NEW YORK (AP) — Aaron Judge, Jacob deGrom and Xander Bogaerts were among 14 free agents who were given $19.65 million qualifying offers by their former teams on Thursday
Dansby Swanson, Trea Turner, Willson Contreras and Carlos Rodón also were given the offers, as were Chris Bassitt, Brandon Nimmo, Nathan Eovaldi, Anthony Rizzo, Joc Pederson, Martín Pérez and Tyler Anderson.
Players have until Nov. 20 to accept, and top players are expected to decline and pursue more lucrative long-term contracts on the free-agent market. Players can discuss financial offers with all teams starting Friday.
Qualifying offers began after the 2012 season, and only eight of 110 offers have been accepted. Among the 14 players given $18.4 million offers last year, only San Francisco first baseman Brandon Belt said yes.
A free agent can be made a qualifying offer only if he has been with the same team continuously since opening day and has never received a qualifying offer before.
If a team makes a qualifying offer to a player who signs a major league contract with another club before the amateur draft, his former club would receive a draft pick as compensation at the end of the first round or at the end of competitive balance round B. The placement depends on the amount of the new contract and the revenue-sharing and luxury-tax status of the team losing the player.
Major League Baseball offered last winter to drop qualifying offers and direct draft-pick compensation, and the March lockout settlement tied the proposal to the players’ association agreeing to an international amateur draft. The union rejected the draft in July.
The qualifying offer price is the average of the top 125 contracts by average annual value. The price started at $13.3 million in 2012 and rose to $14.1 million in 2013, $15.3 million in 2014, $15.8 million in 2015, $17.2 million in 2016 and $17.4 million in 2017.
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