With the final two qualifying-offer attached FAs signing yesterday (Bregman and Pivetta), we’re doing a double duty post today; recapping the Qualifying Offer (QO hereafter) crop for this offseason, then publishing the now-finalized draft order for 2025.
First; QOs. We’ve come a long way since the first QO season, and we’ve come a long ways since the awful 2015 season when so many veteran FAs (our own Ian Desmond headlining) got royally screwed by the QO. So, how did the crop fare this year?
Here’s a link to my full QO worksheet with a lot more detail than the below table. It is in chronological order, so scroll to the bottom. But, here’s a summary table:
| Year | Player | Old Team | New Team | Draft Pick Forfeited | Signing Date | New Contract | AAV change | Q.O. Screw the player? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Juan Soto | New York Yankees | New York Mets | 2-70,4S-143 | 12/9/2024 | 15yr/765M | 29.95 | No |
| 2024 | Corbin Burnes | Baltimore | Arizona | 2-59 | 12/30/2024 | 6yr/$210M | 13.95 | No |
| 2024 | Alex Bregman | Houston | Boston | 2-53 | 2/12/2025 | 3yr/$120M | 18.95 | Not really |
| 2024 | Max Fried | Atlanta | New York Yankees | 2-71, 4S-144 | 12/10/2024 | 8yr/$218M | 6.2 | No |
| 2024 | Willy Adames | Milwaukee | San Francisco | 2-54,5-155 | 12/9/2024 | 7yr/$182M | 4.95 | No |
| 2024 | Pete Alonso | New York Mets | New York Mets | none | 2/5/2025 | 2yr/$54M | 5.95 | Sort of |
| 2024 | Anthony Santander | Baltimore | Toronto | 2-49 | 1/20/2025 | 5yr/$92.5M | -2.55 | Not really |
| 2024 | Teoscar Hernandez | Los Angeles Dodgers | Los Angeles Dodgers | none | 12/30/2024 | 3yr/$66M | 0.95 | No |
| 2024 | Sean Manaea | New York Mets | New York Mets | none | 12/23/2024 | 3yr/$75M | 3.95 | No |
| 2024 | Christian Walker | Arizona | Houston | 2-63, 4S-142 | 12/20/2024 | 3yr/$60M | -1.05 | Not really |
| 2024 | Nick Martinez | Cincinnati | Cincinnati | none | 11/17/2024 | 1yr/21.05M | 7.05 | No |
| 2024 | Nick Pivetta | Boston | San Diego | 2-63 | 2/12/2025 | 4yr/$55M | -7.3 | Yes |
| 2024 | Luis Severino | New York Mets | Oakland | 2-48 | 12/6/2024 | 3yr/$67M | 1.25 | No |
So, what’s the breakdown of the 13 QO-attached Free Agents this year?
- 4 Resigned with their old team, negating the QO and draft pick loss
- 9 signed with new teams, thus triggering draft pick compensation and IFA money loss
- 5 of the 13 in my opinion had some level of “impact” to their Free Agency by virtue of the QO attachment, even if its arguable:
- Nick Pivetta was probably the most impacted; he took $7.3M less in AAV than if he’d just signed the one year deal.
- One QO attached signing was ludicrous: Oakland/Sacramento signed a reliever Luis Severino to a 3yr/$67M basically to get the union off their backs for hoarding money. Honestly; someone needs to divest this team from its ownership.
- The Rich get richer: four of the signing teams were so far over payroll that they gave up two draft picks (Mets, Yankees, SF, Houston)
- 13 total draft picks were surrendered, which we’ll talk about in a bit in how it impacts a team like the Nationals.
- Boras represented 6 of the 13 players: 2 of the re-signed, 2 got the expected massive deals (Soto and Burns), but if i’m his remaining two clients (Alonso and Bregman) I’d be pretty underwhelmed by what happened this off-season. Alonso got just a 2year deal, Bregman a 3-year deal (albeit with opt outs each year). At least both can go back to FA soon w/ zero attachment.
