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125 days until Opening Day ...

And with our State of the Position pieces done, it's time to fully turn our attention to 2026. And not a moment too soon, as the hot stove has already begun to heat up in recent days. 

Things kicked off surprisingly early, with Josh Naylor opting to avoid the offseason drama and return to the Mariners on a five-year deal that is probably the best-case scenario for Naylor's Fantasy value. That's because, as I wrote in my reaction to the signing Monday, Naylor's best chance of remaining a contributor in stolen bases will probably come with the team that, somehow, let him run at a 50-plus steal pace after the trade last summer. I wouldn't count on another 30-steal season from Naylor, but I'm less willing to discount the possibility entirely now that he's returning to Seattle, and his well-rounded skill set as a hitter should continue to play well in Seattle.

That's the only truly big signing so far, but Scott White and I have fired up the Offseason Tracker to keep track of the rest of the moves this offseason, and that included a surprisingly active Qualifying Offer deadline Tuesday. Scott broke it all down for you here, and on the whole, we're happy to see Trent Grisham returning to the Yankees on his one-year deal – even if it might complicate the Yankees' attempts to go after the biggest fish in free agency like Kyle Tucker. Brandon Woodruff also holds steady with his return to Milwaukee, though I'm not sure we can say the same for Shota Imanaga's return to Chicago, where his flyball tendencies caught up to him in a big way in the second half. I'm not opposed to the possibility of a bounce-back season, but I also can't say I'm super excited about drafting Imanaga in 2026, either.

Then there was Gleyber Torres' surprising decision to accept the QO from the Tigers. I figured he'd go for the big payday this offseason after settling for a one-year deal last time around, but I can also see some wisdom in betting that Torres' improved underlying numbers – including a .362 xwOBA that tied for the second-best of his career – could lead to a better platform for his hoped-for payday next offseason.

But the real impact of that is on Tigers' top prospect Kevin McGonigle, arguably the top prospect in baseball. McGonigle is a natural shortstop, but there is a real question about whether that's the best long-term fit for him. The Tigers could use an upgrade at shortstop, but a slide to second with Torres leaving via free agency seemed more likely. But with Torres back, McGonigle might be more likely to shift in the opposite direction and make his MLB debut as a third baseman, the position the Tigers had McGonigle at during the Arizona Fall League. McGonigle's bat should play anywhere – he hit .305/.408/.583 across three levels of the minors this season – and he'll get a chance to break camp with the big league club. He'll be worth drafting in all Fantasy leagues, no matter where he ends up on the positional spectrum. 

And then there's the frankly weird trade between the Orioles and Angels that went down Tuesday night to account for. The Orioles acquired Taylor Ward for Grayson Rodriguez, trading the potential upside of Rodriguez for the certainty and security of Ward. He's a nice 3-win player who will help a team that pretty badly needs to make a run at the postseason and isn't as well-stocked in any of the corners as you would expect, given the bounty of prospects they were sitting on just a few years ago.

From the Angels' perspective, turning one year of Ward into a lottery ticket like Rodriguez is a coup, in my eyes. Rodriguez's career has been derailed by injuries – he didn't pitch in 2025 due to lat and elbow injuries, and he'll be coming back from surgery to remove a bone spur in his right elbow – so who knows how he'll actually look the next time he's on a mound. But he's still just 26 years old and was arguably the top pitching prospect in baseball just a few years ago, and put up a 3.86 ERA and 10.0 K/9 in 2024. If he can just get back to that level, it's a huge win for the Angels, let alone if he can unlock whatever latent upside remains. It's not a high-probability bet, but he's someone to keep in the back of your mind as a late-round sleeper for 2026. 

Hopefully, this is just the start of a healthy and active offseason, since there's no shortage of impactful free agents and big-name trade candidates on the market these days. We'll be here to catch up on everything you need to know about as it happens, both in your inbox with the newspaper, on CBSSports.com, and on the Fantasy Baseball Today Podcast all offseason. For now, here are some thoughts on what Fantasy players should be rooting for this offseason: 

Hot Stove Wish List 

Kyle Schwarber signs somewhere he can play the field (at least occasionally) 

We'll start with one that is extremely Fantasy-focused. And this should be a relatively small ask, right? Schwarber is, of course, best deployed as a more or less full-time DH, and he has logged just 107 innings in the field over the past two seasons, all at left field. I don't expect that to change, no matter where he lands, but I also wouldn't mind if he landed somewhere that would give him, let's say, five appearances at first base or the outfield relatively early in the season. He'll open the season with DH-only eligibility, of course, but I'd feel a lot better about paying a second-round price for an obvious batting average liability if he also had at least a little bit of positional flexibility at some point. 

