Bear Sports News

Let’s imagine a scenario, Rob Manfred has just given Bear Sports News an MLB team. The only catch is that we have to only sign remaining free agents in this class. Despite Alex Bregman being taken off the board, there are still ton of names available. Today we will be building a full 27 man roster, with the remaining free agents.

As always, the comments are open for you guys to share your opinions below, as well as your dream team with the remaining free agents. Here is a friendly link that you can use to see the remaining free agents.

Bear Sports News Starting Nine and Batting Lineup

Batting 1st for Bear Sports News, Luis Arraez – 2B

Originally i had Luis Arraez slotted into the first base position before going with someone else. Then after a little bit of research, we found that before going into the first base role with the Padres, the Marlins would use Arraez primarily as a second baseman. His stats are as impressive at second, as they are at first base. Arraez has a career .988 fielding percentage over at second in 2793 innings played. Only committing 16 errors over that time. Now that you know that’s he’s going to be a good second baseman, let’s go into my second reason.

He gets on base.

Arraez’s .292 batting average is third overall within the 64 available free agents with a minimum 100 plate appearances. His strikeout % is also the lowest out of all of them, surprisingly beating out second place by a full 10%.

Arraez’s 181 hits in 2025 ranked second overall in the league with his .292 BA ranking 12th overall in the league. There is no denying Arraez’s ability to get on base. This is the reason that we would also slot Arraez into the lead-off position.

With the Padres in 2024, Arraez came into the team as their leadoff man. Arraez did an incredible job in that position. In 633 at-bats, Luis had a .313 batting average with 198 hits and only 26 strikeouts. Arraez finished the season 4th overall in 2024 in batting average, just beating out Shohei Ohtani. Arraez was also only one of two players to have 200 hits in 2024. There’s no question that Arraez is quietly the best second baseman available on the market for us.

Batting 2nd for Bear Sports News, Bo Bichette, SS

I think our next few picks will be very obvious so we will keep the next sections short and sweet. We had a little bit of a tough time trying to figure out how to set up our lineup with our big 3. I think Bichette is a perfect batter to have in the second position. He may not have home-run power, but that’s going to compliment Arraez perfectly. Bichette had 44 doubles in 2025 which ranked top 5 amongst the league.

If you’ve ever watched a baseball game, me and you both know that doubles lead to RBI’s. I think this 1-2 punch to start the game off is a perfect combination to get the starting pitcher rilled up. Bichette did commit 12 errors at shortstop last year, so the hope for us and any team that does sign him, is that he is able to clean that up. Bichette has a surprisingly low .966 fielding percentage at shortstop and hasn’t ever played any other position in the league so a change of positions would likely be impractical.

For teams, it’s Bichette’s amazing bat that will almost certify that Bichette signs a huge deal. In seasons when Bichette has played more than 100 games, he has eclipsed 175 or more hits in each of those seasons. As well as having more than 30 RBI’s in each of those seasons.

Another thing that Bichette will need to clean up is his strikeout %. From 21’-23’, Bichette had 407 strikeouts, now i will say that Bichette is slowly starting to turn that number around and i have a strong feeling that Bichette will be able to further decrease this number in 2026. Despite all the flaws, Bichette is a MUST have shortstop.

Batting 3rd for Bear Sports News, Kyle Tucker, RF

Once again, we’ll keep it short and sweet. But the idea is to have Arraez already in the dugout after Bichette’s RBI-double. Tucker’s power is just so undeniable, that he is the perfect man to have in the third spot. Tucker’s 44.3 hard-hit% is the perfect combo to finish off the 1-2-3 punch that our lineup provides. About 43.6% of his hits come off an extra base hit as well. Bichette’s speed and Tucker’s ability to get some extra bases, I don’t see a better way to come out to either a 2-0 lead, or better yet, a 3-0 lead.

Batting 4th for Bear Sports News, Cody Bellinger, LF

Bellinger is just a guy you wanna have in your clubhouse. He’s an amazing player on the field, and an even better person off of it. With multiple of his past teammates always mentioning the same thing. Bellinger was just someone you wanted to be around, always pushing everyone to be better.

Now, you may be asking yourself, why is Cody Bellinger batting fourth, why is Bellinger batting last out of the big three? Well once you see who is batting fifth, it will make far more sense, but i will explain it. Bellinger’s 38.4 hard-hit% is impressive to me, he will be able to drive in doubles, triples (5 in 2025), or home runs. Bellinger’s 13.7 K% in 2025 was also the lowest in his career, whatever Bellinger did differently in 2025, will be the reason he garners the payday he deserves.

We saw numbers from Bellinger that were very similar in 2019, when Bellinger finished top 10 in AVG, OPS, OBP and SLG. I’m very confident that Bellinger’s best days aren’t just behind him anymore, they are very much in front of him, and whoever can land Bellinger on a long-term deal, will be very lucky for years to come.

