The baseball free-agent list will grow, or even mushroom, daily as 2021 contract options aren’t picked up and non-tenders are decided upon for high-salaried veterans eligible for salary arbitration. But, already there are some 170 new free agents wondering of their futures.
In theory, some of these would be given a one-year qualifying offer of $18.9 million so as to assure the team potentially losing that player that it would receive a draft pick next year. Players might be advised to take that $18.9 million and run with it, if given the opportunity. Few, if any, will have that chance in these times fraught with economic, let alone health, uncertainty.