With San Juan‘s victory in the Planetary Extreme Championship capping off an eventful 2031, the free agency period is set to being.  Teams will first need make some tough decisions about who should have their options picked up, who should be offered arbitration, and who should get a qualifying offer.  Once those things are done, players will file for free agency and the feeding frenzy will begin.

Last year’s free agency market saw some big names get some big contracts.  San Antonio committed a boat load of cash to third baseman Luis Cedeño.  Madison made a large commitment to 3B Marcos Sánchez.  On the pitching side, Kenny Ashley and John Turner signed large contracts with Florida and Amsterdam, respectively.  These players weren’t all of the top names, but they were all expected to be great performers for their new teams.  Questions remain over whether or not they were worth the lofty sums they were given, but all contributed positively.  That said, who were the top FA signings?

We’ll look at this first strictly based on WAR.  Wins above replacement isn’t a perfect measure of player performance, but it’s a pretty good proxy for the relative merits of a player’s contributions.  For now, we’ll leave out questions on whether or not their contracts were worth it.

5. SP Luigi Bright (NO) – 4.5 WAR – 1 year, $3M

Bright struggled in 2030, posting a 5.85 ERA and the first negative WAR of his career.  The Trendsetters snapped him up last February and he turned right back into the pitcher he had been before.  He led the team with a 16-9 record and his 3.27 ERA and 1.09 WHIP were right in line with his rotation mates.  In July, he signed for another bargain deal that will make him worth every penny even if he’s only half as good.

4. 3B Matthias Ouellette (HAR) – 4.5 WAR – 4 years, $53.5M

Ouellette was signed to replace the aforementioned Cedeño for Hartford.  The team’s former Royal Raker was good, but nowhere near up to his prior levels.  As a result, San Antonio watched as Hartford went to the postseason, with Ouellette having a better overall season than his predecessor.  Ouellette took an interesting path to get here.  Originally drafted in the 1st round by Kalamazoo, he was released and picked up by Manchester when they were still in the WIL.  He grew into a useful player for them, but like Bright, struggled in his walk year.  The Maulers certainly wish they’d gotten this level of production from him.

3. SP Orlando García (SA) – 4.5 WAR – 3 years, $45M

Luis Cedeño wasn’t the only player that San Antonio signed away from Hartford last winter. García won 15 games for the Harpoon in 2030.  If the Calzones were looking to replace Hartford as an IL Wild Card team, signing a couple of their best players certainly seemed like a good approach at the time.  It didn’t quite work out that way, and while García wasn’t quite as good as he had been for his old team, he was (spoiler alert) the free agent pitcher who posted the highest WAR for their new team in 2031.

2. C Germán Hernández (WV) – 4.6 WAR – 1 year, $26M

Famously holding out for a big contract, Hernández finally settled on a 1 year deal with a team that could afford one of his desired magnitude.  The Alleghenies got everything they paid for, as he was the best catcher in the league by WAR last season.  He didn’t sign until the first week of April, so don’t be surprised if it’s a similar story this coming offseason.

1. 3B Christian Webb (FLA) – 4.8 WAR – 5 years, $109.5 M

Did you have Webb at the top of last year’s FA production list?  Probably not.  Florida’s struggles as a team overshadowed a number of strong individual performances, with Webb being further overshadowed by other compelling storylines.  Luppe van Dam clearly developing into the ace of aces people have been expecting. Wilson Muñóz got traded to the Badgers.  Florida drafted 3 generational prospects at the top of the 2031 draft.  The team committed gobs of money to international amateur free agents.  Webb was just a footnote in all of that, and if you were paying attention to a Florida FA signing, it was probably going to be Kenny Ashley.

You’ll notice that among the top 5, you don’t see any of the names listed above.  The reality is that all four of the players mentioned earlier in the article had good seasons.  Turner’s 3.7 WAR was the lowest, and Sánchez would’ve made the list just fractions behind Bright.  Top FA’s are typically going to be good, but there are others who will post great years and turn to be steals.