Aaron Judge, Jacob deGrom Among 14 Players To Receive Qualifying Offers
With free agency underway, 14 players have received qualifying offers, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
This list is as follows:
1. OF Aaron Judge (New York Yankees)
2. 1B Anthony Rizzo (New York Yankees)
3. SS Trea Turner (Los Angeles Dodgers)
4. SP Tyler Anderson (Los Angeles Dodgers)
5. SS Xander Bogaerts (Boston Red Sox)
6. SP Nathan Eovaldi (Boston Red Sox)
7. SP Jacob deGrom (New York Mets)
8. OF Brandon Nimmo (New York Mets)
9. SP Chris Bassitt (New York Mets)
10. SP Carlos Rodón (San Francisco Giants)
11. OF Joc Pederson (San Francisco Giants)
12.SP Martín Pérez (Texas Rangers)
13. C Willson Contreras (Chicago Cubs)
14. SS Dansby Swanson (Atlanta Braves)
For those unfamiliar, the qualifying offer is a one-year offer that teams make to their impending free agents. Each year, the value of the qualifying offer is determined by the average of the salaries from the 125 highest-paid players in the majors. This offseason, the qualifying offer is worth $19.65 million.
Should a player accept the qualifying offer, he returns to his team at that salary. Should the offer be declined and the player signs elsewhere, the team that loses the player gets compensated based on its luxury tax status and whether it receives revenue sharing.
Signing a player that rejects a qualifying offer from another team means the signing team forfeits draft picks and/or international signing bonus space. That, too, is based on revenue sharing and the luxury tax.
Players who have previously received a qualifying offer and/or didn’t spend the entire previous season with one team can’t receive a qualifying offer.
Some of the names above – including, but not limited to, Aaron Judge and Jacob deGrom – won’t even entertain the qualifying offer, as far more lucrative deals await in free agency. However, a handful of those players would earn raises by accepting. They could then re-enter free agency next offseason, with no strings attached, with hopes of landing a long-term deal.
For example, Eovaldi is coming off an injury-plagued year, so teams might be wary of signing him long-term and being penalized. Anderson and Pérez, meanwhile, are veterans who never came close to pitching as well as they did in 2022. They could reject the offer and hope the market rewards their breakouts, but without a proven track record, there’s no guarantee they get a monster deal with forfeitures attached. Or they could accept the offer and try to show their seasons weren’t a fluke and try again next winter, but that risks decline and/or injury.
For some, the qualifying offer is a gamble. But players have 10 days to gauge their market and make a decision. Look for most to reject the one-year deal, though a few may be enticed by it.
