New York Mets center fielder Brandon Nimmo (9) follows through on a solo home run against the Washington Nationals during the fourth inning at Citi Field.

Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that the qualifying offer for this offseason has been set at $19.65 million. The qualifying offer is a one-year contract with a salary figure determined by averaging the top 125 salaries of all MLB players.

During the most recent collective bargaining talks, MLB and MLBPA decided to postpone their decision on the International Draft and set a July deadline to agree. The two sides agreed that the future of the qualifying offer would hinge on an agreement over the International Draft. The July deadline passed without an agreement meaning teams could still use the QO going forward..

Any free agent player is eligible for the qualifying offer unless they have received it before or they didn’t spend the entire 2022 season with their current team.

The Mets will certainly take advantage of the QO with the following three players as no-brainers to receive and reject it:

With the QO just over $19 million, that is likely lower than all three of the Mets’ top free agents will get per year in their next contract.

The Mets do have two other players that warrant consideration as well:

Bassitt and the Mets have a mutual option at $19 million for 2023 and the assumption is that the veteran right-hander will decline that in hopes of a multi-year deal on the open market. That said, if Bassitt declines the option at $19 million, it should be an easy decision for the Mets to give him the QO for around the same money.

Walker is certainly the most interesting discussion among all of them with the first four being fairly straightforward. Would Walker get $19.65 million per season on the open market? No, definitely not, but he is likely to get something in the range of what Jon Gray (4 years, $56 million) got during the most recent offseason. So, the Mets with the potential of deGrom, Bassitt, Carrasco (team option), and Walker from their rotation hitting the open market, could decide that Walker at one-year, $19.65 million is worth knowing they have a rotation spot filled for 2023.

With that in my, let’s dig into the qualifying offer a little bit in terms of what you can do and what it would mean for the Mets.

  • No limit on how many players a team can give QO too
  • team has 5 after WS to decide on the QO
  • player has 10 days to decide on the QO
  • during that 10 days, the two sides can negotiate

The Mets could give out as many as five qualifying offers, and their compensation for a player that declines and signs elsewhere would be after the fourth round of the draft because they exceeded the luxury tax this season.