Tarik Skubal has won back-to-back AL Cy Young Awards and will make $32 million this season after winning his salary arbitration hearing. Detroit's ace left-hander could next set more contract records for a pitcher in free agency.
Skubal could become a free agent for the first time after the World Series next fall, along with players like two-time All-Star right-hander Freddy Peralta, second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. and 31-year-old slugger Randy Arozarena. Trevor Rogers and Kris Bubic, both 28-year-old left-handed starters who have been All-Stars, could also be among that group.
But they will go into that offseason amid the backdrop of another potential lockout. The sport's collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1 and MLB appears on track to propose a salary cap, so it's uncertain how that will affect the next free agency class.
When the last CBA expired at that same point after the 2021 season, owners locked out players for 99 days, but there were some big deals completed in the days and hours before baseball's first work stoppage in a quarter-century. Those included AL Cy Young winner Robbie Ray on a $115 million, five-year contract with Seattle, Marcus Stroman's $71 million, three-year deal with the Chicago Cubs and a half-billion dollar middle infield for the Texas Rangers: shortstop Corey Seager ($325 million, 10 years) and second baseman Marcus Semien ($175 million, seven years).
Here are some of the players who could be free agents after the 2026 season:
Skubal, who will turn 30 in November, was 31-10 with a 2.30 ERA over 62 starts in his two Cy Young seasons, and is 54-37 with a 3.08 ERA in six years overall. He won a record arbitration case in February against the Tigers, who had offered $19 million. He was 13-6 with an AL-best 2.21 ERA in 31 starts last year, when he struck out 241 and walked 33 in 195 1/3 innings. The biggest contract for a pitcher is the $325 million, 12-year deal Yoshinobu Yamamoto got from the Los Angeles Dodgers two years ago. The highest average salary was $43.3 million, which three-time Cy Young winners Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer got in free-agent deals with the New York Mets before both got traded at the 2023 deadline.
Peralta led the National League with 17 wins and had 204 strikeouts last season, the last of his eight with Milwaukee before being traded to the Mets, who tabbed him their starter for opening day. He turns 30 in June and is 54-34 with a 3.30 ERA over five seasons as a full-time starter. He signed a five-year pre-arbitration deal in 2020 that included club options for 2025 and 2026.
The 28-year-old Chisholm was an All-Star again last season, for the first time since he was the primary second baseman for Miami in 2022. The Marlins then put him in center field until trading him at the deadline in 2024 to the Yankees, who moved him back to the infield. He hit .242 with 31 homers, 80 RBIs and 31 stolen bases last season.
Arozarena, the 2020 AL Championship Series MVP with Tampa Bay even before being the 2021 AL Rookie of the Year, hit a career-best 27 homers with 76 RBIs and 31 stolen bases last year in his first full season with Seattle, which acquired the two-time All-Star from Cuba at the 2024 trade deadline.
The 13th overall pick by Miami in the 2017 amateur draft, Rogers made his big league debut with the Marlins in 2020, got traded to Baltimore at the 2024 deadline and sent to the minors less than a month later. Now he is set to start the season opener for the Orioles. He missed two months last season with a right kneecap issue before going 9-3 with a 1.81 ERA in 18 starts.
Bubic was an All-Star last year but made only one more start for the Royals after the Midsummer Classic because of a strained rotator cuff. He was 8-7 with a 2.55 ERA.
The three-time NL batting champion while finishing each of those seasons with a different team, signed a $12 million, one-year deal with San Francisco after becoming a free agent for the first time. The 28-year-old Arráez is a .317 career hitter with only 215 strikeouts in 3,533 career plate appearances. He had 584 hits, 460 of them singles, the past three seasons.
Third baseman Bo Bichette, who joined the Mets this offseason on a $126 million, three-year free-agent deal, can opt out after this season. So can 30-year-old right-hander Michael King, who after becoming a free agent for the first time last offseason, signed a $75 million, three-year contract to stay with the San Diego Padres.
Among the players who could become free agents if club options aren't exercised for 2027 are second baseman Ozzie Albies and outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. from the Atlanta Braves, Mets center fielder Luis Robert Jr., and Houston third baseman Isaac Paredes. First baseman Yandy Diaz, the 2023 AL batting champion and a .290 career hitter, has a vesting club option with Tampa Bay.
Ray, traded to San Francisco two years ago, is going into the final year of his deal signed before the lockout. The 34-year-old Ray is 88-81 with a 3.94 ERA in his 12 big league seasons with stops also in Detroit, Arizona and Toronto, the team he was with in 2021 for his Cy Young season.
Right-hander Shane Bieber, the 2020 AL Cy Young winner with Cleveland, started only twice in 2024 before Tommy John surgery and becoming a first-time free agent. He got a new deal with the Guardians that had a $16 million player option for this season, which is for Toronto after being traded last July and making seven starts. The 30-year-old Bieber is 66-34 with a 3.24 ERA in 143 career games.
Sandy Alcantara, the 2022 NL Cy Young winner who is also 30, is set to make his franchise-record sixth opening day start for the Marlins. He missed the 2024 season after Tommy John surgery. He initially struggled in his return last year, but went 7-3 with a 3.13 ERA over his last 12 starts. Miami has a $21 million club option for 2027.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB
FILE - San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Robbie Ray works against a San Diego Padres batter during the first inning of a baseball game Monday, Aug 18, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Orlando Ramirez, file)
FILE - New York Yankees Jazz Chisholm Jr. dives into home plate to score on a hit by Austin Wells against the Boston Red Sox during the eighth inning of Game 2 of an American League wild-card baseball playoff series, Oct. 1, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, file)
FILE - Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Tarik Skubal throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers, Aug. 31, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, file)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — For most people across the globe, Oscar night ends with the bestowing of that final golden statuette.
