The 2025 World Series only just ended, but baseball doesn’t really stop. The 2026 MLB season starts immediately, believe it or not, with decisions to be made about which free agents will receive a qualifying offer – and which, of those who do, will choose to accept or reject it.
We run this fun exercise each year, so let’s catch you up on the background you need to know. The qualifying offer is a one-year offer that can be extended to eligible free agents, at a salary that changes slightly each year. (This year is to be $22.025 million for the 2026 season.) Teams have just five days following the World Series to decide to extend the offer, with this year’s deadline coming on Thursday at 5 p.m. ET; players have until Nov. 18 to decide whether to accept it. Those who do accept will return to their teams for one more year at that salary. Those who don’t will head off into the market.
There are some more details about how teams who lose such a free agent get compensated with Draft picks, which you can read more about here, but now that we’re more than a decade into this, there are some real trends we can look at. This system has been around since 2012, and in that time, 144 players have received the offer, so about a dozen per year. But only 14 of those 144, or 10%, actually accept it. That’s because most of the players who are worthy of receiving such an offer are also worthy of obtaining a far larger contract on the market, and so of course will not be willing to settle for one year.
The other thing to remember: Not every free agent is eligible to get one. If you’re headed into free agency coming off a season where you were on more than one team, you can’t receive a QO – think Josh Naylor, Eugenio Suárez, Shane Bieber, Cedric Mullins or Merrill Kelly here. If you’ve previously received a QO, you can’t get a second one, either. This year, that applies to Pete Alonso, Cody Bellinger, Alex Bregman, J.T. Realmuto and others.
Everyone else? Let’s see how this might shake out.
1) Definitely receiving the qualifying offer, and definitely rejecting it.
Here we have six of the top eligible free agents. While they’re all six very different players at different stages of their careers, there’s really no reason to think that even a single one would settle for a one-year deal when there are such obviously large multi-year deals ahead of them. Not even late-season injuries to Bichette or Tucker change the fact that they’ll be at or near the top of this particular free agent crop.
That doesn’t mean that these players are definitely leaving their current clubs, of course; it’s not hard at all to see Díaz or Schwarber, in particular, remaining in the NL East. Receiving the QO is just a formality, one that could later be washed away should they agree on a long-term extension.
There are going to be more than six QOs. These are just the slam-dunks you don’t even have to think about, because it would be stunning if anyone here didn’t get one. You could maybe – maybe – see Bichette thinking about taking it to go into free agency a year from now off a fully healthy season, but he was so good in 2025 that it seems quite unlikely. Let’s get into some of the more interesting conversations.
2) Worth putting some thought into.
We’ve identified 14 eligible players whom teams will discuss extending the qualifying offer to. Some will get one, but not all. Let’s do batters first.
Arraez is going to be one of the more controversial free agent cases in some time. The never-ending debate between “no one strikes out less than he does” vs. “but his lack of power or defense mutes his overall value,” won’t be settled today, particularly coming off his weakest full season. It’s that last part that settles it here, really, because while the 2022-23 version of Arraez who hit .335 with a 128 OPS+ was a valuable player, no matter what stats you like, he just wasn’t that guy in 2025 (.292 BA, 99 OPS+). The more interesting question will be if anyone is willing to give him a starting job, not who is willing to pay him more than $20 million next year. Prediction: Does not receive an offer.
Grisham is exactly the opposite: a versatile outfielder who strikes out a ton with a poor batting average, yet has strong power and is coming off the best season of his career, having mashed 34 homers for the Yankees – double his previous best. (No, it wasn’t just Yankee Stadium; 21 of them came on the road.) Grisham is exactly the kind of player you don’t want to lose (34 homers are hard to replace) but also might not want to commit to long-term, given the clear decline in his speed and defense, plus lack of consistent offensive track record. It’s at least a little tricky here because the Yankees have one huge contract in the outfield (Aaron Judge) and need to decide about offering a second (Bellinger), too. The timing here works in his favor, because Bellinger will surely still be unsigned by the offer deadline. They probably don’t want to lose both, and if Bellinger returns, well, Grisham can always be traded. Prediction: Receives offer, accepts offer.
Polanco, who is likely to decline his $6 million player option, might seem like an obvious call, given his postseason heroics; then again, it was a wildly inconsistent season of ups and downs, and it was just a year ago that Seattle declined the option to pay him $12 million for 2025, later bringing him back on a deal that paid him $7.75 million instead. It seems quite likely that the Mariners will be interested in extending the partnership; it seems less likely they’ll want to triple his annual salary to do so. Prediction: Does not receive an offer.
Torres was one of the best signings of last winter, when the Tigers managed to pick him up on a one-year deal and were rewarded with an All-Star season. Or, at least it was at first, because Torres’s excellent first half (.812 OPS) fell off badly in the second (.659 OPS), though at least some of that can likely be attributed to a hernia injury that he played through with the team in a playoff race. (“It was not really good … from the [start of the] second half, I was in a lot of pain,” he said.) The Tigers seem like they’d enjoy him back for another season, and a raise from the $15 million he just earned isn’t unreasonable, but we think he’ll prefer to seek a multi-year deal this time. Detroit hasn’t given out a QO since 2014, anyway. Prediction: Does not receive an offer.
