The Texas Rangers have had their share of history with qualifying offers in the three seasons they've been a part of the MLB collective bargaining agreement.
Basically, it's a one-year deal a team can offer its own free agents at a number determined by averaging the top 125 major league contracts' average annual value. This year, it was set at $15.3 million. In years past, the Rangers have made such an offer to guys like Josh Hamilton, Mike Napoli and Nelson Cruz, all of whom declined it to seek free agency. This year, all 12 players offered a qualifying offer in the league declined it.
The rub is, if a club signs a player who rejected a qualifying offer, it must forfeit its first round draft pick the following year. However, there's an exception, and for the first time ever the Rangers fall into that category as they finished with one of the worst 10 records in baseball so would lose their second-round pick instead of their first-round pick.
That's important because there are some guys who the Rangers could be in on who rejected qualifying offers, namely Cruz, Russell Martin, Victor Martinez, James Shields, Melky Cabrera and Ervin Santana. That means the Rangers are one of 10 teams who have an upper hand in deciding to go after one of these guys.
