The value of the qualifying offer will be set at $17.8MM for the coming winter, per Jayson Stark of The Athletic (via Twitter). That’s down by $100K from last year’s mark of $17.9MM.
In every prior year that the QO has been in existence, it has risen. The offer price is set by averaging the salaries of the 125 highest-paid players in the game, so the number is obviously reflective of some broader market changes. Stark points out that some large recent contracts came with low base 2019 salaries, which may have skewed the accounting a bit. Obviously, a detailed assessment would be needed before reaching any firm conclusions. Prior years’ qualifying offer values were $17.4MM (2017-18), $17.2MM (2016-17), $15.8MM (2015-16), $15.3MM (2014-15), $14.1MM (2013-14), and $13.3MM (2012-13).
Any team wishing to receive draft compensation for the loss of a free agent will first have to make that free agent a one-year offer worth that $17.8MM value. Qualifying offer recipients will have 10 days to decide whether to accept or reject the offer and are free to talk with other clubs during that window as they get an early sense of their market value. If a player accepts, he is considered signed for the 2020 season at that rate. Like other free-agent signings, that player would be ineligible to be traded, without his consent, prior to June 15 of the following season.
Only players who spent the entire 2019 season with the same organization are eligible to receive a qualifying offer; midseason trade acquisitions and signings cannot receive one. Nicholas Castellanos of the Cubs and Yasiel Puig of the Indians are therefore not candidates for a QO. Additionally, the 2017-21 collective bargaining agreement added the stipulation that players can only receive one qualifying offer in their career. Brewers catcher Yasmani Grandal and third baseman Mike Moustakas are among the players who cannot receive another this winter. MLBTR’s Connor Byrne took a recent look at the upcoming free-agent class, discussing the variety of players who could be considered for qualifying offers by their respective teams.
Draft compensation under the new system is more complicated than it was under the 2012-16 CBA, as both luxury tax spending and revenue sharing are now factored in to determine the specific penalty and compensation associated with qualified free agents. Each team’s top overall draft pick is protected, but teams with multiple first-round picks can lose their late first-rounders in some cases.
Click here for a full rundown. Here’s a crash course/reminder.
For teams that signs a qualified free agent…
- A team that received revenue sharing the previous season will forfeit its third-highest selection upon. Signing a second qualified would result in the loss of that team’s fourth-highest selection. Signing a third would result in the loss of its fifth-highest selection.
- A team that did not receive revenue sharing and also did not pay any luxury tax penalties would lose its second-highest selection as well as $500K of the league’s allotted international bonus pool. Signing additional qualified free agents would result in forfeiting the third-highest selection and another $500K of international allotments.
- A team that paid luxury tax penalties must forfeit both its second- and fifth-highest selections in the 2019 draft and forfeit $1MM of international funds. Signing a second would result in the loss of that team’s third- and sixth-highest picks, plus another $1MM in international funds.
For teams who lose qualified free agents…
- A draft pick after Competitive Balance Round B will be awarded if the team losing the free agent did not receive revenue sharing or if the free agent in question signed a contract worth less than $50MM in guaranteed money.
- A draft pick after Round 1 will be awarded if the team losing the free agent received revenue sharing and the free agent in question signed for more than $50MM.
- A draft pick after Round 4 will be awarded if the team losing the free agent paid luxury tax penalties in the preceding season.
This post includes information adapted from prior MLBTR posts on prior seasons’ qualifying offer values.
I sat down to read this.
On the toilet. It could be leg numbing.
This still seems like a ridiculous amount of money.
Until you compare it to the increases in team revenue, franchize value and owners wealth.
Then it becomes another example of how trickle down is a joke concept.
Yeah, because $17.8M for one season is such a joke.
The world is insane.
Myopic viewpoint.
The Royals sold for $1bil. The Royals.
Considering how much commitment to excellence goes into getting to MLB star level.
Considering a player only has about ten years of his life to earn a living in his profession.
Considering this sport is so entertaining that we gather on an internet blog to religiously discuss mere rumors.
17.8 million sounds about right.
Oh, boo hoo. Maybe they should try earning a living like the common person? Then then wouldn’t whine as much about how much they make playing a game l
Life is a game. If you or I eat and sleep our chosen profession we would surely be multi millionaires too. But we spend more time here then focusing.
So judge away.
Yes the Royals sold for a billion dollars. The Royals. What is your point?
They cannot sell for a billion because they are the Royals?
One billion in value is on the low end of MLB teams. That is right. The Royals.
