At the end of the day, many would argue that starter Marco Estrada signed a pretty fair contract with the Toronto Blue Jays this offseason. However, did the qualifying offer system manage to prevent him from getting more money in free agency?
Estrada thinks so, despite signing a two-year, $26 million deal with the Blue Jays at the onset of the offseason. The right-hander was presented with the one-year, $15.8 million qualifying offer, but the two sides instead worked out a multi-year contract, which was made official on Nov. 13.
Players presented with the QO have only a week to accept or reject it. If it's rejected, that player is tied to draft pick compensation, meaning if another MLB club wants to sign that player, that team must surrender their top draft pick (unless it's within the top-10) to the club that is losing that player. So if Estrada rejected the offer and signed elsewhere, that team would have to give the Blue Jays their top selection in the upcoming draft.
Estrada, 32, became a free agent for the first time in his career this offseason, but he didn't really have an opportunity to test the open market. He had seven days to decide whether he would accept or reject the qualifying offer from the Blue Jays. While he had a career year in 2015, he may have been hesitant to explore every option because other teams may have been less inclined to sign a pitcher who has made just 99 starts in 188 career games and would cost them a draft pick. For crying out loud, we saw established and successful MLB veterans such as Dexter Fowler and Ian Desmond get deals worth less than the QO.
Estrada told Shi Davidi of Sportsnet.ca that exploring free agency was something he "probably should have done a better job of," despite being happy about how things worked out with Toronto. The right-hander alluded to two specific free agency cases directly related to the qualifying offer: Yovani Gallardo and Ian Kennedy.
Gallardo, a nine-year MLB veteran, landed a two-year $22 million contract with the Baltimore Orioles despite owning a 3.66 ERA in 247 career games. Many teams were hesitant to surrender a draft pick for the 30-year-old even though he was coming off one of his best seasons (13-11, 3.42 ERA in first campaign in American League).
On the other hand, Kennedy, who is also a nine-year MLB veteran, owns a career 3.98 ERA in 206 games and was coming off a season in which he went 9-15 with a 4.28 ERA. Yet, the 31-year-old landed a five-year, $70 million contract with the Kansas City Royals.
We saw extremes on both sides of the spectrum this offseason, and we'll never know if Estrada could have made more. However, it's safe to say that he's perhaps a minor victim of the system because he had a $26 million deal sitting in front of him but may have been hesitant to turn down that much guaranteed money in order to risk getting more when there were so many free-agent pitchers available. It could have gone two ways: teams would have scoffed at the idea of surrendering a draft pick and giving a multi-year deal to a pitcher who made more than 23 starts for the first time in his career in 2015, or they would have pounced on the opportunity to sign a starter that has tossed only 722 innings in eight MLB seasons.
So it's safest to say that Estrada was a minor victim of the system because he could have gotten a better deal (based on the way pitchers are being paid nowadays), or he could have been shunned like Gallardo due to the QO rejection.