The Pirates actually … try

On that topic, Jeff Passan dropped a note that the Pirates are seemingly interested in getting in on the bidding for Schwarber. That comes as a surprise – the Pirates haven't signed a free agent to a multi-year contract since Francisco Liriano in 2014, whose $39 million remains the largest deal signed by a free agent in Pittsburgh. You have to view the Pirates as a legitimate long shot to actually sign Schwarber, but it's exactly the kind of move the Pirates need to be looking into right now. 

I initially wrote "a team like the Pirates" there, but the truth is, the Pirates have much more pressure to actually try to win games than other similarly moribund mid-market teams right now. Because, while they can deny, both on and off the record, that there's any chance of Paul Skenes being traded, the reality is, those rumors are only going to grow the more they continue to tread water. Skenes has given them the best deal in baseball the past two seasons, providing "best-in-baseball" production from an ace making close to the minimum. But the always cost-conscious Pirates only have one year left before Skenes starts making real money in arbitration, and while they have four years of club control left total, once Skenes starts drawing seven-figure yearly salaries, the financial edge he provides starts to get smaller (though as long as he's making anything south of $40 million, he'll remain a bargain). 

So, the Pirates have a big incentive to actually supplement what looks like a solid homegrown core, and they should be especially active with big bats like Schwarber. However, Passan also dropped one other big note alongside that Schwarber report: That the Pirates are "strongly considering giving 19-year-old Konnor Griffin, the consensus minor league player of the year in 2025, the opportunity to win their big league shortstop job." Griffin hit .333/.415/.527 with 21 homers and 65 steals in his first professional season in 2025 while reaching Double-A, and he might be the kind of precocious budding superstar who can make the leap to the majors this quickly after being drafted.

It would be asking a lot, of course, as Griffin won't even turn 20 until about a month into the 2026 season. We haven't seen a teenage MLB debut since Juan Soto in 2018, and that's an unreasonable expectation to put on any young player. But Griffin is an exceptional talent, arguably the top prospect in baseball despite his lack of experience, and one capable of major-league caliber exit velocities in a season that began when he was 18. Griffin probably still has an uphill battle to make the majors as a 19-year-old, but we'll almost certainly see him before his 21st birthday. And a big spring is going to create a ton of hype around him in Fantasy drafts. 

Alex Bregman returns to Boston

Even with a post-injury slump, Bregman's .345 wOBA in 2025 was a big improvement over what he managed in his final season in Houston. He felt that success over 114 games was enough to test free agency again in hopes of finding more long-term security than he managed a year ago. It wasn't just because of Fenway and the Green Monster – his .336 expected wOBA was also a big improvement over what he had in 2024, after all – but it sure didn't hurt. 

Bregman's swing is uniquely well-suited for success in Houston and Boston, and while I wouldn't totally rule out the possibility of a reunion with the Astros – they brought Carlos Correa back via trade last season, after all – but the Red Sox are probably the likelier choice. Bregman's pull-heavy swing should help him continue to outrun his middling quality of contact metrics, but it would be a lot harder to do that in some other stadiums. I would especially be disappointed to see him end up in either Detroit or with the Cubs, two teams he was rumored to be involved with before the Boston offer came in. Just look to Isaac Paredes' disastrous stint with the Cubs for how this profile might fare in Wrigley Field. 

Cody Bellinger returns to the Yankees

It would be unfair to say Bellinger is a product of Yankee Stadium. I won't say that, even though he had an OPS nearly 200 points higher at home than on the road in his so-far-only season calling it home. After all, he was even better in his first season in Chicago, and that's an even less hospitable home for Bellinger's mediocre raw power. But … I'd be a lot more interested in him if he's playing half his games at Yankee Stadium than almost anywhere else at this point. Bellinger has settled in as a plus contact and plate discipline guy, which, combined with his pull-heavy swing, has allowed him to remain a solid 25-homer hitter despite what is at this point solidly below average quality of contact skill. But that's a much easier prediction to make with Yankee Stadium's short right field porch.

Even if I think the Yankees would be much better off pursuing Kyle Tucker, who could put up the best numbers of his career as a Yankee. 

