Lohse criticizes qualifying offer rule that makes good players wait

Kyle Lohse can remember the waiting game. After rejecting his one-year, $13.1-million qualifying offer after the 2012 season, he didn't sign a deal until March 25 last spring.

He'd been working out the entire time in Scottsdale before signing with the Milwaukee Brewers late in camp. No one blamed the right-hander for rejecting his qualifying offer. After all, he ended up inking $33 million over three years.

"It wasn't fun," Lohse told CBS Sports' Jon Heyman. "It wasn't what you'd hope would happen off the year I had, and the last couple years I had."

He went 16-3 for the Cardinals in 2012 with a 2.86 ERA and couldn't find a job.

"As you can see, it wasn't just a fluke. It affected the last five guys (including Ubaldo Jimenez, Nelson Cruz, Stephen Drew and Kendrys Morales) pretty harshly, and three guys are still out there," he said. 

"You think you have the opportunity to go where you want when you're a free agent, but in reality, you don't."

Lohse understands what it's like for Ervin Santana, who is working out in Scottsdale too, and holding out for something. It appears now, Santana would take anything, reportedly willing to sign a one-year deal just to get things going.

As Heyman writes:

Santana is drawing varying degrees of interest from about five teams, believed to include the Orioles, Mariners, Rockies, Rangers and Blue Jays, but seems frustrated enough by the process to consider an agent switch, as first reported by FOXsports.com's Ken Rosenthal. 

He's been seeking a payday like the other top pitchers on the market this winter -- Jimenez, Matt Garza and Ricky Nolasco, who all got about $50 million for four years (though Garza and Nolasco had the advantage of not having the draft choice attached to them by virtue of midseason trades that precluded the possibility of being extended a qualifying offer). And while execs will concede Santana is a comparable pitcher, the qualifying offer is badly limiting his market

Garza and Nolasco's trades from 'bad' teams turned out to be beneficial as free agents, whereas those on good teams like Santana with the Royals, or shortstop Drew with the Red Sox, are finding free agency tough. 

Lohse doesn't think MLB knew the collective bargaining agreement's implementation of the qualifying offer would be such a detriment to its players.

"The market goes from 30 teams to like two or three. I don't think that's the idea of a free market," Lohse said. "It seems screwy to change the system that drastically to where teams are staying away from guys who could definitely help them."

Says Heyman: 

Nolasco, who got $49 million, isn't as good a pitcher as Santana is.

Yet he is in camp with a big contract while Santana, unfairly, waits.

That isn't right.

"People are going to say, well, $13 million. But that's a one-year deal. In my case I waited 11, 12 years, Why am I backed into a spot to take a one-year deal?" Lohse said.

"Some may look at as if it's a terrible human being to turn down 13 million. I don't want to seem insensitive; it is a lot of money, more than a lot of people will see in a lifetime."