People defending billionaire owners is absolutely perplexing to me. The idea of “17m is a lot of money so don’t complain” is absurd. Yes, they’re paid a lot. But they’re being taken advantage of owners who are making much, much more. I’ll take the star player who’s provided me with memories and inspiration over some billionaire owner who’s name i only know because I obsess over stats on all of his players.
you make a lot of good points yes they play a game and get paid well and at the same time there entertainers but you know who else gets paid well and you never here complaints and that’s actors
I’m retired, but not by choice. Permanent injuries caused by doing years of real work. Every job I ever had I had entire focus on. Only difference is it didn’t pay enormously underserved wages like sports and entertainment.
Yet what I did had an enormous effect on the local population.
So yes……boo hoo.
The players can strike back at those billionaires taking all the risk by leaving the game of baseball and use the league minimum they earned to put themselves through University to find a nice career. That’ll show ’em.
This is just…so weird to me. Yes they are over paid. Yes they make more than me. Yes someone worth 100m shouldn’t necessarily be complaining about their annual salary. But isn’t there a much bigger problem here? I don’t like spending 100+ a ticket to see my team play anymore than the next person, but this has nothing to do with the player. Why exactly are we telling the greatest athletes we’ve ever seen that they should kick rocks and get a day job?
Actors have a union just like baseball players but they are too busy telling the rest of us who we should vote for.
Andy why are we caring what an athlete does with his professional career? Players fighting for more money ALWAYS has something to do with the player. If the player is so fed up with owners not paying them they can choose to leave. They can pay their way through school, find a new career with less wear and tear, spend more time with their family and make a nice living. Or make way more money playing baseball for a short period of time while spending lots of time away from their family. It’s great to have choices in life.
To answer your question, we can tell athletes to “kick rocks” because we pay their salary. We, the fans, make the game operate in the billions. Never forget that.
There is someone in the world who would have been happy to do whatever job you had for much less that you were paid.
They would eye roll at you complaining about the inequity of compensation given how overpaid you appear to be from their perspective.
People defending millionaire, pampered players who make $100,000 a day to play a game in the sun perplex me as much if not more.
Truth
I think they earn their money,the hours and hours of practices, you never see your family.Your gone 9 months of the year,then only if you’re one of the few that have a long career, you get paid. Most guys NEVER get paid
“They’re being taken advantage of by owners who make much more.” If this is your argument then you must hate all businesses because no matter the business they all operate this way from McDonalds to the MLB.. The owners always make much more than the employees doing the work, how else would it work? The major difference in the MLB is the risk is generally a lot higher because contracts are larger and guaranteed so think Ryan Howard or Chris Davis contracts.
They need to set the level as the average salary for the top 100 players.
That would increase the $ amount of the qualifying offer by at least another million (probably more). So if you’re advocating for higher QO salaries, then yes that is what they should do. The way to lower the price of a QO would be to increase the number of players they average together
That would increase the value of the QO. Is that what you’re advocating for?
Yes, I’m for increasing the QO amount.
Sure that makes sense to me. Increase it so hopefully less players get the QO.
That way it is less of a problem. At least there would be less players having it hang over them.
Why 100? Why not 75? Or 50? Any number is just arbitrary.
Pplama what are you complaining about?
Show me somewhere where anyone in MLB is talking “trickledown” economics to pay the players.
Most MLB players haven’t even graduated college and the rest would need a translator to even know what the concept of trickle-down economics means. Worst of all is most don’t even know who Will Rogers was! lol
This whole idea of players deserving the benefit of “trickle down economics” is ridiculous. They aren’t shareholders. They are employees. Extremely highly paid employees for that matter. I have never walked up to any of my employers and told them they made too much money and needed to pay me more. I have seen several people do it and they all go fired. The people that put their own finances at risk and started their own companies are staying afloat. The rest of the fired ones are just flat out broke and when their pride isn’t in the way, they admit they regret their mistake. If you don’t invest your own money/financial risk in starting or buying a company you should never expect to be treated equal to someone that did. This entire situation is created by the players own doing. Every other major sports league in the country knows that a salary basement/cap system works best for the league and the union as a whole. They got it right in the NBA and the NFL. Mike Trout is the best player in MLB it is nowhere near as important to his team/league as Tom Brady or Lebron James were recently. Why does he make more then both of them pub together? I mean really? Rank current iconic players from every league. Brady and James both rank waaaaay ahead of Trout but is already under a contract that pays him more than both of them combined. As long as MLBPA refuses to GI for a COMBINED salary cap/basement system it will hurt the parity of the league which will hurt income over all. Owners are not going to let that go and will do their best to try to make as much money from a player pool that cares nothing about helping the league make grow fan bases and put that money in their own pockets.
