Murphy among 20 players to get qualifying offers
NEW YORK — The qualifying offers are in. Based on recent history, few if any big leaguers will accept.
Second baseman Daniel Murphy was among a record 20 free agents who received $15.8 million qualifying offers before Friday’s deadline.
With teams sensing starting pitching will be prized, Jeff Samardzija (Chicago White Sox), Marco Estrada (Toronto), Yovani Gallardo (Texas), Ian Kennedy (San Diego), Wei-Yin Chen (Baltimore), Hisashi Iwakuma (Seattle) and Brett Anderson (Los Angeles Dodgers) also received offers.
Players have until Nov. 13 to accept. In the three previous offseasons of the current collective bargaining agreement, none of the 34 qualifying offers was taken as free agents sought contracts with longer terms.
The price was determined by the average of the top 125 major league contracts this year by average annual value.
Teams had easy decisions in making offers to top pitchers such as Zack Greinke (Dodgers), Jordan Zimmermann (Washington) and John Lackey (St. Louis), and to hitters such as outfielder Jason Heyward (Cardinals) and first baseman Chris Davis (Baltimore).
For a less-sought-after free agent, a qualifying offer could dampen his market because clubs hesitate to give up a high draft pick.
Murphy, 30, homered in a record six straight postseason games for the New York Mets but then slumped in the World Series, hitting .150 (3-for-20) and making key errors in Games 4 and 5. He batted .281 during the regular season with 73 RBIs and a career-best 14 homers.
Sabathia: Was an alcoholic since ’12
Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia says he first realized three years ago he was an alcoholic.
In his first remarks to media since seeking treatment, Sabathia told ABC in an interview broadcast Friday: “I was kind of battling it without any help. I would go a couple, you know, two, three months at a time sober, and then I would just relapse, and, you know, go on these weekends when I thought nobody was paying attention, and I would get in a hotel room and drink out of the minibar, pretty much everything.”
Sabathia left the Yankees for treatment ahead of their loss to the Astros in the one-game AL wildcard playoff.
The 35-year-old lefthander was 6-10 with a 4.73 ERA this season, slowed by a chronic knee injury.