The Yankees will extend a qualifying offer to closer David Robertson, Jack Curry of the YES Network tweets. They hope to keep him, Curry writes, citing a source.

The decision was probably not a difficult one for the Yankees. Robertson continued his strong work in his first season as the replacement for Mariano Rivera, posting a 3.08 ERA with an excellent 13.4 K/9 and 3.2 BB/9 in 64 1/3 innings. Even given the qualifying offer, he’ll be the most desirable player on the closer market, particularly given his relative youth — he’ll be 30 in April. MLBTR’s Steve Adams predicted that Robertson would receive a four-year, $52MM deal this offseason.