Nobody ever accused any Major League Baseball free agent of being a wholly safe bet, so it's perhaps fair to say that any player in any given market is a boom-or-bust type.

Still, we'd naturally prefer to focus on the ones in the 2022-23 market who match that description more than most.

We only considered players who haven't yet signed, as we otherwise would have been all over Edwin Díaz. We ultimately identified eight free agents who have three things in common: tremendous talent, obvious pitfalls and projections for multi-year deals worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.

Many of those will be given out, but not all of them will be overloaded with risk. Not to name names, but...well, hitters like Carlos Correa, Dansby Swanson and Brandon Nimmo don't have much in the way of downside, and it bodes well for pitchers like Chris Bassitt, Taijuan Walker and Jameson Taillon that they don't need power stuff to be effective.

In any case, we'll check off our eight biggest boom-or-bust targets in ascending order of likely earning power.

8. 1B Josh Bell

Age: 30

2022 Stats: 156 G, 647 PA, 17 HR, 0 SB, .266 AVG, .362 OBP, .422 SLG

B/R Projection: 4 years, $64 million

Why He Could Go Boom

Generally speaking, Josh Bell can hit.

His career 120 OPS+ means he is 20 percent better than the average hitter, and that's without even getting into specific highs such as his 37 home runs from 2019 or his 81 walks from this past season.

The switch-hitting Bell has also typically offered a solid bat-to-ball skill, and never more so than in 2022. His 15.8 strikeout percentage landed him in the 83rd percentile. At least in theory, such things make him an ideally well-rounded hitter.

Why He Could Go Bust

Trouble is, anyone who's watched Bell closely throughout his career will know that he's maddeningly inconsistent.

Take, for example, his first- and second-half splits. They've varied widely over the last three full seasons, with an average difference of 221 points' worth of OPS. Most recently, his OPS dropped 288 points from the first half of this year to the second.

On top of this, prospective suitors for Bell should also fret about what befell his contact quality in 2022. His exit velocity, for example, went from being safely above 90 mph between 2019 and 2021 to just below 89 mph.

7. RHP Koudai Senga

Age: 29

2022 Stats (in NPB): 23 GS, 148.0 IP, 104 H (7 HR), 159 K, 50 BB, 1.89 ERA

Why He Could Go Boom

It's a "whoopsie" that we don't have a contract projection for Kodai Senga, but rest assured he's going to get paid. Predictions for his first major league deal run as high as five years, $75 million.

Senga's latest performance was typical of what he did in 11 years with the SoftBank Hawks. At work was an arsenal of quality pitches, the best-looking of which are his high-90s fastball and a forkball known as the "Ghost Fork."

With a slider and a cutter also in his bag of tricks, Senga would seem to have everything he needs to function as a top-of-the-rotation starter in MLB.

Why He Could Go Bust

Senga nonetheless comes with real red flags, one of which concerns how he wasn't always healthy throughout his career in Japan.

There's also a question of whether his fastball will play in the majors. Jim Allen covered how Senga doesn't have a great command of the pitch, while Ben Clemens of FanGraphs highlighted how the pitch isn't overpowering up in the zone.

Granted, the fastball doesn't play as large of a role in today's MLB as it used to. Yet that doesn't make it easy for a pitcher to be entirely fastball-free, so Senga may end up having a low ceiling if he doesn't at least get his fastball command up to par.

6. RHP Justin Verlander

Age: 39

2022 Stats: 28 GS, 175.0 IP, 116 H (12 HR), 185 K, 29 BB, 1.75 ERA

B/R Projection: 2 years, $88 million

Why He Could Go Boom

If our projection for Justin Verlander's next contract ends up being on the high side, it might not be by much.

He frankly has every reason to shoot for Max Scherzer's average annual value of $43.3 million after the season he just had. To wit, his 1.75 ERA was the lowest full-season mark by an American League hurler since Pedro Martínez in 2000.

That's at least one data point to support an argument that Verlander's latest effort was the best of his three Cy Young Award-winning seasons. And while you wouldn't expect as much from a 39-year-old coming off Tommy John surgery, his fastball is still an elite pitch.

Why He Could Go Bust

How good was Verlander in 2022, really? It's a fair question if for no other reason than his strikeout rate was down to 9.5 per nine innings from a peak of 12.2 across 2018 and 2019.

Another concern, of course, is that Verlander is going to turn 40 on Feb. 20. Even setting aside quality concerns, history doesn't bode well for the quantity of his upcoming work:

The takeaway is that pitchers who logged as many as 175 innings in their age-39 seasons generally had a hard time doing so again. For teams in need of a workhorse, this is a "buyer beware" label on Verlander.

5. LHP Carlos Rodón

Age: 29

2022 Stats: 31 GS, 178.0 IP, 131 H (12 HR), 237 K, 52 BB, 2.88 ERA

B/R Projection: 5 years, $120 million

Why He Could Go Boom

With respect to Max Fried and Framber Valdez, Carlos Rodón is the best left-hander in baseball right now.

His 2.42 FIP over the last two seasons leads all pitchers who've logged at least 300 innings. That points to his mastery of the three true outcomes, including strikeouts with a rate of 12.2 per nine innings.

There's nothing too fancy about how Rodón has been going about his business since the start of the 2021 season. He mostly dares hitters to hit his fastball, and they clearly can't, as its minus-47.2 run value across the last two years is the best of any pitch.

