Major League Baseball’s deadline for players to accept the qualifying offer passed on Tuesday afternoon. With it, four players accepted a one-year tender worth $22.205 million to return to their 2025 teams: right-handed pitcher Brandon Woodruff (Brewers), lefty Shota Imanaga (Cubs), infielder Gleyber Torres (Tigers), and outfielder Trent Grisham (Yankees).
The other nine players, including Kyle Tucker, Bo Bichette and Framber Valdez, will remain free agents and will now allow their former team to gain draft-pick compensation if they sign elsewhere.
Free agents have to meet certain criteria to be eligible for the qualifying offer (QO). Players can only receive the QO once in their career and they must have spent the preceding season with only one team — that means anyone traded in-season is ineligible. The value of the QO isn’t random: it’s the average of the top 125 salaries for a given year. This winter, that means it’s $22.205 million.
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R.J. Anderson
As for the draft-pick compensation component, the exact placement of that pick hinges on a variety of factors, such as a team’s revenue-sharing and luxury tax statuses. That’s true of both the team signing and losing the free agent.
Entering this offseason, just 14 of the 144 players to receive the QO accepted it. Below you’ll find out what decision each of the 13 relevant players made ahead of Tuesday’s deadline.
Ranger Suárez, LHP, Phillies
Edwin Díaz, RHP, Mets
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