:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/31707895/169213598.0.jpg)
Last season, the Seattle Mariners offered purgatorial free agent Kendrys Morales a three-year extension worth $30 million, according to general manager Jack Zduriencik (via Todd Dybas of the Tacoma News Tribune).
Of course he turned it down, and the $14.1 million qualifying offer the team extended to him.
Right now, Morales would probably strap on Pete Rose's gasoline suit and walk through the set of a Michael Bay movie for one of those deals.
But that's not how it works. Morales forgot to call no take-backs last year, so those offers are as fictional as the hydrogoblins and horsepeople in the Hunger Games -- or whatever creatures happen to be in that one.
Anyway, it seems almost mean-spirited to pontificate on this bygone contract. After all, the cited source is Jack Zduriencik, so maybe it shouldn't be adopted as an absolute fact. He was addressing season ticketholders at the time, so he might have simply been posturing in an attempt to deflect questions about why Morales isn't on the team right now.
The M's have several first base/DH types on their roster right now, but Morales has a pretty decent bat -- he's a career .280/.333/.480 hitter -- and there's almost always room for someone who can hit like that.
Maybe history is pregnant with another such deal for Morales. He might just find a prorated deal after the June draft and play his way into the upper tier of next winter's free agent market. Probably not, but it could happen. And it would be heartwarming to see him beat the system after being publicly thwarted by it.