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Every Team’s Initial September Callups

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The limit on active roster players expanded from 26 to 28 today, as the calendar flipped to September. Every team announced at least two additions to the big league club (some teams made three or more due to injured list placements). Here’s a recap of today’s spate of transactions:

Brewers Sign Keon Broxton

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The Brewers have signed outfielder Keon Broxton to a minor league contract, the team informed reporters (including Adam McCalvy of MLB.com). Presumably, the 31-year-old will be assigned to Triple-A Nashville.

Broxton appeared in the majors during every season from 2015-19. The bulk of that time came with Milwaukee, where Broxton started a little more than half the club’s games in center field between 2017-18. Broxton’s combination of power, speed and plate discipline were all evident, but he never made enough contact to consistently perform at the plate. The right-handed hitter owns a .209/.297/.388 line over 1026 career plate appearances in the big leagues. Broxton’s .179 isolated power and 10.4% walk rate are both productive, but a massive 38.6% strikeout rate has driven those low batting average and on-base numbers.

The Twins added Broxton on a minor league deal over the offseason. He spent much of the year with Triple-A St. Paul but struggled even more than normal to make contact. Broxton hit .186/.288/.335 with Minnesota’s top affiliate, punching out in 44% of his plate appearances. The Twins released him a couple weeks ago.

Despite his 2021 struggles, there’s no harm for the Brew Crew in adding Broxton as minor league depth behind Lorenzo Cain and Jackie Bradley Jr., both of whom have had tough years at the plate. The Milwaukee front office and coaching staff are obviously familiar with Broxton’s skillset and ability to fit into the clubhouse. Because the NL Central-leading Brewers signed Broxton before September 1, he’ll be eligible for their postseason roster. He will again be eligible for free agency this offseason.

Brewers Sign Renato Nunez

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The Brewers announced they’ve signed corner infielder Renato Núñez to a minor league contract. He has been assigned to Triple-A Nashville.

Núñez just reached free agency when he was released by the Tigers last Friday. The 27-year-old had a pair of separate big league stints with Detroit this season, tallying 55 plate appearances and hitting .189/.218/.472 with four home runs. Núñez hit for power but struck out sixteen times while drawing just one walk in that fairly brief look. His past production hasn’t been quite so extreme, but that’s generally in line with his low-OBP, high-power offensive profile.

Between 2019-20, Núñez was a regular in the Orioles’ lineup, seeing time at designated hitter and both corner infield spots. He combined for a .247/.314/.469 line over those two seasons, popping a team-leading 43 homers along the way. But his low walk rates and lack of defensive acumen depressed his overall value, and the O’s let Núñez go over the winter rather than tender him an arbitration contract.

There’s no harm for Milwaukee in adding Núñez to the high minors for depth purposes. The Brewers have the lefty-hitting Rowdy Tellez and Daniel Vogelbach as their primary first base options, so Núñez’s right-handed bat could help balance that mix. As mentioned, he’s also capable of moonlighting at third, where Milwaukee is currently without starter Eduardo Escobar (although Luis Urías is a more than capable fill-in there).

Núñez joined the organization before September 1, so he’ll be eligible for the Brewers’ postseason roster if he earns a big league opportunity. If he’s not selected to the major league club before the end of the season, he’ll qualify for minor league free agency this winter.

Latest On Eduardo Escobar

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  • Eduardo Escobar was playing catch on the field prior to today’s Brewers game, The Athletic’s Will Sammon reports (via Twitter).  Escobar was retroactively placed on the 10-day IL due to a right hamstring strain on August 23, and was given an initial recovery timeline of 10-14 days.  After being acquired in a trade with the Diamondbacks, Escobar appeared in only 21 games with his new team before being sidelined.  Escobar was Arizona’s All-Star representative this season, and he has hit .252/.307/.473 with 24 homers over 489 combined PA with the D’Backs and Brewers.

Avisail Garcia Nearing The Right To Reach Free Agency This Offseason

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The Brewers are coasting to a division title, leading the NL Central by nine and a half games after taking the first two games of this week’s series with the Reds. That’s the largest divisional lead of any team in MLB. While the pitching staff deservedly gets plenty of credit as the biggest driver of Milwaukee’s success, the offense has been solid enough to hold up its end of the bargain. Avisaíl García has somewhat quietly been among the Brewers’ top performers, which looks as if it’ll set up an interesting offseason decision for teams.

