Phillies to extend qualifying offer to Jeremy Hellickson

By Tim Kelly, Sports Talk Philly editor

The Philadelphia Phillies, prior to Today's 5 p.m. deadline, will issue impending free-agent Jeremy Hellickson a $17.2 million qualifying offer, per Jon Heyman of Today's Knuckleball: 

Sources: jeremy hellickson will be receiving the $17.2M qualifying offer today #phillies

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) November 7, 2016

Free-agency will officially open Tuesday at 12:00 a.m., which also starts the clock for Hellickson to either accept or decline the qualifying offer. Within one week of officially being extended the qualifying offer, Hellickson will either need to accept it and return to the Phillies for a season or decline it and continue to attempt to land a deal in free-agency. 

If Hellickson turns down the qualifying offer and signs elsewhere, the Phillies will receive a compensatory round pick in the 2017 MLB Draft. If he accepts, they will have to overpay him for a season, but it will give them a stable arm in an otherwise very young rotation to eat innings and potentially more time to work out a long-term extension. Either scenario seems like a win for the club. 

Hellickson, who was the Phillies 2016 Opening Day starter, went 12-10 with a 3.71 ERA in 189 innings in 2016. FanGraphs says that he posted a 3.2 WAR, which is nearly double his previous high of 1.7.