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Qualifying Offer Part One: First Base

Two first basemen received the Qualifying Offer, but the consequences go beyond those two players.

By Matt MocarskyPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
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Mandatory Credit - Keith Allison

The World Series may have been an incredible finish to the 2017 season, but baseball is a year round business. All 30 teams had until the afternoon of November 6 to issue a Qualifying Offer to any of their pending free agents. The Qualifying Offer is a one year deal with a value equal to the average of MLB’s top 125 salaries in the most current season. This year, the value is $17.4 million.

The details revolving the Qualifying Offer in regards to draft pick forfeiture and compensation are too complicated to explain here, but you can read them on Major League Baseball’s website.

This year, nine players received the Qualifying Offer. Players who are expected to earn well over the value of the QO were obvious candidates to receive one, such as Jake Arrieta and Mike Moustakas. We won’t discuss those guys, because any team willing to shell out the big bucks for them is probably not going to be deterred by draft pick forfeiture. However, this series will discuss the guys on the lower end of the earning power spectrum, including players who didn’t receive one at all!

Eric Hosmer

Hosmer is a favorite punching bag among sabermetricians, but he has had plenty of good seasons in his career. He also received the QO, so the Royals think enough of him to believe he’ll exceed that pay grade. Now, let’s consider his production in comparison to fellow first baseman Jose Abreu:

via FanGraphs

Can you tell these two first basemen apart? I can’t. Their offensive and defensive performances were identical across the board. Eric Hosmer will probably be on the free agent market; Jose Abreu will probably be on the trade market.

Abreu is entering his age-31 season and is under contract through his age-32 season via arbitration (likely $30 million). He will likely cost an interesting prospect, but certainly not a blue chipper. On the other hand, signing Hosmer will include the forfeiture of draft picks. Hosmer is projected by MLB Trade Rumors to receive a 6/$132 million contract for his age-28 through age-33 seasons. This contract seems ridiculous, but by offering him the QO, the Royals acknowledged that it is likely what will be the result for Hosmer. A 28 year old is not going to accept a one-year deal, and a relatively poorer team is not going to offer $17.4 million if they think he can’t get more than that per season.

At this point, the question is whether a team would rather pay the extra $100 million for four extra and (mostly) younger seasons of Hosmer. I can’t definitively say if teams with money to spend are going to jump on that, but I do know that for every team that is reluctant, Abreu’s market gets a little hotter. The White Sox had difficulty trading Abreu in their recent sell off, which is probably due to the market for first base/DH types collapsing last winter. Hosmer being in position to demand so much due to his relative youth is good news for the White Sox, who will happily wait by the phone this winter and collect offers for Abreu.

Carlos Santana (and Logan Morrison, Yonder Alonso, and Jay Bruce)

It’s a shame that Santana is hitting free agency this year, because it seems that all the chips are stacked against his earning power. I want to make it clear that Santana is a really good player.

Consider that in the second half, Santana slashed .297/.399/.535, good for a 147 wRC+ that ranked fifth among first basemen. He carries a ridiculously high career walk rate of 15.2 percent, which is only behind Jose Bautista and Joey Votto since his 2010 debut. His strikeout rate has been cut down from a high of 20.2 percent all the way down to 14.1 percent in 2017, which is remarkable given the times.

Despite the perception that he’ll require plenty of time at DH, Santana has been one of the best defensive first basemen in the game recently. Using three year samples of Ultimate Zone Rating/150 (UZR/150), Santana ranked third among all first baseman with a 4.9 UZR/150. By Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) in 2017, Santana ranked second with 10 DRS.

Santana was the third best at his position in the second half by fWAR, and he should be collecting a nifty paycheck this winter. However, he has several reasons to be down on his earning power. The first is that Hosmer, who is much younger than Santana, will likely be the first baseman that tempts a team to offer a big contract this winter.

Additionally, Santana is a textbook example of someone negatively affected by the QO. The first base market this winter is full of alternatives that are sure to be cheaper than Santana, such as Logan Morrison, Yonder Alonso, and Jay Bruce. Santana is better than those guys, but he is the only one who received the QO, which means it’ll take draft pick forfeiture to sign him away. Santana is a really good player, but it’s likely a team looking for a mid-market upgrade will avoid both Hosmer and Santana only to offer a three-year deal to any of his contemporaries.

This will drive Santana’s market down and makes him an obvious candidate to be this year’s January bargain signing. If Morrison, Alonso, and Bruce all get signed before Santana, they will likely get two or three years at an Average Annual Salary (AAV) of $12-15 million. At that point, it’s hard to imagine anyone ponying up four years or even a $20 million AAV contract for Santana. Like Edwin Encarnacion before him, the QO and cheaper alternatives will drive his price way down, and it’s a shame.

***

Check back later this week for the next part of our discussion. In that column, we will consider the implications of the QO for pitchers. Additionally, if there are any interesting developments, such as a player accepting a QO, we’ll touch on that as well and analyze the potential changes to the market. As for what we discussed today, let’s expect Jose Abreu to finally get moved this winter, early contracts for the mid-market first basemen, and for Carlos Santana to be this year’s brand name bargain of the winter.

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About the Creator

Matt Mocarsky

Matt is an undergrad at the UConn School of Business. He knows that Joey Votto has been in an MLB leading 434 3-0 counts since 2010, and that Carlos Santana is second with only 388. You can follow him on twitter @matthewmocarsky.

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