How Major League Baseball Should Change the Qualifying Offer
An IBWAA co-director previews the upcoming college baseball season.
Pregame Pepper
. . . Including Zac Gallen resigning with the Diamondbacks for the same contract as this year’s qualifying offer amount, seven of the 13 players who received a qualifying offer this season ended up returning to the team who offered them the QO. Four accepted the qualifying offer, and Gallen becomes the third player to decline the offer and return to his previous team.
. . . Teams who lost players were not rewarded heavily for losing the player who they offered a QO. The Chicago Cubs received the best draft pick, which will be the 75th pick in the 2026 draft. While slot values have not yet been released by the league for the 2026 draft, the No. 75 pick in the 2025 draft was worth $1.09 million to bonus pool. Each of the other five teams will receive a pick after the fourth round, selections that will add $525K to $550K to each team’s bonus pool.
Leading Off
How Major League Baseball Should Change the Qualifying Offer
By Benjamin Chase
Right-handed pitcher Zac Gallen and the Arizona Diamondbacks announced they came together on a one-year, $22.05 million contract. Gallen was the final of the 13 players who received a qualifying offer this offseason from their previous teams to sign, and more than half (seven) re-signed with their previous clubs.
Two factors impacted Gallen’s lack of market. After being one of the best pitchers in the game over the five-year period of 2020-2024, including three top-ten Cy Young Award finishes, Gallen struggled to a 4.83 ERA and 31 home runs allowed over 192 innings in 2025 heading into free agency.
There were some injuries that Gallen pitched through in 2025 that encouraged evaluators that he could return to pitching as a top-level starter for another two-three years.
However, a team taking that gamble while also giving up multiple draft picks because of the draft picks tied to Gallen led to his market being notably softer than one would expect for a pitcher of his caliber. In the end, he returned to Arizona.
This offseason saw four players accept the qualifying offer, which is the most of the modern system. Since the qualifying offer was implemented in 2012, only 18 players have accepted, so nearly one-quarter of all accepted offers occurred this offseason. Along with four accepting, Gallen was among three players who resigned with their offering team.
Only one player accepted the QO in 2024, but three more players rejected the offer and resigned with their previous team. No one accepted in 2023, but two resigned with their previous team. In 2022, two accepted and three resigned. One accepted in 2021 and three resigned.
The Big Change
Since its inception in 2012, the qualifying offer has been altered multiple times. The current iteration has been negotiated to only be allowed on a player one time in his career. We’ve seen multiple players recently who signed a one-year deal for exactly that reason, with the prime example this offseason of Pete Alonso, who resigned with the Mets after receiving a qualifying offer in 2024 and then was able to sign with anyone this offseason and cashed in on a $155-million contract.
The major reason the qualifying offer has become hard on players in the market is the draft picks tied to the player that a team loses. Interestingly, while only one team will receive a draft pick within the top 100 picks for losing a player in free agency this winter, four teams will lose a draft pick within the top 100 due to signing a player.
That appears backward from the intent of the qualifying offer.
The qualifying offer was initiated to ensure teams who lose an impact free agent don’t lose the player and not have any compensation for that. The issue has become that the penalty to signing teams has overtaken the “reward” to the team who is willing to offer the qualifying offer contract for one season to a free agent.
With the CBA negotiations this winter, it seems the players and owners could both get on board with a minor tweak to the QO system. Adjusting the system so a team is rewarded for any player who spent the entire previous season on their roster and signed a contract of a certain size without penalizing the signing team would improve markets for players, remove draft pick penalties for signing teams, and it would improve the draft picks that teams losing a player would receive.
Currently, the amount of reward is based on competitive balance tax level and the new contract. Despite a huge contract for Kyle Tucker, the Cubs were not eligible to receive a compensatory pick after the first round due to their previous competitive balance tax level.
No longer punishing teams for enhancing their teams would broaden the market as the teams most likely to back away from a potential free agent signing due to the loss of draft pick bonus pool are not the teams who are already exceeding the top levels of the competitive balance tax system, it’s teams like the Minnesota Twins or Pittsburgh Pirates, who want to sign players to improve their competitive position, but signings would drastically impact their ability to acquire players through the draft, and with a limited budget at the MLB level, those types of teams rely on the draft to continue developing players to enhance the MLB club.
This seems like one change that would benefit owners, benefit big-market teams, and would also benefit small-market teams. A rare win-win change that could happen in CBA negotiations.
Benjamin Chase is one of the co-directors of the IBWAA. In his day job, he is the managing editor of a newspaper in South Dakota. He primarily writes about baseball on his Medium site, Chasing Baseball Greatness, though he’s had bylines many different places over the years. He also is the co-host of the prospect show on the Pallazzo Podcast network. Benjamin can be found on most socials under the handle @biggentleben.
Extra Innings
One of the oldest living ex-MLB players, Roy Face, passed away on Thursday, just eight days short of his 98th birthday. Face was one of the originators of the closer position, ranking second in the 1960s in saves with 142, trailing only Hoyt Wilhelm (153) in the decade. Face was a selection by Branch Rickey for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Rule 5 draft from his previous employer, the Brooklyn Dodgers, in December 1952, two years before Rickey repeated the same process to bring Roberto Clemente to the Pirates. While fellow 1960s closer Wilhelm had his knuckleball, Face dominated with a forkball, which he displayed to Ed Sullivan.
Know Your Editors
Here’s the Pitch is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [biggentleben@hotmail.com] handles the Monday issue with Dan Freedman [dfreedman@lionsgate.com] editing Tuesday and Jeff Kallman [easyace1955@outlook.com] at the helm Wednesday and Thursday. Original editor Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com], does the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Former editor Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] is now co-director [with Benjamin Chase and Jonathan Becker] of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America, which publishes this newsletter and the annual ACTA book of the same name. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HtP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.
Great point on QO's Ben!