As we do each year at MLBTR, we’re providing a list of players whose teams could potentially choose not to tender them a contract, thus sending them into the free agent pool earlier than expected. It should be emphasized that we’re not indicating that each of these players is likely to be non-tendered (though that’s certainly the case with some of them). Typically, we list any player for which we can envision at least a 10 percent chance of a non-tender, but this year I’ve included some long shots who are probably less likely than that.

It should also be noted that some of these non-tender candidates will be traded prior to the December 2nd deadline rather than simply cut loose. Some could also be claimed by another team on waivers.  Other borderline candidates may be presented with an offer that is notably lower than their projected salary and could accept the “take it or leave it” ultimatum rather than being non-tendered.  This is known as a pre-tender contract.  Multiyear extensions are another possibility.

Determining arbitration salaries will be especially difficult this offseason, which I’ve written about here.  That difficulty also applies to the arbitration salary projections Matt Swartz provides each year for MLBTR, which can be found here.  In this list, I’ve provided Matt’s “Method 3” arbitration projections.

Note that the two years with the fewest non-tenders are the years in which new Collective Bargaining Agreements were ratified, but largely the number of annual non-tenders has lived in the mid-thirties (with occasional spikes above that) until the last two seasons, when the number has climbed.

Why is the number of non-tendered players rising? The number of front offices who view the bottom of their rosters as fungible is growing. This type of thinking is also why teams more often shuttle several relievers back and forth between Triple-A and the big leagues during their option years. They’d rather a) slow down the rate at which those players accrue service time so they can be controlled for longer and b) have fresh, low-leverage relievers at the ready rather than keep their fifth-, sixth-, and seventh-best relievers on the active roster all the time, and you could argue it’s fraught to assess your last few relievers (and beyond) with that level of granularity. They see relievers 6-10 (or so) as very similar to one another, especially if they’re an org that has intentionally built depth in that area.

Often these types of relievers are accruing service time while their option years are simultaneously withering away. Once those happen in concert with one another, they need to be good enough to stick on the roster or else they are at risk of being non-tendered (that is, if they’re not traded “downstream” to a worse team without as much pitching depth). Because teams have intentionally built this kind of depth, they often have comparable talents in the upper minors who can still be optioned.