García signed with Milwaukee on a two-year, $20MM guarantee over the 2019-20 offseason. The pact contained a $12MM club option ($2MM buyout) covering the 2022 campaign. That provision vests into a mutual option, however, were García to tally 1050 plate appearances over his first two seasons in Milwaukee.

Thresholds for vesting options were prorated during last year’s shortened season, with each plate appearance in 2020 counting as 2.7 plate appearances for option purposes. García’s 207 trips to the plate last year comes out to 558 plate appearances over a full season, meaning he needs to reach 492 plate appearances this season to trigger the vesting option. García’s already at 433 plate appearances, so he’ll need just 59 more over Milwaukee’s final 35 games of 2021 to reach that mark. Barring injury, he should have no problem getting there.

That would give García a lot more control over his future this winter. The 30-year-old could decline his end of the mutual option, collect the $2MM buyout, and look to top the $10MM in remaining guaranteed money on the open market. Given how well he’s played this season, he shouldn’t have trouble doing that, although precisely what kind of contract he could land is an interesting question.

García is hitting .275/.346/.506 with 24 home runs this year, translating to a 125 wRC+ that suggests he’s been 25 percentage points better than the league average hitter. That’s the second-best mark of his career, topped only by his .330/.380/.506 showing (138 wRC+) with the 2017 White Sox. That season in Chicago never looked replicable, as García benefitted from a .392 batting average on balls in play that easily led all qualified hitters. This year, García’s sporting a .304 BABIP that’s not much higher than the league average and is well below his career mark.

This time around, García’s getting to his production with career-best power. He’s already exceeded his previous personal best in home runs (20 in 2019), and his .231 isolated power (slugging minus batting average) is also a career high. García’s 21.9% strikeout rate is his second-lowest ever, nearly five percentage points below the 26.5% mark he posted in 2017. So while García has posted this level of bottom-line production before, he’s never gotten there in quite this way.

That said, there are still reasons for teams to be reluctant to buy in completely. While his strikeouts are down a bit relative to recent seasons, his actual level of swing-and-miss is not. García’s 17.1% swinging strike rate this season is a near-match for his 17.2% career mark, and it’s the fifth-highest figure in the league among the 198 players with 300+ plate appearances. That reflects one of the sport’s most aggressive approaches. García has swung at 57% of pitches he’s seen, the fourth-highest rate among that group; his 40.2% swing rate on pitches outside the strike zone is eleventh.

Rather than toning down his aggressiveness, García has gotten to his high-end production this year by making consistently strong contact. The career-best home run and slugging output is supported by the batted ball metrics. His hard contact rate (49%) and average exit velocity (90.7 MPH) are career-best marks. Statcast’s estimators — which predict the results of balls in play based on their exit velocity and launch angle — suggest García has “deserved” a .285 batting average and a .520 slugging percentage, slightly better than his actual marks in those respective categories.

That García has seemingly earned all of his success this year — as opposed to benefitting from an inordinate amount of luck on balls in play — doesn’t automatically mean he’ll be able to keep this up, though. He’s always been something of a Statcast darling, with the huge raw power that once made him a top prospect manifesting itself in high-end batted ball metrics. Despite that, his results have varied wildly throughout his career, largely because he has walked such a fine line with his approach.

García became a regular in 2015. In the seven years since, he’s had three above-average offensive seasons and four subpar campaigns. His career hasn’t followed any sort of linear trajectory; his good years in 2017, 2019 and 2021 were interrupted by disappointing intervening seasons. Even within this season, he has sandwiched a poor April and June around monstrous months of May, July and August.

He’s been similarly tough to pin down defensively. García’s certainly fast and athletic enough to make some highlight plays in the outfield (he took away a home run from Max Schrock just last night, in fact). But the advanced metrics have all pegged him right around league average in the corners over the course of his career. He has rated rather poorly in his limited looks in center.

Taken in aggregate, García looks to be one of the more fascinating players who could hit the open market in a few months. Between his youth, high-end platform season and obvious physical gifts, his representatives at Mato Sports Management could plausibly push for a four-year deal if García finishes the year at this level. But there’ll certainly be some teams scared off by his approach and career-long streakiness.

