Diamondbacks All-Star OF ineligible for qualifying offer

With the World Series now over, clubs have five days to decide whether or not to issue qualifying offers to eligible players. The Diamondbacks were thought to be facing a decision on outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr., but Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reports that Gurriel’s current contract prohibits him from receiving a QO.

Normally, players are eligible for a qualifying offer at the end of a season if they spent that entire campaign with just one club and have not previously received a QO. That made Gurriel a borderline candidate to receive a QO, which is set to be around $20.5M this year. But this news indicates that won’t be on the table after all.

Players coming to the majors from foreign leagues often have stipulations in their contracts that allows them to circumvent the rules that typically apply to other players. One of the more common clauses is that players coming from Cuba or Asia can become free agents when the contract expires, even if they are shy of the standard six years of service time normally required to automatically hit the open market. It appears Gurriel’s contract also has a clause preventing him from being saddled with a qualifying offer.

Now 30, Gurriel played in Cuba from 2010 to 2016 but defected with his brother Yuli Gurriel before signing a seven-year, $22M deal with the Blue Jays. He spent all of 2017 in the minors and had optional assignments in 2018 and 2019 as well. That meant that he accrued between five and six years of service time over the seven years of that deal, but the language in the contract allowed him to qualify for free agency regardless.

Prior to the final year of the deal, the Jays traded him and catching prospect Gabriel Moreno to the Diamondbacks for outfielder Daulton Varsho. Gurriel had a solid season for the Snakes, hitting 24 home runs and slashing .261/.309/.463 for a wRC+ of 106. The reviews on his left field glovework were mixed, with Defensive Runs Saved giving him an excellent +14 while Outs Above Average had a more modest +1. That led to a tally of 3.0 wins above replacement from Baseball Reference and 2.1 from FanGraphs.

It would have been an interesting call for the Diamondbacks whether to issue a QO or not. A salary of $20.5M for a solid but not elite everyday player is arguably an overpay, especially for a club that’s not a huge spender, but it wouldn’t have been egregious. That’s a moot point now as his contract won’t allow them to consider the QO at all.

This revelation benefits Gurriel, as receiving a qualifying offer usually harms a player’s earning power in free agency. Signing a player who rejects a QO means the signing club is subject to draft pick forfeiture and, in some cases, a reduction of their international bonus pool limit. Gurriel may have been able to enter free agency without a QO regardless but it’s now apparent that the language of his contract guarantees it. He is now free agent and will be one of the better bats available in a position player market headlined by Shohei Ohtani, Cody Bellinger, Teoscar Hernández, Matt Chapman and Jeimer Candelario.