Fantasy Baseball Free Agency Update: Josh Naylor's return to Seattle has us rethinking his 2026 value

Usually, the most interesting moves of the offseason are the ones where a player changes teams. Preferably, unexpectedly, with a dramatic change in circumstances that necessitates a wholesale re-evaluation of that player's outlook. 

John Naylor's return to the Mariners is a rare exception. Seattle's is an extremely pitcher-friendly home park, and some players – *cough Eugenio Suarez *cough* – seem completely overwhelmed by the park's offense-suppressing ways. A premier free agent signing with the Mariners is usually the kind of move that requires a big downgrade in the Fantasy rankings, or at least a sincere reappraisal of that player's value. But in Naylor's case, that might not be so. 

As a hitter, Naylor more than held his own in Seattle, hitting .299/.341/.490 in 54 games after he was traded there last summer, and while that's an awfully small sample size to go on, it's a compelling one. Naylor is a rare hitting talent; he's not necessarily an elite hitter with tremendous traits, or anything like that. No, what makes Naylor so special is that he's an endlessly adaptable hitter. He has a good approach at the plate and has really strong contact skills, but he also has more than enough power that pitchers can't just attack the zone with fastballs and dare him to do something with them. 

He'll take a walk, but he isn't hunting them; he'll dump a homer into the right field bleachers, but it's not all he's trying to do; he'll dump a single the other way, but it's not his goal every time he gets up there. It's a skill set that has allowed him to thrive in Cleveland, Arizona, and now Seattle, where he has hit .304/.335/.534 in 163 career plate appearances.

Great, so Naylor is the same guy he's always been, right? 

Uh, yeah, not so much. Along with his move to Seattle last summer was one of the most unexpected skill changes I've ever seen: Naylor suddenly became an elite baserunner. 

Naylor's never been a zero on the basepaths, stealing as many as 10 bases in 2023 despite being a slow baserunner. He was more active than usual before the trade to Seattle, swiping 11 in 93 games, but once he landed with the Mariners, he became one of the most prolific base stealers in the game. In those 54 games, he managed to swipe 19 bases without being caught stealing even once. And if you thought maybe he was just taking advantage of a lack of defensive attention in the dog days of summer – many of his steals came without even a cursory throw to second – he also stole two bases in 12 postseason games. Okay, that isn't quite the 60-steal pace he was on with the Mariners in the regular season, but it's a sign that he wasn't shy, either. 

And, in case you're wondering if Naylor might be, let's say, "sneaky fast" … nope! He was in the third percentile in sprint speed last season, by far the slowest player to steal 30 bases in the Statcast era – the second slowest was Juan Soto in 2025, who was in the 13th percentile, and before that it was Kyle Tucker in 2023, who was in the 33rd percentile. Naylor was extremely slow. Slower than any player who has stolen this many bases since at least 2015. 

How did he manage those steals? Well, he got great jumps, predictably; among 226 players with at least 500 stolen base opportunities, only 12 gained more distance between when the pitcher began their delivery and when they released the ball, per StatCast data. Of the names ahead of him, only Agustin Ramirez was a base stealer of any renown. 

Naylor was incredibly opportunistic, but it's not like it is reflected in the rest of his baserunning stats. Taking his overall baserunning exploits into account, Statcast has him just about as an average baserunner in 2025. That was a big improvement from 2024, but it still highlights the fact that Naylor didn't actually become an incredible baserunner overnight – he just got a lot better at the one part of baserunning we care about for Fantasy.

Is that a projectable skill moving forward? My guess is now, and that we'll see a similar regression with Naylor as we saw from Willy Adames a year ago – he stole 21 bases in his contract year in 2024 before falling back to 12 in 2025. That was still the second-highest mark of his career, but it was much more in line with what he had done before. For Naylor, that would imply something like 15 steals as a reasonable expectation, which would be a nice bonus for an otherwise only pretty good hitting first baseman, but not a difference-making number.

But with his return to Seattle … maybe that's underselling him? I don't think you should draft Naylor in 2026, expecting him to be a 30-steal guy again, but I would have said there was basically no chance of a repeat if he landed somewhere else. In Seattle, where he was, again, on a near-30-steal pace? Well, 30 might be possible, if not quite likely. 

How do you bake that into his price in drafts? Well, I still think I would keep Naylor outside of the top seven at first base, which pretty much represents the top two tiers at the position. But I do think Naylor's return to Seattle might be enough of a tiebreaker to bump him ahead of the likes of Vinnie Pasquantino and Ben Rice in the third tier, similar hitters who don't have any stolen base upside. A pick around 65th overall feels like the right place to slot Naylor in, and you'll be getting a good batting average (even for a first baseman) and rare steals from the position; he should also be a very good source of RBI in a good lineup, thanks to his contact-heavy approach.