Three Sleeper Starting Pitchers On This Year's Free Agent Market

[Lou Hennessy]

It’s always fun to look at the free agent class and dream about the newly available top arms signing a lucrative deal with your club. Who wouldn’t want to pencil someone like Dylan Cease or Framber Valdez into their depth chart for the next five-plus years?

But more often than not, these hired guns quickly become too expensive for the majority of the league. Whether it’s due to the increase in injuries to pitchers over the last couple of decades, the impending uncertainty of a league-wide lockout in 2027, or any number of other factors, the return on investment for these types of players has become increasingly risky in today’s game. And while there’s some truth to the timeless saying that “scared money don’t make none,” teams are becoming more keen on the idea of signing pitchers to smaller and/or shorter deals in the hopes of bringing in surplus value. 

With that said, here are a few names from the discount aisle that could end up being a steal for whoever signs them.

Kona Takahashi
Other prominent names out of Japan are sure to get more headlines this posting cycle, but Takahashi could be an underrated option for teams seeking rotation depth. The Seibu Lions of the Nippon Professional Baseball league announced their intention to post the righty this offseason, setting him up to make his MLB debut as a 29-year-old in 2026. He won’t command anywhere near the contract of fellow countryman Tatsuya Imai, who is poised to secure a long-term deal well north of $100 million. But Takahashi could still prove to be a valuable asset for a club willing to tinker with some of his mechanics. 

The elephant in the room when it comes to Takahashi is a weak fastball that fails to miss bats. For what it’s worth, we’ve seen players get a boost in general miss rate when they make the transition to Major League Baseball, where contact rates take more of a league-wide hit compared to contact-heavy hitters in NPB. But Takahashi has had a stellar career due in large part to a strong slider-splitter combination and above-average control. It should be noted that he worked with Driveline in 2023 to clean up some of his mechanics in the hopes of adding velocity. That project worked well in that regard, getting his heater up to the 93-94 MPH range for a couple of years, but it then plummeted back down in 2025. Velocity can certainly play a pivotal role in a starting pitcher’s success, but we’ve seen plenty of players find success with modest fastballs as long as they can command their other offerings in hitter-friendly counts. And that’s becoming a league-wide trend, with fewer guys locking in on 2-0 or 2-1 fastballs as has been customary for decades. 

 If a team is able to get that velocity back up to a reasonable level, or at least find some consistency with it while continuing to dominate with his other offerings, Takahashi could be a bulldog on a cheap two-year deal with a modest posting fee. 

Dustin May
If you only look at the surface numbers on May’s 2025 campaign, you’re going to be turned off rather quickly. The righty struggled for virtually the entire season, pitching to the tune of a 4.97 ERA across 23 starts for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox. Granted, it was the electric redhead’s first season after going under the knife in 2024 to address nagging soreness in his elbow, and then a bizarre torn esophagus emergency that also required surgery. May finally took the mound in 2025 after almost 22 months on the shelf, ready to roll for the Dodgers, but his fastball simply never returned to the levels he saw from 2019-2023, when he looked like a budding star in limited action. 

The appeal in signing May to a rebound deal is going to lie in his age, and a team’s faith that they can either add a few ticks to his fastball, or work with a new repertoire that relies heavily on off-speed and breaking ball offerings. At just 28 years old, May certainly still has time to prove that he can trend in the right direction as more time passes since his procedure, which can often be the case for pitchers after they’ve undergone Tommy John surgery. His sweeper was actually his most-used pitch in 2025, and he showed that it can still be quite useful, as it limited hitters to a .239 batting average and .335 slugging percentage. May still gets elite spin on this breaking ball, with the 13th-highest among righties with at least 500 pitches thrown in 2025. 

Look for him to sign a one or two-year deal with an average annual value of around $10-12 million. If he can return to anything close to the exciting trajectory that he was on until 2024, he could set himself up for a much bigger payday the next time he reaches the open market. 

 

Merrill Kelly
Another starting pitcher who finds himself on the free agent market in his late 30s, Kelly likely provides more upside than the other similarly-grizzled arms in his class. The veteran righty quietly had a very strong year with the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers, posting a 3.52 ERA across 32 starts, including a dazzling 22-game stretch from May through the end of August during which he was one of the best starters in the game (2.95 ERA, 3.65 K/BB). His fastball velocity has taken a considerable dip and now sits around just 92 MPH, but his other pitches can carry him through most outings, and then some. 

Kelly had a remarkable 33% chase rate in 2025, which was the 3rd-highest among all starting pitchers, only trailing the almost certain-to-be Cy Young award winner Tarik Skubal and his likely runner-up Garrett Crochet (hat tip to Inside Edge). His lethal changeup had a tremendous 33.4% whiff rate, and he mixed in a strong complement of sliders and curveballs that limited opponents to just six extra base hits on the year (all of which were doubles). 

Out of the three names on this list, Kelly will surely get the highest guaranteed dollar figure, which MLB Trade Rumors projects to be in the neighborhood of $36 million across two years. However, if Kelly’s market doesn’t materialize as he would hope, which is certainly reasonable given his age, he could be forced to sign at a cheaper rate, or on a one-year pact with a team option for a second year. That’s where teams could look to land a potential steal, as Kelly has the ability to be a playoff-caliber starting pitcher if he remains healthy and effective. 

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What do you think? Do these names do anything for you? Who else do you think could be a sleeper on this year’s free agent market? Let us know your thoughts in the comments, and as always, stay sweet. 

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