Keith Law on the Braves and Rafael Soriano

by: pageian

Keith Law makes a good argument (subscription content) for offering type A free agents arbitration.  Here's the takeaway:

"The lesson here for clubs wavering on offering arbitration to a Type A free agent is that having the player accept against your wishes is not the end of the world. If the player is good and his market was hurt by the Type A designation, you should still be able to dump the salary, at the least, if not actually trade him for something of value. Atlanta's decision to offer might not look like the right one because Soriano accepted, but it was the right call, and I'd rather take the risk of having a good player accept than throw away the chance for two high draft picks the way Dodgers did by not offering a deal to Randy Wolf."

He could add the Chicago Cubs to the list for not offering arbitration to Rich Harden and missing out on a draft pick (Harden was a type B free agent so he would have netted the Cubs one pick).  Type B free agents don't cost the signing team a pick like type A's do so that wouldn't have depressed the market for Harden.  The worst case scenario would have been Harden accepting arbitration from the Cubs and then they not be able to trade him and his salary.  So, even in the worst case scenario they'd end up with a very talented pitcher on their staff who would have been earning roughly $7-9 million dollars.  I realize payroll is tight but you have to acquire talent every chance you get.  Letting good players like Harden go without any compensation is simply a waste.  Remember, the Cubs traded some marginally talented players to Oakland halfway through the 2008 season for him, guys like Sean Gallagher and Eric Patterson.  They may never pan out as good big league players but they basically bought the Cubs a little over a years worth of starts from Harden and now the Cubs have passed on a chance to recoup some of that value with a draft pick.

Large market teams like the Cubs shouldn't be in a position where they have to pass up offering arbitration to players like Harden for fear that they'll hamper payroll.  That's the reality though and Jim Hendry doesn't seem to be willing to take a chance, it seems he'd rather forfeit talent and play it "safe" by spending every penny he can on free agents rather than risking paying an extra million more than he want's to on an arbitration case.  Congrats to Frank Wren and the Braves for taking a chance by offering arbitration to Rafael Soriano and getting a useful piece back in Jesse Chavez.