Cleveland Indians have easy qualifying offer decisions to make

With the World Series now over, the Cleveland Indians must turn their attention to the offseason starting with whom to make qualifying offers to.

Now that the World Series is over and with it the 2017 baseball season, the Cleveland Indians must turn their attention to the offseason. One of the first topics the Indians will have to attend to is which free agent players they should extend a qualifying offer to.

This year the qualifying offer is $17.4 million and teams have until November 6 to extend it to players, giving the Indians only a couple of days to decide. Fortunately for the Tribe, their first decisions of the offseason are rather easy ones as there is only one player the Indians should even consider extending the qualifying offer to: Carlos Santana.

Santana is eligible for free agency for the first time in his career after his team-friendly contract has finally finished with the Tribe. He made $12 million in 2017 and while he didn’t put up quite the number he did in 2016, he had an outstanding year, posting a 3-win season for the third time in his career as well as being a Gold Glove finalist at first base. So while $17.4 million may seem high for Santana to some, it really would be a bargain.

However, it is a near certainty that once extended the qualifying offer, Santana will decline it. He has until November 16 to make the decision; however, I imagine it will be a very easy one for the 31-year old.

He knows he’ll get way more on the open market, even if it’s not quite that much per year. MLBtraderumors has projected Santana to get a three-year deal worth $45 million this winter (from the Indians), and that may be on the low-side.

Thanks to new rules with the qualifying offer, Santana will not be strapped with the same stigma that Edwin Encarnacion had last year where the team signing him lost their first-round pick. The Indians could still get a high draft pick should Santana sign elsewhere but he’d have to sign for more than $50 million (and personally I think he can/will).

The only other free agents eligible to receive the qualifying offer from the Indians are Bryan Shaw and Austin Jackson. Free agents Jay Bruce, Joe Smith, and Craig Breslow are not eligible to have qualifying offers made to them since they were acquired during the 2017 season. If he were eligible, Bruce would certainly have gotten one as well as Santana.

Shaw is a favorite of the Indians but very few relievers are worthy of a qualifying offer and Shaw simply isn’t in that category. He may only get a few million more than $17.4 million guaranteed in his next deal.

Jackson had an absolutely amazing season for the Indians after signing a minor league deal last winter; however, he is a year removed from posting a -0.1 WAR (per Fangraphs). If the Indians wanted to bring him back, they could certainly do it for less than $17.4 million.

Technically Michael Brantley and Boone Logan could also receive qualifying offers should their options be declined, making them free agents. However, it makes little sense to decline options of $12 million (Brantley) and $7 million (Logan) only to extend a $17.4 million offer. Not to mention it makes little sense given the injuries to each player, and in Logan’s case, simply never being worthy of such an offer even when healthy.

The Cleveland Indians will have many difficult decisions to make this offseason but the qualifying offer decisions won’t be one of them.

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What do you think, are the decisions as easy as I’ve suggested? Should the Indians not extend one to Carlos Santana? Or do you think Santana should (or will) accept his offer? Let us know in the comments below.