With January rapidly approaching, nearly half of our top 50 free agents have agreed to new contracts, ranging in magnitude from Juan Soto’s $765 million mega-deal with the Mets to Danny Jansen’s one-year, $8.5 million pact to be the Rays’ new backstop. But significant talent remains on the open market for major-league clubs to consider adding to their rosters, and debates about which options are superior at each position are surely in full swing in front offices across the league.
With another wave of deals likely to arrive with the new year, here are three pairs of free agents from our top-50 list whom teams might be weighing as possible upgrades in the infield, outfield and starting rotation — and which direction we’d go if we had to choose.
Gleyber Torres or Ha-Seong Kim?
Shusterman: This would’ve been an even more fun debate a year ago, when both Kim and Torres rated as top-10 second basemen in MLB, but neither ended up having the platform year they were hoping for. Instead, each entered the open market with considerable questions attached.
After a breakout year at the plate as San Diego’s superutilityman in 2023, Kim was the every-day shortstop in 2024 before a shoulder injury and subsequent surgery ended his season prematurely in August. Before he went down, Kim continued to demonstrate excellent contact skills and a propensity to draw walks, but his power was noticeably down, even from the modest levels it reached in 2023.
Torres too had a quietly stellar 2023 with the bat amidst an otherwise disastrous Yankees season, with extremely encouraging underlying metrics that hinted at further production in store for the final year of his contract. That didn’t happen, though, as Torres plodded along around a league-average level for much of the past season before heating up somewhat down the stretch and serving as New York’s leadoff man throughout its run to the World Series. His defense and baserunning remain areas of weakness, as they have for much of his career.
Were Kim not coming off labrum surgery that could cost him the first month of the 2025 season, I’d be more inclined to lean in his favor, considering his remarkably high floor of production, along with potentially elite defense at multiple infield positions and an OBP-driven offensive profile. But knowing that he is likely to miss spring training and could take additional time to get up to speed once he is fully physically recovered, I’m wary of his ability to be meaningfully…