Free Agent Qualifying Offer System

[Rich the Giants fan]

From Andrew Baggerly (Giants beat writer): Only players who receive a qualifying offer – determined by the league and union to be a one-year salary of $13.3 million – and sign elsewhere would garner their former club a compensatory draft pick at the end of the first round.

The system replaces the old and very much flawed “Type A” and “Type B” designation that the league and union had used in the past to determine draft compensation.

http://www.csnbayarea.com/baseball-san-francisco-giants/giants-talk/Giants-do-not-plan-to-make-qualifying-of?blockID=796599&feedID=2796

[Rich the Giants fan]

Ok, so how does this system make any sense? Why is this not scaled to a percentage of the players current salary? A one size fits all $13.3 million qualifying offer? The Giants declined to make qualifying offers on any of their free agents, and how can you blame them? Would you want to guarantee Jeremy Affeldt $13.3 million? Marco Scutaro? Angel Pagan? All three were vital to the Giants WS run, but none are worth near $13.3 million, save maybe for Pagan (I don't think so, but some team might). Am I just not getting it? Is there something I'm missing? Can someone here help me figure this out?

[Rich the Giants fan]

Only the Yankees. Already owing Alex Rodriguez $29MM, Teixeira and Sabathia $23MM and Jeter another $17MM, the club exercises $15MM options on Granderson and Cano and THEN makes $13.3MM qualifying offers Kuroda, Swisher AND Soriano! Only 9 free agents were made qualifying offers of $13.3MM, and three of those were Yankees. Most teams would balk at offering one free agent a qualifying offer of $13.3MM, but the Yanks don't even blink at making the offer to three FAs. Must be nice not to have to worry about keeping your club intact due to monetary concerns.

[PlanetZoltan]

I dont know much about it, other than that the $13.3 Million dollar figure comes from the average of the top 125 salaries in the majors.

[StanTheMan]

Ok, so how does this system make any sense? Why is this not scaled to a percentage of the players current salary? A one size fits all $13.3 million qualifying offer? The Giants declined to make qualifying offers on any of their free agents, and how can you blame them? Would you want to guarantee Jeremy Affeldt $13.3 million? Marco Scutaro? Angel Pagan? All three were vital to the Giants WS run, but none are worth near $13.3 million, save maybe for Pagan (I don't think so, but some team might). Am I just not getting it? Is there something I'm missing? Can someone here help me figure this out?

Not sure what you need help with? You said it yourself... Why would you want to pay Affeldt $13 mil? You wouldn't... Which is exactly why, if he leaves, the Giants can't say "you signed our FA, we need a compensatory Draft Pick.". His new club would say... "for him?"

Bottom line is teams can... receive compensation if A - The player is good enough to garner those types of $'s or B - The player is close to being that good and the team is willing to make a qualifying offer to protect themselves. The player makes more $, so the union love it, the clubs have definitive control over who is compensation worthy and who isn't.

[quagmire]

Only the Yankees. Already owing Alex Rodriguez $29MM, Teixeira and Sabathia $23MM and Jeter another $17MM, the club exercises $15MM options on Granderson and Cano and THEN makes $13.3MM qualifying offers Kuroda, Swisher AND Soriano! Only 9 free agents were made qualifying offers of $13.3MM, and three of those were Yankees. Most teams would balk at offering one free agent a qualifying offer of $13.3MM, but the Yanks don't even blink at making the offer to three FAs. Must be nice not to have to worry about keeping your club intact due to monetary concerns.

Only Kuroda is expected to seriously accept the offer. Swisher and Soriano are looking for multi-year deals so it is a rather safe move for the Yankees to make qualifying offers to get the compensation since those two most likely won't be accepting it.

[drstrangelove]

Only the Yankees. Already owing Alex Rodriguez $29MM, Teixeira and Sabathia $23MM and Jeter another $17MM, the club exercises $15MM options on Granderson and Cano and THEN makes $13.3MM qualifying offers Kuroda, Swisher AND Soriano! Only 9 free agents were made qualifying offers of $13.3MM, and three of those were Yankees. Most teams would balk at offering one free agent a qualifying offer of $13.3MM, but the Yanks don't even blink at making the offer to three FAs. Must be nice not to have to worry about keeping your club intact due to monetary concerns.

I'm not sure what you are complaining about other than you don't like the Yankees.

a) this was negotiated between the players and the owners. It's not a decision the Yankees made and passed down to all of baseball.
b) obviously, every team is free to choose how to handle this. If you are saying the Giants would never do the same thing then think again. Making an offer to a player where you win (if he stays) and win (if he leaves) is good business sense. If Posey, Cain, or Sandoval were making $13M or less and eiligible for FA, the Giants would either offer them more on a long term deal, or do the same thing the Yanks did.
c) not blinking is the sign of already knowing what you need to do to guarantee a playoff team. The Giants lucked out with steroids, Scutaro, and some luck. They could have locked in a playoff team with Beltran, but they blinked. In hindsight, without steroids and a lucky trade, they'd have never made it to the playoffs.
d) the Giants are making money. They are making lots of money. Let's don't cry tears over 'monetary concerns' when what we mean is the SF millionaire owners don't have enough ivory back scratchers. This isn't a small market team, although they sometimes make decisions like one.

[Zito75]

I read this story below on ESPN.com today:

http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/8611003/nick-swisher-declines-new-york-yankees-qualifying-offer

So with Swisher, he is going to decline a $13M one year offer with the Yanks. What do you think he's worth? Is he going to command - and get a Jason Werth like offer? I've liked him since he came up with the A's but geeze, where is the money line drawn? The same goes with Victorino, Hunter and Kuroda... These guys are going to be nearing the end of their USEFUL shelf life soon...

[SamtheBravesFan]

The key words there are "one year offer". He obviously wants a long-term deal. Clubs are still giving them out to 30-year olds and the line obviously hasn't been drawn yet. It MIGHT be drawn this year.