The $17.8 Million Question
Do you think the end of the baseball season results in a nice vacation for front offices? Poppycock! Horsefeathers! Archaic 19th Century Declaration of Shock! Hundreds of players will be able to offer their services on the open market after the post-postseason quiet period ends in a few days. With those free agency entrants comes a significant decision for teams: whether to extend qualifying offers to their departing free agents. And unlike paying your water, electric, or taco bill, it’s an actual choice that has to be made.
For those who don’t have the qualifying offer rules committed to memory, a refresher is in order. If a free agent spent the entire season on one team’s roster and has never before received a qualifying offer, his team can choose to extend to him a qualifying offer in order to receive draft pick compensation should he elect to sign with another team.
If a team makes a free agent a qualifying offer and received revenue sharing, they get a pick after the first round of the draft if the player is guaranteed at least $50 million by his new team. If they did not receive revenue sharing, their comp picks comes after the second round. If the team did not receive revenue sharing and did not exceed the luxury tax, they get a post-round two pick no matter the free agent’s new contract. The increasingly rare number of teams that exceed the soft salary cap luxury tax threshold pick after round four.
The qualifying offer is a one-year deal equivalent to the average of the salary of the top 125 highest-paid players in baseball. For the first time ever, the qualifying offer went down this year as owners realize that not paying for stuff is a lot more fun than paying for stuff, even if it doesn’t always result in winning baseball games.
The decision to make a free agent a qualifying offer has real consequences for players and teams, sometimes disastrous ones. The Cleveland Indians let Michael Brantley walk scot-free after the 2018 season, unwilling to risk “having to” sign a player coming off a 3.5 WAR season to a reasonably priced one-year contract. Brantley was worth 4.2 WAR in 2019; the Indians were patching holes in their outfield the entire season. Cleveland finished three games behind the Wild Card road team, the Tampa Bay Rays, so you can do the math there.
The shadow of losing a draft pick also contributed to Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel remaining unsigned until June; teams like giving up draft picks about as much as they like paying players.
So, who will get a qualifying offer, who should, and who should accept?
The Duh Squadron
Gerrit Cole, Anthony Rendon, Madison Bumgarner, and Josh Donaldson should all receive qualifying offers, and all should (and will) decline them. The same goes for the stars with significant opt-out decisions looming: Stephen Strasburg, Aroldis Chapman, and J.D. Martinez.
A whole slew of players hitting free agency have either received qualifying offers before or were traded midseason. If they were eligible, I’d certainly make qualifying offers to Dallas Keuchel, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Yasmani Grandal, Mike Moustakas, and Nicholas Castellanos. I could even be convinced on Tanner Roark — one year and $17.8 million ain’t bad for a solid innings-eater — and given their lack of offensive depth, the Indians would have had to consider extending an offer to Puig. But all these players are off the table.
So now we get to the tougher decisions. I’ll be throwing in some very preliminary 2020 ZiPS projections, because, well, I have a projection system so it would be silly not to.
Zach Wheeler
Honestly, Zack Wheeler should be on the Duh Squadron, but the Mets have a tendency to make odd decisions. Even if he were projected for half the WAR he is below, the Mets still need to make him a qualifying offer. The Mets’ are thin at the top of their rotation and there’s almost nobody to fill out a staff, which is necessary even if the team doesn’t trade Noah Syndergaard any time soon. Jason Vargas was literally one of the five best choices for the rotation last season, and that was before he pitched surprisingly adequately. If the Mets want to be a contender instead of just cosplaying as one, they can’t afford to enter 2020 with Walker Lockett or David Peterson as their fifth starter (though the day may come). Wheeler won’t — and shouldn’t — accept, but the offer is easy.
| Year | W | L | ERA | IP | H | HR | BB | SO | ERA+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 10 | 8 | 3.43 | 178.3 | 165 | 16 | 49 | 173 | 113 | 3.1 |
Cole Hamels
Cole Hamels is no longer a serious Cy Young contender, but as with the Mets and Wheeler, I don’t think the Cubs can afford to pooh-pooh Hamels’ contributions. Chicago’s rotation isn’t the world-beater they’d hoped and though Hamels struggled at the end of the year, his early-season performances bailed out the team when the rest of its rotation was starting dumpster fires. A league-average pitcher is certainly worth $17.8 million, and I’m actually a bit surprised that this isn’t a slam-dunk QO from what I’ve heard inside baseball.