Batting 5th for Bear Sports News, Eugenio Suarez, 3B

If all else fails for the 1-4, and they are only able to get hits, that would leave a bases loaded scenario for none other than Eugenio Suarez. Now some readers may be hesitant for this one, but i think Geno’s problem is easily fixable.

In my humble opinion, he doesn’t wait for his pitch. He sees something that looks like a home-run pitch, and swings. Now, that method will work at times, Suarez finished 5th in the league with 49 HR’s hit, including his incredible 4 HR game versus the Braves. But it also has its downsides, with Suarez finishing 4th in the league with 196 strikeouts.

Let’s shy away from the strikeout talk though and let’s talk about Suarez’s pure power. Suarez’s past four seasons have eclipsed 40%+ hard-hit% with 132 home runs during that time. That ranks 8th overall over the past four years, beating out players like Rafael Devers, Marcell Ozuna and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Now it’s no question that Suarez’s bat has power, and despite the strikeouts. He’s the perfect middle-man in a stacked lineup like ours.

Batting 6th for Bear Sports News, Miguel Andujar, CF

Possibly one of the most surprising names in my opinion that hasn’t been signed to a team yet. Andujar had a very strong 2025, finishing the season with a .318 batting average in 321 at-bats, as well as an amazing .352 OBP. Now Andujar has primarily been used as a bench player, and we originally had Harrison Bader in our starting lineup. But I’d be very intrigued to see Andujar get a full season of reps and see how his batting average fares. Andujar would be 30 years old on Opening Day, which means he is nowhere near retirement talk.

We tracked over the past two seasons, batters with a minimum 600 plate appearances. With one question in mind, how good has Andujar been? Well Andujar’s past two seasons has been good enough to rank him 5th overall. Yes, fifth overall.

Andujar’s projections in 2026 show him having a bit of a down year, and falling to a .279 batting average and is projected to play around 90+ games. Now we will just have to wait and see if that’s true but personally, I’d wanna give Andujar a chance to start the season as CF#1 and see how he performs.

Batting 7th for Bear Sports News, Paul Goldschmidt, 1B

Arguably the best first baseman in this free agent class. 17,107.1 innings played, no more than 7 errors committed in a singular season, 1,579 double plays and a career fielding percentage of .997. This is the guy you want holding down your infield, and i feel like with Bo Bichette at shortstop, the double plays will be just like clock work with Arraez at second.

Goldschmidt in my opinion has been having a hall of fame worthy career. Pulling up his Baseball Savant page, my jaw dropped. I never realized how good Paul Goldschmidt actually has been.

Now i think i could just leave these stats up and end the explanation behind Goldschmidt here. We will continue why he’s the perfect fit though. As you can see, despite 2020, Goldschmidt hasn’t had a season with less than 120 hits since 2014. That’s 10 straight seasons of 145 games played or more where Goldschimdt has eclipsed 134 hits or more. During the 11 years, Goldschimdt ranks top 5 in hits amongst all players during that time. Goldschimdt’s veteran presence in the clubhouse would be exactly what the Bear Sports News team needs, or quite frankly any team for that matter.

He may be approaching the final years of his baseball career, but he’s going to be the best option in this market. Bear Sports News also signed Dominic Smith to backup Goldschimdt on the days he needs rest, but more on our bench later.

Batting 8th for Bear Sports News, Harrison Bader, DH

We know Bader is an outfielder, but since we’re an MLB team, we need a DH. We thought what better option than Harrison Bader. He is top 5 amongst remaining free agents in AVG and top 10 in OBP, which translates to one thing.

Bader can get on base, we’ve said that consistently during this article, but you don’t win baseball games by not scoring runs. Now since we slotted Miguel Andujar into Bader’s position, and as we mentioned. If things didn’t work out for Andujar, then Bader would go straight back to the OF. His arm strength, range, accuracy and sprint speed feels like he was made in a lab to be the perfect outfielder. Bader has a career .985 in center and has over 5900 innings played with 6 different teams. It may be a surprise to most that Bader is this low in the lineup, but he seems to excel when he’s batting eighth in the lineup compared to anywhere else. His batting average jumps up a full .17 points compared to his second best, when he leads off.

Min 50 plate appearances

Batting 1st – .282

Batting 6th – .228

Batting 7th – .271

Batting 8th – .299*

Batting 9th – .243

Baseball people are a superstitious bunch, and i personally think if you showed all 30 MLB managers this stat with one of their players, they’d more than likely slot them eighth in the lineup too.

Bader is coming off of his best season at the plate and will be looking to bring that same drive into 2026.