- CAA Sports represented 4 of the 13: Fried and Adams did well, Walker got less in AAV than the QO but signed early so you can’t say the market played him. But they also represent Pivetta, who signed a deal worth $13.75/year AAV when he could have gotten a $21M QO for 2025. A mis-read by the player and the agent.
I continue to not be a fan of the QO system. I believe it artificially suppresses salaries for veteran FAs. I also believe FAs generally speaking are morons and continually misread their markets. Year after year we see players get screwed by this system.
So, now that all the QO assigned players are signed, there’s no more draft pick gains and losses, and we now have a basically finalized 2025 draft order. I believe I have this correct and updated for all the moves, but here’s my working XLS of all the drops and adds for the first five rounds due to draft pick comp, comp picks, etc.
As it stands now, here’s how the Nats will be picking:
- 1st round: #1 overall
- 2nd round: #49 overall
- 3rd round: #80 overall: this moved up 9 spots thanks to lost picks
- 4th round: #111 overall:
- 5th round: #142 overall
- 6th round: #171 overall
- +30 every round subsequent
So, we’ll get three picks in the top 80 in 2025, which should add nicely to our existing slate of prospects.
Out of curiosity, I looked to see what you can get at #49:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/index.fcgi?overall_pick=49&draft_type=junreg&query_type=overall_pick&from_type_jc=0&from_type_hs=0&from_type_unk=0&from_type_4y=0
Turns out you can get a Hall of Famer! The last guy to decently make it from #49 is old/brief friend Jesse Winker in 2012.
KW
13 Feb 25 at 6:07 pm
Corbin was one of the most successful #80 picks:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/index.fcgi?overall_pick=80&draft_type=junreg&query_type=overall_pick&from_type_hs=0&from_type_unk=0&from_type_jc=0&from_type_4y=0
KW
13 Feb 25 at 6:09 pm
@KW, I know Cayden Wallace looks good, but maybe let’s just settle on him being a perennial All Star before a HoFer! 😉
Also a Michael Burgess sighting! I had such high hopes for him.
Will
14 Feb 25 at 4:03 am
LOL, I actually missed Cayden Wallace among the #49 picks while mostly looking at the career stats. FWIW, there’s also a HOFer at #48 (Ripken), #50 (Eckersley), #51 (Larkin), and #53 (Gary Carter).
Wallace is pretty indicative of the level of player who will be available, though.
KW
14 Feb 25 at 10:07 pm
Pivetta was a weird one all the way. It was a surprise he got a QO, but I guess Henry and Breslow were serious about being willing to spend on short term contracts this year. It was a supreme surprise he turned down the QO once it was made, as you suggest. The ultimate contract looks almost right in total dollars, but the AAV is low given the years. It seems it builds in the expectation he’ll be good for 2 years, maybe OK or hurt for 1, and the 4th is to stretch out the payments.
JCA
15 Feb 25 at 4:12 pm
It will be interesting to see if the QO system survives in the next CBA. It seems to have jumped the shark. One issue is that the incremental increase in the salary hasn’t kept pace with the level of player it was supposed to tag. To be comparable to what it was seven years ago or so it would need to be about $25-27M. Then there wouldn’t be guys like Pivetta and Nick Martinez being tagged, and there would be more incentive for players to think about taking it.
The disincentive to sign QO’d players also dropped significantly when the penalty ceased to be a 1st-round pick. I do think there still needs to be compensation for the team loses a player.
All in all, I wouldn’t say that Pivetta got hurt, or at least not too badly, by the system. He’s a 32-year-old pitcher with a career 4.76 ERA who just got guaranteed $55M even if his arm falls off next week. His career earnings to date are $16.6M. He hit the lottery. If he had taken the $21M, would he have been able to scrape together $34M more over subsequent seasons? I wouldn’t have bet on it.
Alonso was only “hurt” in his feelings, as he was never worth anywhere close to what Boras was asking. As it was, he got paid just about right for 2.6 bWAR, although it was actually generous since 1B/DH types have been going for a discount for several years.