| Year | W | L | ERA | G | GS | IP | H | HR | BB | SO | ERA+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 9 | 6 | 3.76 | 25 | 25 | 141.3 | 128 | 16 | 51 | 129 | 118 | 2.8 |
Marcell Ozuna
Marcell Ozuna has actually been a bit of a disappointment for the Cardinals, and his 2017 line of .312/.376/.548 is starting to take on the distinct aroma of a career season. Disappointing doesn’t mean terrible, however, and Ozuna’s been better than league-average in St. Louis thanks to solid defense in left. That’s enough to garner a qualifying offer and though I think he’ll end up falling well short of a nine-figure contract this offseason, he ought to get better bids than a one-year deal. The Cardinals should want to retain Ozuna if they can get him back this cheaply, but they have enough corner options that it’s no great loss if they can’t.
| Year | BA | OBP | SLG | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | OPS+ | DR | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | .266 | .332 | .463 | 534 | 75 | 142 | 23 | 2 | 26 | 96 | 52 | 118 | 8 | 109 | 3 | 2.8 |
Jake Odorizzi
The Twins actually ended up with a lower payroll in 2019 than in 2018, thanks to the Joe Mauer contract coming off the books. With Jake Odorizzi, Kyle Gibson, Michael Pineda, and possibly Martín Pérez all free agents, the rotation is looking like José Berríos and four Mad Libs blanks. Odorizzi’s step forward in 2019 was backed up in by his peripheral numbers, with his FIP improving even more than his 3.51 ERA to a sterling 3.36. Odorizzi will allow a few more home runs, but he’s Minnesota’s No. 2 and replacing him with a player of similar caliber would be more expensive.
| Year | W | L | ERA | G | GS | IP | H | HR | BB | SO | ERA+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 11 | 8 | 3.98 | 29 | 29 | 151.3 | 140 | 19 | 52 | 143 | 110 | 2.6 |
Rick Porcello
Given the team’s stated desire to cut a lot from their payroll, it would be absolutely shocking if the Red Sox extended Rick Porcello a qualifying offer and I think on balance, I’m probably in the “no” column as well. But there’s a part of me that wonders if I’m overreacting to the impact of an ugly season. “2019” is a poor projection system for anything but the 2019 season, and I’d have been happy to sign Porcello for one-year, $17.8 million, at every point in his career up until now. You can even make the argument that Porcello was a bit unlucky in 2019, with his FIP a less nauseating 4.76 and an exit velocity right around his career norms. Again, I think I’m “no,” but I’m not sure.
| Year | W | L | ERA | G | GS | IP | H | HR | BB | SO | ERA+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 13 | 10 | 4.37 | 29 | 29 | 166.7 | 179 | 24 | 39 | 138 | 101 | 2.2 |
Didi Gregorius
I actually think there’s a chance the Yankees look at the depth in their infield and decide not to make this offer. I think they should, however. Didi Gregorius‘ .237 2019 BABIP is unlikely to be repeated next season, and he remains the team’s best defensive option at short. If there needs to be an odd man out in the infield, trading Miguel Andújar after he demonstrates he’s healthy is probably a better idea than letting a player who was worth 4.7 WAR as recently as 2018 simply walk away without getting any compensation in return. It seems to me that people have been too quick to write off Gregorius after an injury and a weak return in 2019.
| Year | BA | OBP | SLG | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | OPS+ | DR | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | .266 | .309 | .463 | 447 | 65 | 119 | 21 | 2 | 21 | 80 | 26 | 67 | 4 | 102 | 2 | 2.1 |
Wade Miley
It may seem odd to offer this much money, even on a one-year contract, for a player the Astros didn’t even trust on the playoff roster, but I think I would make Wade Miley an offer if I were in Houston’s shoes because of their very specific circumstance. Gerrit Cole’s possible departure is a very big deal for the rotation and while Miley obviously isn’t Cole, a one-year deal is useful insurance in case the Astros can’t land a decent replacement in the offseason or Lance McCullers Jr. has a setback in his recovery. And Miley really was quite excellent for four-and-a-half months, so it’s at least theoretically possible that his late-season collapse isn’t his new baseline. All that said, I don’t think Houston makes the offer. But maybe they should.
