With the postseason underway and all but two teams out of the running, most teams are looking ahead to building their 2026 rosters and going through the offseason process. Part of that process involves arbitration, where players with three to six years of service time (with some exceptions) are tendered contracts valued based on their career performance and their level of arbitration, which is determined by service time.

If the team believes the player's arbitration award would be too much, they can non-tender the player, effectively granting the player free agency. Teams may also choose to non-tender players who are “pre-arbitration” (under 3 years of service time), but since pre-arbitration players are paid the league minimum, this typically isn’t done unless the team needs to clear space on its 40-man roster.

Most players who aren’t tendered a contract aren’t valuable; if they were, then they would’ve been tendered a contract, after all. However, sometimes the players are still valuable but not seen as valuable as their arbitration estimate would suggest. Just last year, Ramon Laureano, Mike Tauchman, Gavin Sheets, Austin Hays, and Griffin Canning were all non-tendered, and all five of them put up solid numbers with their new teams.

Who could be next year’s Ramon Laureano? After reviewing every player’s arbitration estimates, I came up with ten notable players with a solid chance at getting non-tendered, and how they could still be impactful wherever they end up.

Keegan Akin, RP, BAL

2025 Stats: 64 G, 63.1 IP, 5-4, 0 QS, 8 SV, 16 HLD, 3.41 ERA, 1.374 WHIP, 4.94 FIP, -0.5 fWAR, 0.9 bWAR
Career Stats: 231 G, 368.0 IP, 16-22, 2 QS, 11 SV, 28 HLD, 4.48 ERA, 1.302 WHIP, 4.02 FIP, 3.2 fWAR, 1.8 bWAR

2026 Arbitration Estimate (Per MLBTR): $3M
Non-Tender Likelihood: Low

The Orioles were seen as one of the best teams of the American League, but even entering the year, there were questions about their starting rotation. Those questions reared their ugly head when Grayson Rodriguez missed the year with multiple injuries, and offseason acquisitions Charlie Morton and Tomoyuki Sugano performed as replacement-level starters, resulting in a year where the O’s sold at the deadline and finished at the bottom of the AL East. They’ll need to make substantial upgrades to their starting rotation to become competitive again, and since even mid-rotation starters can be quite expensive in free agency, they’ll be looking to trim the fat from their roster and cut payroll to afford it.

Keegan Akin was a good reliever for Baltimore in 2025 and became the closer for them down the stretch after Felix Bautista went down with a torn labrum. Despite the strong numbers, Akin’s decline in strikeout rate, along with his walk rate doubling, resulted in much worse peripherals compared to 2024, and with his salary going from $1.475M to a projected $3M, there’s a world where the Orioles non-tender him and go with cheaper guys with better numbers for 2026. The group of high-minors relievers they acquired via trade at the deadline — Tyson Neighbors from the Padres, Micah Ashman from the Tigers, and Anthony Nunez & Cameron Foster from the Mets — may play a part in their future bullpen plans.

The O’s have done this before as well; last offseason, they non-tendered Jacob Webb, even though he was due for just $1.7M and had an extra year of control, partially because he had a 3.52 FIP and a 4.31 xFIP despite a 3.02 ERA. On the other hand, Akin is a lefty, which gives him a better chance at staying on the roster as a lefty specialist, since he can still get strong lefties out and the O’s don’t have many lefty relief options outside of Akin. If he does get non-tendered, there’ll be many teams vying for a lefty with experience pitching in high leverage.