Looking Ahead at This Offseason’s Opt-Out Candidates

It’s hard to believe, but in two months, the celebratory World Series Champagne will have dried, the beer will be gone, and free agents will hit the open markets. After the season, players and teams have only five days to make their final option decisions, a choice that can have an enormous impact on future earnings or offseason team plans. I’m not here to predict all of those options in a 40,000-word article, as you, loyal FanGrapheteer, might nod off in boredom while Meg and Matt plot my no-doubt painful demise. But we can do a subset of them, the opt-outs and player options, as many of these are the biggest decisions that will need to be made in November. Plus, it’s an excuse to run out some early projections, which is always fun.

Unless I missed one, there are 15 opt-out clauses or player-only options.

Alex Bregman, 3B, Boston Red Sox

It took until mid-February for Alex Bregman to find a new team last year, and his arrival in Boston set off an unexpected chain of events that ended with Rafael Devers getting traded to San Francisco. Bregman has a particularly interesting choice to make in that he has only two years remaining on his deal, but a pretty spicy $80 million coming to him for those two seasons if he stays. Naturally, Bregman wants a little more security that what his Red Sox deal calls for, but that might not be attainable to him at his current rate of $40 million per year. He turns 32 in March, so he won’t be able to command a lucrative long-term deal like the one that Kyle Tucker, who is still in his 20s, is expected to sign this winter.

I think Bregman will opt out, but I’m not positive he’ll get a better market this year than he did last winter. Yes, he doesn’t come with draft pick compensation stemming from his qualifying offer this time around, but he’ll be a year older, and 2025 hasn’t really changed his career trajectory. While the Sox reportedly are interested in extending him, I don’t think they’re going to be aggressive in any attempt to re-sign him — at least not at the terms he’ll be looking to net in free agency if he does indeed hit the open market again.

Trevor Story, SS, Boston Red Sox

Thanks to his first healthy season in what feels like forever, Trevor Story has at least made it a slight possibility that he could opt out of his deal with the Red Sox. He currently leads the team in both home runs (23) and stolen bases (27), and he is third on the team in position player WAR (3.0). On the down side, there is no guarantee that Story is going to remain healthy moving forward, and he is a year older than Bregman, so it would be quite risky for him to hit the open market in hopes that he would get more than the $25 million per year that he’s owed for the next two seasons. The Sox could void his 2025 opt-out by picking up his $25 million club option for 2028, but for all the reasons why it would be risky for him to exercise his option, Boston is not going to pay him $25 million for an additional season — when he’ll be 35 — just to ensure that he doesn’t leave this winter.

I fully expect Story not to exercise the opt-out and remain in Boston. From there, I see the Red Sox going with some combination of Story, Marcelo Mayer, and Kristian Campbell as the left side of their infield in 2026, and then applying the money they’d previously allocated to Bregman to improve other parts of their roster.

Pete Alonso, 1B, New York Mets

Yeah, Pete Alonso is opting out. And doing so makes a lot of sense, though not because he’s going to sign the lucrative long-term deal he was hoping for last winter; rather, it has to do with the fact that he’ll earn more than the one year and $24 million left on his current contract. Alonso looks like he has arrested his slow but steady slide this year, but as a bat-first, right-handed first baseman in his 30s, the concerns about how he’ll perform as he ages remain.

After a better season, and no draft pick compensation, Alonso will do better than last year, but I’ll be surprised if he goes beyond wading depth into nine-figure territory.

Jack Flaherty, SP, Detroit Tigers

Jack Flaherty has an inflated ERA, but that isn’t going to scare off teams the way it might have 30 years ago because his peripherals are strong. Also, the back issues from last season haven’t stopped him from carrying what may end up being his heaviest workload since 2019. That being said, his player option — which doubled to $20 million when he made his 15th start — does have a lot in its favor from Flaherty’s point of view.

The sticking point here is that he is still eligible to receive a qualifying offer. It’s practically a no-brainer for the Tigers to extend him a qualifying offer if he rejects his option because it is likely going to be only a couple million more than they would owe him if he were to accept the option. Flaherty is a good starting pitcher whom many teams could use in their rotations, but he’s not at the level where teams would be willing to lose a draft pick in order to sign him. Therefore, the qualifying offer would really hamper his market. I think in his shoes, I’d turn down the option and then accept Detroit’s qualifying offer. That would put him in position to hit the open market next year without having to worry about the qualifying offer again.

Cody Bellinger, OF/1B, New York Yankees

It weirdly hasn’t gotten much press, but Cody Bellinger is having an excellent season with the Yankees, about as good as his comeback 2023 campaign with the Cubs. Yet even if his performance has gone a bit under the radar, major league front offices have surely noticed. They also recognize that there aren’t a lot of impact bats available in free agency, especially not ones who can play center field; Bellinger and his agent Scott Boras understand this enough to take advantage of it. He’ll opt out, and he’ll attract enough interest to absolutely crush his current $25 million price tag for 2026. I think that Bellinger is more likely to end up with a “they paid what?” reaction to his deal than either Alonso or Bregman.

