Everyone is getting used to this qualifying offer business. It started after 2012, and players roundly rejected the qualifying offer. “You think I’m going to turn down vast riches for a single season of ample riches? Ha ha, you fools.” Teams understood, and they spent the offseason as they normally would. Kyle Lohse had to wait until March to sign a multi-year deal, but teams were mostly OK with giving up a draft pick for the bigger free agents.
Which MLB free agents are hurt most by the qualifying offer?
Three players had to wait until the spring to sign with a new team last year, and two players didn’t sign until June. Which players from this year’s crop are wishing their teams didn’t want them so badly?
John Sommers II
After the 2013 season, though, the market changed. Those first- and second-round picks were treated like the last boxes of Ho-Hos in a post-apocalyptic world. The players again roundly rejected their qualifying offers, but this time the market didn’t want them. Stephen Drew was a plus defender at short coming off a three-wins-above-replacement season. He was treated like a backup catcher asking for seven years. Ervin Santana was a quality arm in a market without a lot of them. He was treated like Livan Hernandez looking for a three-year deal to come out of retirement.
There was uncertainty and business as usual in the first offseason. There was a market correction in the second offseason. We’re in the third offseason now, and it’s time to see which players, if any, are totally hosed by their team’s decision to extend the qualifying offer to them. We’ll call it ...
The Completely Hosed by the Qualifying Offer Power Rankings
In order from “not hosed” to “completely hosed”:
12. Max Scherzer
Doesn’t affect a player like Scherzer a lick. “You want a draft pick for Scherzer? Here’s five. Now gimme the Scherzer,” teams might say. There’s the small matter of Scherzer also requiring $180 million to pitch until he’s 37, but it’s always the little details that trip you up.
Note, though, that Jon Lester doesn’t require his signing team to give up a pick. As a tiebreaker, that’s a dandy one.
11. James Shields
If a team could forget about how Ricky Nolasco finished the season, there will be plenty willing to do the same with Shields. Nine seasons without missing a start are probably more important than a sprinkling of postseason games. He will not be waiting around until March.
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10. Pablo Sandoval
Say, lookie here: a thorough, excellent bit of research on how heavier players age, published by one of the major Red Sox outlets in the world. I wonder what that’s about.
Sandoval will be 28 next season, making him one of the younger free agents on the market. Don’t let the raw numbers fool you: He’s played in an extreme pitcher’s park for his entire career. Teams will punt the pick to see how he’ll hit away from the Marianas Trench of baseball.
9. Hanley Ramirez
Teams see you, Hanley. Teams see you. If Ramirez hit the free agent market after his disappointing 2009 season, he might still have garnered a huge, eight- or nine-year deal. If he hit free agency after the 2013 season, he probably would have pulled in one of the biggest deals of the offseason. As is, it’s weird timing. He’ll be 31 next season, and he’s missed significant time because of injuries in three of the last four seasons. I have no idea what kind of deal he’ll get.
The draft pick issue won’t make a difference, though.
8. Victor Martinez
He’ll be 36, but he’ll also be in demand, the David Ortiz who never got a chance to test the market. With DH and 1B being free agent wastelands for what feels like the eighth consecutive season (scribbles note to write 5,000-word explanation why), Martinez will get a substantial three-year deal, and teams won’t give a bother about the draft pick.
Photo credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports
7. Russell Martin
He has a chance to get a one-year salary that’s nearly the same as the two-year deal he signed with the Pirates two years ago. He will pass that chance up, and he should be rewarded for it. The Pirates would love, love, love it if he accepted the qualifying offer, but Martin is the only catcher on the market that combines defense, on-base percentage and pitch-framing. In his worst season, Baseball-Reference.com had him around two wins over replacement. Teams will give up a draft pick for that kind of cost certainty.
After Martin, though, things start getting a little weirder.
6. Nelson Cruz
He was hosed last offseason. He was outstanding last season. That should mean he isn’t hosed this year, except he has a lot of things going against him. He needs an AL team, for one. He’s going to be 35, for two. He wasn’t so great in the second half, for three, with a .306 OBP and just 12 homers. A team giving up a pick and a three-year deal should expect more than that.
He’ll probably go quickly, considering the paucity of dingers on the open market, and he’s not going to accept the qualifying offer. A repeat of last offseason’s sad jilting, though, wouldn’t be that surprising.
