Top 10 MLB Free Agent Outfielders For 2026

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Kyle Tucker (Photo by Matt Dirksen/Chicago Cubs/Getty Images)

Our coverage of MLBâ€s free agent season continues with a deep dive on the best outfielders available this year.

Below is a data-driven approach to ranking the available OF options, leveraging data from FanGraphs, Baseball Prospectus, Baseball Savant and Baseball Reference. Where applicable, weâ€ve left out players that are likely to have their club options picked up. Should that change, this list will be updated to reflect the new market reality.

1. Kyle Tucker

Projected contract: 11 years, $360M

Tucker is the clear-cut premier free agent of the 2026 class. Per FanGraphs, he’s accumulated at least four wins in every season since 2021, including 2024 when he had only 339 plate appearances. If he were a few years younger, he’d probably get something close to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s $500 million contract. As it is, he should top the contracts handed out to Corey Seager, Manny Machado and Bryce Harper.

2. Cody Bellinger

Projected contract: 6 years, $175M

The stigma of Bellinger’s 2021 season when he hit .165/.240/.302 and looked entirely lost seems to have finally been erased. Going to the Yankees and producing a 4-5 win season certainly helped. Over the past three years, Bellinger has accumulated 11.4 fWAR, good for 31st in baseball.

Bellinger’s glove gives him an exceptionally high floor. Even in his last season in Los Angeles when he hit a woeful .210/.265/.389, he was still worth 1.5 wins. Center fielders with an average glove and an above-average bat are exceedingly rare. Look for Bellinger to cash in as perhaps the best available center fielder on the market.

3. Trent Grisham

Projected contract: 5 years, $130M

Do not be fooled by Grisham’s 2023 and 2024 seasons, because the 2025 version of Grisham was an exceptionally good baseball player:

The hallmarks of hitters who overperform their raw power are higher launch angles on hard-hit balls and higher average exit velocities on fly balls. This is another way of saying that Grisham’s 34 homers were not a fluke, and that it’s reasonable to expect 25-35 home runs a season given these power metrics.

Grisham’s plus-plus patience fully supports his 14% walk rate, giving him a high on-base percentage floor, even if the batting average might be underwhelming. Some teams may be scared by the subpar 2023 and 2024 campaigns, but the metrics suggest that Grisham is deserving of a big payday.

4. Harrison Bader

Projected contract: 2 years, $40M

Bader is a fantastic example of why simply taking your preferred WAR number and treating it as gospel can sometimes be misguided. Putting aside the WAR wars, Bader might be a major scoop for a team this offseason:

yearbat speed90th EVMax EV202370.8103.3110.2202471.2103.4111.7202573.5106.3112.3

Bader increased his bat speed by over 2 mph, helping him hit a new max EV. Those bat speed gains also directly translated into his 90th percentile exit velocity, so it’s no surprise he hit a career-high 17 home runs. His combination of elite center field defense and his now plus raw power gives him a surprisingly high ceiling. Bader has found a new gear after turning 30, meaning 2025 was no fluke.

5. Max Kepler

Projected contract: 2 years, $24M

Kepler is a solid bat who suffered through a very unlucky .232 BABIP on the season. That’s not too far below his career .255 BABIP, but it does explain a lot of his .216 batting average on the season. Let’s dig a little deeper:

Kepler is something of a metric darling with plenty of gold scattered across his profile. However, he also possesses a consistent flaw: His career launch angles on hard-hit balls are about three degrees lower than his average launch angle. Similarly, his average exit velocity on fly balls is typically about a tick worse than his average. This means that, while he hits the ball hard and makes a ton of contact, his best contact isn’t optimized.

We see that a lot of Kepler’s high launch angles come from balls hit below 90 mph. That’s a recipe for a lot of easy-to-catch, low BABIP types of batted-ball events. We’re unfairly comparing him to Aaron Judge here, but the Yankees slugger is a prime example of the value of having better launch angles on hardest-hit balls. It’s doubtful that Kepler will be able to make this change this late in his career. However, the raw contact and power tools suggest there is still potential here for a plus bat if he makes a tweak that helps him make his best contact in the air, rather than on the ground.

6. Cedric Mullins

Projected contract: 1 year, $13M

Mullins’ glove gives him a reasonable floor. As a hitter, he has increased his launch angle from 10.1 degrees in 2018 all the way to a career-high 23.3 degrees in 2025. The issue here is that Mullins’ raw power has slipped from the 45-50 range in 2019-2023 to the 35-40 range the last couple of seasons. This led to a bottom-second percentile xBA of just .215 last year, right in line with his batting average of .216 on the season.

Mullins’ extreme launch angle approach does allow him to sneak 15-18 home runs a season, but the rest of the time he’s not producing nearly enough. There’s potential for more value with a swing change or gains in bat speed. Even if he remains the same player, he’s a good bet to provide value as a glove-first center fielder.

7. Lourdes Gurriel Jr.

Projected contract: 1 year, $13M

After seven consecutive seasons of above-average batting lines, Gurriel finally dipped below a 100 wRC+ for the first time in his career. Let’s take a look to see if anything substantially changed from 2024 to 2025:

Gurriel’s metrics were practically identical across the board, with the exception of his top-end exit velocities, which were down slightly. In fact, he’s posted an 88.9% zone contact rate for three consecutive seasons. His 103.2 90th EV is in line with what he did in 2023, so he can perform well even at that level. His bat speed was identical, as were his xBA and xSLG, per Baseball Savant.

That all adds up to a lot of evidence suggesting Gurriel is probably closer to the player he was for the first seven seasons than the player he was in 2025. Look for him to sign a one-year deal to reestablish his value as an above-average bat.

8. Mike Yastrzemski

Projected contract: 2 years, $20M

Yastrzemski is about as consistent as they come. However, he’s essentially a strict strongside platoon guy, which limits his value somewhat. Teams that love to leverage platoon splits will be more keen to sign Yastrzemski, as he’ll provide a lot of value against righties with a high floor of production.

9. Austin Hays

Projected contract: 1 year, $11M

Hays is a solid depth option, who has a good shot to be a roughly league-average hitter while playing a competent left field.

10. Michael Conforto

Projected contract: 1 year, $10M

Conforto had a terrible year, finishing below the Mendoza line with a woeful 83 wRC+, which was well below the major league average. But there’s a really peculiar thing about his batting line—he has really strong underlying metrics:

He still has plus-or-better raw power, with 55 game power, 50 contact skills and 55 plate discipline. Somehow, this didn’t come together for him, despite playing for the Dodgers. His xBA of .246 and xSLG of .428 were both well above his actual numbers, so it stands to reason that he may have just been monumentally unlucky. He looks like a solid bet for a bounce-back season.

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