Candidates for ‘comeback’ in MLB: 6 free agents who can resurface
We analyze the six players with the potential to become the comebacks of the 2026 season in MLB
Fans love comeback stories, and baseball, without a doubt, is the sport that produces them the most.
Every season, there are at least a handful of players who once built a great reputation, only to fall from grace—either through poor performance or, more often, injuries—and be forced to start over with a new team. Then, somehow, they manage to rediscover what made them great in the first place. They’re the players who are easy to root for: the ones who remind us that while a promising career can quickly fall apart, things can change just as quickly.
There were 15 players who met our criteria for a possible ‘recapture project’ during the 2025 season:
• Be 27 years old or older. (That is, it has already passed the promise stage.)
• Have had a 2 WAR season early in his career, or at least 3 WAR in the three seasons prior to his decline. (At least, they were pretty good before.)
• Having generated less than 2 WAR in the previous season. (Their performance declined significantly).
• They changed teams. (A key factor, since the new club starred in the ‘return’).
• They either posted a WAR of 2 or more, or improved their WAR by 2 or more points from the previous year. (The year of return).
That list, in order of WAR, included: Jesús Luzardo, Matthew Boyd, Merrill Kelly, Harrison Bader, Ramón Laureano, Aroldis Chapman, Adrian Houser, Carson Kelly, Gleyber Torres, Lucas Giolito, Clay Holmes, Mike Yastrzemski, Jhoan Durán, David Bednar and Brad Keller.
Each represented their own story of redemption, but what united them all was a return to their best times. The 2026 season will surely provide us with its own crop of similar success stories. In fact, we already know who the return candidates are, simply based on who meets the above criteria, pending developments during the offseason.
Let’s look at the six most likely candidates who could make up the list of players with the potential to be 2026 comebacks, based on FanGraphs’ projected WAR (we weight the FIP and RA/9 versions at 50 percent), along with the 2025 bounce-back success story they most closely resemble.
Archetype back in 2025: Ramon Laureano
In 2022 and 2023, Kim was a key 5 WAR player for the San Diego Padres, but that appears to be far behind him. After missing most of the last two seasons due to injuries and alternating between the Braves and Rays, Kim looks to regain his potential as a solid defensive infielder with good contact and plate discipline. He can take inspiration from Laureano, known for his combination of good gloving (albeit as an outfielder) and effective hitting in Oakland, before injuries and poor performance led him to bounce around several teams on the waivers. Laureano arrived in Baltimore to start the 2025 season, performed well, and then was sent to San Diego, Kim’s former team, at the trade deadline, where he continued to hit above average.
Archetype back in 2025: Merrill Kelly
After posting a combined 6.3 WAR between the 2023 and 2024 seasons with the New York Yankees and Padres, King was limited to 15 starts in 2025 due to inflammation in his right shoulder and left knee. When he pitched, he was less effective than in the past, with an unusually high FIP of 4.42, although this was largely due to allowing 1.47 home runs per 9 innings, a figure that should decline as his 13.2 home run per fly ball rate returns to the mean.
King has reportedly drawn interest from contending teams short on rotation pitchers, who want to see him replicate the 3.4 WAR Kelly posted between Arizona and Texas in 2025, with his FIP rebounding from a similar peak in 2024.
Archetype back in 2025: Gleyber Torres
There is no perfect comparison for Arráez, whose unmatched hitting abilities — without much else to back it up — make him a unique player in modern baseball. However, we can draw a parallel based on WAR with Torres, another infielder whose value seemed to plummet despite having surpassed 3 WAR shortly before. After being released by the Yankees and signing a one-year contract with Detroit, Torres responded with 2.6 WAR, thanks to better plate discipline and less poor defense. Arráez could do the same, since the idea of a starting first baseman who only draws 34 walks (with eight home runs) is difficult to accept.
Archetype back in 2025: Merrill Kelly or Jesús Luzardo
After rejecting Arizona’s qualifying offer to test free agency, Arizona Diamondbacks veteran starter Gallen is an ideal candidate to regain his Minor League status in 2026. Between 2020 and 2023, he averaged 4.3 pitching WAR per season (after prorating the pandemic-shortened campaign to 162 games), the 11th best mark in the Major Leagues. His WAR dropped to 3.0 in 2024 due to right hamstring issues, and in 2025 he had the worst full season of his career, with a 4.83 ERA, 4.50 FIP, and 1.2 WAR. However, Gallen should benefit from a better home run-to-fly ball ratio in 2026, considering the overall quality of his pitching remained largely unchanged, according to Statcast data.
Gallen doesn’t fit neatly into any of the top 2025 redemption projects, as his poor season wasn’t due to injury (he still made 33 starts in 2025), making him an outlier among pitchers on these types of rosters. His relative resilience (he hasn’t started fewer than 23 games in a season since the pandemic) should be considered a strength, not a weakness.
Archetype back in 2025:Harrison Bader
Everything that could go wrong for the Orioles early in 2025 did, and Mullins couldn’t do much to stop the slide despite his decent hitting numbers (104 wRC+) with Baltimore. He was then traded to the Mets at the trade deadline, and was unable to prevent New York from suffering one of the biggest collapses in playoff history. That failure as a late-season transition player will leave Mullins looking for a new team in 2026, but while he may never again post 6 WAR like he did in 2021, he can still be a valuable left-handed hitter with speed and experience in the outfield.
Bader can relate to that situation after recovering from his disappointing time in Queens, posting 3.2 WAR between Minnesota and Philadelphia last season, hitting well for both teams.
Archetype back in 2025: Harrison Bader or Ramón Laureano
Castro already had a similar experience early in his career, averaging nearly 3 WAR per season in 2023-24 after leaving Detroit and joining Minnesota. Now he will have to try again, since his defensive decline and his terrible time with the Cubs after the closing of the signing market sank his value in 2025.
Castro’s ability to play almost every position gives him innate appeal, but he also has much more potential than he showed in Chicago. While his expected stats in the Windy City, according to Statcast, were concerning (an expected batting average of just .195 and an expected wOBA of .256), it wouldn’t be surprising if Castro surpassed 2 WAR next season.
Other candidate pitchers: Zach Eflin, Patrick Sandoval
Other candidate hitters: Marcell Ozuna, Amed Rosario
