Let’s get this out of the way quickly.
In 2018, both Craig Kimbrel (former Brave) and Dallas Keuchel (eventual Brave) received Qualifying Offers. No team wanted to sign them and give up a draft pick. So, both Kimbrel and Keuchel had to wait until midseason in order to join a club. Kimbrel signed a three-year, $43 million deal with the Cubs. Keuchel signed a one-year (really, like half a year), $13 million deal with the Braves.
Since then, nada. All Qualifying Offer recipients have either accepted, rejected and signed with their former team, or rejected and signed in the offseason.
Framber Valdez and Zac Gallen are still unsigned. Sure, there’s no indication that they’re going to wait until midseason, at least not right now. But every day that passes is another day those guys don’t have to get ready with their new teams, and if the status quo persists… eventually, hoping they sit out for the first half of the year starts to make sense. Maybe less so for Valdez, but Gallen seems like he should get a pillow contract as it is, so…
Anyway, what do you think? If you’re leaning “yes,” all you really have to bank on is “never say never” (again, anyway). If you’re leaning “no,” you can point to the fact that the value of the lost pick is fairly well known at this point and can simply be applied to contract terms such that teams are theoretically indifferent between losing the pick and a lower monetary outlay and whatever else they’d do on the market that didn’t involve losing the pick to garner the same production. Have at it.