Written by Derek Harvey at Bloguin
MLB’s current free agent qualifying offer system was established in the last collective bargaining agreement. This is the fourth year it’s been in place. During that time, it’s caused a lot of consternation among fans and players alike. You can make a strong argument that it favors rich clubs with money to burn, while unfairly and unnecessarily penalizing mid- to low-tier free agents.
A new CBA will have to be negotiated next winter and the QO system will likely be a topic of discussion. In the first three years of its use, 34 players were extending a qualifying offer and all of them declined. Some of them went on to ink lucrative contracts, which serves as evidence having the draft pick compensation doesn’t hurt top-tier free agents. However, players like Kyle Lohse were forced to settle for contracts that were below market value. Kendrys Morales ended up waiting until after the June draft to sign and that probably cost him millions.
On top of that, you had situations where the Yankees and Red Sox — and this year, the Dodgers — were handing out three qualifying offers, approximately $45 million in one-year contracts, in a single offseason. That’s something smaller market clubs like the Brewers, Twins, Rays, Reds, and Royals could never risk. It’s not that the Yankees and Red Sox necessarily wanted those players back. In some cases, they did. But mostly, they just wanted the draft pick compensation.
The most obvious example is when the Yankees extended the offer to reliever David Robertson. How many clubs can you think of that could risk giving a $15M contract to a reliever? Those teams netted extra draft picks or were able to sign players with draft pick compensation attached without suffering severe penalties because the draft pick compensation they received offset the picks they had to forfeit. It was a competitive advantage not shared by lower market clubs.
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