Free-agent outlook: How the market will shape up for Ranger Suárez

Over the years, Ranger Suárez went from midlevel prospect to All-Star, reeled off half-season stretches that put him among the best pitchers in baseball, and even came in from the bullpen to get the pennant-clinching out in 2022.

And he did it all so coolly, like a full-body shrug.

But when it ended for the Phillies in the divisional round last month, Suárez was the last player to leave the dugout at Dodger Stadium. After spending nearly half his life with one organization, he seemed to realize that change is coming like an unstoppable freight train.

» READ MORE: The Phillies are eyeing an infusion of youth for 2026. Here’s how three top prospects can fit.

It isn’t that the Phillies want to move on from Suárez. But rival teams will probably pay him more handsomely at a time in his career when he’s best positioned to cash in. And so, it came to this.

“I don’t want it to be the last year with the team,” Suárez said through a team interpreter after the Game 4 loss in Los Angeles. “But it’s not up to me right now.”

The Phillies are expected to make the one-year, $22.025 million qualifying offer to Suárez and fellow free agent Kyle Schwarber by Thursday’s deadline. (J.T. Realmuto is exempt after previously getting the offer as a free agent.) Suárez and Schwarber almost certainly will decline and seek multiyear contracts on the open market.

It will be a life-changing experience for Suárez. He was 16 when the Phillies signed him out of Venezuela for $25,000. He’s 30 now and poised to be flattered with nine-figure overtures.

After exploring how the market will shape up for Schwarber and Realmuto, let’s do the same for Suárez.

Name these pitchers, based on their performance in the three seasons leading up to free agency:

Give up? Max Fried is Pitcher A, followed by Carlos Rodón (B) and Robbie Ray (C). Each is left-handed; each was a free agent within the last few years.

And if you couldn’t guess, Pitcher D is Suárez.

» READ MORE: How can Bryce Harper have an ‘elite’ season in 2026? It starts with examining his atypical 2025.

Fried and Rodón signed for $218 million (eight years) last winter and $162 million (six years) in 2023, respectively, deals that figure to shape agent Scott Boras’ opening salvo for Suárez. Ray signed in 2022 for $115 million (five years), which likely represents Suárez’s contractual floor.

Because although Suárez hasn’t topped 158 innings in a season or gotten a Cy Young vote, he also hasn’t had a serious arm injury. His three-year workload leading to free agency even stacks up favorably to Fried. Rodón would’ve been in the same innings neighborhood but for the short 2020 season.

In an age when velocity and whiffs are king, Suárez is a throwback to the crafty, Jimmy Key-style lefty who mixes pitches like a blender and gets weak contact. And Boras surely will emphasize Suárez’s postseason success, notably a 1.48 ERA that ranks 12th among all pitchers who have accumulated at least 30 playoff innings.

Boras will have a sizable audience of interested teams. The Padres and Blue Jays made the playoffs despite rotation ERAs above 4.00. The Cubs and Red Sox were among the clubs that came up empty in trade-deadline pursuits of MacKenzie Gore and Joe Ryan.

Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns doesn’t believe in signing pitchers in their 30s to long contracts. But owner Steve Cohen may well demand it after a historic September collapse caused by a lack of quality starting pitching.

Dylan Cease and lefties Framber Valdez and Shota Imanaga headline a free-agent class that drops off to Michael King, Lucas Giolito, and Zac Gallen, whose stock fell in a rough walk year. (Jack Flaherty and Shane Bieber took themselves off the market this week by opting into their contracts.) Tatsuya Imai, a 27-year-old righty, is waiting to be posted by his team in Japan.

Gore (Nationals) and Ryan (Twins) will continue to be trade targets, alongside the Twins’ Pablo López, the Brewers’ Freddy Peralta, and others. Tarik Skubal, entering his last season before free agency, will be at the center of trade rumors until the Tigers categorically dispel them.

In the end, Suárez won’t approach the length of Fried’s deal, the largest ever for a left-handed pitcher. But Fried and Rodón each make about $27 million per year, which puts Suárez squarely in the $25 million to $27 million range for five or six years.

Suárez ranks fifth in wins above replacement (17.8) among Phillies pitchers since 2000. He ranks seventh in strikeouts (705) and eighth in innings (762).

By every measure, he’s a smashing success for the Phillies’ international scouting department.

Team officials maintain they aren’t slamming the door on bringing back Suárez, especially amid questions that have cropped up within a solid starting rotation. Will Zack Wheeler still be elite after returning from thoracic outlet decompression surgery? Can Aaron Nola bounce back from his career-worst season? Is Andrew Painter finally ready to graduate to the majors?

» READ MORE: Harrison Bader becomes a free agent after declining his $10 million mutual option with Phillies

And there’s a lesson to be taken from the Dodgers, who stockpiled so much pitching that they were able to slow-play the returns of Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, and Tyler Glasnow from injuries. All were fresh and available for the playoffs, and with Yoshinobu Yamamoto, they combined to get 245 of 349 postseason outs (70.2%), including 26 of 33 in Game 7 of the World Series.

But the Phillies’ 2025 payroll likely will come in at around $312 million, as calculated for the luxury tax. They have approximately $101 million in 2026 salary commitments to five starters (Wheeler, Nola, Taijuan Walker, Cristopher Sánchez, and Jesús Luzardo), with Painter on the way.

Can they pay top-of-the-rotation money to Suárez, who would slot in as their No. 3 or 4 starter, and still improve areas of the roster?

“I don’t think we’re going to have a $400 million payroll,” president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said. “I just don’t think that that’s a practicality.”

In a sense, then, neither is re-signing Suárez.