As for Bregman, he got exactly the contract he deserved, which was far less than the asking price. I would have done that contract for him with the Nats. I wouldn’t have touched him with a 50-foot pole for seven years.
KW
16 Feb 25 at 11:35 am
As for the draft, I will move forward the thoughts I posted in the last set of comments:
Here’s a fun, and somewhat contrarian, take on who might be the Nats’ #1 prospect at this time next year:
https://www.flobaseball.tv/articles/13555752-2025-mlb-mock-draft-10-nats-stunner-with-the-no-1-pick
I really don’t think that Arnold or Bremner has the size that Rizzo really values, though. I also don’t expect either to show true Skenes-like domination to gain the mark of “best player available.” Plus the Nats already have several high-ceiling younger arms in Sykora, Susana, and Clemmey, among others.
Until proven otherwise (and it could well be), the BPA decision is between Holliday and LaViolette. Right now, I’d lean LaViolette for the Nats. To put that size of a guy in the middle of a lineup that already has Wood (and possibly House) would be pretty awesome (potentially). As we’ve discussed, no other Nat OF prospect beyond Wood and Crews has stepped up to be anywhere close to claiming the third spot. Even if one did, LaViolette or Wood could transition to a 1B/DH role and still maintain value with massive power.
My concern with Holliday is that he’s essentially House — an overgrown SS who will have to transition to 3B (or corner OF, as this mock suggests), who also has some contact concerns to smooth out. House is looking like it is going to take him 4.5 to 5 seasons from being drafted to being ready to be an MLB regular. For the sake of argument, Holliday’s big bro probably is going to be MLB-ready in his third pro season, but of course there are no guarantees. Injuries have slowed high school picks like House and Hassell.
This draft supposedly leans toward more HS than college quality. I’ll admit to bias against high schoolers any year, though. For the Nats in particular, and the supposed rebuild, I just don’t think they have four more years to wait on a quality piece. Beyond Holliday, one high schooler I could see really tempting Rizzo would be 6-8, 230 lb. Kruz Schoolcraft, a massive two-way guy from somewhere in Oregon.
There are some K concerns for LaViolette — 24% last spring — so it will be interesting to see if he can improve that number. His 19% walk rate was phenomenal, no matter how much he was being pitched around.
Among college hitters, I have seen other mocks that have Cam Cannarella in the top three, but I don’t see the excitement about an OF without a lot of HR power. He’s Hassell/Lile all over again.
KW
16 Feb 25 at 11:59 am
The QO survived this CBA b/c the owners tried to tie it to an international draft. Which, I still find patently amazing that owners keep after this particular demand, given that forcing the draft on Puerto Rico killed baseball development there.
I know this isn’t the topic, but I just worry that the same thing woudl happen in the DR and Venezuela and other LATAM countries. Do I think siging 16yr olds is right? nope. But I also think a draft wo uld destroy team’s incentives to develop talent. I don’t know what hte right answer is.
But, a QO system that benefits 10-12 veterans a year at the expense of hundreds of other players isn’t great either.
Todd Boss
17 Feb 25 at 8:18 pm
FG just posted the Zips top 100 prospects, and Brady House rolls in at #32. On one hand this is inflated a bit because Zips doesn’t even look at guys in rookie ball and low-A, so like Sykora isn’t ranked at all, but it’s an interesting datapoint that supports House’s plausible upside (ie his 80th percentile outcome) still being quite a good player.
And I’d think that this kind of adjustment – how to react when a promising prospect has a very bad two month stint in AAA – is something the projection systems are going to be very good at, or at least better than the intuition of the human evaluators.
It’s encouraging to see it after he’s been left off most of the top 100s, and given that his median ZIPs projection is only around 1 WAR, even a year or two down the line. I’m very glad the histogram seems to be a 30% of a 3 WAR player, and not 80% chance of a 1.2 WAR one.
SMS
18 Feb 25 at 12:25 pm
From the Zips article: “ZiPS tends to be higher on high-floor/low-ceiling prospects than scouts are”
So, they put four nats into the top 100, including Cavalli, who’s dropped completely off top 100 lists everywhere else.
