Qualifying Offer Decisions

This past week resulting in an epic moment for the Cleveland Indians.  They had a chance to offer qualifying offers to three former all-stars and chose not to.

This year the qualifying offer rate was a stiff one, $17.9 million for a single year.

Put into perspective for the three Indians who might have been worth a qualifying offer: Cody Allen, Andrew Miller and Michael Brantley, had the Indians offered and these three players accepted those offers,  the Indians' payroll would have already ballooned by over $21 million before all the raises and salary arbitration results.

Unfortunately, by not making a qualifying offer to any of these players, this small market team now gets nothing for these guys.    This is the difference between the Blue Jays who got a lottery ticket (Julian Merryweather) for a month of Josh Donaldson and could do it because they were out of the playoff race and the Indians, who needed all hands on deck.  If the Indians had been in the Central Division basement I am pretty sure all three of these guys would have been traded before September 1st.   However, we needed all hands on deck so we couldn't trade them and will get absolutely nothing for them.

Look, the Indians farm system is still in the mediocre-to-poor range, likely ranking about 25th in the upcoming organizational rankings.   We traded a lot of prospects and dumped a lot of suspects, one of whom became an all-star, in trying to go for it the last two years.   And it wasn't like our farm system was that strong before the beginning of the 2017 system.

So, while I totally understand why they wouldn't make qualifying offers to these guys, the fact that they didn't means that it will likely take the Indians even longer to be competitive again once the current window closes in a couple of years.   You would have to project huge trade returns for our best players at the end of their contracts as we start to rebuild.   It might happen but, frankly, we could be looking at a 10 year rebuild starting in 2022.  

It was the right choice for the short term but someone needs to start thinking long term here.   I would like my kids to have a contending team to root for and not be subjected to the teams I had to root for in the 70s and 80s.

So, front office, what are you going to do to bring in talent that will be major league ready in 2020 and 2021?   And not just bit player talent like Greg Allen.   Real impact talent you a young Michael Brantley and a young Jason Kipnis.   That is the real and only significant question I see going into 2019.