All-Star sluggers, Cy Young winners could be in ‘24-25 class

Baseball’s next free agency class won’t have a two-way star like Shohei Ohtani, and almost certainly no deals like his record-shattering $700 million over 10 years to switch teams in Los Angeles this year. But there could still be All-Star sluggers and Cy Young Award winners available.

Big hitters Juan Soto and Pete Alonso are going into their final seasons before potentially becoming free agents for the first time. So are past Cy Young winners Shane Bieber and Corbin Burnes.

Soto will make $31 million this season with the New York Yankees. They acquired him in December from San Diego, where he was traded in August 2022 after turning scuttlebutt of who is going to have opportunities. He grabbed me after that game and said, ‘You’ve kind of run your course here. You need to take one of these jobs.’ Yeah, ‘You’ve run your course here,’ is what he said.”

It was well understood that UConn was interested in Hurley. Pittsburgh, too. Hurley loved his job and life in Rhode Island. Before the frenzied process of interviewing and/ or being recruited for jobs like the one in Storrs was just about upon him, he didn’t consider such a jump (or the particular landing spots available at the time) as an inevitable moves.

Coach K, though, had told Hurley that he maxed out his potential at a midmajor, and the message carried weight. Hurley and Krzyzewski go back years, to the days of Hurley’s older brother, Bobby Hurley, running the point for those great Duke teams and Krzyzewski visiting the St. Anthony’s gym of Bobby Hurley Sr. while recruiting.

“I’ve known him my whole life,” Dan Hurley said of Krzyzewski. “He’s somebody I’ll reach out to a couple times a year and bounce some things off of, ideas about leadership or what have you.”

Six years ago they were coaches and colleagues at an intersection, with Krzyzewski entering the ninth inning of his record-setting career and Hurley yet to enter the big leagues, so to speak. Days later, UConn president Susan Herbst and athletic director David Benedict were sitting in the Rhode Island home of Hurley and his wife, Andrea, pitching the down a $440 million, 15year offer to stay with the Washington Nationals. The three-time All-Star outfielder was already betting then on a better deal once he could finally become a free agent.

His agent is Scott Boras, who also represents Mets slugger Alonso and Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman, another potential free agent.

Here are some of the players eligible for free agency after this year’s World Series:

Even Yankees general manager Brian Cashman has said he expects Soto to test free agency after this season. If the lefthanded slugger does, he will then barely be 26 years old — his birthday is Oct. 25, around the

idea of a new job.

Soon, Hurley was announced as the UConn coach and now he is the hottest thing going in sports, a towering college basketball figure in his own right. He led UConn to a dominant national championship run last year, in his fifth season, and the Huskies are favored to do the same this year. No team has won back-to-back titles since Florida in 2006-07.

“Dan is extremely process-oriented in the way he looks and views and how he builds something,” Benedict said last week in Brooklyn, where the Huskies defeated Stetson and Northwestern to reach the Sweet 16. “Certainly what he was hired to do, he’s accomplished and gotten the program back to a place where Coach (Jim) Calhoun had built it. And to do some things this year that have never been accomplished before, is almost jaw dropping.”

Benedict said Hurley brought up his 2018 interaction with Krzyzewski during the initial interview process.

“I don’t know how much he considered staying at Rhode Island, but I think he really enjoyed his experience there,” Benedict said. “One of the things that pulled at him the most was, ‘How good can I be if I had the ability to coach the same kind of kids as Coach K?’ … Dan has a certain process he goes through to make significant decisions. I don’t think he does things on a whim, ever, no matter what it is. He had options. He had the option to stay at Rhode Island, because they obviously wanted to keep him. And there were others involved, based on what you read. It was one of those situations where same time the World Series would be starting.

Soto is a .284 career hitter with 160 home runs and 483 RBIs since his big league debut in 2018, a year before being part of the Nationals’ World Series title. His .421 career on-base percentage is the highest among active players. He hit .275 with 35 homers and 109 RBIs and led the majors in walks (132) for the third year in a row while playing all 162 games for San Diego last year.

Alonso avoided arbitration by agreeing to a $20.5 million, one-year contract for this season, but the Mets don’t anticipate a long-term deal before free agency with the three-time All-Star first baseman and 2019 NL Rookie of the Year.

The 29-year-old Alonso

you’re interviewing somebody and they’re feeling you out and trying to learn as much about the situation as you are with them. It was a very stressful period of time for me because I understood how important the decision was. Ultimately, he was the primary target.”

Hurley had a long-term contract at URI. He was signed through this 202324 season, in fact, a deal that would reach $1.1 million annually, according to reports at the time. Another cream-of-the-crop Atlantic 10 recruiting class had been lined up. Hurley was positioned to dominate a certain level of basketball and be paid handsomely to do so for the rest of his career, if he chose.

But in money and opportunity, in challenge and platform, it wasn’t quite what Hurley needed for the second half of career, he realized. So the man who built and moved and built and moved, from St. Benedict’s Prep to Wagner to Rhode Island, did it again. He was 45 at the time.

Now he is 51, still operating at a red-lined emotional pace, of course. He’s combative with fans, controversial for some of his actions and interactions, but showing a national audience that he’s as tactical and intelligent about winning in ways that override all that. He signed a sixyear contract for $32.1 million this past summer.

