No Arbitration For Wood

[love_that_reefer]

The Cubs have declined to offer arbitration to Kerry Wood and Bob Howry.
Wood, a Type A free agent, just became a whole lot more attractive. The Cubs know he'll get multiyear offers elsewhere, but they figured he might prefer Chicago so much that he'd take the one-year deal to stay. Oddly, it's not something they wanted to risk, though if you asked us a couple of months ago, we'd have guessed they'd be thrilled to have Wood back on a one-year deal.

I was very shocked when I read this. Wood can find a job in the market of closers so the Cubs would have definitely have gotten their draft picks. Even if Wood couldn;t find a mulityear deal, the Cubs would have a very strong bullpen with Marmol and Samardzija setting him up and Gregg being a 6th/7th inning guy. Like the article says, Wood looks a lot more attractive now.

[cjkalt]

I don't understand why you wouldn't offer arb to a type A free agent, to lose those picks to me just seems stupid. If he takes it, then you can trade him, a player on a 1 year deal is always attractive in trade talks

I just don't see the logic in it, maybe someone can explain it to me

[DMBZeppelin]

I don't understand why you wouldn't offer arb to a type A free agent, to lose those picks to me just seems stupid. If he takes it, then you can trade him, a player on a 1 year deal is always attractive in trade talks

I just don't see the logic in it, maybe someone can explain it to me

They didn't offer it, because Wood wanted more then anything to stay with the Cubs. He said he'd have done anything to stay with them, including a 1 year deal. So offering him arby would be getting him for 1 year, but even more per year then they could of had him at.

Not to mention Kerry was a rookie in 1998. Pretty sure there's a 10 years in the MLB, 5 years with one club rule that gives you a veteran no trade clause. So he wouldn't be going anywhere. The price didn't matter, the Cubs just didn't want Kerry Wood.