Christian Walker Receives $21M Qualifying Offer from D-backs

The Arizona Diamondbacks have extended a qualifying offer of $21.05 million to three time Gold Glove first baseman Christian Walker. The slugger is a free agent for the first time since becoming an every day major leaguer in 2019. He now has until November 19 to either accept or reject the offer.

What is a Qualifying Offer?

A qualifying offer is essentially a competitive balance measure. The "QO" has been in place since 2012. According to the MLB Glossary, the purpose is outlined as below:

In the qualifying offer system, clubs wishing to receive compensatory Draft picks for the loss of a free agent can make a one-year "qualifying offer," worth the mean salary of MLB's 125 highest-paid players, to their impending free agents prior to the onset of free agency if and only if:

1. That player has never received a qualifying offer previously in his career.
2. That player spent the entire season on that team's roster (in-season acquisitions are ineligible).

There are different levels of compensation, depending on whether the team losing the player they've made a QO to is a revenue sharing payee or recipient. In the case of the Diamondbacks, since they are a recipient, they could receive a pick between the first round and the Competitive Balance Round A.

But that is only if Walker signs for $50 million or higher. If he signs for less than that, the D-backs' compensation pick will come after Competitive Balance Round B.

You might be wondering what happens if the Diamondbacks sign a player that was offered a QO by their previous team? Since the D-backs are a revenue sharing recipient, they would lose their third round pick. That happened in 2017 when the D-backs signed Zack Greinke during the 2016-17 offseason.

Analysis

It is widely expected that Walker will reject the $21.05 million offer. He will be seeking a multi-year deal, and could easily surpass the $50 million threshold. However given he's entering his age-34 season in 2025, that is not an absolute given. So Walker will be taking some risk if he ultimately rejects the offer before he has a long term deal in place.

For the D-backs, the offer contains some risk as well. Based on publicly available numbers, the team only has about $30 million to spend during the 2024-25 offseason before they will equal or exceed 2024 payroll numbers.

If Walker accepts the offer, that leaves them only $9 million remaining. They must also replace Joc Pederson, Randal Grichuk, Kevin Newman, Josh Bell, and Paul Sewald. While many, if not most of the replacements could come internally, the Arizona Diamondbacks will have precious little flexibility should Walker take the offer.

Related Content: Will Christian Walker Stay with the Diamondbacks?