The first team that’ll be faced with a decision on García is his current club. Assuming García reaches the vesting option threshold and declines his end to hit free agency, the Brewers will have to decide whether to make him a qualifying offer. That would land somewhere in the $19MM range for 2022 if García accepts, nearly doubling the AAV of his current deal. Were he to decline and sign elsewhere, Milwaukee would pick up a compensatory draft choice to aid a farm system that Baseball America just ranked as one of the league’s ten worst. How the Brewers and other teams feel about García looks likely to get answered this winter, as he’s around fifteen games away from earning the right to explore the market.

Image credit: USA Today Sports.

Brewers Place Eduardo Escobar On Injured List

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  • The Brewers placed infielder Eduardo Escobar on the 10-day injured list with a right hamstring strain this afternoon. Manager Craig Counsell told reporters (including Adam McCalvy of MLB.com) the expectation is that Escobar will be sidelined for around two weeks. Escobar has continued to perform well since being traded from the Diamondbacks to Milwaukee, hitting .280/.337/.451 over 89 plate appearances. Luis Urías should step back in at the hot corner on a daily basis while Escobar’s sidelined. Milwaukee holds a comfortable seven and a half game lead over the Reds in the NL Central entering the clubs’ series this week.

NL Injury Notes: Syndergaard, Betts, Kelly, Hoerner, Peralta

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Noah Syndergaard is expected to begin a rehab assignment this week, according to Tim Healey of Newsday Sports. As was previously reported, the Mets are planning on having the hulking righty return as a member of their bullpen, since there’s not enough time remaining in the season for him to be stretched out as a starter. This would be his second rehab assignment of the year, as he attempts to work his way back from undergoing Tommy John surgery in March of 2020. He had previously had a rehab stint in May, before being shut down due to elbow inflammation. It’s now been almost two years since his last big-league appearance, which was September 29th of 2019. The final few weeks of the season will be tremendously important for both Syndergaard and the Mets. The team needs all the help they can get to pull themselves out of their current nosedive. Despite having the division lead in the NL East as recently as August 5th, they are now in third place and seven games behind the Braves. As for Thor, he is a few weeks away from entering free agency for the first time and could help his own case by showing some health and effectiveness before the season ends.

More from around the NL…

  • The Dodgers are planning on reinstating Mookie Betts from the injured list on Thursday, per Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times. The outfielder has been dealing with hip pain all year and is currently in the midst of his second IL placement this season because of it. Despite the nagging hip situation, Betts has still been tremendously valuable when on the field. In 87 games this year, he’s hitting .277/.378/.521, for a wRC+ of 143. Getting him healthy will be a huge boost to the Dodgers as they attempt to chase down the Giants and make up the 2 1/2 games that separate them in the race for the NL West crown.
  • The Dodgers could also welcome Joe Kelly back into the fold this week, per Castillo. Kelly was placed on the IL without explanation on August 10th, but a source of Castillo’s confirmed that it was because of a positive COVID test. The righty has seemingly recovered, given that he started a rehab assignment on Friday. He’s done some quality work this year, throwing 29 2/3 innings of 3.34 ERA ball. The bullpen could use his fresh arm, since it’s recently put Garrett Cleavinger and Evan Phillips on the 10-day IL, as well as Jimmy Nelson going under the knife for season-ending Tommy John surgery earlier this month.
  • Nico Hoerner left the first game of his rehab assignment today because of tension in his oblique, per Bruce Levine of 670thescore.com. Hoerner and the Cubs can afford to play things cautiously, as they are well out of the playoff picture at this point. But the infielder has only been able to play in 39 games this season due to various injuries and would surely like to get some more reps before the winter. The club would also surely love to get more looks at him in action, given that they are going into an offseason with so many potential variables after parting ways with so much of their previous core. When on the field, he has had been effective at the plate this year, slashing .313/.388/.388, producing a wRC+ of 113. He’s also played second base, third base, shortstop, left field and center field, meaning that he could fit into the club’s future plans in a variety of ways.
  • Freddy Peralta played catch today, per Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. Peralta went on the IL on Thursday with shoulder inflammation and will be eligible to return this coming weekend. The righty is in the midst of an exceptional breakout season, as he’s thrown 121 1/3 innings with a 2.45 ERA and superb strikeout rate of 34%. Among all pitchers with at least 120 innings this season, that’s the fourth-best ERA and fourth-best K%. The Brewers don’t need to rush him back, as they are 7 1/2 games ahead of the Reds in the NL Central. But assuming he can keep his shoulder in good shape, he’ll form one third of a potentially deadly playoff rotation, alongside Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes.

