MLB Qualifying Offer Set to Hit $23.1 Million as Owners and Players Brace for Possible Lockout

MLB's qualifying offer is set to climb again this offseason, rising from $22.03 million last year to approximately $23.1 million, according to a source who spoke with the New York Post. The figure is calculated from the average salary of the sport's 125 highest-paid players and gives teams a tool to retain impending free agents or collect draft-pick compensation if those players walk.

The New York Yankees will have to weigh whether to tag pitcher David Bednar and infielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. with the $23.1 million offer. According to the Post, either player could simply accept it and lock in a one-year deal, the way Trent Grisham did with the Yankees last offseason.

The rules are specific. A player can only receive a qualifying offer once in his career, which is why Bo Bichette, tagged by the Toronto Blue Jays last offseason, can't be hit with one again even if he opts out of his current contract with the New York Mets. Teams have five days after the World Series ends to make the offer, and players get 10 days to accept or decline. Decline, and the player becomes a free agent while his old team gets draft-pick compensation. Sign a qualified free agent away from another team, and you forfeit picks, with the penalty scaled to your luxury-tax and revenue-sharing status.

A Bigger Fight Looms

Major League Baseball's five-year labor agreement with the players' union expires December 1, 2026, and the Associated Press reported that management is expected to impose a lockout once it does. That would freeze trades and free-agent signings and could threaten spring training, scheduled to open February 9, and opening day, set for March 24.

The current postseason, already underway, could be the last for a while if a prolonged shutdown follows. The last time owners pushed a salary cap, in the mid-1990s, it sparked a 7½-month strike that wiped out the 1994 World Series for the first time in 90 years. Players say they remember that history and aren't bluffing about a repeat.

"We won't play. I'm going to be frank with you," Yankees pitcher Carlos Rodon told the Associated Press. "I'm not worried about it. They should be worried about it. There's a lot of money on us playing baseball. That's why they pay us a lot."

Mets first baseman Pete Alonso framed it as a generational obligation. "For me the biggest thing is doing right for the generations forward because the generations before me, for the decades before, they've fought for our rights today," Alonso told the AP. "That's a sacrifice that not just myself but other men around the league are willing to fight for and put up with."

The Owners' Case

MLB's argument has substance. The league points out that no low-revenue team has won a World Series since the Kansas City Royals in 2015, and spokesman Glen Caplin told the Associated Press that "the salary cap and floor proposal levels the playing field, allowing us greater flexibility to address longstanding player priorities while sharing baseball revenue with the players 50/50."

Under the proposal, there would be a cap of roughly $245.3 million on luxury-tax payrolls, including an estimated $23 million for benefits and the pre-arbitration bonus pool, paired with a payroll floor of $171.2 million for 2027. Teams could dip as low as $154.1 million and make up the difference over the following two years. For context, the Mets' opening-day payroll in 2026 topped $352 million, far above any proposed ceiling.

A cap would also hand owners something they clearly want: cost certainty, which analysts generally expect would boost franchise valuations across the league.

The Union's Counter

The players' side has a data point worth considering. Union head Bruce Meyer told the Associated Press that the Milwaukee Brewers posted the best regular-season record in baseball for the second straight year, and the Tampa Bay Rays had the best mark in the American League, despite ranking near the bottom of MLB's market-size rankings.

"Milwaukee, of course, is 30th out of 30 in our market-size rankings," Meyer said, arguing that a cap isn't necessary to produce competitive, winning rosters in small markets.

MLB would counter that on-field success isn't the same as championship success, and that regular-season parity hasn't translated into title parity since 2015. Both claims are true at once, and the sources here don't resolve which one should drive labor policy. That's the argument that will play out at the bargaining table over the next two months.

Players have also drawn a hard line on format, not just numbers. The AP reported that MLB players say they will never accept a cap system like those in the NFL (since 1994), NBA (since 1984-85), or NHL (since 2005-06), noting that nine of the ten largest contracts by total value in North American sports belong to MLB players. This would be baseball's tenth work stoppage, but notably the sport hasn't lost a single regular-season game to a labor dispute since the 1994-95 strike. Whether that streak survives past December 1 is now the open question hanging over this postseason.