Sunday brought the deadline for teams to extend qualifying offers to their top free agents. Six teams extended such offers to star players, but the Oakland A’s chose not to do so with either shortstop Marcus Semien or closer Liam Hendriks.
A qualifying offer is worth $18.9 million this year. If a player accepts the offer, then he gets a one-year contract at that salary. If he declines and then signs elsewhere, then his new team loses a future draft pick and his old team gets some draft pick compensation, which can vary based on how much he signs for and how rich his new team is.