Bill Shaikin of the LA Times reports that the Angels offered arbitration to just two of their ranked free agents — Type As Chone Figgins and John Lackey. Los Angeles' other Type A free agent, veteran reliever Darren Oliver, as well as Type B Vladimir Guerrero and unranked free agents Kelvim Escobar and Robb Quinlan did not receive offers from the club.
Though L.A. could have received two draft picks as compensation for Oliver had he turned down arbitration and signed with another club, there's also a chance that teams would be scared off by the prospect of losing a draft pick in order to sign a 39-year-old setup man. The Angels didn't want to run the risk of Oliver accepting the offer and possibly earning a healthy raise given his career-best 2.71 ERA and 8 K/9 in 2009.
