Matt Wieters accepts $15.8M qualifying offer to stay with Orioles
At one point not too long ago, this winter seemed like the time Matt Wieters might cash in on a $100 million payday. Instead, in a surprising move, Wieters is reportedly staying with the Baltimore Orioles for another season, taking a $15.8 million qualifying offer and seeing what free agency will hold for him in a year’s time.
[Related: Colby Rasmus will be first player ever to accept a qualifying offer]
With the 5 p.m. ET deadline for MLB players to accept qualifying offers now past, Wieters chose to be among the few players who took the deal. Twenty players were tagged with qualifying offers. Three accepted. The news about Wieters was first reported by CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman:
Colby Rasmus accepted the Houston Astros’ qualifying offer — reportedly on Thursday and officially on Friday — making him the first player in history to accept a qualifying offer and, thus, making Wieters the second. Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Brett Anderson would later become the third.
MLB’s qualifying offers work like this: Teams can extend their free agents a one-year offer to stay with the team. The money changes every year, upward of course, and this year it was set at $15.8 million. Not a bad chunk of change, but certainly not the big bucks that some players are going on bet in baseball’s rich free-agent market.
If a player accepts a qualifying offer, he goes back to his team ands head into free agency a year later. He can’t be offered a qualifying offer again the next season. If the player declines the qualifying offer, he hits the open market, but whichever team signs him then has to give draft-pick compensation to the team with the qualifying offer. If some cases, that makes mid-tier free agents (like Rasmus or Ian Kennedy) less appealing to clubs. For players like Zack Greinke, Alex Gordon and Jason Heyward, however, the qualifying offers attached to them won’t limit their market.
Here’s the list of 20 players with qualifying offers for 2016 and what they elected:
• Brett Anderson, Los Angeles Dodgers: Accepted, according to ESPN’s Buster Olney
• Wei-Yin Chen, Orioles: Rejected, according to Chris Cotillo
• Chris Davis, Orioles: Rejected, according to Chris Cotillo
• Ian Desmond, Washington Nationals: Rejected, according to James Wagner of the Washington Post
• Marco Estrada, Toronto Blue Jays: Rejected, signed two-year deal worth $26 million instead
• Dexter Fowler, Chicago Cubs: Declined, according to Patrick Mooney of CSN Chicago
• Yovani Gallardo, Texas Rangers: Rejected, according to Jon Heyman
• Alex Gordon, Kansas City Royals: Rejected, according to MLB
• Zack Greinke, Dodgers: Rejected, according to the Dodgers
• Jason Heyward, St. Louis Cardinals: Rejected, according to Derrick Goold of the Post-Dispatch
• Hisashi Iwakuma, Seattle Mariners: Declined, according to MLB
• Howie Kendrick, Dodgers: Rejected, according to Dylan Hernandez of the L.A. Times
• Ian Kennedy, San Diego Padres: Rejected, according to Ken Rosenthal
• John Lackey, Cardinals: Rejected, according to Derrick Goold of the Post-Dispatch
• Daniel Murphy, New York Mets: Rejected, according to Marc Carig of Newday
• Colby Rasmus, Houston Astros: Accepted
• Jeff Samardzija, Chicago White Sox: Rejected, according to Dan Hayes of CSN Chicago
• Justin Upton, Padres: Rejected, according to Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune
• Matt Wieters, Orioles: Accepted, according to Jon Heyman
• Jordan Zimmermann, Nationals: Rejected, according to MLB.com’s William Ladson
In the case of Wieters, taking the qualifying offer gives him a chance to rebuild his value and hope for an even bigger payday next winter. Wieters, 29, was coming off Tommy John surgery and played in 75 games this season. He hit .267 with eight homers and 25 RBIs. Throughout his career, his 162-game average is a .258 average with 21 homers and 79 RBIs.
Despite the injury and down year, Wieters was still the top free-agent catcher (and ranked No. 10 on Jeff Passan’s Ultimate Free-Agent Tracker). The Orioles hoped Wieters would take their offer, especially since they will probably lose Chris Davis in free agency. But most in baseball figured that Wieters and his superagent Scott Boras would test the open market, where he was still expected to get upward of $60 million.
If Boras, who is always shrewd and always gets his players paid, thought the one-year route was the way to go, then this signals a landmark in the lifetime of qualifying offers. At least in this one case. Heck, the more interesting nugget here may actually be that Boras, not Wieters, accepted a qualifying offer.
Boras isn’t a fan of having his players sit on the open market with draft-pick compensation attached. Two offseasons ago, he kept his clients Stephen Drew and Kendrys Morales unsigned until June, when the draft-pick stipulation expired. They played half seasons and both signed one-year, low-cost deals heading into the next seasons. With Wieters, Boras is using a different approach: Take the $15 million. Build value. Wait for the bigger payday.
Now we wait until next year to see if Wieters gets his nine-figure deal and Boras is proven to be shrewd once again.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
