Giants: What qualifying offer means for Madison Bumgarner, Will Smith

On Monday, the San Francisco Giants extended a qualifying offer to free agents Madison Bumgarner and Will Smith. What does that mean?

The first week of the MLB offseason generally includes a lot of housekeeping roster moves, including the decision on whether to extend a qualifying offer (QO) to any upcoming free agents. The San Francisco Giants handed out two qualifying offers on Monday.

So what the heck does that mean?

Let’s start with a list of all the players who received a QO this offseason for some context:

Ten players tendered qualifying offers today:

Josh Donaldson, Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon, Gerrit Cole, Jose Abreu, Jake Odorizzi, Madison Bumgarner, Zack Wheeler, Will Smith,…