Craig Kimbrel elects free agency after Mets DFA, clears waivers unclaimed

What happened

Craig Kimbrel is a free agent. Per his transaction log on MLB.com, the nine-time All-Star elected free agency after the Mets designated him for assignment last week and he subsequently passed through outright waivers without a claim. He is now free to sign with any organization, per MLB Trade Rumors.

The mechanics are worth walking through, because the sequence matters. When a club designates a player for assignment, it has seven days to trade him, release him, or place him on outright waivers. Outright waivers run 48 hours; if no team claims the player in that window, the club can either release him outright or send him to the minors. A player with sufficient major-league service time has the right to refuse a minor-league assignment and elect free agency instead. Per MLB Trade Rumors, that is exactly what Kimbrel did.

Why it matters

The waiver wire is, in theory, a clearinghouse for talent that one team no longer wants but another might. The fact that no club put in a claim on Kimbrel during that 48-hour window is its own kind of market signal — though it is worth noting that teams sometimes allow a player to clear waivers intentionally, preferring to negotiate a minor-league deal rather than absorb a major-league contract on the claim.

What is not in dispute is that Kimbrel, who will turn 38 later this week per MLB Trade Rumors, is now free to negotiate with all 30 clubs on whatever terms he can find. Given his recent history — minor-league deals, spring invitations, brief major-league stints — the most likely landing spot, if there is one, is probably a depth signing rather than a high-leverage role. But that is the market's call to make, not ours.

The numbers

The most useful figures here come directly from MLB Trade Rumors' reporting on his current stuff. His fastball, which once touched triple digits, now averages 93.6 mph. His curveball, long the signature weapon of one of the more distinctive deliveries in the sport, no longer misses bats the way it did across his peak years. Per the report, he has diversified his arsenal in an attempt to compensate for those losses — a reasonable adaptation, and one that plenty of pitchers have made successfully. Whether the diversification has been sufficient is the question every potential suitor will be asking.

The 93.6 mph average on the fastball is not, by itself, a disqualifying number. There are effective relievers working in that range. The issue, as MLB Trade Rumors frames it, is the combination: the velocity has come down and the curveball's bat-missing ability has diminished, which narrows the margin for error considerably. A pitcher who could overpower hitters when a secondary pitch got hit has fewer escape routes when both offerings are operating below their former levels. Diversifying the arsenal is an acknowledgment of that reality, and it is a reasonable response — but it is also a different pitcher than the one who made nine All-Star rosters.

What we don't know yet

### Is any team expected to sign Kimbrel?

Per MLB Trade Rumors, Kimbrel is now free to look to continue his career elsewhere — but no specific suitor is named in the report, and no deal is described as imminent or likely. The desk does not have reporting on which clubs, if any, have expressed interest.

What the report does establish is the persistence Kimbrel has shown in staying in professional baseball. After being released by the Orioles in September 2024, he went on to sign deals with the Braves, Rangers, Astros, and Mets — four organizations across a compressed stretch of time. Per MLB Trade Rumors, he has also been willing to pitch in the minor leagues when that was the path available to him. That combination of adaptability and persistence has kept him in the game through a period when his stuff has measurably declined. Whether it produces another signing is genuinely unknown at this point.

It is also worth noting what the report does not say: there is no timetable attached, no specific team described as a frontrunner, and no characterization of how quickly the market might develop. Free agency for a reliever in this situation can move quickly — a team loses a bullpen arm to injury and makes a call — or it can stretch for weeks. The desk will report when there is something to report.

What to watch

The most straightforward thing to monitor is Kimbrel's transaction log, which is where MLB Trade Rumors sourced the free-agency election in the first place. A new signing would show up there before most other places.

Beyond the transaction itself, the broader question is what role, if any, a team envisions for him. Per MLB Trade Rumors, Kimbrel has not shied away from minor-league assignments when they represented a route back to the majors — which suggests that a minor-league deal with an in-season invitation is a plausible structure for whatever comes next, if anything does. Under general league mechanics, a minor-league contract would not place him on a 40-man roster, giving a signing club flexibility to evaluate him before making a larger commitment.

The nine-time All-Star designation is not just a biographical footnote here. It is a reminder of the distance between what Kimbrel was — one of the more statistically dominant closers of his generation, with a fastball that touched triple digits and a curveball that made advanced hitters look foolish — and what the market is currently being asked to evaluate. That gap is not unusual for a pitcher in his late thirties, and it does not make the story less interesting. If anything, it makes the next transaction more worth watching: the question of whether any organization sees enough remaining value to take a flier is, at minimum, a legitimate baseball question.

Per MLB Trade Rumors, the answer from the waiver wire was no. The answer from the broader free-agent market is still pending.