mariners and first baseman Josh Naylor According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the team is in the final stages of working out a five-year contract. The deal will become official once Naylor passes his physical, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Ari Alexander of WHDH reports that the contract price is between $90MM and $100MM. Naylor is represented by ISE Baseball.
Assuming the deal is finalized, Naylor would be the first top prospect in free agency to receive a new contract during the 2025-26 season, just two weeks before the World Series ends. It’s surprising to see any major free agent sign his next contract so quickly, even before the player who received a qualifying offer has made a decision. (Naylor apparently does not qualify for QO because he was traded from the Diamondbacks to the Mariners during the season.)
MLB Trade Rumors ranks Naylor at No. 12 on their list of 50 free agents this offseason, and the five-year term fits our prediction that Naylor will get a five-year, $90MM deal. Naylor’s five-year contract also matches the longest free agent contract signed by the Mariners during Jerry Dipoto’s decade in charge of Seattle’s baseball operations department. M’s ink Robbie Ray to a five-year, $11MM contract in the 2021-22 offseason, along with Ray’s contract and Kikuchi YusenThe four-year, $56MM contract signed in January 2019 is the only free agent contract of more than two years in the Dipoto era.
There are multiple reasons behind the lack of free agency strikes. Mariners’ infamous 10-year, $240 contract Robinson Cano This may lead to organizations being wary of blockbuster signings starting in December 2013. The M’s have ranked in the top 10 in payroll just one season since John Stanton’s ownership group purchased the team in 2016, and are only back in the middle range in league-wide spending. There’s also “Jerry the Trader” who personally prefers to build the roster through trades rather than free agency, as Dipoto is known for being very aggressive in trade negotiations. The Mariners have made just two postseason appearances in the past 24 seasons, and players may have had doubts about joining the team, especially since the hitters weren’t playing in a notoriously pitcher-friendly environment.
With all of that in mind, there’s such mutual interest between Naylor and the Mariners that the team seems more than willing to go beyond its usual free-agent comfort zone. Dipoto has publicly told the media — including Darragh McDonald on the MLBTR Podcast in September — that re-signing Naylor is a top priority for the organization, and Naylor himself has been equally enthusiastic about how much he enjoys playing in Seattle.
Considering Naylor’s performance since arriving in the Pacific Northwest, it’s easy to see why the two sides moved quickly on a long-term deal. Naylor had enjoyed a strong season with the Diamondbacks, but with Arizona losing its competitive advantage, the Diamondbacks traded the slugger for a rookie left-handed pitcher a week before the trade deadline. Brandon Garcia and pitching prospects Ashton Eads.
Naylor hit .299/.341/.490 with home runs and 19 stolen bases (none caught stealing) in 210 regular season games with the M’s, followed by a .340/.392/.574 slash line in 51 postseason games. Adding this type of popular player to the lineup was perhaps the main reason the Mariners won the AL West, then defeated the Tigers in the ALDS, and finally lost to the Blue Jays in seven games in the ALCS, falling just short of the first World Series berth in franchise history.
That success has the Mariners more or less hoping to get the band back together in 2026, which is no small feat for Naylor, Jorge Polancoand Eugenio Suarez (among other things) are ready to hit free agency. Re-signing Naylor is the first domino to fall, and it remains to be seen whether Polanco or Suarez can stay after the team invested heavily in Naylor. According to Dipoto’s statement after the playoffs, the M’s entered the offseason with approximately $34MM in spending, and if more in-season reinforcements are needed, more money may be available before the deadline.
For now, the Mariners and their fans can at least enjoy the thought of Naylor playing at T-Mobile Park for the next five seasons. Naylor turns 29 in June, so his contract runs through his age-33 season. The league has been hesitant in recent years to offer big contracts to players who only play first base (especially as those players enter their 30s), but Naylor’s performance over the long haul with the Mariners makes him a solid five-year investment.
Naylor’s 128 wRC+ in 2025 was a career-high, slightly higher than the 127 wRC+ he posted in 2023 with the Guardians. Since becoming Cleveland’s starter in 2022, Naylor has hit 88 homers and hit .275/.336/.464, which translates to a 123 wRC+ and 9.9 fWAR over the past four seasons. His on-base and slugging percentages are okay but not inspiring, and with his below-average on-base percentage from 2022-25, Naylor doesn’t quite fit the profile of a classic slugging first baseman.
His biggest offensive weapon is his contact ability, as Naylor is one of the hardest players in the league to strike out, although he chases down balls easily. Another interesting oddity is that Naylor is 30-for-32 with stolen bases in 2025, which speaks to his skills as an opportunistic baserunner despite being one of the slowest players in baseball. Defensively, his glove received mixed reviews from the public. The above-average outs metric shows his OAA is well above average, while his -6 defensive rating paints a less flattering picture of his work at first base.
Naylor joins Carl Rowley and Julio Rodriguez With Seattle players locked in through at least the 2029 season, Rodriguez’s contract could actually extend to 2039, depending on a complex set of options after the 2029 season. These three All-Star position players are all veteran right-handers. Luis Castilloas well as the core of local starters (George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, Brian Wu, Bryce Miller) has become the cornerstone of an AL West championship team that hopes to remain competitive for at least the next decade.
While many experts — including three of our MLB experts — predicted Naylor would re-sign with the Mariners, the fact that he found a new contract so suddenly has interesting ripple effects for the rest of the free-agent class. Teams in need of lineup help have one fewer bat to consider, especially as the first base market is now stripped of many names that teams might consider as preferred alternatives. Pete Alonso, Munataka Murakamior Kazuma Okamoto. Murakami or Okamoto can be deployed at the third base, Cody Bellinger Could be viewed equally as a first baseman or outfielder depending on suitor needs.
Illustration by Stephen Brashear — Imagn Images