| Year | W | L | ERA | G | GS | IP | H | HR | BB | SO | ERA+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 9 | 7 | 4.12 | 28 | 28 | 137.7 | 139 | 15 | 44 | 102 | 100 | 1.8 |
Brett Gardner
It’s hard not to like what Brett Gardner did in 2019, staying healthy unlike most of his teammate and taking advantage of the juicy ball to hit a new career-best for home runs (28). And it’s hard not to like what Brett Gardner has done for the Yankees over his career, giving them the same un-flashy three-to-four wins a year like clockwork. And it’s even harder not to like having additional insurance for Aaron Hicks after a 2019 ruined by injury. But in the end, the hardest thing of all is wanting to bring Gardner back in 2020 given his age and the emergence of other options such as Mike Tauchman and Clint Frazier. Gardner would probably accept a qualifying offer and with the Yankees claiming to no longer be a team with an unlimited checkbook, bringing Gardner back probably takes away money that could be better applied elsewhere.
| Year | BA | OBP | SLG | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | OPS+ | DR | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | .248 | .327 | .415 | 467 | 76 | 116 | 20 | 5 | 16 | 53 | 51 | 101 | 13 | 97 | 6 | 1.6 |
Will Smith
It sounds like a lot of money for a reliever, but the Giants likely have about $60 million to play with before they hit the luxury tax threshold and if they’re going to insist they’re contending, you have to keep a guy like Will Smith around. They willingly paid $62 million over four years for Mark Melancon in a tighter payroll situation and the amount a team is willing to pay for a one-year deal ought to be significantly more than the yearly average for a four-year contract. Smith will likely accept the qualifying offer, especially given Kimbrel’s experience last winter, and the Giants should be fine with that. At the very least, they’ll get a second chance at trading Smith at the deadline next year if they’re in last place and he’s still productive.
| Year | W | L | ERA | G | GS | IP | H | HR | BB | SO | ERA+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 3 | 2 | 2.83 | 57 | 0 | 57.3 | 43 | 7 | 18 | 82 | 140 | 1.1 |
Kyle Gibson
I think this is an actual decision mainly because the Twins have so much of their rotation departing in free agency this winter. While I think they should extend an offer to Odorizzi and aggressively try to re-sign him, Gibson’s performance is below where I would prefer the “safe” signing compared to taking my chances in the market. I will be legitimately surprised if the Twins make Gibson a qualifying offer.
| Year | W | L | ERA | G | GS | IP | H | HR | BB | SO | ERA+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 9 | 9 | 4.94 | 28 | 26 | 143.3 | 149 | 25 | 57 | 140 | 88 | 1.0 |
Dellin Betances
I love Dellin Betances and there may have been an argument to extend him an offer if he had just suffered one injury. But combine a shoulder impingement with a lat injury and then a final, unfortunate Achilles tear, and the risk is just too much for me. The Yankees are well-equipped to offer Betances an extension with a salary figure that reflects the additional risk and I suspect he’ll take it.
| Year | W | L | ERA | G | GS | IP | H | HR | BB | SO | ERA+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 5 | 2 | 3.11 | 49 | 0 | 46.3 | 35 | 4 | 24 | 64 | 142 | 0.9 |
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
Not sure I understand your approach here Dan. You spend a lot of time discussing whether the team should plan to keep the player or not, but the analysis is whether the player’s market is better than 1x$17.8. You could argue that by offering a QO, the team is assuming they will not keep the player.
It’s not a straight 17.8 offer. The *chance* of a draft pick has value and there’s also a question of whether a player *thinks* another team will offer a better deal *plus* margin for the cost of the draft pick. And that last bit does matter.
Plus, there’s no salary cap in baseball but teams are acting as if there is a soft salary cap, so that has to be taken into consideration.
If the question is whether the team should make a qualifying offer then the only reasonable way to figure it is to assume there is a high chance the player will accept the offer, and work from that assumption. There is no downside to making an offer that is declined, so you would never choose not to offer a player that is almost certain to decline. A player that is likely to accept the offer could end up being overpaid, so that is the risk mitigation teams should focus on.
