The Red Sox plan on extending qualifying offers to Stephen Drew, Mike Napoli and Jacoby Ellsbury, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. That Ellsbury will receive a qualifying offer is no surprise; he currently ranks second on MLBTR's Free Agent Power Rankings and is commonly thought to be the No. 2 free agent on the market behind Robinson Cano.
Likewise, the news that Napoli and Drew will receive qualifying offers is none too surprising. Napoli is one of the top power bats on this year's free agent market, and the $14.1MM value of a qualifying offer would be just a $1.1MM raise on the $13MM he earned in 2013 after hitting all of the incentives on his one-year contract.
Drew earned $9.5MM in 2013, so the risk is somewhat more substantial for the Red Sox, especially considering the fact that they have Xander Bogaerts in tow as the shortstop of the future. However, Drew should be able to secure a multiyear contract in what is, as always, a thin class of free agent shortstops. He and Jhonny Peralta are the only two free agents that could be realistically expected to hold down an everyday shortstop role in 2014.
Napoli batted .259/.360/.482 with 23 homers in his first season with the Red Sox, appearing in 139 games (578 plate appearances) and showing no signs of ill effect from his recent diagnosis of avascular necrosis (AVN) in each of his hips. Napoli has already gone on record as saying he'd like to return to Boston, though he's unlikely to accept the qualifying offer, knowing that the Red Sox (and the rest of the market) value him more highly than that. MLBTR's Tim Dierkes projects that he'll sign a three-year, $42MM contract this offseason.
Though he slumped in the postseason, Drew slashed a strong .253/.333/.443 with 13 regular-season home runs. His overall line is boosted by a sizzling second half in which he batted .276/.356/.481 with eight of his 13 homers. UZR/150 pegged his shortstop defense as 6.7 runs above average.
Absent from the list of free agents expected to receive qualifying offers is catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Heyman writes that at this time, it's unclear as to whether or not the Red Sox will be comfortable tendering the 29-year-old a one-year, $14.1MM offer. I'd expect that Salty will receive the offer as well, and Tim agreed in his free agent profile of Saltalamacchia, pegging him for four years and $36MM even with draft pick compensation attached.
