Eight players are now staring at a $23.15 million decision.
According to Joel Sherman of The New York Post, qualifying offers went out to Randy Arozarena of the Mariners, Jake Bauers of the Brewers, David Bednar of the Yankees, Ryan Jeffers of the Twins, Brandon Lowe of the Pirates, Adrián Morejón of the Padres, Trevor Rogers of the Orioles and Seiya Suzuki of the Cubs. Each player has until 3 pm Central on November 17 to decide whether to take the one-year deal or turn it down and test the market.
The qualifying offer system gives clubs a way to keep a pending free agent in the fold for one more season, but it comes with strings attached. A player has to have spent the entire walk year with that team and cannot have received a QO before.
The figure is set by averaging the salaries of the 125 highest-paid players in the game. If the player signs elsewhere, his former team gets draft pick compensation, while the new club faces penalties that can include losing draft picks and, in some cases, international bonus pool space.
Most of this group had been expected. Back in September, MLBTR flagged Rogers, Arozarena and Suzuki as locks. Jeffers and Lowe were also seen as likely candidates, with the only real hesitation tied to the spending habits of their clubs, not the players themselves.
Bednar and Morejón were the more interesting cases. Both have the kind of talent that makes a qualifying offer make sense, even if relievers don’t always get this treatment as often as players at other spots.
Bednar has had some uneven stretches in his career, but his recent work was strong enough to get him across the line. Morejón, meanwhile, has dealt with injury issues, yet he has been dominant for three straight years.
He ended the season with a question mark after missing San Diego’s final playoff games because of shoulder “stickiness”. The Padres still felt comfortable making the offer, which may say something about how they view his health.
It may also hint at where the Padres stand financially under new ownership. The club’s payroll appeared to hit a ceiling in 2023, and after Peter Seidler died late that year, San Diego seemed to work around budget limits in the offseasons that followed.
The Seidler family sold the team to José E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones in August, making this the first offseason under the new regime.
The biggest surprise on the list is Bauers. MLBTR had treated him as a long shot in September, and for good reason.
His 2026 season was a breakout, and he played a key role in Milwaukee’s World Series run, but his broader résumé was rough. Before landing with the Brewers, he had bounced through the Rays, Guardians, Mariners and Yankees, and at the end of the 2024 season his career line sat at .208/.302/.361.
He was projected by MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz for a $2.3 million arbitration salary, but the Brewers instead put him on outright waivers and every other club passed. He became a free agent.
Bauers later told Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he was going to retire at that point, while his wife planned to return to full-time teaching. Then she became pregnant, and Bauers decided to keep playing because they needed health insurance.
He re-signed with Milwaukee on a minor league deal, made the Opening Day roster and put together a solid year with a strong finish.
Milwaukee liked what it saw enough to bring him back for 2026 on a $2.7 million deal to avoid arbitration. Bauers then delivered a huge season, hitting 26 home runs, walking at a 16.3% clip and posting a .266/.389/.484 line with a 143 wRC+.
Only six qualified hitters were better in wRC+ this year. He also handled left-handed pitching well, something he had never done before.
His postseason was uneven: he won NLCS MVP honors, then cooled off in the World Series.
Even after that kind of year, the Brewers’ offer is still a stunner. They have never been a big-spending club, and Bauers was not even considered major league material two years ago.
Of the eight players who got QOs, he looks like the one with the best chance to accept. Going from $2.7 million to $23.15 million is a massive jump, and that kind of money is tough to walk away from unless another team is ready to come in with a strong multi-year offer.
There is a case for Bauers taking it. Milwaukee is coming off a championship and may have some extra money to work with. The roster does not have glaring holes, and Bauers could handle first base for another year while someone like Andrew Fischer continues to develop in the minors.
At the same time, he should have a market. The free agent class is thin on impact bats, and Bauers is one of the few who can say he just put together an excellent season.
The question is whether another club will pay him on a long-term deal and still surrender draft compensation to do it. He has a couple of weeks to sort through that before making his choice.
As for the players who missed out, there were no major shocks. MLBTR had described Jazz Chisholm Jr. as borderline, but recent reporting suggested the Yankees planned to extend the QO to Bednar instead of Chisholm.
That works in Chisholm’s favor, since teams interested in him won’t have to factor in the qualifying-offer penalties. Ian Happ, Ty France and Michael Soroka are among the other players who benefit from not being tied to the QO.
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