The Winter Meetings, baseball’s annual hot stove extravaganza, will take place next week at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando. It will be four days of trades, free agent signings, and hot stove rumors. The Winter Meetings are the four busiest days of the offseason and the winter’s biggest moves typically happen that week.
With that in mind, here are 10 bold predictions for next week’s Winter Meetings.
1. The top five free agents will all sign
According to our rankings, those top five free agents are Kyle Tucker, Alex Bregman, Bo Bichette, Framber Valdez, and Kyle Schwarber in that order. I boldly predict we’ll get a clean sweep and all five will sign in Orlando. That would be a rarity. Usually one or two top free agents hold out into the New Year. Bregman didn’t sign until February last offseason. Two years ago, the Boras Four (Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, Jordan Montgomery, Blake Snell) did not sign until camp opened. For one reason to another, a top free agent or two (or three) tends to still on the market come January. I don’t see it this year. Our top five free agents all agree to new contracts next week and avoid the game of contract chicken as spring training approaches.
2. The Yankees will add a starter (but not an outfielder)
Even after Trent Grisham accepted the $22.025 million qualifying offer, the Yankees are looking to add an outfielder, and they’re said to prefer a Bellinger reunion to signing Tucker. The outfield is not their only priority though. The Yankees also need a starting pitcher because Gerrit Cole (Tommy John), Carlos Rodón (loose bodies/bone spur), and Clarke Schmidt (internal brace) will miss the start of 2026 following elbow surgeries. They need someone to slot in alongside Max Fried, Luis Gil, Cam Schlittler, and Will Warren to start the new season, and there are indications they want more than a stopgap innings-eater. So, while the latest chatter has connected the Yankees to outfielders, we’ll zig while everyone else zags, and say New York leaves Orlando with a new starting pitcher and no outfielder. The outfielder will come later, if at all.
3. The Mets will re-sign one of their top two free agents
Those two being Pete Alonso and Edwin Díaz. It is in no way a lock the Mets re-sign either player. The club needs a major vibe shift after their disappointing 2025 season, and that process is already underway with the Brandon Nimmo-Marcus Semien trade. I do think the Mets will ultimately bring one of the two back though, with a Díaz reunion seeming far more likely than Alonso, even after the Mets signed Devin Williams to strengthen the bullpen. New York had a pretty bad relief crew in 2025. They would be best off adding Williams to Díaz, not replacing Díaz with Williams. POBO David Stearns may not want to spend big on two one-inning relievers, but what good is owner Steve Cohen’s wealth if you’re not going to use it to lock down elite players?
4. Arenado will get traded to …
… the Diamondbacks. That’s just a guess, though I do like the fit. Erstwhile top prospect Jordan Lawlar hasn’t given the D-backs a reason to put him in the everyday lineup and a heavily subsidized Arenado would be a nice little two-year stopgap at the hot corner. Arizona is good enough that you can see them in the race in 2026, which could be enough to convince Arenado to waive his no-trade clause. The Cardinals traded away Sonny Gray last month and ate $20 million to do it. They owe Arenado a total of $37 million the next two years. Paying down another $20 million would turn him into an $8.5 million a year player from 2026-27, and hey, that’s not so bad. I don’t think this will drag out much longer. I think both Arenado and the Cardinals want to move on from each other, and I boldly predict it will happen at the Winter Meetings.
5. The Orioles will give a pitcher multiple years
Multiple guaranteed years, I should say. None of this one year with a player option stuff, like the Ryan Helsley signing. Since being named general manager in November 2018, Mike Elias has never signed a pitcher to a guaranteed multi-year contract or selected one with a top-50 pick in the amateur draft. I wouldn’t say Elias is anti-pitcher — he knows you need them — but he does seem very risk-averse. Given how the 2025 season turned out for the O’s, I think he realizes he has to do things that make him uncomfortable to get his club to the next level. So, I think the first guaranteed multi-year pitching contract of the Elias era comes at the Winter Meetings. Valdez seems like the most likely candidate given the fact he and Elias overlapped in Houston, but who knows? Maybe it’s Zac Gallen or Ranger Suárez. The who doesn’t matter for this bold prediction. Only the what, and the what is a multi-year contract for a pitcher.
