St. Louis Cardinals Rumors: Marcell Ozuna to reject the qualifying offer

Marcell Ozuna has been the St. Louis Cardinals’ left fielder for the past two years, but it appears he won’t be back, at least not for just one year.

As the offseason progresses further and further, the next order of business for the St. Louis Cardinals is going to be whether or not players accept qualifying offers. The Cardinals have just one player in this position and it is, of course, Marcell Ozuna.

Given that qualifying offers were given out on November 2nd, the players now have just two days left to decide whether or not to accept the one year, $17.8M deal.

Every little thing can be analyzed during this down period, and last week we dug into whether or not Marcell Ozuna accepting the qualifying offer the Cardinals offered him was a good thing or not. At the time, Craig Misch guessed that Ozuna would not accept the qualifying offer and on Tuesday there seems to be some clarity on whether this is true or not.

As Jon Heyman reports on this chilly Tuesday, it seems Ozuna won’t accept the deal because his market looks like something he wants to explore. As Heyman wrote, the Cardinals could still be involved on a longer-term deal, but they are most likely going to be denied on the qualifying offer.

This is still a “rumor” though because Ozuna and his agent have yet to do anything officially yet.

This is honestly no worry though because if the Cardinals sign Ozuna to a longer deal, as long as it’s not too big, it’s fine, and if he signs elsewhere, the Cardinals are now guaranteed another draft pick in the draft.

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Wherever Ozuna ends up, the two years he gave the Cardinals were worth what the team gave up for him. Ozuna’s production may not have been what the Cardinals thought they were getting, but he had some great moments in the birds on the bat.

Ozuna had expressed a desire to stay with the Cardinals which is never a bad thing, but the front office will probably not sign him to anything more than a three-year deal at a hometown discount.

Ozuna’s market will round into form in the coming weeks and the Cardinals are going to have to see how they fit into it. It’ll all shake out and I bet the Cardinals won’t overpay unnecessarily if they pay at all.