Pirates lefty Francisco Liriano has officially rejected his qualifying offer, according to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports.
Many have speculated that Liriano was a candidate to be the first player to accept a qualifying offer, but he and agent Greg Genske of the Legacy Agency will head into the open market in search of a multi-year deal instead. As I noted in Liriano’s free agent profile last week, even if the market doesn’t materialize the way they’d hoped, a one-year deal at or near the rate of the qualifying offer should be available late in the offseason, as it was for Ervin Santana. I pegged Liriano for a three-year, $40MM contract in that profile even with a QO attached.
Liriano, who turns 31 this offseason, was excellent in a pair of injury-shortened seasons with the Pirates. In 323 1/3 innings, he pitched to a 3.20 ERA with 9.4 K/9, 4.0 BB/9 and a 52.4 percent ground-ball rate. His K/9 rate over the past two seasons is second only to Max Scherzer among free agents, and his ground-ball rate ranks fourth. Liriano’s injuries weren’t the most troubling with Pittsburgh, either. He broke his non-throwing arm in a fall in his apartment in the 2012-13 offseason and suffered an oblique strain that kept him out for the first month of 2014.
And signs a two year deal with the Mets. LOL
So no one is accepting a QO? Guess we have to wait until next year when there is Wieters, Napoli, Lincecum, Gallardo and Leake on the market. All borderline guys.
Lincecum will be lucky to be mentioned in the same sentence as a qualifying offer next season.
Just looked at his stats, has he really been that bad for 3 years? Jeez, I take him off that list and add Chris Davis. (If he struggles again)
He’s been bad playing in the most pitcher friendly division in all of baseball minus Coors. Anytime he leaves San Fransisco he hasn’t been able to pitch at all.
Home 2014: 3.91ERA/.731OPS
Away 2014: 6.02ERA/.832OPS
Leake will hit the open market heading into his age-28 season, which is incredibly rare for a starter, and he’s pitched well enough to make it a pretty easy call for him to reject a QO next season, even north of $16MM.
Lincecum, as someone’s already replied, won’t get one, barring a significant rebound season.
Napoli is the only one of that group I see as a borderline call. His 2015 performance will dictate the QO.
The bottom line, though, is that the qualifying offer’s just not a huge detriment to players as long as they go out with realistic expectations. All of the guys who got torched by it last year had sky-high asking prices. I have a really hard time seeing someone accept one, unless a non-elite reliever gets one based on a high saves total, or something.
You never know with pitching, this guy won 2 Cy Young awards. Heck Peavy pitched pretty good for the Giants. Pitching is Outlier!
Peavy’s had one and a half good seasons(09/2012) outside of the A.L West to this date. If a pitcher fails in San Fransisco or the West Coast, I really don’t think you can succeed anywhere else.
There should be a fairly nice market for Liriano, even with the QO. Among the top of that 2nd-tier
I don’t see it. The ongoing injury issues, the frequent pitching inconsistencies, draft pick compensation, plus an expensive long-term salary commitment would seemingly reduce his marketability. I think that Liriano took some seriously bad advice in declining his $15.3 million qualifying offer.
What’s the worst-case scenario? $12MM on a one-year deal? $10MM? When the upside is $20-25MM north of the QO and the downside is $3-5MM south of it, why would a pitcher accept?
Because Liriano’s career has been punctuated with inconsistency. He has greatly benefited these past two seasons by sound/supportive coaching, superior catching (Russell Martin), and solid defense accentuating his pitching style. And yet, his ratio of walks/innings pitched is up significantly. The draft pick compensation is probably the biggest deterrent to signing him. Every GM will question whether signing him will provide a return on their investment, or make them look foolish (see Minnesota Twins).
But again, what’s the downside? It’s not like he’s going to have to take a minor league deal. He’s risking that he’ll have to settle for one year at a slightly lesser AAV — or a few million dollars. The upside is that a team says “We can keep this guy consistent,” and he earns an extra $20-30MM.
Of course teams will be hesitant, but that’s not going to leave him without a job. I’m sure multiple teams would love to have him for one year in the $10-15MM range.
Michael Cuddyer just got $21MM with a QO attached coming off a season in which he played 49 games. The QO doesn’t stop guys from getting paid. Hitting the market with crazy expectations does. If Liriano goes out and looks for 5-6 years, yeah, he’s in trouble. If he looks for 3-4 at a reasonable AAV, three will be there.
I agree, there will be at least 20 teams interested in him. He and McCarthy will get paid!
I don’t really get why agents haven’t been able to adjust to the new CBA. The absolute best he’ll get is 3 years, probably less in such a strong and over-saturated market. He could have taken the $15 million and hit the much weaker market next year and very possibly get a better deal. I just don’t understand……
He projects to get a 3/40 deal thats better than 1/15, stability with a 3 year deal and more $.
If he can get three years with an AAV near the value of the QO, why would he take the QO? Especially for a player with his injury history?
The downside is something like 1/12 ($3MM less than the QO), whereas the upside is $36-40MM+ over three years. Accepting made no sense for Liriano. I’ll never understand where that narrative came from.
Liriano will fire his agent when he is forced to wait until June to sign.
No player has been “forced to wait until June.” Morales and Drew did so despite two-year offers from the Mets (for Drew) and solid one-year interest in Morales late in the offseason. With the exception of Cruz, players have had one- and two-year offers near or exceeding the value of the QO.
Liriano’s worst-case scenario is what? $12MM on a one-year deal? Completely worth the risk of cashing in another $25MM+.
He won’t wait that long; The Pirates will bring him back on a multi-year deal.
That’s a relief.. Maybe the Pirates can resign him for a cheaper multi-year deal (3 years/ $27-34 million?)
Frankie got some bad advice on this decision. He better hope he gets a long-term offer from a team with a pitchers park. PNC Park saved him 25-30 ER per season the past two years. Any park that gives up cheap homers will be the nail in Lirianos career coffin. Good luck Frank.
He will probably be back with the Pirates either. He probably did them a favor.