I also saw something written about Crews that I thought was telling. Paraphrasing, they said Crews has been on the tongues of prospect evaluators for so long now that it’s hard to evaluate his upside and risks any longer.
Todd Boss
18 Feb 25 at 6:44 pm
I actually don’t give the Zips optimism as much weight for Cavalli. I figure that the pretty universal consensus is that, if you assume a full return to health, he’s a strong FV50 prospect who is likely to stick as a mid-rotation starter. But I don’t think Zips has a good way to incorporate the increased risk profile after his erratic rehab and is treating him like a generic TJ return.
He’s also an edge case in terms of remaining control, and I wouldn’t be so surprised if they included 6 years of production in their valuations for that ranking instead of reducing it to four.
I think we will know a lot more in 3-4 months, but for now I trust the human evaluators more than the models on Cavalli.
SMS
19 Feb 25 at 12:17 pm
FanGraphs’ draft board:
https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2025-mlb-draft/summary?sort=-1,1&type=0
Holliday way down at #9: “This is rare raw power for a lefty-hitting infielder, but Holliday’s swing-and-miss issues and a future corner fit on defense create a ton of risk. Holliday is a toolsy, high-variance high school prospect with big enough ceiling to come off the board inside the top 10, like Elijah Green and Benny Montgomery did despite their risk.”
Of course any comp to Green should scare the crap out of us.
LaViolette is their #1, and the only one with an FV of 55. Let’s see, through three games this season he has three homers.
KW
19 Feb 25 at 7:23 pm
If Cavalli can get his arm completely healthy, his value is still mid-rotation starter. That’s Law’s opinion. Frankly, getting him shut down last year with COVID was probably a blessing in disguise. His arm clearly wasn’t ready.
KW
19 Feb 25 at 7:25 pm
Draft: it’s definitely worth mentioning that the guy who goes 1-1 we may not even know. Paul Skenes went from an unknown Air Force xfer to 1-1 in one college season.
Todd Boss
20 Feb 25 at 11:27 am
Todd’s point is why I enjoy reading about possible #1/#1 candidates but I don’t get too invested or worried about any particular one. Lot’s of time for players to rise, fall, or get hurt. The only thing that I do know is that, no matter who the Nats draft, some percentage of their fans will HATE the pick and excoriate the org for blind incompetence. Cuz that’s how we roll 😀
John C.
20 Feb 25 at 1:54 pm
I don’t think LaViolette will drop out of 1/1 consideration unless his Ks rise this spring. There’s just too much to dream on there for him to fall far. (Sort of like Kumar Rocker was among pitchers.) He’s even more of an Adam Dunn comp than Wood is.
There’s not much consensus on the rest of the top prospects, though, particularly college hitters, so undoubtedly there will be a good bit of flux. Arnold and Bremner are the top collegiate arms entering the season, but pitchers are a volatile stock. In this day and age, you almost wonder why pitchers risk injury when they’ve already established a top-5 projection. One day one of them is going to sit out his draft spring.
Here is another list that has Arnold 1/1:
https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/2025-mlb-draft-prospect-rankings-top-30-players-in-class-with-fsu-lefty-at-no-1-ethan-holliday-in-top-five/
Most lists still have Holliday in the top two or three. I don’t know how scouts are supposed to tell if his contact has improved while watching him face inferior high school competition. The jury may remain out on him until pre-draft showcases. LaViolette’s contact will get much closer scrutiny in SEC play.
KW
20 Feb 25 at 4:36 pm
BA just put out a “top 30 prospects who face a critical year.”
https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/30-mlb-prospects-facing-critical-seasons-in-2025
they listed Green for our team. With this quote, which i thought was interesting: ” For better or worse, the tools and swing he had as an amateur that led to the Nationals drafting him fifth overall in 2022 are still intact. Green has mammoth power and still produced a 94 wRC+ last year, which is pretty remarkable given his strikeout woes. He stole 39 bases. He’s an exceptional athlete who plays a hard-nosed center field. Those abilities should give him quite a long runway and perhaps a path to being a productive big leaguer if—and it’s a big if—he can find a way to even somewhat whittle down the strikeout rate.”
