but most of these teams — the Guardians, the Brewers, the White Sox, the Marlins — aren’t usually big spenders anyway. Or even medium-size spenders. That narrows down the free agent shortstop market even further, to the Blue Jays and Braves. Maybe the Yankees, if the Trade Anthony Volpe movement is to be taken seriously, and the Mariners, if they think J.P. Crawford’s glove is no longer tenable at shortstop.

Oh look, the Blue Jays and Braves, respectively, are where the top two guys on the free agent shortstop list came from.

It appears that the free agent shortstop market has been so fruitful over the past four years, it eliminated its own need to exist. The free market worked!