Edwin Díaz, RP, New York Mets

Closers aren’t as sexy as they were 20 years ago, but I’d argue that this tidal shift has affected the second- and third-tier closers rather than the elite ones. And Edwin Díaz remains an elite closer, even if he’s not as lights out as he was in 2022. He will surely be the best closer available in free agency if he opts out of the two years and $37 million left on his Mets deal. It also helps him that the Red Sox recently extended closer Aroldis Chapman, removing the best short-term alternative to Díaz from the market.

Shane Bieber, SP, Toronto Blue Jays

Normally, turning down a player option after two seasons of single-digit start totals would be a dangerous game for a starter. For Shane Bieber, however, I’d argue that this is the best choice because gets a $4 million buyout if he turns down the $16 million option, effectively making it a $12 million decision. He’s not going to get a Jacob deGrom contract by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s been dominant in his three starts with the Blue Jays, so unless something absolutely terrible happens to him over the last month of the season (and playoffs), he’ll comfortably do better than one year, $12 million this winter. Also, because he was traded midseason from Cleveland, he dodged the possibility of being saddled with a qualifying offer. He may still end up with a fairly short-term deal, but it’ll be far richer than his player option would be.

Lourdes Gurriel Jr., OF, Arizona Diamondbacks

For a while, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. could always bank on his relatively valuable floor as a safe, dependable league-average player with a solid bat, but that security has taken a big hit this season. Across 129 games and 546 plate appearances, he posted a .248/.295/.418 line with 19 home runs, a 94 wRC+, and 0.7 WAR. Notice I used the past tense there, because Gurriel tore his ACL last week, an injury that ended his season and will almost certainly cost him a good chunk of 2026. His projection below suggests opting out would be a bad choice, and ZiPS won’t even account for his knee injury in full until after the season. I suspect that I’m more likely to be the next president than Gurriel is to opt out. When he returns to Arizona at some point next year, it will likely be in a reduced role.

Robert Suarez, RP, San Diego Padres

Díaz is obviously preferable to Robert Suarez, but I think there’s room in free agency wallets for a second excellent closer. It may feel like Suarez is still relatively new to the league, but remember, he’ll be 35 for the 2026 season after spending most of his career overseas. Suarez’s options, which both have to be decided after the World Series, are only for two years and $16 million, and I think he can do comfortably better that. And if he doesn’t bet on himself now, he might never get a chance to hit major league free agency at the height of his value.

Ha-Seong Kim, SS, Atlanta Braves

The Ha-Seong Kim era for the Rays didn’t last long. A shoulder injury kept him from making his season debut until July, and after a poor six weeks with the team, he returned to the IL with a back injury. His time with Tampa Bay ended with an event that would have seemed surprising a year before; he was placed on waivers and claimed by the Braves, who picked up his leftover salary. Kim has a $16 million player option for 2026, and after a miserable season, that’s probably a better pillow contract than he’d get elsewhere. Simply put, he has a better chance of getting a lucrative deal after a healthy comeback season at age 31 than a lousy, injured one at 30. It’s a good gamble for the Braves, and I’d be really surprised if Kim doesn’t return to Atlanta.

Tyler O’Neill, OF, Baltimore Orioles

Tyler O’Neill’s 2025 peaked in the first game of the season, when he went 3-for-3 with a homer on Opening Day. After battling knee, back, shoulder, and wrist injuries, and a .210/.293/.434 line, he’s likely not matching the two years and $33 million the Orioles still owe him. And remember, ZiPS has generally been the most positive projection system on O’Neill’s future.

Joc Pederson, DH/OF, Texas Rangers

The Rangers’ recent surge has left open the possibility of Joctoberfest 2025 taking place, though at 14.9% playoff odds, a lot would still have to go the team’s way. The good news is ZiPS sees a good chance that Joc Pederson will have a sunnier 2026 campaign, even if this projection is that of a really solid role player rather than that of a starter who gets top dollar in free agency. As with the Red Sox and Story, the Rangers aren’t going to buy out Pederson’s opt-out by picking up his 2027 club option, so he will certainly be wearing the same jersey next season.

The Others: Frankie Montas, SP, New York Mets; A.J. Minter, RP, New York Mets; Wandy Peralta, RP, San Diego Padres

The last three are especially low impact, so I’ve lumped them all together.

A.J. Minter looked to be upgrading to A.J. Mintest during an especially hot April, but after suffering a pretty gruesome lat tear that saw his muscle ripped entirely off the bone, he is pretty much guaranteed to pick up his $11 million player option with the Mets. Wandy Peralta is probably a coin flip, as he might do better in free agency than the two years and $9.8 million remaining on his deal with the Padres, but despite a good ERA this season, he’s generally been an unexciting mid-bullpen option, so not returning comes with some risk. Frankie Montas will likely miss most or all of 2026 after elbow surgery for a torn UCL, so there is no scenario in which he turns down the ability to be paid $17 million for the year.