In case anyone was like me, really confused about the whole arbitration/draft pick process:

 

The Major League Baseball calendar pinpoints Dec. 7 as the deadline for clubs to offer salary arbitration to their current players who have filed for free agency. Catchy description, huh? Too bad "Pearl Harbor Day" was already taken.

 

Sunday's deadline won't make U.S. sports fans overlook the Eagles-Cowboys kickoff, but big-league executives are treating it like the New Hampshire primary. We're talking money, intrigue, jockeying for position -- everything but kissing babies at the Dixville Notch diner before voters go to the polls.

 

Lots of baseball officials cite Sunday's deadline as a big reason why only 22 of 210 free agents have reached agreements so far this winter. The salary arbitration deadline and Dec. 20 non-tender date are a recipe for inertia in the modern baseball era. They're central components in what agent Alan Meersand calls the "glacial mating dance."

 

The Dec. 7 deadline became part of baseball's labor agreement in 1985 as a way to give teams first crack at players who might go elsewhere through free agency. Five years later, draft-pick compensation became part of the process.

 

The mechanics work like this:

 

If a club offers salary arbitration, the player in question must accept or reject the offer by Dec. 19. If he accepts, he's under contract for the next season, with a salary to be determined by an arbiter. Or he can decline arbitration and still continue negotiating with his former club through Jan. 8.

 

If a team doesn't offer arbitration, it loses negotiating rights until May 1 and receives no draft picks as compensation if the player walks. The caliber of picks is determined by an Elias Sports Bureau formula that ranks players as Class A, B or C free agents based on their statistical profiles.

 

 

Billy Beane and the A's like to stockpile draft picks, but they don't like big arbitration awards.

Given the current emphasis on building from within, some teams love to stockpile draft choices. Billy Beane and the Athletics conducted their famous "Moneyball" draft largely with picks they received for losing Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon and Jason Isringhausen to other clubs through free agency.

 

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, on the other hand, traditionally values draft picks about as much as employee dental care. And the Seattle Mariners have lost a passel of high picks in recent years for bringing in Jose Mesa, Arthur Rhodes, Aaron Sele, John Olerud, Jeff Nelson and Greg Colbrunn.

 

"It's a totally subjective thing," said Houston GM Gerry Hunsicker. "Different teams look at it different ways. Today, with the escalation in amateur signing bonuses, some teams would just as soon lose the draft choice, because they couldn't afford to pay the draft choice anyway."

 

The Phillies surrendered their first two picks in the 2003 draft in exchange for signing Jim Thome and David Bell. Rather than pursue starters Bartolo Colon or Sidney Ponson through free agency this winter, the Phillies traded for Minnesota's Eric Milton. He'll make $9 million in 2004 and has a problem left knee, but won't cost Philadelphia any draft picks.

 

There's also a domino effect: Milton's arrival means Kevin Millwood is pretty much history in Philadelphia. The Phillies can't offer Millwood arbitration now for fear he'll say yes, saddle them with a $12 million salary and blow their budget when they already have four very good starters.

 

? It's hard to offer arbitration at this point because of the risk a player will accept and get a big raise. That's why you only see a handful of guys get offered. ?

? An A.L. executive

"It's hard to offer arbitration at this point because of the risk a player will accept and get a big raise," said an American League executive. "That's why you only see a handful of guys get offered."

 

Last year the Braves didn't want to just give away Greg Maddux, so they offered him salary arbitration assuming he would decline and they'd pocket two draft picks when he left town.

 

Then Maddux threw the franchise a wrinkle. He accepted the Braves' offer and went on to sign a one-year, $14.75 million deal.

 

Atlanta GM John Schuerholz, backed into a corner, responded by trading Millwood to Philadelphia, a divisional rival, for minor-league catcher Johnny Estrada. Then he ranted about the unfairness of the system. "The economics in baseball stink," Schuerholz said last December.

 

This year Schuerholz has some more decisions to make. He'll almost certainly offer Gary Sheffield arbitration and keep the draft picks when Sheffield signs with the Yankees. He'll pass on Maddux, and probably won't offer to Javy Lopez. If Baltimore is the only team chasing Lopez, why wouldn't he remain a Brave for one more year at $10 million? Atlanta will probably watch a career 289-game winner and a 43-homer-hitting catcher simply vanish.

 

Some players and clubs have pre-arranged deals where the team offers arbitration with the assurance the player will decline. The team maintains its claim to draft picks and the player buys himself time to stay in a place he might not want to leave. He also keeps 30 teams in the mix for his services, rather than 29.

 

When Pudge Rodriguez signed his one-year, $10 million contract with Florida last winter, agent Jeff Moorad included a provision that the Marlins couldn't offer him salary arbitration. Theoretically, Rodriguez should be more attractive on the open market, because there are no draft-pick strings attached.

 

But there's a down side: Scott Boras, who now represents Rodriguez, reportedly wants a five-year, $50 million deal. If the market for 32-year-old, Gold Glove-hoarding, 10-time All-Star catchers is slow, Rodriguez can't rely on accepting arbitration as a fallback plan.

 

Risks abound in the process, for both players and teams. "This is like Russian roulette," says a National League executive.

 

It just happens to revolve around baseball, money and gamesmanship -- quintessentially American themes.

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