A third baseman, is still a free agent after turning down the Toronto Blue Jays’ qualifying offer.
On Tuesday, Chapman declined one of seven players’ $20.325 million US qualifying offers from their previous teams.
On November 6, the Jays extended the offer. Chapman has to agree to it by Tuesday.
Toronto will receive an additional selection in next year’s Major League Baseball draft in compensation if Chapman signs elsewhere.
Chapman signed a two-year, $25-million contract with Toronto before the 2022 season after spending his first five Major League Baseball seasons in Oakland.
- PLAYER STATS: Matt Chapman
He hit .234 with 44 home runs and 130 runs batted in over two seasons with the Jays and was named a Gold Glove Award winner this season.
Teams making offer likely to get extra draft pick
Shohei Ohtani also was among the seven players to turn down qualifying offers from their former teams, electing to pursue more lucrative contracts.
Besides the hitting and pitching star, along with Matt Chapman, outfielder Cody Bellinger (Chicago Cubs); pitchers Josh Hader and Blake Snell (San Diego), Aaron Nola (Philadelphia) and Sonny Gray (Minnesota) declined.
By making a qualifying offer — calculated as the average of the top 125 contracts by average annual value — a team would receive an additional selection in next July’s amateur draft if a player signs elsewhere before then. A team signing the player could lose one or two draft picks.
Only 10 of the 131 qualifying offers that were made following the 2012 season were accepted.
Ohtani leads a class of free agents that includes Japanese sensation Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who is not eligible for draft-pick compensation, along with Nola, Snell, Jordan Montgomery, and starting pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez.
Ohtani, 29, just finished one of the best two-way seasons in major league history while batting.304 with 44 home runs and a 10.5-2 earned-run average in his 10-5 start-pitching stint.
But in September, he underwent his second Tommy John procedure, and it is anticipated that he won’t be able to throw until 2025.
