Free agents that will require dollars and draft picks

By Shannon Drayer

The deadline for teams to make qualifying offers per the new CBA has come and gone and this will be of particular interest to the Mariners who look to sign free agents this off season.

Under the new CBA in order for a team to receive draft pick compensation for one of their free agents who signs with another club they must offer that player a qualifying offer before the deadline which was 2:00pm Friday. The value of the qualifying offer is determined by averaging the top 125 player salaries from the previous year. This year’s figure came to 13.3 million dollars. After the offer is made the player has seven days to accept. Should that player not accept and be signed by another team the signing team will surrender a top draft pick.

The top ten picks of the draft are protected and if a signing team holds one of those they forfeit their next highest pick. The picks do not go back to the original team, rather the first round is condensed and teams who lost players are awarded compensatory picks which are made before the start of the second round.

The Mariners did not have a free agent that they would consider offering a qualifying offer to but they could be interested in signing a player who would force them to give up a pick. The following is a list of players who received qualifying offers and therefore will require giving up a pick should another team sign them.

Michael Bourne, Braves
Adam LaRoche, Nationals
Kyle Loshe, Cardinals
B.J. Upton, Rays
David Ortiz, Red Sox
Rafael Soriano, Yankees
Nick Swisher, Yankees
Hiroki Kuroda, Yankees
Josh Hamilton, Rangers