For many reasons — the swagger, the cockiness, the winning — Hurley is the lightning rod at the top of college basketball’s most successful team. UConn is 33-3 this season and has won 48 of its past 53 games, all eight NCAA Tournament games by 13plus points. The Huskies are intimidating and demoralizing so many opponents is a .251 career hitter with 192 homers. He set a rookie home run record with 53 in 2019, when he had 120 RBIs. He led the majors with 131 RBIs in 2022, and had 118 last year while hitting a career-low .217 with 46 homers.

The 2020 AL Cy Young winner has a 60-32 record with a 3.27 ERA in 134 career games. Cleveland’s 28-year-old ace has 937 strikeouts in 831 innings pitched.

Burnes is already with a new team before free agency, going from Milwaukee to Baltimore in a trade among reigning division champions just before spring training. The 2021 NL Cy Young winner had at least 200 strikeouts

by embodying Hurley’s personality and approach. “Foot on the gas, up their a—”, he likes to say.

“All of the great ones, there’s not much they do that there isn’t something behind what you see, hear or read,” Benedict said. “Dan is very thoughtful about how he wants to manage his program. How that emanates is not the same as every other coach, but I don’t think there’s a lot that happens where there isn’t thought behind what he’s doing.

“Some of the stuff after games, I think it’s unfortunate that some of the interactions — I don’t think Dan has ever just, unprovoked, gone after somebody just to go after somebody. Most of that stuff is a response to things being said or actions being taken towards him. In a perfect world, you’d like that those interactions didn’t take place. At the same time, a lot of what’s going on needs to be cleaned up from a fan perspective. There’s no reason for it. I’d be embarrassed as the athletic director and we had fans that were doing and saying things to the opposing coaches that Dan gets. That’s not a good environment.”

Benedict said he and Hurley have discussed his encounters — verbal, not physical — with fans on occasion.

“I don’t feel the need to critique Dan every time he has an interaction with people, because I see and hear what’s going on, generally,” he said.

Hurley said in February that he won’t coach into his 60s, like many in his profession do. Benedict was not surprised.

“I would like to think that he’s going to be able to find something when he’s done doing this that he each of the past three seasons, and was an All-Star each time.

The winning pitcher for Atlanta in the clinching Game 6 of the 2021 World Series, Fried has a 62-26 record and 3.03 ERA in 139 games since his big league debut in 2017. The 30-year-old lefty was an All-Star in 2022, when he won his third consecutive Gold Glove.

Bregman is at the end of a $100 million, five-year deal after being part of two World Series championships, four AL pennants and the Astros’ seven consecutive trips to the AL Championship Series. Bregman, who turns 30 on Saturday, is .274 career hitter.

really enjoys and that will be rewarding for him,” Benedict said. “But it’s the level at which you have to go, the energy, the commitment of time and everything else that goes with it. I think that’s why he’s honest with himself. Like, how long can you go at this level? I respect and appreciate that because I think some people go longer than what they maybe are able to go at that level and, therefore, maybe you don’t get their best anymore. Some people can overcome that, and you find different ways. But my interpretation of that is Dan’s wired a certain way and I think he’s going to know when it’s time. When that is, it will be anyone’s guess. Maybe 70 is the new 60. You certainly hope so, with Geno and everything he’s doing.”

Benedict said he and women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma, who turned 70 last week, have begun discussing the possibility of a new contract. Auriemma’s current deal expires after next season, which will be his 40th at UConn.

As for Hurley, his footon-gas approach and the potential for burnout, Benedict said, “I don’t have a window into what his life looks like every minute, but I know how long those cars are parked at the building every day. And there’s not a lot of time off. So the question is, ‘How long can you go that hard?’

“Geno, I think he would be the same way. If he can’t compete at a level he’s accustomed to — whether it be his limitations or the limitations of the program — we probably wouldn’t be talking about another contract. But that’s not where he’s at. Obviously he’s still recruiting some of the best players in the

Torres wants to spend his entire career with the Yankees. The 27-year-old was an All-Star his first two seasons, 2018 and 2019, and is a .267 career hitter. He hit 25 homers last season, his fourth with at least 24.

RHP Kenley Jansen, baseball’s active leader with 420 saves and 817 appearances, turns 37 on Sept. 30, the day after the regular season ends. His 15th MLB season will wrap up a $32 million, two-year deal with Boston. ... Three-time Cy Young winners Justin Verlander (Astros) and Max Scherzer (Rangers) will both make $43.33 million in potential walk years after being traded last year by the Mets. world to come to UConn. Unfortunately with the injuries we’ve had, the results have not necessarily been what we’ve been accustomed to. But that has nothing to do with their effort or ability. It just has to do with unfortunate luck that has hung over our program the last few years.”

Hurley’s teams have improved every season. He didn’t run anyone off the team in 2018-19. He built, slowly and methodically overall, but at blinding speed in the way we’ve come to understand how he moves through every moment. He’s superstitious, sarcastic, uniquely intense. He is, in short, one of the most interesting personalities in Connecticut history.

“Everyone has their idiosyncratic behaviors that makes them who they are,” Benedict said. “But you can get distracted by some of that stuff. The core of who Dan is, is the ultimate competitor who has benefited from being around a Hall of Fame coach in his father, and having experienced competition at the highest level. He’s obviously taken the life lessons, the basketball lessons, and he’s an unbelievable coach on top of it. There’s this combination of being this ultimate competitive individual with the knowledge and experience.

“After the New Mexico State loss (in the 2022 NCAA Tournament), they went through that process of really constructively evaluating the program and, ‘How and where do we need to get better to compete and not go home after the first game?’ He deserves a ton of credit for how he’s approached the process of putting UConn back in the position we’re in. None of it was easy.”