Top Free Agents With the Most to Gain in October

The 2024 MLB Playoffs are well under way and boy have they been exciting. We’re only a few games into the Division Series and each side has been about as drama-filled as possible.

Every player on every roster that expects to play in 2025 has a lot riding on their shoulders in the playoffs. Performing at the highest level of your career is a must if you’re going to be any help to your team’s push to the promised land.

Players who are undoubtedly feeling the most pressure are pending free agents. Showing up when the lights are the brightest is paramount to getting additional money added on to your upcoming contract. This applies to a slew of players who are currently playing in the playoffs.

For some, coming through in the clutch in these games is a matter of making or breaking your upcoming contract. To other pending free agents, you could go 0-for-the entire postseason and still be sitting pretty when it comes to payday.

Let’s take a deep dive into the soon-to-be free agents whose October performances will go a long way to padding the value of their upcoming contracts.

Pending Free Agents With the Most on the Line in October

But First: The Honorable Mentions

The likes of Teoscar Hernandez and Jack Flaherty of the Dodgers and Juan Soto of the Yankees fall into the honorable mention categories more than anyone else.

Hernandez, 32 next week, just put up the best season of his career and is likely about to earn the final significant contract of his career. He finished 15th in the game in home runs (34), 17th in RBI (99) and 22nd in wRC+ (134). He may be defensively limited, but there’s a long list of power-hungry teams that will be eyeing him this offseason.

Flaherty, 29 next week (same day as Hernandez!), moved from Detroit to Los Angeles at the deadline and was excellent at both stops. His postseason performance won’t matter much towards his new contract, as a 3.17 ERA through 28 starts and nearly 11 strikeouts-per-nine innings has already penciled him for a nice deal.

There’s very little that needs to be said of Soto. The 25-year-old finished second in baseball in runs scored (128), third in OPS (.989) and wRC+ (180), fourth in home runs (41), sixth in RBI (109). He’s about to earn the largest free agent contract in history.

Each of this trio have been on their A-game this year and are going to make some serious dough in the upcoming offseason regardless of how their playoffs go.

Ditto for Sean Manaea of the Mets. He turned a lottery-ticket contract into what’s practically guaranteed to be a multi-year pact in free agency. Transforming yourself from back-end starter to a solid #2 or #3 doesn’t happen every day.

Pete Alonso

It’s fitting that this list is alphabetized, as Alonso should be at the top either way. The six-year veteran had a fine year in 2024, but he experienced drop-offs in multiple offensive categories, including hone runs, RBI, SLG and OPS.

Make no mistake about it: Alonso is still to be viewed as one of baseball’s premier power hitters. He hasn’t hit less than 34 home run in any of his full big league seasons (ignore the COVID-shortened 2020) and is one of the few hitters in the game who has what I’d call “light-tower power.”

Every ounce of that power was on display in the Mets’ dismantling of the Brewers in front of a stunned Milwaukee crowd. In the ninth inning of a win-or-go-home game, Alonso came to the plate and shocked the baseball world with a three-run home run off of Devin Williams, one of the game’s best closers.

More showings like that on the big stage will earn Alonso some additional money this offseason. A strong playoffs will make it much easier for teams to forget his small decline at the plate this year during the regular season. The Polar Bear is one of the best power-hitting free agents set to hit the market and he’ll be paid as such.

Walker Buehler

Buehler is one of the bigger wild-cards amongst pending free agents, mostly because of all the recent time he’s missed. The right-hander has shown over and over again that when he’s fully healthy, he’s capable of being one of the best starters in baseball.

As it always goes, that’s been exactly the issue. Buehler, 30, has had a heck of a time staying healthy and is now entering the free agent pool with his value near an all-time low.

In the regular season this year, Buehler made 16 starts for the Dodgers, going 1-6 with a 5.38 ERA, 5.54 FIP and 72 ERA+. These numbers are far off from the ones he posted back in 2022 and even further from the outstanding season he had in 2021.

Buehler is currently in line to start game 3 of the NLDS against the Padres. If he’s able to stack some strong outings together, that could be the difference between him landing a straight one-year deal this offseason or a one-year pact with a player option attached to it.

