2025-26 MLB Free Agents

This offseason’s qualifying offer will be worth approximately $22MM, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post.  The exact figure won’t be known for another five or six weeks, though Sherman writes that the final total will probably be a little under $22MM, according to sources within both the league and the players’ union.  This would track with Sherman’s early estimates about the QO in each of the last two seasons — he reported a $20.5MM approximate for 2023-24 that ended up being $20.325MM, and a $21.2MM projection for 2024-25 that wound up at $21.05MM.

The value of the QO is determined by calculating the mean salary of the league’s 125 highest-paid players.  This has usually meant an increase in the year-to-year value of the qualifying offer, as detailed in this breakdown…

• 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
• 2024-25: $21.05MM

As a reminder, the qualifying offer is a one-year deal that teams can issue to any of their own free agents.  A player is eligible to receive a QO if he has spent the entire 2025 season on his current team’s roster, and he hasn’t received a QO in the past.  (Here is the list of active players who have already received a qualifying offer.)

Once the World Series is over, teams have a five-day window to decide whether or not to issue a QO to any of their eligible free agents.  A player who receives a qualifying offer then has 10 days to decide on accepting or rejecting the offer.  Of the 144 players who have ever been issued qualifying offers, only 13 have accepted, as the top free agents are naturally looking for a richer and longer-term commitment than a one-year pact.

If a player accepts a qualifying offer, they’ll simply return to their team on that one-year, $22MM contract for the 2026 season.  (The two sides can still negotiate a longer-term extension after a QO is accepted.)  If the player rejects the qualifying offer, he is still eligible to be re-signed by his previous team, but he can now gauge the rest of the market.

Even if a player turns down the qualifying offer, simply being issued the offer has a larger-term impact.  Should the player sign elsewhere, his former team will receive some manner of draft compensation in return.  By that same token, a club that signs a QO-rejecting player will have to surrender at least one draft pick, and potentially some money from their international bonus pool.  These factors have been known to influence the market for certain players, if teams are wary about giving up draft/bonus assets in addition to the financial cost of a signing.