Philly Front Office

UPDATE: Kyle Tucker, Kyle Schwarber, Bo Bichette, Framber Valdez, Dylan Cease, Ranger Suarez, Edwin Diaz, Gleyber Torres, Brandon Woodruff, Zac Gallen, Shota Imanaga, Michael King, and Trent Grisham received QOs.

Major League Baseball has an odd system in place to try to dissuade high spending teams from buying up all the free agents while compensating teams for losing their star players. This system starts with the Qualifying Offer and it will have a not-insignificant impact on the Phillies this season. Let’s take a look at the rules and how the Phillies might deal with it.

MLB Spenders

Qualifying Offer Rules

Players going into free agency can be offered a flat 1-year contract for the following season for $22.025m. This number is the average of the top 125 contracts in baseball. If the player takes that deal, they are under contract and their free agency has concluded. Only players who did not change teams the previous season and have not been offered the QO before are eligible.

If the player declines the QO (deadline is Nov. 18 at 4p), they are open to sign a contract wherever they please. However, the team that signs them will be penalized for the signing. Teams like the Phillies who pay the Competitive Balance Tax would forfeit their 2nd and 5th round draft picks and $1m in International Bonus Pool money. If they sign two such free agents, they would have to give up their 3rd and 6th rounds picks as well. Maybe the worst part of this is that we would have to give up the draft slot value for those picks as well, severely limiting draft strategy.

On the other side, a team like the Phillies who pays the CBT would also receive draft pick compensation for losing players. Unfortunately, it would not be equal to what was lost as we can only receive comp picks after the 4th round along with that slot value.

Who is Getting the QO?

Qualifying offers must be given by November 6. The Phillies have 2 major free agents who they could consider giving a QO: Kyle Schwarber and Ranger Suarez. I mistakenly thought JT Realmuto was included too, but now all that fun is gone.

Schwarber and Suarez are locks to receive a QO and to decline it. Both are going to receive multi-year deals north of $22m. If either leave, the Phillies will collect their draft compensation and have to move on.

Other Phillies targets out there are likely going to receive a QO and will be subject to a loss of draft picks. Kyle Tucker, Bo Bichette, Edwin Diaz, Dylan Cease, Frambar Valdez, and probably Michael King and Zac Gallen will join Schwarber and Suarez as virtual locks to receive and turn down their QOs. If you are wondering about Pete Alonso, he received a QO last year so he is not eligible to receive one this offseason. Eugenio Suarez and Harrison Bader are not eligible to receive QOs because they were traded during the season, but neither would likely get one anyway.

The Value of Phillies Under Contract

What Happens?

Let’s run a scenario to show what happens. There is a very strong chance the Phillies will lose Ranger Suarez this offseason. Assuming he gets a QO, this will net the Phillies a post-4th round comp pick regardless of where he signs or the contract he gets. It is also likely that the Phillies are playing in the deep end of the spending pool and target some free agents too. If they land someone like Bichette or Tucker, this means they lose a 2nd round pick, a 5th round pick, and $1m in international signing money. This would be a net loss of around $1.25m in draft pool money (based on last year, $1.8m loss plus $.55m gain).

If both Schwarber and Ranger leave, but the Phillies don’t sign a QO free agent, that means the Phillies gain two extra picks for a total of $1.1m in extra pool money.

Rules as per MLB.com