Per Evan Drellich of The Athletic, the value of this year’s qualifying offer for impending free agents will be $18.9 million.
The figure is a welcome increase from the $17.8 million mark last offseason, even more so considering last year’s qualifying offer estimate reflected a $100K drop – the first and only year-to-year decrease since its introduction to collective bargaining in 2012.
The dollar amount is a calculated average of the 125 highest annual salaries in the sport.
For those unfamiliar, major league clubs are given the option at the end of the postseason to extend a one-year offer to any of their impending free agents (so long as they have spent the entirety of the 2020 regular season with their team and have never been offered one by any team in the last four years).
The player has 10 days to either accept or decline the offer, at which point they either remain with their club for another year or officially hit the open market.
Even if their offers are rejected, front offices still have an incentive to tender the one year and $18.9 million, as they are entitled to a compensatory draft pick the following season if the player in question rejects the offer and signs with another team.
For instance, after Daniel Murphy rejected the Mets’ qualifying offer in 2015 and signed with the Nationals, New York received the 31st overall pick and selected left-hander Anthony Kay.
The compensation has since peeled back to the signing club’s third-highest draft pick, though it’s still a respectable consolation for teams that lose out in November.
Of the 90 players who have received qualifying offers since 2012, only eight latched on for another year.
Two of the ten players to receive an offer last offseason (Minnesota’s Jake Odorizzi and Chicago’s Jose Abreu) signed the one-year pact.
Left-hander Hyun Jin Ryu accepted his 2018 qualifying offer from the Dodgers and, with a brilliant pitching performance the following year, turned a four-year, $80 million deal with the Blue Jays this past offseason.
Some current candidates ahead of this winter include J.T. Realmuto, George Springer, Michael Brantley, DJ LeMahieu, Trevor Bauer, Liam Hendriks, Marcus Semien, Didi Gregorius, and the Mets’ very own Marcus Stroman.
The Mets have a checkered history with qualifying offers: most recent alum Zack Wheeler turned down his offer en route to a five-year, $118 million deal with the Phillies.
Meanwhile, Neil Walker, the successor to Murphy following his departure in 2016, accepted his $17.2 million ahead of the 2017 season.
How the Mets go about restructuring their pitching rotation hinges on not only whether or not they attempt to retain Stroman, but furthermore whether or not he accepts a potential offer and signs on for another contract year, this time in what should be a full 162-game season.
