Teams wishing to make one-year qualifying players to pending free agents will have to be willing to pay them $15.3MM, the Associated Press reports (via Sportsnet.ca; h/t to Ben Nicholson-Smith). That represents an 8.5% increase over least year’s $14.1MM price tag.
The qualifying offer value is arrived at by averaging the salaries of MLB’s 125 highest-paid players. Teams may extend qualifying offers to eligible free agents-to-be within five days after the end of the World Series. Players have seven days to weigh the offer. When a player rejects the offer, his former team becomes eligible to receive an additional “sandwich” round pick in the next amateur draft, while a new signing team must forfeit their highest non-protected pick. (No draft pick movement occurs if a player re-signs with his original team.)
In order for a player to be eligible to receive a qualifying offer, the CBA states that he must have spent the entire regular season on that team’s roster. For example, Brandon McCarthy is ineligible to receive a qualifying offer after beginning the season with the Diamondbacks and being traded to the Yankees. Click here for more details on how the qualifying offer system works.
Every player made a qualifying offer to date has declined it. In the 2012-13 offseason, the first year that the QO system was in effect, nine players were made a qualifying offer and seven ultimately signed with different clubs. Last year, thirteen players turned down qualifying offers and ten went to new clubs in free agency.
As MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes explained before the 2013 season, avoiding the qualifying offer can have a major impact on a free agent’s earning capacity. That became all the more clear during the latest round of free agency, when both Stephen Drew and Kendrys Morales declined qualifying offers but were unable to find multi-year offers to their liking. The pair of veterans ultimately waited months into the season before signing, settling for one-year deals before struggling badly over the rest of the year.
Crazy.
I don’t think so…You have to look at all of the TV money that came into baseball last offseason. I think it was around an extra 20-30 million per team, but I could be wrong and probably am. I feel like in the next 5 years we will see a lot more 20+ million AAV contracts and maybe even some 30+ million AAV contracts. So 15 isn’t that much money.
That takes into consideration that teams will spend the cash on payroll and not to offset other expenses. I also feel that a stagnant us economy will eventually be reflected in baseball.
Mostly it just puts the state of an occupation’s value in society in perspective for me. Like I get that sports are lucrative and athletes work very hard to perform at a high level and are compensated accordingly, but you look at other occupations that are extremely hazardous and difficult and see people making barely livable wages. I guess that’s why I find it funny when when players fight for an extra 500,000-1,000,000 in contract negotiations and escalators.
Owners and players deal with each other in cash…and the third entity of the game, the fans, deal in credit cards….you tell me what gives first.
I get how it works, and I’m ok with it. I just think it’s crazy.
Global market with revenue streams that they couldn’t have dreamt of of 50 years ago. I would like to see baseball do something about game day affordability. Tickets are being set at Taxright off prices. Just make the game as accessible as possible to the middle class.
Is all economics though. I can perform many of those dangerous jobs. I would want a premium over the job I have now, but I won’t request 100X as much money to do that job. On the other side I cannot perform the job of a major leaguer. I do not know anyone that can.
But you don’t find it funny when owners squeeze players and gouge customers to pad their billion dollar franchise?
They really need to fix this system again, some guys are not going to be worth their QO….
Then the team doesn’t have to offer it to the player
The QO system might not be the greatest, but it’s designed to compensate teams who lose star players due to their inability or desire to spend big. In this regard, it succeeds in helping small market teams at least obtain a 1st round pick
There is a much easier way to compensate teams:
If a free agent signs a contract with AAV over 20mm, team who lost the player gets 1st round pick.
If free agent signs with AAV over 15mm, the team who lost him gets second round pick.
No qualifying offers, no weirdness, just pure money. Let the market decide how much the team lost. It would be even better if you randomize the exact cutoff point of previous off season on opening day, so you can’t have players signing $1 below the threshold.
Will you pay the money then?
Seems like player contracts will be like Infomercial prices: $19,999,999 plus shipping.
But wait!
There is more!
We’ll double the offer!
… or 17 year contracts with $5MM AAV.
I’m not really sure why a qualifying offer can’t be assessed on a player by player or tiered basis.
Wasn’t the Type A/Type B free agent system and its attendant forms of draft pick compensation, with the qualified system replaced, an attempt to do just that?