Not for Oscar winners and guests, of course. Their night is just beginning.
After the first stop — the Governors Ball — many headed to the more exclusive Vanity Fair party at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where guests were greeted by a 20-foot high arrangement of 10,000 yellow orchids, according to organizers, with a menu that ranged from Mediterranean sea bass and grilled ribeye to Domino’s pizza served in “custom slice boxes” and In-N-Out burgers. The invite list was culled this year to make the gathering more exclusive. Some guests stopped to talk on their way in.
To hear Conan O’Brien tell it, Oscar-night jokes are like food. They go stale fast.
Sometimes before you even get to use them.
“Things move quickly and it’s like you’re a chef in a kitchen — you just have to decide what’s fresh, what works,” O’Brien told The Associated Press on the way into the Vanity Fair party.
He said some jokes written a month ago were ditched, because after two weeks, they’d already expired.
How do you know when something is stale? “You just have to constantly, constantly check with people and check with yourself,” he said.
But the two-time Oscar host said he doesn’t get scared about those famous faces in the audience or worry what they'll think.
“At this point, after this many years, you don’t even see the individual people,” O'Brien said. “It’s another audience. ... I don’t get thinking about, ‘Hey, I hope Leo likes this joke.’”
To change, or not to change — as Hamnet, er, Hamlet might ask. That is the question.
Some stars make quick Superman-like wardrobe changes before hitting Oscar night parties. Others decide they’re just fine in the elaborate duds they began the evening with.
Amy Madigan, fresh off her supporting actress win for “Weapons,” stuck with her Dior silk feathered jacket over wool and silk trousers when she made her way into the Vanity Fair party.
But Jessie Buckley, best actress winner for “Hamnet,” slipped from her flowing Chanel red-and-pink concoction to a black sequined gown. And Rose Byrne, a nominee in the category for “If I Had Legs I'd Kick You,” shed her embroidered floral gown for a two-piece black fringe number, also by Dior, to dance the night away (or at least party it away).
Odessa A’zion seemed ready to soar — literally. The breakout “Marty Supreme” actor, who earlier wore a bohemian-style Valentino number, donned a multi-colored ensemble by Harris Reed that culminated in a set of black fringed wings reaching toward the sky.
Jane Fonda had the First Amendment on her mind.
“That’s why I am here,” said the two-time Oscar winner, 88, who recently relaunched the Committee for the First Amendment to fight incursions on free speech. Her father, Henry Fonda, was among the Hollywood figures who started the group in the 1940s.
“I’m getting people to sign up,” Fonda said. “Strength in numbers.” The media industry, the actor added, is especially important. “They go after the press and the arts, too, authoritarians do. So we have to fight back.”
Fonda added: “It’s bipartisan. Republicans as well as Democrats have to fight for the First Amendment.”
For David Borenstein, co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” making art goes hand in hand with risk.
“I think there’s no art without risk,” Borenstein said. “There’s no real politics without risk. If you’re not taking a risk, then I’m not sure what you’re doing.”
'This was a very risky project,” he added. “What was so important for this was people coming to us early and supporting us, even though they knew it was risky.”
“Mr. Nobody Against Putin” explores the Russian leader’s propaganda and patriotism program for the nation’s youth after the invasion of Ukraine. The film’s protagonist and co-director, Pavel Talankin, was a teacher in a small-town school in Russia who captured on video his students’ lessons, chants and songs promoting the war in Ukraine.
Audrey Nuna was feeling hopeful.
“I’m so freaking good, so proud. I’m just overjoyed,” said Nuna, one of the three voices behind the fictional girl group HUNTR/X, who had performed “Golden” from “KPop Demon Hunters ” at the show. The song won the Oscar for best original song, a first for K-pop. And the movie won for best animated feature.
Nuna said she felt that host O’Brien’s speech was inspirational in its reference to hope in chaotic times.
“It doesn’t feel like we have the space for it,” she said, “but it really is important to show that there’s hope, and I think with this song being so hopeful and this message of ‘Kpop Demon Hunters’ being so hopeful, it just feels like a celebration, of diversity, representation, just all the good (stuff).”
And while Nuna regretted that the show had cut off one of the songwriters during the acceptance speech, she said it hadn't ruined the night.
“I think that our team has such good camaraderie that we understand it’s bigger than those small moments,” she said.
For Oscar-winning sound editor Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, the night's victory meant a lot more than the golden statuette she was holding.
Whittle shared on the red carpet that she'd been ill with cancer while working on “F1.”
“I had cancer while I was working on this film, and so a year ago I had no hair,” Whittle said, “and so the fact that I’m standing here with hair, holding this, makes the whole thing even more mind-blowingly special and amazing.”
Whittle said the job “really helped keep me focused and made me not think about what I was going through.” Her colleagues, she said, “were so supportive of everything that I needed to do, and, the whole crew was behind me the whole way, and they really made me feel like I was still necessary, and I still needed to be there to do the job.
It was really great.”
—-
Associated Press writer Jocelyn Noveck contributed to this report.
Audrey Nuna arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Jane Fonda arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Jane Fonda arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Odessa A'zion arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Odessa A'zion arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Odessa A'zion arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Jessie Buckley arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Jessie Buckley arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Liza Powel O'Brien, left, and Conan O'Brien arrive at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Audrey Nuna arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
Conan O'Brien arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