Batting 9th for Bear Sports News, J.T. Realmuto, C

I had a hard time choosing this one, i knew that i wanted a certain catcher in our backup spot. But i was torn between three catchers for our team. Out of the 10 remaining catchers on the free agent list, with a minimum 100 players appearances, Gary Sanchez hits the ball the hardest. He beats out second place by over 11%, but in 101 plate appearances, Sanchez struck out more than 25% of the time. Jonah Heim was also a name that i also tossed around at for a little bit, but decided ultimately on J.T. Realmuto.

J.T. Realmuto is still a scary bat to face, despite not garnering to much interest this offseason. Especially considering with how we built this team. Since 2015, Realmuto hasn’t dipped below a .250 batting average, nor below .260 OBP. In 10 out of the past 11 seasons, Realmuto has produced more than 100 hits in each of those seasons, and 45+ RBI’s. He did post a .700 OPS and 91 OPS+, which were the worst marks of his MLB career since his 2015 season.

Realmuto is still a great catcher behind the plate, despite pushing 35 years old. He doesn’t let a lot of balls get by, and not too many players would think about stealing on Realmuto.

Bear Sports News Bench

1B – Dominic Smith

C – Victor Caratini

OF – Max Kepler

3B – Luis Urias

2B – Adam Frazier

---

Bear Sports News Starting Rotation

1. Ranger Suarez LHP
2. Framber Valdez LHP
3. Chris Bassitt RHP
4. Zac Gallen RHP
5. Max Scherzer RHP

Ranger Suarez and Framber Valdez don’t really need much explaining. I think if any team had unlimited amounts of money, and 2 open spots in the rotation, this would start one of the best 1-2’s in the league. Now the 3-4-5 roles were a bit harder to choose.

Chris Bassitt in 2025 posted a solid 3.00 ERA across 170.1 inning pitched. He had a 22.6 K%, which ranks sixth best amongst available free agent starting pitchers. Bassitt has a 8 pitch arsenal that includes a Sinker, Cutter, Curveball, Four Seamer, Sweeper, Split Finger, Slider and a Change-Up. He mainly prioritizes his sinker as his pitch of choice, as his fastball is about 4mph slower than RHP league average. His Cutter and Curveball also see good usage, with his curveball having a 16.8 inch break (7.8in more than RHP avg), with a 11.5 inch drop (1.5 more than RHP avg) and his cutter having a 8.5 inch rise and 0.8 inches on the break.

Bassitt’s combination of pitches makes him a nightmare to face, especially considering how much film you need to watch. Bassitt has continued to hover around the 3.15-4.16 ranges of ERA for the past five seasons, but has came in top 20 in wins in 5 out of his last 6 seasons. Bassitt is approaching his 12th year in the league and projected to end 2026 with a 4.18 ERA, per FanGraphs.

---

If you spoke to Zac Gallen, he’d tell you outright, he had one of the ugliest campaigns of his career in 2025. Zac Gallen posted a 4.83 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 176 hits allowed, 103 earned runs and 31 HR’s. All of those categories mentioned, Gallen was top 20 in most allowed. But he did have some good moments as well, despite the D-backs being depleted due to injuries to their rotation, Gallen stayed floating. Despite the rough starts, Gallen kept coming out on the fifth day and tried his best. His 175 strikeouts ranked top 20 in the league in 2025 and Gallen pitched the second most innings out of any NL pitcher.

Towards the end of the season, Zac Gallen started to show signs of life. He had a 2.57 ERA in the month of August, and a 4.20 ERA in September. The lowest numbers out of his whole 2025 campaign.

I personally think that Gallen will return to form, now i don’t think he will be Cy Young candidacy again. But i completely see Zac Gallen remembering who he was once again, and being the dangerous pitcher with his knuckle curve.

---

Max Schrezer. Certified first ballot Hall of Famer. This one doesn’t need much explaining, if Schrezer is able to stay off the DL, he’s definitely someone you don’t wanna see starting. Especially if you’re in postseason, now he did have a rough ending to his 2025 campaign, but projections show him turning it around in 2026. The drive of one more ring for Schrezer would be the exact fifth man you want in your rotation. He’s hungry, he knows he still has it in him. Most GM’s probably wouldn’t wanna give Schrezer one more chance, but i think if someone does, he will make sure that last ounce of baseball gets milked out of him.

Bear Sports News Bullpen

RHP Seranthony Dominguez / CLOSER

LHP Jalen Beeks / SETUP

RHP Jakob Junis / SETUP

RHP Hunter Strickland

LHP Andrew Chafin

LHP Danny Columbe

RHP Pierce Johnson

LHP Justin Wilson

---

Now that we are done, tell me, what do you think Bear Sports News team biggest weaknesses are? Where do we thrive the most? Let me know in the comments below or vote in our poll!