This winter’s qualifying offer is projected by the league to land around $21.2MM, per Joel Sherman of The New York Post. The number won’t be officially calculated until October but should be in that range. Around this time last year, Sherman relayed the 2023-24 QO was projected to be $20.5MM, though it eventually came in slightly lower at $20.325MM.
The qualifying offer value generally goes up each year since it is calculated by averaging the salaries of the 125 highest-paid players in the league. Salaries naturally trend up with inflation, so the QO moves up in kind. Here is how it has trended in recent history…
- 2012-13: $13.3MM
- 2013-14: $14.4MM
- 2014-15: $15.3MM
- 2015-16: $15.8MM
- 2016-17: $17.2MM
- 2017-18: $17.4MM
- 2018-19: $17.9MM
- 2019-20: $17.8MM
- 2020-21: $18.9MM
- 2021-22: $18.4MM
- 2022-23: $19.65MM
- 2023-24: $20.325MM
A team can issue a qualifying offer, a one-year deal, to an impending free agent if the player just spent the entire season on its roster and has never received a QO in his career before. Here is a list of players who have previously received a QO and are therefore ineligible to receive another. Players traded midseason, such as Jack Flaherty of the Dodgers, are also ineligible.
Once the World Series is over, teams have five days to decide whether or not to issue qualifying offers to eligible players. Per Sherman, the players will have until 4pm Eastern on November 19 to decide whether to accept or reject. In the interim, they will be able to speak with other teams and assess their options before making a decision.
If a player rejects, then his previous team is eligible for draft pick compensation if he eventually signs elsewhere. That compensation will depend upon the size of the contract, the revenue-sharing status of the club and whether or not they paid the competitive balance tax. The signing club will be subject to draft pick forfeiture, which is also dependent on similar criteria.
Last year, seven players received qualifying offers and all of them rejected it, though Cody Bellinger and Aaron Nola eventually re-signed with the Cubs and Phillies respectively. This winter, players like Juan Soto, Corbin Burnes, Alex Bregman, Willy Adames, Pete Alonso, Max Fried and Anthony Santander are virtual locks to receive and reject a QO as long as they are healthy. Players like Ha-Seong Kim, Gleyber Torres, Teoscar Hernández, Christian Walker, Sean Manaea, Luis Severino and Jurickson Profar will be tougher calls for their respective clubs.
Seems unlikely at that price that teams will offer it to fringe players (think Houston and Colby Rasmus) anymore. Either you are offering it to a player you really hope accepts it or offering it to a player guaranteed to decline it, there is really no middle ground now
As it should be.
$21,150,000 more than it should be.
Are you trying to say that premier baseball players should only make $70,000 a year? This isn’t the WNBA.
$50,000. Play for the love of the game or go work making fries.
The only players who should be making that little are My Orioles so they can go all out and sign Soto, Burnes, Judge, Ohtani, etc. and still stay under the luxury tax this offseason
Of course the only existing fan of a poverty franchise would say some nonsense like this.
What a load. Are you a baseball fan at all?
Careful what u post to that dude Bluesky, less he follow u around on this site with “ur blocked” posts for days.
$50,000 is like minimum wage these days lol
The finest athletes on the planet should have to decide on whether they are better off exhibiting their talents in the game some of us love or work at McDonalds. Because that’s ‘merica!
Team owners should let fans into the ballpark for free because if they didn’t love the game, why else would they spend over a billion dollars buying a baseball team?
Jarred, you win a cookie! 🙂
do you work for the fun of it or do you work to be paid? Maybe some of them dont love the game but are highly skilled at it to make money, I personally dont like designing system but im good at it and it pays more than anything else i would want to do and guess what it takes money to do fun stuff.
Something tells me marlins fans may have forgotten mlb players can actually get a decent pay. I wouldnt put it past the team to try to make the players pay for their own travel and hotel stays.
That’s fine, Marlins Fan, except nobody can live off fifty grand anymore.
that is a lot of money, even for the crummiest of players. It’s definitely going to put a new wrinkle on things, really interesting to see how it plays out. A lot of teams are as a result, not going to offer inferior or even decent players the qualifying offer they will have to find takers elsewhere. should be should be interesting
Already said, but it bears repeating that this is entirely the point of the QO. No matter where they set that bubble, it’s up to the teams to decide who gets the offer and then up to the player to decide if he wants to accept it or take his chances in free agency.
Look at the bright side regarding the QO DR2020. has been said all along it would interfere with FA contracts, yet we see in the last 11 seasons it’s gone up from 13m to 21m and it’s set on some kind of escalating scale another poster will have details on and don’t recall myself.