I think I mostly agree with these–Odorizzi and Wheeler should be slam dunks, and Gregorius, Will Smith, and Ozuna are strong enough that I think even if they do accept the qualifying offer their teams should be fine with the result (and each of those three should certainly strongly consider taking it). I’m less certain about Hamels. There are a ton of guys on the free agent market that can be used to fill out a rotation that are around him or just behind him in terms of recent performance, including Keuchel, Gibson, Porcello, Roark, Miley, Gio Gonzalez, even Ivan Nova and Homer Bailey, and plus all of the guys who are going to get qualifying offers who you’d feel comfortable in a playoff rotation (Strasburg, Cole, Bumgarner, Wheeler, Odorizzi) and Ryu. He’s kind of in a gray area: If you feel comfortable enough with your likely playoff rotation it’s not clear there’s that big of a dropoff from Hamels to the guy behind him who may get far less, and if you’re not comfortable with it you should be spending on someone other than Hamels.
Nice piece, I could quibble with some of the choices, but comprehensive and smart. The only thing I wonder about is whether some of the GMs won’t think that with the “soft collusion” that may have taken place last year, whether they think 17.8 is just too much to pay. And I’m dubious about Moose. Twice through and not got the big offer…3rd time the charm?
Really well organized piece Dan. You do mention this on a player-by-player basis, but the decision isn’t really binary in extending an QO or not. It’s more like: QO, extension, or release. Obviously that makes writing a concise article summarizing all the choices more difficult, but so is the decision process for these teams.
For instance… the Yankees have 3 players on this list and could very feasibly go with the “extension” route in all three of them (Gregarious, Betances on multi-year deals, and Gardner on a single year).
I don’t think an extension is a reasonable possibility at this point, except maybe for the uber-injured Betances. With the players literally only days away from free agency, why would they choose to extend now when they can find out what their market price is very shortly? They can always re-sign with their old team, if both parties are interested, after free agency starts.
Dallas Keuchel, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Yasmani Grandal, Mike Moustakas, all recieved qualifying offers in the past and cannot be given another QO.
Pedey – I initially had a similar thought, but on a closer reading, this is spelled out in the article: “all these players are off the table.”
It is all hypothetical but would Cubs be willing to pay $18M/1Year for Castellanos?
I don’t know about that.
He is a corner outfielder with a good, but not great, bat and bad defense/baserunning.
$18M is probably very close to his maximum market value if he insisted on a one year deal.
Remember, his salary was $10M this year and he was traded for peanuts (40FV+35FV) in the midseason.
I think it’s possibly Ozuna accepts the QO (which the Cardinals will certainly offer, as they’d be fully willing to have him back for another year at $17.8M). He may find it difficult to get close to that level of annual salary from anyone but the Cardinals with a draft pick attached to him.
Annual salary is not by itself the measure. The first question is whether the total contract is over the QO amount. After that, it is just a measure of risk. Something like a 3 year/$50 million is obviously a better deal. But what about 2 years at $26 million?
Hell, you could even argue that someone like Kuechel made a better decision turning down the offer (ignoring that he kept his asking price too high). He made a bit less, but he only played 60% of the season, reducing the odds of harming his next contract.
True, the annual salary isn’t the complete measure, but if the average annual salary is significantly lower compared to what they can expect to get in a multi-year deal, most guys (especially at Ozuna’s age) would try their luck reentering the free agent market a year later to try to maximize their overall earnings rather than settle for such a significant annual pay cut just to get a multi-year deal. No way is 2/26 a better deal!
Not for Ozuna. For an older player or a middling pitcher: maybe!
Sorry, I meant if the average annual value in what he can expect to get in a multi-year deal is significantly lower than the value of the qualifying offer…
Anyway, no, an older player would be more likely to try for a multi-year deal (as long as he’s still valuable enough to deserve one), because he’s less likely to maintain his free agent value a year from now.
Meanwhile, Ozuna is likely to have about the same free agent value at age 30 as he would at age 29, so it’s more important to him to maximize his average annual value now while he’s still in his prime.