Brewers Activate Adrian Houser

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The Brewers announced they’ve reinstated starter Adrian Houser from the COVID-19 injured list. He’s starting this afternoon’s game against the Nationals. Additionally, Milwaukee recalled left-hander Aaron Ashby and optioned right-handers Miguel Sánchez and Eric Yardley to Triple-A Nashville. To create 40-man roster space, Milwaukee transferred first baseman Daniel Vogelbach from the 10-day to the 60-day injured list.

Houser has been a reliable member of the rotation this season. The 28-year-old has a 3.55 ERA over 104 innings despite worse than average strikeout and walk rates (18.1% and 10.9%, respectively). That’s largely thanks to a massive 60.5% ground-ball rate that handily leads all MLB pitchers with 100+ innings this season. Houser hasn’t pitched in two weeks since a positive coronavirus test, so it’s not clear how deep into today’s start he’ll be capable of working. The recalling of Ashby, who’s can go multiple innings himself, could enable manager Craig Counsell to run a tandem-start setup against Washington.

Vogelbach’s transfer is entirely a procedural move. The left-handed hitting slugger has been out since June 23 due to a left hamstring strain, so his sixty-day minimum stint is already completed. Vogelbach began a rehab assignment with Nashville this week, so he should be back in the big leagues in relatively short order.

NL Central Notes: Brewers, Taylor, Yardley, Cubs, Hoerner, Thompson, Jewell

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The Brewers placed outfield Tyrone Taylor on the 10-day injured list with an oblique injury. They recalled Eric Yardley to fill his roster spot, per Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (via Twitter). Taylor is expected to be out for 3-4 weeks, per MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy (via Twitter). Taylor has been a key contributor for Milwaukee, piling up 1.2 rWAR as a fill-in outfielder. The 31-year-old Yardley has struggled to the tune of a 6.75 ERA over 18 2/3 innings this year, but he was gold for the Brewers in 2020. That season, he tossed 23 1/3 innings with a 1.54 ERA, though still with just a 4.09 FIP. Elsewhere in the NL Central…

  • Cubs shortstop Nico Hoerner will begin a rehab assignment in South Bend tomorrow. He is likely to move up to Triple-A when the Iowa Cubs return home on Tuesday, per The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma (via Twitter). Hoerner will probably start to see more concentrated playing time at shortstop now that Nick Madrigal has joined the organization. Regardless of where he plays, Hoerner has a much more central role in the organization now than when he went down with an oblique strain on July 29th.
  • Keegan Thompson got the start in Chicago today after being recalled from Triple-A. Jake Jewell was optioned to Triple-A to clear the roster spot, per Bruce Levine of WSCR-AM (via Twitter). Jewell has appeared in nine games, tossing nine innings with a 8.00 ERA.

2021-22 Qualifying Offer Candidates

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With the trade deadline in the rearview mirror and a little more than six weeks remaining in the regular season, plenty of front offices are turning their attention towards the upcoming offseason. The first notable decision for many clubs will be to decide whether to tag one or more of their top impending free agents with a qualifying offer.

As a reminder, the qualifying offer is a one-year contract offer teams can make to certain impending free agents. The precise value of the QO has yet to be calculated, but it’s determined as the average salary of the game’s 125 highest-paid players. Last season, the QO value was set at $18.9MM. If the player accepts the offer, he returns to his current team on that one-year deal. If he rejects, his previous team would receive draft pick compensation should he sign elsewhere.

Last season, six players (George Springer, Trevor Bauer, J.T. Realmuto, DJ LeMahieu, Kevin Gausman and Marcus Stroman) received qualifying offers. Gausman and Stroman accepted the QO, while Realmuto and LeMahieu re-signed with their current clubs as free agents. The Reds and Astros received compensatory picks (used on Jay Allen and Chayce McDermott, respectively) when Bauer and Springer departed.

The collective bargaining agreement prohibits a player from being tagged with a qualifying offer multiple times in his career. (A list of every active big leaguer who has previously received a QO is available here). Similarly, in order to be eligible, the player must have spent the entire preceding season on the same team. Players traded midseason cannot be tagged with a QO.

With the majority of the 2021 season in the books, we can take a look at the upcoming free agent class to predict which players might wind up receiving qualifying offer this winter.