I don’t want to sound too much like i’m searching for stuff with Green … but read that again. Even with his psycho K rate, he produced at a 94 wrc+. I
I probably would have listed Cavalli honestly, as the Nats prospect facing the most critical season. He turns 27 this year, basically just missed two entire seasons with a 12-month injury, and is in real danger of not coming anywhere close to his ceiling.
Todd Boss
21 Feb 25 at 1:08 pm
I sure want to believe in Green. It’s a devastating blow to completely miss on a top-5 pick. And he does have high-end skills. But when your contact tool is a 20 (or less) . . . Fangraphs has his Raw Power grade at 70/80 but hit tool at 20/20.
To put it in harsh prospective, Green’s K rate is 50% higher than Michael A. Taylor or Danny Espinosa ever were at their worst.
In strictly his A-ball stats, Green struck out at a higher rate in 2024 than he did in 2023, walked less, and his OBP was 40 points lower. Ouch. In 2024, he had a quite-“lucky” .371 BABIP yet only managed to hit .208.
I’m sure he’s working hard, and he has the resources to get the best coaching available. Will something ever click?
Also, what do you do with him for this season? He hit .208 at A with a .293 OBP. You can’t promote him, right?
KW
22 Feb 25 at 8:51 am
In his draft preview that I linked to above, R.J. Anderson had this interesting nugget: “Strikeouts are socially acceptable more now than ever before, yet only four qualified MLB hitters last season cleared 30%, testifying to how difficult it is to remain productive with that kind of K rate.”
KW
22 Feb 25 at 8:56 am
on Green,
while I wouldn’t view it as a promotion you have to move him up. maybe it boosts his confidence, maybe a change of coaches helps, maybe you’re just making room for other prospects. if he fails at A+ I would not consider it the result of him moving up.
FredMD
22 Feb 25 at 9:19 am
Kiley McDaniel with his initial draft list:
https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/43938826/2025-mlb-draft-rankings-10-kiley-mcdaniel-top-50-prospects-ncaa-high-school
He has LaViolette and Arnold as the cream of a down class, Holliday down at #8, with a lengthy explanation of the concerns about Holliday’s swing. He also said the same thing I did — if Holliday does fix some things, he’ll be playing against inferior competition in the spring so won’t have quality opposition against whom to show it.
KW
22 Feb 25 at 7:57 pm
Following up on McDaniel’s post, Keith Law was in San Diego scouting and had a LOT to say about UCSB’s Bremner, who is #3 on Kiley’s list.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6155004/2025/02/23/mlb-draft-2025-scouting-tyler-bremner-nick-dumesnil/
If you don’t subscribe, I’ll summarize his findings: he can’t locate his pitches, gets hit hard against inferior competition, shuts himself off with his mechanics, which means his slider doesn’t finish and he’s basicaly a 2-pitch guy right now. He crushed the guy.
LaViolette and Arnold will get tested heavily this year, being in teh SEC and ACC respectively. So we’ll certainly learn more about them. I’m also super intrigued by his #4 guy Aiva Arquette, an Xfer into the Oregon State baseball factory this year, who I didn’t know a ton about until he hit the crap out of the ball in the Cape this past summer and now suddenly he’s climbing these lists. He’s playing Short for OSU, MLBpipeline lists him as a 2B … which is laughable because the guy is 6’5″ and would be so huge out there … Jeff Kent was always considered a massively tall second baseman and he was 6’1″.
MLBpipeline grades for Arquette: Hit: 55 | Power: 50 | Run: 50 | Arm: 60 | Field: 55 | Overall: 55. Solid across the board, nothing super specail. I like what i see here. Maybe not 1-1 over the above guys, not now anyway.
Todd Boss
23 Feb 25 at 6:43 pm