The deadline to either accept or reject qualifying offers by the top-flight free agents is Monday at 5 p.m. ET (more info along with the players involved here). So far, we've had one player accept the one-year, $17.2 million deal instead of testing free agency: Phillies starting pitcher Jeremy Hellickson.

Hellickson, 29, was 12-10 with a 3.71 ERA (111 ERA+) last season. Of course, his previous three seasons show a 4.86 ERA and 1.36 WHIP. It's a weak starting pitching class, but it also seems unlikely Hellickson was going to get a deal with an average annual value higher than $17.2 million in the open market, notably once the qualifying offer was extended and draft pick compensation was attached to him. On that front, there's this:

Hearing that during this past week was reason enough for Hellickson to take the money. We've seen free agents in recent seasons forced to accept deals late in free agency that were less than the qualifying offer they rejected (Dexter Fowler and Ian Desmond from last season, for example) while others ended up heading into the season unsigned (Kendrys Morales and Stephen Drew in 2014, for example).

An interesting thought is that there were reports the Phillies didn't deal Hellickson at the deadline because they desired an extra first-round pick more than some of the offers they were getting. So it would seem that this qualifies as a bit of a backfire with Hellickson accepting the offer.

Still, if Hellickson has another good year, the Phillies could again take a step forward as they look to move the rebuild forward, closer to contention. Hellickson will be joined in the rotation by Aaron Nola, Vincent Velasquez, Jerad Eickhoff and Alec Asher, unless they add more from outside the organization.