The Major League Baseball offseason is moving along and with the Boston Red Sox World Series champions, they will be one of the teams to watch as the winner goes along and they have a number of players set to be free agents, including Jacoby Ellsbury, Mike Napoli and Stephen Drew and there are a number of important dates to note, including about when teams can place out qualifying offers and free agent moves.
The key dates to start the MLB offseason are coming over the next week, as teams have five days to dish out qualifying offers for players, meaning it ends on Monday. Free Agency officially begins on Tuesday, as it is the sixth day after the World Series ends. That date marks when teams are allowed to officially start trying to sign players and later on in the offseason the GMs and owners meetings will be in November and then later the winter meetings will be in December, but before that, it's the fun stuff.
According to CBS Sports, there could be up to 200 free agents on the market this offseason and some of the top names includes Mike Napoli, Jacoby Ellsbury, Stephen Drew, Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz, Curtis Granderson, Matt Garza and Shin-Soo Choo among many others. The qualifying offers have already started coming out to players and that means teams will get a draft pick for that player if they leave for another team in free agency.
The qualifying offers this season are for one year and $14.1 million and so far a number of them have been extended, including to the Red Sox trio as well as to Nelson Cruz and others. The qualifying contract is important for teams, as players can accept the deal, or they can reject it and hit free agency. Teams can only make offers to players that spent the whole season with the team and then the draft picks are made to teams once those players get offers and sign elsewhere. David Ortiz rejected the qualifying offer from the Red Sox last season before signing a two-year, $26 million deal and clearly that worked out, as the team now won the World Series and he won MVP.
There will be plenty of speculation about where players will sign this offseason and already teams like the Yankees, Cubs, Dodgers and Rangers look like they will be options for some of the top free agents. There will be plenty of trade rumors as well, including with names like Joe Nathan, Gordon Beckham, Ike Davis and Lucas Duda as well as Mark Trumbo. Let the games begin.