I am a serious MLB fan but that doesn’t mean I only root for my team. It means I want to watch a season where and every team has a chance to win. In the NFL almost half the playoff teams go worst to first in their respective divisions frequently. The MLBPA has ensured that kind of thing will never happen in baseball. The MLBPA has convinced lower level players that they will make more $ if the top level players make exorbitant amounts. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It’s like they think if Mike Trout makes $360 million then a player with half his production at the same age will make close to $180 million. The owners no this and they were obviously very happy to pump up a guy (Tony Clark) and convince him that he was super smart and knew more about contracts then men way older then him that spent their entire lives doing nothing but that. Tony Clark spent too much time playing baseball to be able to negotiate contracts with the big boys. Everyone knew it but him and his union full of millionaire athletes. As long as players like Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Manny Machado and Giancarlo Stanton make waaay more $ than the Tom Brady’s and LeBron James’ of the world the lesser MLB player will have to take a serious financial sacrifice. Especially if they are more then happy to let the league income suffer overall because of a blatant lack if parity. With only a basement, players salaries would rise but teams like Pittsburgh would still barely spend to reach that level and would never succeed because they still wouldn’t be able to keep up with Yankees/Dodgers/Cubs raised payrolls. You have to give a little if you want to get. The rich players and the owners can get richer or the poorer players and the owners can get richer. That is the only choice. I am pretty sure I know about 80 LeBron fans and 80 Brady fans for every fan of any individual MLB player in the league now and I don’t live anywhere near where either of those guys played. I know that “Baseball is America’s Past time” and all the MLB superstars think they should be paid twice as much as every star in evey other sport but as long as that happens the MLBPA can expect fringe type possible QO players to get screwed over every year. Those guys should either accept that fact or make an open call for players like Stanton, Harper, Machado and Trout to settle for a “mere” LeBron James/Tom Brady size contract. It doesn’t sound like that hard of a decision to me. Brady and James still make record breaking money and their leagues fans are far more satisfied overall.
It is not ridiculous when you consider that, at any given time, there are about 1200 athletes on the rosters of 30 baseball teams who generate over 10 billion dollars in revenue. While owners have overhead and managerial expense, the primary force creating their revenue is the performance of the players–especially the performance of the top tier players. Thus they receive a healthy portion of the revenue that they generate.
Now the system is literally and actually starting to suppress salaries. Amazing! And expected.
Can’t wait til we see these reductions in labor costs reflect themselves with lower ticket prices and concessions!
If we all stop attending games they will certainly lower ticket prices.
Except MLB attendance is already down for the fourth straight year and just reached its lowest level since 2003.
And teams will still increase ticket prices next year (most of them while trimming payroll).
JaysFan – Did you see fans in the seats last night? The day before? Yes. Stop buying tickets, stop buying merch, stop watching games for a while. I promise changes will happen that will cater to baseball fans. The league will hear it and promptly adjust. So you can sit there like a gullible Maple Leaf fan and feel powerless. The individuals can make better changes for the league if they really cared.
And, from a local perspective, the minimum wage in Ontario continues to rise. That means concession workers receive a raise. Renting space in the stadium increases. That means tickets and concession prices at games will rise.
Another negative of the system that will further depress the market is Boston failed to make the playoffs and faces the stiffest penalty if they ink a free agent that received the QO. Might not have been a player out there that they would be under their consideration but it still is another reason for the team not to seek improvement via signing a QO player which certainly won’t help the players during negotiations.
Where did you see this? Cot’s has them $10mil below the $246mil draft pick threshold.
LOL
More and more money is also going to analytics and training staff. Operating costs haven’t gone down.
That’s not really how it works. Ticket prices are set based on what the owners believe will generate the most revenue. There’s no direct relationship between what it cost to get into a ball game and the team’s payroll level.
Can you explain how this suppresses salaries? It is a QO. That is all. Players can reject it and in fact most do. It has no effect on suppressing salaries.
How can you even suggest that without knowing who the QO goes too
Ought to get used to the idea of this happening. Teams are grasping that they can get similar production for a fraction of the dollars just by going plug-and-play with their upper minors in most cases.
The Yankees got Manny Machado and Bryce Harper-level production this year from Mike Tauchman and Gio Urshela. And between Luke Voit and Mike Ford, they had a reasonable facsimile of Paul Goldschmidt.
In other words, there’s a pretty good chance that the values of the top 125 players are going to start sliding once current contracts come off the books.
Quite possible that in a few years that most of the highest paid players in baseball are going to be top-end guys in their final year of arbitration eligibility.
One thing is for certain. Despite their QO’s this offseason free agents Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rendon, in addition a potential one in Stephen Strasburg, will certainly not bring down the value of three of those ” top 125 players” going forward. The accumulative and AAV of their next contracts will make sure of that.