5. Melky Cabrera
Cabrera might have been the worst regular in baseball in the 2010 season. He was out of shape and possibly disinterested. When the Royals took a chance on him, people laughed. It was those kinds of moves that would make sure the Royals would never win a pennant any time soon. Except Melky was good. It was probably a fluke, people thought, but he was good.
Then he was great. It was a little luck-driven, but he was on his way to a top-10 MVP finish in 2012. Then he got busted for performance-enhancing drugs, and had a miserable, injury-and-tumor-filled season that following year. If he were a free agent then, he might have received a minor-league deal.
Photo credit: Brian Kersey
He’s coming off another outstanding year, though. That makes three out of the last four. The injuries and PED bust are on one side of the ledger; the raw production is on the other one. He’ll be 30, so he isn’t exactly a franchise cornerstone, but he won’t require that kind of money, either. I’ll guess that he’s snatched up relatively early, draft pick or no.
4. David Robertson
He’s the only bonafide closer on the market, the guy who fits the job description on Craigslist. His ERA was up a tick, but you shouldn’t care about such things with relievers (especially at Yankee Stadium). Look at the strikeout numbers. He’s a freak. Teams will want to give him money.
He’s a reliever, though. We don’t have a lot of experience with relievers getting the qualifying offer. Ruben Amaro decided to sign Jonathan Papelbon two weeks before the new CBA was signed, netting the Red Sox extra picks, but that’s because he’s unintentionally hilarious. Once the closer-go-round stops in the offseason -- Andrew Miller is available and not attached to a draft pick, for instance -- I could see Robertson being left with the Yankees and only the Yankees as his best option.
3. Ervin Santana
Imagine making that call.
John Hart: Ervin ... we, uh, would like to extend the, uh ... you know.Ervin Santana: ...
Hart: What we’re trying to say is that, uh, we value you very, very highly, and, well. ...
Other than Drew and Kendrys Morales, no player was hurt more than Santana last offseason by the qualifying offer. He should have received Matt Garza money. He got a one-year deal instead, and even then, a team only gave up a draft pick when their entire rotation fell into a viper pit. He was OK, not great, and he’s a year older. He should push hard for a three-year deal from the Braves before he accepts their qualifying offer.
2. Francisco Liriano
The Pirates were possibly the best team in baseball in the second half, and Liriano was a huge reason why. Last season was the second straight productive one for Liriano, and he’s seemingly shook off the problems that dogged him at the end of his Twins career quite well. This is also the ninth straight season in which Liriano has failed to pitch 200 innings. It’s not like he’s going to get more reliable, more durable as the years progress, like a mighty redwood. If he rejects the qualifying offer, it’s because he thinks there’s $40 million or more out there for him. That team would also have to give up a pick.
I’m not seeing it. That $15.3 million from the Pirates with a chance to hit the market next year has to be appealing. Still, I’ll nominate Liriano for the Kendrys Morales Award, given to the player who should have jumped at the qualifying offer in the previous season. At least Liriano’s arm can use the rest.
1. Michael Cuddyer
Everyone loves Cuddy. The Rockies love Cuddy. Other teams covet him in some capacity, alright. Ol’ Cuddy. He’s the owner of a .331/.385/.543 line over the last two seasons, with his 2014 cut short by injury -- excellent numbers in an offense-starved era.
You’re never going to believe this, but those numbers are vastly skewed by Coors Field. He had a 1255 OPS at home in 2014, with a 734 mark on the road. It was less extreme in 2013 (997 OPS at home, 852 on the road), but add in his inability to play defense -- he’s one of the 10 worst defenders over the last 15 years, according to at least a couple metrics -- and you have a very small pool of interested teams. AL teams willing to give up a draft pick, and NL teams crazy enough to think he can still help an NL team. There aren’t a lot of the former, not with Billy Butler, Cruz and Martinez all on the market. There aren’t a lot of the latter. Just the Rockies, mostly.
If there’s one player who is likely to accept the qualifying offer, it’s Cuddyer. Considering the Rockies have Corey Dickerson, Charlie Blackmon, Carlos Gonzalez and Drew Stubbs, it sure seems like it might be a bad idea to pay $15.3 million for another outfielder who is older and incapable of playing defense in the most spacious outfield in baseball. But what’s the alternative explanation, that the Rockies are perennially befuddling and possibly incompetent? Yeah, right.
My guesses:
Accepts:
Michael Cuddyer
Ervin Santana
Declines:
Everyone else
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