Today (Monday) is the day teams decide which free agent players get offered arbitration. Some decisions are fairly easy, as Sox Machine describes. The toughest ones are for a veteran player who is likely to make less if he goes to free agency, but will still deliver a draft pick if another team signs him. That's the Andy Pettitte situation right now. In fact, it also might be the Abreu and Giambi situations as well. The Angels are in a similar situation, but as Halos Heaven points out having arbitration accepted by any of those players won't hurt the club much.

I wonder, in what may be a down year for free agents due to the economy, if we see more accept arbitration this season. Most would make at least what they made in 2008, probably more. It would give them a year to see how things go, and maybe make a killing next winter.

Of course, it would also increase the number of free agents available for 2010, and increased supply tends to put a damper on salaries paid to these players as well. There's a lot of strategy to think about for both sides this off season.