Adding in the Bryce Harper and Manny Machado deals from last offseason along with the recent extensions given to players like Chris Sale and Nolan Arenado will also keep the top-125 values high.
The Yankees’ success also might be short lived as the players mentioned are unlikely to perform as well moving forward. Sort of like Boston last year getting Pearce and maybe Eovaldi at the right time. The cream will always rise for the best of the best but values have certainly “soured” for the middle class. Sort of like us regular earners, right?
detailed assessment would be needed before reaching any firm conclusions.
Not on the internet. SPECULATE AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had a burrito for lunch. Definitely did not reach a firm conclusion. SPECULATE AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Surprise! I though for certain the qualifying offer this offseason would be somewhere in the range of $18.5MM – &19MM. This could make an impact on some of the borderline QO candidates (mlbtraderumors.com/2019/10/forecasting-the-qualify…) that this site discussed including Jose Abreu who will likely receive a contract extension or sign as a returning free agent to the White Sox regardless. With the 2019-2020 QO now valued at $17.8MM there is absolutely no reason for the White Sox not to tag Abreu in the event an extension is not agreed upon before he can become an official FA following the conclusion of the World Series.
The reason not to is that he’s not worth more than $15mil and won’t be offered more than $12.5mil AAV by any team other than the Sox.
Can those values be validated by any specific sites or are they just your opinion? Clearly this site had Abreu as a borderline candidate for a QO before the known amount was made official.
Additionally, if values are strictly based on advanced analytics that would hardly be a certain indicator of a player’s general “market” value or his worth in a particular city. A player like Abreu might not only have additional value to the White Sox due to ‘intangible” factors but he is also a well-known name in MLB which could also add worth to certain franchises above and beyond sabermetric measurements.
i think pplama is a little under what i think Abreu would get but how would validating it at another site with that persons opinion be any different.
i think his value is probably right around 16M a year which would be borderline QO based on the sentimental value for the white sox and possible PR for them.
My reasoning behind this is based on 1B contracts that are out there and comparing him to Paul Goldscmidt as it seems he was a better Abreu but on a general same trend only Goldschmidt is a year older. With seeing the drop in production this year for Goldschmidt which is around the time you see drop offs from players is around the 32 or 33 years old i would expect to see that drop to continue. Also with all the statisticians out there being used for contracts, him not being as big a name as Goldschmidt, the teams looking for a regular 1b, and the downward trend of contract 16-17AAV sounds about the realistic value to expect.
There is always that “mystery” team out there that could just blow everyone out of the water you really cant account for that.
Of course, you or those statisticians are factoring in salaries of other 1B who have had some level of success. How about considering the salaries of 1B who got paid enormous amounts of money and then sucked like Ryan Howard and Chris Davis. Davis’ last FA contract in January of 2016 was for 7 yrs/$161M and has an AAV of $23MM through 2022. Based on that figure for first baseman, Abreu should be earning Mike Trout money! lol
Interesting discussion on Abreu, Based on his stats, his agent could certainly argue he’s more that worth the qualifying offer. His numbers are not quite as impressive as Pujols’ was when he inked his current contract which began in his age 32 season, but Abreu’s production has been just as consistent if just a bit less prodigious. Almost a decade ago, Pujols signed a 10 year deal with an AAV of 24MM. As you mentioned, Davis and Howard got monster contracts and Abreu put up career highs in HRs and with his league leading total of RBIs. If Rendon will possibly command 30MM AAV; it’s hard to argue that Abreu is worth only about 1/2 as much. But, really the discussion seem academic; the White Sox will sign Abreu to team friendly contract that pays him enough so he’s not insulted and ownership doesn’t look miserly.
Your talking like 4% of the one year value. Unless the team is at the tax threshold, such shouldn’t make much of a difference if they want the player.
Only way to make salaries go back up is to do away with upper salary cap and force a lower salary cap where certain same teams never spend.. Say at 100m. Any team that refuses to spend that much would lose a 1st round pick, 2nd in stages leading up to 100m.
Most of the teams getting welfare, even some who were in this year’s playoff’s are not popular on national watched games, yet they share equally with that contract money wise. Spend it! They also share money from so called large market teams other ways. Spend it! This is only way I know of to force that issue and free other teams to RAISE player salaries. There is -0- way some of the so called player 1st people here can knock this and speak with a straight face.
Teams that recieve revenue sharing are already obligated to spend all shared $ and provide financial statements showing how said funds were distributed.