Jeff Hoffman

Sometimes starting pitchers switch to a relief role and struggle. Then in some cases, they experience what Hoffman has and turn themselves into a relief ace. Naysayers don’t have a small sample size to point to anymore, either, as the right-hander has now made 122 combined appearances between this year and last.

His ERA during that time? 2.28. His FIP? 2.54. He’s also striking out just about 12 batters per-nine, which is around three strikeouts above his career norm. Hoffman has turned into an absolute machine and was appropriately awarded earlier this season with his first trip to the All-Star Game.

One thing Hoffman hasn’t done all that well in Philadelphia is pitch in the postseason. Most of his 6.14 ERA across 10 outings can be chalked up to a pair of bad outings, but those few blow-up outings can’t just be completely ignored.

He’s already in line for a multi-year contract, which is worth applauding in itself, but Hoffman can drive that value even higher if he can find his way in the playoffs and help carry this powerful Phillies team to a ring.

Clay Holmes

Let’s get one thing out of the way right away: Clay Holmes is not a bad pitcher, he just has his meltdowns at the worst times.

An All-Star in two of the past three years, Holmes has been everything the Yankees hoped he’d become when they first acquired him in a trade at the 2021 deadline. He’s been a reliable closer and run-prevention machine for the vast majority of his time in the Bronx.

But many of his stats this season, while still impressive on their own, have regressed a bit from where they’ve been in the recent past. His 5.59 June ERA and 6.00 Sept./Oct. ERA are difficult to ignore.

The fact that Holmes is prone to the occasional rough stretch is bound to be a major turn-off for clubs interesting in signing him as a free agent. That’s certainly nothing a strong showing in this year’s playoffs can’t remedy.

To his credit, the 31-year-old already has a pair of appearances under his belt during the ALDS against the Royals. He’s allowed three hits in 2.2 innings of work, but he also has not allowed a run or walked anybody.

Showing he can step up on the game’s biggest stages will do absolutely nothing but help his case. He should be one of the more sought after free agents on the relief-pitching market.

Luis Severino

This spot could’ve gone to either Manaea or Severino; there’s not really a wrong answer either way. Both pitchers have overcome the odds and turned themselves into respectable playoff-caliber starting pitchers.

Severino, 30, had one of the worst years of his career last season and joined the Mets with his value at its lowest. He took his one-year contract with the Metropolitans and made 30 starts for the first time since 2018 and threw over 102 innings for the first time since that year as well.

The right-hander paired with Manaea to make the Mets’ Kodai Senga-less rotation that much more powerful. It’s hard to see a rough postseason hurting his value that much, but it’s important to note that Severino has never pitched all that well in his playoff career.

As of right now, he’s got 13 appearances (12 starts) in his postseason career. In that time, he’s managed just a 5.01 ERA while allowing too many base hits and walking too many batters.

As is the case with everyone else on the list, Severino could use a few more strong starts to round out the current playoffs. If he can show that he’s got what it takes to step up in the playoffs, teams may be willing to buy into the recency bias and give him a larger deal than they would’ve once the 2024 regular season came to a close.

Gleyber Torres

After a seven-year run that started much more promising than it finished, it seems that Torres’ time in New York is coming to an end. The second baseman appears to have fallen out of favor with the Yankees and fans of the club, even though some of the hard feelings coming from fans feel unwarranted.

Despite the fact that he hit just .257 with a .709 OPS this year, people forget that Torres also hit 25 home run last year with an .800 OPS and 118 OPS+ that put him 18% above league-average at the plate.

Playing in his fourth ALDS with the Yankees, Torres is going to need a strong postseason if he’s going to be able to convince interested parties that his 2024 regular-season output was a one-off. The fact that he’s awful defensively means he’s going to have to be relied upon only as a bat. If his bat is ice cold, there’s nothing left for him to offer.

To his credit, the 27-year-old has already drawn four walks through two postseason games this year and sports an OPS of 1.167. That’s not all that sustainable, but if he can find his way on base, it’ll help his upcoming contract.