6. One of the top three NPB free agents will sign
With all due respect to longtime Seibu Lions righty Kona Takahashi, who has also been posted for MLB teams, there are three big-name Japanese players on the market this offseason: righty Tatsuya Imai, third baseman Munetaka Murakami, and first baseman Kazuma Okamoto. All three have been posted and are into their 45-day signing window. Murakami must sign by Dec. 22, Imai and Okamoto by Jan. 2. This latest bold prediction says one of three will not take things down to the wire, and will instead sign during the Winter Meetings. My hunch is Okamoto is most likely to sign early. Imai and Murakami are younger and more in demand, and figure to take their time making a decision. One of the three will sign in Orlando though. I boldly predict it.
7. The Nationals will trade away a player they received in the Soto trade
Three years ago, the Nationals knocked it out of the park with the Juan Soto trade when they swapped him for three All-Stars (CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, James Wood), promising outfielder Robert Hassell III, and top pitching prospect Jarlin Susana. It is the type of return teams dream about when they trade a superstar. The Nationals landed all that and it hasn’t mattered. They’ve lost 90-plus games five years running. It is no surprise then that they hired a new president of baseball operations a few weeks ago (Paul Toboni), and that Abrams and Gore have seen their names pop up in trade rumors. Gore right now is closer to free agency (two years) than Soto was (two and a half years) when Washington traded him. One of the players the Nationals acquired in the Soto trade will be moved at the Winter Meetings, this bold prediction says. Gore is the obvious candidate, but maybe Toboni does something smaller like flip Hassell for a pitcher. One of them will go though. It has been foretold.
8. There will be two new Hall of Famers
The Hall of Fame’s Contemporary Era Committee will soon meet to consider eight candidates whose “primary contribution to the game came since 1980,” and their results will be announced at the Winter Meetings this Sunday, Dec. 7. Those eight players: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Carlos Delgado, Jeff Kent, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Gary Sheffield, and the late Fernando Valenzuela. A candidate needs 12 votes from the 16-person committee for induction. This next bold prediction says the committee will vote in Mattingly and Valenzuela. Valenzuela is one of the game’s most important figures of the last 50 years, and the winds seem to be blowing in Mattingly’s favor. There might be enough anti-performance enhancing drug sentiment on the committee to get him over the threshold, similar to Fred McGriff two years ago. Our Matt Snyder has everything you need to know about the Contemporary Era Committee ballot.
9. Fewer than 10 Rule 5 Draft picks will be made
The annual Rule 5 Draft is a mechanism designed to prevent teams from burying players in the minors indefinitely. It gives players another path to the big leagues and, while most Rule 5 Draft picks don’t amount to much, every so often a team strikes gold, like the White Sox did with All-Star righty Shane Smith in 2025. Teams are not required to make a pick and Rule 5 Draft activity is waning. The last six Rule 5 Drafts have averaged 14 picks. Before that, it wasn’t uncommon to see upwards of 20 picks. There are a few reasons for this, including teams being better at identifying which prospects to protect and which to expose, as well as the fact so many more teams are in the race in the three-wild card era. It’s hard to tie up a roster spot on a Rule 5 Draft player when you’re contending. Because of that, I boldly predict we’ll get fewer than 10 Rule 5 Draft picks next week. It would be the first time that has happened since 2013 (nine) and only the second time this century.
10. A long shot will win the Draft Lottery
Perhaps this last prediction doesn’t qualify as bold seeing how a long shot has won the last two Draft Lotteries. Two years ago, the Guardians, with 2.0% odds, moved up from the No. 9 pick to the No. 1 pick. Last year, the Nationals jumped three spots and landed the No.1 pick despite 10.2% odds. We might as well continue the tradition this year and say a team pulls a Guardians and wins the No. 1 pick while having 2.0% lottery odds or worse. That narrows it down to seven teams (odds via MLB.com): Marlins (1.85%), D-backs (1.51%), Rangers (1.34%), Giants (1.01%), Royals (0.84%), Mets (0.67%), and Astros (0.34%). I’m thinking Rangers. Sound good? Point is, a long shot will win the Draft Lottery again. That’s our final bold prediction.
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