MLB qualifying offer amount set, will likely impact just one Red Sox free agent

It’s official: the amount of baseball’s qualifying offer to potential free agents will be worth a record $22.025 million this offseason.

The majority of free agents will be eligible though it’s likely only a handful will actually receive offers. Players traded during the previous season, or those who have received qualifying offers previously are not eligible.

The figure is arrived at as an average of the 2025 salaries of the top 125 highest players in the game.

The Red Sox have as many as seven eligible free agents, but several won’t be eligible and others wouldn’t match that value. Free agents can accept the qualifying offer and be under contract for that figure for the following season; if they reject the offer, they remain free agents but would then carry compensation costs for their new teams.

Dustin May and Steven Matz, both obtained at the trade deadline, are not eligible. Nor is Alex Bregman, who intends to opt out of his three-year deal, since he was given a qualifying offer by the Houston Astros last winter.

Trevor Story, who is unlikely to be a free agent though he has an opt-out in his current deal, is similarly ineligible, having been given a qualifying offer by Colorado before signing in March of 2022 with the Red Sox.

That leaves pitcher Lucas Giolito (assuming he rejects his half of the dual option, as is widely expected), outfielder Rob Refsnyder and reliever Justin Wilson. and Trevor Story. Story, like Bregman, has an opt-out in his deal, but is expected to remain with the Sox for two more years for a total of $55 million.

Refsnyder and Wilson, though the Sox could still retain both in free agency, won’t make anywhere near the QO figure on the open market and thus won’t get offers.

Giolito represents an interesting case. He made $19 million in 2025 and the QO figure of $22.025 million represents only a modest raise. The Red Sox, all things being equal, would be comfortable offering that; whether Giolito would accept it or hold out for a longer commitment is an open question.

Giolito was 10-4 with a 3.41 ERA in 26 starts in 2025, a year after missing all of 2024 with an elbow injury.

But in late September, Giolito was diagnosed with elbow inflammation and ruled out for the remainder of the postseason. That proved somewhat academic since the Red Sox lasted just three games into the playoffs, but the diagnosis could cloud his free agency.

The Red Sox said there was no structural damage to the elbow, but the mere hint of an issue with the elbow — which has undergone tendon transplant surgery twice — may give teams — the Red Sox included — pause.

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