Of course I'm interested in feedback on any part of this hand, but two specific questions I have are:

1. As much checking is going on, should I be looking to take a stab at this pot before the river?

2. On the river, can I get value here? It seemed like a situation where a late position player might try to steal, so I wanted to set myself up to catch that. Too passive?

Merge - $0.10 NL - Holdem - 9 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG: 100 BB (VPIP: 16.67, PFR: 16.67, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 19)
UTG+1: 100.5 BB (VPIP: 33.33, PFR: 33.33, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 3)
MP: 38 BB (VPIP: 25.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 8)
MP+1: 46.2 BB (VPIP: 7.41, PFR: 3.70, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 27)
MP+2: 99 BB (VPIP: 0.00, PFR: 0.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 1)
CO: 99 BB (VPIP: 17.28, PFR: 10.49, 3Bet Preflop: 3.39, Hands: 164)
BTN: 46.6 BB (VPIP: 32.00, PFR: 12.00, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 25)
SB: 61.9 BB (VPIP: 22.22, PFR: 14.81, 3Bet Preflop: 10.00, Hands: 27)
Hero (BB): 139.6 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, Hero posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has 8 9

fold, fold, MP calls 1 BB, MP+1 raises to 3 BB, fold, fold, BTN calls 3 BB, fold, Hero calls 2 BB, MP calls 2 BB

Flop: (12.5 BB, 4 players) 5 J J
Hero checks, MP checks, MP+1 checks, BTN checks

Turn: (12.5 BB, 4 players) 4
Hero checks, MP checks, MP+1 checks, BTN checks

River: (12.5 BB, 4 players) 9
Hero checks, MP checks, MP+1 checks, BTN checks

I'm shooting 5 bbs at river. I don't think many are gonna try to steal vs 3 villains, but you can def get called by 4, 5, or A high.

I just realized my memory failed me and I'm an idiot for not rereading my hand history. This was not a free play for me as the title implies. Which adds one more question for me. Am I too loose here preflop? My thought was that I expected MP to call way more often that re-raise, so I had pretty nice immediate odds. Still, 98o is not much of hand. Should I think about three-bet?

Depends on your postflop skills I guess. It's on the looser side of things, but I don't mind getting into a 4 way pot with connectors, though I would prefer suited.

Against the shorties it's a bit meh, you can't win as much money if you hit. On the other hand they stack off lighter so maybe you can more easily win a decent pot.