Why He Could Go Bust

The injury bug has historically liked the taste of Rodón, notably laying him low with shoulder surgery in 2017, Tommy John surgery in 2019 and shoulder fatigue in 2021.

That Rodón came back from all this to pitch a career-high 178 innings this year is a triumph from one perspective, but he wasn't able to get there without powering down his fastball:

This coincided with his run prevention shifting from great to merely good, with his ERA going from 2.66 in the first half to 3.21 in the second.

4. RHP Jacob deGrom

Age: 34

2022 Stats: 11 GS, 64.1 IP, 40 H (9 HR), 102 K, 8 BB, 3.08 ERA

B/R Projection: 3 years, $135 million

Why He Could Go Boom

When healthy, Jacob deGrom is the best pitcher in baseball today. There's even an argument that he's the best all-time, the purveyors of which include Mookie Betts:

There's some statistical support for this notion, including the 193 ERA+ that deGrom has put up across the last five seasons. Even Sandy Koufax didn't go that high in his legendary run between 1962 and 1966.

As for more aesthetic matters, it's just plain unfair that deGrom has walked fewer than two batters per nine innings while throwing a fastball that touches triple digits and a slider that gets into the mid-90s.

Why He Could Go Bust

So, about that "when healthy" part.

Courtesy of a bad elbow in 2021 and a bad shoulder this year, it's no secret that deGrom hasn't been healthy for much of the last two seasons. If he was a younger man, this could be easily shrugged off. But by baseball standards, 34 is not young.

Let's also not overlook that deGrom wasn't his usual dominant self the last time anyone saw him. He was initially throwing darts upon his return on Aug. 2, but then his fastball velocity began to fade, and he was hit hard to the tune of a 6.00 ERA over his last four regular-season starts.

3. SS Xander Bogaerts

Age: 30

2022 Stats: 150 G, 631 PA, 15 HR, 8 SB, .307 AVG, .377 OBP, .456 SLG

B/R Projection: 8 years, $240 million

Why He Could Go Boom

Shortstop isn't an offense-first position, but anyone who's grown accustomed to watching Xander Bogaerts over the years can be forgiven for thinking it is.

He's one point shy of a .300 average across the last eight seasons, the last five of which have seen him go no lower than 128 with his OPS+. That makes him one of a kind among shortstops.

Bogaerts is also a solid baserunner who was a finalist for a Gold Glove in 2022, so he might be more attractive now than he was at any point in his career.

Why He Could Go Bust

To call the year that Bogaerts had on defense in 2022 "atypical" would be an understatement. Before this season, it was common for his metrics to be in the red:

If Bogaerts was younger, it would be fair to read this as a turning of the corner. But as he's now north of 30, the smell here is one of unsustainability. Perhaps to a point where he'll eventually have to move off shortstop to a position where his bat would count for less.

To this end, what could really make things dire is if Bogaerts' power doesn't recover from the hit it took as he played through shoulder and wrist pain in 2022.

2. SS Trea Turner

Age: 29

2022 Stats: 160 G, 708 PA, 21 HR, 27 SB, .298 AVG, .343 OBP, .466 SLG

B/R Projection: 8 years, $272 million

Why He Could Go Boom

Regardless of position, Trea Turner is the most dynamic offensive player in baseball today.

He's a .316 hitter across the last three seasons, for which his 162-game averages include 27 home runs and 31 stolen bases. To the latter, that he was caught stealing only three times in 30 tries this year shows that he's as wise as he is fast on the bases.

Going forward, Turner should be able to mine even more from his excellent baserunning. Per what happened during experimental trials in the minors, the bigger bases, pitch clock and limitations on pick-offs coming to MLB in 2023 will make things easier for base stealers.

Why He Could Go Bust

Alas, speed doesn't age well. Perhaps this doesn't require further elaboration, but it'll do to note that Statcast's sprint speed leaderboards are typically dominated by 20-somethings.

Turner will no longer be one of those come June 30 of next year, so whoever signs him will do so knowing that his defining tool is likely on borrowed time. The more his speed diminishes, the more he'll have to uphold his value by other means.

As such, it's not a good look that he's been better at second base than at shortstop or that his power took a turn for the worse in 2022, both in theory and in actuality.

1. RF/CF Aaron Judge

Age: 30

2022 Stats: 157 G, 696 PA, 62 HR, 16 SB, .311 AVG, .425 OBP, .686 SLG

B/R Projection: 8 years, $300 million

Why He Could Go Boom

What Aaron Judge did in 2022 was bonkers. To hit 62 home runs and lead the league in dozens of other categories? Just. Bonkers.

Even if Judge never again rises to that level, he'll still be worth a lot if he so much as defaults back to his 2017-21 output: a 154 OPS+ and a 162-game average of 46 home runs.

Far from a bat-only brute, Judge also racked up 59 defensive runs saved as a right fielder in that span. And given how often he's been burned by bad calls, he stands to benefit more than most from the inevitable introduction of an automated strike zone.

Why He Could Go Bust

At the risk of jinxing the guy, the likelihood of Judge having frequent battles with the injury bug in the future seems strong.

He's already had his share of such battles, missing 142 out of 384 possible games between 2018 and 2020. At 6'7" and 282 pounds, there's always been a lot of him that can get hurt. And with his 31st birthday due on April 26, he's not getting any younger.

As his sprint speed has slipped from the 80th percentile to the 50th percentile in just three years, Judge's athleticism is already losing something in the meantime. Whoever signs him to a long-term deal had thus better plan on not getting much out of it after the first few years.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.