I’ll take the under on Tanner Roark for $17.8mil/1yr
Roark can’t be offered a QO since he was dealt mid year. Same for Castellanos.
lol, sorry I misread it….
Dan, For future reference –
Balderdash
Stuff-&-nonsense
Claptrap
Flummery
Fustian
Twaddle
Stultiloquence
Dan, I think this is a good comprehensive look at where things stand. However, I just don’t think most teams are willing to pay $17.8m for an average player. Let’s take Porcello as an example. He has proven to be an eminently average player with 2-3 WAR every single year outside of the outlier year in 2016. I think you could bank on his absolute ceiling being 3.5 WAR this year, with the (non-injury) floor being 2. I don’t think any team is going to pay almost $20m for that.
This is an example of needing a non-linear $/win curve. Teams may pay $8m per win for a guy consistently worth 5 wins, but they aren’t going it for 1-win players, and they aren’t doing it for 2-win players.
Why does every writer here ignore the possibility of a non-linear curve? Isn’t that a fruitful place for research this offseason?
Good point. Teams think that they have only a slightly-lesser chance at coaxing a 2.5-win season out of their FV45+ prospect (or one of the many the Rays have and that a team could trade for) than they do from a FA who put up 3-wins the last few years, so why give that FA a multi-year contract at $13M+/year. Guys like Castellanos and possibly Ozuna will find the FA landscape bleak, so Ozuna should take the QO. Szymborski is too smart not to understand this, but then he makes a statement like “owners realize that not paying for stuff is a lot more fun than paying for stuff,” so it seems he doesn’t understand this. 4+-win players and relievers GET PAID in FA, everyone else has to wait until February. (And I think teams should be more careful on relievers too, since the bust-rate on FA relievers is quite high.)
I don’t agree necessarily on Porcello and the QO. TNSTAA bad one-year-deal. Boston may want to aim higher than Porcello for their rotation (though I don’t think they have a Jalen Beeks-like 45+ anymore), but he’s an ok 1-year stopgap similar to Roark.
Writers on this site have already researched the linearity issue and concluded linearity is a pretty good assumption. Eg, https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-linearity-of-cost-per-win/
Swartz says that linearity is achieved by offering 4+-win players longer terms so that the AAV/WAR is linear with worse players over the lifetime of the deal since even verygood/great players decline as they age. Worse players don’t get these longer term deals in the first place and relievers get asymmetrically high AAV/WAR both of which contribute to linearity on an AAV/WAR-basis. Other Fangraphs writers still insist that paying $8+M/WAR even for low-WAR players is a winning strategy. I think teams disagree since the possibility of their 24yo prospect producing a similar season as the market-rate low-WAR FA is rather high.
How can Wheeler have a projected ERA of 3.43 and ERA+ of 113 while Hamels is 3.76 and 118?
And why do none of the ZIPS projections used in this article match what shows on player pages for 2020 in the 3 year projections ? (Maybe the 3 year projections just need to be updated based on what players did in ’19.)
Dan doesn’t release full updated ZIPS until much later: the ones you’re looking at are the ones from before least season.
Abreu?
” The Mets’ are thin at the top of their rotation”
The Mets have the projected #3 and #8 and #37 in the 2020 ZiPS — can that really be called thin? Or was it meant after the top, as without Wheeler, it drops ff significantly ..?
Porcello with two seasons in the past 10 with an ERA+ over 103, and only one season in the past 5 with a FIP under 4.00. Hard pass.
The Yankees should definitely resign Gardner, for the simple reason that Aaron Hicks won’t be ready for Spring Training, and the Yankees don’t have another natural CF – Judge or Tauchmann can play there in a pinch, but Gardner showed this season that he can still play big innings there.
Unless you think Ellsbury is coming back…
he’ll agree to a deal similar to last year’s
Well, how long is Hicks expected to be out? If he’s only going to miss about the first couple of weeks of the regular season, that might count as merely being a “pinch” for playing Judge or Tauchmann in CF during Hicks’s short absence.
If Wade Miley receives a QO, he’s almost 100% accepting it, right? I feel like his market would be very much hurt by having a QO attached.
Mets just extended the QO to Wheeler… Took what little drama there was off the table. Should have been a no-brainer…