Mariners' Randy Arozarena is forcing an answer to MLB free agency's biggest question

Randy Arozarena is ticketed to be a free agent after this season, and Seattle Mariners fans generally seem cool with it. There hasn't been a sustained grassroots push to extend him. And even if they wanted to keep him, he's pricing himself beyond the Mariners' comfort zone anyway.

Even after his latest elbow surgery, any attempt to rank the top MLB free agents for the 2026-27 offseason must start with back-to-back AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal. It's after him where things get messy, even chaotic.

The big hang-up, in the words of ESPN's Kiley McDaniel, is that there is "no clear top dog" among the hitters slated to hit the open market. There is no Aaron Judge. No Juan Soto. No Kyle Tucker. It's a veritable soup of good-not-great position players.

At least one has real helium, though, and that one plays left field for the Mariners.

The Mariners surely don't mind that Randy Arozarena's free-agent stock is surging one hit at a time

It was apparent even a few days into the 2026 season that the 31-year-old Arozarena looked like a different hitter in a good way. He's walking more and striking out less, and his 91.1 mph average exit velocity ranks in the 76th percentile. As such, his .303/.389/.465 batting line looks sustainable.

More recently, the power production has been coming online. After slugging .372 and homering once through 22 games, he's slugged .558 and homered three times over his last 21 games.

Nobody can be blind to the things Arozarena will have working against him as a free agent. He'll be 32 next February 28. He's not much of a fielder. And yeah, you do wonder if the Cal Raleigh thing is going to give teams pause about his creds as a teammate.

Even so, the star credentials are real. Arozarena was famously a playoff hero in 2020, and all he's done since then is win the AL Rookie of the Year, make two All-Star teams and notch five straight 20-20 seasons. And with 1.8 more rWAR on his record this year, he's up to 17.6 rWAR since 2021.

That's more than the other guys for whom you could stump as the best free-agent hitter in the coming winter's class, such as Bo Bichette (who has an opt-out), Jazz Chisholm Jr., Brandon Lowe and Seiya Suzuki. It's less rWAR than J.P. Crawford and Daulton Varsho, but nobody really thinks either is going to be a star-caliber free agent.

As MLB Trade Rumors posited in April, the contract to beat for Arozarena could be Teoscar Hernández's three-year, $66 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers. It's becoming more tempting to take the over on that, perhaps to a point where Anthony Santander's five-year, $95 million pact with the Toronto Blue Jays could be in play.

It's probably safe to count the Mariners out at either price point. Save for Robbie Ray and Josh Naylor, they have been shy about shopping on free agency's top shelf under Jerry Dipoto. And besides, they seem determined to develop their next left fielder from within.

For Arozarena's part, the apparently ongoing labor negotiations and whether any fellow pending free agents catch up are situations worth monitoring. But if what we're seeing is him determined to end his Mariners era on a note that warrants a huge payday, nobody in Seattle is in any position to complain.

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