Major League Baseball clubs extended qualifying offers to 13 free agents before Friday's 5pm Eastern deadline. The New York Yankees, New York Mets and Toronto Blue Jays were among the teams to tender the one-year offers, worth just over $22m.

The tally matched the 13 offers made in each of the previous two winters. The Yankees tendered an offer to Jazz Chisholm Jr., and the Mets did the same for the right-hander Freddy Peralta, according to the clubs. The Blue Jays made an offer to the outfielder Daulton Varsho.

The qualifying offer is set at the average salary of the sport's 125 highest-paid players. A club that tenders one receives draft-pick compensation if the player rejects it and signs elsewhere.

Players who have previously received an offer are ineligible for a second. That rule excluded several names from last winter, including Brandon Woodruff, Shota Imanaga and Gleyber Torres, who accepted their offers a year ago.

Players now have until mid-November to accept or decline. In recent winters only a handful have accepted, preferring multi-year deals on the open market. Agents representing several of Friday's recipients have already signalled they expect long-term interest, according to reporting by MLB Trade Rumors and The Athletic.

This offseason carries an unusual backdrop. The collective bargaining agreement between MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association expires on December 1. The commissioner, Rob Manfred, has pushed for a salary cap, a proposal the union's executive director, Tony Clark, has repeatedly rejected.

The qualifying offer system itself is expected to be renegotiated, making this round potentially the last under its current form.

The looming expiry is expected to compress activity into the next three weeks, with front offices gathering for the annual general managers' meetings next week. Any lockout from December would freeze transactions involving players on 40-man rosters. That raised the prospect of an early flurry of signings before the deadline, particularly among players who decline their offers.