In 2023, Brandon Belt put up 2.2 fWAR, a 138 WRC+, and a slash line of .254/.369/.490. He was also known for providing quality defense at 1B. Despite those numbers, not a single team signed him to a deal last year. He remains unsigned now, and is assumed to be retired – albeit not of his own volition.

This year, there are still dozens of veteran major leaguers without a deal – as there were last year, and as there are every year around this time. Behind the scenes, in our database, we still have their names sitting there. Some, like Charlie Blackmon and Richard Bleier, formally announce their retirement. They know they’re done, they move on, and leave no mystery around it.

But most players just hang on, waiting for the phone to ring – and when it doesn’t, they realize the game has moved on without them.

From a front-office perspective, it makes sense. Out with the old, in with the new. Teams have only 26 spots on their active rosters, and there is a need for the care and feeding of those each year. 

So what’s the annual attrition rate? According to Fangraphs’ Free Agent Tracker, there were 265 free agents listed this offseason. Three of those were international signees, so really, we’re talking about 262 MLB veterans. Here’s how it shakes out:

 

Of those 262, 130 (about half of them) have signed major-league deals, which is the left column above. 81 signed minor-league deals, and, roughly speaking, about half of those will get an opportunity on a roster by June, which is when most minor-league deals expire. The other half will not.

After that, we still show 51 players still unsigned. If you combine those with the 41 or so whose minor-league deals will never get picked up, that leaves 92 veteran players, or 35% of the free agent pool, who will not have a job on an active roster this year.

If you look at the right column above, the denominator is 780, which is the number of active roster spots in MLB (26 spots for 30 teams). Roughly one-third of last year’s active roster spots were turned over by free agency, and about half of those (about 17% of the total) were filled. If we assume another 5% of the total gets filled by guys on converted minor-league deals, that means that 92 players, or about 12% of all MLB veteran players from 2024, will be left without jobs in 2025.

Most of these 92 veterans project at or only slightly above replacement level. From a front-office perspective, why pay more for that production (with less roster flexibility) when you can get it (and possibly more) from a 23-year-old with minor-league options playing on league-minimum salary? This is true of both contending teams (who tend to have bigger payrolls, and are up against their budget limits) and rebuilding teams (who generally prefer to give playing time to the kids). That leaves a whole bunch of middling veterans left standing around when the music stops in the musical-chairs game.

That’s the process we’re seeing play out at this time of the offseason, albeit quietly. A lot of veterans who couldn’t get a major-league deal are now signing for non-guaranteed minor-league contracts, including guys like Mike Clevinger, Andrew Chafin, Mark Canha, and Manuel Margot. They’re just hoping to latch on to their respective MLB rosters at some point.

Many of the current free agents who are still unsigned may have minor-league offers, but won’t take them, either out of pride and/or the hope that they can still land a guaranteed contract. Most won’t. And if they get neither, this will likely be it for them.

So: by our estimates, about 92 players you know will not be playing this year. Some may go to Asia. Some may hold out hope for another crack at it. But most, quite frankly, are done.

That means we may have seen the last of familiar names like Whit Merrifield, David Peralta, Jordan Lyles, Alex Wood, Joe Kelly, Anthony Rizzo, Robbie Grossman, Yan Gomes, Adam Duvall, Daniel Bard, and many others. Most of these guys have had solid careers and big moments, including in the postseason. But they’re unlikely to get a big retirement ceremony, or a party, or a gold watch. Their playing time ends not with a bang, but a whimper. That’s just the business of baseball – it’s cold, but it’s the reality of it.