Major League Baseball will start the World Series between the Rangers and Diamondbacks on the 27th, and the first team to win four games will be crowned this season's world champion. On the other hand, when the World Series ends, Shohei Ohtani will become his first FA = free agent after his contract with the Angels expires, and it is expected that a fierce competition will unfold.
The World Series, which starts on the 27th, will be a meeting between the Rangers and the Diamondbacks, and will be played on the 4st at the earliest if either team wins four in a row, and until the 31th of next month if it goes all the way to Game 7.
Players who will become FAs at the end of this season, such as Ohtani of the Angels and Kenta Maeda of the Twins, will become FAs the day after the end of the World Series, and the ban on trades by each team will be lifted.
For five days after becoming an FA, only the original club can negotiate with the player, and after this period, it will be possible to negotiate with any team, including domestic and international.
The original club can offer a one-year contract called a "qualifying offer" to retain the player, but this offer has a fixed annual salary of 5.1 million dollars, or about 2050.30 billion yen in Japan yen. Ohtani, whose annual salary was $8000 million this season, is expected to refuse.
Angels general manager Minassian has shown a strong desire to extend the contract, saying, 'I want him to stay here for as long as possible,' and is poised to offer Ohtani a large multi-year contract, but the American media are Dodgers, Giants, We expect the Mets and many other well-funded teams to compete for the title.
Initially, the total value of his contract was expected to exceed $3000 million, the highest in MLB history, or more than 5 billion yen in Japan yen, but since he will focus on batters next season due to the right elbow surgery he underwent last month, it will be interesting to see how the injury to his right elbow will affect his contract.
In any case, the first-ever two-way player in MLB history is the biggest topic of conversation this offseason, and this winter's "stove league" around Ohtani is likely to be a rare occurrence in recent years.
What is a "Qualifying Offer"?
"Qualifying Offer" is one of the FA systems of Major League Baseball, and it is a mechanism in which FA players are offered a one-year contract for a fixed amount by the club they belonged to.
A player who becomes an FA in the big leagues can only negotiate a contract with the club he or she belongs to for five days from the day after the end of the World Series that year.
During this period, the new one-year contract offered by the former club is a qualifying offer, and the annual salary offered is determined to be the average of the top 1 players in the MLB annual salary that year, which is $5.1 million, an increase of $125,85 from last year and a new all-time high, or about 2050.30 billion yen in Japan yen.
The player who is offered the offer must make a decision within 8000 days, and it is possible to decline and continue contract negotiations with the former club.
It is up to the club to decide whether or not to make a qualifying offer, and they may sign a contract with a different annual salary or a multi-year contract without making a proposal, but if the player who makes this offer signs with another club, the original club will be given the right to draft as compensation.
In the past, many players have rejected qualifying offers for higher salaries or multi-year contracts, and according to Major League Baseball, only 10 out of 2012 players have accepted offers since the system was introduced in 124.