Can see the so called “locks” all getting the 21.2m QO and only MAYBE Severino as the possible. hernandez some may think (hope?), but believe myself he’s nothing more than another JD martinez, with a stronger arm as an OF, only has -0- clue as to how to use it after his year in Seattle in ’23 and he’ll be 32 next season. Not someone worth going LT after and a danger to accepting any 21m offer should already high overall CBT paying LAD offer it.
thanks silver. that makes a lot of sense. I’m not a big mets fan , although I do not dislike them, and I follow them from afar, so I don’t know the ins out of that ,how that would would play out, but I will take your word for it. You seem to know what you’re talking about. I know that there’s a lot of debate about Alonso, whether Met will even bring him back, I don’t know if you mentioned him, but he might be a candidate for the one year qualifying or he is definitely worth it if the Mets want to bring him back at all. I would love to see him on the Yankees though, they will need first baseman, he would be perfect
he is a type of player that Cashman loves, big power hitter.
I am a Yankees fan, though, and they tend to be cautious about these things, especially if they fear the player will accept it ,when they don’t really want to give it ,and their owner has been quite cautious about spending his money lately, especially on fringe players.
I could see them offering Torres though ,a one year prove it deal at that price, I doubt they would offer him a longer contract anyway. Although I could see it go either way. Other than that, their other free agents such as Rizzo are not worth it ,or Verdugo ,who I think they want to get rid of anyway, so that is not a big issue. What are your thoughts?
Torres is NOT getting the qualifying offer period as he had his worst year under pressure so imagine again only higher price tag! No thank you, Caleb Durbin says hello and perfect replacement unless Soto resigns and the move Jazz to 2B
Is the QO compensation affected by a teams luxury tax standing?
If my memory serves me correctly, the qualifying offer is an average of the top 125 best paid players MLB. I don’t believe a team’s luxury tax standing has any bearing on this.
Right but of course a QO salary is added to a team’s total payroll, which means a team could well pay a CBT on it.
I have to think that Manaea is a lock to receive the QO. He’s given up three or fewer runs in 22 of his 26 starts. Sevy is a little more difficult to pin down. He’s looked brilliant at times but very hittable at other times. Not bad considering this is his first full season in five years.
Both pitchers seem to love playing in NY, especially Severino. Would not be surprised to see the Mets work out deals with both of them. Sevy maybe a 2 or 3 year deal, Manaea maybe 3-4 years. Should be interesting regardless.
Out of the who they have listed as possible i think severino and manea are the only ones that may get it. Maybe hernandez but thats a lot of dollars they have tied up now i believe.
Padres have a lot of money tied up and dont think they risk it for kim. Profar i think is lightening in a bottle and probably will stay for less than 20 mil … maybe 2 for 30 or 35 as he likes the padres.
Torres has not been that great
Walker i dont think gets close to 20 as 1b seem not to get huge dollars especially older ones. I think he ends up with more a JDM type deal but maybe a couple years.
I think Profar is an automatic QO at this point. His season is definitely an outlier for him, but some of his peripherals suggest it might not be a fluke. 90.0 exit velocity vs his career of 87.2. 43.4% hard hit vs career of 34.4%. A lot of his other numbers (GB%, FB%, spray chart) are in line with his career numbers. It seems like he’s the same type of hitter, only he’s hitting it harder more often. Although I do think a 2/$35 million deal would make sense.
Yes, but a gamble nevertheless.
I’d be careful with both pitchers, for different reasons. Severino for injuries, Manaea cause he’s just not consistent.
Guys used to play for peanuts and were grateful! Now they’re greedy and getting $21M for 1 year.
Yeah! And get off my lawn!!
@bob9988 2
People going on your lawn is another form of greed.
So you yearn for the good old days of the Reserve Clause when only ownership made money on the game? Because ownership isn’t greedy. We know that for a natural fact.
@BlueSkies_LA
Are you suggesting players never made money?
Are you suggesting a return to the Reserve Clause when virtually all of the money in the game went to ownership?
Those are your choices. Be specific. Be clear.
@BlueSkies_LA
I’m not but it still occurs today. Young players today are still bound for up to 12 years (6 in the minors and 6 in the majors) before they have free agent rights.
My question remains… Are you suggesting players never made money?
Your question is completely irrelevant. You said players are currently being greedy and he responded showing the greediness of ownership.
However, if you consider now vs 60 years ago, then yes. Players made way less back then vs now as a function of team revenue. Owners would ruthlessly pinch every penny because they could. Now, not so much.
Swung from 1 extreme to the other Blusky.
Will always suggest reading of Jim Bouton’s Ball 4, even updated “I’m glad u didn’t take it personally” title.
JB goes into detail regarding numerous things team owners never fixed (broken benches). how some owners flat out lied during contract talks (guess which team JB played for then and he referred to) and to an opposite degree.. How the rise of the MLBPA drove family owned teams from the game.
JB’s 1st 2 books, even for the younger crowd should be must reads on how sort of corrupt the game was, even if it dims the spotlight on how not so bright and shiny some of the stars were back then.. he hammers mantle, yaz, martin and others with probable true stories.
Agreed, the one book every baseball must read. Eye-opening, and really funny too.
@johnsilver
Honestly, the nonsense the spouted in that books was all quite calm, considering the stuff that goes on today in baseball. Not fixing benches? Honestly…
He was the Trevor Bauer of the past.
