Colby Rasmus will make history today when he, allegedly, will accept the qualifying offer made to him by the Houston Astros.  Rasmus had two good years with the Cardinals, then had one all-star year with the Jays in the midst of some poor to mediocre years plagued by injury.  He turned in his best year since 2013 with Houston last season, and looked a lot more like his early days with St. Louis.  Rasmus is projected to regress next year, which would make the qualifying offer an overpay, but if he repeats his performance or even splits the difference he would be well worth the money.  Rasmus was reportedly leaning toward accepting the QO anyway, as he has actually been considering retiring soon.  He also reportedly turned down a better, multi-year contract offer to resign for one year with Houston.

As expected, Yovani Gallardo will turn down the qualifying offer from the Texas Rangers today, according to Jon Heyman.  Gallardo will likely receive a multi-year contract for a larger guaranteed salary, even if the yearly value will likely be lower than the $15.8m QO.  The Rangers are unlikely to be the club that signs him, unless they make no progress with bringing Colby Lewis back for another year or two.

As expected, L.A.A. has emptied the very shallow pool of talent remaining in their farm system to trade for SS Andrelton Simmons.  The Angels didn't need a new shortstop, and Simmons does nothing to address their offensive shortcomings.  This is another move that screams "Art Moreno", demonstrating that Billy Eppler, the new GM is still the low man of the decision-making totem pole.

UPDATE:  Brett Anderson of the Dodgers and Matt Wieters of the Orioles both accepted qualifying offers.  Anderson was once a decent prospect with the Athletics until he got a shot at a full-time rotation position.  Since then he's been a depth pitcher, until 2015 when he put together a campaign good enough to stick in the middle of the Dodgers rotation.  In other words, teams would be seriously looking at him as a back-end pitcher, and looking to spend well under $15m per year.  Chavez Canyon is a good location for a mediocre pitcher to establish a market, so if Anderson can put together another decent season in 2016, he would be looking at a four or five year deal worth $10 - $15m per year.

Wieters has been hurt for the past two years and hasn't yet shown he'll return to his all-star form since coming off the D.L.  Likely every team looking at Wieters, including Texas, was looking at a two or three year contract worth close to $15m per year...but if Wieters can re-establish even a sign of a return to pre-injury form, he'll command something much greater than that next year.

Anderson is the case that shows how agents are looking differently at the Q.O. this year.  The past two years saw several marginal-players lose half a year before being signed.  The draft pick loss attached to signing a Q.O.'d player has turned into a significant deterrent, making the Q.O. decision on marginal or questionable players much more difficult.

Marco Estrada is also off the free-agent market; signing a two-year contract extension worth $23m with Toronto.

Posted by: Ben at 10:18 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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