Cease had a really weird year, which is to say he posted his fifth consecutive season of 200-plus strikeouts – no one else has had more than three in that time – but he also posted an ERA of 4.55 for essentially the second time in three years. As a high-walk, low-grounder pitcher, there might always be some flukiness in there, but a pitcher who can be that reliably available and strikeout-creating is not simple to replace. That’s why someone will give him a long-term contract, and why fans will be stunned when he gets it, because teams aren’t just looking at ERA. He’s really a no-doubter here, but, you know, “4.55 ERA.” Prediction: Receives the offer, declines the offer.
Eflin might seem a curious inclusion, given the 5.45 ERA and a season that ended in July with a back injury. But the Orioles have a lot of rotation questions, and Eflin was so good after being acquired in 2024 that he was their Opening Day starter in 2025. You can at least see a version of this where – if they believe he’s healthy, as he was in 2024 – there’s value in either retaining a player who seemed to enjoy being there or gaining a valuable Draft pick if he leaves, especially since $22 million isn’t that much more than he made in 2025, anyway. On the other hand: Back injuries are scary. We can see the O’s bringing him back on a smaller, multi-year deal. Prediction: Does not receive an offer.
Flaherty took an up-and-down career into free agency last winter, where he followed it with an up-and-down season with Detroit. There was more good than bad, given that he stayed healthy enough to make 31 starts, his most since 2019, though a career-low 92 mph average fastball velocity is at least a little concerning. There’s also the fact that he might just choose to retain the $20 million player option he has for 2026, too, rendering all this moot. There’s also the nuance that since a player can only get the QO once, then if Flaherty thinks Detroit would give him one, he might want to take it to stay in a place he likes, for a small raise, and not have to worry about it going into next winter and … look, this one is complicated. Prediction: Either takes his player option or receives and accepts an offer.
Gallen should probably be included in the “slam dunk” section, if we’re being honest, but after three seasons of being something like a Top 10 starting pitcher in the game, 2025 was a slog all around; he pitched to a 4.51 ERA that was mostly backed up by the underlying metrics. He stayed healthy, at least, making 33 starts, and most of this was about a bad start that turned around by the end (3.32 ERA and 3.29 expected ERA). At 30 years old, he should be one of the most coveted starters on the market. Prediction: Receives the offer, declines the offer.
Giolito returned from Tommy John surgery that cost him all of 2024 to become a solid contributor to the Red Sox rotation, making 26 starts and posting a 3.41 ERA. However, the underlying stats were far less kind (5.05 expected ERA) and Giolito missed October with another (less serious) elbow concern. The $22 million QO is barely more than what he made in 2024, so that’s not really an issue, but ending the season on the shelf with more arm trouble might be. Prediction: Does not receive an offer.
Imanaga’s contract situation is complicated, to put it lightly. You can check out Jordan Bastian’s full breakdown here, but the short version is that the Cubs can pick up a three-year option, and if they don’t, Imanaga can pick up a one-year, $15.25 million option. If neither side does any of that, then he’s a free agent, eligible for the QO. While Imanaga’s performance did take a big step back in 2025, the Cubs have rotation issues and the three-year, $57.75 million path they could choose doesn’t seem unreasonable. Prediction: Does not receive an offer because the Cubs pick up the option.
King had a fantastic first year in San Diego (173 2/3 innings, 2.95 ERA in 2024) before missing a big chunk of 2025 with shoulder and knee issues. The poor-looking performance after his return in September is largely about one disaster start against the Mets, and he ended his season with 7 2/3 scoreless innings. There’s always going to be a concern about a pitcher with health issues, but on the other hand, over the last five seasons, he’s thrown 466 innings with a 2.99 ERA. For a Padres team likely to lose Cease from an already stretched rotation, that makes for an easy call: If King accepts, you retain him, and if he doesn’t, you’ve picked up multiple extra Draft picks. Prediction: Receives the offer, declines the offer.
Suarez, however, is a more complicated situation for the Padres. An All-Star each of the last two seasons, he’s been one of the more effective relievers in the game for the last four years now, but he’ll be 35 before next season. After Suárez chose to opt out of two years and $16 million he had on his deal, the ball is in San Diego’s court. It feels unlikely that the club extends the QO to a reliever here, given how stacked its bullpen is, particularly after trading for Mason Miller last summer. Prediction: Does not receive an offer.
Williams really was a lot better than you think, because while a 4.79 ERA and a few high-profile blow-ups certainly look bad, all of the underlying metrics (3.04 xERA, 2.68 FIP) look a lot better. It’s also incredible, yet true, that while Williams stranded all six runners he inherited, relievers who followed him allowed seven of the 10 runners he left on to score. He also ended the season with 13 consecutive scoreless outings, including the playoffs. Some team is probably going to be very happy to get him, but all the signs are that the fit in New York wasn’t a long-term one. Prediction: Does not receive an offer.
Woodruff was one of the finest starters in baseball for a half-decade, but shoulder problems and ensuing surgery cost him much of the last three seasons. He returned this year to make 12 generally very solid starts, though he missed the end of the year and the playoffs due to a right lat strain. There’s a complication here, too, which is a $20 million mutual option that comes with a $10 million buyout. That means that he can essentially get a $10 million paycheck just for trying free agency, and if Milwaukee does then extend the QO and he takes it, now he’s earning $32 million in 2025, and that just seems unlikely given his recent health history. Prediction: Does not receive an offer.
3) Which leaves us with this potential outcome …
We’ve got 11 players who we expect will receive an offer, right in line with previous years: Bichette, Cease, Díaz, Flaherty, Gallen, Grisham, King, Schwarber, Tucker, Valdez and Robert Suarez.
Of those 11, the likeliest to accept are Flaherty and Grisham. We’ll know for sure on Nov. 18.
