Walker Buehler

Perhaps no player improved his free-agency stock during the 2024 postseason more than Buehler, who wiped away some of his difficult regular season with a strong playoff run that included getting the final three outs in Game 5 of the World Series to forever cement his image in Dodgers lore. The question MLB teams (and fantasy managers) will have to ponder is whether Buehler's strong finish to the postseason (he didn't allow a run over 10 innings while notching a 13:4 K:BB across his final three outings) was a long-awaited sign that he could return to the form that made him an All-Star in 2019 and 2021 prior to his 2022 Tommy John surgery or simply a case of a pitcher letting it all hang loose with a championship in sight. It would be unwise to ignore Buehler's unattractive stats (5.38 ERA, 1.55 WHIP, 18.6% strikeout rate) during 16 regular-season starts, but his fastball velocity remained viable at 95.0 mph, and we know that pitchers can need varying amounts of time to get right again following the TJ procedure. Buehler will be in an MLB rotation somewhere in 2025, and while there's no reason to overpay based on a short burst of postseason success, there's upside here for managers willing to take a gamble on him as a back-end piece of their rotation. Read Past Outlooks