Not really as the amount they get is under what they spend on salary. No one differed in this column to my past suggestion of giving teams a benefit for re-signing their own free agents (count just 50% for years 5+ against the tax). This will likely create a system where the superstar stays but the amount paid ups the values of future contracts for those near his level).
True but they’re not required to spend it on the on field product. Wolff got caught on this in Oakland as he was just pocketing it.
I would love to see the true economics of baseball laid out. Like, if a team can get more than a $35M AAV player produces in WAR from 3-4 guys platooned out of Quadruple-A, but the teams *are* making the money to pay guys $35M AAV, both situations are extremes that fall into the ‘just because you can doesn’t mean you should’ category.
Anybody else follow Hollywood? There’s been a big issue raised recently over the fact that ultra low budget indies or ultra high budget franchises are killing the mid-budget movies, the ones without a ton of special effects and name brand characters, but still with high production values, good acting, interesting, original stories that aren’t reliant on spectacle for 13 year olds, etc. or they’re ultra low budget gritty indies.
Then there’s people saying the poor are getting poorer, the rich are getting richer, the middle class is ceasing to exist.
Well… Baseball is doing the exact same thing. For some reason, we’re over paying a handful of people, heralding the underpaid over producers and then finding it difficult to just pay the middle a fair wage.
I’m not trying to get political. What I’m saying is that it’s weird how teams, companies, etc. are finding it very easy to sign guys to minor league/low budget rebound pacts, or love the hype around a $250M splurge, but fewer and fewer guys are accepting or getting those mid-level deals of like 4 years/$70M or 3 years/$40M. I know they’re still around, but they’re becoming more rare.
It’s not that there aren’t enough guys making $35M+ AAV for the QO to be going up. It’s that there are too many guys/positions being filled, earning $1.5-8.5M AAV who should really be earning $3-13M AAV or something.
Seems like it’s time baseball adopted the NBA’s more standard-ish rookie contracts where guys make a couple million a season once they’re on the 40-man roster.
So yeah, a quadruple-A player up and down but on the 40-man deserves at least $1M a season, the guy you signed to a one year pillow contract who was gonna get $2M deserves to get $4M etc. and the problem is solved.
My take is that the top getting really paid and bottom being underpaid with the middle gradually becoming less and less is correct and that’s what the analytics movement has done.
Someone like Cole or Strasburg will get a fair or above market value deal because their performance merits it. No matter how many AAAA guys you bring up its highly unlikely any will produce at that level.
Those mid tier FA’s who would have gotten a fair market deal 8–10 years ago are being squeezed because front offices are becoming smarter and identifying alternatives with little MLB experience who can produce at or close to their level for significantly less money. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s the evolution of the business.
If I were the owner of the team that type of analysis and behavior is exactly what I’d expect out of my management group; especially when my competitors are doing the same thing. If the end result is I spend less money and put a successful and competitive team on the field that fills the stands and competes at a high level(playoffs) that doesn’t make me a bad owner. It makes me a good business person.
So cheaper tickets, parking, hot dogs and beer is coming next right?
The amount of people jamming their own politics into this article is insane. i’m sorry but using the economics of baseball as microphone for anti- capitalist speech is crazy. It has a powerful union, its players are well compensated and get almost 50 percent of revenue. In no other profession in the world do employees get 50 percent of the revenue the business takes in. It is highly successful and the owners make good money, why is that a bad thing? And these arguments never stop getting more radical, in 1994 it was just looking for “fairness” now it is stopping the “rich getting richer” tomorrow they will want the players to own the team.
In no other profession is the labor as significant a driver of the product and revenue stream, either. But hey, good on you for taking the anti-labor approach. The billionaire owner definitely needs more money right. Oh, and I’m sure the money teams are saving by paying players less will certainly mean they’ll pass those savings on to fans with cheaper tickets and concessions.
You see the hypocricy is your post right, Joe?
There’s not much truly capitalist (as in, free-market capitalism) about any U.S. pro sports. The leagues decide how many franchises exist and where they play and the owners often get massive tax subsidies for their stadiums. They’re all cartels, to different degrees. If the union can negotiate favorable revenue sharing for their members, more power to them.
There needs to be a closer look into the figures. There are some like Kimbrel that should have signed earlier. The longer but lower AAV contracts that Harper and Machado signed might not be the best for the players with regard to pushing up the QO.
If the rules could be more complex and more useless…. that would be great.
In other news, NFL, NHL and NBA salaries continue to rise despite their salary caps (actually, often because of their salary floors).
What I would like to see in the next CBA
-The QO would be the same as the franchise tag in the NFL where the offer would be based on the top five salaries at your position rather than the top 125 players in the league.
-Only one QO would be allowed per team.