21 Type A free agents may potentially be offered arbitration by their clubs on Tuesday. We know that at least a few – Miguel Tejada, Jermaine Dye, and Kevin Gregg – stand little chance of actually getting an offer. Of those Type As who do receive an offer (there were 15 last year), many will turn it down and sign with a new team. In those cases, the player's old team will receive a draft pick from his new team as part of the compensation.
15 clubs will lose their 2010 first-round pick if they sign such a Type A free agent: the Rays, Mariners, Tigers, Braves, Twins, Rangers, Marlins, Giants, Cardinals, Rockies, Phillies, Dodgers, Red Sox, Angels, and Yankees. The other 15 teams would lose their second-round pick.
What happens if one team signs multiple Type As who were offered and turned down arbitration from their old clubs? How is draft pick compensation sorted out?
This scenario occurred last year when the Yankees signed three Type As: Mark Teixeira, C.C. Sabathia, and A.J. Burnett. Which team – the Angels, Brewers, or Blue Jays – received the Yanks' #25 draft pick? It was the Angels for Teixeira. The Brewers received the Yanks' #73 pick from the second round, and the Jays got the Yanks' #104 pick from the third round. (Note that all three teams also received picks in the supplemental first round, but those were not taken from the Yankees). So the Blue Jays got screwed – they hoped for a pick between #17 and #32, only to receive #104 for Burnett.
The Teixeira/Sabathia/Burnett situation was decided by each player's specific Elias ranking number. Teixeira (98.889) nudged out Sabathia (98.110), while Burnett's number was 89.729. So you see that the Brewers just missed getting #25 instead of #73. They were further burned when Ben Sheets did not sign with a team.
With that background in mind, here are the Elias numbers for this year's Type A free agents (excluding Orlando Cabrera and Takashi Saito, who cannot be offered arbitration):
Matt Holliday 95.960
Jose Valverde 89.874
Jason Bay 89.859
Johnny Damon 85.634
Mike Gonzalez 84.268
John Lackey 83.865
Rafael Soriano 83.667
Marco Scutaro 83.069
Orlando Hudson 82.488
Bengie Molina 81.224
Miguel Tejada 81.143
Randy Wolf 77.778
Billy Wagner 76.377
LaTroy Hawkins 76.344
Jermaine Dye 76.338
Rafael Betancourt 75.830
Darren Oliver 75.543
Kevin Gregg 75.114
Placido Polanco 74.286
Chone Figgins 73.684
Octavio Dotel 68.007
Using Scutaro as an example…say the Blue Jays offer arbitration and he turns it down. The same happens with the Braves and Soriano. If the Red Sox sign both players, Soriano's higher ranking means the Braves get Boston's #29 pick in the June 2010 draft and the Jays get Boston's #61 pick (the Braves and Blue Jays also both get picks in the supplemental first round).
