Last year, the qualifying offer for MLB free agents — the number that would trigger draft-pick compensation if the FA signed with another team — was $18.4 million.
For 2023, that number has jumped by $1.25 million, to $19.65 million, per the Associated Press.
We learned last week during Cubs President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer’s season-ending news conference that the Cubs would “definitely” be extending a qualifying offer to Willson Contreras.
It is almost certainly true that any free-agent contract Contreras signed would not pay him that much on an AAV basis.