Locks

This group is fairly straightforward, as there’s very little chance any of these players would accept a qualifying offer. Correa, Seager and Freeman all have MVP-caliber upside and are locks to pull in long-term deals this winter. Semien didn’t receive a QO from the A’s after a down year in 2020, took a pillow contract with the Jays for almost the value of the QO ($18MM), and has essentially replicated his 2019 form that earned him a third place finish in AL MVP voting. He should find a big multi-year deal this time around.

Story is having a bit of a down year, but there’s no doubt the Rockies will make him a qualifying offer after not trading him at the deadline. Nick Groke of the Athletic wrote this week that Colorado hasn’t given up hope of convincing him to sign a long-term extension, but that seems unlikely given Story’s own bewilderment he wasn’t moved to a contender this summer. Whether Story is willing to return to Denver or not, he’ll receive a QO.

Kershaw, Ray and Rodón will be among the top pitchers on the market. Kershaw has spent the past couple months on the injured list due to forearm soreness, but he’s expected back in September and is in the midst of another fantastic season. So long as he’s healthy, he’s a lock for a QO. Ray and Rodón both had to settle for one-year deals after poor 2020 seasons, but they’ve each been among the best pitchers in the American League this year.

Likely

Over the past two seasons, Taylor has somewhat quietly been one of the game’s top 25 qualified hitters by measure of wRC+ and he’s versatile enough to cover any non-catcher position on the diamond. He’s not a true everyday player at any one spot and he’s making contact at a career-worst rate this season, so he falls just short of being an absolute lock for a QO. But the Dodgers would be as willing as any team to shoulder a significant one-year salary were Taylor to accept, and his body of work should be sufficient to warrant a multi-year deal regardless.

The Mets’ players in this group are two of the more interesting free agents in the class. Conforto entered the season looking like a lock for a QO and seemingly having a chance at landing nine figures with a strong platform year. He missed a month with injury, though, and hasn’t made anywhere near his typical level of impact at the plate. He’s shown some life over the past few weeks, and between his track record and age (28), Conforto still seems a good bet to land a long-term deal.

Syndergaard was a top-of-the-rotation starter at his peak, but he hasn’t pitched since 2019 because of Tommy John surgery. He’s eyeing a September return — likely in relief, given his dwindling time to build up arm strength — and his late-season form will obviously be critical to his market. The Mets should run one of the higher payrolls in the league, and Syndergaard has the upside to be an ace if healthy, so New York still seems more likely than not to make the offer.

Similarly, Verlander has essentially missed two full seasons because of his own Tommy John procedure. That’s a scary development for a pitcher who’ll be 39 on Opening Day 2022, but he was still every bit an ace when we last saw him in 2018-19. The Astros are a win-now club that runs high payrolls, so Verlander accepting a QO wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. If he declines and signs elsewhere, Houston would recoup some much-needed draft compensation after losing their past two first-round picks as punishment for the sign-stealing scandal.

Colorado reportedly showed even less interest in trading Gray than they did with Story at the deadline. There’s apparently mutual interest about working out a multi-year extension, and the QO could serve as a temporary measure to keep Gray in Denver while the Rockies and Gray’s representatives work on a long-term deal.

Rodríguez has bounced back to take the ball every fifth day this year after a scary bout with myocarditis cost him all of 2020. His ERA’s pushing 5.00, but his peripherals are far better than that bottom line run prevention and the southpaw has an established track record of mid-rotation production.

The Mariners are facing a difficult decision regarding Kikuchi, as MLBTR’s Steve Adams explored last month. Seattle must decide whether to exercise a package deal of four successive club options at $16.5MM apiece (essentially a four-year, $66MM extension) this winter. If the Mariners don’t exercise their four-year option, Kikuchi has a $13MM player option to return to Seattle for 2022. If both parties decline their ends, the 30-year-old would hit free agency this offseason, although the M’s could then tag Kikuchi with a qualifying offer.

Given that Kikuchi will only be a free agent if he passes on a $13MM player option, the Mariners would likely make him a QO worth a few million dollars more if it comes to that — either with the expectation he’ll decline in search of a longer-term deal, or with the hope he accepts and Seattle can keep him in the fold next season without committing themselves to the additional three years of guaranteed money.

