Nothing is official yet, but Jon Heyman of CBS Sports says that the belief is Francisco Liriano will decline his qualifying offer.
turns out pirates wise to give liriano $15.3M qualifying offer. call not made yet but prevailing belief is he declines.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) November 10, 2014
The part about the Pirates being wise probably is in reference to the belief that he was going to accept the deal. However, I think the Pirates were wise either way by making the offer. If Liriano accepts, then it wouldn’t have been a bad thing to have him back on a one-year deal, which has little long-term risk. I was never in the camp that thought he would decline, and if that does actually happen, then the Pirates will get a draft pick if he signs elsewhere. When your two options are getting a good pitcher at a rate that he would be worth, or getting a draft pick, then you don’t need to be that wise to make that decision.
UPDATE 12:05 PM: Ken Rosenthal has the following update.
Told Liriano's agents have been aggressively gauging market, trying to determine whether to accept #Pirates' qualifying offer by 5 pm ET.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 10, 2014