The Yankees are leaning toward issuing a qualifying offer to closer David Bednar, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Heyman writes that the Yanks are less likely to issue the QO to Jazz Chisholm Jr. and are inclined to let him walk as a free agent.
The qualifying offer is a one-year offer that teams can make to impending free agents who spent the entire preceding season on their roster and haven’t previously received one in their careers. It’s calculated as the average of the 125 highest salaries in the league. This year’s QO price will check in at $23.15MM. If the player declines and signs elsewhere, their former team receives a compensatory draft choice.
Neither of the Yankees’ decisions would come as much of a surprise. Bednar increasingly pitched his way to QO consideration with a dominant final four months of the season. He’s the top right-handed reliever in the free agent class and arguably the best bullpen arm overall, depending on the shoulder issue that bothered Padres southpaw Adrian Morejon in the NLDS.
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Acquired from Pittsburgh at the 2025 deadline, Bednar has turned in a 2.39 earned run average across 94 regular season innings in pinstripes. (He’s added nine frames of one-run ball with 12 strikeouts in the postseason.) That includes an excellent 2026 campaign in which he pitched to a 2.47 ERA and went 35-39 in save opportunities. Bednar fanned 27.1% of opposing hitters against a 7% walk rate over 69 1/3 innings. He ran into a bit of a speed bump in the middle of May but was one of the best relievers in the game after that, firing 45 1/3 frames of 1.39 ERA ball from the beginning of June.
It’s rare but not unheard of for teams to issue the qualifying offer to closers. Edwin Díaz, Josh Hader, Raisel Iglesias, Will Smith, Craig Kimbrel, Greg Holland, Wade Davis and Kenley Jansen are the pure relievers who have received the qualifying offer over the last decade. The Reds also issued a QO to Nick Martinez off a season in which he started 16 games and made 26 relief appearances. Martinez is the only one who accepted. Holland wound up settling for a one-year deal below the QO price, but the other closers all commanded three-plus year deals despite being attached to draft compensation.
Bednar is at the lower end of that group in terms of strikeout ability, but he’s posted a sub-3.00 ERA in five of his six MLB seasons. He sits around 96 mph with his fastball and found plenty of success with a dramatic uptick in splitter usage this year. Bednar, who turned 32 last week, still seems likely to decline the QO in search of what’ll almost certainly be the biggest multi-year contract of his career. Iglesias commanded a four-year, $58MM deal from the Angels with the QO attached back in the 2021-22 offseason. Bednar’s camp will probably take aim at beating that.
The Yankees would presumably be happy to welcome Bednar back for a one-year term if he accepted the offer. They’d be on the hook for the largest salary ever for a reliever, marginally above the $23MM annual value of Díaz’s three-year term with the Dodgers. That’s manageable for a team running a payroll north of $250MM to feel they’re set in the ninth inning for another year.
New York also faces the impending free agency of Paul Blackburn, who’s not a realistic QO candidate despite his excellent ’26 season. They’ll need to retain or replace those players to have right-handers they trust alongside southpaw Brent Headrick at the back of the bullpen. If Bednar declines the QO and walks, the Yankees would receive a pick after the fourth round — roughly #130-135 overall — in next summer’s draft.
Chisholm seems more likely to accept the QO if offered, explaining why the Yankees wouldn’t want to risk that for a chance at a mid-round pick (as they did with Trent Grisham last year). He’s coming off a down year and young enough (29 in February) that he could jump at a higher salary and a chance to retest free agency after the ’27 season. The lefty-swinging Chisholm batted a league average .231/.312/.399 across 532 plate appearances. He hit 19 homers and went 41-50 in stolen base opportunities.
It certainly wasn’t a disastrous year, yet it comes as a step back from Chisholm’s 30-30 showing in 2025 (and well below his ambitious preseason statistical targets). His batted ball metrics also took a step back while his strikeout rate ticked up slightly for a second straight season. Chisholm has the tools to be a dynamic player on both sides of the ball and has shown All-Star upside, but this was his least productive season since 2023. Manager Aaron Boone started Anthony Volpe over Chisholm against the righty Martinez in their elimination game in the Division Series.
Brandon Lowe, Luis Arraez and Gleyber Torres are also part of an intriguing second base class. Lowe should receive and decline a qualifying offer from the Pirates. Arraez was traded midseason, making him ineligible for a QO. Torres is also ineligible and coming off a middling season, so the Tigers wouldn’t have issued one either way. Ketel Marte, Xavier Edwards and Ozzie Albies could be on the trade market. The Yankees should be in the mix for at least one addition between second and third base (where Ryan McMahon underwhelmed). Texas, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Minnesota, Cincinnati, the Mets, Angels, and Athletics are among the clubs that could look for help at the position.