Possible

The Giants have plenty of payroll space this offseason and seem likely to try to keep most of this season’s core together. Belt has been one of the sport’s most productive offensive players on a rate basis over the past two years. But he’s also 33 years old, has a long injury history and is striking out at the highest rate of his career.

San Francisco bought low on DeSclafani over the winter after he had a tough 2020 season with the Reds. He’s bounced back to post a very strong 3.26 ERA, although his peripherals are closer to average and he’s benefitted from opponents’ .257 batting average on balls in play. The Giants will likely see 4/5 of their starting rotation hit free agency this winter, so they could be eager to bring DeSclafani back, even if that comes via a lofty 2022 salary.

Morton has had another productive season in his first year as a Brave, but his previous two teams (the Astros in 2018 and the Rays in 2020) let him reach free agency without making a qualifying offer despite his consistently strong track record. That’s presumably due to concerns about his past injury history and age. He’ll turn 38 this winter and might check his potential earning power by limiting himself to teams in the Southeastern part of the country — as he reportedly did last offseason. That could inspire the Braves to pass on a QO, but Morton continually reels off above-average performances, and this is an Atlanta front office that has been eager to dole out hefty single-year salaries for key veteran upgrades in recent years.

Iglesias looks like the top impending free agent reliever (assuming the White Sox exercise their option over Craig Kimbrel). He’s sporting an ERA under 3.00 for the fifth time in his six seasons since moving to the bullpen, and he’s never had a single-season SIERA above 3.55. Home runs have been an issue, but Iglesias gets above-average results year in and year out and has some of the best strikeout and walk numbers in the game in 2021.

Long Shots

The Giants hold a $22MM club option (with a $3MM buyout) over Posey’s services for next season. If the front office is willing to commit him a significant salary, they’ll just exercise the option rather than going the QO route. Indeed, they’re reportedly planning to do exactly that (or to potentially pursue a multi-year extension with the franchise icon). Either way, there’s no real reason to involve the qualifying offer here.

Canha would be a very plausible qualifying offer candidate on many teams. He’s been a well above-average hitter and overall performer three years running and is generally one of the game’s more underrated players. The A’s, though, didn’t make a QO to either of Semien or Liam Hendriks last season. Canha’s a Bay Area native, and his age (33 in February) will cap the length of offers he receives from other clubs. Given that, it’s not hard to envision him accepting a QO if offered. The A’s, who perennially run low payrolls and will have a loaded class of arbitration-eligible players this winter, don’t seem likely to take that risk.

Wainwright has had a fantastic 2021 season, and the Cardinals figure to be motivated to keep the franchise icon in St. Louis in some capacity. But that also looked to be true after his strong 2020 campaign, and Wainwright only wound up landing a one-year, $8MM deal. He’d be well-deserved in demanding a raise over that sum to return next season, but it remains to be seen if the Cardinals would be willing to chance more than doubling his salary  — particularly if they feel Wainwright’s motivated to remain in St. Louis rather than pursue the highest possible offers in free agency.

Kluber signed an $11MM deal with the Yankees last offseason after back-to-back seasons wrecked by injury. He pitched well through ten starts but has been out since late May with a shoulder strain. Kluber’s nearing a return to action, but his missing nearly three months only adds to prior concerns about his ability to handle a significant workload at this stage of his career.

Kim, García and Wood are all having strong 2021 seasons and could plausibly land solid multi-year deals this winter. Each has enough question marks that their teams don’t seem especially likely to offer a salary in the range of the qualifying offer, though. Kim doesn’t miss many bats; García has had extreme highs and lows throughout his career; Wood has a checkered injury history. García’s contract contains a $12MM club option that vests into a mutual option if he reaches 492 plate appearances this season. If that option doesn’t vest, the Brewers would obviously have no incentive to decline the option only to make a qualifying offer at a higher price point.

Opt-Out Clauses

Each of Arenado (six years, $179MM), Castellanos (two years, $34MM) and Martinez (one year, $19.35MM) has significant guaranteed money remaining on their contracts but can opt out of those deals this winter. Arenado and Castellanos would be locks to reject qualifying offers if they trigger their opt-out provisions, since they’d be foregoing bigger guarantees to test the market.

Martinez’s player option is of similar enough value to the projected value of the qualifying offer that he could plausibly trigger the opt-out but then accept a QO. Even if that proved to be the case, the Red Sox would probably be happy to keep him in the middle of the lineup for another season.

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