Bourn, Upton, Soriano, Swisher to reject qualifying offers

Of the eight players that still have qualifying offers on the table, outfielders Michael Bourn, B.J. Upton and Nick Swisher, as well as reliever Rafael Soriano, are expected to decline their offers and take their chances on receiving multi-year offers on the open market, according to various sources.

It was never expected of any of the four players to accept the one-year, $13.3 million offers made by their clubs rather than test free agency. The offers are a formality of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement to allow teams to receive draft pick compensation in lieu of Type A/B free agent designations. If and when qualifying offers are declined, the team that made the offer receives a sandwich pick in the next draft, and whomever signs the players in question must give up their top pick in next year's draft.

There are still four players -- Hiroki Kuroda, Adam LaRoche, Josh Hamilton and Kyle Lohse -- who have yet to formally decide whether to accept their qualifying offers, but it is likely that all of them will reject their offers as well.