What does non tender mean in MLB? 

A non tender is a situation that a professional MLB player does not typically want to find himself in. Effectively, it means that the player is no longer valued by the team and has been given the chance to walk.

"So if there is a player who may be under consideration for a team to non tender, say Bellinger for example. Why wouldn’t you attempt to work out a trade before the non tender deadline and see if you could get a prospect? I understand those who would say why would any team give up" - @ Jason Reese

Former Rookie of the Year Award winner and MVP Cody Bellinger was non tendered by his team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, this week. It represents a major fall from grace for a man who has previously been considered one of baseball's best.

A non-tender is typically when a team does not extend a contract offer to a player when his contract is up. For any 40-man roster on a given MLB team, players who are not under contract and have less than 6 years of MLB experience must be offered a contract by a set date. This date usually occurs in early December, at the height of the offseason.

Players who are not offered a contract are non-tendered and immediately become free agents. This means that all 29 other teams are free to offer him a contract if they desire to.

"Non tender deadline is on Friday I believe. So we will see how much $ the Yankees clear that way in addition to any trades they do" - @ MichiganYankees

A lot of players have fallen victim to the notorious non-tender already this season. Examples include Dominic Smith of the New York Mets, Adam Engel of the Chicago White Sox, and Jhonathan Diaz of the Los Angeles Angels.

Deadline for MLB teams to non tender players

The deadline for non-tenders has passed at 8 pm on Friday, November 18th. This means that any players with contracts outstanding will need to be signed by their respective teams before the season starts.

A big contributing factor to the non-tendering of players occurs when a team feels that the player would receive more through arbitration than his actual value is worth. For better or worse, we will see a whole new whack of players on MLB line-ups next season.