Robert Suarez signs anywhere but San Diego

If Suarez comes back to San Diego, I would assume that all but guarantees Mason Miller will be trying to pitch in the rotation, and that I just cannot abide. Miller is an electric talent, and I have little doubt his stuff would play as a starter, even with somewhat diminished velocity – he was only averaging around 99 mph with his fastball as a starter in 2023. But we have zero reason to expect Miller to hold up as a starter, seeing as it's basically never happened before. 

You have to go back to his final season in college in 2021 for a season where he was able to make more than 12 starts, and the 12-start season comes with an asterisk – he only got to that mark when you include the Arizona Fall League, and he pitched just 30.2 innings total after suffering a rotator cuff strain. In 2023, he brute-forced his way to the majors only to suffer a sprained UCL in his elbow after four starts. I'm not saying it can't work out, but I would certainly bet against it, and I'd certainly rather have Suarez and Miller both available in the closer pool rather than just one of them. 

Eugenio Suarez signs anywhere but Seattle

Look, we're not dealing with the biggest sample sizes of all time here, but let's take a look at what Suarez has produced at the three ballparks he has called him for a significant amount of time in his career: 

  • Great American Ballpark (1,835 PA): .260/.347/.504, 27.9% K rate 
  • T-Mobile Park (804 PA): .211/.311/.406, 31.2% K rate
  • Chase Field (615 PA): .278/.343/.585, 25.5% K rate

Sesame Street had a song about this. Again, it isn't a gigantic sample size, but Seattle is arguably the toughest hitter's park in baseball and has a reputation for being an especially tough place for some hitters to see the ball. Maybe Suarez isn't one of them; maybe the season-long sample size of him struggling mightily there is a fluke. Maybe he'll get better with more reps there, though that seems unlikely given that his worst came in his second in Seattle. I'm open to those possibilities, but given the other things working against him – an inherently high-variance approach, but also the fact that he turns 35 midway through next season – makes it a bet I won't want to make. If he signs literally anywhere besides Seattle, he's probably a top-six third baseman for me in 2026; if he re-signs, I'm not sure he'd be a top-12 option. 

The Cardinals find a taker for Nolan Arenado

I do wonder if we aren't nearing the point where the Cardinals just pay Arenado to go away. There's no indication that he's become a problem in the clubhouse, or anything, but the constant trade rumors swirling around him amid the Cardinals mid-stream retooling have probably created plenty of awkwardness. But the issue here is more that he just doesn't fit. He doesn't fit the team's timetable for a return to contention, but he's also just an awkward fit if he is no longer a truly impactful (or even particularly good) bat. He's still a very good defender at third base, but that should probably be prospect JJ Wetherholt's long-term home. Wetherholt could slide to second base, but that's a more natural home for Brendan Donovan, if they hang on to him. 

Ultimately, though, the Cardinals just need to get Arenado out of the picture and move on from that experiment. They tried last offseason – Arenado turned down a move to Houston that he probably regrets at this point, given how the Crawford boxes could help cover up his declining skill set – and it's only going to be harder to find a home for him this time around. Hence why I think a release might actually be the end result here, as hard as that would be to swallow. Arenado's time as a Fantasy contributor is probably over, so the best we can hope for is that he opens up an opportunity for a young guy to play. 

Mackenzie Gore is traded to the Red Sox 

Look, at this point in his career, Gore probably just is what he is – a high-strikeout pitcher who struggles with his control and consistency enough that he's never going to be quite as good as we want. But the talent is so obviously tantalizing that I don't know if I'll ever be able to fully quit him. He took his strikeout rate to another level in 2025, and with four above-average swing-and-miss pitches, it's not unreasonable to think he could push that to the truly elite tier with a bit of tweaking. But he also struggled with his quality of contact allowed and was let down by his defense enough that his 4.17 ERA was actually a step down from a frustrating, disappointing 2025. 

So, let's try a change of scenery, right? How about to a team with at least a very good (and possibly elite) defense and a recent but well-earned reputation for helping pitchers level up? Gore has all the pieces, so in his case, it probably isn't about getting in the lab to develop a killer new pitch or anything. We're looking for better command and more consistency of his breaking balls here, and maybe the Red Sox can coax that out of him. Failing that, at least having a competent defense behind him might help avoid some of those disastrous innings that ruin too many of his outings.