Arbitration deadline

The deadline for teams to offer their free agents arbitration was last night at midnight. This is slightly less of a big deal than it's been in the past because players that aren't offered arbitration no longer have to wait until May 1st to suit up with their old team. The reason it still matters is that anyone that's offered arbitration by their old team and rejects the offer, then signs with a new team will cost their new team draft picks (Cory breaks it down here). Anyways, of the big names left, Zito and Jason Schmidt were offered arbitration while Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Andy Pettitte were not. Carlos Lee and David Dellucci, who both have preliminary agreements with other teams in place, were offered arbitration. Of potential interest to the Pirates, Jeff Suppan, Vincente Padilla, and Gil Meche were all offered arbitration while Tomo Ohka was not. Jeromy Burnitz (who somehow is a Type B free agent and would've garnered us a compensation pick, though he likely would've accepted arbitration and we'd just be stuck with him again) and Joe Randa also fall on the "not offered" list.

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