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Josh Hamilton, Michael Bourn, B.J. Upton, Nick Swisher, Hiroki Kuroda, Kyle Lohse, Adam LaRoche and Rafael Soriano all received qualifying offers from their clubs. They have until Friday to accept the one-year, $13.3 million offers.
Any player who rejects the offer can sign with another team, but that club will have to give up a compensatory draft pick. It's expected the majority of the players listed will reject the offers are seek multi-year deals.
Of the players who received a qualifying offer, only Kuroda has expressed any willingness to sign a one-year deal.
Why $13.3 million? That's the average salary of the highest-paid 125 players in baseball.
In past years, free agents would be labeled Type A or Type B by Major League Baseball, and teams would receive or forefit draft picks depending on signing activity.
Maureen Mullin of CSNNE.com wrote a qualifying offer primer yesterday that's definitely worth a read. Click here for a comprehensive list of all the 2013 free agents.