The QA will work for some players…. but it’s a clear impediment to players like Stephen Drew. I’m surprised the union went for this…it just needs tweeking.
Stephen Drew had no business turning down his QO. He wasn’t worth that much.
That cost him so much money too. Not only did he lose about $4MM last year, he lost an incalculable amount this year. I don’t think it was the offer really, but he was looking for way too much money.
I’d say the same about Morales. No idea what he was thinking.
No, Type A and Type B was based on how valuable people thought players were. What I am saying is that it should be pure money, after the fact. You go into off season, players sign whatever contracts they want, with the teams knowing that around 15mm and 20mm (although not necessarily round numbers, and without knowing the exact cutoff point) they will lose either a second or first round draft pick, respectively. Then, after all the deals are made, you run some algorithm preferably with randomness involved, that determines the exact number, and any player signed over the amount in AAV costs a pick. The only evaluation of the player is the free agent market. Teams pay players based on how much they think they are worth based upon all the factors they have and that is that.
Right, but it did a poor job, drastically overvaluing relievers.
Your last sentence is why this idea never got anywhere. Of course that’s exactly what teams will do.
Randomizing it isn’t difficult, and the players wouldn’t exactly settle for smaller contracts just because. Make the randomization sufficiently large and teams would have to either offer players significantly lower salaries or just accept the risk of losing the pick. Players wouldn’t settle for significantly lower salaries unless they were fringe anyhow.
But you’d have to adjust that every year for salary inflation which the QO does.
Yeah except it doesn’t. Because small market teams are afraid to offer a QO because the player may take it and kill their payroll. It pretty much only benefits mid to high payroll teams (or rare superstar caliber players — e.g. if Stanton becomes a free agent, a QO is a no-brainer.)
Not true at all. I can name 3 small market teams for you that will offer a QO to their upcoming FA and likely to get it turned down – KC (Shields), Baltimore (Cruz) and Pittsburgh (Martin)
Those are mostly no-brainers though. It’s the marginal ones where the small market teams get screwed. A perfect example of that is A.J Burnett. Pittsburgh was afraid he’d accept for 2014 and they’d be on the hook for that money.
how many small market teams have QO players? (wondering for real, not being snarky). I agree, in principal this is a better system than the last one, but it still needs hammering and nudging.
A lot. A good example: Rockies and Michael Cuddyer. He made (and more than earned) 10.5 the last three years. A big market team would absolutely QO him and take the draft pick (or eat a slight overpay for one year if he takes it). Rockies really can’t
I can’t disagree with that example, Cuddyer has certainly performed to his QO status. I am not sure a big market team would gamble on him though, given his age, injuries and what not.
If I were Cuddyer and offered a QO, I’d accept it without thinking twice. He’ll be 36 and missed over 100 games in 2014 and has missed about 200 games over the past three years. There is no way he’d do better than Nelly Cruz, Stephen Drew, or Kendrys Morales on the open market with draft pick compensation attached. If offered the QO, he’d either have to take it or retire.
I’d argue against that. Cuddyer would have been worth his contract had he not missed nearly 200 games over the past 3 seasons but he couldn’t stay on the field. FanGraphs has him worth under $23 million over the past three years.
KC, Baltimore and Pittsburgh (Shields, Cruz, Martin)
It could result in small-market teams not being able to afford the QO to their free agents. Not every team can afford 15.3mm to a player even for one year. So, they could lose the player and not be compensated due to fear that the FA might actually accept a contract they can’t afford to pay.
It really should be based on after-the-fact salary. If you sign a player and his AAV is above some calculated threshold, then you lose your draft pick. Putting the onus entirely on the previous team is a pretty solid disadvantage to small market teams.
But of course that would lead to reduced overall salary numbers, and the MLBPA wouldn’t even entertain that.
Thanks Karkat, that was exactly what I was leaning towards with my question. I think all of us here who comment should brainstorm a better system that actually helps small market teams…
None of these players are worth the money they make. At least not in Philadelphia.
That’s the Phillies GM’s fault, not the market’s. Amaro’s given out some terrible contracts.
The Reserve Clause simply will not die.
For the Tigers:
YES: Scherzer and VMART
NO: Torii (though it would not be that much of a raise for him, and only for one year.. so maybe?)
