The 2026 Major League Baseball regular season is fast approaching and baseball betting is set to heat up. So we at RotoWire.com used Baseball-Reference.com and Spotrac.com to see which players were the biggest bargains for each MLB team and which players were the most overpriced, based on 2025 season Wins Above Replacement (WAR) and Average Value (AAV) for their contracts.
MLB's Biggest Bargains & Overpriced Players
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Who Is MLB's Best Bargain?
Few have produced more WAR while earning less than Philadelphia Phillies left-handed pitcher Cristopher Sánchez. He had an 8.0 WAR (per Baseball-Reference.com) to lead the National League in 2025 while earning $2.050 million for the NL East stalwarts.
That dollar-per-WAR value factors out to $256,250 in 2025. Sánchez, a Dominican Republic native, went 13-5 with a 2.50 ERA in 32 starts. He struck out 212 batters and posted a 1.064 WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitch) over 202 innings on his way to finishing second in NL Cy Young voting.
At DraftKings Sportsbook, the Phillies southpaw has +1000 to win the Cy Young in 2026, third on the board behind reigning winner Paul Skenes (+225) of the Pirates and Dodgers ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto (+500).
Other Players Well Worth The Money
After Sánchez, Houston Astros right-handed pitcher Hunter Brown proved to be the next most-valuable player in MLB last year, according to our metrics.
Brown posted a 6.1 WAR after going 12-9 across 31 starts with a 2.43 ERA, all while earning $5,448,644 in salary, according to Spotrac.com.
That factors out to $893,221 per WAR point for the Astros. The 27-year-old out of Wayne State University looks to add a second All-Star nod this season after finishing third in American League Cy Young voting in 2025.
Infielder Brice Turang of the Milwaukee Brewers is third on our list of best bargains. He racked up a 5.6 WAR across 156 games in 2025, bashing 18 homers and 81 RBIs as the Brew Crew's everyday second baseman. He earned $7,095,142 after his active salary and pre-arbitration bonus pool figures were added together, per Spotrac.
Turang earned around $1.27 million per WAR point in 2025, posting the third-highest WAR total of any player that made our best bargain list. The fourth-year middle infielder from Southern California seeks another Gold Glove in 2026 to add to the one he earned in 2024.
Customers using the Caesars Sportsbook promo code can get +280 odds on the Brewers to repeat as NL Central division champions, well behind the +110 line for the Chicago Cubs.
Which MLB Players Aren't Such A Bargain?
This is a less sought-after declaration for players. No player on this list had a negative WAR total, though nine had just 0.1 WAR during 2025. Those nine players were: Aaron Civale, Ryan Helsley, Justin Steele, Brenton Doyle, Cristian Javier, Sandy Alcantara, Trevor Larnach, Nolan Gorman and Yimi García.
Conversely, the "best" of the worst bargains list was Texas Rangers pitcher Jacob DeGrom. He had a decent season in 2025, (12-8, 2.97 ERA, 185 Ks) for a 2.9 WAR across 172.2 innings. The problem for our purposes is that DeGrom was paid $40.1 million, giving him a dollar-per-WAR value of more than $13.8 million. By our metrics, that made the righty the least valuable player last season, or at least the most expensive one compared to his production.
Centerfielder Jung Hoo Lee of the San Francisco Giants had 1.7 WAR in 2025 while earning $17.250 million, or $10.147 million per WAR point. Right-hander Mitch Keller of the Pirates (1.4 WAR and $15.411 million in earnings) and lefty Blake Snell of the Dodgers (1.3 WAR, $28.4 million) were also players who cost a lot for their production.
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