Arbitration

Well the date has passed when teams had to decided to offer their free agent players arbitration, which for those of you who don't know is an offer to negotiate a one year deal for more money. If a player declines and he is ranked A or B, the team gets compensatory draft picks when he signs with another team. If a ranked player is not offered arbitration, the team that signs him does not have to surrender any draft picks to the team losing said player. Here are the ranked players who were and were not offered arbitration:
Type A free agents who have been offered Arbitration:

Jason Varitek, Mark Teixeira, Manny Ramirez, Rual Ibanez, A.J. Burnett, Derek Lowe, Oliver Perez, C.C. Sabathia, Ben Sheets, Darren Oliver, Brian Fuentes, Francisco Rodriguez, Orlando Hudson, Juan Cruz, Orlando Cabrera

Type A free agents who were not offered Arbitration:

Edgar Renteria, Bobby Abreu, Andy Pettitte, Bob Howry, Russ Springer, Trevor Hoffman, Kerry Wood, Adam Dunn, Pat Burrell, Jamie Moyer, Doug Brocail

Type B free agents offered Arbitration:

Mark Grudzielanek, Casey Blake, Paul Byrd, Jon Garland, Brian Shouse, Brandon Lyon, Milton Bradley, David Weathers, Dennys Reyes

Type B not offered Arbitration:

Ivan Rodriguez, Gregg Zaun, Jeff Kent, Garrett Anderson, Moises Alou, Braden Looper, Gregg Maddux, Brad Penny, John Smoltz, Luis Ayala, Joe Beimel, Eric Gagne, Jason Isringhausen, Frank Thomas, Alan Embree, Randy Johnson, Paul Lo Duca, Mark Loretta, Juan Uribe, Luis Gonzalez, Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Wolf, Arthur Rhodes, Rudy Seanez

First off I would have liked to see the Mets offer Luis Ayala arbitration because if he sings accepts, he wouldn't make that much money and is a solid pitcher. If he declines we get a Sandwich draft pick (comes between 1st and 2nd rounds of draft; David Wright was picked in this round btw). The two biggest names that I would have liked the Mets to sign before arbitration decisions were made just got sweeter because of these decisions: Kerry Wood and Adam Dunn. The Mets could (and should) sign both of these players because neither was offered arbitration. Kerry Wood comes with injury risk and Adam Dunn plays a poor left field, K's too much, and has a low BA but the upside to both of these players is much greater than the risk. Kerry Wood was a gritty fan favorite in Chicago and wouild be loved by New York. He had a phenominal year as his first as a closer. He has great stuff and posted a better WHIP than K-Rod last year. I would additionally trade for Houston Street (or another player with closer experience) to be an injury back up (sign Chad Cordero). As for Adam Dunn he is still only going to be 29 next year which still puts him in his prime. He has tremendous power and gets on base at close to a .400 clip which seeing as he only hits .250 is amazing. He also could potentially move to 1b when Delgado leaves after next season. A line up 1-5 of Reyes, Dunn, Wright, Beltran, Delgado is amazing. There is the potential to hit 150 homeruns, take 400 walks and score 500 runs. The most important thing is that we do not have to surrender draft picks when we sign them thus helping our farm system. We would only have to sign one type A free agent (starting pitcher) and we would get draft picks back in return anyway because of Oliver Perez (and if we sign him, we don't lose picks). All of this being said, I highly doubt that the Mets are going to sign either of these players unfortunately.