As Monday’s 5 p.m. ET deadline for free agents to accept qualifying offers passed, the news became official: Once again, every player extended an offer rejected the deal.
In three years under the current system, 34 players have been extended a qualifying offer.
This year, 12 players were offered the one-year, $15.3 million deal, the average annual salary of baseball’s top 125 contracts. If they choose to sign elsewhere, the offering teams will receive a compensation pick in the 2015 First-Year Player Draft. Any team that signs one of those players will have to surrender a Draft pick as compensation.
I included that third paragraph because I think it’s useful to remind everyone that this isn’t the old system in which the Pirates get the actual first round pick of the team that theoretically signs Martin or Liriano away; they get a compensation pick in the sandwich round between the first and second rounds. Those picks for the Pirates will likely be in the 30-35 range. Of course, the Pirates are free to re-sign one or both of the players, though given today’s report that Russell Martin wants $75-80 million, well, yeah, I’m not changing my “0% chance” estimate.
This was pretty much what was expected, of course, and we’d already heard news that both Russell Martin and Francisco Liriano were likely to reject their offers. I’d say that it’s officially time for the Hot Stove League to begin, but the Mets got the jump on everyone this afternoon by signing Michael Cuddyer away from the Rockies before the qualifying offer deadline even passed. Hold on to your butts!
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