For the Red Sox:
NO: Uehara… but will they be outbid?
I believe Hunter was heavily leaning toward retirement.
If Uehara got a QO, he’ll take it. Almost 40 as a closer/reliever… a 1yr/15.3M deal is HUGE for a guy like Koji.
The QO becomes more and more a tool of the large market teams every time it increases in value. Would any team other than the Yankees seriously consider offering a reliever, even one as good as Robertson, a QO? There are few teams that can risk paying a reliever 15 M for 1 year.
I think this just shows the false assessment that’s being made about the value of relievers on the market this winter. There’s little reason to go 4/36 on someone like Andrew Miller when you win win a.qo to Robertson at $15
Depends on how much your team values its first round pick.
In the case of some teams, such as the White Sox, that pick is protected.
Great point, Red Line
Here is the problem. Everyone wants to say that the QO number is too high. At $15 M, the smaller payroll teams can’t risk having the player accept the offer because it would take up too much of their budget. But if you lower the number, and it drops, to say, $10 M, then you run into the risk of having too many guys fall into this category and hurting teams who use FA (they are already paying for past-prime years, now they’d lose more draft picks). That would create a system where losing Scott Feldman would be equal to losing Robinson Cano (more specifically, the two teams that lost them would be compensated the same).
If you go to the other end of the spectrum, and get rid of the QO completely, then small payroll teams will complain because they aren’t properly compensated for not being able to retain their players.
It’s really a lose-lose, because no matter what you do, small payroll teams will always feel they are being compensated unfairly (despite the fact that they are typically getting a players prime years at a largely reduced cost).
One thing you can do is make compensation mean more. I’d suggest allowing the team losing the player to choose from among anyone in the signing team’s organization who’s not on the 40 man or within a couple years of being drafted.
So, basically, the Rule 5 draft – but via free agency (instead of inverse order from previous year).
This is barely going to affect anyone. If Roberston turns down 15 million and has trouble on the open market, who’s to blame?
The system, people aren’t responsible for their own choices!
I’m trying to find tears to shed for this travesty, but I can’t. I better go find an onion.
Robertson has the easiest decision of all. He turns it down, and if by some freak chance his market doesn’t materialize (and seriously, the Dodgers, Tigers, and 2 or 3 other big market teams are desperate for a bullpen), he just goes back to the Yanks, who take him back with open arms. No risk.
the Yanks, who take him back with open arms…..at 2/20 instead of 1/15.
Better than 1/15, especially for a relief pitcher. You take the max money you can get if you’re a reliever. You never know when you’ll throw in a stinker of a year.
Even if he throws a stinker, there’s a very good chance that someone will pay him. Eric Gagne got ten million from the Brewers after his disastrous time with the Red Sox.
Maybe not if they sign Miller.
They could sign Miller and get Robertson’s draft pick. Hard to argue with that logic. They could also see if the Royals would trade Wade Davis; he’s getting very expensive soon.
I do believe the Royals clear Hochevar off the books… that’s maybe money for Davis
No kidding! Its a big single season pay day..or go for extended seasons and make more in total.
The players union really dropped the ball by ever agreeing to this in the first place. No team deserves to be compensated when a contact is up. Why punish a player for having a good walk year? I don’t have much sympathy for small market teams. Play better baseball, sell some games out, and pay your stars when they hit free agency instead of crying poor all the time. It’s not like the owners are eating at soup kitchens.
The owners can’t just shell out $100,000,000+ out of their own pockets every year. Market size has a huge impact on revenue which is what really allows teams to pay their players. The qualifying offer system isn’t perfect, but stuff like this is needed.
Honestly, it’s been a few years since I’ve heard an owner cry poor..maybe the A’s.and their stadium situation. Even the owners and Selig know the public is aware teams are swimming in cash. Where the small market teams will have issues is when an elite talent commands an unhealthily large percentage of payroll. This is where Cincinnati is at right now
Jeff, please read over your articles. so many spelling errors lately. C’mon man
The more and more this goes up, the more it hurts small market teams like the Rays for one.
The problem with the Rays has less to do with how compensation is set up and more with their revenue stream. The Greater Tampa Bay area has over 4 million people. The problem is their stadium is extremely hard to reach.
Yea, I know, the Trop isn’t in a good place at all.