Today, the game is even more corrupt by gambling and corporatism taking control of the original spirit of the game. Baseball was never meant to be a full-time job, as it is only a game. Some of the best players in the history of the game understood this and still performed. Today, we have guys making $21M for 1 year of service and barely able to stay above league average in production.
@DoodooBean
It wasn’t a strawman. It was a question and you seem to have answered it. So, yes, they were making money.
@rct
Owners pitch every penny, even today. Look at Oak & Pit, both with payrolls of about 2 or 3 players on other teams. Judge is making $40M. And owners today won’t even bother to pay for their own stadium. Imagine being so cheap to not pay for a stadium for your team to paly in and instead expecting taxpayers to pay for it, despite not all taxpayers being fans of the game or sport?
Gosh, back then you could buy a loaf of bread for 15¢, so obviously everyone lived just for the love of bread and not the money you could make on baking bread. Everything since then is just greed and corruption or we’d still be paying 15¢ for a loaf of bread, and surely no more than a quarter. I mean now we pay five bucks a loaf, and it’s still just bread! And average bread besides! When will this bread conspiracy end?
I just paid $1.99 for a maple cinnamon brown sugar 18 oz loaf of bread. There’s no need to pay $5 a loaf, not when tasy specialty bread is 40% of the cost!
Look over there! Way over there! It’s the point, I’m sure you can see it.
Yup, the point is a free market gives you the tastiest bread at the fairest price the market will bear, and, attempts to artificially inflate or to deflate through price-regulating bread will be a disaster.
Also, bread is tasty. That’s maybe the best point. Without it half the panic buying during storms couldn’t happen.
No not the point.
I could see the Brewers letting Adames walk. I don’t think they want to pay him that much money even if it is just 1 year.
Teoscsr Hernandez probably gets an offer. The Dodgers can afford it and like short term deals. I believe Christian Walker will get an offer. Profar is a tough one probably not but tough call.
Dodgers would love love love to get Teoscar on another short term deal. But $21 million is a pay CUT for him, no way he takes it.
I am not saying who accepts just who I think gets an offer.
Teoscar Hernandez signed a FO contract with the Dodgers,,,is he still locked under the QO terms?
Regardless, he is a 3 WAR player, with 28 HRs, and a 127 OPS+ with a month to go…not to mention that he carried the team when the big boys were injured. Personally, I think that the Dodgers will try to extend him with a lower AAV, but he looks like a QO candidate to me.
Joey Ortiz regressing down the stretch might have them thinking differently. Adames is also the heart and soul of that clubhouse. I don’t think he will play up to the contract he will earn, but I could see them moving to pay him the 5 year – $125 million he is projected. This is similar (with inflation) to the Lorenzo Cain deal. They make one of these larger deals (outside of their franchise face player) every few years – think Aramis Ramierez, Matt Garza, Cain, etc. If they pay anyone else on their team in the next few years, it will be Adames.
Also they will 100% be giving him the QO and he will reject it, like the article says. He is the top SS on the market. Each comp pick if they don’t end up paying him.
Would explore every possible other option before sacrificing a draft pick for Bregman, Alonso, and Fried. Teoscar Hernandez and Santander are borderline. Adames is borderline but closer to “pass”
It’s a second round pick. Not that big of a deal.
Because 2nd round picks aren’t a big deal?
Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, and Mike Schmidt were all 2nd round picks… but I guess there would’ve been no point in drafting them if a free agent could’ve been signed instead… that’s the argument being made right ?!?!?
Oh hell no
I don’t know how players can feed their family for a mere $21 million a year
F’n stupid
No way the Yankees offer 21M for another season of Torres. They wouldn’t give him that much money on a 2 year contract.
Tyler O’Neill is also a borderline case although I don’t see the Sox offering it to him.
I can’t see it as a borderline case. No way O’Neill produces $21m worth of value
Until this year, I thought Goldschmidt would get at least a qualifying offer. No way he gets it after this year.
Interesting the Hoskins/MIL situation wasn’t mentioned, with his player option being what it is, his track record and injury, now a bit of a down year but still massive ability to hit the long ball and he’s stayed available, I mean would he fetch over 50$m guaranteed in F/A this year anyway? If he rejects his player option and the crew offer the Q/O hoping to get a pick out of it well what if he accepts it? I’d have to think he probably would accept it to come back to MIL one more year because even if he gets a deal valued over 50$m you’d have to figure the AAV wouldn’t be north of 20$m for him at this point, so come back on the Q/O, hit 25+ more dingers in MIL again then secure the longer term deal, however if he rejects the club option there’s a good chance the crew wouldn’t risk having to pay him the 20$m next year, I’m sure he’ll know/they’ll figure it all out before it even happens but just considering he’s a potential free agent with Q/O status available I’m surprised his name wasn’t mentioned in the story, the Crew are going to be making out like bandits with all these supplemental picks though, clearly those have been undervalued by most for a long time…….
I don’t see that happening. I’m sure with Hoskins being a Boras client signing with a small market, there was probably some sort of handshake agreement not to hamstring his free agency with a QO.