As we approach the latter stages of December — traditionally baseball’s busiest offseason month — we’ve already seen a healthy amount of free-agent activity and considerable movement on the trade market. As of Wednesday, 39 players have signed major-league contracts, including 17 of our Top 50 free agents, and several other stars, such as Garrett Crochet and Kyle Tucker, have changed teams via trade.
Still, a ton of players are unsigned. More than 200 who appeared in MLB in 2024 remain free agents, meaning there is substantial business left to be done. The other reality is that the top names still available — Corbin Burnes, Alex Bregman, Teoscar Hernández, to name a few — tend to dominate the discourse for days at a time, while the rest surface in rumors only on occasion, if ever. That’s not to say these players are being completely forgotten by major-league clubs, but rather that their markets have yet to develop in a way that would spark substantial rumors or concrete connections with teams that the general public would then become aware of via reporting from hot stove insiders.
With that dynamic in mind, here are five free agents from our Top 50 list about whom we’ve heard next to nothing since the offseason began, as well as a look at how their markets might’ve been impacted by the first month of transactional activity.
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What he has to offer:
Once a premium shortstop prospect, Profar has gradually plummeted down the defensive spectrum to where he is now exclusively a left fielder and not a particularly good one. Perhaps some clubs still view him as viable somewhere in the infield, where he has played sparingly since 2021, but those considerations are strictly secondary. Any interested club is going to be buying Profar’s bat.
Having seemingly plateaued as a league-average hitter in even his best years over the first decade of his career, Profar took massive strides at the plate in 2024, launching a career-high 24 home runs and posting a 139 wRC+ that ranked 15th among qualified hitters in MLB. This was not some BABIP-fueled mirage, either; nearly every element of Profar’s underlying offensive profile improved markedly. He posted career bests in average exit velocity (91.1 mph, 80th percentile) and hard-hit rate (44.1%, 71st percentile) and his .365 wOBA was right in line with his .364 xWOBA, demonstrating that his results were reflective of his quality of contact and not merely…